Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
On Convergence and Bias Correction of a Joint Estimation Algorithm for Multiple Sinusoidal Frequencies

Twenty years ago, Kay proposed an iterative filtering algorithm (IFA) for jointly estimating the frequencies of multiple complex sinusoids from noisy observations. IFA is based on the fact that the noiseless signal is an autoregressive (AR) process, so the frequency estimation problem can be reformulated as the problem of estimating the AR coefficients. By iterating the cycle of AR coefficient estimation and AR filtering, IFA provides a computationally simple procedure yet capable of accurate frequency estimation especially at low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). However, the convergence of IFA has not been established beyond simulation and a very special case of a single frequency and infinite sample size. This article provides a statistical analysis of the algorithm and makes several important contributions. It shows that the poles of the AR filter must be reduced by an extra shrinkage parameter to accommodate poor initial values and avoid being trapped into false solutions. It also shows that the AR estimates in each iteration must be bias-corrected to produce a more accurate frequency estimator; a closed-form expression is provided for bias correction. Finally, it shows that for a sufficiently large sample size, the resulting algorithm, called new IFA (NIFA), converges to the desired fixed point, which constitutes a consistent frequency estimator. Numerical examples, including a real data example in radar applications, are provided to demonstrate the findings. It is shown in particular that the shrinkage parameter not only controls the estimation accuracy, but also determines the requirements of initial values. It is also shown that the proposed bias-correction method considerably improves the estimation accuracy, especially for high SNR.
The Politics of Educational Reform in Alberta

The Politics of Educational Reform in Alberta presents a case study of educational restructuring in Alberta during the 'Klein revolution' - the period of dramatic political and economic change introduced by Premier Ralph Klein's Conservative government of the 1990s. The government's 1994 business plan introduced funding cuts in education, the amalgamation of school boards, the centralization of funding, charter school legislation, expanded provincial testing, and mandatory school councils. The buzzwords for education reform were efficiency, accountability, and choice. Alison Taylor rigorously examines Klein's 'three-year plan' of school reform to unveil the ways in which the Alberta government allied itself with corporate interests. She also examines what happens to the voices of teachers, parents and labour groups who have a different idea of what school should be. The Politics of Educational Reform in Alberta is a timely and much-needed book. This multi-faceted view of corporate involvement in schooling will be invaluable to policy makers, educators, academics, journalists, and concerned parents.
Comparative assessment of the apoptotic potential of silver nanoparticles synthesized by Bacillus tequilensis and Calocybe indica in MDA-MB-231 human breast cancer cells: targeting p53 for anticancer therapy

Background Recently, the use of nanotechnology has been expanding very rapidly in diverse areas of research, such as consumer products, energy, materials, and medicine. This is especially true in the area of nanomedicine, due to physicochemical properties, such as mechanical, chemical, magnetic, optical, and electrical properties, compared with bulk materials. The first goal of this study was to produce silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) using two different biological resources as reducing agents, Bacillus tequilensis and Calocybe indica. The second goal was to investigate the apoptotic potential of the as-prepared AgNPs in breast cancer cells. The final goal was to investigate the role of p53 in the cellular response elicited by AgNPs. Methods The synthesis and characterization of AgNPs were assessed by various analytical techniques, including ultraviolet-visible (UV-vis) spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, dynamic light scattering (DLS), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The apoptotic efficiency of AgNPs was confirmed using a series of assays, including cell viability, leakage of lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), production of reactive oxygen species (ROS), DNA fragmentation, mitochondrial membrane potential, and Western blot. Results The absorption spectrum of the yellow AgNPs showed the presence of nanoparticles. XRD and FTIR spectroscopy results confirmed the crystal structure and biomolecules involved in the synthesis of AgNPs. The AgNPs derived from bacteria and fungi showed distinguishable shapes, with an average size of 20 nm. Cell viability assays suggested a dose-dependent toxic effect of AgNPs, which was confirmed by leakage of LDH, activation of ROS, and terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase dUTP nick end labeling (TUNEL)-positive cells in MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells. Western blot analyses revealed that AgNPs induce cellular apoptosis via activation of p53, p-Erk1/2, and caspase-3 signaling, and downregulation of Bcl-2. Cells pretreated with pifithrin-alpha were protected from p53-mediated AgNPs-induced toxicity. Conclusion We have demonstrated a simple approach for the synthesis of AgNPs using the novel strains B. tequilensis and C. indica, as well as their mechanism of cell death in a p53-dependent manner in MDA-MB-231 human breast cancer cells. The present findings could provide insight for the future development of a suitable anticancer drug, which may lead to the development of novel nanotherapeutic molecules for the treatment of cancers.
Generalization in Evolutionary Learning

