Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Complexity Analysis of a Trust Funnel Algorithm for Equality Constrained Optimization

A method is proposed for solving equality constrained nonlinear optimization problems involving twice continuously differentiable functions. The method employs a trust funnel approach consisting of two phases: a first phase to locate an $\epsilon$-feasible point and a second phase to seek optimality while maintaining at least $\epsilon$-feasibility. A two-phase approach of this kind based on a cubic regularization methodology was recently proposed along with a supporting worst-case iteration complexity analysis. Unfortunately, however, in that approach, the objective function is completely ignored in the first phase when $\epsilon$-feasibility is sought. The main contribution of the method proposed in this paper is that the same worst-case iteration complexity is achieved, but with a first phase that also accounts for improvements in the objective function. As such, the method typically requires fewer iterations in the second phase, as the results of numerical experiments demonstrate.
Propolis: A Wonder Bees Product and Its Pharmacological Potentials

Propolis is a natural resinous mixture produced by honey bees from substances collected from parts of plants, buds, and exudates. Due to its waxy nature and mechanical properties, bees use propolis in the construction and repair of their hives for sealing openings and cracks and smoothing out the internal walls and as a protective barrier against external invaders like snakes, lizards, and so forth, or against weathering threats like wind and rain. Bees gather propolis from different plants, in the temperate climate zone mainly from poplar. Current antimicrobial applications of propolis include formulations for cold syndrome (upper respiratory tract infections, common cold, and flu-like infections), wound healing, treatment of burns, acne, herpes simplex and genitalis, and neurodermatitis. Worldwide propolis has a tremendous popularity, but in India the studies over propolis have just started, not extensively reported except few regions of India like Maharashtra, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Gujrat, and Madhya Pradesh.
Model predictive control for hybrid battery/ultracapacitor power supply used in vehicular applications

All hybrid electric systems require a strategy of energy management to share out the flow of energy between its several sources or storage devices. In this work we propose a constrained Model Predictive Controller to distribute the energy in a battery/ultracapacitor hybrid system. The studied system is used as a power supply/storage system in electric and hybrid electric vehicles and the proposed controller allows to satisfy load demand taking into account dynamic and technical constraints of sources and converters and to maintain at the same time the output voltage to the desired value of 42 V. The effectiveness of the control strategy which makes possible to solve real time optimization problem with soft and hard operation constraints is verified using Matlab®\Simulink®.
Salvage Liver Transplantation Is a Reasonable Option for Selected Patients Who Have Recurrent Hepatocellular Carcinoma after Liver Resection

Background Salvage liver transplantation (SLT) has been reported as being feasible for patients who develop recurrent hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) after primary liver resection, but this finding remains controversial. We retrospectively studied the clinical characteristics of SLT recipients and conducted a comparison between SLT recipients and primary liver transplantation (PLT) recipients. Methodology and Principal Findings A retrospective study examined data from the China Liver Transplant Registry (CLTR) for 6,975 transplants performed from January 1999 to December 2009. A total of 6,087 patients underwent PLT and 888 patients underwent SLT for recurrence. Living donor liver transplantation (LDLT) was performed in 389 patients, while 6,586 patients underwent deceased donor liver transplantation (DDLT). Kaplan-Meier curves were used to compare survival rates. The 1-year, 3-year, and 5-year overall survival of SLT recipients was similar to that of PLT recipients: 73.00%, 51.77%, and 45.84% vs. 74.49%, 55.10%, and 48.81%, respectively (P = 0.260). The 1-year, 3-year and 5-year disease-free survival of SLT recipients was inferior to that of PLT recipients: 64.79%, 45.57%, and 37.78% vs. 66.39%, 50.39%, and 43.50%, respectively (P = 0.048). Similar survival results were observed for SLT and PLT within both the LDLT and DDLT recipients. Within the SLT group, the 1-year, 3-year, and 5-year overall survival for LDLT and DDLT recipients was similar: 93.33%, 74.67%, and 74.67% vs. 80.13%, 62.10%, and 54.18% (P = 0.281), as was the disease-free survival: 84.85%, 62.85%, and 62.85% vs. 70.54%, 53.94%, and 43.57% (P = 0.462). Conclusions Our study demonstrates that for selected patients, SLT has similar survival to that of PLT, indicating that SLT is acceptable for patients with recurrent HCC after liver resection. Given the limited organ donor pool, salvage LDLT might be considered as a possible treatment.
Understanding the impact of anti-corruption measures on company practices and attitudes

