Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Provable Non-Convex Min-Max Optimization

In this paper, we propose an efﬁcient stochastic subgradient method for solving a broad class of non-convex min-max problems and establish its iteration complexities for different convergence measures depending on whether the problem is concave in terms of the variable of maximization. When the objective is weakly convex in terms of min variable and concave in terms of the max variable, we prove that the proposed algorithm converges to a nearly (cid:15) -stationary solution of the equivalent minimization problem with a complexity of O (1 /(cid:15) 6 ) . When the objective is weakly convex in terms of the min variable and weakly concave in terms of the max variable, we prove the algorithm converges a nearly (cid:15) -stationary solution of the min-max problem with the same complexity of O (1 /(cid:15) 6 ) . To the best of our knowledge, these are the ﬁrst non-asymptotic convergence results of stochastic optimization for solving non-convex min-max problems.
LARGE ROTATION AND LARGE DEFORMATION ANALYSIS OF FOUR-BAR MECHANISM

This paper presents the results of two finite element procedures, the corotational procedure and the absolute nodal coordinate formulation as applied to the four-bar mechanism. The limitations of the corotational procedure are characterized by motion discontinuities, high inertia forces and high and discontinuous angular velocities. It is shown that the incremental formulation can be less efficient and less accurate in large displacement problems as compared to the non-incremental absolute nodal coordinate formulation in which the nodal coordinates are defined in a fixed inertial frame.
Polyhedral Methods for Improving Parallel Update-in-Place

We demonstrate an optimization, denoted as polyhedral reuse analysis (PRA), that uses polyhedral methods to improve the analysis of in-place update for single-assignment arrays. The PRA optimization attempts to determine when parallel array operations that jointly deﬁne new arrays from existing ones can reuse the memory of the existing arrays, rather than creating new ones. Polyhedral representations and re-lated dependency inference methods facilitate that analysis. In the context of SaC , we demonstrate the impact of this optimisation using two non-trivial benchmarks evaluated on conventional shared memory machines and on GPUs, obtaining performance improvements of 2–8 times for LU De-composition and of 2–10 times for Needleman-Wunsch, over the same computations with PRA disabled.
A segment-level classification solution to the 3rd YouTube-8M Video Understanding Challenge

In the 3 rd YouTube-8M Video Understanding Challenge, datasets with video-level and segment-level annotation were provided for classifying video segments. Based on the winning solutions of the previous years, we extended the video-level classification to segment-level by employing techniques such as Knowledge Distillation, Exponential Moving Average to train a set of Deep Bag of Frames models. We achieved 0.795 MAP@100,000 score for our best single model and 0.817 for an ensemble of models, which leads to the 4th place on the leaderboard. In this paper we describe the details about the strategies and techniques used during the competition.
What is the Novel Delivery System Used for Oral Bioavailability Enhancement of Poorly Water Soluble Drugs?

DOI: 10.21276/sjbr.2018. 3.3. 5 Abstract: Majority of the drugs used for the treatment of various diseases are administered by oral route using conventional delivery. The major drawback of the oral administration is the poor bioavailability due to the poor water solubility, chemical stability and pre-systemic metabolism. Numerous researches are going on for the improvement of oral bioavailability of drugs using novel drug delivery systems as an alternative to conventional delivery systems. Majority of the novel delivery system includes; solid dispersion, sustained, controlled buccal, gastro retentive, nano carrier delivery systems such as lipid nanoparticles, and self-emulsifying systems. The oral bioavailability improvement by these delivery systems might be due to the increased particle size, improved dissolution and/or permeation and subsequently bioavailability of the drugs. In this review, we attempt to discuss the various novel delivery systems developed for the enhancement of oral bioavailability of poorly water soluble therapeutics.
Multiple Scales Asymptotic Analysis in Pattern-forming Systems

In this thesis, we review the basic features of pattern-forming systems. We derive the so-called amplitude equations for hexagonal patterns from a multiple scales perturbation theory approach. These equations are nearly universal across pattern-forming systems. We then extend this analysis to incorporate multiple spatial scales and derive the Newell-Whitehead-Segel equations. We compare results from simulations of such equations to direct simulations of appropriate pattern-forming system.
Input Efficiency in Publicly Provided Education : The Case of Romania Dr .

