Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
FedMeS: Personalized Federated Continual Learning Leveraging Local Memory

We focus on the problem of Personalized Feder-1 ated Continual Learning (PFCL): a group of dis-2 tributed clients, each with a sequence of local tasks 3 on arbitrary data distributions, collaborate through 4 a central server to train a personalized model at 5 each client, with the model expected to achieve 6 good performance on all local tasks. We propose 7 a novel PFCL framework called Federated Mem-8 ory Strengthening ( FedMeS ) to address the chal-9 lenges of client drift and catastrophic forgetting. 10 In FedMeS , each client stores samples from pre-11 vious tasks using a small amount of local mem-12 ory, and leverages this information to both 1) cal-13 ibrate gradient updates in local training; and 2) per-14 form KNN-based Gaussian inference to facilitate 15 local inference. FedMeS is designed to be task-16 oblivious , such that the same inference process is 17 applied to samples from all tasks to achieve good 18 performance. FedMeS is analyzed theoretically 19 and evaluated experimentally. It is shown to out-20 perform all baselines in average accuracy and for-21 getting rate, over various combinations of datasets, 22 task distributions, and client numbers. 23
AIMHI: Protecting Sensitive Data through Federated Co-Training

Federated learning offers collaborative training among distributed sites without sharing sensitive local information by sharing the sites’ model parameters. It is possible, though, to make non-trivial inferences about sensitive local information from these model parameters. We propose a novel co-training technique called AIMHI that uses a public unlabeled dataset to exchange information between sites by sharing predictions on that dataset. This setting is particularly suitable to healthcare, where hospitals and clinics hold small labeled datasets with highly sensitive patient data and large national health databases contain large amounts of public patient data. We show that the proposed method reaches a model quality comparable to federated learning while maintaining privacy to high degree.
Link between fibrosis-specific biomarkers and interstitial fibrosis in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

BACKGROUND Cardiac fibrosis is a hallmark of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) and has proven unfavorable clinical significance. Replacement fibrosis is better known, and has already been studied on a larger scale, whereas interstitial fibrosis is less explored. AIMS We aimed to analyze relationship between serum biomarkers and interstitial fibrosis, as assessed with cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) in HCM. METHODS We performed 3T CMR scans in 50 HCM patients to assess interstitial fibrosis as expressed by extracellular volume (ECV). In all patients, we determined levels of serum cardiac-specific (troponin T [TnT], N-terminal prohormone of brain natriuretic peptide [NT-proBNP]) and fibrosis-specific (procollagen I C-terminal propeptide, procollagen III N-terminal propeptide, transforming growth factor β1, galectin 3) biomarkers. Patients were divided based on their median value of ECV. RESULTS The final study population consisted of 49 patients. The median value of ECV in our cohort was 28.1%. Patients stratified according to median ECV differed in terms of several variables: body mass index, late gadolinium extent, NT-proBNP and galectin 3 levels (all P < 0.05). Cardiac biomarkers (TnT and NT-proBNP) and galectin 3 were significantly correlated with ECV (rS = 0.34; P = 0.02; rS = 0.39; P = 0.006; rS = 0.43; P = 0.002, respectively). Galectin 3 and body mass index were found to be independent predictors of ECV (odds ratio [OR], 2.29 [1.07-4.91]; P = 0.03; OR, 0.81 [0.68-0.97]; P = 0.02, respectively). CONCLUSIONS Galectin 3 was an independent predictor of interstitial fibrosis in HCM patients expressed as elevated ECV values. The other fibrosis-specific biomarkers measured were not useful in detecting interstitial fibrosis in HCM. In addition, there was a positive correlation between classical cardiac biomarkers and interstitial fibrosis in HCM patients.
timbre.fun: A gamified interactive system for crowdsourcing a timbre semantic vocabulary

