Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Automatic Refinement of Syntactic Categories in Chinese Word Structures

Annotated word structures are useful for various Chinese NLP tasks, such as word segmentation, POS tagging and syntactic parsing. Chinese word structures are often represented by binary trees, the nodes of which are labeled with syntactic categories, due to the syntactic nature of Chinese word formation. It is desirable to refine the annotation by labeling nodes of word structure trees with more proper syntactic categories so that the combinatorial properties in the word formation process are better captured. This can lead to improved performances on the tasks that exploit word structure annotations. We propose syntactically inspired algorithms to automatically induce syntactic categories of word structure trees using POS tagged corpus and branching in existing Chinese word structure trees. We evaluate the quality of our annotation by comparing the performances of models based on our annotation and another publicly available annotation, respectively. The results on two variations of Chinese word segmentation task show that using our annotation can lead to significant performance improvements.
Openness, Anti-Gay Attitudes, and Intervention: Predicting the Time to Stop Anti-Gay Aggression

Anti-gay violence is the second most-reported hate crime. In many cases, bystanders could have chosen to intervene to stop the violence. People who have strong homophobic attitudes are less likely to intervene than people who hold less homophobic attitudes. These attitudes towards gay men may be influenced by underlying personality traits, such as openness. Openness to experience, part of the five-factor theory of personality, is negatively correlated with aggression and anti-gay attitudes. People who are high in openness are more liberal and tend to seek a variety of experiences. Whereas, people who have lower levels tend to be more conforming and less sensitive. Low openness can influence a bystander’s intervention process if they view the victim negatively. The current study examines the association between openness levels, anti-gay attitudes, and the time to intervene as a bystander. Male undergraduate students (n = 65) witnessed a staged scene of anti-gay aggression. One confederate expressed hostility towards another, ostensibly homosexual confederate; participants chose whether to intervene. Participants then completed a battery of measures, including the Big Five Personality Inventory, and the Attitudes Toward Lesbian and Gay Men Scale. Results of a regression analysis indicate that openness and anti-gay attitudes predicted intervention time, =. 12, F(1,64) = 4.42, p<. 05. Participants higher in openness had lower antigay attitudes scores, (B = -.97, SE =.46, p<.05). Additionally, anti-gay attitudes significantly predicted the time to intervene; for each one point increase in anti-gay attitudes, participants waited an additional 29 seconds to intervene, (B = 29.04, SE = 11.11, p<.05). This suggests that men who have lower levels of openness hold more anti-gay attitudes, which then affects the time to intervene in anti-gay aggression (B = -0.28.13, SE = 18.18, CI95% = -74.71, -3.43, 1000 bootstrapped samples).
Polyphenols and Glycemic Control

Growing evidence from animal studies supports the anti-diabetic properties of some dietary polyphenols, suggesting that dietary polyphenols could be one dietary therapy for the prevention and management of Type 2 diabetes. This review aims to address the potential mechanisms of action of dietary polyphenols in the regulation of glucose homeostasis and insulin sensitivity based on in vitro and in vivo studies, and to provide a comprehensive overview of the anti-diabetic effects of commonly consumed dietary polyphenols including polyphenol-rich mixed diets, tea and coffee, chocolate and cocoa, cinnamon, grape, pomegranate, red wine, berries and olive oil, with a focus on human clinical trials. Dietary polyphenols may inhibit α-amylase and α-glucosidase, inhibit glucose absorption in the intestine by sodium-dependent glucose transporter 1 (SGLT1), stimulate insulin secretion and reduce hepatic glucose output. Polyphenols may also enhance insulin-dependent glucose uptake, activate 5′ adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase (AMPK), modify the microbiome and have anti-inflammatory effects. However, human epidemiological and intervention studies have shown inconsistent results. Further intervention studies are essential to clarify the conflicting findings and confirm or refute the anti-diabetic effects of dietary polyphenols.
Analytical Drain Current Model for Amorphous InGaZnO Thin-Film Transistors at Different Temperatures Considering Both Deep and Tail Trap States

Surface-potential-based drain current model is presented for amorphous InGaZnO thin-film transistors considering both exponential deep and tail trap states densities in the energy gap. The trap states densities are determined by the numerical calculation on the basis of the assumption that the trapped carrier concentration is much higher than the free carrier concentration. The analytical drain current model is developed consistent with the numerical calculation, and verified by the experimental data at different temperatures.
Metal-catalyzed oxidation of Aβ and the resulting reorganization of Cu binding sites promote ROS production†

