Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Understanding Relations using Concepts and Semantics

The Financial Entity Identification and Information Integration (FEIII) task aims at the question of understanding relationships among financial entities and their roles using three sentences extracted from each financial contract containing the target word. FEIII task has two challenges - 1) data sparseness: small training sets (9% of test data) and 2) context sparseness: limited context (three sentences). Existing statistical approaches, such as Bayes and TF-IDF, cannot evaluate the imporatance of words unobservged in training data, which is vulnerable to the above challenges. We overcome each challenge by considering 1) the concepts of words from knowledge bases (Probase) in addition to the words themselves (conceptual feature) and 2) word semantics from distributed representations such as word2vec (semantic feature). We empirically evaluate the proposed classification model on the four-class classification (highly relevant, relevant, neutral, and irrelevant), and show that the proposed model increases 18% of F1-score compared to the statistical baselines.
APPROXIMATION AND ESTIMATION OF s-CONCAVE DENSITIES VIA RÉNYI DIVERGENCES.

In this paper, we study the approximation and estimation of s-concave densities via Rényi divergence. We first show that the approximation of a probability measure Q by an s-concave density exists and is unique via the procedure of minimizing a divergence functional proposed by [Ann. Statist.38 (2010) 2998-3027] if and only if Q admits full-dimensional support and a first moment. We also show continuity of the divergence functional in Q: if Qn → Q in the Wasserstein metric, then the projected densities converge in weighted L1 metrics and uniformly on closed subsets of the continuity set of the limit. Moreover, directional derivatives of the projected densities also enjoy local uniform convergence. This contains both on-the-model and off-the-model situations, and entails strong consistency of the divergence estimator of an s-concave density under mild conditions. One interesting and important feature for the Rényi divergence estimator of an s-concave density is that the estimator is intrinsically related with the estimation of log-concave densities via maximum likelihood methods. In fact, we show that for d = 1 at least, the Rényi divergence estimators for s-concave densities converge to the maximum likelihood estimator of a log-concave density as s ↗ 0. The Rényi divergence estimator shares similar characterizations as the MLE for log-concave distributions, which allows us to develop pointwise asymptotic distribution theory assuming that the underlying density is s-concave.
A Rational Convex Program for Linear Arrow-Debreu Markets

We present a new flow-type convex program describing equilibrium solutions to linear Arrow-Debreu markets. Whereas convex formulations were previously known ([Nenakov and Primak 1983; Jain 2007; Cornet 1989]), our program exhibits several new features. It provides a simple necessary and sufficient condition and a concise proof of the existence and rationality of equilibria, settling an open question raised by Vazirani [2012]. As a consequence, we also obtain a simple new proof of the result in Mertens [2003] that the equilibrium prices form a convex polyhedral set.
From idea to innovation

Ideas can come from any segment of an organization; no individual or group has a monopoly on generating ideas. Developing the idea into what I refer to as a visual prototype, which can be used to explore the viability of the idea, presents many challenges, but most importantly, finding the person with the knowledge and expertise to pursue the idea.
Mesoscale FDDA Experiments with WTM and ACARS Data

This is a real-data Four Dimensional Data Assimilation (FDDA) study using MM5 in conjunction with West Texas Mesonet surface observations and ACARS (Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System) profile data collected by commercial aircraft during both en route and ascent/descent phases of their flights. The high-frequency mesonet data and ACARS wind and temperature profiles are ideal for testing the effects of FDDA on short-term mesos- cale numerical weather prediction. The mesonet experiments involved 35 sites with an average horizontal spacing of about 30 km, while in the ACARS case ninety five profiles were used. Results indicated that nudging the MM5 model with the surface-based data over the relatively small area of the mesonet domain had limited impact on the model's performance. In the ACARS runs, FDDA had long-lasting impact throughout the entire model atmosphere. FDDA appeared to improve the quantitative precipitation forecasting skill of MM5 and reduce slightly the model's warm bias at the surface. The study suggests that ACARS has potential to significantly enhance our expertise in short-term mesoscale modeling and to sup- port the need to rapidly and accurately adjust high-resolution meteorological model forecasts to real-time observations.
Women Up, Men Down: The Clinical Impact of Replacing the Framingham Risk Score with the Reynolds Risk Score in the United States Population

