Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Development of Dutch and Afrikaans Language Resources for Compound Boundary Analysis.

In most languages, new words can be created through the process of compounding, which combines two or more words into a new lexical unit. Whereas in languages such as English the components that make up a compound are separated by a space, in languages such as Finnish, German, Afrikaans and Dutch these components are concatenated into one word. Compounding is very productive and leads to practical problems in developing machine translators and spelling checkers, as newly formed compounds cannot be found in existing lexicons. The Automatic Compound Processing (AuCoPro) project deals with the analysis of compounds in two closely-related languages, Afrikaans and Dutch. In this paper, we present the development and evaluation of two datasets, one for each language, that contain compound words with annotated compound boundaries. Such datasets can be used to train classifiers to identify the compound components in novel compounds. We describe the process of annotation and provide an overview of the annotation guidelines as well as global properties of the datasets. The inter-rater agreements between the annotators are considered highly reliable. Furthermore, we show the usability of these datasets by building an initial automatic compound boundary detection system, which assigns compound boundaries with approximately 90% accuracy.
Low-Rank Structure Learning via Nonconvex Heuristic Recovery

In this paper, we propose a nonconvex framework to learn the essential low-rank structure from corrupted data. Different from traditional approaches, which directly utilizes convex norms to measure the sparseness, our method introduces more reasonable nonconvex measurements to enhance the sparsity in both the intrinsic low-rank structure and the sparse corruptions. We will, respectively, introduce how to combine the widely used ℓp norm (0 <; p <; 1) and log-sum term into the framework of low-rank structure learning. Although the proposed optimization is no longer convex, it still can be effectively solved by a majorization-minimization (MM)-type algorithm, with which the nonconvex objective function is iteratively replaced by its convex surrogate and the nonconvex problem finally falls into the general framework of reweighed approaches. We prove that the MM-type algorithm can converge to a stationary point after successive iterations. The proposed model is applied to solve two typical problems: robust principal component analysis and low-rank representation. Experimental results on low-rank structure learning demonstrate that our nonconvex heuristic methods, especially the log-sum heuristic recovery algorithm, generally perform much better than the convex-norm-based method (0 <; p <; 1) for both data with higher rank and with denser corruptions.
Correlating Metal Poisoning with Zeolite Deactivation in an Individual Catalyst Particle by Chemical and Phase-Sensitive X-ray Microscopy

Fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) is the main conversion process used in oil refineries. An X-ray microscopy method is used to show that metal poisoning and related structural changes in the zeolite active material lead to a non-uniform core–shell deactivation of FCC catalyst particles. The study links the detrimental effect of V and Ni poisoning with zeolite destruction and dealumination in a spatial manner within a single FCC catalyst particle.
Processing huge scanned datasets : issues and solutions

The construction of detailed and accurate 3D models is made easier by the increasing diffusion of 3D scanning devices. These allow to build accurate digital models of real 3D objects in a costand time-effective manner. The presents briefly the capabilities of this technology and focuses mainly on some issues which make the management of huge scanning set still very hard. We will discuss: the considerable user intervention required in the post-processing of scanned data; the usually incomplete sampling of the artifact surface and how do we can try to complete it; the huge complexity of the 3D model produced from a very rich scanned set. Another emerging issue is how to support the visual presentation of the models (local or remote) with guaranteed interactive rendering rates. Some examples of the results of current projects, mainly in the Cultural Heritage field, will be shown.
Spatial competition and asymmetric information : Evidence from the Swedish market for dental care

This paper analyses spatial competition on the market for dental care services using matched patient-dentist data, covering almost all dental care consumption in Sweden during 3 years. The data contains location of dental clinics, allowing for a more dynamic de nition of markets than previous literature. I analyze price di erences across markets for dental services that di er in the amount of information asymmetries between the patient and the dentist.
Continuity in foreign language education in Australia: The Language Bonus plan

This article discusses the validity of the bonus for languages other than English (known as the Language Bonus) established in Australia to boost participation in language education. In subjecting this incentive plan to empirical investigation, we not only address a gap in the literature, but also continue the discussion on how to ensure that the efforts made by governments, schools, education agencies and teachers to support language study in schooling can have long-term success. Using data from a large-scale investigation, we consider the significance of the Language Bonus in influencing students’ decisions to study a language at school and at university. While this paper has a local focus – an English-speaking country in which language study is not compulsory – it engages with questions from the broader agenda of providing incentives for learning languages. It will be relevant especially for language policy in English speaking countries.
The inhibition by guinea pig serum of the growth of the Murphy-Sturm lymphosarcoma.

