Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Factors associated with initial therapy for clinically localized prostate cancer: prostate cancer outcomes study.

BACKGROUND Because of the lack of results from randomized clinical trials comparing the efficacy of aggressive therapies with that of more conservative therapies for clinically localized prostate cancer, men and their physicians may select treatments based on other criteria. We examined the association of sociodemographic and clinical characteristics with four management options: radical prostatectomy, radiation therapy, hormonal therapy, and watchful waiting. METHODS We studied 3073 participants of the Prostate Cancer Outcomes Study diagnosed from October 1, 1994, through October 31, 1995, with clinically localized disease (T1 or T2). Participants completed a baseline survey, and diagnostic and treatment information was abstracted from medical records. Multiple logistic regression analysis identified factors associated with initial treatment. All statistical tests were two-sided. RESULTS Patients with clinically localized disease received the following treatments: radical prostatectomy (47.6%), radiation therapy (23.4%), hormonal therapy (10.5%), or watchful waiting (18.5%). Men aged 75 years or older more often received conservative treatment (i.e., hormonal therapy alone or watchful waiting; 57.9% of men aged 75-79 years and 82.1% of men aged 80 years and older) than aggressive treatment (i.e., radical prostatectomy or radiation therapy) (for all age groups, P</=.001). After adjustment for age, clinical stage, baseline prostate-specific antigen level, and histologic grade, the following factors were associated with conservative treatment: history of a heart attack, being unmarried, geographic region, poor pretreatment bladder control, and impotence. In men younger than 60 years, use of aggressive treatment was similar by race/ethnicity (adjusted percentages = 85.5%, 88.1%, and 85.3% for white, African-American, and Hispanic men, respectively). However, among men 60 years old and older, African-American men underwent aggressive treatment less often than did white men or Hispanic men (adjusted percentages for men aged 60-64 years = 67.1%, 84.7%, and 79.2%, respectively; 65-74 years = 64.8%, 73.4%, and 79.5%, respectively; and 75 years old and older = 25.2%, 45.7%, and 36.6%, respectively). CONCLUSIONS The association of nonclinical factors with treatment suggests that, in the absence of definitive information regarding treatment effectiveness, men diagnosed with prostate cancer should be better informed of the risks and benefits of all treatment options.
A Framework for Building Intelligent Manufacturing Systems 9 ODGDQ ' HYHGåLü DQG ' DQLMHOD 5 DGRYLü

-The paper describes a systematic approach to design and development of software for intelligent manufacturing systems. The approach is based on a multilevel, general object-oriented model of intelligent systems. Current methods and software design and development tools for intelligent manufacturing systems either stress particular components of intelligence (e.g., high-level domain expertise, or learning capabilities, or fuzziness of decisions), or their domain dependence (e.g., monitoring and control systems, or CAPP systems). It is usually difficult to make extensions of such methods and tools, nor is it easy to reuse their components in developing intelligent manufacturing systems. Considerable efforts are being dedicated to the development of interoperable software components, distributed object environments, and flexible and scalable applications to overcome some of these problems. The approach described in this paper starts with a well-founded software engineering principle, making clear distinction between generic, low-level intelligent software components, and domain-dependent, high-level components of an intelligent manufacturing system. It is extensible and adjustable. It also suggests some steps towards design of future software development tools for intelligent manufacturing systems. Several intelligent systems have been developed using the approach. One of these systems, in the cement-manufacturing domain, is briefly overviewed in the paper, illustrating how the approach is used in practice. Finally, some informal discussion on the performance and complexity of the approach is presented.
Windfield: Demonstrating Wind Meteorology with Handheld Haptic Robots

One of the main issues with the acceptance of robotic tools in schools is the extracurricular aspect of the learning activities using these robots. In the Cellulo project, we developed a novel robotic platform that aims to provide a ubiquitous, versatile and practical tool for teachers with subjects varying among the different topics at their respective school curricula. In order to show the potential of Cellulo in the classroom as part of standard curricular activities, we designed a learning activity called Windfield that aims to teach the atmospheric formation mechanism of wind to early middle school children.
Pushing the Envelope in Graph Compression

We improve the state-of-the-art method for the compression of web and other similar graphs by introducing an elegant technique which further exploits the clustering properties observed in these graphs. The analysis and experimental evaluation of our method shows that it outperforms the currently best method of Boldi et al. by achieving a better compression ratio and retrieval time. Our method exhibits vast improvements on certain families of graphs, such as social networks, by taking advantage of their compressibility characteristics, and ensures that the compression ratio will not worsen for any graph, since it easily falls back to the state-of-the-art method.
An Exploratory Investigation of the Role of Openness in Relationship Quality among Emerging Adult Chinese Couples

