Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Randomized consensus with attractive and repulsive links

We study convergence properties of a randomized consensus algorithm over a graph with both attractive and repulsive links. At each time instant, a node is randomly selected to interact with a random neighbor. Depending on if the link between the two nodes belongs to a given subgraph of attractive or repulsive links, the node update follows a standard attractive weighted average or a repulsive weighted average, respectively. The repulsive update has the opposite sign of the standard consensus update. In this way, it counteracts the consensus formation and can be seen as a model of link faults or malicious attacks in a communication network, or the impact of trust and antagonism in a social network. Various probabilistic convergence and divergence conditions are established. A threshold condition for the strength of the repulsive action is given for convergence in expectation: when the repulsive weight crosses this threshold value, the algorithm transits from convergence to divergence. An explicit value of the threshold is derived for classes of attractive and repulsive graphs. The results show that a single repulsive link can sometimes drastically change the behavior of the consensus algorithm. They also explicitly show how the robustness of the consensus algorithm depends on the size and other properties of the graphs.
KEKB performance

The history of the KEKB commissioning is characterized by struggles with three obstacles, namely the electron-cloud instability, the beam-beam blowup and beam current limitations from many reasons. A rapid improvement in the luminosity in this year (2001) has been made by progress in each of these three problems. This report summarizes this year's progress of the KEKB accelerator, since the history of prior days is covered by other reports.
Motion trajectories

A simple algorithm for selecting and linking interesting flow vectors across a sequence of frames for computing motion trajectories is presented. Tokens that have both interesting pixel gray values in the spatial domain and in the optical flow field in the temporal domain are tracked. This AND operation effectively removes some redundant trajectories. Due to errors introduced during the computation of optical flow, and the linking of such flow vectors across a sequence of frames, the resultant trajectories are not always smooth. A Kalman-filtering-based approach for smoothing the trajectories is discussed. <<ETX>>
Neutrophilic inflammation and IL-8 levels in induced sputum of alpha-1-antitrypsin PiMZ subjects

Background: Severe alpha-1-antitrypsin deficiency (AATD), due to homozygosity for the protease inhibitor (Pi) Z allele, is a genetic risk factor for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). In a previous study the sputum of severe AATD subjects with airflow obstruction showed a pattern of cellular inflammation similar to COPD patients. It is uncertain whether heterozygotes for the Z allele or intermediate deficiency (PiMZ) have an increased risk of developing COPD. Methods: Sputum cell counts and the supernatant level of the neutrophil chemoattractant interleukin (IL)-8 were investigated by sputum induction in 10 non-smoker asymptomatic PiMZ subjects with normal pulmonary function, 10 patients with stable COPD, and 10 age matched normal subjects. Data are expressed as mean (SD). Results: The mean (SD) number of neutrophils was significantly higher (p<0.01) in the sputum of PiMZ subjects (84.5 (22.2) ×104/ml) and patients with COPD (126.9 (18.8) ×104/ml) than in matched normal subjects (55.0 (8.7) ×104/ml). IL-8 levels were increased in PiMZ subjects (828.5 (490.6) ng/ml; median 1003.0 ng/ml; range 1260–100 ng/ml) and in COPD patients (882.5 (524.3) ng/ml; median 934.9 ng/ml; range 1506–258 mg/ml) compared with normal subjects (3.5 (0.5) ng/ml; median 3.5 ng/ml; range 4.5–2.5 ng/ml). There was a significant positive correlation between IL-8 supernatant concentration and neutrophil count in PiMZ subjects (p = 0.036; r = 0.66). An inverse correlation was observed between the percentage of neutrophils and forced expiratory volume in 1 second (% predicted) in patients with COPD (p = 0.04; r = −0.43). Conclusions: These findings indicate that PiMZ subjects without airflow obstruction may have an IL-8 related neutrophilic inflammation in the airways, similar to stable COPD patients, suggesting an increased risk of developing pulmonary changes.
How to fool yourself with experiments in testing theories in psychological research

The Northwestern school, as Glass (1983) coined it, no longer resides in the Department of Psychology at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois. Its members are now spread throughout the United States, and its international reputation and recognition is outstanding. Campbell and Stanley (1966), followed by Cook and Campbell (1979), and now by Shadish, Cook, and Campbell (2002), are all the sources that have to be studied, learned, and digested by every student worldwide who wants to do serious research in social sciences. The Northwestern school's influence and impact are still growing. Boruch and colleagues have founded the Campbell Collaboration to promote and foster research synthesis based on randomized experiments and quasi-experiments, especially in the context of education, the field most resistant to experimentation. Cook (2002) analyzed these reasons for resistance. The American Journal of Evaluation (2003), in its section "The Historical Record," gives voice to former Northwestern alumni to describe their experiences while being at the university. The number of challengers and critics is also a good indicator of the impact of a school of thought. The Northwestern school has attracted many critics, most importantly, Cronbach (1982; Cronbach et al., 1980), who challenged the preference and emphasis the school has placed on internal validity instead of focusing more on external validity or generalizability of results. Cronbach argued for correlational studies and designs, which may not give the same information about cause-and-effect relationships as the experimental and quasi-experimental designs, but whose predictions are better tailored to real life and give better generalizability. So, the differences between Campbell and Cronbach can be regarded as differences in the emphasis one places on different standards of quality of research designs. We have been influenced by the debates between the Northwestern school and its critics and have tried to synthesize them into an overall framework.
Project Managers' Skills and Project Success in IT Outsourcing

