Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Indexing large metric spaces for similarity search queries

One of the common queries in many database applications is finding approximate matches to a given query item from a collection of data items. For example, given an image database, one may want to retrieve all images that are similar to a given query image. Distance-based index structures are proposed for applications where the distance computations between objects of the data domain are expensive (such as high-dimensional data) and the distance function is metric. In this paper we consider using distance-based index structures for similarity queries on large metric spaces. We elaborate on the approach that uses reference points (vantage points) to partition the data space into spherical shell-like regions in a hierarchical manner. We introduce the multivantage point tree structure (mvp-tree) that uses more than one vantage point to partiton the space into spherical cuts at each level. In answering similarity-based queries, the mvp-tree also utilizes the precomputed (at construction time) distances between the data points and the vantage points. We summarize the experiments comparing mvp-trees to vp-trees that have a similar partitioning strategy, but use only one vantage point at each level and do not make use of the precomputed distances. Empirical studies show that the mvp-tree outperforms the vp-tree by 20% to 80% for varying query ranges and different distance distributions. Next, we generalize the idea of using multiple vantage points and discuss the results of experiments we have made to see how varying the number of vantage points in a node affects affects performance and how much is gained in performance by making use of precomputed distances. The results show that, after all, it may be best to use a large number of vantage points in an internal node in order to end up with a single directory node and keep as many of the precomputed distances as possible to provide more efficient filtering during search operations. Finally, we provide some experimental results that compare mvp-trees with M-trees, which is a dynamic distance-based index structure for metric domains.
Estimating parameters of the channel width–flow discharge relation using rill and gully channel junction data

Eroding channels can usually be characterized by a power relationship between channel width (W) and channel discharge (Q). This paper examines the WQ relation using a recently developed channel junction approach to extend the validity of the WQ relation and to develop a procedure for estimating the WQ exponent and proportionality coefficient. Rill and gully channel data from the literature, and new data collected in different badland areas and in a few forest mountain streams, are analysed. Analysis shows that the WQ relation for channel width collected in badlands and forests agrees with trends observed for cropland. The exponent increases with increasing channel width in a continuous fashion rather than in a step‐like way and tends to a maximum whose value ranges between 0·5 and 0·6.
Homocysteine and coronary artery disease.

We read with great interest the article entitled «Total Concentrations of Plasma Homocysteine in Puerto Rican Patients With Ischemic Heart Disease» by Rodriguo et al.1 published in the December issue of the REVISTA. Given the enormous pervasiveness of the subject, we would like to make some comments. Firstly, in the Introduction, the authors comment that in Spain studies of ischemic heart disease have been focused more on the theory of the increase in cholesterol, and that there are no studies of homocysteine values in this population. There is a Spanish study2 on this topic that reported that 26% of patients with heart disease proved to have hyperhomocysteinemia. Secondly, the authors did not determine vitamin B6, B12, and folic acid values in cases in which deficits thereof could be a nutritional cause of hyperhomocysteinemia. It has been suggested that
Volumetric Estimates of Coastal Sand Dunes in Lower Michigan: Explaining The Geography of Dune Fields

This study assesses the geography and volume of coastal dune sand along Lakes Huron and Michigan in Lower Michigan. Dune field extents were obtained from digital maps of critical dune area and soil parent material. Volumetric estimates were determined by establishing basal surface elevations and then calculating the average height of overlying dune deposits using digital elevation model (DEM) data within a raster GIS framework. Results indicate that ~1.8 km3 of coastal dune sand occurs in Lower Michigan, with ~95% located along Lake Michigan due to prevailing westerlies. Most (~80%) of eolian sand is contained within 10 dune fields. Six of these fields are along the northeastern coast of Lake Michigan where they are associated with embayments and headlands, suggesting that changing shore angles and sandy bluffs are important geographical variables. Dune fields along the southeastern shore generally line the coast for greater distances and contain smaller concentrations of eolian sand that may be partially derived from debouching streams. Differences in sand volumes between the northeastern and southeastern coasts of Lake Michigan may occur, in part, because (1) northern coastal surfaces continue to rebound isostatically, resulting in progressively younger surfaces for dune growth, and (2) erosion in the southern end of the basin has removed dune deposits.
Local Utility Elicitation in GAI Models

