Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Regular Expressions with Numerical Occurrence Indicators - preliminary results

Regular expressions with numerical occurrence indicators (#REs) are used in established text manipulation tools like Perl and Unix egrep, and in the recent W3C XML Schema Definition Language. Numerical occurrence indicators do not increase the expressive power of regular expressions, but they do increase the succinctness of expressions by an exponential factor. Therefore methods based on straightforward translation of #REs into corresponding standard regular expressions are computationally infeasible in the general case. We report some preliminary results about computational problems related to efficient matching and comparison of #REs. Matching, or membership testing of languages described by #REs, is shown to be tractable. Simple comparison problems (inclusion and overlap) of #REs are shown to be NP-hard. We also consider simple #REs consisting of a single symbol and nested numerical occurrence indicators only, and derive a simple numerical test for the membership of a word in the language described by a simple #RE.
Investigating the experience of outdoor and adventurous project work in an educational setting using a self-determination framework

The purpose of this study was to carry out a preliminary investigation to explore the use of outdoor and adventurous project work (PW) within an educational setting. Specifically, differences between the PW and normal academic school experiences were examined using a self-determination theory framework integrated with a goal orientation and psychological skills perspective. Additionally, an exploratory investigation was carried out to examine the extent to which key motivation constructs predicted skill development (i.e. problem solving, collaboration and communication) through the PW experience. Six questionnaires were adapted and utilised to collect the relevant data for both school and PW experiences (Basic Psychological Needs questionnaire; the Learning Climate Questionnaire; Intrinsic Motivation Inventory; the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire; 2 × 2 Achievement Goal Questionnaire and perceived skills learned in PW questionnaire) from the 224 students (Mean age 13.2 ± 0.3 years) who participated in the 12-day PW. Results indicated that there were significant differences between school and PW experience (p < 0.01). Specifically, PW experience rated higher in autonomy supportive climate, autonomous motivation, perceived competence, and a greater emphasis on task approach goal orientation. Furthermore as a cohort, the students reported improvements in problem solving, collaboration and communication as a result of the PW experience. Finally, an exploratory hierarchical regression analysis revealed potential importance of perceived value, utilising meta-cognitive skills, and experiencing relatedness and autonomy in the prediction of skill development through PW experiences. The findings of this study present preliminary support the potential usefulness of outdoor and adventurous PW within a school context and provide implications for future research which are discussed further.
On the Parameters of Associative Strength: Central Tendency and Variability as Determinants of Stereotype Accessibility

The authors studied the determinants of associative strength of stereotypes. Based on the literature on associative learning and on assumptions derived from a functional view of stereotyping, the authors hypothesized that the strength of stereotypical associations was determined by two parameters: If (a) central tendency of a trait is high and (b) variability of a trait is low, associations are formed, and activating a social category leads to heightened accessibility of this trait. The authors tested their predictions in two experiments in which stereotype accessibility was measured. In Experiment 1, they investigated stereotype development. It was shown that associations between a social category and a trait attribute develop when central tendency is high and when variability is low. In Experiment 2, it was shown that existing stereotypes are also characterized by high central tendency and low variability. The implications of these results are discussed.
Predicting Customer Behavior using Naive Bayes and Maximum Entropy - Winning the Data-Mining-Cup 2004 -

In this work we describe combinations of classifiers using Naive Bayes, Maximum Entropy, Neural Networks and Logistic Regression for classification of cus- tomer records. Performance of these approaches is confirmed by the 1st, 3rd, and 5th rank in the Data-Mining-Cup 2004.
A new model for deployment coverage and connectivity of Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) is an emerging technology to instrument the environment and collect detailed data for a better understanding and improved models to monitor or control an observed phenomenon. Coverage of the phenomenon area with a given number of WSN nodes is an important topic in deployments, e.g., collecting scientific monitoring data on a glacier [1]. Unreliable communication over the wireless channel complicates communication protocols and results in low data yield [2]. While finding an optimal placement for the deployment of nodes is a crucial task, it is a complex problem due to several independent objectives and constraints for sensing coverage, connectivity and cost. This paper presents novel models for the deployment of a WSN and proposes constraints and objectives to formulate the optimization problem.
Seawater at the nanoscale: marine gel imaged by atomic force microscopy

