Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Towards Optimal Attribute Weight Setting for 1-Nearest Neighbor Learning Algorithms

Nearest neighbor learning algorithms, an example of the lazy learning paradigm, rely on a distance function to measure the similarity of testing examples with the stored training examples. Since certain attributes are more discriminative, while others can be less or totally irrelevant, attributes should be weighed diierently in the distance function. Most previous studies on weight setting for NN learning algorithms are empirical. In this paper we describe our attempt on deciding theoretically optimal weights that minimize the predictive error for NN algorithms. Assuming a uniform distribution of examples in a 2-d continuous space, we rst derive the average predictive error introduced by a linear classiication boundary, and then determine the optimal weight setting for any polygonal classiication region. Our theoretical results of optimal attribute weights can be served as a baseline or lower bound for comparing other empirical weight setting methods.
Serpentinization-Influenced Groundwater Harbors Extremely Low Diversity Microbial Communities Adapted to High pH

Serpentinization is a widespread geochemical process associated with aqueous alteration of ultramafic rocks that produces abundant reductants (H2 and CH4) for life to exploit, but also potentially challenging conditions, including high pH, limited availability of terminal electron acceptors, and low concentrations of inorganic carbon. As a consequence, past studies of serpentinites have reported low cellular abundances and limited microbial diversity. Establishment of the Coast Range Ophiolite Microbial Observatory (California, U.S.A.) allowed a comparison of microbial communities and physicochemical parameters directly within serpentinization-influenced subsurface aquifers. Samples collected from seven wells were subjected to a range of analyses, including solute and gas chemistry, microbial diversity by 16S rRNA gene sequencing, and metabolic potential by shotgun metagenomics, in an attempt to elucidate what factors drive microbial activities in serpentinite habitats. This study describes the first comprehensive interdisciplinary analysis of microbial communities in hyperalkaline groundwater directly accessed by boreholes into serpentinite rocks. Several environmental factors, including pH, methane, and carbon monoxide, were strongly associated with the predominant subsurface microbial communities. A single operational taxonomic unit (OTU) of Betaproteobacteria and a few OTUs of Clostridia were the almost exclusive inhabitants of fluids exhibiting the most serpentinized character. Metagenomes from these extreme samples contained abundant sequences encoding proteins associated with hydrogen metabolism, carbon monoxide oxidation, carbon fixation, and acetogenesis. Metabolic pathways encoded by Clostridia and Betaproteobacteria, in particular, are likely to play important roles in the ecosystems of serpentinizing groundwater. These data provide a basis for further biogeochemical studies of key processes in serpentinite subsurface environments.
Development and validation of a time-motion judo combat model based on the Markovian Processes

The aim of the study was to develop a technical-tactical model of judo combat. Thus, 2.316 combats performed by men ranked as the world’s best and qualified for the 2012 Olympics Games were collected in 2011 and 2012, and 769 performances were used and 53.403 combat situations were analyzed. In order to develop the model of combat situations and the combinations between phases, as well as their respective components, the statistical analysis used the multi-state Markov Model. Moreover, the objectivity of the analysis was observed with comparisons and, the intra and inter-agreement was verified by means of the Cohen Kappa coefficient. Results showed no differences among analysts and referent to the actions in each phase of combat, the correlations analyses showed a “Almost perfect” classification for 87% of all variables analyzed. Regarding Markovian process analysis of the combat phases, results show the main tactical systems of attacks, where attack to the front follows attack to the right in the most part of the time and the highest likelihood to occur a projection is after attack to the front and to the right orientations. This information can help analysts and coaches to improve tactical and physiological athlete’s performance.
Effects of estradiol with oral or intravaginal progesterone on risk markers for breast cancer in a postmenopausal monkey model

Objective:To evaluate the effects of oral estradiol given with either oral or intravaginal micronized progesterone (P4) on risk biomarkers for breast cancer in a postmenopausal monkey model. Design:This experiment was a two-way crossover study in which 20 ovariectomized adult female cynomolgus macaques were treated (in equivalent doses for women) with oral estradiol (1 mg/d) + oral micronized P4 (200 mg/d) or intravaginal P4 delivered by Silastic rings (6- to 10-mg/d release rate). Hormone treatments lasted 2 months and were separated by a 1-month washout period. The primary outcome measure was breast epithelial proliferation. Results:Serum P4 concentrations were significantly greater in subjects receiving oral P4 (10.9 ng/mL) compared with intravaginal P4 (3.8 ng/mL) at 2 to 3 hours after oral dosing (P < 0.0001) but not at 24 to 28 hours after oral dosing (2.9 ng/mL for oral P4 vs 3.2 ng/mL for intravaginal P4 at 2 months, P = 0.19). Serum estradiol concentrations were significantly lower after oral P4 than after intravaginal P4 (P < 0.05 for all time points). Oral P4 resulted in significantly decreased body weight (−2.5%) compared with intravaginal P4 (+3.6%) (P = 0.0001). Markers of breast proliferation, sex steroid receptor expression, and endometrial area did not differ significantly between oral P4 and intravaginal P4 treatments (P > 0.1 for all). Conclusions:Despite different pharmacodynamic profiles, oral and intravaginal P4 had similar effects on biomarkers in the postmenopausal breast.
Challenges and Design Considerations for Integrated VCOs in Wireless Communications

