Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
UNT at TREC 2004: Question Answering Combining Multiple Evidences

Question Answering (QA) aims at identifying answers to users’ natural language questions. A QA system can release the users from digesting large amount of text in order to locate particular facts or numbers. The research has drawn great attention from several disciplines such as information retrieval, information extraction, natural language processing, and artificial intelligence. TREC QA track has provided comparable QA system evaluation on a set of test questions since 1999. The degree of difficulty of the test questions has increased substantially in recent two years, which push the research toward applying more sophisticated strategies and better understanding of English texts. Question answering is very challenging due to the ambiguity of the questions, complexity of linguistic phenomena involved in the documents, and the difficulty to understand natural languages. More challenging is to locate short snippets or answers from a document collection with texts written in different languages, which is within our research interests focusing on cross-lingual or multilingual information access and retrieval. We have decided to participate in TREC 2004 Question Answering Track as our first step toward exploring advanced multilingual information retrieval. Our goal of this year is to develop a prototype automatic question answering system that can be continually expanded and improved. Our prototype QA system, named EagleQA, made use of available NLP (Natural Language Processing) tools and knowledge resources for question understanding and answer finding. This paper describes the overall structure of the system, NLP tools and lexical resources employed, our QA methodology for TREC 2004, QA test results & analysis, and our plan for future research.
Log-structured cache: trading hit-rate for storage performance (and winning) in mobile devices

Browser caches are typically designed to maximize hit rates---if all other factors are held equal, then the highest hit rate will result in the highest performance. However, if the performance of the underlying cache storage (i.e. the file system) varies with differing workloads, then these other factors may in fact not be equal when comparing different cache strategies. Mobile systems such as smart phones are typically equipped with low-speed flash storage, and suffer severe degradation in file system performance under sufficiently random write workloads. A cache implementation which performs random writes will thus spend more time reading and writing its cache, possibly resulting in lower overall system performance than a lower-hit-rate implementation which achieves higher storage performance. We present a log-structured browser cache, generating almost purely sequential writes, and in which cleaning is efficiently performed by cache eviction. An implementation of this cache for the Chromium browser on Android was developed; using captured user browsing traces we test the log-structured cache and compare its performance to the existing Chromium implementation. We achieve a ten-fold performance improvement in basic cache operations (as measured on a Nexus 7 tablet), while in the worst case increasing miss rate by less than 3% (from 65% to 68%). For network bandwidths of 1Mb/s or higher the increased cache performance more than makes up for the decrease in hit rate; the effect is more pronounced when examining 95th percentile delays.
THE NEUROPHYSIOLOGICAL BASIS FOR EMOTIONAL MAINTENANCE AND REDUCED GOAL-DIRECTED BEHAVIOR IN SCHIZOPHRENIA

Title of Document: THE NEUROPHYSIOLOGICAL BASIS FOR EMOTIONAL MAINTENANCE AND REDUCED GOAL-DIRECTED BEHAVIOR IN SCHIZOPHRENIA Katiah Llerena, Doctor of Philosophy, 2014 Directed By: Professor Jack J. Blanchard. Ph.D., Department of Psychology The current study investigated the neurophysiological underpinnings of emotional maintenance in schizophrenia (SCZ) and whether aberrant neural responses predicted deficits in affective decision making and real-world motivated behavior. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 27 SCZ outpatients and 23 healthy controls (CN) during an emotional maintenance task in which participants were presented an initial image for 3 seconds and then required to maintain a mental representation of the intensity that image over a delay period of varying lengths and determine whether the initial image was more or less intense than the second image. The Late Positive Potential (LPP) was used as a neurophysiological marker of emotional maintenance during the delay period. SCZ showed normal in-the-moment emotion experience to positive stimuli; however, SCZ rated negative and neutral pictures as more intense than CN. SCZ also displayed deficits in emotional maintenance accuracy. Furthermore, ERP data indicated reduced LPP amplitude during picture viewing for SCZ compared to CN, and only CN showed persistence of the LPP for positive stimuli into the offset delay period for approximately 1 second and this was significantly associated with behavioral emotional maintenance performance. Behavioral emotional maintenance performance also significantly predicted clinically rated negative symptoms (motivation and pleasure) and poor functional outcome. Thus, impairments in emotional maintenance may offer a promising new theory as to why people with SCZ fail to pursue goal-directed activities. THE NEUROPHYSIOLOGICAL BASIS FOR EMOTIONAL MAINTENANCE AND REDUCED GOAL-DIRECTED BEHAVIOR IN SCHIZOPHRENIA
Reformulated First Zagreb Index of Some Graph Operations

