Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Two-Way Tables: Issues at the Heart of Statistics and Probability for Students and Teachers

Some problems exist at the intersection of statistics and probability, creating a dilemma in relation to the best approach to assist student understanding. Such is the case with problems presented in two-way tables representing conditional information. The difficulty can be confounded if the context within which the problem is set is one where students have preconceived opinions on the direction of the potential association present. This article considers school students’ responses to two problems of association, with data presented in 2 × 2 tables. A hierarchical rubric is presented to document students’ understandings. Teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge is also considered in relation to the same two problems. Findings include a surprising relationship of outcomes for students across the problem contexts and some concern about teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge in this area of the curriculum.
Changing Perceptions of Serial Murder in Contemporary England

During the 1980's, it was frequently suggested that Great Britain was experiencing a novel and wide-ranging prob lem of serial murder. This article uses a long term historical approach to challenge the essential idea of a genuine upsurge of such activity. The change was one of perception rather than reality, but even so it had important consequences for reactions to violent crime by both law enforcement and the media. Linkages between indi vidual cases were now more likely to be suggested, and the police were more likely to postulate the existence of unknown serial killers. This trend will be examined with special reference to three major cases of the mid-1980's: the "Railway Murders", and two probable series of child killings originally investigated under the general title of "Operation Stranger". The origins of the new attitude to multiple homicide will be sought both in American influences and contacts, and in the internal politics of the British police. Issues of national policing and centralized intelligence gathering will be emphasized.
WarpLDA: a Simple and Efficient O(1) Algorithm for Latent Dirichlet Allocation

Developing efficient and scalable algorithms for Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) is of wide interest for many applications. Previous work has developed an O(1) Metropolis-Hastings sampling method for each token. However, the performance is far from being optimal due to random accesses to the parameter matrices and frequent cache misses. In this paper, we propose WarpLDA, a novel O(1) sampling algorithm for LDA. WarpLDA is a Metropolis-Hastings based algorithm which is designed to optimize the cache hit rate. Advantages of WarpLDA include 1) Efficiency and scalability: WarpLDA has good locality and carefully designed partition method, and can be scaled to hundreds of machines; 2) Simplicity: WarpLDA does not have any complicated modules such as alias tables, hybrid data structures, or parameter servers, making it easy to understand and implement; 3) Robustness: WarpLDA is consistently faster than other algorithms, under various settings from small-scale to massivescale dataset and model. WarpLDA is 5-15x faster than state-of-the-art LDA samplers, implying less cost of time and money. With WarpLDA users can learn up to one million topics from hundreds of millions of documents in a few hours, at the speed of 2G tokens per second, or learn topics from small-scale datasets in seconds.
A characterization of integral input-to-state stability

The notion of input-to-state stability (ISS) is now recognized as a central concept in nonlinear systems analysis. It provides a nonlinear generalization of finite gains with respect to supremum norms and also of finite L/sup 2/ gains. It plays a central role in recursive design, coprime factorizations, controllers for nonminimum phase systems, and many other areas. In this paper, a newer notion, that of integral input-to-state stability (iISS), is studied. The notion of iISS generalizes the concept of finite gain when using an integral norm on inputs but supremum norms of states, in that sense generalizing the linear "H/sup 2/" theory. It allows one to quantify sensitivity even in the presence of certain forms of nonlinear resonance. We obtain several necessary and sufficient characterizations of the iISS property, expressed in terms of dissipation inequalities and other alternative and nontrivial characterizations.
Accounting for localization errors in a mixed-vehicle centralized control system

Future autonomous vehicles are expected to coordinate controls to improve traffic efficiency, fuel consumption and most importantly safety. A centralized vehicle control system is a system where a centralized entity computes control inputs considering variables like vehicles’ localization, velocity, etc. and transmits it to the vehicles to implement them. Due to the presence of localization errors, perceived localization of a vehicle is different from its true localization. Control inputs calculated using erroneous localization, when implemented on vehicles result into collisions. In this paper we propose a centralized control approach which takes into consideration localization errors for collision free braking in a mixed traffic scenario. The performance of the proposed approach is evaluated under three different traffic scenarios with vehicles having erroneous localization. Results show significant increase in the number of collisions avoided, while using proposed approach, as compared to scenarios where localization errors were not accounted for. Moreover, despite localization errors, the proposed approach can ensure upto the same number of collision avoidance as in a scenario where true localization was known. c © 2016 The Authors. Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the International Conference on Intelligent Transport Systems in Theory and Practice.
Commentary: Basic Research in HIV Vaccinology Is Hampered by Reductionist Thinking

