Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Automatic construction of an evaluation dataset from wisdom of the crowds for information retrieval applications

A benchmark evaluation dataset which reflects users' search behaviors in the real world is indispensable for evaluating the performance of information retrieval applications. A typical evaluation dataset consists of a document set, a topic set and relevance judgments. Manual preparation of an evaluation dataset needs much human cost, and human-made topics may not fully capture users' real search needs. This paper aims at automatically constructing an evaluation dataset from wisdom of the crowds in search query logs for information retrieval applications. We begin with collecting documents of clicked documents in search query logs, selecting suitable queries in terms of topics, sampling documents from the document collection for each query and estimating the multi-level relevance of document samples based on click count, normalized count and average count functions. The machine-made evaluation dataset is trained and tested by three learning to rank algorithms, including linear regression, SVMRank and FRank. We compare their performance on a testing collection MQ2007 of LETOR which is a well-known human-made benchmark dataset for learning to rank. The experimental results show that the performance tendency is similar by using machine-made and human-made evaluation datasets. That demonstrates our proposed models can construct an evaluation dataset with similar quality of human-made.
Phase-field crystal modeling of anisotropic material systems of arbitrary Poisson's ratio

Recently, we derived a generalized model for isotropic as well as anisotropic crystal lattice systems of arbitrary Poisson's ratio within the framework of the continuum phase-field crystal (PFC) approach [R. Prieler, J. Hubert, D. Li, B. Verleye, R. Haberkern, H. Emmerich, J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 21 (2009) p.464110] and showed how its parameters can be derived from classical density functional theory [M.A. Choudhary, D. Li, H. Emmerich and H. Löwen, J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 23 (2011) p.265005]. Here, we present a general procedure to model anisotropic material systems of arbitrary Poisson's ratios. In that way we can for the first time identify PFC solutions of arbitrary Poisson's ratios and thereby extend the applicability of the PFC method to a larger class of material systems.
Evaluation of the culture of safety: survey of clinicians and managers in an academic medical center

Background: Despite the emphasis on patient safety in health care, few organizations have evaluated the extent to which safety is a strategic priority or their culture supports patient safety. In response to the Institute of Medicine’s report and to an organizational commitment to patient safety, we conducted a systematic assessment of safety at the Johns Hopkins Hospital (JHH) and, from this, developed a strategic plan to improve safety. The specific aims of this study were to evaluate the extent to which the culture supports patient safety at JHH and the extent to which safety is a strategic priority. Methods: During July and August 2001 we implemented two surveys in disparate populations to assess patient safety. The Safety Climate Scale (SCS) was administered to a sample of physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and other ICU staff. SCS assesses perceptions of a strong and proactive organizational commitment to patient safety. The second survey instrument, called Strategies for Leadership (SLS), evaluated the extent to which safety was a strategic priority for the organization. This survey was administered to clinical and administrative leaders. Results: We received 395 completed SCS surveys from 82% of the departments and 86% of the nursing units. Staff perceived that supervisors had a greater commitment to safety than senior leaders. Nurses had higher scores than physicians for perceptions of safety. Twenty three completed SLS surveys were received from 77% of the JHH Patient Safety Committee members and 50% of the JHH Management Committee members. Management Committee responses were more positive than Patient Safety Committee, indicating that management perceived safety efforts to be further developed. Strategic planning received the lowest scores from both committees. Conclusions: We believe this is one of the first large scale efforts to measure institutional culture of safety and then design improvements in health care. The survey results suggest that strategic planning of patient safety needs enhancement. Several efforts to improve our culture of safety were initiated based on these results, which should lead to measurable improvements in patient safety.
On the action potential as a propagating density pulse and the role of anesthetics

The Hodgkin-Huxley model of nerve pulse propagation relies on ion currents through specific resistors called ion channels. We discuss a number of classical thermodynamic findings on nerves that are not contained in this classical theory. Particularly striking is the finding of reversible heat changes, thickness and phase changes of the membrane during the action potential. Data on various nerves rather suggest that a reversible density pulse accompanies the action potential of nerves. Here, we attempted to explain these phenomena by propagating solitons that depend on the presence of cooperative phase transitions in the nerve membrane. These transitions are, however, strongly influenced by the presence of anesthetics. Therefore, the thermodynamic theory of nerve pulses suggests a explanation for the famous Meyer-Overton rule that states that the critical anesthetic dose is linearly related to the solubility of the drug in the membranes.
Risk of serious infections and malignancies with anti-TNF antibody therapy in rheumatoid arthritis.