This paper attempts to list challenges and possible solutions for designing integrated voltage controlled oscillators (VCOs) in wireless products. Such challenges include oscillation frequency, frequency coverage, linearity of tuning curves, phase noise, power consumption, oscillation amplitude variations, sensitivity to process, supply voltage, and temperature variations (PVT), coupling to and from other blocks, start up time, and area. Some design considerations for voltage regulators are also discussed since the noise performance of such regulators can influence the overall design significantly. VCOs in CMOS processes are mainly considered here. An example of taking advantage of modern CMOS processes with active devices with different threshold voltages is also presented.
The Economic Transmission of Fiscal Policy Shocks from Western to Eastern Europe

This paper studies the transmission of a foreign fiscal policy shock (assumed to be generated in Germany) to key macroeconomic variables in five Central and Eastern European economies (CEE-5). We use quarterly data from 1995 to 2009 and estimate an open economy structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) model identified by imposing reasonable restrictions on contemporaneous responses in the system. Our model is able to identify well-known episodes of fiscal policy action in the countries under review. We find that a foreign fiscal shock affects domestic fiscal variables and vice versa, highlighting the importance of cross-country coordination of fiscal policies within the EU. All the CEE-5 respond to a fiscal expansion abroad with fiscal easing at home (more strongly on the public spending than on the revenue side). We find negative cross-border fiscal spillovers for Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, while in Poland and Hungary, output reacts positively to a fiscal expansion in Germany. For domestic fiscal shocks, which we also explore, we find Keynesian responses in Hungary and Slovakia, while non-Keynesian responses are present in the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovenia. Our results imply that one-size-fits-all policy recommendations would be too simplistic for the CEE-5; a deeper understanding of the reasons for cross-country differences in response to fiscal shocks is required to be able to provide adequate information to policymakers in these countries. Keywords: fiscal policy, cross-border spillovers, fiscal multiplier, foreign shock, structural vector autoregression, Central and Eastern Europe, Germany JEL classification: C54, E62, H2, H5, P2
Optimizing generics is easy!

Datatype-generic programming increases program reliability by reducing code duplication and enhancing reusability and modularity. Several generic programming libraries for Haskell have been developed in the past few years. These libraries have been compared in detail with respect to expressiveness, extensibility, typing issues, etc., but performance comparisons have been brief, limited, and preliminary. It is widely believed that generic programs run slower than hand-written code. In this paper we present an extensive benchmark suite for generic functions and analyze the potential for automatic code optimization at compilation time. Our benchmark confirms that generic programs, when compiled with the standard optimization flags of the Glasgow Haskell Compiler (GHC), are substantially slower than their hand-written counterparts. However, we also find that more advanced optimization capabilities of GHC can be used to further optimize generic functions, sometimes achieving the same efficiency as hand-written code.
Improved asthma control with budesonide/formoterol in a single inhaler, compared with budesonide alone.

Budesonide/formoterol in a single inhaler was compared with budesonide alone, and with concurrent administration of budesonide and formoterol from separate inhalers, in patients with asthma, not controlled with inhaled glucocorticosteroids alone. In this 12-week, double-blind, randomized, double-dummy study, 362 adult asthmatics (forced expiratory volume in one second 73.8% of predicted, inhaled glucocorticosteroid dose 960 microg x day(-1)) received single inhaler budesonide/formoterol (Symbicort Turbuhaler) 160/4.5 microg, two inhalations b.i. d. , or corresponding treatment with budesonide, or budesonide plus formoterol via separate inhalers. There was a greater increase in morning peak expiratory flow (PEF) with single-inhaler (35.7 L x min(-1)) and separate-inhaler (32.0 L x min(-1)) budesonide and formoterol, compared with budesonide alone (0.2 L x min(-1); p<0.001, both comparisons); the effect was apparent after 1 day (p<0.001 versus budesonide, both comparisons). Similarly, evening PEF, use of rescue medication, total asthma symptom scores and percentage of symptom-free days improved more with both single inhaler and separate inhaler therapy than with budesonide alone, as did asthma control days (approximately 15% more, p<0.001 versus budesonide, both comparisons, with a marked increase in the first week). All treatments were well tolerated and the adverse event profile was similar in all three treatment groups. It is concluded that single inhaler therapy with budesonide and formoterol is a clinically effective and well-tolerated treatment for patients with asthma that is not fully controlled by inhaled glucocorticosteroids alone.
Resource Abstraction for Reinforcement Learning in Multiagent Congestion Problems

