Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A novel stacked generalization of models for improved TB detection in chest radiographs

Chest x-ray (CXR) analysis is a common part of the protocol for confirming active pulmonary Tuberculosis (TB). However, many TB endemic regions are severely resource constrained in radiological services impairing timely detection and treatment. Computer-aided diagnosis (CADx) tools can supplement decision-making while simultaneously addressing the gap in expert radiological interpretation during mobile field screening. These tools use hand-engineered and/or convolutional neural networks (CNN) computed image features. CNN, a class of deep learning (DL) models, has gained research prominence in visual recognition. It has been shown that Ensemble learning has an inherent advantage of constructing non-linear decision making functions and improve visual recognition. We create a stacking of classifiers with hand-engineered and CNN features toward improving TB detection in CXRs. The results obtained are highly promising and superior to the state-of-the-art.
Denali Ice Core Methanesulfonic Acid Records North Pacific Marine Primary Production

The high‐nutrient, low‐chlorophyll region of the northeastern (NE) subarctic Pacific is one of the most biologically productive marine ecosystems in the world, supporting fisheries worth over $5 billion annually. Phytoplankton are the primary producers in this ecosystem and are also a major source of biogenic sulfur emissions, important in Earth's climate system. However, variability in marine primary production through time is not well constrained. Here we establish methanesulfonic acid (MSA) concentrations in the Denali ice core as a proxy for marine primary production in the NE Pacific. Using Hybrid Single‐Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory (HYSPLIT; Stein et al., 2015, https://doi.org/10.1178/BAMS-D-14-00110.1) modeling, we identify moisture source regions for the core site and correlate Sea‐Viewing Wide Field‐of‐View Sensor‐derived chlorophyll a concentrations with ice core MSA. From 1998 to 2007 we find that areas of significant positive correlation overlap with the HYSPLIT‐inferred moisture source region in the western Gulf of Alaska on an annual basis (r = 0.85, p < 0.001). We identify an MSA response to a localized bloom related to ash deposition from a 2009 Mt. Redoubt eruption. An anomalous upwelling‐driven bloom in spring 2008 did not impact the ice core MSA record due to unfavorable transport conditions. Despite this, we observe that bloom events are rarely missed in the MSA record, which we attribute to the consistent and high snow accumulation rate at the ice core drill site. Our findings suggest that Denali ice core MSA is a reliable recorder of changes in marine primary production through time in the NE subarctic Pacific.
Preferensi Nasabah Memilih Produk Pembiayaan Bank Aceh Syariah di Kota Banda Aceh

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menganalisis preferensi nasabah dalam memilih produk pembiayaan Bank Aceh Syariah di Kota Banda Aceh. Preferensi yang dimaksudkan terdiri dari manfaat ekonomi, lokasi bank, sesuai dengan keyakinan, konsep bagi hasil, pemahaman agama, informasi publik dan lingkungan nasabah. Sampel penelitian sebanyak 100 orang nasabah yang diambil secara purposive sampling. Pengumpulan data menggunakan kuesioner dan selanjutnya data dianalisis dengan menggunakan statistik deskriptif dan statistik inferensi Uji Mann-Whitney. Penelitian menemukan bahwa lingkungan menjadi preferensi paling dominan bagi nasabah dalam memilih produk pembiayaan Bank Aceh Syariah. Berikutnya, kesesuaian dengan keyakinan dan lokasi bank di urutan kedua. Sebaliknya manfaat ekonomi berada urutan terakhir. Hasil uji Man-Whitney mengindikasikan perbedaan jenis kelamin, umur, status perkawinan dan tingkat pendidikan tidak menyebabkan adanya perbedaan preferensi nasabah dalam memilih produk pembiayaan Bank Aceh Syariah. Artinya, preferensi nasabah tidak berbeda berdasarkan jenis kelamin, umur, status perkawinan dan tingkat pendidikan. Sebaliknya perbedaan pekerjaan dan pendapatan rata-rata per bulan menyebabkan perbedaan preferensi nasabah memilih produk pembiayaan bank syariah.
Ultrastructural Remodeling of the Neurovascular Unit in the Female Diabetic db/db Model—Part I: Astrocyte