What skills do project managers (PMs) need, and how do these skills impact project success in IT outsourcing? In this study, we seek to identify what factors impact IT project outcomes, such as costs and client satisfaction, given the project characteristics and PM’s hard and soft skills. We examine data collected from a field study conducted at a major IT service provider in India. Our results suggest that while hard skills such as technical or domain expertise may be essential in a PM, soft skills, such as tacit knowledge of organizational culture and clients, are more important for project success. The results are robust to different specifications.
Through the labyrinth: The truth about how women become leaders.

Despite real progress, women remain rare enough in elite positions of power that their presence still evokes a sense of wonder. In Through the Labyrinth, Alice Eagly and Linda Carli examine why women's paths to power remain difficult to traverse. First, Eagly and Carli prove that the glass ceiling is no longer a useful metaphor and offer seven reasons why. They propose the labyrinth as a better image and explain how to navigate through it. This important and practical book addresses such critical questions as: How far have women actually come as leaders? Do stereotypes and prejudices still limit women's opportunities? Do people resist women's leadership more than men's? And, do organisations create obstacles to women who would be leaders? This book's rich analysis is founded on scientific research from psychology, economics, sociology, political science, and management. The authors ground their conclusions in that research and invoke a wealth of engaging anecdotes and personal accounts to illustrate the practical principles that emerge. With excellent leadership in short supply, no group, organisation, or nation can afford to restrict women's access to leadership roles. This book evaluates whether such restrictions are present and, when they are, what we can do to eliminate them.
Dynamic Speech Spectrum Representation and Tracking Variable Number of Vocal Tract Resonance Frequencies With Time-Varying Dirichlet Process Mixture Models

In this paper, we propose a new approach for dynamic speech spectrum representation and tracking vocal tract resonance (VTR) frequencies. The method involves representing the spectral density of the speech signals as a mixture of Gaussians with unknown number of components for which time-varying Dirichlet process mixture model (DPM) is utilized. In the resulting representation, the number of formants is allowed to vary in time. The paper first presents an analysis on the continuity of the formants in the spectrum during the speech utterance. The analysis is based on a new state space representation of concatenated tube model. We show that the number of formants which appear in the spectrum is directly related to the location of the constriction of the vocal tract (i.e., the location of the excitation). Moreover, the disappearance of the formants in the spectrum is explained by ldquouncontrollable modesrdquo of the state space model. Under the assumption of existence of varying number of formants in the spectrum, we propose the use of a DPM model based multi-target tracking algorithm for tracking unknown number of formants. The tracking algorithm defines a hierarchical Bayesian model for the unknown formant states and the inference is done via Rao-Blackwellized particle filter.
On prediction errors in regression models with nonstationary regressors

In this article asymptotic expressions for the final prediction error (FPE) and the accumulated prediction error (APE) of the least squares predictor are obtained in regression models with nonstationary regressors. It is shown that the term of order $1/n$ in FPE and the term of order $\log n$ in APE share the same constant, where $n$ is the sample size. Since the model includes the random walk model as a special case, these asymptotic expressions extend some of the results in Wei (1987) and Ing (2001). In addition, we also show that while the FPE of the least squares predictor is not affected by the contemporary correlation between the innovations in input and output variables, the mean squared error of the least squares estimate does vary with this correlation.
Androgen receptor (CAG)n and (GGC)n polymorphisms and breast cancer risk in a population-based case-control study of young women.