Intraperitoneal injections of guinea pig serum are more effective in inhibiting growth of the solid form of the Murphy-Sturm lymphosarcoma carried in Wistar rats when there is a latent period of at least 5 days. Disparities between two groups of animals that have shorter and longer latent periods, respectively, are manifested by differences in: ( a ) the number of tumors that are completely inhibited, ( b ) the length of the latent period, and/or ( c ) the number of tumor regressions. Intraperitoneal injections of guinea pig serum are shown to be effective in inhibiting growth of the more virulent ascites form of this tumor.
Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion Gpupom: a Gpu-based Princeton Ocean Model Gmdd Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion

Rapid advances in the performance of the graphics processing unit (GPU) have made the GPU a compelling solution for a series of scientific applications. However, most existing GPU acceleration works for climate models are doing partial code porting for certain hot spots, and can only achieve limited speedup for the entire model. In this work, 5 we take the mpiPOM (a parallel version of the Princeton Ocean Model) as our starting point, design and implement a GPU-based Princeton Ocean Model. By carefully considering the architectural features of the state-of-the-art GPU devices, we rewrite the full mpiPOM model from the original Fortran version into a new Compute Unified Device Architecture C (CUDA-C) version. We take several accelerating methods to further 10 improve the performance of gpuPOM, including optimizing memory access in a single GPU, overlapping communication and boundary operations among multiple GPUs, and overlapping input/output (I/O) between the hybrid Central Processing Unit (CPU) and the GPU. Our experimental results indicate that the performance of the gpuPOM on a workstation containing 4 GPUs is comparable to a powerful cluster with 408 CPU 15 cores and it reduces the energy consumption by 6.8 times.
miR-135b inhibits tumour metastasis in prostate cancer by targeting STAT6

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs that participate in several cellular functions and tumour progression. A previous microarray study demonstrated that miR-135b is downregulated in prostate cancer (PCa) cells, but the role and molecular mechanism of miR-135b in the regulation of tumour metastasis remain to be elucidated. In the present study, significant downregulation of miR-135b in PCa tissues, compared with noncancerous tissues, was detected by reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction. Furthermore, the expression of miR-135b was demonstrated to be associated with the pathological stage and the levels of total and free prostate-specific antigen (PSA) in PCa cells. In addition, signal transducer and activator of transcription 6 (STAT6) was identified as a target of miR-135b in PCa cells by luciferase activity and western blot assays. The upregulation of miR-135b in PCa cells led to reduced expression of STAT6 in the cytoplasm and nucleus of these cells, while the overexpression of miR-135b and knockdown of STAT6 were able to inhibit the migration and invasion abilities of PCa cells in vitro. Therefore, the results of the present study indicate that miR-135b suppresses tumour metastasis by targeting STAT6.
LinkLights: a modular, user adaptable system to support rehabilitation practices

The project described in this paper aims to provide assistive tools to support elderly people affected by vestibular dysfunction (i.e. a form of balance disorder leading to dizziness and nausea) in their home-based rehabilitation activities. Challenges emerge as the rehabilitation moves from a supervised hospital setting to private homes. Our studies have shown that the elderly people are less motivated to perform the training at home. This paper presents a tangible, portable, two dimensional modular platform called LinkLights that has been developed to sustain the home-based rehabilitation, giving clear guidelines what to do, adding motivational cues and elements of variation and surprise in the activity. Furthermore, a set of challenges for successful translocation of the therapeutic regimen from a supervised, hospital setting to an unsupervised home-based setting together with some early results of experimenting with this platform will be presented.
Database Optimization in the Cloud: Where Costs, Partial Results, and Consumer Choice Meet

Database services in the cloud (DBaaS) allow users to convert the fixed costs of deploying and maintaining a database system to variable costs that are incurred in a pay-as-you-go manner. Considerable research focus has been given to the cost of the elasticity (of performance) and reliability of a DBaaS. This is because in the cloud, users are able to modulate these characteristics of a DBaaS by paying more or less to the provider. However, the one invariant has always been that the user will receive a complete and correct result. In this paper we consider another possibility; that users may be willing to accept different quality results from a DBaaS that aren’t complete and correct if the price is right. Recently, there has been research classifying “partial results” produced using incomplete input (due to failures) while processing a query. These classifications provide a broad and general way to understand a partial result using semantic guarantees that can be made about the result. In this paper, we consider a database system in the cloud that allows users to control the cost of a query by defining the sorts of partial results that are acceptable.
Slicing CSP-OZ Specifications for Verification by Ingo Brückner

Model checking specifications with complex data and behaviour descriptions often fails due to the large state space to be processed. In this paper we propose a technique for reducing such specifications (with respect to certain properties under interest) before verification. The method is an adaption of the slicing technique from program analysis to the area of integrated formal notations and temporal logic properties. It solely operates on the syntactic structure of the specification which is usually significantly smaller than its state space. We show how to build a reduced specification via the construction of a so called program dependence graph, and prove correctness of the technique with respect to a projection relationship between full and reduced specification. The reduction thus preserves all properties formulated in temporal logics which are invariant under stuttering, as for instance LTL−X .
Modeling Population Viability for the Desert Tortoise in the Western Mojave Desert