Anti-corruption strategies over the past two decades have expanded to include a variety of measures ranging from international conventions and anti-corruption toolkits to business and NGO (Non Governmental Organisation) initiatives. While these strategies are undeniably essential in the fight against corruption, recognising their impact on the behaviour of companies is vital to assessing and improving them. Surveys conducted by accountancy and auditing firms over the last decade identify some general issues concerning company practices and attitudes to combating corruption and indicate some of the limiting factors. While these insights are a useful starting point the survey findings provide only a descriptive and fragmented understanding of the issues due to the diversity of scope and approaches applied. In order to obtain a more thorough understanding of the impacts of different strategies and how these might be strengthened the authors are currently engaged in an in-depth survey of both businesses and NGOs. In focusing on the role of NGOs as important stakeholders in the field of anti-corruption the scope of this research extends further than the previous surveys which report only on the perspective and practice of businesses. Prior to engaging in the full survey a pilot survey of both companies and NGOs was undertaken and this paper presents the finding of this pilot survey. This paper firstly outlines the scope of the present analysis. Section II proceeds with an examination of the key findings of the existing surveys to provide a picture of the extent to which company attitudes to corruption have been explored and the broad themes that emerge. The insights identified in this section provide the context for the pilot study findings which are presented in Section III, which concludes with observations and points for further research.
Won't On-Chip Clock Calibration Guarantee Performance Boost and Product Quality?

In today's high performance (multi-GHz) microprocessors' design, on-chip clock calibration features are needed to compensate for electrical parameter variations as a result of manufacturing process variations. The calibration features allow performance boost after manufacturing test and maintain such performance levels during normal operation, thus preserving product quality. This strategy has been proven successful commercially. In this paper, we discuss the impact on performance and product quality of both permanent and transient faults possibly affecting these calibration circuits during manufacturing and normal operation, respectively. In particular, we consider the case of an on-chip clock calibration feature of a commercial high performance microprocessor. We show that some possible permanent faults may render the on-chip clock calibration schemes useless (in process variations' compensation), while it is impossible for common manufacturing testing to detect this incorrect behavior. This means that a faulty operating microprocessor may pass the testing phase and be put onto the market, with a consequent impact on product quality and increase in defect level. Similarly, we show that some possible transient faults occurring during the microprocessor in-field operation could defeat the purpose of on-chip clock calibration, again resulting in faulty operation of the microprocessor. This has long range implications to microprocessors' design as well, considering that process variations on die, as well as across the process, would worsen with continued scaling. Proper strategies to test these clock calibration features and to guarantee their correct operation in the field cannot be ignored. Possible design approaches to solve this problem are discussed
Relaxed stability conditions for Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy systems

This paper discusses conditions on stability and stabilization of continuous T-S fuzzy systems. Stability analysis is derived via a non-quadratic Lyapunov function technique and LMIs (linear matrix inequalities) formulation to obtain an efficient solution. The non-quadratic Lyapunov function is built by inference of quadratic Lyapunov function of each local model. We show that the stability condition of the open-loop T-S systems is assured under certain restrictions on the rate of change of state variables. Following a similar approach, the stabilization of closed-loop continuous T-S fuzzy systems using the well-known PDC (parallel distributed compensation) technique is investigated. The design methodology is illustrated by numerical examples.
Technical Report : CES-497 A summary for the Brock and Hommes ” Heterogeneous beliefs and routes to chaos in a simple asset pricing model ” 1998 JEDC paper

