Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Gal: Networks That Grow When They Learn and Shrink When They Forget

Learning when limited to modiication of some parameters has a limited scope; the capability to modify the system structure is also needed to get a wider range of the learnable. In the case of artiicial neural networks, learning by iterative adjustment of synaptic weights can only succeed if the network designer predeenes an appropriate network structure, i.e., number of hidden layers, units, and the size and shape of their receptive and projective elds. This paper advocates the view that the network structure should not, as usually done, be determined by trial-and-error but should be computed by the learning algorithm. Incremental learning algorithms can modify the network structure by addition and/or removal of units and/or links. A survey of current connectionist literature is given on this line of thought. \Grow and Learn" (GAL) is a new algorithm that learns an association at one-shot due to being incremental and using a local representation. During the so-called \sleep" phase, units that were previously stored but which are no longer necessary due to recent modiications are removed to minimize network complexity. The incrementally constructed network can later be netuned oo-line to improve performance. Another method proposed that greatly increases recognition accuracy is to train a number of networks and vote over their responses. The algorithm and its variants are tested on recognition of handwritten numerals and seem promising especially in terms of learning speed. This makes the algorithm attractive for on-line learning tasks, e.g., in robotics. The biological plausibility of incremental learning is also discussed brieey.
S-MATE: Secure Coding-Based Multipath Adaptive Traffic Engineering

There have been several approaches to provisioning traffic between core network nodes in Internet Service Provider networks. Such approaches aim to minimize network delay, increase capacity, and enhance security services. MATE (Multipath Adaptive Traffic Engineering) has been proposed for multipath adaptive traffic engineering between an ingress node (source) and an egress node (destination). Its novel idea is to avoid network congestion and attacks that might exist in edge and node disjoint paths between two core network nodes. This paper builds an adaptive, robust, and reliable traffic engineering scheme for better performance and operation of communication networks. This will also provision quality of service (QoS) and protection of traffic engineering to maximize network efficiency. Specifically, we present a new approach, S-MATE (secure MATE) is developed to protect the network traffic between two core nodes (routers, switches, etc.) in a cloud network. S-MATE secures against a single link attack/failure by adding redundancy in one of the operational paths between the sender and receiver. The proposed scheme can be built to secure core networks such as optical and IP networks.
Challenges for computer recognition of children2s speech

Some of the most compelling applications of spoken language technology in education involve children, but computer recognition of children’s speech is particularly difficult. This paper reviews current approaches to children’s speech recognition. It concludes that a fundamental challenge is to raise the performance of ‘matched’ children’s speech recognition systems to the same levels that are achieved by state-of-the-art systems for adults, or, alternatively, to explain why this is not possible, for example by studying human recognition of children’s speech. It is suggested that to achieve this it will be necessary to take account of the stages of acquisition and development of children’s speech. These processes are well documented in the speech therapy literature, but their computational utility is still to be demonstrated.
The Developmental Course of Hyperactive-Impulsive and Inattentive (HIA) Behavior in a Community Sample of Girls: A Group-Based Model of Development from Kindergarten to Fifth Grade

The goal of the present study was to extend our current understanding of the female-specific manifestations, developmental course, and outcomes of hyperactive-impulsive and inattentive (HIA) behaviors. This study modeled the developmental trajectories of hyperactive-impulsive and inattentive behavior in a population-based study of girls followed from kindergarten to fifth grade. Four trajectories of both hyperactive-impulsive and inattentive behavior were identified. Joint trajectory analyses revealed an association between the highest trajectories of hyperactive-impulsive behavior and inattentive behavior. Similarly, the lowest level trajectories of both hyperactive-impulsive and inattentive behaviors showed a high degree of association. Contrary to expectations and descriptions of ADHD in girls, the number of girls assigned to both the highest trajectories of inattentive behavior and the lowest trajectories of hyperactive-impulsive behavior was extremely low. Teacher- and self-reported measures of child functioning varied by trajectory group membership across all models, suggesting that sub-clinical levels of HIA behavior are associated with adjustment difficulties in girls.
Further evidence of a relationship between the retinoic acid receptor alpha locus and nonsyndromic cleft lip with or without cleft palate (CL +/- P)

