Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Abstraction of agent interaction processes: Towards large-scale multi-agent models

The typically large numbers of interactions in agent-based simulations come at considerable computational costs. In this article, we present an approach to reduce the number of interactions based on behavioural patterns that recur during runtime. We employ machine learning techniques to abstract the behaviour of groups of agents to cut down computational complexity while preserving the inherent flexibility of agent-based models. The learned abstractions, which subsume the underlying model agents’ interactions, are constantly tested for their validity: after all, the dynamics of a system may change over time to such an extent that previously learned patterns would not reoccur. An invalid abstraction is, therefore, removed again from the system. The creation and removal of abstractions continues throughout the course of a simulation in order to ensure an adequate adaptation to the system dynamics. Experimental results on biological agent-based simulations show that our proposed approach can successfully reduce the computational complexity during the simulation while maintaining the freedom of arbitrary interactions.
Latent Bioactive Peptides in Milk Proteins: Proteolytic Activation and Significance in Dairy Processing

Referee: Mr. Dick Fitzgerald, Ph.D., Life Science Department, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland After a brief description of the properties of bioactive peptides, the proteolytic activation of the bioactive sequences from milk protein precursors is discussed. The ability of proteolytic enzymes from various sources, especially from lactic acid bacteria, to release bioactive peptides and the physiological and biotechnological significance of these peptides in dairy products are reviewed.
Applying Community Detection Methods to Cluster Tags in Multimedia Search Results

Multimedia searches often return items that can be categorized into several "topics", allowing users to disambiguate and explore answers more efficiently. In this paper we investigate methods for clustering tags associated with multimedia search results, where each resulting cluster represents a topic computed online for that particular search. We specifically investigate the applicability of community detection algorithms to the tag graph induced from the search results. This type of approach allows us to exploit tag similarity and create ad-hoc topics for each search, without specify the number and sizes of clusters a priori. In this work we experiment with well-known algorithms in this field and propose two new methods based on adaptive island cuts. Using the Social20 dataset (a collection gathered from Flickr) we evaluate several community detection methods, with quantitative analysis of each algorithm in terms of the relative number of communities (which we interpret as topics) that they produce and their sizes, as well as qualitative analysis of topics per human judgement. Our evaluation shows that it is possible to extract ad-hoc topics for search results using community detection, but that different community detection methods produce very different results. In particular, our proposed methods produce more compact and less noisy clusters as well as less relative recall when compared to methods that produce much larger clusters.
Cochlear Implants Special Issue Article: Vocal Emotion Recognition by Normal-Hearing Listeners and Cochlear Implant Users

The present study investigated the ability of normal-hearing listeners and cochlear implant users to recognize vocal emotions. Sentences were produced by 1 male and 1 female talker according to 5 target emotions: angry, anxious, happy, sad, and neutral. Overall amplitude differences between the stimuli were either preserved or normalized. In experiment 1, vocal emotion recognition was measured in normal-hearing and cochlear implant listeners; cochlear implant subjects were tested using their clinically assigned processors. When overall amplitude cues were preserved, normal-hearing listeners achieved near-perfect performance, whereas listeners with cochlear implant recognized less than half of the target emotions. Removing the overall amplitude cues significantly worsened mean normal-hearing and cochlear implant performance. In experiment 2, vocal emotion recognition was measured in listeners with cochlear implant as a function of the number of channels (from 1 to 8) and envelope filter cutoff frequency (50 vs 400 Hz) in experimental speech processors. In experiment 3, vocal emotion recognition was measured in normal-hearing listeners as a function of the number of channels (from 1 to 16) and envelope filter cutoff frequency (50 vs 500 Hz) in acoustic cochlear implant simulations. Results from experiments 2 and 3 showed that both cochlear implant and normal-hearing performance significantly improved as the number of channels or the envelope filter cutoff frequency was increased. The results suggest that spectral, temporal, and overall amplitude cues each contribute to vocal emotion recognition. The poorer cochlear implant performance is most likely attributable to the lack of salient pitch cues and the limited functional spectral resolution.
The utilization of protein as a source of energy in fattening sheep