The androgen receptor (AR) is involved in the regulation of hormone-responsive genes and, as such, variation within the gene is hypothesized to play a role in breast cancer susceptibility. We therefore assessed the relationship between AR repeat variation and breast cancer in young women from the general population. Women diagnosed with breast cancer before age 45 years and age-matched controls, all participants in a population-based case-control study of breast cancer, were assessed for length variation in the (CAG)(n) and (GGC)(n) AR repeats within the AR gene. Results were generated from 524 cases and 461 controls. As per previous studies, (CAG)(n) repeat lengths of <22 were classified as short (S), and those of > or =22 were classified as long (L). For (GGC)(n) repeats, those < 17 were classified as short, and those > or = 17 were classified as long. Women with a cumulative (CAG)(n) repeat size of > or =43 showed a modest increase in risk for breast cancer [odds ratio (OR), 1.3; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.0-1.7]. Women with a (GGC)(n) long (L) allele and those with a > or =33 cumulative repeat size had a decreased risk of breast cancer (OR, 0.7; 95% CI, 0.5-0.9). Among women homozygous for the (CAG)(n) short (S) allele and those with any (GGC)(n) L allele, an increased risk of breast cancer in relation to ever use of oral contraceptives [OCs; OR = 1.9 (95% CI, 1.0-3.6) and OR = 1.7 (95% CI, 0.9-3.5), respectively] was observed. An increased risk for OC use, however, was not observed among women with the CAG L or GGC S allele. This study, one of the first to examine both (CAG)(n) and (GGC)(n) in a population-based study for its relation to breast cancer risk, suggests a reduced risk in young women with (GGC)(n) repeat lengths of > or =17. In addition, these data suggest that AR repeat length may be partly responsible for the increased risk for early-onset breast cancer in women who use OCs, although these findings need replication in other populations.
Spirituality and Happiness of English-Speaking South African School Children: A Psychometric Analysis of Spirituality and Well-Being Instruments

Chapter One: Introduction . 2 Introduction . 2 Terms and Definitions . 3 Past Studies . 5 Chapter Two: Review of Literature . 14 Resilience Overview . 11 Spirituality and Spiritual Well-Being . 13 Resilience and Spirituality . 14 Subjective Well-Being Questionnaire . 17 Oxford Happiness Questionnaire . 18 Faces Scale . 19 Religious Practices Scale . 20 Emotionality Activity and Sociability Temperament Survey . 21 Chapter Three: Research Methodology . 24 Sample and Sampling Procedures . 24 Instrumentation . 26 Statistical Procedures . 27
Inhaled treatment of COPD: a Delphi consensus statement

Background Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) global strategy (2015) provides guidance for the treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) with different first-choice options per GOLD category without specification. Objectives To evaluate the level of medical experts’ consensus on their preferred first-choice treatment within different COPD categories. Methods A two-round Delphi Panel consisting of 15 questions was completed by Belgian pulmonologists (n=31) and European (n=10) COPD experts. Results Good consensus was reached by both expert groups for long-acting bronchodilators instead of short-acting bronchodilators as first-choice treatment in GOLD A. Single bronchodilation with long-acting muscarinic antagonist (LAMA) was preferred over long-acting β2-agonist (LABA) and LABA/LAMA as first-choice treatment in GOLD B and GOLD C. For GOLD D patients based on the forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1)<50%, a very good consensus was reached for LAMA/LABA as first-choice treatment. For GOLD D patients based on frequent or severe exacerbations, there was a good consensus for LABA/LAMA/inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) as first choice in the Belgian group. According to the European experts, both LABA/LAMA and LABA/LAMA/ICS could be the first choice for these patients. Conclusion Belgian and European experts recommend long-acting bronchodilators as first-choice treatment. Treatment containing ICS was found only appropriate in patients with FEV1<50% and ≥2 moderate exacerbations or 1 severe exacerbation/year.
Methods for Inference in Large Multiple-Equation Markov-Switching Models

The inference for hidden Markov chain models in which the structure is a multiple-equation macroeconomic model raises a number of difficulties that are not as likely to appear in smaller models. One is likely to want to allow for many states in the Markov chain without allowing the number of free parameters in the transition matrix to grow as the square of the number of states but also without losing a convenient form for the posterior distribution of the transition matrix. Calculation of marginal data densities for assessing model fit is often difficult in high-dimensional models and seems particularly difficult in these models. This paper gives a detailed explanation of methods we have found to work to overcome these difficulties. It also makes suggestions for maximizing posterior density and initiating Markov chain Monte Carlo simulations that provide some robustness against the complex shape of the likelihood in these models. These difficulties and remedies are likely to be useful generally for Bayesian inference in large time-series models. The paper includes some discussion of model specification issues that apply particularly to structural vector autoregressions with a Markov-switching structure.
Assessing the Risk of Transmission Line Overloads in Power Grids with Stochastic Generation

