Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Postoperative Pain after Root Canal Treatment: A Prospective Cohort Study

Aim. To evaluate the incidence and severity of postendodontic treatment pain (PEP) subsequent to root canal treatment (RCT) in vital and necrotic pulps and after retreatment. Methodology. A prospective study. Participants were all patients (n = 274) who underwent RCT in teeth with vital pulp, necrotic pulp, or vital pulp that had been treated for symptomatic irreversible pulpitis or who received root canal retreatment, by one clinician, during an eight-month period. Exclusion criteria were swelling, purulence, and antibiotic use during initial treatment. A structured questionnaire accessed age, gender, tooth location, and pulpal diagnosis. Within 24 h of treatment, patients were asked to grade their pain at 6 and 18 hours posttreatment, using a 1–5 point scale. Results. RCT of teeth with vital pulp induced a significantly higher incidence and severity of PEP (63.8%; 2.46 ± 1.4, resp.) than RCT of teeth with necrotic pulp (38.5%; 1.78 ± 1.2, resp.) or of retreated teeth (48.8%; 1.89 ± 1.1, resp.). No statistical relation was found between type of pain (spontaneous or stimulated) and pulp condition. Conclusion. RCT of teeth with vital pulp induced a significantly higher incidence and intensity of PEP compared to teeth with necrotic pulp or retreated teeth.
Greed and Grievance in Civil War CSAE WPS / 2002-01

We investigate the causes of civil war, using a new data set of wars during 1960-99. We test a `greed’ theory focusing on the abili ty to finance rebelli on, against a `grievance’ theory focusing on ethnic and religious divisions, political repression and inequality. We find that greed considerably outperforms grievance. Consistent with the greed theory, both dependence upon primary commodity exports and a large diaspora substantially increase the risk of conflict. Inconsistent with the grievance theory, greater ethnic and religious diversity reduce the risk of conflict. The results are robust to correction for outliers, alternative variable definition, and variations in estimation method. JEL Classification: C23, C25, D74, H56, O13
Measures of Class Membership in Association Rule Based Classification

In this work, we focus on the measures of class membership defined for classifiers based on associative classification rules. We revisit the chi 2 test for defining an effective measure. For comparison, we adapt the weight of evidence (Wang and Wong TKDE 2003) for a system based on the notions of support and confidence. Some variants of those measures are also defined. The effect of the defined measures is verified through the experimentation on categorical UCI datasets.
GENERALIZED MILANKOVITCH CYCLES AND LONG-TERM CLIMATIC HABITABILITY

Although Earth's orbit is never far from circular, terrestrial planets around other stars might experience substantial changes in eccentricity. Eccentricity variations could lead to climate changes, including possible “phase transitions” such as the snowball transition (or its opposite). There is evidence that Earth has gone through at least one globally frozen, “snowball” state in the last billion years, which it is thought to have exited after several million years because global ice-cover shut off the carbonate-silicate cycle, thereby allowing greenhouse gases to build up to sufficient concentration to melt the ice. Due to the positive feedback caused by the high albedo of snow and ice, susceptibility to falling into snowball states might be a generic feature of water-rich planets with the capacity to host life. This paper has two main thrusts. First, we revisit one-dimensional energy balance climate models as tools for probing possible climates of exoplanets, investigate the dimensional scaling of such models, and introduce a simple algorithm to treat the melting of the ice layer on a globally frozen planet. We show that if a terrestrial planet undergoes Milankovitch-like oscillations of eccentricity that are of great enough magnitude, it could melt out of a snowball state. Second, we examine the kinds of variations of eccentricity that a terrestrial planet might experience due to the gravitational influence of a giant companion. We show that a giant planet on a sufficiently eccentric orbit can excite extreme eccentricity oscillations in the orbit of a habitable terrestrial planet. More generally, these two results demonstrate that the long-term habitability (and astronomical observables) of a terrestrial planet can depend on the detailed architecture of the planetary system in which it resides.
Two Interface-Type Numerical Methods for Computing Hyperbolic Systems with Geometrical Source Terms Having Concentrations

We propose two simple well-balanced methods for hyperbolic systems with geometrical source terms having concentrations. Physical problems under consideration include the shallow water equations with topography and the quasi-one-dimensional isothermal nozzle flows. These two methods use the numerical fluxes already obtained from the corresponding homogeneous systems in the source terms, and one needs only a black-box (approximate) Riemann solver for the homogeneous system. Compared with our previous method developed in [S. Jin and X. Wen, J. Comput. Math., 22 (2004), pp. 230--249], these methods avoid the Newton iterations in the evaluation of the source term. Numerical experiments demonstrate that both methods give good numerical approximations to the subcritical and supercritical flows. With a transonic fix, both methods also capture with a high resolution the transonic flows over the concentration. These methods are applicable to both unsteady and steady state computations.
Personal Context-aware Guidance System for Exhibition Tours

