Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Only Relevant Information Matters: Filtering Out Noisy Samples To Boost RL

In reinforcement learning, policy gradient algorithms optimize the policy directly and rely on sampling efficiently an environment. Nevertheless, while most sampling procedures are based on direct policy sampling, self-performance measures could be used to improve such sampling prior to each policy update. Following this line of thought, we introduce SAUNA, a method where non-informative transitions are rejected from the gradient update. The level of information is estimated according to the fraction of variance explained by the value function: a measure of the discrepancy between V and the empirical returns. In this work, we use this criterion to select samples that are useful to learn from, and we demonstrate that this selection can significantly improve the performance of policy gradient methods. In this paper: (a) We introduce the SAUNA method to filter transitions. (b) We conduct experiments on a set of benchmark continuous control problems. SAUNA significantly improves performance. (c) We investigate how SAUNA reliably selects samples with the most positive impact on learning and study its improvement on both performance and sample efficiency.
Vertex Weighting-Based Tabu Search for p-Center Problem

The p-center problem consists of choosing p centers from a set of candidates to minimize the maximum cost between any client and its assigned facility. In this paper, we transform the p-center problem into a series of set covering subproblems, and propose a vertex weighting-based tabu search (VWTS) algorithm to solve them. The proposed VWTS algorithm integrates distinguishing features such as a vertex weighting technique and a tabu search strategy to help the search to jump out of the local optima. Computational experiments on 138 most commonly used benchmark instances show that VWTS is highly competitive comparing to the state-of-the-art methods in spite of its simplicity. As a well-known NP-hard problem which has already been studied for over half a century, it is a challenging task to break the records on these classic datasets. Yet VWTS improves the best known results for 14 out of 54 large instances, and matches the optimal results for all remaining 84 ones. In addition, the computational time taken by VWTS is much shorter than other algorithms in the literature.
Participatory Budgeting with Project Interactions

Participatory budgeting systems allow city residents to jointly decide on projects they wish to fund using public money, by letting residents vote on such projects. While participatory budgeting is gaining popularity, existing aggregation methods do not take into account the natural possibility of project interactions, such as substitution and complementarity effects. Here we take a step towards fixing this issue: First, we augment the standard model of participatory budgeting by introducing a partition over the projects and model the type and extent of project interactions within each part using certain functions. We study the computational complexity of finding bundles that maximize voter utility, as defined with respect to such functions. Motivated by the desire to incorporate project interactions in real-world participatory budgeting systems, we identify certain cases that admit efficient aggregation in the presence of such project interactions.
Fast and Accurate Neural CRF Constituency Parsing

Estimating probability distribution is one of the core issues in the NLP field. However, in both deep learning (DL) and pre-DL eras, unlike the vast applications of linear-chain CRF in sequence labeling tasks, very few works have applied tree-structure CRF to constituency parsing, mainly due to the complexity and inefficiency of the inside-outside algorithm. This work presents a fast and accurate neural CRF constituency parser. The key idea is to batchify the inside algorithm for loss computation by direct large tensor operations on GPU, and meanwhile avoid the outside algorithm for gradient computation via efficient back-propagation. We also propose a simple two-stage bracketing-then-labeling parsing approach to improve efficiency further. To improve the parsing performance, inspired by recent progress in dependency parsing, we introduce a new scoring architecture based on boundary representation and biaffine attention, and a beneficial dropout strategy. Experiments on PTB, CTB5.1, and CTB7 show that our two-stage CRF parser achieves new state-of-the-art performance on both settings of w/o and w/ BERT, and can parse over 1,000 sentences per second. We release our code at https://github.com/yzhangcs/crfpar.
Tail Length at Docking and Weaning of Lambs

