Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Title: Functional architecture of the aging brain

The intrinsic functional connectome can reveal how a lifetime of learning and lived experience is represented in the functional architecture of the aging brain. We investigated whether network dedifferentiation, a hallmark of brain aging, reflects a global shift in network dynamics, or comprises network-specific changes that reflect the changing landscape of aging cognition. We implemented a novel multi-faceted strategy involving multi-echo fMRI acquisition and de-noising, individualized cortical parcellation, and multivariate (gradient and edge-level) functional connectivity methods. Twenty minutes of resting-state fMRI data and cognitive assessments were collected in younger (n=181) and older (n=120) adults. Dimensionality in the BOLD signal was lower for older adults, consistent with global network dedifferentiation. Functional connectivity gradients were largely age-invariant. In contrast, edge-level connectivity showed widespread changes with age, revealing discrete, network-specific dedifferentiation patterns. Visual and somatosensory regions were more integrated within the functional connectome; default and frontoparietal regions showed greater coupling; and the dorsal attention network was less differentiated from transmodal regions. Associations with cognition suggest that the formation and preservation of integrated, large-scale brain networks supports complex cognitive abilities. However, into older adulthood, the connectome is dominated by large-scale network disintegration, global dedifferentiation and network-specific dedifferentiation associated with age-related cognitive change.
The Use of Digital Storytelling in Teaching Listening Comprehension: An Experimental Study on the Eighth Grade Students of SMP Negeri 4 Parepare

This study focuses on finding out whether or not the use of Digital Storytelling (DST) develops the students’ listening comprehension and to find out the students’ learning interest towards the use of DST. The research employed QUAN – Qual model. The writer gathered the data by using listening comprehension tests and open ended questions. The finding of the study revealed that the students’ result of post-test for experimental group was higher than the students’ result in post-test for control group. The difference of the students’ score was statistically significant; the probability value is smaller than significant level (0.000 < 0.05). The result was H1 is accepted and H0 is rejected. While, the open ended question result showed that students agree that learning English by using digital story is a good supporting media since they have used it for about four weeks in the process of teaching and learning.
From Urban Segregation to Multifocal Pattern Detection

We develop a "multifocal" approach to reveal spatial dissimilarities in cities, from the most local scale to the metropolitan one. Think for instance of a statistical variable that may be measured at different scales, eg ethnic group proportions, social housing rate, income distribution, or public transportation network density. Then, to any point in the city there corresponds a sequence of values for the variable, as one zooms out around the starting point, all the way up to the whole city --~as if with a varifocal camera lens. The sequences thus produced encode in a precise manner spatial dissimilarities: how much they differ from perfectly random sequences is indeed a signature of the underlying spatial structure. We introduce here a mathematical framework that allows to analyze this signature and we provide a number of illustrative examples. Furthermore, this method may be used to detect and explore dissimilarities due to hidden spatial or non-spatial structures in statistical populations other than geo-social data, eg in ecological, biological or physical data.
A Novel Approach of Intuitive K-means Clustering for Renal Calculi Detection in Ultrasound Images

Medical images are too fuzzy for discrete boundaries. This paper describes a fuzzy rule based seed point optimization in K-mean clustering method with a application in image segmentation. Prior information about the subject helps to elongate the cluster class and able to identify the target seed point smoothly for the detection of renal calculi oftenly called as a kidney stone. Kidney is a source organ for urology disorder which can be protected by efficient kidney stone detection technique in ultrasound images. Proposed method of clustering reduces the number of iterations for elobrating the region of interest in entitled images. This approach promising to give a more accurate solution for ultrasound images and it also enhances the image retrieval as compared to classical clustering methods. The experimental results justify the effectiveness of proposed approach by reducing the computational time without effecting the segmentation quality which can be validated by peak signal to noise ratio value. Results are validated on 150 Ultrasound image samples having six classes of renal calculi.
Relative clause processing, structural and linear distance matter - Evidence from Mandarin, Cantonese and English Visual World experiments