Chenevix-Trench et al. (1992) reported a significant difference between nonsyndromic cleft lip with or without cleft palate (CL [+-] P) cases and unrelated controls in the frequency of alleles at the retinoic acid receptor alpha (RARA) PstI RFLP located at 17q21.1. They also observed borderline significant (P = .055) differences between allele frequencies in subjects with cleft lip and palate (CL + P) compared with those with cleft lip only (CL). Retinoic acid (RA) is a known teratogen capable of producing cleft palate in rodents (Abbott and Birnbaum 1990). Chenevix-Tench et al. (1992) hypothesized that variation in susceptibility to the effects of RA in humans may result from alterations at the RARA locus. We have investigated association and linkage between CL [+-] P and a microsatellite marker (D17S579) located at 17q21 (Hall et al. 1992), selected for its proximity to RARA, in 14 extended multiplex families from rural West Bengal, India.
NPs for Events: Experiments in Coreference Annotation

This paper describes a pilot project which developed a methodology for NP and event coreference annotation consisting of detailed annotation schemes and guidelines. In order to develop this, a small sample annotated corpus in the domain of terrorism/security was built. The methodology developed can be used as a basis for large-scale annotation to produce much-needed resources. In contrast to related projects, ours focused almost exclusively on the development of annotation guidelines and schemes, to ensure that future annotations based on this methodology capture the phenomena both reliably and in detail. The project also involved extensive discussions in order to redraft the guidelines, as well as major extensions to PALinkA, our existing annotation tool, to accommodate event as well as NP coreference annotation.
Correlation Risk, Cross-Market Derivative Products, and Portfolio Performance

We consider portfolios whose returns depend on at least three variables and show the effect of the correlation structure on the probabilities of the extreme outcomes of the portfolio return, using a multivariate binomial approximation. The portfolio risk is then managed by using derivatives. We illustrate this risk management both with simple options, whose payoff depends upon only one of the underlying variables, and with more complex instruments whose payoffs (and values) depend upon the correlation structure. The question of benchmarking portfolio performance is complicated by the use of derivatives, especially complex derivatives, since these instruments fundamentally alter the distribution of returns. We use the multivariate binomial model to set performance benchmarks for multicurrency, international, portfolios. Our model is illustrated using a simple example where a German institution invests a proportion of its funds in German equities, and the remainder in UK equities. Portfolio performance is measured in Deutsche Marks and depends upon (1) the Dax index, (2) the FTSE index, and (3) the Deutsche Mark-Sterling exchange rate. The output of the model is a simulation of possible outcomes from the portfolio hedging strategy. The difference in our methodology is that we are able to retain the simplicity of the binomial distribution, used extensively in the analysis of options, in a multivariate context. This is achieved by building three (or more) binomial trees for the individual variables and capturing the correlation structure with the use of varying conditional probabilities.
Formaldehyde‐releasers: relationship to formaldehyde contact allergy. Part 2. Formaldehyde‐releasers in clothes: durable press chemical finishes

This is the second part of a review article on formaldehyde‐releasers used as durable press chemical finishes (DPCF) in textiles. The early finishes contained large amounts of free formaldehyde, which led to many cases of allergic contact dermatitis to clothes in the 1950s and 1960s. Currently, most finishes are based on modified dimethylol dihydroxyethyleneurea, which releases less formaldehyde. Nevertheless, recent studies in the United States and Israel have identified patients reacting to DPCF, considered to have allergic contact reactions to clothes, either from formaldehyde released by the DPCF therein or from the DPCF per se (in patients negative to formaldehyde). However, all studies had some weaknesses in design or interpretation and in not a single case has the clinical relevance been proven. The amount of free formaldehyde in most garments will likely be below the threshold for the elicitation of dermatitis for all but the most sensitive patients. The amount of free cyclized urea DPCF in clothes is unlikely to be high enough to cause sensitization. Patch test reactions to formaldehyde‐releasing DPCF will in most cases represent a reaction to formaldehyde released from the test material.
Effective Shapes Generation for Bayesian CAD Model Reconstruction

