Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Approximate answering of queries involving polyline–polyline topological relationships

In geographic information systems, pictorial query languages are visual languages which make easier the user to express queries by free-hand drawing. In this perspective, this article proposes an approach to provide approximate answers to pictorial queries that do not match with the content of the database, that is, the results are null. It addresses the polyline–polyline topological relationships and is based on an algorithm, called Approximate Answer Computation algorithm, which exploits the notions of Operator Conceptual Neighborhood graph and 16-intersection matrix. The operator conceptual neighborhood graph represents the conceptual topological neighborhood between Symbolic Graphical Objects and is used for relaxing constraints of queries. The nodes of the operator conceptual neighborhood graph are labeled with geo-operators whose semantics has been formalized. The 16-intersection matrix provides enriched query details with respect to the well-known Dimensionally Extended 9-Intersection Model proposed in the literature. A set of minimal 16-intersection matrices associated with each node of the operator conceptual neighborhood graph, upon the external space connectivity condition, is defined and the proof of its minimality is provided. The main idea behind each introduced notion is illustrated using a running example throughout this article.
Reasons For Physicians Not Adopting Clinical Decision Support Systems: Critical Analysis

Background Clinical decision support systems (CDSSs) are an integral component of today’s health information technologies. They assist with interpretation, diagnosis, and treatment. A CDSS can be embedded throughout the patient safety continuum providing reminders, recommendations, and alerts to health care providers. Although CDSSs have been shown to reduce medical errors and improve patient outcomes, they have fallen short of their full potential. User acceptance has been identified as one of the potential reasons for this shortfall. Objective The purpose of this paper was to conduct a critical review and task analysis of CDSS research and to develop a new framework for CDSS design in order to achieve user acceptance. Methods A critical review of CDSS papers was conducted with a focus on user acceptance. To gain a greater understanding of the problems associated with CDSS acceptance, we conducted a task analysis to identify and describe the goals, user input, system output, knowledge requirements, and constraints from two different perspectives: the machine (ie, the CDSS engine) and the user (ie, the physician). Results Favorability of CDSSs was based on user acceptance of clinical guidelines, reminders, alerts, and diagnostic suggestions. We propose two models: (1) the user acceptance and system adaptation design model, which includes optimizing CDSS design based on user needs/expectations, and (2) the input-process-output-engagemodel, which reveals to users the processes that govern CDSS outputs. Conclusions This research demonstrates that the incorporation of the proposed models will improve user acceptance to support the beneficial effects of CDSSs adoption. Ultimately, if a user does not accept technology, this not only poses a threat to the use of the technology but can also pose a threat to the health and well-being of patients.
Drought, Snails, and Large-Scale Die-Off of Southern U.S. Salt Marshes

Salt marshes in the southeastern United States have recently experienced massive die-off, one of many examples of widespread degradation in marine and coastal ecosystems. Although intense drought is thought to be the primary cause of this die-off, we found snail grazing to be a major contributing factor. Survey of marsh die-off areas in three states revealed high-density fronts of snails on die-off edges at 11 of 12 sites. Exclusion experiments demonstrated that snails actively converted marshes to exposed mudflats. Salt addition and comparative field studies suggest that drought-induced stress and grazers acted synergistically and to varying degrees to cause initial plant death. After these disturbances, snail fronts formed on die-off edges and subsequently propagated through healthy marsh, leading to cascading vegetation loss. These results, combined with model analyses, reveal strong interactions between increasing climatic stress and grazer pressure, both potentially related to human environmental impacts, which amplify the likelihood and intensity of runaway collapse in these coastal systems.
Learning Constrained Edit State Machines

Learning the parameters of the edit distance has been increasingly studied during the past few years to improve the assessment of similarities between structured data, such as strings, trees or graphs. Often based on the optimization of the likelihood of pairs of data, the learned models usually take the form of probabilistic state machines, such as pair-Hidden Markov Models (pair-HMM), stochastic transducers, or probabilistic deterministic automata. Although the use of such models has lead to significant improvements of edit distance-based classification tasks, a new challenge has appeared on the horizon: How integrating background knowledge during the learning process? This is the subject matter of this paper in the case of (input,output) pairs of strings. We present a generalization of the pair-HMM in the form of a constrained state machine, where a transition between two states is driven by constraints fulfilled on the input string. Experimental results are provided on a task in molecular biology, aiming to detect transcription factor binding sites.
Networks, Sorting and Self-Selection of Ecuadorian Migrants

