Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Anthropogenic supply of nutrients in a wildlife reserve may compromise conservation success

In nutrient-poor wildlife reserves it has become common-place to provide supplemental mineral resources for wildlife. Yet, the impacts of anthropogenic mineral supplementation on community-wide wildlife nutrition, behaviour and subsequent impact on ecosystem processes remain poorly understood. Here, we examine the contribution of anthropogenic mineral lick provision to wildlife nutrient intake across a community of large mammals (>10kg) in the southern Kalahari Desert. Based on predicted daily nutrient requirements and a faecal nutrient assessment, large herbivores appear deficient in phosphorus (P), sodium (Na) and zinc (Zn). For these nutrients, anthropogenic salt and mineral licks constitute an important (>10%) source of nutrient intake helping to reduce or overcome requirement deficits. Larger-bodied species disproportionately consumed licks (p<0.01), acquiring more nutritional benefits. A comprehensive assessment of animal body condition indicated that in general large herbivores display good health. However, bulk grazers, hindgut fermenters and females were more likely to display signs of malnourishment. We discuss how provisioning of anthropogenic mineral licks may be inflating large herbivore populations beyond the long-term carrying capacity of the reserve, with subsequent impacts for ecosystem integrity and herbivore population instability. Based on results presented here, it is clear that anthropogenic provision of mineral licks should be considered carefully by wildlife managers aiming to conserve or restore natural processes in conservation and rewilding landscapes.
Applications of number-theoretic methods to quantizers of elliptically contoured distributions

In this paper we combine the so-called LBG algorithm in vector quantization and the number-theoretic methods to propose a new algorithm, NTLBG, of generating vector quantizer with low mean square error for many classes of multivariate distributions including one of the elliptically contoured distributions. Some numerical examples show that the present method is effective.
Generalization Bounds for Stochastic Gradient Descent via Localized ε-Covers

In this paper, we propose a new covering technique localized for the trajectories of SGD. This localization provides an algorithm-specific complexity measured by the covering number, which can have dimension-independent cardinality in contrast to standard uniform covering arguments that result in exponential dimension dependency. Based on this localized construction, we show that if the objective function is a finite perturbation of a piecewise strongly convex and smooth function with $P$ pieces, i.e. non-convex and non-smooth in general, the generalization error can be upper bounded by $O(\sqrt{(\log n\log(nP))/n})$, where $n$ is the number of data samples. In particular, this rate is independent of dimension and does not require early stopping and decaying step size. Finally, we employ these results in various contexts and derive generalization bounds for multi-index linear models, multi-class support vector machines, and $K$-means clustering for both hard and soft label setups, improving the known state-of-the-art rates.
Spectrally Resolved Linewidth Enhancement Factor of an Optical Frequency Comb

The linewidth enhancement factor (LEF) is an important parameter of semiconductor lasers as it describes many of their unique properties. Recently, it is gaining broad attention due to its key role in frequency comb operation. However, previously developed techniques to measure the LEF are limited to sub-threshold bias or singlemode operation. Here, we report a novel and universally applicable technique to directly obtain the LEF of a running multimode laser frequency comb over its entire spectrum. The technique utilizes a phase-sensitive single shot measurement scheme. We derive a theoretical model, perform numerical Maxwell-Bloch simulations and experimentally demonstrate our technique on a quantum cascade laser.
NBER WORKING PAPER SERIES THE GOVERNANCE OF NON-PROFITS AND THEIR SOCIAL IMPACT: EVIDENCE FROM A RANDOMIZED PROGRAM IN HEALTHCARE IN THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO

How can non-profit organizations improve their governance to increase their social impact? This study examines the effectiveness of a bundle of governance mechanisms – consisting of social performance-based incentives combined with auditing and feedback – in the context of a randomized governance program conducted in the Democratic Republic of Congo's healthcare sector. Within the program, a set of health centers were randomly assigned to a governance treatment while others were not. We find that the governance treatment leads to i) higher operating efficiency and ii) improvements in health outcomes (measured by a reduction in stillbirths and neonatal deaths). Furthermore, we find that funding is not a substitute for governance – health centers that only receive funding increase their scale, but do not show improvements in operating efficiency nor health outcomes. Overall, our results suggest that governance plays an important role in achieving the non-profits' objectives and increasing the social impact of the funds invested. Anicet Fangwa HEC Paris 1 Rue de la Libération 78350 Jouy-en-Josas France anicet.fangwa@hec.edu Caroline Flammer School of International and Public Affairs Columbia University 420 West 118th Street, Office 1429 New York, NY 10026 and NBER caroline.flammer@columbia.edu Marieke Huysentruyt HEC Paris 1 Rue de la Libération 78350 Jouy-en-Josas France huysentruyt@hec.fr Bertrand Quelin HEC Paris 1 Rue de la Libération 78350 Jouy-en-Josas France quelin@hec.fr A data appendix is available at http://www.nber. org/data-appendix/w30391
CMAR_A_358649 2861..2868

Background: In recent years, papillary thyroid microcarcinoma (PTMC) has been a main cause of the high incidence of thyroid carcinoma. No existing study has reported whether microwave ablation (MWA) affects patients’ immunity. Therefore, this study explored the effects of MWA treatment on the immune functions of patients with PTMC. Methods: This study included 50 patients diagnosed with PTMC who received MWA treatment under ultrasound guidance at the ultrasound department of our hospital from January 2019 to October 2020. Changes in immune function after MWA treatment in PTMC patients were detected by T lymphocyte subsets and cytokines secreted by T helper cells. Results: At 1 day and 2 weeks after MWA treatment, the proportions of CD3, CD4 and CD4/CD8 T lymphocyte subsets and the levels of the cytokines interleukin (IL)-2 and interferon (IFN)-γ in the peripheral blood of the patients were significantly higher than those before MWA treatment (P<0.05). The levels of CD8 T lymphocytes, tumour necrosis factor (TNF)-α, IL-4, IL-6, IL-10 and IL17A were not significantly different from those before MWA treatment (P>0.05). One month after MWA treatment, the proportions of CD3, CD4, CD8 and CD4/CD8 T lymphocytes and the levels of the cytokines IL-2, IL-4, IL-6, IL-10, IFN-γ, TNF-α and IL-17A were not significantly different from those before MWA treatment (P>0.05). Conclusion: The immune functions of patients with PTMC are temporarily enhanced after MWA treatment, which has important clinical significance for patients’ anti-PTMC ability.
Where .ru?: assessing the impact of conflict on russian domain infrastructure

The hostilities in Ukraine have driven unprecedented forces, both from third-party countries and in Russia, to create economic barriers. In the Internet, these manifest both as internal pressures on Russian sites to (re-)patriate the infrastructure they depend on (e.g., naming and hosting) and external pressures arising from Western providers disassociating from some or all Russian customers. While quite a bit has been written about this both from a policy perspective and anecdotally, our paper places the question on an empirical footing and directly measures longitudinal changes in the makeup of naming, hosting and certificate issuance for domains in the Russian Federation.
Hipoteza Brody w świetle wyników badań empirycznych

This paper presents discussion about the importance of degree of aggregation in input-output systems for speed of convergence to the equilibrium. The basis is the hypothesis stated by Brody (1997) that the greater the dimension of flow coefficients matrix A is, the faster the economy convergences to the equilibrium because the ratio between modulus of the subdominant and dominant eigenvalue declines to zero. Since then, several papers have been published to verify mathematical aspects of the hypothesis. The development of random matrices theory provided theorems that confirm the hypothesis in the case of i.i. d. elements of flow coefficients matrix. However, in the case of deterministic input-output table, there were constructed counterexamples where the ratio between subdominant and dominant eigenvalue does not decline when the size of the matrix increases to infinity and the degree of aggregation does not influence the speed of convergence to the equilibrium. This paper verifies how the hypothesis fits to empirical data. Analysis of different aggregation of input-output tables for European Union, Euro zone and several European countries shows that increasing the number of branches in IO table does not reduce the ratio of modulus of subdominant and dominant eigenvalues of the flow coefficients matrix A. Hence, the speed of convergence to the equilibrium does not depend on the number of sectors in IO table but rather on the size of economy and relationships between its sectors. (i.e. large economies converge faster to equilibrium than small economies).
Thirty Years After the German Reunification—Exploring Stereotypes About East Germans on Twitter

