Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Experiments with LSA for Passage Re-Ranking in Question Answering

As in the previous QA@CLEF track, two separate groups at the University of Alicante participated this year using different approaches. This paper describes the work of Alicante 1 group. We have continued with the research line established in the past competition, where the main goal was to obtain a fully data-driven system based on machine learning techniques. Last year an XML framework was established in order to obtain a modular system where each component could be easily replaced or upgraded. In this framework, a question classification system based on Support Vector Machines (SVM) and surface text features was included, achieving remarkable performance in this stage. The main novelties introduced this year are focused on the information retrieval stage. First, we employed Indri as our search engine for passage retrieval. Secondly, we developed a module for passage re-ranking based on Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA). This technique provides a method for determining the similarity of meaning between words by analysis of large text corpora. In our experiments, every question was compared with every passage returned by the search engine by means of LSA in order to re-rank them. Looking at the results, this technique increased the retrieval accuracy for definition questions but it decreased accuracy on factoid ones. To take advantage of the flexibility and adaptability of our machine learning based proposal, this year we extended our participation to monolingual Spanish task and bilingual Spanish-English task. We reach a best overall accuracy of 29.47% in the first task and 20.00% in the second one.
Obtención de purés de frutos con alto valor funcional mediante tecnologías innovadoras de procesado

espanolLas demandas de los consumidores de productos seguros, de facil consumo y con mejor calidad nutritiva, sensorial y libres de aditivos han favorecido el auge de tecnologias alternativas a los tratamientos termicos convencionales. La tecnologia de altas presiones hidrostaticas permite la conservacion alimentos con minimas modificaciones de su valor nutritivo en comparacion con los tratamientos termicos convencionales. El tratamiento mediante pulsos electricos es otra de las tecnologias de procesado que tambien ha generado gran interes a nivel cientifico e industrial. Los ultimos estudios desarrollados en esta area apuntan a que la aplicacion de pulsos electricos con intensidades inferiores a las necesarias para la conservacion de alimentos (pulsos electricos de moderada intensidad de campo) modifica el metabolismo secundario de la fruta e incrementa los niveles de compuestos bioactivos, mejorando de este modo, el contenido en determinados compuestos de interes. Estos tratamientos se aplicaron a dos matrices modelo con diferentes caracteristicas: ciruela y calabaza. La aplicacion de pulsos electricos de moderada intensidad aplicados a ciruela y calabaza incremento el contenido en compuestos bioactivos de dichos frutos. La aplicacion de tratamientos de altas presiones hidrostaticas permitio la conservacion de los compuestos bioactivos de pures de ciruela y calabaza. La aplicacion de ambas tecnologias permitiria la obtencion de pures de frutos mayor calidad funcional que los que se encuentran en el mercado actualmente. EnglishConsumers demand additive-free, ready-to-eat, highly-nutritious food products with increased safety and sensory quality. This fact has favored the use of innovative processing technologies as alternatives to the conventional thermal treatments. Hydrostatic high pressure (HHP) technology allows food preservation with minimum changes in the nutritive value compared with the traditional thermal treatment. Pulse electric fields treatment is another processing technology which has generated great interest among industrials and scientists. Recent studies suggest that the application of pulsed electric fields at lower levels than those necessary for food preservation (moderate intensity pulsed electric fields, MIPEF) could modify fruit secondary metabolism and increases the levels of some metabolites of interest, such as certain bioactive compounds. These treatments were applied in two vegetable matrices with different composition and characteristics: plum and pumpkin. The application of MIPEF in plum and pumpkin increased the bioactive compounds content in these vegetables. High pressure treatment allowed the preservation of bioactive compounds in purees in plum and pumpkin. Both technologies allowed the development of purees of plum and pumpkin with a higher functional quality than those obtained by conventional technologies.
Stabilization of nonaffine systems: a constructive method for polynomial systems

This note focuses on the stabilization of nonaffine systems described by continuous nonlinear ordinary differential equations. First, conditions of stabilization using control Lyapunov function give theoretical but nonconstructive and restrictive results. Second, some particular nonaffine systems are considered: This is polynomial system in the control variable of order two and three (a method is also given for high-order systems). The main result is a method of construction of feedbacks for this class of polynomial systems. In the end, the polynomial example of the levitation system is stabilized using an extension of this method to discontinuous feedback.
Real-time hypoglycemia detection from continuous glucose monitoring data of subjects with type 1 diabetes.

