Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Kernel Domain Description with Incomplete Data: Using Instance-Specific Margins to Avoid Imputation

We present a method of performing kernel space domain description of a dataset with incomplete entries without the need for imputation, allowing kernel features of a class of data with missing features to be rigorously described. This addresses the problem that absent data completion is usually required before kernel classifiers, such as support vector domain description (SVDD), can be applied; equally, few existing techniques for incomplete data adequately address the issue of kernel spaces. Our method, which we call instance-specific domain description (ISDD), uses a parametrisation framework to compute minimal kernelised distances between data points with missing features through a series of optimisation runs, allowing evaluation of the kernel distance while avoiding subjective completions of missing data. We compare results of our method against those achieved by SVDD applied to an imputed dataset, using synthetic and experimental datasets where feature absence has a non-trivial structure. We show that our methods can achieve tighter sphere bounds when applied to linear and quadratic kernels.
Survey-gap analysis in expeditionary research: where do we go from here?

Research expeditions into remote areas to collect biological specimens provide vital information for understanding biodiversity. However, major expeditions to little-known areas are expensive and time consuming, time is short, and well-trained people are difficult to find. In addition, processing the collections and obtaining accurate identifications takes time and money. In order to get the maximum return for the investment, we need to determine the location of the collecting expeditions carefully. In this study we used environmental variables and information on existing col- lecting localities to help determine the sites of future expeditions. Results from other studies were used to aid in the selection of the environmental variables, including variables relating to temperature, rainfall, lithology and distance between sites. A survey gap analysis tool based on 'ED complementarity' was employed to select the sites that would most likely contribute the most new taxa. The tool does not evaluate how well collected a previously visited site sur- vey site might be; however, collecting effort was estimated based on species accumulation curves. We used the num- ber of collections and/or number of species at each collecting site to eliminate those we deemed poorly collected. Plants, birds, and insects from Guyana were examined using the survey gap analysis tool, and sites for future col- lecting expeditions were determined. The south-east section of Guyana had virtually no collecting information avail- able. It has been inaccessible for many years for political reasons and as a result, eight of the first ten sites selected were in that area. In order to evaluate the remainder of the country, and because there are no immediate plans by the Government of Guyana to open that area to exploration, that section of the country was not included in the remainder of the study. The range of the ED complementarity values dropped sharply after the first ten sites were selected. For plants, the group for which we had the most records, areas selected included several localities in the Pakaraima Mountains, the border with the south-east, and one site in the north-west. For birds, a moderately col- lected group, the strongest need was in the north-west followed by the east. Insects had the smallest data set and the largest range of ED complementarity values; the results gave strong emphasis to the southern parts of the coun- try, but most of the locations appeared to be equidistant from one another, most likely because of insufficient data. Results demonstrate that the use of a survey gap analysis tool designed to solve a locational problem using contin- uous environmental data can help maximize our resources for gathering new information on biodiversity. © 2005 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society , 2005, 85 , 549-567.
Activating social stereotypes: A functional analysis.

Abstract The present research investigated the effects of thinking about a category label on the ease with which perceivers could process stereotype-related information on subsequent tasks. Study 1 investigated the ease with which subjects could detect degraded stereotypic traits, Study 2 the ease with which these traits could be located in a complex stimulus array, and Study 3 the efficiency with which they could be represented in memory. In each case, subjects who had previously had their stereotypes activated showed more efficient processing of the trait terms. These results demonstrate the extent to which category activation produces an information-processing advantage for stereotypical traits. Discussion centers upon these processing advantages and their implications for our understanding of stereotypical thinking.
Uncertainty-aware circuit optimization

Well-tuned digital circuits have a large number of equally critical paths, which form a so-called "wall" in the slack histogram. However, by the time the design has been through manufacturing, many uncertainties cause these carefully aligned delays to spread out. Inaccuracies in parasitic predictions, clock slew, model-to-hardware correlation, static timing assumptions and manufacturing variations all cause the performance to vary from prediction. Simple statistical principles tell us that the variation of the limiting slack is larger when the height of the wall is greater. Although the wall may be the optimum solution if the static timing predictions were perfect, in the presence of uncertainty in timing and manufacturing, it may no longer be the best choice. The application of formal mathematical optimization in transistor sizing increases the height of the wall, thus exacerbating the problem. There is also a practical matter that schematic restructuring downstream in the design methodology is easier to conceive when there are fewer equally critical paths. This paper describes a method that gives formal mathematical optimizers the incentive to avoid the wall of equally critical paths, while giving up as little as possible in nominal performance.
Concurrent Byzantine Fault Tolerance for Software-Transactional-Memory Based Applications