We present timbre.fun ( https://timbre.fun/ ), a web-based gamified interactive system where users create sounds in response to semantic prompts (e.g., bright, rough) through exploring a two-dimensional control space that maps nonlinearly to the parameters of a simple hybrid wavetable and amplitude-modulation synthesizer. The current version features 25 semantic adjectives mined from a popular synthesis forum. As well as creating sounds, users can explore heatmaps generated from others’ responses, and fit a classifier (k-nearest neighbors) in-browser. timbre.fun is based on recent work, including by the authors, which studied timbre semantic associations through prompted synthesis paradigms. The interactive is embedded in a digital exhibition on sensory variation and interaction ( https://seeingmusic.app/ ) which debuted at the 2021 Edinburgh Science Festival, where it was visited by 197 users from 21 countries over 16 days. As it continues running online, a further 596 visitors from 35 countries have engaged. To date 579 sounds have been created and tagged, which will facilitate parallel research in timbre semantics and neural audio synthesis. Future work will include further gamifying the data collection pipeline, including “leveling-up” to unlock new words and synthesizers, and a full open-source release.
PUMM: Preventing Use-After-Free Using Execution Unit Partitioning

Critical software is written in memory unsafe languages that are vulnerable to use-after-free and double free bugs. This has led to proposals to secure memory allocators by strategically deferring memory reallocations long enough to make such bugs unexploitable. Unfortunately, existing solutions suffer from high runtime and memory overheads. Seeking a better solution, we propose to proﬁle programs to identify units of code that correspond to the handling of individual tasks. With the intuition that little to no data should ﬂow between separate tasks at runtime, reallocation of memory freed by the currently executing unit is deferred until after its completion; just long enough to prevent use-after-free exploitation. To demonstrate the efﬁcacy of our design, we implement a prototype for Linux, PUMM, which consists of an ofﬂine proﬁler and an online enforcer that transparently wraps standard libraries to protect C/C++ binaries. In our evaluation of 40 real-world and 3,000 synthetic vulnerabilities across 26 programs, including complex multi-threaded cases like the Chakra JavaScript engine, PUMM successfully thwarts all real-world exploits, and only allows 4 synthetic exploits, while reducing memory overhead by 52.0% over prior work and incurring an average runtime overhead of 2.04%.
M-matrices with prescribed elementary divisors

A real matrix A is said to be an M-matrix if it is of the form A=αI−B, where B is a nonnegative matrix with Perron eigenvalue ρ(B), and α⩾ρ(B). This paper provides sufficient conditions for the existence and construction of an M-matrix A with prescribed elementary divisors, which are the characteristic polynomials of the Jordan blocks of the Jordan canonical form of A. This inverse problem on M-matrices has not been treated until now. We solve the inverse elementary divisors problem for diagonalizable M-matrices and the symmetric generalized doubly stochastic inverse M-matrix problem for lists of real numbers and for lists of complex numbers of the form Λ={λ1,a±bi,…,a±bi}. The constructive nature of our results allows for the computation of a solution matrix. The paper also discusses an application of M-matrices to a capacity problem in wireless communications.
Total VREcall

Our memories and past experiences contribute to guiding our perception and action of future affective experiences. Virtual Reality (VR) experiences are more vividly memorized and recalled than non-VR ones, but there is little research on how to detect this recall in VR. We investigate the feasibility of recognizing autobiographical memory (AM) recall in VR using physiological cues: skin conductance, heart-rate variability, eye gaze, and pupillary response. We devised a methodology replicating an existing AM Test in VR. We conducted a user study with 20 participants recalling AM using three valence categories cue words: positive, negative, and neutral. We found a significant effect of AM recalls on EDA peak, and eye blink rate, with a generalized recognition accuracy of 77.1% and person dependent accuracy of up to 95.1%. This shows a promising approach for detecting AM recall in VR and we discuss the implications for VR experience design.
Real-Time Generative Grasping with Spatio-temporal Sparse Convolution

Robots performing mobile manipulation in unstructured environments must identify grasp affordances quickly and with robustness to perception noise. Yet in domains such as underwater manipulation, where perception noise is severe, computation is constrained, and the environment is dynamic, existing techniques fail. They are too computationally demanding, or too sensitive to noise to allow for closed loop grasping or dynamic replanning, or do not consider 6-DOF grasps. We present a novel grasp synthesis network, TSGrasp, that uses spatio-temporal sparse convolution to process a streaming point cloud in real time. The network generates 6-DOF grasps at greater speed and with less memory than Contact GraspNet, a state-of-the-art algorithm based on Point-Net++. By considering information from multiple successive frames of depth video, TSGrasp boosts robustness to noise or temporary self-occlusion and allows more grasps to be rapidly identified. Our grasp synthesis system was successfully demonstrated in an underwater environment with a Blueprint Labs Bravo robotic arm.
Sexual Wellbeing according to Transgender Individuals

