Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Efficient frontier detection and management for robot exploration

The most common way to select target points for sensing during autonomous robot exploration is to employ the concept of frontiers. Frontiers in an occupancy grid map are defined as the boundaries between grid cells categorized as free and unknown. Most of the current single and multi-robot exploration algorithms have focused on developing efficient exploration and coordination strategies, and have used a simple frontier generation scheme that processes the entire occupancy grid map. While this approach is simple, it is not scalable as the map width increases, the computational cost to generate frontiers increases exponentially. This paper presents an efficient approach to generate frontiers by tracking intermediate changes to grid cells and considering only the updated grid cells for the final frontier generation operation. The proposed approach was implemented and simulated in a standard simulator and is evaluated in two different environment types with different map sizes. It was shown that the proposed method provides a significant performance improvement in frontier generation while providing over 85% accuracy.
Age Effects on Blood Gas, Spirometry, Airway Reactivity, and Bronchoalveolar Lavage Fluid Cytology in Clinically Healthy Horses

Background Despite the increasing number of geriatric horses attended by veterinarians, there is a lack of understanding of aging‐related changes on the respiratory system of horses. Objective To identify aging‐related changes on the respiratory function and bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) cytology of horses. Animals Fifteen healthy young adult (2–11 years) and 16 healthy aged (≥20 years) horses. Methods The respiratory system was examined by measurement of arterial blood gases (ABG), use of respiratory inductive plethysmography (RIP) for assessment of breathing pattern and ventilatory parameters, histamine bronchoprovocation, and BALF cytology. Results No significant differences were detected with regard to values obtained by ABG or bronchoprovocation of young adult and aged healthy horses. In aged horses, there were significant differences in mean ± SD of the following parameters when compared to young horses: prolonged expiratory time (Te) measured by RIP (3.9 ± 1.5 s versus 3.0 ± 0.6 s), decreased percentage of alveolar macrophages (40.6 ± 11.3% versus 53.5 ± 9.6%), and increased percentage of lymphocytes (53.4 ± 9.5% versus 43.9 ± 11.0%). No correlations between airway reactivity and ventilatory parameters, ABG, or BALF cytology were found in this asymptomatic population. Conclusions These results suggest that aging does not cause changes in the results obtained by ABG, most RIP‐derived variables, and bronchoprovocation in the horse. A decreased percentage of macrophage and an increased percentage of lymphocytes in the BALF cytology may be expected in the asymptomatic geriatric horse and may be a result of aging.
Segmentation by Color Influences Responses of Motion-Sensitive Neurons in the Cortical Middle Temporal Visual Area

We previously showed that human subjects are better able to discriminate the direction of a motion signal in dynamic noise when the signal is distinguished (segmented) from the noise by color. This finding suggested a hitherto unexplored avenue of interaction between motion and color pathways in the primate visual system. To examine whether chromatic segmentation exerts a similar influence on cortical neurons that contribute to motion direction discrimination, we have now compared the discriminative capacity of single MT neurons and psychophysical observers viewing motion signals with and without chromatic segmentation. All data were obtained from rhesus monkeys trained to discriminate motion direction in dynamic stimuli containing varying proportions of coherently moving (signal) and randomly moving (noise) dots. We obtained psychophysical and neurophysiological data in the same animals, on the same trials, and using the same visual display. Chromatic segmentation of the signal from the noise enhanced both neuronal and psychophysical sensitivity to the motion signal but had a smaller influence on neuronal than on psychophysical sensitivity. Hence the ratio of neuronal to psychophysical thresholds, one measure of the relation between neuronal and psychophysical performance, depended on chromatic segmentation. Increased neuronal sensitivity to chromatically segmented displays stemmed from larger and less noisy responses to motion in the preferred directions of the neurons, suggesting that specialized mechanisms influence responses in the motion pathway when color segments motion signal in visual scenes. These findings lead us to reevaluate potential mechanisms for pooling of MT responses and the role of MT in motion perception.
Near-Infrared photometry in the J, H and Kn bands for Polar Ring Galaxies. I. Data, structural parameters