Many of the diets given to ruminants contain more protein than is required to meet the protein needs of maintenance and growth. Thus cattle fattening on very highquality pasture receive on occasions nearly five times as much protein as they need as a source of amino acids. I n winter, larger amounts of nitrogen are usually given than minimal requirements dictate because the appetite for diets low but adequate in N content is usually poor. Rations containing an excess of N are more readily eaten. The value to be placed on protein as a source of energy for productive purposes is thus of importance in any assessment of the nutritive value of diets. The calorimetric experiments of Kellner & Kohler (1905) with steers and of Heim (1956) with sheep, showed that when protein supplements were given they were digested to the extent of 86 and 93%, and that for every IOO kcal of protein energy given in addition to a maintenance ration 33 and 35 kcal were retained in the body by cattle and sheep respectively. Similar experiments with pigs by Fingerling, Kohler & Reinhardt (1912-13) and with rats by Kriss, Forbes & Miller (1934) showed protein supplements to be better digested by these simple-stomached species than by ruminants and that pigs and rats retained respectively 57 and 5 5 kcal energy/Ioo kcal protein energy given. The net availability of the metabolizable energy of protein in the two sets of experiments was 46 and 48 yo with cattle and sheep respectively and 7 4 and 69 % with pigs and rats respectively. Ruminant animals thus produce about 60% more heat than do non-ruminants when the metabolizable energy of protein is used to synthesize fat. The experiments reported here, which have already been briefly summarized (Martin & Blaxter, 1961) were undertaken to find whether the low utilization of protein by ruminants for fat synthesis is contingent upon its fermentation in the rumen or whether it reflects some difference in the way ruminants obtain free energy from the dissimilation of protein when they are compared with species with simple stomachs.
Effects of a tailored lifestyle self-management intervention in patients with type 2 diabetes.

OBJECTIVES The aim of the present study was to develop, implement and evaluate a brief intervention to improve adherence to the recommended lifestyle changes for patients with Type 2 diabetes, in particular to help patients to reduce the total amount of fat consumed and to increase lifestyle physical activity levels. DESIGN AND METHOD A brief, tailored lifestyle self-management intervention for patients with Type 2 diabetes was evaluated in a randomized controlled trial. One hundred participants (aged 40 - 70 yrs) completed assessments at three time points- baseline, three months and one year. Participants were allocated to either an intervention group who received the brief tailored intervention including follow-up telephone calls, or a usual care control group. RESULTS Results indicate that the intervention was successful in helping patients to reduce fat intake and, to a lesser extent, increase lifestyle physical activity levels. These self-reported changes in behaviour were reflected in the objective data with weight maintenance in the intervention group compared to the control group, together with a significant reduction (2 cm) in waist circumference. CONCLUSIONS These results provide further evidence of the effectiveness of tailored interventions for lifestyle change.
Epidemiology of infection in critically ill patients with acute renal failure

Objectives: Critically ill patients with infection are at increased risk for developing acute renal failure (ARF), and ARF is associated with an increased risk for infection. Both conditions are associated with prolonged length of stay (LOS) and worse outcome; however, little data exist on the epidemiology of infection in this specific cohort. Therefore, we investigated the occurrence of infection in a cohort of critically ill patients with ARF treated with renal replacement therapy (RRT). In addition, we assessed whether this infection worsened outcome. Design: Retrospective cohort study. Setting: General intensive care unit (ICU) in an academic tertiary care center comprising a 22-bed surgical ICU, eight-bed cardiac surgery ICU, 14-bed medical ICU, and six-bed burn center. Patients: Six hundred forty-seven consecutive critically ill patients with ARF treated with RRT, admitted between 2000 and 2004. Interventions: None. Measurements and Main Results: total of 519 (80.2%), 193 (29.8%), 66 (10.2%), and ten (1.5%) patients developed one, two, three, and four episodes of infection, respectively. Of 788 episodes of infection observed, 364 (46.2%) occurred before, 318 (40.3%) during, and 106 (13.4%) after discontinuation of RRT. Pneumonia (54.3%) was most frequent, followed by intra-abdominal (11.9%) and urinary tract infections (9.7%). Infections were caused by Gram-negative organisms in 33.7%, Gram-positive organisms in 21.6%, and yeasts in 9.8%. Patients with infection had higher mortality (p = 0.04) and longer ICU and hospital LOS. They needed more vasoactive therapy and spent more time on mechanical ventilation and RRT (all p < 0.001) than patients without infection. After adjustment for potential confounders, Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II score, age, mechanical ventilation, and vasoactive therapy were associated with worse outcome, but infection was not. Conclusions: Infection occurred in four fifths of critically ill patients with ARF treated with RRT and was in an unadjusted analysis associated with longer LOS and higher mortality. After correction for other covariates, infection was no longer associated with in-hospital mortality.
Measuring outcomes in outpatient child psychiatry: Reliable improvement, deterioration, and clinically significant improvement

