Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Integrating Uncertainty Awareness into Conformalized Quantile Regression

Conformalized Quantile Regression (CQR) is a recently proposed method for constructing prediction intervals for a response $Y$ given covariates $X$, without making distributional assumptions. However, existing constructions of CQR can be ineffective for problems where the quantile regressors perform better in certain parts of the feature space than others. The reason is that the prediction intervals of CQR do not distinguish between two forms of uncertainty: first, the variability of the conditional distribution of $Y$ given $X$ (i.e., aleatoric uncertainty), and second, our uncertainty in estimating this conditional distribution (i.e., epistemic uncertainty). This can lead to intervals that are overly narrow in regions where epistemic uncertainty is high. To address this, we propose a new variant of the CQR methodology, Uncertainty-Aware CQR (UACQR), that explicitly separates these two sources of uncertainty to adjust quantile regressors differentially across the feature space. Compared to CQR, our methods enjoy the same distribution-free theoretical coverage guarantees, while demonstrating in our experiments stronger conditional coverage properties in simulated settings and real-world data sets alike.
Photonic-electronic integrated circuit-based coherent LiDAR engine

Microelectronic integration is a key enabler for the ubiquitous deployment of devices in large volumes ranging from MEMS and imaging sensors to consumer electronics. Such integration has also been achieved in photonics, where compact optical transceivers for data centers employ co-integrated photonic and electronic components. Chip-scale integration is of particular interest to coherent laser ranging i.e. frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW LiDAR), a perception technology that benefits from instantaneous velocity and distance detection, eye-safe operation, long-range and immunity to interference. Full wafer-scale integration of this technology has been compounded by the stringent requirements on the lasers, requiring high optical coherence, low chirp nonlinearity and requiring optical amplifiers. Here, we overcome this challenge and demonstrate a photonic-electronic integrated circuit-based coherent LiDAR engine, that combined all functionalities using fully foundry-compatible wafer scale manufacturing. It is comprised of a micro-electronic based high voltage arbitrary waveform generator, a hybrid photonic circuit based tunable Vernier laser with piezoelectric actuators, and an erbium-doped waveguide optical amplifier - all realized in a wafer scale manufacturing compatible process that comprises III-V semiconductors, SiN silicon nitride photonic integrated circuits as well as 130nm SiGe BiCMOS technology. The source is a turnkey, linearization-free, and can serve as a 'drop-in' solution in any FMCW LiDAR, that can be seamlessly integrated with an existing focal plane and optical phased array LiDAR approaches, constituting a missing step towards a fully chip-scale integrated LiDAR system.
Families of jets of arc type and higher (co)dimensional Du Val singularities

Families of jets through singularities of algebraic varieties are here studied in relation to the families of arcs originally studied by Nash. After proving a general result relating them, we look at normal locally complete intersection varieties with rational singularities and focus on a class of singularities we call"higher Du Val singularities", a higher dimensional (and codimensional) version of Du Val singularities that is closely related to Arnold singularities. More generally, we introduce the notion of"higher compound Du Val singularities", whose definition parallels that of compound Du Val singularities. For such singularities, we prove that there exists a one-to-one correspondence between families of arcs and families of jets of sufficiently high order through the singularities. In dimension two, the result partially recovers a theorem of Mourtada on the jet schemes of Du Val singularities. As an application, we give a solution of the Nash problem for higher Du Val singularities.
AlbMoRe: A Corpus of Movie Reviews for Sentiment Analysis in Albanian

Lack of available resources such as text corpora for low-resource languages seriously hinders research on natural language processing and computational linguistics. This paper presents AlbMoRe, a corpus of 800 sentiment annotated movie reviews in Albanian. Each text is labeled as positive or negative and can be used for sentiment analysis research. Preliminary results based on traditional machine learning classifiers trained with the AlbMoRe samples are also reported. They can serve as comparison baselines for future research experiments.
GN-z11: The environment of an AGN at $z=$10.603