Structured utility models are essential for the effective representation and elicitation of complex multiattribute utility functions. Generalized additive independence (GAI) models provide an attractive structural model of user preferences, offering a balanced tradeoff between simplicity and applicability. While representation and inference with such models is reasonably well understood, elicitation of the parameters of such models has been studied less from a practical perspective. We propose a procedure to elicit GAI model parameters using only "local" utility queries rather than "global" queries over full outcomes. Our local queries take full advantage of GAI structure and provide a sound framework for extending the elicitation procedure to settings where the uncertainty over utility parameters is represented probabilistically. We describe experiments using a myopic value-of-information approach to elicitation in a large GAI model.
Inhibitory Effect of n‐Butylidenephthalide on Neointimal Hyperplasia in Balloon Injured Rat Carotid Artery

This investigation was designed to determine the inhibitory effects and mechanisms of n‐butylidenephthalide (BP) from Angelica sinensis on smooth muscle cell (SMC) proliferation in vitro and in balloon injured rat carotid artery. Treatment of cultured rat aorta SMC‐derived A7r5 cells with 25–100 μg/mL BP significantly inhibited the proliferation and arrested the cell cycle in G0/G1 phase. BP induced the expression and migration of Nur77 from the nucleus to the cytoplasm. Among signal pathways, JNK and p38 MAPK were phosphorylated after BP treatment. In vivo, the neointimal area of common carotid artery 2 weeks after balloon injury reduced significantly in Sprague‐Dawley rats treated with 150–300 mg/kg BP compared with the control. The proliferative activity indicated by immunohistochemical detection of Ki‐67 positive cells in the neointima was significantly decreased in the 60–300 mg/kg BP treatment groups. The apoptotic activity indicated by cleaved caspase‐3 positive cells and Nur77 positive cells in the neointima was significantly increased in rats treated with 60–300 mg/kg BP. This study demonstrated BP inhibited neointimal hyperplasia in balloon injured rat carotid artery due to its dual effects of proliferative inhibition and apoptotic induction on SMCs. Up‐regulation of Nur77 gene may partly explain the antihyperplasia activity of BP on the neointima. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Improving the robustness of gradient vector flowin cluttered images

The gradient vector flow (GVF) algorithm has been extensively used as a tool to extract the boundary of objects in images. However, its performance significantly degrades when the images have a cluttered background i.e., other structures in the vicinity of the object of interest. In this case, the elastic contour is often attracted towards invalid features. This paper discusses the robustness of GVF and proposes a way to improve its performance. The main difference concerns the use of more robust and informative features (middle level features) which significantly reduce the influence of noise. Experiments are presented to illustrate the performance of the improved GVF algorithm.
Characteristics of Elastic Waves According to Cementation of Dissolved Salt

Natural cementation influences the mechanical behavior of granular media. The goal of this study was to investigate the phenomenon of the low strain stiffness of granular media during precipitation and cementation of dissolved salt in the pore fluid. Granular specimens of glass beads with three different sizes (0.26, 0.5, and 1.29 mm) were cemented by NaCl aqueous solutions (0, 0.1, 0.50, 1.0, and 2.0 mol L−1). The small‐strain stiffness was investigated by measuring compressional (P) and shear (S) waves using bender elements and piezo disk elements during the cementation process. The change of P‐ and S‐wave velocities during cementation due to drying shows three distinct stages based on the degree of saturation, S: (i) S‐wave velocity increases, but P‐wave velocity decreases at a degree of saturation of 100 to ∼90%; (ii) the elastic wave velocities are stable at 90 to ∼10% saturation; and (iii) the elastic wave velocities dramatically change (increase and decrease) at a degree of saturation of 10 to ∼0% due to salt cementation and capillary force. Without cementation, the three grain size particles are controlled by capillary forces. The cementation occurs at contact points of particles for low salt concentrations and at both pores and contact points for high salt concentrations. The measured small‐strain stiffness agreed with the predicted stiffness based on the micromechanical model. This study demonstrates the elastic wave characteristics of granular media in a vadose zone according to the cementation of dissolved salt.
A fast lightweight approach to origin-destination IP traffic estimation using partial measurements

