Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Predicting Romantic Interest and Decisions in the Very Early Stages of Mate Selection

In the current study, opposite-sex strangers had 10-min conversations with a possible further date in mind. Based on judgments from partners and observers, three main findings were produced. First, judgments of attractiveness/vitality perceptions (compared with warmth/trustworthiness and status/resources) were the most accurate and were predominant in influencing romantic interest and decisions about further contact. Second, women were more cautious and choosy than men—women underestimated their partner’s romantic interest, whereas men exaggerated it, and women were less likely to want further contact. Third, a mediational model found that women (compared with men) were less likely to want further contact because they perceived their partners as possessing less attractiveness/vitality and as falling shorter of their minimum standards of attractiveness/vitality, thus generating lower romantic interest. These novel results are discussed in terms of the mixed findings from prior research, evolutionary psychology, and the functionality of lay psychology in early mate-selection contexts.
Learning sparse dynamic linear systems using stable spline kernels and exponential hyperpriors

We introduce a new Bayesian nonparametric approach to identification of sparse dynamic linear systems. The impulse responses are modeled as Gaussian processes whose autocovariances encode the BIBO stability constraint, as defined by the recently introduced "Stable Spline kernel". Sparse solutions are obtained by placing exponential hyperpriors on the scale factors of such kernels. Numerical experiments regarding estimation of ARMAX models show that this technique provides a definite advantage over a group LAR algorithm and state-of-the-art parametric identification techniques based on prediction error minimization.
On the variability of the atmospheric energy cycle within a 5-year period

The variability of the energy cycle in the atmosphere is studied for various time scales, namely, year-to-year, season-to-season, and month-to-month, by using daily aerological data for the 5-year period, May 1958 through April 1963. An objective method of analysis is used throughout the study. Our earlier analyses of the normal annual cycle of the energetics are expanded with seasonal and monthly estimates for the different years. It is found that the local values of the integrands of the hemispheric mean eddy available potential energy and of the hemispheric conversion from mean to eddy potential energy are positively correlated. Similarly, the local values of the integrands of the hemispheric mean eddy kinetic energy and of the hemispheric conversion from eddy to mean kinetic energy are positively, although not very highly, correlated. In the case of both potential and kinetic energy, most of the activity is found in preferred geographical areas, namely, in middle latitudes east of the major continents. The amplitude of the interannual variations in the monthly hemispheric integrals of all four basic energy components is generally less than 10% of the normal annual amplitude. The interannual variability in the various forms of energy and in the corresponding energy transformations is largest in winter and smallest in summer. The hemispheric eddy potential and eddy kinetic energy are found to be very highly, positively correlated. Considering the deviations from the normal annual variation for the hemispheric mean eddy potential, energy and for the hemispheric conversion from mean to eddy potential energy, they are found to be positively correlated with each other. On the other hand, the corresponding deviations for the hemispheric eddy kinetic energy and for the hemispheric conversion from eddy to mean kinetic energy seem to be negatively correlated. In general, the monthly energy conversion integrals show a much higher year-to-year variability than the integrated energy amounts. Since on a monthly basis the anomalies in the different conversion terms do not correlate well with each other, at least part of this large year-to-year variability must be spurious and due to uncertainties in the initial data and/or the later processing of the data. Because for the time scales considered it seems difficult to follow the sequence of events in the energy cycle, and thereby to unravel cause and effects, clarification of these questions will have to wait until reliable daily analyses of the full energetics will be possible.
Dynamic model for constriction scour caused by large woody debris

Large woody debris (LWD) can have a significant impact upon local channel morphology by creating scour pools and zones of reduced shear stress in which sediment is deposited. It is important to predict scour depths associated with LWD, as it is becoming increasingly common for debris to be added into river channels to improve sediment retention and create pools for aquatic habitat. Engineered log‐jams should therefore be designed using factor of safety engineering analysis, which includes estimates of associated scour and deposition rates. However, the rate and total depth of scour associated with LWD have not been modelled comprehensively, with authors resorting to the use of generic local and constriction scour models to predict scour depths. Also, constriction scour models presented, to date, do not calculate the rate of scour development. In this paper a model is presented for predicting the rate and total depth of scour associated with a channel constriction. The model is one‐dimensional and is based upon the sediment continuity equation, the calculation of specific head changes through the constricted reach and also allows for a variable free surface elevation above the bed at the constriction. This model could be applied to any channel constriction problem but here is used to determine scour rates and depths associated with deflector‐type LWD jams. Deflector jams are one category of jam type presented in a debris jam classification scheme, in which jam type is a function of the ratio of average riparian tree height to average channel width. Deflector jams, as the name implies, partially block the flow and therefore act as a channel constriction, which results in constriction scour. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Variations in the aerosol optical properties and types over the tropical urban site of Hyderabad, India