*Correspondence: Marc H. V. Van Regenmortel, CNRS, UMR7242 – Institut de Recherche de l’Ecole de Biotechnologie de Strasbourg, Université de Strasbourg, Illkirch 67400, France. e-mail: vanregen@unistra.fr This review describes the structure-based reverse vaccinology approach aimed at developing vaccine immunogens capable of inducing antibodies that broadly neutralize HIV-1. Some basic principles of protein immunochemistry are reviewed and the implications of the extensive polyspecificity of antibodies for vaccine development are underlined. Although it is natural for investigators to want to know the cause of an effective immunological intervention, the classic notion of causality is shown to have little explanatory value for a system as complex as the immune system, where any observed effect always results from many interactions between a large number of components. Causal explanations are reductive because a single factor is singled out for attention and given undue explanatory weight on its own. Other examples of the negative impact of reductionist thinking on HIV vaccine development are discussed. These include (1) the failure to distinguish between the chemical nature of antigenicity and the biological nature of immunogenicity, (2) the belief that when an HIV-1 epitope is reconstructed by rational design to better fit a neutralizing monoclonal antibody (nMab), this will produce an immunogen able to elicit Abs with the same neutralizing capacity as the Ab used as template for designing the antigen, and (3) the belief that protection against infection can be analyzed at the level of individual molecular interactions although it has meaning only at the level of an entire organism. The numerous unsuccessful strategies that have been used to design HIV-1 vaccine immunogens are described and it is suggested that the convergence of so many negative experimental results justifies the conclusion that reverse vaccinology is unlikely to lead to the development of a preventive HIV-1 vaccine. Immune correlates of protection in vaccines have not yet been identified because this will become feasible only retrospectively once an effective vaccine exists. The finding that extensive antibody affinity maturation is needed to obtain mature anti-HIV-1 Abs endowed with a broad neutralizing capacity explains why antigens designed to fit matured Mabs are not effective vaccine immunogens since these are administered to naive recipients who possess only B-cell receptors corresponding to the germline version of the matured Abs.
Dietary Lipids, Sugar, Fiber, and Mortality from Coronary Heart Disease: Bivariate Analysis of International Data

Univariate analyses with data for the years 1954–1969 from 20 economically advanced countries showed that a combined dietary lipid score based on per capita consumption of saturated fat, cholesterol, and polyunsaturated fat (equation of Keys, et al.) and the consumption of refined and processed sugars were both highly correlated with age-standardized coronary heart disease (CHD) mortality rates for the years 1969–1973 for both men and women aged 35–74 years (rvalues of 0.54 to 0.72). Fiber intake, estimated as the sum of calories available from vegetables, fruits, grains, and legumes, yielded a significant inverse correlation with CHD mortality rates (r = −0.49 to −0.68). These three dietary variables are highly intercorrelated. With bivariate analyses (2x 2 cross-classification and analysis of variance), lipid score, but neither that of sucrose or fiber, was consistently and significantly related to CHD mortality. However, with both higher and lower lipid scores, CHD mortality rates tended to be slightly (nonsignificantly) higher with higher sugar values and with lower fiber values.
Effects of Tamsulosin, Solifenacin, and Combination Therapy for the Treatment of Ureteral Stent Related Discomforts

Purpose To evaluate the effect of tamsulosin, solifenacin, and combination therapy of two agents in improving the lower urinary tract symptoms of patients with indwelling double-J ureteral stents. Materials and Methods A total of 168 patients underwent placement of a double-J ureteral stent after retrograde ureteroscopy for urinary stone disease. All patients received polyurethane double-J ureteral stents (6 Fr, 24 or 26 cm), which were removed a mean of 14 days postoperatively. A total of 48 patients were given no medication (Group 1), 43 patients were given tamsulosin 0.2 mg once daily (Group 2), 45 patients were given solifenacin 5 mg once daily (Group 3), and 32 patients were given a combination of two agents postoperatively (Group 4). International Prostate Symptom Score/quality of life (IPSS/QoL) and visual analogue pain scale (VAPS) questionnaires were completed by each patient at 1 day postoperatively and on the day of stent removal. Results In the total group of patients, the mean age was 50.24±12.90 years. There was a significant difference in the IPSS total score between group 1 and groups 3 and 4. Group 4 also differed significantly from group 1 in the irritative subscore. The obstructive subscore differed between groups 2 and 4 and group 1. There was a statistically significant difference between group 1 and group 4 in the QoL score. There were no significant differences in the VAPS. Conclusions Combination therapy with tamsulosin and solifenacin improved both irritative and obstructive symptoms more than in the other groups. Combination therapy should be strongly considered for patients who complain of stent-related symptoms.
Robust Mechanism Design

