Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Adaptive Random Path Selection Approach for Incremental Learning.

In a conventional supervised learning setting, a machine learning model has access to examples of all object classes that are desired to be recognized during the inference stage. This results in a fixed model that lacks the flexibility to adapt to new learning tasks. In practical settings, learning tasks often arrive in a sequence and the models must continually learn to increment their previously acquired knowledge. Existing incremental learning approaches fall well below the state-of-the-art cumulative models that use all training classes at once. In this paper, we propose a random path selection algorithm, called Adaptive RPS-Net, that progressively chooses optimal paths for the new tasks while encouraging parameter sharing between tasks. We introduce a new network capacity measure that enables us to automatically switch paths if the already used resources are saturated. Since the proposed path-reuse strategy ensures forward knowledge transfer, our approach is efficient and has considerably less computation overhead. As an added novelty, the proposed model integrates knowledge distillation and retrospection along with the path selection strategy to overcome catastrophic forgetting. In order to maintain an equilibrium between previous and newly acquired knowledge, we propose a simple controller to dynamically balance the model plasticity. Through extensive experiments, we demonstrate that the Adaptive RPS-Net method surpasses the state-of-the-art performance for incremental learning and by utilizing parallel computation this method can run in constant time with nearly the same efficiency as a conventional deep convolutional neural network.
Meta-Embedding as Auxiliary Task Regularization

Word embeddings have been shown to benefit from ensambling several word embedding sources, often carried out using straightforward mathematical operations over the set of word vectors. More recently, self-supervised learning has been used to find a lower-dimensional representation, similar in size to the individual word embeddings within the ensemble. However, these methods do not use the available manually labeled datasets that are often used solely for the purpose of evaluation. We propose to reconstruct an ensemble of word embeddings as an auxiliary task that regularises a main task while both tasks share the learned meta-embedding layer. We carry out intrinsic evaluation (6 word similarity datasets and 3 analogy datasets) and extrinsic evaluation (4 downstream tasks). For intrinsic task evaluation, supervision comes from various labeled word similarity datasets. Our experimental results show that the performance is improved for all word similarity datasets when compared to self-supervised learning methods with a mean increase of $11.33$ in Spearman correlation. Specifically, the proposed method shows the best performance in 4 out of 6 of word similarity datasets when using a cosine reconstruction loss and Brier's word similarity loss. Moreover, improvements are also made when performing word meta-embedding reconstruction in sequence tagging and sentence meta-embedding for sentence classification.
Grid tied PV- Electric Vehicle Battery Charger using Bidirectional Converter

Research on renewable energy based Electric Vehicle battery charging system is booming in the automobile industry in the recent years. The intermittent nature of the renewable energy sources leads to the grid connected renewable energy systems for Electric vehicle battery charging applications. Hence, an Electric Vehicle battery charger using grid connected PV system is proposed in this paper. The proposed charger is capable of charging the EV battery continuously irrespective of solar irradiations using dc-dc converter and bidirectional ac-dc converter. Sepic converter is preferred for dc-dc converter and Line commutated converter is used as a bidirectional converter with the help of the proposed bidirectional configurator in the charging system. During sunshine hours, PV array power generated is used to charge the EV battery alone and during peak sunshine hours, apart from charging of EV battery, the excess PV array power is fed to the single phase utility grid. During low and non sunshine hours, the EV battery charging was supported by the utility grid through bidirectional ac-dc converter. The proposed electric vehicle battery charger is simulated in the MATLAB/Simulink software and the dynamic response of the system was studied and its results are furnished in this paper.
Chlorhexidine and octenidine use , qac genes carriage , and reduced antiseptic 1 susceptibility in methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus isolates from a healthcare 2 network 3 Type