Given the increasing interest in demonstrating effectiveness in psychiatric treatment, the current paper seeks to advance outcome measurement in child psychiatry by demonstrating how more informative analytic strategies can be used to evaluate treatment in a real world setting using a brief, standardized parent-report measure. Questionnaires were obtained at intake for 1294 patients. Of these, 695 patients entered treatment and 531 (74%) had complete forms at intake and follow-up. Using this sample, we analyzed the data to determine effect sizes, rates of reliable improvement and deterioration, and rates of clinically significant improvement. Findings highlighted the utility of these approaches for evaluating treatment outcomes. Further suggestions for improving outcome measurement and evaluation are provided.
A Chain Structure of Switched Capacitor for Improved Cell Balancing Speed of Lithium-Ion Batteries

Among various active cell balancing circuits, a switched capacitor circuit is promising because it can be implemented with low cost and small size. However, when the switched capacitor is applied in the lithium-ion battery, cell balancing speed is generally slow when the number of batteries is high. Therefore, this paper proposes the chain structure of the switched capacitor to increase balancing speed, particularly among outer cells. In this paper, the cell balancing principle of the conventional switched capacitor is explained, and the reason why slow cell balancing of the switched capacitor is shown in the lithium-ion battery is analyzed. To improve cell balancing speed, two circuits with chain structure are proposed. The balancing performance of the proposed circuits is confirmed by computer simulation, and a comparison between conventional and proposed circuits is presented. The theoretical analysis on the cell balancing speed of conventional structures and the proposed chain structure is also shown in this paper. Experimental tests were carried out to verify the validity of the proposed structures, and the experimental results show an improved balancing performance of the proposed circuit.
AN ALGORITHM FOR DIGITAL WATERMARKING OF STILL IMAGES FOR COPYRIGHT PROTECTION

The rapid expansion of the Internet has rapidly increased the availability of digital data such as audio, images and videos to the public and file sharing has become very convenient. As such, the problem of protecting multimedia information, the issues of copyright has gained interest of researchers. Owners are concerned about protecting any illegal duplication of their data or work. Protection of intellectual property is very important because digital multimedia content can be copied and distributed quickly, easily, inexpensively, and with high quality and precision. Watermarking has been accepted as a complementary technology to multimedia encryption, providing some additional level of protection of intellectual property rights. Here we present, an overview of digital watermarking and the range of applications that could benefit from applying digital watermarking technology. We propose a simple algorithm for watermarking of an image where it is implemented through Matlab 7.4. The algorithm enables the basic requirements of watermarking and there is future scope to incorporate additional security and robust natures.
On using JSON-LD to create evolvable RESTful services

As the amount of data and devices on the Web experiences exponential growth issues on how to integrate such hugely heterogeneous components into a scalable system become increasingly important. REST has proven to be a viable solution for such large-scale information systems. It provides a set of architectural constraints that, when applied as a whole, result in benefits in terms of loose coupling, maintainability, evolvability, and scalability. Unfortunately, some of REST's constraints such as the ones that demand self-descriptive messages or require the use of hypermedia as the engine of application state are rarely implemented correctly. This results in tightly coupled and thus brittle systems. To solve these and other issues, we present JSON-LD, a community effort to standardize a media type targeted to machine-to-machine communication with inherent hypermedia support and rich semantics. Since JSON-LD is 100% compatible with traditional JSON, developers can continue to use their existing tools and libraries. As we show in the paper, JSON-LD can be used to build truly RESTful services that, at the same time, integrate the exposed data into the Semantic Web. The required additional design costs are significantly outweighed by the achievable benefits in terms of loose coupling, evolvability, scalability, self-descriptiveness, and maintainability.
Post-privatisation Corporate Governance, Corporate Entrepreneurship and Firm Performance in Privatised Firms in a Transitioning Economy 1. Basic Information: Privatisation Happening throughout Eastern Europe and Far East Asia in Recent Decades Has Led to Radical

