Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Query Term Expansion by Automatic Learning of Morphological Equivalence Patterns from Wikipedia

Retrieval in many languages would benefit from languagespecific processing, such as stemming or morphological analysis. However, many languages lack such processing tools, or they may be inadequate for retrieval due to language evolution. In this paper, we explore the use of Wikipedia redirects to automatically learn morphological equivalence patterns. Character-level alignment of automatically found morphological variants from Wikipedia redirects is used to generate character-level transformations. Then, given a query word, character-level transformations are used to produce morphological equivalents. The proposed method is language independent and can be applied to new languages without need for linguistic knowledge. Though, the performance of this approach may in the aggregate lag behind state-of-the-art stemming (or morphological analysis) for languages with good existing processors, the approach is generally safer than stemming in the sense that if it degrades queries, the degradation is generally marginal. Stemming on the other hand can significantly degrade queries. We show its success for Arabic, English, Hungarian, and Portuguese.
Imaging as a basis of clinical decision-making in congenital and coronary disease and heart failure.

Download the Issue @ a Glance podcast Subscribe to the EHJ Podcast ! [Graphic][1] Thanks to modern medicine, more and more patients with congenital heart disease today reach adulthood,1 but nonetheless require require lifelong professional care.2–5 Imaging is fundamental to the lifelong care of these patients. Thus, the review entitled ‘ Imaging of congenital heart disease in adults ’ by Sonya Babu-Narayan from the Royal Brompton Hospital in London6 marks an interesting start to this issue. While echocardiography remains the first-line imaging tool, cross-sectional imaging with cardiac magnetic resonance (MR) or computed tomography (CT) provides complementary and invaluable information on cardiac and vascular anatomy and other intrathoracic structures commonly altered in such patients. Furthermore, cardiac MR provides quantification of cardiac function and vascular flow. As a result of these achievements, cardiac catheterization is mainly reserved for the measurement of pulmonary vascular resistance, ventricular end-diastolic pressure, and percutaneous interventions. Of note, there have been further advances in non-invasive imaging of congenital heart disease including advanced echocardiographic techniques, faster automated cardiac MR imaging (MRI), and a marked reduction in the required radiation of CT. Consequently, adults with congenital heart disease, who represent a truly heterogeneous population, benefit from appropriate application of multiple imaging modalities, if matched with the expertise of tertiary centres. The quantification of left ventricular function is equally important in patients with congenital heart disease as in those with cardiomyopathies and heart failure.7 Myocardial strain is a relatively novel principle based on speckle tracking echocardiography that is increasingly used to better characterize myocardial function in such patients.8 In a second review ‘ Myocardial strain imaging: how useful is it in clinical decision-making? ’ by Otto A. Smiseth from the Universitetssykehus in Oslo in Norway, the practical value of this modality is critically discussed.9 The … [1]: /embed/inline-graphic-1.gif
On the retrieval of reusable software components

Starting from the principle of software reusability through formal specifications, the authors suggest a model for the retrieval of reusable components utilizing the search techniques in database management systems. The formal specification language of software components is ASL. Component specifications will be translated into a specification written in the knowledge representation Telos for storage and other manipulation. The retrieval of software components is based on signature matching between the signatures of goal specifications and those of reusable components. In this way, the authors overcome some of the main problems with respect to retrieval such as representation of reusable components, representation of goal specification, and name differences in the software. The retrieval mechanism is supported by the database management system ConceptBase. <<ETX>>
Second-Order Sliding-Mode Observer With Online Parameter Identification for Sensorless Induction Motor Drives

Parameter identification plays an important role in speed estimation schemes. This paper presents a speed estimation scheme based on second-order sliding-mode supertwisting algorithm (STA) and model reference adaptive system (MRAS) estimation theory, in which both variations of stator resistance and rotor resistance are deliberately treated. A stator current observer is designed based on the STA, which is utilized to take the place of the reference voltage model of the standard MRAS algorithm. The observer is insensitive to the variation of rotor resistance and perturbation when the states arrive at the sliding mode. Derivatives of rotor flux are obtained and designed as the state of MRAS, thus eliminating the integration. Furthermore, in order to improve the near-zero speed operation, a parallel adaptive identification of stator resistance is designed relying on derivatives of rotor flux and stator current. Compared with the first-order sliding-mode speed estimator, the proposed scheme makes full use of the auxiliary sliding-mode surface, thus alleviating the chattering behavior without increasing the complexity. The robustness and effectiveness of the proposed scheme have been validated experimentally.
An empirical analysis of the financial benefits of health information exchange in emergency departments