How well does government do in directing society’s resources in order to stimulate schooling achievement? The objective of this paper is to reveal on the one hand, the adjustments the schooling system went through during the transition process in Romania, regarding the organization, financing and the schooling outcome, and on the other hand to estimate the production function of the governmentally provided lower and upper level of secondary education. We found out that the most effective way of better performance in both lower and upper secondary education would be to increase the share of qualified teachers and lower student-teacher ratio. JEL-Code: I21, P36
The CISO Role – An impact analysis of the CISO organizational structure position in Information Security Maturity

In today’s world Information is one of the most important assets for any organization, and securing information has become strategic and even critical to the survival of the organization. Most organizations have information systems and organizational structures that include the role of a Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), although not necessarily under this specific title. This paper proposes a model using a quantitative and qualitative research to evaluate the relationship between the CISO's place within the organizational structure and the organization's current level of information security maturity. Interviews, conducted with twenty-five Portuguese public and private organizations, were based on the information security maturity model and the high-level RACI (Responsible, Ac-countable, Consulted and Informed) chart of the CISO´s role, outlined in COBIT 5. The resulting data was statistically analysed using correlation matrices and scatter plots.
Two dimensional (2D) RVE-Based Modeling of Interphase Separation and Particle Fracture in Graphite/5050 Particle Reinforced Composites

In the current work, the Gr/AA5050 alloy metal matrix composites were subjected to mechanical and thermal loads. The results obtained from the finite element analysis of Gr/AA5050 alloy composites reveal the interphase separation from the particle and the matrix. Also, the particle fracture has been detected in Gr/AA5050 composites.
Graduate Engineering Skills A Literature Review & Call for Rigorous Methodological Approaches

What sort of working world do our engineering graduates face? Engineering has become a global profession, where professional skills are as important as the intellectual prowess gained by obtaining the qualification itself. First, we must consider what skills are needed for engineers to meet the challenges of Industry 4.0. Academics who wish to engage in activities to enhance engineering education might therefore initially seek to identify which skills are most important and there is a wealth of literature addressing different viewpoints which adds further complexity to evaluating such studies. This paper reports on two independent systematic reviews of literature to identify the most commonly discussed skills that engineering graduates require from the focus of different stakeholders. The first study audited 129 papers and identified the list of most commonly discussed skills, which was then condensed into a list of 17 professional skills. Independently, a review of the lists of skills used in 16 quantitative studies was carried out in relation to engineering skills requirements for graduate engineers specifically. The results of both studies are compared to highlight the similarities and differences between the results of each method. The work also aims to highlight concerns over providing lists of skills in survey questionnaires without a rigorous research methodology. It is hoped that this paper will generate discussion and aims to raise additional research questions to initiate more in-depth research, into the differing views and contextual relationships of skills’ listings.
Playful iconicity: structural markedness underlies the relation between funniness and iconicity

abstract Words like ‘waddle’, ‘flop’, and ‘zigzag’ combine playful connotations with iconic form–meaning resemblances. Here we propose that structural markedness may be a common factor underlying perceptions of playfulness and iconicity. Using collected and estimated lexical ratings covering a total of over 70,000 English words, we assess the robustness of this association. We identify cues of phonotactic complexity that covary with funniness and iconicity ratings and that, we propose, serve as metacommunicative signals to draw attention to words as playful and performative. To assess the generalisability of the findings we develop a method to estimate lexical ratings from distributional semantics and apply it to a dataset 20 times the size of the original set of human ratings. The method can be used more generally to extend coverage of lexical ratings. We find that it reliably reproduces correlations between funniness and iconicity as well as cues of structural markedness, though it also amplifies biases present in the human ratings. Our study shows that the playful and the poetic are part of the very texture of the lexicon.
VES Team at TREC Conversational Assistance Track (CAsT) 2019

In this work we present our submission at the TREC Conversational Assistance Track 2019. For this year’s track, we have focused on developing a baseline system from which we can build upon in the future. Our system is built upon a Lucene index which serves up results (using BM25), these are then re-ranked by BERT given the conversational context.
Geochemical Processes in a Column: Modeling Humidity Cell Test Results

Humidity cell tests (HCTs) are used to evaluate the potential for mined materials to leach constituents during operation and closure with an emphasis on sulfide oxidation. Our work evaluates the ion balance of the leachate results, emphasizes secondary mineral weathering and the “early flush” of solutes, and uses two types of geochemical modeling approaches to help understand reactions occurring throughout the tests. Secondary salt dissolution lasted for up to ~60 weeks and overlapped with peak sulfide oxidation. In all tests, sulfide oxidation dominated over a limited time that was rarely apparent at the end or the beginning of the test. Unlike early flush behavior in the laboratory, secondary salt dissolution in the field repeats continually and is linked to precipitation events. Early flush and maximum sulfide oxidation results from HCTs should be retained and used in environmental models and facility design.
International Fragmentation of Production and Firm Productivity: Evidence from Slovenian Manufacturing Firms

