Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Probabilistic Framework for Representing Dialog Systems and Entropy-Based Dialog Management Through Dynamic Stochastic State Evolution

In this paper, we present a probabilistic framework for goal-driven spoken dialog systems. A new dynamic stochastic state (DS-state) is then defined to characterize the goal set of a dialog state at different stages of the dialog process. Furthermore, an entropy minimization dialog management (EMDM) strategy is also proposed to combine with the DS-states to facilitate a robust and efficient solution in reaching a user's goals. A song-on-demand task, with a total of 38 117 songs and 12 attributes corresponding to each song, is used to test the performance of the proposed approach. In an ideal simulation, assuming no errors, the EMDM strategy is the most efficient goal-seeking method among all tested approaches, returning the correct song within 3.3 dialog turns on average. Furthermore, in a practical scenario, with top five candidates to handle the unavoidable automatic speech recognition (ASR) and natural language understanding (NLU) errors, the results show that only 61.7% of the dialog goals can be successfully obtained in 6.23 dialog turns on average when random questions are asked by the system, whereas if the proposed DS-states are updated with the top five candidates from the SLU output using the proposed EMDM strategy executed at every DS-state, then a 86.7% dialog success rate can be accomplished effectively within 5.17 dialog turns on average. We also demonstrate that entropy-based DM strategies are more efficient than non-entropy based DM. Moreover, using the goal set distributions in EMDM, the results are better than those without them, such as in sate-of-the-art database summary DM.
Comparison of Primary Models to Predict Microbial Growth by the Plate Count and Absorbance Methods

The selection of a primary model to describe microbial growth in predictive food microbiology often appears to be subjective. The objective of this research was to check the performance of different mathematical models in predicting growth parameters, both by absorbance and plate count methods. For this purpose, growth curves of three different microorganisms (Bacillus cereus, Listeria monocytogenes, and Escherichia coli) grown under the same conditions, but with different initial concentrations each, were analysed. When measuring the microbial growth of each microorganism by optical density, almost all models provided quite high goodness of fit (r 2 > 0.93) for all growth curves. The growth rate remained approximately constant for all growth curves of each microorganism, when considering one growth model, but differences were found among models. Three-phase linear model provided the lowest variation for growth rate values for all three microorganisms. Baranyi model gave a variation marginally higher, despite a much better overall fitting. When measuring the microbial growth by plate count, similar results were obtained. These results provide insight into predictive microbiology and will help food microbiologists and researchers to choose the proper primary growth predictive model.
Norges Teknisk-naturvitenskapelige Universitet High Order Interpolation of Curves in the Plane Norwegian University of Science and Technology Trondheim, Norway High Order Interpolation of Curves in the Plane

We consider high order representations of curves in the plane. Through a series of complementary numerical examples, we show that classical interpolation is sometimes far from optimal in the sense of minimizing the interpolation error using a fixed number of degrees-of-freedom (the Kolmogorov n-width problem). We propose a new way of constructing a high order interpolant of a curve in the plane. The main ingredients are: a parametric representation of the curve, an implicit reparametrization of the curve, and choosing the internal interpolation points in such a way that the tangent vectors of the exact curve and the tangent vectors of the interpolant coincide at these points. Numerical results indicate that the proposed interpolant is close to optimal in the sense of minimizing the L 2-error between the exact curve and its interpolant. We also show that the error may decrease exponentially fast even for curves which are not analytic when regarded as a function in the classical setting. Finally, we use the proposed method to construct an improved representation of the boundary of a deformed quadrilateral domain. We show that the discretization error associated with solving the Poisson problem in the deformed domain may be significantly smaller than the error resulting from a standard approach.
A visual place recognition procedure with a Markov chain based filter

Recognizing a place with a visual glance is the first capacity used by humans to understand where they are. Making this capacity available to robots will make it possible to increase the redundancy of the localization systems available in the robots, and improve semantic localization systems. However, to achieve this capacity it is necessary to build a robust visual place recognition procedure that could be used by an indoor robot. This paper presents an approach that from a single image estimates the robot location in the semantic space. This approach extracts from each camera image a global descriptor, which is the input of a Support Vector Machine classifier. In order to improve the classifier accuracy a Markov chain formalism was considered to constraint the probability flow according the place connections. This approach was tested using videos acquired from three robots in three different indoor scenarios - with and without the Markov chain filter. The use of Markov chain filter has shown a significantly improvement of the approach accuracy.
Origin of replication in episomal bovine papilloma virus type 1 DNA isolated from transformed cells.

