Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Learning How to Learn is Learning With Point Sets

It has been proposed that learning how to learn be understood in terms of \learning a prior," from a Bayesian point-of-view (Baxter, 1996b). This paper presents an alternative interpretation: learning how to learn is ordinary learning but on point sets, rather than points. The idea behind learning how to learn is to partition the data, learn a model for the partitions, and then apply this model to new partitions. Ordinary learning methods do the same thing but with individual data points as the partitions. The partitioning for learning how to learn may be recovered automatically and may be applied recursively, leading to \task clustering" models. Virtually all existing approaches t naturally into this unifying framework, including learning a distance metric and learning internal representations .
Two-Stage Model for Information Filtering

This thesis presents a novel two-stage model that integrates the theories and techniques from the fields of information retrieval/filtering (IR/IF)and the fields of machine learning and data mining to provide more precise document filtering and retrieval. The first stage is topic filtering. The topic filtering stage is intended to minimize information mismatch by filtering out the most likely irrelevant information based on term-based profiles. Thus, only a relatively small amount of potentially highly relevant documents remain for document ranking. The second stage of the presented method uses pattern mining approach. The objective of the second stage is to solve the problem of information overload. The most likely relevant documents were assigned higher ranks by exploiting patterns in the pattern taxonomy. The second stage is precision oriented. Since relatively small amount of documents are involved at this stage, computational cost is markedly reduced, at the same time, with significant improved results. The new two-stage information filtering model has been evaluated by extensive experiments. The tests were based on well-known IR bench-marking processes, using the latest version of the Reuters dataset, namely Reuters Corpus Volume 1 (RCV1). The performance of the new model was compared with both of the term-based and data mining-based IF models. The results show that more effective and efficient information access has been achieved by combining the strength of information filtering and data mining method.
The effect of insect surface features on the adhesion of viscous capture threads spun by orb-weaving spiders

SUMMARY Spider orb-webs intercept a broad range of insects and their capture threads must adhere to a range of surface textures. In species of the Araneoidea clade, these capture threads are composed of viscid droplets whose size and spacing differ among species. To determine how droplet profile and insect surface texture interact, we measured the stickiness of viscous threads produced by four species using four insect surfaces that ranged from a smooth beetle elytra to the dorsal surface of a fly abdomen that was covered by large, widely spaced setae. The adhesion of threads to these surfaces differed by as much as 3.5-fold within a spider species and 2.1-fold for the same insect surface between spider species. However, 96% of these differences in stickiness was explained by four variables: the ratio of natural log of droplet volume to setal length, the natural log of droplet volume per mm of thread length, setal surface area, and the area of cuticle not excluded from thread contact by setae. Compared with previous measurements of primitive cribellar capture threads produced by orb weavers of the Deinopoidea clade, viscous threads performed more uniformly over the range of insect surfaces. They also held bug hemelytra, which were densely covered with fine setae, more securely, but held beetle elytra, fly wings and fly abdomens less securely than did viscous threads. Hemelytra may be held more securely because their setae more easily penetrate the viscous boundary layer to establish a greater area of interaction and, after having done so, offer more resistance as they are pulled through this layer. Finely textured surfaces may also have higher effective surface energies and therefore may interact more completely with viscous material.
Reduced complexity MMSE detection for BLAST architectures

Theoretical and experimental studies have shown that layered space-time architectures like the BLAST system can exploit the capacity advantage of multiple antenna systems in rich-scattering environments. We present a new efficient algorithm for detecting such architectures with respect to the MMSE criterion. This algorithm utilizes a sorted QR decomposition of the channel matrix and leads to a simple successive detection structure. The algorithm needs only a fraction of the computational effort compared to the standard V-BLAST algorithm and achieves the same bit error performance.
Resonant effects in a voltage-activated channel gating

The non-selective voltage activated cation channel from the human red cells, which is activated at depolarizing potentials, has been shown to exhibit counter-clockwise gating hysteresis. We have analyzed the phenomenon with the simplest possible phenomenological models by assuming 2×2 discrete states, i.e. two normal open/closed states with two different states of "gate tension. " Rates of transitions between the two branches of the hysteresis curve have been modeled with single-barrier kinetics by introducing a real-valued "reaction coordinate" parameterizing the protein's conformational change. When described in terms of the effective potential with cyclic variations of the control parameter (an activating voltage), this model exhibits typical "resonant effects": synchronization, resonant activation and stochastic resonance. Occurrence of the phenomena is investigated by running the stochastic dynamics of the model and analyzing statistical properties of gating trajectories.
Distribution of air bubbles in the EDML and EDC (Antarctica) ice cores, using a new method of automatic image analysis

