Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Unsupervised Feature Selection Applied to Content-Based Retrieval of Lung Images

This paper describes a new hierarchical approach to content-based image retrieval called the "customized-queries" approach (CQA). Contrary to the single feature vector approach which tries to classify the query and retrieve similar images in one step, CQA uses multiple feature sets and a two-step approach to retrieval. The first step classifies the query according to the class labels of the images using the features that best discriminate the classes. The second step then retrieves the most similar images within the predicted class using the features customized to distinguish "subclasses" within that class. Needing to find the customized feature subset for each class led us to investigate feature selection for unsupervised learning. As a result, we developed a new algorithm called FSSEM (feature subset selection using expectation-maximization clustering). We applied our approach to a database of high resolution computed tomography lung images and show that CQA radically improves the retrieval precision over the single feature vector approach. To determine whether our CBIR system is helpful to physicians, we conducted an evaluation trial with eight radiologists. The results show that our system using CQA retrieval doubled the doctors' diagnostic accuracy.
N ° 2006-23 A note on unhappiness and unemployment duration

Although it is now widely-accepted that unemployment is associated with sharply lower levels of individual well-being, relatively little is known about how this effect depends on unemployment duration. Data from three large-scale European panels is used to shed light on this issue; these data allow us to distinguish habituation to unemployment from sample selection. The panel results show little evidence of habituation to unemployment in Europe in the 1990's.
Psycholinguistic variables in visual word recognition and pronunciation of European Portuguese words: a mega-study approach

ABSTRACT An increasing number of psycholinguistic studies have adopted a megastudy approach to explore the role that different variables play in the speed and/or accuracy with which words are recognised and/or pronounced in different languages. However, despite evidence for deep and shallow orthographies, little is known about the role that several orthographic, phonological and semantic variables play in visual word recognition and word production of words from intermediate-depth languages, as European Portuguese (EP). The current study aimed to overcome this gap, by collecting lexical decision and naming data for a large pool of words selected to closely represent the diversity of the EP language. Results from multiple regression analyses conducted on the latency data from both tasks place EP in-between the results previously observed in other deep- and shallow-orthographies. These findings indicate that EP represents a pivotal language to study the universality of the processes/mechanisms involved in skilled reading across languages.
An Information System Design Theory for Green Information Systems for Sustainability Reporting - Integrating Theory with Evidence from Multiple Case studies

Due to increasingly noticeable environmental impacts of business activities and consequently rising demands for environmental information by organizational stakeholders, reliable sustainability reporting (SR) is ever more important for firms. As the task of detailed sustainability reporting is complex and involves gathering and processing of a considerable amount of data, green information systems (Green IS) are seen as suitable to support this task. While some Green IS for SR are commercially available, their adoption is low. One reason is that there is a lack of knowledge of how to design these IS. This paper seeks to provide guidance for the design of Green IS for SR by suggesting an information system design theory (ISDT), which is a set of primarily prescriptive statements describing how to construct the class of Green IS for SR. Therefore, we synthesize knowledge gained from organizational and management theories with insights from 29 case studies conducted in a variety of industries. In result we derived a specific ISDT for Green IS for SR, that contributes to solve the trade-offs between environmental data transparency, complexity and data collection effort. Thus, the proposed ISDT paves the way for future improved Green IS for SR and sustainable development.
Social Development and Labour Productivity: The Problem and a Solution for the Tea Plantation Sector of Sri Lanka

The critical bi-directional causality between social development of tea estate workers and their productivity has created a chronic vicious cycle, requiring a sustainable solution incorporating all the beneficiaries of this sector. The objective of this study is to evaluate the suitability and applicability of small-scale contract farming (CF) system as a sustainable solution for the labour related problems in tea plantations in Sri Lanka. In achieving this objective, a conceptual justification to the solution has been established based on the empirical findings from the existing labour management system in tea plantations. Questionnaire based interviews were conducted with both the management and the estate workers in selected Regional Plantation Companies (RPCs). Study findings reveal that poor socio-economic condition of workers, traditional work norms, lack of cooperativeness between workers and management, and management responsibility towards stockholders have adversely affected the labour productivity. Conclusively, we suggest that small-scale CF system would be a sustainable solution for these problems as it is attributed with equity, efficiency and empowerment tools which are significant but lacking in the existing system.
Two new cell lines from B‐prolymphocytic leukaemia: Characterization by morphology, immunological markers, karyotype and Ig gene rearrangement