The present study introduces atomic force microscopy (AFM) as a tool for characterization of marine gel network and marine biopolymers self‐assembly, not accessible by other techniques. AFM imaging of marine gel samples collected in summers 2003 and 2004 in the northern Adriatic Sea provided insight into molecular organization of gel network and associations between polysaccharide fibrils in the network. Initial stages of biopolymers self‐assembly were visualized by AFM in a phytoplankton bloom experiment performed in the same aquatorium. Based on AFM imaging and differential scanning calorimetry, the marine gel is characterized as a thermoreversible physical gel and the dominant mode of gelation as crosslinking of polysaccharide fibrils by hydrogen bonding which results in helical structures and their associations. Direct deposition of whole seawater on freshly cleaved mica followed by rinsing was the procedure that caused the least impact on the original structures of biopolymer assemblies in seawater. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Optimizing Alternative Routes Retrieval in an Agent-based Transportation Management System

This paper reports on issues raised during the development of an intelligent Web-based system for transportation services. Our approach exploits software agents technology to efficiently handle simple or modular transportation requests. The agents involved in the proposed system represent and act on behalf of two basic types of users involved in a transportation scenario, that is, for customers looking for the appropriate way to ship their products, and for transportation companies (carriers) that may - fully or partially - carry out such requests. Particular attention is paid to the construction of modular transportation solutions, that is solutions that fragment the itinerary requested to a set of sub-routes that may involve different transportation means. The corresponding algorithm and tool developed for this process are comprehensively presented
Modes in silver-iodide-lined hollow metallic waveguides mapped by terahertz near-field time-domain microscopy

Thin dielectric layers inside hollow metallic waveguides are used to improve the waveguide transmission characteristics as the dominant waveguide mode changes into the hybrid HE11 mode. We investigate the effect of 1 μm thick silver iodide (AgI) coatings on the fundamental modes in cylindrical waveguides at terahertz (THz) frequencies, in the regime of the dielectric layer being thinner than the optimal thickness hopt� 2 THz� ≈ 20 μm. In the region of 1–3.2 THz, the lowest-order modes are similar in profile to the TE11 and TM11 modes, as determined by the timeresolved near-field measurements and verified numerically. Higher-order modes are detected experimentally as mode mixtures due to the multimode propagation. Numerical electromagnetic modeling is applied to resolve the mode structure ambiguity, allowing us to correlate experimentally detected patterns with a superposition of the TM11 and the higher-order mode, TE12. Mode profiles determined here indicate that in the regime of ultrathin dielectric (h ≪ 0.1λeff), the dielectric layer does not transform the dominant mode into the low-loss HE11 mode. Experimental mode patterns similar to the HE11 and the TE01 modes nevertheless can be formed due to mode beating. The results indicate that the Ag/AgI waveguides can be used for guiding THz waves in the TE01 mode or the TE12 mode with high discrimination against other modes. © 2012 Optical Society of America OCIS codes: 110.6795, 180.4243, 320.7100.
Motion-Based Post Processing of Deformable Contours

We present a framework for tracking contours in 2D image sequences by taking into account the motion information and correspondence between contour points. With this framework, The tracking problem can be divided into two steps: i) Contour detection using general internal and external energies in separate frames, and ii) Tracking and refining contours using motion information of the entire image sequence. In addition to the traditional internal and external energies, we introduce two new constraints in the temporal domain which we call temporal internal energy and temporal external energy in the post processing stage. The temporal internal energy smoothes the contours by minimizing the velocity difference between neighboring contour points and the temporal external energy pushes the contour points toward their best location according to their corresponding points in the preceding image. We show the performance of the new constraints with synthetic image sequences and also present the post processing results for medical image sequences.
AN EVALUATION OF PSYCHOLOGICAL AND SOCIO- DEMOGRAPHIC FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH METABOLIC SYNDROME AND CARDIOVASCULAR RISK IN POLYCYSTIC OVARY SYNDROME CASES AND CONTROLS

