Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Computational Model of Early Argument Structure Acquisition

How children go about learning the general regularities that govern language, as well as keeping track of the exceptions to them, remains one of the challenging open questions in the cognitive science of language. Computational modeling is an important methodology in research aimed at addressing this issue. We must determine appropriate learning mechanisms that can grasp generalizations from examples of specific usages, and that exhibit patterns of behavior over the course of learning similar to those in children. Early learning of verb argument structure is an area of language acquisition that provides an interesting testbed for such approaches due to the complexity of verb usages. A range of linguistic factors interact in determining the felicitous use of a verb in various constructions-associations between syntactic forms and properties of meaning that form the basis for a number of linguistic and psycholinguistic theories of language. This article presents a computational model for the representation, acquisition, and use of verbs and constructions. The Bayesian framework is founded on a novel view of constructions as a probabilistic association between syntactic and semantic features. The computational experiments reported here demonstrate the feasibility of learning general constructions, and their exceptions, from individual usages of verbs. The behavior of the model over the timecourse of acquisition mimics, in relevant aspects, the stages of learning exhibited by children. Therefore, this proposal sheds light on the possible mechanisms at work in forming linguistic generalizations and maintaining knowledge of exceptions.
Evaluation of left ventricular systolic and diastolic functions in bipolar patients during lithium therapy.

BACKGROUND Bipolar disorder (BD) is a chronic mental illness that is associated with substantial functional impairment, morbidity and mortality. Lithium is still considered as a first-line therapy in BD. In this study, systolic and diastolic function parameters were measured with echocardiography in BD during lithium therapy and compared to those of a control group. METHODS Thirty BD under lithium therapy and controls were included in our study. Blood samples were taken 12 hours after receiving the last dose of lithium treatment, in the meantime echocardiography were performed. Left ventricular systolic and diastolic function was assessed by conventional echocardiography and tissue Doppler imaging. Serum lithium level correlation between diastolic function parameters was measured. RESULTS Baseline demographic and laboratory results did not differ significantly between the groups. Left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) (66.7 ± 7.1% vs 66.7 ± 4.9%), E/A ratio (1.14 ± 0.41 vs 1.28 ± 0.29), and isovolumetric relaxation time (IVRT) (77.8 ± 14.5 cm/sec vs 75.9 ± 17.7cm/sec) measured with conventional echocardiography showed no significant difference between the two groups. Em (14.8 ± 5.2 cm/sec vs 15 ± 4.6 cm/sec), Am (12.7 ± 4.0 cm/sec vs 11.1.0 ± 2.4 cm/sec) and E/Em (5.5 ± 1.8 vs 5.9 ± 2.4) measured with tissue Doppler echocardiography showed no significant difference between the two groups. Serum lithium levels were not correlated with LVEF, mitral inflow E velocity, mitral inflow A velocity, E/A ratio, deceleration time (DT), IVRT, or E/Em ratio. CONCLUSION Left ventricular systolic and diastolic functions were preserved in BD during lithium therapy.
Seasonality in Primates: Seasonality and long-term change in a savanna environment

Introduction The emergence and spread of savannas in Africa during the past five million years is often cited as a major factor in hominid evolution. Tropical savannas are different from forests in having less rainfall, which is strongly seasonal and often very unpredictable, even within seasons (Bourliere & Hadley 1983; Solbrig 1996). Human ancestors are thought to have moved into savannas as a response to cooling and drying climates, and the exigencies of the savanna environment – including the marked seasonal changes in plant food availability – are often cited as key selective pressures shaping the hominid lineage (see reviews and references in Foley [1987, 1993], Potts [1998a, 1998b], Klein [1999], and Chapters 4, 5, and 17). This scenario invites a careful examination of responses to seasonality in extant savanna-dwelling primates. Like most vertebrates, the large majority of primate species exhibit reproductive seasonality that reflects the seasonality of their habitats (see review in Chapter 11). Indeed, among savanna-dwelling primates, there are only two exceptions to the rule of seasonal reproduction: humans and baboons (genus Papio ). This shared characteristic – the ability to reproduce throughout the year in seasonal environments – may be related to the extraordinary success of these two genera. While only humans (and their commensals) have spread across the globe, baboons have achieved a nearly continental distribution in Africa.
Architecture Sensitive Database Design: Examples from the Columbia Group

