Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
On Generality and Knowledge Transferability in Cross-Domain Duplicate Question Detection for Heterogeneous Community Question Answering

Duplicate question detection is an ongoing challenge in community question answering because semantically equivalent questions can have significantly different words and structures. In addition, the identification of duplicate questions can reduce the resources required for retrieval, when the same questions are not repeated. This study compares the performance of deep neural networks and gradient tree boosting, and explores the possibility of domain adaptation with transfer learning to improve the under-performing target domains for the text-pair duplicates classification task, using three heterogeneous datasets: general-purpose Quora, technical Ask Ubuntu, and academic English Stack Exchange. Ultimately, our study exposes the alternative hypothesis that the meaning of a "duplicate" is not inherently general-purpose, but rather is dependent on the domain of learning, hence reducing the chance of transfer learning through adapting to the domain.
The Relationship between the Coworker Feedback Seeking with Coworker Feedback Environment

Background There is a poorly understood about the impact of coworkers’ feedback seeking, including feedback inquiry and monitoring on coworker feedback environment. Method This study departs from the perspective of prior research on the feedback environment by combining follower-centered theory and expectations states theory. This paper presents one empirical longitudinal study of one sample of 276 China’s employees. Result Across to the three waves of study, the results show that feedback monitoring, feedback inquiry were all positively related to the coworker environment of feedback after the control of demographics’ effects. Conclusion This research expands our understanding on feedback loop by bridging the gap from coworker feedback seeking to coworker feedback environment. Moreover, this research also adds to our understanding of coworker feedback environment by suggesting that seeking a lot feedback in a team can improve feedback environment.
Integration of Health Information Systems

Health information system is generally recognized as a tool to significantly address health service delivery problems. This fact is evident from ongoing reform efforts in most developing countries which among many other things, seek to revamp health information systems by ensuring availability of key information to support decision making processes. However, ensuring a working health information system is quite a challenge due to proliferation of of donor funded fragmented disease and service focused vertical systems. This book presents an in-depth theoretically underpinned empirical analysis of the challenges to integrate fragmented health information systems within a health care system of a low income country. Specifically, the book explores the challenges in the processes of achieving integration; and challenges and opportunities emanating from the way users received and related to the newly integrated health information system. Strategies used to curb the challenges are also explored. The study showed that user participation does not always lead to compliance due to the power that users have to apply agency and enact different ways to respond to the new technology.
Unanimity overruled: Majority voting and the burden of history

Sequential majority voting over interconnected binary decisions can lead to the overruling of unanimous consensus. We characterize, within the general framework of judgement aggregation, when this happens for some sequence of decisions. The large class of aggregation spaces for which this vulnerability is present includes the aggregation of preference orderings over at least four alternatives, the aggregation of equivalence relations over at least four objects, resource allocation problems, and most committee selection problems. We also ask whether it is possible to design respect for unanimity by choosing appropriate decision sequences (independently from the ballot). Remarkably, while this is not possible in general, it can be accomplished in some interesting special cases. Generalizing and sharpening a classic result by Shepsle and Weingast, we show that respect for unanimity can indeed be thus guaranteed in the cases of the aggregation of weak preference orderings, linear preference orderings, and equivalence relations. By contrast, impossibility results can be obtained for the aggregation of acyclic relations and separable preference orderings. As a key technical tool, we introduce the notion of a covering fragment that serves as a counterpart and generalization of the notions of covering relation/uncovered set in voting theory.
A new Size Biased Distribution with applications in Engineering and Medical Science

Lot of work has been done in this field. Gove (2003) reviewed some of the more recent results on size-biased distributions pertaining to parameter estimation in forestry. Warren (1975) was the first to apply the size biased distributions in connection with sampling wood cells. More recently; these distributions were used to recover the distribution of canopy heights from airborne laser scanner measurements. Das and Roy (2011) discussed the length-biased Weighted Generalized Rayleigh distribution with its properties. Patil and Ord (1976) introduced the concept of size-biased sampling and weighted distributions by identifying some of the situations where the underlying models retain their form. Ayesha, (2017) discussed the Size Biased Lindley Distribution as a new life time distribution and discussed its various statistical properties. Shankar (2017) discussed a Size-Biased Poisson-Shanker Distribution and its applications to handle various count data sets. Recently, Shanker & Shukla (2018) discussed a generalized size-biased Poisson-Lindley distribution and Its Applications to model size distribution of freely-forming small group.
Moving Toward Improved Acquisition Outcomes: The Interrelationships Between Culture, Commitment, and Leadership

