Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
LIVING BEYOND OUR MEANS

As someone who has been advocating “living beyond one’s means” since before the Reagan administration, I welcome Thomas’s endorsement of the idea. If we embrace the maxim that statistics is about variation then we should stand ready to explore how that variation varies with covariates. Assuming, as theory may tempt us to do, that covariates shift only the central tendency of the response, while variation around the central tendency remains unperturbed is rarely plausible. Signal plus iid noise is a dangerous fiction. Nonparametric regression methods have encouraged us to think much more flexibly about how covariate effects vary over x-space, slicing design space into segments that each deserve their own local estimate. Quantile regression seeks to do something similar, slicing the range of the response variable into local conditional quantile functions. Combining the two approaches by estimating nonparametric conditional quantile functions offers a flexible way of characterizing the entire conditional distribution of Y |X. While I find myself completely in accord with the ends set forth in “Beyond,” I cannot condone many of the means employed to achieve them. While not descending to the depths of the Cheneyesque – rendition, black ops, waterboarding – there is an element of (data) torture that risks undermining the whole enterprise. I’ll begin by explaining some of my reservations about parametric alternatives and their Bayesian elaborations for nonparametric quantile regression. To conclude there will be some malicious comments about expectiles.
PROST: Probabilistic Planning Based on UCT

We present PROST, a probabilistic planning system that is based on the UCT algorithm by Kocsis and Szepesvari (2006), which has been applied successfully to many areas of planning and acting under uncertainty. The objective of this paper is to show the application of UCT to domain- independent probabilistic planning, an area it had not been applied to before. We furthermore present several enhance- ments to the algorithm, including a method that is able to drastically reduce the branching factor by identifying super- fluous actions. We show how search depth limitation leads to a more thoroughly investigated search space in parts that are influential on the quality of a policy, and present a sound and polynomially computable detection of reward locks, states that correspond to, e.g., dead ends or goals. We describe a general Q-value initialization for unvisited nodes in the search tree that circumvents the initial random walks inher- ent to UCT, and leads to a faster convergence on average. We demonstrate the significant influence of the enhancements by providing a comparison on the IPPC benchmark domains.
Mini-Me: An Adaptive Avatar for Mixed Reality Remote Collaboration

We present Mini-Me, an adaptive avatar for enhancing Mixed Reality (MR) remote collaboration between a local Augmented Reality (AR) user and a remote Virtual Reality (VR) user. The Mini-Me avatar represents the VR user's gaze direction and body gestures while it transforms in size and orientation to stay within the AR user's field of view. A user study was conducted to evaluate Mini-Me in two collaborative scenarios: an asymmetric remote expert in VR assisting a local worker in AR, and a symmetric collaboration in urban planning. We found that the presence of the Mini-Me significantly improved Social Presence and the overall experience of MR collaboration.
Discharge criteria should be validated in patients who undergo ambulatory gynecologic surgery

