Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Exterior/interior problem for the circular means transform with applications to intravascular imaging

Exterior inverse problem for the circular means transform (CMT) arises in the intravascular photoacoustic imaging (IVPA), in the intravascular ultrasound imaging (IVUS), as well as in radar and sonar. The reduction of the IPVA to the CMT is quite straightforward. As shown in the paper, in IVUS the circular means can be recovered from measurements by solving a certain Volterra integral equation. Thus, a tomography reconstruction in both modalities requires solving the exterior problem for the CMT. Numerical solution of this problem usually is not attempted due to the presence of "invisible" wavefronts, which results in severe instability of the reconstruction. The novel inversion algorithm proposed in this paper yields a stable partial reconstruction: it reproduces the "visible" part of the image and blurs the "invisible" part. If the image contains little or no invisible wavefronts (as frequently happens in the IVPA and IVUS) the reconstruction is quantitatively accurate. The presented numerical simulations demonstrate the feasibility of tomography-like reconstruction in these modalities.
Marine Habitat Selection by Marbled Murrelets (Brachyramphus marmoratus) during the Breeding Season

The marbled murrelet (Brachyramphus marmoratus) is a declining seabird that is well-known for nesting in coastal old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest. Most studies of habitat selection have focused on modeling terrestrial nesting habitat even though marine habitat is believed to be a major contributor to population declines in some regions. To address this information gap, we conducted a 5-year study of marine resource selection by murrelets in Washington, which contains a population experiencing the steepest documented declines and where marine habitat is believed to be compromised. Across five years we tracked 157 radio-tagged murrelets during the breeding season (May to August), and used discrete choice models to examine habitat selection. Using an information theoretic approach, our global model had the most support, suggesting that murrelet resource selection at-sea is affected by many factors, both terrestrial and marine. Locations with higher amounts of nesting habitat (β = 21.49, P < 0.001) that were closer to shore (β = -0.0007, P < 0.001) and in cool waters (β = -0.2026, P < 0.001) with low footprint (β = -0.0087, P < 0.001) had higher probabilities of use. While past conservation efforts have focused on protecting terrestrial nesting habitat, we echo many past studies calling for future efforts to protect marine habitat for murrelets, as the current emphasis on terrestrial habitat alone may be insufficient for conserving populations. In particular, marine areas in close proximity to old-growth nesting habitat appear important for murrelets during the breeding season and should be priorities for protection.
Multimedia genre characterisation with fuzzy embedding classifiers

Multimedia classification is a key issue in modern data management, where the number of available items is dramatically growing and there is an increasing demand for access to distributed multimedia data. Selection by genre is a simple and effective mechanism for most of the users interested in these applications. In this paper, we present a feature extraction architecture and a novel learning algorithm for multimedia genre characterisation. We show how genre classification can be regarded as a sub-case of this general task, for which we give a complete solution. Our extracted features were designed to offer a reduced semantic gap, trying to take into account structural and cognitive content descriptors, rather than low-level features. Our learning algorithm is based on fuzzy set theory, and makes use of fuzzy C-means (FCM) algorithm as the kernel to learn concepts configurations from data. We tested our learning framework on a test database of over 100 hours of TV broadcast programmes belonging to 7 different common genres. Experimental evaluations showed the effectiveness of our approach. Additionally, we compared our technology with neural networks applied on the same task, in terms of training accuracy. We also compared the generalisation performances of our technique with neural networks and support vector machines.
New trends in density matrix renormalization

The density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) has become a powerful numerical method that can be applied to low-dimensional strongly correlated fermionic and bosonic systems. It allows for a very precise calculation of static, dynamic and thermodynamic properties. Its field of applicability has now extended beyond condensed matter, and is successfully used in quantum chemistry, statistical mechanics, quantum information theory, and nuclear and high-energy physics as well. In this article, we briefly review the main aspects of the method and present some of the most relevant applications so as to give an overview of the scope and possibilities of DMRG. We focus on the most important extensions of the method such as the calculation of dynamical properties, the application to classical systems, finite-temperature simulations, phonons and disorder, field theory, time-dependent properties and the ab initio calculation of electronic states in molecules. The recent quantum information interpretation, the development of highly accurate time-dependent algorithms and the possibility of using the DMRG as the impurity-solver of the dynamical mean field method (DMFT) give new insights into its present and potential uses. We review the numerous very recent applications of these techniques where the DMRG has shown to be one of the most reliable and versatile methods in modern computational physics.
Nonnegative matrix factorization using ADMM: Algorithm and convergence analysis

The nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF) has been a popular model for a wide range of signal processing and machine learning problems. It is usually formulated as a nonconvex cost minimization problem. This work settles the convergence issue of a popular algorithm based on the alternating direction method of multipliers proposed in Boyd et al 2011. We show that the algorithm converges globally to the set of KKT solutions whenever certain penalty parameter ρ satisfies ρ > 1. We further extend the algorithm and its analysis to the problem where the observation matrix contains missing values. Numerical experiments on real and synthetic data sets demonstrate the effectiveness of the algorithms under investigation.
Forest canopy gap detection and characterisation by the use of high- resolution Digital Elevation Models

The remote identification of forest canopy gaps from Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) built from aerial photographs is potentially a viable alternative to ground-based field surveys. In this study a DEM-based gap-finding algorithm, given suitable experimentally determined input parameters, yielded canopy gap statistics for a study area that were consistent with ground-based survey data from the same area. The method could thus be 'trained' to replicate ground-based results for a small test area of beech (Nothofagus) forest, with the potential for it to be applied to larger areas of forest of a similar type to gather canopy gap data with relatively little additional field work. The use of a DEM-based method also has the advantage that the results are easily analysed and mapped using commonly available GIS and cartographic software.
An extracellular mechanism that can explain the neurotoxic effects of α-synuclein aggregates in the brain

Neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson's disease (PD), Alzheimer's disease (AD), and Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), display an accumulation of proteins including α-synuclein aggregates in cortical and subcortical regions of the brain. PD is a complex, progressive disease which involves damage of motor and cognitive brain regions, as well as autonomic and sensory areas. Since α-synuclein is a neuronal cytosolic protein, it is assumed that pathogenic changes induced by α-synuclein aggregates occur only at the cytoplasmic level. However, recent studies have identified the presence of extracellular α-synuclein, suggesting that the pathogenic action of this protein may also occur in the extracellular milieu through an unknown mechanism. One of the hypotheses is that extracellular α-synuclein aggregates or oligomers may directly disrupt the neuronal membrane by the formation of a pore reminiscent to the ones formed by β-amyloid aggregates. Here, we will review some evidence that support this mechanism, analyzing the interactions of α-synuclein with components of the plasma membrane, the formation of pore/perforated structures, and the implications on ionic dyshomeostasis. Furthermore, we will also discuss how this mechanism can be integrated into a general phenomenon that may explain the synaptotoxicity and neurotoxicity observed in different neurodegenerative diseases.
SlimShot: Probabilistic Inference for Web-Scale Knowledge Bases

Increasingly large Knowledge Bases are being created, by crawling the Web or other corpora of documents, and by extracting facts and relations using machine learning techniques. To manage the uncertainty in the data, these KBs rely on probabilistic engines based on Markov Logic Networks (MLN), for which probabilistic inference remains a major challenge. Today’s state of the art systems use variants of MCMC, which have no theoretical error guarantees, and, as we show, suﬀer from poor performance in practice. In this paper we describe SlimShot (Scalable Lifted Inference and Monte Carlo Sampling Hybrid Optimization Technique), a probabilistic inference engine for Web-Scale knowledge bases. SlimShot converts the MLN to a tuple-independent probabilistic database, then uses a simple Monte Carlo-based inference, with three key enhancements: (1) it combines sampling with safe query evaluation, (2) it estimates a conditional probability by jointly computing the numerator and denominator, and (3) it adjusts the proposal distribution based on the sample cardinality. In combination, these three techniques allow us to give formal error guarantees, and we demonstrate empirically that SlimShot outperforms today’s state of the art probabilistic inference engines used in knowledge bases.
Human Cone Light Sensitivity and Melatonin Rhythms Following 24-hour Continuous Illumination

This study investigates the possibility of an endogenous circadian rhythm in retinal cone function in humans. A full-field cone electroretinogram (ERG) was performed every 2 h for 24 h under continuous rod-saturating ambient white light (53 ± 30 lux; pupils dilated) in nine healthy subjects. Distinct circadian variations were superimposed upon a gradual decrease in cone responsiveness to light, demonstrated most reliably in the implicit times of b-wave and oscillatory potentials, and to a lesser extent in amplitude and a-wave implicit times. After mathematical correction of the linear trend, the cone response was found to be greatest around 20:00 h and least around 06:00 h. The phase of the ERG circadian rhythm was not synchronized with the phase of the salivary melatonin rhythm measured the previous evening. Melatonin levels measured under constant light on the day of ERG assessments were suppressed by 53% on average compared to melatonin profiles obtained previously under near-total darkness in seven participants. The progressive decline in cone responsiveness to light over the 24 h may reflect an adaptation of the cone-driven retinal system to constant light, although the mechanism is unclear. The endogenous rhythm of cone responsiveness to light may be used as an additional index of central or retinal circadian clock time. (Author correspondence: kvdani@mail.ru)
Sex, Politics and Society: The Regulation of Sexuality Since 1800

