Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Symbolic Planning and Model-Free Reinforcement Learning: Training Taskable Agents

We investigate the use of explicit symbolic action models, as typically used for Automated Planning, in the context of Reinforcement Learning (RL). Our objective is to make RL agents more sample efficient and human taskable. We say an agent is taskable when it is capable of achieving a variety of different goals and there is a simple method for goal specification. Moreover, we expect taskable agents to easily transfer skills learned for one task to other related tasks. To these ends, we consider high-level models that inexactly represent the low-level environment in which an agent acts. Given a model, defining goal-directed tasks is a simple problem, and we show how to communicate these goals to an agent by leveraging state-of-the-art symbolic planning techniques. We automatically generate families of highlevel solutions and subsequently represent them as a reward machine, a recently introduced formalism for describing structured reward functions. In doing this, we not only specify what the task at hand is, but also give a high-level description of how to achieve it. The structure present in this description can be successfully exploited by a Hierarchical RL system. The reward machine represents a collection of sequential solutions and can be used to prune the options available when training. We can ensure that, at every step, the meta-controller can only select options that represent advancement in some high-level plan. We empirically demonstrate the merits of our approach, comparing to a naive baseline where a single sequential plan is strictly followed, and to standard Hierarchical RL techniques. Our results show that the approach is an effective method for specifying tasks to an RL agent. Given adequately pretrained options, our approach reaches high-quality policies in previously unseen tasks in extremely few training steps and consistently outperforms the standard techniques.
Exposure to ambient fine particulate matter and health effects in the Medicare population

Time-series and cohort studies of the effect of exposure to ambient air pollution on hum an health have been powerful tools in advancing our understanding in this area. The work presented in this thesis takes advantage of both time-series and cohort-study designs to estim ate short-term and chronic health effects of exposure to PM 2.5 in a susceptible population across the United States. Chapter 2 presents an overview of the time-series and cohort studies approaches for estim ating the relative risk of m ortality from particulate air pollution and discusses the statistical issues and challenges inherent in these studies. The American Cancer Society study (ACS) (Pope et al., 1995) and the Harvard Six Cities study (SCS) (Dockery et al., 1993a) are landm ark cohort studies for estimating the chronic effects of fine particulate m atter (PM 2.5 ) on mortality. In Chapter 3, we estim ate the chronic effects of PM 2.5 on m ortality for the period 2 0 0 0 2 0 0 2 using m ortality d a ta cohorts of Medicare participants and PM 2.5 levels from monitors in the same counties included in the SCS and the ACS. We estim ate the m ortality risk associated with air pollution adjusting for individual-level factors and area-level covariates. We propose th a t the Medicare files can be used to construct cohorts for tracking the risk of air pollution over time. In Chapter 4 we evaluate the transboundary health impact of a wildfire episode on a susceptible population of interest. The smoke plume generated from the forest fires in Quebec, Canada in July 2002 had m ajor impacts on air quality across the east coast of the US. To evaluate the public health impact of smoke exposure on the elderly population in the US, hospital admission rates for cardiopulmonary causes were estim ated in counties located in 1 1 states in the northeastern and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. mid-Atlantic region of the US, before and during the period of plume presence. We estim ated significant associations between short-term increases in ambient PM 2.s concentrations and hospitalizations for cardiorespiratory diseases w ithin 1 1 of the affected states. This research adds to the growing body of literature dem onstrating the significant impact of transboundary air pollution on the health of the elderly. Thesis Readers Alison S. Geyh, Ph.D . , Advisor, Departm ent of Environmental Health Sciences Gregory B. Diette, M.D., M.H. S, Chair of Committee, School of Medicine Patrick N. Breysse, PhD. , M.H. S. , Departm ent of Environmental Health Sciences Ronald H. W hite, M.S.T. , Departm ent of Epidemiology
Preliminary Investigation of Doxycycline Plasma Concentrations in Cockatiels (Nymphicus hollandicus) After Administration by Injection or in Water or Feed