BACKGROUND Hypoglycemia is a potentially fatal condition. Continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) has the potential to detect hypoglycemia in real time and thereby reduce time in hypoglycemia and avoid any further decline in blood glucose level. However, CGM is inaccurate and shows a substantial number of cases in which the hypoglycemic event is not detected by the CGM. The aim of this study was to develop a pattern classification model to optimize real-time hypoglycemia detection. MATERIALS AND METHODS Features such as time since last insulin injection and linear regression, kurtosis, and skewness of the CGM signal in different time intervals were extracted from data of 10 male subjects experiencing 17 insulin-induced hypoglycemic events in an experimental setting. Nondiscriminative features were eliminated with SEPCOR and forward selection. The feature combinations were used in a Support Vector Machine model and the performance assessed by sample-based sensitivity and specificity and event-based sensitivity and number of false-positives. RESULTS The best model was composed by using seven features and was able to detect 17 of 17 hypoglycemic events with one false-positive compared with 12 of 17 hypoglycemic events with zero false-positives for the CGM alone. Lead-time was 14 min and 0 min for the model and the CGM alone, respectively. CONCLUSIONS This optimized real-time hypoglycemia detection provides a unique approach for the diabetes patient to reduce time in hypoglycemia and learn about patterns in glucose excursions. Although these results are promising, the model needs to be validated on CGM data from patients with spontaneous hypoglycemic events.
Real-time index concurrency control

Real-time database systems are expected to rely heavily on indexes to speed up data access and, thereby, help more transactions meet their deadlines. Accordingly, high- performance index concurrency control (ICC) protocols are required to prevent contention for the index from becoming a bottleneck. In this paper, we develop real-time variants of a representative set of classical B-tree ICC protocols and, using a detailed simulation model, compare their performance for real-time transactions with firm deadlines. We also present and evaluate a new real-time ICC protocol called GUARD-link that augments the classical B-link protocol with a feedback-based admission control mechanism. Both point and range queries, as well as the undos of the index actions of aborted transactions are included in the scope of our study. The performance metrics used in evaluating the ICC protocols are the percentage of transactions that miss their deadlines and the fairness with respect to transaction type and size. Our experimental results show that the performance characteristics of the real-time version of an ICC protocol could be significantly different from the performance of the same protocol in a conventional (nonreal-time) database system. In particular, B-link protocols, which are reputed to provide the best overall performance in conventional database systems, perform poorly under heavy real-time loads. The new GUARD-link protocol, however, although based on the B-link approach, delivers the best performance (with respect to all performance metrics) for a variety of real-time transaction workloads, by virtue of its admission control mechanism. In fact, GUARD-link provides close to ideal fairness in most environments. These and other results presented here represent the first work in the area of real-time index concurrency control.
Development and Application of a New Steady-Hand Manipulator for Retinal Surgery

This paper describes the development and initial testing of a new and optimized version of a steady-hand manipulator for retinal microsurgery. In the steady-hand paradigm, the surgeon and the robot share control of a tool attached to the robot through a force sensor. The robot controller senses forces exerted by the operator on the tool and uses this information in various control modes to provide smooth, tremor-free, precise positional control and force scaling. The steady-hand manipulator reported here has been specifically designed with the unique constraints of retinal microsurgery in mind. In particular, the system makes use of a compact wrist design that places the bulk of the robot away from the operating field. The resulting system has high efficacy, flexibility and ergonomics while meeting the accuracy and safety requirements of microsurgery. We have now tested this robot on a biological model system and we report a protocol for reliably cannulating ~80 mum OD veins (the size of veins in the human retina) using the system
A signal processing module for non-destructive targeting of termite activity using the Spectral Kurtosis and the Discrete Wavelet Transform

In this paper we present the operation results of a portable computer-based measurement equipment conceived to perform non-destructive testing of suspicious termite infestations. Its signal processing module is based in the Spectral Kurtosis (SK), with the de-noising complement of the Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT). The SK pattern allows the targeting of alarms and activity signals. The DWT complements the SK, by keeping the successive approximations of the termite emissions, supposed more non-gaussian (less noisy) and with less entropy than the detail approximations. For a given mother wavelet, the maximum acceptable level, in the wavelet decomposition tree, which preserves the insects' emissions features, depends on the comparative evolution of the approximations details' entropies, and the value of the global spectral kurtosis associated to the approximation of the separated signals. The paper explains the detection criterion by showing real-life recordings.
Simulating local mobility and mechanical properties of thermostable polyimides with different dianhydride fragments

The dynamic and mechanical properties of the three thermoplastic polyimides—crystallizable polyimide BPDA-P3 and amorphous polyimides ODPA-P3 and aBPDA-P3—have been simulated using the atomistic molecular dynamics technique. The three simulated polyimides differ in the chemical structure of their corresponding dianhydride fragments. Analyzing the local orientational mobility of different phenylene rings, it has been established that the increase of the glass-transition temperature (T g) in the ordered set (Formula presented.) is caused by the slowing down of the phthalimide rings relaxation in the corresponding dianhydride fragments. It has been observed that rather poor mechanical characteristics upon aBPDA-P3 stretching in the strain-hardening regime are also due to the low orientational mobility of the phthalimide rings. The correlation between the dynamic fragility and the polyimides strain-hardening moduli has been observed; the increase of the dynamic fragility leads to the increase of the strain-hardening modulus.
Hypoxia-inducible Factor 1-α Induces miR-210 in Normoxic Differentiating Myoblasts*

