Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An analytical optimization algorithm based on quantum computing embedded into evolutionary algorithm

Optimization is one of the most primary jobs of all the engineering problems. We are fortunate to have blessed with scores of methods available for optimization purpose. Evolutionary algorithm is fast becoming one of the most sought after methods for this purpose. This method depends upon random moves. So sometimes the time consumed by this algorithm is much more than expected. With an aim to get rid of this problem, in this paper we propose an entirely new approach of evolutionary algorithm based on quantum computing. A quantum evolutionary algorithm can be termed as a concept which utilizes certain tools of quantum computing for search and optimization purposes. A quantum algorithm relies heavily on qubits and quantum gates. Qubits are the entities which actually contain information in quantum computing. They can either remain in a secluded state or a superposition of two or more qubits states. When they are in a superposition state we employ the concepts of probability to predict where they can actually be found. On the other hand quantum gates utilize qubits to achieve some predefined goals. These predefined goals in case of an optimization problem are to maximize or minimize some sort of objective function. This paper proposes a novel evolutionary algorithm employing quantum computing to address optimization problems. We have tested our algorithm on a famous problem known as Gear Train Design Problem. The results so obtained outperform the classical optimization methods.
Effect of Sensors on the Reliability and Control Performance of Power Circuits in the Web of Things (WoT)

In order to realize a true WoT environment, a reliable power circuit is required to ensure interconnections among a range of WoT devices. This paper presents research on sensors and their effects on the reliability and response characteristics of power circuits in WoT devices. The presented research can be used in various power circuit applications, such as energy harvesting interfaces, photovoltaic systems, and battery management systems for the WoT devices. As power circuits rely on the feedback from voltage/current sensors, the system performance is likely to be affected by the sensor failure rates, sensor dynamic characteristics, and their interface circuits. This study investigated how the operational availability of the power circuits is affected by the sensor failure rates by performing a quantitative reliability analysis. In the analysis process, this paper also includes the effects of various reconstruction and estimation techniques used in power processing circuits (e.g., energy harvesting circuits and photovoltaic systems). This paper also reports how the transient control performance of power circuits is affected by sensor interface circuits. With the frequency domain stability analysis and circuit simulation, it was verified that the interface circuit dynamics may affect the transient response characteristics of power circuits. The verification results in this paper showed that the reliability and control performance of the power circuits can be affected by the sensor types, fault tolerant approaches against sensor failures, and the response characteristics of the sensor interfaces. The analysis results were also verified by experiments using a power circuit prototype.
Linguistic Relativity

Article descriptor: Languages differ dramatically from one another in terms of how they describe the world. Does having different ways of describing the world lead speakers of different languages also to have different ways of thinking about the world? DOES LANGUAGE SHAPE THOUGHT? 0567.001 Humans communicate with one another using an astonishing array of languages, and each language differs from the next in innumerable ways (from obvious differences in pronunciation and vocabulary to more subtle differences in grammar). For example, to say that`the elephant ate the peanuts' in English, we must include tense ± the fact that the event happened in the past. In Mandarin and Indonesian , indicating when the event occurred would be optional and couldn't be included in the verb. In Russian, the verb would need to include tense and also whether the peanut-eater was male or female (though only in the past tense), and whether said peanut-eater ate all of the peanuts or just a portion of them. In Turkish, on the other hand, one would specify (as a suffix on the verb) whether the eating of the peanuts was witnessed or if it was hearsay. It appears that speakers of different languages have to attend to and encode strikingly different aspects of the world in order to use their language properly (Sapir, 1921; Slobin, 1996). Do these quirks of languages affect the way their speakers think about the world? Do English, Mandarin, Russian, and Turkish speakers end up attending to, partitioning, and remembering their experiences differently simply because they speak different languages? The idea that thought is shaped by language is most commonly associated with the writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf (Whorf, 1956). Whorf, impressed by linguistic diversity, proposed that the categories and distinctions of each language enshrine a way of perceiving, analyzing, and acting in the world. In so far as languages differ, their speakers too should differ in how they perceive and act in objectively similar situations. This strong Whorfian view ± that thought and action are entirely determined by language ± has long been abandoned in the field. However, definitively answering less deterministic versions of thèdoes language shape thought' question has proven to be a very difficult task. Some studies have claimed evidence to the affirmative (e. In recent years, research on linguistic relativity has enjoyed a considerable resurgence, and much new evidence regarding the effects of language on thought has become …
Empirical study of particle swarm optimization

