Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Learning to rank and order answers to definition questions

The task of ordering a set of ranked result returned by an online search engine or an offline information retrieval engine is termed as reranking. It is called reranking for the reason that the candidate answer snippets are extracted by the information retrieval systems using some strategy for scoring, for example, based on occurrence of query words. We therefore assume the results to be already ranked and therefore the subsequent ranking is termed as reranking. Ranking drastically reduces the number of documents that will be processed further. Reranking usually involves deeper linguistic analysis and use of expert knowledge resources to get an even better understanding. The first task this thesis explores is regarding reranking of answers to definition questions. The answers are sentences returned by the google search engine in response to the definition questions. This step is relevant to definition questions because the questions tend to be short and therefore the information need of the user is difficult to assess. This means the final result is not a single piece of information but a ordered set of relevant sentences. In this thesis we explore two approaches to reranking that uses dependency tree statistics in a probabilistic setting. One of them is based on calculating edit distance between trees and tree statistics from the corpus and other one uses a tree kernel function and involves using the output from trained classifiers directly. The second task this thesis explores is the task of sentence ordering for definition questions. The reranking part of the definition question answering pipeline is able to identify the sentences that are relevant to a given question. However, answer to a definition question is a collection of sentences that has some coherent ordering between them. In a way this is not far away from the characteristics observed in a good summary. We believe that by moving sentences around to form a more coherent chunk we will be able to better meet the expectation of a user by improving his reading experience. We present an approach that finds an ordering for the sentences based on the knowledge extracted from observing the order of sentences in Wikipedia articles. Due to the popularity and acceptability of Wikipedia, proven by the fact that wikipedia results are ranked high by all major commercial search engines, it was chosen as the standard to be learnt from and compared against. We present a framework that uses the order of sentences extracted from Wikipedia articles to construct a single big graph of connected sentences. As a mechanism to select a node in the graph, we define a scoring function based on the relative position of candidate sentences.
Birth outcome in relation to licorice consumption during pregnancy.

A role for glucocorticoids is suspected in the etiology of low birth weight. The authors tested whether maternal consumption of glycyrrhizin (an inhibitor of cortisol metabolism) in licorice affects birth weight in humans. A sample of 1,049 Finnish women and their healthy singleton infants was studied in 1998. Glycyrrhizin intake was calculated from detailed questionnaires on licorice consumption. Glycyrrhizin exposure was grouped into three levels: low (<250 mg/week; n = 751), moderate (250-499 mg/week; n = 145), and heavy (> or =500 mg/week; n = 110). Birth weight and gestational age (from ultrasound measurements) were obtained from hospital records. Babies with heavy exposure to glycyrrhizin were not significantly lighter at birth, but they were significantly more likely to be born earlier: The odds ratio for being born before 38 weeks' gestation was 2.5 (95% confidence interval: 1.1, 5.5; p = 0.03). Although the effect of heavy glycyrrhizin intake on mean duration of gestation was small (2.52 days) when expressed as an effect on the mean, this shift to the left of the distribution of duration of gestation was sufficient to double the risk of being born before 38 weeks. The association remained in multivariate analyses. In conclusion, heavy glycyrrhizin exposure during pregnancy did not significantly affect birth weight or maternal blood pressure, but it was significantly associated with lower gestational age.
A Self-Rating Scale for Measuring Neuroleptic Side-Effects

Background A study was conducted to validate a comprehensive self-rating scale for measuring side-effects of neuroleptic drugs. Method The Liverpool University Neuroleptic Side Effect Rating Scale (LUNSERS), which includes ‘red herring’ items, was twice administered to 50 DSM–III–R schizophrenic patients, who were also interviewed using the UKU side-effect rating scale; 50 unmedicated controls also completed the LUNSERS. Results The test-retest reliability of the LUNSERS was good (r = 0.811, P< 0.001) as was its concurrent validity against the UKU (r = 0.828, P< 0.001). Scores correlated with chlorpromazine equivalent doses (r = 0.310, P< 0.02). ROC analysis demonstrated that the scale discriminated between patients and non-medicated controls, who scored differently for real side-effects but not for ‘red herring’ items. Conclusions The LUNSERS is an efficient, reliable and valid method of assessing neuroleptic side-effects.
The Inflammatory Modulation Effect of Glutamine-Enriched Total Parenteral Nutrition in Postoperative Gastrointestinal Cancer Patients