[1] Aerosol measurements over the tropical urban site of Hyderabad, India, provide a way of determining the variability of the aerosol characteristics over a duration of 1 year (October 2007 to September 2008). The meteorological pattern over India, mainly driven by the regional monsoons, has a great effect on the amount and size distribution of the aerosols. Higher aerosol optical depth (AOD) values are observed in premonsoon, while the variability of the Angstrom exponent (α) seems to be more pronounced, with higher values in winter and premonsoon and lower values in the monsoon periods. The AOD at 500 nm (AOD500) is very large over Hyderabad, varying from 0.46 ± 0.17 in postmonsoon to 0.65 ± 0.22 in premonsoon periods. A discrimination of the different aerosol types over Hyderabad is also attempted using values of AOD500 and α380–870. Such discrimination is rather difficult to interpret since a single aerosol type can partly be identified only under specific conditions (e.g., anthropogenic emissions, biomass burning or dust outbreaks), while the presence of mixed aerosols, without dominance of the coarse or accumulation mode, is the usual situation. According to the analysis the three individual components of differing origin, composition and optical characteristics are (1) an urban/industrial aerosol type composed of aerosols produced locally and all year round by combustion activities in the city or long-range transported (mainly in spring) biomass burning, (2) an aerosol type of mineral origin raised by the wind in the deserts (mainly in premonsoon) or constituting coarse-mode aerosols under high relative humidity conditions mainly in the monsoon period, and (3) an aerosol type with a marine influence under background conditions occurring in monsoon and postmonsoon periods. Nevertheless, the mixed or undetermined aerosol type dominates with percentages varying from 44.3% (premonsoon) to 72.9% (postmonsoon). Spectral AOD and α data are analyzed to obtain information about the adequacy of the simple use of the Angstrom exponent for characterizing the aerosols. This is achieved by taking advantage of the spectral variation of lnAOD versus lnλ, the so-called curvature. The results show that the spectral curvature can be effectively used as a tool for aerosol types discrimination, since the fine-mode aerosols exhibit negative curvature, while the coarse-mode particles are positive.
Building Trust in Online Auction Markets Through an Economic Incentive Mechanism

Millions of dollars change hands daily through online auction markets. However, fraud has been on the rise in these markets. Using a game theoretic approach, we propose a design of an economic incentive mechanism, the trusted third party (TTP), to serve the online auction communities. The proposed model addresses both the economic and technological aspects of online auction transactions by assigning a digital certificate to each participant. Thus, each participant's identity as well as his or her reputation can be established by other market participants. The analytical results demonstrate that when online transactions take place with the assistance of digital certificates issued by a TTP, the most utilitarian course of action for a market participant is to behave honestly.
DyST: Dynamic and Scalable Temporal Text Indexing

An increasing number of documents in companies and other organizations are now only available electronically, and exist in several versions updated at different times. In order to provide efficient support for temporal text-containment queries (query for all versions of documents that contained one or more particular words at a particular time) temporal text-indexes are needed. In this paper we present DyST, a dynamic and scalable temporal text index. The goal of DyST is to provide the same efficiency in terms of search cost and space usage as the previous approaches developed for small and medium document databases, while at the same time providing only logarithmically increasing search cost for very large databases. We present the architecture of DyST and describe how inserts and searches are performed. Based on a prototype we also present an evaluation of performance based on real-life temporal documents
Neural correlates of perceptual learning: A functional MRI study of visual texture discrimination

Visual texture discrimination has been shown to induce long-lasting behavioral improvement restricted to the trained eye and trained location in visual field [Karni, A. & Sagi, D. (1991) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 88, 4966–4970]. We tested the hypothesis that such learning involves durable neural modifications at the earliest cortical stages of the visual system, where eye specificity, orientation, and location information are mapped with highest resolution. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging in humans, we measured neural activity 24 h after a single session of intensive monocular training on visual texture discrimination, performed in one visual quadrant. Within-subject comparisons between trained and untrained eye for targets presented within the same quadrant revealed higher activity in a corresponding retinotopic area of visual cortex. Functional connectivity analysis showed that these learning-dependent changes were not associated with an increased engagement of other brain areas remote from early visual cortex. We suggest that these new data are consistent with recent proposals that the cellular mechanisms underlying this type of perceptual learning may involve changes in local connections within primary visual cortex. Our findings provide a direct demonstration of learning-dependent reorganization at early processing stages in the visual cortex of adult humans.
CONTRIBUTION OF ANTHROPOGENIC AND NATURAL SOURCES TO THE LEVELS OF TRACE ELEMENTS IN TWO COSTAL SITES IN CAMPECHE, MEXICO