A growing number of studies have examined the relationship between corporate governance and corporate entrepreneurship, with most finding that corporate governance has a significant influence (Zahra, 1996, Zahra et al., 2000b). However, the question of which ownership structure and governance mechanism most significantly drives corporate entrepreneurship in transitioning economies is still underexplored (Phan et al., 2009) and the literature still lacks an in-depth account of how boards of directors and their top management teams develop and guide entrepreneurial activities for their firms.
SIGIR 2017 Tutorial on Health Search (HS2017): A Full-day from Consumers to Clinicians

The HS2017 tutorial will cover topics from an area of information retrieval (IR) with significant societal impact - health search. Whether it is searching patient records, helping medical professionals find best-practice evidence, or helping the public locate reliable and readable health information online, health search is a challenging area for IR research with an actively growing community and many open problems. This tutorial will provide attendees with a full stack of knowledge on health search, from understanding users and their problems to practical, hands-on sessions on current tools and techniques, current campaigns and evaluation resources, as well as important open questions and future directions.
Factors associated with global longitudinal strain decline in hypertensive patients with normal left ventricular ejection fraction

Background Early detection of risk factors for left ventricular (LV) dysfunction may be useful in patients with high blood pressure (HBP). Methods Patient from an outpatient HBP clinic underwent a two-dimensional Doppler-coupled echocardiography with determination of LV global longitudinal strain (GLS) by speckle-tracking. Results Among 200 patients (mean age 61.7 ± 9.7 years), 155 were overweight, 93 had diabetes, 83 had dyslipidemia, and 109 had uncontrolled HBP. LV hypertrophy (LVH) was found in 136 patients (68%), including concentric (n = 106) and eccentric (n = 30) LVH. Diastolic dysfunction patterns were observed in 178 patients (89%), and increased filling pressures were observed in 37 patients (18.5%). GLS ranged from –25% to –11.6% (mean –16.9 ± 3.2%). Low GLS values (>–17%) were found in 91 patients (45.5%), 68 with and 23 without LVH. In univariate analysis, a reduced GLS was associated with HBP lasting for >10 years (odds ratio (OR) = 3.51, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.73–7.09; p = 0.002), uncontrolled HBP (OR = 3.55, 95% CI 1.96–6.43; p < 0.0001), overweight (OR = 2.01, 95% CI 0.93–4.31; p = 0.0028), diabetes (OR = 2.21, 95% CI 1.25–3.90; p = 0.006), dyslipidemia (OR = 2.16, 95% CI 1.22–3.84; p = 0.008), renal failure (OR = 4.27, 95% CI 1.80–10.10; p = 0.001), an increased Cornell index (OR = 3.70, 95% CI 1.98–6.90; p < 0.0001), concentric LVH (OR = 9.26, 95% CI 2.62–32.73; p = 0.001), remodeling (OR = 8.51, 95% CI 2.18–33.23; p = 0.002), and filling pressures (OR = 7.1, 95% CI 2.9–17.3; p < 0.0001). In multivariable analysis, duration of HBP (p = 0.038), uncontrolled BP (p = 0.006), diabetes (p = 0.023), LVH (p = 0.001), and increased filling pressures (p = 0.003) remained associated with GLS decline. Conclusion Early impairment of LV function, detected by a reduced GLS, is associated with long-lasting, uncontrolled HBP, overweight, related metabolic changes, and is more pronounced in patients with LVH.
Electrophysiological and Pharmacological Characterization of Vestibular Inputs to Identified Frog Abducens Motoneurons and Internuclear Neurons In Vitro

