Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
On efficient methods for high-dimensional statistical estimation

In this thesis we consider several aspects of parameter estimation for statistics and machine learning and optimization techniques applicable to these problems. The goal of parameter estimation is to find the unknown hidden parameters, which govern the data, for example parameters of an unknown probability density. The construction of estimators through optimization problems is only one side of the coin, finding the optimal value of the parameter often is an optimization problem that needs to be solved, using various optimization techniques. Hopefully these optimization problems are convex for a wide class of problems, and we can exploit their structure to get fast convergence rates. The first main contribution of the thesis is to develop moment-matching techniques for multi-index non-linear regression problems. We consider the classical non-linear regression problem, which is unfeasible in high dimensions due to the curse of dimensionality. We combine two existing techniques: ADE and SIR to develop the hybrid method without some of the weak sides of its parents. In the second main contribution we use a special type of averaging for stochastic gradient descent. We consider conditional exponential families (such as logistic regression), where the goal is to find the unknown value of the parameter. Classical approaches, such as SGD with constant step-size are known to converge only to some neighborhood of the optimal value of the parameter, even with averaging. We propose the averaging of moment parameters, which we call prediction functions. For finite-dimensional models this type of averaging can lead to negative error, i.e., this approach provides us with the estimator better than any linear estimator can ever achieve. The third main contribution of this thesis deals with Fenchel-Young losses. We consider multi-class linear classifiers with the losses of a certain type, such that their dual conjugate has a direct product of simplices as a support. We show, that for multi-class SVM losses with smart matrix-multiplication sampling techniques, our approach has an iteration complexity which is sublinear, i.e., we need to pay only trice O(n+d+k): for number of classes k, number of features d and number of samples n, whereas all existing techniques have higher complexity.
Systematic Review: Effects of the Kampo Formula Yokukan-San-Ka-Chimpi-Hange on Behavioral and Psychological Symptoms of Dementia

Introduction: Randomized usual-case controlled studies on Japanese dementia patients with behavioral and psychological symptoms were conducted to examine the effects of Kampo medicine Yokukan-San (YKS) on the behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD). These studies showed that YKS is effective in treating BPSD. Yokukan-San-Ka-Chimpi-Hange is a Kampo medicine made by adding dried citrus peel and pinellia tuber to YKS. In Japan, we usually administer Yokukan-San-Ka-Chimpi-Hange as Kracie Yokukan-San-Ka-Chimpi-Hange extract granules (KB-83), produced by Kracie Pharma, Ltd. (Tokyo, Japan). Methods: We investigated 3 trials carried out on the use of KB-83 for the treatment of severe dementia in elderly. Results: KB-83 showed no change in core symptoms after administration in cases of dementia, but significant improvements in BPSD were reported. KB-83 was particularly effective in treating aggressive symptoms such as restlessness or abusive language. Conclusion: In the treatment of dementia, we think that the administration of KB-83 is effective in mitigating the BPSD, and that further studies are need to investigate the effects of EK-83.
Enhance feature representation of electroencephalogram for Seizure detection

In the treatment of epilepsy with intracranial electroencephalogram(iEEG), the recognition accuracy is low, and it is difficult to find the correlation between channels because of the large amount of channel numbers and time series data. In order to solve these problems, we propose a novel EEG feature pre-presentation method for seizure detection based on the Log Mel-Filterbank energy feature. We propose to adapt the Mel-Filterbank energy to EEG features with logrithm transform in the frequency domain. Meanwhile, we also propose the sequential forward channel selection(SFCS) algorithm to incorporate channel correlation and balance the computing consumption. Experiments show that our proposed method have significant contributions in channel selection and feature representation to the problem of EEG signal analysis. The average results of experiments judged by the mean area under the ROC curve (AUC) of the probability reach 99.13%.
Structure of the teneurin-latrophilin complex: Alternative splicing controls synapse specificity by a novel mechanism

