Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
On the maximum entropy property of the first-order stable spline kernel and its implications

A new nonparametric approach for system identification has been recently proposed where the impulse response is seen as the realization of a zero-mean Gaussian process whose covariance, the so-called stable spline kernel, guarantees that the impulse response is almost surely stable. Maximum entropy properties of the stable spline kernel have been pointed out in the literature. In this paper we provide an independent proof that relies on the theory of matrix extension problems in the graphical model literature and leads to a closed form expression for the inverse of the first order stable spline kernel as well as to a new factorization in the form UWU with U upper triangular and W diagonal. Interestingly, all first-order stable spline kernels share the same factor U and W admits a closed form representation in terms of the kernel hyperparameter, making the factorization computationally inexpensive. Maximum likelihood properties of the stable spline kernel are also highlighted. These results can be applied both to improve the stability and to reduce the computational complexity associated with the computation of stable spline estimators.
Genetic Mapping of Blood Pressure Quantitative Trait Loci in Milan Hypertensive Rats

In a previous study, by using a candidate gene approach, we detected in both Milan hypertensive rats and humans a polymorphism in the &agr;-adducin gene (ADD1) that was associated with blood pressure and renal sodium handling. In the present study, a genomewide search with 264 informative markers was undertaken in 251 (Milan hypertensive strain × Milan normotensive strain) F2 rats to further investigate the contribution of the adducin gene family (Add1, Add2, and Add3) and to identify novel quantitative trait loci (QTLs) that affect blood pressure. The influence of 2 different methods of blood pressure measurement, the intracarotid catheter and the tail-cuff method, was also evaluated. We found evidence that QTLs affected systolic blood pressure (SBP) measured at the carotid (direct SBP) on rat chromosome 1 with a logarithm of the odds (LOD) score peak of 3.3 on D1Rat121 and on rat chromosome 14 on Add1 locus (LOD=3.2). A QTL for SBP measured at the tail (indirect SBP) was found on rat chromosome 10 around D10Rat33 (LOD=5.0). All of these QTLs identified chromosomal regions not detected in other rat studies and harbor genes (Na+/H+ exchanger A3; &agr;-adducin; &agr;1B-adrenergic receptor) that may be involved in blood pressure regulation. Therefore, these findings may be relevant to human hypertension, also in consideration of the biochemical and pathophysiological similarities between MHS and a subgroup of patients of primary hypertension, which led to the identification of &agr;-adducin as a candidate gene in both species.
Carbon monoxide over the Amazon Basin during the 1985 dry season

During the Amazon Boundary Layer Experiment (ABLE 2A), approximately 100 hours of in situ, carbon monoxide (CO) measurements were obtained using a tunable diode laser sensor that provided continuous, fast-response (≈1 s) measurements. This extensive data set, taken on board the NASA Electra between July 12 and August 12, 1985, characterizes the temporal and spatial changes in the CO distribution over the Amazon basin as meteorological conditions progressed from the early to middle phases of the 1985 day season. Early dry-season CO values of 75–95 parts per billion by volume (ppbv) were generally observed in the planetary boundary layer (PBL). As the dry season became well established, biomass burning and a persistent capping inversion at ≈3 km profoundly altered the CO distribution, with PBL values typically reaching 150–275 ppbv. Concentrations as high as 800 ppbv were measured within identifiable haze layers. An analysis of satellite imagery shows that biomass burning was occurring along the Amazon River system and in savannah areas located more than 1000 km south of the region sampled.
Mechanisms of vasorelaxation induced by troglitazone, a novel antidiabetic drug, in the porcine coronary artery.

BACKGROUND Troglitazone (TRO), a novel antidiabetic drug, has been reported to decrease blood pressure and relax vascular strips. The mechanism of relaxation induced by TRO was determined in terms of Ca2+ signaling in smooth muscle cells. METHODS AND RESULTS Front-surface fluorometry and fura 2-loaded medial strips of porcine coronary artery were used to examine the effects of TRO on cytosolic Ca2+ concentrations ([Ca2+]i) and contractions. The sustained contraction induced by 100 nmol/L U46619 was similar to that induced by 60 mmol/L K+ depolarization (60K+). TRO concentration dependently decreased [Ca2+]i and the force of these contractions. The concentration of TRO required to induce 50% inhibition of U46619-induced force (2.9 micromol/L) was significantly lower than that required in the case of 60K+-induced force (7.3 micromol/L). Replacing extracellular Ca2+ with Mn2+ gradually quenched fluorescence at 360 nm excitation. This decline was accelerated by 100 nmol/L U46619 and 30K+ to a similar extent, indicating a similar activation of Ca2+ influx. TRO completely inhibited U46619-activated influx but partly inhibited depolarization-activated influx. Cumulative applications of extracellular Ca2+ during stimulations with U46619 or 118K+ induced stepwise increases in [Ca2+]i and force. TRO shifted the [Ca2+]i-force relation to the right during both stimulations. CONCLUSIONS TRO relaxes coronary artery by decreasing [Ca2+]i and Ca2+ sensitivity of contractile apparatus. Inhibition of Ca2+ influx was important in decreasing [Ca2+]i. TRO more effectively inhibits receptor-operated Ca2+ influx than voltage-operated Ca2+ channels.
A Hybrid Approach for Named Entity and Sub-Type Tagging