We present new Near-Infrared (NIR) observations, in the J, H and Kn bands, for a sample of Polar Ring Galaxies (PRGs), selected from the Polar Ring Catalogue (Whitmore et al. 1990). Data were acquired with the CASPIR near-IR camera at the 2.3 m telescope of Mount Stromlo and Siding Spring Observatory. We report here on the detail morphological study for the central host galaxy and the polar structure in all PRGs of our sample. Total magnitudes, bulge-to-disk decomposition and structural parameters are computed for all objects. These data are crucial for an accurate modeling of the stellar population and the estimate of the star formation rates in the two components.
An improved corpus of disease mentions in PubMed citations

The latest discoveries on diseases and their diagnosis/treatment are mostly disseminated in the form of scientific publications. However, with the rapid growth of the biomedical literature and a high level of variation and ambiguity in disease names, the task of retrieving disease-related articles becomes increasingly challenging using the traditional keyword-based approach. An important first step for any disease-related information extraction task in the biomedical literature is the disease mention recognition task. However, despite the strong interest, there has not been enough work done on disease name identification, perhaps because of the difficulty in obtaining adequate corpora. Towards this aim, we created a large-scale disease corpus consisting of 6900 disease mentions in 793 PubMed citations, derived from an earlier corpus. Our corpus contains rich annotations, was developed by a team of 12 annotators (two people per annotation) and covers all sentences in a PubMed abstract. Disease mentions are categorized into Specific Disease, Disease Class, Composite Mention and Modifier categories. When used as the gold standard data for a state-of-the-art machine-learning approach, significantly higher performance can be found on our corpus than the previous one. Such characteristics make this disease name corpus a valuable resource for mining disease-related information from biomedical text. The NCBI corpus is available for download at http://www.ncbi. nlm.nih. gov/CBBresearch/Fellows/Dogan/disease.html.
Hitler's willing executioners : ordinary Germans and the Holocaust

Daniel Goldhagen re-visits a question which history has treated as settled, and his research leads him to the inescapble conclusion that none of the answers holds true. That question is: How could the Holocaust happen? His response is an exploration of German society and its ingrained anti-semitism that demands a fundamental revision of our thinking about the years 1933-1945. The author marshals fresh, primary evidence - including extensive testimony from the actual perpetrators - to show that the killers were ordinary Germans who were not compelled to act as they did (they knew they could refuse without retribution) yet they killed willingly and zealously.
Factor Structure and Other Psychometric Properties of the Social Phobia Inventory in Korean Samples

ABSTRACT We examined the factor structure and other psychometric properties of the Social Phobia Inventory (SPIN) in Korean nonclinical (N1 = 457, N2 = 444) and clinical undergraduate samples (N3 = 12). Results support the revised 3-factor structure and applicability of the SPIN as a measure yielding valid and reliable scores of social anxiety to Koreans.
Down‐welling circulation of the northwest European continental shelf: A driving mechanism for the continental shelf carbon pump

Annually integrated measurements of pCO2 have demonstrated that seasonally stratified regions of temperate shelf seas can be an important sink of atmospheric CO2. A key process to support this sink is the transport of carbon from shelf seas to below the permanent pycnocline of the deep ocean. Using a hydrodynamic model simulation of the northwest European Continental shelf, we find that both the large scale circulation and frictional processes support the off‐shelf transport of carbon sufficiently quickly to remove ∼40% of the carbon sequestered by one growing season before the onset of the next. This transport is highly heterogeneous, with some regions being only weakly flushed. Only 52% of this exported carbon is transported below the permanent pycnocline, hence the shelf sea and open ocean carbon cycles are intrinsically coupled.
KETERIKATAN KARYAWAN DIPENGARUHI OLEH KECERDASAN EMOSIONAL DAN MODAL PSIKOLOGIS (Studi Empiris: PT. Fajar Lestari Sejati, Jakarta)

