Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Optimization of inverted vector searches

A simple algorithm is presented for increasing the efficiency of information retrieval searches which are implemented using inverted files. This optimization algorithm employs knowledge about the methods used for weighting document and query terms in order to examine as few inverted lists as possible. An extension to the basic algorithm allows greatly increased performance optimization at a modest cost in retrieval effectiveness. Experimental runs are made examining several different term weighting models and showing the optimization possible with each.
Developing a model for investigating the impact of language assessment within educational contexts by a public examination provider

There is no comprehensive model of language test or examination impact and how it might be investigated within educational contexts by a provider of high-stakes examinations, such as an international examinations board. This thesis addresses the development of such a model from the perspective of Cambridge ESOL, a provider of English language tests and examinations in over 100 countries. The starting point for the thesis is a discussion of examinations within educational processes generally and the role that examinations board, such as Cambridge ESOL play within educational systems. The historical context and assessment tradition is an important part of this discussion. In the literature review, the effects and consequences of language tests and examinations are discussed with reference to the better known concept of washback and how impact can be defined as a broader notion operating at both micro and macro levels. This is contextualised within the assessment literature on validity theory and the application of innovation theories within educational systems. Methodologically, the research is based on a meta-analysis which is employed in order to describe and review three impact projects. These three projects were carried out by researchers based in Cambridge to implement an approach to test impact which had emerged during the 1990s as part of the test development and validation procedures adopted by Cambridge ESOL. Based on the analysis, the main outcome and contribution to knowledge is an expanded model of impact designed to provide examination providers with a more effective “theory of action”. When applied within Cambridge ESOL, this model will allow anticipated impacts of the English language examinations to be monitored more effectively and will inform on-going processes of innovation; this will lead to well-motivated improvements in the examinations and the related systems. Wider applications of the model in other assessment contexts are also suggested.
The Role of Eye Movements in the Relationship between Rapid Automatized Naming and Reading Ability

The Rapid Automatized Naming test (RAN) has been shown to be a strong predictor of reading ability (Bowers and Wolf, 1993), however, the nature of this relationship remains unclear. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether the visual scanning and sequential components of the continuous RAN format are similar to those same visual scanning processes required in reading, and whether these processes partially account for the relationship. The sample consisted of 57 undergraduate students (63.2% female). The majority of the sample was either Caucasian (33.3%) or African American (29.8%). The eye movement measures consisted of three short stories and the continuous versions of two RAN tasks (colors and letters). This study examined the percent of regressions and fixations during both types of tasks (reading text and RAN). The findings suggest that the continuous RAN measures important visual scanning and sequencing processes that are important in predicting reading ability.
Shear and magnification: cosmic complementarity

The potential of cosmic shear to probe cosmology is well recognized and future optical wide field surveys are currently being designed to optimize the return of cosmic shear science. High precision cosmic shear analysis requires high precision photometric redshift. With accurate photometric redshifts, it becomes possible to measure the cosmic magnification on galaxies by galaxies and use it as a probe of cosmology. This type of weak lensing measurement will not use galaxy shapes, instead it will strongly rely on precise photometry and detailed colour information. In this work it is shown that such a measurement would lead to competitive constraints of the cosmological parameters, with a remarkable complementarity with cosmic shear. Future cosmic shear surveys could gain tremendously from magnification measurements as an independent probe of the dark matter distribution leading to a better control of observational and theoretical systematics when combined with shear.
Stability of networked control systems based on hidden Markov models

For the stability analysis of the networked control system (NCS) with random network-induced delays, which were considered to be governed by an underlying Markov chain with unknown probability distribution, the hidden Markov model (HMM) theory was proposed to model this kind of NCS as a jump linear system, wherein the output feedback controller was adopted. By using Baum-Welch algorithm, the parameters of the derived HMM were identified. Based on the derived closed loop model, the sufficient conditions on the existence of the stabilizing output feedback controller were established by solving a set of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). A simulated experimental result was given to show the efficiency and feasibility of our proposed approach.
Re-examining the influence of societal culture on organizational identity

Today’s global organizations are facing questions regarding their organizational identity across different locations. Understanding employees’ diverse cultural perspectives (House, Javidan, & Dorfman, 2001) of organizational identity is critical for effective recruitment and retention, as well as for maximizing their contributions to and identification with the organization. This paper explores how societal culture influences organizational identity in a global organization and offers a set of propositions for future theory development. The discussion focuses on how the local societal cultures in which regional offices are located – as defined by the relative strengths and priorities of the nine cultural dimensions for the GLOBE study (House et al., 2006) – may influence the way the employees of a global organization perceive their organization’s identity.
Fast Calculation of Translation Model Score for Simultaneous Automatic Speech Recognition of Multilingual Audio Contents

