Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
(In,Al)N-based blue microcavity lasers

Keywords: III-nitrides ; galliumnitride ; vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser ; vertical external cavity surface-emitting laser ; indiumaluminum nitride ; indium tin oxide ; microcavity ; laser diode ; light-emitting devices ; distributed Bragg reflector These Ecole polytechnique federale de Lausanne EPFL, n° 5675 (2013)Programme doctoral PhotoniqueFaculte des sciences de baseInstitut de physique de la matiere condenseeLaboratoire en semiconducteurs avances pour la photonique et l'electroniqueJury: C. Moser (president), A. Avramescu, E. Kapon, A. Larsson Public defense: 2013-5-17 Reference doi:10.5075/epfl-thesis-5675Print copy in library catalog Record created on 2013-05-07, modified on 2017-05-12
Length Count Examples 11 1 Taxes Remuneration And Social Security Payable

In this article we investigate the translation of terms from English into German and vice versa in the isolation of an ontology vocabulary. For this study we built new domainspecific resources from the translation search engine Linguee and from the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. We learned that a domainspecific resource produces better results than a bigger, but more general one. The first finding of our research is that the vocabulary and the structure of the parallel corpus are important. By integrating the multilingual knowledge base Wikipedia, we further improved the translation wrt. the domain-specific resources, whereby some translation evaluation metrics outperformed the results of Google Translate. This finding leads us to the conclusion that a hybrid translation system, a combination of bilingual terminological resources and statistical machine translation can help to improve translation of domain-specific terms.
Predicting activity occurrence time in smart homes with evolving fuzzy models

In this paper, we address the problem of predicting the time of occurrence of next activity, given the current activity and the context. The models that predict activity and time of occurrence rely on the basic idea that human beings perform sequence of activities at specific times regularly. In other words, the models are dependent on human behavior. However, human behavior changes over time. Also, due to demands and goals to be attained, there may be change in human behavior. Therefore, one of the essential requirements of the predictive models for the given task is autonomous adaptation with time and without undergoing any retraining. Considering the requirement of an adaptive model, we propose an evolving fuzzy rule-based predictive model that can autonomously adapt with changes in the human behavior. The performance of the model is evaluated using real-life data with evolving characteristics and satisfactory results are obtained.
Statins to Treat Chronic Inflammation in Dialysis Patients — is this Feasible?

254 The lifespan of dialysis patients is markedly reduced, and cardiovascular disease leads to premature death in the majority of patients treated with regular dialysis (1). As the incidence and severity of cardiovascular complications is clearly disproportionate to the underlying traditional “Framingham” risk factor profile (2), much interest has been focused on nontraditional risk factors, such as inflammation, insulin resistance, oxidative stress, and vascular calcification. Among these risk factors, persistent low-grade inflammation is a common feature that has been hypothesized to promote atherosclerosis in dialysis patients (3). Several different inflammatory biomarkers, such as serum C-reactive protein (CRP) level have been shown to independently predict mortality in the general population (4) as well as in patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) (5). Despite the widespread use of interventions to treat traditional risk factors in ESRD patients, the prevalence of cardiovascular disease remains unacceptably high. Thus, various pharmacological and nonpharmacological strategies to reduce the high prevalence of inflammation and associated nutritional wasting have been discussed (4). Clearly, when treating inflammation in ESRD one should identify the underlying cause and target treatment accordingly. However, in our experience, specific treatable causes of inflammation are not always found. Thus, lifestyle modification (4) and/or unspecific anti-inflammatory treatment strategies, such as statins, angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors, angiotensin receptor blockers, PPAR-γ activators, N-acetylcysteine (and other antioxidants) need to be considered (5). In the current issue of Peritoneal Dialysis International, Kumar et al. (5) report, in a retrospective analysis of 257 peritoneal dialysis (PD) patients, the relation between statin therapy and inflammation (assessed by serum CRP). Patients on statins had significantly lower CRP levels despite higher comorbidity scores. In addition, CRP was reduced in a subgroup of 46 patients in whom CRP levels were known before and after the start of statin therapy. Although the results suggest that the beneficial effects of statin treatment may go beyond their lipid lowering effects in dialysis patients, several questions need to be addressed. STATINS TO TREAT CHRONIC INFLAMMATION IN DIALYSIS PATIENTS — IS THIS FEASIBLE?
Exploring Twitter Hashtags