To the editor: Ambulatory surgery has rapidly increased in recent years due to the request of patients and the increase in the cost of inpatient health services [1]. Patients who undergo ambulatory surgery usually receive general anesthesia or local anesthesia with sedation. Studies have reported that these types of anesthesia can impair cognitive and psychomotor performance [2-4]. The impairment of cognitive and psychomotor performance may threaten the safety of patients who undergo ambulatory surgery because patients are often discharged 2 to 3 hours post-operatively. Therefore, discharge criteria have been devised to ensure patient safety [2]. Gynecologic surgeries such as loop electrosurgical excisional procedure (LEEP) are usually performed as ambulatory surgery. However, there is no study addressing the usefulness of discharge criteria in patients who undergo ambulatory gynecologic surgery. Recently, we adopted the modified Korttila discharge criteria (MKDC) [5] as an element of clinical pathway of LEEP in our institute. Approximately 2 to 3 hours after LEEP, a nurse evaluated the patient using the MKDC. If the patient passed all the MKDC, the patient was discharged without notification to physicians. If the patient did not pass all the MKDC, the nurse notified the results of the MKDC to physicians, who in turn made the discharge decision. Between 3 and 7 days after discharge, the head nurse of the gynecology ward called by telephone the patient and asked whether or not the patient revisited the hospital after discharge due to medical problems. Ninety-nine patients were evaluated using the MKDC and 96 patients passed all elements of the MKDC. One and two patients failed the 10th and 12th elements of the MKDC, respectively. The patient who failed the 10th element of the MKDC (discharge order) was not discharged because the frozen biopsy of the LEEP specimen reported an invasive cervical cancer. Two patients who failed the 12th element of the MKDC (accompanying escort) were discharged with precautions. None of 98 patients who were discharged on the day of surgery revisited the hospital due to medical problems. Sixteen of 17 nurses completed the evaluation using MKDC within 5 minutes and responded that use of the MKDC is necessary to ensure the safety of patients. We think that every institute and physician has their own discharge criteria for patients who undergo ambulatory gynecologic surgery. However, we believe that validated discharge criteria should be developed to ensure the safety of patients and to protect ourselves from potential lawsuits.
Do Interpersonal Behavior and Emotional Experience Change in the Course of Successful Long-Term Psychoanalytic Therapies?

The way in which patients behave toward others is considered to be a correlate of mental health and thus of successful psychotherapy. Until now, research regarding the extent to which this assumption is justified has produced contradictory findings. On the basis of 2 definitions of normal interpersonal behavior (Benjamin, 1993; Crits-Christoph, Demorest, Muenz, & Baranackie, 1994), the authors studied 10 patients undergoing psychoanalytic therapy to determine whether changes in their descriptions of interpersonal relationships were associated with a decrease in self-reported symptoms and interpersonal problems during the first 2 years of treatment. Using a hierarchical linear model, the authors identified moderate to high correlations in the expected direction: The patients' affiliative behavior toward their objects as well as the average valence and variability of their affective experience increased when therapy was successful. In contrast, patients' descriptions of their objects' behavior did not change in a systematic manner.
A Schnittmuster for Crafting Context-Sensitive Toolkits

DIY-making can be an expensive pastime if makers are relying on ready-made toolkits, specialised materials and off-shelf components. Many prefabricated commercial kits seek to lower the learning barrier of making and to help beginners to successfully take their first steps in engineering. However, as soon as the novices become a little more advanced, these toolkits often do not fit the specific requirements of personal maker projects anymore. We introduce the idea of a Schnittmuster (or a meta-toolkit) as a novel approach to toolkit design that seeks to address these creativity-limiting factors as well as practical entrance hurdles. To demonstrate the adaptive power of the Schnittmuster concept, we discuss an exemplar in the context of capacitive touch sensing (FlexE-Touch). Implemented under the constraints of materials, user skill sets and making environments, we illustrate how the Schnittmuster facilitated four cheap and flexible toolkit instantiations for crafting custom touch sensor electrodes.
Extensional normalisation and type-directed partial evaluation for typed lambda calculus with sums

We present a notion of η-long β-normal term for the typed lambda calculus with sums and prove, using Grothendieck logical relations, that every term is equivalent to one in normal form. Based on this development we give the first type-directed partial evaluator that constructs %able to construct normal forms of terms in this calculus.
Robust User Scheduling with COST 2100 Channel Model for Massive MIMO Networks