The origin of replication of bovine papilloma virus type 1 (BPV‐1) has been determined by isolating replicative intermediates (RI) of BPV‐transformed hamster embryo fibroblasts (HEF‐BPV). These RI were treated with single cut restriction enzymes to determine the start‐position (origin) of the extending replication eyes using electron microscopic techniques. ‘Cairns'‐type RI molecules were shown to contain one replication eye in monomeric as well as in dimeric molecules. The position of this eye was localized at 6940 +/‐ 5% bp in the physical map. In a second set of experiments BPV‐1 DNA fragments cloned in pBR322 were tested for transient episomal replication. Transfected cells were harvested after increasing periods of time and screened for replication with isoschizomeric restriction enzymes to differentiate between input and replicated DNA. The part of the BPV genome harboring the replication origin spans the BPV ClaI‐C restriction fragment corresponding to the non‐coding region of the BPV genome and coincides with the DNase I‐hypersensitive control region in the chromatin, isolated from transformed cells.
Sibling relations: the role of conceptual perspective-taking in the ontogeny of sibling caregiving

STEWART, ROBERT B. , and MARVIN, ROBERT S. Sibling Relations: The Role of Conceptual Perspective-Taking in the Ontogeny of Sibling Caregiving. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1984, 55, 13221332. The behaviors of 57 mothers, their preschool-age children, and their infants were observed using a modified "strange situation" to explore the older siblings' potential to act as subsidiary attachment figures. Gamelike tasks were used to assess the conceptual perspective-taking abilities of the older children. Analyses revealed that: (1) 51% of the children exhibited caregiving behaviors toward their infant siblings, (2) conceptual perspective-taking ability and caregiving behavior appear to be both structurally and functionally related (( = .86) to one another, (3) nonperspective-taking children seldom act as caregivers, and (4) mothers tended to request caregiving assistance of the older siblings only if those siblings were perspective-takers. The results are discussed in terms of developmental changes in mother-child attachment and of a family systems framework.
Latency Hiding File I/O for Blue Gene Systems

This paper presents the design and implementation of a novel file I/O solution for Blue Gene systems. We propose a hierarchical I/O cache architecture based on open source software. Our solution is based on an asynchronous data staging strategy, which hides the latency of file system access from compute nodes. The performance results demonstrate the high scalability and significant performance improvements of our architecture over existing solutions.
Accounting for Carbon: The Role of Accounting Professional Organisations in Governing Climate Change

Since the turn of the century accounting professional organisations have been involved in a number of debates about climate change, catalysed initially by technical discussions about the treatment of European carbon credits in financial accounts. These bodies are positioning themselves as leading on climate change, for example, through launching professional training courses, funding research, and initiating corporate workshops and seminars. The paper examines the role of the accountancy profession in governing the new carbon economy. We review climate change related activities undertaken by accountancy professional bodies through drawing on primary empirical material, including interviews with accountants, accountancy standard setters and professional bodies. A mix of theories about the role of calculation, measurement and expertise in governance are used to help explain and understand the situation, including ideas about accountancy and society, epistemic communities, and governmentality. © 2011 The Authors Antipode © 2011 Editorial Board of Antipode.
PII: S1053-8100(02)00023-5