The reformulated Zagreb indices of a graph are obtained from the classical Zagreb indices by replacing vertex degrees with edge degrees, where the degree of an edge is taken as the sum of degrees of the end vertices of the edge minus 2. In this paper, we study the behavior of the reformulated first Zagreb index and apply our results to different chemically interesting molecular graphs and nano-structures.
Energy-aware quality adaptation for mobile video streaming

HTTP Adaptive Streaming (HAS) is becoming the de-facto standard for video streaming services over the Internet. In HAS, each video is segmented and stored in different qualities. Rate adaptation heuristics, deployed at the client, allow the most appropriate quality level to be dynamically requested based on the current network conditions, in order to achieve a continuous playout. Due to the ability of HAS protocols to dynamically adapt to bandwidth fluctuations, they are especially suited for the delivery of multimedia content in mobile environments. However, current HAS solutions do not take the battery lifetime into account, which is a typical issue for mobile devices. In this paper, we therefore propose an energy-aware heuristic for HAS. We first present a measurement study to identify and quantify the main factors influencing the battery lifetime on mobile devices. We then develop a heuristic based on these findings, which optimizes both the quality of experience and the battery consumption of a video streaming session. Particularly, we found that the video resolution and display size have the highest impact on the battery lifetime and that our energy-aware heuristic can prolong a streaming session with up to 13%, compared to a standard HAS heuristic. This result represents a consistent improvement for the overall user experience on battery-constrained devices.
Clinical Predictors of Immune Reconstitution following Combination Antiretroviral Therapy in Patients from the Australian HIV Observational Database

Background A small but significant number of patients do not achieve CD4 T-cell counts >500cells/µl despite years of suppressive cART. These patients remain at risk of AIDS and non-AIDS defining illnesses. The aim of this study was to identify clinical factors associated with CD4 T-cell recovery following long-term cART. Methods Patients with the following inclusion criteria were selected from the Australian HIV Observational Database (AHOD): cART as their first regimen initiated at CD4 T-cell count <500cells/µl, HIV RNA<500copies/ml after 6 months of cART and sustained for at least 12 months. The Cox proportional hazards model was used to identify determinants associated with time to achieve CD4 T-cell counts >500cells/µl and >200cells/µl. Results 501 patients were eligible for inclusion from AHOD (n = 2853). The median (IQR) age and baseline CD4 T-cell counts were 39 (32–47) years and 236 (130–350) cells/µl, respectively. A major strength of this study is the long follow-up duration, median (IQR) = 6.5(3–10) years. Most patients (80%) achieved CD4 T-cell counts >500cells/µl, but in 8%, this took >5 years. Among the patients who failed to reach a CD4 T-cell count >500cells/µl, 16% received cART for >10 years. In a multivariate analysis, faster time to achieve a CD4 T-cell count >500cells/µl was associated with higher baseline CD4 T-cell counts (p<0.001), younger age (p = 0.019) and treatment initiation with a protease inhibitor (PI)-based regimen (vs. non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor, NNRTI; p = 0.043). Factors associated with achieving CD4 T-cell counts >200cells/µl included higher baseline CD4 T-cell count (p<0.001), not having a prior AIDS-defining illness (p = 0.018) and higher baseline HIV RNA (p<0.001). Conclusion The time taken to achieve a CD4 T-cell count >500cells/µl despite long-term cART is prolonged in a subset of patients in AHOD. Starting cART early with a PI-based regimen (vs. NNRTI-based regimen) is associated with more rapid recovery of a CD4 T-cell count >500cells/µl.
Survivable Optical Grid Dimensioning: Anycast Routing with Server and Network Failure Protection

Grids can efficiently deal with challenging computational and data processing tasks which cutting edge science is generating today. So-called e-Science grids cope with these complex task by deploying geographically distributed server infrastructure, interconnected by high speed networks. The latter benefit from optical technology, offering low latencies and high bandwidths, thus giving rise to so-called optical grids or lambda grids. In this paper, we address the dimensioning problem of such grids: how to decide how much server infrastructure to deploy, at which locations in a given topology, the amount of network capacity to provide and which routes to follow along them. Compared to earlier work, we propose an integrated solution solving these questions in an integrated way, i.e., we jointly optimize network and server capacity, and incorporate resiliency against both network and server failures. Assuming we are given the amount of resource reservation requests arriving at each network node (where a resource reservation implies to reserve both processing capacity at a server site, and a network connection towards it), we solve the problem of first choosing a predetermined number of server locations to use, and subsequently determine the routes to follow while minimizing resource requirements. In a case study on a meshed European network comprising 28 nodes and 41 links, we show that compared to classical (i.e. without relocation) shared path protection against link failures only, we can offer resilience against both single link and network failures by adding about 55% extra server capacity, and 26% extra wavelengths.
RandPeer: Membership Management for QoS Sensitive Peer-to-Peer Applications