This study tested emerging adult couples’ openness and its fit effect on their romantic relationship quality using quadratic polynomial regression and response surface analysis. Participants were 260 emerging adult dyads. Both dyads’ openness and relationship quality were measured. The result showed that (1) female and male openness contribute differently to relationship quality; (2) couples with similar high openness could experience better relationship quality than those with similar low openness traits; and (3) when dyadic openness is dissimilar, it is better to be either relatively high or relatively low than to be moderate. These findings highlight the role of openness in emerging adults’ romantic relationships from a dyadic angle.
Evaluation of the Customer Relationship Management Programs of Grocery Chains in Thailand

This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of loyalty card program in the aspect of customer loyalty in the major competitive grocery stores in Thailand which are TOPS, BigC, and Carrefour. In doing so, questionnaires were distributed to the stores’ patrons to gather the relevant information. Moreover, supplementary store manager interviews were conducted to obtain the stores’ perspective on their customer relationship management (CRM) programs, especially their loyalty card programs. The data was analyzed by SPSS using Chi-square and Pearson correlation test. The finding of this study reveals that the loyalty card has significant positive effect on customer loyalty. Among the factors tested, the product quality is the most influential factor concerning both customer preference and their decision to hold a loyalty card. Therefore, one of the main implications of this study is that the stores should emphasize their product quality as one of the main features used to retain and attract customers. The main contribution of this study is the valuable information about loyalty card program which reflects the customer loyalty among the major grocery chains in Thailand. It helps grocery stores to gain more insight about the influence of each of customer loyalty factor in order to develop the effective target marketing strategy. Keywords—CRM, Customer Loyalty Card Programs, Grocery Stores, Thailand
A Usability Study of Input Devices on Measuring User Performance in Computer Games

The aim of this paper is to measure the user performance in computer games via monitoring the gameplay and highlight the users’ preferences on choosing an input device for a more satisfactory gameplay. We conducted a series of experiments to test a number of input devices from human-computer interaction point of view. We chose three input devices: keyboard, joystick and mouse, as well as two different types of driving games. Our research results suggest that choosing a dedicated input device for a specific game is necessary to improve players’ performance and satisfaction in playing computer games. This may be a keyboard or a joystick depending on the nature and the style of the game.
Vagal control of nitric oxide and vasoactive intestinal polypeptide release in the regulation of gastric relaxation in rat.

1. Gastric motility and neurotransmitter release in response to vagal stimulation were studied using a vascularly isolated perfused rat stomach. Gastric motor responses were recorded by a strain gauge force transducer implanted on the proximal stomach. 2. Electrical stimulation of vagal trunk (0.5‐20 Hz) produced a triphasic response which was composed of a rapid transient relaxation (first phase) followed by a phasic contraction (second phase) and a delayed prolonged relaxation (third phase). Maximum responses of the first, second and third phase were observed at 2.5, 5 and 10 Hz, respectively. Intra‐arterial infusion of tetrodotoxin (0.1 microM) or hexamethonium (100 microM) completely abolished the triphasic response. 3. The nitric oxide (NO) biosynthesis inhibitor NG‐nitro‐L‐arginine (L‐NNA; 100 microM) significantly antagonized the rapid relaxation but had no effect on the delayed relaxation, while vasoactive intestinal polypeptide (VIP) antagonist (1 microM) significantly reduced the delayed relaxation without affecting the rapid relaxation. 4. In response to vagal stimulation, NO production ([3H]citrulline formation in gastric tissue preloaded with [3H]arginine) was maximum at 2.5 Hz, whereas VIP release into the venous effluent was largest at 10 Hz. Hexamethonium abolished vagal‐stimulated NO production and VIP release. L‐NNA had no effect on VIP release in response to vagal stimulation. 5. The nicotinic receptor agonist 1,1‐dimethyl‐4‐phenylpiperizinium (DMPP; 100 microM) also caused a triphasic response similar to that observed with vagal stimulation and produced a significant increase in VIP and NO formation. DMPP‐evoked VIP release was not affected by L‐NNA. Similarly, DMPP‐evoked NO production was not antagonized by VIP antagonist. 6. These results suggest that vagus nerve stimulation evokes NO and VIP release via nicotinic synapses which cause different modes of relaxation of the stomach. There is no interaction between NO and VIP release in response to vagal stimulation.
Adaptable service composition for very-large-scale internet of things systems

Internet of Things (IoT) is considered as a future paradigm whose main challenge is to give an IP based transparent access to the huge number of services available as IoT resources. Due to the large number of resource-constrained devices and the dynamic nature of IoT environments, this integration problem becomes more intricate. The current state-of-the-art is mostly focused on the integration of IP enabled smart objects on the basis of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and the Representational State Transfer (REST) architectural style. However, beyond these approaches, we intend to address the flexible and adaptive composition of services in Very Large Scale (VLS) IoT systems by exploiting the concepts of service orchestration and choreography. In particular, we present an architectural model that enables efficient integration of services by locally orchestrating distributed web-enabled services in VLS IoT systems and globally choreographing Web-based applications.
Microbial Evaluation of Fresh, Minimally-processed Vegetables and Bagged Sprouts from Chain Supermarkets

