Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Genetic algorithm for neural network architecture optimization

The optimization of architecture of feed-forward neural networks is a complex task of high importance in supervised learning because it has a great impact on the convergence of learning methods. In this paper, we propose a multi-objective mathematical formulation in order to determine the optimal number of hidden layers, the number of neurons in each layer and good values of weights. We will solve our mathematical modeling using a hybridation of the famous genetic algorithm and the back-prop training algorithm. For evaluating our approach, we apply it to benchmark classification problems data-iris, seed, and wine. The obtained results demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
BASIC SCIENCE REVIEW

Background. Thyroid nodules are the most common surgical disease of the thyroid. Fine-needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB) is the most commonly employed tool for establishing a diagnosis. However, 15% to 25% of FNAB reports yield inconclusive results. Immunostaining of cytological smears from FNAB with galectin-3 has been proposed as a tool for differentiating between benign and malignant nodules. We performed a systematic review to evaluate the utility of galectin-3. Methods. Prospective studies of nodules with FNAB reports of ‘‘follicular neoplasm’’ and with a definitive diagnosis confirmed by histopathology were selected. Calculations of individual sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative likelihood ratios were made. Results. The articles selected were those with the best meth-
Identifying Student Difficulties with Entropy, Heat Engines, and the Carnot Cycle

We report on several specific student difficulties regarding the Second Law of Thermodynamics in the context of heat engines within upper-division undergraduates thermal physics courses. Data come from ungraded written surveys, graded homework assignments, and videotaped classroom observations of tutorial activities. Written data show that students in these courses do not clearly articulate the connection between the Carnot cycle and the Second Law after lecture instruction. This result is consistent both within and across student populations. Observation data provide evidence for myriad difficulties related to entropy and heat engines, including students' struggles in reasoning about situations that are physically impossible and failures to differentiate between differential and net changes of state properties of a system. Results herein may be seen as the application of previously documented difficulties in the context of heat engines, but others are novel and emphasize the subtle and complex nature of cyclic processes and heat engines, which are central to the teaching and learning of thermodynamics and its applications. Moreover, the sophistication of these difficulties is indicative of the more advanced thinking required of students at the upper division, whose developing knowledge and understanding give rise to questions and struggles that are inaccessible to novices.
Object-oriented programming testing methodology

Inheritance is an important attribute in object-oriented programming (OOP). This notion supports the class hierarchy design and captures the is-a relationship between a class and its subclass. It contributes to food properties of modularity, reusability and incremental design. However, misuse of multiple (repeated) inheritance leads to an improper class hierarchy which suffers from name-conflict and implicit errors. This type of error is very difficult to detect by conventional testing methodologies. This paper describes a graph-theoretical testing methodology for detecting this type of error. An algorithm to support this testing methodology is also presented. <<ETX>>
Asbestos Burden in Cases of Mesothelioma from Individuals from Various Regions of the United States

Mesothelioma is a rare tumor that is considered an asbestos marker disease. It occurs in individuals following a longer latency period from first exposure than other asbestos-related diseases. The tumor also occurs in individuals with a wide range of exposures, including individuals with lower level or secondary exposures. In the present study lung tissue from 54 individuals with a pathological diagnosis of mesothelioma was evaluated for ferruginous body and uncoated asbestos fiber content. The data were compared with an earlier study of mesothelioma cases from the northwestern United States. Tissue was prepared via a digestion procedure, with the collected digestate reviewed by light microscopy for quantification of asbestos bodies and analytical transmission electron microscopy for determination of uncoated fiber burden. Twenty-seven cases in the present study had over 1000 ferruginous bodies per gram of dry tissue. The data suggest that amosite provides a more likely stimulus for ferruginous coating than the other forms of asbestos. All individuals were found to have asbestos fibers in their lung tissue. Amosite was the most commonly found fiber, with anthophyllite being the second most commonly found type of asbestos. The finding of tremolite in the tissue most often was associated with the finding of anthophyllite. A limited number of asbestos fibers of each type would have been seen in the light microscope, with the least detected being chrysotile. The majority of all fiber types were found as short fibers (< 8 μm), although some longer fibers were represented in each type of asbestos. The majority of the individuals were found to have mixed types of asbestos in their lungs.
Remarks about Wavelet Analysis in the EEG Artifacts Detection

Electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings are often contaminated by artifacts, i.e. signals that have no-cerebral origin and therefore distort the EEG analysis. In this paper we propose a wavelet analysis useful to detect impulsive artifacts, like spike and eye blink; in particular we use two threshold's methods based on the discrete wavelet transform (DWT) and on the stationary wavelet transform (SWT), respectively. Both methods are equivalent in the identification of eye blink artifact, but we find a different behavior in the spikes detection. Using the DWT we observed that the spike detection is decimation-sensitive, in other words the even or odd decimation corrupts the artifact identification step. On the other hand, the translational invariance property of SWT allows to overcome this limitation improving the wavelet analysis for the EEG artifacts detection.
Bayesian estimation for a constrained bivariate normal population

In this paper we derive Bayes estimates of the parameters of a bivariate normal population under the constraint of either a common mean or a common variance. Some environmental and medical applications are indicated. Results of a simulation study based on a small sample size to compare the maximum likelihood estimates and the Bayes estimates indicate that they are mostly equivalent.
Air Pollution from Livestock Farms Is Associated with Airway Obstruction in Neighboring Residents

Rationale: Livestock farm emissions may not only affect respiratory health of farmers but also of neighboring residents. Objectives: To explore associations between spatial and temporal variation in pollutant emissions from livestock farms and lung function in a general, nonfarming, rural population in the Netherlands. Methods: We conducted a cross‐sectional study in 2,308 adults (age, 20‐72 yr). A pulmonary function test was performed measuring prebronchodilator and post‐bronchodilator FEV1, FVC, FEV1/FVC, and maximum mid‐expiratory flow (MMEF). Spatial exposure was assessed as (1) number of farms within 500 m and 1,000 m of the home, (2) distance to the nearest farm, and (3) modeled annual average fine dust emissions from farms within 500 m and 1,000 m of the home address. Temporal exposure was assessed as week‐average ambient particulate matter <10 &mgr;m in diameter and ammonia (NH3) concentrations before lung function measurements. Data were analyzed with generalized additive models (smoothing). Measurements and Main Results: A negative association was found between the number of livestock farms within a 1,000‐m buffer from the home address and MMEF, which was more pronounced in participants without atopy. No associations were found with other spatial exposure variables. Week‐average particulate matter <10 &mgr;m in diameter and NH3 levels were negatively associated with FEV1, FEV1/FVC, and MMEF. In a two‐pollutant model, only NH3 remained associated. A 25‐&mgr;g/m3 increase in NH3 was associated with a 2.22% lower FEV1 (95% confidence interval, −3.69 to −0.74), FEV1/FVC of −1.12% (−1.96 to −0.28), and MMEF of −5.67% (−8.80 to −2.55). Conclusions: Spatial and temporal variation in livestock air pollution emissions are associated with lung function deficits in nonfarming residents.
Securing Dynamic Firmware Updates of Mixed-Critical Applications

This work introduces a secure framework for runtime updating of firmware in Internet of Things devices that execute mixed-critical applications. Taking advantage of the capabilities of modern heterogeneous System-on-Chip devices to run cores in asymmetric multiprocessing (AMP) configuration, we developed a methodology to showcase dynamic updating of real-time applications in a novel secure way when executing on a Xilinx ZYNQ-based platform. As an exemplary implementation we demonstrate a bio-signal monitoring use case that reads accelerometer data to determine if a person has fallen, while a distant medical management system can dynamically perform firmware updates. Even sophisticated code injection or reuse attacks can be subverted with the proposed defenses that ensure a practically isolated environment for the critical firmware with negligible overhead to the device in terms of performance and cost.
MEMS resonator temperature compensation