Synaptic vestibular inputs of antidromically identified motoneurons and internuclear neurons in the abducens nucleus were studied electrophysiologically and pharmacologically in the isolated brain of grass frogs (Rana temporaria). The prevailing response pattern of abducens motoneurons (AbMOT) following stimulation of the VIIIth nerve was crossed disynaptic excitation and uncrossed disynaptic inhibition. A few AbMOT (five of 46), however, exhibited uncrossed excitation instead of inhibition. Abducens internuclear neurons (AbINT), identified by antidromic activation following stimulation of the contralateral medial longitudinal fascicle, exhibited disynaptic response patterns to stimulation of the VIIIth nerve that were very similar in latency and rise time to those of AbMOT except for the absence of uncrossed disynaptic inhibition. Bath application of strychnine (50 μM), a glycine antagonist, blocked the uncrossed inhibitory vestibular input to AbMOT and AbINT completely and reversibly, whereas picrotoxin (100 μM), a GABA (γ‐aminobutyric acid) antagonist, had no detectable effect on these disynaptic potentials. These results suggest glycine as the transmitter of inhibitory vestibular projections onto AbMOT and AbINT. The pharmacology of the excitatory vestibular input of these neurons was studied by electrical stimulation of the vestibular nuclear complex. Crossed monosynaptic excitatory inputs in AbMOT and AbINT were blocked completely by CNQX (6‐cyano‐7‐nitroquinoxaline‐2,3‐dione) (10 μM), an antagonist of AMPA (α‐amino‐3‐hydroxy‐5‐methyl‐4‐isoxazolepropionic acid) receptors, indicating glutamatergic excitation. Comparison of these results with those in the cat suggests the presence of a basic horizontal vestibulo‐ocular reflex that is very similarly organized, and corroborates the hypothesis that major behavioural differences in the performance of compensatory eye movements between species result from the properties of supplementary networks and not from differences in a common‘three‐neuron’vestibulo‐ocular arc.
A Novel Power-Bearing Approach and Asymptotically Optimum Estimator for Target Motion Analysis

The problem of target motion analysis (TMA) has been extensively investigated using bearing-only (BO), Doppler-bearing (DB), and other measurement data. For radio frequency (RF) emitters, signal powers follow the well-known path loss law that can be utilized to aid localization and target tracking in BO-TMA, leading to the novel power-bearing (PB) approach as proposed in this paper. Our main contribution lies in the proof of the asymptotic optimality of the total least-squares (TLS) algorithm for PB-TMA under some mild condition. The Cramér-Rao lower bound (CRLB) is employed to demonstrate the performance improvements of the PB-TMA over the BO-TMA. Our work shows the promise of the PB-TMA approach for RF signals.
Enhanced-IPMH as a Robust Visual Descriptor from H.264/AVC and Evaluation of Parameters Effects

Intra-prediction Modes-based (IPM-based) descriptors are among robust and competitive visual descriptors for near-duplicate video similarity detection, in general and content-based copy detection (CCD), in particular. IPM-based descriptors are extracted from the compressed H.264/AVC (MPEG-4/AVC) video domain. Intra-prediction Modes (IPM) are the building blocks of the key frames (I and IDR slices) in the H.264/AVC video standard. IPM-based descriptors are generally constructed based on the probability distribution of the unified intra-prediction modes of the key frames. The current research introduce an enhanced version of IPM-Histogram (IPMH) with 10 bins, which is called enhanced-IPMH (e-IPMH). This research conducted using a subset of TRECVID/CCD (2011), dataset and TREC-EVAL-Video software to compute the performance measures. Based on the experimental evidences, the e-IPMH is an effective and inexpensive visual feature, compared to the pixel domain global descriptors. Analysing the experimental results of the e-IPMH, compared to its predecessor, IPMH shows improvement in the performance measures: Mean Reciprocal Rank (MRR) and Precision@1. However, its mean processing time, reveals it is slower compared to IPMH, due to its larger descriptor size. The current research also conducted a series of experiments to evaluate the effect of spatio-temporal parameters on IPM-based descriptors. The scope of the experiments are limited to the content-preserving visual distortions: T3, T4, T5 and T6 which are the functional scope of global visual descriptors.