Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Leveraging Lexical Semantics to Infer Context-Free Grammars

Context-free grammars cannot be identified in the limit from positive examples (Gold, 1967), yet natural language grammars are more powerful than context-free grammars and humans learn them with remarkable ease from positive examples (Marcus, 1993). Identifiability results for formal languages ignore a potentially powerful source of information available to learners of natural languages, namely, meanings. This paper explores the learnability of context-free grammars given positive examples and lexical semantics. That is, the learner has a representation of the meaning of each lexical item.
Inertial Sensor-Based Robust Gait Analysis in Non-Hospital Settings for Neurological Disorders

The gold standards for gait analysis are instrumented walkways and marker-based motion capture systems, which require costly infrastructure and are only available in hospitals and specialized gait clinics. Even though the completeness and the accuracy of these systems are unquestionable, a mobile and pervasive gait analysis alternative suitable for non-hospital settings is a clinical necessity. Using inertial sensors for gait analysis has been well explored in the literature with promising results. However, the majority of the existing work does not consider realistic conditions where data collection and sensor placement imperfections are imminent. Moreover, some of the underlying assumptions of the existing work are not compatible with pathological gait, decreasing the accuracy. To overcome these challenges, we propose a foot-mounted inertial sensor-based gait analysis system that extends the well-established zero-velocity update and Kalman filtering methodology. Our system copes with various cases of data collection difficulties and relaxes some of the assumptions invalid for pathological gait (e.g., the assumption of observing a heel strike during a gait cycle). The system is able to extract a rich set of standard gait metrics, including stride length, cadence, cycle time, stance time, swing time, stance ratio, speed, maximum/minimum clearance and turning rate. We validated the spatio-temporal accuracy of the proposed system by comparing the stride length and swing time output with an IR depth-camera-based reference system on a dataset comprised of 22 subjects. Furthermore, to highlight the clinical applicability of the system, we present a clinical discussion of the extracted metrics on a disjoint dataset of 17 subjects with various neurological conditions.
On the feasibility of effective opportunistic spectrum access

Dynamic spectrum access networks are designed to allow today's bandwidth hungry "secondary devices" to share spectrum allocated to legacy devices, or "primary users. " The success of this wireless communication model relies on the availability of unused spectrum, and the ability of secondary devices to utilize spectrum without disrupting transmissions of primary users. While recent measurement studies have shown that there is sufficient underutilized spectrum available, little is known about whether secondary devices can efficiently make use of available spectrum while minimizing disruptions to primary users. In this paper, we present the first comprehensive study on the presence of "usable" spectrum in opportunistic spectrum access systems, and whether sufficient spectrum can be extracted by secondary devices to support traditional networking applications. We use for our study fine-grain usage traces of a wide spectrum range (20MHz--6GHz) taken at 4 locations in Germany, the Netherlands, and Santa Barbara, California. Our study shows that on average, 54% of spectrum is never used and 26% is only partially used. Surprisingly, in this 26% of partially used spectrum, secondary devices can utilize very little spectrum using conservative access policies to minimize interference with primary users. Even assuming an optimal access scheme and extensive statistical knowledge of primary user access patterns, a user can only extract between 20-30% of the total available spectrum. To provide better spectrum availability, we propose frequency bundling, where secondary devices build reliable channels by combining multiple unreliable frequencies into virtual frequency bundles. Analyzing our traces, we find that there is little correlation of spectrum availability across channels, and that bundling random channels together can provide sustained periods of reliable transmission with only short interruptions.
Empowering Students to Reflect on their Activity with StepUp!: Two Case Studies with Engineering Students

This paper reports on our ongoing research around the use of learning analytics technology for awareness and self-reﬂection by teachers and learners. We compare two case studies. Both rely on an open learning methodology where learners engage in authentic problems, in dialogue with the outside world. In this context, learners are encouraged to share results of their work, opinions and experiences and to enrich the learning experiences of their peers through comments that promote reﬂection and awareness on their activity. In order to support this open learning process, we provided the students with StepUp! , a student activity visualization tool. In this paper, we focus on the evaluation by students of this tool, and the comparison of results of two case studies. Results indicate that StepUp! is a useful tool that enriches student experiences by providing transparency to the social interactions. The case studies show also how time spent on predeﬁned high level activities inﬂuence strongly the perceived usefulness of our tool.
Interoperating Execution Environments in Active Networks