Twitter messages often contain so-called hashtags to denote keywords related to them. Using a dataset of 29 million messages, I explore relations among these hashtags with respect to co-occurrences. Furthermore, I present an attempt to classify hashtags into five intuitive classes, using a machine-learning approach. The overall outcome is an interactive Web application to explore Twitter hashtags.
Do News Consumers Want Explanations for Personalized News Rankings

To gain more insight in the question whether personalized news recommender systems should be responsible for their recommendations and transparent about their decisions, we study whether news consumers want explanations of why these news articles are recommended to them and what they find the best way to explain this. We survey users of Blendle’s news recommendation system, and from 120 respondents we learn that news consumers do want explanations, yet do not have a very strong preference for how explanations should be shown to them. Moreover, we perform an A/B test that shows that the open rate per user does not change if users are provided with reasons for the articles recommended for them. Most likely this is because users did not pay attention to the reasons.
Detection and Tracking of Moving Objects at Intersections Using a Network of Laser Scanners

In our previous work, we reported a system that monitors an intersection using a network of horizontal laser scanners. This paper focuses on an algorithm for moving-object detection and tracking, given a sequence of distributed laser scan data of an intersection. The goal is to detect each moving object that enters the intersection; estimate state parameters such as size; and track its location, speed, and direction while it passes through the intersection. This work is unique, to the best of the authors' knowledge, in that the data is novel, which provides new possibilities but with great challenges; the algorithm is the first proposal that uses such data in detecting and tracking all moving objects that pass through a large crowded intersection with focus on achieving robustness to partial observations, some of which result from occlusions, and on performing correct data associations in crowded situations. Promising results are demonstrated using experimental data from real intersections, whereby, for 1063 objects moving through an intersection over 20 min, 988 are perfectly tracked from entrance to exit with an excellent tracking ratio of 92.9%. System advantages, limitations, and future work are discussed.
Risk of multiple sclerosis during tumour necrosis factor inhibitor treatment for arthritis: a population-based study from DANBIO and the Danish Multiple Sclerosis Registry

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic inflammatory neurological disease with multifactorial aetiology.1 Evidence of tumour necrosis factor (TNF)-α as an important factor in the pathogenesis of MS has emerged.2 However, attempts of treating MS with TNF-inhibitors (TNFi) have increased disease activity.3 Several case reports have indicated that demyelinating diseases could be a serious adverse event following TNFi treatment while data from the Spanish Registry of biological therapies in rheumatic diseases did not bring clarification.4 ,5 Some, but not all, studies have suggested a negative association between rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and MS.6 ,7 We aimed to investigate whether TNFi treatment in patients with arthritis is associated with an increased risk of developing MS and whether RA is associated with a decreased risk compared with the general population. The nationwide Danish DANBIO Registry started in 2000 and covers >90% of adults with rheumatological disease treated with TNFi in routine care.8 Since 2005, patients not treated with …
How to verify concurrent Ada programs: the application of model checking

Ada 95 is an expressive concurrent programming language with which it is possible to build complex multi-tasking applications. Much of the complexity of these applications stem from the interactions between the tasks. This paper argues that model checking tools are now mature enough that they can be used by engineers to verify the logical correctness of their tasking algorithms. The paper illustrates the approach by showing the correctness of an Ada implementation of the atomic action protocol.
A survey on the feasibility of surface EMG in facial pacing

