Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Critical Examination of Texas Mathematics Achievement in Grades Three through Eight by Mathematical Objective across Race/Ethnicity, Gender, and Socioeconomic Status

A Critical Examination of Texas Mathematics Achievement in Grades Three through Eight by Mathematical Objective across Race/Ethnicity, Gender, and Socioeconomic Status. (December 2011) Brandon Leroy Fox, B.S., Stephen F. Austin State University; M.Ed., Stephen F. Austin State University Chair of Advisory Committee: Dr. Patricia J. Larke The purpose of this quantitative study was to identify performance differences on the TAKS mathematics assessments in grades three through eight across race/ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic status in the years 2004, 2007, and 2010. The guiding research question was: “What are the differences in mathematics achievement by mathematical objective as depicted by the Texas achievement tests during the years 2004, 2007, and 2010. To respond to the guiding research question, three independent studies were performed to examine race/ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic status individually by mathematical objective. Statistical analysis of variance (ANOVA) tests were performed for race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status at a . 05 level of significance. Independent samples t tests were administered to determine differences across gender. For study one, statistically significant differences of objective means were identified across every grade and objective with the exception of objective five (probability and statistics) in grade seven between Asian American students and African
Brain Interaction during Cooperation: Evaluating Local Properties of Multiple-Brain Network

Subjects’ interaction is the core of most human activities. This is the reason why a lack of coordination is often the cause of missing goals, more than individual failure. While there are different subjective and objective measures to assess the level of mental effort required by subjects while facing a situation that is getting harder, that is, mental workload, to define an objective measure based on how and if team members are interacting is not so straightforward. In this study, behavioral, subjective and synchronized electroencephalographic data were collected from couples involved in a cooperative task to describe the relationship between task difficulty and team coordination, in the sense of interaction aimed at cooperatively performing the assignment. Multiple-brain connectivity analysis provided information about the whole interacting system. The results showed that averaged local properties of a brain network were affected by task difficulty. In particular, strength changed significantly with task difficulty and clustering coefficients strongly correlated with the workload itself. In particular, a higher workload corresponded to lower clustering values over the central and parietal brain areas. Such results has been interpreted as less efficient organization of the network when the subjects’ activities, due to high workload tendencies, were less coordinated.
Facilitating secure ad hoc service discovery in public environments

Securely accessing unfamiliar services in public environments using ad hoc wireless networks is challenging. We present a proxy-based approach that uses other existing network channels to set up a secure and trust relationship between communication parties to facilitate ad hoc wireless communications. Based on a service discovery protocol, our models achieve secure, trusted, anonymous, efficient, and economical communications between unfamiliar parties. Our protocols are formally verified using BAN logic.
Phrase-level transduction model with reordering for spoken to written language transformation

This paper proposes a first-ever phrase-level transduction model with reordering to transform colloquial speech directly to written-style transcription. This model is capable of performing n-m transductions. Our transduction model is trained from a parallel corpus of verbatim transcription and written-style transcription. Deletions, substitutions, insertions are well represented using this model. Inversion transduction cases can also be identified and represented. We implement our transduction model using weighted finite-state transducers (WFSTs), and integrate it into a WFST-based speech recognition search space to give both verbatim speaking-style and written-style transcriptions. Evaluations of our model on Cantonese speech to standard written Chinese show 11.59% relative Word Error Rate (WER) reduction over interpolated language model between Cantonese and standard Chinese speech, 5.72% relative WER reduction and 14.82% relative Bilingual Evaluation Understudy (BLEU) improvement over the word-level transduction model.
In Utero Exposure to Maternal Hyperglycemia Increases Childhood Cardiometabolic Risk in Offspring