In this paper, a novel approach is proposed for estimating traffic matrices. Our method, called PamTram for PArtial Measurement of TRAffic Matrices, couples lightweight origin-destination (OD) flow measurements along with a computationally lightweight algorithm for producing OD estimates. The first key aspect of our method is to actively select a small number of informative OD flows to measure in each estimation interval. To avoid the heavy computation of optimal selection, we use intuition from game theory to develop randomized selection rules, with the goals of reducing errors and adapting to traffic changes. We show that it is sufficient to measure only one flow per measurement period to drastically reduce errors-thus rendering our method lightweight in terms of measurement overhead. The second key aspect is an explanation and proof that an Iterative Proportional Fitting algorithm approximates traffic matrix estimates when the goal is a minimum mean-squared error; this makes our method lightweight in terms of computation overhead. A one-step error bound is provided for PamTram that bounds the average error for the worst scenario. We validate our method using data from Sprint's European Tier-1 IP backbone network and demonstrate its consistent improvement over previous methods.
Cache Promotion Policy Using Re-reference Interval Prediction

The last-level cache (LLC) mitigates the long latencies of memory access in today's chip multi-core processor (CMP). The promotion policy in the LLC largely affects cache efficiency, while an inappropriate promotion policy may lead useless blocks to remain in the cache longer than necessary, in turn result into inefficiency. Currently state-of-the-art promotion policies are unaware of the re-reference interval of cache accesses. Applications that exhibit a long re-reference interval perform poorly with these promotion policies. In this paper, we propose a promotion policy that uses re-reference interval prediction (RRIP) information. Such technique requires minor hardware modification over the least-recently-used (LRU) replacement policy. Our evaluation shows that RRIP improves IPCsum by 2.58%, Weighted Speedup by 3.54% and IPCnorm_hmean by 6.2% on average over single-step promotion policy.
Environmental influence on primary sex ratio in a dioecious plant

The proximity of mates can influence mating opportunities and the quantity and quality of offspring, especially in dioecious plant species. Progeny sex ratios modulated by environmental conditions is one of the most radical ways in which offspring quality may be influenced, yet it has rarely been reported in plants. A mechanism proposed to influence progeny sex ratios in dioecious plants involves competition between female- and male-determining microgametophytes (certation) as a result of variation in pollination intensity. However, the role of selective fertilization in dioecious plants is controversial and has not been demonstrated under field conditions. Here we investigate whether natural variation in the spatial arrangement of females and males influences pollination intensity and progeny sex ratios in the wind-pollinated herb Rumex nivalis. Based on previous experimental manipulation of pollination intensity in this species, we predicted that maternal parents in close proximity to males would produce more strongly female-biased progeny sex ratios. We tested this prediction in six alpine populations in Switzerland by measuring the distance between focal females and neighboring males and assessing pollen loads and seed sex ratios of maternal parents. In four of the six populations, females positioned in close proximity to males captured more pollen and exhibited more female-biased sex ratios. Our results demonstrate that demographic aspects of the maternal mating environment can influence progeny sex ratios. The most probable explanation for biased primary sex ratios in Rumex is selective fertilization resulting from pollen tube competition.
MIDI Music Genre Classification by Invariant Features