The mechanism design literature assumes too much common knowledge of the environment among the players and planner. We relax this assumption by studying implementation on richer type spaces, with more higher order uncertainty. We study the "ex post equivalence" question: When is interim implementation on all possible type spaces equivalent to requiring ex post implementation on the space of payoff types? We show that ex post equivalence holds when the social choice correspondence is a function and in simple quasi-linear environments. When ex post equivalence holds, we identify how large the type space must be to obtain the equivalence. We also show that ex post equivalence fails in general, including in quasi-linear environments with budget balance. For quasi-linear environments, we provide an exact characterization of when interim implementation is possible in rich type spaces. In this environment, the planner can fully extract players' belief types, so the incentive constraints reduce to conditions distinguishing types with the same beliefs about others' types but different payoff types. (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
Developing organizational practices of ecological sustainability: A learning perspective

Purpose – This article aims to discuss issues and strategies of developing practices of ecological sustainability in organizations. Three questions guide the discussion: how are practices of social responsibility and ecological sustainability developed and maintained in organizations? What learning in particular is involved in developing practices of ecological sustainability in organizations? How might this learning be fostered by organizational leaders? Design/methodology/approach – The article draws from literatures in ecology, ecological learning and corporate social responsibility to describe the nature of ecological sustainability, intents and approaches of organizations developing it, and their challenges. Case examples drawn from studies of small business are examined to explore successful strategies of developing practices of ecological sustainability. These examples are analysed from a learning perspective.Findings – Challenges that hinder adoption of ecological sustainability practice include lo.
Effects of Carotid Sinus Nerve Stimulation on Blood‐Flow Distribution in Conscious Dogs at Rest and during Exercise

The effects of stimulating the carotid sinus nerves on the distribution of cardiac output and peripheral vasoactivity was studied in intact, unanesthetized dogs instrumented with ultrasonic or electromagnetic flow probes on the ascending aorta, mesenteric, renal, and iliac arteries, and miniature pressure gauges in the aorta. A radiofrequency pacemaker was used to stimulate the nerves in dogs at rest, during treadmill exercise, and after autonomic blockade. Thirty-second periods of stimulation in the resting dog resulted in an average decrease in aortic pressure of 28%, cardiac output remained unchanged, total peripheral resistance fell 29%, mesenteric flow 12%, mesenteric vascular resistance 18%, renal flow 8%, and renal vascular resistance 22%. In the iliac bed flow increased by 90% while resistance declined by 62%. Heart rate decreased initially by 13%, and returned to control during stimulation. The bradycardia was determined to be predominantly due to vagal stimulation. During treadmill exercise carotid sinus nerve stimulation resulted in similar decreases in arterial pressure, mesenteric and renal resistance, and a further decrease in iliac resistance from exercise control values. Thus, electrical stimulation of the carotid sinus nerves in the conscious dog produced a differential pattern of peripheral vasodilatation, the most profound dilatation being observed in the hind-limb circulation. This release of sympathetic tone also occurred during stimulation in exercising animals when the muscular bed was already dilated on a metabolic basis.
Sequential Pattern Analysis with Right Granularity

Sequential pattern analysis targets on finding statistically relevant temporal structures where the values are delivered in a sequence. This is a fundamental problem in data mining with diversified applications in many science and business fields, such as multimedia analysis (motion gesture/video sequence recognition), marketing analytics (buying path prediction), and financial modelling (trend of stock prices). Given the overwhelming scale and the heterogeneous nature of the sequential data, new techniques for sequential pattern analysis are required to derive competitive advantages and unlock the power of the big data. In this dissertation, we develop novel approaches for sequential pattern analysis with applications in dynamic business environments, including operation and management tasks in healthcare industry as well as B2B (Business-to-Business) marketing. Our major contribution is to identify the right granularity for sequential pattern analysis, including both sequential pattern modelling and mining. Due to space limitation, this submission presents mainly the "temporal skeletonization", our approach to identifying the meaningful granularity for sequential pattern mining. Our key idea is to summarize the temporal correlations in an undirected graph. Then, the "skeleton" of the graph serves as a higher granularity on which hidden temporal patterns are more likely to be identified. In the meantime, the embedding topology of the graph allows us to translate the rich temporal content into a metric space. This opens up new possibilities to explore, quantify, and visualize sequential data. Our approach has shown to provide substantial improvements over the state-of-the-art methods in challenging tasks of sequential pattern mining and sequence clustering. Evaluation on a Business-to-Business (B2B) marketing application demonstrates that our approach can effectively discover critical buying paths from noisy customer event data.
Rectangular Discrete Radon Transform towards an automated buildings recognition from high resolution satellite image

This paper presents a new approach titled Rectangular Discrete Radon Transform (RDRT) which is based on the generalization of the classical Radon transform to project the images with rectangular objects instead of straight lines. The RDRT was conceived to accurately locate and automatically recognize Rectangular Buildings from high resolution satellite images. Experimental results demonstrate the efficiency of our method.
Intangible cultural heritage: The living culture of peoples