OBJECTIVE The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of maternal hyperglycemia during pregnancy on cardiometabolic risk in offspring during early childhood. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS A total of 970 mothers who had joined the Hyperglycemia and Adverse Pregnancy Outcome study were reevaluated, together with their child born during the study period, 7 years after delivery. RESULTS Offspring born to mothers diagnosed with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), as defined by the World Health Organization 2013 GDM criteria, had higher rates of abnormal glucose tolerance (4.7% vs. 1.7%; P = 0.04), higher rates of overweight or obesity, greater BMI, higher blood pressure (BP), lower oral disposition index, and a trend toward reduced β-cell function compared with those born to mothers without GDM. For each SD increase in maternal fasting, 1-h, and 2-h glucose levels on oral glucose tolerance tests (OGTTs) between 24 and 32 weeks of the index pregnancy, the risk of abnormal glucose tolerance in the offspring showed a corresponding increase (adjusted odds ratio [OR] 1.85–2.00). The associations were independent of BMI before pregnancy, childhood obesity, or being born large for gestational age. The area under the curve for glucose levels during the five-point OGTT increased to a similar extent in boys and girls with each SD increase in maternal 1-h and 2-h plasma glucose on OGTTs during pregnancy. All three maternal glucose levels were also associated with increased adjusted ORs for childhood overweight or obesity and adiposity among girls, but not boys. CONCLUSIONS Maternal hyperglycemia in pregnancy is independently associated with offsprings’ risk of abnormal glucose tolerance, obesity, and higher BP at 7 years of age. Its effect on childhood adiposity was apparent only in girls, not boys.
BitMat: A Main-memory Bit Matrix of RDF Triples for Conjunctive Triple Pattern Queries

This poster proposes BitMat, a bit matrix structure for representing a large number of RDF triples in memory and processing conjunctive triple pattern (multi-join) queries using it. The compact in-memory storage and use of bitwise operations, can lead to a faster processing of join queries when compared to the conventional RDF triple stores. Unlike conventional RDF triple stores, where the size of the intermediate join results can grow very large, our BitMat based multijoin algorithm ensures that the intermediate result set remains small across any number of join operations (provided there are no Cartesian joins). We present the key concepts of BitMat structure, its use in processing join queries, describe the preliminary experimental results with UniProt and LUBM datasets, and discuss the possible use case scenarios.
Fracture pattern formation in frictional, cohesive, granular material

Naturally, deformed rocks commonly contain crack arrays (joints) forming patterns with systematic relationships to the large-scale deformation. Kinematically, joints can be mode-1, -2 or -3 or combinations of these, but there is no overarching theory for the development of the patterns. We develop a model motivated by dislocation pattern formation in metals. The problem is formulated in one dimension in terms of coupled reaction–diffusion equations, based on computer simulations of crack development in deformed granular media with cohesion. The cracks are treated as interacting defects, and the densities of defects diffuse through the rock mass. Of particular importance is the formation of cracks at high stresses associated with force-chain buckling and variants of this configuration; these cracks play the role of ‘inhibitors’ in reaction–diffusion relationships. Cracks forming at lower stresses act as relatively mobile defects. Patterns of localized deformation result from (i) competition between the growth of the density of ‘mobile’ defects and the inhibition of these defects by crack configurations forming at high stress and (ii) the diffusion of damage arising from these two populations each characterized by a different diffusion coefficient. The extension of this work to two and three dimensions is discussed.
The neuropsychological profile of adolescent males with anorexia nervosa – a case series

ABSTRACT The identification of neurocognitive difficulties in females with anorexia nervosa (AN) has emphasised the importance of the potential neurodevelopmental factors of this illness, and the need for treatments which are tailored to ameliorate these challenges. However, these difficulties do not seem to be present in all cases, and it is unknown whether males with AN display a similar neuropsychological profile to that of females. The aim of the current case series was to explore the neuropsychological profile of adolescent males with a diagnosis of AN. The participants were selected from a database of patients with eating disorders – out of which ten were males with an AN diagnosis, mean age 15 years and 9 months. Mean BMI percentile for age was 4.5 (SD = 8.5). Participants were assessed using the neuropsychological test battery ‘the Ravello Profile’, and psychometric measures to assess eating disorder psychopathology, anxiety, obsessive–compulsive symptoms and depression. The patients displayed a broad spectrum of neuropsychological strengths and weaknesses, and a discrepancy between the visual and verbal performance was apparent for the majority of the participants. The current study provides a valuable starting point for research of this highly understudied group.
A secure checkpointing system