9 The initial argument presented herein is not significantly original—it is a simple 10 reflection upon a notion of computation originally developed by Putnam (Putnam, 11 1988). See also Searle (1990) and criticised by Chalmers et al. (see Chalmers (1994, 12 1996a,b) see also the special issue, What is Computation? , in Minds and machines, 13 4:4, November 1994). In what follows, instead of seeking to justify Putnam’s con14 clusion that every open system implements every Finite State Automaton (FSA) and 15 hence that psychological states of the brain cannot be functional states of a com16 puter, I will establish the weaker result that, over a finite time window every open 17 system implements the trace of FSA Q, as it executes program (P) on input (I). If 18 correct the resulting bold philosophical claim is that phenomenal states—such as 19 feelings and visual experiences—can never be understood or explained functionally. 2
WHEN TO BEAR FALSE WITNESS: AN EVOLUTIONARY APPROACH TO THE SOCIAL CONTEXT OF HONESTY AND DECEIT AMONG COMMERCIAL FISHERS

This paper uses an evolutionary perspective to identify variables influencing compliance with moral codes about honest communication. Data on over one thousand radio conversations among lobster fishers in two harbors in Maine are compared in regard to the sharing of information. The sharing of accurate information is found to be significantly more frequent in the harbor that is more integrated by reciprocally altruistic relationships. This is consistent with the view that moral systems are systems of indirect reciprocity, but it also suggests that humans have evolved to base their compliance with moral codes on cues from their social environment.
Impact-Induced Tensile Waves in a Rubberlike Material

This paper concerns the propagation of impact-generated tensile waves in a one-dimensional bar made of a rubberlike material. Because the stress-strain curve changes from concave to convex as the strain increases, the governing quasi-linear system of partial differential equations, though hyperbolic, fails to be "genuinely nonlinear" so that the standard form of the boundary-initial value problem corresponding to impact is not well-posed at all levels of loading. When the problem fails to be well-posed, it does so by exhibiting a massive loss of uniqueness, even though an entropy-like dissipation inequality is in force. Because the breakdown in uniqueness is reminiscent of a similar phenomenon that occurs in continuum-mechanical models for impact-induced phase transitions, a mathematically suitable, though physically unmotivated, supplementary selection mechanism fordetermining the solution naturally suggests itself. We describe in detail the solutions determined by two special forms of this selection mec.
Self-Coherent Multisymbol Detection of Optical Differential Phase-Shift Keying

This paper treats the recently emerging self-coherent multisymbol decision-feedback-aided detection techniques for optical differential phase-shift keyed (DPSK) transmission based on both an optical preprocessing approach and an electronic postprocessing approach. We present in detail i) the generation of a synthetic low phase-noise effective local oscillator out of the modulated optical data itself, and its estimation theory interpretation; ii) the role of polyphase (interleaved) DPSK in the optical preprocessing approach in easing the decision feedback realization requirements; iii) detection of M-ary DPSK modulation formats for general M, and differential quadrature phase-shift keying in particular; iv) three alternative integrated-optoelectronic receiver implementations for the optical preprocessing approach detailing the structures of the interferometric front-end and the high-speed electronic analog and digital building blocks; and v) the principle, and alternative implementations, of the digital postprocessing approach to self-coherent detection. We finally compare the capabilities of the emerging self-coherent detection and digital coherent detection techniques.
Ultra-stable long distance optical frequency distribution using the Internet fiber network and application to high-precision molecular spectroscopy

We report an optical link of 540 km for ultrastable frequency distribution over the Internet fiber network. The phase-noise compensated link shows a fractional frequency instability in full bandwidth of 3×10−14 at one second measurement time and 2×10−18 at 30 000 s. This work is a significant step towards a sustainable wide area ultrastable optical frequency distribution and comparison network. Time transfer was demonstrated simultaneously on the same link and led to an absolute time accuracy (250 ps) and long-term timing stability (20 ps) which outperform the conventional satellite transfer methods by one order of magnitude. Current development addresses the question of multiple users distribution in the same metropolitan area. We demonstrate on-line extraction and first results show frequency stability at the same level as with conventional link. We also report an application to coherent frequency transfer to the mid-infrared. We demonstrate the frequency stabilisation of a mid-infrared laser to the near-infrared frequency reference transferred through the optical link. Fractional stability better than 4×10−14 at 1 s averaging time was obtained, opening the way to ultrahigh resolution spectroscopy of molecular rovibrational transitions.
Optimizing symmetric dense matrix-vector multiplication on GPUs