Intangible cultural heritage (ICH), made up of all immaterial manifestations of culture, represents the variety of living heritage of humanity as well as the most important vehicle of cultural diversity. The main �constitutive factors� of ICH are represented by the �self-identification� of this heritage as an essential element of the cultural identity of its creators and bearers; by its constant recreation in response to the historical and social evolution of the communities and groups concerned; by its connection with the cultural identity of these communities and groups; by its authenticity; and by its indissoluble relationship with human rights. The international community has recently become conscious that ICH needs and deserves international safeguarding, triggering a legal process which culminated with the adoption in 2003 of the UNESCO Convention on the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. This Convention correctly highlights the main elements of ICH and is based on the right philosophical rationale, but its operational part � structured on the model provided by the 1972 World Heritage Convention � appears to be inadequate to ensure appropriate safeguarding of the specificities of intangible heritage. This article argues that to correct such inadequacy, international safeguarding of ICH must rely on the concomitant application, even though in an indirect manner, of international human rights law, for the reason that ICH represents a component of cultural human rights and an essential prerequisite to ensure the actual realization and enjoyment of individual and collective rights of its creators and bearers.
Genome-Wide Analysis of Estrogen Receptor α DNA Binding and Tethering Mechanisms Identifies Runx1 as a Novel Tethering Factor in Receptor-Mediated Transcriptional Activation

ABSTRACT Nuclear receptor estrogen receptor alpha (ERα) controls the expression of hundreds of genes responsible for target cell phenotypic properties, but the relative importance of direct versus tethering mechanisms of DNA binding has not been established. In this first report, we examine the genome-wide chromatin localization of an altered-specificity mutant ER with a DNA binding domain deficient in binding to estrogen response element (ERE)-containing DNA (DBDmut ER) versus wild-type ERα. Using high-throughput sequencing of ER chromatin immunoprecipitations (ChIP-Seq) and mRNA transcriptional profiling, we show that direct ERE binding is required for most of (75%) estrogen-dependent gene regulation and 90% of hormone-dependent recruitment of ER to genomic binding sites. De novo motif analysis of the chromatin binding regions in MDA-MB-231 human breast cancer cells defined unique transcription factor profiles responsible for genes regulated through tethering versus direct ERE binding, with Runx motifs enriched in ER-tethered sites. We confirmed a role for Runx1 in mediating ERα genomic recruitment and regulation of tethering genes. Our findings delineate the contributions of direct receptor ERE binding versus binding through response elements for other transcription factors in chromatin localization and ER-dependent gene regulation, paradigms likely to underlie the gene regulatory actions of other nuclear receptors as well.
Striking a Balance Between Traffic Engineering and Energy Efficiency in Virtual Machine Placement

The increasing adoption of server virtualization has recently favored three key technology advances in data-center networking: the emergence at the hypervisor software level of virtual bridging functions between virtual machines and the physical network; the possibility to dynamically migrate virtual machines across virtualization servers in the data-center network (DCN); a more efficient exploitation of the large path diversity by means of multipath forwarding protocols. In this paper, we investigate the impact of these novel features in DCN optimization by providing a comprehensive mathematical formulation and a repeated matching heuristic for its resolution. We show, in particular, how virtual bridging and multipath forwarding impact common DCN optimization goals, traffic engineering (TE) and energy efficiency (EE), and assess their utility in the various cases of four different DCN topologies. We show that virtual bridging brings a high performance gain when TE is the primary goal and should be deactivated when EE becomes important. Moreover, we show that multipath forwarding can bring relevant gains only when EE is the primary goal and virtual bridging is not enabled.
Formalization of graphical schemas: General sketch-based logic vs. heuristic pictures

In the paper a new approach to semantic modeling and view integration is proposed. The underlying data model is graph-based yet completely formalized so that graphical schemas themselves are precise speciications suitable for implementation. The formalism is a kind of graph-object-based generalization of the relational data model: analytical assertions about elements (values) are replaced by synthetic assertions about diagrams of sets (object classes) and functions (references); correspondingly, queries are operations on such diagrams. On the other hand, the approach is an adaptation of a familiar in the mathematical category theory speciication framework based on the so called sketches. On this ground, a new approach to view integration is suggested. Its distinctive characteristics is in the way of specifying correspondence between diierent views of the same universe of discourse. The speciications are formalized and based on equations which reduces the integration task to a sequence of formal algebraic procedures. Some of them can be automatic, others should run in a automated interactive mode. In the latter case, however, the approach provides precise speciications of what is required to put into the automated integrator.