Background: miR-210 hypoxamir is induced by Hif1a in hypoxic cells. Results: miR-210 expression increased during myogenic differentiation in normoxia with a Hif1a-dependent mechanism. Moreover, miR-210 displayed a cytoprotective role in response to mitochondrial dysfunction and oxidative stress. Conclusion: miR-210 regulation and function extend beyond cell response to hypoxia. Significance: Identifying miR-210 as a potential target in skeletal muscle disorders. MicroRNA-210 (miR-210) induction is a virtually constant feature of the hypoxic response in both normal and transformed cells, regulating several key aspects of cardiovascular diseases and cancer. We found that miR-210 was induced in normoxic myoblasts upon myogenic differentiation both in vitro and in vivo. miR-210 transcription was activated in an hypoxia-inducible factor 1-α (Hif1a)-dependent manner, and chromatin immunoprecipitation experiments show that Hif1a bound to the miR-210 promoter only in differentiated myotubes. Accordingly, luciferase reporter assays demonstrated the functional relevance of the Hif1a binding site for miR-210 promoter activation in differentiating myoblasts. To investigate the functional relevance of increased miR-210 levels in differentiated myofibers, we blocked miR-210 with complementary locked nucleic acid oligonucleotides (anti-miR-210). We found that C2C12 myoblast cell line differentiation was largely unaffected by anti-miR-210. Likewise, miR-210 inhibition did not affect skeletal muscle regeneration following cardiotoxin damage. However, we found that miR-210 blockade greatly increased myotube sensitivity to oxidative stress and mitochondrial dysfunction. In conclusion, miR-210 is induced in normoxic myofibers, playing a cytoprotective role.
A Web-Based Platform for Patients With Osteoarthritis of the Hip and Knee: A Pilot Study

Background Chronic conditions are the leading cause of disability throughout the world and the most expensive problem facing the health care systems. One such chronic condition is osteoarthritis (OA), a frequent cause of major disability. Objective To describe the effect on joint pain for the first users of a newly developed Web-based osteoarthritis self-managing program, Joint Academy, and to examine whether these patients would recommend other OA patients to use the program. Methods Patients with clinically established knee or hip OA according to national and international guidelines were recruited from an online advertisement. A trained physiotherapist screened the eligible patients by scrutinizing their answers to a standardized questionnaire. The 6-week program consisted of eight 2- to 5-minute videos with lectures about OA, effects of physical activity, self-management, and coping strategies. In addition, exercises to improve lower extremity physical function were introduced in daily video activities. During the course of the program, communication between physiotherapist and patients was based on an asynchronous chat. After 6 weeks, patients were able to continue without support from the physiotherapist. Patients reported their current pain weekly by using a numeric rating scale (range 0-10; 0=no pain, 10=worst possible pain) as long as they were in the program. In addition, after 6 weeks patients answered the question “What is the probability that you would recommend Joint Academy to a friend? ” Results The eligible cohort consisted of 53 individuals (39 women; body mass index: mean 27, SD 5; age: mean 57, SD 14 years). With the continued use of the program, patients reported a constant change in pain score from mean 5.1 (SD 2.1) at baseline to mean 3.6 (SD 2.0) at week 12. Six patients participated for 30 weeks (mean 3.2, SD 2.1). Overall, the patients would highly recommend Joint Academy to other OA patients, suggesting that the platform may be useful for at least some in the vast OA population. Conclusions Joint Academy, a Web-based platform for OA therapy, has the potential to successfully deliver individualized online treatment to many patients with OA that presently lack access to treatment.
Appendix 1. Short-term Debt and Short-term Assets Composition

• Federal Funds Purchased: The gross dollar amount of funds borrowed in the form of immediately available funds under agreements or contracts that mature in one business day or roll over under a continuing contract, regardless of the nature of the transaction or the collateral involved. Includes securities sold under agreements to repurchase that involve the receipt of immediately available funds and mature in one business day or roll over under a continuing contract. • Repurchase Agreements: The gross dollar amount of security repurchase agreements that mature in more than one business day, other than securities sold under repurchase agreements to maturity, but including sales of participations in pools of securities that mature in more than one business day. • Brokered Deposits (< $100,000, Maturity ≤ One Year): Brokered deposits issued in denominations of less than $100,000 with a remaining maturity of one year or less and that are held in domestic offices of commercial banks or other depository institutions that are subsidiaries of the reporting bank holding company. Remaining maturity is the amount of time remaining from the report date until the final contractual maturity of a brokered deposit. • Time Deposits (≥ $100,000, Maturity ≤ One Year): Time deposits issued in denominations of $100,000 or more with a remaining maturity of one year or less. Remaining maturity is the amount of time remaining from the report date until the final contractual maturity of a time deposit. • Foreign Office Time Deposits (Maturity ≤ One Year): All time deposits in foreign offices with remaining maturities of one year or less. Remaining maturity is the amount of time remaining from the report date until the final contractual maturity of a time deposit. • Commercial Paper: The total amount outstanding of commercial paper issued by the reporting bank holding company or its subsidiaries.
Set Constraints and Logic Programming

