Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Multi‐Stage Model Estimates of Lung Cancer Risk from Exposure to Diesel Exhaust, Based on a U.S. Railroad Worker Cohort

A California Environmental Protection Agency (Cal/EPA) report concluded that a reasonable and likely explanation for the increased lung cancer rates in numerous epidemiological studies is a causal association between diesel exhaust exposure and lung cancer. A version of the present analysis, based on a retrospective study of a U.S. railroad worker cohort, provided the Cal/EPA report with some of its estimates of lung cancer risk associated with diesel exhaust. The individual data for that cohort study furnish information on age, employment, and mortality for 56,000 workers over 22 years. Related studies provide information on exposure concentrations. Other analyses of the original cohort data reported finding no relation between measures of diesel exhaust and lung cancer mortality, while a Health Effects Institute report found the data unsuitable for quantitative risk assessment. None of those three works used multistage models, which this article uses in finding a likely quantitative, positive relations between lung cancer and diesel exhaust. A seven‐stage model that has the last or next‐to‐last stage sensitive to diesel exhaust provides best estimates of increase in annual mortality rate due to each unit of concentration, for bracketing assumptions on exposure. Using relative increases of risk and multiplying by the background lung cancer mortality rates for California, the 95% upper confidence limit of the 70‐year unit risks for lung cancer is estimated to be in the range 2.1 × 10−4 (μg/m3)−1 to 5.5 × 10−4 (μg/m3)−1. These risks constitute the low end of those in the Cal/EPA report and are below those reported by previous investigators whose estimates were positive using human data.
Fluid Intelligence and Automatic Neural Processes in Facial Expression Perception: An Event-Related Potential Study

The relationship between human fluid intelligence and social-emotional abilities has been a topic of considerable interest. The current study investigated whether adolescents with different intellectual levels had different automatic neural processing of facial expressions. Two groups of adolescent males were enrolled: a high IQ group and an average IQ group. Age and parental socioeconomic status were matched between the two groups. Participants counted the numbers of the central cross changes while paired facial expressions were presented bilaterally in an oddball paradigm. There were two experimental conditions: a happy condition, in which neutral expressions were standard stimuli (p = 0.8) and happy expressions were deviant stimuli (p = 0.2), and a fearful condition, in which neutral expressions were standard stimuli (p = 0.8) and fearful expressions were deviant stimuli (p = 0.2). Participants were required to concentrate on the primary task of counting the central cross changes and to ignore the expressions to ensure that facial expression processing was automatic. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were obtained during the tasks. The visual mismatch negativity (vMMN) components were analyzed to index the automatic neural processing of facial expressions. For the early vMMN (50–130 ms), the high IQ group showed more negative vMMN amplitudes than the average IQ group in the happy condition. For the late vMMN (320–450 ms), the high IQ group had greater vMMN responses than the average IQ group over frontal and occipito-temporal areas in the fearful condition, and the average IQ group evoked larger vMMN amplitudes than the high IQ group over occipito-temporal areas in the happy condition. The present study elucidated the close relationships between fluid intelligence and pre-attentive change detection on social-emotional information.
The Greedy Miser: Learning under Test-time Budgets

As machine learning algorithms enter applications in industrial settings, there is increased interest in controlling their cpu-time during testing. The cpu-time consists of the running time of the algorithm and the extraction time of the features. The latter can vary drastically when the feature set is diverse. In this paper, we propose an algorithm, the Greedy Miser, that incorporates the feature extraction cost during training to explicitly minimize the cpu-time during testing. The algorithm is a straightforward extension of stagewise regression and is equally suitable for regression or multi-class classification. Compared to prior work, it is significantly more cost-effective and scales to larger data sets.
Statistical Learning of ISP Peering Policies

Spring et al’s research on path inflation uses a large number of traceroute probes to deduce facts about ISP policies [3]. They are able to learn an ISP’s network topology, its individual router policies, and the overall ISP peering strategy. However, the authors use only very basic heuristics to make deductions from the data. Also, collecting the necessary traceroutes is a substantial burden. Finally, a relationship between two ISPs is characterized only as being in one of several categories. We use a number of different machine learning techniques to make similar deductions. We believe these techniques are well-grounded in statistics. They enable us to describe a peering relationship with much greater precision than the commonly-considered ISP policies.
Expression in Mycoplasma pneumoniae of the recombinant gene encoding the cytadherence‐associated protein HMW1 and identification of HMW4 as a product