This paper addresses automatic speech recognition (ASR) for multilingual audio contents, such as international conference recordings and broadcast news. For handling such contents efficiently, a simultaneous ASR is promising. Conventionally, ASR has been performed independently, namely, language by language, although multilingual speech, which consists of utterances in several languages representing identical meaning, is available. We previously proposed a bilingual speech recognition framework based on statistical ASR and machine translation in which bilingual ASR is performed simultaneously and complementarily. In this simultaneous recognition framework, ASR systems use not only acoustic and language model scores but also a translation model (TM) score. In this study, we investigate an efficient calculation method of TM scores. A TM score represents how a sentence corresponds to another sentence of different languages. In general, between different languages a word can be translated into various words. Moreover, word orders are different. Considering these characteristics, TM scores should be modeled statistically. In a statistical translation model, each word in source language is modeled to have a possibility to be translated into every word in target language. For instance, for the matching (alignment) of n-word sentences and m-word sentences, there are n to the m-th power word-alignments. For a strict calculation of statistical TM scores, first, we calculate the probability of each alignment and then calculate their sum. However, this calculation costs too much and is inadequate for a real-time system. In this study, we reduce the computational cost. Specifically, since for almost all alignments, their probabilities are much smaller compared with the highest alignment probability, we regard the highest alignment probability as a TM score. We compared TM score calculation methods for time and accuracy in a Japanese ASR using English information based on a bilingual recognition framework. We significantly reduced processing time for TM score calculation without any degradation of ASR accuracy.
Flexible and tenacious goal pursuit lead to improving well-being in an aging population: a ten-year cohort study

ABSTRACT Background: Previous research has shown that tendencies to tenaciously pursue goals and flexibly adapt goals independently relate to well-being in adults in mid-to-late life, but research has not tested whether these tendencies interact. For example, tenacity may only predict well-being in combination with flexibility. This research tests whether these tendencies interact to predict changes in health-related outcomes. Methods: A large cohort of people (n = 5,666), initially aged 55–56, completed measures of flexibility, tenacity, health-related outcomes (physical health, depression, hostility), as well as demographics. Participants provided follow-up data on all measures ten years later. Moderation analysis was used to test whether flexibility and tenacity interacted to predict changes in the health-related outcomes over the period. Results: The interaction between tenacity and flexibility significantly predicted changes in depression, hostility, and physical ill-health symptoms over ten years, such that highly flexible and tenacious individuals experienced the largest decreases in symptoms of depression, hostility, and physical ill-health. Conclusions: The interaction between flexibility and tenacity predicts greater well-being, such that one is most protective when an individual also scores highly on the other. The combination of flexibility and tenacity in the pursuit of personal goals may mean individuals can enjoy gains associated with goal pursuit without the detrimental effects of persevering in blocked goals.
A Congenital Anterior Urethrocutaneous Fistula in a Boy Whose Mother Was Exposed to Ionizing Radiations: Case Report and Literature Review

Anterior congenital urethrocutaneous fistula is a rare anomaly that may present in an isolated fashion or in association with other anomalies of the genital urinary tract or anorectal malformations. A case of congenital anterior urethrocutaneous fistula nonassociated with other congenital anomalies in a 3-year-old male whose mother has been exposed to Chernobyl's nuclear fallout is described. The patient was successfully operated with no recurrence. We report a review of the literature about etiology and surgical strategy including the role of ionizing radiations. The congenital anterior urethrocutaneous fistula represents a rare malformation. The etiopathogenesis is unknown.
Power-Aware In-Network Query Processing for Sensor Data

Minimizing energy consumption has been a major objective at all levels in sensor networks. In this paper, we present TiNA, an in-network aggregation scheme that maintains the user-specified quality of data requirement while significantly reducing the overall energy consumption. Specifically, since communication dominates power usage in sensor networks, TiNA exploits end-user temporal coherency tolerances to reduce the amount of information transmitted by individual nodes. Further, we show that TiNa, by using temporal coherency tolerances, can allow for better quality of data when the time given to perform readings is too short for all data to be propagated up through the network. We compare our proposed scheme against an existing in-network aggregation scheme with a local sensor cache. We present experimental results measuring both power savings and also the quality of data for group-by queries. These results show that TiNA can reduce power consumption by up to 60% without any loss in the quality of data and extend the life of the sensor network by up to 300%.
Human Skin Microbiota: High Diversity of DNA Viruses Identified on the Human Skin by High Throughput Sequencing