This paper presents the study of an electromechanical resonator temperature compensation principle. It consists in the use of a coating material presenting opposite properties over temperature compared to the silicon resonator structural material. Simulated results, using the FEM Coventor® software, show the great potential of this CMOS compatible principle for industrial perspectives.
Analysis of Ordinary Public Fund and Its Impact on the Quality of Academic Programs in the Higher Education in the Subsystem of the Polytechnic Universities in Mexico

In 2015, there was the need of making this study to determine the efficient and effectiveness’ management for making decisions in respect to the ordinary fund allocations and their impact on the quality of the academic programs into the Polytechnic engineering universities in Mexico. This analysis is very important for providing essential evidence to improve the granting of financial resources to these institutions for the educational activities. Front to a novel educational system of higher education is essential to evaluate the quality of it to achieve its goals. The information evaluated shows important findings, in regards to the institutions for having more evaluable academic programs than non-assessable academic programs. Being the first ones, which receive a larger fund for their operation.
Interactions of indoleacetic Acid and gibberellic Acid in leaf abscission control.

Debladed midribs of citrus leaves showed the typical delay of abscission in response to indoleacetic acid (IAA), and the typical acceleration of abscission in response to gibberellic acid (GA). Interaction experiments with these 2 hormones indicated that the balance of the 2 hormones may be more important in regulating abscission than the quantity of either. The often reported acceleration of abscission with low quantities of IAA did not seem to exist in citrus. IAA did accelerate abscission in this tissue when its application was delayed for at least 24 hours after deblading, which suggests the 2-stage effect is also present in citrus.When abscission was first delayed with IAA and then allowed to continue, the rate of abscission proceeded at a slower rate than was typical for this tissue. This slower rate was also typical of the effect observed when GA overcame the abscission retarding effect of IAA. The phenylurethane, Barban, blocked the GA acceleration of abscission, but it did not affect the rate of abscission of control or IAA treated midribs.
Bagging survival trees

Predicted survival probability functions of censored event free survival are improved by bagging survival trees. We suggest a new method to aggregate survival trees in order to obtain better predictions for breast cancer and lymphoma patients. A set of survival trees based on B bootstrap samples is computed. We define the aggregated Kaplan–Meier curve of a new observation by the Kaplan–Meier curve of all observations identified by the B leaves containing the new observation. The integrated Brier score is used for the evaluation of predictive models. We analyse data of a large trial on node positive breast cancer patients conducted by the German Breast Cancer Study Group and a smaller ‘pilot’ study on diffuse large B‐cell lymphoma, where prognostic factors are derived from microarray expression values. In addition, simulation experiments underline the predictive power of our proposal. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Vehicle Stability Enhancement of Four-Wheel-Drive Hybrid Electric Vehicle Using Rear Motor Control

A vehicle stability enhancement control algorithm for a four-wheel-drive hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) is proposed using rear motor driving, regenerative braking control, and electrohydraulic brake (EHB) control. A fuzzy-rule-based control algorithm is proposed, which generates the direct yaw moment to compensate for the errors of the sideslip angle and yaw rate. Performance of the vehicle stability control algorithm is evaluated using ADAMS and MATLAB Simulink cosimulations. HEV chassis elements such as the tires, suspension system, and steering system are modeled to describe the vehicle's dynamic behavior in more detail using ADAMS, whereas HEV power train elements such as the engine, motor, battery, and transmission are modeled using MATLAB Simulink with the control algorithm. It is found from the simulation results that the driving and regenerative braking at the rear motor is able to provide improved stability. In addition, better performance can be achieved by applying the driving and regenerative braking control, as well as EHB control.
Optimization of sensing time in multichannel sequential sensing for cognitive radio

