Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Efficient MPI‐AllReduce for large‐scale deep learning on GPU‐clusters

Training models on large‐scale GPUs‐accelerated clusters are becoming a commonplace due to the increase in complexity and size in deep learning models. One of the main challenges for distributed training is the collective communication overhead for large message sizes: up to hundreds of MB. In this paper, we propose two hierarchical distributed memory multileader AllReduce algorithms optimized for GPU‐accelerated clusters (named lr_lr and lr_rab), in which GPUs inside a computing node perform an intra‐node communication phase to gather and store results of local reduced values to designated GPUs (known as node leaders). Node leaders then keep a role as an inter‐node communicator. Each leader exchanges one part of reduced values to the leaders of the other nodes in parallel. Hence, we are capable of significantly reducing the time for injecting data into the inter‐node network. We also overlap the inter‐node and intra‐node communication by implementing our proposal in a pipelined manner. We evaluate those algorithms on the discrete‐event simulation Simgrid. We show that our algorithms, lr_lr and lr_rab, can cut down the execution time of an AllReduce microbenchmark that uses the logical ring algorithm (lr) by up to 45% and 51%, respectively. With the pipelined implementation, our lr_lr_pipe achieves 15% performance improvement when compared with lr_lr. In addition, the simulation result also projects power savings for the network devices of up to 23% and 32%.
Abstract 112: Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest: Differences in the Quality of Care Provided by Emergency Medical Services with Advanced Versus Basic Life Support Capabilities---a Nationwide Study

Background: Early and effective prehospital cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) combined with revascularization and induced hypothermia in selected cases is a prerequisite for optimal outcome in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA). Objective: To examine the quality of prehospital CPR and in-hospital treatment of OHCA stratified according to the attending EMS (Emergency Medical Service) unit’s capabilities for Advanced (ALS) or Basic Life Support (BLS). Design: Follow-up study. Setting: Nationwide (Denmark). Study period: January 1st to December 31st 2009. Patients: Non-traumatic OHCA patients over the age of 18. Measurements: Transthoracic impedance measurements were utilized to assess quality of CPR. No Flow Fraction (NFF) (the fraction of time during resuscitation where the patient is without circulation, spontaneous or artificial); Return of Spontaneous Circulation (ROSC); Cerebral Performance Category (CPC) at hospital discharge and 30-day and 1 year survival. Results: 2762 patients were included of whom 77% were treated by ALS-capable units. In patients treated by ALS- and BLS-capable units, respectively, the NFF was 0.44 vs. 0.60 (P<0.001), the ROSC-rate was 27 vs. 19 % (adjusted odds ratio (OR) 2.01; 95 % confidence interval (CI) 1.55-2.62), survival at 30-days and 1-year was 10 vs. 7 % (adjusted OR 1.50; 95 % CI 1.01-2.23) and 8 vs. 5 % (adjusted OR 1.35; 95 % CI 0.90-2.05), CPC-score 1-2 (good) at hospital discharge was seen in 46 vs. 38 % (adjusted OR 1.45; 95 % CI 0.96-2.20). Conclusions: OHCA patients treated by ALS-capable units had a lower NFF and higher short-term survival compared to patients treated by BLS-capable units.
Endocrine disrupting chemicals: Effects on mammary gland development and female genital malformations

There is growing concern of permanent damage to the endocrine and nervous systems after developmental exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals. In this study the permanent reproductive and neurobehavioral effects of combined exposure to five endocrine disrupting pesticides, epoxiconazole, mancozeb, prochloraz, tebuconazole and procymidone, were examined. Pregnant and lactating rat dams were dosed with a mixture of the five pesticides at three different doses, or with the individual pesticides at one of two doses. Adverse effects were observed in young and adult male offspring from the group exposed to the highest dose of the mixture. These included reduced prostate and epididymis weights, increased testes weights, altered prostate histopathology, increased density of mammary glands, reduced sperm counts, and decreased spatial learning. As no significant effects were seen following single compound exposure at the doses included in the highest mixture dose, these results indicate cumulative adverse effects of the pesticide mixture. © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. ehavior strous strus teroid hormones perm count hyroidea ntiandrogen
Digital story grammar: a quantitative methodology for narrative analysis

ABSTRACT Digital story grammar (DSG) is a methodology that combines narrative theory and computerised text analysis. The methodology offers new ways of identifying patterns in narrative identity work and examining how these patterns relate to social structures such as gender and social class. DSG works through an algorithm that identifies narrative units consisting of subjects, verbs and objects. To demonstrate the potential of the methodology, we apply it to interviews with young people from the Timescapes Qualitative Longitudinal Data Archive and address four research questions: Who are in the young people’s stories (characters)? What are their narratives about (domains of experiences)? When do they taking place (temporality)? How are the narratives told (sense of agency)? Among other findings, we observed that young people with middle-class backgrounds convey a stronger sense of agency than their working-class peers, and we show how this correlates with the ways in which they navigate school-to-work trajectories.
Comparative study for Robotic Airship State estimation with LPF, EKF and UKF