MIDI music genre classification methods are largely based on generic text classification techniques. We attempt to leverage music domain knowledge in order to improve classification results. We combine techniques of selection and extraction o f musically invariant features with classification us ing compression distance similarity metric, which is an approximation of the theoretical, yet computational ly intractable, Kolmogorov complexity. We introduce several methods for extracting feature s which are invariant under certain transformations commonly found in music. These methods, combined with data compression, generate a lossy compressed representation which attempts to preserve feature invariance. We analyze the performance of each method, thus gaining insight into the features that are sig nificant to the human perception of music.
Clinical Advisory Statement. Importance of systolic blood pressure in older Americans.

This clinical advisory statement from the Coordinating Committee of the National High Blood Pressure Education Program is intended to advance and clarify the recommendations of the Sixth Report of the Joint National Committee on the Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Pressure (JNC VI, 1997). 1 The advisory addresses several interrelated issues about blood pressure (BP) that affect people approaching the later decades of life. On the basis of the wealth of currently available evidence, the committee now recommends a major paradigm shift in urging that systolic BP become the major criterion for diagnosis, staging, and therapeutic management of hypertension, particularly in middle-aged and older Americans. Several lines of strong evidence support the initiative to emphasize systolic BP. Pathophysiologically, there are strong associations among aging, increased stiffness of large arteries, increased systolic BP, increased pulse pressure, and the prevalence of cardiac and vascular disease. Epidemiologically, isolated systolic hypertension is the most common form of hypertension and is present in approximately two thirds of hypertensive individuals >60 years of age. Diagnostically, classification and staging of hypertension are more precise when systolic rather than diastolic BP is used as the principal criterion. Risk stratification for major complications of hypertension (stroke, myocardial infarction, heart failure, and kidney failure) is actually confounded by the use of diastolic BP; in older people with systolic hypertension, diastolic BP is inversely related to cardiovascular risk. Clinical benefits of treatment of isolated systolic hypertension include reductions in stroke, myocardial infarction, heart failure, kidney failure, and overall cardiovascular disease morbidity and mortality. Currently, only 1 in 4 Americans with hypertension falls below JNC VI–recommended values of 140/90 mm Hg in uncomplicated hypertension or 130/85 mm Hg in individuals with kidney disease or diabetes. Hypertension control rates are poorest in older people, primarily as a result of inadequate …
Supertube domain walls and elimination of closed timelike curves in string theory

We show that some novel physics of supertubes removes closed timelike curves from many supersymmetric spaces which naively suffer from this problem. The main claim is that supertubes naturally form domain walls, so while analytical continuation of the metric would lead to closed timelike curves, across the domain wall the metric is nondifferentiable, and the closed timelike curves are eliminated. In the examples we study, the metric inside the domain wall is always of the G\"odel type, while outside the shell it looks like a localized rotating object, often a rotating black hole. Thus this mechanism prevents the appearance of closed timelike curves behind the horizons of certain rotating black holes.
Kernel Mean Estimation via Spectral Filtering

The problem of estimating the kernel mean in a reproducing kernel Hilbert space (RKHS) is central to kernel methods in that it is used by classical approaches (e.g., when centering a kernel PCA matrix), and it also forms the core inference step of modern kernel methods (e.g., kernel-based non-parametric tests) that rely on embedding probability distributions in RKHSs. Previous work [1] has shown that shrinkage can help in constructing "better" estimators of the kernel mean than the empirical estimator. The present paper studies the consistency and admissibility of the estimators in [1], and proposes a wider class of shrinkage estimators that improve upon the empirical estimator by considering appropriate basis functions. Using the kernel PCA basis, we show that some of these estimators can be constructed using spectral filtering algorithms which are shown to be consistent under some technical assumptions. Our theoretical analysis also reveals a fundamental connection to the kernel-based supervised learning framework. The proposed estimators are simple to implement and perform well in practice.
APLICACIÓN DE SENSORES REMOTOS EN EL ANÁLISIS DE LA FRAGMENTACIÓN DEL PAISAJE EN CUCHILLAS DE LA ZARCA, MÉXICO

