Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Are connectionist models just statistical pattern classifiers?

s Connectionist models provide a promising alternative to the traditional computational approach that has for several decades dominated cognitive science and artificial intelligence, although the nature of connectionist models and their relation to symbol processing remains controversial. Connectionist models can be characterized by three general computational features: distinct layers of interconnected units, recursive rules for updating the strengths of the connections during learning, and "simple" homogeneous computing elements. Using just these three features one can construct surprisingly elegant and powerful models of memory, perception, motor control, categorization, and reasoning. What makes the connectionist approach unique is not its variety of representational possibilities (including "distributed representations") or its departure from explicit rule-based models, or even its preoccupation with the brain metaphor. Rather, it is that connectionist models can be used to explore systematically the complex interaction between learning and representation, as we try to demonstrate through the analysis of several large networks.
Students’ Alternative Conceptions about the Lotus Effect: To Confront or to Ignore?

At the botanical garden of the University of Würzburg, we conducted practical lessons on bionics, focused on the lotus effect, with 260 students. Those approx. 14 years old, 8th-grade mid-level students were divided into two groups. During an instructional discussion about the topic, one group was confronted with their alternative conceptions (AC), whereas the other group was not (NAC). Both groups were treated equally, following the experimental phase and results discussion. Questionnaires were used to measure conceptual change in a pre-, post- and retention test design. Both groups changed their conceptions in short-term similarly. Over a long-term period, the NAC group showed significantly higher knowledge than the AC group. We discuss that the methodology of the alternative conception confrontation should be selected very carefully by the teacher, as this step is the most delicate within the whole conceptual change process.
Assessing mortality in women with hepatitis C virus and HIV using indirect markers of fibrosis

Objective:Co-infection with hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in HIV-infected individuals. However, predictors of mortality are poorly defined and most studies have focused predominantly on co-infection in men. We evaluated whether two indirect markers of hepatic fibrosis, aspartate aminotransferase-to-platelet ratio index (APRI) and FIB-4 scores, were predictive of mortality in a well defined longitudinal cohort of HCV/HIV-co-infected women on HAART. Methods:HCV/HIV-co-infected women on antiretroviral therapy enrolled in Women's Interagency HIV Study (WIHS), a National Institutes of Health-funded prospective, multicenter, cohort study of women with and at risk for HIV infection were included. Using Cox regression analysis, associations between APRI and FIB-4 with all-cause mortality were assessed. Results:Four hundred and fifty HCV/HIV-co-infected women, of whom 191 women died, had a median follow-up of 6.6 years and 5739 WIHS visits. Compared with women with low APRI or FIB-4 levels, severe fibrosis was significantly associated with an increased risk of all-cause mortality {APRI: hazard ratio 2.78 [95% confidence interval (CI) 1.87, 4.12]; FIB-4: hazard ratio 2.58 (95% CI 1.68, 3.95)}. Crude death rates per 1000 patient-years increased with increasing liver fibrosis: 34.8 for mild, 51.3 for moderate and 167.9 for severe fibrosis as measured by FIB-4. Importantly, both APRI and FIB-4 increased during the 5 years prior to death for all women: the slope of increase was greater for women dying a liver-related death compared with nonliver-related death. Conclusion:Both APRI and FIB-4 are independently associated with all-cause mortality in HCV/HIV-co-infected women and may have clinical prognostic utility among women with HIV and HCV.
Moral Mind-Sets

Moral foundations theory contends that people’s morality goes beyond concerns about justice and welfare, and asserts that humans have five innate foundations of morality: harm and fairness (individualizing foundations) and in-group loyalty, deference to authority, and purity (binding foundations). The current research investigates whether people’s moral judgments are consistently informed by these five values, or whether individualizing and binding foundations might be differentially endorsed depending on individuals’ mind-sets. Results from our study demonstrated that when participants were experimentally manipulated to think abstractly (vs. concretely), which presumably makes their higher level core values salient, they increased in their valuations of the individualizing foundations and decreased in their valuations of the binding foundations. This effect was not moderated by political ideology. Implications and areas for future directions are discussed.
SON Coordination in a Unified Management Framework

The adoption of autonomic features in network management becomes a necessity to cope with the increasing complexity of the telecommunications ecosystem. The purpose of this paper is to present the concept of Unified Management Framework (UMF) developed in the FP7 UniverSelf project. The core of UMF comprises three functional blocks, namely Governance, Coordination and Knowledge which allow to efficiently operate autonomic mechanisms such as SON functionalities in the radio access network. These are denoted as Network Empowerment Mechanisms (NEMs) that, by means of policies, enforce operator business and operation objectives. The paper focuses on the Coordination core block of UMF, and its instantiation to the problem of SON coordination for managing LTE-Advanced a Heterogeneous Network (HetNet) with relays. Prototype description and results are described so as to illustrate the value and applicability of the proposed framework.
k-Zero Day Safety: A Network Security Metric for Measuring the Risk of Unknown Vulnerabilities