10 Generalization in Evolutionary Learning the Woods2 problem, though not in the multiplexer problems, as anticipated by consideration of generalization symmetries present in the latter and not in the former. The second change, subsumption deletion, was found to be strongly effective in both kinds of problems. Our conclusion is that both techniques belong in XCS, and together tend to bring XCS quite close to the point of evolving populations consisting of accurate, maximally general, near-minimal covers of task environments , along with a residue of other classifiers of very low fitness. An experiment employing the changed XCS on the 6-, 11-, and 20-multiplexers suggested that as a result of XCS's generalization ability, the learning complexity of these problems is polynomial in the number of generalizations or DNF terms in the multiplexer formula, and polynomial in the input length, thus avoiding in this case the " curse of dimen-sionality ". The results strongly support Holland's hypothesis that it is possible to base learning on evolutionary mechanisms. The ability to detect and represent environmental equivalences—to generalize accurately—is indispensable to creatures both natural and artificial. XCS appears to do this with tractable time and space complexity, and without needing, or being constrained by, pre-existing structure—classifiers simply evolve to suit the problem and its regularities. Many issues remain: real-valued input vectors and incorporation of internal state are two examples. But, in artifical life, the way is open, via XCS, to extend the evolutionary par-digm from phylogenetic adaptation to adaptation in on-togeny—learning. References Barto, A. G. (1985). Learning by statistical cooperation of self-interested neuron-like computing elements. 000###:0 is an accurate maximal generalization, then the classifier 000###:1 is also an accurate maximal generalization , albeit predicting a different payoff than the first. Thus the Woods2 and multiplexer results are consistent with the theory presented in Section 4.1, and indicate that, in general, it is better to do the GA in the action sets. 5.2. 2 Complexity indications Incorporating the two improvements in XCS, we redid the multiplexers for the classic task in which payoff is 1000 for the correct answer and 0 for the wrong answer; that is, a finite payoff for correct and nothing for incorrect. This is the payoff schedule usually associated with the problem. Our objective was to produce a benchmark for future comparisons, and to estimate the rate of growth of difficulty for XCS as problem size increased. The experiments were carried out …
Perinatal factors associated with neonatal thyroid-stimulating hormone in normal newborns

Purpose This study was to evaluate the effect of neonatal, maternal, and delivery factors on neonatal thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) of healthy newborns. Methods Medical records of 705 healthy infants born through normal vaginal delivery were reviewed. Neonatal TSH levels obtained by neonatal screening tests were analyzed in relation to perinatal factors and any associations with free thyroxine (FT4) and 17-α hydroxyprogesterone (17OHP) levels. Results An inverse relationship was found between TSH and sampling time after birth. Twin babies and neonates born by vacuum-assisted delivery had higher TSH levels than controls. First babies had higher TSH levels than subsequent babies. Birth weight, gestational age, maternal age and duration from the rupture of the membrane to birth were not related to neonatal TSH. There were no significant differences in TSH level according to sex, Apgar scores, labor induction, the presence of maternal disease and maternal medications. There was a positive association between TSH and 17OHP level but not between TSH and FT4 level. Multiple linear regression analyses showed that sampling time, mode of delivery, birth order, and 17OHP level were significant factors affecting neonatal TSH level. Conclusion Neonatal TSH levels of healthy normal newborns are related with multiple factors. Acute stress during delivery may influence the neonatal TSH level in early neonatal period.
Radiotherapy Response in Microsatellite Instability Related Rectal Cancer