Acknowledgements. Preface. 1. Sexuality and the historian. 2. 'That damned morality': sex in Victorian idealogy. 3. The sacramental family: middle-class men, women and children. 4. Sexuality and the labouring classes. 5. The public and the private: moral regulation in the Victorian period. 6. The consturction of homosexuality. 7. The population question in the early 20th century. 8. The theorisation of sex. 9. Feminism and socialism. 10. Sex psychology and birth control. 11. Beliefs and behaviour 1914-39. 12. The state and sexuality. 13. The permissive moment. 14. Currents and counter-currents. 15. Postcript: the 1980s. Suggestions for further reading. Index.
Comparison of Two Commercial PCR Methods for Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) Screening in a Tertiary Care Hospital

Nose/throat-swabs from 1049 patients were screened for MRSA using CHROMagar MRSA, LightCycler Advanced MRSA, and Detect-Ready MRSA. Results were compared to the CHROMagar MRSA results, which was set as reference system. MRSA was detected in 3.05% of the patients with CHROMagar MRSA. LightCycler MRSA Advanced showed a higher clinical sensitivity (84.38%) than Detect-Ready MRSA (57.69%). The negative predictive values were high for both tests (>98%). The specificity and the positive predictive value were higher for the Detect-Ready MRSA test than for the LightCycler MRSA test (99.59% and 78.95% versus 98.52% and 64.29%). For routine screening LightCycler MRSA Advanced proved to be more efficient in our clinical setting as the clinical sensitivity was much higher than the sensitivity of Detect-Ready MRSA. CHROMagar MRSA detected more MRSA positive samples than both PCR methods, leading to the conclusion that the combination of PCR with cultural screening is still the most reliable way for the detection of MRSA. LightCycler MRSA Advanced was faster and needed less hands-on time. The advantage of Detect-Ready MRSA was the additional identification of methicillin-sensitive S.aureus (here in 34.63% of the samples), an information which can be possibly used for reducing the risk of postoperative infections in surgical patients in future.
Motor Agency: A New and Highly Sensitive Measure to Reveal Agency Disturbances in Early Psychosis

BACKGROUND Early diagnosis of young adults at risk of schizophrenia is essential for preventive approaches of the illness. Nevertheless, classic screening instruments are difficult to use because of the non-specific nature of the signs at this pre-onset phase of illness. The objective of the present contribution was to propose an innovating test that can probe the more specific symptom of psychosis, i.e., the sense of agency, which is defined as being the immediate experience of oneself as the cause of an action. More specifically, we tested whether motor agency is abnormal in early psychosis. METHODS Thirty-two young symptomatic patients and their age-matched controls participated in the study. 15 of these patients were at ultra high-risk for developing psychosis (UHR), and 17 patients were suffering from first-episode psychosis (FEP). Patients' neurocognitive capacities were assessed through the use of seven neuropsychological tests. A motor agency task was also introduced to obtain an objective indicator of the degree of sense of agency, by contrasting force levels applied during other and self-produced collisions between a hand-held objet and a pendulum. RESULTS As reported in the literature for adult controls, healthy adolescents used more efficient force levels in self than in other-imposed collisions. For both UHR and FEP patients, abnormally high levels of grip force were used for self-produced collisions, leading to an absence of difference between self and other. The normalized results revealed that motor agency differentiated patients from controls with a higher level of sensitivity than the more classic neuropsychological test battery. CONCLUSIONS This study is in favour of the existence of an abnormal sense of agency early in the psychotic illness. Because it is quick and none verbal, motor agency may be a valuable tool to use in complement to classic interviews, especially when investigating complex ineffable experiences that are difficult to explicitly describe.
A note on some sufficient conditions for mixed monotone systems

Mixed monotone systems form an important class of nonlinear systems that have recently received attention in abstraction-based control design area. Slightly different definitions exist in the literature, and it remains a challenge to verify mixed monotonicity of a system in general. In this paper, we first clarify the relation between different existing definitions of mixed monotone system, and then provide a new and more general sufficient condition for mixed monotonicity. Discussions are provided regarding to these two main contributions.
Thinking about the Self from a Social Cognitive Neuroscience Perspective

