Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Exploiting confusion matrices for automatic generation of topic hierarchies and scaling up multi-way classifiers

A common way to evaluate a multi-way classifier is a confusion matrix that plots, for each of the learned concepts, the true class of test instances against the predicted classes. Aggregate accuracy figures of the classifier are obtained by summing up the diagonal entries of the confusion matrix. However, invaluable information about the relationships amongst classes is often ignored. In this report we show various ways in which the notion of similarity amongst subsets of classes from the confusion matrix can be exploited. First, we provide a mechanism of generating more meaningful intermediate levels of hierarchies in large flat sets of classes. This provides valuable navigational aid in browsing large text collections like Internet directories. Second, we show how large multi-class classification tasks can be scaled up with the number of classes. This angle to text classification has been ignored so far in much existing work. New methods like Support Vector Machines have high accuracy but are expensive to run, do not scale to large number of classes, and are not inherently designed for multi-class tasks. We propose a two stage scheme where a confusion matrix from a fast, mediocre accuracy classifier like naive Bayes can be used to derive a graph, where classes are linked to each other based on their degree of confusion with each other. For each class we then identify a sub graph where classes confuse with it. We have now broken up the initial large multi-class problem into smaller sub tasks where, for each class only its relevant sub graph needs to be considered. We use high accuracy, expensive classifiers like SVMs for these sub tasks. The results are promising with significant performance gains of the graph-based method over multi-class SVM classifiers. The resulting accuracy is also significantly higher than the original naive Bayes classifier and is comparable to the best multi-class SVM classifier.
Average Interference Minimization under the Protocol Model in Wireless Sensor Networks

Reducing interference is one of the main challenges in wireless communication. How to minimize interference through network topology control in wireless sensor networks is a well-known open algorithmic problem. In this paper, we answer the question of how to minimize the average interference when a node is receiving a message. We adopt the protocol interference model, which defines the interference range of a node to be a constant times larger than its transmission range. We study the problem for nodes arbitrarily deployed in one-dimensional (1D) and two-dimensional (2D) regions respectively. For 1D networks, we propose a fast polynomial-time exact algorithm that can compute the minimum average interference. For 2D networks, we give a proof that the maximum interference can be bounded while minimizing the average interference. The bound is only related to the distances between nodes but not the network size. Based on the bound, we propose the first exact algorithm to compute the minimum average interference in 2D networks. Optimal topologies with the minimum average interference can be constructed through traceback in both 1D and 2D networks.
The Role of Spatial Demand on Outlet Location and Pricing

In this article, the authors consider the problem of outlet pricing and location in the context of unobserved spatial demand. The analysis constitutes a scenario in which capacity-constrained firms set prices conditional on their location, demand, and costs. This enables firms to develop maps of latent demand patterns across the market in which they compete. The analysis further suggests locations for additional outlets and the resultant equilibrium effect on profits and prices. Using Bayesian spatial statistics, the authors apply their model to seven years of data on apartment location and prices in Roanoke, Va. They find that spatial covariation in demand is material in outlet choice; the 95% spatial decay in demand extends 3.6 miles in a region that measures slightly more than 9.5 miles. They also find that capacity constraints can cost complexes upward of $100 per apartment. As they predict, price elasticities and costs are biased downward when spatial covariance in demand is ignored. Costs are biased upward when capacity constraints are ignored. Using the analysis to suggest locations for entry, the authors find that properly accounting for spatial effects and capacity constraints leads to an entry recommendation that improves profitability by 66% over a model that ignores these effects.
Improvement of Ethanol Production in Saccharomyces cerevisiae by High-Efficient Disruption of the ADH2 Gene Using a Novel Recombinant TALEN Vector

Bioethanol is becoming increasingly important in energy supply and economic development. However, the low yield of bioethanol and the insufficiency of high-efficient genetic manipulation approaches limit its application. In this study, a novel transcription activator-like effector nuclease (TALEN) vector containing the left and right arms of TALEN was electroporated into Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain As2.4 to sequence the alcohol dehydrogenase gene ADH2 and the hygromycin-resistant gene hyg. Western blot analysis using anti-FLAG monoclonal antibody proved the successful expression of TALE proteins in As2.4 strains. qPCR and sequencing demonstrated the accurate knockout of the 17 bp target gene with 80% efficiency. The TALEN vector and ADH2 PCR product were electroporated into ΔADH2 to complement the ADH2 gene (ADH2+ As2.4). LC–MS and GC were employed to detect ethanol yields in the native As2.4, ΔADH2 As2.4, and ADH2+ As2.4 strains. Results showed that ethanol production was improved by 52.4 ± 5.3% through the disruption of ADH2 in As2.4. The bioethanol yield of ADH2+ As2.4 was nearly the same as that of native As2.4. This study is the first to report on the disruption of a target gene in S. cerevisiae by employing Fast TALEN technology to improve bioethanol yield. This work provides a novel approach for the disruption of a target gene in S. cerevisiae with high efficiency and specificity, thereby promoting the improvement of bioethanol production in S. cerevisiae by metabolic engineering.
MTHFR Glu429Ala and ERCC5 His46His Polymorphisms Are Associated with Prognosis in Colorectal Cancer Patients: Analysis of Two Independent Cohorts from Newfoundland