In this article, we discuss how different aspects of modern CPU architecture can be effectively used by database systems. While we shall try to cover most important aspects of modern architectures, we shall not aim to provide an exhaustive survey of the literature. Rather, we will use examples from our own recent work to illustrate the principles involved. While there is related work on using other components of modern machines such as graphics cards and intelligent disk controllers for database work, we limit our discussion here to just a single CPU and the memory hierarchy (excluding disks). In recent years the primary focus of database performance research has fundamentally shifted from disks to main memory. Systems with a very large main memory allow a database’s working set to fit in RAM. At the same time processors have continued to double in performance roughly every eighteen months in line with “Moore’s Law,” while memory speed improvements have been marginal. The CPU now spends many hundreds of cycles waiting for data to arrive from main memory, and database workloads are often memory-bound. Because of this bottleneck, database research at Columbia and elsewhere has focused on effectively using the cache hierarchy to improve database performance. Changes in processor technology have also influenced database research. Modern processors feature a very long pipeline, which helps to provide better performance. It also results in a higher branch misprediction penalty, because the pipeline must be flushed and restarted when a branch is mispredicted. Modern CPUs provide the database programmer with a rich instruction set. Using specialized instructions, such as SIMD instructions, database performance can be improved by allowing a degree of parallelism and eliminating some conditional branch instructions, thus reducing the impact of branch mispredictions.
Kinetics of intracellular transport and sorting of lysosomal membrane and plasma membrane proteins

We have used monospecific antisera to two lysosomal membrane glycoproteins, lgp120 and a similar protein, lgp110, to compare the biosynthesis and intracellular transport of lysosomal membrane components, plasma membrane proteins, and lysosomal enzymes. In J774 cells and NRK cells, newly synthesized lysosomal membrane and plasma membrane proteins (the IgG1/IgG2b Fc receptor or influenza virus hemagglutinin) were transported through the Golgi apparatus (defined by acquisition of resistance to endo-beta-N-acetylglucosaminidase H) with the same kinetics (t1/2 = 11-14 min). In addition, immunoelectron microscopy of normal rat kidney cells showed that lgp120 and vesicular stomatitis virus G-protein were present in the same Golgi cisternae demonstrating that lysosomal and plasma membrane proteins were not sorted either before or during transport through the Golgi apparatus. To define the site at which sorting occurred, we compared the kinetics of transport of lysosomal and plasma membrane proteins and a lysosomal enzyme to their respective destinations. Newly synthesized proteins were detected in dense lysosomes (lgp's and beta-glucuronidase) or on the cell surface (Fc receptor or hemagglutinin) after the same lag period (20-25 min), and accumulated at their final destinations with similar kinetics (t1/2 = 30-45 min), suggesting that these two lgp's are not transported to the plasma membrane before reaching lysosomes. This was further supported by measurements of the transport of membrane- bound endocytic markers from the cell surface to lysosomes, which exhibited additional lag periods of 5-15 min and half-times of 1.5-2 h. The time required for transport of newly synthesized plasma membrane proteins to the cell surface, and for the transport of plasma membrane markers from the cell surface to lysosomes would appear too long to account for the rapid transport of lgp's from the Golgi apparatus to lysosomes. Thus, the observed kinetics suggest that lysosomal membrane proteins are sorted from plasma membrane proteins at a post-Golgi intracellular site, possibly the trans Golgi network, before their delivery to lysosomes.
Single-Antenna Doppler Radars Using Self and Mutual Injection Locking for Vital Sign Detection With Random Body Movement Cancellation