We address the reconstruction of CAD models from 3D point clouds, assuming that an a priori CAD model, roughly similar to the scene to reconstruct, is given. The problem can be solved using a Bayesian approach which states the reconstruction task as the search of the most probable CAD model. This article presents a reliable cylinder generation algorithm that can be used to efficiently reach the configuration which maximizes the target probability, combined with an efficient specific optimization heuristic. Results illustrate how our approach can automatically reconstruct CAD models of industrials scenes.
Genetic Variations Affecting Serum Carcinoembryonic Antigen Levels and Status of Regional Lymph Nodes in Patients with Sporadic Colorectal Cancer from Southern China

Background Serum carcinoembryonic antigen (sCEA) level might be an indicator of disease. Indeed, an elevated sCEA level is a prognostic factor in colorectal cancer (CRC) patients. However, the genetic determinants of sCEA level in healthy and CRC population remains unclear. Thus we investigated the genetic markers associated with elevated serum sCEA level in these two populations and its clinical implications. Methods and Findings Genome-wide association study (GWAS) was conducted in a cohort study with 4,346 healthy male adults using the Illumina Omni 1 M chip. Candidate SNPs associated with elevated sCEA levels were validated in 194 CRC patients on ABI Taqman platform. Eight candidate SNPs were validated in CRC patients. The rs1047781 (chr19- FUT2) (A/T) was associated with elevated sCEA levels, and rs8176746 (chr9- ABO) was associated with the regional lymph metastasis in the CRC patients. The preoperative sCEA level was a risk factor for tumor recurrence in 5 years after operation (OR = 1.427, 95% CI: 1.005∼1.843, P = 0.006). It was also one of the risk factors for regional lymph node metastasis (OR = 2.266, 95% CI: 1.196∼4.293, P = 0.012). The sCEA level in rs1047781-T carriers was higher than that in the A carriers in CRC patients without lymph node metastasis (P = 0.006). The regional lymph node metastasis in patients with homozygote AA of rs8176746 was more common than that in the heterozygote AG carriers (P = 0.022). In addition, rs1047781-AT and TT CRC patients exhibited a worse disease-free survival than AA genotype carriers (P = 0.023). Conclusions We found candidate SNPs associated with elevated sCEA levels in both healthy males and CRC population. Rs1047781 (chr19- FUT2) may be the susceptible locus for recurrence of CRC in a population from Southern China.
Racial disparities in disability: recent evidence from self-reported and performance-based disability measures in a population-based study of older adults.

OBJECTIVE Although disability levels have been declining in older adults, there is little current information on racial differences in disability. METHODS Our data came from a longitudinal, population-based study of 6,158 Black and White adults aged 65 and older from the south side of Chicago. Data were collected during three face-to-face interviews between 1993 and 2002. We ascertained disability using three self-report measures and a performance-based measure of physical function. Using longitudinal data analysis, we examined overall racial differences in disability and the degree to which they varied by age and gender. RESULTS After an average of 6 years of follow-up, Blacks reported significantly higher disability levels than Whites after adjustment for age and sex. There was a significant increase in disability during follow-up on all four measures. Racial differences in disability did not vary consistently by age at baseline or over time but were greater among women. Findings were largely similar for self-reported and performance-based measures of disability. Adjustment for socioeconomic status substantially reduced racial differences in disability, although some of the differences remained significant, especially among women. CONCLUSION Racial disparities in disability have not been eliminated, are greater among women, and have their origins earlier in adulthood.
Profit Constraints on Managerial Autonomy: Managerial Theory and the Unmaking of the Corporation President