Abstract Air bubbles in ice cores play an essential role in climate research, not only because they contain samples of the palaeoatmosphere, but also because their shape, size and distribution provide information about the past firn structure and the embedding of climate records into deep ice cores. In this context, we present profiles of average bubble size and bubble number for the entire EDML (Antarctica) core and the top 600 m of the EDC (Antarctica) core, and distributions of bubble sizes from selected depths. The data are generated with an image-processing framework which automatically extracts position, orientation, size and shape of an elliptical approximation of each bubble from thick-section micrographs, without user interaction. The presented software framework allows for registration of overlapping photomicrographs to yield accurate locations of bubble-like features. A comparison is made between the bubble parameterizations in the EDML and EDC cores and data published on the Vostok (Antarctica) ice core. The porosity at the firn/ice transition is inferred to lie between 8.62% and 10.48% for the EDC core and between 10.56% and 12.61 % for the EDML core.
Dimensionality Reduction for Prostate Cancer

Oncogene is a kind of inherent genes exists in humans' cells. It has been recognized as a genetic disease, if the cells activated, it can make a person carcinogenesis. So, the research of digging out the useful information from gene chip is very hot in modern society. The sample size is small, high dimension, nonlinear which causes the 'dimension disaster', so dimensionality reduction becomes the key point of prostate tumors' classification. This paper uses Sparse principle component analysis (SPCA), Laplacian Eigenmaps and Generalized Discriminant Analysis (GDA) to classify the prostate tumors, then Support Vector Machine(SVM) is used to classify the data. Due to the experiment data, GDA gets the best result.
Variable Speed of Light Cosmology : An Alternative to Inflation

It is generally believed that inflationary cosmology explains the isotropy, large scale homogeneity and flatness as well as predicting the deviations from homogeneity of our universe. We show that this is not the only cosmology which can explain successfully these features of the universe. We consider anew and modify a model in which local Lorentz invariance is spontaneously broken in the very early universe, and in this epoch the speed of light undergoes a first or second order phase transition to a value ~ 30 orders of magnitude smaller, corresponding to the presently measured speed of light. Before the phase transition at a time t ~ t_c, the entropy of the universe is reduced by many orders of magnitude, allowing for a semiclassical quantum field theory calculation of a scale invariant fluctuation spectrum. After the phase transition has occurred, the radiation density and the entropy of the universe increase hugely and the increase in the entropy follows the arrow of time determined by the spontaneously broken direction of the vev _0. This solves the enigma of the arrow of time and the second law of thermodynamics. A new calculation of the primordial Gaussian and adiabatic fluctuation spectrum is carried out, leading to a scale invariant scalar component of the power spectrum. We argue that there are several attractive features of VSL theory compared to standard inflationary theory, and that it provides an alternative cosmology with potentially different predictions.
Co-occurring addictive behaviors: an analysis of risk profiles among university students

Abstract Objectives: The first goal of this study was to empirically identify, among university students, groups with varying levels of risk based on indicators of gambling and substance use. The second goal was to compare the identified groups on various demographic characteristics. Methods: The study comprised of 2139 full-time undergraduate students, representative of university students in Montreal, Canada. A 3-step latent class logistic regression analysis was performed to identify groups and compare them on demographic characteristics. Results: The statistical fit indices of the latent class analysis revealed a four-class solution. Class 1 (30.1% of the sample) included non-gamblers with low probabilities of substance use. Class 2 (11.2% of the sample) grouped non-gamblers with high-risk patterns of consumption. Class 3 (36.42% of the sample) included gamblers who are low-risk substance users, and individuals in Class 4 (22.25% of the sample) reported risky patterns of gambling and substance-using behaviors. Results of the logistic regression suggested that gender, being born in Canada, and working full- or part-time are significant predictors of class membership. Participants in both groups labeled at-risk (with and without gambling) were also more likely to report psychological distress and to live outside the family environment. Conclusions: This study raises important questions regarding the choice of preventive models and feeds into the long-standing debate around universal versus high-risk approaches.
Gate-level aged timing simulation methodology for hot-carrier reliability assurance