Cantonese and English Visual World experiments Céline Pozniak, Jiaying Huang & Barbara Hemforth (LLF, CNRS, Univ. Paris-Diderot, Labex EFL) celine.pozniak@gmail.com Relative Clause (RC) processing confronts three major theories: linear distance theories, frequency and structure based theories (Hsiao & Gibson, 2003; Chen et al, 2011; Gibson & Wu, 2011; MacDonald & Christiansen, 2002; Reali & Christiansen, 2007; O’Grady, 1997). Languages like English don't allow to decide between them since all three predict a Subject Relative (SR) preference. For Mandarin and most Cantonese RCs, on the other hand, linear distance predicts an Object Relative (OR) preference since both are SVO languages with prenominal RCs (Dryer, 2013). Structural Distance and frequency, however, predict an SR preference. RC Processing could actually be explained by the competition between all factors which could finally cancel each other out (Vasishth et al, 2013). We decided to study subject and object relatives in Visual World experiments in Mandarin and Cantonese. English RC processing was analyzed as a control.
Human Learning and Memory: The Role of Presentation and Processing Modalities

This experiment observed the influence of channel of presentation and type of processing on the recall of meaningful words. This study used a 2 by 2 factorial design to randomly assigned 60 psychology students each into 4 groups; Visual Shadowed, Visual Non-shadowed, Auditory Shadowed and Auditory Non-shadowed groups. Participants in each specific group were presented with a list of 15 meaningful words depending on their specified treatment with an inter stimulus period of 1 second and further asked to recall after 30 seconds. Recall results indicated that there was no significant difference between auditory and visual channels of presentation in the learning and memory of meaningful words. However, participants whose processing was shadowed performed better than the non-shadowed group during recall. In addition, the experiment noted a significant level of interaction effect between the channel of presentation and the type of processing on the learning and memory of meaningful words among participants. This study has implication for both research and theoretical implications.
Using group replication for resilience on exascale systems

High performance computing applications must be resilient to faults. The traditional fault-tolerance solution is checkpoint-recovery, by which application state is saved to and recovered from secondary storage throughout execution. It has been shown that, even when using an optimal checkpointing strategy, the checkpointing overhead precludes high parallel efficiency at large scale. Additional fault-tolerance mechanisms must thus be used. Such a mechanism is replication, that is, multiple processors performing the same computation so that a processor failure does not necessarily imply an application failure. In spite of resource waste, replication can lead to higher parallel efficiency when compared to using only checkpoint-recovery at large scale. We propose to execute and checkpoint multiple application instances concurrently, an approach we term group replication. For exponential failures we give an upper bound on the expected application execution time. This bound corresponds to a particular checkpointing period that we derive. For general failures, we propose a dynamic programming algorithm to determine non-periodic checkpoint dates as well as an empirical periodic checkpointing solution whose period is found via a numerical search. Using simulation we evaluate our proposed approaches, including comparison to the non-replication case, for both exponential and Weibull failure distributions. Our broad finding is that group replication is useful in a range of realistic application and checkpointing overhead scenarios for future exascale platforms.
Unemployment And Inflation: Evidence Of A Nonlinear Phillips Curve In The Eurozone

