Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Lazy Maintenance of Materialized Views

Materialized views can speed up query processing greatly but they have to be kept up to date to be useful. Today, database systems typically maintain views eagerly in the same transaction as the base table updates. This has the effect that updates pay for view maintenance while beneficiaries (queries) get a free ride! View maintenance overhead can be significant and it seems unfair to have updates bear the cost. We present a novel way to lazily maintain materialized views that relieves updates of this overhead. Maintenance of a view is postponed until the system has free cycles or the view is referenced by a query. View maintenance is fully or partly hidden from queries depending on the system load. Ideally, views are maintained entirely on system time at no cost to updates and queries. The efficiency of lazy maintenance is improved by combining updates from several transactions into a single maintenance operation, by condensing multiple updates of the same row into a single update, and by exploiting row versioning. Experiments using a prototype implementation in Microsoft SQL Server show much faster response times for updates and also significant reduction in maintenance cost when combining updates.
Central and peripheral effects of propranolol and sotalol in normal human subjects

No unequivocal central effects were found with either +/--propranolol (120 mg) or +/--sotalol (240 mg) in acute dosage in normal subjects. Subjective feelings of drowsiness and muzziness were found with sotalol and both sotalol and propranolol caused subjects to feel more troubled. These changes were not accompanied by physiological or behavioural evidence of sedation. Adequate beta-adrenoceptor blockade was achieved as measured by a significant fall in pulse-rate on both active drugs but no other significant peripheral physiological changes occurred.
Boxing and mixed martial arts: preliminary traumatic neuromechanical injury risk analyses from laboratory impact dosage data.

OBJECT In spite of ample literature pointing to rotational and combined impact dosage being key contributors to head and neck injury, boxing and mixed martial arts (MMA) padding is still designed to primarily reduce cranium linear acceleration. The objects of this study were to quantify preliminary linear and rotational head impact dosage for selected boxing and MMA padding in response to hook punches; compute theoretical skull, brain, and neck injury risk metrics; and statistically compare the protective effect of various glove and head padding conditions. METHODS An instrumented Hybrid III 50th percentile anthropomorphic test device (ATD) was struck in 54 pendulum impacts replicating hook punches at low (27-29 J) and high (54-58 J) energy. Five padding combinations were examined: unpadded (control), MMA glove-unpadded head, boxing glove-unpadded head, unpadded pendulum-boxing headgear, and boxing glove-boxing headgear. A total of 17 injury risk parameters were measured or calculated. RESULTS All padding conditions reduced linear impact dosage. Other parameters significantly decreased, significantly increased, or were unaffected depending on padding condition. Of real-world conditions (MMA glove-bare head, boxing glove-bare head, and boxing glove-headgear), the boxing glove-headgear condition showed the most meaningful reduction in most of the parameters. In equivalent impacts, the MMA glove-bare head condition induced higher rotational dosage than the boxing glove-bare head condition. Finite element analysis indicated a risk of brain strain injury in spite of significant reduction of linear impact dosage. CONCLUSIONS In the replicated hook punch impacts, all padding conditions reduced linear but not rotational impact dosage. Head and neck dosage theoretically accumulates fastest in MMA and boxing bouts without use of protective headgear. The boxing glove-headgear condition provided the best overall reduction in impact dosage. More work is needed to develop improved protective padding to minimize linear and rotational impact dosage and develop next-generation standards for head and neck injury risk.
Differential Patterns of Cognitive Decline in Anterior and Posterior White Matter Hyperintensity Progression