Background: Major aims of the psychological research in PCOS were: (1) to compare the prevalence of depressive symptoms in women with PCOS to controls; (2) to determine whether depression and psychological traits (anger, anxiety, hostility/cynicism) and satisfaction with life are associated with PCOS (3) to determine the prevalence of Metabolic Syndrome (MS) in PCOS cases and controls (4) to determine if psychological factors are risk factors for Metabolic Syndrome independent of age, marital status, education, and parity (5) to determine if psychological factors, independent of baseline cardiovascular risk factors, are a risk factor for IMT in women with PCOS.Design: Prospective and cross sectional.Methods: Cases (n=161) and controls (n=161) matched on age, race, and neighborhood a subset of the Cardiovascular Health and Risk Measurement study (CHARM) investigating coronary heart disease risk factors in women with PCOS. Psychological measures were Beck Depression Inventory I (BDI I), Speilberger Trait Anger and Anxiety Scales, Cook-Medley Scale, Diener Satisfaction with Life Scale. Results: PCOS women had a higher prevalence of depression (BDI scores > 9; predominately a mild level of depression): 31% vs. 17% in controls (P=.016; OR 1.9; CI 1.55-2.16). Within cases, BMI, education, and parity were statistically significant predictors of depression, p<. 05. The odds of being depressed (at least mild severity) increased by 6% for each unit increase of BMI, the odds of being depressed decreased by 20% for each year of education, and the odds of being depressed increased by 44% for parity (per live birth). The odds of having PCOS increased with each unit of BDI score by 1.06 times, adjusting for marital status, BMI, smoking, and education (entire sample). Results from MS, 27% (n=40) of the cases and 9.9% (n=15) of the controls had MS (p<. 05; OR 3.4; CI 1.726-6.400. The odds of having MS increased by 10% for each year of age and threefold for PCOS cases.There were no effects from the psychological factors independent baseline cardiovascular risk factors on IMT. Conclusions: Depression is a major psychological concern in PCOS. Public Health Significance: Women with PCOS should be screened on diagnosis and monitored closely for depression.
Effects of bosentan on cellular processes involved in pulmonary arterial hypertension: do they explain the long‐term benefit?

Pulmonary arterial hypertension is a rapidly progressing disease characterized by an over‐ expression of endothelin. In addition to its potent pulmonary vasoconstrictor effects, endothelin has been shown to produce many of the aberrant changes, such as hypertrophy, fibrosis, inflammation, and neurohormonal activation that underlie the shortened life span in pulmonary arterial hypertensive patients. The fact that endothelin expression correlates significantly with disease severity and outcome in these patients suggests that endothelin, through binding to both ET A and ET B receptor subtypes, is a key causative agent in the pathophysiology of pulmonary arterial hypertension. The orally active dual endothelin receptor antagonist bosentan 1 competitively antagonizes the binding of endothelin to both endothelin receptor subtypes with high affinity and specificity. In animal models relevant for the pathophysiology of pulmonary hypertension, bosentan not only causes selective pulmonary vasodilation, but also prevents vascular hypertrophy and cardiac remodeling, attenuates pulmonary fibrosis, decreases vascular inflammation, and blunts neuro‐hormonal activation. These experimental data may explain the effects on disease progression and the long‐term benefit observed with bosentan in pulmonary arterial hypertension.
Estimation of Human Power Output from Vertical Jump