Recent observations with the \textit{James Webb} Space Telescope (JWST) have further refined the spectroscopic redshift of GN-z11, one of the most distant galaxies identified with the \textit{Hubble} Space Telescope (HST) at $z=10.603$. The presence of extremely dense gas ($>10^{10}$ cm$^{-3}$), the detection of high-ionisation lines and of CII*1335 emission, as well as the presence of an ionisation cone, indicate that GN-z11 also hosts an Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN). Further photometric and spectroscopic follow-up demonstrates that it lies in a large-scale, overdense structure with possible signatures of Population III (PopIII) stars in its halo. Surprisingly, Ly$\alpha$ has also been detected despite the expected largely neutral inter-galactic medium at such a redshift. We exploit recent JWST/NIRSpec IFU observations to demonstrate that the Ly$\alpha$ emission in GN-z11 is part of an extended halo with a minimum size of 0.8--3.2 kpc, depending on the definition used to derive the halo size. The surface brightness of the Ly$\alpha$ halo around GN-z11 appears consistent with Ly$\alpha$ halos observed around $z\sim6$ quasars. At the wavelength of Ly$\alpha$ at $z\sim$10.6, we identify three other emission line candidates within the IFU Field-of-View with no UV rest-frame counterpart visible in deep images from the JWST/NIRCam. If confirmed, this could be the first evidence that the local region of GN-z11 represents a candidate protocluster core, forming just 400 Myr after the Big Bang. We give a first estimate of the dark matter halo mass of this structure ($M_h$=2.96$^{+0.44}_{-0.39} \times$10$^{10}$ M$_{\odot}$), consistent with a Coma-like cluster progenitor.
A Gomory-Hu cut tree representation of a netlist partitioning problem

A VLSI design procedure is presented for finding netlist partitions. The method consists of approximating a netlist, which can be represented as a hypergraph, by an undirected graph with weighted edges. A Gomory-Hu cut tree allows one to generate netlist partitions for every pair of modules and estimate how far from optimality netlist cut is. Experimental results indicate that the netlist partitions are optimal or near-optical. >
Sequences of pentagonal numbers 1

Shyam Sunder Gupta (3) has dened Smarandache consecutive and reversed Smarandache sequences of triangular numbers. Delm F.M. Torres and Viorica Teca (1) have further investigated these sequences and dened mirror and symmetric Smarandache sequences of triangular numbers making use of Maple system. Working on the same lines we have de- ned and investigated consecutive, reversed, mirror and symmetric Smarandache sequences of pentagonal numbers of dimension 2 using the Maple system .
Quasinormal Modes of Black Holes in the Scalar-Tensor-Vector Modiﬁed Gravity with a Cosmological Constant

In this paper, we present a black hole solution with a cosmological constant in the Scalar-Tensor-Vector Modiﬁed Gravity (MOG) theory, where the strength of the gravitational constant is determined by G = G N (1+ α ). We derive the master equations for gravito-electromagnetic perturbations and numerically solve for the Quasinormal Mode (QNM) spectrum and the ringdown waveforms. Our research results show that increasing the MOG parameter α leads to a decrease in both the real and imaginary parts of the QNM frequencies for electromagnetic and gravitational modes. Similarly, increasing the cosmological constant Λ also results in a decrease in both the real and imaginary parts of the QNM frequencies for these modes. These trends are observed when compared to standard Schwarzschild-de Sitter (S-dS) or MOG black holes, respectively. Meanwhile, the result indicates that in the MOG-de Sitter spacetime, the frequencies for electromagnetic and gravitational modes display isospectrality, and exhibit the same ringdown waveforms. Our ﬁndings have implications for the ringdown phase of mergers involving massive compact objects, which is of particular relevance given the recent detections of gravitational waves by LIGO.
DOCUMENTS DE TREBALL DE LA FACULTAT D'ECONOMIA I EMPRESA

In this paper we prove that in the class of assignment games with a dominant diagonal (Solymosi and Raghavan, 2001), Thompson’s fair division point (which is known to be the τ-value) is the unique core allocation that is maximal with respect to the Lorenz dominance relation and it coincides with the Dutta-Ray (1989) solution (or egalitarian solution). Secondly, strengthening the dominant diagonal condition, a new class of assignment games is introduced where the profit obtained by each agent with her optimal partner is at least twice as much as her potential profit with any other partner. For these assignment games with a 2-dominant diagonal, Thompson’s fair division point is also the unique element of the kernel, and thus the nucleolus.
Global frequency selection in the observed time-mean wakes of circular cylinders