Abstract Chlamydiosis is an important cause of morbidity and mortality in cockatiels (Nymphicus hollandicus); however, little published information is available regarding effective treatment options for this species. This preliminary study was conducted to determine if adequate plasma concentrations of doxycycline, the antibiotic of choice for treating chlamydiosis in pet birds, could be achieved in cockatiels by using different methods of administration. Doxycycline hyclate was administered to 5 groups comprising 3 to 6 birds each by intramuscular injection (100 mg/kg IM every 10 days for 5 injections) or by mixing with drinking water (0.28 or 0.83 mg/ml), seeds (500 mg/kg wet weight), or mash (1000 mg/kg). Three additional groups of birds received unmedicated food and water and served as controls. Plasma doxycycline concentrations were measured periodically during the 45-day trial. Birds given doxycycline by intramuscular injection had variable, localized tissue reactions and a mean trial plasma concentration <1 μg/ml, the value considered therapeutic for treating chlamydiosis. Birds that received doxycycline in drinking water and in seeds maintained group mean doxycycline concentrations >1 μg/ml. Birds that received doxycycline in mash had high plasma doxycycline concentrations and showed severe clinical illness, suggesting doxycycline toxicosis; drug administration was discontinued on day 3. Therefore, in this study, drinking water and seeds were effective vehicles for doxycycline administration to clinically healthy cockatiels under controlled conditions. However, mash combined with doxycycline resulted in severe toxicosis, whereas doxycycline hyclate by intramuscular injection did not achieve desired therapeutic plasma concentrations. Further studies are needed to examine efficacy and safety of food- and water-based doxycycline regimens in clinically ill birds and those housed under different environmental conditions.
Skin/Weave/Pattern

‘Fabric is the perfect mediator between the firm and the flowing. ’ Nigel Coates celebrates the textile's rediscovery as a metaphor for the architectural envelope, liberating it from its reputation as having only a supporting, ‘comfort role’ in the interior. He describes his own experiments with textiles at Branson Coates Architecture and the Royal College of Art (RCA), in which they alternately become skin, weave and pattern operating at every scale from the individual body to the urban plan. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Prediction intervals for wind power forecasting: Using sparse warped Gaussian process

The accuracy of short-term wind power forecast is highly variable due to the stochastic nature of wind, so providing prediction intervals for such forecast is important for assessing the risk of relying on the forecast results. This paper focuses on building prediction intervals for the short-term wind power forecasts. A sparse Bayesian model is formulated to provide non-Gaussian predictive distributions for the future wind power, thus yields the prediction intervals. This model based on the warped Gaussian process (WGP), it handles the non-Gaussian uncertainties of the wind power series by automatically converting it to a latent series. The converted series is well-modeled by a Gaussian process (GP), then the non-Gaussian uncertainty of the wind power can be predicted in a standard GP framework. Since the high computational costs of WGP hinder its practical application on large-scale problems such as wind power forecast, we also give a method to sparsify the WGP. The simulation on actual data validates the effectiveness of the proposed model.
SNR gap approximation for M-PSK-Based bit loading

Adaptive OFDM has the potential of providing bandwidth-efficient communications in hostile propagation environments. Currently, bit loading algorithms use M-ary quadrature amplitude modulation of the OFDM sub-carriers, where the number of bits per symbol modulating each of them is obtained in order to maximize the performance. SNR gap approximation for M-QAM signaling makes the algorithms simpler to implement. However, in some circumstances it may be preferable to use. M-ary phase shift keying. In this letter an approximation is derived for M-PSK similar to the SNR gap of M-QAM so that bit loading algorithms can be extended to this type of modulation. In addition, the performance obtained when using M-PSK is compared to that of M-QAM in a practical situation.
Social Identity Group and Human (In)Security - The Case of Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS)

The article uses social identity group theory and human insecurity to examine the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). After first defining social group identity and its characteristics, the article reviews the Al Qaeda ideology that serves as the foundation of ISIL, before turning attention to the message and legacy of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and their profound influence on ISIL. The article concludes by arguing that only by ending the marketplace of identities can stability be restored to Iraq and Syria.
THE PERFORMANCE OF OVERLAY TREATMENTS AND MODIFIED BINDERS UNDER ACCELERATED LOADING: THE CALLINGTON ALF TRIAL