Typical Byzantine fault tolerance algorithms require the application requests to be executed sequentially, which may severely limit the throughput of the system considering that modern CPUs are equipped with multiple processing cores. In this paper, we present the design and implementation of a Byzantine fault tolerance framework for software-transactional-memory based applications that aims to maximize concurrent processing while preserving strong replica consistency. The approach is based on the idea of committing concurrent transactions according to the total order of the requests that triggered the transactions. A comprehensive performance evaluation is carried out to characterize the effectiveness and limitations of this approach.
Job Involvement: An Elusive Concept

The relationship of seven personal and seven job factors on job involvement were examined for a sample of 926 secondary school teachers. Multiple regression analyses gave no personal predictors but four job predictors (job satisfaction, job motivation, participation in decision making, and satisfaction with supervision) which together accounted for 28% of the variance in job involvement. When grouped, the relationships did not change: job-related variables but not personal-psychological factors influenced job involvement in this sample.
Action of acetylcholine on regional myocardial work and metabolism in vivo: association with cyclic GMP.

This study was designed to test the hypothesis that in the in vivo dog heart, increases in cyclic (c) GMP and also decreases in cAMP induced by intracoronary administration of acetylcholine are associated with depressed myocardial function. In 10 open-chest anesthetized dogs, 0.5 microgram.kg-1.min-1 of acetylcholine was infused into the left anterior descending coronary artery. The intracoronary infusion of acetylcholine was continued simultaneously with 0.1 microgram.kg-1.min-1 of isoproterenol. Regional segment work was calculated as the integrated product of force (auxotonic force transducer) and segment shortening (sonomicrometry). Regional myocardial O2 consumption was calculated from blood flow measurements and regional O2 saturations. Competitive radioligand binding assays were used to determine the intracellular level of cAMP and cGMP in the myocardium. Local intracoronary infusion of acetylcholine significantly reduced regional segment work (from 36.7 +/- 6.5 to 19.1 +/- 3.7 x 10(-3) J/min) and O2 consumption (from 6.4 +/- 0.8 to 3.8 +/- 0.7 mL O2.min-1.100 g-1). This was related to a decrease in cAMP levels (from 364 +/- 25 to 262 +/- 17 pmol/100 g) and an increase in cGMP levels (from 1.34 +/- 0.06 to 1.78 +/- 0.15 pmol/100 g). When isoproterenol (0.1 microgram.kg-1.min-1) was added to the acetylcholine infusion line, cAMP levels tripled to 769 +/- 84 pmol/100 g, while O2 consumption rose to 6.6 +/- 1.4 mL O2.min-1.100 g-1. However, regional work was only partially restored (25.7 +/- 4.8 x 10(-3) J/min). Thus, both cAMP decrements and cGMP elevation occurred together with the negative inotropic effect of acetylcholine, and increased cAMP alone (produced by isoproterenol) did not fully overcome the acetylcholine effect. This was associated with elevated intracellular levels of cGMP.
Seeking roots and tracing lineages: constructing a framework of reference for roots and genealogical tourism

Travel for the purpose of seeking roots, or roots tourism, is understood to be focused on the descendants of a diaspora living in contemporary multicultural societies and travelling to ancestral homelands in search of identity and belongingness. It is an almost negligible niche segment of heritage tourism due to an obscure amalgam of contextual concepts. The primary purpose of this review is to construct a conceptual framework of reference based on sociological and psychological literatures concerning identity and belongingness. This framework is then employed to synthesize contributions to roots tourism from scholars both within and beyond tourism studies. On the basis of a unique conceptual overlap with seeking roots, travel for the purpose of tracing lineages, or genealogical tourism, by diasporic descendants is concisely discussed with respect to tourism scholarship. It is recommended that researchers in tourism studies systematically develop the contributions of this review by continuing to draw from established disciplines and closely aligned fields of study.
A 3D Vehicle Localization Technique in Complex Terrains

This paper describes a high-precision, scan-matching-based approach to tracking the pose of mobile vehicle, in which 3D information is added to the MCL algorithm for the first time. The approach is outstanding in terms of accuracy and computation time, which is achieved by improvements of ICP and MCL algorithm. The implemented approach is evaluated with a serious of experiments, and experimental results show that the novel approach makes up the disadvantages of traditional vehicle localization techniques in low efficiency and lack of 3D information. The 3D localization technique is available for both indoor and outdoor environment especially for complex terrains
Mental Health Outcomes Among Adults in Galveston and Chambers Counties After Hurricane Ike