GPUs are excellent accelerators for data parallel applications with regular data access patterns. It is challenging, however, to optimize computations with irregular data access patterns on GPUs. One such computation is the Symmetric Matrix Vector product (SYMV) for dense linear algebra. Optimizing the SYMV kernel is important because it forms the basis of fundamental algorithms such as linear solvers and eigenvalue solvers on symmetric matrices. In this work, we present a new algorithm for optimizing the SYMV kernel on GPUs. Our optimized SYMV in single precision brings up to a 7x speed up compared to the (latest) CUBLAS 4.0 NVIDIA library on the GTX 280 GPU. Our SYMV kernel tuned for Fermi C2050 is 4.5x faster than CUBLAS 4.0 in single precision and 2x faster than CUBLAS 4.0 in double precision. Moreover, the techniques used and described in the paper are general enough to be of interest for developing high-performance GPU kernels beyond the particular case of SYMV.
Securing Vehicular IPv6 Communications

A common practice is applying security after a network has been designed or developed. We have the opportunity of not committing this error in vehicular networks. Apart from particular works in the literature, ETSI TC ITS has defined general security services for (vehicular) cooperative systems. However, existent efforts do not pay the needed attention to the integration of IPv6 yet. The potential of IPv6 in the field is being described within ISO TC 204, above all, but further work is needed for a proper integration of security. This work follows this direction, and a reference vehicular communication architecture considering ETSI/ISO regulations, uses Internet Protocol security (IPsec) and Internet Key Exchange version 2 (IKEv2) to secure IPv6 Network Mobility (NEMO). A key advance is also the implementation and experimental evaluation of the proposal in a challenging vertical handover scenario between 3G and 802.11p. The performance of the secured NEMO channel is widely analyzed in terms of the movement speed, bandwidth, traffic type or signal quality, and it is concluded that the addition of IPv6 security only implies a slight reduction in the overall performance, with the great advantage of providing confidentiality, integrity and authenticity to the communication path.
Towards a Full Model of Second Language Learning: An Empirical Investigation

Much research in second language acquisition (SLA) centres on the relationships among individual difference measures such as language attitudes, motivation, anxiety, self-confidence, language aptitude, learning strategies, field independence, and measures of achievement in the language. Numerous studies have supported the proposed influences of these individual difference variables on achievement, and a number of models have been developed to explain the relationships among subsets of these variables. However, there is a lack of research examining the relationships among all these variables simultaneously. In the present study, we investigate a large number of individual difference measures to determine their underlying dimensions, to contrast their predictive validities, and to evaluate their contributions in a causal model of SLA. Our study was based on a sample of 102 university students enrolled in introductory French. The results indicated substantial links among the affective measures and achievement. Support was found for these connections in the proposed causal model.
On the Treatment of Outliners in Cognitive and Psychomotor Test Data

Authors of many statistical texts and review articles have pointed to the possi- ble adverse effects that outliers can have on the calculation of sample statistics and have suggested several methods for detecting and treating outliers. We investigated two different methods-data censoring and transformation-for treating outliers in aptitude test data at the item level and total-score level and their effects on the internal consistency and predictive validity of six computer- ized tests being evaluated by the U.S. Air Force. Results from our sample of more than 2,000 pilot training candidates indicated that neither outlier treat- ment method at either level of analysis had significant effects on the tests' internal consistencies or predictive validities. Possible reasons for these findings include the frequency with which outliers occur and the robustness of linear modeling methods.
Window Theory in Non-Ionizing Radiation-Induced Adaptive Responses