This work presents a single-antenna self-injection-locked (SIL) radar to reduce the hardware complexity of continuous-wave (CW) Doppler systems. The theory provides a basis for determining the signal-to-noise spectral density ratio (SNDR) with the effects of clutter. Experimental results agree closely with the theoretical predictions, showing that the clutter does not affect the optimal SNR performance in an SIL radar. A single-antenna SIL radar array is designed to detect vital signs with random body movement cancellation. To this end, a subject is placed between two single-antenna SIL radars to measure the rates of respiration and heartbeat using Doppler shift, and the effects of random movement of the subject are cancelled by wireless mutual injection locking (MIL) of the two radars. In an experiment, a prototype of such a two-radar array with a spacing of 2 m was implemented at 2.4 GHz, providing accurate and reliable cardiopulmonary monitoring of a subject who jogged on a treadmill with random body motion of many centimeters.
Velocity-Dependent Dynamic Curvature Gain for Redirected Walking

Redirected walking techniques allow people to walk in a larger virtual space than the physical extents of the laboratory. We describe two experiments conducted to investigate human sensitivity to walking on a curved path and to validate a new redirected walking technique. In a psychophysical experiment, we found that sensitivity to walking on a curved path was significantly lower for slower walking speeds (radius of 10 m versus 22 m). In an applied study, we investigated the influence of a velocity-dependent dynamic gain controller and an avatar controller on the average distance that participants were able to freely walk before needing to be reoriented. The mean walked distance was significantly greater in the dynamic gain controller condition, as compared to the static controller (22 m versus 15 m). Our results demonstrate that perceptually motivated dynamic redirected walking techniques, in combination with reorientation techniques, allow for unaided exploration of a large virtual city model.
Phagocytosis of Apoptotic Cells by Neutrophil Granulocytes: Diminished Proinflammatory Neutrophil Functions in the Presence of Apoptotic Cells

Neutrophil granulocytes are rapidly recruited from the bloodstream to the site of acute inflammation where they die in large numbers. Because release of toxic substances from dead neutrophils can propagate the inflammatory response leading to tissue destruction, clearance of dying inflammatory neutrophils has a critical function in the resolution of the inflammatory response. Apoptotic neutrophils are phagocytosed primarily by macrophages, provided these cells are present in adequate numbers. However, macrophages are rare at sites of acute inflammation, whereas the number of neutrophils can be extremely high. In the current study, in vitro experiments with human neutrophils were carried out to investigate whether neutrophils can ingest apoptotic neutrophils. We show that naïve granulocytes isolated from venous blood have a limited capacity to phagocytose apoptotic cells. However, exposure to activating stimuli such as LPS, GM-CSF and/or IFN-γ results in enhanced phagocytosis of apoptotic cells. The efficient uptake of apoptotic cells by neutrophils was found to depend on the presence of heat labile serum factors. Importantly, the contact to or uptake of apoptotic cells inhibited neutrophil functions such as respiratory burst and the release of the proinflammatory cytokines TNF-α and interferon-inducible protein-10. Contact to apoptotic cells, however, induced the secretion of IL-8 and growth-related oncogene-α, which was independent of NF-κB and p38 MAPK but involved C5a and the ERK1/2 pathway. The data suggest that activated neutrophils participate in the clearance of apoptotic cells. In addition, because apoptotic cells inhibit proinflammatory functions of neutrophils, uptake of apoptotic cells by neutrophils contributes to the resolution of inflammation.
Inverting the PROSAIL canopy reflectance model using neural nets trained on streamlined databases