This study was conducted with crossbred lambs (n = 109 female and 120 male) to measure tail length at docking and weaning and to determine the change in length between docking and weaning. Lambs were born in April and weaned at approximately 125 d of age. Within 24 h after birth, lambs were weighed and ear tagged, and rubber rings were applied to dock tails. Rings were applied just past the distal end of the caudal folds of the tail, which is just beyond where the folds attached to the tail. Time of rubber ring application was considered time of docking. Using a specially designed device, tail lengths were measured immediately after rubber ring application and at weaning. Lambs were weighed at weaning. Sex and breed type affected (P < 0.005) BW at docking and weaning; male and black-faced × whitefaced lambs were heavier than female and white-faced × white-faced lambs. At docking, neither sex, breed type, nor the sex × breed-type interaction affected actual tail length or tail length adjusted for BW, although BW at docking was a significant (P < 0.0001) covariate. At weaning, the sex × breed type interaction affected (P < 0.002) actual tail length, which was greater (P < 0.002) for male, black-faced × white-faced lambs than for lambs of the other sexbreed-type classifications. At weaning, sex and sex × breed type affected (P < 0.01) tail length adjusted for the covariate BW at weaning. Breed type affected (P < 0.006) the change in actual tail length between docking and weaning (white-faced × white-faced, 2.4 cm, vs. black-faced × white-faced lambs, 2.7 cm). The data indicate clearly that tail length increased between docking and weaning.
Ethics of Facial Transplantation

Objective: This study examines and contrasts the effect of risk disclosure on risk acceptance and perceived changes in quality of life (QoL) among individuals with and without facial disfigurement. Summary of Background Data: Psychological distress has been previously shown to alter patients’ perception of certain treatments. Due to the grave risks and complications of FT, it is important to understand whether the psychological trauma associated with facial disfigurement alters their perception of FT and its associated risks. Methods: Participants with and without facial disfigurement were recruited to complete a questionnaire about their perceived QoL, sense of identity, and willingness to proceed with FT in the context of 3 different hypothetical scenarios involving facial disfiguration. Results: Four hundred nine nonfacially disfigured and 74 facially disfigured participants were included. When both healthy and facially disfigured individuals were presented with the risks and benefits of a FT, they both perceived their QoL to be as low, or significantly lower, than if they had severe facial disfigurement. Furthermore, presenting the risks of FT significantly altered the decision making and risk acceptance of healthy individuals with no facial disfigurement. However, risk disclosure did not affect the decision making among facially disfigured individuals. Conclusion: This study highlights that presenting the complication profile of FT decreases risk acceptance of FT in healthy individuals but has no significant effects on facially disfigured individuals. The psychological impact of facial disfigurement and its influence on accepting the significant risks of FT should be considered and warrants further investigation.
Afrochlus Freeman: an African gondwanan midge and the phylogeny of the Podonominae (Diptera: Chironomidae)

The immature stages and male adult of Afrochlus harrisoni Freeman are described for the first time, from the type locality, a granite outcrop in Zimbabwe. A phylogenetic position within the subfamily Podonominae as sister to South African‐western/central Australian genus Archaeochlus Brundin, suggested in 1966 by Brundin from the adult female alone, is confirmed by cladistic analysis of all life history stages combined. Within the Podonominae, the tribes Boreochlini and Podonomini erected by Brundin are monophyletic only if Trichotanypus Kieffer is transferred from the former to the latter. Little or none of the structure provided by the combined evidence from all stages is retrieved by cladistic analyses of characters derived solely from the adult stage. The implications of erection of monotypic genera for adult‐only taxa are discussed.
Subclinical left atrial dysfunction profiles for prediction of cardiac outcome in the general population.

