Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Green functions and dimensional reduction of quantum fields on product manifolds

We discuss Euclidean Green functions on product manifolds . We show that if is compact and is not compact then the Euclidean field on can be approximated by its zero mode which is a Euclidean field on . We estimate the remainder of this approximation. We show that for large distances on the remainder is small. If , where Sβ is a circle of radius β, then the result reduces to the well-known approximation of the D-dimensional finite temperature quantum field theory by (D − 1)-dimensional one in the high-temperature limit. Analytic continuation of Euclidean fields is discussed briefly.
A satisfiability approach to speed assignment for distributed real-time systems

We study the problem of assigning speeds to resources serving distributed applications with delay, buffer and energy constraints. We argue that the considered problem does not have any straightforward solution due to the intricately related constraints. As a solution, we propose using Real-Time Calculus (RTC) to analyse the constraints and a SATisfiability solver to efficiently explore the design space. To this end, we develop an SMT solver by using the OpenSMT framework and the Modular Performance Analysis (MPA) toolbox. Two key enablers for this implementation are the analysis of incomplete models and generation of conflict clauses in RTC. The results on problem instances with very large decision spaces indicate that the proposed SMT solver performs very well in practice.
Value of intraoperative threshold stimulus in predicting postoperative facial nerve function after acoustic tumor resection.

OBJECTIVE The objective of this study was to determine the predictive value of intraoperative threshold stimulus and postoperative facial nerve outcome in acoustic neuroma surgery. This is a retrospective case review of 116 consecutive procedures to remove acoustic neuromas using either a retrosigmoid or translabyrinthine approach. STUDY DESIGN Retrospective study. SETTINGS The Tertiary Referral Center at The California Ear Institute in Palo Alto, California. PATIENTS These were consecutive presenting patients with acoustic neuroma in the senior author's practice. Patients were not categorized into age, sex, race, or other demographic features. INTERVENTION All patients had acoustic neuromas detected via magnetic resonance imaging, and they underwent surgery at the hands of the same neurootologic team, Drs. Nissen and Welsh. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE The electrophysiological monitoring reports of 81 cases of acoustic tumors. Measures in which intraoperative facial nerve monitoring was performed provided the data for this article. RESULTS The patients were categorized by postoperative facial nerve function evaluated a minimum of 6 months after surgical removal. Group I was composed of those patients with facial nerve grades of I or II. The median threshold stimulus voltage required to produce measurable facial nerve activity at the root entry zone (REZ) immediately after tumor removal in this group was 0.100 V. Patients in group II had postoperative facial nerve grades of III to VI. Median threshold stimulus in this group was 0.7250 V. The difference in median threshold stimulus voltage at the REZ after tumor removal between these two groups was found to be statistically significant in using the nonparametric Mann-Whitney U test. CONCLUSIONS The results of this study strongly support the continued use of intraoperative facial monitoring as a predictor of postoperative facial nerve outcome after acoustic tumor surgery.
Parsing Effects in Second Language Sentence Processing

This paper reexamines claims that second language learners are more accurate at judging long-distance object extraction than subject extraction and that the difference in accuracy is due to processing factors rather than differences in underlying competence. Although previous studies have reported robust effects for the subject/object asymmetry, the global nature of the response measures leaves open the question of whether the subject gap is in fact the locus of difficulty for second language learners. Using many of the same stimuli sentences from original research in combination with a theory of principle-based parsing, this study employs the moving window display technique to collect on-line measures of processing long-distance wh-extraction. Twenty-five advanced Chinese-speaking ESL learners provided grammaticality judgments in two presentation conditions: full-sentence, where judgment reaction times are measured from sentence onset to the learner's judgment; and word-by-word reading, where word-by-word latencies are collected in addition to judgments. The accuracy and reaction time results from the full-sentence condition replicated previous findings. The word-by-word results confirm that it is the subject gap that is the source of difficulty for the learners. Claims in the literature that principles of Universal Grammar are not available to adult learners are not supported by these results, which show that parsing, and not grammatical competence, is the source of difficulty on performance with subject extraction sentences.
Cognitive and emotional changes in written essays and therapy interviews.

