Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mining traffic data for road incidents detection

Tackling urban road congestion by means of ITS technologies, involves a number of key challenges. One such challenge is related to the accurate detection of traffic incidents in urban networks for more efficient traffic management. This paper introduces a classification approach that achieves accurate detection of road traffic incidents, based on data retrieved from inductive-loop detectors. In the core of the proposed approach lies a more efficient feature extraction technique, based on the dynamic characteristics of data corresponding to those vehicles that are involved in incidents. Our work observes how dynamic aspects of measured data can be exploited for extracting features that result in measurable improvement of the incident detection rate by the application of a Support Vector Machines classification approach. The latter is known to be one of the most precise solutions that have been widely applied up to now for dealing with relevant incident detection problems. In this paper we conduct appropriate experimental evaluation, including comparison to a set of well known techniques, for assessing the impact of the proposed feature selection technique on the accuracy of the detection rate. The evaluation results show that our approach manages to realize a more accurate and faster incident detection mechanism, although it has a low impact on the improvement of the false alarm rate. We also describe how the proposed approach can be applied to a generic context of ITS for efficient urban traffic management.
Automatic Discovery of Multi-level Parallelism in MATLAB

The popularity of MATLAB in scientific and engineering domains is tempered by its performance. Highly optimized libraries, automatic thread-level parallelism for large computations within libraries, and loop-level parallel constructs in the language are some of the ways in which the language implementers have tried to recoup the performance. Greater potential for parallelism exists in typical MATLAB programs that remains unexploited. We discuss our MathWorks-sponsored effort in automatically exploiting parallelism in MATLAB programs using a combination of compile-time and run-time techniques. Our approach is inspired by data-flow-style computation and makes use of some modern C++ libraries for generating highly readable code with support for data parallelism and GPUs. 1 Motivation and Design Computing on modern high performance machines afford parallelism at multiple levels, from the vector instructions on a single core to multiple multi-core nodes connected through fast interconnects. Graphical Processing Units (GPUs) add heterogeneity and scheduling complexity to the mix. In order to shield non-expert users from the complexities and interactions of the various forms of parallelism it is often wrapped inside libraries. The libraries are carefully optimized to make use of the vector instructions of the underlying hardware, to use multiple threads when the amount of computation makes it worthwhile, and to provide versions that might utilize accelerators, such as GPUs. Indeed, this is the dominant approach to parallelism in MATLAB. With a few exceptions, such as having to specify the computations to be performed on GPUs, the process is largely automatic for the users and, hence, highly attractive from the perspective of programmability. However, it suffers from two major inefficiencies: the decisions about parallelism must be made inside libraries, which are only locally optimal, at best; and parallelism across library functions is hard to exploit. MATLAB source Octave-based parsing Type inference and SSA renaming Task identification C++ task generation Custom run-time C++ code Intel TBB M A T L A B lib ra ry T ru st or A rr ay Fi re
Set-theoretic foundation of parametric polymorphism and subtyping

We define and study parametric polymorphism for a type system with recursive, product, union, intersection, negation, and function types. We first recall why the definition of such a system was considered hard "when not impossible" and then present the main ideas at the basis of our solution. In particular, we introduce the notion of "convexity" on which our solution is built up and discuss its connections with parametricity as defined by Reynolds to whose study our work sheds new light.
Pupils or prisoners? Institutional geographies and internal exclusion in UK secondary schools

This is the accepted version of the following article: Barker, J., Alldred, P., Watts, M. and Dodman, H. (2010), Pupils or prisoners? Institutional geographies and internal exclusion in UK secondary schools. Area, 42: 378–386, which has been published in final form at the link below. Copyright © 2010 The Authors.
Factors influencing foundation programme choice among medical students

Objectives The advent of Modernising Medical Careers has replaced the traditional pre-registration house officer (PRHO) year and first year of senior house officer (SHO) training with a combined foundation programme. The aim of this study was to find out the factors influencing choice of foundation programme among medical students. Design Prospective survey. Setting Three medical schools based in England. Main outcome measures A questionnaire was formulated containing the reasons for choosing a foundation programme with students asked to rank their choices. Results There were 46 replies. The most important factors identified were geographical location (score 154) and combination of specialties (score 178). The least important factors was the reputation of consultants (score 525) and opportunities for research (score 530). Conclusions The factors influencing choice of foundation programme are not dissimilar to the choice of PRHO year despite the different emphasis in training which it offers.
Microwave phase shifter with 25-GHz dense wavelength division multiplexing channel spacing tuning using multimode interferometer-coupled microring resonator