OBJECTIVE To examine the impact of health information exchange (HIE) on reducing laboratory tests and radiology examinations performed in an emergency department (ED). MATERIALS AND METHODS The study was conducted in an ED setting in Western New York over a period of 2 months. The care of the patients in the treatment group included an HIE query for every encounter, while the care of other patients in the control group did not include such queries. A group of medical liaisons were hired to query the medical history of patients from an HIE and provide it to the ED clinicians. Negative binomial regression was used to analyze the effects of HIE queries on the number of performed laboratory tests and radiology examinations. The log files of the HIE system since 1 year before the ED admission were used to analyze the differences in outcome measures between the 2 groups of patients. RESULTS Ceteris paribus, HIE usage is associated with, respectively, 52% and 36% reduction in the expected total number of laboratory tests and radiology examinations ordered per patient at the ED. CONCLUSIONS The results indicate that access to additional clinical data through the HIE will significantly reduce the number of laboratory tests and radiology examinations performed in the ED settings and thus support the ongoing HIE efforts.
Functional topological relations for qualitative spatial representation

In this paper, a framework is proposed for representing knowledge about 3-D space in terms of the functional support and containment relationships, corresponding approximately to the prepositions “on” and “in”. A perceptual model is presented which allows for appraising these qualitative relations given the geometries of objects; also, an axiomatic system for reasoning with the relations is put forward. We implement the system on a mobile robot and show how it can use uncertain visual input to infer a coherent qualitative evaluation of a scene, in terms of these functional relations.
Learning tactile skills through curious exploration

We present curiosity-driven, autonomous acquisition of tactile exploratory skills on a biomimetic robot finger equipped with an array of microelectromechanical touch sensors. Instead of building tailored algorithms for solving a specific tactile task, we employ a more general curiosity-driven reinforcement learning approach that autonomously learns a set of motor skills in absence of an explicit teacher signal. In this approach, the acquisition of skills is driven by the information content of the sensory input signals relative to a learner that aims at representing sensory inputs using fewer and fewer computational resources. We show that, from initially random exploration of its environment, the robotic system autonomously develops a small set of basic motor skills that lead to different kinds of tactile input. Next, the system learns how to exploit the learned motor skills to solve supervised texture classification tasks. Our approach demonstrates the feasibility of autonomous acquisition of tactile skills on physical robotic platforms through curiosity-driven reinforcement learning, overcomes typical difficulties of engineered solutions for active tactile exploration and underactuated control, and provides a basis for studying developmental learning through intrinsic motivation in robots.
Haemodialysis: effects of acute decrease in preload on tissue Doppler imaging indices of systolic and diastolic function of the left and right ventricles.

AIMS Conventional echocardiographic (ECHO) parameters of left ventricular (LV) and right ventricular (RV) systolic and diastolic function have been shown to be load-dependent; however, the impact of preload reduction on tissue Doppler (TD) parameters of LV and RV function is incompletely understood. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of acute preload reduction by haemodialysis (HD) on conventional (ECHO) and TD imaging (TDI) indices of systolic and diastolic function of the left and right ventricles. METHODS AND RESULTS Seventeen chronically uremic patients (age 31 +/- 10 years), without overt heart disease underwent conventional 2D and Doppler ECHO together with measurement of longitudinal mitral and tricuspid annular motion velocities. Fluid volume removed by HD was 2706 +/- 1047 cm(3). Haemodialysis led to reduction in LV end-diastolic volume (P < 0.0001), end-systolic volume (P < 0.001), peak early (E wave) transmitral flow velocity (P = 0.0001), and the ratio of early to late Doppler velocities of diastolic mitral inflow (P = 0.021). For the LV, early diastolic (E0) TDI velocities and the ratio of early to late TDI diastolic velocities (E0/A0) only on the septal side of the mitral annulus decreased significantly after HD (P = 0.0001 and P = 0.009, respectively). In a subgroup of seven patients who sustained significantly larger fluid volume loses following HD, E0 and the ratio of E0/A0 at the lateral side of mitral annulus also decreased suggesting a greater resistance of the lateral annulus to preload changes. Systolic velocities decreased after HD on both sides of mitral annulus (septal 6.90 +/- 1.10 vs. 5.97 +/- 1.48 cm/s, P = 0.006; lateral 8.68 +/- 2.67 vs. 6.94 +/- 1.52 cm/s, P = 0.011). For the RV, systolic tricuspid annular velocities decreased (13.45 +/- 1.47 vs.11.73 +/- 1.90 cm/s, P = 0.002) together with early diastolic velocities after HD (13.95 +/- 2.90 vs.10.62 +/- 2.45 cm/s, P = 0.0001). Both systolic and early diastolic tricuspid annular velocities correlated directly with fluid removal (P < 0.01). CONCLUSION This study shows that both systolic and diastolic TDI velocities of the LV and RV are preload-dependent. However, the lateral mitral annulus is more resistant to preload changes than either the septal mitral annulus or the lateral tricuspid annulus.
Middleware for Writing Distributed Applications on Physical Computing Devices