18 Objectives. With the widespread use of antiseptics in healthcare facilities for the prevention 19 of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) transmission, there are concerns for 20 antiseptic tolerance and resistance. We sought to understand the use of chlorhexidine and 21 octenidine, qac genes carriage and reduced antiseptic susceptibilities. 22 Methods. A serial cross-sectional study was conducted in an acute care hospital and three 23 extended-care facilities of a healthcare network in June-July, 2014-2016. Two of the 24 extended-care facilities were exposed to intranasal octenidine and universal daily 25 chlorhexidine/octenidine bathing. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) levels and 26 qac genes were determined by broth microdilution tests and whole genome sequencing 27 respectively. Multivariable logistic regression was used to assess for the independent 28 associations between antiseptic exposures, qac genes and reduced antiseptic susceptibilities. 29 Results. A total of 878 MRSA isolates were obtained. There were associations between 30 qacA/B carriage and chlorhexidine (adjusted odds ratio [aOR]: 7.80; 95% confidence interval 31 [CI]: 3.25-18.71) and octenidine (aOR: 11.79; 95%CI: 5.14-27.04) exposures. Chlorhexidine 32 exposure was associated with reduced chlorhexidine susceptibility (MIC≥4mg/L) (aOR: 3.15; 33 95%CI: 1.14-8.74). Carriage of qacA/B (aOR: 10.65: 95%CI: 4.14-27.40) or qacC (aOR: 34 2.55; 95%CI: 1.22-5.32) had an association with reduced chlorhexidine susceptibility; while 35 MRSA sequence type modified the association. However, we found no direct association 36 between (i) antiseptics use and qacC carriage, (ii) octenidine exposure and reduced 37 susceptibility and (iii) reduced octenidine susceptibility and qacA/B or qacC carriage. 38 Conclusions. Antiseptic exposures were associated with qac genes carriage. Chlorhexidine 39 exposure was associated with reduced chlorhexidine susceptibility, requiring continued 40 surveillance for the emergence of resistance. 4
gradient descent converges linearly to the global minima for training over-parameterized deep neural network from the optimization side

ResNet structure has achieved great success since its debut. In this paper, we study the stability of learning ResNet. Specifically, we consider the ResNet block hl = φ(hl−1 + τ · g(hl−1)) where φ(·) is ReLU activation and τ is a scalar. We show that for standard initialization used in practice, τ = 1/Ω( √ L) is a sharp value in characterizing the stability of forward/backward process of ResNet, where L is the number of residual blocks. Specifically, stability is guaranteed for τ ≤ 1/Ω( √ L) while conversely forward process explodes when τ > L− 1 2 +c for a positive constant c. Moreover, if ResNet is properly over-parameterized, we show for τ ≤ 1/Ω̃( √ L) gradient descent is guaranteed to find the global minima 1, which significantly enlarges the range of τ ≤ 1/Ω̃(L) that admits global convergence in previous work. We also demonstrate that the over-parameterization requirement of ResNet only weakly depends on the depth, which corroborates the advantage of ResNet over vanilla feedforward network. Empirically, with τ ≤ 1/ √ L, deep ResNet can be easily trained even without normalization layer. Moreover, adding τ = 1/ √ L can also improve the performance of ResNet with normalization layer.
Inhaled Gases for Neuroprotection of Neonates: A Review

Importance: Hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in neonates. The incidence of HIE is 1–8 per 1,000 live births in developed countries. Whole-body hypothermia reduces the risk of disability or death, but 7 infants needed to be treated to prevent death or major neurodevelopmental disability. Inhalational gases may be promising synergistic agents due to their rapid onset and easy titratability. Objective: To review current data on different inhaled gases with neuroprotective properties that may serve as adjunct therapies to hypothermia. Evidence review: Literature review was performed using the PubMed database, google scholar, and ClinicalTrials.Gov. Results focused on articles published from January 1, 2005, through December 31, 2017. Articles published earlier than 2005 were included when appropriate for historical perspective. Our review emphasized preclinical and clinical studies relevant to the use of inhaled agents for neuroprotection. Findings: Based on the relevance to our topic, 111 articles were selected pertaining to the incidence of HIE, pathophysiology of HIE, therapeutic hypothermia, and emerging therapies for hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy in preclinical and clinical settings. Supplemental tables summarizes highly relevant 49 publications that were included in this review. The selected publications emphasize the emergence of promising inhaled gases that may improve neurologic survival and alleviate neurodevelopmental disability when combined with therapeutic hypothermia in the future. Conclusions: Many inhaled agents have neuroprotective properties and could serve as an adjunct therapy to whole-body hypothermia. Inhaled agents are ideal due to their easy administration, titrability, and rapid onset and offset.
First Tracking of Post-Breeding Migration of the Ruddy Kingfisher Halcyon coromanda by GPS Data Logger