A survey on the feasibility of surface electromyography (EMG) measurements in facial pacing is presented. Pacing for unilateral facial paralysis consists of the measurement of activity from the healthy side of the face and functional electrical stimulation to reanimate the paralyzed one. The goal of this study is to evaluate the feasibility of surface EMG as a measurement method to detect muscle activations and to determine their intensities. Prior work is discussed, and results from experiments where 12 participants carried out a set of facial movements are presented. EMG was registered from zygomaticus major (smile), orbicularis oris (lip pucker), orbicularis oculi (eye blink), corrugator supercilii (frown), and masseter (chew). Most important facial functions that are limited due to the paralysis are blinking, smiling, and puckering. With majority of the participants, crosstalk between the measured EMG channels was found to be acceptably small to be able to pace smiling and puckering based on detecting their contraction intensities from the healthy side. However, pacing blinking based on orbicularis oculi EMG measurement does not seem possible due to crosstalk from other muscles, but the electro-oculographic (EOG) signals that couple to the same measurement channel could help to detect eye blinks and trigger stimuli. Futhermore, masseter greatly disturbs EMG measurement of most facial muscles, which needs to be addressed in the pacing system to avoid falsely interpreting its activity as the activity of another muscle.
[MARS] a real time motion capture and muscle fatigue monitoring tool

Incorrect muscle usage and muscle fatigue are a leading cause of many sports injures. As a result, sensing and monitoring muscles, as well as human motion, is important. Toward this end, we present the Muscle Activity Recognition System (MARS) system. MARS utilizes a system of small inertial sensors to deduce body motion and muscle fatigue. In this demo we demonstrate how MARS' sensors, placed on the major muscles of the lower body (hamstrings, quadriceps, calves), are used for motion capture and muscle fatigue determination. The system uses an animated human body model to display the motion of the subject, and highlight using different colors, the fatigue status of the muscles in use.
Screening potential antitumor agents from natural plant extracts by G-quadruplex recognition and NMR methods.

mainlyfocusonscreeningmolecule(s)withknownstructure.However,uptonow,thescreeningofG-quadruplexligands from natural plant extracts, a complicated mixturesystem with multiform unknown chemical frames, has notbeenreported.Herein,weaddressanovelapproachforfastscreeningofG-quadruplex ligands from natural plant extracts. Thisapproach includes the following three steps: judging theexistence of G-quadruplex ligand(s) in the test extracts by
FORESTIMATOR : UN PLUGIN QGIS D’ESTIMATION DE LA HAUTEUR DOMINANTE ET DU SITE INDEX DE PEUPLEMENTS RESINEUX A PARTIR DE LIDAR AERIEN

La hauteur dominante est une information souvent utilisee en gestion forestiere. Il s'agit d'un bon indicateur du niveau de developpement des peuplements, pouvant etre employe pour estimer le niveau de productivite des peuplements purs equiennes. Cependant, son estimation a partir de mesures de terrain est relativement fastidieuse et couteuse. Depuis plusieurs annees, le LiDAR est reconnu pour sa capacite a estimer la hauteur des couverts forestiers de maniere precise. En Wallonie, une couverture LiDAR basse densite (0,8 points/m2 au sol) est disponible sur l’integralite du territoire. Cet article presente un outil d’aide a la gestion forestiere s’appuyant sur un modele de prediction de la hauteur dominante a partir de donnees LiDAR aerien. Les estimations fournies par ce modele sont ensuite couplees a des modeles de croissance en hauteur dominante qui permettent une mise a jour de la hauteur dominante au cours du temps et l’estimation du Site Index (indice de productivite). Cet outil a ete valide pour les peuplements d’epicea commun (Picea abies (L.) H. Karst.f) et de douglas (Pseudotsuga menziesii (Mirb.) Franco) sur une emprise geographique correspondant a la Wallonie (Belgique). Pour permettre une utilisation aisee, il a ete integre dans un plugin du logiciel de Systeme d’Information Geographique (SIG) open source QGIS. Gratuit et facile d’utilisation, il est destine aux gestionnaires forestiers et aux scientifiques.
Performance Simulations of DAPSK-MC-CDMA System in Multi-path Fading Channels