The objective of this study is to explore the inflammatory modulation effect of glutamine-enriched total parenteral nutrition (TPN) by investigating the alterations of inflammation-related cytokines in gastrointestinal (GI) cancer patients postoperatively. Fifty GI cancer patients received postoperative 7 days of isocaloric and isonitrogenous TPN after operation. They were randomly divided to receive either glutamine-enriched TPN or standard TPN. The inflammation-related cytokines including interleukin-6, interleukin-10, and tumor necrosis factor-α were also determined. Records of nutritional assessments, inflammatory status, and postoperative complications were compared between the two groups. Of 50 enrolled patients, 25 patients were classified as the intervention group, and the control group also comprised 25 patients. The differences of gender, age, primary GI malignancies, and hematological and biochemical data between the two compared groups were not statistically significant (all P > 0.05). Compared with standard TPN, a higher serum prealbumin level and better nitrogen balance were observed in glutamine-enriched TPN (P = 0.039 and 0.048 respectively). A significantly lower serum interleukin-6 level was found in comparing glutamine-enriched with standard TPN (P = 0.01), but not in interleukin-10 (P = 0.374) and tumor necrosis factor-α levels (P = 0.653). Moreover, a significant lower serum C-reactive protein level was detected in glutamine-enriched TPN compared with standard TPN (P = 0.013). Indeed, four cases of postoperative infectious complications were noted in the control group, but no postoperative infectious complications were observed in the interventional group (P = 0.037). Our present study shows that glutamine-enriched TPN may be beneficial in improving the inflammatory status and decreasing the infectious morbidity in postoperative GI cancer patients.
Deep features for multimodal emotion classification

Understanding human emotion when perceiving audiovisual content is an exciting and important research avenue. Thus, there have been emerging attempts to predict the emotion elicited by video clips or movies recently. While most existing approaches focus either on single modality, i. e. , only audio or visual data is exploited, or build on a multimodal scheme with late fusion , we propose a multimodal framework with early fusion scheme and target an emotion classification task. Our proposed mechanism presents the advantages of handling (1) the variation in video length, (2) the imbalance of audio and visual feature sizes, and (3) the middle-level fusion of audio and visual information such that a higher level feature representation can be learned jointly from the two modalities for classification. We evaluate the performance of the proposed approach on the international benchmark, i. e. , the MediaEval 2015 Affective Impact of Movies 1 task , and show that it outperforms most state-of-the-art systems on arousal accuracy while using a much smaller feature size .
Modeling the Structure of the Attitudes and Belief Scale 2 using CFA and Bifactor Approaches: Toward the Development of an Abbreviated Version

The Attitudes and Belief Scale-2 (ABS-2: DiGiuseppe, Leaf, Exner, & Robin, 1988. The development of a measure of rational/irrational thinking. Paper presented at the World Congress of Behavior Therapy, Edinburg, Scotland.) is a 72-item self-report measure of evaluative rational and irrational beliefs widely used in Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy research contexts. However, little psychometric evidence exists regarding the measure's underlying factor structure. Furthermore, given the length of the ABS-2 there is a need for an abbreviated version that can be administered when there are time demands on the researcher, such as in clinical settings. This study sought to examine a series of theoretical models hypothesized to represent the latent structure of the ABS-2 within an alternative models framework using traditional confirmatory factor analysis as well as utilizing a bifactor modeling approach. Furthermore, this study also sought to develop a psychometrically sound abbreviated version of the ABS-2. Three hundred and thirteen (N = 313) active emergency service personnel completed the ABS-2. Results indicated that for each model, the application of bifactor modeling procedures improved model fit statistics, and a novel eight-factor intercorrelated solution was identified as the best fitting model of the ABS-2. However, the observed fit indices failed to satisfy commonly accepted standards. A 24-item abbreviated version was thus constructed and an intercorrelated eight-factor solution yielded satisfactory model fit statistics. Current results support the use of a bifactor modeling approach to determining the factor structure of the ABS-2. Furthermore, results provide empirical support for the psychometric properties of the newly developed abbreviated version.
Stochastic L-BFGS: Improved Convergence Rates and Practical Acceleration Strategies