Abstract. The microwave phase shifter using 25-GHz dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) channel spacing tuning on the silicon-on-insulator microring resonator (MRR), which was utilizing the multimode interference as the coupling function to achieve wavelength independence, is proposed and demonstrated. With a quality factor of 1199 for the MRR, there was 25-deg phase tuning for every 25-GHz DWDM channel spacing at 5-GHz microwave frequency. The total tunability from the microwave phase shifter could achieve 350 deg using 22 DWDM channels with 25-GHz spacing.
Future precipitation changes and their implications for tropical peatlands

Carbon (C) in tropical peatlands over Southeast Asia and Amazonia, if released to the atmosphere, can substantially increase the growth rate of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Over Southeast Asia, where the most extensive tropical peatlands in the world occur, 11 climate models for the IPCC Fourth Assessment show an overall decrease of rainfall in future dry seasons. Over Amazonia, future rainfall changes in dry seasons are highly uncertain; five models predict increased rainfall, and the remaining models predict the opposite. We have further examined the UKMO‐HadCM3, GISS‐ER, and GFDL‐CM2.1 models. Over Southeast Asia, all three models predict similar decreases of rainfall and evaporative fraction, implying an increase of water table depth and surface dryness during the dry season south of the equator. Such changes would potentially switch peat ecosystems from acting as C sinks to C sources. Over Amazonia, the two models with the best simulations of current rainfall produce conflicting results for the future of peat stability.
Hormonal Profile in Patients With Dilated Cardiomyopathy

Background: There is increasing evidence that endocrine system may be dysfunctional in patients with heart failure. Objectives: In the present study, we investigated hormonal abnormalities in heart failure and the effect of disturbed hormonal balance on prognostic outcomes of patients with systolic heart failure. Patients and Methods: Among patients followed in Heart Failure and Transplantation Clinic, 33 men with a diagnosis of idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy receiving guidelines-directed medical therapies and with New York Heart Association Class II-III were enrolled. Serum concentrations of growth hormone (GH), insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1), thyroid hormones, free testosterone, high-sensitive C-reactive protein (hs-CRP), and N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT Pro-BNP) were measured in all the patients. The physical performance of patients was assessed by six-minute walk test (6MWT). The patients were subsequently followed for a year and the data regarding their death, transplantation, or hospitalizations due to acute heart failure were recorded. Results: Except for testosterone level, the levels of GH, IGF-1, T3, and T4 concentrations in the patients were significantly lower than the normal values (P < 0.05). Among different hormone, only GH had correlation with NT Pro-BNP, hs-CRP, and 6MWT. There was no association between the occurrence of the combined events and different hormonal levels in multivariate analysis. Conclusions: The hormonal levels were low in patients with idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy. However, the prognostic significance of different hormonal deficiencies was not clear in our study populations who were receiving standard therapies for heart failure and had a relatively stable clinical condition.
Compensation of extrinsic variability in speaker verification systems on simulated Skype and HF channel data

In this work we focus on speaker verification on channels of varying quality, namely Skype and high frequency (HF) radio. In our setup, we assume to have telephone recordings of speakers for training, but recordings of different channels for testing with varying (lower) signal quality. Starting from a Gaussian mixture / support vector machine (GMM/SVM) baseline, we evaluate multi-condition training (MCT), an ideal channel classification approach (ICC), and nuisance attribute projection (NAP) to compensate for the loss of information due to the transmission. In an evaluation on Switchboard-2 data using Skype and HF channel simulators, we show that, for good signal quality, NAP improves the baseline system performance from 5% EER to 3.33% EER (for both Skype and HF). For strongly distorted data, MCT or, if adequate, ICC turn out to be the method of choice.
Animal models of heart failure: a scientific statement from the American Heart Association.

Heart failure (HF) is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the United States. Despite a number of important therapeutic advances for the treatment of symptomatic HF,1 the prevalence, mortality, and cost associated with HF continue to grow in the United States and other developed countries. Given the aging of our population and the prevalence of diseases such as diabetes mellitus and hypertension that predispose patients to this syndrome, it is possible that HF prevalence will increase in the next decade. Current treatments primarily slow the progression of this syndrome, and there is a need to develop novel preventative and reparative therapies. Development of these novel HF therapies requires testing of the putative therapeutic strategies in appropriate HF animal models. The purposes of this scientific statement are to define the distinctive clinical features of the major causes of HF in humans and to recommend those distinctive pathological features of HF in humans that should be present in an animal model being used to identify fundamental causes of HF or to test preventative or reparative therapies that could reduce HF morbidity and mortality. HF is a clinical syndrome with primary symptoms including dyspnea, fatigue, exercise intolerance, and retention of fluid in the lungs and peripheral tissues. The causes of HF are myriad, but the common fundamental defect is a decreased ability of the heart to provide sufficient cardiac output to support the normal functions of the tissues because of impaired filling and/or ejection of blood. HF is a significant health burden in both the developed world and in emerging nations. In the United States, over a half million new diagnoses of HF occur each year, and the prevalence is 5.8 million individuals >20 years of age.1 HF has a substantial societal burden, with yearly costs in the United …
Mexican American High School Students' Postsecondary Educational Goals

