Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Simulating Sensitivities of Conditional Value at Risk

Conditional value at risk (CVaR) is both a coherent risk measure and a natural risk statistic. It is often used to measure the risk associated with large losses. In this paper, we study how to estimate the sensitivities of CVaR using Monte Carlo simulation. We first prove that the CVaR sensitivity can be written as a conditional expectation for general loss distributions. We then propose an estimator of the CVaR sensitivity and analyze its asymptotic properties. The numerical results show that the estimator works well. Furthermore, we demonstrate how to use the estimator to solve optimization problems with CVaR objective and/or constraints, and compare it to a popular linear programming-based algorithm.
An architecture for ethical robots

Robots are becoming ever more autonomous. This expanding ability to take unsupervised decisions renders it imperative that mechanisms are in place to guarantee the safety of behaviours executed by the robot. Moreover, smart autonomous robots should be more than safe; they should also be explicitly ethical -- able to both choose and justify actions that prevent harm. Indeed, as the cognitive, perceptual and motor capabilities of robots expand, they will be expected to have an improved capacity for making moral judgements. We present a control architecture that supplements existing robot controllers. This so-called Ethical Layer ensures robots behave according to a predetermined set of ethical rules by predicting the outcomes of possible actions and evaluating the predicted outcomes against those rules. To validate the proposed architecture, we implement it on a humanoid robot so that it behaves according to Asimov's laws of robotics. In a series of four experiments, using a second humanoid robot as a proxy for the human, we demonstrate that the proposed Ethical Layer enables the robot to prevent the human from coming to harm.
The L1 use in the FL classroom: a small-scale spanish/english study in the students’ english grammar development in a basic level course at Sena

In the following research paper, the study of a series of classes in two groups with and without using the mother tongue of the research participants, was evaluated in order to understand its effects on their English grammar development. The analysis was carried out through the comparison of the data obtained from an English proficiency test applied before and after the classes already mentioned and through the analysis of the answers given by participants from both groups to a written interview. All evidence collected and studied allows saying that the mother tongue use might be positive for those novice students of a foreign language. This statement is based on findings regarding the kind of methodology used during the classes with both groups and the study of how the research participants conceive the relation of the L1 and the L2 to create a linguistic repertoire needed to communicate in different contexts.
Learning how to speak: Imitation-based refinement of syllable production in an articulatory-acoustic model

This paper proposes an efficient neural network model for learning the articulatory-acoustic forward and inverse mapping of consonant-vowel sequences including coarticulation effects. It is shown that the learned models can generalize vowels as well as consonants to other contexts and that the need for supervised training examples can be reduced by refining initial forward and inverse models using acoustic examples only. The models are initially trained on smaller sets of examples and then improved by presenting auditory goals that are imitated. The acoustic outcomes of the imitations together with the executed actions provide new training pairs. It is shown that this unsupervised and imitation-based refinement significantly decreases the error of the forward as well as the inverse model. Using a state-of-the-art articulatory speech synthesizer, our approach allows to reproduce the acoustics from learned articulatory trajectories, i.e. we can listen to the results and rate their quality by error measures and perception.
An Exactly Solved Model for Mutation, Recombination and Selection

Abstract It is well known that rather general mutation-recombination models can be solved algorithmically (though not in closed form) by means of Haldane linearization. The price to be paid is that one has to work with a multiple tensor product of the state space one started from. Here, we present a relevant subclass of such models, in continuous time, with independent mutation events at the sites, and crossover events between them. It admits a closed solution of the corresponding differential equation on the basis of the original state space, and also closed expressions for the linkage disequilibria, derived by means of Möbius inversion. As an extra benefit, the approach can be extended to a model with selection of additive type across sites. We also derive a necessary and sufficient criterion for the mean fitness to be a Lyapunov function and determine the asymptotic behaviour of the solutions.
Influence of Modes of Climate Variability on Global Precipitation Extremes