The key assumption of managerial revolution theory-that ownership is separated from control in large corporations-has important consequences for theories of class structure and economic development. If managers do not act in the interest of proprietors, theories based on property ownership are obsolete. Furthermore, the growth patterns of capitalist societies would be altered if large corporations protect managerial interests rather than owner interests. We examined managerial revolution theory by studying the relationship between the dismissal of corporate chiefs and various structural variables (including five measures of manager/owner control) for 286 of the 300 largest industrial firms in 1964. Our results do not support managerial revolution theory. Profit performance most affects the probability that the chief will be fired, and type of control has little effect. Profit performance appears to be an effective constraint on the behavior of both managerially-controlled and owner-controlledfirms.
Bidirectional Dependency Parser for Hindi

This paper describes the dependency parser we used in the NLP Tools Contest, 2009 for parsing Hindi, Bangla and Telugu. The parser uses a bidirectional parsing algorithm with two operations proj and non-proj to build the dependency tree. The parser obtained Labeled Attachment Score of 71.63%, 59.86% and 67.74% for Hindi, Telugu and Bangla respectively on the treebank with fine-grained dependency labels. With coarse-grained labels the dependency parser achieved 76.90%, 70.34% and 65.01% respectively.
Neuron-Specific Apolipoprotein E4 Proteolysis Is Associated with Increased Tau Phosphorylation in Brains of Transgenic Mice

Apolipoprotein E (apoE) is found in amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) in Alzheimer's disease (AD) brains, but its role in their pathogenesis is unclear. Previously, we found C-terminal-truncated fragments of apoE in AD brains and showed that such fragments can cause neurodegeneration and can induce NFT-like inclusions in cultured neuronal cells and in transgenic mice. Here, we analyzed apoE fragmentation in brain tissue homogenates from transgenic mice expressing apoE3 or apoE4 in neurons [neuron-specific enolase (NSE)-apoE] or astrocytes [glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP)-apoE] by Western blotting. The C-terminal-truncated fragments of apoE accumulated, in an age-dependent manner, in the brains of NSE-apoE4 and, to a significantly lesser extent, NSE-apoE3 mice; however, no fragments were detected in GFAP-apoE3 or GFAP-apoE4 mice. In NSE-apoE mice, the pattern of apoE fragmentation resembled that seen in AD brains, and the fragmentation was specific for certain brain regions, occurring in the neocortex and hippocampus, which are vulnerable to AD-related neurodegeneration, but not in the less vulnerable cerebellum. Excitotoxic challenge with kainic acid significantly increased apoE fragmentation in NSE-apoE4 but not NSE-apoE3 mice. Phosphorylated tau (p-tau) also accumulated in an age-dependent manner in NSE-apoE4 mice and, to a much lesser extent, in NSE-apoE3 mice but not in GFAP-apoE3 or GFAP-apoE4 mice. Intraneuronal p-tau inclusions in the hippocampus were prominent in 21-month-old NSE-apoE4 mice but barely detectable in NSE-apoE3 mice. Thus, the accumulation of potentially pathogenic C-terminal-truncated fragments of apoE depends on both the isoform and the cellular source of apoE. Neuron-specific proteolytic cleavage of apoE4 is associated with increased phosphorylation of tau and may play a key role in the development of AD-related neuronal deficits.
Identifying Problems Associated with Focus and Context Awareness in 3D Modelling Tasks

Creating complex 3D models is a challenging process. One of the main reasons for this is that 3D models are usually created using software developed for conventional 2D displays which lack true depth perspective, and therefore do not support correct perception of spatial placement and depth-ordering of displayed content. As a result, modellers often have to deal with many overlapping components of 3D models (e.g. vertices, edges, faces, etc.) on a 2D display surface. This in turn causes them to have difficulties in distinguishing distances, maintaining position and orientation awareness, etc. To better understand the nature of these problems, which can collectively be defined as “focus and context awareness” problems, we have conducted a pilot study with a group of novice 3D modellers, and a series of interviews with a group of professional 3D modellers. This article presents these two studies, and their findings, which have resulted in identifying a set of focus and context awareness problems that modellers face in creating 3D models using conventional modelling software. The article also provides a review of potential solutions to these problems in the related literature.
Relationship of Yersinia pseudotuberculosis O Antigens IA, IIA, and IVB: the IIA Gene Cluster Was Derived from That of IVB