This paper considers a Massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) network, where the base station (BS) with a large number of antennas communicates with a smaller number of users. The signals are transmitted using frequency division duplex (FDD) mode. The problem of user scheduling with reduced overhead of channel estimation in the uplink of Massive MIMO systems has been investigated. We consider the COST 2100 channel model. In this paper, we first propose a new user selection algorithm based on knowledge of the geometry of the service area and of location of clusters, without having full channel state information (CSI) at the BS. We then show that the correlation in geometry-based stochastic channel models (GSCMs) arises from the common clusters in the area. In addition, exploiting the closed-form Cramer-Rao lower bounds (CRLB)s, the analysis for the robustness of the proposed scheme to cluster position errors is presented. It is shown by analysing the capacity upper-bound that the capacity strongly depends on the position of clusters in the GSCMs and users in the system. Simulation results show that although the BS receiver does not require the channel information of all users, by the proposed geometry-based user scheduling (GUS) algorithm the sum-rate of the system is only slightly less than the well-known greedy weight clique (GWC) scheme \cite{SUSGoldsmithGlobcom,ITC09_Userselection_GWC}. {Finally, the robustness of the proposed algorithm to cluster localization is verified by the simulation results.
Reversible cerebral vasoconstriction syndrome: an under-recognized clinical emergency

Reversible cerebral vasoconstriction syndrome (RCVS) is characterized by recurrent thunderclap headaches and reversible cerebral vasoconstrictions. RCVS is more common than previously thought and should be differentiated from aneurismal subarachnoid hemorrhage. RCVS can be spontaneous or evoked by pregnancy or exposure to vasoactive substances. Patients tend to be middle-aged women but pediatric patients have been seen. Up to 80% of sufferers have identifiable triggers. Thunderclap headaches tend to recur daily and last for a period of around 2 weeks, while the vasoconstrictions may last for months. About one-third of patients have blood pressure surges accompanying headache attacks. The potential complications of RCVS include posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome, ischemic strokes over watershed zones, cortical subarachnoid hemorrhage and intracerebral hemorrhage. Magnetic resonance images including angiography and venography and lumbar punctures are the studies of choice, whereas catheter angiography should not be implemented routinely. Patients with a mean flow velocity of the middle cerebral artery greater than 120 cm/s shown by transcranial color-coded sonography have a greater risk of ischemic complications than those without. The pathophysiology of RCVS remains unknown; sympathetic hyperactivity may play a role. Open-label trials showed calcium channel blockers, such as nimodipine may be an effective treatment in prevention of thunderclap headache attacks. In severe cases, intra-arterial therapy may be considered. Most patients with RCVS recover without sequelae; however, relapse has been reported in a small proportion of patients.
Fast interprocedural class analysis

Previous algorithms for interprocedural control flow analysis of higher-order and/or object-oriented languages have been described that perform propagation or constraint satisfaction and take O(N3) time (such as Shivers's O-CFA and Heintze's set-based analysis), or unification and take O(N¿ (N,N) time (such as Steensgaard's pointer analysis), or optimistic reachability analysis and take O(N) time (such as Bacon and Sweeney's Rapid Type Analysis). We describe a general parameterized analysis framework that integrates propagation-based and unification-based analysis primitives and optimistic reachability analysis, whose instances mimic these existing algorithms as well as several new algorithms taking O(N), O(N¿(N,N)), O(N2), and O(N2¿(N,N)) time; our O(N) and O(N¿(N,N)) algorithms produce more precise results than the previous algorithms with these complexities. We implemented our algorithm framework in the Vortex optimizing compiler, and we measured the cost and benefit of these interprocedural analysis algorithms in practice on a collection of substantial Cecil and Java programs.
Pseudo-Random Fluctuations, Stochastic Cooperativity and Burstiness in Dynamically Unstable High-Dimensional Biochemical Networks

The goal of this paper is to outline a scenario of emerging stochasticity in high-dimensional highly nonlinear systems, such as genetic regulatory networks (GRN). We focus attention on the fact that in such systems confluence of all the factors necessary for gene expression is a comparatively rare event, and only massive redundancy makes such events sufficiently frequent. An immediate consequence of this rareness is burstiness in mRNA and protein copy numbers, a well known experimentally observed effect. We introduce the concept of stochastic cooperativity and show that this phenomenon is a natural consequence of high dimensionality coupled with highly nonlinearity of a dynamical system. In mathematical terms, burstiness is associated with heavy-tailed probability distributions of stochastic processes describing the dynamics of the system. The sequence of stochastic cooperativity events allows for transition from continuous deterministic dynamics expressed in terms of ordinary differential equations (ODE) to discrete stochastic dynamics expressed in terms of Langevin and Fokker-Plank equations. We demonstrate also that high-dimensional nonlinear systems, even in the absence of explicit mechanisms for suppressing inherent instability, may nevertheless reside in a state of stationary pseudo-random fluctuations which for all practical purposes may be regarded as stochastic process. This type of stochastic behavior is an inherent property of such systems and requires neither an external random force, nor highly specialized conditions of bistability.
Kawaluü: Macro Environment for Collaborative Surface with Dynamic Parameters using Tangible Objects