Obesity, insulin resistance, and type 2 diabetes mellitus are associated with cognitive impairment, known as diabetic cognopathy. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that neurovascular unit(s) (NVU) within cerebral cortical gray matter regions display abnormal cellular remodeling. The monogenic (Leprdb) female diabetic db/db (BKS.CgDock7m +/+Leprdb/J; DBC) mouse model was utilized for this ultrastructural study. Upon sacrifice (at 20 weeks of age), left-brain hemispheres of the DBC and age-matched non-diabetic wild-type control C57BL/KsJ (CKC) mice were immediately immersion-fixed. We found attenuation/loss of endothelial blood–brain barrier tight/adherens junctions and pericytes, thickening of the basement membrane, aberrant mitochondria, and pathological remodeling of protoplasmic astrocytes. Additionally, there were adherent red blood cells and NVU microbleeds (cortical layer III) in DBC mice, which were not observed in CKC animals. While this study represents only a “snapshot in time”, it does allow for cellular remodeling comparisons between DBC and CKC. In this paper, the first of a three-part series, we report the observational ultrastructural remodeling changes of the NVU and its protoplasmic astrocytes in relation to the surrounding neuropil. Having identified multiple abnormal cellular remodeling changes in the DBC as compared to CKC models, we will design future experiments to evaluate various treatment modalities in DBC mice.
Modal language and Bayesian reasoning I: The expression of uncertainty

Probabilistic models have become increasingly widespread in theoretical linguistics in recent years, including formal semantics and pragmatics. This article begins by outlining the semantics of probability and Bayesian update, explaining how they follow as a simple upgrade of the familiar possible-worlds model of meaning and discourse dynamics. It then turns to survey the large but scattered literature on formal models and experimental investigations of epistemic vocabulary and conditionals that have been informed by probabilistic thinking, with attention to contributions from linguistics, logic, philosophy of language, epistemology, computer science, and experimental psychology.
Tool Use in Pan: Two Modalities, Two Species

A notable difference between the two Pan species is their tool using ability. Though many studies on physical tool use exist, few investigate social tool use and, to my knowledge, none focus on their potential relationship or cognitive foundations. While captive and wild chimpanzees are recognized as proficient tool users, captive bonobos exhibit some tool using skills but evidence in wild bonobos is rare. An important similarity, however, is their flexible and intentional use of communicative signals. Captive bonobos and chimpanzees are known to use their communicative behaviors to manipulate humans to obtain an unreachable food, a form of social tool use. With growing interest in social tool use, an emerging central question is to what extent different species utilize these two tool strategies. Thus, 27 bonobos and 29 chimpanzees were given a physical tool task requiring retrieval of a reward at increasing distances such that the physical tool no longer solved the problem while a human who could be solicited was present. Although both species successfully retrieved rewards with the physical tool and solicited the human, chimpanzees showed greater proficiency and flexibility by making fewer attempts to retrieve rewards, retrieving rewards faster, and making more solicitations. For both species, solicitation behavior was prevalent at further distances where the reward was unable to be retrieved, supporting previous research showing these species intentionally produce attention-getting/directing behaviors to indicate toward desired out-of-reach items. In this study, bonobos and chimpanzees exhibited cognitive flexibility by switching tool strategies from using a physical tool at closer distances to using a social tool (a human) at further distances. Regardless of species, physical and social tool performance was related to performance on previous physical and social cognition tasks, including the Primate Cognition Test Battery. The results of this study support the idea that physical and social cognition may not be two separate cognitive domains, as they are so often treated. Rather, cognition may be a single entity in which certain behaviors and processes are elicited by physical and/or social contexts, allowing the transition between physical and social tool modalities. INDEX WORDS: Tool use, Bonobos, Chimpanzee, Physical cognition, Social cognition, Attention-getting TOOL USE IN PAN: TWO MODALITIES, TWO SPECIES
Electronic Swallowing Intervention Package to Support Swallowing Function in Patients With Head and Neck Cancer: Development and Feasibility Study