Observations have been made of the time-mean velocity profile at midspan in the near-wake of circular cylinders at moderate Reynolds numbers between 600 and 4600, well beyond the Reynolds number of approximately 200 at which the wake becomes three-dimensional. The measured profiles are found to be represented quite accurately by a family of function profiles with known linear instability characteristics. The complex instability frequency is then determined as a function of wake position, using the function profiles. In general, the near wake undergoes a transition from convective to absolute instability; the distance downstream to the point of transition is found to increase over the Reynolds number range investigated. The emergence of a significant region of convective instability is consistent with the known appearance of Bloor–Gerrard vortices. The selected frequency of the wake instability is determined by the saddle-point criterion; the Strouhal numbers for Bénard–von Kármán vortex shedding are found to compare well with the values in the literature.
Development of a novel colorectal endoscopic submucosal dissection training model

Colorectal endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) requires technically advanced endoscopic skill. To improve endoscopic skills, animals or their extracted digestive tracts are used for ESD training [1–3], which raises several issues regarding ethics, cost, and infection. Applying our previously developed gastric ESD model [4], we have developed a colorectal ESD training model using nonanimal materials with KOTOBUKI Medical, Inc. (Saitama, Japan) to resolve these issues (▶Fig. 1). This plant-derived model is superior to traditional animal models because training can occur at any time in an endoscopy room, using personal endoscopes and devices, without concern over infection risk. These advantages allow training to be performed multiple times, promoting muscle memory, which is essential for improving ESD skills [5]. The model modified for colorectal ESD allows for training on lesions at any wall location, basic scope movement, necessary strategies for colorectal ESD, changes in air volume in the colon, changes in gravity due to body posture changes, and scope movement with a retroflexed view (▶Fig. 2). In this study, the modified model was used and a specialized liquid (VTT-INJ; KOTOBUKI Medical, Inc.) was injected into the submucosal layer. Mucosal circumferential incision and trimming, and submucosal dissection were performed using a dual knife (▶Video 1). After ESD, a questionnaire about the similarities in clinical practice between the conventional and new colorectal ESD model, and the usefulness of the new model for improving trainees’ ESD skills was answered on a six-point scale (0–5) (▶Fig. 3). Three colorectal ESD experts who were not involved in developing this training model and who had performed more than 100 clinical colorectal ESDs completed the questionnaire. All responses for the similarities between the new model and conventional colorectal ESD (▶Fig. 4 a) and the acceptability of the newmodel (▶Fig. 4 b) scored ≥4 and 5 points, respectively. ESD training using the novel model is similar to the sensation of clinical colorectal ESD and is useful for trainees.
Baldur: A Hybrid Blockchain Database with FPGA or GPU Acceleration

In the last decade, blockchain technologies have entered the enterprise space in the form of permissioned blockchains, verifiable databases, and hybrid blockchain database systems (HBDB). The core of these blockchain technologies is represented by cryptography operations such as secure hashing typically with SHA-3 algorithms, signature generation, and signature verification, typically done with an Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA). These cryptography operations incur significant overhead and often they can be done in parallel with other operations such as data fetching and processing. Moreover, these operations can be offloaded to a hardware accelerator. In this paper, starting from the above observations, we present Baldur, an HBDB system in which most of the cryptography operations are offloaded to an accelerator. Specifically, we offload to either a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) or a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) the Keccak SHA-3 hashing and secp256k1 ECDSA signature verification for the requests received by Baldur from users. We present our preliminary implementation and results for an AMD-Xilinx Varium C1100 FPGA and an Nvidia RTX A6000 GPU. In stand-alone mode, our secp256k1 FPGA implementation achieves a throughput of 12,000 verifications per second, which is 11 × higher compared to the original implementation from AMD-Xilinx. Our GPU implementation achieves a throughput of close to 60,000 verifications per second, which is 25% higher compared to the CPU. When integrated into Baldur, the FPGA and GPU improve the throughput by 12% and 7%, respectively, in the best case. These results are promising but they can be improved, and, hence we plan to further optimize our FPGA and GPU designs and implementations in the future.
Towards Merkle Trees for High-Performance Data Systems