Abstract : The impact of organizational culture, management leadership style, and employee commitment on organizational outcomes has long been studied, but no clear answer exists for which concepts most affect acquisition outcomes and increase organizational productivity. A key contribution of this study is the notion that they are interrelated and may work synergistically in improving acquisition outcomes. The author claims that the interaction of these elements, when combined, may produce a total effect that is greater than the sum of their individual elements. A conceptual model was identified and used as the foundation for building hypotheses. Structural Equation Modeling was used to analyze the data gathered, and a path diagram was developed for this study using Analysis of Moment Structures (AMOS).
Euclidean Invariant Recognition of 2D Shapes Using Histograms of Magnitudes of Local Fourier-Mellin Descriptors

Because the magnitude of inner products with its basis functions are invariant to rotation and scale change, the Fourier-Mellin transform has long been used as a component in Euclidean invariant 2D shape recognition systems. Yet Fourier-Mellin transform magnitudes are only invariant to rotation and scale changes about a known center point, and full Euclidean invariant shape recognition is not possible except when this center point can be consistently and accurately identified. In this paper, we describe a system where a Fourier-Mellin transform is computed at every point in the image. The spatial support of the Fourier-Mellin basis functions is made local by multiplying them with a polynomial envelope. Significantly, the magnitudes of convolutions with these complex filters at isolated points are not (by themselves) used as features for Euclidean invariant shape recognition because reliable discrimination would require filters with spatial support large enough to fully encompass the shapes. Instead, we rely on the fact that normalized histograms of magnitudes are fully Euclidean invariant. We demonstrate a system based on the VLAD machine learning method that performs Euclidean invariant recognition of 2D shapes and requires an order of magnitude less training data than comparable methods based on convolutional neural networks.
Technical Note: Comparing and ranking soil drought indices performance over Europe, through remote-sensing of vegetation

Abstract. In the past years there have been many attempts to produce and improve global soil-moisture datasets and drought indices. However, comparing and validating these various datasets is not straightforward. Here, interannual variations in drought indices are compared to interannual changes in vegetation, as captured by NDVI. By comparing the correlations of the different indices with NDVI we evaluated which drought index describes most realistically the actual changes in vegetation. Strong correlation between NDVI and the drought indices were found in areas that are classified as warm temperate climate with hot or warm dry summers. In these areas we ranked the PDSI, PSDI-SC, SPI3, and NSM indices, based on the interannual correlation with NDVI, and found that NSM outperformed the rest. Using this best performing index, and the ICA (Independent Component Analysis) technique, we analyzed the response of vegetation to temperature and soil-moisture stresses over Europe.
Productivity, Growth, and Internationalisation: The Case of German and British High Techs

International engagement is often expected to improve firm performance. Especially for small technology-oriented firms, export activities may be important, being regarded as one way to amortise these firms' high product research and development costs. This paper examines the relationship between international business activities and firm performance using a sample of about 200 young high-tech firms in Germany and the UK that were contacted by two surveys in 1997 and 2003. I find out that the performance enhancing effects of internationalisation that were still observed in 1997 are in fact restricted to an early stage of the firms' life cycles and disappear when technology-oriented firms become mature. The results are in line with many other studies: Firms exhibiting superior performance are or will become exporters.
Alcohol problem drinking among general hospital inpatients : Proportions and subtypes in a northeastern area of Germany

Objective: To estimate proportions of alcohol problem drinking: alcohol use disorders (AUDs) and drinking above recommended levels among general hospital inpatients in northeastern Germany. Method: The sample includes consecutively admitted inpatients (n=14,332) between 18 and 64 years old. This study adopted a two-stagesampling approach including screening and ascertainment of diagnosis based on DSM-IV criteria and a quantity-frequency index. Results: In total, 20.4% of all inpatients screened positive. Nine percent of the total sample were identified with current problem drinking in the following descending order: 5.3% AUD and 3.6% drinking above recommended levels. In addition, 3.1% of persons were diagnosed with alcohol dependence in remission. Proportions differed significantly among men and women (Pb.001). Higher proportions of problem drinking were found at rural sites compared to urban sites (13.7% vs. 7.5%, Pb.001). Conclusions: In addition to AUDs, drinking above recommended levels is a common problem among general hospital inpatients. Thus, the implementation of systematic alcohol screening and brief interventions should be considered. © 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Upper Paleolithic Occupation Levels and Late-Occurring Neandertal at Vindija Cave (Croatia) in the Context of Central Europe and the Balkans