Author Summary The widely used PROSAIL radiative transfer model was coupled with a simple soil reflectance parameterisation to estimate the leaf area index (LAI) of winter wheat (Triticum aestivum) from ground-based spectrometer data. To avoid time-consuming numerical optimisations, a neural net (NN) was used for model inversion. The NN was trained on 3000 spectral patterns generated by the reflectance model. The training database was previously streamlined to provide good approximation of the response surface while keeping the net compact. Streamlining was achieved by retaining only those synthetic spectra that belong both to the simulated and actual measurement spaces. The estimated LAI (nobs = 15) compared well with completely independent reference measurements taken four times during the 2000 growing season in four commercial winter wheat fields (1.8 ≤ LAI ≤ 8.1). The coefficient of determination (R2) between measured and estimated LAI was 0.87 with a root mean squared error (RMSE) of 0.89 (m2 m–2). Even for LAIs exceeding 3–4, saturation effects were low. Three measurement dates yielded RMSE lower than 0.8. Only during stem elongation did RMSE exceed 1. Higher errors for this time period were attributed to abrupt changes in the canopy structure (i.e. average leaf angle) not taken into account. Compared to the normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI), the inversion of PROSAIL using hyperspectral reflectances performed well, with errors reduced by more than 50% as compared to the NDVI model (RMSE: 1.91 m2 m–2).
Radon domain reconstruction of 3D irregularly sampled VSP data

Bandlimited wavefields, irregularly sampled along two spatial coordinates, can be reconstructed by estimating the Fourier components with a least squares procedure. A very efficient algorithm for this procedure has ben developed. Since many seismic processing schemes are carried out in the wave-number domain, the approach of the algorithm can be advantageously incorporated within several procedures. One of these procedures is the Radon transformation, which is commonly used in the further processing of VSP data. A good way of computing the Radon domain, taking into account both computational effort and accuracy, is applying a frequency dependent linear interpolation within the wave-number domain and transforming the result back to the time-domain. As the proposed reconstruction algorithm takes only a number of operations comparable to a modest amount of FFT's it is very worthwhile to implement the algorithm within the Radon transform, instead of collecting the traces within bins and stack them to a regular output grid to make it suitable for applying Fast Fourier Transforms. The method shows significant improvement over the binning and stacking method when applied to both synthetic as well as real data.
Characterization and simulation methodology for time-dependent variability in advanced technologies

This paper describes the implications of Bias Temperature Instability (BTI) related time-dependent threshold voltage distributions on the performance and yield of devices and SRAM cells. We show that nFET and pFET time-dependent variability, in addition to the standard time-zero variability, can be fully characterized and projected using a series of measurements on a large test element group (TEG) fabricated in an advanced technology. The statistical distributions encompassing both time-zero and time-dependent variability and their correlations are discussed. The assumption of Normally distributed threshold voltages, imposed by State-of-the-Art design approaches, is shown to induce inaccuracy which is readily solved by adopting our defect-centric statistical approach.
Behaviour of geocell-reinforced sand beds under strip loading

A series of laboratory model tests have been performed to study the behaviour of geocell-reinforced sand beds under strip loading. The strain in geocell walls, pressure transmitted to the subgrade soil, and deformations in the subgrade were measured during the tests to develop an understanding of the mechanism of geocell reinforcement. The pattern of strain variation in the geocell walls indicates that the geocell mattress behaves as a composite beam supported by the subgrade soil. The load dispersion in the geocell mattress is found to be governed by factors such as geometry of the geocell layer and its placement position under the footing.Key words: soil reinforcement, geocell, sand, behaviour, strip loading.
Mean-Square Numerical Methods for Stochastic Differential Equations with Small Noises

A new approach to the construction of mean-square numerical methods for the solution of stochastic differential equations with small noises is proposed. The approach is based on expanding the exact solution of the system with small noises in powers of time increment and small parameter. The theorem on the mean-square estimate of method errors is proved. Various efficient numerical schemes are derived for a general system with small noises and for systems with small additive and small colored noises. The proposed methods are tested by calculation of Lyapunov exponents and simulation of a laser Langevin equation with multiplicative noises.
Impact of Selection Bias on Estimation of Subsequent Event Risk