Background The Reynolds Risk Score (RRS) is one alternative to the Framingham Risk Score (FRS) for cardiovascular risk assessment. The Adult Treatment Panel III (ATP III) integrated the FRS a decade ago, but with the anticipated release of ATP IV, it remains uncertain how and which risk models will be integrated into the recommendations. We sought to define the effects in the United States population of a transition from the FRS to the RRS for cardiovascular risk assessment. Methods Using the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys, we assessed FRS and RRS in 2,502 subjects representing approximately 53.6 Million (M) men (ages 50–79) and women (ages 45–79), without cardiovascular disease or diabetes. We calculated the proportion reclassified by RRS and the subset whose LDL-C goal achievement changed. Results Compared to FRS, the RRS assigns a higher risk category to 13.9% of women and 9.1% of men while assigning a lower risk to 35.7% of men and 2% of women. Overall, 4.7% of women and 1.1% of men fail to meet newly intensified LDL-C goals using the RRS. Conversely, 10.5% of men and 0.6% of women now meet LDL-C goal using RRS when they had not by FRS. Conclusion In the U.S. population the RRS assigns a new risk category for one in six women and four of nine men. In general, women increase while men decrease risk. In conclusion, adopting the RRS for the 53.6 million eligible U.S. adults would result in intensification of clinical management in 1.6 M additional women and 2.10 M fewer men.
Undergraduate Medical Students Using Facebook as a Peer-Mentoring Platform: A Mixed-Methods Study

Background Peer mentoring is a powerful pedagogical approach for supporting undergraduate medical students in their learning environment. However, it remains unclear what exactly peer mentoring is and whether and how undergraduate medical students use social media for peer-mentoring activities. Objective We aimed at describing and exploring the Facebook use of undergraduate medical students during their first 2 years at a German medical school. The data should help medical educators to effectively integrate social media in formal mentoring programs for medical students. Methods We developed a coding scheme for peer mentoring and conducted a mixed-methods study in order to explore Facebook groups of undergraduate medical students from a peer-mentoring perspective. Results All major peer-mentoring categories were identified in Facebook groups of medical students. The relevance of these Facebook groups was confirmed through triangulation with focus groups and descriptive statistics. Medical students made extensive use of Facebook and wrote a total of 11,853 posts and comments in the respective Facebook groups (n=2362 total group members). Posting peaks were identified at the beginning of semesters and before exam periods, reflecting the formal curriculum milestones. Conclusions Peer mentoring is present in Facebook groups formed by undergraduate medical students who extensively use these groups to seek advice from peers on study-related issues and, in particular, exam preparation. These groups also seem to be effective in supporting responsive and large-scale peer-mentoring structures; formal mentoring programs might benefit from integrating social media into their activity portfolio.
Neuropil threads of Alzheimer's disease show a marked alteration of the normal cytoskeleton

Abnormal neurites, neuropil threads, are a widespread and characteristic lesion of Alzheimer's disease likely to play a major role in the cognitive impairment of this disease. Contrary to normal neurites, neuropil threads contain straight and paired helical filaments that contain the microtubule-associated protein tau and ubiquitin. It is not known whether these abnormal filaments are added to or replace the normal cytoskeleton. In this study, we examined the fine structure of neuropil threads and carried out a morphometric analysis of the neurofilaments and abnormal filaments contained in the neuropil threads by using an antiserum to tau and colloidal gold immuno- electron microscopy. Almost 70% of the neuropil threads contained straight or paired helical filaments with no neurofilaments. The total number of filaments in each neuropil thread remained essentially unchanged either when straight or paired helical filaments were present alone or when they coexisted either together or with neurofilaments. When the three types of filaments were expressed as a proportion of the total, a linear inverse correlation was found between neurofilaments and straight filaments as well as between straight and paired helical filaments. Approximately 10% of the neuropil threads were found to be myelinated axons. It is concluded that straight filaments are likely to replace neurofilaments, that they in turn might be replaced by paired helical filaments, and that this process occurs in axons as well as dendrites.
Infrastructureless storage in dynamic environments

This paper studies the use of highly dynamic networks as infrastructures for persistent storage of data that offer services at specific geographical zones in a decentralized and distributed way. We propose a new algorithm, based on repulsion techniques, to self-organize the nodes that store and serve the information. In this work, we focus on the evaluation of our algorithm when faced to different simulated failures in order to measure its robustness and compare it with an existing approach.
Development and Characterization of Somatic Hybrids of Ulva reticulata Forsskål (×) Monostroma oxyspermum (Kutz.)Doty