The trans-synaptic interaction of the cell-adhesion molecules teneurins (Tenm’s) with latrophilins (Lphn’s) promotes excitatory synapse formation when Lphn’s simultaneously interact with FLRTs. Insertion of a short alternatively-spliced region within Tenm’s abolishes the Tenm-Lphn interaction and switches Tenm function to specify inhibitory synapses. How Tenm’s bind to Lphn’s in a manner regulated by alternative splicing remains unclear. Here, we report the high-resolution cryo-EM structure of the Tenm2-Lphn3 complex, and describe the trimeric Tenm2-Lphn3-FLRT3 complex. The structure reveals that the N-terminal lectin-like domain of Lphn3 binds to the Tenm2 barrel at a site far away from the alternatively-spliced region. Alternative-splicing regulates the Tenm2-Lphn3 interaction by hindering access to the Lphn-binding surface rather than altering it. Strikingly, mutagenesis of the Lphn-binding surface of Tenm2 abolishes the Lphn3 interaction and impairs excitatory but not inhibitory synapse formation. These results suggest that a multi-level coincident binding mechanism mediated by a cryptic adhesion complex between Tenm’s and Lphn’s regulates synapse specificity.
Electrical annealing for Ge ion-implanted directional couplers

Electrical annealing of erasable directional couplers (DCs) was realized. Titanium nitride (TiN) micro-heaters were used to electrically heat up and anneal the Ge-ion implanted regions in silicon, which are used as the coupling waveguides in the erasable DCs. The refractive index of implanted silicon was reduced rapidly by electrical annealing, so that the DCs were effectively erased. The whole annealing process can be accomplished in about 2 seconds. Based on the simulation results, the implanted region can be heated up to about 700 °C.
WHAT MATTERS FOR THE EFFECTIVENESS OF A TRAINING ORGANIZATION? EVIDENCE FROM BPATC

Organizational effectiveness is the concept of how successful is an organization to achieve its goals in what the organization intends to serve or produce for its customers. Organizational effectiveness is more important for non-profit organizations or service providing organizations that primarily depends on their performance. The objectives of this study are to identify factors and their influence on organizational effectiveness. A structured questionnaire survey was conducted to get information and valid data. The study has nine independent variables and each variable was measured at least by three items. The consistency of the items has measured the reliability of the variables through Cronbach Alpha and found most of the variable items were very consistent. This study has also developed nine hypotheses. A multiple regression equation was performed for testing relations. Among the nine independent variables along with ‘organizational effectiveness’ as the dependent variable, it is found that three hypotheses were accepted according to standardized beta values with a considerable level of significance. Accepted hypotheses are related to ‘motivation’, ‘integrity’, and ‘empowerment’. The ANOVA results highlights a significant relationship and explains as 79.50% (p<.05) of the total variance. Thus, the results of this analysis indicate that variables can explain about 80% of the organizational effectiveness. However, the small size of the population and quantitative results are some limitations of this study. Besides, this study was limited within faculty, who were engaged in training activities and very limited staff who were engaged with training programs.
MSMEs Focus on Instagram Account Quality : Key Factors to Prioritize in Instagram Posting

T hese days most of MSMEs have a quite good understanding of social media and how it works for their business. In Indonesia, Instagram is one of the best powerful tools to introduce and market their product instantly. However, social commerce face problems especially in customer trust. It is suspected by customer doubt to the key factors of social media online shop, i.e : reputation, transaction, communication, safety, information quality, economic feasibility, and word-of-mouth referrals. The purpose of this study is to test a framework of Instagram account quality model and its impact on MSMEs social media marketing strategy. An online-based questionnaire was administered to 271 MSMEs. Furthermore, structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data. Findings indicate that there are significant effect between information quality, reputation, safety, communication, and economic feasibility to the Instagram account quality construct. The practical implications emphasize on MSMEs first need to develop their information quality on Instagram, because that is the most significant factors towards Instagram account quality in online store perception. A focus on improving information quality will also help MSMEs to communicate and promote their post to reach more audience and interaction with potential consumers .
Topic Modeling and Transfer Learning for Automated Surveillance of Injury Reports in Consumer Product Reviews

Many modern firms and interest groups are tasked with the challenge of monitoring the status and performance of a bevy of distinct products. As online user-generated content has increased in volume, new unstructured data sources are available for mining unique insights. Reports of injuries arising as a result of product usage are particularly concerning. In this paper, we utilize complimentary approaches to address this problem. We analyze two novel datasets; first, a government-maintained dataset of hazard and injury reports and second, a large dataset of cross-industry consumer product reviews manually coded for the presence of hazard and injury reports. We apply an unsupervised topic modeling approach to characterize the hazard and injury reports detected. Then, we implement a supervised transfer learning technique, using information obtained from the governmentmaintained dataset to detect hazard and injury reports in online reviews. Our results offer improved surveillance for monitoring hazards across multiple industries.
Study on preparation and properties of polyimide lithium battery separator