Background Many patients undergoing treatment for head and neck cancer (HNC) experience significant swallowing difficulties, and there is some evidence that swallowing exercises may improve outcomes, including quality of life. This feasibility study developed an evidence-based, practical Swallowing Intervention Package (SiP) for patients undergoing chemoradiotherapy (CRT) for HNC. As part of the study, an electronic version of SiP (e-SiP) was concurrently developed to support patients to self-manage during treatment. This paper reports on the e-SiP component of this work. Objective The objective of our study was to develop and conduct a preliminary evaluation of an electronic support system (e-SiP) for patients undergoing CRT for HNC. Methods The study was conducted using a recognized mHealth development and evaluation framework and involved health professionals and patients who were undergoing CRT for HNC. The scoping stage of e-SiP development investigated the potential usefulness of the app, exploring how e-SiP would look and feel and what content would be appropriate to provide. Patient and carer focus groups and a health professionals’ consensus day were used as means of data gathering around potential e-SiP content. A repeat focus group looked at an outline version of e-SiP and informed the next stage of its development with regard to refining the requirements for the tool. This was followed by further development and a testing stage of e-SiP that involved the coding of a prototype, which was then evaluated using a series of steering group meetings, semistructured interviews with both patients and health care professionals, and analysis of e-SiP log data. Results Feedback from focus groups and health professional interviews was very positive, and it was felt e-SiP use would support and encourage patients in conducting their swallowing exercises. However, of the 10 patients who were offered e-SiP, only 2 opted to use it. For these patients, the aspects of the e-SiP app were considered useful, in particular, the ease of keeping a diary of exercises performed. Interviews with users and nonusers suggested significant barriers to its use. Most significantly, the lack of flexibility of the platform on which e-SiP could be accessed appeared a dominant factor in deterring e-SiP use. Conclusions The results suggest that further research needs to be conducted around the implementation of e-SiP. This involves evaluating how e-SiP can be better integrated into usual care and through patient training and staff engagement, can be perceived as a beneficial tool to help support patients in conducting swallowing exercises.
How Do Firms Respond To Place-Based Tax Incentives?

In this paper, we evaluate the effects of payroll tax changes on firm behavior, by exploiting a unique policy setting in Norway, where a system of geographically differentiated payroll taxes was suddenly abolished due to an EU regulation. We find that firms are only partially able to shift the increased costs from higher payroll tax rates onto workersâ€™ wages. Instead, firms respond to the tax increase primarily by reducing employment. The drop in employment following the tax reform is particularly pronounced in labor intensive firmsâ€”which experience a larger windfall loss due to the tax reform than non-labor intensive firmsâ€”and in multi-establishment firmsâ€”which respond to the payroll tax increase in part by reducing the number of establishments per firm. Overall, our findings point to liquidity effects whereby a sudden and largely unexpected payroll tax increase aggravates firmsâ€™ liquidity constraints, forcing them to cut employment to bring down costs.
Great Expectations and the Ultimate Reality Check: Voices of Students During the Transition from High School to College

Although previous research provides empirical support for the “Freshman Myth,” qualitative inquiry is necessary to enhance our understanding of the content, complexities, and impact of students’ expectations about college. The current study analyzes in-depth interview data from nine students at three key time points in their transition from high school to college to provide new insights into the nature of students’ expectations about college, their subsequent first-year experiences, and how expectation fulfillment or disillusionment affects students’ adjustment to college. Findings revealed two new areas of student expectations about college: interpersonal relationships and personal development. Further, while their personal and interpersonal experiences in college resulted in some expectation disillusionment, most notably with respect to roommates, students generally felt well adjusted and that their first-year experiences lived up to their expectations. Specifically, their relationships with their families, exposure to new people and ideas, pursuit of personally and professionally relevant coursework, and progress toward their goals for individual development all met or exceeded their precollege expectations. The practical, methodological, and theoretical implications of these results are discussed, which help broaden our current understanding of student expectations about college, provide meaningful feedback to faculty and staff at the high school and college levels, and inform future research in this area.
The Far-Infrared Radio Correlation at low radio frequency with LOFAR/H-ATLAS