OBJECTIVE Echocardiographic definitions of subclinical left atrial dysfunction based on epidemiological data remain scarce. In this population study, we derived outcome-driven thresholds for echocardiographic left atrial function parameters discriminating between normal and abnormal values. METHODS In 1306 individuals (mean age, 50.7 years; 51.6% women), we echocardiographically assessed left atrial function and LV global longitudinal strain. We derived cut-off values for left atrial emptying fraction (LAEF), left atrial function index (LAFI) and left atrial reservoir strain (LARS) to define left atrial dysfunction using receiver-operating curve threshold analysis. Main outcome was the incidence of cardiac events and atrial fibrillation (AFib) on average 8.5 years later. RESULTS For prediction of new-onset AFib, left atrial cut-offs yielding the best balance between sensitivity and specificity (highest Youden index) were: LAEF less than 55%, LAFI less than 40.5 and LARS less than 23%. Applying these cut-offs, abnormal LAEF, LAFI and LARS were, respectively, present in 27, 37.1 and 18.1% of the cohort. Abnormal LARS (<23%) was independently associated with higher risk for cardiac events and new-onset AFib (P ≤ 0.012). Participants with both abnormal LAEF and LARS presented a significantly higher risk to develop cardiac events (hazard ratio: 2.10; P = 0.014) and AFib (hazard ratio: 6.45; P = 0.0036) than normal counterparts. The concomitant presence of an impaired LARS and LV global longitudinal strain improved prognostic accuracy beyond a clinical risk model for cardiac events and the CHARGE-AF Risk Score for AFib. CONCLUSION Left atrial dysfunction based on outcome-driven thresholds predicted cardiac events and AFib independent of conventional risk factors. Screening for subclinical left atrial and LV systolic dysfunction may enhance cardiac disease prediction in the community.
Intervention and Mechanisms of Alanyl-glutamine for Inflammation, Nutrition, and Enteropathy: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Objective: Determine the minimum dosage of alanyl-glutamine (Ala-Gln) required to improve gut integrity and growth in children at risk of environmental enteropathy (EE). Methods: This was a double-blinded randomized placebo-controlled dose-response trial. We enrolled 140 children residing in a low-income community in Fortaleza, Brazil. Participants were 2 to 60 months old and had weight-for-age (WAZ), height-for-age (HAZ), or weight-for-height (WHZ) z-scores less than −1. We randomized children to 10 days of nutritional supplementation: Ala-Gln at 3 g/day, Ala-Gln at 6 g/day, Ala-Gln at 12 g/day, or an isonitrogenous dose of glycine (Gly) placebo at 12.5 g/day. Our primary outcome was urinary lactulose-mannitol excretion testing. Secondary outcomes were anthropometry, fecal markers of inflammation, urine metabolic profiles, and malabsorption (spot fecal energy). Results: Of 140 children, 103 completed 120 days of follow-up (24% dropout). In the group receiving the highest dose of Ala-Gln, we detected a modest improvement in urinary lactulose excretion from 0.19% on day 1 to 0.17% on day 10 (P=0.05). We observed significant but transient improvements in WHZ at day 10 in 2 Ala-Gln groups, and in WHZ and WAZ in all Ala-Gln groups at day 30. We detected no effects on fecal inflammatory markers, diarrheal morbidity, or urine metabolic profiles; but did observe modest reductions in fecal energy and fecal lactoferrin in participants receiving Ala-Gln. Conclusions: Intermediate dose Ala-Gln promotes short-term improvement in gut integrity and ponderal growth in children at risk of EE. Lower doses produced improvements in ponderal growth in the absence of enhanced gut integrity.
Point prevalence of haemonchosis in sheep and goats slaughtered at Multan abattoir.

The present study was conducted to determine the prevalence of Haemonchus (H.) contortus in slaughtered sheep and goats at Multan abattoir. A total of 4740 animals were slaughtered and examined from 21 January 2007 to 20 February 2007 in Multan abattoir. In case of sheep, 793 out of 2133 were positive and prevalence of H. contortus infestation was 37.18% while 811 out of 2607 (31-10%) goats were positive. Sex wise prevalence of H. contortus in sheep was 34.11% (291/853) in male and 39.22% (502/1280) in female while in goats prevalence in male was 29.91% (312/1043) and in female was 31.90% (499/1564).
The Role of Liquid Biopsies in Detecting Molecular Tumor Biomarkers in Brain Cancer Patients