associated with the use of tumor necrosis factor (TNF-) antibody therapies in randomized controlled trials of pa- tients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Because each origi- nal study had few events, answering this question requires pooling the findings of many trials, each of which has lim- ited power to examine adverse event rates. The authors did not include the results of the PREMIER trial because at the time of their meta-analysis it was only in abstract form and the data were apparently unavailable. However, this 2-year trial with 799 participants has subse- quently been published. 2 We used exactly the same meth- ods described by Bongartz et al, adding the adverse events of the PREMIER trial, and found that it decreased the pooled odds ratio (OR) for malignancy from 3.29 (95% confidence interval (CI), 1.19-9.08) to 2.02 (95% CI, 0.95- 4.29) using the Mantel-Haenszel method with continuity correction. It decreased the OR from 4.9 (95% CI, 1.6-22.0) to 2.3 (95% CI, 1.1-5.8) using a Bayesian fixed-effects meta-analytic technique. Inclusion of the PREMIER data decreased the pooled ORs for serious infection by approxi- mately 15%, but they remain significantly greater than 1. Themeta-analysisbyBongartzetaladdressesanissuewith important ramifications for persons with rheumatic diseases receivingthesemedications.Theinclusionofthisrecentlarge, long-term trial involving adalimumab has a substantial im- pact on the pooled estimates with respect to the risk of ma- lignancy. We believe that a more precise estimate of the risk awaits the accumulation of yet more longer-term data.
Inbreeding and population structure in two pairs of cryptic fig wasp species

We used recently developed microsatellites to directly estimate inbreeding levels in two pairs of coexisting cryptic fig wasp species (‘Pegoscapus hoffmeyeri sp. A and sp. B’, ‘P. gemellus sp. A and sp. B’). Previous tests of Hamilton's local mate competition (LMC) theory in fig wasps have used the number of dead foundresses in a fig fruit to indirectly estimate the relative contribution of each to the common brood and thereby the level of local mate competition. Further, the population level of inbreeding has been indirectly estimated using the distribution of foundress numbers across broods. Our direct genetic estimates confirmed previous assumptions that the species characterized by lower foundress numbers showed higher relative levels of inbreeding. However, there were quantitative differences between the observed level of inbreeding and the expectation based on the distribution of foundress numbers in both pollinator species associated with Ficus obtusifolia. Here, genotype compositions of broods revealed that only 23% of fruits with multiple foundresses actually contained brood from more than one foundress, thus explaining at least part of the underestimate of actual sibmating. Within the four wasp species there was no evidence for genetic differentiation among the wasp populations sampled from different trees across 20 km and from different points in time. Further, no genotypic disequilibrium was detected within any of the species. Although F1 hybrids were observed between the two species pollinating F. obtusifolia, there was no evidence of genetic introgression. Finally, we found that 11% of the sons of allospecifically mated mothers were diploid hybrids suggesting a break down of the sex determination system in hybrids.
A rotate-tiling image composition method for parallel volume rendering on distributed memory multicomputers

The binary-swap and the parallel-pipelined methods are two popular image composition methods for volume rendering on distributed memory multicomputers. However, these methods either restrict the number of processors to a power of two or require many steps to transform image data that results in high communication overheads. In this paper, we present an efficient image composition method, the rotate-tiling (RT), for parallel volume rendering on distributed memory multicomputers. The RT method can fully utilize all available processors and minimize the communication overheads. In addition, we provide data compression method, the template run-length encoding (TRLE), to further reduce the communication data size. To evaluate the performance of the RT method, we compare the proposed method with the binary-swap method and the parallel-pipelined method. Both theoretical analysis and experimental test are conducted. In the theoretical analysis, we analyze the best performance bound of the RT method in terms of the startup time, the data transmission time, the number of processors, and the number of initial block of a sub-image. In the experimental test, we have implemented these three methods on an SP2 parallel machine. Three volume datasets are used as test samples. The experimental results show that our method outperforms the binary-swap and the parallel-pipelined methods for all test samples and match the results analyzed in the theoretical analysis. For the TRLE method, the experimental results show that the TRLE method can further reduce the composition time for these three methods.
Nonlinear free vibration of nanowires including size effects

Considering the transverse shear deformation, geometric nonlinearity and the surface effects as well as the non-local effects, the nonlinear free vibration of nanowires is studied in this Letter. On the basis of the Timoshenko beam theory and Hamilton's principle, the nonlinear dynamics equations and corresponding boundary conditions of nanowires are derived. Then, the Galerkin method and the incremental harmonic balance method are adopted to solve the nonlinear equations. In numerical examples, the effects of the transverse shear deformation, geometric nonlinearity, surface effects as well as the non-local effects on the nonlinear amplitude'frequency response of nanowires are discussed.
Reconfigurable Adder Architectures for Low Power Applications