In the context of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), the production of HO• by copper–amyloid beta (Aβ) in the presence of ascorbate is known to be deleterious for the Aβ peptide itself and also for the surrounding molecules, thus establishing a direct link between AD and oxidative stress. The metal-catalyzed oxidation (MCO) of Aβ primarily targets the residues involved in copper coordination during HO• production. In the present work, we demonstrate that the oxidative damage undergone by Aβ during MCO lead to a change in copper coordination, with enhanced catalytic properties that increases the rates of ascorbate consumption and HO• production, and the amount of HO• released by the system. This phenomenon is observed after the peptide has been sufficiently oxidized.
What Can We Learn about White Privilege and Racism from the Experiences of White Mothers Parenting Biracial Children

Despite progress in the movement toward anti-racism, racism remains a problem in Canada. While the presence of racism and the problem of racism are recognized by Canadian society, there is still a long way to go before racism and white privilege are eliminated. In the present study, I apply Community Psychology values to the examination of an as-yet relatively unexamined minority population: white mothers of biracial children. Guided by epistemological views that place my research within the critical and social constructivist research paradigms, I explore my research question, "How can the experiences of white mothers parenting biracial children inform us about white privilege and racism? ", using a grounded theory analysis of self-reported experiences of six white mothers living in Greater Waterloo Region, in Ontario, Canada. My informants participated in semi-structured individual and small group interviews and completed a photographic journaling project. While all the mothers were united by their common experience of being white women parenting biracial children, they represented a diverse range of socioeconomic classes and family compositions, and were parenting children whose fathers came from several ethnic backgrounds. Through my analysis of my informants' stories, I identified a new perspective of the "experience of racism" in society. In addition, my findings led to the development of a theoretical framework that merges white privilege and racism into inseparable entities and fosters critical understanding of how racism is perpetuated in Canadian society. Recommendations for additional contributions to the anti-racism movement are suggested.
Processor frequency selection for SoC platforms for multimedia applications

Of late, there has been a considerable interest in generic and configurable system-on-chip platforms specifically targeted towards implementing multimedia applications. A number of such platforms offer the possibility of including processor soft cores which are highly customizable. For voltage/frequency scaled processors, such customization includes the selection of appropriate voltage/frequency operating points which are tuned to the application set to be mapped onto the platform. In this context, we present an analytical framework that can guide a system designer in identifying the frequency ranges that should be supported by the different processors of a platform architecture. This framework can also be used to identify how such frequency ranges depend on the different parameters of the architecture (such as on-chip buffer sizes), and the performance impacts associated with selecting a particular frequency range. In the case of multimedia streaming applications, identifying such performance impacts and tradeoffs involved in customizing a platform architecture is especially difficult due to the bursty nature of on-chip traffic arising out of multimedia processing and the high variability in their execution requirements. The framework presented here is designed to precisely capture such characteristics and can be used in the design-space exploration of energy-aware platform architectures for multimedia processing.
Steady-state bioequivalence study of clozapine tablet in schizophrenic patients.

PURPOSE To compare the bioavailability of two clozapine formulations (100 mg Clozaril tablet from Novartis Pharmaceuticals UK Ltd., UK, as a Reference formulation and 100 mg Cloril tablet from Atlantic Laboratories Corp., Ltd., Thailand, as a Test formulation). The present study was conducted under real-life conditions in schizophrenic patients using a steady-state, multiple-dose, randomized crossover design to avoid the risk of adverse effects in healthy volunteers and pharmacokinetic difference between single and multiple-dose of the drug. METHODS The subjects received 100 mg bid of either the Reference formulation or the Test formulation for 7 days. At day-7 of each study phase, blood samples were collected at 0, 0.5, 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 h after drug administration. Plasma was separated and stored at -80 degrees C until assay. The plasma concentration of clozapine was determined by high performance liquid chromatography. Pharmacokinetic parameters were calculated from the observed plasma-concentration time profiles. The bioequivalence between the two formulations was assessed by calculating individual peak plasma concentrations (Cmax) and area under the concentration-time curve (AUC(0-12 h)) ratios. RESULTS All subjects well tolerated both clozapine formulations. No serious side effects were reported. The Tmax, terminal half-life and the total plasma clearance of clozapine (uncorrected for bioavailability) observed in the present study were comparable to those observed in other previous reports. All of the pharmacokinetic parameters investigated in the present study calculated from the subjects after administration of Test and Reference formulations were close. The 90% confident interval for the ratio of means for the lnCmax (0.9784-1.0622) and lnAUC(0-12h) (0.9559-1.0441) are within the guideline range of bioequivalence (0.80 to 1.25). CONCLUSION The result demonstrated that the Test formulation was bioequivalent to the Reference formulation (Clozaril) when orally administered in schizophrenic patients, in terms of both the rate and extent of absorption.
2nd PEGS Annual Symposium on Antibodies for Cancer Therapy