Fault-tolerant computer systems are being used increasingly in such applications as e-commerce, banking, and stock trading, where privacy and integrity of data are as important as the uninterrupted operation of the service provided. While much attention has been paid to the protection of data explicitly communicated over the Internet, there are also other sources of information leakage that must be addressed. This paper addresses one such source of information leakage caused by checkpointing, which is a common method used to provide continued operation in the presence of faults. Checkpointing requires communication of memory state information, which may contain sensitive data, over the network to a reliable backing store. Although the method of encrypting all of this memory state information can protect the data, such a simplistic method is an overkill that can result in a significant slowdown of the target application. This paper examines ways to combine the operations required to perform incremental checkpointing with those required to encrypt this memory state data. Analysis and experimentation on an actual system are used to show that the proposed secure checkpointing schemes are feasible and require a relatively low level of overhead.
Effect of inhibitor depletion on inhibitory potency: tight binding inhibition of CYP3A by clotrimazole.

The purpose of this work was to evaluate the effect of mutual unbound inhibitor and unbound enzyme depletion on the potency of three antifungal cytochrome P-450 (CYP)3A inhibitors with over 1000-fold range in enzyme affinity. Incubations were performed with human liver microsomal protein concentrations that varied from 25 to 1000 microg/ml. The effect of each inhibitor was evaluated using midazolam as a CYP3A probe. Clotrimazole was found to be a tight binding inhibitor of CYP3A with a Ki of 250 pM. Analysis of percent inhibition data by stepwise linear regression for the matrix of inhibitor and enzyme concentrations used showed that protein concentrations predicted the percent inhibition by clotrimazole (r2 = 0.60, p <.001). When clotrimazole concentrations were added to the model, the r2 improved to 0.81, p =. 003. Clotrimazole concentrations alone were not a significant predictor of percent inhibition (r2 = 0. 21, p =.08). For ketoconazole, protein concentrations provided a weak prediction of the percent inhibition (r2 = 0.39, p =.006). Conversely, ketoconazole concentrations alone were a good predictor of percent inhibition (r2 = 0.55, p <.001). In contrast to results with clotrimazole and ketoconazole, percent inhibition by fluconazole was not dependent on protein concentrations (r2 = 0.06, p =.39). We conclude that microsomal inhibitory potency can be affected by incubation conditions that deplete the unbound concentration of inhibitor available to the enzyme. This may introduce serious error into a quantitative prediction of an in vivo drug-drug interaction based on an in vitro derived Ki value.
Bivalirudin for patients with acute coronary syndromes.