The growing design complexity has attracted the designs with Reconfigurable fabrics, where adaptable fabrics are utilized to solve the computational problems. Reconfigurable computing provides the flexibility in arriving at the problem specific architectures which helps in improving the performance due to custom approach. In this paper, a flexible reconfigurable architecture with different adder variants like Ripple Carry, Carry Look-ahead, Carry Select and Carry Bypass adders are implemented to form dynamically reconfigurable Hybrid adder architectures. Such hybrid architectures are utilized for the applications where design constraints are only for low power or high performance or the low area or sometimes a balanced design metrics. The design was modelled using Verilog HDL and synthesized in Synopsys Design Compiler by mapping to TSMC 65nm technology node. Standard ASIC design methodologies are considered to bench mark the results. The proposed architecture enables the designer to perform efficient Design Space Exploration. The design can be made adaptable to any of the reconfigurable processor and a similar improvement can be obtained. The proposed architectures results in 18-54% reduced power consumption when designed with various combinations of reconfigurable adder architectures and also accounted for 14-44% of area reduction.
Meta-analysis of the effect of postoperative radiotherapy on prognosis of prostatic cancer following radical prostatectomy.

OBJECTIVE A systematic evaluation was carried out over the effectiveness and safety of postoperative radiotherapy following radical prostatectomy. METHOD The randomized controlled trials that were concerned with postoperative radiotherapy for prostatic cancer and published before June 2014 were searched in PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, CBM, CNKI and VIP databases. Two researchers conducted quality evaluation and data extraction independently for all included literature. Rev Man 5.2 software was used for statistical analysis. RESULTS Finally 5 randomized control trials involving 2290 cases were included. Meta-analysis showed that the approaches of radical prostatectomy with or without postoperative radiotherapy did not differ significantly in terms of overall survival (HR=1.09, 95% C1: 0.75-1.60, P=0.65). However, significant difference was found in biochemical progression-free survival (HR=0.54, 95% CI: 0.42-0.69, P < 0.001). CONCLUSION Evidences show that postoperative radiotherapy following radical prostatectomy can increase biochemical progression-free survival but not overall survival.
A Graph Theoretic Approach for Training Overhead Reduction in FDD Massive MIMO Systems

The overheads associated with feedback-based channel acquisition can greatly compromise the achievable rates of FDD based massive MIMO systems. Indeed, downlink (DL) training and uplink (UL) feedback overheads scale linearly with the number of base station (BS) antennas, in sharp contrast to TDD-based massive MIMO, where a single UL pilot trains the whole BS array. In this work, we propose a graph-theoretic approach to reducing DL training and UL feedback overheads in FDD massive MIMO systems. In particular, we consider a single-cell scenario involving a single BS with a massive antenna array serving to single-antenna mobile stations (MSs) in the DL. We assume the BS employs two-stage beamforming in the DL, comprising DFT pre-beamforming followed by MU-MIMO precoding. The proposed graph-theoretic approach exploits knowledge of the angular spectra of the BS-MS channels to construct DL training protocols with reduced overheads. Simulation results reveal that the proposed training-resources allocation method can provide approximately 35% sum-rate performance gain compared to conventional orthogonal training. Our analysis also sheds light into the impact of overhead reduction on channel estimation quality, and, in turn, achievable rates.
Thyroid hormone transporters.

Thyroid hormone transporters at the plasma membrane govern intracellular bioavailability of thyroid hormone. Monocarboxylate transporters (MCT) 8 and MCT10, organic anion transporting polypeptide (OATP) 1C1 and SLC17A4 are currently known as transporters displaying highest specificity towards thyroid hormones. Structure-function studies using homology modelling and mutational screens have led to better understanding of the molecular basis of thyroid hormone transport. Mutations in MCT8 and in OATP1C1 have been associated with clinical disorders. Different animal models have provided insight in the functional role of thyroid hormone transporters, in particular MCT8. Different treatment strategies for MCT8 deficiency have been explored, of which thyroid hormone analogue therapy is currently applied in patients. Future studies may reveal the identity of as-yet-undiscovered thyroid hormone transporters. Complementary studies employing animal and human models will provide further insight into the role of transporters in health and disease.
Model Predictive Direct Torque Control With Finite Control Set for PMSM Drive Systems, Part 2: Field Weakening Operation

The direct torque control approach called model predictive direct torque control (MP-DTC) is extended to field-weakening operation in this research. The controller is of the finite control set (FCS) type, which takes the discrete states of the voltage source inverter (VSI) into account. Each sampling period, the future behavior of the plant is predicted and inputs (voltage vectors) are selected using an optimization criterion, i.e., a cost function. Optimization, however, depend on the operation region. Maximum torque per ampere (MTPA) tracking for high electrical efficiency is aimed below rated speed, operation off the MTPA trajectory is necessary for obtaining field-weakening. In this work, a cost function is designed, which is suitable for operation at high speeds without penalizing operation below rated speed. MP-DTC is applied to permanent magnet synchronous machine (PMSM) drive systems. High control performances, i.e., dynamics, is obtained without increasing the switching frequency nor reducing significantly the torque quality. This feature is interesting above all for high power applications. The proposed control strategy has been evaluated on a small-scale (PMSM) drive system with two-level VSI for demonstration showing promising results.
Dynamic size responses to climate change: prevailing effects of rising temperature drive long‐term body size increases in a semi‐arid passerine

