Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Opportunistic WiFi offloading in vehicular environment: A queueing analysis

In this paper, we present an analytical framework for offloading cellular traffic by outdoor WiFi network in the vehicular environment. Specifically, we consider a generic vehicular user with Poisson data service arrivals to download/upload data from/to the Internet through the cost-effective WiFi network (want-to) or the cellular network providing full service coverage (have-to). Under this scenario, the WiFi offloading performance, characterized by offloading effectiveness, is analyzed in terms of desired average service delay which is the average time the data services can be deferred for WiFi availability. We establish an explicit relation between offloading effectiveness and average service delay by an M/G/l/K queueing model, and the tradeoff between the two is examined. We validate our analytical framework through simulations based on a VANET simulation tool VANETMobisim and real map data sets. Our analytical framework should be valuable for providing offloading guidelines to both vehicular users and network operators.
Subseasonal Prediction of Wintertime East Asian Temperature Based on Atmospheric Teleconnections

A composite-based statistical model utilizing Northern Hemisphere teleconnection patterns is developed to predict East Asian wintertime surface air temperature for lead times out to 6 weeks. The level of prediction is determined by using the Heidke skill score. The prediction skill of the statistical model is compared with that of hindcast simulations by a climate model, Global Seasonal Forecast System, version 5. When employed individually, three teleconnections (i.e., the east Atlantic/western Russian, Scandinavian, and polar/Eurasian teleconnection patterns) are found to provide skillful predictions for lead times beyond 4–5 weeks. When information from the teleconnections and the long-term linear trend are combined, the statistical model outperforms the climate model for lead times beyond 3 weeks, especially during those times when the teleconnections are in their active phases.
A Bootstrapping Architecture for Time Expression Recognition in Unlabelled Corpora via Syntactic-Semantic Patterns

In this paper we describe a semi-supervised approach to the extraction of time expression mentions in large unlabelled corpora based on bootstrapping. Bootstrapping techniques rely on a relatively small amount of initial human-supplied examples (termed “seeds”) of the type of entity or concept to be learned, in order to capture an initial set of patterns or rules from the unlabelled text that extract the supplied data. In turn, the learned patterns are employed to find new potential examples, and the process is repeated to grow the set of patterns and (optionally) the set of examples. In order to prevent the learned pattern set from producing spurious results, it becomes essential to implement a ranking and selection procedure to filter out “bad” patterns and, depending on the case, new candidate examples. Therefore, the type of patterns employed (knowledge representation) as well as the ranking and selection procedure are paramount to the quality of the results. We present a complete bootstrapping algorithm for recognition of time expressions, with a special emphasis on the type of patterns used (a combination of semantic and morpho- syntantic elements) and the ranking and selection criteria. Bootstrap- ping techniques have been previously employed with limited success for several NLP problems, both of recognition and classification, but their application to time expression recognition is, to the best of our knowledge, novel. As of this writing, the described architecture is in the final stages of implementation, with experimention and evalution being already underway.
Preserivng pieces of information in a given order in HRR and GAc

Geometric Analogues of Holographic Reduced Representations (GA HRR or GAc — the continuous version of discrete GA described in [16]) employ role-filler binding based on geometric products. Atomic objects are real-valued vectors in n-dimensional Euclidean space and complex statements belong to a hierarchy of multivectors. A property of GAc and HRR studied here is the ability to store pieces of information in a given order by means of trajectory association. We describe results of an experiment: finding the alignment of items in a sequence without the precise knowledge of trajectory vectors.
Analysis of land-use/land-cover changes in a livestock landscape dominated by traditional silvopastoral systems: a methodological approach