The concept of active networks has introduced programmability into communication networks. Both the program code and data can be modified while they are delivered on their ways to destinations. Several platforms being developed are relatively new. They may have different design goals with different pros and cons. As a consequence, there are interoperability problems among them. Therefore, in this paper, we introduce a set of new programming interfaces for writing applications on active networks. This set of interfaces is known as Active Network Socket Programming (ANSP). Conceptually, it operates similar to the traditional socket programming design. The primary goal of the ANSP is to get all active applications to operate on all other execution environments in future. ANSP offers the “write once, run everywhere” concept. It operates as a thin layer that does the mappings between applications and execution environments. Hence, it solves the heterogeneities among active network platforms. Active applications may even operate with different behaviours with different execution environments that may further allow application designers to take advantages of different execution environments. More importantly, active applications can access all regions within heterogeneous networks, especially, to deploy special service at critical points or to monitor the performance of the entire networks. In this paper, the programming interfaces will be introduced, and a simple program will be described to demonstrate the operations of ANSP.
Humanized c-Myc Mouse

Background A given tumor is usually dependent on the oncogene that is activated in the respective tumor entity. This phenomenon called oncogene addiction provides the rationale for attempts to target oncogene products in a therapeutic manner, be it by small molecules, by small interfering RNAs (siRNA) or by antigen-specific T cells. As the proto-oncogene product is required also for the function of normal cells, this raises the question whether there is a therapeutic window between the adverse effects of specific inhibitors or T cells to normal tissue that may limit their application, and their beneficial tumor-specific therapeutic action. To address this crucial question, suitable mouse strains need to be developed, that enable expression of the human proto-oncogene not only in tumor but also in normal cells. The aim of this work is to provide such a mouse strain for the human proto-oncogene product c-MYC. Principal Findings We generated C57BL/6-derived embryonic stem cells that are transgenic for a humanized c-Myc gene and established a mouse strain (hc-Myc) that expresses human c-MYC instead of the murine ortholog. These transgenic animals harbor the humanized c-Myc gene integrated into the endogenous murine c-Myc locus. Despite the lack of the endogenous murine c-Myc gene, homozygous mice show a normal phenotype indicating that human c-MYC can replace its murine ortholog. Conclusions The newly established hc-Myc mouse strain provides a model system to study in detail the adverse effects of therapies that target the human c-MYC protein. To mimic the clinical situation, hc-Myc mice may be cross-bred to mice that develop tumors due to overexpression of human c-MYC. With these double transgenic mice it will be possible to study simultaneously the therapeutic efficiency and adverse side effects of MYC-specific therapies in the same mouse.
Group Music Intervention Reduces Aggression and Improves Self-esteem in Children with Highly Aggressive Behavior: A Pilot Controlled Trial

We investigated the effects of group music intervention on aggression and self-esteem in children with highly aggressive behavior. Forty-eight children were allocated to either a music intervention group or an untreated control group. The music intervention group received 50 min of music intervention twice weekly for 15 consecutive weeks. The outcome measures were Child Behavior Checklist Aggression Problems Scale (Parents), Child Aggression Assessment Inventory (Teachers) and Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale. After 15 weeks, the music intervention group showed significant reduction of aggression and improvement of self-esteem compared with the control group. All outcome measures were significantly lower in the music intervention group than prior to treatment, while there was no change in the control group. These findings suggest that music can reduce aggressive behavior and improve self-esteem in children with highly aggressive behavior. Music intervention is an easily accessible therapy for children and as such may be an effective intervention for aggressive behavior. Further more, objective and replicable measures are required from a randomized controlled trial with a larger sample size and active comparable control.
Biosynthetic response of cartilage explants to dynamic compression

The biosynthetic response of calf articular cartilage explants to dynamic compression was examined over a wide range of amplitudes, waveforms, and frequencies. Glycosaminoglycan synthesis was assessed by 35S‐sulfate incorporation, and amino acid uptake and protein synthesis were assessed by 3H‐proline incorporation. Two culture chambers were designed to allow uniaxial radially unconfined compression and mechanical testing of cartilage disks: one chamber was used inside a standard incubator; the other was used with a mechanical spectrometer and allowed load and displacement to be monitored during compression. Dynamic stiffness measurements of 3‐mm diameter disks identified a characteristic frequency [0.001 Hz (cycles/sec)] that separated low‐ and high‐frequency regimes in which different flow and deformation phenomena predominated; e.g., at 0.0001–0.001 Hz, significant fluid was exuded from cartilage disks, whereas at 0.01–1 Hz, hydrostratic pressure increased within disks. At the higher frequencies, oscillatory strains of only ∼1–5% stimulated 3H‐proline and 35S‐sulfate incorporation by ∼20–40%. In contrast, at the lower frequencies (a) compressions of <5% had no effect, consistent with the dosimetry of biosynthetic inhibition by static compression (∼25% compression caused a ∼20% inhibition of radiolabel incorporation), and (b) higher amplitudes (cycling between disk thicknesses of 1.25 and 0.88–1.00 mm) stimulated 3S‐sulfate incorporation by ∼20–40%, consistent with the kinetics of response to a single 2‐h compression and release. None of the compression protocols was associated with detectable alterations in (e.g., compression‐induced depletion of) total glycosaminoglycan content. This study provides a framework for identifying both the physical and biological mechanisms by which dynamic compression can modulate chondrocyte biosynthesis. In addition, the culture and compression methodology potentially allows in vitro evaluation of clinical strategies of continuous passive motion therapy to stimulate cartilage remodeling.
Molecular Shape and Medicinal Chemistry: A Perspective