Many Peer-to-peer (P2P) applications such as media broadcasting and content distribution require a high performance overlay structure in order to deliver satisfying quality of service (QoS). Previous approaches to building such overlays either involve non-scalable solutions such as global information and shared contact point, or rely on gossip style membership dissemination, which lacks QoS awareness. In this paper, we present a distributed membership service called RandPeer, which manages membership information on behalf of P2P applications, and allows peers to locate good neighbors based on their QoS characteristics. Using this service, P2P applications can easily construct their overlays in a scalable and QoS aware fashion. We have implemented RandPeer and experimented in both local and wide area environments. Our results show that (1) RandPeer is scalable and robust to highly dynamic P2P memberships; (2) RandPeer has good lookup performance, both in terms of response time and the randomness of peer selection. The latter improves load balancing and failure resilience of P2P applications; (3) when used to improve the performance of a mesh based P2P overlay, RandPeer achieves 10% improvement in just 2 protocol rounds, which is more than 5 times faster than pure random neighbor selections.
BALANCE RECOVERY STRATEGY: ACROBOT VS. WOBBLE CHAIR

The human body can recover from an external perturbation using different balance recovery strategies. The strategy that the body chooses depends on factors such as the initial configuration of the body. Two configurations were modeled and studied in this paper. One configuration was representative of the body standing on a narrow beam (acrobat) and the other was the body sitting on an unstable chair (wobble chair). Both of these models were represented by topologically equivalent two segment inverted pendulums actuated only at the hip joint. Review of the literature hints towards the use of opposing strategies to recover from external perturbation however both models have yet to be examined systematically in a single study. Using a search method with variations in controller gains we revealed the presence of these opposing strategies in our model (acrobat vs. wobble chair).
Challenges for the understanding of the dynamics of social coordination

The way people interact can be examined by looking at the way they move relative to each other. Seeking the principles behind those interactions have consequences potentially related to any type of interpersonal function, far beyond the so-called “motor” processes typically associated with the study of movements, be it perceptive, cognitive, affective, pragmatic, or epistemic. Here, we present the way the framework of coordination dynamics define and addresses the interactive actions in a dyad. We first introduce the basics of pattern formation as the roots of the theoretical approach of coordination dynamics, and then the way this framework may contribute to establish a solution to classify behaviors. Thereafter we review promising empirical results on the dynamics of interpersonal coordination, and finally discuss were to go next to decipher the way the coordination between two people and the way each individual contribute may be disentangled.
Dynamic stability of a five-link biped robot

Keeping the dynamic stability during walking is one of the essential characteristics of regular bipedal walk, in the existence of unpowered DOF during SSP. To achieve the dynamic stability, there appears a decisive need to a robust controller to the robot movement. Here a new recurrent Neural Network is suggested as a controller for a five link biped robot, for tracking the desired angles trajectories for the legs of the robot. Keywords-biped robot; elman neural network; stability; control
Towards Load Balancing and Parallelizing of RDF Query Processing in P2P Based Distributed RDF Data Stores

For evaluating RDF queries in Peer-to-Peer (P2P) based RDF data stores, the location of a RDF triple in the network must be attainable from a triple pattern in the given query. An existing strategy, used by state-of-the-art distributed RDF data stores, to fulfill this requirement is to store triples at three locations that each triple can be found by the subject, predicate, and object identifier. A major drawback of this strategy is the issue of load-balancing caused by the fact that the frequency of subject, predicate, and object occurrences in triples is not uniformly distributed. While the majority of URIs and literals occur very rarely some occur very frequently (e.g., peer responsible for 'rdf:type' is subjected to a very high storage load). In addition, this skewed RDF triples distribution among network peers also leads to an unfair query processing load distribution and long query processing time. To cope with hotspots caused by unfair data load distribution, we propose an optimized routing index scheme where triples are indexed on the combination of their subject, predicate and object components. This paper will also show how can we exploit this novel index scheme to achieve a better distribution of query processing load and faster query response time by bundling computation resources and bandwidth of peers with parallelism.
PENGELOLAAN DAN PENGEMBANGAN USAHA HORTIKULTURA PADA PT. HORTI BIMA INTERNATIONAL