This paper presents the results obtained by analysis of Upper Paleolithic occupation levels in Vindija Cave, northwestern Croatia. Typological analyses of stone and bone tools have been carried out. Vindija provides direct evidence on the transition from the Middle Paleolithic to the Upper Paleolithic, as well as on fossil hominids (probably Neanderthals) associated with a 33,000-year-old Upper Paleolithic (Aurignacian) industry. The Upper Paleolithic of this site starts with the Aurignacian and continues with the Gravettian industry, which is divided into several phases (Gravettian, Late Gravettian, and final Gravettian/Epigravettian). The topmost levels pertain to the Holocene. These industries at Vindija display both some similarities to, but also some differences from, concurrent industries found in Central European sites. There are notable differences between the Upper Paleolithic at Vindija and Paleolithic sites in the Adriatic-Mediterranean region.
Developing Autonomy for Unmanned Surface Vehicles by Using Virtual Environments

Abstract : We address the problem of automated synthesis of an action selection policy for an unmanned vehicle operating in an environment with a deceptive adversary. We introduce a new synthesis approach using which an initial version of the policy is automatically generated and then gradually refined by detecting and fixing its shortcomings. Our focus is specifically on automated synthesis of a policy used for blocking the advancement of an intruder boat toward a valuable target. The USV must generate specific maneuvers for blocking. The intruder is human competitive and exhibits a deceptive behavior so that the USV cannot exploit regularity in its attacking behavior. We compared the performance of a hand coded USVs blocking policy to the performance of a policy that was automatically synthesized. Our results show that the performance of the automatically generated USVs policy exceed the performance of the hand coded policy and thus demonstrates the feasibility of the proposed approach.
Evaluation of Chlorhexidine Bathing Practices in Trauma/ Surgical Intensive Care Units

The complexity of the healthcare system is increasing, and the moral duty to provide quality patient care is threatened by the sky rocketing cost of healthcare. A major concern for both patients and the hospital’s economic bottom line are hospital-acquired infections (HAIs), including central line associated blood stream infections (CLABSIs). These often serious infections result in significantly increased patient morbidity, mortality, length of stay, and use of health care resources. Historically, most infection prevention and control measures have focused on aseptic technique of health care providers and in managing the environment. Emerging evidence for the role of host decontamination in preventing HAIs is shifting the paradigm and paving a new path for novel infection prevention interventions. Chlorhexidine gluconate has a long-standing track record of being a safe and effective product with broad antiseptic activity, and little evidence of emerging resistance. As the attention is directed toward control and prevention of HAIs, chlorhexidine-containing products may prove to be a vital tool in infection control. Increasing rates of multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs), including methicillinresistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), Acinetobacter baumanniic and vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus (VRE) demand that evidence-based research drive all interventions to prevent transmission of these organisms and the development of HAIs. This review of literature examines current evidence related to daily chlorhexidine gluconate bathing and its impact on CLABSI rates in the adult critically ill patient population.
3 D FEATURE POINT EXTRACTION FROM LIDAR DATA USING A NEURAL NETWORK

Accurate positioning of vehicles plays an important role in autonomous driving. In our previous research on landmark-based positioning, poles were extracted both from reference data and online sensor data, which were then matched to improve the positioning accuracy of the vehicles. However, there are environments which contain only a limited number of poles. 3D feature points are one of the proper alternatives to be used as landmarks. They can be assumed to be present in the environment, independent of certain object classes. To match the LiDAR data online to another LiDAR derived reference dataset, the extraction of 3D feature points is an essential step. In this paper, we address the problem of 3D feature point extraction from LiDAR datasets. Instead of hand-crafting a 3D feature point extractor, we propose to train it using a neural network. In this approach, a set of candidates for the 3D feature points is firstly detected by the Shi-Tomasi corner detector on the range images of the LiDAR point cloud. Using a back propagation algorithm for the training, the artificial neural network is capable of predicting feature points from these corner candidates. The training considers not only the shape of each corner candidate on 2D range images, but also their 3D features such as the curvature value and surface normal value in z axis, which are calculated directly based on the LiDAR point cloud. Subsequently the extracted feature points on the 2D range images are retrieved in the 3D scene. The 3D feature points extracted by this approach are generally distinctive in the 3D space. Our test shows that the proposed method is capable of providing a sufficient number of repeatable 3D feature points for the matching task. The feature points extracted by this approach have great potential to be used as landmarks for a better localization of vehicles. * Corresponding author
Analysis of polysaccharide and proteinaceous macromolecules in beer using asymmetrical flow field-flow fractionation