The Department of Road Transport in conjunction with the Australian Road Research Board has conducted a series of full scale pavement tests using the ARRB Accelerated Loading facility on the South East Highway near Adelaide. The aim of the trial was to test the relative performance of alternative forms of asphalt rehabilitation. An existing section of distressed pavement was repaired using a variety of thin overlay treatments and various thicknesses of asphalt reinstatement. A total of 17 loading experiments were conducted. The performance of the test sections was continually monitored by surface deflection bowls, transverse profile measurements and crack mapping. Strains were recorded in some asphalt layers and asphalt temperatures were continually logged at different depths. The test results and conditions are presented in a summarised format. Preliminary analysis has provided a ranking of deformation resistance of all asphalt materials used with some modified binders displaying significant advantages over conventional C 1 70 bitumen. Comparative overlay experiments have clearly demonstrated a significant extension in pavement life through use of a modified asphalt in the overlay.
Design of the L - LC Resonant Inverter for Induction Heating Based on Its Equivalent SRI

This paper presents the new L- LC induction heating generator and probes that, in resonance, are equivalent to a series resonant inverter. This equivalence is then used to compare both topologies, extracting the advantages and disadvantages of the L-LC usage. In addition, based on this equivalence, a design procedure is proposed that covers all possible L-LC configurations. Finally, some experimental results are presented, showing waveforms during normal and short-circuit operation.
Dynamic resource allocation for joint grid user and provider optimisation in computational grid

This paper is to solve optimal resource allocation in computational grid to optimise resource allocation for grid users and grid providers subject to various constraints. The grid user wants to get optimal benefits, at the same time, the grid provider adjusts the unit price in order to maximise revenue, which is measured as the sum of individual payments. The paper describes how the agents can be assigned proper utility functions to make a natural trade-off between money and resource. The paper proposes a grid resource pricing algorithm for allocating resources to grid users while maximising the revenue of grid providers.
AMELIORATIVE EFFECT OF HELICTERES ISORAL.FRUIT EXTRACT ON EXPERIMENTALLY INDUCED DIABETIC NEUROPATHIC PAIN IN SPRAGUE DAWLEY RATS

Recently the major concerns related with the health of the human being is usually associated with CNS disorders, metabolic disorders Diabetes mellitus and many more which are slowly and steadily creeping up and firming their roots in the destruction of our health. But India scoring the highest, with major number of patients with diabetes mellitus attracts an obvious attention, as it affects each and every organ of the body at a slow pace & acts as a slow poison with its prominent target organs being kidney, nervous system, heart, and lastly brain. Helicteres isora L. (Sterculiaceae) is reported to exhibit several pharmacological effects and to name a few are anti-diabetic, anti-nociceptive, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects. Therefore, this study was designed to evaluate its influence against type-2 diabetes induced neuropathic pain in rats. Type-2 diabetes was induced by feeding rats with high fat diet (60% as fat) and high fat emulsion for a period of two weeks and thereafter injecting a low dose of streptozotocin (35mg/kg, i.p.). Thirty days after diabetes induction, fat-fed/STZ-treated rats showed severe neuropathic pain which was assessed by thermal hyperalgesia, and cold allodynia paradigm. There was significant depletion in oxidative markers such as reduced glutathione, SOD levels and increased MDA and NO levels in sciatic nerve. However, treatment with Helicteres isora L. fruit extracts (100 & 200 mg/kg, p.o. for 30 days) significantly showed protection and improvement in neuropathic pain against diabetes, also was found to lower hyperglycemia, serum total cholesterol and triglyceride levels, in addition there was a marked change in the oxidative stress by depleting elevated lipid peroxide and nitric oxide and elevating reduced glutathione levels in diabetic rats. In conclusion, the results of the present study suggested that Helicteres isora L.fruit extract acts as analgesic against type-2 diabetes induced neuropathic pain.
Niveles de plomo en sangre y factores de riesgo por envenenamiento de plomo en niños mexicanos

