Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Some Experiments with Blind Feedback and Re-ranking for Chinese Information Retrieval

In our formal runs, we have experimented with hybrid-term indexing and bigram indexing because hybrid-term indexing is a more distinct type of indexing strategy for better pooling and because bigram indexing usually gives robust (near) good results. We have also used our pseudo-relevance feedback (PRF) methods. In the informal runs, we have experimented with our previous re-ranking strategy, called title re-ranking. This strategy rewards documents which title terms match with the terms in the title query. Title re-ranking is able to improve the effectiveness performance for both short and long queries when bigram indexing is used. For formal runs, our best relax MAP achieved was 36% and 51% using PRF, for title queries and long queries respectively. For informal runs, our best relax MAP achieved was 43% for title queries and 50% for long queries using both PRF and merging retrieval lists.
Postnatal Acute Famine and Risk of Overweight: The Dutch Hungerwinter Study

Objective. To examine the association between undernutrition during postnatal periods of development and the risk of overweight in adulthood. Methods. We studied 8,091 women from Prospect-EPIC, exposed to the Dutch famine at ages between 0 and 21 years, recruited at ages between 49 and 70 years. We used linear and logistic regression models to explore the effect of famine on BMI, waist circumference, and the risk of overweight. Results. Overall, postnatal famine exposure was associated with increased BMI and waist circumference in a dose-dependent manner (P for trend < 0.01). Furthermore, risk of overweight was increased following famine exposure (P for trend = 0.01), with those severely exposed at ages 0–9 years having 25% (95% CI 1.05 to 1.50) higher risk compared to unexposed women. Conclusions. This study is the first to directly show a positive association between short and transient undernutrition during postnatal development and BMI, waist circumference, and overweight in adulthood.
A Parallel Divide and Conquer Algorithm for the Symmetric Eigenvalue Problem on Distributed Memory Architectures

We present a new parallel implementation of a divide and conquer algorithm for computing the spectral decomposition of a symmetric tridiagonal matrix on distributed memory architectures. The implementation we develop differs from other implementations in that we use a two-dimensional block cyclic distribution of the data, we use the Lowner theorem approach to compute orthogonal eigenvectors, and we introduce permutations before the back transformation of each rank-one update in order to make good use of deflation. This algorithm yields the first scalable, portable, and numerically stable parallel divide and conquer eigensolver. Numerical results confirm the effectiveness of our algorithm. We compare performance of the algorithm with that of the QR algorithm and of bisection followed by inverse iteration on an IBM SP2 and a cluster of Pentium PIIs.
NMR structure of the N-terminal domain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae RNase HI reveals a fold with a strong resemblance to the N-terminal domain of ribosomal protein L9.

In addition to the conserved and well-defined RNase H domain, eukaryotic RNases HI possess either one or two copies of a small N-terminal domain. The solution structure of one of the N-terminal domains from Saccharomyces cerevisiae RNase HI, determined using NMR spectroscopy, is presented. The 46 residue motif comprises a three-stranded antiparallel beta-sheet and two short alpha-helices which pack onto opposite faces of the beta-sheet. Conserved residues involved in packing the alpha-helices onto the beta-sheet form the hydrophobic core of the domain. Three highly conserved and solvent exposed residues are implicated in RNA binding, W22, K38 and K39. The beta-beta-alpha-beta-alpha topology of the domain differs from the structures of known RNA binding domains such as the double-stranded RNA binding domain (dsRBD), the hnRNP K homology (KH) domain and the RNP motif. However, structural similarities exist between this domain and the N-terminal domain of ribosomal protein L9 which binds to 23 S ribosomal RNA.
Packaging effect on reliability of Cu/low k interconnects

In a plastic flip-chip package, the thermal deformation of the package can be directly coupled into the Cu/low k interconnect structure inducing large local deformation to drive interfacial crack formation. In this paper, we summarize experimental and modeling results to investigate the chip-package interaction and its impact on low k interconnect reliability. We first review the experimental techniques for measuring thermal deformation in a flip-chip package and interfacial fracture energy for low k interfaces. Then results from 3D FEA, based on a multilevel sub-modeling approach in combination with high-resolution moire interferometry, to investigate the chip-package interaction for SiLK and MSQ low k interconnects are discussed. Packaging induced crack driving forces for relevant interfaces in Cu/low k structures are deduced and compared with corresponding interfaces in Cu/TEOS and Al/TEOS structures to assess the effect of ILD on packaging reliability. Our results indicate that packaging assembly can significantly impact wafer-level reliability causing interfacial delamination to become a serious reliability concern for Cu/low k structures.
NIKHIL KAUSHAL ( NJMS 2019 ) CANCER OUTCOMES IN THE LONG-TERM PROSPECTIVE WEISS COHORT STUDIES : NEW JERSEY COHORTS