Preoperative radiotherapy may improve the resectability and subsequent local control of rectal cancers. However, the extent of radiation induced regression in these tumours varies widely between individuals. To date no reliable predictive marker of radiation sensitivity in rectal cancer has been identified. At the cellular level, radiation injury initiates a complex molecular network of DNA damage response (DDR) pathways that leads to cell cycle arrest, attempts at re-constituting the damaged DNA and should this fail, then apoptosis. This review presents the details which suggest the roles of DNA mismatch repair proteins, the lack of which define a distinct subset of colorectal cancers with microsatellite instability (MSI), in the DDR pathways. Hence routine assessment of the MSI status in rectal cancers may potentially serve as a predictor of radiotherapy response, thereby improving patient stratification in the administration of this otherwise toxic treatment.
Towards a parallelization and performance optimization of Viola and Jones algorithm in heterogeneous CPU-GPU mobile system

Parallel computing on heterogeneous multiprocessor architecture is a new technique used to tackle the complexity of actual media applications. Such technique is used on an embedded architecture composed of 2ARMs coupled to a GPU. In this paper, an approach for real time Viola and Jones face detection algorithm using CPU-GPU based platform is presented. First, the application is implemented and parallelized on two identical ARM CortexA9 CPUs using tasks and data levels parallelism. This technique does not achieve the timing objectives. To ensure greater performance while reducing energy ratio, we extend our parallelization technique to support a GPU as an accelerator to perform non graphical tasks. OpenCL, the heterogeneous parallel programming model, is used to ensure communication between CPU and GPU.
Aspects of Dynamic Balance Responses: Inter- and Intra-Day Reliability

The Posturomed device is used as a scientific tool to quantify human dynamic balance ability due to unexpected perturbations, and as a training device. Consequently, the question arises whether such measurements are compromised by learning effects. Therefore, this study aimed to analyze inter- and intra-day reliability of dynamic balance responses using the Posturomed. Thirty healthy young subjects participated (24.3±3.2 years). The Posturomed was equipped with a triggering mechanism to enable unexpected, horizontal platform perturbations. A force platform was used to quantify Center of Pressure (COP) excursions for two time intervals: interval 1 (0–70 ms post perturbation) and interval 2 (71–260 ms post perturbation). Dynamic balance tests were performed in single leg stances in medio-lateral and anterior-posterior perturbation directions. Inter- and intra-day reliability were assessed descriptively using Bland-Altman plots and inferentially using tests for systematic error and intra-class-correlations. With regard to the mean COP excursions for every subject and all intervals, some cases revealed significant differences between measurement sessions, however, none were considered relevant. Furthermore, intra class correlation coefficients reflected high magnitudes, which leads to the assumption of good relative reliability. However, analyzing inter- and intra-day reliability using Bland-Altman plots revealed one exception: intra-day comparisons for the anterior-posterior direction in interval 2, which points towards possible learning effects. In summary, results reflected good overall reliability with the exception of certain intra-day comparisons in the anterior-posterior perturbation direction, which could indicate learning effects in those particular conditions.
Khovanov's conjecture over Z[c]