An increasing number of firms contract out business activities to foreign providers in order to cut costs and stay focused on their core capabilities. This paper contributes to a limited body of empirical research on the relationship between intermediate inputs offshoring and firm productivity. I use a unique firm-level panel data set of Slovenian manufacturing firms operating in the period 1994–2005 with a detailed accounting information and foreign trade data. Using propensity score matching techniques combined with the difference-in-differences approach, I analyze whether firms that start importing intermediate inputs become more productive. The results imply that new importers exhibit temporal boost in productivity growth and increase productivity level relative to non-importing control group over a medium term. In the first year, offshoring brings about a 20% increase in labour productivity and an equivalent growth of total factor productivity. Despite the short-lived year-on-year growth rates of productivity in excess of non-importers, cumulative gain in productivity of new importers after four years remains significant at around 37% for labour productivity and 35% for total factor productivity.
EFFECTIVE DESIGN OF BLENDED MOOC IN IRAQ INSTITUTIONS

The model of a Blended Massive Open Online Course (bMOOC) in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) aims to improve the education of the Iraqi students and develop the HEIs in Iraq. It changes the trend of the traditional MOOC environments from only watching the video lectures passively by learners to a more flexible interaction in the learning process. The learners are no longer limited to view the videos passively, but rather are encouraged to share, interact, and increase the interactive knowledge among each other. In return, it solves the problems faced by Iraqi students in the traditional learning. Therefore, this study describes the design, implementation, and testing and evaluation process of the Iraqi-bMOOC platform. The learner-centered evaluation approach is selected, which puts the learner in the center of the evaluation phase, to build a deeper and better understanding of MOOC stakeholders’ behaviors (Iraqi Students). Thus, this study has applied a survey to the Iraqi students t o show their experiences in using the proposed model (Iraq-bMOOC) in two of the Iraqi universities (University of Tikrit in cooperation with University of Baghdad). Therefore, the results reveal that the majority of users are satisfied with the six criteria in the Iraqi-bMOOC platform, such as blended learning, flexibility, high quality content, instructional design and learning methodologies, network learning, and openness, that include learning activities (such as video lectures, assignments, assessments, discussion forums, lectures comments, E-mail, social media). Therefore, three major theoretical, practical, and educational contributions are obtained in this study and reflect the open and massive nature of blended MOOC in the higher education context.
The possibility of sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) addition as feed for white leg shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei) under biofloc rearing condition

The aim of the study is to determine the possibility of sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) addition as feed for white leg shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei) under biofloc rearing condition. The experiment was randomly set up with four feeding treatments including (i) 100% commercial pellet without sweet potato addition (control), (ii) commercial pellet in combination with 10% sweet potato addition, (iii) 20% sweet potato addition, and (iv) 30% sweet potato addition. Shrimps (0.76±0.15 g; 4.4±0.6 cm) were cultured in biofloc system (C: N = 15: 1) at stocking density of 150 shrimp/m and water salinity of 15‰. After 90 days of culture, the increase sweet potato addition increased shrimp weight. The final shrimp weight (25.7 and 25.8 g/ shrimp) of treatments of 20% and 30% sweet potato addition were significantly higher than those of control treatment (23.8 g/shrimp). The final shrimp weight of 10% sweet potato addition treatment was not significant difference compared to control treatment. The survival rate (61.5-66.7%) and shrimp biomass (2.3 – 2.6 kg/m) were not significant difference between treatments. The increase in addition of sweet potato increased shrimp sensory property, especially shrimp color. Also, the increase in addition of sweet potato increased feeding cost, however, there was no significant difference in feeding cost between control treatment and treatment of 10% sweet potato addition. In short, addition of 10% sweet potato as feed for white leg shrimp did not effect on survival rate, shrimp growth performance, shrimp biomass, feeding cost but enhanced the shrimp sensory properties.
Dynamically Evolving, Large-scale Information

