Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Metric Learning from Limited Pairwise Preference Comparisons

We study metric learning from preference comparisons under the ideal point model, in which a user prefers an item over another if it is closer to their latent ideal item. These items are embedded into $\mathbb{R}^d$ equipped with an unknown Mahalanobis distance shared across users. While recent work shows that it is possible to simultaneously recover the metric and ideal items given $\mathcal{O}(d)$ pairwise comparisons per user, in practice we often have a limited budget of $o(d)$ comparisons. We study whether the metric can still be recovered, even though it is known that learning individual ideal items is now no longer possible. We show that in general, $o(d)$ comparisons reveals no information about the metric, even with infinitely many users. However, when comparisons are made over items that exhibit low-dimensional structure, each user can contribute to learning the metric restricted to a low-dimensional subspace so that the metric can be jointly identified. We present a divide-and-conquer approach that achieves this, and provide theoretical recovery guarantees and empirical validation.
Cross-checking the geometric effects in heavy-ion collisions at 1 GeV/nucleon

Employing the isospin-dependent Boltzmann-Uehling-Uhlenbeck transport model, the 1 GeV/nucleon deformed uranium-uranium ultra-central collisions are simulated. Based on sensitive observables, mean square collective flow and pion meson multiplicity, the impacts of high-momentum tails caused by short-range correlations and the symmetry energy in high-density regions on geometric effects are discussed under different reaction orientations. Finally, the neural network model for identifying reaction orientations is also developed.
Fairness and Throughput Tradeoff in Ad hoc Networks

The use of IEEE 802.11 standard in ad hoc networks causes some performance problems as throughput and fairness tradeoff. The purpose of this article is to improve this tradeoff. The proposed approach is an improvement of IEEE 802.11 standard which is based on optimal contention window size and attribution of similar value contention window to all nodes. The proposed solution is validated by simulations using the simulation tool NS2 (Network Simulator 2). Our protocol is better than IEEE 802.11 standard and Miop protocol in terms of global throughput and its Jain’s index is closed to 1.
Process issues in treatment: Application to sexual offender programs.

How critical is the therapeutic alliance in the treatment of sexual offenders? To date such process issues have been neglected in the field of sex offender treatment. This article reviews the literature on the influence on behavior change of therapist features, clients' perceptions, and the therapeutic alliance Among the many therapist features identified as helpful are empathy, warmth, and being directive and rewarding. Therapists who are aggressively confrontational appear not to foster beneficial changes in their clients. These issues are directly related to treatment issues faced by therapists who work with sexual offenders, such as dealing with cognitive distortions, lack of empathy, and lack of motivation to change.
Activity of Soil Dehydrogenases, Urease, and Acid and Alkaline Phosphatases in Soil Polluted with Petroleum

This study was undertaken to (1) determine the effects of petroleum pollution on changes in the biochemical properties of soil and (2) demonstrate whether the application of compost, bentonite, and calcium oxide is likely to restore biological balance. Petroleum soil pollution at a dose ranging from 2.5 to 10 cm3/kg disturbed the biochemical balance as evidenced by inhibition of the activities of soil dehydrogenases (SDH), urease (URE), and acid phosphatase (ACP). The greatest change was noted in the activity of SDH, whereas the least change occurred in URE. Petroleum significantly increased the activity of soil alkaline phosphatase (ALP) in soil used for spring rape, whereas in soil used for oat harvest there was decreased ALP activity. The application of compost, bentonite, and calcium oxide to soil proved effective in mitigating the adverse effects of petroleum on the activities of soil enzymes. Soil enrichment with compost, bentonite, and calcium oxide was found to stimulate the activities of URE and ALP and inhibit the activity of ACP. The influence of bentonite and calcium oxide was greater than that of compost. Calcium oxide and, to a lesser extent, compost were found to increase the activity of SDH, whereas bentonite exerted the opposite effect, especially in the case of the main crop, spring rape. The activities of SDH, URE, and ACP were higher in soil used for rape than that for oats. In contrast the activity of ALP was higher in soil used for oats. Data thus indicate that compost and especially bentonite and calcium oxide exerted a positive effect on activities of some enzymes in soil polluted with petroleum. Application of neutralizing additives to soil restored soil biological balance by counteracting the negative influence of petroleum on activities of URE and ALP.
Avatar-Mediated Networking: Increasing Social Presence and Interpersonal Trust in Net-Based Collaborations