The desert tortoise is a threatened species living in the deserts of the Amer- ican Southwest. Using size-structured demographic models, we analyzed the status of the tortoise in the Western Mojave desert and evaluated the effectiveness of possible manage- ment measures. Our demographic analyses agree with the trends reported by field censuses in showing rapid population decline. Importantly, simulations that include variation and correlation in vital rates yield highly variable forecasts of population growth, indicating the uncertainties inherent in even short-term projections of tortoise population sizes. To determine where conservation efforts and data collection should be focused, we performed a series of sensitivity analyses in which the effects of changing different vital rates were quantified. We found that the rate of population growth is most sensitive to the survival of large adult females and that improving survival of this size class to reputably "pristine" rates could reverse population declines; in contrast, large improvements in other vital rates will not, alone, reverse population decline. Thus, shooting, off-road vehicles, upper respi- ratory tract disease (URTD), and other major sources of adult mortality should be the primary focus of management strategies. Finally, we discuss the impact of the proposed expansion of the U.S. Army's Fort Irwin, which would reduce the Western Mojave tortoise population by < 13%. We argue that the expansion could have a grave impact on the long- term population viability of the tortoise, but that this impact will be a function of the management of remaining tortoise habitat. We conclude that, although many anthropogenic impacts threaten the tortoise, the species' future could be bright, provided that research and land-use planning focus on biologically important aspects of its life history.
Walks in the quarter plane: Kreweras’ algebraic model

We consider planar lattice walks that start from (0, 0), remain in the first quadrant i, j ≥ 0, and are made of three types of steps: North-East, West and South. These walks are known to have remarkable enumerative and probabilistic properties: – they are counted by nice numbers (Kreweras 1965), – the generating function of these numbers is algebraic (Gessel 1986), – the stationary distribution of the corresponding Markov chain in the quadrant has an algebraic probability generating function (Flatto and Hahn 1984). These results are not well understood, and have been established via complicated proofs. Here we give a uniform derivation of all of them, which is more elementary that those previously published. We then go further by computing the full law of the Markov chain. This helps to delimit the border of algebraicity: the associated probability generating function is no longer algebraic, unless a diagonal symmetry holds. Our proofs are based on the solution of certain functional equations, which are very simple to establish. Finding purely combinatorial proofs remains an open problem.
TEMPLATES FOR THE SUNYAEV–ZEL’DOVICH ANGULAR POWER SPECTRUM

We present templates for the Sunyaev–Zel'dovich (SZ) angular power spectrum based on four models for the nonlinear gas distribution. The frequency-dependent SZ temperature fluctuations, with thermal (TSZ) and kinetic (KSZ) contributions, are calculated by tracing through a dark matter simulation, processed to include gas in dark matter halos and in the filamentary intergalactic medium. Different halo gas models are compared to study how star formation, energetic feedback, and nonthermal pressure support influence the angular power spectrum. The standard model has been calibrated to reproduce the stellar and gas fractions and X-ray scaling relations measured from low-redshift clusters and groups. The other models illustrate the current theoretical and empirical uncertainties relating to properties of the intracluster medium. Relative to the standard model, their angular power spectra differ by approximately ±50% (TSZ), ±20% (KSZ), and ±40% (SZ at 148 GHz) for l = 3000, σ8 = 0.8, and homogeneous reionization at z = 10. The angular power spectrum decreases in amplitude as gas mass and binding energy are removed through star formation, and as gas is pushed out to larger radii by energetic feedback. With nonthermal pressure support, less pressure is required to maintain hydrostatic equilibrium, thus reducing the thermal contribution to the SZ power. We also calculate the SZ templates as a function of σ8 and quantify this dependence. Assuming Cl ∝ (σ8/0.8)α, the effective scaling index ranges from 7 ≲ αTSZ ≲ 9, 4.5 ≲ αKSZ ≲ 5.5, and 6.5 ≲ αSZ(148 GHz) ≲ 8 at l = 3000 for 0.6 < σ8 < 1. The template spectra are publicly available and can be used when fitting for the SZ contribution to the cosmic microwave background on arcminute scales.
Effects of Government Maize Marketing and Trade Policies on Maize Market Prices in Kenya

