Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Speed Traps: Algorithmic Trader Performance Under Alternative Speed Traps: Algorithmic Trader Performance Under Alternative Market Structures Market Structures

Using laboratory experiments, we illustrate that trading algorithms that prioritize low latency pose certain pitfalls in a variety of market structures and configurations. In hybrid double auctions markets with human traders and trading agents, we find superior performance of trading agents to human traders in balanced markets with the same number of human and Zero Intelligence Plus (ZIP) buyers and sellers only, thus providing a partial replication of Das et al. (2001). However, in unbalanced markets and extreme market structures, such as monopolies and duopolies, fast ZIP agents fall into a speed trap and both human participants and slow ZIP agents outperform fast ZIP agents. For human traders, faster reaction time significantly improves trading performance, while Theory of Mind can be detrimental for human buyers, but beneficial for human sellers.
An Application-Independent Approach to Building Task-Oriented Chatbots with Interactive Continual Learning

Many real-life task-oriented chatbots are natural language ( command ) interfaces (NLIs) to their underlying applications. Such a NLI is often built using a semantic parser (SP) to parse the user command and convert it to a logical form, which is then translated to an executable action, or using an end-to-end deep learning model. They all need large volumes of application speciﬁc data for training. This paper proposes a new and application independent approach to building NLIs that needs no SP, translator, or training. It is based on NL to NL matching, where the representations of both actions and user commands are in natural language (NL). Given a user command, the system matches it with a correct action representation, and executes its associated action. The system can also continuously learn new NL expressions of actions from users through interactions to make the system more powerful. The learning happens during chatting after the model has been deployed. Our experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
Conic Descent and its Application to Memory-efficient Optimization over Positive Semidefinite Matrices

We present an extension of the conditional gradient method to problems whose feasible sets are convex cones. We provide a convergence analysis for the method and for variants with nonconvex objectives, and we extend the analysis to practical cases with effective line search strategies. For the speciﬁc case of the positive semideﬁnite cone, we present a memory-efﬁcient version based on randomized matrix sketches and advocate a heuristic greedy step that greatly improves its practical performance. Numerical results on phase retrieval and matrix completion problems indicate that our method can offer substantial advantages over traditional conditional gradient and Burer-Monteiro approaches
Impact of lanthanum doped zirconium oxide (LaZrO2) gate dielectric material on FinFET inverter

Abstract Fin-typed field effect transistor (FinFET) has considered a suitable device for low power and high-performance applications. The incorporation of gate dielectric lanthanum doped zirconium oxide (LaZrO2) in the 14 nm silicon on insulator (SOI) FinFET not only enhanced effective carrier mobility but also diminished the short channel effects (SCEs). The FinFET embodiment with LaZrO2 has dwindled subthreshold swing (SS), reduced drain-induced barrier lowering (DIBL), and raised on-current to off-current ratio as a contrast to SiO2-based FinFET. A remarkable enhancement of 1.18×, 11×, and 1.3× for transconductance (gm), early voltage (VEA), and an intrinsic gain (AV), respectively, have been investigated. Further, LaZrO2-based n-FinFET and p-FinFET devices have devised with equal dimensions. The improved noise margin of 0.375 V using a single-fin FinFET-based inverter circuit has proven the acceptance of this device in a circuit application.
Abstract. icariin is a type of flavonoid derived from the chinese herbal plant Epimedium sagittatum Maxim. Mounting evidence has confirmed the beneficial effects of icariin in neurological diseases, including spinal cord injury

icariin is a type of flavonoid derived from the chinese herbal plant Epimedium sagittatum Maxim. Mounting evidence has confirmed the beneficial effects of icariin in neurological diseases, including spinal cord injury (Sci). The aim of the present study was to investigate the neuroprotective effects of icariin in Sci and the precise underlying mechanism. The weight-drop injury technique was applied to construct an Sci model in Sprague-dawley rats. icariin (35 μmol/kg) was administered orally once daily for 7 consecutive days to examine its neuroprotective effects. The Basso, Beattie and Bresnahan scoring system was used for neurobehavioral evaluation. The water content of the injured spinal cord was measured via the dry-wet weight method. Biochemical indices were examined by colorimetric assay using commercially available kits. Western blot analysis was used to detect protein expression. Icariin significantly accelerated the recovery of the locomotor function of Sci rats and decreased spinal cord water content. icariin also attenuated Sci-induced pro-apoptotic protein expression and activity, while it increased anti-apoptotic protein levels. in addition, icariin alleviated oxidative stress in SCI rats and decreased the levels of inflammatory molecules, including interleukin (il)-1β, il-6, tumor necrosis factor-α, nitric oxide, nuclear factor-κB and inducible nitric oxide synthase, and increased the expression of anti‐inflammatory proteins, including nadPH-quinone oxidoreductase-1, heme oxygenase-1 and nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 in the injured spinal cord. Therefore, icariin treatment accelerated locomotor function recovery in Sci, and its protective effects may be mediated via its antioxidant, anti‐inflammatory and anti-apoptotic bioactivity.
Supplementary Materials: Neural FFTs for Universal Texture Image Synthesis