ABSTRACT Objective: To examine the mental health effects of Hurricane Ike, the third costliest hurricane in US history, which devastated the upper Texas coast in September 2008. Method: Structured telephone interviews assessing immediate effects of Hurricane Ike (damage, loss, displacement) and mental health diagnoses were administered via random digit-dial methods to a household probability sample of 255 Hurricane Ike–affected adults in Galveston and Chambers counties. Results: Three-fourths of respondents evacuated the area because of Hurricane Ike and nearly 40% were displaced for at least one week. Postdisaster mental health prevalence estimates were 5.9% for posttraumatic stress disorder, 4.5% for major depressive episode, and 9.3% for generalized anxiety disorder. Bivariate analyses suggested that peritraumatic indicators of hurricane exposure severity—such as lack of adequate clean clothing, electricity, food, money, transportation, or water for at least one week—were most consistently associated with mental health problems. Conclusions: The significant contribution of factors such as loss of housing, financial means, clothing, food, and water to the development and/or maintenance of negative mental health consequences highlights the importance of systemic postdisaster intervention resources targeted to meet basic needs in the postdisaster period. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2012;6:26–32)
Are economic forecasts rational

This paper discusses at an undergraduate level how forecast rationality can be tested. It explains that forecasters should correctly use any relevant information they knew in making their predictions. It shows that forecast rationality can be tested by determining whether the forecasters' prediction errors are predictable. After addressing what data and methods can be used for testing rationality, the paper presents tests of the price-forecast rationality of individual professional forecasters. Unlike results of previous studies, the test results show that those forecasters' price predictions appear to be rational.
Code-switching and grammatical theory

In the last fifteen years, a large number of studies have appeared in which specific cases of intra-sentential code-switching were analysed from a grammatical perspective, involving a variety of language pairs, social settings and speaker types. It was found that code-switching is a quite normal and widespread form of bilingual interaction, requiring a great deal of bilingual competence. In individual cases, intra-sentential code-switching is not distributed randomly in the sentence, but rather it occurs at specific points. Where much less agreement was reached is with respect to general properties of the process. Various ‘constraints’ and ‘models’ regulating intra-sentential code-switching (the type most interesting from the grammatical perspective) have been proposed and tested, with the result that some cases appear to fall under one constraint, and others under another. This is by itself unsatisfactory. We do not know in any systematic way how different the models proposed are, neither intrinsically nor in their predictions. It should be mentioned at this point that many of the studies do not make the constraints or models very explicit, limiting themselves to descriptive statements. Therefore, an account is needed of the grammatical notions relevant to code-switching. These notions can then be used both to characterise specific instances of intra-sentential switching and to relate the various proposals in the literature to each other.
Mechanism of Inhibition by Arachidonic Acid of the Catalytic Activity of Ras GTPase-activating Proteins (*)

Ras is a guanine nucleotide-binding protein that acts as a molecular switch controlling cell growth. The Ras GTPase-activating proteins (GAPs) p120-GAP and neurofibromin are candidates as Ras effectors. The GTPase-activating activity of both proteins is inhibited by mitogenic lipids, such as arachidonic acid and phosphatidic acid, and differential inhibition of the two GAPs led to the hypothesis that both were effectors in a Ras-controlled mitogenic pathway (Bollag, G., and McCormick, F.(1991) Nature 351, 576-579). We have studied the mechanism of inhibition by arachidonic acid in three ways: first, by measurements of catalytic activity under multiple turnover conditions; second, using p-((6-phenyl)-1,3,5-hexatrienyl)benzoic acid as a fluorescent probe for ligands binding to GAPs; and third, by using a scintillation proximity assay to measure direct binding of Ras to neurofibromin. We found no significant differential inhibition between p120-GAP and neurofibromin by arachidonic acid. The inhibition by arachidonic acid included a major component that is competitive with Ras•GTP. These data suggest that insomuch as the mitogenic effects of lipids are mediated via inhibition of GAPs, GAPs are not Ras effector proteins. Additionally, lipids can exert a non-competitive type effect, consistent with a protein denaturing activity, making difficult extrapolations from in vitro data to the situation within cells, and possibly explaining the variability of literature data on inhibition by lipids.
High-Performance, Large-Volume THM CdZnTe Detectors for Medical Imaging and Homeland Security Applications

High-quality large single crystals of Cd0.9Zn0. 1Te (> 7 inch3) have been consistently produced by the THM (solution growth) method. Various large-volume X-ray and gamma-ray detector configurations fabricated from this THM CZT material have produced detectors with excellent performance. A room-temperature mean energy resolution of 4.3% for a Co-57 source (122 keV) and uniform pixel-to-pixel response have been demonstrated on monolithic 20times20times5 mm3 pixellated detectors useful for imaging applications. In addition, energy resolution of <1% FWHM @ Cs-137 (662 keV) has been measured on virtual Frisch-Grid 4times4times11 mm3 devices useful for homeland security applications. Additional characterization techniques such as mu-tau measurements, infrared microscopy, X-ray topography and ODLTS have demonstrated the superior quality of this THM CZT. The results of material characterization measurements and detector tests will be presented.
Less Lethal Force Policy and Police Officer Perceptions