The 2nd Annual Antibodies for Cancer Therapy symposium, organized again by Cambridge Healthtech Institute as part of the Protein Engineering Summit, was held in Boston, USA from April 30th to May 1st, 2012. Since the approval of the first cancer antibody therapeutic, rituximab, fifteen years ago, eleven have been approved for cancer therapy, although one, gemtuzumab ozogamicin, was withdrawn from the market. The first day of the symposium started with a historical review of early work for lymphomas and leukemias and the evolution from murine to human antibodies. The symposium discussed the current status and future perspectives of therapeutic antibodies in the biology of immunoglobulin, emerging research on biosimilars and biobetters, and engineering bispecific antibodies and antibody-drug conjugates. The tumor penetration session was focused on the understanding of antibody therapy using ex vivo tumor spheroids and the development of novel agents targeting epithelial junctions in solid tumors. The second day of the symposium discussed the development of new generation recombinant immunotoxins with low immunogenicity, construction of chimeric antigen receptors, and the proof-of-concept of ‘photoimmunotherapy’. The preclinical and clinical session presented antibodies targeting Notch signaling and chemokine receptors. Finally, the symposium discussed emerging technologies and platforms for therapeutic antibody discovery.
Control of generalized contact motion and force in physical human-robot interaction

During human-robot interaction tasks, a human may physically touch a robot and engage in a collaboration phase with exchange of contact forces and/or requiring coordinated motion of a common contact point. Under the premise of keeping the interaction safe, the robot controller should impose a desired motion/force behavior at the contact or explicitly regulate the contact forces. Since intentional contacts may occur anywhere along the robot structure, the ability of controlling generalized contact motion and force becomes an essential robot feature. In our recent work, we have shown how to estimate contact forces without an explicit force sensing device, relying on residual signals to detect contact and on the use of an external (depth) sensor to localize the contact point. Based on this result, we introduce two control schemes that generalize the impedance and direct force control paradigms to a generic contact location on the robot, making use of the estimated contact forces. The issue of human-robot task compatibility is pointed out in case of control of generalized contact forces. Experimental results are presented for a KUKA LWR robot using a Kinect sensor.
A Novel Approach to Compute Spatial Reuse in the Design of Custom Instructions

In the automatic design of custom instruction set processors, there can be a very large set of potential custom instructions, from which a few instructions are required to be chosen, taking into account their spatial as well as temporal reuse and cost. Using the existing pattern matching techniques, finding complete reuse of every identified pattern in the entire application would be very slow and may even be computationally infeasible. Due to this, the existing selection methods employ pattern matching techniques at a very later stage of selection process on a small set of patterns, compromising the quality of selected candidates. In this paper, we propose a method by which each pattern's reuse information can be derived at an early stage of selection process even when there are very large number of potential patterns. The novel contributions of this paper include a simple and efficient algorithm for finding all the isomorphic convex subgraphs (termed as Recurring Pattern Information(RPI)) of the given application's Control Data Flow Graph (CDFG). The proposed technique is integrated into the estimation phase of the Instruction Set Extension (ISE) automation. Experimental results show the efficiency of the proposed algorithm and demonstrate its utility in generating high quality custom instructions.
Evidence for the Convergence Model: The Emergence of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (H5N1) in Viet Nam

Building on a series of ground breaking reviews that first defined and drew attention to emerging infectious diseases (EID), the ‘convergence model’ was proposed to explain the multifactorial causality of disease emergence. The model broadly hypothesizes disease emergence is driven by the co-incidence of genetic, physical environmental, ecological, and social factors. We developed and tested a model of the emergence of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 based on suspected convergence factors that are mainly associated with land-use change. Building on previous geospatial statistical studies that identified natural and human risk factors associated with urbanization, we added new factors to test whether causal mechanisms and pathogenic landscapes could be more specifically identified. Our findings suggest that urbanization spatially combines risk factors to produce particular types of peri-urban landscapes with significantly higher HPAI H5N1 emergence risk. The work highlights that peri-urban areas of Viet Nam have higher levels of chicken densities, duck and geese flock size diversities, and fraction of land under rice or aquaculture than rural and urban areas. We also found that land-use diversity, a surrogate measure for potential mixing of host populations and other factors that likely influence viral transmission, significantly improves the model’s predictability. Similarly, landscapes where intensive and extensive forms of poultry production overlap were found at greater risk. These results support the convergence hypothesis in general and demonstrate the potential to improve EID prevention and control by combing geospatial monitoring of these factors along with pathogen surveillance programs.
Content-based audio classification using collective network of binary classifiers