Soluble polyimide was synthesized from 4, 4’-(4, 4’-Isopropylidenediphenyl-1, 1’-diyldioxy) dianiline (BAPP), 4, 4’-Diaminodiphenyl ether (ODA) and 4, 4’-Oxydiphthalic anhydride (ODPA) in a certain proportion. The porous polyimide (PI) membranes were prepared by phase transfer method. The molecular structure, pore size, contact angle and thermal stability were characterized by fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscope (SEM), contact angle measuring instrument. The results show that the prepared porous polyimide membranes have three-dimensional network of microporous structure with a surface pore diameter of 0.5-1 μm; The porosity increases with the increasing quality ratio of anhydrous ethanol and acetone in the solution, which reaches more than twice of the conventional Celgard 2400 membrane;The contact angles of the porous polyimide membranes are smaller than that of separator of the Celgard 2400 membrane and showing better lyophilicity, which were all take distilled water as the test solution. The porous polyimide membranes have better heat resistance, and the size does not change significantly after heat treatment at a maximum of 180°C for 0.5 h.
Rate Compatible Modulation for Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access

We propose a new Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access (NOMA) coding scheme based on the use of a Rate Compatible Modulation (RCM) encoder for each user. By properly designing the encoders and taking advantage of the additive nature of the Multiple Access Channel (MAC), the joint decoder from the inputs of all the users can be represented by a bipartite graph corresponding to a standard point-to-point RCM structure with certain constraints. Decoding is performed over this bipartite graph utilizing the sum-product algorithm. The proposed scheme allows the simultaneous transmission of a large number of uncorrelated users at high rates, while the decoding complexity is the same as that of standard point-to-point RCM schemes. When Rayleigh fast fading channels are considered, the BER vs SNR performance improves as the number of simultaneous users increases, as a result of the averaging effect.
Do They Believe They Can Communicate? Assessing College Students’ Perceived Ability to Communicate About Agricultural Sciences

Meeting the demands of a proficient scientific workforce depends on students’ communication skill preparation. To describe students’ self-perceptions of their communication skills, we surveyed 315 students in Texas A&M University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Participants noted they were most proficient in their ability to listen effectively and least proficient in asking effective questions. Each communication skill characteristic showed a statistically significant difference before and after college engagement, but we found no statistically significant difference in the overall communication scores of students. Therefore, we recommend: 1) interviewing employers to understand their perceptions of entry-level employees; 2) investigating when students transition from false sense of confidence to actual confidence; 3) conducting a longitudinal study to investigate students’ perceptions of communication skills throughout their college experience; 4) evaluating faculty’s communication teaching methods across disciplines; and 5) investigating the influence of self-reflection on students’ attained communication skills. Conducting such studies could lead to stronger connections between the academy and the industry, especially as faculty strive to align their teaching with needs of the industry.
Iotverif: Automatic Verification of SSL/TLS Certificate for IoT Applications

Although extensive research has been conducted on securing the Internet of Things (IoT) communication protocols, various vulnerabilities and exploits are continuously discovered and reported. Since vulnerabilities are introduced from either insecure communication protocols or defectiveness of applications, it is difficult to identify them during the software development or testing phase. In this paper, we present IoTVerif, a system that automatically verifies the Secure Socket Layer/Transport Layer Security (SSL/TLS) certificate for IoT applications that utilize broker-based messaging protocols. IoTVerif constructs the specification of an IoT protocol and verifies its security properties, without relying on prior knowledge about communication protocols. Once the specification is constructed, a general-purpose model checker automatically verifies those properties, as well as generates counter-examples if any property does not hold. We analyze the effectiveness of IoTVerif with real-world IoT-related applications. Our evaluation results show that IoTVerif can successfully identify vulnerabilities from IoT applications, which are exploitable by the man-in-the-middle (MITM) and TLS renegotiation attacks. IoTVerif holds a great promise for reverse-engineering emerging IoT messaging protocols and identifies the vulnerabilities from IoT-related applications.
Mental health recovery and arts engagement

Purpose Arts and cultural activities have been illustrated to be beneficial for mental health service users. The purpose of this paper is to explore the benefits of museum visits and engage in arts activities for mental health service users. Design/methodology/approach Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 17 mental health service users in Denmark. A thematic approach was used to analyse the data and theoretical lens of sociological theories of institutional logics was employed to explore the findings. Findings These benefits are perceived to include empowerment and meaning in life, which are two of the core principles of recovery; arts engagement can, therefore, be a useful tool in recovery. The findings also show that the experience of visiting a museum was not always positive and depended upon the interaction with the museum educators. Originality/value The service users identified arts engagement as creating meaning in life and empowerment, which are two element in the conceptual framework, CHIME (an acronym for: Connectedness, Hope and optimism, Identity, Meaning in life and Empowerment), that describes the human process of recovery. The findings also highlighted that if museums want to engage positively with people with mental health problems and contribute to their recovery then the training of staff and the improvement of institutional approaches to support working with vulnerable people are essential.
IoT Based Smart Energy Metering System for Power Consumers