ABSTRACT Remote sensing, which is a common method to examine land-use/land-cover (LULC) changes, could be useful in the analysis of livestock ecosystem transformations. In the last two decades, before Landsat images were free, developing countries could not afford monitoring through remote sensing because of the high cost of acquiring satellite imagery and commercial software. However, Landsat time series nowadays allows the characterization of changes in vegetation across large areas over time. The aim of this study is to analyse the LULC changes affecting forest frontiers and traditional silvopastoral systems (TSPS) in a representative livestock area of Nicaragua. Nearly cloud-free Landsat scenes – a Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (TM) scene from 1986 and a Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) scene from 2015 – have been the data sets used in the study. A process chain following a four-step definition of the remote-sensing process was conceptually developed and implemented based onfree open source software components and by applying the random forest (RF) algorithm. A conceptual LULC classification scheme representing TSPS was developed. Although the imagery shows a heterogeneous surface cover and mixed pixels, it is possible to achieve promising classification results with the RF algorithm with out-of-the-bag (OOB) errors below 13% for both images along with an overall accuracy level of 85.9% for the 2015 subset and 85.2% for the 1986 subset. The classification shows that from 1986 to 2015 (29 years) the intervened secondary forest (ISF) increased 2.6 times, whereas the degraded pastures decreased by 34.5%. The livestock landscape in Matiguás is in a state of constant transformation, but the main changes head towards the positive direction of tree-cover recovery and an increased number of areas of natural regeneration.
Battery-dynamics driven tdma mac protocols for wireless body-area monitoring networks in healthcare applications

We propose the cross-layer based battery-aware time division multiple access (TDMA) medium access control (MAC) protocols for wireless body-area monitoring networks in wireless healthcare applications. By taking into account the joint effect of electrochemical properties of the battery, time-varying wireless fading channels, and packet queuing characteristics, our proposed schemes are designed to prolong the battery lifespan of the wireless sensor nodes while guaranteeing the reliable and timely message delivery, which is critically important for the patient monitoring networks. In addition, we develop a Markov chain model to analyze the performance of our proposed schemes. Both the obtained analytical and simulation results show that our proposed schemes can significantly increase the battery lifespan of sensor nodes while satisfying the reliability and delay-bound quality of service (QoS) requirements for wireless body-area monitoring networks. Furthermore, the case study of the electrocardiogram (ECG) monitoring application shows that besides meeting the delay requirements, our proposed schemes outperform the IEEE 802.15. 4 and Bluetooth protocols in terms of battery lifespan.
Beyond Regulatory Compliance for Spreadsheet Controls: A Tutorial to Assist Practitioners and a Call for Research

In the past decade, accounting scandals and financial reporting errors have led to heightened awareness of the need for IT controls and legislation of control regimes. In the United States, the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) was one of the early initiatives to legislate internal controls over financial reporting. Many countries and regions have followed with similar legislation. In this tutorial we present an analysis of the prior work on error prevention and detection in spreadsheets as it relates to SOX and IT governance frameworks, more generally. SOX requires publicly traded companies to address the problem of spreadsheet management and to assume some accountability for generating accurate information from spreadsheets for financial reporting. We attempt to reconcile requirements for SOX with IT spreadsheet research. Gaps in design and implementation of spreadsheet controls are identified. From our review of prior work on spreadsheets, we offer a series of options for controlling the spreadsheet development process. Finally, we provide suggestions to help IT practitioners in organizations look beyond SOX regulations at governance of end-user developed content.
Seed and Root Endophytic Fungi in a Range Expanding and a Related Plant Species

Climate change is accelerating the spread of plants and their associated species to new ranges. The differences in range shift capacity of the various types of species may disrupt long-term co-evolved relationships especially those belowground, however, this may be less so for seed-borne endophytic microbes. We collected seeds and soil of the range-expanding Centaurea stoebe and the congeneric Centaurea jacea from three populations growing in Slovenia (native range of both Centaurea species) and the Netherlands (expanded range of C. stoebe, native range of C. jacea). We isolated and identified endophytic fungi directly from seeds, as well as from roots of the plants grown in Slovenian, Dutch or sterilized soil to compare fungal endophyte composition. Furthermore, we investigated whether C. stoebe hosts a reduced community composition of endophytes in the expanded range due to release from plant-species specific fungi while endophyte communities in C. jacea in both ranges are similar. We cultivated 46 unique and phylogenetically diverse endophytes. A majority of the seed endophytes resembled potential pathogens, while most root endophytes were not likely to be pathogenic. Only one endophyte was found in both roots and seeds, but was isolated from different plant species. Unexpectedly, seed endophyte diversity of southern C. stoebe populations was lower than of populations from the north, while the seed endophyte community composition of northern C. stoebe populations was significantly different southern C. stoebe as well as northern and southern C. jacea populations. Root endophyte diversity was considerably lower in C. stoebe than in C. jacea independent of plant and soil origin, but this difference disappeared when plants were grown in sterile soils. We conclude that the community composition of fungal endophytes not only differs between related plant species but also between populations of plants that expand their range compared to their native habitat. Our results suggest that fungal endophytes of two Centaurea species are not able to systemically infect plants. We highlight that endophytes remain poorly studied and further work should investigate the functional importance of endophytes.
CT screening for lung cancer brings forward early disease. The randomised Danish Lung Cancer Screening Trial: status after five annual screening rounds with low-dose CT