A less complex system by integrating non-coherent differential amplitude and phase shift keying modulation with multi-carrier code division multiple access (DAPSK-MC-CDMA) is introduced. The proposed DAPSK-MC-CDMA system can reduce the system complexity and also maintain a good performance as well as high spectral efficiency. Simulation results illustrate that the induced power of multiple access interference (MAI) in the DAPSK-MC-CDMA is much less than the conventional MC-CDMA system
Relating WordNet Senses for Word Sense Disambiguation

The granularity of word senses in current general purpose sense inventories is often too �ne-grained, with narrow sense distinctions that are irrelevant for many NLP applications. This has particularly been a problem with WordNet which is widely used for word sense disambiguation (WSD). There have been several attempts to group WordNet senses given a number of different information sources in order to reduce granularity. We propose relating senses as a matter of degree to permit a softer notion of relationships between senses compared to �xed groupings so that granularity can be varied according to the needs of the application. We compare two such approaches with a gold-standard produced by humans for this work. We also contrast this goldstandard and another used in previous research with the automatic methods for relating senses for use with back-off methods for WSD.
Machine-verified network controllers

In many areas of computing, techniques ranging from testing to formal modeling to full-blown verification have been successfully used to help programmers build reliable systems. But although networks are critical infrastructure, they have largely resisted analysis using formal techniques. Software-defined networking (SDN) is a new network architecture that has the potential to provide a foundation for network reasoning, by standardizing the interfaces used to express network programs and giving them a precise semantics. This paper describes the design and implementation of the first machine-verified SDN controller. Starting from the foundations, we develop a detailed operational model for OpenFlow (the most popular SDN platform) and formalize it in the Coq proof assistant. We then use this model to develop a verified compiler and run-time system for a high-level network programming language. We identify bugs in existing languages and tools built without formal foundations, and prove that these bugs are absent from our system. Finally, we describe our prototype implementation and our experiences using it to build practical applications.
Apoptotic signals induce specific degradation of ribosomal RNA in yeast

Organisms exposed to reactive oxygen species, generated endogenously during respiration or by environmental conditions, undergo oxidative stress. Stress response can either repair the damage or activate one of the programmed cell death (PCD) mechanisms, for example apoptosis, and finally end in cell death. One striking characteristic, which accompanies apoptosis in both vertebrates and yeast, is a fragmentation of cellular DNA and mammalian apoptosis is often associated with degradation of different RNAs. We show that in yeast exposed to stimuli known to induce apoptosis, such as hydrogen peroxide, acetic acid, hyperosmotic stress and ageing, two large subunit ribosomal RNAs, 25S and 5.8S, became extensively degraded with accumulation of specific intermediates that differ slightly depending on cell death conditions. This process is most likely endonucleolytic, is correlated with stress response, and depends on the mitochondrial respiratory status: rRNA is less susceptible to degradation in respiring cells with functional defence against oxidative stress. In addition, RNA fragmentation is independent of two yeast apoptotic factors, metacaspase Yca1 and apoptosis-inducing factor Aif1, but it relies on the apoptotic chromatin condensation induced by histone H2B modifications. These data describe a novel phenotype for certain stress- and ageing-related PCD pathways in yeast.
A General Logical Approach to Inferential Information Retrieval

Jian-Yun Nie Département d'Informatique et Recherche opérationnelle, Université de Montréal C.P. 6128, succursale Centre-ville Montreal, Quebec H3C 3J7 Canada e-mail: nie@iro.umontreal. ca Abstract This paper describes a general approach to inferential information retrieval (IR). Different from the classical IR, in which the correspondence between a document and a query is estimated from a direct comparison of keywords included in them, an inferential approach also tries to infer indirect relevance relationship using a set of knowledge. A piece of knowledge is represented as an uncertain logical implication. It is converted from a thesaurus relation using relevance feedback. The experiments show that the approach is effective in practice.
Extent and Distribution of Old Forest Conditions on DNR-Managed State Trust Lands in Eastern Washington