: This work presents a comparative study between three approaches of pose and velocity estimation for an robotic airship. The ﬁrst approach is composed of multiples second order Low-pass ﬁlters applied to GPS and IMU measured data. The second approach consists of the sensor fusion between GPS, IMU, Barometer and Thermometer with an Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) based in the kinematic equations of motion for a six degrees of freedom (6-DOF) vehicle. Finally, the same 6-DOF equations of motion and sensors are used for the design of an Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF) as a third estimation approach. As result, we obtain greater precision with EKF with a minor advantage over the UKF.
Quantitative Analysis of Effects of a Single 60Co Gamma Ray Point Exposure on Time-Dependent Change in Locomotor Activity in Rats

Fatigue is one of the earliest nonspecific symptoms of radiation exposure in humans, but its etiology, mechanism, and dose dependency remain unexplained. Investigating initial behavioral changes caused by irradiation of animals might provide important information to aid understanding of early health effects of radiation exposure and clinical features of radiation injury. Although previous studies in rodents suggested that radiation exposure leads to reduced activity, detailed properties of the effects were unrevealed due to a lack of proper statistical analysis, which is needed to better elucidate details of changes in locomotor activity. Ten-week-old male Wistar rats were subjected to single point external whole-body irradiation with 60Co gamma rays at 0, 2.0, 3.5, and 5.0 Gy (4 rats per group). Infrared sensors were used to continuously record locomotor activity of each rat. Cumulative number of movements during the night was defined as “activity” for each day. A non-linear mixed effects model accounting for individual differences and daily fluctuation of activity was applied to analyze the rats’ longitudinal locomotor data. Despite a small number of animals per group, our statistical method successfully revealed characteristics of the changes in locomotor activity after radiation exposure, showing that 1) reduction in activity occurred immediately—and in a dose-dependent manner—after irradiation and 2) recovery to pre-irradiation levels required almost one week, with the same recovery rate in each dose group. In addition to improving our understanding of radiation effects on locomotor activity, this statistical framework should be useful to analyze other data with similar structure.
Addition of insoluble fiber to isolation media allows for increased metabolite diversity of lab-cultivable microbes derived from zebrafish gut samples

There is a gap in measured microbial diversity when comparing genomic sequencing techniques versus cultivation from environmental samples in a laboratory setting. Standardized methods in artificial environments may not recapitulate the environmental conditions that native microbes require for optimal growth. For example, the intestinal tract houses microbes at various pH values as well as minimal oxygen and light environments. These microbes are also exposed to an atypical source of carbon: dietary fiber compacted in fecal matter. To investigate how the addition of insoluble fiber to isolation media could affect the cultivation of microbes from zebrafish intestines, an isolate library was built and analyzed using the bioinformatics pipeline IDBac. The addition of fiber led to an increase in bacterial growth and encouraged the growth of species from several phyla. Furthermore, fiber addition altered the metabolism of the cultivated gut-derived microbes and induced the production of unique metabolites that were not produced when microbes were otherwise grown on standard isolation media. Addition of this inexpensive carbon source to media supported the cultivation of a diverse community whose specialized metabolite production may more closely replicate their metabolite production in vivo.
Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy in Acute Neurology

Abstract Therapy of neurological patients comprises, beyond medical treatment, the treatment of functional deficits which result from a neurological disease such as stroke. Physiotherapy aims at enabling bedridden neurological patients to become mobile again using training of movement and coordination. In cooperation with occupational therapists, patients are trained to become able to perform activities of daily living again. In addition, multimodal activating/assisting exercises are mandatory to counteract the deficit-related development of joint contractures. The rationale for these exercises are neurophysiological findings about postlesional cerebral plasticity. Moreover, parametric scales have been developed to assess neurological disturbances and to monitor their resolution in an observer-independent fashion. This allows communication across institutions and to assess the efficacy of physiotherapy and occupational therapy.
Studies of immigrant crime in Denmark

ABSTRACT Do the results of research on the relationship between crime and immigration status differ depending on the type of data examined? This question is posed and answered affirmatively in a paper based on a systematic review of ten Danish studies published between 2008 and 2017. The current review is motivated by the seemingly widespread perception that immigrants/descendants are at greater risk for committing crime than others even after adjusting for systematic differences between these groups. Using five criteria of relevance, a systematic search resulted in the identification of ten pertinent studies. The ten studies are reviewed in the current paper and form the basis of the conclusion that research results differ markedly depending on the type of data examined. This implies that public perceptions about crime and immigration status may rest on shaky ground. Five potential explanations are suggested to explain the inconsistencies found in the studies reviewed. Finally, five recommendations for future research are suggested in order move research forward.
Evaluating the Speed and Accuracy of Touch Input at the Edge of a Table