Changes in animal body size have been widely reported as a correlate of contemporary climate change. Body size affects metabolism and fitness, so changing size has implications for resilience, yet the climatic factors that drive size variation remain poorly understood. We test the role of mean and extreme temperature, rainfall, and remotely sensed primary productivity (NDVI) as drivers of body size in a sedentary, semi‐arid Australian passerine, Ptilotula (Lichenostomus) penicillatus, over 23 years. To distinguish effects due to differential growth from changes in population composition, we analysed first‐year birds and adults separately and considered climatic variation at three temporal scales (current, previous, and preceding 5 years). The strongest effects related to temperature: in both age classes, larger size was associated with warmer mean temperatures in the previous year, contrary to Bergmann's Rule. Moreover, adults were larger in warmer breeding seasons, while first years was larger after heatwaves; these effects are more likely to be mediated through size‐dependent mortality, highlighting the role of body size in determining vulnerability to extinction. In addition to temperature, larger adult size was associated with lower primary productivity, which may reflect a trade‐off between vegetative growth and nectar production, on which adults rely. Finally, lower rainfall was associated with decreasing size in first year and adults, most likely related to decreased food availability. Overall, body size increased over 23 years, strongly in first‐year birds (2.7%) compared with adults (1%), with size outcomes a balance between competing drivers. As rainfall declined over time and productivity remained fairly stable, the temporal increase in body size appears largely driven by rising mean temperature and temperature extremes. Body size responses to environmental change are thus complex and dynamic, driven by effects on growth as well as mortality.
Pre-hospital diagnosis, triage and treatment in patients with ST elevation myocardial infarction

The treatment of acute ST elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) has greatly improved in the last three decades, especially after the introduction of primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). However, primary PCI is available in selected centres only, thus necessitating transportation of the STEMI patient. Improvement in the logistics of care for these patients is associated with significant improvement of patient outcome. Both the American Heart Association (AHA) and the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) STEMI guidelines recommend pre-hospital infarct diagnosis as a class I recommendation.w1 w2 Despite this, the large majority of STEMI patients are only diagnosed after arrival in the hospital.1 Therefore, great care should be taken in the initial diagnosis, risk assessment and triage, subsequent transfer and the distance of transportation as well as pre- and in-hospital time delays in these patients. STEMI patients can be diagnosed in the pre-hospital phase in two ways. The first option is diagnosis in the ambulance via an emergency medical services (EMS) call (118 or 911) by the patient or by a general practitioner. The second option is diagnosis at a referral non-PCI centre after self-referral of the patient or when no pre-hospital ECG is performed by EMS in the ambulance. Pre-hospital diagnosis in the ambulance gives the best outcomes for STEMI patients, since pre-hospital treatment can be started directly in the ambulance after diagnosis and triage.2 ,3 Subsequently, these patients are directly transferred in an ambulance from the pick-up place to the nearest PCI centre with 24/7 service, bypassing the emergency departments of the nearby referral non-PCI centres. The second option, diagnosis at a non-PCI centre, also occurs often, especially in rural areas. These patients are transported to a PCI centre, following diagnosis and triage of STEMI, preferably …
Optimal dual-cast beamforming for network coding-based two-way relay transmission

Dual-cast transmission appears naturally in network coding-based two-way relay systems, where the relay terminal needs to send network coded information to both end users simultaneously. In this paper, we investigate the optimal beamforming design for wireless dual-cast channels. Specifically, we present an efficient closed-form solution of the optimal beamforming vectors and their achievable maximal dual-cast rate for both orthogonal and nonorthogonal user channel cases. Comparison with conventional non-network-coding based schemes shows that the proposed design of dual-cast beamforming with network coding can best explore the capacity benefit of multiple antennas at the relay terminal.
Fast parallel matrix inversion algorithms

In this paper, an investigation of the parallel arithmetic complexity of matrix inversion, solving systems of linear equations, computing determinants and computing the characteristic polynomial of a matrix is reported. The parallel arithmetic complexity of solving equations has been an open question for several years. The gap between the complexity of the best algorithms (2n + 0(1), where n is the number of unknowns/ equations) and the only proved lower bound (2 log n (All logarithms in this paper are of base two.)) was huge. The first breakthrough came when Csanky reported that the parallel arithmetic complexity of all these four problems has the same growth rate and exhibited an algorithm that computes these problems in 2n - O(log2n) steps. It will be shown in the sequel that the parallel arithmetic complexity of all these four problems is upper bounded by O(log2n) and the algorithms that establish this bound use a number of processors polynomial in n. This disproves I. Munro's conjecture.