Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Learning Abduction Using Partial Observability

Juba recently proposed a formulation of learning abductive reasoning from examples, in which both the relative plausibility of various explanations, as well as which explanations are valid, are learned directly from data. The main shortcoming of this formulation of the task is that it assumes access to full-information (i.e., fully specified) examples; relatedly, it offers no role for declarative background knowledge, as such knowledge is rendered redundant in the abduction task by complete information. In this work we extend the formulation to utilize such partially specified examples, along with declarative background knowledge about the missing data. We show that it is possible to use implicitly learned rules together with the explicitly given declarative knowledge to support hypotheses in the course of abduction. We also show how to use knowledge in the form of graphical causal models to refine the proposed hypotheses. Finally, we observe that when a small explanation exists, it is possible to obtain a much-improved guarantee in the challenging exception-tolerant setting. Such small, human-understandable explanations are of particular interest for potential applications of the task.
Low complexity CPM receiver based on DVB-RCS2 standard

This letter addresses the exemplary performance reference for DVB-RCS2 system that was recently published as the next generation satellite VSAT standard that enables to utilize various application such AIS System and SCADA. This provides the information over trade-off rule between performance and complexity when CPM receiver based on DVB-RCS2 would be implemented at the practical point of view.
Optimization of 4D vessel‐selective arterial spin labeling angiography using balanced steady‐state free precession and vessel‐encoding

Vessel‐selective dynamic angiograms provide a wealth of useful information about the anatomical and functional status of arteries, including information about collateral flow and blood supply to lesions. Conventional x‐ray techniques are invasive and carry some risks to the patient, so non‐invasive alternatives are desirable. Previously, non‐contrast dynamic MRI angiograms based on arterial spin labeling (ASL) have been demonstrated using both spoiled gradient echo (SPGR) and balanced steady‐state free precession (bSSFP) readout modules, but no direct comparison has been made, and bSSFP optimization over a long readout period has not been fully explored. In this study bSSFP and SPGR are theoretically and experimentally compared for dynamic ASL angiography. Unlike SPGR, bSSFP was found to have a very low ASL signal attenuation rate, even when a relatively large flip angle and short repetition time were used, leading to a threefold improvement in the measured signal‐to‐noise ratio (SNR) efficiency compared with SPGR. For vessel‐selective applications, SNR efficiency can be further improved over single‐artery labeling methods by using a vessel‐encoded pseudo‐continuous ASL (VEPCASL) approach. The combination of a VEPCASL preparation with a time‐resolved bSSFP readout allowed the generation of four‐dimensional (4D; time‐resolved three‐dimensional, 3D) vessel‐selective cerebral angiograms in healthy volunteers with 59 ms temporal resolution. Good quality 4D angiograms were obtained in all subjects, providing comparable structural information to 3D time‐of‐flight images, as well as dynamic information and vessel selectivity, which was shown to be high. A rapid 1.5 min dynamic two‐dimensional version of the sequence yielded similar image features and would be suitable for a busy clinical protocol. Preliminary experiments with bSSFP that included the extracranial vessels showed signal loss in regions of poor magnetic field homogeneity. However, for intracranial vessel‐selective angiography, the proposed bSSFP VEPCASL sequence is highly SNR efficient and could provide useful information in a range of cerebrovascular diseases. © 2016 The Authors. NMR in Biomedicine published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Children and Unhealthy Food Consumption: An Application of the Theory of Normative Social Behavior

ABSTRACT Childhood obesity is a growing problem in the United States. This study used the theory of normative social behavior (TNSB) to better understand how social norms affect the eating behavior of children. Past studies have applied TNSB to adolescents, but not to younger children and not in the context of eating behavior. Participants were 166 children between the ages of 8 and 11 years. They completed questionnaires with TNSB measures (descriptive norms, injunctive norms, outcome expectations, peer communication, group identity, and ego involvement). Results showed that only injunctive norms served as a moderator of the relationship between descriptive norms and food consumption and intentions. Reasons for the lack of significant results, theoretical and practical implications, and directions for future research are explored further.
ENDORPHIN LEVELS IN OPIOID‐DEPENDENT HUMAN SUBJECTS: A LONGITUDINAL STUDY *