This paper presents a hybrid approach for named entity (NE) tagging which combines Maximum Entropy Model (MaxEnt), Hidden Markov Model (HMM) and handcrafted grammatical rules. Each has innate strengths and weaknesses; the combination results in a very high precision tagger. MaxEnt includes external gazetteers in the system. Sub-category generation is also discussed.
Does Apolipoprotein E Influence Learning and Memory in the Nondemented Oldest Old?

The objective of this study was to analyze the relationship of the apolipoprotein E (apoE) ε4 and ε2 alleles to learning and memory performances in the nondemented oldest old. Forty-six nondemented persons aged 85 years or over from a randomly selected group of 128 subjects in Vantaa, Finland, were studied. ApoE genotyping was performed using the minisequencing technique. A structured clinical examination and interview were carried out. The test variables studied were learning and memory scores (from the Fuld Object-Memory Evaluation), verbal fluency, and conceptualization (the Similarities subtest of the WAIS-R). We compared apoE-ε4 carriers to noncarriers and apoE-ε2 carriers to noncarrirs. No statistically significant differences were found in any of the test variables. The results failed to confirm the hypotheses that poor cognitive performance is associated with the apoE-ε4 allele and good performance with the apoE-ε2 allele in the oldest old. This suggests that the apoE alleles do not have a detectable relationship to learning and memory in nondemented very elderly people.
Exploring Nostalgia's Influence on Psychological Growth

Prior research shows that the experience of nostalgia—a sentimental longing for the past—serves to buffer self-threat. Complementing this work, the current research assessed the possibility that nostalgia promotes psychological growth—that is, the potential to cultivate inner potentialities, seek out optimal challenges, and integrate new experiences into the self-concept. Two studies tested the effect of experimentally induced nostalgia on growth-oriented self-perceptions and behavioral intentions. To examine whether this effect reflects growth in particular, we built on Fredrickson's (1998, 2001) claim that positive emotion is the prime mechanism underlying growth-promoting experiences. As predicted, nostalgia increased growth outcomes indirectly by increasing positive emotion (Study 1). Study 2 explored which specific psychological resource provided by nostalgia accounts for its positive effect on growth. Prior literature suggested three candidate mediators: belongingness, meaning in life, and positive self-regard. Nostalgia increased all three, but only positive self-regard mediated nostalgia's effect on growth outcomes.
Exploiting Collective Hidden Structures in Webpage Titles for Open Domain Entity Extraction

We present a novel method for open domain named entity extraction by exploiting the collective hidden structures in webpage titles. Our method uncovers the hidden textual structures shared by sets of webpage titles based on generalized URL patterns and a multiple sequence alignment technique. The highlights of our method include: 1) The boundaries of entities can be identified automatically in a collective way without any manually designed pattern, seed or class name. 2) The connections between entities are also discovered naturally based on the hidden structures, which makes it easy to incorporate distant or weak supervision. The experiments show that our method can harvest large scale of open domain entities with high precision. A large ratio of the extracted entities are long-tailed and complex and cover diverse topics. Given the extracted entities and their connections, we further show the effectiveness of our method in a weakly supervised setting. Our method can produce better domain specific entities in both precision and recall compared with the state-of-the-art approaches.
Quantifying heterogeneity in a meta‐analysis

The extent of heterogeneity in a meta‐analysis partly determines the difficulty in drawing overall conclusions. This extent may be measured by estimating a between‐study variance, but interpretation is then specific to a particular treatment effect metric. A test for the existence of heterogeneity exists, but depends on the number of studies in the meta‐analysis. We develop measures of the impact of heterogeneity on a meta‐analysis, from mathematical criteria, that are independent of the number of studies and the treatment effect metric. We derive and propose three suitable statistics: H is the square root of the χ2 heterogeneity statistic divided by its degrees of freedom; R is the ratio of the standard error of the underlying mean from a random effects meta‐analysis to the standard error of a fixed effect meta‐analytic estimate, and I2 is a transformation of H that describes the proportion of total variation in study estimates that is due to heterogeneity. We discuss interpretation, interval estimates and other properties of these measures and examine them in five example data sets showing different amounts of heterogeneity. We conclude that H and I2, which can usually be calculated for published meta‐analyses, are particularly useful summaries of the impact of heterogeneity. One or both should be presented in published meta‐analyses in preference to the test for heterogeneity. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
SERVICE BASED OFFLOADING FROM MOBILE DEVICES INTO THE CLOUD