Merkle Trees (and its variants) are widely used for building secure outsourced data systems. The adoption of Merkle Trees for high-performance data systems, however, uncovered major performance challenges. First and unlike classical data structures, Merkle Trees involve expensive cryptographic operations and are thus CPU-bound. Second, they are not well suited for modern multi-core CPUs because they introduce a single point of contention making Merkle Trees hard to parallelize. While recent work aimed at replacing Merkle Trees to circumvent their performance problem, we suggest new techniques to speed-up this ubiquitous data structure and achieve high-performance. In this paper, we present initial results showing that in contrast to common wisdom it is indeed possible to build high-performance Merkle Trees with orders of magnitude performance improvements.
Clinical effectiveness of fluticasone furoate nasal spray for perennial allergic rhinitis in children: a comprehensive review

Abstract Objective To assess the clinical effectiveness of fluticasone furoate nasal spray (FFNS) versus placebo on nasal symptoms and safety in children with perennial allergic rhinitis (AR). Methods A comprehensive review was conducted with data obtained from Medline and Embase databases up to April 2023. The population of interest was patients aged 2–12 years with perennial AR. The selection was limited to randomized controlled trials (RCTs), comparing FFNS with placebo. Outcomes of interest included the reflective total nasal symptoms scores (rTNSS) and safety. To assess the minimal clinically important difference for rTNSS, the Cohen’s guideline was used. If the pooled standardized mean difference (SMD) and the lower limit of the 95 percent confidence interval (CI) exceeded the threshold of −0.20, effects were considered clinically significant. Results Three RCTs (959 pediatric patients) were selected. One study evaluated the short-term use of FFNS, another evaluated the long-term use of FFNS, and another evaluated both the short-term and long-term use of FFNS. FFNS produced a statistically significant reduction over placebo in rTNSS (SMD −0.18; 95 percent CI −0.35 to −0.01, p = 0.03) in long-term treatment studies, but not in short-term treatment studies. However, since the mean reduction did not reach the minimum clinically important difference (SMD −0.20), these results were considered clinically not relevant. Safety outcomes with FFNS were similar to placebo. Conclusions The currently available evidence suggests that FFNS, 110 μg once daily, compared to placebo, does not produce a meaningful clinical effect on nasal symptom in children with perennial AR.
Subjective well-being in informal caregivers during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract The study of subjective well-being (SWB) is important as it is related to the reduction of morbidity and mortality, with the maintenance of functionality and autonomy in the elderly population. The impact of the formative intervention on the SWB of informal caregivers (ICGs) during the pandemic crisis of COVID-19 was analyzed. This study is a quasi-experimental single-group, longitudinal study with a sample of 31 ICGs and their dependents. A form was used for data collection, and data processing was performed using IBM SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences), using descriptive statistics and inferential statistics. Of the total sample, the majority were female (90.3%). The difference between the mean of positive affection and negative affection at Moment 1 (M1) was –0.0581 ± 0.71590 and 0.04645 ± 0.53326 at Moment 2 (M2). The mean rank ordering of the difference between the two types of affection differed significantly between M2 and M1 (Wilcoxon: p < 0.000), with that of M2 being higher than M1 (16.93 > 2.50). The formative intervention, within the scope of community nursing, had a significant impact on increasing the SWB of the ICG in this sample. This study may contribute to improving the SWB of ICG and their dependents.
To Be or Not to Be of Maxentropic Type? An Appraisal of Parametric Spectral Analysis in Econometrics