ABSTRACT The aim of this study was to evaluate the bacterial and fungal quality of minimally-processed vegetables (MPV) and sprouts. A total of 116 samples of fresh-cut vegetables, ready-to-eat salads, and mung bean and wheat sprouts were randomly collected and analyzed. The load of aerobic mesophilic bacteria was minimum and maximum in the fresh-cut vegetables and fresh mung bean sprouts respectively, corresponding to populations of 5.3 and 8.5 log CFU/g. E. coli O157:H7 was found to be absent in all samples; however, other E. coli strains were detected in 21 samples (18.1%), and Salmonella spp. were found in one mung bean (3.1%) and one ready-to-eat salad sample (5%). Yeasts were the predominant organisms and were found in 100% of the samples. Geotrichum, Fusarium, and Penicillium spp. were the most prevalent molds in mung sprouts while Cladosporium and Penicillium spp. were most frequently found in ready-to-eat salad samples. According to results from the present study, effective control measures should be implemented to minimize the microbiological contamination of fresh produce sold in Tehran, Iran.
SOLUTION TO THE INVERSE SCATTERING PROBLEM USING AMODIFIED DISTORTED BORN ITERATIVE

We present a new distorted Born iterative algorithm for diiraction tomography which introduces kernel distortions only at carefully selected pixel locations. This algorithm attains the performance levels achieved by existing distorted Born iterative techniques , while maintaining the robustness of the Born iterative technique, especially in noisy situations. In addition , the algorithm has lower computational complexity and faster convergence rate when compared with existing distorted Born iterative algorithms. We present numerical simulations of the algorithm in noisy and noise-free environments. We also discuss an elementary experimental setup which is being used to validate our tomographic imaging algorithms.
Collaborative Deep Reinforcement Learning

Besides independent learning, human learning process is highly improved by summarizing what has been learned, communicating it with peers, and subsequently fusing knowledge from different sources to assist the current learning goal. This collaborative learning procedure ensures that the knowledge is shared, continuously refined, and concluded from different perspectives to construct a more profound understanding. The idea of knowledge transfer has led to many advances in machine learning and data mining, but significant challenges remain, especially when it comes to reinforcement learning, heterogeneous model structures, and different learning tasks. Motivated by human collaborative learning, in this paper we propose a collaborative deep reinforcement learning (CDRL) framework that performs adaptive knowledge transfer among heterogeneous learning agents. Specifically, the proposed CDRL conducts a novel deep knowledge distillation method to address the heterogeneity among different learning tasks with a deep alignment network. Furthermore, we present an efficient collaborative Asynchronous Advantage Actor-Critic (cA3C) algorithm to incorporate deep knowledge distillation into the online training of agents, and demonstrate the effectiveness of the CDRL framework using extensive empirical evaluation on OpenAI gym.
Adaptive multi-resolution windowing technique for localized spatio-spectral analysis

This paper introduces an adaptive, multi-resolution windowing technique that can be used in conjunction with the spatially localized spherical harmonic transform (SLSHT) to process signals on the 2-sphere in the spatio-spectral domain. In contrast with the standard formulation, which uses a fixed window, the new windowing technique is able to respond locally to the signal under analysis, that is, be adaptive, and also is formulated to depend on the spectral degree to give it a multi-resolution character. We further enhance its simultaneous spatial and spectral localization by basing the window on a parametric band-limited Slepian maximum spatial concentration eigenfunction. The criterion for window design is to maximize the energy concentration in each spectral component in the spatio-spectral domain. A computationally efficient method is also developed to implement the adaptive window design. An example is also provided to demonstrate the superiority of the new adaptive, multiresolution window technique.
THE « CORPUS ERGONOMICUS »: A COMPREHENSIVE AND UNIQUE SOURCE FOR HUMAN-MACHINE INTERFACE

The "Corpus Ergonomicus" consists of a multi-purpose design guide containing ergonomic rules (or guidelines) that are considered useful to improve human-machine interaction. 3,700 ergonomic rules have been extracted from 938 bibliographic references, gathered, translated, reformulated and organised according to a general ergonomic rule model. Twenty seven problems encountered when applying ergonomic rules are reported and discussed with respect to the general model. Problems are consequently separated into two categories : problems which remained intrinsically unsolved due to the nature of software ergonomics and problems which are considered solved if the recommended model is followed.
A Realizability Model for a Semantical Value Restriction