The purpose of this study was to examine the cathartic and therapeutic effects of written essays and therapy interviews about traumatic events over four successive days as compared with a control writing about trivial events. The subjects were 102 male and female college students. A content analysis showed that both treatment groups expressed more positive and negative emotion than the control as well as showed more cognitive, self-esteem, and behavior changes. Positive emotion, cognitive changes, and self-esteem changes increased over days while negative emotion decreased. Pain and upset about the topic decreased over days for both treatment groups. A post-experimental questionnaire showed that both treatment groups felt more positive about their topics and themselves. On the other hand, there were dramatic differences in pre- to post-session mood with written expression consistently increasing negative mood and decreasing positive mood.
An Evolutionary Life History Framework for Psychopathology

In this article, I outline a general framework for the evolutionary analysis of mental disorders based on the concepts of life history theory. I synthesize and extend a large body of work showing that individual differences in life history strategy set the stage for the development of psychopathology. My analysis centers on the novel distinction between fast spectrum and slow spectrum disorders. I describe four main causal pathways from life history strategies to psychopathology, argue that psychopathology can arise at both ends of the fast–slow continuum of life history variation, and provide heuristic criteria for classifying disorders as fast or slow spectrum pathologies. I then apply the fast–slow distinction to a diverse sample of common mental disorders: externalizing disorders, schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorders, eating disorders, and depression. The framework integrates previously disconnected models of psychopathology within a common frame of reference and has far-reaching implications for the classification of mental disorders.
What the Research Says About Limiting or Avoiding Referrals to Special Education

The authors reviewed the research and practices related to systems that limit or avoid the referral of students for special education services. The major theme is that as mainstream education broadens its ability to tolerate individual differences, fewer students will need to be referred for services delivered outside the system. The review examines curricular and ecological adaptations of general education systems to ensure effective adaptation for special education students, teacher development strategies and administration strategies such as case management and consulting-teacher systems, and early intervention programs. The article concludes with recommended new directions for research, training, and policy.
Latino and White High School Students' Perceptions of Caring Behaviors

This study examines Latino and White high school students' perceptions of teacher behaviors that convey caring. Major findings of students' perceptions generated five dominant themes: (a) provide scaffolding during a teaching episode, (b) reflect a kind disposition through actions, (c) are always available to the student, (d) show a personal interest in the student's well-being inside and outside the classroom, (e) and provide affective academic support in the classroom setting. I highlight similarities and uniqueness between the two ethnic groups, generating new information that teachers can use to examine their own practice to determine the extent of culturally responsive caring.
Extended Keyframe Detection with Stable Tracking for Multiple 3D Object Tracking

We present a method that is able to track several 3D objects simultaneously, robustly, and accurately in real time. While many applications need to consider more than one object in practice, the existing methods for single object tracking do not scale well with the number of objects, and a proper way to deal with several objects is required. Our method combines object detection and tracking: frame-to-frame tracking is less computationally demanding but is prone to fail, while detection is more robust but slower. We show how to combine them to take the advantages of the two approaches and demonstrate our method on several real sequences.
Analyzing the key factors affecting the green supply chain management: A case study of steel industry

Article history: Received April 1, 2011 Received in Revised form May, 15, 2011 Accepted 17 May 2011 Available online 19 May 2011 Green supply chain management (GSCM) has emerged as a proactive approach for improving environmental performance of processes and products in accordance with the requirements of environmental regulations. The aim of this paper is to determine and model the drivers of GSCM to put environmental activities into practice. Thirty-four measurement items are developed on the basis of opinions from industrial experts and the literature and the necessary data are collected. To validate the measurement scales for GSCM, we perform a factor analysis. The results show that a six-factor measurement model (including internal environmental management, green purchasing, cleaner production, recovery, eco-design and pollution) fits the data acceptably. All of the measurement items significantly loaded on the constructs on which they were hypothesized to load. These results gave us confidence that the measures are indeed valid and reliable. © 2011 Growing Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Energy Cost Minimization for Distributed Internet Data Centers in Smart Microgrids Considering Power Outages

In this paper, we investigate the problem of minimizing energy cost for distributed Internet data centers (IDCs) in smart microgrids while taking system dynamics into consideration. Specifically, IDC operators expect to minimize the long-term energy cost with the uncertainties in electricity price, workload, renewable energy generation, and power outage state. At first, we formulate the problem as a stochastic program that captures service request distribution, server provisioning, energy storage management, generator scheduling, power transactions between smart microgrids, and main grids. Second, we use the Lyapunov optimization technique to design an operation algorithm, which enables an explicit tradeoff between energy cost saving and battery investment cost. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is evaluated with practical data.
Polynomial approximations and convergence rate of Mamdani fuzzzy controllers

The analytical expression of a fuzzy controller has been studied when the output fuzzy membership functions are equally spaced and triangular or trapezoidal. The cases, when a fuzzy set of the output is extreme - with respect to the universe of discourse - or not extreme have been considered. When considering extreme sets, the controller can be approximated with a good precision by a second-degree polynomial and, in the contrary, by a first-degree polynomial. The modelling of the output by a second-degree multivariable polynomial has been shown to affect strongly the convergence rate, which is enlightened by an example for which the closed-loop stability is not exponential.
Automatic Detection of Laryngeal Pathologies in Records of Sustained Vowels by Means of Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficient Parameters and Differentiation of Patients by Sex

Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCC) have traditionally been used in speaker identification applications. Their use has been extended to speech quality assessment for clinical applications during the last few years. While the significance of such parameters for such an application may not seem clear at first thought, previous research has demonstrated their robustness and statistical significance and, at the same time, their close relationship with glottal noise measurements. This paper includes a review of this parameterization scheme and it analyzes its performance for voice analysis when patients are differentiated by sex. While it is of common use for establishing normative values for traditional voice descriptors (e.g. pitch, jitter, formants), differentiation by sex had not been tested yet for cepstral analysis of voice with clinical purposes. This paper shows that the automatic detection of laryngeal pathology on voice records based on MFCC can significantly improve its performance by means of this prior differentiation by sex.
Reverse engineering and analysis of large genome-scale gene networks

Reverse engineering the whole-genome networks of complex multicellular organisms continues to remain a challenge. While simpler models easily scale to large number of genes and gene expression datasets, more accurate models are compute intensive limiting their scale of applicability. To enable fast and accurate reconstruction of large networks, we developed Tool for Inferring Network of Genes (TINGe), a parallel mutual information (MI)-based program. The novel features of our approach include: (i) B-spline-based formulation for linear-time computation of MI, (ii) a novel algorithm for direct permutation testing and (iii) development of parallel algorithms to reduce run-time and facilitate construction of large networks. We assess the quality of our method by comparison with ARACNe (Algorithm for the Reconstruction of Accurate Cellular Networks) and GeneNet and demonstrate its unique capability by reverse engineering the whole-genome network of Arabidopsis thaliana from 3137 Affymetrix ATH1 GeneChips in just 9 min on a 1024-core cluster. We further report on the development of a new software Gene Network Analyzer (GeNA) for extracting context-specific subnetworks from a given set of seed genes. Using TINGe and GeNA, we performed analysis of 241 Arabidopsis AraCyc 8.0 pathways, and the results are made available through the web.
Replication-Based Fault-Tolerance for Large-Scale Graph Processing

The increasing algorithm complexity and dataset sizes necessitate the use of networked machines for many graph-parallel algorithms, which also makes fault tolerance a must due to the increasing scale of machines. Unfortunately, existing large-scale graph-parallel systems usually adopt a distributed checkpoint mechanism for fault tolerance, which incurs not only notable performance overhead but also lengthy recovery time. This paper observes that the vertex replicas created for distributed graph computation can be naturally extended for fast in-memory recovery of graph states. This paper proposes Imitator, a new fault tolerance mechanism, that supports cheaply maintenance of vertex states by replicating vertex states to their replicas during normal message exchanges, and provides fast in-memory reconstruction of failed vertices from replicas in other machines. Imitator has been implemented by extending Hama, a popular open-source clone of Pregel. Evaluation shows that Imitator incurs negligible performance overhead (less than 5% for all cases) and can recover from failures of more than one million of vertices with less than 3.4 seconds.
Tracing of two‐neuron pathways in the olfactory system by the aid of transneuronal degeneration: Projections to the amygdaloid body and hippocampal formation

Following an olfactory bulb lesion in guinea pig (2 to 3 days), neuronal degeneration occurs in several olfactory‐bulb‐related areas, primarily in the piriform cortex. The degenerating neurons, which are argyrophilic, are also found in the posterolateral cortical amygdaloid nucleus and the ventrolateral entorhinal cortex. It is suggested that the neurons degenerate because of a transneuronal effect due to a sudden loss of afferent input from the the olfactory bulb, although a retrograde effect acting in concert with transneuronal factors cannot be excluded.
Microbicide Efficacy and Toxicity Tests in a Mouse Model for Vaginal Transmission of Chlamydia trachomatis

Background Microbicides are being developed for woman-controlled protection against sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Goal The goal of the study was to test candidate microbicides in a mouse model for preventing vaginal transmission of Chlamydia trachomatis and for acute toxicity to columnar epithelium. Study Design Progestin-sensitized CF-1 mice were treated vaginally with 50 &mgr;l of microbicide, followed either by vaginal inoculation with 10 ID50 of C trachomatis serovar D or by examination of the epithelial surface for acute toxicity with a viability stain (ethidium homodimer-1). Results Nonoxynol-9 (N9), sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS), chlorhexidine digluconate, and BufferGel all provided significant though incomplete protection against vaginal transmission. Other candidates, all of which were effective in vitro, provided no vaginal protection: &kgr;-carrageenan, dextran sulfate, polystyrene sulfonate, Concanavalin A, wheat germ agglutinin, and Phaseolus vulgaris agglutinin. The surface-active agents (N9, SDS, and chlorhexidine) caused significant acute epithelial toxicity: 3 days after chlorhexidine exposure, mice also had vaginal friability and markedly increased susceptibility to Chlamydia. BufferGel was the only candidate tested that was both protective and relatively nontoxic. Conclusion Microbicides can provide vaginal protection against Chlamydia in highly susceptible progestin-sensitized mice. Since N9 does not inactivate Chlamydia, it likely protects by killing target cells in the vagina. Despite the ability to both potently inactivate Chlamydia and kill target cells, two surface-active agents, SDS and chlorhexidine, failed to provide complete protection, a circumstance which emphasizes the importance of distributing microbicides to all susceptible surfaces.
THE BASE COMPOSITION OF NUCLEIC ACIDS IN CHROMOSOMES, PUFFS, NUCLEOLI, AND CYTOPLASM OF CHIRONOMUS SALIVARY GLAND CELLS