Background and Purpose— White matter hyperintensities (WMHs) found on brain MRI in elderly individuals are largely thought to be due to microvascular disease, and its progression has been associated with cognitive decline. The present study sought to determine patterns of cognitive decline associated with anterior and posterior WMH progression. Methods— Subjects included 110 normal controls, aged ≥60 years, who were participants in the Duke Neurocognitive Outcomes of Depression in the Elderly study. All subjects had comprehensive cognitive evaluations and MRI scans at baseline and after 2 years. Cognitive composites were created in 5 domains: complex processing speed, working memory, general memory, visual-constructional skills, and language. Change in cognition was calculated using standard regression-based models accounting for variables known to impact serial testing. A semiautomated segmentation method was used to measure WMH extent in anterior and posterior brain regions. Hierarchical multiple linear regression models were used to evaluate which of the 5 measured cognitive domains was most strongly associated with regional (anterior and posterior) and total WMH progression after adjusting for demographics (age, sex, and education). Results— Decline in complex processing speed was independently associated with both anterior (r2=0.06, P=0.02) and total WMH progression (r2=0.05, P=0.04). In contrast, decline in visual-constructional skills was uniquely associated with posterior progression (r2=0.05, P<0.05). Conclusions— Distinct cognitive profiles are associated with anterior and posterior WMH progression among normal elders. These differing profiles need to be considered when evaluating the cognitive correlates of WMHs.
EXTREME WAVE PRESSURES AND LOADS ON A PILE-SUPPORTED WHARF DECK - INFLUENCES OF AIR GAP AND WAVE DIRECTION

Many deck-on-pile structures are located in shallow water depths at elevations low enough to be inundated by large waves during intense storms or tsunami. Many researchers have studied wave-in-deck loads over the past decade using a variety of theoretical, experimental, and numerical methods. Wave-in-deck loads on various pile supported coastal structures such as jetties, piers, wharves and bridges have been studied by Tirindelli et al. (2003), Cuomo et al. (2007, 2009), Murali et al. (2009), and Meng et al. (2010). All these authors analyzed data from scale model tests to investigate the pressures and loads on beam and deck elements subject to wave impact under various conditions. Wavein- deck loads on fixed offshore structures have been studied by Murray et al. (1997), Finnigan et al. (1997), Bea et al. (1999, 2001), Baarholm et al. (2004, 2009), and Raaij et al. (2007). These authors have studied both simplified and realistic deck structures using a mixture of theoretical analysis and model tests. Other researchers, including Kendon et al. (2010), Schellin et al. (2009), Lande et al. (2011) and Wemmenhove et al. (2011) have demonstrated that various CFD methods can be used to simulate the interaction of extreme waves with both simple and more realistic deck structures, and predict wave-in-deck pressures and loads.
Evolving competitive car controllers for racing games with neuroevolution

Modern computer games are at the same time an attractive application domain and an interesting testbed for the evolutionary computation techniques. In this paper we apply NeuroEvolution of Augmenting Topologies (NEAT), a well known neuroevolution approach, to evolve competitive non-player characters for a racing game. In particular, we focused on The Open Car Racing Simulator (TORCS), an open source car racing simulator, already used as a platform for several scientific competitions dedicated to games. We suggest that a competitive controller should have two basic skills: it should be able to drive fast and reliably on a wide range of tracks and it should be able to effectively overtake the opponents avoiding the collisions. In this paper we apply NEAT to evolve separately these skills and then we combined them together in a single controller. Our results show that the resulting controller outperforms the best available controllers on a challenging racing task. In addition, the experimental analysis also confirms that both the skills are necessary to develop a competitive controller.
Analyse exploratoire des disparités spatiales de revenu en Afrique de l’ouest et périphérie

L’objet de cet article est de montrer le lien entre localisation geographique et niveau de revenu. Pour cela, nous effectuons une analyse exploratoire spatiale sur les PIB par tete des pays d’Afrique de l’Ouest et sa peripherie, sur une periode allant de 1990 a 2016. Les tests statistiques confirment la presence d’autocorrelation spatiale positive des revenus des pays. En d’autres termes, les pays presentant des niveaux de revenu similaires ont tendance a partager le meme espace geographique. Par la suite, le diagramme de Moran a permis de visualiser l’autocorrelation locale et d’identifier les groupes de revenu .
Quasi Gradient Projection Algorithm for Sparse Reconstruction in Compressed Sensing