In this paper Kashima et al. develop an inter esting model of self that attempts to simulate sev eral psychological processes critical to an amalga mated Jarnes-Mead theoretical conceptualization of self. More specifically, the authors use a connectionist framework to model temporal, cultural and social as pects of self which may give rise to the enculturated stream of consciousness which is seen the essential experience of self in such a model. This approach is important as so much of behavioral research has fo cused on the self as known, in relatively static form, in contrast to the dynamic aspects of the self that unfold in each moment and as a function of context. Simple asso ciative and declarative models of self-representations are not well equipped to handle these nonlinear dynam ics, but connectionist models excel at capturing such dynamics (Hopfield, 1982). Although the authors are primarily interested in us ing connectionism as a tool to model artificial neural ar chitecture that is capable of supporting self-processes, they also stress that such models should be biologi cally plausible at the neural level. An interest in how the self is neurally instantiated in the living human brain has been investigated in recent years by a grow ing number of social neuroscientists, who have used functional imaging techniques to attempt to isolate the neural correlates of self-processing. Although the ef fort to understand how the self is represented in the brain is still in its infancy, such investigations have nonetheless already proven informative and seem well worth reviewing here. Due to the inherent complexities of discussing a phenomena as multifaceted as the self, it may be useful to consider this body of research by parsing it into the follow categories: self-processing versus other social processing, internally-focused ver sus externally-focused self-processing, and controlled versus automatic aspects of self-processing.
Imposing steady-state performance on identified nonlinear polynomial models by means of constrained parameter estimation

The authors present a procedure that permits the use of steady-state information to constrain the identification of nonlinear polynomial models. Such a procedure has three main steps. First, a general framework is provided that relates the static function of nonlinear global polynomial models to their terms and parameters. Second, using standard nonlinear programming techniques, a rational function is fitted to the system static function, which is assumed to be known and is used as auxiliary information. Finally, the information gathered in the first two steps is used to write a set of equality constraints that are exactly satisfied by a standard constrained least-squares algorithm used to estimate the parameters of the identified model. It is shown that the resulting model will always have the specified static nonlinearity and will use additional degrees of freedom to fit the dynamics underlying the observed data.
Electoral Participation, Disagreement, and Diversity in Social Networks: A Matter of Intimacy?

General consensus concerning the nature of the relationship between political disagreement and turnout has not yet been reached: while several studies have demonstrated the demobilizing effect of disagreement, others have found no significant evidence for this. Recently, scholars have argued that diversity — a situation in which some people are in agreement with ego and some are not — can boost electoral participation. The present article argues that the insights of previous studies are the result of two differentiated effects that depend on the level of intimacy of the discussants to which one is exposed. By employing a set of linear regression models on Italian National Election Study 2013 pre-electoral survey (N > 8,000), we show that mixed political views among friends boost electoral participation. For what concerns relatives, the likelihood to vote decreases linearly with increasing disagreement.
Perennial warm‐season grasses for producing biofuel and enhancing soil properties: an alternative to corn residue removal

Removal of corn (Zea mays L.) residues at high rates for biofuel and other off‐farm uses may negatively impact soil and the environment in the long term. Biomass removal from perennial warm‐season grasses (WSGs) grown in marginally productive lands could be an alternative to corn residue removal as biofuel feedstocks while controlling water and wind erosion, sequestering carbon (C), cycling water and nutrients, and enhancing other soil ecosystem services. We compared wind and water erosion potential, soil compaction, soil hydraulic properties, soil organic C (SOC), and soil fertility between biomass removal from WSGs and corn residue removal from rainfed no‐till continuous corn on a marginally productive site on a silty clay loam in eastern Nebraska after 2 and 3 years of management. The field‐scale treatments were as follows: (i) switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.), (ii) big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii Vitman), and (iii) low‐diversity grass mixture [big bluestem, indiangrass (Sorghastrum nutans (L.) Nash), and sideoats grama (Bouteloua curtipendula (Michx.) Torr. )], and (iv) 50% corn residue removal with three replications. Across years, corn residue removal increased wind‐erodible fraction from 41% to 86% and reduced wet aggregate stability from 1.70 to 1.15 mm compared with WSGs in the upper 7.5 cm soil depth. Corn residue removal also reduced water retention by 15% between −33 and −300 kPa potentials and plant‐available water by 25% in the upper 7.5 cm soil depth. However, corn residue removal did not affect final water infiltration, SOC concentration, soil fertility, and other properties. Overall, corn residue removal increases erosion potential and reduces water retention shortly after removal, suggesting that biomass removal from perennial WSGs is a desirable alternative to corn residue removal for biofuel production and maintenance of soil ecosystem services.
Straight-line Programs in Polynomial Equation Solving

Solving symbolically polynomial equation systems when intermediate and final polynomials are represented in the usual dense encoding turns out to be very inefficient: the sizes of the systems one can deal with do not respond to realistic needs. Evaluation representations appeared in this frame a decade ago as a new possibility to treat new families of problems. We present a survey of the most recent complexity results for different polynomial problems when polynomials are encoded by evaluation (straight-line) programs. We also show surprising mathematical by-products, such as new mathematical invariants and results, that appeared as a consequence of the search of good algorithms.