The relationship between administrative policy and deadly force has been well established in the policing literature. Surprisingly, there has been no similarly oriented research with respect to less lethal force. The current inquiry seeks to start this process. Utilizing data collected from a national multiagency use of force project, we focus on those charged with the street-level application of organizational use of force policy. In doing so, patrol officers (N = 990) from three agencies, each varying in terms of policy direction, are surveyed regarding the extent to which they believe their agency policy offers appropriate forms of guidance and restrictiveness. The findings show a number of significant policy effects. In particular, officers working in a department that uses a loosely coupled nonlinear model are significantly less likely to believe their agency policy offers adequate guidance in terms of when force can and cannot be used. However, the findings also illustrate that officers do not want to be too tightly constrained within a linear policy model in relation to restrictiveness. Such findings suggest that agency leaders may wish to consider a linear-based design that offers some degree of policy guidance, but not so much that force options are overly restricted. The implications of these findings for police practitioners and researchers are considered.
Encoding the description of image sequences: A two-layered pipeline for loop closure detection

In this paper we propose a novel technique for detecting loop closures on a trajectory by matching sequences of images instead of single instances. We build upon well established techniques for creating a bag of visual words with a tree structure and we introduce a significant novelty by extending these notions to describe the visual information of entire regions using Visual-Word-Vectors. The fact that the proposed approach does not rely on a single image to recognize a site allows for a more robust place recognition, and consequently loop closure detection, while reduces the computational complexity for long trajectory cases. We present evaluation results for multiple publicly available indoor and outdoor datasets using Precision-Recall curves, which reveal that our method outperforms other state of the art algorithms.
French Architects and Engineers in the Age of Enlightenment

List of Figures Acknowledgements 1. General Remarks 2. The classical tradition 3. The impact of the Enlightenment on architecture 4. 'Towards a classical architecture' Jacques-Francois Blondel and the 'Cours d'architecture' 5. The engineers' 'system' 6. The principles of training and the economy of knowledge 7. Stability and construction 8. Pierre Patte and the concept of the rational town 9. A productive countryside 10. From the revolutionary 'Genius' to Neo-classicism Conclusion Appendix Biographical Notes.
Floating-point recurring rational arithmetic system

Major computer arithmetic systems are based on the concept of realizing only terminate rationals in positional notation. This paper proposes a new arithmetic scheme of indicating periodicity in the radix representation of a mantissa to realize recurring rationals as well as terminate rationals. A new arithmetic system adopting the scheme, called the “FLP/R* arithmetic system”, is proposed. Properties of the FLP/R* numbers and the procedure of the FLP/R* arithmetic are described.
An Automatic Treebank Conversion Algorithm for Corpus Sharing

An automatic treebank conversion method is proposed in this paper to convert a treebank into another treebank. A new treebank associated with a different grammar can be generated automatically from the old one such that the information in the original treebank can be transformed to the new one and be shared among different research communities. The simple algorithm achieves conversion accuracy of 96.4% when tested on 8,867 sentences between two major grammar revisions of a large MT system.
Three-Year Measured Weight Change in the African American Health Study

Objective: This study examines 3-year weight change in African Americans. Method: Nine hundred and ninety-eight participants 49 to 65 years old were assessed at baseline and 3 years later. Weight was measured, and weight change was defined as clinically meaningful increases or decreases (± 5 kg). Potential risk factors were investigated using multinomial logistic regression. Results: In-home measured weights were available for 752 participants (75%): 504 (67%) had stable weights, 131 (17%) gained more than 5 kg, and 117 (16%) lost more than 5 kg. Among all participants, the risks for weight gains were cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, lower income, and Medicaid status; the risks for weight losses were angina, cancer, high measured systolic blood pressure, asthma, and physical inactivity. Sex-stratified analyses reveal differences involving age, socioeconomic status, cancer, blood pressure, and lower body function. Discussion: Three-year weight changes in middle-aged African Americans were frequent and significantly associated with several risk factors.
An evaluation of psychological consultation to social workers

Although providing psychological consultation to the network around looked after children is a popular intervention within the practice literature, there is little evidence examining its value for social workers. This study utilised mixed methods, integrated through an explanatory sequential design, to explore the extent to which psychological consultation met social workers’ goals and in what way it made a difference. Feedback questionnaires were collated from 48 social workers attending such consultations. Two focus groups were then held with consulting clinicians to gain their perspectives on consultation and the feedback obtained. The survey data demonstrated that social workers wanted a broad range of input and support from consultation, which they reported was largely provided. This reinforced clinicians’ perspectives of consultation as a valuable service. Surprisingly, the survey data implied that consultation had a limited impact in terms of making a difference. This is discussed in relation to the methodology and challenges of gaining feedback. An improved model of evaluation is subsequently proposed.