The base composition of RNA from individually isolated giant chromosomes, puffed chromosome segments, nucleoli, and samples of cytoplasm from Chironomus salivary gland cells was determined by microelectrophoresis. Data on the adenine: guanine quotient of the chromosomal DNA were also obtained. The results show that: 1) Chromosomal, nucleolar, and cytoplasmic RNA's differ significantly from each other in base composition. 2) Nucleolar and cytoplasmic RNA's, in spite of the difference, show great similarities with regard to the base composition and are both rich in adenine and uracil. 3) The RNA extracted from chromosome I differs significantly from the RNA's extracted from different segments of chromosome IV, and the latter differ significantly from each other. 4) The values for the RNA: DNA quotients of chromosome segments parallel the development of synthetically active genes, so-called Balbiani rings. 5) The chromosomal RNA does not show a base symmetry in any of the investigated cases, nor is the content of guanine + cytosine the same as that for DNA. The first of these two facts excludes the possibility that the chromosomal RNA is a complete copy of both strands of the chromosomal DNA. In spite of the difference in guanine + cytosine content between the two nucleic acids the RNA may still partly or completely be a single strand copy depending upon how representative the DNA values are for the synthetically active DNA.
Differential expression of novH and CTGF in human glioma cell lines

Aims—(1) To investigate the expression in human derived glioblastoma cell lines of two structurally related genes, novH (nephroblastoma overexpressed gene) and CTGF (connective tissue growth factor), which encode putative insulin-like growth factor binding proteins of a novel type. (2) To investigate whether the same transcription factors regulate CTGF and novH expression. Methods—Expression of novH and CTGF was analysed in 24 glioblastoma derived cell lines by northern blotting. The CTGF promoter region was characterised by nucleotide sequencing, RNase protection experiments, by transient transfections, and CAT assays. Results—CTGF and novH mRNA levels differed in the glioma cell lines studied. NovH and CTGF genes were not co-expressed in all cell lines. The CTGF promoter region was highly conserved compared with the corresponding region in the mouse (FISP12) and exhibited in vitro transcriptional activity. Conclusions—Although the coding regions of novH and CTGF are highly homologous, their promoter regions are substantially different, suggesting that these two genes may be regulated by different mechanisms. Considering that novH and CTGF are likely to be, respectively, negative and positive regulators of growth and that some glioma cell lines expressing novH are not tumorigenic, expression of these two genes might represent a key element in determining the stage of differentiation or the malignant potential, or both, of some tumour cell lines.
Hippocampal Memory Formation, Plasticity, and the Role of Sleep

The hippocampus is a structure that has long been associated with memory (Squire & Zola, 1998; Tulving, 1983). Our views on this association have been shaped by three seminal observations. The first was the discovery of anterograde memory loss in the patient H.M. who underwent a surgical procedure that led to the bilateral loss of portions of the medial temporal lobes, including large portions of the hippocampus (Scoville & Milner, 1957). The second important observation involved the characterization of the activity of hippocampal neurons during spatial behavior. Second, by placing microelec-trodes into the hippocampus of a freely behaving rat, O’Keefe discovered that hippocampal neurons would fire in restricted regions of space (O’Keefe & Dostrovsky, 1971). He termed these spatial receptive fields place fields and the cells place cells. Third, during that same period Bliss and Lomo (1973) found that electrical stimulation of the afferent fibers leading into the hippocampus could produce long-lasting enhancement of the efficacy of synaptic transmission or LTP. Together these observations link the hippocampus to the cognitive aspects of memory and identify potential neural mechanisms that might be responsible for the formation and maintenance of memory. The involvement of the hippocampus in the formation of long-term memory has not yet been firmly established, but several lines of evidence suggest that the hippocampus participates in a gradual process, referred to as memory consolidation, in which mnemonic information initially established within the hippocampus gradually becomes incorporated into extrahippocampal sites. As originally noted by O’Keefe, one characteristic of hippocampal spatial activity is that individual cells can show consistent responses within a given environment over long periods of time. Conversely, responses in different environ-ments lead to distinct responses. It is typical to find from 30 to 50%