Endorphin levels were measured in 51 cerebrospinal fluid samples from 27 opioid-dependent or postdependent subjects. Radioreceptor assay showed the endorphin levels to be higher than those found in normal subjects. These high levels were found even while subjects were on methadone maintenance. The duration of opioid dependence was positively correlated with fraction I values. Both fractions tended to be lower during early withdrawal than late withdrawal. In naltrexone-maintained patients, radioreceptor assay showed FII to be greatly elevated, but electrophoresis and HPLC indicated that the elevations were not due to a peptide. Thus, the possibility of unextracted naltrexone metabolites remains at least a partial explanation for this apparent FII elevation.
Assessment of sputum smear-positive but culture-negative results among newly diagnosed pulmonary tuberculosis patients in Tanzania

Diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) in technology-limited countries is widely achieved by smear microscopy, which has limited sensitivity and specificity. The frequency and clinical implication of smear-positive but culture-negative among presumptive TB patients remains unclear. A cross-sectional substudy was conducted which aimed to identify the proportion of nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) infections among 94 “smear-positive culture-negative” patients diagnosed between January 2013 and June 2016 in selected health facilities in Tanzania. Out of 94 sputa, 25 (26.60%) were GeneXpert® mycobacteria TB positive and 11/94 (11.70%) repeat-culture positive; 5 were Capilia TB-Neo positive and confirmed by GenoType MTBC to be Mycobacterium tuberculosis/Mycobacterium canettii. The remaining 6 Capilia TB-Neo negative samples were genotyped by GenoType® CM/AS, identifying 3 (3.19%) NTM, 2 Gram positive bacteria, and 1 isolate testing negative, together, making a total of 6/94 (6.38%) confirmed false smear-positives. Twenty-eight (29.79%) were confirmed TB cases, while 60 (63.83%) remained unconfirmed cases. Out of 6 (6.38%) patients who were HIV positive, 2 patients were possibly coinfected with mycobacteria. The isolation of NTM and other bacteria among smear-positive culture-negative samples and the presence of over two third of unconfirmed TB cases emphasize the need of both advanced differential TB diagnostic techniques and good clinical laboratory practices to avoid unnecessary administration of anti-TB drugs.
Air‐filled postcranial bones in theropod dinosaurs: physiological implications and the ‘reptile’–bird transition

Pneumatic (air‐filled) postcranial bones are unique to birds among extant tetrapods. Unambiguous skeletal correlates of postcranial pneumaticity first appeared in the Late Triassic (approximately 210 million years ago), when they evolved independently in several groups of bird‐line archosaurs (ornithodirans). These include the theropod dinosaurs (of which birds are extant representatives), the pterosaurs, and sauropodomorph dinosaurs. Postulated functions of skeletal pneumatisation include weight reduction in large‐bodied or flying taxa, and density reduction resulting in energetic savings during foraging and locomotion. However, the influence of these hypotheses on the early evolution of pneumaticity has not been studied in detail previously. We review recent work on the significance of pneumaticity for understanding the biology of extinct ornithodirans, and present detailed new data on the proportion of the skeleton that was pneumatised in 131 non‐avian theropods and Archaeopteryx. This includes all taxa known from significant postcranial remains. Pneumaticity of the cervical and anterior dorsal vertebrae occurred early in theropod evolution. This ‘common pattern’ was conserved on the line leading to birds, and is likely present in Archaeopteryx. Increases in skeletal pneumaticity occurred independently in as many as 12 lineages, highlighting a remarkably high number of parallel acquisitions of a bird‐like feature among non‐avian theropods. Using a quantitative comparative framework, we show that evolutionary increases in skeletal pneumaticity are significantly concentrated in lineages with large body size, suggesting that mass reduction in response to gravitational constraints at large body sizes influenced the early evolution of pneumaticity. However, the body size threshold for extensive pneumatisation is lower in theropod lineages more closely related to birds (maniraptorans). Thus, relaxation of the relationship between body size and pneumatisation preceded the origin of birds and cannot be explained as an adaptation for flight. We hypothesise that skeletal density modulation in small, non‐volant, maniraptorans resulted in energetic savings as part of a multi‐system response to increased metabolic demands. Acquisition of extensive postcranial pneumaticity in small‐bodied maniraptorans may indicate avian‐like high‐performance endothermy.
Differential effects of current specific treatments on behavioral and psychological symptoms in patients with Alzheimer's disease: a 12-month, randomized, open-label trial.