The objectives of this paper are to determine the effects of NCPB maize trading activity and the maize import tariff on wholesale maize market price levels and volatility. The analysis uses monthly maize price and trade data covering the period January 1990 to September 2004. Results are based on a vector autoregression (VAR) approach that allows estimation of a counterfactual set of maize prices that would have occurred over the 1990-2004 period had the NCPB not existed and trade restrictions been removed. Assessed are the separate impacts of policy on wholesale prices in Kitale, a major surplus-producing area, and Nairobi, the major urban demand center in the country.
An X‐ray investigation of powerful far‐infrared galaxies

We present ASCA results on four prototype powerful far-infrared galaxies, Mrk 231, Mrk 273, Arp 220 and NGC 6240. The soft X-ray spectra show signatures of thermal emission with temperatures of (0.5--1),×107 K, which is probably produced in starbursts. Their soft X-ray (0.5--2 keV) luminosities range from 4×1040 to 7×1041 erg s-1. The X-ray properties are examined in the context of a starburst. Evidence for a heavily obscured active nucleus is found in Mrk 273 and NGC 6240. The ASCA spectra of both galaxies show strong iron K emission-line features. The hard X-ray emission (> 3 keV) in NGC 6240 is most likely the reflected light of a hidden QSO, the intrinsic luminosity of which is suspected to be ∼ 1045 erg s-1, comparable to the far-IR luminosity. The 2--10 keV emission, possibly related to an active galactic nucleus (AGN), is found in Mrk 231. The observed 2--10 keV luminosity is only ∼ 2×1042 erg s-1, and the origin of the hard X-ray emission is uncertain because of the low quality of the present data. No evidence for an AGN is found in Arp 220 in the X-ray data. However, the soft X-ray emission originating in the starburst is also as weak as the Hα nebula and near-IR continuum, despite the large far-IR excess. The possible existence of a powerful but heavily obscured (Compton-thick) AGN is discussed.
The Use of VRML to Integrate Design and Solid Freeform Fabrication

The Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) was created to put interconnected 3D worlds onto every desktop. The 3D VRML format has the potential for 3D fax and TeleManufacture. An architecture and methodology of using VRML format to integrate a 3D model and Solid Freeform Fabrication system are described in this paper. The prototype software discussed in this paper demonstrates the use of VRML for Solid Freeform Fabrication process planning. The path used from design to part will be described.
Accurate stitching for polygonal surfaces

Various applications, such as mesh composition and model repair, ask for a natural stitching for polygonal surfaces. Unlike the existing algorithms, we make full use of the information from the two feature lines to be stitched up, and present an accurate stitching method for polygonal surfaces, which minimizes the error between the feature lines. Given two directional polylines as the feature lines on polygonal surfaces, we modify the general placement method for points matching and arrive at a closed-form solution for optimal rotation and translation between the polylines. Following calculating out the stitching line, a local surface optimization method is designed and employed for postprocess in order to gain a natural blending of the stitching region
Research and Development of Script-based Visualization Template Library for Earth System Model

ESM (Earth system model) is an important tool not only to understand climate and environmental evolution mechanism, but also to estimate global potential scenarios in the future[1]. Output data of ESM has many characteristics, such as massive, time-varying and multi-dimensional, so it brings new demands and challenges to scientific visualization. In order to support ESM research, this paper designs and implements script-based visualization template library. By supporting parallel visualization, providing key-framing animation techniques, and integrating numerous filter and rendering methods, it can solve various problems in ESM visualization. By encapsulating underlying code and defining template function for typical scene, it provides users with easy-to-use interface. Application examples verify that script-based visualization template library is powerful, user-friendly, and can improve work efficiency greatly.
A novel convex power adaptation strategy for multicast communications using Random Linear Network Coding schemes

3GPP's Long Term Evolution (LTE) represents the one of the most valuable alternatives to offer a wireless broadband access in fully mobile network context. In particular LTE is able to manage several communication flows characterized by different QoS constrains. This paper deals with a network topology where the mobile users are clustered in Multicast Groups and the base station broadcasts a different traffic flow to each cluster. In order to improve the network throughput on a per-user basis, all communications rely on a Random Linear Network Coding (RLNC) scheme. A key aspect in the QoS management is represented by the power adaptation strategy in use. This paper proposes a novel convex formulation to the power adaptation problem for the downlink phase taking into account the specific RLNC scheme adopted by each communication flow. By the proposed convex formalization, an optimal solution of the problem can be early found in real time. Moreover, the proposed power adaptation strategy shows good performance for what concern throughput and fairness among the users when compared with other alternatives.
Handling dynamic data structures in search based testing

There has been little attention to search based test data generation in the presence of pointer inputs and dynamic data structures, an area in which recent concolic methods have excelled. This paper introduces a search based testing approach which is able to handle pointers and dynamic data structures. It combines an alternating variable hill climb with a set of constraint solving rules for pointer inputs. The result is a lightweight and efficient method, as shown in the results from a case study, which compares the method to CUTE, a concolic unit testing tool.