Real-world congestion problems (e.g. traffic congestion) are typically very complex and large-scale. Multiagent reinforcement learning (MARL) is a promising candidate for dealing with this emerging complexity by providing an autonomous and distributed solution to these problems. However, there are three limiting factors that affect the deployability of MARL approaches to congestion problems. These are learning time, scalability and decentralised coordination i.e. no communication between the learning agents. In this paper we introduce Resource Abstraction, an approach that addresses these challenges by allocating the available resources into abstract groups. This abstraction creates new reward functions that provide a more informative signal to the learning agents and aid the coordination amongst them. Experimental work is conducted on two benchmark domains from the literature, an abstract congestion problem and a realistic traffic congestion problem. The current state-of-the-art for solving multiagent congestion problems is a form of reward shaping called difference rewards. We show that the system using Resource Abstraction significantly improves the learning speed and scalability, and achieves the highest possible or near-highest joint performance/social welfare for both congestion problems in large-scale scenarios involving up to 1000 reinforcement learning agents.
Avaliação das competências pragmáticas em crianças portuguesas dos 18 aos 47 meses: aferição do Language Use Inventory

Este doutoramento foi financiado pela Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (FCT) no âmbito do POPH/FSE – QREN – Tipologia 4.1 – Formacao Avancada, comparticipado pelo Fundo Social Europeu e por Fundos Nacionais MCTES. (Referencia da bolsa: SFRH/BD/76861/2011)
Kinematics Analysis: The Acute Effect of Different Stretching Methods on Dynamic Range of Motion of Lower Extremity Joints during Soccer Instep Kicking

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of static and dynamic stretching within a pre-exercise warm-up on angular displacement identified as dynamic range of motion (DROM) of hip, knee, and ankle joints during instep kicking in less and more experienced soccer players. The kicking motions of dominant legs were captured from fifteen professional adult male soccer players using 6 infrared cameras at 200 Hz. Lower extremity joints DROM at instep kicking phases after different warm-ups protocols consisting of static, dynamic stretching, and no stretching, captured to analysing. Less experienced players showed significant differences in DROM after the dynamic stretching compared with the static stretching relative to the no stretching method in hip and knee joints. More experienced players showed significant difference in DROM after the dynamic stretching compared with the static stretching relative to the no stretching method in hip, knee, and ankle joints. There was no significant difference in DROM between less and more experienced after the dynamic stretching and also after with the static stretching relative to the no stretching method. We concluded that dynamic stretching during warm-ups, as compared to static stretching, is probably most effective as preparation for the DROM required in soccer.
Animal vocal sequences: not the Markov chains we thought they were

Many animals produce vocal sequences that appear complex. Most researchers assume that these sequences are well characterized as Markov chains (i.e. that the probability of a particular vocal element can be calculated from the history of only a finite number of preceding elements). However, this assumption has never been explicitly tested. Furthermore, it is unclear how language could evolve in a single step from a Markovian origin, as is frequently assumed, as no intermediate forms have been found between animal communication and human language. Here, we assess whether animal taxa produce vocal sequences that are better described by Markov chains, or by non-Markovian dynamics such as the ‘renewal process’ (RP), characterized by a strong tendency to repeat elements. We examined vocal sequences of seven taxa: Bengalese finches Lonchura striata domestica, Carolina chickadees Poecile carolinensis, free-tailed bats Tadarida brasiliensis, rock hyraxes Procavia capensis, pilot whales Globicephala macrorhynchus, killer whales Orcinus orca and orangutans Pongo spp. The vocal systems of most of these species are more consistent with a non-Markovian RP than with the Markovian models traditionally assumed. Our data suggest that non-Markovian vocal sequences may be more common than Markov sequences, which must be taken into account when evaluating alternative hypotheses for the evolution of signalling complexity, and perhaps human language origins.
A Word Sense Disambiguation Technique for Sinhala