This paper presents a new aged timing simulation methodology that can be used for hot-carrier reliability assurance of VLSI. This methodology consists of a compact model and a unique algorithm. The ratio based model simplifies the aging I-V characteristics of MOSFET over time into the aged timing and the corresponding ratio at gate-level. A new algorithm is proposed including a gate primitive decomposition method and an aged slew rate propagation method. This algorithm provides good stress representation and can achieve comparable accuracy with the conventional transistor-level approach. The above methodology has been implemented in a new simulator. Experimental results demonstrate that the simulator based on this methodology realizes full-chip circuit capacity and can be applied to various reliability analyses including degradation-sensitive critical paths and clock skew.
Performance Tuning of a High Capacity / High Performance Archive for the Earth Observing Systems Project

Abstract: The Archive for the Earth Observing Systems (EOS) Project reflects the scale of the project itself. Its data holdings over all the Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs) are projected to exceed two Petabytes by the year 2002. This paper describes the experience and results of the integration and tuning process for the hardware and Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) software used today in the EOS Core System (ECS) archive. Sizable performance improvements have been realized to date through the combined efforts of the vendors and the tuning team. The process is still continuing and, indeed, will continue through the life of the archive. The effort to date centered around improving the throughput for the individual data streams to the archive tape drives and the cumulative throughput to all the drives. The work was specifically directed towards the COTS hardware and software integration and tuning adjustments. Throughput performance improvement via efficient data organization on tape was not addressed during this effort, but will be in the future work.
Brief announcement: distributed cryptography using trinc

Tamper-proof hardwares are prevalent in today’s commodity devices, and their efficacy towards reducing the assumptions required in a variety of distributed systems is well-known. This calls for design of software modules, which can easily be implemented on the available tamper-proof hardwares. Although there are many proposals available in the literature in that direction, majority of those proposals asks for unsubstantiated guarantees from their hardware modules. This raises a serious question about their usability. Recently, Levin et al. [6] implemented a small secure hardware module (TrInc), and demonstrated its utility towards Byzantine tolerant distributed systems. TrInc constitutes of a trusted non-decreasing counter and a key that provides unique, once-in-a-lifetime attestations. It prevents a malicious party from equivocating (i.e., providing conflicting values to different parties). Levin et al. observed that these rather simplistic assumptions can significantly improve performance and resilience in state machine replication and peer-to-peer systems. In this work, we extend utility of TrInc to distributed cryptography. In particular, we propose an efficient universally composable (UC) commitment scheme using TrInc(§3), and use it to improve resilience for asynchronous verifiable secret sharing (§4). The scheme can also be used to efficiently realize UC multiparty computation.
Frugivore loss limits recruitment of large-seeded trees

Although global declines in frugivores may disrupt seed dispersal mutualisms and inhibit plant recruitment, quantifying the likely reduction in plant regeneration has been difficult and rarely attempted. We use a manipulative factorial experiment to quantify dependence of recruitment on dispersal (i.e. fruit pulp removal and movement of seed away from parental area) in two large-seeded New Zealand tree species. Complete dispersal failure would cause a 66 to 81 per cent reduction in recruitment to the 2-year-old seedling stage, and synergistic interactions with introduced mammalian seed and seedling predators increase the reduction to 92 to 94 per cent. Dispersal failure reduced regeneration through effects on seed predation, germination and (especially) seedling survival, including distance- and density-dependent (Janzen–Connell) effects. Dispersal of both species is currently largely dependent on a single frugivore, and many fruits today remain uneaten. Present-day levels of frugivore loss and mammal seed and seedling predators result in 57 to 84 per cent fewer seedlings after 2 years. Our study demonstrates the importance of seed dispersal for local plant population persistence, and validates concerns about the community consequences of frugivore declines.
Sphere-based topology for networks-on-chip

This paper proposes sphere-based topology for networks-on-chips. The sphere-based topology is a new structure for network-on-chips that forms in sphere shape. The proposed topology is introduced and compared with existing ones in regard of factors such as power and latency. We have compared the performances of sphere-based topology with two other common topologies namely mesh and torus. Based on the simulation results, the sphere-based topology is better than the two others in latency and power consumption comparison.
The response to monochromatic light flashes of the oxygen consumption of honeybee drone photoreceptors