Compressed sensing is a novel signal sampling theory under the condition that the signal is sparse or compressible. The existing recovery algorithms based on the gradient projection can either need prior knowledge or recovery the signal poorly. In this paper, a new algorithm based on gradient projection is proposed, which is referred as Quasi Gradient Projection. The algorithm presented quasi gradient direction and two step sizes schemes along this direction. The algorithm doesn't need any prior knowledge of the original signal. Simulation results demonstrate that the presented algorithm cans recovery the signal more correctly than GPSR which also don't need prior knowledge. Meanwhile, the algorithm has a lower computation complexity. Copyright © 2014 IFSA Publishing, S. L.
Unifying temporal and structural credit assignment problems

Single-agent reinforcement learners in time-extended domains and multi-agent systems share a common difficulty known as the credit assignment problem. Multiagent systems have the structural credit assignment problem of determining the contributions of a particular agent to a common task. Instead, time-extended single-agent systems have the temporal credit assignment problem of determining the contribution of a particular action to the quality of the full sequence of actions. Traditionally these two problems are considered different and are handled in separate ways. In this article we show how these two forms of the credit assignment problem are equivalent. In this unified framework, a single-agent Markov decision process can be broken down into a single-time-step multiagent process. Furthermore we show that Monte Carlo estimation or Q-learning (depending on whether the values of resulting actions in the episode are known at the time of learning) are equivalent to different agent utility functions in a multi-agent system. This equivalence shows how an often neglected issue inmulti-agent systems is equivalent to a well-known deficiency in multi-time-step learning and lays the basis for solving time-extended multi-agent problems, where both credit assignment problems are present.
Linguistic Ability in Early Life and the Neuropathology of Alzheimer's Disease and Cerebrovascular Disease: Findings from the Nun Study

Abstract: Findings from the Nun Study indicate that low linguistic ability in early life has a strong association with dementia and premature death in late life. In the present study, we investigated the relationship of linguistic ability in early life to the neuropathology of Alzheimer's disease and cerebrovascular disease. The analyses were done on a subset of 74 participants in the Nun Study for whom we had handwritten autobiographies completed some time between the ages of 19 and 37 (mean = 23 years). An average of 62 years after writing the autobiographies, when the participants were 78 to 97 years old, they died and their brains were removed for our neuropathologic studies. Linguistic ability in early life was measured by the idea (proposition) density of the autobiographies, i.e., a standard measure of the content of ideas in text samples. Idea density scores from early life had strong inverse correlations with the severity of Alzheimer's disease pathology in the neocortex: Correlations between idea density scores and neurofibrillary tangle counts were −0.59 for the frontal lobe, −0.48 for the temporal lobe, and −0.49 for the parietal lobe (all p values < 0.0001). Idea density scores were unrelated to the severity of atherosclerosis of the major arteries at the base of the brain and to the presence of lacunar and large brain infarcts. Low linguistic ability in early life may reflect suboptimal neurological and cognitive development, which might increase susceptibility to the development of Alzheimer's disease pathology in late life.
HandCARE: A Cable-Actuated Rehabilitation System to Train Hand Function After Stroke

We have developed a robotic interface to train hand and finger function. HandCARE is a Cable-actuated rehabilitation system, in which each finger is attached to an instrumented cable loop allowing force control and a predominantly linear displacement. The device, whose designed is based on biomechanical measurements, can assist the subject in opening and closing movements and can be adapted to accommodate various hand shapes and finger sizes. Main features of the interface include a differential sensing system, and a clutch system which allows independent movement of the five fingers with only one actuator. The device is safe, easily transportable, and offers multiple training possibilities. This paper presents the biomechanical measurements carried out to determine the requirements for a finger rehabilitation device, and the design and characterization of the complete system.
Learning of compliant human–robot interaction using full-body haptic interface