Tables, desks, and counters are often nearby, motivating their use as interactive surfaces. However, they are typically cluttered with objects. As an alternative, we explore touch input along the ‘edge’ of table-like surfaces. The performance of tapping, crossing, and dragging is tested along the two ridges and front face of a table edge. Results show top ridge movement time is comparable to the top face when tapping or dragging with the index finger. When crossing, both ridges are at least 11% faster than the top face. Effective width analysis is used to model performance and provide recommended target sizes. Based on observed user behaviour, we explore top and bottom ridge crossing using a “braced” thumb and provide design recommendations with example applications.
Colon Cancer Detection Methods – A Review

Aim: Colon is one of the major constituent of the large intestine; occurrence of cancer in it is one of the Conclusions: Further, the majority of the procedures have been assessed on comparative data set to give a reasonable performance correlation. Ultimately this review can helpful for the researches to proceed their research in the field of colon cancer detection.
STEM starts early: Views and beliefs of early childhood education stakeholders in Tanzania

For about a decade, Tanzania has intensely focused on developing literacy and numeracy skills in pre-primary and early grades programs. Recently, the attention has shifted towards the significance of teaching Science, Mathematics, Technology and Science (STEM) in the early years. To enhance the 21st century skills necessary for building a middle income and knowledge-based economies, the existing empirical evidence emphasizes the need for STEM education starting from pre-primary level. This paper aims to unpack the state of the STEM education in pre-primary education in Tanzania. By using homogenous purposive sampling, two policy-makers, three ECE academics, eight school principals, and eight pre-primary teachers from rural and urban public schools were recruited. Data were collected by interviews, semi-structured survey questionnaires, and documentary analyses. Though there was consensus among ECE stakeholders that children should be exposed to STEM environments as early as possible, findings indicated that even among ECE practitioners, there is a very vague understanding of what entails of STEM education in ECE. Further, while teachers were aware and guided to facilitate science and mathematics education, they were not aware and there were no specific policy briefs/circular instructions on how to facilitate Technology and Engineering education in ECE. The paper concludes with suggestions on how to integrate STEM in early childhood education, especially for Tanzania.
Transiently Raised IOP Equivalent To That Experienced During Ocular Surgery Causes Moderate Inflammation But Does Not Affect Retinal Function Or Result in Retinal Ganglion Cell Loss in An Animal Model

Purpose: High intraocular pressure (IOP) is known to result in retinal ganglion cell (RGC) loss, both with chronically raised intraocular pressure (such as with glaucoma) and with acute raises in pressure (due to injury or acute angle closure). Because IOP is often raised during ocular surgery, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of transient moderate IOP on retinal function, RGC survival and the expression of Connexin 43 (Cx43) and glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), ubiquitously expressed central nervous system (CNS) proteins that are known to be elevated during the retinal inflammatory response to injury. Materials and Methods: Wistar rats were exposed to transient IOP at 40 mmHg for 5 or 30 minutes, and 60 mmHg for 5 minutes (via cannulation of the anterior chamber with a saline reservoir raised to a height corresponding to the desired IOP), mimicking potential IOP rises during surgery such as DSAEK and some laser procedures (LASIK and femtosecond laser cataract surgery). Separate groups of animals had IOP maintained at 10 mmHg for 5 or 30 minutes as cannulation controls, or 120 mmHg for 60 minutes as positive controls. Changes in the optic nerve and retina were assessed immunohistochemically for GFAP and Cx43 expression. Retinal function was assessed using electroretinography (ERG) recorded at baseline and 14 days after the IOP rise and compared with RGC counts. Results: Results showed that there was a differential GFAP labelling pattern observed in the anterior optic nerve in the 40 mmHg 30 minute and 60 mmHg 5 minute groups 4 hours after manipulation. Gap junction protein Cx43 was minimally up-regulated in the retina in the short-term. There was, however, minimal long-term effect on retinal function and no RGC loss. Conclusions: In conclusion, elevations of IOP that are short in duration such as those occurring during surgical procedures, do not cause significant changes long-term in retinal function or RGC survival. Key Messages: Cx43 and GFAP are known to be elevated during the retinal inflammatory response to injury. No previous study has explored the effect of moderate and relatively short increases in IOP on the initial inflammatory response. We observed a mild glial inflammatory response in the anterior optic nerve, but only a minimal upregulation of Cx43. However, transient and moderate IOP rises did not induce long term disruption to RGC function or number as measured by electrophysiology and RGC counts, respectively. This is applicable to clinical practice, as it means the IOP elevations that occur during some surgical procedures are unlikely to be causing long term damage in retinal function or RGC survival. DOI : 10.14302/issn.2470-0436.jos-17-1453 Corresponding author: Helen V. Danesh-Meyer, Department of Ophthalmology, Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, University of Auckland, Private bag 92019, Auckland 1142, New Zealand Email: helendm@gmail.com Phone: (64) 212291840, Fax: (64) 9 3677173
A Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning-Based Data-Driven Method for Home Energy Management

