Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Brief Primer on the Certifai App for Data Scientists

Without loss of generality, we refer to the two classes as the positive and negative class respectively, with the positive class being a more desired outcome. As a running example, we consider a loan approval case, in which each instance is a loan application, the positive class is “approved” and the negative class is “denied”. Any classifier will partition the input space into regions that are assigned the same class label, separated by decision boundaries.
Recursive Structural Equations Models

Rubin's model for causal inference in experiments and observational studies is enlarged to analyze the problem of "causes causing causes" and is compared to path analysis and recursive structural equations models. A special quasiexperimental design, the encouragement detsign, is used to give concreteness to the discussion by focusing on the simplest problem that involves both direct and indirect causation. Rubin's model is shown to extend easily to this situation and to specify conditions under which the parameters of path analysis and recursive structural equations models have causal interpretations.
The Logic of Violence in Africa’s Extremist Insurgencies

What factors explain the great variation in the target selection of VE groups in Africa? Some tend to focus their attacks mostly on official targets while others show a relative preference for civilians. Most, however, tend to typically change their target selection over time. This article demonstrates that the logic of violence in Africa’s fragile, conflict-prone states is driven by four factors: (1) The degree to which VE groups rely on local support to maintain the insurgency; (2) the dynamics of in-group/out-group differentiation and corresponding hostility; (3) inter-group rivalry and looming power shifts; and (4) the strategies of counterinsurgency employed by governments.
Beamforming Solutions for Efficient Link Setup and Link Maintenance in Millimeter Wave Communication Systems

Millimeter wave (mmWave band) technology has gained a lot of attention in 5G communications, due to large amounts of spectrum being available in the mmWave frequency range. However, mmWave links suffer from severe free-space loss and atmospheric absorption. Beamforming, which generates directed beams with strong gain using multiple antennas, is one promising solution towards these challenges. In this thesis, we focus on designing beamforming weights (a codebook) to synthesize a new beam type, referred to as the "Slepian" beam. The width of the Slepian beam is tuneable, which enables the creation of a wider main-lobe with small side-lobes than the conventional Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) beam. This makes it possible to optimize the beam for some optimization criteria. In particular, the interest is on the optimization of spectral efficiency and outage capacity over the coverage area (i.e., an angular sector). Using the Slepian beam, the angular space can then be quantized into sub-regions, where each sub-region is covered by a shifted version of the beam. Using wider beams to cover wider sub-regions instead of narrower sub-regions reduces the overhead on both the beam tracking and beam sweeping algorithms, with the latter achieving a reduced initial access time. The new codebook is then used for beam sweeping, and the beam sweeping algorithm implemented and evaluated in this work is hierarchical beam sweeping. Simulation results and capacity analysis verify that the proposed codebook design improves spectral efficiency and outage capacity.
Acronym Disambiguation in Clinical Notes from Electronic Health Records

Objective: The use of electronic health records (EHR) systems has grown over the past decade, and with it, the need to extract information from unstructured clinical narratives. Clinical notes, however, frequently contain acronyms with several potential senses (meanings) and traditional natural language processing (NLP) techniques cannot differentiate between these senses. In this study we introduce an unsupervised method for acronym disambiguation, the task of classifying the correct sense of acronyms in the clinical EHR notes. Methods: We developed an unsupervised ensemble machine learning (CASEml) algorithm to automatically classify acronyms by leveraging semantic embeddings, visit-level text and billing information. The algorithm was validated using note data from the Veterans Affairs hospital system to classify the meaning of three acronyms: RA, MS, and MI. We compared the performance of CASEml against another standard unsupervised method and a baseline metric selecting the most frequent acronym sense. We additionally evaluated the effects of RA disambiguation on NLP-driven phenotyping of rheumatoid arthritis. Results: CASEml achieved accuracies of 0.947, 0.911, and 0.706 for RA, MS, and MI, respectively, higher than a standard baseline metric and (on average) higher than a state-of-the-art unsupervised method. As well, we demonstrated that applying CASEml to medical notes improves the AUC of a phenotype algorithm for rheumatoid arthritis. Conclusion: CASEml is a novel method that accurately disambiguates acronyms in clinical notes and has advantages over commonly used supervised and unsupervised machine learning approaches. In addition, CASEml improves the performance of NLP tasks that rely on ambiguous acronyms, such as phenotyping.
Experiences of Caregivers as Clients of a Patient Navigation Program for Children and Youth with Complex Care Needs: A Qualitative Descriptive Study