This paper presents our Context-aware Mobile Assistant Project (C-MAP). C-MAP is an attempt to build a personal mobile assistant that provides visitors touring exhibitions with information based on their locations and individual interests. We have prototyped the first version of the mobile assistant and used an open house exhibition held by our research laboratory as a testbed. The mobile assistant directs users with exhibition maps that are personalized based on the physical and mental contexts of the users. This paper also describes offsite services for overcoming temporal/spatial restrictions to facilitate communications and information sharing between exhibitors and visitors.
An Analysis of Sexual Interactions in a Student Group

We explore a novel dataset of sexual interactions between members of a student group. We find that the dataset exhibits organic clustering that does not coincide with official social groupings. We compare the set to the Jefferson High set in Bearman’s “Chains of Affection” paper and find that dataset is a plausible extension of similar graph properties taken over a longer period of time. Our results may have applications to STD research in epidemiology, and we suggest directions for a more comprehensive work that would likely result in an evolutionary model for this type of sexual interaction network.
A Comparison of Test Generation Algorithms for Testing Application Interactions

Testing the interactions of different applications running in the same operating system or platform poses challenges for manual testing and conventional script-based automation. Towards this end, we have developed an online model-based testing solution allowing efficient testing of such interactions. This paper presents the results of the comparison of algorithms used for generating tests for interaction testing. The comparison is based on our experiments with a number of different algorithms as well as results from the earlier studies by others. Given the simplicity of implementation, Random Walk seems very useful and practical solution for online test generation. However, each of the compared algorithms has its strong points, making the selection dependent of the metric one wants to emphasize and the available a priori information. Especially when the execution of test events is slow, smarter algorithms have advantage over simple random walk.
Toward Patient-Specific 3D-Printed Robotic Systems for Surgical Interventions

Surgical robots have been extensively researched for a wide range of surgical procedures due to the advantages of improved precision, sensing capabilities, motion scaling, and tremor reduction, to name a few. Though the underlying disease condition or pathology may be the same across patients, the intervention approach to treat the condition can vary significantly across patients. This is especially true for endovascular interventions, where each case brings forth its own challenges. Hence, it is critical to develop patient-specific surgical robotic systems to maximize the benefits of robot-assisted surgery. Manufacturing patient-specific robots can be challenging for complex procedures and, furthermore, the time required to build them can be a challenge. To overcome this challenge, additive manufacturing, namely, 3D-printing, is a promising solution. 3D-printing enables fabrication of complex parts precisely and efficiently. Although 3D-printing techniques have been researched for general medical applications, patient-specific surgical robots are currently in their infancy. After reviewing the state-of-the-art in 3D-printed surgical robots, this article discusses 3D-printing techniques that could potentially satisfy the stringent requirements for surgical interventions. We also present the accomplishments in our group in developing 3D-printed surgical robots for neurosurgical and cardiovascular interventions. Finally, we discuss the challenges in developing 3D-printed surgical robots and provide our perspectives on future research directions.
Highly dynamic behaviour adaptability through prototypes with subjective multimethods

With the advent of ambient intelligence and advances in mobile hardware technology, the next generation of software systems will require the ability to gracefully and dynamically adapt to changes in their surrounding environment. Contemporary languages provide no dedicated support to this end, thus requiring software developers to achieve this run-time adaptability through the use of specific design patterns and architectural solutions. As a consequence, all possible variability points of mobile systems need to be anticipated up front. Instead, we aim at solving the problem at the language level. We propose a new programming language called Ambience that provides dedicated language mechanisms to manage changing contexts and deal with run-time adaptation of mobile applications to those contexts. The language abstractions we propose are based on a prototype-based programming model that features multimethods and subjective object behaviour. We illustrate and motivate our approach by means of two running examples that were implemented in our language.
BLIND SEPARATION OF DELAYED AND SUPERIMPOSED ACOUSTICSOURCES : LEARNING ALGORITHM AND EXPERIMENTAL

This paper addresses a method of blind separation of de layed and superimposed sources We employ a linear feed forward temporal network as a separation system and present a simple associated learning algorithm We adopt a blind separation technique as a front end processor for robust cocktail party speech recognition task Experimental study of the proposed algorithm is given through two di erent real world data
Topological Majorana States in Zigzag Chains of Plasmonic Nanoparticles

We propose a simple realization of topological edge states in zigzag chains of plasmonic nanoparticles, mimicking the Kitaev model of Majorana fermions. We demonstrate the one-to-one correspondence between the coupled dipole equations in the zigzag plasmonic chain and the Bogoliubov-de-Gennes equations for the quantum wire on top of superconductor and support the analytical theory by the full-wave electromagnetic simulations. We reveal that localized plasmons can be excited selectively at both edges of the zigzag chain of plasmonic nanoparticles depending on the incident plane wave polarization.
Option Value and the Di ff usion of Fuel E ffi cient Vehicles