In order to further evaluate our findings in the main paper, we provide additional supporting results and details. Unless otherwise stated, the evaluation setup mimics the setup adopted in the main paper. The list of contents is as follows: • FFT derivations for texture synthesis (section 1) • Further discussion about evaluation metrics (section 2) • Additional evaluations and examples for 2x synthesis (section 3) • Additional evaluations and examples for 4x synthesis (section 4) • Examples of feature maps (section 5) • Comparison with image quilting (section 6) • Diversity (section 7)
Encoding of Predicate Subtyping with Proof Irrelevance in the λΠ-Calculus Modulo Theory

The $\lambda$$\Pi$-calculus modulo theory is a logical framework in which various logics and type systems can be encoded, thus helping the cross-verification and interoperability of proof systems based on those logics and type systems. In this paper, we show how to encode predicate subtyping and proof irrelevance, two important features of the PVS proof assistant. We prove that this encoding is correct and that encoded proofs can be mechanically checked by Dedukti, a type checker for the $\lambda$$\Pi$-calculus modulo theory using rewriting.
A direct solid‐phase assay specific for heavy‐metal toxicity. II. Assessment of heavy‐metal immobilization in soils and bioavailability to plants

We have used the solid‐phase MetPLA TE, an enzyme assay that is specific for heavy‐metal toxicity, to investigate metal toxicity of soils that have been amended with urban wastewater sludges or contaminated with dry deposition from metal‐plating industries. We have shown that soil toxicity, using MetPLA TE, ranged from 21 to 72.5% inhibition of enzyme activity. Evin soil, which displayed the highest toxicity, also had the highest concentrations of Pb and Zn. Metal uptake studies with ryegrass grown on Evin soil, showed Zn, Cd, and Pb accumulation in the plant that exceeds the standard levels reported for grasses Solid‐phase MetPLA TE was also used as a tool to study the reduction of heavy‐metal toxicity following soil amendments to immobilize metals in soil and thus reduce their toxicity. It was found that the addition of 1% hydrated manganese oxide significantly reduced dissolved metals in soil, their accumulation by ryegrass, and soil toxicity as shown by MetPLA TE.
Automatic Analysis of Facilitated Taste-liking

This paper focuses on: (i) Automatic recognition of taste-liking from facial videos by comparatively training and evaluating models with engineered features and state-of-the-art deep learning architectures, and (ii) analysing the classification results along the aspects of facilitator type, and the gender, ethnicity, and personality of the participants. To this aim, a new beverage tasting dataset acquired under different conditions (human vs. robot facilitator and priming vs. non-priming facilitation) is utilised. The experimental results show that: (i) The deep spatiotemporal architectures provide better classification results than the engineered feature models; (ii) the classification results for all three classes of liking, neutral and disliking reach F1 scores in the range of 71% - 91%; (iii) the personality-aware network that fuses participants' personality information with that of facial reaction features provides improved classification performance; and (iv) classification results vary across participant gender, but not across facilitator type and participant ethnicity.
International Migration, Self‐Selection, and the Distribution of Wages: Evidence from Mexico and the United States

We use the 1990 and 2000 Mexican and U.S. population censuses to test Borjas’s negative‐selection hypothesis that the less skilled are those most likely to migrate from countries with high skill premia/earnings inequality to countries with low skill premia/earnings inequality. We find that Mexican immigrants in the United States are more educated than nonmigrants in Mexico; and were Mexican immigrants to be paid according to current skill prices in Mexico, they would be concentrated in the middle of Mexico’s wage distribution. These results are inconsistent with the negative‐selection hypothesis and instead suggest that there is intermediate selection of immigrants from Mexico.
Individual participant data systematic reviews with meta-analyses of psychotherapies for borderline personality disorder: A protocol.