The influence of anthropogenic and geochemical sources on trace metal levels in wet deposition was studied in two coastal sites – Isla del Carmen and San Antonio-Cardenas – both located in the State of Campeche. Simultaneous samplings of precipitation were carried out by automatic samplers from June 1 to October 31, 2004. A total of 52 samples were collected to determine trace metals (Al, Fe, Mn, Cu, Zn, Pb and Ni). A mean pH value of 4.64 was found for San Antonio-Cardenas, whereas in Isla del Carmen this value was 5.38, indicating levels of acidity in rainwater in San Antonio-Cardenas while Isla del Carmen showed a natural buffer capacity to neutralize the acidity. The influence of the crustal was evident in both sampling sites, specifically for Al, Fe and Mn. In both sites, high percentages of dissolved fractions were found for Cu, Pb, Zn and Ni. However, these percentages were more significant in San Antonio-Cardenas, suggesting that these trace elements had an anthropogenic source.
Suicide attempts in bipolar I and bipolar II disorder: a review and meta-analysis of the evidence.

OBJECTIVE The prevalence of suicide attempts (SA) in bipolar II disorder (BPII), particularly in comparison to the prevalence in bipolar I disorder (BPI), is an understudied and controversial issue with mixed results. To date, there has been no comprehensive review of the published prevalence data for attempted suicide in BPII. METHODS We conducted a literature review and meta-analysis of published reports that specified the proportion of individuals with BPII in their presentation of SA data. Systematic searching yielded 24 reports providing rates of SA in BPII and 21 reports including rates of SA in both BPI and BPII. We estimated the prevalence of SA in BPII by combining data across reports of similar designs. To compare rates of SA in BPII and BPI, we calculated a pooled odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) with random-effect meta-analytic techniques with retrospective data from 15 reports that detailed rates of SA in both BPI and BPII. RESULTS Among the 24 reports with any BPII data, 32.4% (356/1099) of individuals retrospectively reported a lifetime history of SA, 19.8% (93/469) prospectively reported attempted suicide, and 20.5% (55/268) of index attempters were diagnosed with BPII. In 15 retrospective studies suitable for meta-analysis, the prevalence of attempted suicide in BPII and BPI was not significantly different: 32.4% and 36.3%, respectively (OR = 1.21, 95% CI: 0.98-1.48, p = 0.07). CONCLUSION The contribution of BPII to suicidal behavior is considerable. Our findings suggest that there is no significant effect of bipolar subtype on rate of SA. Our findings are particularly alarming in concert with other evidence, including (i) the well-documented predictive role of SA for completed suicide and (ii) the evidence suggesting that individuals with BPII use significantly more violent and lethal methods than do individuals with BPI. To reduce suicide-related morbidity and mortality, routine clinical care for BPII must include ongoing risk assessment and interventions targeted at risk factors.
Epstein‐Barr virus (EBV)‐associated post‐transplantation lymphoproliferative disorder simultaneously affecting both B and T cells after allogeneic bone marrow transplantation

Post‐transplantation lymphoproliferative disorder (PTLD) is usually an aberrant proliferation of EBV‐infected B cells. We report the case of a 31‐year‐old man with severe aplastic anemia who suffered PTLD 42 days post‐BMT from an unrelated donor. At the onset of PTLD, peripheral blood lymphocytes were comprised of 40% CD20+ cells, 3% CD4+ cells, and 56% CD8+ cells. A highly sensitive in situ hybridization (ISH) method was used to detect EBV‐encoded small non‐polyadenylated RNA 1 (EBER‐1) in 33.9% of sorted CD20+ cells, 4.4% of CD4+ cells, and 1.4% of CD8+ cells. Each T‐cell fraction contained less than 0.034% of contaminated EBV‐infected B cells. Clonal proliferation of both B and T cells was demonstrated by Southern blotting. The patient did not respond to donor leukocyte infusion and died due to deterioration of PTLD. At autopsy, examination of multiple organs revealed B‐cell (rather than T‐cell) infiltration. This case clearly indicates that EBV can simultaneously infect B and T cells and can induce clonal proliferation of both lymphocyte subsets in severely immunocompromised patients. Am. J. Hematol. 72:255–258, 2003. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Robust camera motion estimation using direct edge alignment and sub-gradient method

There has been a paradigm shifting trend towards feature-less methods due to their elegant formulation, accuracy and ever increasing computational power. In this work, we present a direct edge alignment approach for 6-DOF tracking. We argue that photo-consistency based methods are plagued by a much smaller convergence basin and are extremely sensitive to noise, changing illumination and fast motion. We propose to use the Distance Transform in the energy formulation which can significantly extend the influence of the edges for tracking. We address the problem of non-differentiability of our cost function and of the previous methods by use of a sub-gradient method. Through extensive experiments we show that the proposed method gives comparable performance to the previous method under nominal conditions and is able to run at 30 Hz in single threaded mode. In addition, under large motion we demonstrate our method outperforms previous methods using the same runtime configuration for our method.
Toward Online Verification of Client Behavior in Distributed Applications