The eight contributions here provide ample evidence that shape as a volume or as a surface is a vibrant and useful concept when applied to drug discovery. It provides a reliable scaffold for "decoration" with chemical intuition (or bias) for virtual screening and lead optimization but also has its unadorned uses, as in library design, ligand fitting, pose prediction, or active site description. Computing power has facilitated this evolution by allowing shape to be handled precisely without the need to reduce down to point descriptors or approximate metrics, and the diversity of resultant applications argues for this being an important step forward. Certainly, it is encouraging that as computation has enabled our intuition, molecular shape has consistently surprised us in its usefulness and adaptability. The first Aurelius question, "What is the essence of a thing? ", seems well answered, however, the third, "What do molecules do? ", only partly so. Are the topics covered here exhaustive, or is there more to come? To date, there has been little published on the use of the volumetric definition of shape described here as a QSAR variable, for instance, in the prediction or classification of activity, although other shape definitions have been successful applied, for instance, as embodied in the Compass program described above in "Shape from Surfaces". Crystal packing is a phenomenon much desired to be understood. Although powerful models have been applied to the problem, to what degree is this dominated purely by the shape of a molecule? The shape comparison described here is typically of a global nature, and yet some importance must surely be placed on partial shape matching, just as the substructure matching of chemical graphs has proved useful. The approach of using surfaces, as described here, offers some flavor of this, as does the use of metrics that penalize volume mismatch less than the Tanimoto, e.g., Tversky measures. As yet, there is little to go on as to how useful a paradigm this will be because there is less software and fewer concrete results.Finally, the distance between molecular shapes, or between any shapes defined as volumes or surfaces, is a metric property in the mathematical sense of the word. As yet, there has been little, if any, application of this observation. We cannot know what new application to the design and discovery of pharmaceuticals may yet arise from the simple concept of molecular shape, but it is fair to say that the progress so far is impressive.
Improving the Competency of First-Order Ontologies

We introduce a new framework to evaluate and improve first-order (FO) ontologies using automated theorem provers (ATPs) on the basis of competency questions (CQs). Our framework includes both the adaptation of a methodology for evaluating ontologies to the framework of first-order logic and a new set of non-trivial CQs designed to evaluate FO versions of SUMO, which significantly extends the very small set of CQs proposed in the literature. Most of these new CQs have been automatically generated from a small set of patterns and the mapping of WordNet to SUMO. Applying our framework, we demonstrate that Adimen-SUMO v2.2 outperforms TPTP-SUMO. In addition, using the feedback provided by ATPs we have set an improved version of Adimen-SUMO (v2.4). This new version outperforms the previous ones in terms of competency. For instance, "Humans can reason" is automatically inferred from Adimen-SUMO v2.4, while it is neither deducible from TPTP-SUMO nor Adimen-SUMO v2.2.
Prevalence, Molecular Characterization, and Antibiotic Susceptibility of Cronobacter sakazakii Isolates from Powdered Infant Formula Collected from Chinese Retail Markets