The radio and far-infrared luminosities of star-forming galaxies are tightly correlated over several orders of magnitude; this is known as the far-infrared radio correlation (FIRC). Previous studies have shown that a host of factors conspire to maintain a tight and linear FIRC, despite many models predicting deviation. This discrepancy between expectations and observations is concerning since a linear FIRC underpins the use of radio luminosity as a star-formation rate indicator. Using LOFAR 150 MHz , FIRST 1.4 GHz , and Herschel infrared luminosities derived from the new LOFAR/H-ATLAS catalogue, we investigate possible variation in the monochromatic (250 mu m) FIRC at low and high radio frequencies. We use statistical techniques to probe the FIRC for an optically selected sample of 4082 emission-line classified star-forming galaxies as a function of redshift, effective dust temperature, stellar mass, specific star formation rate, and mid-infrared colour (an empirical proxy for specific star formation rate). Although the average FIRC at high radio frequency is consistent with expectations based on a standard power-law radio spectrum, the average correlation at 150 MHz is not. We see evidence for redshift evolution of the FIRC at 150 MHz, and find that the FIRC varies with stellar mass, dust temperature, and specific star formation rate, whether the latter is probed using MAGPHYS fitting, or using mid-infrared colour as a proxy. We can explain the variation, to within 1 sigma, seen in the FIRC over mid-infrared colour by a combination of dust temperature, redshift, and stellar mass using a Bayesian partial correlation technique.
Application of jordan algebra for testing hypotheses about structure of mean vector in model with block compound symmetric covariance structure

In this article authors derive test for structure of mean vector in model with block compound symmetric covariance structure for two-level multivariate observations. One possible structure is so called structured mean vector when its components remain constant over sites or over time points, so that mean vector is of the form $\boldsymbol{1}_{u}\otimes\boldsymbol{\mu}$ with $\boldsymbol{\mu}=(\mu_1,\mu_2,\ldots,\mu_m)'\in\mathbb{R}^m$. This hypothesis is tested against alternative of unstructured mean vector, which can change over sites or over time points.
Noise Field Control Using Active Sound Propagation and Optimization

We present a novel algorithm that uses active loudspeakers to reduce the noise level in an acoustic environment. We utilize a state-of-the-art sound propagation technique to compute a room's impulse responses accurately and then use it to perform acoustic optimization. We minimize the overall noise level in a target region by solving the driving signals of active loudspeakers, which interfere with and cancel out the noise from a linear system. Our algorithm is evaluated on complex indoor benchmarks and shows an overall noise reduction of up to 30.0dB with noise frequency up to 8kHz.
O Single Sign-Off, Where Art Thou? An Empirical Analysis of Single Sign-On Account Hijacking and Session Management on the Web

The advent of Single Sign-On (SSO) has ushered in the era of a tightly interconnected Web. Users can now effortlessly navigate the Web and obtain a personalized experience without the hassle of creating and managing accounts across different services. Due to the proliferation of SSO, user accounts in identity providers are now keys to the kingdom and pose a massive security risk. If such an account is compromised, attackers can gain control of the user’s accounts in numerous other web services. In this paper we investigate the security implications of SSO and offer an in-depth analysis of account hijacking on the modern Web. Our experiments explore multiple aspects of the attack workflow and reveal significant variance in how services deploy SSO. We also introduce novel attacks that leverage SSO for maintaining long-term control of user accounts. We empirically evaluate our attacks against 95 major web and mobile services and demonstrate their severity and stealthy nature. Next we explore what session and account management options are available to users after an account is compromised. Our findings highlight the inherent limitations of prevalent SSO schemes as most services lack the functionality that would allow users to remediate an account takeover. This is exacerbated by the scale of SSO coverage, rendering manual remediation attempts a futile endeavor. To remedy this we propose Single Sign-Off, an extension to OpenID Connect for universally revoking access to all the accounts associated with the hijacked identity provider account.
Temporal Optimality of a Via-Posture on Trajectory during Sit-to-Stand and Back-to-Sit Movements