The Lewis formula and nomogram, published in widely distributed textbooks, are used to calculate power output from vertical jump-and- reach distance and body weight. Despite the fact that the method has never been supported by a refereed journal publication and the texts never revealed whether peak or average power was being estimated, the test has become increasingly used by physical educators, coaches and researchers. Theoretical analysis has raised questions about the formula's validity, In order to evaluate the test, Lewis formula derived power output was compared to peak power and average power generated by 17 male subjects jumping vertically from a computer-intefaced force plate. Lewis power, peak power and average power (mean ± SD) were 1,107 ± 144, 3,767 ± 686 and 1,325 ± 341 watt (W), respectively. The low standard deviation for Lewis power suggests the formula minimizes individual differences. Lewis power respectively correlated 0.83 and 0.72 with peak and average power but underestimated them by 70.1 ± 3.5 percent and 12.4 ± 18 percent. The following regression-derived equations whose respective r's were 0.88 and 0.73 better estimate peak and average power then does the Lewis formula and produce respective standard deviations of 603 watts, which more closely reflect actual inter-subject variability: Peak power (W) = 61.9 · jump height (cm) + 36.0 body mass (kg) + 1,822. Average power (W) = 21.2 · jump height (cm) + 23.0 body mass (kg) − 1,393. The Lewis formula does not provide accurate estimates of either peak or average power produced by the muscles. While the force-platform technique remains the methos of choice for precise jumping-power determiations in the laboratory, the above equaltions can be used in conjunction with other tests to screen applicants for athletic teams and physically demanding jobs, and to monitor progress among participants in physical training programs.
A New Notion of Effective Resistance for Directed Graphs—Part I: Definition and Properties

The graphical notion of effective resistance has found wide-ranging applications in many areas of pure mathematics, applied mathematics and control theory. By the nature of its construction, effective resistance can only be computed in undirected graphs and yet in several areas of its application, directed graphs arise as naturally (or more naturally) than undirected ones. In Part I of this work, we propose a generalization of effective resistance to directed graphs that preserves its control-theoretic properties in relation to consensus-type dynamics. We proceed to analyze the dependence of our algebraic definition on the structural properties of the graph and the relationship between our construction and a graphical distance. The results make possible the calculation of effective resistance between any two nodes in any directed graph and provide a solid foundation for the application of effective resistance to problems involving directed graphs.
Comparative efficiency of switched reluctance and induction motor drives for slowly varying loads.

A current-controlled switched reluctance motor drive for variable speed applications with efficiency optimization is presented. Firing angles are computed online, the turnon is calculated by means of the rule of Bose, and the turn-off is calculated using the general theory of the optimal turn-off angle proposed by Gribble. In steady state operation, the initial selection of firing angles is fine-tuned by means of an algorithm that minimizes the input power of the drive. An efficiency and electrical energy consumption comparison with a commercial vector-controlled induction motor drive of the same size is also included. Experimental results show that the proposed switched reluctance motor drive is a good choice for applications that require slow varying loads and energy savings.
Breaking a spell of silence The Tasmanian evaluation of the 2006 Pride & Prejudice program

An evaluation of the Pride & Prejudice program, which ran in three Tasmanian schools in 2006, suggests that students who completed the program had more positive attitudes towards gay men and lesbians. This finding parallels an earlier evaluation of the same anti-homophobia program undertaken in Victoria. The evaluation leads to a discussion about the deeper and often hidden purposes of schooling, and about the discursive formations of heteronormativity, which provide a heterosexist basis for 'curriculum'. Issues related to school systems becoming more democratic and tolerant are also identified.
Delay Estimation for MultivariateTime SeriesMehdi Azzouzi