In this paper, a novel collective network of binary classifiers (CNBC) framework is presented for content-based audio classification. The topic has been studied in several publications before, but in many cases the number of different classification categories is quite limited and needed to be fixed a priori. We focus our efforts to increase both the classification accuracy and the number of classes, as well as to create a scalable network design, which allows introducing new audio classes incrementally. The approach is based on dividing a major classification problem into several networks of binary classifiers (NBCs), where each NBC adapts its internal topology according to the classification problem at hand, by using evolutionary Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs). In the current work, feed-forward ANNs, or the so-called Multilayer Perceptrons (MLPs), are evolved within an architecture space, where a stochastic optimization is applied to seek for the optimal classifier configuration and parameters. The performance evaluations of the proposed framework over an 8-class benchmark audio database demonstrate its scalability and notable potential, as classification error rates of less than 9% are achieved.
CA-Markov analysis of constrained coastal urban growth modeling: Hua Hin seaside city, Thailand.

Thailand, a developing country in Southeast Asia, is experiencing rapid development, particularly urban growth as a response to the expansion of the tourism industry. Hua Hin city provides an excellent example of an area where urbanization has flourished due to tourism. This study focuses on how the dynamic urban horizontal expansion of the seaside city of Hua Hin is constrained by the coast, thus making sustainability for this popular tourist destination—managing and planning for its local inhabitants, its visitors, and its sites—an issue. The study examines the association of land use type and land use change by integrating Geo-Information technology, a statistic model, and CA-Markov analysis for sustainable land use planning. The study identifies that the land use types and land use changes from the year 1999 to 2008 have changed as a result of increased mobility; this trend, in turn, has everything to do with urban horizontal expansion. The changing sequences of land use type have developed from forest area to agriculture, from agriculture to grassland, then to bare land and built-up areas. Coastal urban growth has, for a decade, been expanding horizontally from a downtown center along the beach to the western area around the golf course, the southern area along the beach, the southwest grassland area, and then the northern area near the airport.
Long-Range Interaction Analysis using Principal Component Analysis

This paper analyzes the long-range interactions, which plays a fundamental and important role in many biologic fields, between residues in protein using principal component analysis (PCA). Firstly, one angular coordinate system of long-range interaction regions is constructed conveniently. Afterwards, a matrix of the angular values of residues can be analyzed by principal component analysis technique. Projecting the angular matrix onto its eigenvectors, it can be found that the projection is to satisfy Boltzmann distribution. By analyzing the thermodynamic environment of the interaction region and scaling the interaction regions, it can be concluded that the distribution of long-range interactions may also be obtained and as a result applied in prediction of contact map.
A Dual Quaternion Solution to Attitude and Position Control for Rigid-Body Coordination

This paper focuses on finding a dual quaternion solution to attitude and position control for multiple rigid body coordination. Representing rigid bodies in 3-D space by unit dual quaternion kinematics, a distributed control strategy, together with a specified rooted-tree structure, are proposed to control the attitude and position of networked rigid bodies simultaneously with notion concision and nonsingularity. A property called pairwise asymptotic stability of the overall system is then analyzed and validated by an example of seven quad-rotor formation in the Urban Search And Rescue Simulation (USARSim) platform. As a separate but related issue, a maximum depth condition of the rooted tree is found with respect to error accumulation along each path using dual quaternion algebra, such that a given safety bound on attitude and position errors can be satisfied.
Sulfonylurea Drugs Do Not Influence Initial Stroke Severity and In-Hospital Outcome in Stroke Patients With Diabetes

Background and Purpose— Sulfonylurea drugs inhibit ATP-dependent potassium channels and may increase mortality after myocardial infarction. Sulfonylurea drugs also inhibit ischemic preconditioning in experimental models of brain ischemia and in clinical studies in the human heart. Methods— In the present study we examined the impact of sulfonylurea drugs on in-hospital mortality and the immediate neurological deficit of diabetic stroke patients. From a larger stroke data bank, we studied 146 diabetic patients with acute hemispheric ischemic stroke. Sixty patients were using sulfonylurea drugs. Results— Major baseline characteristics such as age, blood pressure, admission glucose level, HbA1c, distribution of cardiovascular risk factors, and presumed stroke etiology (Trial of Org 10172 in Acute Stroke Treatment [TOAST] criteria) were not different. Mortality (15% versus 14%;P =0.86) and initial stroke severity (Canadian Neurological Scale score, 7.4 versus 7.5;P =0.79) were not significantly different between patients with and without sulfonylurea drugs. Further end points such as Rankin Scale score, deteriorating stroke, duration of hospital stay, type of infarcts on CT/MRI, requirement of intensive care, and complications were not different. In a stepwise logistic regression model, sulfonylurea drugs were not independent predictors for increased mortality, deteriorating stroke, or stroke severity. Conclusions— In the present hospital-based study, sulfonylurea drugs in patients with diabetes and stroke are not associated with increased stroke severity, mortality, or a worse in-hospital outcome.