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is one of the most lethal primary central nervous system cancers with a median overall survival of only 12–15 months. The best documented treatment is surgical tumor debulking followed by chemoradiation and adjuvant chemotherapy with temozolomide, but treatment resistance and therefore tumor recurrence, is the usual outcome. Although advances in molecular subtyping suggests GBM can be classified into four subtypes, one concern about using the original histology for subsequent treatment decisions is that it only provides a static snapshot of heterogeneous tumors that may undergo longitudinal changes over time, especially under selective pressure of ongoing therapy. Liquid biopsies obtained from bodily fluids like blood and cerebro-spinal fluid (CSF) are less invasive, and more easily repeated than surgery. However, their deployment for patients with brain cancer is only emerging, and possibly suppressed clinically due to the ongoing belief that the blood brain barrier prevents the egress of circulating tumor cells, exosomes, and circulating tumor nucleic acids into the bloodstream. Although brain cancer liquid biopsy analyses appear indeed challenging, advances have been made and here we evaluate the current literature on the use of liquid biopsies for detection of clinically relevant biomarkers in GBM to aid diagnosis and prognostication.
Bisphenol A Toxicity in Adult Male Rats: Hematological, Biochemical and Histopathological Approach

The purpose of this study was to investigate the hematological, biochemical and histological alterations induced by bisphenol A (BPA) which is an estrogenic environmental contaminant. Albino adult male rats were administrated orally BPA (150 mg/kg). After 70 consecutive days of exposure, blood, sera and tissues were collected for hematological, biochemical and histopathological examination. Lymphocytes were separated from the spleen for rosset formation test. BPA- treated rats showed a significant reduction in red cell count, hemoglobin concentration and packed cell volume. The serum activity of alanine amino transferase, aspartate amino transferase, alkaline phosphatase, total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein, urea and creatinine levels showed increased in BPA-treated group concomitant with reduction in glucose and triglycerides levels. Leucogram, E-rosettes forming count, total protein, albumin, globulin and high-density lipoprotein values did not show significant differences. Histopathological alterations were detected in the liver, kidneys and spleen of BPA-treated rats. From the present study it could be concluded that exposure to BPA is accompanied with anemia, hepatic and renal injuries.
SPECTRAL SENSITIVITY OF THE PERCH (PERCA FLUVIATILIS) FROM THE DANUBE

In spectral sensitivity studies, electroretinograms (ERG) were recorded from the in situ eyecup of immobi- lized perch (Perca fluviatilis) electrofished in the floodplain zone of the Danube River. It is shown that the ERG b-wave is a good indicator of spectral sensitivity, although it reflects the activity of photoreceptors indirectly. With a maximum around 542 mm, the scotopic spectral sensitivity of perch obtained using fitted amplitude-log intensity functions for threshold calculation and two models developed in our laboratory for computer-assisted fitting of spectral sensitivity curves did not differ from the sensitivity determined using the microspectrophotometric and isolated pigment methods (maximum around 541 nm).
The physiological basis of seed dormancy in Arena fatua V. Action of ethanol and other organic compounds

Ethanol (50-200 mM)induced germination in four genetically pure dormant lines of Avena fatua L. The sensitivity to this treatment was moderate immediately after harvest and increased steadily during six months of after-ripening. This sensitivity to ethanol was detectable much earlier during after-ripening than with two other germination promoters, NaN3, and NaNO3, Because ethanol can overcome dormancy in freshly harvested caryopses, the mode of action of ethanol in these caryopses apparently differs from that of the two other promoters, azide and nitrate. Nevertheless, it is clear that induction of germination by the three promoters is fully gibberellin-dependent since in each case this response can be blocked by the administration of 2-chlorocthyl trimethylammonium chloride, an inhibitor of gibberellin biosynthesis. Short-term incubation treatments with ethanol were relatively more effective than continuous treatments. These brief treatments were most effective when presented near the beginning of seed imbibition. Among other organic compounds tested only acetaldehyde significantly promoted germination in all lines tested. Propan-1-ol, butan-l-ol, chloral hydrate, procaine, methanol and chloroform were marginally effective on the least dormant lines, while ether, formaldehyde, acetone and ethyl acetate were ineffective. The mode of action of ethanol in overcoming dormancy in both freshly harvested and partly after-ripened caryopses is discussed and the possible role as a metabolic substrate or anaesthetic is indicated.
Landscape effects of climate, agriculture, and urbanization on benthic invertebrate communities of Canadian prairie lakes