A computer program, at its most basic level is a series of low level processor instructions which are executed sequentially. These instructions take time to execute, thus longer programs have longer execution times. One way to decrease the execution time for a program is to decrease the required time for each instruction. This is called frequency scaling. The disadvantage of frequency scaling is that running a processor at higher speeds causes it to generate more heat and consume more power. The physical properties of transistors also impose limits on how fast a microprocessor can be built. The solution to the problem of frequency scaling is to, instead of decreasing the time to execute an instruction, increase the number of instructions that can be run in a given amount of time, by running these instructions in parallel. This is known as parallel computing, and in this paper we present a solution for using many off-the-shelf computers to build a computing cluster which will accelerate computing performance by running tasks in parallel. To this end, we introduce a middleware for writing distributed applications on physical computing devices, such as the Raspberry Pi computer.
Perceived Parental Acceptance and Psychological Adjustment

A sample of 168 children ages 7 through 12 years (M = 10.49 years) from Northern Greece (47.9% boys) was drawn to explore whether interpersonal power or prestige moderated relationships between paternal and/or maternal acceptances and children’s psychological adjustment. Child versions of the Parental Acceptance–Rejection Questionnaire (mother and father forms), the Personality Assessment Questionnaire, and the youth version of the Parental Power–Prestige Questionnaire were used. Both boys’ and girls’ psychological adjustment was significantly correlated with perceived paternal acceptance, but only girls’ adjustment was significantly correlated with maternal acceptance. In addition, girls’ perceptions of parental prestige were negatively correlated with paternal acceptance. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed that boys’ adjustment was marginally predicted by their perception of paternal (but not maternal) acceptance, whereas girls’ adjustment was uniquely and significantly predicted by their perception of maternal (but not paternal) acceptance. Finally, parental prestige moderated the relationship between perceived maternal acceptance and both boys’ and girls’ psychological adjustment.
Digital Hopscotch : Exploring the Relationship between Positioning Accuracy and Location Size �

Introduction and Definitions Location based applications for mobile computing have become of increasing interest to the research community, and are entering daily usage by the general public. Examples of this range from GPS based navigation systems for vehicles and pedestrians to ‘where’s my nearest’ applications for mobile phones. Emerging applications include gaming and location based entertainment. In this proposal we intend to explore the relationship between the position sensing system and the location or target to be recognised. As part of this research we are seeking a method for the objective evaluation of such systems.
Behavioral/systems/cognitive Functional Organization of Envelope-responsive Neurons in Early Visual Cortex: Organization of Carrier Tuning Properties

It is well established that visual cortex neurons having similar selectivity for orientation, direction of motion, ocular dominance, and other properties of first-order (luminance-defined) stimuli are clustered into a columnar organization. However, the cortical architecture of neuronal responses to second-order (contrast/texture-defined) stimuli is poorly understood. A useful second-order stimulus is a contrast envelope, consisting of a finely detailed pattern (carrier) whose contrast varies on a coarse spatial scale (envelope). In this study, we analyzed the cortical organization of carrier tuning properties of neurons, which responded to contrast-modulated stimuli. We examined whether neurons tuned to similar carrier properties are clustered spatially and whether such spatial clusters are arranged in columns. To address these questions, we recorded single-unit activity, multiunit activity, and local field potentials simultaneously from area 18 of anesthetized cats, using single-channel microelectrodes and multielectrode arrays. Our data showed that neurons tuned to similar carrier spatial frequency are distributed in a highly clustered manner; neurons tuned to similar carrier orientation are also significantly clustered. Neurons along linear arrays perpendicular to the brain surface always exhibited similar optimal carrier spatial frequency, indicating a columnar organization. Multi-pronged tetrode recordings indicated that the diameter of these columns is Ն450 ␮m. Optimal carrier orientation was also significantly clustered but with finer-grain organization and greater scatter. These results indicate a fine anatomical structure of cortical organization of second-order information processing and suggest that there are probably more maps in cat area 18 than previously believed.
Structural and Biochemical Analysis Reveals the Stereoselectivity of Inhibition and Reactivation of Human Carboxylesterase 1 for the Nerve Agents Sarin, Soman, and Cyclosarin.

