Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Doubling (Dual) Hahn Polynomials: Classification and Applications

We classify all pairs of recurrence relations in which two Hahn or dual Hahn polynomials with different parameters appear. Such couples are referred to as (dual) Hahn doubles. The idea and interest comes from an example appearing in a finite oscillator model [Jafarov El. , Stoilova N.J., Van der Jeugt J., J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 44 (2011), 265203, 15 pages, arXiv:1101.5310]. Our classification shows there exist three dual Hahn doubles and four Hahn doubles. The same technique is then applied to Racah polynomials, yielding also four doubles. Each dual Hahn (Hahn, Racah) double gives rise to an explicit new set of symmetric orthogonal polynomials related to the Christof fel and Geronimus transformations. For each case, we also have an interesting class of two-diagonal matrices with closed form expressions for the eigenvalues. This extends the class of Sylvester Kac matrices by remarkable new test matrices. We examine also the algebraic relations underlying the dual Hahn doubles, and discuss their usefulness for the construction of new finite oscillator models.
Comparison of the ballistic contractile responses generated during microstimulation of single human motor axons with brief irregular and regular stimuli

Ballistic contractions are induced by brief, high‐frequency (60–100 Hz) trains of action potentials in motor axons. During ramp voluntary contractions, human motoneurons exhibit significant discharge variability of ∼20% and have been shown to be advantageous to the neuromuscular system. We hypothesized that ballistic contractions incorporating discharge variability would generate greater isometric forces than regular trains with zero variability.
Pulmonary carcinoid tumors and asbestos exposure.

OBJECTIVES The hypothesis that asbestos exposure may have more specific associations with particular histological types of lung cancer remains controversial. The aim of this study was to analyze the relationships between asbestos exposure and pulmonary carcinoid tumors. METHODS A retrospective case-control study was conducted in 28 cases undergoing surgery for pulmonary carcinoid tumors and aged >40 years and in 56 controls with lung cancer of a different histological type, matched for gender and age, from 1994 to 1999, recruited in two hospitals in the region of Paris. Asbestos exposure was assessed via expertise of a standardized occupational questionnaire and mineralogical analysis of lung tissue, with quantification of asbestos bodies (AB). RESULTS Definite asbestos exposure was identified in 25% of cases and 14% of controls (ns). Cumulative asbestos exposure was significantly higher in cases than in controls (P < 0.05), and results of the quantification of AB tended to be higher in cases than in controls (24 and 9% had >1000 AB per gram dry lung tissue, respectively, P = 0.09). Mean cumulative smoking was lower in cases than in controls (P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS This study argues in favor of a relationship between asbestos exposure and certain pulmonary carcinoid tumors.
Thermoanaerobacter ethanolicus Growth and Product Yield from Elevated Levels of Xylose or Glucose in Continuous Cultures

The performance of Thermoanaerobacter ethanolicus was evaluated in continuous culture with media containing concentrations of xylose (8 to 20 g/liter) greater than those previously reported. The ethanol yield declined from to 0.42 to 0.29 g of ethanol per g of xylose consumed when input xylose was increased from 4 to 20 g/liter. Yields of both total C2 and C3 products from consumed xylose and of cell biomass from ATP produced declined as the input xylose concentration was increased, which was not the case when glucose was the substrate. This suggested that yeast extract functioned as a significant energy and carbon source for cells in fermentations of xylose but not of glucose. The feasibility of this interpretation was confirmed by (i) the calculation of the products theoretically obtainable from yeast extract and (ii) the observation of significant quantities of fermentation products in inoculated sugar-free media. Markedly different patterns of metabolism for the two sugar substrates were also evidenced by the cell yield for glucose being twice that of xylose at elevated sugar concentrations. It was noted that caution must be exerted when results obtained at low xylose concentrations are extrapolated to predict those which can be obtained at higher concentrations.
Improving the outcome and efficiency of intensive care: the impact of an intensivist.

Data from two 3-month time periods before and after the arrival of a pediatric intensivist were collected prospectively and compared to determine the intensivist's impact on ICU mortality, use of monitoring and therapeutic modalities, and efficiency of ICU bed utilization. Severity of illness and care modalities were determined daily for all patients with the Physiologic Stability Index and the Therapeutic Intervention Scoring System. The only major organizational change in the postintensivist period was the organization and implementation of a daytime ICU team. Case mix variables, including sex; medical/surgical, emergency/elective, and diagnostic distributions; and nursing hours/patient day, were equivalent in the pre-intensivist and postintensivist samples. After the intensivist's arrival, there was a significant decrease in admissions with very low severity of illness (Physiologic Stability Index less than 4; 52% vs. 34%; p less than .05) and a significant decrease in bed utilization by patients who received only monitoring services (27% vs. 17% of bed days; p less than .001). The severity of the illness-adjusted ICU mortality rate was significantly higher in the pre-intensivist period than in the postintensivist period (weighted mean mortality difference 5.3 +/- 2.6%; p less than .05). The incidence of both therapeutic and monitoring modalities increased in the postintensivist period. These results indicate that a pediatric intensivist can improve mortality rates and efficiency of bed utilization in the pediatric ICU.
Penalized least squares, model selection, convex hull classes and neural nets