funded by the NCI for 44 years, provides a unique eight-week research experience for New Jersey Medical School first and second-year medical students as well as undergraduate students enrolled in our combined BS/MD seven-year program. This year 19 students participated in biomedical research activities in both laboratory and clinical settings at either the New Jersey Medical School Cancer Center, or other facilities on the Newark Campus, while developing a close working relationship with their faculty mentors. All students were required to present their research at a poster session during the concluding symposium, one of the program highlights. Further information about the program is available for viewing at the Rutgers New Jersey Medical School website at the following URL: No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form without prior written permission of the editor, student author and faculty sponsor. The faculty executive advisory committee is responsible for carefully reviewing and selecting the projects submitted by faculty, as well as reviewing the structure of the forthcoming Cancer Summer Program. We appreciate the time they took out of their busy schedules to evaluate the program and help make it a success. Department affiliations are in NJMS unless otherwise stipulated. While the Cancer Center building currently houses 14 laboratories, the broader Cancer Center Community (CCC) is composed of 104 investigators from several departments of the NJMS, the New Jersey Dental School and the School of Public Health, as well as the School of Health and Related Professions (SHRP). It is a truly interdisciplinary and interdepartmental group that embraces research enterprises extending from basic science programs in tumor immunology, signal transduction, cancer stem cells, tumor virology, cell biology, animal models, and imaging, to health disparities and clinical trials. The faculty mentors that participate in this program are devoted to training and education and have played a pivotal role at NJMS in cancer education for over 40 years. The 2015 participating faculty and their respective departments are listed below. Department affiliations are in NJMS unless otherwise stipulated. Co-mentors and other contributing authors follow in order of appearance on the poster. Objective: The interferon-λ family was recently discovered and has not yet been fully characterized. Interferon-λs have been shown to have antitumor and antiviral properties, making them a prime target for study. Previous work has indicated that interferon-λs, in addition to being secreted from cells, may be incorporated into the extracellular matrix. …
INFLUENCE OF A SCIENCE CAMP BASED ON ACTIVE LEARNING ON STUDENTS

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of the project titled “An Entertaining Discovery of the Mysterious World: Summer Science Camp II”, which was conducted within the scope of the TUBITAK 4004 Nature Education and Science Schools project, on students. 48 students who had * Bu çalışma 110B033 proje numarası ile TÜBİTAK tarafından desteklenmiştir. Aktif Öğrenmeye Dayalı Bir Yaz Bilim Kampının Öğrenciler Üzerindeki Etkilerinin İncelenmesi 1384 completed the primary education 7th grade participated in the project. To determine the effects of the project on the participants, semi-structured interviews, diaries, Scientific Attitude Scale, “Science Lab Attitude Scale”, and the letters written by the participants at the end of the camp were used. The activities conducted at camp were aimed at enabling students to comprehend basic scientific phenomena in the fields of physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, and ecology. Furthermore, activities about personal, academic, and professional development of students were conducted together with a guidance specialist included in the project. The interviews demonstrated that students generally had quite positive views concerning the activities. It was seen that student motivation was satisfactory during the camp period. Based on the data obtained from the Scientific Attitude Scale, it can be said that a statistically significant improvement took place in the attitudes of primary education students participating in summer science camp about science and science lab at the end of the camp in comparison to the pre-camp period. When all evaluations are taken into consideration, it is seen that participants completed camp period with positive cognitive and affective acquisitions. In the light of the contributions of the project to students, it can be recommended to generalize these kinds of science camps for different groups, places, and disciplines within the body of universities, and to encourage implementation and participation.
Performance Evaluation of Multicast Overlay Routing Protocols

Abstract For almost three decades the multicast communication has been a subject of a dynamic research. It came to the world of the packet switching networks rather late and still has not become a fist class citizen of the Internet, yet the demand for such services is growing and thus the relevant technologies evolve persistently providing increasing quality and availability of the means of the group communication. The overlay approach to the multicast is an application layer realization which came to life due to certain deficiencies at the lower layers. In general the gain from using multicast for group communication instead of duplicated unicast links is that we avoid sending the same data many times through a single link. Such gain may be achieved wit the use of the router level mulitcast solution. The overlay solutions tend to approach his level of efficiency with a different degree of success. Therefore one of the main characteristics that is interesting when evaluating a particular overlay protocol is how well does it achieve the aforementioned gain. There are several metrics that allow for objective comparison of protocols in this regard. However this is not the only point of view to provide a valuable evaluation of the multicast overlay solutions. One of the important aspects of the modern group communication such as the IPTV or teleconferencing is the dynamic nature of the users’ participation. A particular group may be joined and left by multiple users at a very frequent rate which is critical to the resources management as well as to maintaining the integrity of the abstract communication structure, e.g. a tree spanning all the participants. In such case two major classes of the evaluation criteria emerge: the statical and the dynamical ones. They’re both very important and interdependent, however the means to measure them may differ significantly. In this article a wide variety of the multicast overlay protocols have been analysed and two of them have been chosen to be compared. The stress of the evaluation has been put on the dynamic aspects of the multicast overlay protocols operation.
Culture as the Core: Challenges and Possible Solutions in Integrating Culture into Foreign Language Teaching