ABSTRACT:The classical Phillips curve shows a negative relationship between inflation and unemployment. However, various studies have documented temporal positive and negative relationships between inflation and unemployment, leading to strong criticisms against the Phillips curve. In particular, the triangle approach indicates that the nature of the inflation-unemployment nexus is contingent on the source of the shocks, the length of lagged responses, and the policy response. Similarly, the strong linearity assumption on which the Phillips curve rests may have led to its empirical failure. Prior studies have modelled the possibility of threshold effects in the Phillips curve but no study has established the thresholds of when the relationship switches from negative to positive in the Eurozone. This paper addresses this limitation using 11 Eurozone countries for the period of January 1999 to February 2017. The paper also estimates both short- and long-run Phillips curves for these countries. We found that, by assuming linearity, there exists a Phillips curve in the short and the long run. We also established that the linearity assumption in the classical Phillips curve might be too strong since there is evidence of threshold effects. The thresholds in unemployment were 5.00% and 6.54%. By estimating the Phillips curve using these thresholds, we found that the relationship between inflation and unemployment is only negative when unemployment is lower than 5.00%. The negative relationship turned positive when unemployment was between 5.00% and 6.54%. Inflation and unemployment are unrelated once a threshold of a 6.54% unemployment rate is surpassed. These findings do not only highlight the importance of threshold effects in the Phillips curve, they also shed light on the need to fight unemployment in the Eurozone.
Enhancement of spin-orbit torque by inserting 
CoOx
 layer into Co/Pt interface

We report that the spin-orbit torque (SOT) in a Co/Pt structure is significantly enhanced by partial oxidation of the Co-side interface. The interface-oxidized and unoxidized Co/Pt samples were prepared to compare the SOTs, which were determined using the harmonic Hall measurement. Even though an insulating ${\mathrm{CoO}}_{x}$ layer exists at the Co/Pt interface, the dampinglike and fieldlike SOT efficiencies in the interface-oxidized sample were severalfold and nearly an order of magnitude larger than those of the unoxidized sample, respectively. The enhancement of the SOT is most likely attributed to the efficient spin current transmission across the ${\mathrm{CoO}}_{x}$ layer and the appropriately modulated interfacial Rashba effect.
The climate response to stratospheric sulfate injections and implications for addressing climate emergencies

Stratospheric sulfate aerosol injection has been proposed to counteract anthropogenic greenhouse gas warming and prevent regional climate emergencies. Global warming is projected to be largest in the polar regions, where consequences to climate change could be emergent, but where the climate response to global warming is also most uncertain. We use the Community Climate System Model version 3 to evaluate simulations with combinations of enhanced CO2 and stratospheric sulfate to investigate the effects on regional climate, and further explore the sensitivity of these regions to ocean dynamics by running a suite of simulations with and without ocean dynamics. We find that when global average warming is roughly canceled by aerosols, temperature changes in the polar regions are still 20-50% of the changes in a warmed world. Atmospheric circulation anomalies are also not canceled, which affects the regional climate response. We also find that agreement between simulations with and without ocean dynamics is lowest in the high latitudes. The polar climate is determined by important processes that are highly parameterized in climate models. Thus, one should expect that the projected climate response to geoengineering will be as uncertain in these regions as it is to increasing greenhouse gases. In the context of climate emergencies such as melting arctic sea ice and polar ice sheets, and food crisis due to a heated tropics, we find that the potential for avoiding tropical crisis is likely, whereas avoiding the polar emergencies is not certain. We suggest a coordinated effort across modeling centers is required to generate a more robust depiction of a geoengineered climate.
Differences In Brand-Logo Size Preferences Between Racial/Ethnic Groups

DIFFERENCES IN BRAND-LOGO SIZE PREFERENCES BETWEEN RACIAL/ETHNIC GROUPS by Elliot Ansari The current study compared and explained differences in consumption behaviors among people of different racial/ethnic groups: White, Black, Hispanic, and Southeast Asian. Specifically, we analyzed racial/ethnic group preferences for brand-logo sizes on visually conspicuous products (t-shirts and hats). The fear of being negatively evaluated as a minority group member was examined to see if it predicted unique conspicuous consumption patterns across individual consumer groups. This research extended prior consumer tendency literature by trying to demonstrate a link between race/ethnicity and conspicuous consumption through the fear of being negatively evaluated because of one’s racial/ethnic background. A final sample of 222 participants completed a survey that measured their preference for brand-logo sizes on products and how fearful they were of being negatively evaluated due to their race/ethnicity. Results showed that Non-White participants preferred bigger-brand logo sizes and were more fearful of being negatively evaluated than White participants. However, the fear of being negatively evaluated did not mediate the relationship between brand-logo size preferences and race as hypothesized. This research has broad implications for both understanding the role of culture in the marketing community as well as the economic consequences of minority
Spam and popularity ratings for combating link spam