Introduction In this study, 27 genetic polymorphisms that were previously reported to be associated with clinical outcomes in colorectal cancer patients were investigated in relation to overall survival (OS) and disease free survival (DFS) in colorectal cancer patients from Newfoundland. Methods The discovery and validation cohorts comprised of 532 and 252 patients, respectively. Genotypes of 27 polymorphisms were first obtained in the discovery cohort and survival analyses were performed assuming the co-dominant genetic model. Polymorphisms associated with disease outcomes in the discovery cohort were then investigated in the validation cohort. Results When adjusted for sex, age, tumor stage and microsatellite instability (MSI) status, four polymorphisms were independent predictors of OS in the discovery cohort MTHFR Glu429Ala (HR: 1.72, 95%CI: 1.04–2.84, p = 0.036), ERCC5 His46His (HR: 1.78, 95%CI: 1.15–2.76, p = 0.01), SERPINE1 −675indelG (HR: 0.52, 95%CI: 0.32–0.84, p = 0.008), and the homozygous deletion of GSTM1 gene (HR: 1.4, 95%CI: 1.03–1.92, p = 0.033). In the validation cohort, the MTHFR Glu429Ala polymorphism was associated with shorter OS (HR: 1.71, 95%CI: 1.18–2.49, p = 0.005), although with a different genotype than the discovery cohort (CC genotype in the discovery cohort and AC genotype in the validation cohort). When stratified based on treatment with 5-Fluorouracil (5-FU)-based regimens, this polymorphism was associated with reduced OS only in patients not treated with 5-FU. In the DFS analysis, when adjusted for other variables, the TT genotype of the ERCC5 His46His polymorphism was associated with shorter DFS in both cohorts (discovery cohort: HR: 1.54, 95%CI: 1.04–2.29, p = 0.032 and replication cohort: HR: 1.81, 95%CI: 1.11–2.94, p = 0.018). Conclusions In this study, associations of the MTHFR Glu429Ala polymorphism with OS and the ERCC5 His46His polymorphism with DFS were identified in two colorectal cancer patient cohorts. Our results also suggest that the MTHFR Glu429Ala polymorphism may be an adverse prognostic marker in patients not treated with 5-FU.
Superbursts at near-Eddington mass accretion rates

Models for superbursts from neutron stars involving carbon shell flashes predict that the mass accretion rate should be anywhere in excess of one tenth of the Eddington limit. Yet, superbursts have so far only been detected in systems for which the accretion rate is derived to be between 0.1 and 0.25 times that limit. The question arises whether this is a selection effect or an intrinsic property. Therefore, we have undertaken a systematic study of data from the BeppoSAX Wide Field Cameras on the luminous source GX 17+2, comprising 10 Msec of effective observing time on superbursts. GX 17+2 contains a neutron star with regular Type-I X-ray bursts and accretes matter within a few tens of percents of the Eddington limit. We find four hours-long flares which reasonably match superburst characteristics. Two show a sudden rise (i.e., faster than 10 s), and two show a smooth decay combined with spectral softening. The implied superburst recurrence time, carbon ignition column and quenching time for ordinary bursts are close to the predicted values. However, the flare decay time, fluence and the implied energy production of (2-4) × 10 17 erg g −1 are larger than expected from current theory.
Thermal-Aware On-Line Scheduler for 3-D Many-Core Processor Throughput Optimization

3-D many-core processor (3-D MCP) has become an emerging technology to tackle the power wall problem due to rapidly increasing number of transistors. However, when maximizing the throughput of 3-D MCP, which is expressed as a weighted sum of the speeds, due to the inherent heat removal limitation, thermal issues must be taken into consideration. Since the temperature of a core strongly depends on its location in the 3-D IC, a proper task allocation can alleviate the thermal problem and improve the throughput. Nevertheless, conventional techniques require computationally intensive thermal simulation, which prohibits its usage from the online application. In this paper, we propose an efficient online task allocation and task migration algorithm attempting to maximize the throughput of 3-D MCP simultaneously, considering unfinished tasks left from the last scheduling interval and new incoming tasks of this scheduling interval. The results of our experiments show that our proposed method achieves a 20.82X runtime speedup. These results are comparable to the exhaustive solutions obtained from optimization-modeling software LINGO. In addition, on average, our throughput results, with and without consideration of unfinished tasks, are only 4.39% and 0.69% worse, respectively, than that of the exhaustive method. In 128 task-to-core allocations, our method takes only 0.951 ms, which is 59.39 times faster than that of the previous work.
Differential delay aware routing for Ethernet over SONET/SDH