This paper proposes a novel framework for home energy management (HEM) based on reinforcement learning in achieving efficient home-based demand response (DR). The concerned hour-ahead energy consumption scheduling problem is duly formulated as a finite Markov decision process (FMDP) with discrete time steps. To tackle this problem, a data-driven method based on neural network (NN) and ${Q}$ -learning algorithm is developed, which achieves superior performance on cost-effective schedules for HEM system. Specifically, real data of electricity price and solar photovoltaic (PV) generation are timely processed for uncertainty prediction by extreme learning machine (ELM) in the rolling time windows. The scheduling decisions of the household appliances and electric vehicles (EVs) can be subsequently obtained through the newly developed framework, of which the objective is dual, i.e., to minimize the electricity bill as well as the DR induced dissatisfaction. Simulations are performed on a residential house level with multiple home appliances, an EV and several PV panels. The test results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed data-driven based HEM framework.
Political Disagreement and Uncertainty: Examining the Interplay of Political Talk and News Use in Online and Offline Environments

Contrary to popular arguments about “echo chambers” and “filter bubbles,” evidence shows that social media tend to promote exposure to political disagreement. But if this disagreement has little to no effect on individuals’ attitudes and opinions, the democratic benefits of this increased exposure could be limited. This study empirically investigates whether exposure to political disagreement in social media versus face-to-face settings has differential effects on individuals’ uncertainty about their political opinions and beliefs. In doing so, the paper accounts for the interplay in news use and political discussion in these two settings. The results show (a) differences in the relationship between political disagreement and uncertainty in social media and face-to-face settings and (b) considerable overlap in discussion and reflection processes between these two settings. Results are discussed in light of ongoing conversations about the democratic benefits of political disagreement.
Examining the how of Plural Policing: Moving from Normative Debate to Empirical Enquiry

The networked and plural nature of policing suggests that agencies are often involved in extensive exchanges of expertise, resources and knowledge. However, the network structure and distribution of power between various policing actors can vary considerably. This highlights the importance of developing sound analytical perspectives that can help unpack the complexities behind the linkages. Applying the network perspective, this article underlines the value of utilizing analytical tools and approaches drawn from social network analysis, such as brokerage and homophily, to empirically assess the roles of agencies and their contribution to plural policing. This, in turn, shows how, in the mixed economy of policing, as well as being understood in terms of the normative debates that often figure in the current literature, relational phenomena also require more sophisticated empirical approaches.
DeSIRe: Deep Signer-Invariant Representations for Sign Language Recognition

As a key technology to help bridging the gap between deaf and hearing people, sign language recognition (SLR) has become one of the most active research topics in the human–computer interaction field. Although several SLR methodologies have been proposed, the development of a real-world SLR system is still a very challenging task. One of the main challenges is related to the large intersigner variability that exists in the manual signing process of sign languages. To address this problem, we propose a novel end-to-end deep neural network that explicitly models highly discriminative signer-independent latent representations from the input data. The key idea of our model is to learn a distribution over latent representations, conditionally independent of signer identity. Accordingly, the learned latent representations will preserve as much information as possible about the signs, and discard signer-specific traits that are irrelevant for recognition. By imposing such regularization in the representation space, the result is a truly signer-independent model which is robust to different and new test signers. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed model in several SLR databases.
Methods to Determine Characteristics of AOD-Converter Decarburization-Slags

Argon Oxygen Decarburization (AOD) converter slags are known to consist of both liquid and solid phases, but limited information on the slag characteristics has been published in the open literature. Therefore, a new methodology to study the characteristics of slag samples taken from the AOD converter process during production was developed based on petrography. The results show that the preparations of the slag samples using the borax method are suitable to use when determining the chemical composition of AOD slag samples using the X-ray fluorescence (XRF) method. The results also showed that both the light optical microscopy (LOM) method and a method combining scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) can be used to characterize the slag samples and that the correlation between the methods was found to be good. This means that it is possible to use the faster LOM method instead of the more complicated SEM-EDS method to characterize AOD slag samples. Finally, the results show that the difference between calculated values based on stoichiometry and measured data for Ca and Cr in AOD slags are 11.7 mass% and 11.3 mass%, respectively. This is considered to be a good agreement for industrial samples.