By enabling a direct comparison of different security solutions with respect to their relative effectiveness, a network security metric may provide quantifiable evidences to assist security practitioners in securing computer networks. However, research on security metrics has been hindered by difficulties in handling zero-day attacks exploiting unknown vulnerabilities. In fact, the security risk of unknown vulnerabilities has been considered as something unmeasurable due to the less predictable nature of software flaws. This causes a major difficulty to security metrics, because a more secure configuration would be of little value if it were equally susceptible to zero-day attacks. In this paper, we propose a novel security metric, k-zero day safety, to address this issue. Instead of attempting to rank unknown vulnerabilities, our metric counts how many such vulnerabilities would be required for compromising network assets; a larger count implies more security because the likelihood of having more unknown vulnerabilities available, applicable, and exploitable all at the same time will be significantly lower. We formally define the metric, analyze the complexity of computing the metric, devise heuristic algorithms for intractable cases, and finally demonstrate through case studies that applying the metric to existing network security practices may generate actionable knowledge.
MRI of rectal disorders.

OBJECTIVE The objective of this pictorial essay is to provide a review of the diseases involving the rectal wall with an emphasis on the key clinical and radiologic differentiating features. CONCLUSION A wide spectrum of disease processes can involve the rectum in adults. MRI is the technique of choice in the definitive diagnosis of these disease conditions, mainly because of its superior tissue contrast differentiation.
Adjustment to College in an Urban Commuter Setting

College student adjustment, success, and retention have been a focus of college administrators and student development professionals for decades. However, national college retention and graduation statistics are typically focused on traditional, residential, full-time, college populations. The purpose of the current study was to examine more closely the impact of race/ethnicity, gender, and athletic participation on the adjustment to college of 162 college freshman attending a diverse urban commuter institution. The Student Adaptation to College Questionnaire (SACQ) was employed to test the impact of the three independent variables (race/ethnicity, gender, athletic participation) on the four SACQ subscales (dependent variables). Findings revealed significant Pearson correlations and multivariate analysis of variance main effects among the variables of gender and athletic participation on certain SACQ subscales. More specifically, multivariate analysis of variance main effect findings were revealed for the variables of gender on the academic adjustment and institution attachment subscales of the SACQ and for athletic participation on the social adjustment subscale of the SACQ. Implications of these findings for student services and athletics programming are discussed.
Prognostic significance of heart rate in hospitalized patients presenting with myocardial infarction.

AIM To investigate the prognostic significance of resting heart rate in patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS), independent of other known factors. METHODS Patients 40 years of age or older who had been admitted with acute coronary syndrome (ACS) to one of the 94 hospitals participating in the Prevalence of Peripheral Arterial Disease in Patients with Acute Coronary Syndrome (PAMISCA) study were included. Patients were divided into two groups based on their resting heart rate (HR ≥ or < 70 bpm). Complications were recording during a follow-up period of 1 year. RESULTS There were 1054 ACS patients analyzed (43.5% with ST segment elevation and 56.5% without elevation). Mean age was 66.6 ± 11.7 years, 70.6% were male and 29.4% of subjects were female. During follow-up, more patients in the HR ≥ 70 bpm group were hospitalized for heart failure and they also had a higher mortality rate. In the multivariate analysis, a heart rate of ≥ 70 bpm was independently related to overall mortality during the follow-up period (hazard ratio 2.5; 95% confidence interval, 1.26-4.97, P = 0.009). CONCLUSION A resting heart rate ≥ 70 bpm in patients who survive an ACS is an indicator of a high risk of suffering cardiovascular events during follow-up.
Beta-Arrestin1 Levels in Mononuclear Leukocytes Support Depression Scores for Women with Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder

Depression is very common in reproductive women particularly with premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), which is a severe form of premenstrual syndrome (PMS). Beta-arrestins were previously implicated in the pathophysiology, diagnosis and treatment for mood disorders. This study examined whether a measurement for beta-arrestin1 levels in peripheral blood mononuclear leukocytes (PBMC), could aid to distinguish between PMDD and PMS. Study participants (n = 25) were non-pregnant women between 18–42 years of age with the symptoms of PMS/PMDD, but not taking any antidepressants/therapy and at the luteal phase of menstruation. The levels of beta-arrestin1 protein in the PBMCs were determined by ELISA using human beta-arrestin1 kit. The beta-arrestin1 levels were compared with the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale scores among these women. The magnitude of the different parameters for Axis 1 mental disorders were significantly higher and beta arrestin1 protein levels in PBMCs were significantly lower in women with PMDD as compared to PMS women. The reduction in beta arrestin1 protein levels was significantly correlated with the severity of depressive symptoms. Beta-arrestin1 measurements in women may potentially serve for biochemical diagnostic purposes for PMDD and might be useful as evidence-based support for questionnaires.
Evolution of artificial ring species

