Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Unified Bayesian Model of Scripts, Frames and Language

We present the first probabilistic model to capture all levels of the Minsky Frame structure, with the goal of corpus-based induction of scenario definitions. Our model unifies prior efforts in discourse-level modeling with that of Fillmore's related notion of frame, as captured in sentence-level, FrameNet semantic parses; as part of this, we resurrect the coupling among Minsky's frames, Schank's scripts and Fillmore's frames, as originally laid out by those authors. Empirically, our approach yields improved scenario representations, reflected quantitatively in lower surprisal and more coherent latent scenarios.
Semantic Segmentation of Documentary Video using Music Breaks

Many documentary videos use background music to help structure the content and communicate the semantic. In this paper, we investigate semantic segmentation of documentary video using music breaks. We first define video semantic units based on the speech text that a video/audio contains, and then propose a three-step procedure for semantic video segmentation using music breaks. Since the music breaks of a documentary video are of different semantic levels, we also study how different speech/music segment lengths correlate with the semantic level of a music break. Our experimental results show that music breaks can effectively segment a continuous documentary video stream into semantic units with an average F-score of 0.91 and the lengths of combined segments (speech segment plus the music segment that follows) strongly correlate with the semantic levels of music breaks
HIGH DIMENSIONAL VARIABLE SELECTION.

This paper explores the following question: what kind of statistical guarantees can be given when doing variable selection in high dimensional models? In particular, we look at the error rates and power of some multi-stage regression methods. In the first stage we fit a set of candidate models. In the second stage we select one model by cross-validation. In the third stage we use hypothesis testing to eliminate some variables. We refer to the first two stages as "screening" and the last stage as "cleaning. " We consider three screening methods: the lasso, marginal regression, and forward stepwise regression. Our method gives consistent variable selection under certain conditions.
Serum Concentrations of Polychlorinated Biphenyls in Relation to in Vitro Fertilization Outcomes

Background: Human exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) remains widespread. PCBs have been associated with adverse reproductive health outcomes including reduced fecundability and increased risk of pregnancy loss, although the human data remain largely inconclusive. Objective: Our goal was to explore the relationship between serum PCB concentrations and early pregnancy loss among a large cohort of women undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF) between 1994 and 2003. Methods: Concentrations of 57 PCB congeners were measured in serum samples collected during 827 IVF/intracytoplasmic sperm injection cycles from 765 women. Joint statistical models that accommodate multiple outcomes and multiple cycles per woman were used to assess the relationship between serum PCB quartiles and implantation failure, chemical pregnancies (human chorionic gonadotropin level > 5.0 mIU/mL) that did not result in clinical pregnancy, or spontaneous abortion, while also adjusting for confounders. Results: PCB-153 was the congener present in the highest concentration (median, 46.2 ng/g lipid). Increasing quartiles of PCB-153 and the sum of all measured PCB congeners (ΣPCBs) were associated with significantly elevated dose-dependent odds of failed implantation. Adjusted odds ratios (95% confidence interval) for highest versus lowest quartile were 2.0 (1.2–3.4) for PCB-153 and 1.7 (1.0–2.9) for ΣPCBs. There were suggestive trends for increased odds of implantation failure for PCB-118 and cytochrome P450–inducing congeners (p-values for trend = 0.06). No statistically significant associations between PCBs and chemical pregnancy or spontaneous abortion were found. Conclusions: Serum PCB concentrations at levels similar to the U.S. general population were associated with failed implantation among women undergoing IVF. These findings may help explain previous reports of reduced fecundability among women exposed to PCBs.
Adaptive Sparseness Using Jeffreys Prior

In this paper we introduce a new sparseness inducing prior which does not involve any (hyper) parameters that need to be adjusted or estimated. Although other applications are possible, we focus here on supervised learning problems: regression and classification. Experiments with several publicly available benchmark data sets show that the proposed approach yields state-of-the-art performance. In particular, our method outperforms support vector machines and performs competitively with the best alternative techniques, both in terms of error rates and sparseness, although it involves no tuning or adjusting of sparseness-controlling hyper-parameters.
Community health advocacy to prevent social and health problems associated with gambling - a case study

Federal and state elections provide opportunity for health advocacy. Prior to the elections political parties reformulate their policies, many of which are relevant to public health. The adverse effects of gambling have been minimised in Western Australia (WA) compared to other states and territories in Australia due to strict policies that limit the availability of electronic gaming machines (EGMs). In the lead-up to the 2001 state election, aggressive lobbying of politicians was undertaken in an attempt to allow the expansion of poker machines to hotels and licensed clubs throughout the state. The proponents of this were representatives of the hoteliers and licensed clubs who claimed their continued economic viability was dependent on such a move. Opponents consisted of a coalition of community groups and professional associations. This paper is a summary of the approach taken by health advocates that ultimately contributed to written endorsement of the two main political parties to maintain the moratorium on the expansion of poker machines in WA. Focus of the paper is given to one approach involving direct contact with political candidates. This approach holds promise for effective advocacy for other public health issues.
Country Risk, Intertemporal Solvency and Debt Dynamics: Exploring the Latin American case