In this qualitative study, the researchers examined the experience of a sample of language instructors in foreign language programs to identify the challenges they encountered and the strategies they applied in integrating culture into their daily teaching. The findings of this study indicated that in spite of confronting challenges in cultural teaching, language instructors have made individual efforts on culture teaching in their specific programs. The article concluded with possible implications for language teachers and suggestions for future studies.
Computer experiments with the REVE term rewriting system generator

A term rewriting system generator called REVE is described. REVE builds confluent and uniformly terminating term rewriting systems from sets of equations. Particular emphasis is placed on mechanization of termination proof. Indeed, REVE is one of the few such systems which can actually be called automatic because termination is fully integrated into the algorithms. REVE uses an incremental termination method based on recursive decomposition ordering which constructs the termination proof step by step from the presentation of the set of equations and which requires little knowledge of termination methods from the user. All examples from this paper are taken from abstract data type specifications.
A Logic For Decidable Reasoning About Services

We consider a modified version of the situation calculus buil t using a two-variable fragment of the first-order logic extended with counting quantifiers. We mention several additional groups of axioms that need to be introduced to capture taxonomic reasoning. We show that the regression operator in this framework can be defined similarly to regression in th e Reiter’s version of the situation calculus. Using this new r gression operator, we show that the projection problem (tha t is the main reasoning task in the situation calculus) is deci dable in the modified version. We mention possible applications of this result to formalization of Web services and to reasoning about effects of composite Web services.
Matrix Strings in Weakly Curved Background Fields

We investigate further the recent proposal for the form of the Matrix theory action in weak background fields. We perform DVV reduction to the multiple D0–brane action in order to find the Matrix string theory action for multiple fundamental strings in curved but weak NS–NS and R–R backgrounds. This matrix sigma model gives a definite prescription on how to deal with R–R fields with an explicit spacetime dependence in Type II string theory. We do this both via the 9 − 11 flip and the chain of T and S dualities, and further check on their equivalence explicitly. In order to do so, we also discuss the implementation of S–duality in the operators of the 2–dimensional world– volume supersymmetric gauge theory describing the Type IIB D–string. We compare the result to the known Green–Schwarz sigma model action (for one string), and use this comparison in order to discuss about possible, non–linear background curvature corrections to the Matrix string action (involving many strings), and therefore to the Matrix theory action. We illustrate the nonabelian character of our action with an example involving multiple fundamental strings in a non–trivial R–R flux, where the strings are polarized into a noncommutative configuration. This corresponds to a dielectric type of effect on fundamental strings.
Continuity of Tradition Dance: Acedemicians’ Intervention on Artists and Performing Arts Groups

This article intends to uncover a concept of developing tradition-art groups in West Sumatra, which is considered that they have been left behind by modern-art groups in terms of packing aspect, presentation, and technical skills. Hence, this article reveals intervention of the academician in developing and providing support in the forms of improving skills and knowledge of the artists and art groups. The support includes improving skills and knowledge of expressing arts through giving packing techniques and arranging art performance, orientated toward educational and social extension actions. The knowledge may consist of techniques for developing movements, dance music, costumes, and make-up affecting skills of arranging and packing performance arts that can be divested in art industries. The method used in this investigation was games that aimed to cope with boredom and improve new awareness of concepts of how to pack performance arts. In addition, the case study was employed to solve problems faced by partners in the field. Moreover, practices about how to pack the arts were critical to be done through brainstorming, discussing, and lecturing.
Experience Using a Globally Shared State Abstraction to Support Distributed Applications

In this paper, we evaluate the effectiveness of basing distributed systems on a persistent globally shared address space abstraction, as implemented by Khazana. Khazana provides shared state management services to distributed application developers, including consistent caching, automated replication and migration of data, location management, access control, and (limited) fault tolerance. We report on our experience porting three applications to Khazana: a distributed file system (KFS), a distributed name service (KNS), and a cooperative drawing program based on xfig (KFIG). The basic Khazana abstraction of persistent shared memory made it easy to create fairly efficient distributed services with flat data abstractions (KFS and KNS), but our port ofxfigmade it clear that a higher level abstraction is preferable for applications with more struc-ion is preferable for applications with more structured state. As a result, we extended Khazana to support a limited set of object-like functions (reference swizzling, event upcalls, and update propagation). We present herein the current Khazana design and implementation, and discuss the lessons learned from our initial evaluation of it.
Screen-Based Sedentary Behavior, Physical Activity, and Muscle Strength in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing

Background Sarcopenia is associated with loss of independence and ill-health in the elderly although the causes remain poorly understood. We examined the association between two screen-based leisure time sedentary activities (daily TV viewing time and internet use) and muscle strength. Methods and Results We studied 6228 men and women (aged 64.9±9.1 yrs) from wave 4 (2008-09) of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, a prospective study of community dwelling older adults. Muscle strength was assessed by a hand grip test and the time required to complete five chair rises. TV viewing and internet usage were inversely associated with one another. Participants viewing TV ≥6hrs/d had lower grip strength (Men, B = −1.20 kg, 95% CI, −2.26, −0.14; Women, −0.75 kg, 95% CI, −1.48, −0.03) in comparison to <2hrs/d TV, after adjustment for age, physical activity, smoking, alcohol, chronic disease, disability, depressive symptoms, social status, and body mass index. In contrast, internet use was associated with higher grip strength (Men, B = 2.43 kg, 95% CI, 1.74, 3.12; Women, 0.76 kg, 95% CI, 0.32, 1.20). These associations persisted after mutual adjustment for both types of sedentary behaviour. Conclusions In older adults, the association between sedentary activities and physical function is context specific (TV viewing vs. computer use). Adverse effects of TV viewing might reflect the prolonged sedentary nature of this behavior.
Engineering Synthetic Gene Circuits in Living Cells with CRISPR [ 1 _ TD $ DIFF ] Technology

One of the goals of synthetic biology is to build regulatory circuits that control cell behavior, for both basic research purposes and biomedical applications. The ability to build transcriptional regulatory devices depends on the availability of programmable, sequence-specific, and effective synthetic transcription factors (TFs). The prokaryotic clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat ([3_TD$DIFF]CRISPR [4_TD$DIFF]) system, recently harnessed for transcriptional regulation in various heterologous host cells, offers unprecedented ease in designing synthetic TFs. We review how CRISPR can be used to build synthetic gene circuits and discuss recent advances in CRISPR-mediated gene regulation that offer the potential to build increasingly complex, programmable, and efficient gene circuits in the future.
Structures of a series of 6-kDa trypsin inhibitors isolated from the stigma of Nicotiana alata.

The three-dimensional structures of a series of 6-kDa trypsin inhibitors isolated from the stigma of the ornamental tobacco Nicotiana alata have been determined by 1H NMR spectroscopy combined with simulated annealing calculations. The proteins, T1-T4, are proteolytically cleaved from a 40.3-kDa precursor protein, NA-proPI, together with a chymotrypsin inhibitor, C1, the structure of which was reported recently [Nielsen, K.J., Heath, R.L. , Anderson, M.A., & Craik, D.J. (1994) J. Mol. Biol. 242, 231-243]. Each of the proteinase inhibitors comprises 53 amino acids, including 8 cysteine residues which are linked to form 4 disulfide bridges. The proteins have a high degree of sequence identity and differ mainly in residues around the putative reactive sites. The structure of T1 was determined using a set of 533 interproton distance restraints derived from NOESY spectra, combined with 33 dihedral restraints derived from 3JNH-H alpha coupling constants and 16 hydrogen bonds. The structures of the remaining inhibitors (T2-T4) were deduced to be almost identical to T1, on the basis of their similar chemical shifts and 2D spectra. The current study demonstrates that the structures of the trypsin inhibitors (T1-T4) are similar to that previously found for the chymotrypsin inhibitor, C1. Despite differences in sequence, there is conservation in backbone geometry between the reactive site loops of the two classes of inhibitors. From this, it is clear that the nature of the side chain on the primary binding residue, rather than the backbone fold, is the main determinant of the enzyme specificities of these proteinase inhibitors.
Consistent groupwise non-rigid registration for atlas construction

This paper describes a groupwise, non-rigid registration algorithm to simultaneously register all subjects in a population to a common reference (or natural) coordinate system, which is defined to be the average of the population. This natural coordinate system is calculated implicitly by constraining the sum of all deformations from itself to each subject to be zero. To do this, the gradient projection method for constrained optimization is applied to maximize the similarity between the images, subject to the constraint being satisfied. The algorithm has been tested on a group of 19 brain MR images acquired from a population of subjects with schizophrenia.