We revisit the stochastic limited-memory Broyden–Fletcher–Goldfarb–Shanno (L-BFGS) algorithm. By proposing a new coordinate transformation framework for the convergence analysis, we prove improved convergence rates and computational complexities of the stochastic L-BFGS algorithms compared to previous works. In addition, we propose several practical acceleration strategies to speed up the empirical performance of such algorithms. We also provide theoretical analyses for most of the strategies. Experiments on large-scale logistic and ridge regression problems demonstrate that our proposed strategies yield significant improvements vis-à-vis competing state-of-the-art algorithms.
Vapor liquid equilibrium and critical behavior of square well fluids of variable width using Pavlyukhin perturbation theory

Vapor liquid equilibrium and critical behavior of square well systems with hard-sphere diameter,  welldepth,  and with well-width 1 2.5    have been derived by using Pavlyukhin fourth order perturbation theory. The graphs for varying well-width have been compared with the available simulation data. Plotted curves for the square-well systems with 1.25,1.375,1.5   and 1.7 , are very nearly cubic in shape. The comparison shows that except the middle region the left and right part of the vapor –liquid coexistence curve matches with the available simulation data. The calculated critical points have a small shift for all widths of potential well. Though, this work confirms the validity of Pavlyukhin fourth order perturbation theory.
Investigation of optical feedback in high-speed electroabsorption modulated lasers with a window region

The optimum waveguide design for optical feedback reduction in a 10-Gb/s electroabsorption modulated laser has been discussed. A device with a 30-/spl mu/m-long window region exhibited as much as 10-15-dB reduction, which is verified by experimental results and the beam propagation calculation. Using a tilted waveguide with the window region, the feedback factor is reduced to as low as -40 dB. Besides low optical feedback, the tilted-and-straight modulator has a sufficient dc extinction ratio and a far-field profile allowing larger than 60% fiber-coupling efficiency.
Throughput, Capacity, Handover and Latency Performance in a 3GPP LTE FDD Field Trial

This article presents a summary of 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) radio system performance during the execution of a multi-site field trial. This exhaustive testing campaign, performed over the lower 700 MHz and 2 GHz bands, includes a battery of stationary and mobility throughput cases, multi-user capacity scenarios, handover performance and latency tests, that have been designed to reveal LTE radio performance under a variety of realistic user scenarios. Tests have been performed using a Category 2 LTE UE, which can handle a maximum transport of 50 Mbps in the downlink and 25 Mbps in the uplink. As the results indicate, the system boasts a peak downlink single-user throughput in excess of 49 Mbps and a peak uplink single-user throughput observed of 19 Mbps, which is quite close to the theoretical uplink limit of 21 Mbps. In multi-user scenarios with four active users, in the best case, we have measured a cell throughput of 47 Mbps in the downlink and 20 Mbps in the uplink, which is close to the theoretical best. Finally, as we show, the system achieves a handover success rate of 100% and a best case average user plane latency of 22ms.
Quasispecies analysis of novel HIV‐1 recombinants of subtypes A and G reveals no similarity to the mosaic structure of CRF02_AG