Leukaemic cells from 2 patients with B‐prolymphocytic leukaemia were immortalized in vitro by means of Epstein‐Barr virus and phorbol‐ester TPA. The resulting cell lines, named JVM‐2 and JVM‐3, have been growing continuously in liquid culture for more than one year. JVM‐2 is characterized cytogenetically by t(11;14)(q13;q32), and JVM‐3 by trisomy 12. The immunoglobulin (Ig) heavy‐and light‐chain genes showed the same pattern of rearrangement in both lines as in the original prolymphocytes from each case. The cells from these lines showed a spectrum of morphological and immunological features corresponding to different stages of B‐cell maturation. The expression of Ig, IgM‐X in JVM‐2 and IgMD‐K in JVM‐3, changed from a predominantly membrane pattern in the original cells to a cytoplasmic one in the cell lines. By comparison with their original progenitors, the cells from both lines showed reduced reactivity with the monoclonal antibody (MAb) FMC7, and increased expression of the antigens recognized by the MAbs OKT10, α‐Tac, FMC53 and Ki‐I. The availability of cell lines from this rare type of lymphoid leukaemia offers a potential tool for the study of molecular events associated with the expression of Ig and other antigens by ncoplastic cells.
Measuring Market Power in Gasoline Retailing: A Market- or Station Phenomenon?

Applying detailed consecutive daily micro data at the gasoline station level from Sweden we estimate a structural model to uncover the degree of competition in the gasoline retail market. We find that retailers do exercise market power, but despite the high upstream concentration, the market power is very limited on the downstream level. The degree of market power varies with both the distance to the nearest station and the local density of gasoline stations. A higher level of service tends to raise a seller's market power; self-service stations have close to no market power. Contractual form and brand identity also seem to matter. We find a clear result: local station characteristics significantly affect the degree of market power. Our results indicate that local differences in station characteristics can more than offset the average market power found for the whole market.
Hot Topics and Schisms in NLP: Community and Trend Analysis with Saffron on ACL and LREC Proceedings

In this paper we present a comparative analysis of two series of conferences in the field of Computational Linguistics, the LREC conference and the ACL conference. Conference proceedings were analysed using Saffron by performing term extraction and topical hierarchy construction with the goal of analysing topic trends and research communities. The system aims to provide insight into a research community and to guide publication and participation strategies, especially of novice researchers.
Option Prices, Exchange Market Intervention, and the Higher Moment Expectations Channel: A User's Guide

A vast literature on the effects of sterilized intervention by the monetary authorities in the foreign exchange markets concludes that intervention systematically moves the spot exchange rate only if it is publicly announced, coordinated across countries, and consistent with the underlying stance of fiscal and monetary policy. Over the past 15 years, researchers have also attempted to determine if intervention has any effects on the dispersion and directionality of market views concerning the future exchange rate. These studies usually focus on the variance around the expected future exchange rate-the second moment. In this paper we demonstrate how to use over-the-counter option prices to recover the risk-neutral probability density function (PDF) for the future exchange rate. Using the yen|dollar exchange rate as an example, we calculate measures of dispersion and directionality, such as variance and skewness, from estimated PDFs to test whether intervention by the Japanese Ministry of Finance during the period 1996-2004 had any impact on the higher moments of the exchange rate. We find little or no systematic effect, consistent with the findings of the literature on the spot rate as: Japanese intervention was not publicly announced prior to August 2000, and since that time only publicly announced after the fact, over the past 10 years rarely coordinated across countries and, in hindsight, probably inconsistent with the underlying stance of monetary policy. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Gate Charge Control for MOSFET Turn-Off in PWM Motor Drives Through Empirical Means

The following paper presents a novel, empirical approach to gate charge control of a MOSFET used in low-side drive applications such as found in dc motor drives during turn-off, using pulsewidth modulation (PWM) based on ideal expressions of MOSFET behavior during turn- off. Without gate charge control, ringing and overshoot caused by dv /dt effects during the turn-off can result in an increase in electromagnetic interference as well as an increased power dissipation. The ringing can be difficult to suppress through the addition of suppression components as they add cost and bulk to the motor controller. Previous work has focused on the observation of dv/ dt, feed-forward, or open-loop means. Although complex gate charge solutions exist in dedicated application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), a simple, cost-effective solution is proposed in this paper. This solution differs from previous solutions, making use of the ideal relationship between the drain-to-source and gate-to-source voltage of the MOSFET on turn-off to determine the region of high dv/dt to control a two-staged gate charge removal scheme. This solution can be readily implemented in microprocessor-based control schemes used to control motor drives and switch-mode power supplies utilizing low-side MOSFET switching. Circuit operation and advantages are presented and supported by simulation and experimental results.
Fine-grained control of security capabilities