A multivariate multiple regression analysis predicting the educational goal aspirations and expectations of 89 Mexican American high school students was examined based on Lent, Brown, and Hackett's (1994) Social Cognitive Career Theory and prior research findings with Mexican American samples. No gender or generational status differences were found in educational aspirations or expectations; however, participants reported higher educational aspirations than educational expectations. In addition, results of a multivariate multiple regression analysis suggested that Anglo-oriented acculturation was significantly positively related to educational goal expectations and educational goal aspirations. Mexican-oriented acculturation, college self- efficacy, and college outcome expectations were not significantly related to Mexican American students' educational goals aspirations or expectations. Results are discussed as they relate to improving the educational achievement among Mexican American youth.
I Gave at the Campus

This study examined the determinants of student contributions to their senior gift campaign while currently enrolled at a university and whether student giving predicted young alumni giving patterns after graduation. Determinants of student giving were largely consistent with those of alumni giving, although parental support was found to be an important difference. Financial aid in the form of parental support and scholarships, but not loans or grants, increased the likelihood of student giving. College experiences including group participation and positive subjective evaluation also increased the likelihood of giving. Student giving was then found to be a strong predictor of future donation patterns of young alumni. Students who did not contribute to the senior gift campaign despite repeated, in-person solicitations from peers were less likely to donate after graduation.
A study of the dirichlet priors for term frequency normalisation

In Information Retrieval (IR), the Dirichlet Priors have been applied to the smoothing technique of the language modeling approach. In this paper, we apply the Dirichlet Priors to the term frequency normalisation of the classical BM25 probabilistic model and the Divergence from Randomness PL2 model. The contributions of this paper are twofold. First, through extensive experiments on four TREC collections, we show that the newly generated models, to which the Dirichlet Priors normalisation is applied, provide robust and effective performance. Second, we propose a novel theoretically-driven approach to the automatic parameter tuning of the Dirichlet Priors normalisation. Experiments show that this tuning approach optimises the retrieval performance of the newly generated Dirichlet Priors-based weighting models.
Portrayal of Alcohol Consumption in Movies and Drinking Initiation in Low-Risk Adolescents

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the hypothesis that exposure to alcohol consumption in movies affects the likelihood that low-risk adolescents will start to drink alcohol. METHODS: Longitudinal study of 2346 adolescent never drinkers who also reported at baseline intent to not to do so in the next 12 months (mean age 12.9 years, SD = 1.08). Recruitment was carried out in 2009 and 2010 in 112 state-funded schools in Germany, Iceland, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, and Scotland. Exposure to movie alcohol consumption was estimated from 250 top-grossing movies in each country in the years 2004 to 2009. Multilevel mixed-effects Poisson regressions assessed the relationship between baseline exposure to movie alcohol consumption and initiation of trying alcohol, and binge drinking (≥ 5 consecutive drinks) at follow-up. RESULTS: Overall, 40% of the sample initiated alcohol use and 6% initiated binge drinking by follow-up. Estimated mean exposure to movie alcohol consumption was 3653 (SD = 2448) occurrences. After age, gender, family affluence, school performance, TV screen time, personality characteristics, and drinking behavior of peers, parents, and siblings were controlled for, exposure to each additional 1000 movie alcohol occurrences was significantly associated with increased relative risk for trying alcohol, incidence rate ratio = 1.05 (95% confidence interval, 1.02–1.08; P = .003), and for binge drinking, incidence rate ratio = 1.13 (95% confidence interval, 1.06–1.20; P < .001). CONCLUSIONS: Seeing alcohol depictions in movies is an independent predictor of drinking initiation, particularly for more risky patterns of drinking. This result was shown in a heterogeneous sample of European youths who had a low affinity for drinking alcohol at the time of exposure.
Antimicrobial Prophylaxis for Recurrent Acute Otitis Media

Antimicrobial prophylaxis for children who have frequently recurring, severe episodes of acute otitis media appears to constitute a reasonable management option, even though it is not yet clear whether the advantages outweigh the disadvantages and risks. It remains for well-designed and well-executed studies that extend over relatively long periods to indicate whether this approach to management is the best of the available options, and if so, which of the available drugs is preferable.
The Korean Version of the Trauma Symptom Checklist for Children: Psychometric Properties and the Connection to Trauma among Korean Children and Adolescents