We empirically study the performance of the particle swarm optimizer (PSO). Four different benchmark functions with asymmetric initial range settings are selected as testing functions. The experimental results illustrate the advantages and disadvantages of the PSO. Under all the testing cases, the PSO always converges very quickly towards the optimal positions but may slow its convergence speed when it is near a minimum. Nevertheless, the experimental results show that the PSO is a promising optimization method and a new approach is suggested to improve PSO's performance near the optima, such as using an adaptive inertia weight.
Intelligibility-enhancing speech modifications: the hurricane challenge

Speech output is used extensively, including in situations where correct message reception is threatened by adverse listening conditions. Recently, there has been a growing interest in algorithmic modifications that aim to increase the intelligibility of both natural and synthetic speech when presented in noise. The Hurricane Challenge is the first large-scale open evaluation of algorithms designed to enhance speech intelligibility. Eighteen systems operating on a common data set were subjected to extensive listening tests and compared to unmodified natural and text-to-speech (TTS) baselines. The best-performing systems achieved gains over unmodified natural speech of 4.4 and 5.1 dB in competing speaker and stationary noise respectively, while TTS systems made gains of 5.6 and 5.1 dB over their baseline. Surprisingly, for most conditions the largest gains were observed for noise-independent algorithms, suggesting that performance in this task can be further improved by exploiting information in the masking signal.
Chlamydial infection and progression of carotid atherosclerosis in patients on regular haemodialysis.

BACKGROUND Recent findings have suggested a possible contribution of chlamydial infection to the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis in the general population. However, the role that chlamydial antibody status plays in atherosclerosis generation in haemodialysis (HD) patients remains uncertain. METHODS We measured carotid artery intima medial thickness (IMT) over 4 years in 100 HD subjects (age: 58+/-10 years; time on HD: 13+/-7 years; male/female: 67/33) and examined potential associations between Chlamydia pneumoniae (Cp) antibody seropositivity and changes in carotid artery IMT. RESULTS During 4 years, carotid artery IMT increased significantly from 0.62+/-0.13 to 0.73+/-0.12 mm (P< 0.01). IMT progression was significantly and positively correlated with age (r = 0.37, P<0.01), log-transformed C-reactive protein (CRP; r = 0.33, P<0.01) and log-transformed interleukin-6 (IL-6; r = 0.22, P<0.04), but inversely correlated with blood creatinine (r = -0.36, P<0.01) and albumin (r = -0.24, P<0.02). IMT increases were more prominent in patients positive for IgA antibodies (0.039+/- 0.022 mm/year, n = 52) compared with those without IgA antibodies (0.025+/-0.032 mm/year, n = 48) (P<0.01). IgA seropositivity did not accelerate IMT progression in patients with increased CRP (>0.11 mg/dl, n = 53), but significantly increased IMT to a greater extent in IgA-positive subjects than in IgA-negative subjects having lower CRP (</=0.11 mg/dl, n = 47) (0.017+/-0.024 vs 0.034+/- 0.021 mm/year; P = 0.01). Multivariate regression analysis revealed that serum creatinine, log-transformed CRP and IgA Cp seropositivity were independent risk factors for IMT progression (P<0.01). In contrast, IgG Cp antibody did not affect IMT progression or carotid plaque formation. CONCLUSIONS IMT progression is associated with inflammation and malnutrition. In addition, persistent chlamydial infection may be associated with IMT progression, but only in HD patients having low blood CRP.
Intensity Gamma: A New Approach to Pricing Portfolio Credit Derivatives