The number of Canadian children and youth with complex care needs has continued to rise, and their need for resources across all sectors can be extensive. Navigating the maze of resources and services can create confusion and impact how care is delivered and integrated. Patient navigators can help support and guide patients and caregivers through the healthcare system by matching their needs to appropriate resources with the aim to improve access and promote the integration of care. This qualitative study explored caregivers’ experiences caring for a child or youth with complex care needs, and their experiences and satisfaction as clients of a patient navigation centre. Participants included 22 clients from NaviCare/SoinsNavi, a patient navigation centre in Canada for children and youth with complex care needs and their families. Three main themes emerged: 1) caring for a child or youth with complex care needs, 2) navigating the system, and 3) the value of patient navigation. Findings suggest caregivers caring for a child or youth with complex care needs often feel overwhelmed, fearful, and alone; yet, patient navigation can be an innovative approach to support their needs through facilitating more convenient and integrated care, and improving access to education, supports, and resources.
Superiority of an Asymmetric Perylene Diimide in Terms of Hydrosolubility, G-Quadruplex Binding, Cellular Uptake, and Telomerase Inhibition in Prostate Cancer Cells

Perylene diimide (PDI) derivatives have been studied as G-quadruplex ligands that suppress telomerase activity by facilitating G-quadruplex formation of telomeric DNA and the hTERT promoter. PIPER, the prototypical PDI, reduces telomerase activity in lung and prostate cancer cells, leading to telomere shortening and cellular senescence of these cells. However, PIPER suffers from poor hydrosolubility and the propensity to aggregate at neutral pH. In this report, we synthesized a new asymmetric PDI, aPDI-PHis, which maintains one N-ethyl piperidine side chain of PIPER and has histidine as another side chain. The results show that aPDI-PHis is superior to its symmetric counterparts, PIPER and PDI-His, in terms of hydrosolubility, G-quadruplex binding, cellular uptake, and telomerase inhibition in prostate cancer cells. These results suggest that one N-ethyl piperidine side chain of PDI is sufficient for G-quadruplex binding, while another side chain can be tuned to elicit desirable properties. These findings might lead to better PDIs for use as anticancer drugs.
Dose-response analysis of microvasculature changes in the murine fetal brain and the maternal extremities due to prenatal ethanol exposure

Abstract. Significance: Prenatal exposure to ethanol causes several morphological and neurobehavioral deficits. While there are some studies on the effects of ethanol exposure on blood flow, research focusing on acute changes in the microvasculature is limited. Aim: The first aim of this study was to assess the dose-dependent changes in murine fetal brain microvasculature of developing fetuses in response to maternal alcohol consumption. The second aim was to quantify changes in vasculature occurring concurrently in the mother’s hindlimb and the fetus’s brain after maternal exposure to alcohol. Approach: Correlation mapping optical coherence angiography was used to evaluate the effects of prenatal exposure to different doses of ethanol (3, 1.5, and 0.75 g / kg) on murine fetal brain vasculature in utero. Additionally, simultaneous imaging of maternal peripheral vessels and the fetal brain vasculature was performed to assess changes of the vasculature occurring concurrently in response to ethanol consumption. Results: The fetal brain vessel diameters (VDs) decreased by ∼47 % , 30%, and 14% in response to ethanol doses of 3, 1.5, and 0.75 g / kg, respectively. However, the mother’s hindlimb VD increased by 63% in response to ethanol at a dose of 3 g / kg. Conclusions: Results showed a dose-dependent reduction in vascular blood flow in fetal brain vessels when the mother was exposed to ethanol, whereas vessels in the maternal hindlimb exhibited concurrent vasodilation.
Soap Bubbles and Solid Spheres: Collisions and Interactions