The virtual concatenation protocol in SONET/SDH has ushered in a novel routing paradigm that enables a circuit to be "split" and routed over multiple paths. However, this diverse routing causes differential delay among the paths which can impact service if not accounted for in the routing. In this paper, we introduce the differential delay aware routing problem and show that it is not only NP-complete but is also provably hard to approximate within a constant factor. However, by transforming it into a flow routing formulation, we can derive effective, practical solutions. We present various algorithms and use extensive simulations to show that they are a good match to an "ideal" integer linear programming formulation. We also highlight how the differential delay data allows individual link delays to be reverse-engineered. We propose three algorithms to derive link delays including one that leverages the flexibility in the virtual concatenation protocol bits. Given the rise of next-generation applications such as online games where latency information is key, this knowledge of link delays, heretofore only loosely approximated, enables the telecom infrastructure to be more effective in supporting these applications.
Transmission Scheme for Asymmetric MIMO Two-way Relay with Channel Estimation Error

In this paper, we consider the transmission scheme for asymmetric decode-and-forward (DF) multi-input multi-output (MIMO) two-way relay system with channel estimation error. In order to transmit with asymmetric data rates from the relay to the receivers according to their individual link qualities, we propose a novel transmission scheme for the broadcast phase by employing a priori bit information. The proposed scheme employs multi-antenna and network coding at the relay. The idea is the weaker link receiver exploits a priori bit information in each transmit symbol, so that it only needs to decode on a subset of the transmit symbol constellation. Subject to the same bit error rate constraint, the weaker link receiver can decode at lower signal-to-noise ratio compared to the stronger link. The different signal labeling used for mapping bits to symbols at the relay cause different minimum Euclidean distance, so it is shown to be crucial for the performance at the receivers. Subsequently, we investigate the effect of the channel estimation error on the system performance. Simulations show that the proposed transmission scheme can be applied to practical scenarios with asymmetric channel qualities.
Listening to student views on the transition from work placement to the final year

ABSTRACT This paper addresses a gap in the literature on student work placements, specifically the challenges of returning to final-year study after a year out. We focus on students in an Accountancy and Finance Department at one UK University who alerted us to the ways in which they struggled during the transition back to full-time study. Their accounts were surprising in the light of, albeit limited, research and our own perceptions that students who go on placement fare better in the final year than those who do not. We draw two inferences from this research, which we discuss in this paper. First, there is a need to refine analyses and evaluations of the benefits of a placement year. Second, there is a need to expand the repertoire of methodologies in empirical placement research to include those that provide opportunities for students to articulate what matters to them.
Development of the Social Interest Scale for Iranian Children Aged 4–12

Abstract:Although numerous social interest scales and questionnaires exist, none has specifically been developed to measure social interest in Iranian children. In response to this gap in research, we developed the 24-item Social Interest Scale for Iranian Children (SISIC), which was based on a first-approximation 66-item scale that had less convincing factor-analytic support. The SISIC measures parents’ statements about their children. Boys and girls from age 4 to 12 were selected from different cities in Iran. Confirmatory factor analysis identified three factors in our final 24-item scale, each of which revealed a critical Adlerian construct related to social interest: concern for others, courage, and vertical striving (reverse scored). We found that girls demonstrated more overall social interest than boys and less vertical striving. Differences among grade level were also identified. The SISIC will allow for more effective future research on social interest in children. Implications and future directions are discussed.
Energy Optimization for Application-Specific NOC with Multi-Mode Switches

As the number of cores on a chip increases, power consumed by the communication structures takes significant portion of the overall power-budget. As technology scales to deep sub-micron processes, leakage power becomes increasingly significant as compared to dynamic power. In this paper, we design a power-aware switch including three operating modes, and they are normal mode, lease-line mode, and off mode. We can dynamically control the mode of switches in a NoC according to the profiling results of specific applications. We take MPEG-4 decoder as our case studies, and experimental results show that the total power saving of the NoC can be approximated to 90% if we dynamically control the switch mode when the communication characteristics of the embedded software are well known.
Breaking Degeneracy of Dark Matter Models by the Scale-Scale Correlations of Galaxies