Local measurements of the fall in oxygen pressure on stimulation of slices of the retina of the honeybee drone by flashes of light were made with oxygen microelectrodes and used to calculate the kinetics of the extra oxygen consumption (delta QO2) induced by each flash. The action spectrum for delta QO2 was obtained from response-intensity curves in response to brief (40 ms) monochromatic light flashes. The action spectrum of receptor potentials was obtained with the same experimental conditions. The two action spectra match closely: they deviate slightly from the photosensitivity spectrum of the drone rhodopsin (R). The deviation is thought to be due to wavelength- dependent light scattering and absorption in the preparation. In these experiments, the visual pigment was first illuminated with orange light, which is known to convert the bistable drone photopigment predominantly to the R state from the metarhodopsin (M) state. When long (300-900 ms) light flashes were used to elicit delta QO2, the responses to different wavelengths could not be matched in time course (as for the short flashes). Flashes producing large R-to-M conversions produced a prolonged delta QO2. The prolongation did not occur after double flashes, which produced both large R-to-M and M-to-R conversions. Similar changes in the length of afterpotentials in the photoreceptor cells and in a long-lasting decrease in photoreceptor intracellular K+ activity were found after long single or double flashes. The results are interpreted to show that the initial event for stimulation by light of metabolism in the drone retina is the same as that for stimulation of electrical responses (i.e., absorption of photons by R). Absorption of photons by M can produce an inhibitory effect on this stimulation.
Measuring Inclusive Growth

This study proposes an approach to measuring inclusive growth. It draws from the idea of a social opportunity function akin to a social welfare function. In this context, growth is defined as inclusive if it increases the social opportunity function, which depends on two factors: (i) average opportunities available to the population, and (ii) how opportunities are shared among the population. In part, the inclusiveness of growth can be captured by means of an opportunity curve, which has a one-to-one relationship with the social opportunity function. To complement the shortcoming of the opportunity curve particularly partial ranking, the study also develops the opportunity index to provide a complete ranking. These tools are applied to the Philippines to analyze the access to and equity of opportunities in education and health. More importantly, the empirical application illustrates how these tools can be useful in the dynamic analysis of inclusive growth, as they evaluate changes in opportunities over time.
The effectiveness of brute force attacks on RC4

The security of encryption algorithms depends heavily on the computational infeasibility of exhaustive key-space searches. We use the RC4 cipher, utilized primarily in the area of data communications, as a test case for determining the effectiveness of exhaustive key-searches implemented on FPGAs using a network on chip (NoC) design architecture. Preliminary results show that a network of key-checker units implemented on a Xilinx XC2V1000 FPGA using Celoxica DK2 design tools can exploit the speed and parallelism of hardware such that the entire key-space of a 40-bit RC4 encryption can be searched in minutes. Furthermore, it has been found that the clock rate of the circuit diminishes as the number of key-checker units increases. Future work is proposed to find a method for predicting an optimal balance between the size of the network (number of key-checker units) and the clock rate in order to maximize performance.
Amino Acid Balancing in the Context of MP and RUP Requirements

The protein requirements of lactating dairy cows continue to be refined. In NRC (1971, 1978) , dietary requirements were expressed as CP and metabolic requirements as digestible protein. In NRC (1989), dietary requirements were expressed as CP or degraded intake CP (DIP) and undegraded intake CP (UIP) , and metabolic requirements as absorbed protein . Mean values of ruminal degradability for common feeds, derived from in vivo and in situ studies using sheep and cattle , were reported. A fixed intestinal digestibility of 80% for RUP and microbial true protein was used for predicting passage of absorbed protein. In NRC (2001), dietary requirements are expressed as rumen -degradable CP (RDP) and rumen -undegradable CP (RUP) and metabolic requirements are expressed as metabolizable prote in (MP). In contrast to NRC (1989): 1) microbial CP flows are predicted from intake of total digestible OM instead of NE intake , 2) a mechanistic system is used for predicting the RDP and RUP content of feeds that recognizes that the proportional content of these two fractions is not constant and is affected by DM intake and diet composition , 3) variable estimate s of digestibility are assigned to the RUP fraction of each feed, and 4) flows of digestible essential amino acids (EAA) and their content in MP a re predicted. Amino acid (AA) requirements were not established, but dose -response curves that relate measured milk protein content and yield responses to changes of predicted percentages of lysine (Lys) and methionine (Met) in MP are provided. The purpose of this paper is to emphasize the importance of providing the lactating cow with the correct balance of AA in MP, to explain why some AA are more limiting than others, to review how one balances for Lys and Met in the context of balancing for MP and RUP and some production responses that have occurred when the practice is implemented , and to share some preliminary data aimed at extending the application of NRC (2001) to predict lactation responses from changes in supply of MP -Lys and MP -Met.