Latin American sovereign bonds have come to build up a significant share of the emerging debt class and so have considerably shaped the dynamics of this market. Recent financial turmoil, contagion episodes and investors’ renewed concerns over debt default in insolvent/illiquid economies, explain most of the increasing appeal of looking into the determinants of sovereign risk. Not only has this issue been relevant for the bond market itself but also to understand the nature of business cycles in open economies and their solvency implications. This paper aims at disentangling the country risk determinants of the four “big” Latin American players, namely Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico. Furthermore, as external public debt dynamics account for much of the spreads performance, which in turn bears upon bond markets access, some fresh evidence on the asymmetric experiences of countries such as Argentina and Mexico is provided. While earlier contributions were basically focused on a pooled data approach or regional/country-specific estimations rather targeted to uncover the effects of U.S. monetary policy over domestic interest rates or the incidence of currency risk in sovereign risk, a more comprehensive study is presented here. A more complete control-variable set, a larger span (1994-2000) across all the financial crisis episodes and a special emphasis on a comparative perspective are the distinctive features of the sovereign risk functions performed. On the other hand, Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) estimates provide a first-hand empirical analysis of the debt dynamics in Argentina, a country still experiencing financial woes, but also, for the sake of comparison, the more successful Mexican story is examined. The main findings suggest the importance of keeping fiscal and external solvency on track, the existence of significant spillover effects from contagion episodes as a binding constraint and, however, important scope for manoeuvre in terms of fundamentals health. Moreover, nonsustainable public sector deficits (increasing interest burden) plus insufficient economic growth and an excessive risk premia prove to trigger an explosive debt dynamics in the Argentine case, as opposed to the Mexican one.
Rauchen ist tödlich, Computerspiele machen aggressiv? : Allgemeine und theorienspezifische epistemologische Überzeugungen bei Studierenden unterschiedlicher Fachrichtungen

Zusammenfassung: Epistemologische Uberzeugungen sind padagogisch relevante subjektive Annahmen von Lehrern und Lernenden uber die Natur menschlichen Wissens und Wissenserwerbs. In mehreren Studien wiesen Studierende “harter” Studiengange weniger gunstige epistemologische Uberzeugungen auf als Studierende “weicher” Studiengange. Allerdings ist umstritten, inwieweit bislang verwendete Erhebungsinstrumente geeignet sind, solche Unterschiede zu messen. Bei einer Stichprobe von 108 Studierenden unterschiedlicher Fachrichtungen wurde deshalb neben bewahrten Fragebogenskalen ein neu entwickeltes Instrument zur Erfassung theorienspezifischer epistemologischer Uberzeugungen eingesetzt, bei dem Uberzeugungen uber Grenzen wissenschaftlicher Erkenntnis anhand von zehn konkreten wissenschaftlichen Theorien untersucht werden. Die Auswertung erfolgte mehrebenenanalytisch und erbrachte folgende Hauptbefunde. Erstens zeigte sich auf Theorienebene eine hohe Varianz in der Beurteilung der einzelnen Theorien. Zweitens wurden.
The Canadian Problem Gambling Index: Factor structure and associations with psychopathology in a nationally representative sample.

This study examined the factor structure of the Canadian Problem Gambling Index (CPGI), a measure used to assess severity of gambling behaviour in the general population. It subsequently looked at its associations with past-year psychopathology using a subsample (n = 742) of moderate-to-high-risk problem gamblers within the large, nationally representative Canadian Community Health Survey, Cycle 1.2 sample. An exploratory analysis found support for a unifactorial model of the CPGI. Positive associations between problem gambling and various past-year disorders and mental health behaviours were found, with the strongest association being for suicide attempts. These findings help to define the range of maladaptive behaviours associated with problem gambling and their mental health correlates in the Canadian population.
OrderMergeDedup: Efficient, Failure-Consistent Deduplication on Flash

