Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Learning against sequential opponents in repeated stochastic games

This article considers multiagent algorithms that aim to ﬁnd the best response in strategic interactions by learning about the game and their opponents from observations. In contrast to many state-of-the-art algorithms that assume repeated interaction with a ﬁxed set of opponents (or even self-play ), a learner in the real world is more likely to encounter the same strategic situation with changing counter-parties. First, we present a formal model of such sequential interactions , in which subsets from the player population are drawn sequentially to play a repeated stochastic game with an unknown (small) number of repetitions. In this setting the agents observe their joint actions but not the opponent identity. Second, we propose a learning algorithm to act in these sequential interactions. Our algorithm explicitly models the different opponents and their switching frequency to obtain an acting policy. It combines the multiagent algorithm PEPPER for repeated stochastic games with Bayesian inference to compute a belief over the hypothesized opponent behaviors, which is updated during interaction. This enables the agent to select the appropriate opponent model and to compute an adequate response. Our results show an efﬁcient detection of the opponent based on its behavior, obtaining higher average rewards than a baseline (not modelling the opponents) in repeated stochastic games.
Oxygen Affects the Ability of Mouse Blastocysts to Regulate Ammonium1

ABSTRACT During embryo culture, ammonium is generated by amino acid metabolism and from the spontaneous deamination of amino acids at 37°C. Although ammonium has been shown to be embryo toxic, few studies have investigated the mechanism(s) by which the early embryo can regulate ammonium. Whilst 20% oxygen represents a source of stress to the developing embryo, it is not known how oxygen affects the physiology of the embryo in the presence of other sources of stress. The aim of this study was, therefore, to investigate possible pathways involved in ammonium sequestration in the preimplantation embryo and the effect of oxygen on the regulation of these pathways. Glutamine and alanine were investigated as possible ammonium sequestration pathways. Amino acid utilization by blastocysts was determined after culture from the postcompaction stage with 0, 150, or 300 μM ammonium (in either 5% or 20% oxygen) and with or without 500 μM L-methionine sulfoximine (MSO), an inhibitor of glutamine synthetase. In the presence of MSO, ammonium production was significantly increased and glutamate was no longer consumed. Glutamine synthetase inhibition with MSO significantly decreased glutamine formation. Ammonium and oxygen independently altered overall amino acid turnover. Together, 5% oxygen and ammonium promoted glutamine production, whereas in the presence of 20% oxygen and ammonium, glutamine was consumed. Data reveal that both oxygen and ammonium affect amino acid utilization by the developing embryo, however, 20% oxygen appears to have the greater impact. Mouse blastocysts can alleviate ammonium stress by its transamination to both glutamine and alanine, but only under physiological conditions.
Robust Compositional Polarity Classification

We describe a pattern-based system for polarity classification from texts. Our system is currently restricted to the positive, negative or neutral polarity of phrases and sentences. It analyses the input texts with the aid of a polarity lexicon that specifies the prior polarity of words. A chunker is used to determine phrases that are the basis for a compositional treatment of phrase-level polarity assignment. In our current experiments we focus on sentences that are targeted towards persons, be it the writer (I, my, me, .), the social group including the writer (we, our, .) or the reader (you, your, .). We evaluate our system on a manually annotated set of sentences taken from texts from a panel group called ’I battle depression’. We present the results of comparing our system’s performance over this gold standard against a baseline system.
Development of an Attitudes and Intentions Scale for Construction Skills Training Programs

Attrition is a major problem in construction skills training programs for young adults, with dropout rates ranging between 45% and 65%. Training resources could be used more efficiently if trainees' completion rates were increased. Understanding and measuring the psychological characteristics contributing to attrition allows training practitioners to implement interventions to reduce dropout. This article reports the development of an instrument designed to measure constructs that inform participants' performance and success within the construction training domain. Instrument reliability and validity as well as areas of further research are discussed.
Vertebral bending mechanics and xenarthrous morphology in the nine-banded armadillo (Dasypus novemcinctus)