BACKGROUND Current guidelines for patients with moderate- or high-risk acute coronary syndromes recommend an early invasive approach with concomitant antithrombotic therapy, including aspirin, clopidogrel, unfractionated or low-molecular-weight heparin, and glycoprotein IIb/IIIa inhibitors. We evaluated the role of thrombin-specific anticoagulation with bivalirudin in such patients. METHODS We assigned 13,819 patients with acute coronary syndromes to one of three antithrombotic regimens: unfractionated heparin or enoxaparin plus a glycoprotein IIb/IIIa inhibitor, bivalirudin plus a glycoprotein IIb/IIIa inhibitor, or bivalirudin alone. The primary end points were a composite ischemia end point (death, myocardial infarction, or unplanned revascularization for ischemia), major bleeding, and the net clinical outcome, defined as the combination of composite ischemia or major bleeding. RESULTS Bivalirudin plus a glycoprotein IIb/IIIa inhibitor, as compared with heparin plus a glycoprotein IIb/IIIa inhibitor, was associated with noninferior 30-day rates of the composite ischemia end point (7.7% and 7.3%, respectively), major bleeding (5.3% and 5.7%), and the net clinical outcome end point (11.8% and 11.7%). Bivalirudin alone, as compared with heparin plus a glycoprotein IIb/IIIa inhibitor, was associated with a noninferior rate of the composite ischemia end point (7.8% and 7.3%, respectively; P=0.32; relative risk, 1.08; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.93 to 1.24) and significantly reduced rates of major bleeding (3.0% vs. 5.7%; P<0.001; relative risk, 0.53; 95% CI, 0.43 to 0.65) and the net clinical outcome end point (10.1% vs. 11.7%; P=0.02; relative risk, 0.86; 95% CI, 0.77 to 0.97). CONCLUSIONS In patients with moderate- or high-risk acute coronary syndromes who were undergoing invasive treatment with glycoprotein IIb/IIIa inhibitors, bivalirudin was associated with rates of ischemia and bleeding that were similar to those with heparin. Bivalirudin alone was associated with similar rates of ischemia and significantly lower rates of bleeding. (ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00093158 [ClinicalTrials.gov].).
An Asymptotically Nonadaptive Algorithm for Conflict Resolution in Multiple-Access Channels

A basic problem in the decentralized control of a multiple access channel is to resolve the conflicts that arise when several stations transmit simultaneously to the channel. Capetanakfs, Hayes, and Tsybakov and Mikhailov found a deterministic tree algorithm that resolves conflicts among k stations from an ensemble of n in time O(k + k log( n/k)) in the worst case. In this algorithm, at each step, the choice of which stations to enable to transmit depends crucially on feedback information provided by the channel. We show that if k is given n priori then such conflicts can
A method for reducing the amounts of training samples for developing AI systems

A lot of tools are developed for AI (Artificial Intelligent) development. These tools are easy to use and the number of kinds of the tools are increasing quickly with new research results, therefore they are widely utilized for AI development in nowadays. A research issue here we need to solve is to provide methods for reducing training samples for AI development. The research issue comes from the background that most of the AI systems developed by using AI developing tools require a huge amount of training samples. In this paper, we propose a method for reducing the amount of training samples. Based on the proposed method, we created a Japanese hand-writing recognizing system to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed method. This system is used for recognizing more than 6,000 different kinds of Japanese Kanji characters. The important feature of the system is that we do not need to collect millions of hand-writing Kanji character images as training samples. The effectiveness of the proposed method is confirmed by demonstration experiments.
Termination of atrial fibrillation by flecainide: mechanistic insights from spectral analysis.

This editorial refers to ‘Increase in organization index predicts atrial fibrillation termination with flecainide post-ablation: spectral analysis of intracardiac electrograms’ by J. Tuan et al . , on page 488. The pathophysiology of atrial fibrillation (AF) is complex and remains incompletely understood. Atrial fibrillation is usually initiated by rapidly discharging foci, often from within the pulmonary veins, which is then maintained by an abnormal left atrial substrate. Experimental evidence suggests that AF is driven by rapidly discharging foci and waves rotating around fixed structures (mother rotors). 1 These drivers give rise to daughter wavelets which propagate around the atria giving the appearance of ‘fibrillatory conduction’. Recurrent paroxysms of AF cause structural and electrophysiological remodelling of the left atrium eventually allowing it to persist.2 Within hours, there are changes in ion channel expression which shorten action potential duration (APD) and effective refractory period (ERP). 2 Ultrastructural changes beginning within days of onset of AF include left atrial fibrosis, accumulation of extracellular matrix, and reduced expression of connexin 40 reducing conduction velocity.2 Heterogeneity of refractory periods and zones of slow conduction promote re-entry and support wavelets propagating around the atria. Flecainide exerts its effect through blockade of sodium channels ( I Na) and potassium channels ( I K1 and I KAch), which reduces conduction velocity and increases APD and ERP, respectively.3 These changes have opposing effects on wavelength, which is a product of conduction velocity and ERP. An increase in ERP and AF cycle length was demonstrated in response to flecainide in a canine model of AF.4 A concomitant increase in size and decrease in the number of re-entry wavelets was observed on high-density epicardial mapping. The authors assumed that the prolongation of ERP was the predominant effect, and that re-entry was … *Corresponding author. Tel: +44 207 601 8639; fax: +44 207 601 8627, Email: r.schilling{at}qmul.ac. uk
Data-Adaptive Reduced-Dimension Robust Beamforming Algorithms