We develop a completely new model for correlation of credit defaults based on a financially intuitive concept of business time similar to that in the Variance Gamma model for stock price evolution. Solving a simple equation calibrates each name to its credit spread curve and we show that the overall model can be calibrated to the market base correlation curve of a tranched CDO index. Once this calibration is performed, obtaining consistent arbitrage-free prices for non-standard tranches, products based on different underlying names and even more exotic products such as CDO2 is straightforward and rapid.
LBS Research Online

This paper studies the equilibrium term structure of nominal and real interest rates and time-varying bond risk premia implied by a stochastic endogenous growth model with imperfect price adjustment. The production and price-setting decisions of ﬁrms drive low-frequency movements in growth and inﬂation rates that are negatively related. With recursive preferences, these growth and inﬂation dynamics are crucial for rationalizing key stylized facts in bond markets. When calibrated to macroeconomic data, the model quantitatively explains the means and volatilities of nominal bond yields and the failure of the expectations hypothesis.
Entropy-Based Evaluation of Context Models for Wavelet-Transformed Images

Entropy is a measure of a message uncertainty. Among others aspects, it serves to determine the minimum coding rate that practical systems may attain. This paper defines an entropy-based measure to evaluate context models employed in wavelet-based image coding. The proposed measure is defined considering the mechanisms utilized by modern coding systems. It establishes the maximum performance achievable with each context model. This helps to determine the adequateness of the model under different coding conditions and serves to predict with high precision the coding rate achieved by practical systems. Experimental results evaluate four well-known context models using different types of images, coding rates, and transform strategies. They reveal that, under specific coding conditions, some widely-spread context models may not be as adequate as it is generally thought. The hints provided by this analysis may help to design simpler and more efficient wavelet-based image codecs.
Okul Öncesi Dönem Çocuklarının Değer Algılarının Çizdikleri Resimler ve Sözlü Anlatımlarına Göre İncelenmesi: Sorumluluk Değeri Örneği

Preschool period is an important period when the first knowledge, first skills and first values are acquired concerning life. Knowledge, skills and values that are acquired in this period form the basis of an individual’s future life and learnings. “Responsibility” is involved as a value in different “value” classifications and researches. The objective of this study is to examine the “value” perceptions of preschool children via drawings, expressions of children and interviews conducted with children on the basis of the sample of “responsibility” value. The study included 60 children from the age groups of three, four and five, who were attending a nursery school in a city center of the Central Black Sea Region. The data of this study, which was conducted in the phenomenologic pattern that is among qualitative research patterns, were collected via draw and express technique. Children who participated in the study were given crayons and drawing papers and they were asked to draw a picture about responsibility value. After completing their drawings, children were taken into personal interviews where they were asked to express their drawings. Personal interviews were conducted with five children from every age group and totally 15 children. Interviews with children were recorded with a tape recorder. The study data were analyzed with descriptive analysis and content analysis methods. As a result of the study, it was determined that children from all age groups drew pictures about “responsibility” value; however, three-year-old children mainly scribbled. This result shows a consistency with children’s line-drawing development. It was observed that children aged four and five generally drew themes concerning the responsibilities of helping their mother and father, taking care of plants/flowers, feeding animals and self-care. Five-year-old children were observed to involve a higher number of details in their drawings and verbal expressions than other children. Children’s drawings and verbal expressions showed that they all had a positive perception about “responsibility” value.
Significance of sonographic tissue and surface characteristics of carotid plaques.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Our hypothesis was that symptomatic and asymptomatic carotid plaques are different. The aim of this study was to identify the sonographic tissue and surface characteristics of plaques and their degree of stenosis that corresponded to these two clinical presentations. METHODS We studied 81 symptomatic and 111 asymptomatic plaques (150 patients) having 50% to 99% stenosis on duplex scanning. These plaques were imaged on duplex and captured in a computer. We evaluated the gray-scale median (GSM) to distinguish hypoechoic (low GSM) from hyperechoic (high GSM) plaques, and the bending energy (BE), to distinguish plaques with irregular (high BE) versus smooth (low BE) surfaces. RESULTS The symptomatic group corresponded to hypoechoic (median GSM, 4) and severely stenosed (median stenosis, 85%) plaques, whereas the asymptomatic group corresponded to hyperechoic (median GSM, 35) and moderately stenosed (median stenosis, 70%) plaques (P <.05 for both variables). The BE failed to separate the two groups; the mean BEs were 1.63 and 1.68 for the symptomatic and asymptomatic groups, respectively (P =.38). CONCLUSION Our results suggest that echogenic characteristics and the degree of stenosis are the strongest predictors of carotid plaque behavior. The sonographic surface characteristics failed to qualify as an index of plaque instability.
An IC-PLS Framework for Group Corticomuscular Coupling Analysis