Most traditional methods for extracting the relationships between two time series are based on cross-correlation. In a non-linear non-stationary environment, these techniques are not suucient. We show in this paper how to use hidden Markov models (HMMs) to identify the lag (or delay) between diierent variables for such data. We rst present a method using maximum likelihood estimation and propose a simple algorithm which is capable of identifying associations between variables. We also adopt an information-theoretic approach and develop a novel procedure for training HMMs to maximise the mutual information between delayed time series. Both methods are successfully applied to real data: we show that HMMs are capable of modelling the oil drilling process and that they outperform existing methods for computing a crucial parameter, namely the lag for return.
The Zone of Proximal Development and Communicative Development

This article deals with extensions of Vygotsky's (1978) theory of learning in the zone of proximal development. First, affect is added as an additional prerequisite Wertsch's (1979) extended version of it. Then, learning in the zone of proximal development is applied to communicative development. Finally, four main levels in the development from interindividual to intraindividual functioning of communication in the child are distinguished and exemplified.
A Simple High Performance Approach to Semantic Segmentation

We propose a simple approach to semantic image segmentation. Our system scores low-level patches according to their class re levance, propagates these posterior probabilities to pixels and uses low- level segmentation to guide the semantic segmentation. The two main contributions of this paper are as follows. First, for the patch scoring, we describe each patch with a high-level descriptor based on the Fisher kernel and use a s et of linear classifiers. While the Fisher kernel methodology was shown t o lead to high accuracy for image classification, it has not been applied to the segmentation problem. Second, we use global image classifiers to take into account the context of the objects to be segmented. If an image as a whole is unlikely to contain an object class, then the corresponding class is not considered in the segmentation pipeline. This increases the classification a ccuracy and reduces the computational cost. We will show that despite its apparent simplicity, this system provides above state-of-the-art performance on the PASCAL VOC 2007 dataset and state-of-the-art performance on the MSRC 21 dataset.
Anticoagulation therapy in pediatric patients with sinovenous thrombosis: a cohort study.

OBJECTIVE To assess the use of anticoagulant therapy in a consecutive cohort study of children with sinovenous thrombosis (SVT). METHODS A single institutional pilot study of anticoagulant therapy was conducted from January 1992 to December 1996 at the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Ontario. Consecutive children with the diagnosis of SVT, made by computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), MRI with venography, ultrasonography, nuclear brain scanning, or conventional angiography were eligible for anticoagulant therapy. RADIOGRAPHIC EVALUATION: Most children underwent multiple radiographic tests for evaluation of the central nervous system. Of the 32 episodes of SVT, CT was performed in 30, MRI with or without venography in 26, ultrasonography in 11, and nuclear brain scanning in 5. The majority of the SVTs were located at the superior sagittal sinus (50%) and right lateral sinus complex (44%). RESULTS There were 30 consecutive children with 32 episodes of SVT during the 5-year study (2 girls had recurrent SVT). The median age was 6.2 years (age range, 3 days to 18 years), and the sex of the patients was evenly distributed (15 girls and 15 boys). The primary associated clinical conditions consisted of systemic lupus erythematosus (n = 5), renal disease (n = 3), perinatal distress (n = 2), congenital heart disease (n = 1), cerebral arteriovenous malformation (n = 1), and neurosurgery for refractory seizures (n= 1). The remainder were previously healthy children older than 1 month (n = 10) and newborns (n = 7). Eight children were ineligible for anticoagulant therapy because of an associated intracranial hemorrhage (n = 6), a postoperative bleeding risk after neurosurgery (n = 1), or a prolonged delay from the diagnosis to the time of referral (n = 1). Ten children received standard heparin, and 12 children received low-molecular-weight heparin (LMWH) (enoxaparin sodium). Eighteen children were treated with oral anticoagulants for 3 months after initial heparin therapy, and 4 patients received LMWH for the entire course of treatment. There was no intracranial hemorrhage in the 12 patients treated with LMWH, but there was 1 case of clinically silent bleeding in the standard heparin group. CONCLUSIONS The results of this pilot study suggest that anticoagulant therapy, in particular LMWH, is safe and may have a role in the treatment of children with SVT. A randomized controlled trial is warranted.