Biological ring species are a population surrounding a geographic obstruction such as a large lake or a mountain range. Adjacent sub-populations are mutually fertile, but fertility drops with distance. This study attempts to create examples of artificial ring species using evolutionary algorithms. ISAc lists, a representation with self-organized and potentially complex genetics, are used to evolve controllers for the Tartarus task. The breeding population of Tartarus controllers are arranged in a ring-shaped configuration with strictly local gene flow. Fertility is defined to be the probability that a child will have fitness at least that of its least fit parent. Fertility is found to drop steadily and significantly with distance around the ring in each of twelve replicates of the experiment. Comparison of fertility at various distances within a ring-shaped population is compared with sampled intra-population fertility. Some populations are found to have significantly higher than background fertility with other populations. This phenomena suggests the presence of aggressive genetics or dominant phenotype in which a creature has an enhanced probability of simply cloning its own phenotype during crossover. In addition to creating examples of artificial ring species this study also achieved a very high level of fitness with the Tartarus task. A comparison is made with another study that uses hybridization to achieve record breaking Tartarus fitness.
Detection of baroreceptor activity in rat vagal nerve recording using a multi-channel cuff-electrode and real-time coherent averaging

Electrical stimulation of afferent nerve fibers originating from pressure sensors can trigger the baroreflex to reduce blood pressure and might be an alternative to treat patients with hypertension. In this study, baroreceptor compound activity was detected using multi-channel cuff-electrode recordings on rat vagal nerve. In order to isolate the vagal nerve signals from external potentials (such as ECG- and EMG-coupling), a tripolar measuring technique was applied. To eliminate noise and neural signals corresponding to other organs, coherent averaging was used. The baroreceptor-correlated signals appear predominantly in one of the electrode channels, presumably close to the corresponding neural substrate. This localization was done in real-time.
Extracting Narrative Timelines as Temporal Dependency Structures

We propose a new approach to characterizing the timeline of a text: temporal dependency structures, where all the events of a narrative are linked via partial ordering relations like BEFORE, AFTER, OVERLAP and IDENTITY. We annotate a corpus of children's stories with temporal dependency trees, achieving agreement (Krippendorff's Alpha) of 0.856 on the event words, 0.822 on the links between events, and of 0.700 on the ordering relation labels. We compare two parsing models for temporal dependency structures, and show that a deterministic non-projective dependency parser outperforms a graph-based maximum spanning tree parser, achieving labeled attachment accuracy of 0.647 and labeled tree edit distance of 0.596. Our analysis of the dependency parser errors gives some insights into future research directions.
IMMUNOCOMPETENCE OF SPLEEN CELLS FROM NEONATALLY THYMECTOMIZED MICE CONFERRED IN VITRO BY A SYNGENEIC THYMUS EXTRACT

Impaired immunological competence of spleen cells from neonatally thymectomized C57B1/6 young adult mice was apparent when these cells were tested in an in vitro graft-versus-host assay. Spleen cell inocula prepared from thymectomized mice did not induce enlargement of (C3H/eb x C57BI/6)F1 newborn spleen explants, whereas the same number of cells from intact donors consistently initiated splenomegaly. Spleen enlargement was observed, however, when the explants were challenged by cells from thymectomized donors in the presence of syngeneic thymus extract, indicating that the spleen cells in suspension attained immunological competence under the influence of a non-cellular component of the thymus. Immunocompetence was also evident when the cells from thymectomized donors were first incubated with thymus extract for 1 hr and subsequently tested for reactivity. Cells from the same thymectomized donor mice exposed in parallel to extracts from syngeneic spleen or mesenteric lymph node at an equivalent protein concentration did not initiate a graft-versus-host response. These experiments demonstrate that immune reactivity in the graft-versus-host response involves activation of lymphoid cells by a humoral factor of the thymus acting directly upon these cells.
User satisfaction with referrals at a collaborative virtual reference service