Although further social category thinking on social media might harm the German democratic public sphere, the stereotyping of East Germans on social media has been under-researched so far. We combined computational text analysis and manual content analysis on N = 106,616 tweets to investigate the area of society to which the stereotypes apply, the kind of threat East Germans are described as, and what exact stereotypes exist. We show that stereotypic tweets about East Germans are relatively rare. East Germans are portrayed as a general political threat and are attributed right-wing attitudes, socioeconomic marginalization, and negative behaviors. The contextual stereotypes we found are in line with previous studies investigating traditional media and suggest that different groups, like Saxons, recur as targets of political stereotypes, depending on the events taking place. Practical implications of the results are discussed.
Enabling Detailed Action Recognition Evaluation Through Video Dataset Augmentation

It is well-known in the video understanding community that human action recogni-1 tion models suffer from background bias, over-relying on scene cues in making 2 their prediction. However, it is difficult to quantify this effect given the existing 3 evaluation frameworks. We introduce the Human-centric Analysis Toolkit (HAT), 4 which enable evaluation of the learned background bias without the need for new 5 manual video annotation. It does so by automatically generating synthetically ma-6 nipulated videos, leveraging the recent advances in image segmentation and video 7 inpainting. Using HAT we perform an extensive analysis of 74 action recognition 8 models trained on the Kinetics dataset. We confirm that all these models focus 9 more on the scene background than on the human motion; further, we demonstrate 10 that certain model design decisions (such as training with fewer frames per video 11 or using dense as opposed to uniform temporal sampling) appear to worsen the 12 background bias. We open-source HAT to enable the community to leverage its 13 metrics to design more robust and generalizable human action recognition models. 1 14
Physical and Microbiological Characteristics of Pickled Eggs from Japanese Quail (Coturnix coturnix japonica) of the Pharaoh Variety

2 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . 3 LIST OF TABLES . 5 LIST OF FIGURES . 6 CHAPTER ONE . 7 INTRODUCTION . 7 CHAPTER TWO . 11 REVIEW OF LITERATURE . 11 QUAIL. 11 EGGS . 13 PATHOGENS ASSOCIATED WITH EGGS . 20 REGULATION OF ACIDIFIED FOOD . 25 PICKLING PROCESS . 27 PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS . 30 REFERENCES . 32 CHAPTER THREE . 45 PHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF HARD-COOKED PICKLED QUAIL . 45 ABSTRACT . 45. 45 INTRODUCTION . 45 MATERIALS AND METHODS . 48 STATISTICAL ANALYSES . 51
COLDIAG2: Stata module to evaluate collinearity in linear regression

coldiag2 is an implementation of the regression collinearity diagnostic procedures found in Belsley, Kuh, and Welsch (1980). These procedures examine the "conditioning" of the matrix of independent variables. This routine is an extension of Joseph Harkness' coldiag (q.v.)
Collisional modelling of the AU Microscopii debris disc