ABSTRACT The vertebral column has evolved to accommodate the broad range of locomotor pressures found across vertebrate lineages. Xenarthran (armadillos, sloths and anteaters) vertebral columns are characterized by xenarthrous articulations, novel intervertebral articulations located in the posterior trunk that are hypothesized to stiffen the vertebral column to facilitate digging. To determine the degree to which xenarthrous articulations impact vertebral movement, we passively measured compliance and range of motion during ventroflexion, dorsiflexion and lateral bending across the thoracolumbar region of the nine-banded armadillo, Dasypus novemcinctus. Patterns of bending were compared with changes in vertebral morphology along the column to determine which morphological features best predict intervertebral joint mechanics. We found that compliance was lower in post-diaphragmatic, xenarthrous vertebrae relative to pre-xenarthrous vertebrae in both sagittal and lateral planes of bending. However, we also found that range of motion was higher in this region. These changes in mechanics are correlated with the transition from pre-xenarthrous to xenarthrous vertebrae, as well as with the transition from thoracic to lumbar vertebrae. Our results thus substantiate the hypothesis that xenarthrous articulations stiffen the vertebral column. Additionally, our data suggest that xenarthrous articulations, and their associated enlarged metapophyses, also act to increase the range of motion of the post-diaphragmatic region. We propose that xenarthrous articulations perform the dual role of stiffening the vertebral column and increasing mobility, resulting in passively stable vertebrae that are capable of substantial bending under appropriate loads. Summary: Xenarthrous articulations perform the dual role of stiffening the vertebral column and increasing mobility, resulting in passively stable vertebrae that are capable of substantial bending under appropriate load.
Evaluation of a domain-aware approach to user model interoperability

It is becoming increasingly important to facilitate the integrated management of user information. Exchanging user information across heterogeneous systems has many benefits, particularly in enhancing the quality and quantity of user information available for personalization. One common approach to user model interoperability is the use of mapping tools to manually build rich executable mappings between user models. A key problem with existing approaches is that the mapping tools are often too generic for these specialized tasks and do not provide any support to an administrator mapping in a specific domain such as user models. This paper presents a novel approach to user model interoperability which lowers the complexity and provides support to administrators in completing user model mappings. The domain-aware approach to user model interoperability incorporates interchangeable domain knowledge directly into the integration tools. This approach was implemented in a system called FUMES which is a mapping creation and execution environment that includes two domain-aware mechanisms; a canonical user model and user model mapping types. FUMES was deployed in an integration of existing user models and the domain-aware approach was then evaluated in a user study. The evaluation consisted of a direct comparison with a generic approach to user model interoperability which was applied using the commercial mapping tool, Altova Mapforce. The results of this evaluation demonstrate improvements in mapping accuracy and usability when using the domain-aware approach compared to the generic mapping approach.
Exotic group C*-algebras in noncommutative duality

We show that for a locally compact group G there is a one-to-one correspondence between G-invariant weak*-closed subspaces E of the Fourier-Stieltjes algebra B(G) containing B_r(G) and quotients C*_E(G) of C*(G) which are intermediate between C*(G) and the reduced group algebra C*_r(G). We show that the canonical comultiplication on C*(G) descends to a coaction or a comultiplication on C*_E(G) if and only if E is an ideal or subalgebra, respectively. When \alpha is an action of G on a C*-algebra B, we define "E-crossed products" B\rtimes_{\alpha,E} G lying between the full crossed product and the reduced one, and we conjecture that these "intermediate crossed products" satisfy an "exotic" version of crossed-product duality involving C*_E(G).
Performance Investigation of Single Path and Multi Path Routing Protocols in High Mobility MANETs

Mobile ad hoc networks are the collection of wireless nodes which communicate with each other without the support of centralized infrastructure. Due to frequent node mobility in high mobility MANETs, the network topology changes dynamically. Each node in MANET acts as host and router. A routing protocol is used to discover route between nodes. Robust routing protocol is needed to allow the nodes to communicate in high mobility MANETs. This paper investigates the performance of single path routing protocol AODV and multipath routing protocol AOMDV under different mobility conditions. Performance evaluation of these protocols showed that AOMDV protocol is more robust than AODV protocol due to its capability of finding and using alternate routes in case of a route failure in high mobility MANETs.
Parallel MCMC with generalized elliptical slice sampling

Probabilistic models are conceptually powerful tools for finding structure in data, but their practical effectiveness is often limited by our ability to perform inference in them. Exact inference is frequently intractable, so approximate inference is often performed using Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC). To achieve the best possible results from MCMC, we want to effciently simulate many steps of a rapidly mixing Markov chain which leaves the target distribution invariant. Of particular interest in this regard is how to take advantage of multi-core computing to speed up MCMC-based inference, both to improve mixing and to distribute the computational load. In this paper, we present a parallelizable Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm for effciently sampling from continuous probability distributions that can take advantage of hundreds of cores. This method shares information between parallel Markov chains to build a scale-location mixture of Gaussians approximation to the density function of the target distribution. We combine this approximation with a recently developed method known as elliptical slice sampling to create a Markov chain with no step-size parameters that can mix rapidly without requiring gradient or curvature computations.
Positive behavioural support and the UNCRPD