Flash storage is commonplace on mobile devices, sensors, and cloud servers. I/O deduplication is beneficial for saving the storage space and reducing expensive Flash writes. This paper presents a new approach, called OrderMergeDedup, that deduplicates storage writes while realizing failure-consistency, efficiency, and persistence at the same time. We devise a soft updates-style metadata write ordering that maintains storage data consistency without consistency-induced additional I/O. We further explore opportunities of I/O delay and merging to reduce the metadata I/O writes. We evaluate our Linux device mapper-based implementation using several mobile and server workloads--package installation and update, BBench web browsing, vehicle counting, Hadoop, and Yahoo Cloud Serving Benchmark. Results show that OrderMergeDedup can realize 18-63% write reduction on workloads that exhibit 23- 73% write content duplication. It has significantly less metadata write overhead than alternative I/O shadowing-based deduplication. Our approach has a slight impact on the application latency and may even improve the performance due to reduced I/O load.
Forced, Not Voluntary, Exercise Improves Motor Function in Parkinson's Disease Patients

Background. Animal studies indicate forced exercise (FE) improves overall motor function in Parkinsonian rodents. Global improvements in motor function following voluntary exercise (VE) are not widely reported in human Parkinson's disease (PD) patients. Objective. The aim of this study was to compare the effects of VE and FE on PD symptoms, motor function, and bimanual dexterity. Methods. Ten patients with mild to moderate PD were randomly assigned to complete 8 weeks of FE or VE. With the assistance of a trainer, patients in the FE group pedaled at a rate 30% greater than their preferred voluntary rate, whereas patients in the VE group pedaled at their preferred rate. Aerobic intensity for both groups was identical, 60% to 80% of their individualized training heart rate. Results. Aerobic fitness improved for both groups. Following FE, Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) motor scores improved 35%, whereas patients completing VE did not exhibit any improvement. The control and coordination of grasping forces during the performance of a functional bimanual dexterity task improved significantly for patients in the FE group, whereas no changes in motor performance were observed following VE. Improvements in clinical measures of rigidity and bradykinesia and biomechanical measures of bimanual dexterity were maintained 4 weeks after FE cessation. Conclusions. Aerobic fitness can be improved in PD patients following both VE and FE interventions. However, only FE results in significant improvements in motor function and bimanual dexterity. Biomechanical data indicate that FE leads to a shift in motor control strategy, from feedback to a greater reliance on feedforward processes, which suggests FE may be altering central motor control processes.
mGluR5 Has a Critical Role in Inhibitory Learning

The mechanisms that contribute to the extinction of previously acquired memories are not well understood. These processes, often referred to as inhibitory learning, are thought to be parallel learning mechanisms that require a reacquisition of new information and suppression of previously acquired experiences in order to adapt to novel situations. Using newly generated metabotropic glutamate receptor 5 (mGluR5) knock-out mice, we investigated the role of mGluR5 in the acquisition and reversal of an associative conditioned task and a spatial reference task. We found that acquisition of fear conditioning is partially impaired in mice lacking mGluR5. More markedly, we found that extinction of both contextual and auditory fear was completely abolished in mGluR5 knock-out mice. In the Morris Water Maze test (MWM), mGluR5 knock-out mice exhibited mild deficits in the rate of acquisition of the regular water maze task, but again had significant deficits in the reversal task, despite overall spatial memory being intact. Together, these results demonstrate that mGluR5 is critical to the function of neural circuits that are required for inhibitory learning mechanisms, and suggest that targeting metabotropic receptors may be useful in treating psychiatric disorders in which aversive memories are inappropriately retained.
Giving Form to the Voices of Lay-Citizens : An Intelligent , Robotic , Civic Monument 1

In an increasingly digital society, it seems only apt that lay citizens be afforded interactive systems in civic, public spaces to give form to their thoughts and desires as a collective of individual voices. While civic monuments are largely static, petrified representations of the past, sponsored by institutions and political authorities, our Monumental-IT is an open-source, physical-digital (robotic) environment reconfigurable in real-time by lay citizens. We elaborate a process for generating and evaluating design alternatives for this large-scale, physical-intelligent artifact. As computation becomes ubiquitous in our everyday environments, the case of Monumental-IT serves as a guide for designing large-scale tangible artifacts for the public domain. Monumental-IT represents a promising future for the TEI community with respect to ubiquitous computing environments for public places, sentient, human-physicaldigital interaction, and “robots for citizens. ” Author
AMPA Receptor Regulation at the mRNA and Protein Level in Rat Primary Cortical Cultures