The purpose of this paper is to summarise the 1998 paper by William A. Brock and Cars H. Hommes, ”Heterogeneous beliefs and routes to chaos in a simple asset pricing model”, in Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, 22, 1235-1274 (Brock and Hommes 1998).
An Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition, Self-Organizing Map, and Linear Genetic Programming Approach for Forecasting River Streamflow

This study focused on employing Linear Genetic Programming (LGP), Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition (EEMD), and the Self-Organizing Map (SOM) in modeling the rainfall–runoff relationship in a mid-size catchment. Models were assessed with regard to their ability to capture daily discharge at Lock and Dam 10 along the Kentucky River as well as the hybrid design of EEM-SOM-LGP to make predictions multiple time-steps ahead. Different model designs were implemented to demonstrate the improvements of hybrid designs compared to LGP as a standalone application. Additionally, LGP was utilized to gain a better understanding of the catchment in question and to assess its ability to capture different aspects of the flow hydrograph. As a standalone application, LGP was able to outperform published Artificial Neural Network (ANN) results over the same dataset, posting an average absolute relative error (AARE) of 17.118 and Nash-Sutcliff (E) of 0.937. Utilizing EEMD derived IMF runoff subcomponents for forecasting daily discharge resulted in an AARE of 14.232 and E of 0.981. Clustering the EEMD-derived input space through an SOM before LGP application returned the strongest results, posting an AARE of 10.122 and E of 0.987. Applying LGP to the distinctive low and high flow seasons demonstrated a loss in correlation for the low flow season with an under-predictive nature signified by a normalized mean biased error (NMBE) of −2.353. Separating the rising and falling trends of the hydrograph showed that the falling trends were more easily captured with an AARE of 8.511 and E of 0.968 compared to the rising trends AARE of 38.744 and E of 0.948. Utilizing the EEMD-SOM-LGP design to make predictions multiple-time-steps ahead resulted in a AARE of 43.365 and E of 0.902 for predicting streamflow three days ahead. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of utilizing EEMD and an SOM in conjunction with LGP for streamflow forecasting.
Genes and environment in asthma: a study of 4 year old twins

BACKGROUND Although the genetic and environmental factors of asthma have been investigated in adolescence and adulthood, no previous studies have focused on the early development of asthma. AIMS To test, in a large sample of 4 year old twins, the hypotheses derived from the literature on adolescents and adults that genetic influences are substantial and shared environmental influences are modest. METHODS The sample consisted of 4910 twin pairs who were born in England and Wales in 1994 and 1995. Data on asthma status were obtained from the twins' parents by postal questionnaire. RESULTS Univariate parameter estimates derived from model fitting were 68% heritability, 13% shared environment, and 19% non-shared environment. CONCLUSIONS Our findings suggest that asthma is highly heritable in 4 year olds, whereas shared environmental influences are not statistically significant.
Pruning based method for outlier detection

In this paper we propose a method to capture outliers. We apply a clustering algorithm to divide the dataset into independent clusters. The clusters which are dense in nature doesnot contain outliers. And the clusters which are sparse are probable candidate clusters for outliers. Pruning the dense clusters makes the dataset small and sparse. For the unpruned points we calculated a distance based outlier score. The computations needed for calculating the outlier score reduces considerably due to the pruning of many points. Based on the outlier score we declare the top-n points with the highest score as outliers. The experimental results using real data set demonstrate that even though the number of computations are less, the proposed method performs better than the existing method.
Weakly interacting Bose gas in the one-dimensional limit.

We prepare a chemically and thermally one-dimensional (1D) quantum degenerate Bose gas in a single microtrap. We introduce a new interferometric method to distinguish the quasicondensate fraction of the gas from the thermal cloud at finite temperature. We reach temperatures down to kT≈0. 5ℏω(⊥) (transverse oscillator eigenfrequency ω(⊥)) when collisional thermalization slows down as expected in 1D. At the lowest temperatures the transverse-momentum distribution exhibits a residual dependence on the line density n(1D), characteristic for 1D systems. For very low densities the approach to the transverse single-particle ground state is linear in n(1D).
A Phenomenological Study of High School Counselor Advocacy as It Relates to the College Access of Underrepresented Students.