Abstract The probability of climate extremes is strongly affected by atmospheric circulation. This study quantifies the worldwide influence of three major modes of circulation on station-based indices of intense precipitation: the El Nino–Southern Oscillation, the Pacific interdecadal variability as characterized by the North Pacific index (NPI), and the North Atlantic Oscillation–Northern Annular Mode. The study examines which stations show a statistically significant (5%) difference between the positive and negative phases of a circulation regime. Results show distinct regional patterns of response to all these modes of climate variability; however, precipitation extremes are most substantially affected by the El Nino–Southern Oscillation. The effects of the El Nino–Southern Oscillation are seen throughout the world, including in India, Africa, South America, the Pacific Rim, North America, and, weakly, Europe. The North Atlantic Oscillation has a strong, continent-wide effect on Eurasia and affects a s.
Diversity of Empirical Design - Review of Studies on the Cross-Section of Common Stocks

International studies on the cross-section of returns diff er strongly in respect to the empirical design. In this paper I cover wide range of international papers to give an overview of methodological variations applied by researchers. Construction of stock characteristics and risk mimicking factors underlying the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) and three- and four-factor pricing models give authors much degrees of freedom resulting in a wide set of alternative measurement methodologies. Also statistical tests on both cross-section and time-series of returns show methodological differences that might be influential on results and inferences from the analysis. Increasing exploration of international data sets puts new challenges on empirical studies that emerge from market and data characteristics. As a consequence, original methodology applied for U.S. market requires adjustments depending on coverage and scope of the analysis. This paper provides the summary of proposed adjustments and might serve as a starting point for the analysis of international equity data.
LECTURES ON LOCAL COHOMOLOGY AND DUALITY

In these expository notes derived categories and functors are gently introduced, and used along with Koszul complexes to develop the basics of local cohomology. Local duality and its far-reaching generalization, Greenlees-May duality, are treated. A canonical version of local duality, via differentials and residues, is outlined. Finally, the fundamental Residue Theorem, described here e.g., for smooth proper maps of formal schemes, marries canonical local duality to a canonical version of Grothendieck duality for formal schemes.
A Characteristic Algorithm for the 3 D Navier-Stokes Equation using padfem 2 ∗

In this paper we consider a finite element algorithm solving the three dimensional Navier-Stokes equation using the method of characteristics. The algorithm is based on a splitting scheme using a characteristic pressure correcti on method. It’s well known, that the most expensive part of the characteristic integration scheme consists of the sear ch for the volume that contains the foot of a given characteristic. The present paper considers different techniques fo r solving this problem and presents a new, efficient formulation of a search algorithm. This algorithm has been implemented based on the parallel data structure provided by the finite element framework padfem2. We present the results that we have obtained applying this algorithm to two well studied flow problems. Furthermore, we show the efficiency of the splitting scheme computed on a massive parallel cluster system.
Chronic Allopurinol Treatment during the Last Trimester of Pregnancy in Sows: Effects on Low and Normal Birth Weight Offspring

Low-birth-weight (LBW) children are born with several risk factors for disease, morbidity and neonatal mortality, even if carried to term. Placental insufficiency leading to hypoxemia and reduced nutritional supply is the main cause for LBW. Brain damage and poor neurological outcome can be the consequence. LBW after being carried to term gives better chances for survival, but these children are still at risk for poor health and the development of cognitive impairments. Preventive therapies are not yet available. We studied the risk/efficacy of chronic prenatal treatment with the anti-oxidative drug allopurinol, as putative preventive treatment in piglets. LBW piglets served as a natural model for LBW. A cognitive holeboard test was applied to study the learning and memory abilities of these allopurinol treated piglets after weaning. Preliminary analysis of the plasma concentrations in sows and their piglets suggested that a daily dose of 15 mg.kg−1 resulted in effective plasma concentration of allopurinol in piglets. No adverse effects of chronic allopurinol treatment were found on farrowing, birth weight, open field behavior, learning abilities, relative brain, hippocampus and spleen weights. LBW piglets showed increased anxiety levels in an open field test, but cognitive performance was not affected by allopurinol treatment. LBW animals treated with allopurinol showed the largest postnatal compensatory body weight gain. In contrast to a previous study, no differences in learning abilities were found between LBW and normal-birth-weight piglets. This discrepancy might be attributable to experimental differences. Our results indicate that chronic prenatal allopurinol treatment during the third trimester of pregnancy is safe, as no adverse side effects were observed. Compensatory weight gain of treated piglets is a positive indication for the chronic prenatal use of allopurinol in these animals. Further studies are needed to assess the possible preventive effects of allopurinol on brain functions in LBW piglets.
TR-2005008: Toeplitz and Hankel Meet Hensel and Newton Modulo a Power of Two