The human skin is a complex ecosystem that hosts a heterogeneous flora. Until recently, the diversity of the cutaneous microbiota was mainly investigated for bacteria through culture based assays subsequently confirmed by molecular techniques. There are now many evidences that viruses represent a significant part of the cutaneous flora as demonstrated by the asymptomatic carriage of beta and gamma-human papillomaviruses on the healthy skin. Furthermore, it has been recently suggested that some representatives of the Polyomavirus genus might share a similar feature. In the present study, the cutaneous virome of the surface of the normal-appearing skin from five healthy individuals and one patient with Merkel cell carcinoma was investigated through a high throughput metagenomic sequencing approach in an attempt to provide a thorough description of the cutaneous flora, with a particular focus on its viral component. The results emphasize the high diversity of the viral cutaneous flora with multiple polyomaviruses, papillomaviruses and circoviruses being detected on normal-appearing skin. Moreover, this approach resulted in the identification of new Papillomavirus and Circovirus genomes and confirmed a very low level of genetic diversity within human polyomavirus species. Although viruses are generally considered as pathogen agents, our findings support the existence of a complex viral flora present at the surface of healthy-appearing human skin in various individuals. The dynamics and anatomical variations of this skin virome and its variations according to pathological conditions remain to be further studied. The potential involvement of these viruses, alone or in combination, in skin proliferative disorders and oncogenesis is another crucial issue to be elucidated.
Shifting Our Focus: Collaborating with Urban Schools to Support African American Students

This case study explores the intentional shift in a teacher preparation program at an urban metropolitan university. The need to develop teachers who choose to teach in the regionâ€™s urban settings, and who have professional competencies and dispositions that allow them to succeed and thrive, have propelled the shift. In this study, our objective is to describe how a traditional, nationally-accredited educator preparation program changes in order to increase support of urban schools in a Florida school district with a high percentage of African American students. Through the process of knowledge transfer, we utilize a qualitative case study design and collected data through focus group interviews of multiple stakeholders including College of Education faculty, K-12 school administrators, in-service teachers, and prospective teachers. The significance of this study lies in the reconceptualization of preparation practices to be replicated by other urban metropolitan universities. This approach aims to encourage university faculty to collaboratively engage with urban schools and school systems as well as prepare teachers to teach in schools that have high African American student enrollment. Keywords: Urban Schools, Teacher Preparation programs, African American Students,
An efficient similarity measure algorithm of Chinese sentence

Chinese sentence similarity measures are widely used in the field of Chinese information processing. Considering practical application environment of Chat Robot and its response speed requirements, this paper presents an efficient similarity measure for Chinese sentence. In this method, a weight is assigned to the length of matched sequence strings. The longer the length of matched sequence strings, the greater the weight assigned to length, which means more similar the two compared sentences. The experimental results indicate that, compared to that of Baidu-knows, the proposed method is more reasonable and more feasible.
Segmentation of a speech spectrogram using mathematical morphology

It has been shown that speech spectrograms can be read by trained experts. In this work, we regard the speech spectrogram image as a written text in some unknown language and perform segmentation in order to capture the energy associated with each formant. We propose an algorithm based on Mathematical Morphology operators and mainly on the watershed transform. The result is robust segmentation for wideband speech spectrograms that can be later used for automatic speech recognition. We show results of experimental runs for different phoneme classes.
HER2-Positive Circulating Tumor Cells in Breast Cancer

Purpose Circulating Tumor Cells (CTCs) detection and phenotyping are currently evaluated in Breast Cancer (BC). Tumor cell dissemination has been suggested to occur early in BC progression. To interrogate dissemination in BC, we studied CTCs and HER2 expression on CTCs across the spectrum of BC staging. Methods Spiking experiments with 6 BC cell lines were performed and blood samples from healthy women and women with BC were analyzed for HER2-positive CTCs using the CellSearch®. Results Based on BC cell lines experiments, HER2-positive CTCs were defined as CTCs with HER2 immunofluoresence intensity that was at least 2.5 times higher than the background. No HER2-positive CTC was detected in 42 women without BC (95% confidence interval (CI) 0–8.4%) whereas 4.1% (95%CI 1.4–11.4%) of 73 patients with ductal/lobular carcinoma in situ (DCIS/LCIS) had 1 HER2-positive CTC/22.5 mL, 7.9%, (95%CI 4.1–14.9%) of 101 women with non metastatic (M0) BC had ≥1 HER2-positive CTC/22.5 mL (median 1 cell, range 1–3 cells) and 35.9% (95%CI 22.7–51.9%) of 39 patients with metastatic BC had ≥1 HER2-positive CTC/7.5 mL (median 1.5 cells, range 1–42 cells). In CTC-positive women with DCIS/LCIS or M0 BC, HER2-positive CTCs were more commonly detected in HER2-positive (5 of 5 women) than HER2-negative BC (5 of 12 women) (p = 0.03). Conclusion HER2-positive CTCs were detected in DCIS/LCIS or M0 BC irrespective of the primary tumor HER2 status. Nevertheless, their presence was more common in women with HER2-positive disease. Monitoring of HER2 expression on CTCs might be useful in trials with anti-HER2 therapies.
Effects of carbon dioxide and climate change on ocean acidification and carbonate mineral saturation