This paper studies the design of sensing time in multichannel sequential sensing for cognitive radio under the multichannel sensing slots and one transmission slot scheme. Firstly, we consider the case where the channel idle probability is known. In this case, when the channels’ signal‐to‐noise ratios (SNRs) are equal, we prove that there exist optimal sensing times that maximize the achievable throughput for secondary user, while primary user is sufficiently protected. When the channels’ SNRs are different, brute‐force search is used to find the optimal sensing order that maximizes the achievable throughput of secondary user, and the corresponding optimal sensing times will be obtained. Then, a suboptimal and low‐complexity approach of one‐slot sensing time without knowing the channel idle probability is proposed. The proposed approach solves the problem of sensing order by selecting the channel with the minimum sensing time in the next sensing slot when the channels’ SNRs are different. Numerical results show that the proposed approach achieves a performance close to that of the optimal sensing time under different conditions and has significant performance improvement over the approach of fixed sensing time. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Immunoregulatory effects of the antitumor polysaccharide lentinan on Th1/Th2 balance in patients with digestive cancers.

BACKGROUND Recent studies demonstrated that patients with advanced cancer may have impaired cell-mediated immunity caused by an imbalance between Th1 and Th2 responses. We evaluated the ability of lentinan (LNT) to modulate Th1 and Th2 responses in patients with digestive cancers. METHODS Peripheral blood samples were collected preoperatively from 28 patients with digestive cancers before and after intravenous administration of LNT (2 mg x 3 times/week). The proportions of CD4+ T-cells producing intracellular cytokines were determined with flow cytometry. RESULTS After LNT treatment, CD4+ IFN-gamma+ T-cell percentages increased significantly (p < 0.05), whereas CD4+ IL-4+ T-cell and CD4+ IL-6+ T-cell percentages decreased significantly (p < 0.02). No significant change occurred in proportions of CD4+ IL-10+ T-cells. The after/before LNT treatment percentages ratio of CD4+ IFN-gamma+ T-cells correlated negatively with that of CD4+ IL-4+ T-cells (p < 0.01). The after/before treatment percentage ratio of CD4+ IL-4+ T-cells correlated positively with that of CD4+ IL-6+ T-cells (p < 0.05). CONCLUSION LNT apparently can cancel Th2-dominant condition in patients with digestive cancers and may improve the balance between Th1 and Th2.
Mpl Traffics to the Cell Surface Through Conventional and Unconventional Routes

Myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs) are often characterized by JAK2 or calreticulin (CALR) mutations, indicating aberrant trafficking in pathogenesis. This study focuses on Mpl trafficking and Jak2 association using two model systems: human erythroleukemia cells (HEL; JAK2V617F) and K562 myeloid leukemia cells (JAK2WT). Consistent with a putative chaperone role for Jak2, Mpl and Jak2 associate on both intracellular and plasma membranes (shown by proximity ligation assay) and siRNA‐mediated knockdown of Jak2 led to Mpl trapping in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). Even in Jak2 sufficient cells, Mpl accumulates in punctate structures that partially colocalize with ER‐tracker, the ER exit site marker (ERES) Sec31a, the autophagy marker LC3 and LAMP1. Mpl was fused to miniSOG, a genetically encoded tag for correlated light and electron microscopy. Results suggest that a fraction of Mpl is taken up into autophagic structures from the ER and routed to autolyososomes. Surface biotinylation shows that both immature and mature Mpl reach the cell surface; in K562 cells Mpl is also released in exosomes. Both forms rapidly internalize upon ligand addition, while recovery is primarily attributed to immature Mpl. Mpl appears to reach the plasma membrane via both conventional ER‐Golgi and autolysosome secretory pathways, as well as recycling.
Cartilage Intermediate Layer Protein 2 (CILP-2) Is Expressed in Articular and Meniscal Cartilage and Down-regulated in Experimental Osteoarthritis*