The production of electrical energy from renewable sources has, in recent years, increased significantly with wind generation as the predominant technology. This development is expected to continue in the near future. However, the integration of such stochastic and intermittent power sources into the existing power system implies a higher ratio of non-dispatchable generation which, in turn, leads to less predictable and more volatile flows on the network. The intermittent nature poses a challenge for an adequate generation capacity planning, and the operational uncertainty of the time-varying load flow regime makes the anticipation of critical situations such as transmission line overloads highly complicated. This extended abstract presents a hybrid modeling and simulation approach with the objective of assessing the impact of intermittent generation on the probability of thermal line overloads and of analyzing the time sequences of subsequent cascading line outages. Thereby, the power flow dependent, dynamic line temperatures are explicitly modeled in time. In order to overcome the problem of the slow simulation speed coming along with the continuous integration of the heat balance equation, we apply a technique for the fast simulation of rare events, called RESTART (REpetitive Simulation Trials After Reaching Thresholds) on the present problem. The modeling framework is applied to the IEEE Reliability Test System 1996 whereas the effect of different stochastic power injection patterns on the line outage probability and on subsequent cascading failures are analyzed.
ON THE ROBUST STABILITY OF NEUTRAL SYSTEMS WITH TIME-VARYING DELAYS

Abstract Linear matrix inequality conditions are given for the robust stability of neutral systems with time-varying delays in the state vector. All the system matrices are supposed to be time-invariant, belonging to a known polytope. The robust stability is assured by means of a parameter-dependent Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional, independently of the size of the time-varying delays. A numerical example illustrates the results.
Structural Alignment in Incidental Word Learning

Young children can sometimes acquire new vocabulary words with only limited, indirect exposure (Carey & Bartlett, 1978). We propose that structural alignment processes lead to fluent detection of commonalities and differences that facilitate incidental word learning. To test this, we adapted the Carey and Bartlett paradigm, varying the alignability of the objects that 4year-olds saw while hearing the novel word chromium. In Experiment 1, children in the High-Alignment condition were significantly better than those in the Low-Alignment condition at identifying chromium objects in a subsequent task. In Experiment 2, we ruled out an alternative account by equalizing the overall amount of information presented to the two groups. We also found that the advantage of high alignment persisted after two-to-four days. These results suggest that structural alignment is a mechanism by which children can learn word meanings even in incidental word learning situations.
Collaborative Development Environment in Peer-to-Peer Networks

Collaboration is a huge part of modern software development. Yet most tools used in software development are aimed for single user instances. To support collaborative software practices, researchers and practitioners have presented several tools. The existing tools support collaboration either through distributed version control systems or through client/server-based concurrent text editors. Distributed version control systems do not support real-time collaboration; while the server-based concurrent editors do not support offline work. In this paper, we propose the design of a replica-based collaborative development environment (CDE) within a peer to peer network of users. The CDE supports both real-time collaborative editing and offline work. In addition, the CDE is scalable, resilient to the dynamic joining/leaving of collaborating users, and can be augmented into existing development environments as a plugin. We evaluate the usability of the CDE with respect to operation propagation time, and the correctness with respect to the causality, convergence and intention preservation (CCI) criteria.
Remodeling of cardiac passive electrical properties and susceptibility to ventricular and atrial arrhythmias

Coordinated electrical activation of the heart is essential for the maintenance of a regular cardiac rhythm and effective contractions. Action potentials spread from one cell to the next via gap junction channels. Because of the elongated shape of cardiomyocytes, longitudinal resistivity is lower than transverse resistivity causing electrical anisotropy. Moreover, non-uniformity is created by clustering of gap junction channels at cell poles and by non-excitable structures such as collagenous strands, vessels or fibroblasts. Structural changes in cardiac disease often affect passive electrical properties by increasing non-uniformity and altering anisotropy. This disturbs normal electrical impulse propagation and is, consequently, a substrate for arrhythmia. However, to investigate how these structural changes lead to arrhythmias remains a challenge. One important mechanism, which may both cause and prevent arrhythmia, is the mismatch between current sources and sinks. Propagation of the electrical impulse requires a sufficient source of depolarizing current. In the case of a mismatch, the activated tissue (source) is not able to deliver enough depolarizing current to trigger an action potential in the non-activated tissue (sink). This eventually leads to conduction block. It has been suggested that in this situation a balanced geometrical distribution of gap junctions and reduced gap junction conductance may allow successful propagation. In contrast, source-sink mismatch can prevent spontaneous arrhythmogenic activity in a small number of cells from spreading over the ventricle, especially if gap junction conductance is enhanced. Beside gap junctions, cell geometry and non-cellular structures strongly modulate arrhythmogenic mechanisms. The present review elucidates these and other implications of passive electrical properties for cardiac rhythm and arrhythmogenesis.
XBIC : Real-Time Cross Probabilities measure for speaker segmentation

In this paper a novel probability based measure is presented that shows good results for real time blind speaker segmentation. In such task there is no previous information about the identity or how many speakers there are. Similar to the Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC), the proposed measure indicates the similarity between two speech segments on either side of a given test point. By computing cross probabilities between both segments, an abrupt decrease of the measure value indicates the existence of an acoustic change point. A scrolling window implementation, in a similar way that is used in metric based techniques, is shown to give better results regarding speed and change detection. This measure allows building real-time systems. Tests with Broadcast news data show a general improvement compared to the commonly used BIC method.