Paleoecological analyses of fossil chironomid assemblages from eight lakes of the Qu'Appelle Valley, Saskatchewan, Canada, were used to quantify the relative influence of climate, resource use, and urbanization on benthic invertebrate communities 1850–1995. Fossil analyses inferred that Qu'Appelle lakes are naturally productive but that invertebrate communities were altered by agriculture and urbanization. In western lakes, rates of community change (chord distance per 5 yr) were low and nonsignificant (P < 0.05) prior to European settlement, but increased twofold after ~1930–1940. In contrast, uniformly significant rates of community change were recorded in eastern downstream lakes only after the 1960s. In both cases, high rates of change corresponded to alterations in the balance between deep‐water (Chironomus) and littoral species (Cladotanytarsus mancus group, Tanytarsus s.lat. [s.l.]). Comparison of historical and fossil time series (~1920–1993) using variance partitioning analysis (VPA) explained up to 86.6% of past variations in chironomid community composition. Unexpectedly, climate (winter temperature) explained a significant (P , 0.05) and substantial (mean ± SD, n =5 8; 24.8 ± 21.9%) amount of community variance at all sites except Round Lake. In contrast, land‐use practices exhibited significant but less substantial (6.7 ± 6.1%, n = 8) impacts on zoobenthos of five lakes, whereas significant urban impacts (3.6 ± 7.5%, n = 8) were recorded only at two sites. Similarly, redundancy analysis showed that minimum winter or spring temperature significantly influenced the relative abundance of littoral taxa in seven lakes. Such strong effects of climate on benthic invertebrate communities contrast its weak effects on phytoplankton in these lakes and suggest that future environmental change may be expressed differentially among habitats.
Seed mass affects the susceptibility of weed and crop species to phytotoxins extracted from red clover shoots

Abstract Residues of legume crops used to increase soil fertility may also serve as sources of phytotoxins that can suppress the germination and early growth of weed and crop species. To test the hypothesis that weed and crop susceptibility to extracts of red clover shoots would be inversely proportional to seed mass, we (1) identified 18 weeds and 44 crops whose 100-seed masses ranged from 20 to 26,250 mg; (2) exposed their seeds in petri dishes and filter paper to a 2% aqueous extract of ‘Marathon’ red clover shoots or distilled water; and (3) measured germination percentage and radicle length of germinated seeds after incubation for 4 days. In a second experiment, we assessed germination and radicle growth of four crop and four weed species after exposure to 1% extracts of Marathon or ‘Cherokee’ red clover or distilled water. Germination inhibition by red clover extracts was greatest for lighter seeds and least for heavier seeds in Experiment 1 (P = 0.0005), but was unrelated to seed mass in Experiment 2. Radicle inhibition by red clover extracts was inversely proportional to seed mass in both Experiment 1 (P < 0.0001) and Experiment 2 (P = 0.0047), and, in Experiment 1, was greater for monocots than dicots (P = 0.0002). Our findings corroborate the general relationship between seed mass and stress tolerance observed by other investigators and indicate that small-seeded monocots are most likely to be susceptible to phytotoxins contained in red clover shoots. Nomenclature: Red clover, Trifolium pratense L.
Mating preferences in a species flock of Mexican pupfishes (Cyprinodon, Teleostei)

Female mating preferences were examined in three members of an evolutionarily young Cyprinodon lineage from Laguna Chichancanab, Yucatan, Mexico. In separate experiments, females of C. beltrani and C. labiosus, and C. beltrani and C. maya were simultaneously presented with conspecific and heterospecific males and given the opportunity to spawn with either or both. These three species showed different degrees of conspecific mate recognition: complete for C. maya, intermediate for C. labiosus, and indiscriminate for C. beltrani. We conclude that only C. maya is reproductively isolated and that C. beltrani and C. labiosus still hybridize in nature. Whereas between C. beltrani and C. maya mate choice is symmetric, it is asymmetric between C. beltrani and C. labiosus. The results of the mating trials are consistent with mitochondrial DNA data which indicate that C. maya is genetically the most distinct species in the flock. They are also supported by experiments on visually and chemically mediated mate preferences.