Using transcriptome profiling to determine differential gene expression between the permanent mouse articular cartilage and the transient growth plate cartilage, we identified a highly expressed gene, Cilp2, which is expressed differentially by articular chondrocytes. CILP-2 is highly homologous to CILP-1 (cartilage intermediate layer protein 1), which is expressed in the intermediate zone of articular cartilage and has been linked to cartilage degenerative diseases. We demonstrated that Cilp2 has a restricted mRNA distribution at the surface of the mouse articular cartilage during development, becoming localized to the intermediate zone of articular cartilage and meniscal cartilage with maturity. Although the extracellular CILP-2 protein localization is broadly similar to CILP-1, CILP-2 appears to be more localized in the deeper intermediate zone of the articular cartilage extracellular matrix at maturity. CILP-2 was shown to be proteolytically processed, N-glycosylated, and present in human articular cartilage. In surgically induced osteoarthritis in mice, Cilp1 and Cilp2 gene expression was dysregulated. However, whereas Cilp1 expression was increased, Cilp2 gene expression was down-regulated demonstrating a differential response to mechanically induced joint destabilization. CILP-2 protein was reduced in the mouse osteoarthritic cartilage. Ultrastructural analysis also suggested that CILP-2 may be associated with collagen VI microfibrils and thus may mediate interactions between matrix components in the territorial and inter-territorial articular cartilage matrix. mRNA expression analysis indicated that whereas Cilp1 and Cilp2 are expressed most abundantly in cartilaginous tissues, expression can be detected in muscle and heart.
Sarcasm Detection Using Sentiment Flow Shifts

One of the most frequently cited sarcasm realizations is the use of positive sentiment within negative context. We pro-pose a novel approach towards modeling a sentiment context of a document via the sequence of sentiment labels assigned to its sentences. We demonstrate that the sentiment ﬂow shifts (from negative to positive and from positive to negative) can be used as reliable classiﬁcation features for the task of sar-casm detection. Our classiﬁer achieves the F 1 -measure of 0.7 for all reviews, going up to 0.9 for the reviews with high star ratings (positive reviews), which are the reviews that are materially affected by the presence of sarcasm in the text.
Can Retail Sales Volatility be Curbed Through Marketing Actions?

For many years, marketing managers have used dynamic sales response models to compute expected sales conditional on the available information. These models fail to recognize that the volatility conditional variance of sales can vary over time. Moreover, the covolatilities conditional covariances between sales and marketing-mix variables can be time varying. Both concepts introduce a new range of strategic and tactical considerations for product and brand managers. Using a multivariate volatility model, we investigate the covolatility of sales and the marketing mix of a focal brand and competing brands in the market. We also examine carryover effects from a volatility perspective. The methodology is applied to six product categories sold by Dominick's Finer Foods. The results reveal valuable implications for marketing managers. Data and the online appendix are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2016. 1013 .
Determinants of Commercial Banks Profit Ability in India: A Dynamic Panel Data Model Approach

The present study explores the determinants of profitability of commercial banks in India by employing Arellano and Bond (1991) dynamic panel data model for the unbalanced panel data of 87 banks for the period 1992-2006. The study used net interest margin and returns on assets as two alternatives for measuring profitability of banks. Empirical results reveal that profitability of banks is not only determined by its own characters but also by the industry specific and macroeconomic factors. Further, the study also finds the role of ownership and political factors in determining the profitability of banks in India. However, the determinants of profitability significantly varied across the groups.
A melody detection user interface for polyphonic music

The automatic extraction of the melody of the music from polyphonic recordings is a challenging problem for which no general solutions currently exist. We present a novel interface for semi-automatic melody extraction with the goal to provide highly accurate pitch tracks of the lead voice with minimal user intervention. Audio-visual feedback facilitates the validation of the obtained melodic contour and user control of the analysis parameters enables direct and effective control over the voice pitch detection module by the intelligent user. This paper describes the interface and discusses the features in which it differs from more conventional audio analyses interfaces.