With an increase in usage of mobile devices it is always expected that a mobile device perform the execution of all applications the way a desktop device do. Mobile devices have become an integral part of a human life. However, with limited processing power, memory & battery lifetime of mobile phones it becomes difficult to execute computationally intensive applications such as image processing. Computation offloading provides a method to save energy in which some of the application software components can be offloaded from mobile device to run on a remote server. Offloading the computation from mobile devices into cloud will result in extended battery lifetime, improved data storage capacity and processing power. Offloading the computation from mobile devices (low in resources) into cloud (resourceful machine) solves the problem. This research presents service based offloading mechanism which enables execution of multiple computations and service based access mechanism for better purpose. Here to perform multiple computations, multiple services are run both at client side (mobile devices) and server side (Cloud). The cloud modules comprises of Image clustering, Image retrieval and image search service while android module consist of Image storage and management, Login and registration ,Image search and image download service. The execution of multiple services will ensure faster execution and increase in battery lifetime.
Evaluating AAM fitting methods for facial expression recognition

The human face is a rich source of information for the viewer and facial expressions are a major component in judging a person's affective state, intention and personality. Facial expressions are an important part of human-human interaction and have the potential to play an equally important part in human-computer interaction. This paper evaluates various Active Appearance Model (AAM) fitting methods, including both the original formulation as well as several state-of-the-art methods, for the task of automatic facial expression recognition. The AAM is a powerful statistical model for modelling and registering deformable objects. The results of the fitting process are used in a facial expression recognition task using a region-based intermediate representation related to Action Units, with the expression classification task realised using a Support Vector Machine. Experiments are performed for both person-dependent and person-independent setups. Overall, the best facial expression recognition results were obtained by using the Iterative Error Bound Minimisation method, which consistently resulted in accurate face model alignment and facial expression recognition even when the initial face detection used to initialise the fitting procedure was poor.
Physical model of back line-contact front-junction solar cells

The analysis of advanced front-junction solar cells where the metal contact to the base region is locally formed on the back surface in the shape of lines usually requires numerical simulations. Here, we describe an approach based on a geometric formulation of carrier crowding towards the localized contact, in conjunction with a partition of the device in two distinct regions. This permits a one dimensional analysis of carrier flow, both in the region immediately adjacent to the contact and in the peripheral region surrounding it. The resulting model is simple enough to provide insight into the physics of device operation and reasonably accurate in cases of practical interest. By applying it to different cases, we identify unexpected anomalies and explain them in terms of the peculiar interplay between carrier transport and recombination that takes place in this type of solar cell.
Weighted Sum-Rate Maximization for Analog Beamforming and Combining in Millimeter Wave Massive MIMO Communications

The analog beamforming and analog combining in millimeter-wave (mm-Wave) massive MIMO communications are investigated. Based on a hierarchical codebook, the weighted sum-rate maximization is studied by jointly considering the duration for channel training and the receiving signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). An algorithm employing exhaustive search at the starting level of the codebook and the multi-sectional search at the other levels is proposed. At each iteration, the channel gain of the dominant path is estimated and the level of the codebook achieving the weighted sum-rate maximization is predicted by the receiver. Then the predicted level is fed back to the transmitter. If the predicted level is reached by the algorithm, the transmitter begins the data transmission with the obtained analog beamformer and the receiver uses the obtained analog combiner for data receiving. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms multi-sectional search, where the former can achieve the weighted sum-rate almost twice of the latter when each block is consisted of 35 symbols and the channel SNR is 20 dB.
Automatically generating OLAP schemata from conceptual graphical models

tool specific schemata and configuration information for OLAP database tools from conceptual graphical models is an important prerequisite for a comprehensive tool support for computer aided data warehouse engineering (CAWE). This paper describes the design and implementation of such a generation component in the context of our BabelFish data warehouse design tool environment. It identifies the principal issues that are involved in the design and implementation of such a component and discusses possible solutions. The paper lists typical mismatches between the data model of commercial OLAP tools and conceptual graphical modeling notations, and proposes methods to overcome these expressive differences during the generation process. Further topics are the use of graph grammars for specifying and parsing graphical MD schema descriptions and the integration of the generation process into a metadata centered modeling tool environment.
Increased Expression of 5-Lipoxygenase in High-Grade Astrocytomas