El plomo (Pb) es un contaminante ambiental que causa efectos adversos a la salud humana. La exposicion humana al plomo se determina monitoreando su concentracion en sangre, tomando en cuenta la influencia de varios factores, tales como edad, sexo, dieta y contaminacion del aire. En este trabajo se analizo por duplicado la concentracion de plomo en sangre de 80 ninos que corresponde al 32% del total de menores de 15 anos en la poblacion del area minera de Vetagrande Zacatecas, Mexico. Se uso voltamperometria de redisolucion anodica siguiendo los criterios de la Norma Oficial Mexicana (NOM), la cual define seis categorias de contaminacion. De los valores, 45% de los menores presentaron <10 μg/dL, 16,25%, 10-14 μg/dL, 33,75% 15-24 μg/dL y 5%, 25-44 μg/dL, que corresponden a las categorias de la II a la IV respectivamente. Los resultados en materia de salud revisten gran importancia ya que mas del 50% de los ninos tiene niveles de plomo en sangre que ameritan intervencion por parte de los servicios de salud. La causa probable de la presencia de plomo en sangre se debe a que las casas habitacion de esa poblacion se encuentran asentadas en terrenos enriquecidos con plomo, y a traves de una interaccion el plomo se transporta hacia las personas.
Temperature independent strain measurement with a fiber grating tapered cavity sensor

A novel fiber grating tapered cavity sensor used for encoding strain into its spectral profile independently and its experimental demonstration are presented. The sensor possesses two spectral peaks within its main reflection band and the normalized power difference between the two peaks changes linearly with applied strain while it is independent of temperature variation. The accuracy of this particular sensor in measuring strain is estimated to be /spl plusmn/29 /spl mu//spl epsi/ in a range of 1200 /spl mu//spl epsi/.
Cancer Control in Africa 6 Research into palliative care in sub-Saharan Africa

Roughly half a million people die of cancer in sub-Saharan Africa every year. Despite rapid expansion of palliative care for cancer, coverage remains woefully inadequate. The WHO public health strategy for palliative care aims to increase access to palliative care services through its integration into health-care systems. We present the available evidence for the four WHO strategy pillars of policy, education, drug availability, and implementation, and propose a fi fth pillar of research activity to stimulate improvement of care. Increased attention to the generation of research evidence is essential to achieve quality and coverage of appropriate palliative care for patients with advanced cancer in subSaharan Africa. The use of locally validated, patient-reported outcome measures is an important advance in the measurement and improvement of care and patient wellbeing. Palliative care for patients with cancer in Africa currently receives far less research attention than does palliative care for patients with HIV/AIDS, but in view of projected increasing cancer incidence in the region, generation of local evidence to inform and allow assessment of palliative care for patients with cancer is urgently needed.
Application of Immune-Based Optimization Method for Fault-Section Estimation in a Distribution System

In this paper, an immune algorithm (IA)-based optimization approach for the fault-section estimation of a distribution system is proposed. To apply the method to solve this estimation problem, each section of power system model can be considered as an antibody. Through the immunology evolution, an antibody that most fits the antigen of concern becomes the solution. An affinity calculation has been employed in this computation process to measure the combination intensity. As this method can operate the population of antibodies simultaneously, the process stagnation can be better prevented. The proposed approach has been tested on Taiwan Power System (Taipower) through the utility data. Test results demonstrated the feasibility and effectiveness of the method for the applications.
A thin surface-wave antenna using a via-less EBG structure for 2.45 GHz ON-Body communication systems