We present a new approach for fine-grained control over users' security privileges (fast revocation of credentials) centered around the concept of an on-line semi-trusted mediator (SEM). The use of a SEM in conjunction with a simple threshold variant of the RSA cryptosystem (mediated RSA) offers a number of practical advantages over current revocation techniques. The benefits include simplified validation of digital signatures, efficient certificate revocation for legacy systems and fast revocation of signature and decryption capabilities. This paper discusses both the architecture and the implementation of our approach as well as its performance and compatibility with the existing infrastructure. Experimental results demonstrate its practical aspects.
How to Increase the Odds of Owning the Few Stocks that Drive Returns

Some investment strategists advocate concentrated “best ideas” portfolios as the surest path to equity market outperformance. The premise is obvious: When a portfolio consists only of a manager’s best ideas, returns are undiluted by second-best or lesser ideas—but the reality is different. We used simulations and empirical analysis to evaluate the relationship between portfolio diversification and outperformance. We found that increasing concentration doesn’t raise the odds of outperformance; it lowers them. The less diversified a portfolio, the less likely it is to hold the small percentage of stocks that account for most of the market’s long-term return. Concentration can increase the odds of earning high margins of outperformance, but the probability of missing that return target increases more quickly than the probability of reaching it. Our analysis yielded two measures that a manager must meet to outperform the market: the “excess return hurdle” and the “success rate. ” The excess return hurdle is the expected gap between portfolio and market returns at different levels of concentration; our analysis shows this decreases with increased holdings. Success rate is a measure of the manager’s ability to identify outperformers. The success rate necessary for a portfolio to outperform decreases as the number of holdings increases. TOPICS: Portfolio theory, portfolio construction, statistical methods, simulations Key Findings • The expected gap between portfolio and market returns decreases with increased holdings. • The “success rate” necessary for a portfolio to outperform decreases as the number of holdings increases. • There is a highly significant positive relationship between the number of holdings and net excess returns.
Study of Competition in the Textile Sector by Twitter Social Network Analysis

Social networks have become a place where brands or companies are advertised to increase their market share. The companies allocate resources to hire community managers that disseminate quality content and perform customer service tasks. This article presents the development of a tweet retrieval tool and user account information to generate simulation and a strategic analysis of a set of competitors in the Twitter social network during a period of three months. A collection of tweets related to four related textile brands has been obtained. The information retrieval process is done using Python to access the Twitter REST service whose results are indexed using Elasticsearch. Once the data is arranged, Kibana is used to create an interactive panel, with different visualizations, that helps to extract the information hidden in the data, proposing different alternatives, its advantages and its disadvantages.
Using Mendelian randomization to investigate a possible causal relationship between adiposity and increased bone mineral density at different skeletal sites in children

Background: Lean mass is positively associated with bone mineral density (BMD). However, the relationship between adiposity and BMD is more controversial. In particular, it is unclear if the observational association between the two reflects a causal effect of fat mass on BMD. Previous Mendelian randomization (MR) studies using variants in the FTO and MC4R genes as genetic instruments for adiposity have suggested that fat mass does indeed causally influence BMD. However, it is possible that these genetic variants pleiotropically influence lean mass and affect BMD through pathways independent of adiposity, invalidating one of the core assumptions of MR and complicating interpretation of the analysis. Methods: To investigate whether adiposity causally affects BMD, we investigated the relationship between fat mass and BMD at the skull (SK), upper limbs (UL) and lower limbs (LL), spine (SP) and pelvis (PE), using 32 body mass index (BMI)-associated SNPs, including a variant near ADCY3 that was strongly associated with fat but not lean mass in our sample. Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) scans and genetic data were available for 5221 subjects (mean age 9.9 years) from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children. We performed a series of MR analyses involving single BMI-associated SNPs and allelic scores of these SNPs. We used new extensions of the MR method including MR Egger regression and multivariable MR, which are more robust to possible confounding effects due to horizontal pleiotropy and, in the case of multivariable MR, specifically account for the effect of lean mass in the analysis. Bidirectional Mendelian randomization analysis was also performed to examine whether BMD causally affected BMI and adiposity. Results: Observationally, fat mass was strongly positively related to BMD at all sites, but more weakly at the skull. Instrumental variables (IV) analyses using an allelic score of BMI SNPs suggested that fat mass was causally related to LL-BMD, UL-BMD, SP-BMD and PE-BMD but not SK-BMD. Multivariable MR, Egger regression and IV analyses involving the ADCY3 variant suggested a positive causal effect of adiposity on all sites except the skull, and that an effect was present even after taking lean mass into account. Finally, IV analyses using BMD allelic scores showed no evidence of reverse causality between BMD and fat mass. Conclusions: Our results suggest that adiposity is causally related to increased BMD at all sites except the skull, perhaps reflecting positive effects of loading on bone formation at weighted but not unweighted sites. In contrast, we found no evidence for BMD causally affecting BMI or measures of adiposity. Our results illustrate how MR can be used profitably to investigate clinical questions relevant to osteoporosis.
Coagulation‐driven platelet activation reduces cholestatic liver injury and fibrosis in mice