We present a novel approach where a human demonstrator can intuitively teach robot full-body skills. The aim of this approach is to exploit human sensorimotor ability to learn how to operate a humanoid robot in real time to perform tasks involving interaction with the environment. The human skill is then used to design a controller to autonomously control the robot. To provide the demonstrator with the robot’s state suitable for the full-body motion control, we developed a novel method that transforms robot’s sensory readings into feedback appropriate for the human. This method was implemented through a haptic interface that was designed to exert forces on the demonstrator’s centre of mass corresponding to the state of the robot’s centre of mass. To evaluate the feasibility of this approach, we performed an experiment where the human demonstrator taught the robot how to compliantly interact with another human. The results of the experiment showed that the proposed approach allowed the human to intuitively teach the robot how to compliantly interact with a human.
Human placental trophoblast invasion and differentiation: a particular focus on Wnt signaling

Wingless ligands, a family of secreted proteins, are critically involved in organ development and tissue homeostasis by ensuring balanced rates of stem cell proliferation, cell death and differentiation. Wnt signaling components also play crucial roles in murine placental development controlling trophoblast lineage determination, chorioallantoic fusion and placental branching morphogenesis. However, the role of the pathway in human placentation, trophoblast development and differentiation is only partly understood. Here, we summarize our present knowledge about Wnt signaling in the human placenta and discuss its potential role in physiological and aberrant trophoblast invasion, gestational diseases and choriocarcinoma formation. Differentiation of proliferative first trimester cytotrophoblasts into invasive extravillous trophoblasts is associated with nuclear recruitment of β -catenin and induction of Wnt-dependent T-cell factor 4 suggesting that canonical Wnt signaling could be important for the formation and function of extravillous trophoblasts. Indeed, activation of the pathway was shown to promote trophoblast invasion in different in vitro trophoblast model systems as well as trophoblast cell fusion. Methylation-mediated silencing of inhibitors of Wnt signaling provided evidence for epigenetic activation of the pathway in placental tissues and choriocarcinoma cells. Similarly, abundant nuclear expression of β -catenin in invasive trophoblasts of complete hydatidiform moles suggested a role for hyper-activated Wnt signaling. In contrast, upregulation of Wnt inhibitors was noticed in placentae of women with preeclampsia, a disease characterized by shallow trophoblast invasion and incomplete spiral artery remodeling. Moreover, changes in Wnt signaling have been observed upon cytomegalovirus infection and in recurrent abortions. In summary, the current literature suggests a critical role of Wnt signaling in physiological and abnormal trophoblast function.
Phylogenetic Profiling

Phylogenetic profiling involves the study of the occurrence of gene families across fully sequenced genomes. For any gene, it is possible to create a phylogenetic profile which encodes the presence or absence of homologs of the gene across organisms. The comparison of phylogenetic profiles may be used to measure the evolutionary distance between organisms leading to the reconstruction of phylogenetic trees. The pair-wise comparison of phylogenetic profiles allows us to identify genes that co-occur across organism and are likely to participate within the same pathway or protein complex. Finally, by comparing phylogenetic profiles to phenotypic profiles that encode the presence or absence of phenotypes across organisms, it is possible to infer that a gene is partially responsible for establishing a phenotype. These techniques are currently used to survey about one hundred fully sequenced genomes that are currently determined. However, they promise to become more informative as the number of fully sequenced genomes increases by orders of magnitude.
Comment on " On using a too large integration time step in molecular dynamics simulations of coarse-grained molecular models ' ' by

Citation for published version (APA): Marrink, S. J., Periole, X. , Tieleman, D. P., & de Vries, A. H. (2010). Comment on "On using a too large integration time step in molecular dynamics simulations of coarse-grained molecular models'' by M. Winger, D. Trzesniak, R. Baron and W. F. van Gunsteren, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2009, 11, 1934. Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, 12(9), 2254-2256. DOI: 10.1039/b915293h
Finding Cuts in the TSP (A preliminary report)