We develop improved risk bounds for function estimation with models such as single hidden layer neural nets, using a penalized least squares criterion to select the size of the model. These results show the estimator achieves the best order of balance between approximation error and penalty relative to the sample size. Bounds are given both for the case that the target function is in the convex hull C of a class (cid:8) of functions of dimension d (determined through empirical l2 convering numbers) and for the case that the target is not in the convex hull.
Multi-View Clustering and Semi-Supervised Classification with Adaptive Neighbours

Due to the efficiency of learning relationships and complex structures hidden in data, graph-oriented methods have been widely investigated and achieve promising performance in multi-view learning. Generally, these learning algorithms construct informative graph for each view or fuse different views to one graph, on which the following procedure are based. However, in many real world dataset, original data always contain noise and outlying entries that result in unreliable and inaccurate graphs, which cannot be ameliorated in the previous methods. In this paper, we propose a novel multi-view learning model which performs clustering/semi-supervised classification and local structure learning simultaneously. The obtained optimal graph can be partitioned into specific clusters directly. Moreover, our model can allocate ideal weight for each view automatically without additional weight and penalty parameters. An efficient algorithm is proposed to optimize this model. Extensive experimental results on different real-world datasets show that the proposed model outperforms other state-of-the-art multi-view algorithms.
Propagating Surface Plasmons and Dispersion Relations for Nanoscale Multilayer Metallic-Dielectric Films

The study of propagating surface plasmons (PSPs) is an important aspect of the understanding of the interaction between light and metallic surfaces. One of the key concepts related to PSPs, is the dispersion relation. This relation is the basis for understanding of coupling of light to PSPs, by using special approaches to match the wavevector. Moreover, it can be used to predict the matching of localised surface plasmons (LSPs) and PSPs to achieve highly enhanced electromagnetic field and/or tailored transmission.
How effective is bronchial thermoplasty for severe asthma in clinical practice?

Bronchial thermoplasty is an intervention developed for the treatment of asthma through the delivery of radio frequency energy to the airways [1, 2]. Evidence for the efficacy and safety of bronchial thermoplasty in severe asthma is based on the results of three randomised controlled trials [3–5]. Two trials compared bronchial thermoplasty with usual care, the Asthma Intervention Research (AIR) trial [3] and the Research in Severe Asthma (RISA) trial [4], whereas the third trial (AIR2) compared bronchial thermoplasty with a sham procedure [5]. The AIR2 trial reported improved asthma quality of life questionnaire (AQLQ) scores, reduced severe exacerbations and decreased emergency department visits in the post-bronchial thermoplasty treatment period [5]. Bronchial thermoplasty was associated with a short-term increase in asthma-related symptoms and hospital admissions for asthma during the treatment phase [3–5]. Follow-up observational studies to date support the long-term safety of the procedure, based on unchanged rates of respiratory adverse events, lung function, serial computed tomography scans and rates of hospital admissions or emergency department visits in years 2–5 following the AIR [6], RISA [7] and AIR2 trials [8]. A Cochrane systematic review of the trials concluded that there was a modest clinical benefit in asthma quality of life and a reduction in exacerbation rates 12 months after bronchial thermoplasty [9]. In 2010, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gave premarket approval for the Alair bronchial thermoplasty system (Boston Scientific, Marlborough, MA, USA) as a treatment for severe persistent asthma in patients 18 years and older whose asthma is not well controlled with inhaled corticosteroids and a long-acting β-agonist [10]. Bronchial thermoplasty is also approved for the treatment of asthma in the European Union and in many countries worldwide. Bronchial thermoplasty can be effective in patients who often have features of more severe asthma than in AIR2 http://ow.ly/Qv5730cTIuB
United States Army Physical Readiness Training: Rationale and Evaluation of the Physical Training Doctrine