The coagulation cascade has been shown to participate in chronic liver injury and fibrosis, but the contribution of various thrombin targets, such as protease activated receptors (PARs) and fibrin(ogen), has not been fully described. Emerging evidence suggests that in some experimental settings of chronic liver injury, platelets can promote liver repair and inhibit liver fibrosis. However, the precise mechanisms linking coagulation and platelet function to hepatic tissue changes following injury remain poorly defined.
Aalborg Universitet Robust classification using mixtures of dependency networks

Dependency networks have previously been proposed as alternatives to e.g. Bayesian networks by supporting fast algorithms for automatic learning. Recently dependency networks have also been proposed as classification models, but as with e.g. general probabilistic inference, the reported speed-ups are often obtained at the expense of accuracy. In this paper we try to address this issue through the use of mixtures of dependency networks. To reduce learning time and improve robustness when dealing with data sparse classes, we outline methods for reusing calculations across mixture components. Finally, the proposed model is empirically compared to other state-of-the-art classifiers, both in terms of accuracy and learning time.
Has Colonial Heritage Affected Export Diversification and thus Economic Growth in Former African Colonies

It has long been suggested that a lack of export diversification is one cause of the slow economic growth and low levels of development in African countries. The purpose of this study is to analyse what implication the colonial heritage has for export diversification and economic growth in 45 African countries over the period 1995-2016. The legal framework left in the country by the colonising power is used as a proxy for the contemporary colonial impact. The empirical part of the study was conducted using a panel data regression model with fixed effects. The results suggest that there is a positive relationship between export diversification and economic growth in the sample group. Furthermore, the impact of export diversification on growth is less pronounced in countries with civil law systems. On the basis of the results of this study, we find indications that former colonies ability to benefit from diversified exports may to some extent depend on what legal system the colonising power left behind. (Less)
Commitment Design

A simple model of commitment design is proposed, or equivalently, we rigorously introduce a new paradigm (i.e., commitment design) for economic design problems, besides the two current paradigms (i.e., the classical mechanism design and information design). Furthermore, we prove that Pareto efficiency can always be achieved via a commitment protocol. This is in sharp contrast to previous results in the literature, e.g., the impossibility result in Arieli, Babichenko, and Tennenholtz (2017) and the folk theorem in Kalai, Kalai, Lehrer, and Samet (2010). Preliminary and incomplete. †Department of Economics, University of Bristol, siyang.xiong@bristol.ac. uk
High rates of adverse drug events in a highly computerized hospital.

BACKGROUND Numerous studies have shown that specific computerized interventions may reduce medication errors, but few have examined adverse drug events (ADEs) across all stages of the computerized medication process. We describe the frequency and type of inpatient ADEs that occurred following the adoption of multiple computerized medication ordering and administration systems, including computerized physician order entry (CPOE). METHODS Using explicit standardized criteria, pharmacists classified inpatient ADEs from prospective daily reviews of electronic medical records from a random sample of all admissions during a 20-week period at a Veterans Administration hospital. We analyzed ADEs that necessitated a changed treatment plan. RESULTS Among 937 hospital admissions, 483 clinically significant inpatient ADEs were identified, accounting for 52 ADEs per 100 admissions and an incidence density of 70 ADEs per 1000 patient-days. One quarter of the hospitalizations had at least 1 ADE. Of all ADEs, 9% resulted in serious harm, 22% in additional monitoring and interventions, 32% in interventions alone, and 11% in monitoring alone; 27% should have resulted in additional interventions or monitoring. Medication errors contributed to 27% of these ADEs. Errors associated with ADEs occurred in the following stages: 61% ordering, 25% monitoring, 13% administration, 1% dispensing, and 0% transcription. The medical record reflected recognition of 76% of the ADEs. CONCLUSIONS High rates of ADEs may continue to occur after implementation of CPOE and related computerized medication systems that lack decision support for drug selection, dosing, and monitoring.
Binary data clustering based on Wiener transformation

Clustering is the process of grouping similar items. Clustering becomes very tedious when data dimensionality and sparsity increases. Binary data are the simplest form of data used in information systems for very large database and it is very efficient based on computational efficiency, memory capacity to represent categorical type data. Usually the binary data clustering is done by using 0 and 1 as numerical value. In this paper, the binary data clustering is performed by preprocessing the binary data to real by wiener transformation. Wiener is a linear Transformation based upon statistics and it is optimal in terms of Mean square error. Computational results show that the clustering based on Wiener transformation is very efficient in terms of objectivity and subjectivity.