Positive behavioural support (PBS) is an evidenced-based therapeutic approach that places a person's behaviour within an ecological context and focuses on preventive strategies that address the behaviour through the use of environmental changes and skill teaching. PBS is also a values-based approach that is consistent with human rights as documented in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). This paper explores the relationship between PBS and the CRPD, and discusses some of the implications of CRPD on PBS practice.
A variable observation time method for testing delay faults

Test methodologies for delay faults usually observe output patterns at a single observation time, and the same observation time is used for all faults in the circuit under test. It is shown that use of a single observation time is not advantageous for testing delay faults, and the detection threshold can be dramatically improved by using a testing methodology that allows variable, fault-dependent, and output-dependent observation times. A 'waveform-type' simulation method is used for calculating detection thresholds for definitely detectable faults. Statistical distributions of delay fault detection thresholds are presented for ten benchmark circuits. <<ETX>>
Exploring a Large News Collection Using Visualization Tools

The overwhelming amount of news content published online every day has made it increasingly difficult to perform macro-level analysis of the news landscape. Visual exploration tools harness both computing power and human perception to assist in making sense of large data collections. In this paper, we employed three visualization tools to explore a dataset comprising one million articles published by news organizations and blogs. The visual analysis of the dataset revealed that 1) news and blog sources evaluate very differently the importance of similar events, granting them distinct amounts of coverage, 2) there are both dissimilarities and overlaps in the publication patterns of the two source types, and 3) the content’s direction and diversity behave differently over time.
Towards a theory of intelligence beyond g

Brain physiology and IQ gains over time both show that various cognitive skills, such as on-the-spot problem solving and arithmetic reasoning, are functionally independent, despite being bundled up in the correlational matrix called g. We need a theory of intelligence that treats the physiology and sociology of intelligence as having integrity equal to the psychology of individual differences.
Crossbar-Based Memristive Logic-in-Memory Architecture

The use of memristors and resistive random access memory (ReRAM) technology to perform logic computations, has drawn considerable attention from researchers in recent years. However, the topological aspects of the underlying ReRAM architecture and its organization have received less attention, as the focus has mainly been on device-specific properties for functionally complete logic gates through conditional switching in ReRAM circuits. A careful investigation and optimization of the target geometry is thus highly desirable for the implementation of logic-in-memory architectures. In this paper, we propose a crossbar-based in-memory parallel processing system in which, through the heterogeneity of the resistive cross-point devices, we achieve local information processing in a state-of-the-art ReRAM crossbar architecture with vertical group-accessed transistors as cross-point selector devices. We primarily focus on the array organization, information storage, and processing flow, while proposing a novel geometry for the cross-point selection lines to mitigate current sneak-paths during an arbitrary number of possible parallel logic computations. We prove the proper functioning and potential capabilities of the proposed architecture through SPICE-level circuit simulations of half-adder and sum-of-products logic functions. We compare certain features of the proposed logic-in-memory approach with another work of the literature, and present an analysis of circuit resources, integration density, and logic computation parallelism.
Exploring the Impact of Learning Objects in Middle School Mathematics and Science Classrooms: A Formative Analysis.

The current study offers a formative analysis of the impact of learning objects in middle school mathematics and science classrooms. Five reliable and valid measure of effectiveness were used to examine the impact of learning objects from the perspective of 262 students and 8 teachers (14 classrooms) in science or mathematics. The results indicate that teachers typically spend 1-2 hours finding and preparing for learning-object based lesson plans that focus on the review of previous concepts. Both teachers and students are positive about the learning benefits, quality, and engagement value of learning objects, although teachers are more positive than students. Student performance increased significantly, over 40%, when learning objects were used in conjunction with a variety of teaching strategies. It is reasonable to conclude that learning objects have potential as a teaching tool in a middle school environment. L’impacte des objets d’apprentissage dans les classes de mathematique et de sciences a l’ecole intermediaire : une analyse formative Resume : Cette etude presente une analyse formative de l’impacte des objets d’apprentissage dans les classes de mathematique et de sciences a l’ecole intermediaire. Cinq mesures de rendement fiables et valides ont ete exploitees pour examiner l’effet des objets d’apprentissage selon 262 eleves et 8 enseignants (414 classes) en science ou mathematiques. Les resultats indiquent que les enseignants passent typiquement 1-2 heures pour trouver des objets d’apprentissage et preparer les lecons associees qui seraient centrees sur la revue de concepts deja vus en classe. Quoique les enseignants aient repondu de facon plus positive que les eleves, les deux groupes ont repondu positivement quant aux avantages au niveau de l’apprentissage, a la qualite ainsi qu’a la valeur motivationnelle des objets d’apprentissage. Le rendement des eleves aurait aussi augmente de facon significative, plus de 40%, quand les objets d’apprentissage ont ete exploites avec une variete de strategies d’enseignement. Il serait donc raisonnable de conclure que les objets d’apprentissage ont un potentiel comme outils d’enseignement a l’ecole intermediaire.
Intestinal Cell Proliferation and Senescence Are Regulated by Receptor Guanylyl Cyclase C and p21*