Abstract The migratory strategies of kingfishers are poorly understood. In the first study of its kind, by means of Global Positioning System data loggers, we were able to describe the migration and wintering sites of the Ruddy Kingfisher Halcyon coromanda population breeding on Miyako Island, Japan. Birds were found to reach altitudes of almost 4,000 m during their migration to winter on Polillo and Tablas islands in The Philippines.
Bird Species Richness in Relation to Land-Use Patch Structure and Vegetation Structure in a Forest-Agriculture Mosaic

Abstract Habitat degradation and fragmentation are serious threats to global biodiversity. Attributes of vegetation structure and patch structure have been considered critical factors in sustaining species diversity, but their relative importance remains unclear. This study aimed at identifying key vegetation and patch structure variables for bird species richness and examining their relative importance. We surveyed and mapped all individual birds in a 50-ha forest-farm landscape mosaic over three breeding seasons and recorded the vegetation in 286 patches of six land-use types. Native forests and conifer plantations (covering 59% of the area) contained 89% of the individuals and all of the bird species recorded. The effects of vegetation structure variables, tree family richness, and foliage coverage were more significant than those of patch-structure variables. Although conifer plantations were low in tree family richness of the canopy layer, they had a high tree family richness in the sub-canopy layer, and had similar bird density and species richness values as native forests. Creating and maintaining patches with a complex vegetation structure are critical for supporting animal abundance and species diversity. Forest patches dominated by only a few tree species in the canopy layer can be greatly improved by increasing the floristic composition of the sub-canopy layer. Large patches with a complex vegetation structure are important for sustaining biodiversity and should be kept as intact as possible.
Parental Birds Incubating Larger Clutches Regulate Their Field Metabolic Rates in Response to Environmental Changes

Abstract Species are capable of flexible energy allocation in response to changes in food availability. The extent to which individuals are able to adjust their energy allocation is presumed to be dependent on individual quality. Individuals of lower quality (i.e. better physiological condition) may be at an energy ceiling, and lack the reserves available to be able to expend more energy when environmental conditions deteriorate. Using the doubly labeled water method, we measured the field metabolic rates of free-ranging Black-tailed Gulls Larus crassirostris incubating two- and three-egg clutches during two consecutive years. Lower sea surface temperatures in 2013, compared with those in 2012, provided indirect evidence of poorer food availability in 2013 than in 2012. Parent gulls incubating three-egg clutches were able to increase their energy expenditure, in response to the poor food conditions in 2013, whereas those incubating two-egg clutches were not. Within a gull population we found heterogeneity of the energy allocation process in response to changes in food availability.
Option Pricing for Coffee Price Using Jump Diffusion Models

Abstract: In this study, we aim at developing a model for option pricing to reduce the risks associated with Ethiopian coffee price fluctuations. We used daily closed Washed Sidama class A Grade3 (WSDA3) coffee price recorded in the period 31 May 2011 to 30 March 2018 obtained from Ethiopia commodity exchange (ECX) market to analyse the price fluctuation. The nature of log-returns of the price is asymmetric (negatively skewed) and exhibits high kurtosis. We used jump diffusion models for modeling and option pricing the coffee price. The method of maximum likelihood is applied to estimate the parameters of the models. We used the root mean square error (RMSE) to test the validation of the models. The values of RMSE for Merton's and double exponential jump diffusion models are 0.1093 and 0.0783, respectively. These results indicate that the models fit the data very well. We used analytical and Monte Carlo technique to find the call option pricing of WSDA3 price. Based on the empirical results, we concluded that double exponential jump diffusion model is more efficient than Merton's model for modeling and option pricing of this coffee price.
What is QCM?