The purpose of the present study was to develop a Korean version of the trauma symptom checklist for children (TSCC) and to examine its reliability and validity for screening posttraumatic stress symptoms. A normative group of 405 children and adolescents aged 8 to 16 yr participated in the study. A test-retest procedure was conducted with 76 participants from the normative group after 4 weeks. In the traumatized group, 73 children and adolescents of the same age from the Child Sexual Abuse Treatment Center were included. Good internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha) for the total scale (0.95, ranging 0.79-0.85 on the clinical scales) and test-retest reliability for the total scale (r=0.91, ranging 0.71-0.87 on the clinical scales) were found. Confirmatory 6-factor analysis explained 51.1% of the variance. Other measures such as concurrent or discriminative validity were also shown to be satisfactory. In conclusion, the Korean version of TSCC has been shown to be a screening instrument with satisfactory psychometric qualities that is capable of identifying trauma symptoms among children and adolescents who have self-reported experiencing trauma or for whom clinicians have identified traumatic experiences.
Chapter 1 Depth From Moving Apertures

Two new focus measure operators for Shape From Focus to estimate the three-dimensional shape of a surface are proposed in this paper. The images are formed by a camera using moving apertures. The well-focused image pixels are identified by frequency analysis or matching with the all-focused image of the scene. Frequency analysis involves the usage of classical focus measure operators and summing up for each aperture to find the focus quality to be maximized. The lesser method uses the match-points and error ratios of any matching algorithm used within an all-focused image region and all same-focus-different-aperture images to find the total displacement. The inverse of total displacement can be used as a focus quality measure. The experiments on real images show that the introduced ideas work effectively and efficiently.
Evolution of the COMA match system

The schema and ontology matching systems COMA and COMA++ are widely used in the community as a basis for comparison of new match approaches. We give an overview of the evolution of COMA during the last decade. In particular we discuss lessons learned on strong points and remaining weaknesses. Furthermore, we outline the design and functionality of the upcoming COMA3.0.
VE-Cadherin Cleavage by LasB Protease from Pseudomonas aeruginosa Facilitates Type III Secretion System Toxicity in Endothelial Cells

Infection of the vascular system by Pseudomonas aeruginosa (Pa) occurs during bacterial dissemination in the body or in blood-borne infections. Type 3 secretion system (T3SS) toxins from Pa induce a massive retraction when injected into endothelial cells. Here, we addressed the role of type 2 secretion system (T2SS) effectors in this process. Mutants with an inactive T2SS were much less effective than wild-type strains at inducing cell retraction. Furthermore, secretomes from wild-typeswere sufficient to trigger cell-cell junction opening when applied to cells, while T2SS-inactivated mutants had minimal activity. Intoxication was associated with decreased levels of vascular endothelial (VE)-cadherin, a homophilic adhesive protein located at endothelial cell-cell junctions. During the process, the protein was cleaved in the middle of its extracellular domain (positions 335 and 349). VE-cadherin attrition was T3SS-independent but T2SS-dependent. Interestingly, the epithelial (E)-cadherin was unaffected by T2SS effectors, indicating that this mechanism is specific to endothelial cells. We showed that one of the T2SS effectors, the protease LasB, directly affected VE-cadherin proteolysis, hence promoting cell-cell junction disruption. Furthermore, mouse infection with Pa to induce acute pneumonia lead to significant decreases in lung VE-cadherin levels, whereas the decrease was minimal with T2SS-inactivated or LasB-deleted mutant strains. We conclude that the T2SS plays a pivotal role during Pa infection of the vascular system by breaching the endothelial barrier, and propose a model in which the T2SS and the T3SS cooperate to intoxicate endothelial cells.
Analysis of errors in histology by root cause analysis: a pilot study

Summary Introduction. The study objective is to evaluate critical points in the process of pre-analytical histology in an Anatomic Pathology laboratory. Errors are an integral part of human systems, including the complex system of Anatomic Pathology. Previous studies focused on errors committed in diagnosis and did not consider the issues related to the histology preparation of routine processes. Methods. Root Cause Analysis was applied to the process of histology preparation in order to identify the root cause of each previously identified problem. The analysis started by defining an 'a priori' list of errors that could occur in the histology preparation processes. During a three-month period, a trained technician tracked the errors encountered during the process and reported them on a form. 'Fishbone' diagram and 'Five whys' methods were then applied. Results. 8,346 histological cases were reviewed, for which 19,774 samples were made and from which 29,956 histologies were prepared. 132 errors were identified. Errors were detected in each phase: accessioning (6.5%), gross dissecting (28%), processing (1.5%), embedding (4.5%), tissue cutting and slide mounting (23%), coloring, (1.5%), labeling and releasing (35%). Discussion. Root cause analysis is effective and easy to use in clinical risk management. It is an important step for the identification and prevention of errors, that are frequently due to multiple causes. Developing operators' awareness of their central role in the risk management process is possible by targeted training. Furthermore, by highlighting the most relevant points of interest, it is possible to improve both the methodology and the procedural safety.