Smart devices are growing in the latest years, enabling smart cities to be built. A smart city is focused on a smart grid that enables intelligent management of the electric grid. To make this happen, the network must have smart meters capable of duplex communication with the network. This industry has resulted in a spread of intelligent meters providing a chance to assess the consumption of each unit in households. The aim of this initiative is to create a popular chip based IoT electrical meter that will capture all meter information and transmit the required meter information to the main server by means of wireless communication. In the main server, all meter information will be handled, and the required choices will be made using the main server. Regarding pending fees, the server would inform the customer and then disconnect the line if needed. In cases of tampering, the server would respond immediately and sever the line. Experimental findings in this work demonstrate the accuracy of the readings produced using the smart device created.
A Comprehensive Study of Common Mode Voltage Reduction and Neutral Point Potential Balance for a Back-to-Back Three-Level NPC Converter

A comprehensive study of common-mode voltage (CMV) reduction and neutral point (NP) potential balance for a back-to-back three-level NPC converter is proposed in this article. Based on phase-disposition PWM, a zero-sequence voltage (ZSV) injection method is adopted. The ZSV is divided into two parts: ZSV for CMV reduction, and ZSV for NP potential balance. The specific selection method is discussed in detail in this article. After using the proposed ZSV injection method, the CMV can be reduced to 1/6 of the dc bus voltage, and the NP potential fluctuations can also be suppressed. Simulation and experimental results verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Integrating Data, Demography, and Dynamics to Inform Vaccination Policy: Measles and Rubella in a Changing World

In this dissertation, I explore public health questions related to the current status of measles and rubella incidence and immunity, and the control of measles and rubella infections. Great strides have been made in the reduction of measles and rubella infections via vaccination. However, measles remains a significant cause of morbidity (20 million annual cases) and mortality (115,000 annual deaths); and rubella infection, typically mild among childhood, among pregnant women can cause the birth of an infant with congenital rubella syndrome (CRS) (105,000 annual CRS cases). I built on an existing age-structured mathematical model to evaluate important public health questions in the context of measles and rubella control efforts. Mathematical models are increasingly relied upon for vaccination program design because formally framing the core mechanisms associated with transmission dynamics is essential to capturing important and potentially devastating non-linear effects in the dynamics of these infections. In chapter 1, I evaluated the potential of introducing rubella-containing vaccine in India to reduce the burden of CRS, and found that introduction of the rubella vaccine will likely result in cumulative decreases in CRS. However, the effect of rubella vaccine introduction on the transient annual incidence of CRS is highly sensitive to rubella’s basic reproductive number. We identified risk factors that can be used to highlight regions most at risk of transient increases in CRS burden post-rubella vaccine introduction. In chapter 2, I explored the use of a nested serological survey within the fever-rash surveillance system in Madagascar to estimate measles population immunity. We found discrepancies between direct and indirect empirical estimates of population immunity by age. However, both estimates indicated that Madagascar is at risk of a large measles outbreak. We evaluated the potential of measles Supplementary Immunization Activities to reduce this risk. In chapter 3, I analyzed the strengths and limitations of rubella IgG serological data to characterize rubella epidemiological parameters and CRS incidence. We laid out in detail the nuanced biases from analytic method and survey design, which can be used by public health officials to better in-
Validation of a Rubric to Evaluate Open Educational Resources for Learning

Open Educational Resources (OERs) include different web formats, such as audio, video, images and text that can be modified, redistributed and used for learning about a specific topic, however, it became pertinent to create an OER evaluation tool with content validity. The present work gives an account of the content validation process using a 41-criteria rubric, each one with three performance levels, developed from a documentary search on relevant aspects to be included in a learning object. Six expert judges were contacted and decided whether each criterion was essential, useful but not essential or not necessary. Based on this, the Content Validity Reason (CVR) was calculated, obtaining 32 validated criteria. Among some conclusions, it can be mentioned that the validation process of contents allowed the identification of those criteria that require modifications or, if necessary, can be discarded to increase the validity of the heading in its whole.