We extend Hensel lifting for solving general and structured linear systems of equations to the rings of integers modulo nonprimes, e.g. modulo a power of two. This enables significant saving of word operations. We elaborate upon this approach in the case of Toeplitz linear systems. In this case, we initialize lifting with the MBA superfast algorithm, estimate that the overall bit operation (Boolean) cost of the solution is optimal up to roughly a logarithmic factor, and prove that the degeneration is unlikely even where the basic prime is fixed but the input matrix is random. We also comment on the extension of our algorithm to some other fundamental computations with (possibly singular) general and structured matrices and univariate polynomials as well as to the computation of the sign and the value of the determinant of an integer matrix. 2000 Math. Subject Classification: 68W30, 68W20, 65F05, 68Q25 ∗Some results of this paper have been presented at the Annual International Conference on Application of Computer Algebra, Volos, Greece, June 2002; ACM International Symposium on Sympolic and Algebraic Computation, Lille, France, July 2002; and the 5th Annual Conference on Computer Algebra in Scientific Computing, Yalta, Crimea, Ukraine, September 2002. †Supported by NSF Grant CCR 9732206 and PSC CUNY Awards 65393–0034 and 66437– 0035
From pre-storm activity to magnetic storms: A transition described in terms of fractal dynamics

Abstract. We show that distinct changes in scaling parameters of the Dst index time series occur as an intense magnetic storm approaches, revealing a gradual reduction in complexity. The remarkable acceleration of energy release – manifested in the increase in susceptibility – couples to the transition from anti-persistent (negative feedback) to persistent (positive feedback) behavior and indicates that the occurence of an intense magnetic storm is imminent. The main driver of the Dst index, the VBSouth electric field component, does not reveal a similar transition to persistency prior to the storm. This indicates that while the magnetosphere is mostly driven by the solar wind the critical feature of persistency in the magnetosphere is the result of a combination of solar wind and internal magnetospheric activity rather than solar wind variations alone. Our results suggest that the development of an intense magnetic storm can be studied in terms of "intermittent criticality" that is of a more general character than the classical self-organized criticality phenomena, implying the predictability of the magnetosphere.
Power and interests in developing knowledge societies: exogenous and endogenous discourses in contention

The objective of the programme is to improve development practice by promoting change in the way the development sector approaches the selection, management and use of knowledge in the formation and implementation of its policies and programmes. It aims to achieve this by:  raising awareness of the importance of knowledge to development work and its contested nature;  promoting investment in and use of Southern knowledge production of all types and origins;  creating an environment for innovation, supported by research on existing and emergent practice, for people working in the development sector to raise and discuss means of addressing these issues; and  finding, creating, testing and documenting ideas for processes and tools which will illustrate the range of issues which affect how knowledge is used in development work and stimulate thought around possible solutions. Colophon IKM Working Papers comprises a series of publications published by the Information and Knowledge Management (IKM) Research Programme. Some IKM Working Papers are written by IKM Programme members, others have been commissioned from leading experts in a given field. The content may not necessarily be the view or position of the IKM Emergent Research Programme. IKM Working Papers are published and distributed primarily in electronic format via the IKM Emergent website at: www.ikmemergent. net. They are published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Licence and may be copied freely for research and educational purposes when cited with due acknowledgment.
Detecting Trace of Seam Carving for Forensic Analysis