We present a new approach for propagating spam scores in web graphs, in order to combat link spam. The resulting spam rating is then used for propagating popularity scores like PageRank. Both propagations work even in presence of censure links that represent distrust. Initial testing using a C++ prototype on small examples show more reasonable results than other published approaches.
On Capacity of Non-Coherent Diamond Networks

There is a vast body of work on the capacity bounds for a "coherent" wireless network, where the network channel gains are known, at least at the destination. However, there has been much less attention to the case where the network parameters (channel gains) are unknown to everyone, i.e., the non-coherent wireless network capacity. In this paper, we study the generalized degrees of freedom (gDoF) of the block-fading non-coherent diamond (parallel relay) network with asymmetric distributions of link strengths, and a coherence time of T symbol duration. We first derive an outer bound for this channel and then derive the optimal signaling structure for this outer bound. Using the optimal signaling structure we solve the outer bound optimization problem for gDoF. Using insights from our outer bound signaling solution, we devise an achievability strategy based on a novel scheme that we call train-scale quantize-map-forward. This uses training in the links from source to relays, scaling and quantizing at relays combined with non-training based schemes. We show the optimality of this scheme with respect to the outer bound in terms of gDof. In non-coherent point-to-point MIMO, where the fading channel is unknown to transmitter and receiver, an important trade-off between communication and channel learning was revealed by Zheng and Tse, by demonstrating that not all antennas available might be used as it is sub-optimal to learn all their channel parameters. Our results in this paper for the diamond network demonstrates that in certain regimes the optimal scheme uses a sub-network, demonstrating a similar trade-off between channel learning and communications. However, in other regimes it is useful to use the entire network and not use training at all in the signaling, as traditional training based schemes are sub-optimal in these regimes.
Cluster Analysis to Extract Municipal Road Recovery Features in the Tohoku Region Following the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake

—The Tohoku Earthquake of March 11, 2011, and tsunami triggered by it caused severe damage throughout the northeastern coast of Japan. The transport network in the Tohoku region was severely damaged by this disaster. A huge earthquake and tsunami are predicted to occur in the Nankai Trough in the future. Furthermore, the three prefectures (Fukushima, Miyagi, and Iwate prefectures) on the Pacific side of the Tohoku region, are relatively similar to the three prefectures (Shizuoka, Aichi, and Mie prefectures) in the Tokai region in terms of the topographical environment. We think that the recovery of regional roads in the three prefectures affected by the Tohoku Earthquake can be studied to help promote the rapid recovery of the three prefectures in the Tokai region after a possible Nankai Trough earthquake in the future. In this study, we applied cluster analysis to examine the driving data in the Tohoku region to classify the road recovery condition among municipalities in the first six months after the disaster. For the cluster results, we examined them using an analysis of variance (ANOVA) and visualized insights into road recovery characteristics through a geographic information system (GIS). Furthermore, our analysis of objective data reflecting regional characteristics showed that the road recovery conditions are similar from the viewpoints of topography, the importance of the road, snow, population density, damage, and geographical location.
Paraoxonase 1 Activity and Renal Replacement Therapy for Chronic Renal Failure: A Meta-Analysis