Khovanov homology associates to any link in three-dimensional space a bigraded chain complex of Z[c]-modules, whose graded Euler characteristic (after normalization) is the Jones polynomial of the link. The complex is invariant up to homotopy equivalence under ambient isotopy of the link. Hence, the isomorphism class of the corresponding homology module is a link invariant. If the indeterminate c is set to zero, the resulting chain complex of abelian groups is finite, and the graded Euler characteristic is still the Jones polynomial. In this thesis, we prove that these latter homology groups are functorial under link cobordism. More precisely, every link cobordism induces a group homomorphism between the homology groups of its boundary links, invariant (up to sign) under any ambient isotopy which leaves the boundary links set-wise fixed. This proves (with a necessary modification) part of a conjecture by Khovanov (Duke Math. J. 101 (1999)). We then introduce some derived invariants of link cobordisms from a link to itself. These are graded Lefschetz numbers of the induced homomorphisms above. They can be computed directly on the chain level. The Jones polynomial appears as the graded Lefschetz number of the identity cobordism. We further prove that the statement of functoriality for homology with coefficients in Z[c] is false. This disproves the rest of the above-mentioned conjecture. Finally, we provide an elementary description of the Khovanov homology of tangles.
International Trade Effects of Value Added Taxation

The actual value added tax systems used in many countries differ significantly from the completely general VAT that has been the focus of most economic analyses. In practice, VAT systems exempt broad classes of consumer goods and services. This has important implications for the effect of the VAT on international trade. A value added tax is sometimes advocated as a way of improving a country's international competitiveness because GATT rules permit the tax to be levied on imports and rebated on exports. This leads to political support for the VAT among exporters and producers of import-competing products. For a general VAT on all consumption, this argument is incorrect except in the very short run because exchange rates or domestic prices adjust to offset the effect of the tax on the relative prices of domestic and foreign goods. When prices or exchange rates have adjusted, a general value added tax will have no effect on imports and exports. In practice, the value added tax frequently exempts housing and many personal services. The VAT thus raises the price of tradeables relative to nontradeables and induces a substitution of housing and services for tradeable goods. Since this implies a reduced consumption of imported goods, it also implies a decline in exports. The most likely effect of the introduction of a VAT would thus be a decline of exports.
ESSENCE-Q – a first clinical validation study of a new screening questionnaire for young children with suspected neurodevelopmental problems in south Japan

Background Early identification of autism spectrum disorder, intellectual developmental disorder, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and other neurodevelopmental disorders/problems is crucial, yet diagnosis is often delayed for years under the often misguided “wait-and-see” paradigm. The early symptomatic syndromes eliciting neurodevelopmental clinical examinations-questionnaire (ESSENCE-Q) is a brief (12-item) screening questionnaire developed specifically for the purpose of speeding up the identification process of a wide variety of neurodevelopmental problems. The aims were to 1) estimate the reliability of the ESSENCE-Q, 2) evaluate the clinical cutoff levels suggested by the author of the ESSENCE-Q, and 3) propose optimal cutoff levels based on receiver operating characteristic analysis. Methods The ESSENCE-Q was used for 1 year by a psychiatrist in Kochi, Japan, assessing children under the age of 6 years referred for developmental problems. The children were also clinically assessed with regard to whether or not they met criteria for a developmental disorder (diagnosis positive and diagnosis negative groups). We contrasted the results of the ESSENCE-Q and those of clinical diagnostic assessments in 130 cases. Results Cronbach’s alpha was 0.82, sensitivity was 0.94 (95% confidence interval [CI]: [0.88, 0.98]), and specificity 0.53 (95% CI: [0.28, 0.77]), which are reasonable psychometrics for a first-step screening tool. Based on receiver operating characteristic analysis, we recommended an optimal cutoff level of yes ≥2 or maybe/a little ≥3 on the ESSENCE-Q (0.87 (95% CI: [0.79, 0.92]) sensitivity and 0.77 (95% CI: [0.50, 0.93]) specificity). Conclusion and implication The ESSENCE-Q can be a good instrument for use as a screening tool for aiding in the process of early identification of neurodevelopmental disorders in clinical settings. To establish the broader validity and reliability of the ESSENCE-Q, case–control studies and general population studies of children in different age groups are needed.
Gabapentin and cognition: a double blind, dose ranging, placebo controlled study in refractory epilepsy.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the effect of different doses of gabapentin (GBP) on cognitive function in treated epileptic patients. METHODS: Twenty seven patients with refractory partial seizures commenced a double blind, dose ranging, placebo controlled, crossover study of adjuvant GBP. Each treatment phase lasted three months, during which the dose of GBP or matched placebo was increased stepwise at intervals of four weeks (1200 mg/day, 1800 mg/day, and 2400 mg/day in three daily doses). Psychomotor and memory testing was carried out at the end of each four week period, at which time the patient also completed subjective measures of cognition, fatigue, worry, temper, and dysphoria. A visual analogue scale was used to assess drowsiness and a questionnaire was employed to gauge the severity of side effects. RESULTS: In the 21 patients completing the study, GBP produced a significant reduction in median monthly seizure frequency from 7 to 4.3 (P = 0.02), the decrease being most pronounced for secondarily generalised seizures (from 1.0 to 0.3, P = 0.01). Forty three per cent of patients reported a reduction in seizure frequency of at least 50% throughout all GBP doses. Mean (SD) plasma concentrations of GBP at 1200, 1800, and 2400 mg/day were 4.7 (2.6), 6.8 (3.8), and 8.6 (3.3) mg/l respectively. The drug had no effect on composite psychomotor and memory scores; nor was there alteration in any self assessment subscore. The mean drowsiness (P = 0.03) score was higher during treatment with 2400 mg GBP daily compared with matched placebo. Composite psychomotor (r = -0.47, P < 0.01), tiredness (r = 0.42, P < 0.01), and side effect (r = 0.61, P < 0.001) scores correlated significantly with seizure frequency but not with GBP dose. CONCLUSION: GBP is a well tolerated and effective antiepileptic drug which had no measurable effect on cognition but did produce sedation at the highest dose. This study also supports the suggestion that seizures can cause cognitive impairment.
Implied Volatility Indices – A Review