ABSTRACT O antigen is part of the lipopolysaccharide present in the outer membrane of gram-negative bacteria and is highly polymorphic. In this study, we obtained sequences of the O-antigen gene clusters for the Yersinia pseudotuberculosis antigens IA, IIA, and IVB. We propose that the IIA gene cluster was derived from the IVB cluster, one of the very few cases in which a parent gene cluster is identified, and that the IA gene cluster could be a hybrid of the IVB and IB gene clusters. All three O antigens contain 6-deoxy-d-mannoheptose, and we identified six genes for the biosynthetic pathway for the precursor of this sugar, GDP-6-deoxy-d-mannoheptose.
Translational Approaches towards Cancer Gene Therapy: Hurdles and Hopes.

INTRODUCTION Of the cancer gene therapy approaches, gene silencing, suicide/apoptosis inducing gene therapy, immunogene therapy and targeted gene therapy are deemed to sub-stantially control the biological consequences of genomic changes in cancerous cells. Thus, a large number of clinical trials have been conducted against various malignancies. In this review, we will discuss recent translational progresses of gene and cell therapy of cancer. METHODS Essential information on gene therapy of cancer were reviewed and discussed towards their clinical translations. RESULTS Gene transfer has been rigorously studied in vitro and in vivo, in which some of these gene therapy endeavours have been carried on towards translational investigations and clinical applications. About 65% of gene therapy trials are related to cancer therapy. Some of these trials have been combined with cell therapy to produce personalized medicines such as Sipuleucel-T (Provenge®, marketed by Dendreon, USA) for the treatment of asymptomatic/minimally symptomatic metastatic hormone-refractory prostate cancer. CONCLUSION Translational approach links two diverse boundaries of basic and clinical researches. For successful translation of geno-medicines into clinical applications, it is essential 1) to have the guidelines and standard operating procedures for development and application of the genomedicines specific to clinically relevant biomarker(s); 2) to conduct necessary animal experimental studies to show the "proof of concept" for the proposed genomedicines; 3) to perform an initial clinical investigation; and 4) to initiate extensive clinical trials to address all necessary requirements. In short, translational researches need to be refined to accelerate the geno-medicine development and clinical applications.
Using brain stimulation to disentangle neural correlates of conscious vision

Research into the neural correlates of consciousness (NCCs) has blossomed, due to the advent of new and increasingly sophisticated brain research tools. Neuroimaging has uncovered a variety of brain processes that relate to conscious perception, obtained in a range of experimental paradigms. But methods such as functional magnetic resonance imaging or electroencephalography do not always afford inference on the functional role these brain processes play in conscious vision. Such empirical NCCs could reflect neural prerequisites, neural consequences, or neural substrates of a conscious experience. Here, we take a closer look at the use of non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) techniques in this context. We discuss and review how NIBS methodology can enlighten our understanding of brain mechanisms underlying conscious vision by disentangling the empirical NCCs.
CuMF_SGD: Parallelized Stochastic Gradient Descent for Matrix Factorization on GPUs

Stochastic gradient descent (SGD) is widely used by many machine learning algorithms. It is efficient for big data ap- plications due to its low algorithmic complexity. SGD is inherently serial and its parallelization is not trivial. How to parallelize SGD on many-core architectures (e.g. GPUs) for high efficiency is a big challenge. In this paper, we present cuMF_SGD, a parallelized SGD solution for matrix factorization on GPUs. We first design high-performance GPU computation kernels that accelerate individual SGD updates by exploiting model parallelism. We then design efficient schemes that parallelize SGD updates by exploiting data parallelism. Finally, we scale cuMF SGD to large data sets that cannot fit into one GPU's memory. Evaluations on three public data sets show that cuMF_SGD outperforms existing solutions, including a 64- node CPU system, by a large margin using only one GPU card.