This paper provides new empirical evidence about the influence exerted by migration networks upon migrants‟ self-selection in education from the analysis of the recent process of Ecuadorian migration. The severe economic crisis that hit Ecuador in the late 1990s induced a massive wave of migration, from a country which was characterized by a substantial geographical variability in the size of migration networks. As Ecuadorian migrants opted for a variety of destination countries in the aftermath of the crisis, we estimate a multinomial logistic model to assess the impact of migration networks on both migrants‟ sorting and self-selection. The estimates are in line with the theoretical arguments which predict that migration networks increase the likelihood or the extent of a negative self-selection of the migrants with respect to education.
Interactions of macromolecules with salt ions: An electrostatic theory for the Hofmeister effect

Salting‐out of proteins was discovered in the nineteenth century and is widely used for protein separation and crystallization. It is generally believed that salting‐out occurs because at high concentrations salts and the protein compete for solvation water. Debye and Kirkwood suggested ideas for explaining salting‐out (Debeye and MacAulay, Physik Z; 1925;131:22–29; Kirkwood, In: Proteins, amino acids and peptides as ions and dipolar ions. New York: Reinhold; 1943. p 586–622). However, a quantitative theory has not been developed, and such a theory is presented here. It is built on Kirkwood's idea that a salt ion has a repulsive interaction with an image charge inside a low dielectric cavity. Explicit treatment is given for the effect of other salt ions on the interaction between a salt ion and its image charge. When combined with the Debye‐Hückel effect of salts on the solvation energy of protein charges (i.e., salting‐in), the characteristic curve of protein solubility versus salt concentration is obtained. The theory yields a direct link between the salting‐out effect and surface tension and is able to provide rationalizations for the effects of salt on the folding stability of several proteins. Proteins 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
The Effects of Modafinil in People with a Diagnosis of Schizophrenia

This review seeks to describe the use and effects of the drug modafinil. Specifically, it presents the research of the impact of modafinil for people with diagnosis and experience of schizophrenia. Recent reviews have shown that modafinil can positively impact on cognitive function in people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. There is emerging evidence for the positive impact of modafinil on negative symptoms, functioning, quality of life, wellbeing, and body mass index (BMI) for people with schizophrenia. Compared to other central nerve stimulant (CNS) drugs, modafinil has a low risk of dependency and few negative side effects; but there are risks of triggering positive symptoms in schizophrenia. A well designed and sufficiently large randomised control trial is required to test the potential of the impact of modafinil in the lives of people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. Future research should report participant’s perspective of the value of modafinil connected to what concerns them and what they want to achieve in their lives.
Psychometric Properties of the Canadian Little Developmental Coordination Disorder Questionnaire for Preschool Children

ABSTRACT Aims: Test the psychometric properties and cut-off scores for the Canadian Little Developmental Coordination Disorder Questionnaire (Little DCDQ), which screens for coordination difficulties in children aged 3 to 4 years. Methods: Parents of children with typical development (n = 108) and children at risk for motor problems (n = 245) completed the questionnaire. A subgroup (n = 119) of children was tested with the Movement Assessment Battery for Children-2 (MABC-2) and the Beery–Buktenica Developmental Test of visual-motor integration (VMI) to determine motor impairment (MI). Results: Test-retest reliability (r = 0.956, p < .001) and internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = 0.94) were high. Construct validity was supported by a factor analysis and significant difference in scores of children who were typically developing and were at risk. Concurrent validity was evaluated for the children who received standardized motor testing, with significant difference between children with and without MI. Discriminant function analysis showed that all 15 items were able to distinguish the two groups. The questionnaire correlated well with the MABC-2 and VMI. Validity as a screening tool was assessed using logistic regression modeling (X2(5) = 25.87, p < . 001) and receiver operating curves, establishing optimal cut-off values with adequate sensitivity. Conclusions: The Little DCDQ is a reliable, valid instrument for early identification of children with motor difficulties.
Language modeling structures in audio transcription for retrieval of historical speeches

In this paper we apply speech recognition for automatic transcript generation for spoken document retrieval. The transcripts are used to compute an index for an archive of historical speeches and to provide the index, speech, and transcripts available for query based retrieval and browsing. In addition to acoustic variability, the task is challenging, because it covers a broad spectrum of different speaking styles and use of language. Language modeling is important for speech recognition to determine the prior probabilities of the compared word and sentence candidates in decoding. Various large text corpora are available in electronic format for language model training, but the open question is what and how should we include to improve the audio transcripts of this task. In this work we compare large overall language models to focused ones trained on selected subsets of the data, and to combinations between both. With respect to the potential index terms, improvements were obtained for transcripts that did not fit well to the scope of the large overall language model.
Intersectoral Adjustment and Policy Intervention: The Importance of General-Equilibrium Effects

We model adjustment costs in a general-equilibrium setting using a "transport sector. " This sector provides services needed to reallocate a factor of production across two other sectors. A market imperfection in the transport sector causes adjustment to occur too slowly in the absence of government intervention. The government has a restricted menu of second-best policies to remedy this imperfection. Given this restricted menu, the optimal policy choice depends on the government's ability to make commitments. The key to these results is our replacement of the black box of adjustment costs with an explicit model of these costs. Copyright Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2005.
The Hippo pathway effector Yki downregulates Wg signaling to promote retinal differentiation in the Drosophila eye