We analyzed the structure and composition of the landscape of the Priority Area for Grasslands Conservation (APCP) Cuchillas de la Zarca, determining their involvement by fragmentation processes. It generated a supervised classification and analysis of fragmentation in the period from 2008 to 2011. Spectral analysis allowed to clearly define six classes, where the ecosystem is represented mostly natural grassland with 41.6% of the total area. The fragmentation analysis of landscape metrics generated shows a gradual process of fragmentation. An increase in the total number of fragments confirms the function of time in the process of fragmentation zone, whereas the average size of the patches is a decrease, indicating that large patches were fragmented or broken. In addition to this, the Shannon and Simpson indices show a rising trend (0.66 to 0.89), (0.68 to 0.82), indicating fragments increasing in time. The overall accuracy of classification evaluated in the period 2008 - 2011 shows high accuracy that ranged from 91 to 94%, while the discrete multivariate Kappa index showed a variation of 0.90 to 0.93.
An Interface Toolkit for Interactive Workspaces

To work productively in an interactive workspace, users need effective interfaces to seamlessly share, annotate, and juxtapose digital information across heterogeneous devices. Building on an existing infrastructure for interactive workspaces, we developed an interaction design that uses an iconic representation of a workspace to enable application relocation and input redirection tasks to be performed, a graphical tool for constructing the iconic representations, and a toolkit that provides runtime support for the interface. The iconic representation supports recognition over recall and the use of spatial memory when performing relocation and redirection tasks. A usability evaluation showed that the interaction design of our interface enables tasks to be performed quickly and with minimal error, induces low workload, and supports high satisfaction. While the toolkit was implemented on top of an existing infrastructure, it can be easily ported to others. Our toolkit can be downloaded today, and can facilitate more productive use of interactive workspaces for individual and group work.
Single mineral Rb-Sr isochron dating applied to the Nohi Rhyolite and a quartz porphyry dyke, central Japan

Conventional (multi-)mineral Rb-Sr isochron method requires several mineral species. Not all rock-forming minerals, however, provide the same chronological information. The closure temperature and the extent of weathering differ from mineral to mineral. On the other hand, the whole-rock isochron method has ambiguities on the initial Sr isotope equilibrium. In order to eliminate these complications and to date individual events related to each minerals in a given rock sample accurately, single mineral Rb-Sr isochron method was developed and applied to two different types of Cretaceous volcanic rocks in central Japan, Agigawa welded tuff sheet (Nohi Rhyolite Complex) and quartz porphyry (a dyke intruded into the Toki granite). Precise drilling was carried out on single phenocrystic grains of K-feldspar and chlorite (latter from quartz porphyry only) in order to obtain several aliquots from a single mineral grain. The internal difference of parent/daughter isotope ratios is expected fortuitously. Rb-Sr multi-mineral isochron method failed to yield a precise age from the Agigawa welded tuff sheet, probably because of partial alteration. A single grain K-feldspar age of 72.0 ± 4.1 Ma obtained from the same sample is likely to date annealing of the K-feldspar grain by the intrusion of the Toki granite. In the case of the quartz porphyry dyke, three K-feldspar grains gave the ages of 79.9 ± 6.8 Ma, 71 ± 14 Ma and 82 ± 18 Ma. Combined K-feldspar age for all separates from the three grains is 77.0 ± 4.6 Ma, probably corresponding to the intrusion of the dyke. On the other hand, a combined single mineral isochron age of chlorites (five grains) in the same quartz porphyry dyke is 54.5 ± 4.6 Ma. It seems to date the chlorite formation, which corresponds to the subsequent hydrothermal alteration. Single mineral isochron method proved its effectiveness in the case when Rb-Sr isotope system was partially disturbed between different mineral phases.