Abstract Objective Sexual wellbeing is an important aspect of quality-of-life. In transgender individuals who seek gender affirming treatment, various aspects of sexuality have been assessed. However, not much is known on how transgender individuals themselves perceive sexual wellbeing. This study aims to explore the perception of sexual wellbeing in transgender-individuals (an emic-perspective). Methods To explore sexual wellbeing from an emic perspective, qualitative interviews with transgender individuals were conducted, recorded and transcribed verbatim. Inductive coding and thematic analysis were used to assess topics and themes pertaining to sexual wellbeing. Results Based on interviews wih15 participants (19–74 years) with diverse self-identified genders, four main themes, relating to sexual wellbeing were derived: (1) given description of sexual wellbeing, (2) conditions for sexual wellbeing, (3) factors affecting sexual wellbeing, and (4) experienced sexual wellbeing. Conclusion Positive experiences, feeling comfortable with body/self, intimacy, acceptation and communication with partner appeared helpful to overcome hurdles and experience sexual wellbeing.
The Syntax of Relative Clauses in European Portuguese. Extending the Determiner Hypothesis of Relativizers to Relative que

This paper discusses the syntax of relative clauses in European Portuguese (EP) by focussing on the status of the relativizer que in restrictive and appositive relative clauses. We propose a unified account of que in terms of a D-element and discuss the syntactic implications of this assumption for an adequate analysis of relative clauses in EP. We assume that relative que has properties of demonstrative and interrogative determiners. In restrictive object and subject relative clauses, que occurs as a transitive determiner [ DP que [ NP e]], which selects for a nominal complement, whereas in prepositional and appositive relative clauses, [ DP que] is an intransitive determiner parallel to an e-type pronoun. We discuss the position of restrictive relative clauses in the DP containing the modified noun, and propose that they are merged pre-nominally, in the same fashion as demonstratives.
THE INFLUENCE OF PREGNANT WOMEN'S KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THE USE OF INSECTICIDAL MOSQUITO NETS ON THE INCIDENCE OF MALARIA BY READING POCKET BOOKS AT PUSKEMAS SENTANI

Background: Malaria is an infectious disease caused by Plasmodium, which is a one-celled living creature that belongs to the group of protozoa, malaria is transmitted through the bite of a female anopheles mosquito containing plasmodium in it, plasmodium carried through mosquito bites will live and multiply in human blood cells. Pregnant women belong to the group that is prone to malaria due to the decrease in various pathological conditions in pregnant women and the fetuses they contain. The implementation of malaria control towards elimination is carried out gradually from one island or several islands until all islands are covered in order to realize a healthy living community and free from malaria transmission until 2030. The use of insecticidal mosquito nets is one of the preventive efforts towards malaria elimination. Public knowledge, especially pregnant women, about the use and benefits of insecticidal mosquito nets is an obstacle. Objective: Knowing pe. Methods : The design of this study is an experimental research with a type of quasy experiment with the approach of One Group Pre Test / Post Test Design. The population in this study was pregnant inu who visited the Sentani Health Center with sampling techniques using Non Probability Sampling selected by Perposive Sampling consisting of 30 respondents. The variable measured in this study is the knowledge of pregnant women. This study used the Wilcoxon signed rank test (a<0.05). Result: The results showed that pregnant women's knowledge about the use of berymunu berisktiside after being carried out was higher than before. with a value of p=0.005. Thus it can be concluded that the accepted hypothesis means that there is an influence of the knowledge of pregnant women on the use of insecticidal mosquito nets. Conclusion : there is an influence of pregnant women's knowledge on the development of the use of synsecticide mosquito nets. keywords : Knowledge, Insecticidal Mosquito Nets
Braided Objects: Unifying Algebraic Structures and Categorifying Virtual Braids