ABSTRACT The evolutionarily conserved Hippo signaling pathway is known to regulate cell proliferation and maintain tissue homeostasis during development. We found that activation of Yorkie (Yki), the effector of the Hippo signaling pathway, causes separable effects on growth and differentiation of the Drosophila eye. We present evidence supporting a role for Yki in suppressing eye fate by downregulation of the core retinal determination genes. Other upstream regulators of the Hippo pathway mediate this effect of Yki on retinal differentiation. Here, we show that, in the developing eye, Yki can prevent retinal differentiation by blocking morphogenetic furrow (MF) progression and R8 specification. The inhibition of MF progression is due to ectopic induction of Wingless (Wg) signaling and Homothorax (Hth), the negative regulators of eye development. Modulating Wg signaling can modify Yki-mediated suppression of eye fate. Furthermore, ectopic Hth induction due to Yki activation in the eye is dependent on Wg. Last, using Cut (Ct), a marker for the antennal fate, we show that suppression of eye fate by hyperactivation of yki does not change the cell fate (from eye to antenna-specific fate). In summary, we provide the genetic mechanism by which yki plays a role in cell fate specification and differentiation – a novel aspect of Yki function that is emerging from multiple model organisms. Highlighted article: Yorkie, best known for controlling organ growth downstream of Hippo signalling, plays a separable role in regulating cell fate specification in the fly eye.
Trypanosome Motion Represents an Adaptation to the Crowded Environment of the Vertebrate Bloodstream

Blood is a remarkable habitat: it is highly viscous, contains a dense packaging of cells and perpetually flows at velocities varying over three orders of magnitude. Only few pathogens endure the harsh physical conditions within the vertebrate bloodstream and prosper despite being constantly attacked by host antibodies. African trypanosomes are strictly extracellular blood parasites, which evade the immune response through a system of antigenic variation and incessant motility. How the flagellates actually swim in blood remains to be elucidated. Here, we show that the mode and dynamics of trypanosome locomotion are a trait of life within a crowded environment. Using high-speed fluorescence microscopy and ordered micro-pillar arrays we show that the parasites mode of motility is adapted to the density of cells in blood. Trypanosomes are pulled forward by the planar beat of the single flagellum. Hydrodynamic flow across the asymmetrically shaped cell body translates into its rotational movement. Importantly, the presence of particles with the shape, size and spacing of blood cells is required and sufficient for trypanosomes to reach maximum forward velocity. If the density of obstacles, however, is further increased to resemble collagen networks or tissue spaces, the parasites reverse their flagellar beat and consequently swim backwards, in this way avoiding getting trapped. In the absence of obstacles, this flagellar beat reversal occurs randomly resulting in irregular waveforms and apparent cell tumbling. Thus, the swimming behavior of trypanosomes is a surprising example of micro-adaptation to life at low Reynolds numbers. For a precise physical interpretation, we compare our high-resolution microscopic data to results from a simulation technique that combines the method of multi-particle collision dynamics with a triangulated surface model. The simulation produces a rotating cell body and a helical swimming path, providing a functioning simulation method for a microorganism with a complex swimming strategy.
Hierarchical behavioral repertoires with unsupervised descriptors

Enabling artificial agents to automatically learn complex, versatile and high-performing behaviors is a long-lasting challenge. This paper presents a step in this direction with hierarchical behavioral repertoires that stack several behavioral repertoires to generate sophisticated behaviors. Each repertoire of this architecture uses the lower repertoires to create complex behaviors as sequences of simpler ones, while only the lowest repertoire directly controls the agent's movements. This paper also introduces a novel approach to automatically define behavioral descriptors thanks to an unsupervised neural network that organizes the produced high-level behaviors. The experiments show that the proposed architecture enables a robot to learn how to draw digits in an unsupervised manner after having learned to draw lines and arcs. Compared to traditional behavioral repertoires, the proposed architecture reduces the dimensionality of the optimization problems by orders of magnitude and provides behaviors with a twice better fitness. More importantly, it enables the transfer of knowledge between robots: a hierarchical repertoire evolved for a robotic arm to draw digits can be transferred to a humanoid robot by simply changing the lowest layer of the hierarchy. This enables the humanoid to draw digits although it has never been trained for this task.
The globalization of naval provisioning: ancient DNA and stable isotope analyses of stored cod from the wreck of the Mary Rose, AD 1545