Background The effects of low-dose CT screening on disease stage shift, mortality and overdiagnosis are unclear. Lung cancer findings and mortality rates are reported at the end of screening in the Danish Lung Cancer Screening Trial. Methods 4104 men and women, healthy heavy smokers/former smokers were randomised to five annual low-dose CT screenings or no screening. Two experienced chest radiologists read all CT scans and registered the location, size and morphology of nodules. Nodules between 5 and 15 mm without benign characteristics were rescanned after 3 months. Growing nodules (>25% volume increase and/or volume doubling time<400 days) and nodules >15 mm were referred for diagnostic workup. In the control group, lung cancers were diagnosed and treated outside the study by the usual clinical practice. Results Participation rates were high in both groups (screening: 95.5%; control: 93.0%; p<0.001). Lung cancer detection rate was 0.83% at baseline and mean annual detection rate was 0.67% at incidence rounds (p=0.535). More lung cancers were diagnosed in the screening group (69 vs 24, p<0.001), and more were low stage (48 vs 21 stage I–IIB non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and limited stage small cell lung cancer (SCLC), p=0.002), whereas frequencies of high-stage lung cancer were the same (21 vs 16 stage IIIA–IV NSCLC and extensive stage SCLC, p=0.509). At the end of screening, 61 patients died in the screening group and 42 in the control group (p=0.059). 15 and 11 died of lung cancer, respectively (p=0.428). Conclusion CT screening for lung cancer brings forward early disease, and at this point no stage shift or reduction in mortality was observed. More lung cancers were diagnosed in the screening group, indicating some degree of overdiagnosis and need for longer follow-up.
Editable Parametric Dense Foliage from 3 D Capture Gaurav Chaurasia Disney Research

We present an algorithm to compute parametric models of dense foliage. The guiding principles of our work are automatic reconstruction and compact artist friendly representation. We use Bézier patches to model leaf surface, which we compute from images and point clouds of dense foliage. We present an algorithm to segment individual leaves from colour and depth data. We then reconstruct the Bézier representation from segmented leaf points clouds using non-linear optimisation. Unlike previous work, we do not require laboratory scanned exemplars or user intervention. We also demonstrate intuitive manipulators to edit the reconstructed parametric models. We believe our work is a step towards making captured data more accessible to artists for foliage modelling.
The effect of metabolic rate on stable carbon and nitrogen isotope compositions in deer mice, Peromyscus maniculatus