BACKGROUND Behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD) occur in up to 80% of Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients and represent one of the most common reasons for early institutionalization and increase in management costs. OBJECTIVES This study evaluated the effects of four drugs (memantine, donepezil, rivastigmine, galantamine) in BPSD in AD patients. METHODS This was a prospective, longitudinal, randomized, open-label, 4-arm, parallel-group, 12-month clinical trial carried out in 177 AD patients. The severity of BPSD was evaluated at baseline and after treatment with memantine (n = 48), donepezil (n = 42), rivastigmine (n = 46), and galantamine (n = 41), by using the Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI) and the Behavioural Pathology in Alzheimer's Disease (BEHAVE-AD) scales. RESULTS The NPI and BEHAVE-AD total scores improved from baseline to month 12 in all groups. The improvements in both scales were statistically significant in the memantine, donepezil, and rivastigmine groups, but not in the galantamine group. Responder analyses showed that treatment with memantine and rivastigmine resulted in more patients improving on NPI and BEHAVE-AD score, respectively. Agitation/aggression was the NPI item with the highest improvements (significantly versus baseline in the memantine and in the rivastigmine groups), while aggression and anxiety/phobias were the mostly improved BEHAVE-AD items (significantly in the rivastigmine group for both and in the rivastigmine group only for anxiety/phobias). All treatments were well tolerated: most of adverse events reported were transient and of mild-to-moderate intensity. CONCLUSIONS This study suggests that specific drugs for AD, especially memantine and rivastigmine, may be effective in the improvement of BPSD in patients with mild to moderate AD, without major side effects.
Immigration and the transnational European centre-right: a common programmatic response?

Abstract As aspects of immigration policy are brought into the competence of the EU, the role of transnational parties in co-ordinating policy choices across national boundaries grows in importance. Yet immigration is often seen as a cross-cutting issue and transnational parties have limited capacity to enforce programmatic uniformity across national member parties. We explore both of these issues by mapping the stances of transnational and national party manifestos on immigration policy at EP elections. We argue that ideology does structure party positions on immigration but that separating immigration control from migrant integration is essential to understanding partisan differences. While Christian Democrat and Conservative parties do not differ significantly from their Socialist equivalents on control issues, Liberal parties are less restrictionist. On integration, both Christian Democrats/Conservatives and Liberals are less multicultural than Socialist and Green parties.
Is there really a turnout paradox?

This paper challenges the notion that voting games with purely instrumental players cannot account for high turnout (the ‘turnout paradox’). Although it has been known for over 25 years that such games can generate high-turnout equilibria, the said equilibria have been rejected on the grounds that they are fragile. This paper shows that this claim is incorrect because it is based on a computation of pivot probabilities that is not consistent with equilibrium analysis. Once the relevant computations are corrected, it becomes possible to obtain upper bounds on the cost of voting compatible with high-turnout equilibria showing that these equilibria are indeed quite robust. This paper concludes by extending the model to include continuous outcome functions, showing that while they preserve the high-turnout equilibria obtained before, they allow for better characterizations of the results.
Estrogen negatively regulates epithelial wound healing and protective lipid mediator circuits in the cornea