Departments of Chemistry (M.R.R.) and Biochemistry and Biophysics (A.C.H., C.D.F., M.R.R), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina; U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense (T.C.O., D.M.C.), Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland; Human BioMolecular Research Institute (M.M., J.R.C.), San Diego, California; Department of Molecular Pharmacology (M.W., C.C.E., P.M.P.), St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis, Tennessee Molecular Pharmacology Fast Forward. Published on January 5, 2010 as doi:10.1124/mol.109. 062356
Health-related quality of life in CKD Patients: correlates and evolution over time.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Very few large-scale studies have investigated the determinants of health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients not on dialysis or the evolution of HRQOL over time. DESIGN AND SETTING A prospective evaluation was undertaken of HRQOL in a cohort of 1186 CKD patients cared for in nephrology clinics in North America. Baseline and follow-up HRQOL were evaluated using the validated Kidney Disease Quality Of Life instrument. RESULTS Baseline measures of HRQOL were reduced in CKD patients in proportion to the severity grade of CKD. Physical functioning score declined progressively with more advanced stages of CKD and so did the score for role-physical. Female gender and the presence of diabetes and a history of cardiovascular co-morbidities were also associated with reduced HRQOL (physical composite score: male: 41.0 +/- 10.2; female: 37.7 +/- 10.8; P < 0.0001; diabetic: 37.3 +/- 10.6; nondiabetic: 41.6 +/- 10.2; P < 0.0001; history of congestive heart failure, yes: 35.4 +/- 9.7; no: 40.3 +/- 10.6; P < 0.0001; history of myocardial infarction, yes: 36.1 +/- 10.0; no: 40.2 +/- 10.6; P < 0.0001). Anemia and beta blocker usage were also associated with lower HRQOL scores. HRQOL measures declined over time in this population. The main correlates of change over time were age, albumin level and co-existent co-morbidities. CONCLUSIONS These observations highlight the profound impact CKD has on HRQOL and suggest potential areas that can be targeted for therapeutic intervention.
RNN-based sequence prediction as an alternative or complement to traditional recommender systems

The recurrent neural networks have the ability to grasp the temporal patterns withinthe data. This is a property that can be used in order to help a recommender system bettertaking into account the user past history. Still the dimensionality problem that raiseswithin the recommender system field also raises here as the number of items the systemhave to be aware of is susceptibility high.Recent research have studied the use of such neural networks at a user’s session level.This thesis rather examines the use of this technique at a whole user’s past history levelassociated with techniques such as embeddings and softmax sampling in order to accommodatewith the high dimensionality.The proposed method results in a sequence prediction model that can be used as is forthe recommender task or as a feature within a more complex system.
Genetic overlap between epilepsy and schizophrenia: Evidence from cross phenotype analysis in Hong Kong Chinese population

Epilepsy and schizophrenia are common and typical neurological or mental illness respectively, and sometimes they comorbid in the same patients, however the underlying genetic relationship between the two brain diseases is still not fully understood. To investigate the possible genetic contribution to their comorbidity, we performed polygenic risk score (PRS) analyses and genetic correlation estimation so as to identify the overall genetic overlap between the two diseases. The global schizophrenia PRS is strongly associated with schizophrenia phenotype in Hong Kong population (odds ratio = 1.7, p = 2.26E‐16), and focal epilepsy PRS is moderately associated with epilepsy phenotype in Hong Kong population (odds ratio = 1.14, p = 0.013). However the disease‐specific PRS can only predict its own well‐matched phenotype but not the other ones (p > 0.05). This pattern is further supported by non‐significant pairwise genetic correlation and insufficient statistical power for PRS association from the cross‐phenotype analyses. Our study reveals there's limited shared genetic aetiology between schizophrenia and epilepsy, and thus supports a model of shared environmental factors to explain the comorbidity between the two phenotypes.
Machine learning in tracking associations with stereo vision and lidar observations for an autonomous vehicle

Obstacles detection is used nowdays for a number of road safety applications, increasing the drivers awareness in potential dangerous situations. A reliable and robust obstacles detection continues to be largely investigated and still remains an open challenge, especially for difficult scenarios and in general cases, with loosened constraints and multiple simultaneous use-cases. This work presents an obstacles detection, tracking and fusion algorithm which allows to reconstruct the environment surrounding the vehicle. While the techniques used for the detection are well-known in literature, the improvements introduced by this paper regard the data association and tracking approach of heterogeneous sensors observations. An innovative multi-dimensional structure based on association costs originating from a classifier provides an optimal solution to the association problem with respect to the total association cost. An Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF) managing a variable number of observations, arbitrarily composable, allows to correctly address the combined tracking and fusion challenge. The results, obtained on a public benchmark, show improvements with respect to state of the art systems.