Due to its fast, dynamic, and distributed growth process, it is hard to obtain an accurate map of the Internet. In many cases such a map—representing the structure of the Internet as a graph with nodes and links—is a prerequisite when investigating properties of the Internet. A common way to obtain such maps is to make certain local measurements at a small subset of the nodes and then to combine these in order to “discover” (an approximation of) the actual graph. Each of these measurements is potentially quite costly. It is thus a natural objective to minimize the number of measurements which still discover the whole graph. We consider this problem for a speciﬁc type of measurements and compare four simple greedy strategies in an experimental analysis. Our results show that one can discover accurate information about the structure of large and complex networks using a surprisingly small number of queries.
ICTNET at Trec 2019 Decision Track

In this paper we report on our participation in the Trec 2019 Decision Track[1] which aims to provide a venue for research on retrieval meth-ods that promote better decision making with search engines and develop new online and of-ﬂine evaluation methods to predict the decision making quality induced by search results. We convert this task into a standard information retrieval task and use traditional IR model. Finally we give a summary for the solution of our work.
UCSD MOLECULE PAGES MAp44

MAp44 is a ~44 kDa alternate splice product of MASP1 and is mainly expressed in the heart. Mannose/mannan binding lectin (MBL) associated serine proteases, MASP-1 and MASP-3 are other products of MASP1 . Similar to MASP-1 (isoform 1 of MASP1 , which represents the longest transcript), MAp44 has a C1r/C1s/Uegf/bmp1 (CUB) domain, calcium-binding EGF-like domain and complement control protein (CCP) domains. However, it lacks the serine protease domain of MASP-1 and therefore cannot perform MASP-1's functions. MAp44 binds to multimeric pathogen receptors such as MBL and the three ficolins, and is believed to play a regulatory role in the lectin pathway of complement activation.
Management of School Related Variables and Teachers’ Job Effectiveness in Secondary Schools in Calabar South Local Government Area of Cross River State, Nigeria.

Management of school related variables and teachers’ job effectiveness in secondary schools in Calabar South Local Government Area, Cross River State was the main thrust of this study. Four research questions were raised, and four hypotheses were formulated to direct the study. The descriptive survey design was adopted for the study while the total population of 208 secondary school teachers in Calabar South Local Government Area were selected for the study using census technique. A questionnaire titled “Management of School Related Variables and Teachers’ Job Effectiveness in Secondary School Questionnaire (MSRVTJESSQ)” designed by the researcher was used as instrument to collect data from the respondents. The null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance using Pearson Product Moment Correlation, Independent t-test, and One-Way Analysis of Variance statistical techniques where applicable. It was found that; managing class size, school management style, and school location has a significant influence on teachers’ job effectiveness respectively in Calabar South Local Government Area of Cross River State. It was recommended amongst others that; school principals should ensure that they adopt a more contingent management style where different situations will warrant the use of different technique; and the recommended teacher-pupils’ ratio of 1:35 should be maintained.
INVESTIGATIONS ON AN ADAPTIVE HELMHOLTZ

Helmholtz resonators have been historically one of the first engineered concepts for acoustic control. They can be used either for increasing sound at a specific frequency, or create antiresonances depending on the way they are implemented. In terms of acoustic control for industrial applications, they constitute very efficient solutions for tonal excitations with a fixed frequency. The resonance frequency of the resonator has to be tuned on this frequency, meaning that if any change occurs in the excitation frequency, the control is no longer possible with the resonator. The concept proposed here to overcome this limitation consists in designing a Helmholtz resonator with a variable volume, that can be controlled in real-time. On the basis of waterbomb origami design, multiphysics simulations are performed to define the geometry of the adaptive cavity. After manufacturing, experimental tests are used to validate the models and illustrate the efficiency of the concept. MEDYNA 2020 17-19 February 2020, Napoli (Italy)
Timing and changes of motor area excitability in beat perception

3 Introduction . 4 Materials and Methods . 7 Figure 1 . 8 Results . 14 Figure 2 . 15 Figure 3 . 16 Discussion . 17 Acknowledgments . 23 References . 24
Comprehensive Web Search based on Sentiment Features

—We have developed a novel system for comprehensive Web search considered the diversity of sentiments. Recently, lots of studies and services based on sentiment analysis have been conducted, because it is still difﬁcult to search and summarize information satisfying users’ needs by text analysis only. In this paper, we propose a method to extract multidimensional sentiments of Web pages on a topic such as “Happy , Sad,” “Glad , Angry,” and “Peaceful , Strained. ” Speciﬁcally, the system can extract common sentiments for a topic and also retrieve and present various Web pages based on comprehensive sentiments. In the experiment, we evaluate our proposed method using the developed system.