This study analyzes the influence of avatars on social presence, interpersonal trust, perceived communication quality, nonverbal behavior, and visual attention in Net-based collaborations using a comparative approach. A real-time communication window including a special avatar interface was integrated into a shared collaborative workspace. Communication modes under investigation were text chat, audio, audio-video, and avatar. Significant differences were found between text chat and all other communication modalities in perceived intimateness, co-presence, and emotionally-based trust. Microanalyses of nonverbal activity and visual attention point to similarities between video and avatar modes, both showing higher levels of exposure to the virtual other and visual attention, in particular in the initial phase of interaction as compared to text and audio.
The Impact of Sampling on Big Data Analysis of Social Media: A Case Study on Flu and Ebola

Abstract-The explosive growth of online social networks in recent years have generated massive amount of data-sets in user behaviors, social graphs, and contents. Given the scale, heterogeneity, and diversity of such big data, sampling becomes a simple and intuitive approach to reduce the size of the data-sets for collecting, measuring, and understanding users, behaviors and traffic in online social networks. In this paper, we quantify the impact of random sampling on the analysis of online social networks with Twitter streaming data as a case study. In addition, we design different sampling strategies including community sampling and strata sampling, and evaluate their impact on a broad range of behavioral characteristics of online social networks. Our experimental results show that community sampling has the minimum impact on tweet distributions across users and the structure of retweeting graphs, while achieving the similar data reductions as random and stratified sampling.
Inference for determinantal point processes without spectral knowledge

Determinantal point processes (DPPs) are point process models that naturally encode diversity between the points of a given realization, through a positive definite kernel K. DPPs possess desirable properties, such as exact sampling or analyticity of the moments, but learning the parameters of kernel K through likelihood-based inference is not straightforward. First, the kernel that appears in the likelihood is not K, but another kernel L related to K through an often intractable spectral decomposition. This issue is typically bypassed in machine learning by directly parametrizing the kernel L, at the price of some interpretability of the model parameters. We follow this approach here. Second, the likelihood has an intractable normalizing constant, which takes the form of a large determinant in the case of a DPP over a finite set of objects, and the form of a Fredholm determinant in the case of a DPP over a continuous domain. Our main contribution is to derive bounds on the likelihood of a DPP, both for finite and continuous domains. Unlike previous work, our bounds are cheap to evaluate since they do not rely on approximating the spectrum of a large matrix or an operator. Through usual arguments, these bounds thus yield cheap variational inference and moderately expensive exact Markov chain Monte Carlo inference methods for DPPs.
CLAP4CLIP: Continual Learning with Probabilistic Finetuning for Vision-Language Models

Continual learning (CL) aims to help deep neural networks to learn new knowledge while retaining what has been learned. Recently, pre-trained vision-language models such as CLIP, with powerful generalization ability, have been gaining traction as practical CL candidates. However, the domain mismatch between the pre-training and the downstream CL tasks calls for finetuning of the CLIP on the latter. The deterministic nature of the existing finetuning methods makes them overlook the many possible interactions across the modalities and deems them unsafe for high-risk CL tasks requiring reliable uncertainty estimation. To address these, our work proposes Continual LeArning with Probabilistic finetuning (CLAP). CLAP develops probabilistic modeling over task-specific modules with visual-guided text features, providing more reliable fine-tuning in CL. It further alleviates forgetting by exploiting the rich pre-trained knowledge of CLIP for weight initialization and distribution regularization of task-specific modules. Cooperating with the diverse range of existing prompting methods, CLAP can surpass the predominant deterministic finetuning approaches for CL with CLIP. Lastly, we study the superior uncertainty estimation abilities of CLAP for novel data detection and exemplar selection within CL setups. Our code is available at \url{https://github.com/srvCodes/clap4clip}.
Muller glia induce retinal progenitor cells to differentiate into retinal ganglion cells

Retinal progenitor cells could differentiate into various retinal cells that made cell-replacement therapy possible. Here, we investigated the role of cellular microenvironment on their regulation and differentiation and found that the percentage of proliferating cells and the percentage of retinal ganglion cells produced from them increased, when retinal progenitor cells were cocultured with Muller glia. Muller glia conditioned medium had the similar results. It is speculated that rather than traditional supportive roles, Muller glia may have an active regulatory role inducing retinal progenitor cells to proliferate and differentiate into ganglion cells by secreting some diffusible and membrane-associated factors. Identification of Muller glia-derived factors will be made to elucidate the molecular mechanisms of neurogenesis.
The Public School and the Problem Child

" U NLESS means of communication are found for opinions and ideas of creators among the human race, modern youth will adopt the religion of paganism and the moral codes of the daily press. " These are the words of a woman wise in the wisdom of this world, one who has watched the "dance of life" from the vantage point of the juvenile court. While the statement quoted is more literary than scientific, the bald fact remains that two hundred thousand children under eighteen years of age passed through the juvenile courts of America in 1923. This army of unfortunates is generally spoken of as "juvenile delinquents. " The phrase has some unpleasant connotations; it seems to place the onus of guilt upon the child. Dr. H. H. Goddard has pointed out that delinquency is a failure to keep up with the requirements of the group, and that it is a social fault, not an individual one.
Levothyroxine dose and risk of fractures in older adults: nested case-control study