Background— Studies of recurrent or subsequent disease events may be susceptible to bias caused by selection of subjects who both experience and survive the primary indexing event. Currently, the magnitude of any selection bias, particularly for subsequent time-to-event analysis in genetic association studies, is unknown. Methods and Results— We used empirically inspired simulation studies to explore the impact of selection bias on the marginal hazard ratio for risk of subsequent events among those with established coronary heart disease. The extent of selection bias was determined by the magnitudes of genetic and nongenetic effects on the indexing (first) coronary heart disease event. Unless the genetic hazard ratio was unrealistically large (>1.6 per allele) and assuming the sum of all nongenetic hazard ratios was <10, bias was usually <10% (downward toward the null). Despite the low bias, the probability that a confidence interval included the true effect decreased (undercoverage) with increasing sample size because of increasing precision. Importantly, false-positive rates were not affected by selection bias. Conclusions— In most empirical settings, selection bias is expected to have a limited impact on genetic effect estimates of subsequent event risk. Nevertheless, because of undercoverage increasing with sample size, most confidence intervals will be over precise (not wide enough). When there is no effect modification by history of coronary heart disease, the false-positive rates of association tests will be close to nominal.
The User Innovation Paradigm: Impacts on Markets and Welfare

Innovation has traditionally been seen as the province of producers. However, theoretical and empirical research now shows that individual users – consumers – are also a major and increasingly important source of new product and service designs. In this paper, we build a microeconomic model of a market that incorporates demand-side innovation and competition. We explain the conditions under which firms find it beneficial to invest in supporting and harvesting users’ innovations, and show that social welfare rises when firms utilize this source of innovation. Our modeling also indicates reasons for policy interventions with respect to a mixed user and producer innovation economy. From the social welfare perspective, as the share of innovating users in a market increases, profit-maximizing firms tend to switch “too late” from a focus on internal R&D to a strategy of also supporting and harvesting user innovations. Underlying this inefficiency are externalities that the producer cannot capture. Overall, our results explain when and how the proliferation of innovating users leads to a superior division of innovative labor involving complementary investments by users and producers, both benefitting producers and increasing social welfare.
Control Allocation for a Modified Quadrotor Helicopter Based on Reliability Analysis

This paper considers the problem of control allocation for a modi ed quadrotor heli- copter unmanned system based on reliability analysis. As one of the objectives is to increase the overall system's reliability, the conventional quadrotor helicopter which is equipped with four actuators is rst upgraded by adding four additional actuators. Second, control allocation is applied to the upgraded system for a better redundancy management while considering information on actuator failure rates. With respect to such a reliability con- sideration, more control duties are allocated to the most reliable actuators and less control duties are allocated to the least reliable ones. Experimental ight tests show how the consideration of reliability analysis in the control allocation a ects the generated control inputs for a better control e orts distribution with consideration of a higher reliability in actuator components and also overall quadrotor system. Moreover, it is shown how the system's global reliability and consequently its availability are improved.
The Young Massive Stellar Cluster Associated with RCW 121

We report near-infrared (NIR) broadband and narrowband photometric observations in the direction of the IRAS 17149-3916 source that reveal the presence of a young cluster of massive stars embedded in an H II region coincident with RCW 121. These observations, together with published radio data and Midcourse Space Experiment and Spitzer images, were used to determine some of the physical parameters of the region. We found 96 cluster member candidates in an area of about 1.5 × 2.0 arcmin2, 30% of them showing excess emission in the near-IR. IRS 1, the strongest source in the cluster with an estimated spectral type of O5 V-O6 V zero-age main sequence based on the color-magnitude diagram, is probably the main ionizing source of the H II region detected at radio wavelengths. Using the integrated Brγ and the 5 GHz flux densities, we derived a mean visual extinction AV = 5.49 ± mag. From the observed size of the Brγ extended emission, we calculated the emission measure E = 4.5 × 1024 cm-5 and the electron density ne = 2.6 × 103 cm-3, characteristic of compact H II regions.