Set constraints are inclusion relations between expressions denoting sets of ground terms over a ranked alphabet. They are the main ingredient in set-based program analysis. In this paper we describe a constraint logic programming languageclp(sc) over set constraints in the style of J. Jaffar and J.-L. Lassez (1987, “Proc. Symp. Principles of Programming Languages 1987,” pp. 111? 119). The language subsumes ordinary logic programs over an Herbrand domain. We give an efficient unification algorithm and operational, declarative, and fixpoint semantics. We show how the language can be applied in set-based program analysis by deriving explicitly the monadic approximation of the collecting semantics of N. Heintze and J. Jaffar (1992, “Set Based Program Analysis”; 1990, “Proc. 17th Symp. Principles of Programming Languages,” pp. 197? 209).
Evaluation of multi-spectral cube from multi-sensor imagery corresponding to hyperspectral imagery

In this paper, we evaluate the incorporation of open source multi-spectral imagery from Landsat-8 and Sentinel-2 to form a multi-spectral cube that represents the surface reflectance in near full wave spectra for various distinct natural objects from two study areas. The results from the integration are evaluated with respect to EO-1: Hyperion hyperspectral imagery. A three-stage evaluation strategy is proposed based on the spectral response, classification and endmember identification using spectral unmixing.
Turing Universality of Recursive Patterns for Parallel Programming

Dijkstra's famous thesis "goto considered harmful", which paved the way for structured programming, was formally substantiated by the result of Bohm and Jacopini on the Turing universality of the three well-known basic programming constructs. We argue for a similar ideal in parallel programming — "send-receive considered harmful" — i.e. abandoning explicit send-receive statements between processors and expressing programs using a restricted set of parallel constructs. We deal with recursive patterns of parallelism, represented formally as morphisms in a suitable calculus. The aim of this paper is to study the expressive power of two morphisms – catamorphisms and anamorphisms. For a restricted program calculus based on these morphisms, we constructively prove two formal results, whose pragmatic message is: (1) A programming language based on catamorphisms is computationally equivalent to the class of primitive recursive functions; (2) A programming language based on both catamorphisms and anamorphisms is equivalent to the class of partial recursive functions and is therefore Turing-universal. We present a case study on numerical integration, demonstrating the expressive power of ana- and catamorphisms for parallel programming.
Operational Matrix for two Dimensional Haar and WAlsh Functions and Applications to solve Volterra-fredholm Integral Equations using Direct Method

The main purpose of this article is to demonstrate the use of the two Dimensional Walsh and Haar functions with Operational Matrix for solving nonlinear Volterra-Fredholm integral equations. The approximate solution is rep resented in the form of series. The approximate solution is obtained by two Dimensional Walsh and Haar series. The operational matrix and direct method for solving the linear Volterra-Fredholm integral equations of the second kind is examined. Error estimates are provided and numerical express is reported.
Application of expanded polystyrene (EPS) in buildings and constructions: A review

Expanded polystyrene (EPS) is one of the building material capable of enhancing the design and structural integrity of the building. Since its recognition as conventional insulating material in 1950s, EPS has been experiencing swift progress in other new implementations. Currently, EPS is utilized in many building structures owing to its sustainability benefit and improvement in terms of energy efficiency, durability, and indoor environmental quality. This article provides an overview on the application of EPS as aggregates in lightweight concrete, decorative tiles and molding, panel application (structural insulated panels (SIPs) and composite SIPs), and embankment backfilling. Also, this article attempts to describe the properties of EPS in terms of fire behavior, mechanical properties, chemical resistant, water and moisture absorption, and their toxicity to the human and environment.
Evaluation of chemical mutagenicity using next generation sequencing: A review

ABSTRACT Mutations are heritable changes in the nucleotide sequence of DNA that can lead to many adverse effects. Genotoxicity assays have been used to identify chemical mutagenicity. Recently, next generation sequencing (NGS) has been used for this purpose. In this review, we present the progress in NGS application for assessing mutagenicity of chemicals, including the methods used for detecting the induced mutations, bioinformatics tools for analyzing the sequencing data, and chemicals whose mutagenicity has been evaluated using NGS. Available information suggests that NGS technology has unparalleled advantages for evaluating mutagenicity of chemicals can be applied for the next generation of mutagenicity tests.