Ulvophycean species with diverse trait characteristics provide an opportunity to create novel allelic recombinant variants. The present study reports the development of seaweed variants with improved agronomic traits through protoplast fusion between Monostroma oxyspermum (Kutz.) Doty and Ulva reticulata Forsskål. A total of 12 putative hybrids were screened based on the variations in morphology and total DNA content over the fusion partners. DNA-fingerprinting by inter simple sequence repeat (ISSR) and amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) analysis confirmed genomic introgression in the hybrids. The DNA fingerprint revealed sharing of parental alleles in regenerated hybrids and a few alleles that were unique to hybrids. The epigenetic variations in hybrids estimated in terms of DNA methylation polymorphism also revealed sharing of methylation loci with both the fusion partners. The functional trait analysis for growth showed a hybrid with heterotic trait (DGR% = 36.7 ± 1.55%) over the fusion partners U. reticulata (33.2 ± 2.6%) and M. oxyspermum (17.8 ± 1.77%), while others were superior to the mid-parental value (25.2 ± 2.2%) (p < 0.05). The fatty acid (FA) analysis of hybrids showed notable variations over fusion partners. Most hybrids showed increased polyunsaturated FAs (PUFAs) compared to saturated FAs (SFAs) and mainly includes the nutritionally important linoleic acid, α-linolenic acid, oleic acid, stearidonic acid, and docosahexaenoic acid. The other differences observed include superior cellulose content and antioxidative potential in hybrids over fusion partners. The hybrid varieties with superior traits developed in this study unequivocally demonstrate the significance of protoplast fusion technique in developing improved varients of macroalgae.
Near-Optimal Hybrid Processing for Massive MIMO Systems via Matrix Decomposition

For practical implementation of massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems, the hybrid processing (precoding/combining) structure is promising to reduce the high implementation cost and power consumption rendered by large number of radio frequency (RF) chains of the traditional processing structure. The hybrid processing is realized through low-dimensional digital baseband processing combined with analog RF processing enabled by phase shifters. We propose to design hybrid RF and baseband precoders/combiners for multistream transmission in massive MIMO systems, by directly decomposing the predesigned unconstrained digital precoder/combiner of a large dimension. This approach is fundamental and general in the sense that any conventional full RF chain precoding solution of a MIMO system configuration can be converted to a hybrid processing structure by matrix decomposition. The constant amplitude constraint of analog RF processing results in the matrix decomposition problem nonconvex. Based on an alternate optimization technique, the nonconvex matrix decomposition problem can be decoupled into a series of convex subproblems and effectively solved by restricting the phase increment of each entry in the RF precoder/combiner within a small vicinity of its preceding iterate. A singular value decomposition-based technique is proposed to secure an initial point sufficiently close to the global solution of the original nonconvex problem. Through simulation, the convergence of the alternate optimization for such a matrix decomposition-based hybrid processing (MD-HP) scheme is examined, and the performance of the MD-HP scheme is demonstrated to be near-optimal.
Optical front-end receiver configuration for 30 GHz millimeter-wave signal Radio over Fiber system

Radio over fiber (RoF) technology is proposed solution for the reducing cost and providing highly reliable communication services. The system is very cost-effective solution by localization of signal processing in central station and also uses a simple base station. In this paper, two configurations of RoF system were presented. First, the intermediate frequency (IF) frequencies are upconverted to radio frequency (RF) at the central station and the RF are transmitted over single mode fiber directly at the radio carrier frequency. In the second configuration, the IF are transmitted over single mode fiber and converted to the original RF at the optical receiver. This report is focusing on the RoF optical frontend receiver configuration at the base station or also known as optical heterodyne receiver that employing an optoelectronic mixer. In this configuration, the receiver is performing photodetection and frequency conversion simultaneously. Thorough review and comparison of the previous works on the optoelectronic mixer and frequency conversion for up to millimeter-wave band will presented. Finally, the theoretical analysis and the harmonic balance modeling of the proposed optical front-end receiver and frequency up conversion system will be discussed.
Overcoming Biological, Behavioral, and Structural Vulnerabilities: New Directions in Research to Decrease HIV Transmission in Men Who Have Sex With Men

Abstract:Men who have sex with men (MSM), including transgender women, comprise a heterogeneous group of individuals whose sexual behaviors and gender identities may vary widely between cultures and among individuals. Their sources of increased vulnerability to HIV are diverse, including the increased efficiency of HIV transmission via unprotected anal intercourse, sexual role versatility, asymptomatic sexually transmitted infections, and behavioral factors that may be associated with condomless sex with multiple partners. Societal stigmatization of homosexual behavior and gender nonconformity may result in internalized negative feelings that lead to depression, other affective disorders, and substance use, which in turn are associated with increased risk-taking behaviors. Social stigma and punitive civil environments may lead to delays in seeking HIV and sexually transmitted disease screening, and later initiation of antiretroviral therapy. The iPrEX study demonstrated that chemoprophylaxis can decrease HIV acquisition in MSM, and the HIV prevention trials network 052 study established the biological plausibility that earlier initiation of highly active antiretroviral therapy can decrease HIV transmission to uninfected partners. Despite these advances, MSM remain among the most significantly HIV-affected population in resource-rich and limited settings. New studies will integrate enhanced understanding of the biology of enhanced rectal transmission of HIV and the focused use of antiretrovirals for prevention with culturally tailored approaches that address the potentiating social and behavioral factors associated with enhanced HIV spread among MSM.
New Findings in Cleavage Sites Variability across Groups, Subtypes and Recombinants of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1