In a widely cited series of papers, Hassett and Metcalf argue that the slow diffusion of energy saving technology may be due to a high option value to waiting. While the authors clarify that this is relevant for yes/no decisions (such as whether to add insulation to a home), this argument has been widely cited even in investment decisions that involve a choice over multiple appliances or vehicles. In this note we consider how uncertainty and irreversibility would impact a consumer’s decision about when to buy which new vehicle. We show that, a priori, applying an option value framework is as likely to lead to slow diffusion of inefficient vehicles as to slow diffusion of efficient vehicles. This casts some doubt on the idea that an option value framework is the primary driver of the slow diffusion of energy efficient technologies.
Seasonal cycling of phosphorus in the Southern Bight of the North Sea

Abstract. We have investigated the seasonal cycle of nutrients, chlorophyll a, dissolved organic nitrogen (DON), and dissolved and particulate organic carbon (DOC and POC) for 10 stations in the Belgian coastal zone. Special attention was given to phosphorus speciation, i.e. dissolved inorganic and organic phosphorus (DIP and DOP) and particulate inorganic and organic phosphorus (PIP and POP). Spatial and temporal trends of the inorganic nutrients and the organic species are discussed. The Belgian part of the southern North Sea is strongly influenced by the river plumes of the Rhine, Meuse and Scheldt resulting in northeast-southwest salinity gradient. Extrapolation of winter nutrient and DOC concentrations versus salinity plots yielded zero-salinity values typical of the river Scheldt. The polyphosphate concentration did not show any temporal trend, whereas both the phosphate and the DOP concentrations exhibited distinct seasonal variations. Silica or phosphorus was the potential limiting nutrient for phytoplankton growth based on elemental ratios.
Some contributions to PLS Path Modeling and a system for the European Customer Satisfaction

Riassunto: La modellizzazione delle misure di customer satisfaction a livello nazionale ed europeo rappresenta un campo di applicazione alquanto nuovo per i modelli ad equazioni strutturali con variabili latenti. In questo lavoro si presenta anzitutto la metodologia dell’approccio PLS per la costruzione dell’indice europeo di customer satisfaction (ECSI). L’adozione di questo approccio nel dominio della customer satisfaction si giustifica a livello teorico per la sua natura predittiva e per una modellizzazione cosiddetta più soffice rispetto a tecniche basate sul criterio della massima verosimiglianza, ed a livello operativo per una maggiore flessibilità nella specificazione del modello. Successivamente, si discutono alcune innovazioni che si stanno apportando all’approccio PLS nell’ambito del progetto ESIS finanziato dalla Commissione Europea con il V Programma Quadro. In particolare, la possibilità di considerare questo approccio come un quadro generale per numerose tecniche di analisi dei dati ne permette un più ampio utilizzo offrendo diverse possibilità per lo sviluppo di tecniche innovative soprattutto nel contesto dell’analisi di tabelle multiple. Infine, si mostra un’applicazione su dati reali relativi alla misurazione della customer satisfaction per una grande azienda privata europea che eroga un servizio pubblico. L’applicazione permette di evidenziare sia i problemi comuni riscontrabili in questo campo con l’approccio classico del modello LISREL che gli strumenti e le modalità di interpretazione dell’approccio PLS.
Full-reference quality assessment of stereoscopic images using disparity-gradient-phase similarity

With the effort done by many researchers on 2D image quality assessment, the correlation between subjectivity scores in the databases and the objective scores obtained by current image quality metrics reaches to a high level. However, stereoscopic image quality metrics do not achieve a good performance on 3D image databases. It's important to take advantage of the high efficient 2D image quality metrics as well as the properties of stereoscopic images to form a new metric. In this paper, we develop a novel full-reference quality metric for stereoscopic images using disparity-gradient-phase-congruency similarity (DGP-SIM). Firstly, cyclopean images are generated using the stereo pairs by considering the binocular perception and combination properties of human visual system (HVS). Secondly, phase congruency (PC) and gradient magnitude (GM) are extracted from the original and distorted cyclopean images, and then two similarity indexes are computed. We also compute the disparity similarity which can influence stereoscopic image quality. Finally, three feature similarity indexes are mixed together to derive a single quality score. Experimental results show that the proposed metric can achieve a good consistency with subjective assessment of stereoscopic images.
Matrix Rigidity Induces Osteolytic Gene Expression of Metastatic Breast Cancer Cells