The stable isotopic compositions of nitrogen and carbon in animal tissues reflect diet. However, factors other than diet can also affect these stable isotope ratios, leading to misinterpretations of diet composition. To test the hypothesis that variation in metabolic rate alters the isotopic compositions of tissues, deer mice (Peromyscus maniculatus (Wagner, 1845)) were kept at three temperatures (thermoneutral (23 8C), cool (5 8C), and cold (-10 8C)) and fed ad libitum. The changes in carbon and nitrogen isotope compositions of liver associated with the thermoneutral versus cool and cold condi- tions were very small in comparison with those arising from differences in diet. We conclude that temperature-induced variations in metabolic rate are insufficient to produce differences in the stable carbon or nitrogen isotope compositions that could be mistaken for changes in diet. Resume´ : Les compositions d'isotopes stables d'azote et de carbone dans les tissus animaux refletent le regime alimen- taire. Cependant, des facteurs autres que le regime peuvent affecter ces rapports d'isotopes stables, ce qui entraoˆne des in- terpretations erronees de la composition du regime alimentaire. Afin de tester l'hypothese qui veut que la variation du taux metabolique affecte la composition isotopique des tissus, nous avons gardedes souris du crepuscule (Peromyscus manicu- latus (Wagner, 1845)) atrois temperatures differentes, soit des regimes thermiques neutre (23 8C), frais (5 8C) et froid (-10 8C), et les avons nourries avolonte ´. Les modifications dans les compositions d'isotopes de carbone et d'azote dans le foie associees au regime thermique neutre par rapport a ceux des regimes frais et froids sont tres petites par comparaison a celles qui proviennent de differences de regime alimentaire. Nous en concluons que les variations du taux metabolique causees par la temperature ne sont pas assez importantes pour produire des differences de composition des isotopes stables de carbone et d'azote qui pourraient etre interpretees par erreur comme des changements de regime alimentaire. (Traduit par la Redaction)
Testicular toxicity produced by ethylene glycol monomethyl and monoethyl ethers in the rat.

Ethylene glycol monomethyl ether (EGME) and ethylene glycol monoethyl ether (EGEE) were administered orally to young male rats at doses varying from 50 to 500 mg/kg/day and 250 to 1000 mg/kg/day for EGME and EGEE, respectively, for 11 days. At sequential times animals were killed and testicular histology examined. The initial and major site of damage following EGME treatment was restricted to the primary spermatocytes undergoing postzygotene meiotic maturation and division. EGEE produced damage of an identical nature, but a larger dose was required to elicit equivalent severity (500 mg EGEE/kg being approximately equivalent to 100 mg EGME/kg). Additionally, within the spermatocyte population, differential sensitivity was observed depending on the precise stage of meiotic maturation: dividing (stage XIV) and early pachytene (stages I-II) greater than late pachytene (stages VIII-XIII) greater than mid-pachytene (stages III-VII). Equivalent doses of methoxyacetic acid (MAA) and ethoxyacetic acid (EAA) gave injury similar to the corresponding glycol ether. When animals were pretreated with inhibitors of alcohol metabolism followed by a testicular toxic dose of EGME (500 mg/kg), an inhibitor of alcohol dehydrogenase (pyrazole) offered complete protection. Pretreatment with the aldehyde dehydrogenase inhibitors disulfiram or pargyline did not ameliorate the testicular toxicity of EGME. In mixed cultures of Sertoli-germ cells, MAA and not EGME produced effects on spermatocytes analogous to that seen in vivo, at concentrations approximately equivalent to steady-state plasma levels after a single oral dose of EGME (500 mg/kg). It would seem likely that a metabolite (MAA or possibly methoxyacetaldehyde) and not EGME is responsible for the production of testicular damage. ImagesFIGURE 4.FIGURE 5.FIGURE 6.FIGURE 7.FIGURE 9. (a)FIGURE 9. (b)
Increasing Gross Primary Production (GPP) in the Urbanizing Landscapes of Southeastern Michigan

In order to understand the impact of urbanizing landscapes on regional gross primary production (GPP), we analyzed changes in land-cover and annual GPP over an urban-rural gradient in ten Southeastern Michigan counties between 1991 and 1999. Landsat and AVHRR remote sensing data and biophysical parameters corresponding to three major landcover types (i.e., built-up, tree, and crop/grass) were used to estimate the annual GPP synthesized during the growing season of 1991 and 1999. According to the numbers of households reported by the U.S. Census in 1990 and 2000, the area settled at urban (� 1 housing unit acre � 1 ), suburban (0.1 to 1 housing units acre � 1 ), and exurban (0.025 to 0.1 housing units acre � 1 ) densities expanded, while the area settled at rural (� 0.025 housing units acre � 1 ) densities reduced. GPP in this urbanizing area, however, was found to increase from 1991 to 1999. Increasing annual GPP was attributed mainly to a region-wide increase in tree cover in 1999. In addition, the estimated annual GPP and its changes between 1991 and 1999 were found to be spatially heterogeneous. The exurban category (including constantly exurban and exurban converted from rural) was associated with the highest annual GPP as well as an intensified increase in GPP. Our study indicates that lowdensity exurban development, characterized by large proportions of vegetation, can be more productive in the form of GPP than the agricultural land it replaces. Therefore, low-density development of agricultural areas in U.S. Midwest, comprising significant fractions of highly productive tree and grass species, may not degrade, but enhance, the regional CO2 uptake from the atmosphere.
Domain-Specific Paraphrase Extraction