Soap Bubbles and Solid Spheres: Collisions and Interactions Joshua Bryson Department of Mechanical Engineering, BYU Master of Science Under the right conditions, a moving sphere may successfully enter, and leave, a soap bubble without rupturing that bubble. The physics behind this phenomena are not well understood, nor the limiting factors (such as sphere size, speed, etc.). This work, investigating this phenomenon using high speed photography, has produced several results which are presented. First, several distinct regimes, noted while photographing the interactions between the spheres and the bubbles, are classified and discussed. Next a probabilistic examination of the soap bubbles rupture by the moving spheres is presented. Then a conjecture for the limiting sphere sizes and speeds is presented. And finally some interesting phenomena, noted in the course of this investigation, are presented and discussed.
Contrôle de la prolifération cellulaire et développement du tube neural : régulation de l'expression des acteurs du cycle cellulaire Cycline D1 et CDC25B par le morphogène Shh

Chez les Vertebres, la moelle epiniere se developpe a partir de la region posterieure de la plaque neurale. La plaque neurale se ferme progressivement pour donner la gouttiere puis le tube neural au cours de l'allongement antero-posterieur de l'embryon. Les precurseurs neuraux sont soumis a l'action de morphogenes comme Sonic Hedgehog (Shh) au niveau de la gouttiere neurale. La proteine Shh qui est secretee par les structures ventrales de la gouttiere et du tube neural controle a la fois la proliferation et la specification des precurseurs neuraux ventraux. Si les mecanismes moleculaires qui menent a la specification neuronale commencaient a etre bien connus, les bases moleculaires de l'action proliferative de Shh restaient a elucider. Pour comprendre comment Shh controle la proliferation dans l'ebauche de moelle epiniere j'ai utilise l'embryon de poulet comme modele d'etude. J'ai observe que deux regulateurs du cycle cellulaire : Cycline D1 et CDC25B sont exprimes dans la partie ventrale de la gouttiere neurale. Les Cyclines D sont connues pour leur role dans le couplage des signaux extracellulaires avec la progression des cellules en phase G1 du cycle. La phosphatase CDC25B est connue pour promouvoir la transition G2/M. J'ai demontre par des experiences de perte et de gain de fonction que l'expression de Cycline D1 et de CDC25B est regulee par la voie de signalisation Shh dans la partie ventrale de la gouttiere neurale. L'inhibition de la voie dans le tube neural entraine un blocage des cellules en phase G1 et a la transition G2/M. La surexpression de Cycline D1 dans le tube neural favorise la proliferation cellulaire au detriment de la differenciation neuronale. Ces donnees suggerent donc que Shh pourrait maintenir en proliferation certaines populations de precurseurs neuraux par l'activation de la Cycline D1. Ce travail a donc permis l'identification de Cycline D1 et CDC25B comme des cibles de Shh. Il suggere que Shh agit positivement sur la proliferation a deux phases du cycle cellulaire : la progression en G1 et la transition G2/M. Le controle de la progression en G1 pourrait servir a maintenir certains precurseurs en proliferation, la signification du controle a la transition G2/M reste a etre determine. Cette etude nous permet de mieux comprendre par quels mecanismes la voie de signalisation Shh va coordonner la proliferation avec la specification dans le tube neural.
Block Copolymers for Alkaline Fuel Cell Membrane Materials