An implied volatility index reflects the market expectations for the future volatility of the underlying equity index. This study tests and documents the information content, regarding both the realized volatility and the returns of the underlying equity index, of all publicly available implied volatility indices across the world. The empirical findings suggest that implied volatility indices include information about future volatility beyond that contained in past volatility. In addition, we show that there is a statistically significant negative and asymmetric contemporaneous relationship between implied volatility changes and the corresponding underlying equity index returns. Furthermore, this study contributes to the international equity market integration studies by investigating the linkages among major stock exchanges; the basis of the integration analysis is the implied volatility of each market, as proxied by the corresponding implied volatility index and the findings suggest that there is significant integration with respect to market participants’ expectations about future uncertainty.
Retrospective study maxillofacial fractures epidemiology and treatment plans in Southeast of Iran

Background The epidemiology of facial injuries varies in different countries and geographic zones. Population concentration, lifestyle, cultural background, and socioeconomic status can affect the prevalence of maxillofacial injuries. Therefore, in this study, we evaluated the maxillofacial fractures epidemiology and treatment plans in hospitalized patients (2012-2014) which would be useful for better policy making strategies. Material and Methods In this retrospective study, the medical records of 386 hospitalized patients were evaluated from the department of maxillofacial surgery at Bahonar Hospital of Kerman, Iran. The type and cause of fractures and treatment plans were recorded in a checklist. For data analysis, ANOVA, t-test, Chi-square, and Fisher’s exact test were performed, using SPSS version 21. Results The majority of patients were male (76.5%). Most subjects were within the age range of 20-30 years. Fractures were mostly caused by accidents, particularly motorcycle accidents (MCAs), and the most common site of involvement was the mandible (parasymphysis). There was a significant association between the type of treatment and age. In fact, the age group of 16-59 years under went open reduction internal fixation (ORIF) more than other age groups (P=0.02). Also, a significant association was observed between gender and the occurrence of fractures (P=0.01). Conclusions Considering the geographic and cultural indices of the evaluated population, it can be concluded that patients age and gender and trauma causes significantly affect the prevalence of maxillofacial traumas and fracture kinds and treatment plans. Key words:Epidemiology, treatment, facial injuries, face fractures, maxillofacial trauma, trauma.