Estrogen receptors (ERs) are expressed in leukocytes and in every ocular tissue. However, sex‐specific differences and the role of estradiol in ocular inflammatory‐reparative responses are not well understood. We found that female mice exhibited delayed corneal epithelial wound closure and attenuated polymorphonuclear (PMN) leukocyte responses, a phenotype recapitulated by estradiol treatment both in vivo (topically in male mice) and in vitro (corneal epithelial cell wound healing). The cornea expresses 15‐lipoxygenase (15‐LOX) and receptors for lipoxinA4 (LXA4), which have been implicated in an intrinsic lipid circuit that regulates corneal inflammation and wound healing. Delayed epithelial wound healing correlated with lower expression of 15‐LOX in the regenerated epithelium of female mice. Estradiol in vitro and in vivo down‐regulated epithelial 15‐LOX expression and LXA4 formation, while estradiol abrogation of epithelial wound healing was completely reversed by treatment with LXA4. More important, ERβ and ERα selectively regulated epithelial wound healing, PMN cell recruitment, and activity of the intrinsic 15‐LOX/LXA4 circuit. Our results demonstrate for the first time a sex‐specific difference in the corneal reparative response, which is mediated by ERβ and ERα selective regulation of the epithelial and PMN 15‐LOX/LXA4 circuit. These findings may provide novel insights into the etiology of sex‐specific ocular inflammatory diseases. —Wang, S. B. , Hu, K. M. , Seamon, K.J., Mani, V. , Chen, Y. , Gronert, K. Estrogen negatively regulates epithelial wound healing and protective lipid mediator circuits in the cornea. FASEB J. 26, 1506‐1516 (2012). www.fasebj. org
Power mapping with dynamical adjustment for improved portfolio optimization

For financial risk management it is of vital interest to have good estimates for the correlations between the stocks. It has been found that the correlations obtained from historical data are covered by a considerable amount of noise, which leads to a substantial error in the estimation of the portfolio risk. A method to suppress this noise is power mapping. It raises the absolute value of each matrix element to a power q while preserving the sign. In this paper we use the Markowitz portfolio optimization as a criterion for the optimal value of q and find a K/T dependence, where K is the portfolio size and T the length of the time series. Both in numerical simulations and for real market data we find that power mapping leads to portfolios with considerably reduced risk. It compares well with another noise reduction method based on spectral filtering. A combination of both methods yields the best results.
A method for generating and displaying a free view 3D image

Recently, it is necessary to show the sight of a remote place as a picture. The shown picture is expected for large field of view and stereoscopic vision to be possible. As the conventional technique, there were method which use two or more cameras to take pictures, and anther method which use several pictures to generate the middle viewpoint. However the former, it tends to become an expensive and complicated system, and the latter, there is a problem that information is missing with occlusion. We proposed a system which used one camera and a spin mirror to generate the free viewpoint 3D image. However, the range to generate is restricted in case a free viewpoint image is generated by the conventional method. In this paper, the new algorithm which generates the 3D image of a free viewpoint is proposed. The wide range free viewpoint 3D image was generated using the proposing method, and the verification experiment was done. The availability of the proposing method was confirmed from the result.
The Cost of Maternal Cocaine Abuse: I. Perinatal Cost