The spatially resolved AU Mic debris disc is among the most famous and best-studied debris discs. We aim at a comprehensive understanding of the dust production and the dynamics of the disc objects with in depth collisional modelling including stellar radiative and corpuscular forces. Our models are compared to a suite of observational data for thermal and scattered light emission, ranging from the ALMA radial surface brightness profile at 1.3mm to polarisation measurements in the visible. Most of the data can be reproduced with a planetesimal belt having an outer edge at around 40au and subsequent inward transport of dust by stellar winds. A low dynamical excitation of the planetesimals with eccentricities up to 0.03 is preferred. The radial width of the planetesimal belt cannot be constrained tightly. Belts that are 5au and 17au wide, as well as a broad 44au-wide belt are consistent with observations. All models show surface density profiles increasing with distance from the star as inferred from observations. The best model is achieved by assuming a stellar mass loss rate that exceeds the solar one by a factor of 50. While the SED and the shape of the ALMA profile are well reproduced, the models deviate from the scattered light data more strongly. The observations show a bluer disc colour and a lower degree of polarisation for projected distances <40au than predicted by the models. The problem may be mitigated by irregularly-shaped dust grains which have scattering properties different from the Mie spheres used. From tests with a handful of selected dust materials, we derive a preference for mixtures of silicate, carbon, and ice of moderate porosity. We address the origin of the unresolved central excess emission detected by ALMA and show that it cannot stem from an additional inner belt alone. Instead, it should derive, at least partly, from the chromosphere of the central star.
A Cross-document Coreference Dataset for Longitudinal Tracking across Radiology Reports

This paper proposes a new cross-document coreference resolution (CDCR) dataset for identifying co-referring radiological findings and medical devices across a patient’s radiology reports. Our annotated corpus contains 5872 mentions (findings and devices) spanning 638 MIMIC-III radiology reports across 60 patients, covering multiple imaging modalities and anatomies. There are a total of 2292 mention chains. We describe the annotation process in detail, highlighting the complexities involved in creating a sizable and realistic dataset for radiology CDCR. We apply two baseline methods–string matching and transformer language models (BERT)–to identify cross-report coreferences. Our results indicate the requirement of further model development targeting better understanding of domain language and context to address this challenging and unexplored task. This dataset can serve as a resource to develop more advanced natural language processing CDCR methods in the future. This is one of the first attempts focusing on CDCR in the clinical domain and holds potential in benefiting physicians and clinical research through long-term tracking of radiology findings.
A quantum computing scheme for the Hamiltonian path problem

A quantum computing scheme that uses a single photon and multiple-slit gratings is suggested for the Hamiltonian path problem on a simple graph G of N vertices. The photon is input to an N-slit grating followed by an N x N matrix of `processing units'. A unit consists of a delay line followed by a grating with k slits (0 < k < N) whose outputs are directed to k units in the next row in a manner determined by the adjacency matrix of G. There is a one-to-one mapping between paths of length N-1 in the graph and physical paths through the matrix. The photon's path is a superposition of all these physical paths. The time taken by the photon along a physical path corresponding to a Hamiltonian path in G is a fixed value equal to the sum of N distinct delays, and is different from the time along any other path. The graph is Hamiltonian if any one of N detectors placed in the output of the N units in row N detects the photon at this fixed time.
Energy Consumption on Android

Energy-efficiency in mobile apps plays an important part in today’s life as all mobile devices are battery powered. This increases the need to develop more sustainable applications to fulfill the customer needs, while increasing battery life. As smartphone processing power is continuously growing, it creates a dangerous moment, where developers could write more energy-inefficiency code, which increases the energy consumption in the background. This paper gives an overview of different energy consumption measurement approaches used in Android OS. They can be divided to direct and indirect measurements with each having its own subcategories. The paper includes examples of frameworks using different approaches including description between fine-and coarse-grained models. Based on empirical study comparison between direct and indirect measuring approaches is conducted. It is found that indirect measuring approaches still largely depend on direct measurements for calibration, which decreases their usability and advantages.
INTERNATIONAL SUSTAINABILITY UNIVERSITY EDUCATION FOR ARCHITECTURE, ENGINEERING AND CONSTRUCTION (AEC) COURSES: A CASE FOR GLOBAL CLASSROOM.