This study was conducted with the subject of the employees at PT. FAJAR LESTARI SEJATI, Jakarta which is located at JL. Daan Mogot km 12.8 comp. Daan Mogot Prima kav 3 no 2 West Jakarta 11740. This study aims to determine the influence of the influence of emotional intelligence and psychological capital on employee engagement in PT. Really true fajar, Jakarta. In this research explain whether there is influence of emotional intelligence and psychological capital to employee's attachment with sample used is 99 employees of PT. Fajar Lestari Sejati, Jakarta. To analyze the data using SPSS version 23.0 for windows. Based on the results of the analysis shows that emotional intelligence style (X1) has an influence on employee's (Y) attachment with a value of 0.000; psychological capital (X2) has an effect on employee engagement (Y) with a value of 0.024; emotional intelligence and psychological capital affect simultaneously to employee engagement with a 0.000 significance. Keywords: Emotional intelligence, psychological capital, employee engagement
Emerging fungal infections in immunocompromised patients

Invasive fungal infections are infections of importance and are increasing in incidence in immunocompromised hosts such as patients who have had hematopoietic stem cell and solid organ transplants. Despite our expanded antifungal armamentarium, these infections cause considerable morbidity and mortality. Indeed, certain trends have emerged in these invasive fungal infections: a rise in the incidence of invasive mold infections, an increase in the non-albicans strains of Candida spp. causing invasive disease and, finally, the emergence of less susceptible fungal strains that are resistant to the broader-spectrum antifungal agents due to overutilization of these agents. Clinicians must recognize the patient groups that are potentially at risk for these invasive fungal infections, as well as the risk factors for such infections. By using more sensitive nonculture-based diagnostic techniques, appropriate therapy may be initiated earlier to enhance survival in these immunocompromised patient populations.
Synthesizing Virtual Oscillators to Control Islanded Inverters

Virtual oscillator control (VOC) is a decentralized control strategy for islanded microgrids where inverters are regulated to emulate the dynamics of weakly nonlinear oscillators. Compared to droop control, which is only well defined in sinusoidal steady state, VOC is a time-domain controller that enables interconnected inverters to stabilize arbitrary initial conditions to a synchronized sinusoidal limit cycle. However, the nonlinear oscillators that are elemental to VOC cannot be designed with conventional linear-control design methods. We address this challenge by applying averaging- and perturbation-based nonlinear analysis methods to extract the sinusoidal steady-state and harmonic behavior of such oscillators. The averaged models reveal conclusive links between real- and reactive-power outputs and the terminal-voltage dynamics. Similarly, the perturbation methods aid in quantifying higher order harmonics. The resultant models are then leveraged to formulate a design procedure for VOC such that the inverter satisfies standard ac performance specifications related to voltage regulation, frequency regulation, dynamic response, and harmonic content. Experimental results for a single-phase 750 VA, 120 V laboratory prototype demonstrate the validity of the design approach. They also demonstrate that droop laws are, in fact, embedded within the equilibria of the nonlinear-oscillator dynamics. This establishes the backward compatibility of VOC in that, while acting on time-domain waveforms, it subsumes droop control in sinusoidal steady state.
Generalizability of a Diabetes-Associated Country-Specific Exploratory Dietary Pattern Is Feasible Across European Populations