Data indicate that minority students, economically disadvantaged students, and firstgeneration students are underrepresented in four-year colleges. Contemporary models encourage school counselors to act as advocates in their schools while addressing inequities and promoting the college access of underrepresented groups of students. This phenomenological study explored the definition and practice of high school counselor advocacy as it relates specifically to increasing access for students traditionally underrepresented in four-year colleges. Results indicate a priority and value of school counselor advocacy, however participants also emphasize challenges to advocacy that lie in their schools, communities, and even in the school counselors themselves.
Effect of Distance and Duration of Illumination on Retinal Ganglion Cells Exposed to Varying Concentrations of Brilliant Blue Green

Background The objective of the study was to determine the safety parameters of using brilliant blue green (BBG) for chromovitrectomy by assessing the cytotoxicity of BBG on cultured retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) exposed to illumination. Methods RGCs were exposed to two concentrations of BBG (0.25 and 0.5 mg/mL) under metal halide illumination at varying distances (1 and 2.5 cm), intensities (990 and 2,000 Fc), and durations (1, 5 and 15 minutes). Cell viability was assessed using the WST-1 and CellTiter 96® AQueous One solution cell proliferation assays. Results Using the WST-1 assay, with high-intensity illumination, viability of RGCs ranged from 97.5±16.4% of controls with minimum BBG and light exposure (0.25 mg/mL BBG and illuminated for 1 minute at 2.5 cm distance) to 53.1±11.3% of controls with maximum BBG and light exposure (0.50 mg/mL and illuminated for 15 minutes at 1 cm distance; P < 0.01). With medium-intensity illumination, RGCs showed better viability, ranging from 95.1±7.2% of controls with minimum BBG and light exposure to 72.3±12.8% of controls with maximum BBG and light exposure. CellTiter 96® AQueous One assay showed similar results. Conclusion RGCs seem to safely tolerate up to 5 minutes of exposure to 0.5 mg/mL BBG under diffuse medium-intensity illumination (990 Fc).
Automated aortic calcium scoring on low-dose chest computed tomography.

PURPOSE Thoracic computed tomography (CT) scans provide information about cardiovascular risk status. These scans are non-ECG synchronized, thus precise quantification of coronary calcifications is difficult. Aortic calcium scoring is less sensitive to cardiac motion, so it is an alternative to coronary calcium scoring as an indicator of cardiovascular risk. The authors developed and evaluated a computer-aided system for automatic detection and quantification of aortic calcifications in low-dose noncontrast-enhanced chest CT. METHODS The system was trained and tested on scans from participants of a lung cancer screening trial. A total of 433 low-dose, non-ECG-synchronized, noncontrast-enhanced 16 detector row examinations of the chest was randomly divided into 340 training and 93 test data sets. A first observer manually identified aortic calcifications on training and test scans. A second observer did the same on the test scans only. First, a multiatlas-based segmentation method was developed to delineate the aorta. Segmented volume was thresholded and potential calcifications (candidate objects) were extracted by three-dimensional connected component labeling. Due to image resolution and noise, in rare cases extracted candidate objects were connected to the spine. They were separated into a part outside and parts inside the aorta, and only the latter was further analyzed. All candidate objects were represented by 63 features describing their size, position, and texture. Subsequently, a two-stage classification with a selection of features and k-nearest neighbor classifiers was performed. Based on the detected aortic calcifications, total calcium volume score was determined for each subject. RESULTS The computer system correctly detected, on the average, 945 mm3 out of 965 mm3 (97.9%) calcified plaque volume in the aorta with an average of 64 mm3 of false positive volume per scan. Spearman rank correlation coefficient was p = 0.960 between the system and the first observer compared to p = 0.961 between the two observers. CONCLUSIONS Automatic calcium scoring in the aorta thus appears feasible with good correlation between manual and automatic scoring.
A morphological generator for Kannada based on finite state transducers