Corticomuscular coupling analysis, i.e., examining the relations between simultaneously recorded brain (e.g., electroencephalography-EEG) and muscle (e.g., electro-myography-EMG) signals, is a useful tool for understanding aspects of human motor control. Traditionally, the most popular method to assess corticomuscular coupling has been the pairwise magnitude-squared coherence (MSC) between EEG and concomitant EMG recordings. In this paper, we propose assessing corticomuscular coupling by combining partial least squares (PLS) and independent component analysis (ICA), which addresses many of the limitations of MSC, such as difficulty in robustly assessing group inference and relying on the biologically implausible assumption of pairwise interaction between brain and muscle recordings. In the proposed framework, response relevance and statistical independence are jointly incorporated into a multiobjective optimization function to meaningfully combine the goals of PLS and ICA under the same mathematical umbrella. Simulations, performed under realistic assumptions, illustrated the utility of such an approach. The method was extended to address intersubject variability to robustly discover common corticomuscular coupling patterns across subjects. We then applied the proposed framework to concurrent EEG and EMG data collected in a Parkinson's disease (PD) study. The results from applying the proposed technique revealed temporal components in the EEG and EMG that were significantly correlated with one another. In addition to the expected motor areas, the corresponding spatial activation patterns demonstrated enhanced occipital connectivity in PD subjects, consistent with previous studies suggesting that PD subjects rely excessively on visual information to counteract the deficiency in being able to generate internal commands from their affected basal ganglia.
Development of a controlled-release anti-parkinsonian nanodelivery system using levodopa as the active agent

A new layered organic–inorganic nanocomposite material with an anti-parkinsonian active compound, L-3-(3,4-dihydroxyphenyl) alanine (levodopa), intercalated into the inorganic interlayers of a Zn/Al-layered double hydroxide (LDH) was synthesized using a direct coprecipitation method. The resulting nanocomposite was composed of the organic moiety, levodopa, sandwiched between Zn/Al-LDH inorganic interlayers. The basal spacing of the resulting nano-composite was 10.9 Å. The estimated loading of levodopa in the nanocomposite was approximately 16% (w/w). A Fourier transform infrared study showed that the absorption bands of the nanocomposite were characteristic of both levodopa and Zn/Al-LDH, which further confirmed intercalation, and that the intercalated organic moiety in the nanocomposite was more thermally stable than free levodopa. The resulting nanocomposite showed sustained-release properties, so can be used in a controlled-release formulation. Cytotoxicity analysis using an MTT assay also showed increased cell viability of 3T3 cells exposed to the newly synthesized nanocomposite compared with those exposed to pure levodopa after 72 hours of exposure.
Exemplarising the origin of a science: a path to genetics (from Mendel to Bateson)

This thesis aims to propose and defend a new way of analysing and understanding the origin of genetics (from Mendel to Bateson). Traditionally philosophers used to analyse the history of genetics in terms of theories. However, I will argue that this theory-based approach is highly problematic. In Chapter 1, I shall critically review the theory-driven approach to analysisng the history of genetics and diagnose its problems. In Chapter 2, inspired by Kuhn’s concept “exemplar”, I shall make a new interpretation of exemplar and introduce an exemplar-based approach. Before introducing my exemplar-based analysis, I find it necessary to scrutinise the origin of genetics from Mendel to Bateson. In Chapter 3, I shall reinterpret Mendel’s work on Pisum by re-examining Mendel’s paper (1865) and its historical research context. In Chapter 4, by carefully examining the conceptual changes, I argue that the rediscovery event in 1900 should be better characterised as attempts of incorporating Mendel’s work with the work of “rediscoverers” (i.e. de Vries, Correns, Tschermak, and Bateson) rather than a mere reintroduction to Mendel’s work. In Chapter 5, I shall use the exemplar-based approach to analysing and interpreting the origin of genetics from Mendel to Bateson. In Chapter 6, I shall defend my exemplar-based characterisation of the origin of genetics by dismissing the potential responses from the theory-driven one, critically examining a potential mechanism-based analysis, and making the further notes on the implication of taking the exemplar-based approach to investigate scientific practice.
Identities and Positivity Conjectures for some remarkable Operators in the Theory of Symmetric Functions