Cronobacter sakazakii is an opportunistic pathogen that causes severe infections in neonates and infants through contaminated powdered infant formula (PIF). Therefore, the aim of this study was a large-scale study on determine the prevalence, molecular characterization and antibiotic susceptibility of C. sakazakii isolates from PIF purchased from Chinese retail markets. Two thousand and twenty PIF samples were collected from different institutions. Fifty-six C. sakazakii strains were isolated, and identified using fusA sequencing analysis, giving a contamination rate of 2.8%. Multilocus sequence typing (MLST) was more discriminatory than other genotyping methods. The C. sakazakii isolates were divided into 14 sequence types (STs) by MLST, compared with only seven clusters by ompA and rpoB sequence analysis, and four C. sakazakii serotypes by PCR-based O-antigen serotyping. C. sakazakii ST4 (19/56, 33.9%), ST1 (12/56, 21.4%), and ST64 (11/56, 16.1%) were the dominant sequence types isolated. C. sakazakii serotype O2 (34/56, 60.7%) was the primary serotype, along with ompA6 and rpoB1 as the main allele profiles, respectively. Antibiotic susceptibility testing indicated that all C. sakazakii isolates were susceptible to ampicillin-sulbactam, cefotaxime, ciprofloxacin, meropenem, tetracycline, piperacillin-tazobactam, and trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole. The majority of C. sakazakii strains were susceptible to chloramphenicol and gentamicin (87.5 and 92.9%, respectively). In contrast, 55.4% C. sakazakii strains were resistant to cephalothin. In conclusion, this large-scale study revealed the prevalence and characteristics of C. sakazakii from PIF in Chinese retail markets, demonstrating a potential risk for neonates and infants, and provide a guided to effective control the contamination of C. sakazakii in production process.
Pulse Operation of a Floating-Electrode Memristive Device

A resistive device with a floating electrode is manufactured as a stack of layers Cu/TaOx/Pt/TaOx/Cu in a crossbar array comprising two single resistive switches antiserially merged at the common inert floating electrode. The device exhibits four states, namely, HRS/HRS, HRS/LRS, LRS/HRS, and LRS/LRS, where HRS and LRS are the high- and low-resistance states of a single switch. During transitions between the states, the lifetime of the LRS/LRS state can be rendered very short. This property lends itself to generation of current/voltage pulses that can be controlled by three independent technology parameters.
Importance Weighting Without Importance Weights: An Efficient Algorithm for Combinatorial Semi-Bandits

We propose a sample-efficient alternative for importance weighting for situations where one only has sample access to the probability distribution that generates the observations. Our new method, called Geometric Resampling (GR), is described and analyzed in the context of online combinatorial optimization under semi-bandit feedback, where a learner sequentially selects its actions from a combinatorial decision set so as to minimize its cumulative loss. In particular, we show that the well-known Follow-the-Perturbed-Leader (FPL) prediction method coupled with Geometric Resampling yields the first computationally efficient reduction from offline to online optimization in this setting. We provide a thorough theoretical analysis for the resulting algorithm, showing that its performance is on par with previous, inefficient solutions. Our main contribution is showing that, despite the relatively large variance induced by the GR procedure, our performance guarantees hold with high probability rather than only in expectation. As a side result, we also improve the best known regret bounds for FPL in online combinatorial optimization with full feedback, closing the perceived performance gap between FPL and exponential weights in this setting.
Deriving effective mesoscale potentials from atomistic simulations

We demonstrate how an iterative method for potential inversion from distribution functions developed for simple liquid systems can be generalized to polymer systems. It uses the differences in the potentials of mean force between the distribution functions generated from a guessed potential and the true distribution functions to improve the effective potential successively. The optimization algorithm is very powerful: convergence is reached for every trial function in few iterations. As an extensive test case we coarse‐grained an atomistic all‐atom model of polyisoprene (PI) using a 13:1 reduction of the degrees of freedom. This procedure was performed for PI solutions as well as for a PI melt. Comparisons of the obtained force fields are drawn. They prove that it is not possible to use a single force field for different concentration regimes. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comput Chem 13: 1624–1636, 2003
FORMULATION DEVELOPMENT AND EVALUATION OF FLOATING TABLETS OF ETODOLAC

The objective of the present research work is to formulate and evaluate floating tablets of Etodolac, a gastro retentive drug delivery system. Direct compression was used to prepare the tablets using HPMC K15M, HPMC K100M, Chitosan, Xanthane gum, Carbopol 971P, Sodium CMC as polymers. Formulations were prepared by varying the amount of polymers. The compatibility of drug with the polymers is identified by using FTIR studies. The results obtained showed that the drug is compatible with all the polymers used. The preformulation blend was shown good flow properties with good angle of repose, bulk density and tapped density parameters. The formulated tablets were evaluated for various quality control parameters and they were passed all the tests with standard values as per pharmacopoeia. Release of Etodolac over a period of 12 hours was obtained from tablets formulated employing Carbopol
A Simple Accurate Method for Generating Autocorrelated Nakagami-m Envelope Sequences

We propose a simple accurate method for generating autocorrelated Nakagami-m envelope sequences. The method allows for arbitrary values of fading parameter and nonisotropic fading scenarios. In essence, Nakagami-m samples are first drawn and then rearranged to match the Nakagami-m autocorrelation. The rearrangement is made in accordance with the rank statistics of an underlying Rayleigh reference sequence with the desired autocorrelation. Examples illustrate the excellent performance of the new method