Background: Receptor guanylyl cyclase C regulates ion secretion and cytostasis in intestinal epithelial cells. Results: Ligand-mediated activation of guanylyl cyclase C and subsequent elevation of cGMP increase levels of p21 via PKGII and p38 MAPK. Conclusion: Guanylyl cyclase C can induce intestinal epithelial cell cytostasis and senescence via p21. Significance: Intestinal neoplasia is controlled by cGMP and p21. Guanylyl cyclase C (GC-C) is expressed in intestinal epithelial cells and serves as the receptor for bacterial heat-stable enterotoxin (ST) peptides and the guanylin family of gastrointestinal hormones. Activation of GC-C elevates intracellular cGMP, which modulates intestinal fluid-ion homeostasis and differentiation of enterocytes along the crypt-villus axis. GC-C activity can regulate colonic cell proliferation by inducing cell cycle arrest, and mice lacking GC-C display increased cell proliferation in colonic crypts. Activation of GC-C by administration of ST to wild type, but not Gucy2c−/−, mice resulted in a reduction in carcinogen-induced aberrant crypt foci formation. In p53-deficient human colorectal carcinoma cells, ST led to a transcriptional up-regulation of p21, the cell cycle inhibitor, via activation of the cGMP-responsive kinase PKGII and p38 MAPK. Prolonged treatment of human colonic carcinoma cells with ST led to nuclear accumulation of p21, resulting in cellular senescence and reduced tumorigenic potential. Our results, therefore, identify downstream effectors for GC-C that contribute to regulating intestinal cell proliferation. Thus, genomic responses to a bacterial toxin can influence intestinal neoplasia and senescence.
Analysis of power efficiency of schedulers in LTE

In this work we analyse the behaviour of six different LTE scheduling algorithms, namely the round robin, best CQI, proportional fair, Max-Min, resource fair and the iterative hungarian schedulers. A downlink LTE network is simulated and the properties of the schedulers are analysed for a varying number of served users. These schedulers are studied from a throughput and fairness perspective through system level simulations. Furthermore the impact of each scheduler on the energy consumption is also computed with the aid of a flexible base station power model. The simulations show that the best CQI scheduler proves to deliver the highest data rate but lowest fairness while the Max-Min achieves exactly the opposite. The round robin delivers the worst overall performances while the other ones behave similarly in between. This work argues for the introduction of an energy consumption figure of merit for a fair and insightful comparison between specific scheduling algorithms.
Analysis of DNA Methylation Status in Bodily Fluids for Early Detection of Cancer

Epigenetic alterations by promoter DNA hypermethylation and gene silencing in cancer have been reported over the past few decades. DNA hypermethylation has great potential to serve as a screening marker, a prognostic marker, and a therapeutic surveillance marker in cancer clinics. Some bodily fluids, such as stool or urine, were obtainable without any invasion to the body. Thus, such bodily fluids were suitable samples for high throughput cancer surveillance. Analyzing the methylation status of bodily fluids around the cancer tissue may, additionally, lead to the early detection of cancer, because several genes in cancer tissues are reported to be cancer-specifically hypermethylated. Recently, several studies that analyzed the methylation status of DNA in bodily fluids were conducted, and some of the results have potential for future development and further clinical use. In fact, a stool DNA test was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the screening of colorectal cancer. Another promising methylation marker has been identified in various bodily fluids for several cancers. We reviewed studies that analyzed DNA methylation in bodily fluids as a less-invasive cancer screening.
A High-Resolution Magic Angle Spinning NMR Study of the Enantiodiscrimination of 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) by an Immobilized Polysaccharide-Based Chiral Phase

This paper reports the investigation of the chiral interaction between 3,4-methylenedioxy-methamphetamine (MDMA) enantiomers and an immobilized polysaccharide-based chiral phase. For that, suspended-state high-resolution magic angle spinning nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H HR-MAS NMR) was used. 1H HR-MAS longitudinal relaxation time and Saturation Transfer Difference (STD NMR) titration experiments were carried out yielding information at the molecular level of the transient diastereoisomeric complexes of MDMA enantiomers and the chiral stationary phase. The interaction of the enantiomers takes place through the aromatic moiety of MDMA and the aromatic group of the chiral selector by π-π stacking for both enantiomers; however, a stronger interaction was observed for the (R)-enantiomer, which is the second one to elute at the chromatographic conditions.