Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Optimal Clustering of Relations to Improve Sorting and Partitioning for Joins

The sorting or partitioning of relations is very common in relational database systems. Implementations of the join operation include the sort-merge join algorithm, which sorts both relations, and the hash join algorithm, which usually partitions both relations. We describe how clustering records using an optimal multi-attribute hash (MAH) file, taking the query pattern and distribution into account, reduces the average cost of sorting or partitioning. We demonstrate that maintaining multiple copies of a data file, each with a different clustering organization, further reduces the average cost of sorting or partitioning. We describe an inexpensive method for determining a good partitioning index (MAH file organization). Our analysis and experiments show that the partitioning indexes we find are usually optimal and can often partition a relation more than ten times faster than by not using any clustering. We also show that a significant change in the query pattern or distribution is required before a reorganization of a data file is necessary, and that such a reorganization is, in general, an inexpensive operation.
A Raman spectroscopic study of organic matter in interplanetary dust particles and meteorites using multiple wavelength laser excitation

Raman spectroscopy was used to investigate insoluble organic matter (IOM) from a range of chondritic meteorites, and a suite of interplanetary dust particles (IDPs). Three monochromatic excitation wavelengths (473 nm, 514 nm, 632 nm) were applied sequentially to assess variations in meteorite and IDP Raman peak parameters (carbon D and G bands) as a function of excitation wavelength (i.e., dispersion). Greatest dispersion occurs in CVs > OCs > CMs > CRs with type 3 chondrites compared at different excitation wavelengths displaying conformable relationships, in contrast to type 2 chondrites. These findings indicate homogeneity in the structural nature of type 3 chondrite IOM, while organic matter (OM) in type 2 chondrites appears to be inherently more heterogeneous. If type 2 and type 3 chondrite IOM shares a common source, then thermal metamorphism may have a homogenizing effect on the originally more heterogeneous OM. IDP Raman G bands fall on an extension of the trend displayed by chondrite IOM, with all IDPs having Raman parameters indicative of very disordered carbon, with almost no overlap with IOM. The dispersion effect displayed by IDPs is most similar to CMs for the G band, but intermediate between CMs and CRs for the D band. The existence of some overlapping Raman features in the IDPs and IOM indicates that their OM may share a common origin, but the IDPs preserve more pristine OM that may have been further disordered by ion irradiation. H, C, and N isotopic data for the IDPs reveal that the disordered carbon in IDPs corresponds with higher δ15N and lower δ13C.
Expression of glyoxalase-I is reduced in cirrhotic livers: A possible mechanism in the development of cirrhosis

Background High concentrations of methylglyoxal (MGO) cause cytotoxiticy via formation of advanced glycation endproducts (AGEs) and inflammation. MGO is detoxificated enzymatically by glyoxalase-I (Glo-I). The aim of this study was to analyze the role of Glo-I during the development of cirrhosis. Methods In primary hepatocytes, hepatic stellate cells (pHSC) and sinusoidal endothelial cells (pLSEC) from rats with early (CCl4 8wk) and advanced cirrhosis (CCl4 12wk) expression and activity of Glo-I were determined and compared to control. LPS stimulation (24h; 100ng/ml) of HSC was conducted in absence or presence of the partial Glo-I inhibitor ethyl pyruvate (EP) and the specific Glo-I inhibitor BrBzGSHCp2. MGO, inflammatory and fibrotic markers were measured by ELISA and Western blot. Additional rats were treated with CCl4 ± EP 40mg/kg b.w. i.p. from wk 8–12 and analyzed with sirius red staining and Western blot. Results Expression of Glo-I was significantly reduced in cirrhosis in whole liver and primary liver cells accompanied by elevated levels of MGO. Activity of Glo-I was reduced in cirrhotic pHSC and pLSEC. LPS induced increases of TNF-α, Nrf2, collagen-I, α-SMA, NF-kB and pERK of HSC were blunted by EP and BrBzGSHCp2. Treatment with EP during development of cirrhosis significantly decreased the amount of fibrosis (12wk CCl4: 33.3±7.3%; EP wk 8–12: 20.7±6.2%; p<0.001) as well as levels of α-SMA, TGF-β and NF-κB in vivo. Conclusions Our results show the importance of Glo-I as major detoxifying enzyme for MGO in cirrhosis. The reduced expression of Glo-I in cirrhosis demonstrates a possible explanation for increased inflammatory injury and suggests a “vicious circle” in liver disease. Blunting of the Glo-I activity decrease the amount of fibrosis in established cirrhosis and constitutes a novel target for antifibrotic therapy.
Implementation of Minutiae Based Fingerprint Identification System Using Crossing Number Concept