ABSTRACT Background Population-specificity of exploratory dietary patterns limits their generalizability in investigations with type 2 diabetes incidence. Objective The aim of this study was to derive country-specific exploratory dietary patterns, investigate their association with type 2 diabetes incidence, and replicate diabetes-associated dietary patterns in other countries. Methods Dietary intake data were used, assessed by country-specific questionnaires at baseline of 11,183 incident diabetes cases and 14,694 subcohort members (mean age 52.9 y) from 8 countries, nested within the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition study (mean follow-up time 6.9 y). Exploratory dietary patterns were derived by principal component analysis. HRs for incident type 2 diabetes were calculated by Prentice-weighted Cox proportional hazard regression models. Diabetes-associated dietary patterns were simplified or replicated to be applicable in other countries. A meta-analysis across all countries evaluated the generalizability of the diabetes-association. Results Two dietary patterns per country/UK-center, of which overall 3 dietary patterns were diabetes-associated, were identified. A risk-lowering French dietary pattern was not confirmed across other countries: pooled HRFrance per 1 SD: 1.00; 95% CI: 0.90, 1.10. Risk-increasing dietary patterns, derived in Spain and UK-Norfolk, were confirmed, but only the latter statistically significantly: HRSpain: 1.09; 95% CI: 0.97, 1.22 and HRUK-Norfolk: 1.12; 95% CI: 1.04, 1.20. Respectively, this dietary pattern was characterized by relatively high intakes of potatoes, processed meat, vegetable oils, sugar, cake and cookies, and tea. Conclusions Only few country/center-specific dietary patterns (3 of 18) were statistically significantly associated with diabetes incidence in this multicountry European study population. One pattern, whose association with diabetes was confirmed across other countries, showed overlaps in the food groups potatoes and processed meat with identified diabetes-associated dietary patterns from other studies. The study demonstrates that replication of associations of exploratory patterns with health outcomes is feasible and a necessary step to overcome population-specificity in associations from such analyses.
A leave-p-out based estimation of the proportion of null hypotheses

In the multiple testing context, a challenging problem is the estimation of the proportion �0 of true-null hypotheses. A large number of estimators of this quantity rely on identifiability assumptions that either appear to be violated on real data, or may be at least relaxed. Under independence, we propose an estimator b0 based on density estimation using both histograms and cross-validation. Due to the strong connection between the false discovery rate (FDR) and �0, many multiple testing procedures (MTP) designed to control the FDR may be improved by introducing an estimator of �0. We provide an example of such an improvement (plug-in MTP) based on the procedure of Benjamini and Hochberg. Asymptotic optimality results may be derived for both b0 and the resulting plug-in procedure. The latter ensures the desired asymptotic control of the FDR, while it is more powerful than the BH-procedure. Finally, we compare our estimator of �0 with other widespread estimators in a wide range of simulations. We obtain better results than other tested methods in terms of mean square error (MSE) of the proposed estimator. Finally, both asymptotic optimality results and the interest in tightly estimating �0 are confirmed (empirically) by results obtained with the plug-in MTP.
Supportive communication is associated with markers of immunocompetence

ABSTRACT Previous studies have determined that the perception or receipt of social support is correlated with several health outcomes including enhanced immunocompetence. In comparison, fewer studies have examined the effects that the expression of social support has on individuals. Among those studies that have assessed the expression of support, most have examined the deleterious effects on personal health associated with providing long-term care for a partner with a serious illness. On the basis of affection exchange theory, the present study examined the hypothesis that, in non-distressed relationships, the expression of support is associated with immunological health. Thirty-nine healthy adults completed questionnaires designed to assess their levels of expressed and received social support. Afterward, all participants completed a blood draw to assess immunological outcomes. The expression of support was positively associated with six of eight immunological outcomes assessed. Additional analyses revealed that four of those relationships remained significant while controlling for the effects of received support. The results add to our understanding of the dyadic processes involved in the expression of social support and confirm affection exchange theory’s assertion that the expression of support is beneficial to individuals’ relational and physical health.
Biotic resistance to plant invasions? Native herbivores prefer non-native plants.