HIV‐1 circulating recombinant form (CRF) 02_AG is responsible for greater than 65% of HIV‐1 infections in Cameroon and is widespread across West and West‐Central Africa. The parental subtypes A1 and G cocirculate in this part of Africa, and high rates of infection predispose to the generation of AG unique recombinant forms (URFs). Little is known as to whether A1 and G can recombine and thrive in vivo with breakpoints other than those characteristic of CRF02_AG. In this study, six unique recombinant viruses of subtypes A1 and G were identified in two individuals in Cameroon. A 1.5 kb fragment of the reverse transcriptase (RT) region of pol (HXB2 location 2,612–4,159) and the entire env gene (HXB2 location 6,202–9,096) were evaluated by phylogenetic and breakpoint analyses. Each URF was found to have breakpoints different than CRF02_AG, indicating that A and G gene segments are functionally compatible with more than one pattern of recombination. Furthermore, contemporaneous, cultured viruses from these individuals were analyzed, revealing different proportions of URFs compared to those found in plasma, possibly indicating compart mentalization and/or phenotypic variation among the URFs. CRF02_AG emerged from West‐Central Africa to become a highly successful viral strain. As such, monitoring the spread of newly emerging AG recombinants is critical not only for understanding the epidemiology of HIV‐1, but also in the design of future therapeutics and vaccines appropriate to this part of Africa, and globally. J. Med. Virol. 79:1270–1285, 2007. © Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Depression and Endocrine Disorders: Focus on the Thyroid and Adrenal System

Of the various hypothalamic–pituitary–end organ axes, the thyroid and adrenal systems have been implicated most often in affective disorders. Patients with primary thyroid disease have high rates of depression, and patients with Addison's disease or Cushing's syndrome have relatively high rates of affective and anxiety symptoms. However, the major support for these endocrine axes in the pathophysiology of mood disorders comes from studies in which alterations in components of the hypothalamic–pituitary–thyroid (HPT) and the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axes have been documented in patients with primary depression. Concerning the HPT axis, depressed patients have been reported to have: (a) alterations in thyroid-stimulating hormone response to thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH); (b) an abnormally high rate of antithyroid antibodies; and (c) elevated cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) TRH concentrations. Moreover, tri-iodothyronine has been shown conclusively to augment the efficacy of various antidepressants. Concerning the HPA axis, depressed patients have been reported to exhibit: (a) adrenocorticoid hypersecretion; (b) enlarged pituitary and adrenal gland size; and (c) elevated CSF corticotropin-releasing factor concentrations. All of the HPA axis alterations in depression studied thus far are state-dependent, whereas the HPT axis alterations may be partially trait and partially state markers.
Efficient Computation of Emergent Equilibrium in Agent-Based Simulation

In agent-based simulation, emergent equilibrium describes the macroscopic steady states of agents' interactions. While the state of individual agents might be changing, the collective behavior pattern remains the same in macroscopic equilibrium states. Traditionally, these emergent equilibriums are calculated using Monte Carlo methods. However, these methods require thousands of repeated simulation runs, which are extremely time-consuming. In this paper, we propose a novel three-layer framework to efficiently compute emergent equilibriums. The framework consists of a macro-level pseudo-arclength equilibrium solver (PAES), a micro-level simulator (MLS) and a macro-micro bridge (MMB). It can adaptively explore parameter space and recursively compute equilibrium states using the predictor-corrector scheme. We apply the framework to the popular opinion dynamics and labour market models. The experimental results show that our framework outperformed Monte Carlo experiments in terms of computation efficiency while maintaining the accuracy.
The HMG‐CoA Reductase Inhibitor Cerivastatin Enhances the Nitric Oxide Bioavailability of the Endothelium

&NA; The aim of this study was to investigate whether the HMG‐CoA reductase inhibitor cerivastatin alters the nitric oxide (NO) bioavailability of porcine aortic endothelial cell cultures and of native porcine coronary endothelium, after short‐term (minutes) and long‐term (24‐hour) treatment with cerivastatin (electrochemical NO sensor). NO‐synthase expression (Western blot, ELISA) and activity (3H‐arginine assay) after cerivastatin treatment were determined. Furthermore, the authors investigated whether cerivastatin modulates an angiotensin II (10 &mgr;mol/L; 4 hours) induced reactive oxygen species (ROS) release from intact vessels (lucigenin‐enhanced chemiluminescence‐assay). Acute addition of cerivastatin induced a concentration‐dependent NO release from endothelial cell cultures that could be blocked by the NO‐synthase inhibitor N‐monomethyl‐arginine. A long‐term incubation with cerivastatin also resulted in a concentration‐dependent, significantly enhanced basal NO bioavailability (≈ 3‐fold increase at 10 nmol/L cerivastatin) that could be partly reversed by a coincubation with mevalonate. No enhanced endothelial NO‐synthase expression or increased NO‐synthase activity was detected after long‐term treatment with cerivastatin (24 hours). However, cerivastatin induced a significant concentration‐dependent inhibition of the angiotensin II–induced ROS release from native endothelial cells of porcine coronary arteries. Therefore, there seems to be an acute and a long‐term effect of cerivastatin that results in enhanced endothelial NO bioavailability.
Dynamics of charged particles in a Paul radio-frequency quadrupole trap.