Reconciling dependent product and classical logic with call-by-value evaluation is a difficult problem. It is the first step toward a classical proof system for an ML-like language. In such a system, the introduction rule for universal quantification and the elimination rule for dependent product need to be restricted: they can only be applied to values. This value restriction is acceptable for universal quantification (ML-like polymorphism) but makes dependent product unusable in practice. In order to circumvent this limitation we introduce new typing rules and prove their consistency by constructing a realizability model in three layers (values, stacks and terms). Such a technique has already been used to account for classical ML-like polymorphism in call-by-value, and we here extend it to handle dependent product. The main idea is to internalize observational equivalence as a new non-computable operation in the calculus. A crucial property of the obtained model is that the biorthogonal of a set of values which is closed under observational equivalence does not contain more values than the original set.
Using Web-Mining for Academic Measurement and Scholar Recommendation in Expert Finding System

Scholars usually spend great deal of time on searching and reading papers of key researchers. However, to objectively determine key researcher of a topic relies on several measurements, such as publication, citation, recent academic activities. In this paper, a prototype of scholars searching and recommendation system based on a web mining approach in expert finding system is proposed. The system gives and recommends the ranking of scholars and turns out top-k scholars. A new ranking measure is designed, namely p-index, to reveal the scholar ranking of a certain field. We use a real-world dataset to test the robustness, the experiment results show our approach outperforms other existing approaches and users are highly interested in using the system again.
Non-parametric reconstruction of cluster mass distribution from strong lensing: modelling Abell 370

We describe a new non-parametric technique for reconstructing the mass distribution in galaxy clusters with strong lensing, i.e. from multiple images of background galaxies. The observed positions and redshifts of the images are considered as rigid constraints, and through the lens (ray-trace) equation they provide us with linear constraint equations. These constraints confine the mass distribution to some allowed region, which is then found by linear programming. Within this allowed region we study in detail the mass distribution with minimum mass-to-light variation, and also some other distributions, such as the smoothest mass distribution. The method is applied to the extensively studied cluster Abell 370, which hosts a giant luminous arc and several other multiply imaged background galaxies. Our mass maps are constrained by the observed positions and redshifts (spectroscopic or model-inferred by previous authors) of the giant arc and multiple-image systems. The reconstructed maps obtained for Abell 370 reveal a detailed mass distribution, with substructure quite different from the light distribution. The method predicts the bimodal nature of the cluster, and that the projected mass distribution is indeed elongated along the axis defined by the two dominant cD galaxies. However, the peaks in the mass distribution appear to be offset from the centres of the cDs. We also present an estimate for the total mass of the central region of the cluster. This is in good agreement with previous mass determinations. The total mass of the central region is M=(2.0–2.7)×1014 M⊙h−150, depending on the solution chosen.
Deciding provability of linear logic formulas

A great deal of insight about a logic can be derived from the study of the diiculty of deciding if a given formula is provable in that logic. Most rst order logics are undecidable and are linear time decidable with no quantiiers and no propositional symbols. However , logics diier greatly in the complexity of deciding propositional formulas. For example, rst-order classical logic is undecidable, propositional classical logic is np-complete, and constant-only classical logic is decidable in linear time. Intuitionistic logic shares the same complexity characterization as classical logic except at the propositional level, where intuitionistic logic is pspace-complete. In this survey we review the available results characterizing various fragments of linear logic. Surprises include the fact that both propositional and constant-only linear logic are undecidable. The results of these studies can be used to guide further proof-theoretic exploration, the study of semantics, and the construction of theorem provers and logic programming languages.
PAE improvement using 2nd harmonic source injection at x-band

Theory and measurements are presented comparing Class B amplifier performance of a 0.5 W GaAs pHEMT driven with (a) a sinusoidal signal or (b) using 2nd harmonic input injection. Engineering the input waveform in this way leads to a class B operating mode requiring 3.4 dB less input drive at 9 GHz. This increases power gain and maintains the output power. The 2nd harmonic injection case then shows a 5.9% PAE improvement over the class B case.
Triadic closure dynamics drives scaling laws in social multiplex networks

Social networks exhibit scaling laws for several structural characteristics, such as degree distribution, scaling of the attachment kernel and clustering coefficients as a function of node degree. A detailed understanding if and how these scaling laws are inter-related is missing so far, let alone whether they can be understood through a common, dynamical principle. We propose a simple model for stationary network formation and show that the three mentioned scaling relations follow as natural consequences of triadic closure. The validity of the model is tested on multiplex data from a well-studied massive multiplayer online game. We find that the three scaling exponents observed in the multiplex data for the friendship, communication and trading networks can simultaneously be explained by the model. These results suggest that triadic closure could be identified as one of the fundamental dynamical principles in social multiplex network formation.