Mycoplasma pneumoniae is a major cause of tracheobronchitis and pneumonia in older children and young adults. The lack of adequate tools for genetic analysis has hindered the elucidation of function and regulation of mycoplasma virulence determinants. We describe here the use of a transposon vector to deliver the cloned gene for the cytadherence‐associated protein HMW1 in M. pneumoniae. A 4.95 kbp BamHI fragment encoding all but the C‐terminal end of HMW1 was cloned into a modified Tn4001 and transformed into wild‐type M. pneumoniae and into a non‐cytadhering mutant lacking HMW1–HMW5. Southern blot hybridizations confirmed insertion of the transposon and the presence of both the resident and recombinant hmw1 alleles. Analysis by Western immunoblotting revealed a truncated HMW1 (HMW1′) in the transformants, the level of HMW1′ being dependent upon the orientation of the hmw1 gene in the transposon and the site of insertion. Similar expression patterns were noted in wild‐type and mutant backgrounds. However, expression of wild‐type levels of HMW1′ in the mutant did not restore adherence. Finally, HMW4 and HMW1 were shown to be products of the same gene, HMW4 being a heat‐modified derivative of HMW1.
Application-Specific Performance-Aware Energy Optimization on Android Mobile Devices

Energy management is a key issue for mobile devices. On current Android devices, power management relies heavily on OS modules known as governors. These modules are created for various hardware components, including the CPU, to support DVFS. They implement algorithms that attempt to balance performance and power consumption. In this paper we make the observation that the existing governors are (1) general-purpose by nature (2) focused on power reduction and (3) are not energy-optimal for many applications. We thus establish the need for an application-specific approach that could overcome these drawbacks and provide higher energy efficiency for suitable applications. We also show that existing methods manage power and performance in an independent and isolated fashion and that co-ordinated control of multiple components can save more energy. In addition, we note that on mobile devices, energy savings cannot be achieved at the expense of performance. Consequently, we propose a solution that minimizes energy consumption of specific applications while maintaining a user-specified performance target. Our solution consists of two stages: (1) offline profiling and (2) online controlling. Utilizing the offline profiling data of the target application, our control theory based online controller dynamically selects the optimal system configuration (in this paper, combination of CPU frequency and memory bandwidth) for the application, while it is running. Our energy management solution is tested on a Nexus 6 smartphone with 6 real-world applications. We achieve 4 - 31% better energy than default governors with a worst case performance loss of
Acceptance problems of ambient intelligence and mobile technologies in hosptals in India and Germany

Ambient intelligence systems facilitate job performance by medical staff in health care services. Several papers detail scenarios in which these technologies may support clinicians in their daily work processes, but their specific characteristics suggest such technologies also could be useful for surveillance and subsequent control of employees. Until now, only little attention has focused on resolving such issues. On the basis of 16 in-depth interviews with medical staff from three German hospitals, this study identifies a reserved attitude and several acceptance problems among interviewees. The qualitative data indicate 10 hypotheses, tested using a questionnaire study of 215 nurses in training from Germany and India. The investigation of the quantitative data relies on partial least squares modeling to identify and categorise problems with user acceptance of ambient intelligence and mobile systems on various levels. The results of this mixed methods study mainly indicate that German participants assess ambient intelligence much more critically. Consequently, specific strategies for implementing such technologies should be adopted.
Fibonacci quasi crystals as special optical waveguides and filters

In this paper, we investigate the optical wave-guiding properties of the quasi-periodic band gap structures. In this case, the Fibonacci quasi-crystals are used and the eigenmodes and eigenvalues of the electromagnetic wave propagating through these structures are obtained. Also, the band structure of the system is obtained and the guiding modes distribution is demonstrated. Finally these structures can be used as optical filters with multi reflection peaks, which can be used in optical signal processing and DWDM systems.
Picking Up the Best Goal - An Analytical Study in Defeasible Logic

In this paper we analyse different notions of the concept of goal starting from the idea of sequences of “alternative acceptable outcomes”. We study the relationships between goals and concepts like agent’s beliefs, norms and desires, and we propose a computationally oriented formalisation using Defeasible Logic that will be able to provide a computationally feasible approach. The resulting system is able to capture various nuances of the notion of goal against different normative domains, for which the right decision is not only context-dependent, but it must be chosen from a pool of alternatives as wide as possible
Turbulent flow friction reduction effectiveness and hydrodynamic degradation of polysaccharides and synthetic polymers

Two water-soluble synthetic polymers and several polysaccharides were compared for friction reduction effectiveness during increased exposure to turbulent flow. Solutions were passed through a 0.117 × 41.0 cm fine bore tube at a constant solvent wall shear stress of 4200 dynes/cm2 and wall shear rate of 4 × 105 sec−1. After one pass through the tube, greatest friction reduction at low polymer concentrations was in the order poly(ethylene oxide) > polyacrylamide > bacterial polysaccharide from Xanthomonas campestris > guar gum. As a result of mechanical degradation, after 40 passes of 40 ppm solutions, friction reduction effectiveness was in the order polyacrylamide > polysaccharide from Xanthomonas campestris > poly(ethylene oxide) > guar gum. Degradation curves, the effect of concentration on degradation, and boundary layer and pipe flow applications are discussed.
Enhancing the well-being of veterans using extended group-based nature recreation experiences.