Knapik, JJ, Rieger, W, Palkoska, F, Van Camp, S, and Darakjy, S. United States Army physical readiness training: rationale and evaluation of the physical training doctrine. J Strength Cond Res 23(4): 1353-1362, 2009-This paper reviews the rationale and evaluations of Physical Readiness Training (PRT), the new U.S. Army physical training doctrine designed to improve soldiers' physical capability for military operations. The purposes of PRT are to improve physical fitness, prevent injuries, progressively train soldiers, and develop soldiers' self-confidence and discipline. The PRT follows the principles of progressive overload, regularity, specificity, precision, variety, and balance. Specificity was achieved by examining the standard list of military (warrior) tasks and determining 1) the physical requirements, 2) the fitness components involved, and 3) the training activities that most likely could improve the military tasks. Injury-prevention features include reduced running mileage, exercise variety (cross-training), and gradual, progressive training. In 3 military field studies, the overall adjusted risk of injury was 1.5-1.8 times higher in groups of soldiers performing traditional military physical training programs when compared with groups using a PRT program. Scores on the Army Physical Fitness Test were similar or higher in groups using PRT programs. In an 8-week laboratory study comparing PRT with a weightlifting/running program, both programs resulted in major improvements in militarily relevant tasks (e.g., 3.2-km walk/run with 32-kg load, 400-m run with 18-kg load, 5- to 30-second rushes to and from prone position, 80-kg casualty drag, obstacle course). When compared with traditional military physical training programs, PRT consistently resulted in fewer injuries and in equal or greater improvements in fitness and military task performance.
Elevated Stress Hormone Levels Relate to Epstein-Barr Virus Reactivation in Astronauts

Objective The objective of this study was to determine the effects of stress and spaceflight on levels of neuroendocrine hormones and Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)–specific antibodies in astronauts. Methods Antiviral antibody titers and stress hormones were measured in plasma samples collected from 28 astronauts at their annual medical exam (baseline), 10 days before launch (L−10), landing day (R+0), and 3 days after landing (R+3). Urinary stress hormones were also measured at L−10 and R+0. Results Significant increases (p < .01) in EBV virus capsid antigen antibodies were found at all three time points (L−10, R+0, and R+3) as compared with baseline samples. Anti-EBV nuclear antigen antibodies were significantly decreased at L−10 (p < .05) and continued to decrease after spaceflight (R+0 and R+3, p < .01). No changes were found in antibodies to the nonlatent measles virus. The 11 astronauts who showed evidence of EBV reactivation had significant increases in urinary epinephrine and norepinephrine as compared with astronauts without EBV reactivation. Conclusion These findings indicate that physical and psychological stresses associated with spaceflight resulted in decreased virus-specific T-cell immunity and reactivation of EBV.
Influence of high-order mechanics on simulation of glacier response to climate change: insights from Haig Glacier, Canadian Rocky Mountains

Abstract. Evolution of glaciers in response to climate change has mostly been simulated using simplified dynamical models. Because these models do not account for the influence of high-order physics, corresponding results may exhibit some biases. For Haig Glacier in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, we test this hypothesis by comparing simulation results obtained from 3-D numerical models that deal with different assumptions concerning physics, ranging from simple shear deformation to comprehensive Stokes flow. In glacier retreat scenarios, we find a minimal role of high-order mechanics in glacier evolution, as geometric effects at our site (the presence of an overdeepened bed) result in limited horizontal movement of ice (flow speed on the order of a few meters per year). Consequently, high-order and reduced models all predict that Haig Glacier ceases to exist by ca. 2080 under ongoing climate warming. The influence of high-order mechanics is evident, however, in glacier advance scenarios, where ice speeds are greater and ice dynamical effects become more important. Although similar studies on other glaciers are essential to generalize such findings, we advise that high-order mechanics are important and therefore should be considered while modeling the evolution of active glaciers. Reduced model predictions may be adequate for other glaciologic and topographic settings, particularly where flow speeds are low and where mass balance changes dominate over ice dynamics in determining glacier geometry.
Gravity duals for the Coulomb branch of marginally deformed N = 4 Yang-Mills

Supergravity backgrounds dual to a class of exactly marginal deformations of N = 4 supersymmetric Yang–Mills can be constructed through an SL(2, R) sequence of T-dualities and coordinate shifts. We apply this transformation to multicenter solutions and derive supergravity backgrounds describing the Coulomb branch of N = 1 theories at strong ’t Hooft coupling as marginal deformations of N = 4 Yang–Mills. For concreteness we concentrate to cases with an SO(4) ×SO(2) symmetry preserved by continuous distributions of D3-branes on a disc and on a three-dimensional spherical shell. We compute the expectation value of the Wilson loop operator and confirm the Coulombic behaviour of the heavy quark-antiquark potential in the conformal case. When the vev is turned on we find situations where a complete screening of the potential arises, as well as a confining regime where a linear or a logarithmic potential prevails depending on the ratio of the quark-antiquark separation to the typical vev scale. The spectra of massless excitations on these backgrounds are analyzed by turning the associated differential equations into Schr¨odinger problems. We find explicit solutions taking into account the entire tower of states related to the reduction of type-IIB supergravity to five dimensions, and hence we go beyond the s-wave approximation that has been considered before for the undeformed case. Arbitrary values of the deformation parameter give rise to the Heun differential equation and the related Inozemtsev integrable system, via a non-standard trigonometric limit as we explicitly demonstrate.
Languages for multi-database interoperability