This paper demonstrates the potential of asymmetrical flow field flow fractionation coupled with online multi-angle light scattering, differential refractive index and UV detection for the fractionation and analysis of macromolecules in beer regarding their composition, molar mass (M) and relative concentration. The macromolecules in the liquid and foam of two types of beer, light lager and porter, were analysed in their native state with minimal sample preparation. The results showed the presence of three major populations of macromolecules. In lager beer liquid, the early eluting population has an average M of 2x10(4)g/mol and an intense UV absorbance at 280nm suggesting the presence of proteinaceous macromolecules. The second and the third populations, which elute at consecutively longer retention times, have M ranging from 10(5) to 10(7)g/mol. They are not UV-active at 280nm, suggesting the elution of polysaccharides. The second population was identified as -glucans as a result of -glucanase treatment. The third population was not identified in the present study. The results show that similar populations are present in lager beer foam and that the macromolecules appear to be present in a more aggregated state. The M range of macromolecules in porter beer liquid ranged from 10(5) to 10(8)g/mol. A fraction of macromolecules eluting at longer retention times is highly UV-active, which shows that there are great variations in the macromolecular profile of lager and porter beer. Copyright (c) 2015 The Institute of Brewing & Distilling (Less)
Flexion measurement in simulations of Hubble Space Telescope data.

We present a simulation analysis of weak gravitational lensing flexion and shear measurement using shapelet decomposition, and identify differences between flexion and shear measurement noise in deep survey data. Taking models of galaxies from the Hubble Space Telescope Ultra Deep Field (HUDF) and applying a correction for the HUDF point spread function, we generate lensed simulations of deep, optical imaging data from Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys, with realistic galaxy morphologies. We find that flexion and shear estimates differ in our measurement pipeline: whereas intrinsic galaxy shape is typically the dominant contribution to noise in shear estimates, pixel noise due to finite photon counts and detector read noise is a major contributor to uncertainty in flexion estimates, across a broad range of galaxy signal-to-noise. This pixel noise also increases more rapidly as galaxy signal-to-noise decreases than is found for shear estimates. We provide simple power-law fitting functions for this behaviour, for both flexion and shear, allowing the effect to be properly accounted for in future forecasts for flexion measurement. Using the simulations, we also quantify the systematic biases of our shapelet flexion and shear measurement pipeline for deep Hubble data sets such as Galaxy Evolution from Morphology and SEDs, Space Telescope A901/902 Galaxy Evolution Survey or Cosmic Evolution Survey. Flexion measurement biases are found to be significant but consistent with previous studies.
Erica the Rhino: a case study in using Raspberry Pi Single Board Computers for interactive art

Erica the Rhino is an interactive art exhibit created by the University of Southampton, UK. Erica was created as part of a city wide art trail in 2013 called “Go! Rhinos”, curated by Marwell Wildlife, to raise awareness of Rhino conservation. Erica arrived as a white fibreglass shell which was then painted and equipped with five Raspberry Pi Single Board Computers (SBC). These computers allowed the audience to interact with Erica through a range of sensors and actuators. In particular, the audience could feed and stroke her to prompt reactions, as well as send her Tweets to change her behaviour. Pi SBCs were chosen because of their ready availability and their educational pedigree. During the deployment, ‘coding clubs’ were run in the shopping centre where Erica was located, and these allowed children to experiment with and program the same components used in Erica. The experience gained through numerous deployments around the country has enabled Erica to be upgraded to increase reliability and ease of maintenance, whilst the release of the Pi 2 has allowed her responsiveness to be improved.
The Molecular Mechanism of Cholesterol Control of Late Endosomal Transport by Dynein Motors

of and dynein The RILP to late for microtubular minus-end transport this is the to the changes in direction is unclear. The Rab7-RILP complex interacts with the oxysterol-binding protein ORP1L. Here we show that the late endosomal cholesterol content determines the conformational state of ORP1L, acting as a switch to control dynein-dynactin motor complex binding to its Rab7-RILP receptor, thereby regulating the direction of transport. The cytosolic state of the cholesterol-sensing OSBP-related domain (ORD) of ORP1L exposes a FFAT motif to recruit the integral membrane protein VAP. VAP then binds to and removes the dynein-dynactin motor subunit p150 Glued from Rab7-RILP. The FFAT motif is not exposed when the ORD is membrane-associated allowing dynein motor binding and transport. This regulatory mechanism is disrupted in Niemann-Pick type C disease causing the characteristic clustering of cholesterol-laden late endosomes. Thus, cholesterol acts as a molecular switch, controlling the transport of late endosomes and lysosome-related organelles.