QCM stands for `Query Certi cate Manager'; it is a software system that has been developed at the University of Pennsylvania as part of the SwitchWare project on active networks. QCM is a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) intended to support secure maintenance of distributed data sets like Access Control Lists (ACL's) or public key certi cate repositories. An ACL is a list of `principals', identi ed by public keys; such lists can be used to describe who is permitted to access resources such as the ability to read and modify a le, or run a program. A public key certi cate is an association between a public key and an individual or entity. QCM allows policies, such as the ACL of principals allowed to access a resource, to be described in a special-purpose langauge (the language is also called QCM). The system provides two services. First, it veri es whether a policy is satis ed by a request, and, second, it uses the policy veri cation to assist in retrieving the certi cates (digitally signed documents) that are relevant to the veri cation. This integrated veri cation and retrieval mechanism is known as policy directed certi cate retrieval and is the primary novel contribution of the QCM system.
Tissue specificity of senescent cell accumulation during physiologic and accelerated aging of mice

Senescent cells accumulate with age in vertebrates and promote aging largely through their senescence‐associated secretory phenotype (SASP). Many types of stress induce senescence, including genotoxic stress. ERCC1‐XPF is a DNA repair endonuclease required for multiple DNA repair mechanisms that protect the nuclear genome. Humans or mice with reduced expression of this enzyme age rapidly due to increased levels of spontaneous, genotoxic stress. Here, we asked whether this corresponds to an increased level of senescent cells. p16Ink4a and p21Cip1 mRNA were increased ~15‐fold in peripheral lymphocytes from 4‐ to 5‐month‐old Ercc1−/∆ and 2.5‐year‐old wild‐type (WT) mice, suggesting that these animals exhibit a similar biological age. p16Ink4a and p21Cip1 mRNA were elevated in 10 of 13 tissues analyzed from 4‐ to 5‐month‐old Ercc1−/∆ mice, indicating where endogenous DNA damage drives senescence in vivo. Aged WT mice had similar increases of p16Ink4a and p21Cip1 mRNA in the same 10 tissues as the mutant mice. Senescence‐associated β–galactosidase activity and p21Cip1 protein also were increased in tissues of the progeroid and aged mice, while Lamin B1 mRNA and protein levels were diminished. In Ercc1−/Δ mice with a p16Ink4a luciferase reporter, bioluminescence rose steadily with age, particularly in lung, thymus, and pancreas. These data illustrate where senescence occurs with natural and accelerated aging in mice and the relative extent of senescence among tissues. Interestingly, senescence was greater in male mice until the end of life. The similarities between Ercc1−/∆ and aged WT mice support the conclusion that the DNA repair‐deficient mice accurately model the age‐related accumulation of senescent cells, albeit six‐times faster.
ISOLATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF A POLLEN- SPECIFIC GENE ZMSTK2_USP FROM ZEA MAYS

Microsporogenesis in flowering plants is a complex process involving a range of gene expression. In the present study, a pollen-specific gene ZmSTK2_USP (serine threonine kinase) was isolated from Zea mays. Mutant ZmSTK2_USP showed 56.7% pollen viability capacity, 48.92% germination rates comparing with wild-type. Northern Blot results showed that ZmSTK2_USP were specifically expressed in mature pollen. The expression level was highest at late pollen development, followed by bicellular stage. And at early pollen stage, no expression was detected. GUS activity was detected in middle stage, late stage of pollens and germinated pollen. These results indicated that ZmSTK2_USP expressed at late pollen development and was pollen-specific.
Henry Ford Health System