This thesis is devoted to an abstract theory of braided objects and its applications to a study of algebraic and topological structures. Part I presents our general homology theory for braided vector spaces and braided modules, based on the quantum co-shuffle coproduct. The construction of structural braidings characterizing different algebraic structures - self-distributive (SD) structures, associative / Leibniz algebras, their representations - allows then to generalize and unify familiar homologies. Loday's hyper-boundaries and certain homology operations are efficiently treated via our braided tools. We further introduce a concept of braided system and multi-braided module over it. This enables a thorough study of bialgebras, crossed products, bimodules, Yetter-Drinfel'd and Hopf (bi)modules: their braided interpretation, homologies and adjoint actions. A theory of multi-braided tensor products of algebras gives a unifying context for Heisenberg and Drinfel'd doubles, the algebras X of Cibils-Rosso and Y and Z of Panaite. Part III is topology-oriented. We start with a hom-set type categorification of virtual braid groups in terms of braided objects in a symmetric category (SC). This double braiding approach provides a source of representations of V Bn and a new categorical treatment for Manturov's virtual racks and the twisted Burau representation. We then define SD structures in an arbitrary SC and endow them with a braiding. The associativity and Jacobi identities in an SC are interpreted as SD conditions. Hopf algebras enter in the SD framework as well. Braided techniques from part I give a homology theory of categorical SD structures.
The Assembly History of the Milky Way Nuclear Star Cluster

Abstract Within the central 10 pc of our Galaxy lies a dense cluster of stars, the nuclear star cluster. This cluster forms a distinct component of our Galaxy. Nuclear star clusters are common objects and are detected in ~ 75% of nearby galaxies. It is, however, not fully understood how nuclear star clusters form. The Milky Way nuclear star cluster is the closest of its kind. At a distance of only 8 kpc we can spatially resolve its stellar populations and kinematics much better than in external galaxies. This makes the Milky Way nuclear star cluster the perfect local reference object for understanding the structure and assembly history of nuclear star clusters in general. There are of the order of 107 stars within the central 10 pc of the Galactic center. Most of these stars are several Gyr old late-type stars. However, there are also more than 100 hot early-type stars in the central parsec of the Milky Way, with ages of only a few Myr. Beyond a projected distance of 0.5 pc of the Galactic center, the density of young stars was largely unknown, since only very few spectroscopic observations existed so far. We covered the central >4 pc2 (0.75 sq.arcmin) of the Galactic center using the integral-field spectrograph KMOS (VLT). We extracted more than 1,000 spectra from individual stars and identified >20 new early-type stars based on their spectra. We studied the spatial distribution of the different populations and their kinematics to put constraints on the assembly history of the Milky Way nuclear star cluster.
Correlation of Splenic Parameters With Age in North Indian Population

Background: Estimation of age is of utmost importance in identifying the deceased. Research considering splenic morphometric parameters to determine the deceased's age is very rare in Haryana. The present study is done to find the correlation between the spleen's morphometric parameters and the deceased's age. The objective of the present study is to determine the changes in morphometry of the spleen with the age of the deceased. Methods: The cross-sectional study was done in spleen specimens (56 males and 44 females) obtained from deceased adults aged 16-70 years belonging to North India from the Department of Forensic Medicine during autopsy from September 2021-June 2022. The data was analyzed using SPSS 20.0. Pearson's correlation test evaluated the association between splenic parameters and age. The correlation formula was derived to assess the significance of correlation. Results: Correlation with age was negative and significant with splenic weight and splenic dimensions in both males and females. Mean splenic weight, length, breadth, and thickness were 113.83± 7.86 g, 10.2±1.04 cm, 6.53 ± 0.4 cm, 1.46 ± 0.074 cm respectively. Mean spleen weight, length, width, and thickness were 137 ±10.98g, 11.06 ± 1.28 cm, 6.9 ± 0.4cm, 1.66 ± 0.018 cm in males. Mean spleen weight, length, width, and thickness were 90.66 ± 4.74g, 9.34 ±0.8cm, 6.16 ±0.4cm, and 1.26 ±0.13cm in females. Conclusions: Spleen weight and dimensions were higher in males than in females, and all the morphometric parameters increased up to the age of 45 and later decreased. The correlation of morphometric parameters of the spleen was negative and significant with age.
PPN Formalism in Higher Order Curvature Gravity. Spherically Symmetric Case