Objective To quantify the effect of levothyroxine dose on risk of fractures in older adults. Design Nested case-control study. Setting Population based health databases, Ontario, Canada. Participants Adults aged 70 or more prescribed levothyroxine between 1 April 2002 and 31 March 2007 and followed for fractures until 31 March 2008. Cases were cohort members admitted to hospital for any fracture, matched with up to five controls from within the cohort who had not yet had a fracture. Main outcome measure Primary outcome was fracture (wrist or forearm, shoulder or upper arm, thoracic spine, lumbar spine and pelvis, hip or femur, or lower leg or ankle) in relation to levothyroxine use (current, recent past, remote). Risk among current users was compared between those prescribed high, medium, and low cumulative levothyroxine doses in the year before fracture. Results Of 213 511 prevalent levothyroxine users identified, 22 236 (10.4%) experienced a fracture over a mean 3.8 years of follow-up, 18 108 (88%) of whom were women. Compared with remote levothyroxine use, current use was associated with a significantly higher risk of fracture (adjusted odds ratio 1.88, 95% confidence interval 1.71 to 2.05), despite adjustment for numerous risk factors. Among current users, high and medium cumulative doses (>0.093 mg/day and 0.044-0.093 mg/day) were associated with a significantly increased risk of fracture compared with low cumulative doses (<0.044 mg/day): 3.45 (3.27 to 3.65) and 2.62 (2.50 to 2.76), respectively. Conclusion Among adults aged 70 or more, current levothyroxine treatment was associated with a significantly increased risk of fracture, with a strong dose-response relation. Ongoing monitoring of levothyroxine dose is important to avoid overtreatment in this population.
Anatomical and functional connectivity as a tool to study brain networks in Parkinson's disease

Morton and Gloria Shulman Movement Disorder Unit and E.J. Safra Parkinson Disease Program, Toronto Western Hospital, UHN, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada Research Imaging Centre, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada Division of Brain, Imaging and Behaviour—Systems Neuroscience, Toronto Western Research Institute, UHN, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Eye Detection and Tracking Using Rectangle Features and Integrated Eye Tracker by Web Camera

Eye detection and tracking can be used in intelligent human-computer interfaces, driver drowsiness detection, security, and biology systems. In this paper a new method for eye detection based on some new rectangle features is proposed, with these features the Adaboost cascade classifiers are trained for eye detection. Then with the characteristics of symmetry of the eyes some of the geometric characteristics are adopted for correction. The geometric characteristics improve the accuracy of the eye detection, and make the rough cascade classifier trained by few samples become a reality in application. In this paper, we present an integrated eye tracker to overcome the effect of eye closure and external illumination by combining Kalman filter with Mean Shift algorithm. Results from an extensive experiment show a significant improvement of our technique over existing eye tracking techniques. According to the taxonomy proposed in (4), the techniques for eye detection and tracking can be classified as shape-based (5, 6), feature-based (7), appearance-based (7-11), and hybrid (12), based on their geometric and photometric properties. Shape-based methods can be classified as fixed shape and deformable shape. While the shape-based methods use a prior model of eye shape and surrounding structures, the appearance-based methods rely on models built directly on the appearance of the eye region. Hybrid methods combine feature, shape, and appearance approaches to exploit their respective benefits. For example, an open eye is well described by its shape, which includes the iris and pupil contours and the exterior shape of the eye (eyelids). Shape models are usually composed of a geometric eye model and a similarity measure. The parameters of the geometric model define the allowable template deformations and contain parameters for rigid transformations and parameters for non-rigid template deformations. In this paper, a new method for eye detection based on rectangle features and geometric characteristics is proposed. Rectangle features were firstly proposed by Paul Viola, in Paul Viola's paper integral image and cascade classifier were proposed and these methods made the detection system real time. This paper uses Viola's conception, and adds some new rectangle features to construct a cascade classifier for rough eye detection. The results from the classifier usually have some errors, such as eyebrows, mouth, nares, larger or smaller eyes, so geometric features are introduced to assistant to detect the eye location accurately. And then, an integrated eye tracker to overcome the effect of eye closure and external illumination by combining Kalman filter with Mean Shift algorithm is presented. This eye tracker can robustly track eyes under variable and realistic lighting conditions and under various face
REDUCE: an online tool for inferring cis-regulatory elements and transcriptional module activities from microarray data