Although the clinical impact of maternal cocaine abuse has been well documented in recent years, there have been no reports on the direct and indirect costs of such abuse. This study compares hospital charges of a cocaine-abusing population with those of a control group. Ninety-one mother-infant pairs testing positive for cocaine at delivery were compared with a screened drug-free control population matched for socioeconomic status, age, and parity. When compared with controls, cocaine-positive mothers were more likely to deliver prematurely (37 versus 2%) and to have low birth weight (2613 versus 3340 g) or growth-retarded infants (12 versus 0%) with Apgar scores less than 7 at 5 minutes (8 versus 1%), signs of cocaine exposure (63 versus 0%), neonatal intensive care use (30 versus 3%), and extensive hospitalization (11 versus 3 days). As expected, there was a substantial cost difference between the study and control groups. Hospital charges for the labor, delivery, and postpartum care of cocaine-positive mothers in the study group averaged $3608, whereas maternal control charges averaged $3147 (P < .05). Neonatal charges from the cocaine-positive study group averaged $13,222, whereas control charges averaged only $1297 (P < .03). Most of the statistically significant differences in perinatal cost between the cocaine-positive and control populations can be traced to the association between cocaine abuse and premature birth. This information should benefit institutions and organizations trying to assess cost-benefit aspects of programs for prevention and treatment of cocaine abuse during pregnancy.
Delay-Dependent Stability Analysis for Large-Scale Multiple-Bottleneck Systems Using Singular Perturbation Approach

AIMD/RED (additive increase and multiplicative decrease/random early detection) systems with multiple- bottleneck links are becoming more and more common in the vast-scale Internet. In this paper, we develop a mathematical model of AIMD/RED systems with multiple bottlenecks and feedback delays, which can be brought into the frame of singularly perturbed systems. Stability properties of multiple- bottleneck systems are studied by applying the techniques for singularly perturbed systems. Delay-dependent LMI (Linear Matrix Inequalities) criteria for the stability of singularly perturbed AIMD/RED systems with multiple bottlenecks are obtained, and the existence of the sufficiently small parameters that guarantee the asymptotic stability of the system considered above is also demonstrated. Numerical results with Matlab and simulation results with NS-2 are given to validate the analytical results.
The effect of human resource management practices on the job retention of former welfare clients

Why should an employer hire a former welfare client? What human resource management practices can help employers retain former welfare clients? This study addresses these questions against the backdrop of changes in welfare legislation in the United States that have lessened support to welfare clients and their families and emphasized movement into the workplace. We conducted a large-scale empirical study of the effectiveness of a wide range of HRM practices and found that higher wages, better financial and health benefits, and development opportunities were positively associated with job retention. Unexpectedly, supervisory training had no relationship to retention, and appraising supervisors on providing a supportive and inclusive work environment showed a negative relationship. We provide suggestions to employers for improving the job retention of former welfare recipients along with directions for additional research. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Autonomous Vehicle Path Planning with Remote Sensing Data

Long range path planning for an autonomous ground vehicle with minimal a-priori data is still very much an open problem. Previous research has demonstrated that least cost paths generated from aerial LIDAR and GIS data could play a role in automatically determining suitable routes over otherwise unknown terrain. However, most of this research has been theoretical. Consequently, there is very little literature dealing with the effectiveness of these techniques in plotting paths for an actual autonomous vehicle. This research aims to develop an algorithm for using aerial LIDAR and imagery to plan paths for a full size autonomous car. Methods of identifying obstacles and potential roadways from the aerial LIDAR and imagery are reviewed. A scheme for integrating the path planning algorithms into the autonomous vehicle’s existing systems was developed and eight paths were generated and driven by the autonomous vehicle. The paths were then analyzed for their drivability and the model itself was validated against the vehicle measurements of slope and position. The methods described were found to be suitable for generating paths both on and off road.
Flavonoids from Boldoa purpurascens inhibit proinflammatory cytokines (TNF‐α and IL‐6) and the expression of COX‐2

The flavonoids comprise a large class of plant metabolites distributed in food plants. These compounds have antioxidant, antitumor, antiallergic, and anti‐inflammatory effects. The molecular mechanisms of their biological activities remain to be clearly understood. We investigated the in vitro anti‐inflammatory potential of a flavonoid mixture and isolated compounds from the leaves of Boldoa purpurascens. Our results provide direct evidence of the anti‐inflammatory effects of the mixture, which are mediated by the inhibition of the proinflammatory cytokines tumor necrosis factor α and interleukin 6 as well as the modulation of the expression of cyclooxygenase 2.