Chronic renal failure (CRF) is associated with the development of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Paraoxonase 1 (PON1), an antioxidant enzyme, shows cardioprotective properties and has been proposed as a therapeutic marker for CRF. A systematic analysis of the literature assessing the association between PON1 activity and renal replacement therapy (RRT) of CRF is currently lacking. Therefore, we set out to perform a meta-analysis of the available data on PON1 in RRT of CRF. We searched three electronic databases for studies on PON1 activity in CRF patients with RRT such as hemodialysis (HD), peritoneal dialysis (PD), or renal transplantation (RTx), published before June 2023. A random-effects and network meta-analysis were performed. A total of 53 studies were eligibly identified. Compared to CRF patients without RRT, RTx patients had higher paraoxonase activity (standard mean difference (SMD), 1.76, 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.76–2.75), followed by HD (SMD, 0.73; 95% CI, 0.02–1.45) and PD patients. Likewise, RTx patients had higher arylesterase activity (SMD, 1.84, 95% CI, 0.18–3.50), followed by HD and PD patients. Also, paraoxonase activity was increased after HD (SMD, 0.59, 95% CI, 0.16–1.03). In conclusion, the overall data demonstrated that PON1 activity is higher in CRF patients with RRT, particularly RTx, followed by that of HD and PD. Measuring PON1 activity can also be included to the paraclinical toolbox for the management of RRT, in addition to the understanding of CRF-related pathophysiology. Regarding the selection of RRT types and their potential to prevent CVD, more research is required.
T-COERCIVITY FOR SCALAR INTERFACE PROBLEMS BETWEEN DIELECTRICS AND METAMATERIALS

Some electromagnetic materials have, in a given frequency range, an effective dielectric permittivity and/or a magnetic permeability which are real-valued negative coefficients when dissipation is neglected. They are usually called metamaterials. We study a scalar transmission problem between a classical dielectric material and a metamaterial, set in an open, bounded subset of R, with d = 2, 3. Our aim is to characterize occurences where the problem is well-posed within the Fredholm (or coercive + compact) framework. For that, we build some criteria, based on the geometry of the interface between the dielectric and the metamaterial. The proofs combine simple geometrical arguments with the approach of T -coercivity, introduced by the first and third authors and co-worker. Furthermore, the use of localization techniques allows us to derive well-posedness under conditions that involve the knowledge of the coefficients only near the interface. When the coefficients are piecewise constant, we establish the optimality of the criteria. 1991 Mathematics Subject Classification. 35Q60,35Q61,35J20. The dates will be set by the publisher. Introduction In electromagnetism, one can model materials that exhibit real-valued strictly negative electric permittivity and/or magnetic permeability, within given frequency ranges. These so-called metamaterials, or left-handed materials, raise unusual questions. Among others, in a domain Ω of R (d = 2, 3), divided into a classical dielectric material and a metamaterial, proving the existence of electromagnetic fields, and computing them, is a challenging issue (see for instance [11, 19, 21, 23, 24]). For example, let us consider a problem in a twodimensional domain, set in the time-harmonic regime with pulsation ω > 0. Then, the transmission problems
Esaim: Mathematical Modelling and Numerical Analysis the Minimum Entropy Principle for Compressible Fluid Flows in a Nozzle with Discontinuous Cross-section

We consider the Euler equations for compressible fluids in a nozzle whose cross-section is variable and may contain discontinuities. We view these equations as a hyperbolic system in noncon-servative form and investigate weak solutions in the sense of Dal Maso, LeFloch and Murat [J. Math. Observing that the entropy equality has a fully conservative form, we derive a minimum entropy principle satisfied by entropy solutions. We then establish the stability of a class of numerical approximations for this system.
ON MIXED TOTAL LEAST SQUARES FOR PARAMETER ESTIMATION

A mixed weighted total least squares (MWTLS) method is presented for an errors-invariables (EIV) model with some fixed columns in the coefficient matrix. An iterative algorithm is derived based on the proposed MWTLS method. Compared with the classical WTLS method, the method represented in this paper improves the computing speed of the estimated parameter, while the fixed columns of the coefficient matrix keeps unperturbed. Furthermore, a simulated example is carried out to demonstrate the performance of the proposed algorithm.