REDUCE is a motif-based regression method for microarray analysis. The only required inputs are (i) a single genome-wide set of absolute or relative mRNA abundances and (ii) the DNA sequence of the regulatory region associated with each gene that is probed. Currently supported organisms are yeast, worm and fly; it is an open question whether in its current incarnation our approach can be used for mouse or human. REDUCE uses unbiased statistics to identify oligonucleotide motifs whose occurrence in the regulatory region of a gene correlates with the level of mRNA expression. Regression analysis is used to infer the activity of the transcriptional module associated with each motif. REDUCE is available online at http://bussemaker.bio. columbia.edu/reduce/. This web site provides functionality for the upload and management of microarray data. REDUCE analysis results can be viewed and downloaded, and optionally be shared with other users or made publicly accessible.
Reacquisition of quaternary structure by fully reduced and denatured seminal ribonuclease.

Air-regenerated monomers of bovine seminal ribonuclease have been found capable of reassociating into native dimers, whereas monomers refolded in the presence of a glutathione redox mixture do not reassociate into dimers [Smith, K. G. , D'Alessio, G. and Schaffer, S. W. (1978) Biochemistry 17, 2633-2638]. The crucial step in the process of regeneration of dimers is an isomerization step, which the newly refolded monomers undergo in order to reassociate into dimers. The two sulfhydryls at sequence positions 31 and 32 of the seminal RNAase chain, forming in the native dimer the intersubunit disulfides, have been found to have an important role in the refolding of the monomeric intermediates, as well as in the regeneration of dimers.
An efficient on-chip NI offering guaranteed services, shared-memory abstraction, and flexible network configuration

We present a network interface (NI) for an on-chip network. Our NI decouples computation from communication by offering a shared-memory abstraction, which is independent of the network implementation. We use a transaction-based protocol to achieve backward compatibility with existing bus protocols such as AXI, OCP, and DTL. Our NI has a modular architecture, which allows flexible instantiation. It provides both guaranteed and best-effort services via connections. These are configured via NI ports using the network itself, instead of a separate control interconnect. An example instance of this NI with four ports has an area of 0.25 mm/sup 2/ after layout in 0.13-/spl mu/m technology, and runs at 500 MHz.
Selective Redundant Transmissions for Real-Time Video Streaming over Multi-Interface Wireless Terminals

Real-time video communications has been incorporated into many instant communication tools such as ichat, Skype, QQ, etc. Real-time video communications has low delivery delay requirement, which imposes great challenge to the provisioning of such services. To address this problem, in this paper, we propose a selective redundant transmission mechanism to support real-time streaming on multi-interface wireless terminals. This mechanism selectively duplicates some video frames according to the tightness of their lifetimes and further schedule their transmissions (or some of them) via neighbors' assistance. We build a model to select the optimal encoding rate and also the optimal per-frame copy number in order to maximize the peak signal noise ratio (PSNR) of video streaming service when maximal allowable total traffic rate is given. Numerical results show that the proposed mechanism can significantly improve the PSNR of real-time video streaming as compared with existing work.
Bifidobacteria in Feces and Environmental Waters

ABSTRACT Bifidobacteria have been recommended as potential indicators of human fecal pollution in surface waters even though very little is known about their presence in nonhuman fecal sources. The objective of this research was to shed light on the occurrence and molecular diversity of this fecal indicator group in different animals and environmental waters. Genus- and species-specific 16S rRNA gene PCR assays were used to study the presence of bifidobacteria among 269 fecal DNA extracts from 32 different animals. Twelve samples from three wastewater treatment plants and 34 water samples from two fecally impacted watersheds were also tested. The species-specific assays showed that Bifidobacterium adolescentis, B. bifidum, B. dentium, and B. catenulatum had the broadest host distribution (11.9 to 17.4%), whereas B. breve, B. infantis, and B. longum were detected in fewer than 3% of all fecal samples. Phylogenetic analysis of 356 bifidobacterial clones obtained from different animal feces showed that ca. 67% of all of the sequences clustered with cultured bifidobacteria, while the rest formed a supercluster with low sequence identity (i.e., <94%) to previously described Bifidobacterium spp. The B. pseudolongum subcluster (>97% similarity) contained 53 fecal sequences from seven different animal hosts, suggesting the cosmopolitan distribution of members of this clade. In contrast, two clades containing B. thermophilum and B. boum clustered exclusively with 37 and 18 pig fecal clones, respectively, suggesting host specificity. Using species-specific assays, bifidobacteria were detected in only two of the surface water DNA extracts, although other fecal anaerobic bacteria were detected in these waters. Overall, the results suggest that the use of bifidobacterial species as potential markers to monitor human fecal pollution in natural waters may be questionable.