The paradox that a parametric approach makes less assumptions than a nonparametric one can be seen as an obstacle for a wider use of frequency domain techniques in econometrics. This paper offers a throrough appraisal of the parametric model in the presence of notoriously short economic time series. Confronted with its nonparametric alternatives, pragmatic and theoretical aspects are addressed. Based on a duality framework, a proof of the theoretically desirable ME-property of the ML-estimated autoregressive model is provided. In the case of the true series following a fairly general stochastic process, it is numerically demonstrated that the parametric model in combination with a Bayesian order identification criterion offers the better representation of the true spectral density.
People's Conceptions and Valuations of Nature in the Context of Climate Change

This paper investigates how people conceive and evaluate nature through language, in a climate change context. With material consisting of 1,200 answers to open-ended questions in nationally representative surveys in Norway, we explore what semantic roles and values the respondents attribute to nature as well as to how they interact with the public debate about climate change. We observe that different conceptions and valuations of nature are tied to different perspectives on the climate change issue: some address the responsibilities of causing climate change, others its consequences, and others yet its potential solutions. The study provides knowledge about the variety of conceptions of nature that can be mobilised by individuals and suggests that policy measures and public communication could benefit by taking this diversity into account.
GENA-LM: A Family of Open-Source Foundational DNA Language Models for Long Sequences

Recent advancements in genomics, propelled by artificial intelligence, have unlocked unprecedented capabilities in interpreting genomic sequences, mitigating the need for exhaustive experimental analysis of complex, intertwined molecular processes inherent in DNA function. A significant challenge, however, resides in accurately decoding genomic sequences, which inherently involves comprehending rich contextual information dispersed across thousands of nucleotides. To address this need, we introduce GENA-LM, a suite of transformer-based foundational DNA language models capable of handling input lengths up to 36,000 base pairs. Notably, integration of the newly-developed Recurrent Memory mechanism allows these models to process even larger DNA segments. We provide pre-trained versions of GENA-LM, demonstrating their capability for fine-tuning and addressing a spectrum of complex biological tasks with modest computational demands. While language models have already achieved significant breakthroughs in protein biology, GENA-LM showcases a similarly promising potential for reshaping the landscape of genomics and multi-omics data analysis. All models are publicly available on GitHub https://github.com/AIRI-Institute/GENA LM and HuggingFace https://huggingface.co/AIRI-Institute.
Ubiquitin ligase and signalling hub MYCBP2 is required for efficient EPHB2 tyrosine kinase receptor function

Eph receptor tyrosine kinases participate in a variety of normal and pathogenic processes during development and throughout adulthood. This versatility is likely facilitated by the ability of Eph receptors to signal through diverse cellular signalling pathways: primarily by controlling cytoskeletal dynamics, but also by regulating cellular growth, proliferation, and survival. Despite many proteins linked to these signalling pathways interacting with Eph receptors, the specific mechanisms behind such links and their coordination remain to be elucidated. In a proteomics screen for novel EPHB2 multi-effector proteins, we identified human MYC binding protein 2 (MYCBP2 or PAM or Phr1). MYCBP2 is a large signalling hub involved in diverse processes such as neuronal connectivity, synaptic growth, cell division, neuronal survival, and protein ubiquitination. Our biochemical experiments demonstrate that the formation of a complex containing EPHB2 and MYCBP2 is facilitated by FBXO45, a protein known to select substrates for MYCBP2 ubiquitin ligase activity. Formation of the MYCBP2-EPHB2 complex does not require EPHB2 tyrosine kinase activity and is destabilised by binding of ephrin-B ligands, suggesting that the MYCBP2-EPHB2 association is a prelude to EPHB2 signalling. Paradoxically, the loss of MYCBP2 results in increased ubiquitination of EPHB2 and a decrease of its protein levels suggesting that MYCBP2 stabilises EPHB2. Commensurate with this effect, our cellular experiments reveal that MYCBP2 is essential for efficient EPHB2 signalling responses in cell lines and primary neurons. Finally, our genetic studies in C. elegans provide in vivo evidence that the ephrin receptor VAB-1 displays genetic interactions with known MYCBP2 binding proteins. Together, our results align with the similarity of neurodevelopmental phenotypes caused by MYCBP2 and EPHB2 loss of function, and couple EPHB2 to a signaling effector that controls diverse cellular functions.