The validity of applying paraphrase rules depends on the domain of the text that they are being applied to. We develop a novel method for extracting domainspecific paraphrases. We adapt the bilingual pivoting paraphrase method to bias the training data to be more like our target domain of biology. Our best model results in higher precision while retaining complete recall, giving a 10% relative improvement in AUC.
Generating Recommendation Evidence Using Translation Model

Entity recommendation, providing entity suggestions relevant to the query that a user is searching for, has become a key feature of today's web search engine. Despite the fact that related entities are relevant to users' search queries, sometimes users cannot easily understand the recommended entities without evidences. This paper proposes a statistical model consisting of four sub-models to generate evidences for entities, which can help users better understand each recommended entity, and figure out the connections between the recommended entities and a given query. The experiments show that our method is domain independent, and can generate catchy and interesting evidences in the application of entity recommendation.
Software Development for Estimating the Conversion Factor (K-Factor) at Suitable Scan Areas, Relating the Dose Length Product to the Effective Dose

We developed a k-factor-creator software (kFC) that provides the k-factor for CT examination in an arbitrary scan area. It provides the k-factor from the effective dose and dose-length product by Imaging Performance Assessment of CT scanners and CT-EXPO. To assess the reliability, we compared the kFC-evaluated k-factors with those of the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) publication 102. To confirm the utility, the effective dose determined by coronary computed tomographic angiography (CCTA) was evaluated by a phantom study and k-factor studies. In the CCTA, the effective doses were 5.28 mSv in the phantom study, 2.57 mSv (51%) in the k-factor of ICRP, and 5.26 mSv (1%) in the k-factor of the kFC. Effective doses can be determined from the kFC-evaluated k-factors in suitable scan areas. Therefore, we speculate that the flexible k-factor is useful in clinical practice, because CT examinations are performed in various scan regions.
Diabetes, Prediabetes and the Survival of Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma: A Study of 5,860 Patients

Background The incidence of diabetes is increasing. But the impact of diabetes and prediabetes on survival of patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) has received little evaluation. Methods In a cohort of 5,860 patients, we compared the disease specific survival (DSS), locoregional relapse-free survival (LRFS) and distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS) of patients with diabetes, prediabetes and normoglycemia defined by pretreatment fasting plasma glucose (FPG) using Kaplan–Meier method, log-rank test and Cox proportional hazards model. Results Comparing to normoglycemic patients, the diabetic and the prediabetic were generally older, fatter, had hypertension, heart diseases and hyperlipaemia and usually received radiotherapy alone. But both the diabetic and the prediabetic had similar DSS, LRFS and DMFS to normoglycemic patients, even adjusting for such important factors as age, gender, smoking, drinking, hypertension, heart diseases, body mass index, hyperlipaemia, titer of VCA-IgA and EA-IgA, pathology, T-stage, N-stage, chemotherapy and radiotherapy (P>0.05 for all). Additionally, the findings remained unchanged in sensitivity analysis by excluding patients with known diabetes history and in subgroups of the various factors. Conclusions The diabetic and prediabetic NPC patients had similar survival to normoglycemic NPC patients. These data, in the largest reported cohort, are the first to evaluate the association between diabetes, prediabetes and the survival in NPC. The findings are relevant to patient management and provided evidence of the effect on this disease exerted by comorbidities.