We use an earth system model of intermediate complexity to show how consideration of climate change affects predicted changes in ocean pH and calcium carbonate saturation state. Our results indicate that consideration of climate change produces second‐order modifications to ocean chemistry predictions made with constant climate; these modifications occur primarily as a result of changes in sea surface temperature, and climate‐induced changes in dissolved inorganic carbon concentrations. Under a CO2 emission scenario derived from the WRE1000 CO2 stabilization concentration pathway and a constant climate, we predict a 0.47 unit reduction in surface ocean pH relative to a pre‐industrial value of 8.17, and a reduction in the degree of saturation with respect to aragonite from a pre‐industrial value of 3.34 to 1.39 by year 2500. With the same CO2 emissions but the consideration of climate change under a climate sensitivity of 2.5°C the reduction in projected global mean surface pH is about 0.48 and the saturation state of aragonite decreases to 1.50. With a climate sensitivity of 4.5°C, these values are 0.51 and 1.62, respectively. Our study therefore suggests that future changes in ocean acidification caused by emissions of CO2 to the atmosphere are largely independent of the amounts of climate change.
Studying the Child Obesity Epidemic with Natural Experiments

We utilize clinical records of successive visits by children to pediatric clinics in Indianapolis to estimate the effects on their body mass of environmental changes near their homes. We compare results for fixed-residence children with those for cross-sectional data. Our environmental factors are fast food restaurants, supermarkets, parks, trails, and violent crimes, and 13 types of recreational amenities derived from the interpretation of annual aerial photographs. We looked for responses to these factors changing within buffers of 0.1, 0.25, 0.5, and 1 mile. We found that cross-sectional estimates are quite different from the Fixed Effects estimates of the impacts of amenities locating near a child. In cross section nearby fast food restaurants were associated with higher BMI and supermarkets with lower BMI. These results were reversed in the FE estimates. The recreational amenities that appear to lower children's BMI were fitness areas, kickball diamonds, and volleyball courts. We estimated that locating these amenities near their homes could reduce the weight of an overweight eight-year old boy by 3 to 6 pounds.
A Modeling and Executable Language for Designing and Prototyping Service-Oriented Applications

This paper presents an intuitive, precise and executable language, SCA-ASM, for model-based design and prototyping of service-oriented applications. The language combines the SCA (Service Component Architecture) capability of modeling and assembling heterogeneous service-oriented components in a technology agnostic way, with the rigor of the Abstract State Machines formal method able to model notions of service behavior, interactions, orchestration, compensation in an abstract but executable way. For an early and quick design evaluation of a composite software application, an SCA-ASM model of a service-oriented component, possibly not yet implemented in code or available as off-the-shelf, can be: (i) simulated and evaluated of fine, i.e. in isolation from the other components, (ii) configured in place within an SCA-compliant runtime platform as abstract implementation (or prototype) of a component and then executed together with the other components implementations according to the chosen SCA assembly.
A Human In Vitro Whole Blood Assay to Predict the Systemic Cytokine Response to Therapeutic Oligonucleotides Including siRNA

Therapeutic oligonucleotides including siRNA and immunostimulatory ligands of Toll-like receptors (TLR) or RIG-I like helicases (RLH) are a promising novel class of drugs. They are in clinical development for a broad spectrum of applications, e.g. as adjuvants in vaccines and for the immunotherapy of cancer. Species-specific immune activation leading to cytokine release is characteristic for therapeutic oligonucleotides either as an unwanted side effect or intended pharmacology. Reliable in vitro tests designed for therapeutic oligonucleotides are therefore urgently needed in order to predict clinical efficacy and to prevent unexpected harmful effects in clinical development. To serve this purpose, we here established a human whole blood assay (WBA) that is fast and easy to perform. Its response to synthetic TLR ligands (R848: TLR7/8, LPS: TLR4) was on a comparable threshold to the more time consuming peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) based assay. By contrast, the type I IFN profile provoked by intravenous CpG-DNA (TLR9 ligand) in humans in vivo was more precisely replicated in the WBA than in stimulated PBMC. Since Heparin and EDTA, but not Hirudin, displaced oligonucleotides from their delivery agent, only Hirudin qualified as the anticoagulant to be used in the WBA. The Hirudin WBA exhibited a similar capacity as the PBMC assay to distinguish between TLR7-activating and modified non-stimulatory siRNA sequences. RNA-based immunoactivating TLR7/8- and RIG-I-ligands induced substantial amounts of IFN-α in the Hirudin-WBA dependent on delivery agent used. In conclusion, we present a human Hirudin WBA to determine therapeutic oligonucleotide-induced cytokine release during preclinical development that can readily be performed and offers a close reflection of human cytokine response in vivo.