Sustainability university education is targeted at social-environmental local problems to provide contextual solutions that have positive global impacts. As such, it is important for educational experiences of university students to be ascertain to close the gap between knowledge and skills for globalized sustainability education. However, not much has been pursuit in the novelty of globalization of sustainability education, particularly in Nigeria. Yet, The Global Classroom for the globalization of sustainable education provides many opportunities for the global sustainability concerns. These opportunities include; global outlook to sustainable solutions, virtual educational technologies enhancement, established international standards and quality of students, promotes cross-cultural fluency, multiple and diverse partnerships and integration of sustainability practices into university educational experiences. A two sections questionnaire survey was conducted amongst 120 academic staff of Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) professionals in a Nigerian University. The theoretical underpins were validated and the contextual challenges for a Global Classroom perceived includes; lack of constant electricity and internet, differences in time zones, language barriers, lack of virtual learning technology, lack of adequate sustainability knowledge and absent of regulations to support Global Classroom. This study concludes with deduced reflections on the necessary requirements for promoting Global Classroom as its recommendations, one of which is the promotion of institutionalized regulations to support Global Classroom.
Integer Programming Models in AI Planning: Preliminary Experimental Results

As one of the challenges posed in their paper “Ten Challenges in Propositional Reasoning and Search,” Selman et al. (1997) mention the development of Integer Programming (IP) models and methods for propositional reasoning. Even though it is straightforward to formulate a satisfiability problem as an integer programming model, their concern is that the basic technique used to solve integer programs—that is, the linear (LP) relaxation of the problem—does not guide the selection of values in solving the the integer program. As a reason for this, they mention that the LP relaxation of the problem usually sets most values to 12 . Recently, we have begun to investigate the use of IP methods in the planning domain. Even though we are still in the early stages of our research, our preliminary experiments strongly suggest that IP methods do have something to offer for these problems. In particular, it appears that the LP relaxation of the problem does provide guidance in solving the IP. Below we briefly summarize the IP formulations and the results of our experiments.
Conditioned Source Separation by Attentively Aggregating Frequency Transformations With Self-Conditioning

Label-conditioned source separation extracts the target source, specified by an input symbol, from an input mixture track. A recently proposed label-conditioned source separation model called Latent Source Attentive Frequency Transformation (LaSAFT)–Gated Point-Wise Con- volutional Modulation (GPoCM)–Net introduced a block for latent source analysis called LaSAFT. Employing LaSAFT blocks, it established state-of-the-art performance on several tasks of the MUSDB18 benchmark. This paper enhances the LaSAFT block by exploiting a self-conditioning method. Whereas the existing method only cares about the symbolic re- lationships between the target source symbol and latent sources, ignoring audio content, the new approach also considers audio content. The enhanced block computes the attention mask conditioning on the label and the input audio feature map. Here, it is shown that the conditioned U-Net employing the enhanced LaSAFT blocks outperforms the previous model. It is also shown that the present model performs the audio-query–based separation with a slight modification.
A R ULE - BASED S HIELD : A CCUMULATING S AFETY R ULES FROM C ATASTROPHIC A CTION E FFECTS

Deploying autonomous agents in the real-world can lead to risks both to the agents and to the humans with whom they interact. As a result, it is essential for agents to try to achieve their objectives while acting as safely as possible. Thus, learning agents ought to learn not only about the effectiveness of actions, but also about their safety. While action effectiveness is task-dependent, information regarding the safety of actions can be preserved even if the task and/or the objective of the agent changes. The focus of this work is to leverage information from unsafe situations that the agent has experienced in order to obtain safety rules that identify which action from which state can lead to unsafe outcomes. These rules can be used for shielding the agent from repeating the same mistakes, as well as other mistakes that lead to the same catastrophic outcomes. In essence, before each action is selected for execution by the policy, actions which violate one of the safety rules from the current state are masked away and will not be selected. The cumulative set of safety rules can be used even when the agent faces multiple tasks, and can also be shared between different agents, so that mistakes that were made by one agent are not repeated by any of the agents that share the same rule-based shield. The process of learning a rule-based shield online is studied on a multi-task autonomous driving problem. Finally, the application of a rule-based shield to the Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO) algorithm is empirically evaluated and compared with the original PPO, with variants of PPO which use other online-learned shields, and with other baselines from the safe reinforcement learning literature. The results show that safety rules can significantly reduce the number of unsafe outcomes that agents experience, while even improving the cumulative rewards obtained by the agents.