SUMMARY Seam carving, which preserves semantically important image content during resizing process, has been actively researched in recent years. This paper proposes a novel forensic technique to detect the trace of seam carving. We exploit the energy bias and noise level of images under analysis to reliably unveil the evidence of seam carving. Furthermore, we design a detector investigating the relationship among neighboring pixels to estimate the inserted seams. Experimental results from a large set of test images indicates the superior performance of the proposed meth-ods for both seam carving and seam insertion
HrcQ Provides a Docking Site for Early and Late Type III Secretion Substrates from Xanthomonas

Pathogenicity of many Gram-negative bacteria depends on a type III secretion (T3S) system which translocates bacterial effector proteins into eukaryotic cells. The membrane-spanning secretion apparatus is associated with a cytoplasmic ATPase complex and a predicted cytoplasmic (C) ring structure which is proposed to provide a substrate docking platform for secreted proteins. In this study, we show that the putative C ring component HrcQ from the plant pathogenic bacterium Xanthomonas campestris pv. vesicatoria is essential for bacterial pathogenicity and T3S. Fractionation studies revealed that HrcQ localizes to the cytoplasm and associates with the bacterial membranes under T3S-permissive conditions. HrcQ binds to the cytoplasmic T3S-ATPase HrcN, its predicted regulator HrcL and the cytoplasmic domains of the inner membrane proteins HrcV and HrcU. Furthermore, we observed an interaction between HrcQ and secreted proteins including early and late T3S substrates. HrcQ might therefore act as a general substrate acceptor site of the T3S system and is presumably part of a larger protein complex. Interestingly, the N-terminal export signal of the T3S substrate AvrBs3 is dispensable for the interaction with HrcQ, suggesting that binding of AvrBs3 to HrcQ occurs after its initial targeting to the T3S system.
Broadband Microwave Attenuator Based on Few Layer Graphene Flakes

This paper presents the design and fabrication of a broadband microstrip attenuator, operating at 1-20 GHz, based on few layer graphene flakes. The RF performance of the attenuator has been analyzed in depth. In particular, the use of graphene as a variable resistor is discussed and experimentally characterized at microwave frequencies. The structure of the graphene-based attenuator integrates a micrometric layer of graphene flakes deposited on an air gap in a microstrip line. As highlighted in the experiments, the graphene film can range from being a discrete conductor to a highly resistive material, depending on the externally applied voltage. As experimental evidence, it is verified that the application of a proper voltage through two bias tees changes the surface resistivity of graphene, and induces a significant change of insertion loss of the microstrip attenuator.
A Note on Even Cycles and Quasirandom Tournaments

A cycle C={v1,v2,. ,v1} in a tournament T is said to be even, if when walking along C, an even number of edges point in the wrong direction, that is, they are directed from vi+1 to vi . In this short article, we show that for every fixed even integer k≥4 , if close to half of the k‐cycles in a tournament T are even, then T must be quasirandom.This resolves an open question raised in 1991 by Chung and Graham 1991.
Privacy as contextual integrity