Recently, scale-scale correlations have been detected in the distributions of quasars' Lyα absorption lines and the maps of cosmic temperature fluctuations. This paper investigates the scale-scale correlations in galaxy distributions. Using samples of mass field given by N-body simulation, we first show that the scale-scale correlation of two-dimensional and three-dimensional mass distributions at present day are capable of breaking the degeneracy between the SCDM (standard cold dark matter model) and OCDM (open CDM model) or LCDM (flat CDM model) and even show the difference between the OCDM and LCDM. Using biased galaxy samples produced in an appropriate bias model, we show that the scale-scale correlation of galaxy distribution at zero redshift is still a powerful tool to break the degeneracy in the parameter space, including both cosmological and biasing parameters. We analyze the scale-scale correlations of the APM bright galaxy catalog and compare it with the mock catalog in the SCDM, OCDM, and LCDM models. We find that all the spectra of local and nonlocal scale-scale correlations predicted by the OCDM model are in excellent agreement with those of the APM-BGC sample, while the SCDM and LCDM mock catalog appear to have somewhat weaker scale-scale correlations than the observation.
Comparing the Consistency of Price Parities for Regions of the U.S. in an Economic Approach Framework

in the CPI Division. We also thank the support of the Housing and Household Economic Statistics Division of the Census Bureau, particularly David Johnson for his unflagging encouragement, as well as Trudi Renwick and Ali Bishaw for their help. Special thanks to Lyuba Rosenthal (BLS) and Roger D'Souza (BEA) for their excellent programming skills and analytical support. Finally, we would like to thank the organizers and participants of the comments and suggestions on earlier versions of this paper.
Pose control of the humanoid robot RH-1 for mobile manipulation

This paper presents an advanced control architecture for the full-scale humanoid robot RH-1. The pose control of the prototype is aimed in order to achieve mobile manipulation in collaborative working environments where humans and robots must share the same tasks and space. The kinematic model and a simplified dynamic model of the robot are given. All the models and algorithms are verified by several simulations and from experimental results.
Making Better Connections

Models of teacher professional development for the integration of information and communication technology into classroom practice Making better connections Models of teacher professional development for the integration of information and communication technology into classroom practice CONTENTS Executive summary 1 Advice and recommendations 3 Chapter 1 Introduction 9 1.1 Definitions of terms used in the report 9 1.2 Background 10 1.3 Methodology 13 Chapter 2 Teacher development — an overview 15 2.1 Current approaches to pre-service teacher education 15 2.2 Current approaches to continuing professional development 18 2.3 Implications for effective teacher development for the use of ICTs in classrooms 22 Chapter 3 Framework for researching teacher professional development for the integration of ICTs into classroom practice 23 3.1 The goals of integrating ICT into the classroom 25 3.2 Multiple roles of ICT 29
Stem Cells and Cloning: Advances and Applications Dovepress Specialized Mouse Embryonic Stem Cells for Studying Vascular Development

Vascular progenitor cells are desirable in a variety of therapeutic strategies; however, the lineage commitment of endothelial and smooth muscle cell from a common progenitor is not well-understood. Here, we report the generation of the first dual reporter mouse embryonic stem cell (mESC) lines designed to facilitate the study of vascular endothelial and smooth muscle development in vitro. These mESC lines express green fluorescent protein (GFP) under the endothelial promoter, Tie-2, and Discomsoma sp. red fluorescent protein (RFP) under the promoter for alpha-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA). The lines were then characterized for morphology, marker expression, and pluripotency. The mESC colonies were found to exhibit dome-shaped morphology , alkaline phosphotase activity, as well as expression of Oct 3/4 and stage-specific embryonic antigen-1. The mESC colonies were also found to display normal karyotypes and are able to generate cells from all three germ layers, verifying pluripotency. Tissue staining confirmed the coexpression of VE (vascular endothelial)-cadherin with the Tie-2 GFP+ expression on endothelial structures and smooth muscle myosin heavy chain with the α-SMA RFP+ smooth muscle cells. Lastly, it was verified that the developing mESC do express Tie-2 GFP+ and α-SMA RFP+ cells during differentiation and that the GFP+ cells colocalize with the vascular-like structures surrounded by α-SMA-RFP cells. These dual reporter vascular-specific mESC permit visualization and cell tracking of individual endothelial and smooth muscle cells over time and in multiple dimensions, a powerful new tool for studying vascular development in real time.
SDN-TAP: An SDN-based traffic aware protocol for wireless sensor networks

Congestion control is a challenging issue in wireless sensor networks with limited channel bandwidth. Thus, many protocols have been designed to provide a distributed traffic control during packet forwarding. However, all these approaches are applied to single-hop communication networks, ignoring the multi-hop restrictions. In this work, we take advantage of software defined networking paradigm by devising a controller node in such a way that it collects all the necessary information from wireless sensor network nodes. Thus, based on hop count and local traffic information, controller decides for possible flow path changes to evenly distribute the traffic. The evaluations revealed that the SDN-TAP outperforms conventional routing protocols by reducing packet loss rate up to 46%.