Abstract : Alkaline fuel cells (AFCs) using anion exchange membranes (AEMs) as electrolyte have recently received considerable attention. AFCs offer some advantages over proton exchange membrane fuel cells, including the potential of non-noble metal (e.g. nickel, silver) catalyst on the cathode, which can dramatically lower the fuel cell cost. The main drawback of traditional AFCs is the use of liquid electrolyte (e.g. aqueous potassium hydroxide), which can result in the formation of carbonate precipitates by reaction with carbon dioxide. AEMs with tethered cations can overcome the precipitates formed in traditional AFCs. Our current research focuses on developing different polymer systems (blend, block, grafted, and crosslinked polymers) in order to understand alkaline fuel cell membrane in many aspects and design optimized anion exchange membranes with better alkaline stability, mechanical integrity and ionic conductivity. A number of distinct materials have been produced and characterized. A polymer blend system comprised of poly(vinylbenzyl chloride)-bpolystyrene (PVBC-b-PS) diblock copolymer, prepared by nitroxide mediated polymerization (NMP), with poly(2,6- dimethyl-1,4-phenylene oxide) (PPO) or brominated PPO was studied for conversion into a blend membrane for AEM. The formation of a miscible blend matrix improved mechanical properties while maintaining high ionic conductivity through formation of phase separated ionic domains. Using anionic polymerization, a polyethylene based block copolymer was designed where the polyethylene-based block copolymer formed bicontinuous morphological structures to enhance the hydroxide conductivity (up to 94 mS/cm at 80 C) while excellent mechanical properties (strain up to 205%) of the polyethylene block copolymer membrane was observed. A polymer system was designed and characterized with monomethoxy polyethylene glycol (mPEG) as a hydrophilic polymer grafted through substitution of pendent benzyl chloride groups of a PVBC-b-PS.
An efficient lossless compression technique for remote sensing images using segmentation based band reordering heuristics

ABSTRACT The size of remote sensing (RS) image is indeed massive due to hundreds capturing wavelengths bands used for collecting information about the ground surface. The data in the RS images are often redundant spatially, spectrally and temporally which thus give a sufficient prospect for compressing the images in different domains. In this paper, we propose a band reordering scheme to be applied on the segmented subgroup datasets of an original RS image dataset towards presenting a hybrid lossless compression technique. The proposed dataset segmentation-based band reordering process employs two heuristics, i.e. consecutive continuity limit of previous bands and continuity breakdown thresholds to be used for efficient coding of reordered dataset towards attaining better on-board compression. The aim of the proposed compression strategy is thus to increase compression gain through reordering each highly correlated bands’ segment in the RS data-cube for efficient coding. The performance of the proposed band reordering method is measured using the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS) recommended lossless CCSDS 123.0-B-1 and three-dimensional (3D) Context-based Adaptive Lossless Image Codec (CALIC) predictors. The experimental results illustrate substantially higher compression of the proposed method than that of the state-of-the-art standards using various real RS hyperspectral and hyperspectral sound datasets. Quantitatively, the compression performances are increased by 0.10%–0.66% using CCSDS and 0.65–2.52% using 3D-CALIC for hyperspectral Airborne Visible InfraRed Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS) datasets, 0.26%–1.00% using CCSDS and 2.16–2.57% using 3D-CALIC for hyperspectral Hyperion datasets and 4.61%–7.36% using CCSDS and 4.05%–4.88% using 3D-CALIC for hyperspectral sounder datasets by the proposed compression technique. Besides, the proposed compression scheme outperforms state-of-the-art investigated compression methods.
Caracterisation moleculaire et proprietes mecaniques des reseaux elastomeres sbr renforces par la silice

Ce travail concerne le renforcement des elastomeres sbr par la silice. L'etude a porte sur plusieurs melanges vulcanises qui different par la nature de la silice ou par la chimie de l'interface polymere/silice. Plusieurs techniques de caracterisation a l'echelle microscopique et a l'echelle moleculaire ont ete mises en uvre, dans le but de mieux comprendre les mecanismes de deformation dans ces systemes biphasiques. La microscopie a force atomique, utilisee en mode intermittent avec contraste de phase, a ete validee en tant que nouvelle technique de caracterisation de la dispersion de la silice dans la matrice polymere. Appliquee a des echantillons etires, elle permet d'analyser le champ de deformation a l'echelle du micron. Nous avons pu mettre en evidence de fortes heterogeneites de deformation au sein du materiau. Nous avons montre que l'amplification de deformation dans la phase polymere pouvait atteindre un niveau tres eleve dans les regions les plus concentrees en silice. L'orientation moleculaire induite sous traction a ete etudiee via deux techniques differentes (le dichroisme dans la gamme spectrale proche infrarouge et la birefringence) qui conduisent au meme resultat : en presence d'agent de couplage, les liaisons covalentes generees a l'interface polymere / silice jouent le role de jonctions supplementaires vis-a-vis du reseau elastomere. Dans les regions ou l'amplification de deformation est forte, les chaines atteignent rapidement leur limite d'extensibilite, ce qui se traduit par des comportements non gaussiens : la contrainte augmente beaucoup plus rapidement que l'orientation. Les chaines fortement sollicitees dans ces regions sont ensuite amenees a rompre ou a se detacher de la surface de la silice, ce qui induit une diminution du module en deuxieme traction (effet mullins). La comprehension de l'origine de l'effet mullins est capitale car l'hysterese mullins est la principale composante de l'hysterese totale. Or, l'etude des proprietes mecaniques aux grandes deformations a montre qu'il existait une correlation entre l'energie a la rupture et l'hysterese totale a la rupture. Enfin, une nouvelle interpretation, fondee sur l'existence d'une couche de polymere fortement immobilise a la surface de la silice, a ete proposee pour rendre compte de l'effet payne.
A Malagasy Element in Continental Africa: A New Subspecies of the Rare Amauris nossima (Nymphalidae, Danainae) from the Kenyan Coast