Introduction: The heterogeneity in people with BPD and the range of specialised psychotherapies means that people with certain BPD characteristics might benefit more or less from different types of psychotherapy. Identifying moderating characteristics of outcomes is then a key to refine and tailor standard treatments matching patients specificities with the objective to improve the quality of care and the individual outcomes. Thus, the aim of the current studies is to investigate potential predictors and moderating patient characteristics on treatment outcomes for patients with BPD. Methods and analyses: We will perform three systematic reviews with meta-analyses of psychotherapies for BPD using individual participant data. Ethics and dissemination: The statistical analyses will be conducted on anonymised data that have already been approved by the respective ethical committees originally assessing the included trials. The three IPD reviews will be published in high impact factor journals and their results will be presented at international conferences and national seminars.
Remote working in mental health services: a rapid umbrella review of pre-COVID-19 literature

Background: Tele-mental health care has been rapidly adopted to maintain services during the pandemic, and there is now substantial interest in its future role. Service planning and policy making for recovery from the pandemic and beyond should draw not only on COVID-19 experiences, but also on the substantial research evidence accumulated prior to this. Aims: to conduct an umbrella review of systematic reviews of research literature and evidence-based guidance on remote working in mental health, including both qualitative and quantitative literature. Method: Three databases were searched between January 2010 and August 2020 for systematic reviews meeting pre-defined criteria. Reviews retrieved were independently screened and those meeting inclusion criteria were synthesised and assessed for risk of bias. Narrative synthesis was used to report findings Results: Nineteen systematic reviews met inclusion criteria. Fifteen examined clinical effectiveness, eight reported on aspects of tele-mental health implementation, ten reported on acceptability to service users and clinicians, two on cost-effectiveness and one on guidance. Most reviews were assessed as low quality. Findings suggested that video-based communication could be as effective and acceptable as face-face formats, at least in the short-term. Evidence was lacking on extent of digital exclusion and how it can be overcome, or on significant context such as children and young people and inpatient settings. Conclusions: This umbrella review suggests that tele-mental health has potential to be an effective and acceptable form of service delivery. However, we found limited evidence on impacts of large-scale implementation across catchment areas. Combining previous evidence and COVID-19 experiences may allow realistic planning for future tele-mental health implementation.
Evaluation of the accuracy and ease-of-use of Abbott PanBio - A WHO emergency use listed, rapid, antigen-detecting point-of-care diagnostic test for SARS-CoV-2

Background: Diagnostics are essential for controlling the pandemic. Identifying a reliable and fast diagnostic is needed to support testing. We assessed performance and ease-of-use of the Abbott PanBio antigen-detecting rapid diagnostic test (Ag-RDT). Methods: This prospective, multi-centre diagnostic accuracy study enrolled at two sites in Germany. Following routine testing with RT-PCR, a second study-exclusive swab was performed for Ag-RDT testing. Routine swabs were nasopharyngeal (NP) or combined NP/oropharyngeal (OP) whereas the study-exclusive swabs were NP. To evaluate performance, sensitivity and specificity were assessed overall and in predefined sub analyses accordingly to cycle-threshold values, days of symptoms, disease severity and study site. Additionally, an ease-of-use assessment and System Usability Scale (SUS) were performed. Findings: 1108 participants were enrolled between Sept 28 and Oct 30, 2020. Of these, 106 (9.6%) were PCR-positive. The Abbott PanBio detected 92/106 PCR-positive participants with a sensitivity of 86.8% (95% CI: 79.0% - 92.0%) and a specificity of 99.9% (95% CI: 99.4%-100%). The sub analyses indicated that sensitivity was 95.8% in CT-values <25 and within the first seven days from symptom onset. The test was characterized as easy to use (SUS: 86/100) and considered suitable for point-of-care settings. Interpretation: The Abbott PanBio Ag-RDT performs well for SARS-CoV-2 testing in this large manufacturer independent study, confirming its WHO recommendation for Emergency Use in settings with limited resources. Funding: The Foundation of Innovative New Diagnostics supplied the test kits for the study. The internal funds from the Heidelberg University as well as the Charite Berlin supported this study.
Ventricular expansion, white matter hyperintensities, and global cognition in Alzheimer's disease and normal aging.