OBJECTIVE: 5-Lipoxygenase (5-LO) oxidizes arachidonic acid into proinflammatory eicosanoids that may promote tumorigenesis. In this study, we investigated whether 5-LO is expressed in human astrocytomas and what effect its expression may have on patient outcome. METHODS: Increased 5-LO messenger ribonucleic acid and protein expression was detected by the polymerase chain reaction and antibody-based approaches, respectively, in surgical astrocytoma specimens and established glioblastoma multiforme cell lines compared with primary cell culture from the human white matter. RESULTS: Immunohistochemical analysis revealed predominantly nuclear 5-LO staining in 44 of 49 glioblastoma multiforme samples (90%), 8 of 10 (80%) anaplastic astrocytomas samples, and 3 of 13 (23%) low-grade astrocytoma samples analyzed. Double-staining experiments with anti-CD-68 (macrophage/microglial marker) and anti-5-LO antibodies suggest that both CD-68-positive and CD-68-negative tumor cells express 5-LO protein. Staining of 5-LO was significantly more frequent in high-grade than in low-grade tumors (P = 0.001). Patients whose tumors expressed 5-LO were significantly older, had lower preoperative Karnofsky performance scores and shorter survival than patients whose tumors did not express 5-LO. After adjusting for pathological diagnosis and age, respectively, neither Karnofsky performance score nor survival were significantly associated with 5-LO staining. CONCLUSION: These data indicate that 5-LO is overexpressed in high-grade astrocytomas and supports the idea that eicosanoids may play a role in tumorigenesis of these brain tumors.
From static to dynamic routing: efficient transformations of store-and-forward protocols

We investigate how static store-and-forward routing algorithms can be transformed into efficient dynamic algorithms, that is, how algorithms that have been designed for the case that all packets are injected at the same time can be adapted to more realistic scenarios in which packets are continuously injected into the network. Besides describing specific transformations for well-known static routing algorithms, we present a black box transformation scheme applicable to every static, oblivious routing algorithm. We analyze the performance of our protocols under a stochastic and an adversarial model of packet injections. One result of our specific transformations is the first dynamic routing algorithm for leveled networks that is stable for arbitrary admissible injection rates and that works with packet buffers of size depending solely on the injection rate and the node degree, but not on the size of the network. Furthermore, we prove strong delay bounds for the packets. Our results imply, for example, that a throughput of 99% can be achieved on an n-input butterfly network with buffers of constant size while each packet is delivered in time O(log n), with high probability. Our black box transformation ensures that if the static algorithm is pure (i.e., no extra packets apart from the original packets are routed), its dynamic variant is stable up to a maximum possible injection rate. Furthermore, in the stochastic model, the routing time of a packet depends on local parameters such as the length of its routing path, rather than on the maximum possible path length, even if the static algorithm chosen for the transformation does not provide this locality feature and is not pure. In the adversarial model, the delay bound of the packets is closely related to the time bound given for the static algorithm.
The role of perioperative transfusion on long-term survival of veterans undergoing surgery.

OBJECTIVE To examine the influence of perioperative blood transfusions on perioperative outcomes and late survival. BACKGROUND Perioperative blood transfusion has been reported to have a negative impact on perioperative morbidity but its long-term effect on survival is unknown. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of perioperative transfusion on perioperative outcomes and survival. METHODS We studied 12,345 surgical procedures from Veteran Administration Surgical Quality Improvement Program database from July 1998 through 2010. Patients with transfusion were compared with a severity-matched control group. We performed the Fisher exact test for comparison of categorical values and Wilcoxon rank sum test for continuous values. Multivariate regression was used to eliminate other confounding factors. The predictive value of multivariate risk model was tested with receiver-operator curves. Patients were matched using an optimal 1:1 digit-matching algorithm. All analyses were performed with NCSS-2007 version 1-12. P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. RESULTS The 848 patients who received perioperative transfusions had higher unadjusted rates of mortality and decreased long-term survival. The odds ratio (OR) for 10 years mortality in transfused group was 2.92 and after adjusting for preoperative risk factors decreased to 1.40 (P < 0.01). However, after data were filtered for any perioperative complications, such an association was seen before, OR = 2.05 (P = 0.006), and was lost after propensity matching, OR = 1.19 (P = 0.35). CONCLUSIONS After filtering out perioperative complications and adjusting for preoperative morbidity, our final analysis did not reveal an increased long-term mortality. We conclude that transfusion may reduce long-term survival through its effects on perioperative complications.
The Martian impact cratering record.

A detailed analysis of the Martian impact cratering record is presented. The major differences in impact crater morphology and morphometry between Mars and the moon and Mercury are argued to be largely the result of subsurface volatiles on Mars. In general, the depth to these volatiles may decrease with increasing latitude in the southern hemisphere, but the base of this layer may be at a more or less constant depth. The Martial crustal dichotomy could have been the result of a very large impact near the end of the accretion of Mars. Monte Carlo computer simulations suggest that such an impact was not only possible, but likely. The Martian highland cratering record shows a marked paucity of craters less than about 30 km in diameter relative to the lunar highlands. This paucity of craters was probably the result of the obliteration of craters by an early period of intense erosion and deposition by aeolian, fluvial, and glacial processes.