A comparison of ancient DNA (single-nucleotide polymorphisms) and carbon and nitrogen stable isotope evidence suggests that stored cod provisions recovered from the wreck of the Tudor warship Mary Rose, which sank in the Solent, southern England, in 1545, had been caught in northern and transatlantic waters such as the northern North Sea and the fishing grounds of Iceland and Newfoundland. This discovery, underpinned by control data from archaeological samples of cod bones from potential source regions, illuminates the role of naval provisioning in the early development of extensive sea fisheries, with their long-term economic and ecological impacts.
A Decision Tree- Rough Set Hybrid System for Stock Market Trend Prediction

of stock market trends has been an area of great interest both to those who wish to profit by trading stocks in the stock market and for researchers attempting to uncover the information hidden in the stock market data. Applications of data mining techniques for stock market prediction, is an area of research which has been receiving a lot of attention recently. This work presents the design and performance evaluation of a hybrid decision tree- rough set based system for predicting the next days" trend in the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE- SENSEX). Technical indicators are used in the present study to extract features from the historical SENSEX data. C4.5 decision tree is then used to select the relevant features and a rough set based system is then used to induce rules from the extracted features. Performance of the hybrid rough set based system is compared to that of an artificial neural network based trend prediction system and a naive bayes based trend predictor. It is observed from the results that the proposed system outperforms both the neural network based system and the naive bayes based trend prediction system.
Pre-malignant processes of smoking-induced lung adenocarcinoma development: A conceptual biological model

Chronic exposure to cigarette smoke is the leading cause of human lung cancer and its most prevalent form, adenocarcinoma. However, the mechanisms by which smoking induces adenocarcinoma are largely inferred from the analysis of fully developed tumors. The current work focuses on the early events that precede the existence of clinically detectable tumors and where the progressive mechanisms are believed to be different from the ones driving established tumor growth. Biological information was drawn from the literature and generalized into a conceptual model, or framework, which describes and integrates the main processes involved in the early stages of smoking-induced lung adenocarcinoma development. No such integrative representation currently exists. The biological framework presented here is based on the “field of injury” of the lung. It covers the smoking-induced stepwise transition of unexposed (naive) lung tissue to the first appearance of neoplastic cells through defined tissue states referred to as pre-field and field. Each tissue state exhibits its own formalized characteristics (or phenotype properties), which evolve as a result of the combined effects of smoking, the interactions between the different tissue properties, and the local environment represented in the framework as lung inflammation and immune surveillance. The resulting network of influences between the lung tissue states and properties provides a good understanding of the early events involved in lung adenocarcinoma triggered by smoking. The resulting conceptual model—an integrative mechanistic hypothesis—can explain a broad range of cigarette smoking and smoking cessation scenarios.
Dietary Fiber Intake and Metabolic Syndrome Risk Factors among Young South African Adults

This study attempts to bridge the research gap regarding the importance of dietary fiber in reducing metabolic syndrome (MetS) risk factors in young rural South Africans. A total of 627 individuals (309 males and 318 females) aged 18–30 years participated in the study. Dietary intake was measured using a validated 24-h recall method. The consumption of different types of dietary fiber (total, soluble, and insoluble) was calculated and presented as grams. Anthropometrics, blood pressure, fasting blood glucose, and lipid profiles were measured according to standard protocols. According to the definition of the International Diabetes Federation (IDF), the prevalence of MetS was 23.1%. Overall, the total median [interquartile range (IQR)] values for total, insoluble, and soluble fiber consumed were 4.6 g [0.0–48.9], 0.0 g [0.0–18.0], and 0.0 g [0.0–15.0], respectively. Females had a higher median [IQR] intake of total (5.1 g [0.0–48.9] vs. 4.3 g [0.0–43.9]), insoluble (0.0 g [0.0–18.0] vs. 0.0 g [0.0–12.0]), and soluble fiber (0.0 g [0.0–14.9] vs. 0.0 g [0.0–7.3]) than males, respectively. The mean values for waist circumference, fasting blood glucose, and total cholesterol were higher in females than males (82.20 cm vs. 75.07 cm; 5.59 mmol/L vs. 5.44 mmol/L; and 4.26 mmol/L vs. 4.03 mmol/L, respectively), with significant differences observed for waist circumference and total cholesterol (p < 0.001 and p = 0.005, respectively). More than 97% of participants had fiber intakes below the recommended levels. After adjusting for all potential confounders (age, gender, and energy), log total fiber was inversely associated with fasting blood glucose (β = −0.019, 95% CI [−0.042 to 0.003], p < 0.05), systolic blood pressure (β = −0.002, 95% CI [−0.050 to 0.002], p < 0.05) and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (β = −0.085, 95% CI [−0.173 to 0.002], p = 0.051) This study may be of public health relevance, providing a potential link between less dietary fiber intake and fasting blood glucose (FBG) and both systolic and diastolic blood pressure. Therefore, this observational data encourages public health policy measures to increase the consumption of dietary fiber in rural communities in order to lower the burden of MetS and its associated risk factors.