In contrast to expectations of the enemy release hypothesis, but consistent with the notion of biotic resistance, we found that native generalist crayfishes preferred exotic over native freshwater plants by a 3 : 1 ratio when plants were paired by taxonomic relatedness. Native crayfishes also preferred exotic over native plants when tested across 57 native and 15 exotic plants found growing sympatrically at 11 sites throughout the southeastern USA. Exotic grass carp that share little evolutionary history with most of these plants exhibited no preference for native vs. exotic species. Analyses of three terrestrial data sets showed similar patterns, with native herbivores generally preferring exotic plants, while exotic herbivores rarely exhibited a preference. Thus, exotic plants may escape their coevolved herbivores only to be preferentially consumed by the native generalist herbivores in their new ranges, suggesting that native herbivores may provide biotic resistance to plant invasions.
Assessing Early Literacy Growth in Preschoolers Using Individual Growth and Development Indicators

Evidence of longitudinal relations between language and early literacy skills in early childhood and later reading (and other) achievement is growing, along with an expanding array of early education programs designed to improve later academic outcomes and prevent, reduce, or close later academic achievement gaps across groups. Assessment systems to support this intervention have been developed, but to date we have little evidence of these systems’ outcomes when used at a broad scale in community-based preschool programs. For this broad purpose, two research questions were addressed: (a) How much progress do children make on language and early literacy skills over the course of one school year? and (b) What is the relationship between child characteristics, baseline performance, and growth on language and early literacy skills? Results indicated growth over time for all measures and relations between child age, gender, and free-or-reduced-price status and students’ performance at the beginning of the school year, but (with one exception) no relation between these covariates and growth over time. Discussion centers on current status of language and early literacy assessment in early childhood education as well as needs and issues to be addressed in future research and program development.
Bayesian Nonparametric Modeling for Multivariate Ordinal Regression

ABSTRACT Univariate or multivariate ordinal responses are often assumed to arise from a latent continuous parametric distribution, with covariate effects that enter linearly. We introduce a Bayesian nonparametric modeling approach for univariate and multivariate ordinal regression, which is based on mixture modeling for the joint distribution of latent responses and covariates. The modeling framework enables highly flexible inference for ordinal regression relationships, avoiding assumptions of linearity or additivity in the covariate effects. In standard parametric ordinal regression models, computational challenges arise from identifiability constraints and estimation of parameters requiring nonstandard inferential techniques. A key feature of the nonparametric model is that it achieves inferential flexibility, while avoiding these difficulties. In particular, we establish full support of the nonparametric mixture model under fixed cut-off points that relate through discretization the latent continuous responses with the ordinal responses. The practical utility of the modeling approach is illustrated through application to two datasets from econometrics, an example involving regression relationships for ozone concentration, and a multirater agreement problem. Supplementary materials with technical details on theoretical results and on computation are available online.
Endothelial cell injury and coagulation system activation during synergistic hepatotoxicity from monocrotaline and bacterial lipopolysaccharide coexposure.

A small, noninjurious dose of bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS; 7.4 x 106 EU/kg) administered 4 h after a small, nontoxic dose of monocrotaline (MCT; 100 mg/kg) produces synergistic hepatotoxicity in rats within 6 to 12 h after MCT exposure. The resulting centrilobular (CL) and midzonal (MZ) liver lesions are characterized by hepatic parenchymal cell (HPC) necrosis. Pronounced hemorrhage, disruption of sinusoidal architecture, and loss of central vein intima suggest that an additional component to injury may be the liver vasculature. In the present investigation, the hypothesis that sinusoidal endothelial cell (SEC) injury and coagulation system activation occur in this model was tested. Plasma hyaluronic acid (HA) concentration, a biomarker for SEC injury, was significantly increased in cotreated animals before the onset of HPC injury and remained elevated through the time of maximal HPC injury (i.e., 18 h). SEC injury was confirmed by immunohistochemistry and electron microscopy. Pyrrolic metabolites were produced from MCT by SECs in vitro, which suggests that MCT may injure SECs directly through the formation of its toxic metabolite, monocrotaline pyrrole. Inasmuch as SEC activation and injury can promote hemostasis, activation of the coagulation system was evaluated. Coagulation system activation, as marked by a decrease in plasma fibrinogen, occurred before the onset of HPC injury. Furthermore, extensive fibrin deposition was observed immunohistochemically within CL and MZ regions after MCT/LPS cotreatment. Taken together, these results suggest that SEC injury and coagulation system activation are components of the synergistic liver injury resulting from MCT and LPS coexposure.