The purpose of this study was to examine the hypothesis that the minimum angle-jerk with via-point model could account for the temporal consistency of kinematics in sit-to-stand (STS) and back-to-sit (BTS) movements. The positions of bony landmarks on the subjects during the tasks were recorded using a Vicon motion analysis system to yield the angular displacement and position of the center of mass (COM) of a three-link rigid body model in the sagittal plane. Minimum angle-jerk and minimum jerk trajectories with a via-point were computed for joint angle and COM, respectively. Five to six candidate points were selected as the via-point from the measured trajectory based on the separate kinematic events. The results show the optimal angular trajectories using the via-points (via-angles) before the seat-off for STS, and at around the seat-contact for BTS resembles the measured angular trajectories well, indicating that the posture at the via-point was temporally optimal to produce the minimum angle-jerk trajectory for both movements. It is hypothesized that the multi-joint angular patterns during STS and BTS movements were organized to pass through the via-point, namely the via-posture along the minimum angle-jerk trajectory.
Characterization of aerosol hygroscopicity, mixing state, and CCN activity at a suburban site in the central North China Plain

Abstract. This study investigates aerosol hygroscopicity, mixing state, and cloud condensation nucleation as part of the Atmosphere–Aerosol–Boundary Layer–Cloud Interaction Joint Experiment performed in the summer of 2016 at Xingtai (XT), a suburban site located in the center of the North China Plain (NCP). In general, the probability density function (PDF) of the hygroscopicity parameter (κ) for 40–200 nm particles had a unimodal distribution, and mean κ-PDF patterns for different sizes were similar, suggesting that the particles were highly aged and internally mixed because of strong photochemical reactions. The κ calculated from the hygroscopic growth factor in the daytime and at night suggests that photochemical reactions largely enhanced the aerosol hygroscopicity. This effect became weaker as the particle size increased. In addition, the aerosol hygroscopicity was much larger at XT than at other sites in the NCP. This is because new particle formation takes place much more frequently in the central NCP, which is heavily polluted from industrial activities, than elsewhere in the region. The evolution of the planetary boundary layer played a dominant role in dictating aerosol mass concentration. Particle size was the most important factor influencing the ability of aerosols to activate, whereas the effect of chemical composition was secondary, especially when supersaturation was high. Using a fixed value of κ=0.31 to calculate the cloud condensation nuclei number concentration in this region suffices.
Genetically Derived Estimates of Contemporary Natural Straying Rates and Historical Gene Flow among Lake Michigan Lake Sturgeon Populations

Abstract Natural rates of straying are difficult to quantify over large spatial scales using direct observations, particularly for long-lived fish species characterized by delayed sexual maturity and long interspawning intervals. Using multilocus microsatellite genotypes and likelihood-based statistical methods, we quantified rates of immigration and emigration for six genetically differentiated (mean F ST = 0.041) lake sturgeon Acipenser fulvescens populations in Lake Michigan based on adults (n = 437) captured in tributaries during the spawning season. Estimated rates of straying were high (mean = 0.105), asymmetrical, and highly variable across populations. We found no significant association between the total length (a surrogate measure of age) of individuals that strayed and those that did not. Linear distance between streams was more predictive of straying rates and F ST than least-cost distances estimated based on lakescape features (bathymetry and lake current patterns). Historical rates of gene f.