A 2mm-thick surface wave antenna suited for On-Body communication systems is presented. The antenna consists in an artificial ground plane excited by a center-fed circular patch and exhibits a monopole-like radiation pattern. The proposed antenna performances (return loss, radiation pattern, efficiency, SAR calculation and non-line-of-sight path loss) are evaluated thanks to a tissue-equivalent numerical phantom and compared to other existing wearable antennas found in the literature. It appears that our antenna is a good solution for On-Body communication applications, especially when antenna thickness is a critical parameter.
Reduction of the Envelope Fluctuations of Multi-Carrier Modulations using Adaptive Neural Fuzzy Inference Systems

In this paper, a novel scheme for reducing the envelope fluctuations in multi-carrier signals applying Adaptive Neural Fuzzy Inference Systems (ANFIS) is proposed and analyzed. Once trained with signals with very low envelope fluctuations, such as those obtained by the Active Constellation Expansion - Approximate Gradient Project (ACE-AGP) algorithm, ANFIS approximately reaches a similar reduction as with ACE-AGP for multi-carrier signals without the complexity and the large convergence time of conventional ACE-AGP. We show that our approach is less complex than other previous schemes and with better performance.
Phase conjugation by four-wave mixing in single-mode fibers

We present an exact solution to the coupled-mode equations, governing four-wave mixing in single-mode fibers, under the perfect phase-matching condition. The solution accounts for pump depletion and fiber absorption. Optimum length of fiber is derived and phase conjugation efficiency is calculated and discussed. The calculated results are in good agreement with the reported experimental results. >
Ferramenta IPERF: geração e medição de Tráfego TCP e UDP

Este trabalho demonstra a utilizacao da ferramenta de medicao e geracao de trafego de dados Transport Control Protocol (TCP) e Datagram Protocol (UDP) conhecida como IPERF. Uma ferramenta util para engenheiros e administradores de rede, do tipo cliente/servidor, desenvolvida com codigo livre e gratuita. Ela permite, como uma de suas principais vantagens, a alteracao de parâmetros TCP, tal como o tamanho da janela TCP, alem de exibir relatorios de banda nos modos TCP e UDP, e relatorios de jitter e perda de pacotes no modo UDP. Neste documento, sao exibidos alguns casos em que a ferramenta e util e como ela pode ser utilizada para auxiliar na analise de desempenho de redes TCP/IP. Palavras-chave: Redes de computadores; Medicao de desempenho de redes de computadores; Geracao de trafego TCP e UDP. Abstract: This work demonstrates the use of Transport Control Protocol (TCP) and User Datagram Protocol (UDP) data traffic measurement and generation tool known as IPERF. This tool is useful for network engineers and administrators, developed based on the client/server, open source and free models. It allows you, as one of its main advantages, to modify TCP parameters such as the TCP window size, in addition to view reports of bandwidth in TCP and UDP modes, and reports of jitter and packet loss in UDP mode. In this document, we report some cases where the IPERF tool is useful and how it can be used to assist in analyzing the performance of TCP/IP networks. Keywords: Computer networks; Performance evaluation of computer networks; TCP and UDP traffic generation.
Physiotherapist's Perspective on the Factors Influencing the Progression of Stroke Rehabilitation

In this study all the participants felt that timing of referral of stroke patients for physiotherapy was sometimes appropriate. They were believed that factors related to physiotherapist had vital role in the progression of stroke patients. Among them physiotherapists motivational power and clinical competence were considered to have largest influence on the progression of stroke rehabilitation Among patients related factors cognitive problem had largest influence on stroke rehabilitation. There were some less influencing factors that were education of patient and career, patient’s home environment. Clinical environment, clinical resources were considered to have moderate influence on stroke rehabilitation. The participants were recommended that there were some other factors which can influence positively the progression of stroke rehabilitation .
Three-stage polarization mode dispersion compensator capable of compensating second-order polarization mode dispersion

The impacts of polarization-dependent dispersion on systems are investigated briefly, based on which a three-stage polarization mode dispersion compensator has been proposed to compensate polarization-dependent chromatic dispersion and the principal states of polarization rotation rate at the same time. The two possible operating points of this compensator are also proposed. Numerical results show that the maximum tolerable polarization mode dispersion value after three-stage compensation has been improved by 17% per bit slot compared with using a two-stage compensator.