Ionotropic glutamate α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazole propionic acid (AMPA) receptors are the major mediators of fast synaptic neurotransmission. In this work, we used primary cortical cultures from rats as a model system to study AMPA receptor regulation during in vitro cell maturation and after synaptic activity modifications. The levels of AMPA receptor mRNA and protein, along with the alternative splicing and RNA editing of the AMPA receptor subunit (GluR1-4) mRNAs, were analyzed in immature (DIV5) and mature (DIV26) rat neuronal cultures. We observed an increase in the expression of all four AMPA receptor subunits during in vitro neuronal maturation. This finding might be due to the formation of new synapses between neurons during the development of a complex neuronal network. We also analyzed the effects of stimulation (KCl and glutamate) and inhibition (APV/TTX) on rat mature neuronal cultures (DIV26): stimulation with KCl led to an overall down-regulation of GluR1 and GluR3 AMPA receptor subunits and an up-regulation of the GluR2 subunit. Similarly, glutamate treatment induced a significant down-regulation of GluR1 together with an up-regulation of GluR2. In contrast, the chronic blockade of neuronal activity that resulted from APV/TTX treatment up-regulated GluR1 and GluR3 with a parallel down-regulation of GluR2 and GluR4. RNA editing at the R/G site increased during neuronal cell maturation for all AMPA receptors (from 8–39% at DIV5 to 28–67% at DIV26). Unexpectedly, all the treatments tested induced a marked reduction (ranging from −9% to −52%) of R/G editing levels in mature neurons, primarily for the mRNA flip variant. In summary, we showed that cultured rat cortical neurons are able to vary the stoichiometric ratios of the AMPA receptor subunits and to control post-transcriptional processes to adapt fast synaptic transmission under different environmental conditions.
KRAS Codon 12 and 13 Mutations in Relation to Disease-Free Survival in BRAF–Wild-Type Stage III Colon Cancers from an Adjuvant Chemotherapy Trial (N0147 Alliance)

Purpose: We examined the prognostic impact of specific KRAS mutations in patients with stage III colon adenocarcinoma receiving adjuvant FOLFOX alone or combined with cetuximab in a phase III trial (N0147). Analysis was restricted to BRAF–wild-type tumors, because BRAF mutation was associated with poor prognosis, and BRAF and KRAS mutations are mutually exclusive. Experimental Design: The seven most common KRAS mutations in codon 12 and codon 13 were examined in 2,478 BRAF–wild-type tumors. Because KRAS mutations in codon 12 (n = 779) or 13 (n = 220) were not predictive of adjuvant cetuximab benefit, study arms were pooled for analysis. Disease-free survival (DFS) was evaluated by HRs using Cox models. Results: KRAS mutations in codon 12 (multivariate HR, 1.52; 95% confidence interval, CI, 1.28–1.80; P < 0.0001) or codon 13 (multivariate HR, 1.36; 95% CI, 1.04–1.77; P = 0.0248) were significantly associated with shorter DFS compared with patients with wild-type KRAS/BRAF tumors, independent of covariates. KRAS codon 12 mutations were independently associated with proficient mismatch repair (P < 0.0001), proximal tumor site (P < 0.0001), low grade, age, and sex, whereas codon 13 mutations were associated with proximal site (P < 0.0001). Conclusion: KRAS mutations in either codon 12 or 13 are associated with inferior survival in patients with resected stage III colon cancer. These data highlight the importance of accurate molecular characterization and the significant role of KRAS mutations in both codons in the progression of this malignancy in the adjuvant setting. Clin Cancer Res; 20(11); 3033–43. ©2014 AACR.
System scenario based design of dynamic embedded systems

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Compliance improvement in periodontal maintenance

Objectives The aim of this study was to assess the influence of efforts applied to modify the patients' behavior towards periodontal maintenance. Material and Methods Patients were classified into three groups: Complete Compliance (participation in all visits), Irregular Compliance (irregular participation, one or more missing appointments), and Noncompliance (abandoned or never returned to the program). Complete compliers received usual procedures of the maintenance visit. The irregular compliers and non-compliers received usual procedures and strategies such as reminding next visit, informing patients on both periodontal disease and importance of maintenance, motivating the patient who showed an improvement in compliance. Thus, 137 patients were observed for 12 months. Results The degree of compliance has increased significantly during this period (p=0.001). No association was detected between age or gender and compliance degree. Conclusions The results have shown that the intervention applied had a favorable influence on the patients' compliance.
Physics of Particle Entrainment Under the Influence of an Impinging Jet

Abstract : In the laboratory we used an idealized rotorwash flow - an axisymmetric jet impinges normally on a packed bed of cohesionless particles - and measured the spatially varying flow field and entrainment flux under an axisymmetric jet over a range of jet exit velocities and bed materials. We found that the erosion of the bed is driven by turbulent surface shear stress, quantified by the turbulent kinetic energy of the flow. This observation differs from uniform flow parallel to the bed wherein the flux of particles being removed from the bed depends linearly on the average surface shear stress of the fluid imposed on the bed. We discuss the implications of these findings for applying a general model for capturing particle entrainment under impinging flows.