We have carried out a molecular-dynamics simulation of hundreds of ions confined in a Paul trap. The simulation includes the trapped particles' micromotion and interparticle Coulomb interactions. We have implemented a random walk in velocity to bring the secular motion to a given temperature which we have numerically measured. When the coupling \ensuremath{\Gamma} is large the ions form concentric shells which undergo a quadrupole oscillation at the rf frequency, while the ions within a shell form a 2D hexagonal lattice. Ion clouds at 5 mK show no rf heating for ${\mathit{q}}_{\mathit{z}}$\ensuremath{\lesssim}0.6, whereas rapid heating is seen for ${\mathit{q}}_{\mathit{z}}$=0.8.
A novel image encryption method based on invertible 3D maps and its security analysis

This paper presents a novel invertible 3D maps based image encryption method. A 2D gray-level image is represented as an array of gray level values of the pixel, which can be considered as the third dimension. An invertible 3D maps are presented and utilized for image encryption. The proposed scheme combines the permutation and the substitution using the invertible 3D maps. All bits in the image data matrix are permuted during the operation of the 3D maps. Therefore 2D positions of image pixels are permuted, and 1D grey level values of the pixels are also substituted, that is two processes of image encryption, permutation and substitution, are performed simultaneously. The security abilities of the scheme are analyzed evaluated in detail, which shows that it has high level security. Simulation results validate the effectiveness of the proposed image encryption method.
Project Ernestine: Validating a GOMS Analysis for Predicting and Explaining Real-World Task Performance

Project Ernestine served a pragmatic as well as a scientific goal: to compare the worktimes of telephone company toll and assistance operators on two different workstations and to validate a GOMS analysis for predicting and explaining real-world performance. Contrary to expectations, GOMS predicted and the data confirmed that performance with the proposed workstation was slower than with the current one. Pragmatically, this increase in performance time translates into a cost of almost $2 million a year to NYNEX. Scientifically, the GOMS models predicted performance with exceptional accuracy. The empirical data provided us with three interesting results: proof that the new workstation was slower than the old one, evidence that this difference was not constant but varied with call category, and (in a trial that spanned 4 months and collected data on 72,450 phone calls) proof that performance on the new workstation stabilized after the first month. The GOMS models predicted the first two results and explained all three. In this article, we discuss the process and results of model building as well as the design and outcome of the field trial. We assess the accuracy of GOMS predictions and use the mechanisms of the models to explain the empirical results. Last, we demonstrate how the GOMS models can be used to guide the design of a new workstation and evaluate design decisions before they are implemented.
Controllable synthesis of straight and branched CdTe nanowires using CdO as precursor

High-quality CdTe nanowires (NWs), containing straight and branched ones, were controllably prepared using CdO precursor via a solution-liquid-solid approach. The resulting NWs have typical diameters below 20 nm with accompany lengths between 1 and 10 µm. In the case of branched NWs, tripod, V-shaped and y-shaped morphologies were observed. The reaction conditions were mild and the procedure was safe since Cd(Me)2, a cadmium precursor widely used in literatures, was replaced by CdO. In principle, the new scheme is more inexpensive because less tri-n-octylphosphine oxide/ tri-n-octylphosphine (TOPO/TOP) was used. A relative economical and safe approach of CdTe NWs was thus presented.