Existing techniques for a server to verify the correctness of client behavior in a distributed application suffer from imprecision, increased bandwidth consumption, or significant computational expense. We present a novel method for a server to efficiently search for a code path through the client that “explains” each client message, even though the server does not know local inputs to the client that might have caused the message. This method gives rise to a precise client verification technique that consumes no additional bandwidth and that validates most legitimate client messages much faster than previous such techniques. Our technique can gain even further improvements with a minimal increase in bandwidth use. We detail this innovation and use it to verify client behavior in two client-server games, namely XPilot and TetriNET. In our best configuration, verification often keeps pace with TetriNET gameplay.
Recent trends in the regime of extreme rainfall in the Central Sahel

Ongoing global warming raises the hypothesis of an intensification of the hydrological cycle, extreme rainfall events becoming more frequent. However, the strong time–space variability of extreme rainfall makes it difficult to detect meaningful trends in the regime of their occurrence for recent years. Using an integrated regional approach, it is shown that over the last 10 years, the Sahelian rainfall regime is characterized by a lasting deficit of the number of rainy days, while at the same time the extreme rainfall occurrence is on the rise. As a consequence, the proportion of annual rainfall associated with extreme rainfall has increased from 17% in 1970–1990 to 19% in 1991–2000 and to 21% in 2001–2010. This tends to support the idea that a more extreme climate has been observed over 2001–2010: this climate is drier in the sense of a persisting deficit of rainfall occurrence compared to 1950–1969, while at the same time there is an increased probability of extreme daily rainfall.
Sulfonylurea Use and Incident Cardiovascular Disease Among Patients With Type 2 Diabetes: Prospective Cohort Study Among Women

OBJECTIVE Evidence is inconsistent for the association between sulfonylurea use and risk of cardiovascular disease among patients with diabetes. We aimed to prospectively evaluate this association using the Nurses’ Health Study (NHS), a well-established cohort of U.S. women with long-term follow-up. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS We followed 4,902 women (mean age 68 years) with diabetes (mean duration 11 years), but without cardiovascular disease at baseline. The use of sulfonylureas and other medications was self-reported at baseline and during the follow-up period of up to 10 years. Cox proportional hazards regression models were used to estimate the relative risk (RR) and 95% CI for the association between the sulfonylurea use and incident cardiovascular disease while accounting for potential confounders, including age, diabetes duration, diabetes-related complications, other antihyperglycemic medications, BMI, lifestyle factors, family history of cardiovascular diseases, and present chronic conditions. We also applied the propensity score stratification method to address the possibility of residual confounding. RESULTS We identified 339 incident cases of cardiovascular disease, including 191 cases of coronary heart disease (CHD) and 148 cases of stroke. A longer duration of sulfonylurea use was significantly associated with a higher risk of CHD (P for trend = 0.002); the RRs for CHD were 1.24 (95% CI 0.85–1.81) for patients who used sulfonylurea therapy for 1–5 years, 1.51 (0.94–2.42) for 6–10 years, and 2.15 (1.31–3.54) for >10 years, compared with nonusers. Compared with users of metformin monotherapy, the RR for CHD was 3.27 (1.31–8.17) for those who were treated with the combination of metformin and sulfonylurea. The analysis using propensity score stratification yielded similar results. We did not observe a significant association between sulfonylurea therapy and stroke risk. CONCLUSIONS Long-term use of sulfonylureas was associated with a significantly higher risk of developing CHD among women with diabetes.
Modular and hierarchical brain organization to understand assimilation, accommodation and their relation to autism in reaching tasks: a developmental robotics hypothesis

By assimilation children embody sensorimotor experiences into already built mental structures. Conversely, by accommodation these structures are changed according to the child’s new experience. Despite the intuitive power of these concepts to trace the course of sensorimotor development, they have gradually lost ground in psychology. This likely due to the lack of brain-related views capturing the dynamic mechanisms underlying them. Here we propose that brain modular and hierarchical organization is crucial to understanding assimilation/accommodation. We devise an experiment where a bio-inspired modular and hierarchical mixture-of-experts model guides a simulated robot to learn different reaching tasks by trial-and-error. The model gives a novel interpretation of assimilation/accommodation based on the functional organization of the experts allocated through learning. Assimilation occurs when the model adapts a copy of the expert trained for solving a task, to face another task requiring similar sensorimotor mappings. Experts storing similar sensorimotor mappings belong to the same functional module. Accommodation occurs when the model uses non-trained experts to face tasks requiring different sensorimotor mappings (generating a new functional group of experts). The model also provides a new theoretical framework to investigate assimilation/accommodation impairment, and proposes that such impairment might be related to autism spectrum disorder.