The practices of public surveillance, which include the monitoring of individuals in public through a variety of media (e.g., video, data, online), are among the least understood and controversial challenges to privacy in an age of information technologies. The fragmentary nature of privacy policy in the United States reflects not only the oppositional pulls of diverse vested interests, but also the ambivalence of unsettled intuitions on mundane phenomena such as shopper cards, closed-circuit television, and biometrics. This Article, which extends earlier work on the problem of privacy in public, explains why some of the prominent theoretical approaches to privacy, which were developed over time to meet traditional privacy challenges, yield unsatisfactory conclusions in the case of public surveillance. It posits a new construct, “contextual integrity,” as an alternative benchmark for privacy, to capture the nature of challenges posed by information technologies. Contextual integrity ties adequate protection for privacy to norms of specific contexts, demanding that information gathering and dissemination be appropriate to that context and obey the governing norms of distribution within it. Building on the idea of “spheres of justice,” developed by political philosopher Michael Walzer, this Article argues that public surveillance violates a right to privacy because it violates contextual integrity; as such, it constitutes injustice and even tyranny.
Validity and Reliability of the Persian Version of the Dysphagia Handicap Index (DHI)

Introduction: The Dysphagia Handicap Index (DHI) is one of the instruments used for measuring a dysphagic patient’s self-assessment. In some ways, it reflects the patient’s quality of life. Although it has been recognized and widely applied in English speaking populations, it has not been used in its present forms in Persian speaking countries. The purpose of this study was to adapt a Persian version of the DHI and to evaluate its validity, consistency, and reliability in the Persian population with oropharyngeal dysphagia. Materials and Methods: Some stages for cross-cultural adaptation were performed, which consisted in translation, synthesis, back translation, review by an expert committee, and final proof reading. The generated Persian DHI was administered to 85 patients with oropharyngeal dysphagia and 89 control subjects at Zahedan city between May 2013 and August 2013. The patients and control subjects answered the same questionnaire 2 weeks later to verify the test-retest reliability. Internal consistency and test-retest reliability were evaluated. The results of the patients and the control group were compared. Results: The Persian DHI showed good internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha coefficients range from 0.82 to 0.94). Also, good test-retest reliability was found for the total scores of the Persian DHI (r=0.89). There was a significant difference between the DHI scores of the control group and those of the oropharyngeal dysphagia group (P‹0.001). Conclusion: The Persian version of the DHI achieved Face and translation validity. This study demonstrated that the Persian DHI is a valid tool for self-assessment of the handicapping effects of dysphagia on the physical, functional, and emotional aspects of patient life and can be a useful tool for screening and treatment planning for the Persian-speaking dysphagic patients, regardless of the cause or the severity of the dysphagia.
Neurological Complications after Neonatal Bacteremia: The Clinical Characteristics, Risk Factors, and Outcomes

Background Neonates with bacteremia are at risk of neurologic complications. Relevant information warrants further elucidation. Study Design This was a retrospective cohort study of neonates with bacteremia-related neurologic complications (BNCs) in a tertiary-level neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). A systemic chart review was performed conducted to identify clinical characteristics and outcomes. A cohort of related conditions was constructed as the control group. Logistic regression analysis was used to identify independent risk factors for BNC. Results Of 1037 bacteremia episodes, 36 (3.5%) had BNCs. Twenty-four cases of BNCs were related to meningitis, five were presumed meningitis, and seven occurred after septic shock. The most common causative pathogens were Group B streptococcus (41.7%) and E. coli (16.7%). The major BNCs consisted of seizures (28), hydrocephalus (20), encephalomalacia (11), cerebral infarction (7), subdural empyema (6), ventriculitis (8), and abscess (4). Eight (22.8%) neonates died and six (16.7%) were discharged in critical condition when the family withdrew life-sustaining treatment. Among the 22 survivors, eight had neurologic sequelae upon discharge. After multivariate logistic regression analysis, neonates with meningitis caused by Group B streptococcus (adjusted odds ratio [OR]: 8.90, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 2.20–36.08; p = 0.002) and combined meningitis and septic shock (OR, 5.94; 95% CI: 1.53–23.15; p = 0.010) were independently associated with BNCs. Conclusions Neonates with bacteremia-related neurologic complications are associated with adverse outcomes or sequelae. Better strategies aimed at early detection and reducing the emergence of neurologic complications and aggressive treatment of Group B streptococcus sepsis are needed in neonates with meningitis and septic shock.