Nearly 70% of breast cancer patients with advanced disease will develop bone metastases. Once established in bone, tumor cells produce factors that cause changes in normal bone remodeling, such as parathyroid hormone-related protein (PTHrP). While enhanced expression of PTHrP is known to stimulate osteoclasts to resorb bone, the environmental factors driving tumor cells to express PTHrP in the early stages of development of metastatic bone disease are unknown. In this study, we have shown that tumor cells known to metastasize to bone respond to 2D substrates with rigidities comparable to that of the bone microenvironment by increasing expression and production of PTHrP. The cellular response is regulated by Rho-dependent actomyosin contractility mediated by TGF-ß signaling. Inhibition of Rho-associated kinase (ROCK) using both pharmacological and genetic approaches decreased PTHrP expression. Furthermore, cells expressing a dominant negative form of the TGF-ß receptor did not respond to substrate rigidity, and inhibition of ROCK decreased PTHrP expression induced by exogenous TGF-ß. These observations suggest a role for the differential rigidity of the mineralized bone microenvironment in early stages of tumor-induced osteolysis, which is especially important in metastatic cancer since many cancers (such as those of the breast and lung) preferentially metastasize to bone.
Real time camera ego-motion compensation and lens

This paper describes a GPU implementation for simultaneous camera ego-motion compensation and lens undistortion. The main idea is to transform the image under an ego-motion constraint so that tracked points in the image, that are assumed to come from the ego-motion, maps as close as possible to their average position in time. The lens undistortion is computed simultaneously. We compare the performance with and without compensation using two measures; mean time difference and mean statistical background subtraction.
World of warcraft avatar history dataset

From the perspective of game system designers, players' behavior is one of the most important factors they must consider when designing game systems. To gain a fundamental understanding of the game play behavior of online gamers, exploring users' game play time provides a good starting point. This is because the concept of game play time is applicable to all genres of games and it enables us to model the system workload as well as the impact of system and network QoS on users' behavior. It can even help us predict players' loyalty to specific games. In this paper, we present the World of Warcraft Avatar History (WoWAH) dataset, which comprises the records of 91,065 avatars. The data includes the avatars' game play times and a number of attributes, such as their race, profession, current level, and in-game locations, during a 1,107-day period between Jan. 2006 and Jan. 2009. We believe the WOWAH dataset could be used for various creative purposes, now that it is a public asset of the research community. It is available for free download at http://mmnet.iis. sinica.edu. tw/dl/wowah/.
POWER ALLOCATION AND OPTIMAL TX / RX STRUCTURES FOR MIMO SYSTEMS

In this paper we investigate power allocation in MIMO-OFDM systems. We describe the optimal power allocations under two different constraints: a constraint on the total power of all transmitters (TXs) which is applicable in wireless applications, and a constraint on the power of each TX which is more relevant in wireline applications. We describe the optimal TX/RX structure which in combination with the optimal power allocation achieves the MIMO-OFDM channel capacity (under the chosen constraints), with low complexity. Simulations show the benefits of using a total power constraint in place of a per-TX power constraint are largest when the TXs see channels with significantly different attenuations.
Estimating Parameters of Optimal Average and Adaptive Wiener Filters for Image Restoration with Sequential Gaussian Simulation

Filtering additive white Gaussian noise in images using the best linear unbiased estimator (BLUE) is technically sound in a sense that it is an optimal average filter derived from the statistical estimation theory. The BLUE filter mask has the theoretical advantage in that its shape and its size are formulated in terms of the image signals and associated noise components. However, like many other noise filtering problems, prior knowledge about the additive noise needs to be available, which is often obtained using training data. This paper presents the sequential Gaussian simulation in geostatistics for measuring signal and noise variances in images without the need of training data for the BLUE filter implementation. The simulated signal variance and the BLUE average can be further used as parameters of the adaptive Wiener filter for image restoration.
Toward the automated synthesis of cooperative mobile robot teams

A current limitation in the real-world use of cooperating mobile robots is the difficulty in determining the proper team composition for a given robotic application. Present technology restricts the design and implementation of cooperative robot teams to the expertise of a robotics researcher, who has to develop robot teams on an application-specific basis. The objective of our research is to reduce the complexity of cooperative robotic systems through the development of a methodology that enables the automated synthesis of cooperative robot teams. We propose an approach to this problem that uses a combination of the theories of sensori-computational systems and information invariants, building on the earlier work of Donald, Rus, et al. We describe the notion of defining equivalence classes that serve as fundamental building blocks of more complex cooperative mobile robot behaviors. We postulate a methodology for framing mission requirements in terms of the goals and constraints of the problem, incorporating issues such as multi-robot interference, communication, control strategy, robot complexity, and so forth, into the mechanism. Our initial work restricts the robot application and design space to three multi-robot application domains we have previously studied and implemented: keeping formation, 'mock' hazardous waste cleanup, and cooperative observation. This paper present the foundational ideas upon which our approach to cooperative team design is based.