Indonesia disebut sebagai negara agraris karena kesuburan, keindahan, serta kekayaan alamnya, sektor pertanian menjadi salah satu leading sector dalam perekonomian dimana pertanian merupakan kegiatan USAha yang meliputi kegiatan budidaya tanaman pangan, hortikultura, perkebunan, perikanan, kehutanan, dan peternakan. Salah satu Perusahaan hortikultura di Indonesia masih tetap eksis dalam operasionalnya yaitu PT. Horti Bima International, produk yang dihasilkan antara lain: sayur-mayur dan buah-buahan. Tujuan penelitian ini untuk mendeskripsikan pengelolaan USAha, potensi eksternal, potensi internal, dan menyusun strategi pengembangan USAha hortikultura pada PT. Horti Bima International. Teknik analisa yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah teknik analisa kualitatif, dengan menggunakan dua teknik pengumpulan data, yaitu: wawancara dan dokumentasi yang ditujukan pada Direktur Utama, Manajer Unit Pabrik dan Manajer Unit Lahan PT. Horti Bima International. Untuk menguji kredibilitas data, maka penelitian ini menggunakan teknik triangulasi sumber.Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa PT. Horti Bima International telah menerapkan fungsi manajemen pada tiap-tiap aspek bisnisnya. Berdasarkan analisis lingkungan eksternal dapat diketahui bahwa ancaman dari pesaing karena letaknya berdekatan, potensi munculnya pesaing baru, dan ketergantungan bibit dari pemasok luar negeri. Strategi bersaing PT. Horti Bima International, yaitu fokus dengan nilai terbaik, aktivitas pemasaran Perusahaan difokuskan untuk membina hubungan baik dengan pelanggan lama di Negara Taiwan dan memenuhi permintaan sesuai pesanan, sehingga harapan untuk mendapatkan harga terbaik dapat tercapai.
Lateral Inhibition and Protons: The First Level of Contrast in Stimulation of the Retina?

Lateral inhibition mediated by horizontal cells in the outer plexiform layer of the retina has a large impact on perceived visual contrast. Much past work suggests that negative feedback from horizontal cells to photoreceptor synaptic terminals is important in generating this lateral inhibition, but the molecular mechanisms mediating this feedback remain unclear. This thesis will survey work focusing on the hypothesis that proton release from horizontal cells is the key molecular player in generating negative feedback from horizontal cells to photoreceptors. According to this hypothesis, protons released from horizontal cells bind to calcium channels on photoreceptor synaptic terminals, leading to a decrease in calcium influx and a decrease in the release of neurotransmitter from photoreceptors. There is much evidence that changes in extracellular acidity significantly affect neuronal signaling in the retina, and this data has been taken as support for the proton hypothesis of lateral inhibition. Recent experiments using optogenetic techniques to measure changes in extracellular acidity during light and chemical stimulation also strongly support the proton hypothesis. However, data measuring proton release from isolated horizontal cells using self-referencing H+-selective electrodes and fluorescent H+ sensors argue strongly against proton release from horizontal cells when stimulated. This thesis will summarize the current status of the proton hypothesis of lateral inhibition and suggest potential alternatives for the functional role that alterations in changes in extracellular acidity may play in retinal function.
Differential Proteome Analysis of Bone Marrow Mesenchymal Stem Cells from Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis Patients

Adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) is a complex three-dimensional deformity of the spine. The cause and pathogenesis of scoliosis and the accompanying generalized osteopenia remain unclear despite decades of extensive research. In this study, we utilized two-dimensional fluorescence difference gel electrophoresis (2D-DIGE) coupled with mass spectrometry (MS) to analyze the differential proteome of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BM-MSCs) from AIS patients. In total, 41 significantly altered protein spots were detected, of which 34 spots were identified by MALDI-TOF/TOF analysis and found to represent 25 distinct gene products. Among these proteins, five related to bone growth and development, including pyruvate kinase M2, annexin A2, heat shock 27 kDa protein, γ-actin, and β-actin, were found to be dysregulated and therefore selected for further validation by Western blot analysis. At the protein level, our results supported the previous hypothesis that decreased osteogenic differentiation ability of MSCs is one of the mechanisms leading to osteopenia in AIS. In summary, we analyzed the differential BM-MSCs proteome of AIS patients for the first time, which may help to elucidate the underlying molecular mechanisms of bone loss in AIS and also increase understanding of the etiology and pathogenesis of AIS.