Biometric system is essentially a pattern recognition system which recognizes a person by determining the authenticity of a specific physiological (e.g., fingerprints, face, retina, iris) or behavioral (e.g., gait, signature) characteristic possessed by that person. Among all the presently employed biometric techniques, fingerprint identification systems have received the most attention due to the long history of fingerprints and its extensive use in forensics. Fingerprint is reliable biometric characteristic as it is unique and persistence. Fingerprint is the pattern of ridges and valleys on the surface of fingertip. However, recognizing fingerprints in poor quality images is still a very complex job, so the fingerprint image must be preprocessed before matching. It is very difficult to extract fingerprint features directly from grey scale fingerprint image. In this paper we have proposed the system which uses minutiae based matching algorithm for fingerprint identification. There are three main phases in proposed algorithm. First phase enhance the input fingerprint image by preprocessing it. The enhanced fingerprint image is converted into thinned binary image and then minutiae are extracted by using Crossing Number Concept in second phase. Third stage compares input fingerprint image (after preprocessing and minutiae extraction) with fingerprint images enrolled in database and makes decision whether the input fingerprint is matched with the fingerprint stored in database or not.
Numerical Simulation of Callus Healing for Optimization of Fracture Fixation Stiffness

The stiffness of fracture fixation devices together with musculoskeletal loading defines the mechanical environment within a long bone fracture, and can be quantified by the interfragmentary movement. In vivo results suggested that this can have acceleratory or inhibitory influences, depending on direction and magnitude of motion, indicating that some complications in fracture treatment could be avoided by optimizing the fixation stiffness. However, general statements are difficult to make due to the limited number of experimental findings. The aim of this study was therefore to numerically investigate healing outcomes under various combinations of shear and axial fixation stiffness, and to detect the optimal configuration. A calibrated and established numerical model was used to predict fracture healing for numerous combinations of axial and shear fixation stiffness under physiological, superimposed, axial compressive and translational shear loading in sheep. Characteristic maps of healing outcome versus fixation stiffness (axial and shear) were created. The results suggest that delayed healing of 3 mm transversal fracture gaps will occur for highly flexible or very rigid axial fixation, which was corroborated by in vivo findings. The optimal fixation stiffness for ovine long bone fractures was predicted to be 1000–2500 N/mm in the axial and >300 N/mm in the shear direction. In summary, an optimized, moderate axial stiffness together with certain shear stiffness enhances fracture healing processes. The negative influence of one improper stiffness can be compensated by adjustment of the stiffness in the other direction.
The Impact of 850,000 Years of Climate Changes on the Structure and Dynamics of Mammal Food Webs

Most evidence of climate change impacts on food webs comes from modern studies and little is known about how ancient food webs have responded to climate changes in the past. Here, we integrate fossil evidence from 71 fossil sites, body-size relationships and actualism to reconstruct food webs for six large mammal communities that inhabited the Iberian Peninsula at different times during the Quaternary. We quantify the long-term dynamics of these food webs and study how their structure changed across the Quaternary, a period for which fossil data and climate changes are well known. Extinction, immigration and turnover rates were correlated with climate changes in the last 850 kyr. Yet, we find differences in the dynamics and structural properties of Pleistocene versus Holocene mammal communities that are not associated with glacial-interglacial cycles. Although all Quaternary mammal food webs were highly nested and robust to secondary extinctions, general food web properties changed in the Holocene. These results highlight the ability of communities to re-organize with the arrival of phylogenetically similar species without major structural changes, and the impact of climate change and super-generalist species (humans) on Iberian Holocene mammal communities.
Ability for voice recognition is a marker for dyslexia in children.