Persistent developmental stuttering (PDS) is defined as a speech disorder mainly characterized by intermittent involuntary disruption in normal fluency, time patterning, and rhythm of speech. Although extensive functional neuroimaging studies have explored brain activation alterations in stuttering, the main affected brain regions/ networks in PDS still remain unclear. Here, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we investigated resting-state whole-brain functional connectivity of 15 adults who stutter (PDS group) and 15 age-matched control individuals to reveal the connectivity abnormalities associated with stuttering. We were also interested in exploring how the severity of stuttering varies across individuals to understand the compensatory mechanism of connectivity pattern in patients showing less symptoms. Our results revealed decreased connectivity of left frontal pole and left middle frontal gyrus (MidFG) with right precentral/postcentral gyrus in stuttering individuals compared with control participants, while less symptomatic PDS individuals showed greater functional connectivity between left MidFG and left caudate. Additionally, our finding indicated reduced connectivity in the PDS group between the left superior temporal gyrus (STG) and several brain regions including the right limbic lobe, right fusiform, and right cerebellum, as well as the left middle temporal gyrus (MTG). We also observed that PDS individuals with less severe symptoms had stronger connectivity between right MTG and several left hemispheric regions including inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and STG. The connectivity between right fronto-orbital and right MTG was also negatively correlated with stuttering severity. These findings may suggest the involvement of right MTG and left MidFG in successful compensatory mechanisms in more fluent stutterers.
User-centric IoT: challenges and perspectives

The Internet of Things (IoT), this emerging technology connecting everyone, and everyone’s things’, is not about objects, gadgets, databases, applications and profits to be made from it, but about people, it enriches. Researchers, developers, industries, telecommunication companies, and scientific communities have been interested in this paradigm and have proposed different solutions from different perspectives. They are mainly focused on the technical level, like performance, interoperability, integration, etc. However, whenever use cases are targeting human users, the focus must not be merely on these sides, but on human factors as well. Thus, it is essential to apply a user-centric approach allowing identification of application-specific features and understanding users needs, motivations and beliefs. This survey aims at encouraging other IoT system developers and researchers to pay attention to the relationship between people and IoT systems. We emphasize the value of adopting a user-centric vision. The goal is not to provide solutions, but rather to raise the right issues.
The effect of neuregulin-1 on the survival of Schwann-like cells via the PI3K/Akt/Bad pathway

Here, we investigated the molecular mechanism underlying the regulatory effects of neuregulin-1 (NRG) on the differentiation of Schwann cells (SCs) and evaluated the role of NRG in the phosphoinositide-3-kinase (PI3K)/ protein kinase B (Akt)/Bad pathway. NRG1 was used to induce the differentiation of mouse bone marrow mesenchymal cells (BMSCs) into SCs. The phosphorylation levels of Akt, extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK), and Bad were monitored. The phosphorylation of Akt, ERK, and Bad was blocked after the suppression of PI3K (P < 0.05), resulting in the apoptosis of SCs (P < 0.05). The blockade of mitogen-activated protein kinase (MEK) resulted in the inhibition of the phosphorylation of only ERK and Bad but failed to affect the survival of SCs. The blockade of the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) also had no effect on the survival of SCs (P < 0.05). The PI3K/Akt/Bad and MEK/ERK1/2/Bad pathways were activated during the NRG1-induced differentiation of BMSCs into SCs, but NRG1 could only activate the PI3K/Akt/Bad pathway to promote the survival of SCs. In summary, this study demonstrates that NRG1 can activate PI3K and its downstream signal Akt, ultimately leading to the phosphorylation of Bad and the survival of SCs.
Genetic Diversity on Amaranthus hybridus L., Amaranthus viridis L. and Amaranthus spinosus L. in parts of Rivers State, Nigeria

The Amaranth plants are annuals or short-lived perennials with over 103 species of flowering plants in the family Amaranthaceae , distributed nearly worldwide. Several amaranth species are useful as food crops and are grown both for their leaves and for their edible seeds, which are a nutritious pseudocereal (nongrass seeds used like cereal grains). This paper reports the genetic diversity of three species of Amaranthus (A. hybridus L., A. viridis L. and A. spinosus L. ) in Rivers state of Nigeria. Result obtained from this research showed high rate of diversity. DNA characterization and sequencing of the species were done through plastid Ribulose-1,5biophosphate Carboxylase large chain (rbcL) genetic marker to determine the rate of genetic variation among members of this genus in our study area. The sequence figures were firstly compared on Basic Local Alignment Sequence Tool for validation. Phylogenetic and molecular evolutional analysis was conducted using MEGA version 7. The dendogram of the molecular phylogeny generated from MEGA 7 software shows elevated rate of variation among studied species. Keywords : Amaranthus, Genetic, Diversity, rbcl