Word sense disambiguation is the task of identifying the implied sense of a polysemous word in a given context. There have been many efforts on word sense disambiguation for English, but the amount of efforts for Sinhala is very little. This paper presents ongoing efforts on developing a rule based word sense disambiguation algorithm using the Sinhala WordNet developed at University of Moratuwa as a basis. This is the first attempt on building such an algorithm for Sinhala. For this task we have implemented the Simplified Lesk algorithm with our own modifications under the two assumptions 'one sense per collocation' and 'one sense per discourse'. We define a window size around the target polysemous word and calculate the number of words in that window that overlap with each sense of the target polysemous word. Since there has not been many significant initiatives on natural language processing applications for Sinhala, critical resources such as functioning morphological analysis tools are not available, making accurate word sense disambiguation an even harder task. Using web articles as the data source, this system has attempted to disambiguate 10 instances of polysemous words and has been evaluated to achieve a precision of 63% and an F score 0.63.
Dependable security: testing network intrusion detection systems

The Network security systems have unique testing requirements. Like other systems, they need to be tested to ensure that they perform as expected, and to specify the conditions under which they might fail. However, un-like other systems, the data required to perform such testing is not easily or publicly available. In this paper we present the requirements for appropriate network traces for testing such systems, along with the challenges of creating public network traces. We make recommendations for tackling these challenges and suggest approaches to developing a public suite of network traces for use by the security community.
A differentiated service mechanism considering SLA for heterogeneous cluster Web systems

As the Web is becoming more widely used as the preferred method for critical information exchange, it is necessary to provide differentiated service mechanisms not only at the network level but also at the Web server level. In this paper, we study performance isolation and admission control concepts of heterogeneous cluster-based Web systems and study the availability of primary-backup Web switches. Due to the types of requests of clients, the SLA (service level agreement) between the clients and the service provider is considered
Randomness efficient identity testing of multivariate polynomials

We present a randomized polynomial time algorithm to determine if a multivariate polynomial is zero using <italic>O(\log mnδ)</italic> random bits where <italic>n</italic> is the number of variables, <italic>m</italic> is the number of monomials, and <italic>δ</italic> is the total degree of the unknown polynomial. All other known randomized identity tests (see for example [7, 12, 1]) use <italic>ω(n)</italic> random bits even when the polynomial is sparse and has low total degree. In such cases our algorithm has an exponential savings in randomness. In addition, we obtain the first polynomial time algorithm for interpolating sparse polynomials over finite fields of large characteristic. Our approach uses an error correcting code combined with the randomness optimal isolation lemma of [8] and yields a generalized isolation lemma which works with respect to a set of linear forms over a base set.
Principles of motor learning in ecological dynamics : a comment on functions of learning and the acquisition of motor skills (with reference to sport)

This paper provides a commentary on the contribution by Dr Chow who questioned whether the functions of learning are general across all categories of tasks or whether there are some task-particular aspects to the functions of learning in relation to task type. Specifically, they queried whether principles and practice for the acquisition of sport skills are different than what they are for musical, industrial, military and human factors skills. In this commentary we argue that ecological dynamics contains general principles of motor learning that can be instantiated in specific performance contexts to underpin learning design. In this proposal, we highlight the importance of conducting skill acquisition research in sport, rather than relying on empirical outcomes of research from a variety of different performance contexts. Here we discuss how task constraints of different performance contexts (sport, industry, military, music) provide different specific information sources that individuals use to couple their actions when performing and acquiring skills. We conclude by suggesting that his relationship between performance task constraints and learning processes might help explain the traditional emphasis on performance curves and performance outcomes to infer motor learning.
A Bibliometric Review of Sociocybernetics

Sociocybernetics is an emerging field of research, innovation and development whose proposed goal is the construction of knowledge on social systems from the systems science and cybernetics perspectives. Sociocybernetics assumes that social systems belong to the superclass of complex systems and promotes the computational modeling and simulation approach to support decision-making processes when dealing with social systems problems. In the present work, the results and analysis of a bibliometric review on sociocybernetics is reported. The main conclusion of the present work is the fact that at the present, sociocybernetics is at its initial stage of development but widely extended both geographically and across scientific disciplines which justifies efforts directed towards a sustained work in its development and its consolidation.
Using a GIS for Real Estate Market Analysis: The Problem of Spatially Aggregated Data

Many databases used for real estate market analysis are not available at the address level. For example, information on employment and unemployment may be available only for labor market areas; and Census data is typically tabulated for blocks or higher levels of spatial aggregation. A Geographic Information System (GIS) associates these spatially aggregated data with the geographical center of the area. This poses special problems when we use a GIS to evaluate linkages between supply and demand. This article presents some solutions to this problem; methods that are relatively easy to implement on a GIS are emphasized. A GIS can be used to calculate a theoretical average travel distance to the population in the geographical area. We propose ways to determine when these theoretical distances are inadequate approximations; and we provide alternatives for these situations.