A recent voice recognition experiment conducted by Perrachione, Del Tufo, and Gabrieli (2011) revealed that, in normal adult readers, the accuracy at identifying human voices was better in the participants' mother tongue than in an unfamiliar language, while this difference was absent in a group of adults with dyslexia. This pattern favored a view of dyslexia as due to "fundamentally impoverished native-language phonological representations. " To further examine this issue, we conducted two voice recognition experiments, one with children with/without dyslexia, and the other with adults with/without dyslexia. Results revealed that children/adults with dyslexia were less accurate at identifying voices than normal readers and, importantly, this effect was independent of language. These data are more consistent with the assumption of dyslexia as due to a deficit in multisensory integration rather than a deficit based on impoverished native-language phonologically based representations.
Just How Predictable Are the Oscars?

Each year, hundreds of millions of people worldwide watch the television broadcast of the Academy Awards ceremony, at which the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) honors film-making from the previous year. Almost 6000 members of AMPAS vote for the nominees and final winners of Academy Awards, more commonly known as Oscars, in a wide range of categories for directing, acting, writing, editing, etc. Oscars have been presented for outstanding achievement in film every year since 1928, and are generally recognized to be the premier awards of their kind since AMPAS voting members are themselves the foremost workers in the motion picture industry. In a comparison with other movie awards and movie guide ratings, Simonton (2004) finds substantial validity for the Oscars, and notes that “Those who take an Oscar home can have a strong likelihood of having exhibited superlative cinematic creativity or achievement. ” As well as honoring film-makers, Oscars can boost the box-office performance of nominated and winning films. It has even been shown that winning a Best Actor or Best Actress Oscar is associated with a gain in life expectancy, perhaps four extra years of life (Redelmeier and Singh, 2001). However, while studies into the factors that impact a movie’s economic success show that awards can boost revenues, there is little overall association between budget and box office variables and the most important movie awards, such as the Oscars. This article does not consider the economic and aesthetic aspects of movies in relation to the Oscars, but rather focuses purely on the goal of predicting the winners of the four major awards— picture, director, actor in a leading role, actress in a leading role—from those nominated each year. Although many in the media (as well as movie-loving members of the public) make their own annual predictions, it appears that very few researchers have conducted a formal statistical analysis
How Much Diversity is Diversity

Scott Highhouse, Advisor The role that diversity plays in the workplace has increased over time as more companies adopt diversity management strategies in an effort to increase performance or attract new employees (Hays-Thomas, 2004). Little research has been directed, however, toward understanding how diversity perceptions are impacted by the amount of diversity present in the group. It is easy to identify occurrences when diversity is absent, but we know little about how much diversity is needed for a group to be perceived as diverse (Harrison &Klein, 2007). Drawing largely from research on judgment and decision making (Bazerman, 1993; Levin, Schneider, & Gaeth, 1998; Tversky & Kahneman, 1981) this paper examined how the amount of diversity present and the way the diversity information is framed can influence people’s perceptions of group diversity. These questions were examined in the context of two types of demographic diversity: gender and race. Results indicated that people perceived racial/ethnic diversity, described as the “proportion of Blacks and Hispanics” in the workplace, as being more consistent with their idea of diversity and viewed the organization as making more effort toward managing diversity than when diversity was framed in any other population (i.e., women, men Whites). Participants also demonstrated a preference for equality and judged the organization to be most successful at managing diversity when the minority and non-minority groups held an equal proportion in the population (i.e., 50%).
New flaring of an ultraluminous X-ray source in NGC 1365