Database system technology which there is a moliferation has reached a of inderrendent stage now in svstems storing and manipul~ting enormous amount of data. Unfortunately, these systems typically have their own data models, communication processing protocols, query processing systems, concurrency control protocols, consistency management, and other similar aspects of database systems. There is also an increasing need for In teroperability among these systems. Though considerable amount of research has been done in the area of database interoperability, most of it has resulted in solutions that are ad-hoc and procedural. We have developed a declarative environment in which multiple heterogeneous databases interoperate by sharing, interpreting, and manipulating information, in a uniform way. An important criterion for Interacting with multiple databases is the abiIity to query them in a manner independent of the discrepancies in their structure and data semantics. In this demo, we exhibk two languages for querying across multiple databaaes which store semantically similar data using heterogeneous schema, ss well as for restructuring the queried data: (1) SchemaLog – a language that has its foundations in logic and (2) SchemaSQL – a language based on a principled extension to SQL.
Simple method to isolate the intact duct system of the rat submandibular gland

The excurrent duct system of the rat submandibular gland consists of a number of distinct segments. Using the direction of salivary flow as a reference point, these segments are, in order, intercalated duct, granular convoluted tubule, striated duct, excretory duct, main excretory duct (MED), and salivary bladder (which is an expanded portion of the MED). Because these ducts (with the exception of the MED and the salivary bladder) are encased in secretory endpieces, they are difficult to locate and to observe by scanning electron microscopy. A simple method has been devised to rid the gland of these obscuring endpieces so that the detailed architecture of the duct system can be examined.
Curvature Integration in a 5D Kernel for Extracting Vessel Connections in Retinal Images

Tree-like structures, such as retinal images, are widely studied in computer-aided diagnosis systems for large-scale screening programs. Despite several segmentation and tracking methods proposed in the literature, there still exist several limitations specifically when two or more curvilinear structures cross or bifurcate, or in the presence of interrupted lines or highly curved blood vessels. In this paper, we propose a novel approach based on multi-orientation scores augmented with a contextual affinity matrix, which both are inspired by the geometry of the primary visual cortex (V1) and their contextual connections. The connectivity is described with a 5D kernel obtained as the fundamental solution of the Fokker–Planck equation modeling the cortical connectivity in the lifted space of positions, orientations, curvatures, and intensity. It is further used in a self-tuning spectral clustering step to identify the main perceptual units in the stimuli. The proposed method has been validated on several easy as well as challenging structures in a set of artificial images and actual retinal patches. Supported by quantitative and qualitative results, the method is capable of overcoming the limitations of current state-of-the-art techniques.
Quality of Service Oriented Access Point Selection Framework for Large Wi-Fi Networks

This paper addresses the problem of access point (AP) selection in large Wi-Fi networks. Unlike current solutions that rely on received signal strength to determine the best AP that could serve a wireless user’s request, we propose a novel framework that considers the quality of service (QoS) requirements of the user’s data flow. The proposed framework relies on a function reflecting the suitability of a Wi-Fi AP to satisfy the QoS requirements of the data flow. The framework takes advantage of the flexibility and centralised nature of software defined networking (SDN). A performance comparison of this algorithm developed through an SDN-based simulator shows significant achievements against other state-of-the-art solutions in terms of provided QoS and improved wireless network capacity.
Risk-sensitive optimal control of hidden Markov models: structural results

The authors consider a risk-sensitive optimal control problem for (finite state and action spaces) hidden Markov models (HMM). They present results of an investigation on the nature and structure of risk-sensitive controllers for HMM. Several general structural results are presented, as well as a particular case study of a popular benchmark problem. For the latter, they obtain structural results for the optimal risk-sensitive controller and compare it to that of the risk-neutral controller. Furthermore, they show that indeed the risk-sensitive controller and its corresponding information state converge to the known solutions for the risk-neutral situation as the risk factor goes to zero. They also study the infinite and general risk aversion cases.
CSE 255 Assignment 8

In this paper we train an L1-regularized linear support vector machine (SVM) to determine whether the sentiment of a movie review is positive or negative. We train and test on the movie review polarity dataset introduced by Pang and Lee, 2004 [2]. Classification accuracy of the linear SVM is improved through a series of experiments for various data preprocessing techniques and data transformations. Classification accuracy is found to be maximum on the 10 cross-validation folds after removing numerical entries and performing log odds weighting of terms. Our final linear SVM with per-example regularization cost c = 1.00 generates an 0.877 classification accuracy; this compares favorably to the 0.864 accuracy using subjectivity extracts (Pang and Lee, 2004) and the 0.905 accuracy using linguisitic knowledge sources (Ng et al, 2006 [4]).