We present low complexity, quickly converging robust adaptive beamformers that combine robust Capon beamformer (RCB) methods and data-adaptive Krylov subspace dimensionality reduction techniques. We extend a recently proposed reduced-dimension RCB framework, which ensures proper combination of RCBs with any form of dimensionality reduction that can be expressed using a full-rank dimension reducing transform, providing new results for data-adaptive dimensionality reduction. We consider Krylov subspace methods computed with the Powers-of-R (PoR) and Conjugate Gradient (CG) techniques, illustrating how a fast CG-based algorithm can be formed by beneficially exploiting that the CG-algorithm diagonalizes the reduced-dimension covariance. Our simulations show the benefits of the proposed approaches.
Eating practice models in Spain and the United Kingdom: A comparative time-use analysis

The time dedicated to eating is changing. Although a tendency towards the homogenization of eating habits has been confirmed, the scarcity of comparative studies means that it is impossible to know whether the variations are occurring equally or with the same intensity in all countries. In this study, time dedicated to eating and cooking in Spain and the United Kingdom is analysed. Questions are asked regarding the decline in eating at home and the fragmentation of meals. An analysis is made whether different social groups behave in a similar way with regard to the time spent eating and to what extent the changes affect some groups more than others, generating greater social differences. In order to do this, official Spanish and British time-use surveys are used, and the data from two different time periods are analysed using multivariate techniques. In both countries, signs of convergence are detected, although the speed of change is different. Despite the convergence, the results also show that the changes in eating habits are not linear and are affected by moments of intense social transformation. Phenomena such as the economic crisis in the case of Spain affect the society and impose specific eating habit trends, generating new forms of social differentiation.
Estimating viscoelastic properties of human limb joints based on motion capture and robotic Identification Technologies

We present a solution to estimate in-vivo the joint dynamics of the human limbs during passive movements. The method is based on well-known modelling and approach used in robotics that allow simultaneous multi-joint estimation. The modelling of the human body and the human joint as well as the method are described. The experimental set-up based on the use of an optical motion capture system is detailed. Three types of movements are recorded and used to perform the identification. We concluded that designed movements and movements from clinical diagnosis of neuromuscular diseases are good to perform the identification; however swing of the arms during normal walk does not provide enough excitation to obtain consistent results.
Discriminative Label Propagation for Multi-object Tracking with Sporadic Appearance Features

Given a set of plausible detections, detected at each time instant independently, we investigate how to associate them across time. This is done by propagating labels on a set of graphs that capture how the spatio-temporal and the appearance cues promote the assignment of identical or distinct labels to a pair of nodes. The graph construction is driven by the locally linear embedding (LLE) of either the spatio-temporal or the appearance features associated to the detections. Interestingly, the neighborhood of a node in each appearance graph is defined to include all nodes for which the appearance feature is available (except the ones that coexist at the same time). This allows to connect the nodes that share the same appearance even if they are temporally distant, which gives our framework the uncommon ability to exploit the appearance features that are available only sporadically along the sequence of detections. Once the graphs have been defined, the multi-object tracking is formulated as the problem of finding a label assignment that is consistent with the constraints captured by each of the graphs. This results into a difference of convex program that can be efficiently solved. Experiments are performed on a basketball and several well-known pedestrian datasets in order to validate the effectiveness of the proposed solution.