Amauris nossima Ward (Nymphalidae, Danainae) was known before this study only from Madagascar and the island of Mayotte, without clearly defined subspecies, but with five names considered invalid or infrasubspecific. It has generally been considered a rare species of butterfly classified by IUCN as vulnerable (Vu B1 + 2c). Here, it is reported for the first time from continental Africa. A new subspecies A. nossima mrima n. ssp. is described from two remnants of rain forest, Mrima and Buda, on the southern Kenyan coast, where it occurs sympatrically with Amauris ochlea Boisduval, widely distributed in East Africa. Their, previously predicted, sister-species status is confirmed by morphological (male and female genitalia) and partial mitochondrial (COI) data. The finding of A. nossima in Kenya opens the discussion on a possible recolonization of Africa from Madagascar, which would be an exception to a predominant biogeographical pattern of African origin of Malagasy butterflies via overseas dispersal.
Slope-space integrals for specular next event estimation

Monte Carlo light transport simulations often lack robustness in scenes containing specular or near-specular materials. Widely used uni- and bidirectional sampling strategies tend to find light paths involving such materials with insufficient probability, producing unusable images that are contaminated by significant variance. This article addresses the problem of sampling a light path connecting two given scene points via a single specular reflection or refraction, extending the range of scenes that can be robustly handled by unbiased path sampling techniques. Our technique enables efficient rendering of challenging transport phenomena caused by such paths, such as underwater caustics or caustics involving glossy metallic objects. We derive analytic expressions that predict the total radiance due to a single reflective or refractive triangle with a microfacet BSDF and we show that this reduces to the well known Lambert boundary integral for irradiance. We subsequently show how this can be leveraged to efficiently sample connections on meshes comprised of vast numbers of triangles. Our derivation builds on the theory of off-center microfacets and involves integrals in the space of surface slopes. Our approach straightforwardly applies to the related problem of rendering glints with high-resolution normal maps describing specular microstructure. Our formulation alleviates problems raised by singularities in filtering integrals and enables a generalization of previous work to perfectly specular materials. We also extend previous work to the case of GGX distributions and introduce new techniques to improve accuracy and performance.
Conforming weighted delaunay triangulations

Given a set of points together with a set of simplices we show how to compute weights associated with the points such that the weighted Delaunay triangulation of the point set contains the simplices, if possible. For a given triangulated surface, this process provides a tetrahedral mesh conforming to the triangulation, i.e. solves the problem of meshing the triangulated surface without inserting additional vertices. The restriction to weighted Delaunay triangulations ensures that the orthogonal dual mesh is embedded, facilitating common geometry processing tasks. We show that the existence of a single simplex in a weighted Delaunay triangulation for given vertices amounts to a set of linear inequalities, one for each vertex. This means that the number of inequalities for a given triangle mesh is quadratic in the number of mesh elements, making the naive approach impractical. We devise an algorithm that incrementally selects a small subset of inequalities, repeatedly updating the weights, until the weighted Delaunay triangulation contains all constrained simplices or the problem becomes infeasible. Applying this algorithm to a range of triangle meshes commonly used graphics demonstrates that many of them admit a conforming weighted Delaunay triangulation, in contrast to conforming or constrained Delaunay that require additional vertices to split the input primitives.