The in(cid:13)uence of the dilatonic scalar (cid:12)eld on the Parameterized Post-Newtonian expansion of a static, asymptotically (cid:13)at, spherically-symmetric Gauss-Bonnet solution is considered. We present analytical and numerical expressions for the dilatonic magnitude and demonstrate that at the present time the theoretical limit for \dilatonic charge" obtained 20 years ago remains much more strong than one from existing experimental data.
Paving the Way for 64 Gbps PCIe 6.0 End to End Physical Link Compliance in Multi-board Digital System

This paper introduces the four-level pulse amplitude modulation (PAM-4) and its implementation in Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) 6.0 communication protocol, to facilitate the large volume of high-resolution data traffic in multi board digital electronic system, such as computing server and modular test instrument platform. Besides that, the link loss budget of each system component, i.e., chip package, board and connector is presented. Moreover, this paper also underlines the vital pre-route consideration from signal integrity standpoint for the physical channel realization on printed wiring board (PWB), including the choice of substrate material, communication link design and the end-to-end channel analysis at 64 Gbps speed grade, to be compliant with the specification of characteristic impedance, insertion loss and eye diagram regulated by PCISIG.
Using Culture Sensitivity Reports to Optimize Antimicrobial Therapy: Findings and Implications of Antimicrobial Stewardship Activity in a Hospital in Pakistan

Background: There are concerns with inappropriate prescribing of antibiotics in hospitals especially broad spectrum in Pakistan and the subsequent impact on antimicrobial resistance rates. One recognized way to reduce inappropriate prescribing is for empiric therapy to be adjusted according to the result of culture sensitivity reports. Objective: Using culture sensitivity reports to optimize antibiotic prescribing in a teaching hospital in Pakistan. Methods: A retrospective observational study was undertaken in Ghurki Trust Teaching Hospital. A total of 465 positive cultures were taken from patients during the study period (May 2018 and December 2018). The results of pathogen identification and susceptibility testing from patient-infected sites were assessed. Additional data was collected from the patient’s medical file. This included demographic data, sample type, causative microbe, antimicrobial treatment, and whether empiric or definitive treatment as well as medicine costs. Antimicrobial data was assessed using World Health Organization’s Defined Daily Dose methodology. Results: A total of 497 isolates were detected from the 465 patient samples as 32 patients had polymicrobes, which included 309 g-negative rods and 188 g-positive cocci. Out of 497 isolates, the most common Gram-positive pathogen isolated was Staphylococcus aureus (Methicillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus) (125) (25.1%) and the most common Gram-negative pathogen was Escherichia coli (140) (28.1%). Most of the gram-negative isolates were found to be resistant to ampicillin and co-amoxiclav. Most of the Acinetobacter baumannii isolates were resistant to carbapenems. Gram-positive bacteria showed the maximum sensitivity to linezolid and vancomycin. The most widely used antibiotics for empiric therapy were cefoperazone plus sulbactam, ceftriaxone, amikacin, vancomycin, and metronidazole whereas high use of linezolid, clindamycin, meropenem, and piperacillin + tazobactam was seen in definitive treatment. Empiric therapy was adjusted in 220 (71.1%) cases of Gram-negative infections and 134 (71.2%) cases of Gram-positive infections. Compared with empiric therapy, there was a 13.8% reduction in the number of antibiotics in definitive treatment. The average cost of antibiotics in definitive treatment was less than seen with empiric treatment (8.2%) and the length of hospitalization also decreased. Conclusions: Culture sensitivity reports helped reduced antibiotic utilization and costs as well as helped select the most appropriate treatment. We also found an urgent need for implementing antimicrobial stewardship programs in hospitals and the development of hospital antibiotic guidelines to reduce unnecessary prescribing of broad-spectrum antibiotics.