We have studied a highly variable ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX) in the Fornax galaxy NGC 1365, with a series of 12 Chandra and XMM-Newton observations between 2002 and 2006. In 2006 April, the source peaked at a luminosity ≈3 x 10 40 erg s -1 in the 0.3-10 keV band (similar to the maximum luminosity found by ASCA in 1995), and declined on an e-folding time-scale ≈3 d. The X-ray spectrum is always dominated by a broad power-law-like component. When the source is seen at X-ray luminosities ≈10 40 erg s -1 , an additional soft thermal component (which we interpret as emission from the accretion disc) contributes ≈1/4 of the X-ray flux; when the luminosity is higher, ≈3 x 10 40 erg s -1 , the thermal component is not detected and must contribute <10 per cent of the flux. At the beginning of the decline, ionized absorption is detected around ∼0.5-2 keV; it is a possible signature of a massive outflow. The power law is always hard, with a photon index r ≈1.7 (and even flatter at times), as is generally the case with bright ULXs. We speculate that this source and perhaps most other bright ULXs are in a high/hard state: as the accretion rate increases well above the Eddington limit, more and more power is extracted from the inner region of the inflow through non-radiative channels, and is used to power a Comptonizing corona, jet or wind. The observed thermal component comes from the standard outer disc; the transition radius between outer standard disc and Comptonizing inner region moves further out and to lower disc temperatures as the accretion rate increases. This produces the observed appearance of a large, cool disc. Based on X-ray luminosity and spectral arguments, we suggest that this accreting black hole has a likely mass ∼50-150M ⊙ (even without accounting for possible beaming).
Serological, bacteriological, and molecular diagnosis of brucellosis in domestic animals in Croatia.

AIM To present the surveillance data on Brucella melitensis, B. suis, and B. ovis infection in cattle, sheep, goats, and swine in Croatia obtained in 2008 by serological, bacteriological, and molecular methods for diagnostics of brucellosis in domestic animals. METHODS We serologically tested 42,785 cattle serums, 22,686 sheep and goat serums, and 28520 swine serums using the Rose Bengal test, complement fixation test, and various immunosorbent assays. We also tested 10,173 ram blood samples for B. ovis infection using the complement fixation test. Bacteriological examination was conducted on 214 samples collected from 34 serologically positive animals. Different molecular methods were employed in the identification and typing of 20 isolates from the samples. RESULTS B. melitensis biovar (bv.) 3 was confirmed with different identification methods in 2 flocks in 2 Croatian counties and B. suis bv. 2 in 3 flocks in 3 counties. B. melitensis in cows was confirmed for the first time in Croatia. Infection with B. ovis was serologically confirmed in 202 rams in 12 counties. CONCLUSIONS In 2008, the size of the brucellosis-affected area in Croatia and the efficiency of detection and prevention of brucellosis in sheep, goats, and swine were satisfactory. Infection with B. melitensis in cattle was confirmed for the first time and possible links for infection in humans were detected. More efficient measures for suppression and control of ovine epididymitis are required and a new strategy may be necessary for complete eradication of this disease.
A Theory of Regret Regulation 1.1

We use this opportunity to respond to the issues raised by Inman (2007), and Roese, Summerville, and Fessel (2007) by addressing four broad topics that embrace the most important comments on our regret regulation theory. These topics are the feeling-is-for-doing approach on which regret regulation theory rests, the importance of emotion specificity, factors that modulate the intensity of regret, and the focus on action, inaction and choice in the elicitation of regret. Together this results in a first update, version 1.1.
Optimal and Manufacturable Two-dimensional, Kagomé-like Cellular Solids