Physical and mental health issues associated with military service persist as challenges for many veterans. This study draws on existing research showing the value of engaging in nature-based recreation to examine the effects of such experiences on veterans specifically. Four organizations, offering 12 different programs each lasting 4–7 d, were included in the study. Ninety-eight veterans were recruited and surveyed 1 wk before, 1 wk after, and approximately 1 mo after participating in these extended group-based outdoor experiences. In addition to background information, the survey instrument assessed changes in psychological well-being, social functioning, and life outlook. The results showed significant improvements in each of these domains 1 wk after the outdoor experience. Some improvements persisted over the next month, but to a lesser degree. The positive changes were particularly strong for veterans who initially reported more severe ongoing health issues. Overall, the findings suggest that extended group-based nature recreation experiences that bring veterans together can have significant positive effects on veterans struggling with serious health problems.
Non-isothermal experimental and simulation study of residual wall thickness in gas assisted injection moulding

A methodical ‘design of experiment' approach is used to assess the effect of key control parameters on residual wall thickness (RWT) in gas assisted injection moulding. An empirical model is produced from which the experimental RWT can be determined at any interpolated point. This model includes only those terms with proven statistical significance. The ‘true' thermal boundary conditions are determined for a 1-D approximation to the system; this is sufficient to determine the error in a simulation method that enforces coolant temperature as the mould boundary condition for temperature. It is shown that errors in heat flux and wall temperature are small. A 3-D finite element, pseudo-concentration implementation is presented, with a novel method for simulation of internal gas injection. The simulation is shown to give good agreement with the experimental rate of growth of wall thickness as gas delay is increased; good qualitative agreement is shown for other control parameters.
Split ADC digital background calibration for high speed SHA-less pipeline ADCs

A bottom plate sampling switch sharing technique is proposed to enable split ADC calibration with high frequency inputs for Sample and Hold Amplifier-less (SHA-less) pipeline ADCs. The shared bottom plate switch ensures that both halves of the ADC sample the input at the same time, which restores the calibration accuracy for fast varying inputs without the presence of a front-end SHA, thereby significantly reducing area and power consumption. For further power reduction, a feedforward two stage amplifier has been used to push the speed of the amplifier at lower current consumption and low supply voltage. A 12-bit 200 MS/s pipeline ADC has been designed in 40 nm CMOS technology, and the transistor level simulations of the ADC prove the efficiency of the proposed technique to restore the split ADC calibration accuracy in SHA-less pipeline ADCs.
Web Clustering Based On Tag Set Similarity

Tagging is a service that allows users to associate a set of freely determined tags with web content. Clustering web documents with tag sets can eliminate the time-consuming preprocess of word stemming. This paper proposes a novel method to compute the similarity between tag sets and use it as the distance measure to cluster web documents into groups. Major steps in this method include computing a tag similarity matrix with set-based vector space model, smoothing the similarity matrix to obtain a set of linearly independent vectors and compute the tag set similarity based on these vectors. The experimental results show that the proposed tag set similarity measures surpasses other common similarity measures not only in the reliable derivation of clustering results, but also in clustering accuracies and efficiencies.
Particle swarm optimization in multi-agent system for the intelligent generation of test papers

Agent-oriented design is one of the most active areas in the field of deployment of web-based distance education, and test is a popular measurement tool of learnerspsila knowledge in order to verify the learnerpsilas level of understanding and select corresponding educational strategy. In this paper, an innovative approach to seamless integration of the particle swarm optimization (PSO) and multi-agent system (MAS) is proposed. In order to generate a test paper automatically, a modified genetic particle swarm optimization (GPSO) is presented, in which the values of parameters will be decreased linearly with the number of iterations for improving the late convergence rate. For the implementation of GPSO based on multi-agent system, a core agents TPAgent (TPA) is provided to undertake the operations of GPSO and will control the evolution operations of each generation of population. To keep communication between different nodes at a minimum cost, fitness evaluation tasks are implemented by the TPAgents at local nodes, only the local minimum fitness and the corresponding best particle are sent to center node so as to get the global best particle in the parallel computing environment. For avoiding the prematurity, the global best particle will be dispatched to remote node randomly. Based on the JADE, a prototype system is setup , and the simulation results show that the proposed approach is feasible and robust.
Dopamine release is heterogeneous within microenvironments of the rat nucleus accumbens