We present morphological generator for Kannada Language. Our work is novel in that it explicitly addresses the need for processing the morphology of the language. This system performs generation of inflected forms given root+pattern+features representation. It has separate orthographic representations, it allows for combining morphemes at different levels. Morphological analyzers and generators are essential parts of many natural-language processing systems such as machine translation (MAT). They may be efficiently implemented using finite state transducers. We have obtained more than 90% result for nouns and around 85% for verbs.
Brief Announcement : k-Selection and Sorting in the SINR Model Preliminary version of a brief announcement to appear at DISC ’ 14

We study algorithms and lower bounds for k-selection and sorting in the SINR model. For the problem of finding the k-th smallest value in the network, we provide a O(log n) algorithm based on the aggregation trees presented in [3]. We argue that any algorithm using this approach has runtime Ω(log n/ log log n). We show that sorting can be done in Θ(n) time slots.
Lack of transmission of porcine circovirus type 2 to weanling pigs by feeding them spray-dried porcine plasma

An experiment was conducted to determine whether spray-dried porcine plasma containing 2·47 × 105 dna copies of porcine circovirus type 2 (pcv-2) could infect weanling pigs when fed to them. Five specific pathogen-free (spf) weanling pigs were fed ad libitum for 45 days a control diet and six pigs were fed a test diet containing 8 kg sdpp per 100 kg feed. The two groups were housed in separate biosecurity level-3 rooms. None of the pigs in either group developed any clinical signs or became pcv-2 viraemic or seroconverted.
The evolution of complexity without natural selection, a possible large-scale trend of the fourth kind

Abstract A simple principle predicts a tendency, or vector, toward increasing organismal complexity in the history of life: As the parts of an organism accumulate variations in evolution, they should tend to become more different from each other. In other words, the variance among the parts, or what I call the “internal variance” of the organism, will tend to increase spontaneously. Internal variance is complexity, I argue, albeit complexity in a purely structural sense, divorced from any notion of function. If the principle is correct, this tendency should exist in all lineages, and the resulting trend (if there is one) will be driven, or more precisely, driven by constraint (as opposed to selection). The existence of a trend is uncertain, because the internal-variance principle predicts only that the range of options offered up to selection will be increasingly complex, on average. And it is unclear whether selection will enhance this vector, act neutrally, or oppose it, perhaps negating it. The vector might also be negated if variations producing certain kinds of developmental truncations are especially common in evolution. Constraint-driven trends—or what I call large-scale trends of the fourth kind—have been in bad odor in evolutionary studies since the Modern Synthesis. Indeed, one such trend, orthogenesis, is famous for having been discredited. In Stephen Jay Gould's last book, The Structure of Evolutionary Thought, he tried to rehabilitate this category (although not orthogenesis), showing how constraint-driven trends could be produced by processes well within the mainstream of contemporary evolutionary theory. The internal-variance principle contributes to Gould's project by adding another candidate trend to this category.
Towards emotional awareness in software development teams

Emotions play an important role in determining work results and how team members collaborate within a project. When working in large, distributed teams, members can lose awareness of the emotional state of the project. We propose an approach to improve emotional awareness in software development teams by means of quantitative emotion summaries. Our approach automatically extracts and summarizes emotions expressed in collaboration artifacts by combining probabilistic topic modeling with lexical sentiment analysis techniques. We applied the approach to 1000 collaboration artifacts produced by three development teams in a three month period. Interviews with the teams' project leaders suggest that the proposed emotion summaries have a good correlation with the emotional state of the project, and could be useful for improving emotional awareness. However, the interviews also indicate that the current state of the summaries is not detailed enough and further improvements are needed.