We used the topology optimization technique to obtain two-dimensional, isotropic cellular solids with optimal effective elastic moduli and effective conductivity. The overall aim was to obtain the best (simplest) manufacturable structures for these effective properties, i.e., single-length-scale structures. Three different but simple periodic structures arose due to the imposed geometric mirror symmetries: lattices with triangular-like cells, hexagonal-like cells, or Kagomé-like cells. As a general rule, the structures with the Kagomé-like cells provided the best performance over a wide range of densities, i.e., for 0 ≰ ф <0.6, where ф is the solid volume fraction (density). At high densities (ф < 0.6), Kagome-like structures were no longer possible, and lattices with hexagonal-like or triangular-like cells provide virtually the same optimal performance. The Kagomé-like structures were found to be a new class of cellular solids with many useful features, including desirable transport and elastic properties, heat-dissipation characteristics, improved mechanical strength, and ease of fabrication.
Coideal subalgebras in quantum affine algebras

We introduce two subalgebras in the type A quantum affine algebra which are coideals with respect to the Hopf algebra structure. In the classical limit q -> 1 each subalgebra specializes to the enveloping algebra U(k), where k is a fixed point subalgebra of the loop algebra over gl_N with respect to a natural involution corresponding to the embedding of the orthogonal or symplectic Lie algebra into gl_N. We also give an equivalent presentation of these coideal subalgebras in terms of generators and defining relations which have the form of reflection-type equations. We provide evaluation homomorphisms from these algebras to the twisted quantized enveloping algebras introduced earlier by Gavrilik and Klimyk and by Noumi. We also construct an analog of the quantum determinant for each of the algebras and show that its coefficients belong to the center of the algebra. Their images under the evaluation homomorphism provide a family of central elements of the corresponding twisted quantized enveloping algebra.
Phylogenetically Informed Analysis of the Allometry of Mammalian Basal Metabolic Rate Supports Neither Geometric Nor Quarter-Power Scaling

The form of the relationship between the basal metabolic rate (BMR) and body mass (M) of mammals has been at issue for almost seven decades, with debate focusing on the value of the scaling exponent (b, where BMR &agr; Mb) and the relative merits of b = 0.67 (geometric scaling) and b = 0.75 (quarter-power scaling). However, most analyses are not phylogenetically informed (PI) and therefore fail to account for the shared evolutionary history of the species they consider. Here, we reanalyze the most rigorously selected and comprehensive mammalian BMR dataset presently available, and investigate the effects of data selection and phylogenetic method (phylogenetic generalized least squares and independent contrasts) on estimation of the scaling exponent relating mammalian BMR to M. Contrary to the results of a non-PI analysis of these data, which found an exponent of 0.67–0.69, we find that most of the PI scaling exponents are significantly different from both 0.67 and 0.75. Similarly, the scaling exponents differ between lineages, and these exponents are also often different from 0.67 or 0.75. Thus, we conclude that no single value of b adequately characterizes the allometric relationship between body mass and BMR.
Double Jeopardy? Disproportionality in First Juvenile Court Involvement by Disability Status

The overrepresentation of youth with disabilities in the juvenile justice system is a persistent concern, but estimates of their involvement vary dramatically due to differences in how disability is conceptualized and when involvement in juvenile justice is measured. This study linked juvenile court and educational records for 230,760 students in one state to describe the involvement of students with and without disabilities in juvenile court. Overrepresentation of students with disabilities was not robust to sociodemographic controls (relative risk ratio [RR] = 1.07) but varied by disability category such that students with emotional or behavioral disorders (RR = 1.98) and other health impairments (RR = 1.12) remained overrepresented. Students with disabilities were charged with more severe offenses than their peers without disabilities and were more likely to be petitioned to court with a higher degree of offense even after controlling for the type of offense. Implications for policy, practice, and research are discussed.
Character-Word LSTM Language Models

We present a Character-Word Long Short-Term Memory Language Model which both reduces the perplexity with respect to a baseline word-level language model and reduces the number of parameters of the model. Character information can reveal structural (dis)similarities between words and can even be used when a word is out-of-vocabulary, thus improving the modeling of infrequent and unknown words. By concatenating word and character embeddings, we achieve up to 2.77% relative improvement on English compared to a baseline model with a similar amount of parameters and 4.57% on Dutch. Moreover, we also outperform baseline word-level models with a larger number of parameters.