Support and protection of habitat diversity has become a common goal for the people of Washington State and for Washington's Department of Natural Resources (DNR). One important element of the forest ecosystem is what we generally call 'old growth. ' But what constitutes old growth has been of longstanding scientific interest. Attached is the second of two reports to the Legislature (under 2004 and 2005 legislative direction) regarding old growth and older forest conditions on state lands managed by DNR. The first report addressed old growth forest in Western Washington. The current report includes definitions and an inventory of forested state trust lands east of the Cascade Crest (ESSB 6384 Section 189). For this work, DNR convened a scientific panel— the Old Growth Definition Committee—chaired by Dr. Jerry F. Franklin. The resulting report, " Extent and Distribution of Old Forest Conditions on DNR-Managed State Trust Lands in Eastern Washington, " focuses on drier forest types dominated by ponderosa pine, western larch, and Douglas-fir. The panel found that roughly 13,000 acres—or 2 percent—of Eastside forested state trust lands are highly likely to have older forest characteristics; and an additional 20,000 acres—roughly 3 percent—are moderately likely to have older forest characteristics. What has become apparent is that Eastside old forest is at high risk of loss due to wildfire and insects. This is mainly due to 150 years of fire suppression that has led to overcrowded forests. If we want a functioning old forest component in Eastside landscapes, stands with old trees need to be managed to re-establish a more sustainable fire-and disease-resistant condition. This is in contrast to our approach on the Westside, where our old-growth policy is to protect old-growth stands by leaving them in a more unmanaged condition. Old growth is a very important ecosystem component that provides unique and crucial habitat, and performs specialized ecological functions in DNR-managed forests. Therefore, in addition to the inventory report, we requested that the committee prepare a companion document discussing opportunities and risks associated with sustaining old-forest functions on Eastside state trust lands. The report is expected early in 2008. A field guide on identifying old trees and forests in Eastern Washington also is being finalized. It is a companion to the Identifying Mature and Old Forests in Western Washington field guide produced in summer of 2007. Both guides are authored by Robert Van Pelt. These field guides will be valuable to forestland …
Measurement of the laser pulse width on the microscope objective plane by modulated autocorrelation method

We report on the construction details of a compact autocorrelator set‐up for the measurement of the width of infrared laser pulses at the focal plane of a microscope for two‐photon excitation fluorescence imaging. One of the novelties of the set‐up, which leads to an improved measurement accuracy, is the use of a modulation technique that is achieved by mounting one of the interferometer mirrors on a loudspeaker driven by a sinusoidal bias at low frequency. A non‐linear least‐square routine selects only that part of the fluorescence signal that is modulated at the same frequency as the loudspeaker bias. To further increase the accuracy, the laser pulse width is obtained from a series of measurements at different values of the modulation bias. The autocorrelator is a compact single bread‐board (10 × 20 cm); it is PC‐controlled both for the acquisition and the analysis of the data and can be coupled to different ports of the microscope. The increase in the pulse width measured for three different ports of the microscope is well accounted for by the group velocity dispersion and the glass thickness of the optics found along these paths.
Early false-belief understanding in traditional non-Western societies

The psychological capacity to recognize that others may hold and act on false beliefs has been proposed to reflect an evolved, species-typical adaptation for social reasoning in humans; however, controversy surrounds the developmental timing and universality of this trait. Cross-cultural studies using elicited-response tasks indicate that the age at which children begin to understand false beliefs ranges from 4 to 7 years across societies, whereas studies using spontaneous-response tasks with Western children indicate that false-belief understanding emerges much earlier, consistent with the hypothesis that false-belief understanding is a psychological adaptation that is universally present in early childhood. To evaluate this hypothesis, we used three spontaneous-response tasks that have revealed early false-belief understanding in the West to test young children in three traditional, non-Western societies: Salar (China), Shuar/Colono (Ecuador) and Yasawan (Fiji). Results were comparable with those from the West, supporting the hypothesis that false-belief understanding reflects an adaptation that is universally present early in development.