This paper proposes macro development and execution environment (Kawaluü), which uses tangible objects to adapt to the intentions of each user during multi-user access of the tabletop interface. Within the Kawaluü environment, the following are possible. 1) Macro developers are able to program parameterized macros corresponding to tangible objects, so that users can change the parameters during macro use. 2) Users can directly change the parameters during macro use. Through these achievements, we can enhance multi-user collaboration in a large-screen environment. We developed a macro development and execution environment that fulfills conditions 1) development and 2) execution and applied it to the tabletop interface. We conducted qualitative evaluations on 1) development and 2) execution, and quantitative evaluations on 2) execution. The study suggested the usefulness of the environment in scenarios where multiple users use a tabletop interface with many kinds of macros.
Statistical Quantification of Methylation Levels by Next-Generation Sequencing

Background/Aims Recently, next-generation sequencing-based technologies have enabled DNA methylation profiling at high resolution and low cost. Methyl-Seq and Reduced Representation Bisulfite Sequencing (RRBS) are two such technologies that interrogate methylation levels at CpG sites throughout the entire human genome. With rapid reduction of sequencing costs, these technologies will enable epigenotyping of large cohorts for phenotypic association studies. Existing quantification methods for sequencing-based methylation profiling are simplistic and do not deal with the noise due to the random sampling nature of sequencing and various experimental artifacts. Therefore, there is a need to investigate the statistical issues related to the quantification of methylation levels for these emerging technologies, with the goal of developing an accurate quantification method. Methods In this paper, we propose two methods for Methyl-Seq quantification. The first method, the Maximum Likelihood estimate, is both conceptually intuitive and computationally simple. However, this estimate is biased at extreme methylation levels and does not provide variance estimation. The second method, based on Bayesian hierarchical model, allows variance estimation of methylation levels, and provides a flexible framework to adjust technical bias in the sequencing process. Results We compare the previously proposed binary method, the Maximum Likelihood (ML) method, and the Bayesian method. In both simulation and real data analysis of Methyl-Seq data, the Bayesian method offers the most accurate quantification. The ML method is slightly less accurate than the Bayesian method. But both our proposed methods outperform the original binary method in Methyl-Seq. In addition, we applied these quantification methods to simulation data and show that, with sequencing depth above 40–300 (which varies with different tissue samples) per cleavage site, Methyl-Seq offers a comparable quantification consistency as microarrays.
Evening primrose oil for atopic dermatitis

Time to say goodnight With concerns about using topical corticosteroids for atopic dermatitis sometimes reaching phobic proportions,1 the emergence of a natural plant oil extract as a possible alternative treatment was well received in the early 1980s.2 3 Interest was fuelled because evening primrose oil extract (containing 8-10% of gamma linolenic acid (GLA)) appeared to cause few side effects and because there was a very plausible mechanism to explain why supplementation with this essential fatty acid might work in atopic dermatitis.4 The scene was therefore set for a new treatment, and physicians like myself were delighted to have another option to offer patients with this miserable condition. Since then many studies have evaluated the efficacy of oral gamma linolenic acid supplementation for atopic dermatitis, with conflicting results. Fifteen studies (10 dealing with evening primrose oil, and five with borage oil, which contains even higher concentrations of GLA) were summarised in a systematic review of atopic dermatitis treatments that I and others conducted for the NHS Health Technology Assessment programmes.5 Although we could not pool the data because of differences between study participants, GLA doses, and outcomes (which were often clinically meaningless), we found that the largest and best reported studies did not show convincing evidence of any benefit.6 One “unturned stone” has been the notion that GLA works only when given in very …
LumiWatch: On-Arm Projected Graphics and Touch Input