Background Polymorphisms at cleavage sites (CS) can influence Gag and Pol proteins processing by the viral protease (PR), restore viral fitness and influence the virological outcome of specific antiretroviral drugs. However, data of HIV-1 variant-associated CS variability is scarce. Methods In this descriptive research, we examine the effect of HIV-1 variants on CS conservation using all 9,028 gag and 3,906 pol HIV-1 sequences deposited in GenBank, focusing on the 110 residues (10 per site) involved at 11 CS: P17/P24, P24/P2, P2/P7, P7/P1, P1/P6gag, NC/TFP, TFP/P6pol, P6pol/PR, PR/RTp51, RTp51/RTp66 and RTp66/IN. CS consensus amino acid sequences across HIV-1 groups (M, O, N, P), group M 9 subtypes and 51 circulating recombinant forms (CRF) were inferred from our alignments and compared to the HIV-1 consensus-of-consensuses sequence provided by GenBank. Results In all HIV-1 variants, the most conserved CS were PR/RTp51, RTp51/RTp66, P24/P2 and RTp66/IN and the least P2/P7 and P6pol/PR. Conservation was significantly lower in subtypes vs. recombinants in P2/P7 and TFP/P6pol and higher in P17/P24. We found a significantly higher conservation rate among Group M vs. non-M Groups HIV-1. The late processing sites at Gag (P7/P1) and GagPol precursors (PR/RTp51) presented a significantly higher conservation vs. the first CS (P2/P7) in the 4 HIV-1 groups. Here we show 52 highly conserved residues across HIV-1 variants in 11 CS and the amino acid consensus sequence in each HIV-1 group and HIV-1 group M variant for each 11 CS. Conclusions This is the first study to describe the CS conservation level across all HIV-1 variants and 11 sites in one of the largest available sequence HIV-1 dataset. These results could help other researchers for the future design of both novel antiretroviral agents acting as maturation inhibitors as well as for vaccine targeting CS.
The Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale: utility and reliability in college students with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

Background. Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is a debilitating condition that often persists into adulthood. The past number of decades an increased number of adults with ADHD have gained entrance into the post-secondary education section and register with college or university Disability Service Offices. There is a need to explore utility of affordable materials to gain confidence in validating the original diagnoses and potentially detect feigning. Methods. 135 college students (mean age = 24, 42% males) with ADHD were recruited from post-secondary institutions. The freely available Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale (ASRS) self-report was utilized to assess current ADHD symptomatology. The ASRS was compared to an interview (over the phone) and other-report version (filled out by a significant other) that were directly derived from the original Self-report. Results. Results showed moderate levels of congruency between ASRS-Self and Other Report (correlation = .47). Furthermore, a robust relationship was shown between the ASRS-Self and the interview version (correlation = .66). Discussion. Current findings suggest the telephone-interview version of the ASRS may be an easy-to-use, reliable, and cost-effective supplement in gaining more confidence in determining ADHD in post-secondary education students. More research is required specifically testing its merits to detect feigning or support in diagnosis.
A principal-agent method to prevent selfish MAC layer behavior in wireless networks

Security is a fundamental prerequisite for the survivability and reliability of wireless networks. In a network where limited wireless resources have to be shared, selfish nodes can manipulate relevant network parameters to gain more access to the resources, and hence obtain a higher performance than their fair share, while the performance of well-behaved nodes will be significantly degraded. This paper considers the environment of an IEEE802.11 WLAN, and proposes a solution from the prospective of a principal-agent system. Our solution uses an incentive and a constraint mechanism to encourage the selfish agent to perform normally. Our method does not modify the IEEE 802.11 protocol, but requires an additional principal node only. Simulation results show that our method can overcome the influence of selfish nodes improve the network fairness performance while maintaining the throughput performance.
Inertial effects on Saffman–Taylor viscous fingering

For the Saffman–Taylor instability, the inertia of the fluid may become important for high finger speeds. We investigate the effects of inertia on the width of the viscous fingers experimentally. We find that, due to inertia, the finger width can increase with increasing speed, contrary to what happens at small Reynolds number Re. We find that inertial effects need to be considered above a critical Weber number We. In this case it can be shown that the finger width is governed by a balance between viscous forces and inertia. This allows us to define a modified control parameter $1/B'$, which takes the corrections due to inertia into account; on rescaling the experimental data with $1/B'$, they all collapse onto the universal curve for the classical Saffman–Taylor instability. Subsequently, we try to rationalize our observations. Numerical simulations, taking into account a modification of Darcy's law to include inertia, are found to only qualitatively reproduce the experimental findings, pointing to the importance of three-dimensional effects.