Abstract. Let Jμ[X; q, t] be the integral form of the Macdonald polynomial and set Hμ[X; q, t] = tJμ[X/(1− 1/t); q, 1/t ], where n(μ) = ∑ i(i− 1)μi. This paper focusses on the linear operator ∇ defined by setting ∇Hμ = tq ′)Hμ. This operator occurs naturally in the study of the Garsia-Haiman modules Mμ. It was originally introduced by the first two authors to give elegant expressions to Frobenius characteristics of intersections of these modules (see [3]). However, it was soon discovered that it plays a powerful and ubiquitous role throughout the theory of Macdonald polynomials. Our main result here is a proof that ∇ acts integrally on symmetric functions. An important corollary of this result is the Schur integrality of the conjectured Frobenius characteristic of the Diagonal Harmonic polynomials [11]. Another curious aspect of ∇ is that it appears to encode a q, t-analogue of Lagrange inversion. In particular, its specialization at t = 1 (or q = 1) reduces to the q-analogue of Lagrange inversion studied by Andrews [1], Garsia [7] and Gessel [17]. We present here a number of positivity conjectures that have emerged in the few years since ∇ has been discovered. We also prove a number of identities in support of these conjectures and state some of the results that illustrate the power of ∇ within the Theory of Macdonald polynomials.
The influence of health care financing systems on health outcomes : Are nations with a greater share of public health care healthier?

This thesis investigates the relationship between health care financing systems and cross-national health outcomes. For this purpose, health care financing systems are defined along three dimensions: a) total expenditures on health, b) public-private mix, and c) tax-financing vs. social insurance contributions. Based on various theoretical foundations, it is argued that public health care will increase equality of health care utilization. A panel analysis of the 30 OECD member states during the time period 1999 to 2005 finds that among these three dimensions the share of taxes in public health care expenditure is most strongly associated with higher life expectancy and lower premature mortality. Controls for other important health inputs like environment, education, lifestyle, demographics, and income have been included. Findings on the impact of a higher share of publicly financed health care differ for the two outcome indicators but suggest a positive correlation, while total expenditure on health has no systematic influence in this sample.
Visual selectivity for heading in the macaque ventral intraparietal 3 area 4 5 6

2 Visual selectivity for heading in the macaque ventral intraparietal 3 area 4 5 6 Andre Kaminiarz , Anja Schlack , Klaus–Peter Hoffmann , Markus Lappe 3 & Frank 7 Bremmer 1 8 9 1. AG Neurophysik, University of Marburg, Karl-v-Frisch Str. 8a, D-35043 Marburg, 10 Germany 11 2. Allg. Zoologie und Neurobiologie, University of Bochum, D–44780 Bochum, Germany 12 3. Institut für Psychologie , University of Muenster, Fliednerstr. 21, D-48149 Münster, 13 Germany 14 15 16 Running head: Heading selectivity in area VIP 17 18 19 Address for Correspondence: 20 Frank Bremmer 21 Dept. Neurophysics 22 University of Marburg 23 Karl-v-Frisch Str. 8a 24 D-35043 MARBURG, Germany 25 Tel. : +49 6421 28 24160 26 FAX: +49 6421 28 24168 27 Email: frank.bremmer@physik.uni-marburg.de 28 29 30 Articles in PresS. J Neurophysiol (August 13, 2014). doi:10.1152/jn.00410. 2014