Compact, worn computers with projected, on-skin touch interfaces have been a long-standing yet elusive goal, largely written off as science fiction. Such devices offer the potential to mitigate the significant human input/output bottleneck inherent in worn devices with small screens. In this work, we present the first fully functional and self-contained projection smartwatch implementation, containing the requisite compute, power, projection and touch-sensing capabilities. Our watch offers roughly 40 sq. cm of interactive surface area -- more than five times that of a typical smartwatch display. We demonstrate continuous 2D finger tracking with interactive, rectified graphics, transforming the arm into a touchscreen. We discuss our hardware and software implementation, as well as evaluation results regarding touch accuracy and projection visibility.
Low-temperature plasma treatment of carbon fibre/epoxy resin composite

To gain insight into bonded repairs, which are commonly applied to damaged composites, we herein investigate the effects of low-temperature plasma treatment on the surface properties of a carbon fibre/epoxy resin composite, revealing that this treatment enhances the bonding strength between the patch and damaged surface. Moreover, we probe the water contact angle, chemical composition, tensile-shear strength, and morphology of composite surfaces, showing that under optimal conditions, plasma treatment decreases the water contact angle from 78° to 35.5°, increases the surface energy by a factor of ∼2.3, and induces the formation of surface-bound oxygen-containing groups, increasing the O/C ratio by ∼70%. Compared to that of the untreated composite, the tensile-shear strength of the plasma-treated composite initially increases and subsequently decreases with increasing treatment time, with the maximum increase reaching 117%. Finally, the obtained experimental data allow the above-mentioned plasma treatment to be modelled by a four-stage process.
Cell type–specific expression of adenomatous polyposis coli in lung development, injury, and repair

Adenomatous polyposis coli (Apc) is critical for Wnt signaling and cell migration. The current study examined Apc expression during lung development, injury, and repair. Apc was first detectable in smooth muscle layers in early lung morphogenesis, and was highly expressed in ciliated and neuroendocrine cells in the advanced stages. No Apc immunoreactivity was detected in Clara or basal cells, which function as stem/progenitor cell in adult lung. In ciliated cells, Apc is associated mainly with apical cytoplasmic domain. In response to naphthalene‐induced injury, Apcpositive cells underwent squamous metaplasia, accompanied by changes in Apc subcellular distribution. In conclusion, both spatial and temporal expression of Apc is dynamically regulated during lung development and injury repair. Differential expression of Apc in progenitor vs. nonprogenitor cells suggests a functional role in cell‐type specification. Subcellular localization changes of Apc in response to naphthalene injury suggest a role in cell shape and cell migration. Developmental Dynamics 239:2288–2297, 2010. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
An Adaptive Prognostic Approach for Newly Developed System With Three-Source Variability

Remaining useful life (RUL) estimation is the key of prognostics and health management (PHM) technology and is an effective way to ensure the safe and reliable operation of equipment. Aiming at the lack of historical data and prior information for the newly developed small-sample systems, an adaptive RUL estimation method based on the expectation maximization (EM) algorithm is proposed with three-source variability. First, a degradation model based on a Wiener process is established to incorporate three-source variability and dynamic sampling interval, and the analytical solution of RUL distribution is derived in the sense of the first hitting time. Second, an adaptive parameter estimation method based on the EM algorithm is proposed to update the model parameters by using the condition monitoring (CM) data from one working system running up to the current moment. Finally, a practical example of a gyroscope in an inertial navigation system is provided to substantiate the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed method. The results indicate that the proposed method can efficiently improve the accuracy of the RUL estimation.