I read with great interest an article by Jin et al. “The Effect of Combined Exposure of 900 MHz Radiofrequency Fields and Doxorubicin in HL-60 Cells,” published in the Sep 2012 issue of PLOS ONE Journal (Jin et al. 2012). The authors of the article reported some interesting findings on the induction of adaptive response by pre-exposure of HL-60 Cells to radiofrequency (RF) radiations. As summarized in Table 1, the viability of the cells exposed to DOX alone was 70.2 ± 0.2 while when cells were exposed to 900 MHz RF radiation at 12 μW/cm2 before treatment with DOX, the viability was 82.8 ± 2.1 (P<0.01). RF exposure at higher power densities significantly decreased the viability (60.7 ± 0.5 and 58.6 ± 0.5 for 120 μW/cm2 and 1200 μW/cm2, respectively). On the other hand they reported that they had previously conducted a preliminary experiment to determine the minimum power density for RF pre-exposures to minimize the damage induced by subsequent exposure to DOX. We and other investigators have previously reported that radiofrequency radiation can induce adaptive response phenomena (Haghani et al. 2012; Jiang et al. 2012; Mortazavi et al. 2011; Mortazavi et al. 2012; Sannino et al. 2009; Zeni et al. 2012). Jin’s findings as well as findings obtained in our studies (Mortazavi et al. 2012) clearly support the dose window theory that is well discussed for adaptive responses induced by ionizing radiation. As discussed by RE Mitchel, “the adaptive response in mammalian cells and mammals operates within a certain window that can be defined by upper and lower dose thresholds, typically between about 1 and 100 mGy for a single low dose rate exposure” (Mitchel 2010). On the other hand, as indicated by investigators who worked on oxidative stress or ionizing radiation-induced adaptive responses (Bose Girigoswami and Ghosh 2005; Dimova et al. 2008; Yan et al. 2006), Jin’s findings on RF pre-exposures support this theory that the induction of adaptive response requires a minimum level of damage to trigger this phenomenon. In this light, it seems that there are similar patterns for induction of adaptive response by ionizing and non-ionizing radiations.
Upregulation of Tim-3 and PD-1 expression is associated with tumor antigen–specific CD8+ T cell dysfunction in melanoma patients

The paradoxical coexistence of spontaneous tumor antigen–specific immune responses with progressive disease in cancer patients furthers the need to dissect the molecular pathways involved in tumor-induced T cell dysfunction. In patients with advanced melanoma, we have previously shown that the cancer-germline antigen NY-ESO-1 stimulates spontaneous NY-ESO-1–specific CD8+ T cells that up-regulate PD-1 expression. We also observed that PD-1 regulates NY-ESO-1–specific CD8+ T cell expansion upon chronic antigen stimulation. In the present study, we show that a fraction of PD-1+ NY-ESO-1–specific CD8+ T cells in patients with advanced melanoma up-regulates Tim-3 expression and that Tim-3+PD-1+ NY-ESO-1–specific CD8+ T cells are more dysfunctional than Tim-3−PD-1+ and Tim-3−PD-1− NY-ESO-1–specific CD8+ T cells, producing less IFN-γ, TNF, and IL-2. Tim-3–Tim-3L blockade enhanced cytokine production by NY-ESO-1–specific CD8+ T cells upon short ex vivo stimulation with cognate peptide, thus enhancing their functional capacity. In addition, Tim-3–Tim-3L blockade enhanced cytokine production and proliferation of NY-ESO-1–specific CD8+ T cells upon prolonged antigen stimulation and acted in synergy with PD-1–PD-L1 blockade. Collectively, our findings support the use of Tim-3–Tim-3L blockade together with PD-1–PD-L1 blockade to reverse tumor-induced T cell exhaustion/dysfunction in patients with advanced melanoma.
THE USES OF REMINISCENCE IN OLDER ADULTHOOD

Findings from previous research on the benefits of reminiscence and life review in the aging process have been inconclusive. This may be due in part to a lack of clarity with regard to the particular type of reminiscence being investigated. The study reported in this article attempted to bring some clarity to the phenomenon of reminiscence by identifying and differentiating its various uses or functions. A 17‐item Uses of Reminiscence scale was administered to 288 older adults as part of the Georgia Centenarian Study. A factor analysis of the data revealed three distinct uses of reminiscence: “therapeutic,” “informative,” and “enjoyment. ” Implications for research and practice are discussed.