Introduccion. Este estudio investigo las referencias no monitorizadas en un servicio de referencia colaborativo mediante chat de ambito nacional. Especificamente, reviso la extension a la que las consultas eran referenciadas, los tipos de consultas que son mas probables de ser enviadas, y el nivel de satisfaccion del usuario con las referencias en el servicio de referencia colaborativo mediante chat. Metodo. Los datos analizados para este estudio fueron 420 transcripciones de transacciones de chat de referencia junto con los cuestionarios de encuesta en linea correspondientes, presentadas por los usuarios del servicio. Ambos juegos de datos fueron tomados de un archivo electronico de un sistema publico de biblioteca del sudeste que habia participado en el 24/7 Reference del Sistema de Biblioteca Cooperativo Metropolitano (MCLS). Resultados. Las referencias en el servicio de referencia colaborativo de chat comprendian aproximadamente el 30 % de las transacciones totales. Las consultas relacionadas con la circulacion eran las mas enviadas normalmente de entre todos los tipos de consulta, posiblemente debido a la ineptitud de los bibliotecarios "externos" a acceder a cuentas. Aun mas importante, se hallo que la satisfaccion del usuario con las referencias era significativamente mas bajo que con las respuestas completas. Conclusion. Las conclusiones de este estudio indican la importancia de distinguir dos tipos de referencias: las referencias de investigacion expertas apropiadas para los servicios de referencia virtuales colaborativos; y las referencias locales redireccionadas que incrementan innecesariamente el trafico de consultas, siendo por tanto perjudiciales para el uso eficaz de la referencia colaborativa. Se esperan esfuerzos continuados de conceptualizacion de las referencias en multiples dimensiones para comprender completamente los complicados fenomenos subyacentes a las referencias.
Official Position of the Military TBI Task Force on the Role of Neuropsychology and Rehabilitation Psychology in the Evaluation, Management, and Research of Military Veterans with Traumatic Brain Injury

This Position Statement is a summary of the literature and learning regarding current issues raised by the occurrence, treatment, and study of traumatic brain injury in military service members and veterans. The Report has been approved by the American Academy of Clinical Neuropsychology (AACN), Divisions 40 (Neuropsychology) and 22 (Rehabilitation Psychology) of the American Psychological Association (APA), and the National Academy of Neuropsychology (NAN), with the goal of providing information of relevance on an important public policy matter within their respective areas of expertise. The Report is not intended to establish guidelines or standards for the professional practice of psychology, nor has it been adopted as official policy by the American Psychological Association or any other division or subunit of APA.
PET/CT with Fluorodeoxyglucose During Neoadjuvant Chemoradiotherapy in Locally Advanced Rectal Cancer

Objective The aim of the present study is to evaluate the accuracy of Positron Emission Tomography/Computed Tomography (PET/CT) with Fluorodeoxyglucose ([18F]FDG) to predict treatment response in patients with locally advanced rectal cancer (LARC) during neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy. Patients and methods Forty-one LARC patients performed [18F]FDG-PET/CT at baseline (PET0). All patients received continuous capecitabine concomitant to radiotherapy on the pelvis, followed by intermittent capecitabine until two weeks before curative surgery. [18F]FDG-PET/CT was also carried out at 40 Gy-time (PET1) and at the end of neoadjuvant therapy (PET2). PET imaging was analysed semi-quantitatively through the measurement of maximal standardised uptake value (SUVmax) and the tumour volume (TV). Histology was expressed through pTNM and Dworak tumor regression grading. Patients were categorised into responder (downstaging or downsizing) and non-responder (stable or progressive disease by comparison pretreatment parameters with clinical/pathological characteristics posttreatment/after surgery). Logistic regression was used to evaluate SUVmax and TV absolute and percent reduction as predictors of response rate using gender, age, and CEA as covariates. Progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) were estimated by the Kaplan-Meier method. Survivals were compared by the Log-Rank test. Results Twenty-three responders (9 ypCR, 14 with downstaged disease) and 18 non-responders showed differences in terms of both early and posttreatment SUVmax percent reduction (median comparison: responder = 63.2%, non-responder = 44.2%, p = 0.04 and responder = 76.9%, non-responder = 61.6%, p = 0.06 respectively). The best predictive cut-offs of treatment response for early and posttreatment SUVmax percent reduction were ≥57% and ≥66% from baseline (p = 0.02 and p = 0.01 respectively). Conclusions [18F]FDG-PET/CT is a reliable technique for evaluating therapy response during neoadjuvant treatment in LARC, through a categorical classification of the SUV max reduction during treatment.
Predicting reflectance functions from complex surfaces

We describe a physically-based Monte Carlo technique for approximating bidirectional reflectance distribution functions (BRDFs) for a large class of geometries by directly simulating optical scattering. The technique is more general than previous analytical models: it removes most restrictions on surface microgeometry. Three main points are described: a new representation of the BRDF, a Monte Carlo technique to estimate the coefficients of the representation, and the means of creating a milliscale BRDF from microscale scattering events. These allowthe prediction of scattering from essentially arbitrary roughness geometries. The BRDF is concisely represented by a matrix of spherical harmonic coefficients; the matrix is directly estimated from a geometric optics simulation, enforcing exact reciprocity. The method applies to roughness scales that are large with respect to the wavelength of light and small with respect to the spatial density at which the BRDF is sampled across the surface; examples include brushed metal and textiles. The method is validated by comparing with an existing scattering model and sample images are generated with a physically-based global illumination algorithm. CR Categories and Subject Descriptors: I.3. 7 [Computer Graphics]: Three-Dimensional Graphics and Realism.