Many individual neurons within the intact brain fire in stochastic patterns that arise from interactions with the neuronal circuits that they comprise. However, the chemical communication that is evoked by these firing patterns has not been characterized because sensors suitable to monitor subsecond chemical events in micron dimensions have only recently become available. Here we employ a voltammetric sensor technology coupled with principal component regression to examine the dynamics of dopamine concentrations in the nucleus accumbens (NAc) of awake and unrestrained rats. The sensor has submillimeter dimensions and provides high temporal (0.1 s) resolution. At select locations spontaneous dopamine transient concentration changes were detected, achieving instantaneous concentrations of ∼50 nm. At other locations, transients were absent even though dopamine was available for release as shown by extracellular dopamine increases following electrical activation of dopaminergic neurons. At sites where dopamine concentration transients occur, uptake inhibition by cocaine enhances the frequency and magnitude of the rapid transients while also causing a more gradual increase in extracellular dopamine. These effects were largely absent from sites that did not support ongoing transient activity. These findings reveal an unanticipated spatial and temporal heterogeneity of dopamine transmission within the NAc that may depend upon the firing of specific subpopulations of dopamine neurons.
Decomposing Abstract Dialectical Frameworks

We introduce a decomposition scheme for abstract dialectical frameworks (ADFs). The decomposition proceeds along the ADF’s strongly connected components. For several semantics, the decomposition-based version coincides with the original semantics. For others, the scheme defines new semantics. These new semantics allow us to deal with pertinent problems such as odd-length negative cycles in a more general setting, that for instance also encompasses logic programs.
Global t-Sweep Coverage Problem with Minimum Interference

Sweep coverage is one of the important and recent issue for network monitoring in wireless sensor network (WSN). Sweep coverage is efficiently applicable where periodic monitoring is sufficient than continuous monitoring. Interference minimization is another main objective of topology control problem in wireless sensor network. Reducing interference in turn reduces the number of collision and packet retransmission, which decreases the energy consumption and increases lifetime of the network. In this paper, we introduce the Interference minimization global t-Gsweep coverage problem (IMGtSCP) where the objective is to minimize the interference number induced by set of mobile and static sensors with the constraint that the given set of point of interests (PoIs) guarantee t-Gsweep coverage. We prove that the IMGtSCP problem is NP-hard and cannot be approximated with a factor 2. We propose a new heuristic called Interference Minimization Sweep Coverage with Static and Mobile Sensors. We have shown that the time complexity of this heuristics is O(n3 log n), We also conduct simulation to show the performance of our proposed algorithm.
Improvement of the Spark-Plasma-Sintering Kinetics of ZrC by High-Energy Ball-Milling

The effect of the duration of high-energy ball-milling on the spark-plasma sintering (SPS) kinetics of additive-free ZrC ultra-high-temperature ceramics (UHTCs) was investigated. It was found that the crystallite size of ZrC is refined progressively from the as-purchased condition down to a few nanometers with increasing high-energy ball-milling time, and that this crystallite size refinement progressively enhances the SPS kinetics, reducing the characteristic temperatures of the sintering process. While this enhancement was found to be only moderate with the refinement to the ultra-fine range, it was highly marked with the refinement to the nanometer range. Implications for the lower-temperature processing of ZrC UHTCs are discussed.
Analysis of discrimination threshold on the tritan axis

Discrimination thresholds on the tritan axis were obtained for an extensive group of 66 stimuli: in some of the stimuli,S‐cone trolands were held constant by keeping the product of theS‐cone excitation level and the luminance unchanged, while in others only the luminance was changed to establish variousS‐cone troland values. These thresholds depended clearly on theS‐cone value of the stimuli, while they remained almost constant against the retinal illumination. Thus, we noted that the excitation of theL−2M channel had practically no influence over the discrimination threshold on the tritan axis, although this independence of ΔS fromL−2M was not so obvious when theS value was high. With our data, we performed different fits, and found that the fit including the termsS,(L−2M) and(L+M) adapted better to our results.
Modeling steering within above-the-surface interaction layers

Interaction techniques that utilize the space above the display surface to extend the functionalities of digitized surfaces continue to emerge. In such techniques, movements are constrained by the bounds of a layer. In addition, constraints imposed on the direction of movement within the layer may be present. Despite the presence of such techniques, there is limited understanding of human capabilities for performing the required steering task. In this paper we study and model user performance when steering through constrained and unconstrained paths in above-the-surface layers. Through a series of experiments we validate the derivation and applicability of our proposed models.