Background: The progression of Alzheimer's Disease (AD) may be tracked by measuring the growth of the ventricular cerebrospinal fluid (vCSF) over time. AD is commonly comorbid with markers of cerebral small vessel disease (SVD), viewed on MRI as white matter hyperintensities (WMH). Larger WMH volumes are correlated with poorer cognitive test scores. Additionally, periventricular WMHs have a proposed relationship to the vCSF. Purpose: This study will examine ventricular expansion and its associations between periventricular/deep WMH and cognition in AD and normal aging. Methods: Baseline and 1-year follow-up data were collected from AD (n=117) and cognitively normal control (NCs; n=49) participants taking part in the Sunnybrook Dementia Study. MRI (1.5T) and scores from both the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and the Dementia Rating Scale (DRS) were assessed at each time point. Volumetric data was generated using a semi-automated pipeline and each individual's vCSF and WMHs were transformed to an intermediate space to determine volumetric growth. Regressions were used to determine relationships between vCSF growth measures, SVD burden, and cognition, accounting for demographics and individual interscan intervals. Results: The AD group displayed 14.6% annual ventricular growth as opposed to NC who had only 11.8% annual growth. AD showed significant growth in vCSF (p < 0.001), a trend toward greater pWMH growth (p = 0.06) and no difference in dWMH growth volumes compared to NC. vCSF growth was positively associated with pWMH ({beta} = 0.32, p < 0.001) but not dWMH growth in ADs while in NC it was associated with both pWMH ({beta} = 0.48, p < 0.001) and dWMH growth ({beta} = 0.35, p = 0.02). In AD, vCSF growth was associated with the both the MMSE ({beta} = -0.30, p < 0.001) and the DRS ({beta} = -0.31, p < 0.001) in separate models. Conclusions: The findings from this study suggest that in just under 1.5 years, the significantly rapid ventricular expansion observed in AD may be closely related to periventricular small vessel disease. As vCSF growth rates are an important biomarker of AD neurodegeneration that corresponds with cognitive decline, future research should further explore atrophy associated with periventricular vasculopathy.
The Effects of Psychosocial Stress on Memory and Cognitive Ability: A Meta-Analysis

Excessive stress in our daily lives is known to be a key determinant of economic, health and social outcomes. The impact of stress on cognitive abilities, such as memory, is well documented in animal studies but it is not yet clear how stress in human social interactions affects memory. This review systematically explored the evidence regarding the effects of psychosocial stress on memory and its associated cognitive abilities. To do this, we searched PubMed, PsycInfo and Web of Science databases for studies of psychosocial stress that also assessed long-term memory or related cognitive functions, such as working memory or attention. Fifty-one papers assessing the effects of psychosocial stress on memory were identified and compared based on the timing of stress induction. No overall effect of psychosocial stress induction was seen on long-term or working memory regardless of whether stress induction occurred following encoding or before retrieval. Psychosocial stress had a moderate differential effect when emotional vs. neutral stimuli were used, but the direction of the effect varied across studies. Psychosocial stress decreased performance on executive function tasks. Our findings demonstrate that, in humans, psychosocial stress may not have the clear effects on memory previously ascribed to it, highlighting differences with previous reviews on mainly physiological stress. We offer some perspectives for future research and identify gaps in the literature, including the need for adequate control groups, the impact of inter-individual differences in responsivity to stressors, and a need to improve our understanding of the mechanisms through which psychosocial stress impacts upon cognition.
Increasing efficacy of contact-tracing applications by user referrals and stricter quarantining

We study the effects of two mechanisms which increase the efficacy of contact-tracing applications (CTAs) such as the mobile phone contact-tracing applications that have been used during the COVID-19 epidemic. The first mechanism is the introduction of user referrals. We compare four scenarios for the uptake of CTAs - (1) the p% of individuals that use the CTA are chosen randomly, (2) a smaller initial set of randomly-chosen users each refer a contact to use the CTA, achieving p% in total, (3) a small initial set of randomly-chosen users each refer around half of their contacts to use the CTA, achieving p% in total, and (4) for comparison, an idealised scenario in which the p% of the population that uses the CTA is the p% with the most contacts. Using agent-based epidemiological models incorporating a geometric space, we find that, even when the uptake percentage p% is small, CTAs are an effective tool for mitigating the spread of the epidemic in all scenarios. Moreover, user referrals significantly improve efficacy. In addition, it turns out that user referrals reduce the yearly quarantine load. The second mechanism for increasing the efficacy of CTAs is tuning the severity of quarantine measures. Our modelling shows that using CTAs with mild quarantine measures is effective in reducing the maximum hospital load and the number of people who become ill, but leads to a relatively high quarantine load, which may cause economic disruption. Fortunately, under stricter quarantine measures, the advantages are maintained but the quarantine load is reduced. Our models incorporate geometric inhomogeneous random graphs to study the effects of the presence of super-spreaders and of the absence of long-distant contacts (e.g., through travel restrictions) on our conclusions.
Development and validation of a scale for measuring cynical attitudes toward college.

The purpose of this research was to develop and validate a new measure of undergraduate student cynicism-the Cynical Attitudes Toward College Scale (CATCS). In Study 1, the authors split data collected from 1,049 students representing 3 diverse college populations into development and confirmation samples. Using confirmatory factor analysis, the authors (a) developed an 18-item measurement model reflecting 4 reliable dimensions of student cynicism-policy, academic, social, and institutional; (b) demonstrated cross-sample generalizability; and (c) established convergent and discriminant validity. In Study 2, the authors showed the CATCS's ability to discriminate among diverse groups of students predicted to differ on the 4 subscales as well as to predict future academic outcomes. Practical applications of the CATCS are discussed.