TSPLIB is Gerhard Reinelt''s library of some hundred instances of the traveling salesman problem. Some of these instances arise from drilling holes in printed circuit boards; others arise from X-ray crystallography; yet others have been constructed artificially. None of them (with a single exception) is contrived to be hard and none of them is contrived to be easy; their sizes range from 17 to 85,900 cities; some of them have been solved and others have not. We have solved twenty previously unsolved problems from the TSPLIB. One of them is the problem with 225 cities that was contrived to be hard; the sizes of the remaining nineteen range from 1,000 to 7,397 cities. Like all the successful computer programs for solving the TSP, our computer program follows the scheme designed by George Dantzig, Ray Fulkerson, and Selmer Johnson in the early nineteen-fifties. The purpose of this preliminary report is to describe *some* of our innovations in implementing the Dantzig-Fulkerson-Johnson scheme; we are planning to write up a more comprehensive account of our work soon.
A Delayed-Excitation Data Acquisition Method for High-Frequency Ultrasound Imaging

High-frequency ultrasound imaging (at >20 MHz) has gained widespread attention due to its high spatial resolution being useful for basic cardiovascular and cancer research involving small animals. The sampling rate of the analog-to-digital converter in a high-frequency ultrasound system usually needs to be higher than 120 MHz in order to satisfy the Nyquist sampling-rate requirement. However, the sampling rate is typically within the range of 40–60 MHz in a traditional ultrasound system, and so we propose a delayed-excitation method for performing high-frequency ultrasound imaging with a traditional data acquisition scheme. In this method, the transmitted pulse is delayed by a certain time period so that the ultrasound echo data are aligned into high-sampling-rate slots. Wire and tissue-mimicking phantoms were imaged to evaluate the performance of the proposed method, whereas a porcine small-intestine specimen and an excised rabbit eyeball were used for in vitro imaging evaluations. The test results demonstrate that the proposed method allows high-frequency ultrasound imaging to be implemented using a traditional ultrasound sampling system.
Duration of androgen suppression before radiotherapy for localized prostate cancer: radiation therapy oncology group randomized clinical trial 9910.

PURPOSE To determine whether prolonged androgen suppression (AS) duration before radiotherapy improves survival and disease control in prostate cancer. PATIENTS AND METHODS One thousand five hundred seventy-nine men with intermediate-risk prostate cancer were randomly assigned to 8 weeks of AS followed by radiotherapy with an additional 8 weeks of concurrent AS (16 weeks total) or to 28 weeks of AS followed by radiotherapy with an additional 8 weeks of AS (36 weeks total). The trial sought primarily to detect a 33% reduction in the hazard of prostate cancer death in the 28-week assignment. Time-to-event end points are reported for up to 10 years of follow-up. RESULTS There were no between-group differences in baseline characteristics of 1,489 eligible patients with follow-up. For the 8- and 28-week assignments, 10-year disease-specific survival rates were 95% (95% CI, 93.3% to 97.0%) and 96% (95% CI, 94.6% to 98.0%; hazard ratio [HR], 0.81; P = .45), respectively, and 10-year overall survival rates were 66% (95% CI, 62.0% to 69.9%) and 67% (95% CI, 63.0% to 70.8%; HR, 0.95; P = .62), respectively. For the 8- and 28-week assignments, 10-year cumulative incidences of locoregional progression were 6% (95% CI, 4.3% to 8.0%) and 4% (95% CI, 2.5% to 5.7%; HR, 0.65; P = .07), respectively; 10-year distant metastasis cumulative incidences were 6% (95% CI, 4.0% to 7.7%) and 6% (95% CI, 4.0% to 7.6%; HR, 1.07; P = .80), respectively; and 10-year prostate-specific antigen-based recurrence cumulative incidences were 27% (95% CI, 23.1% to 29.8%) and 27% (95% CI, 23.4% to 30.3%; HR, 0.97; P = .77), respectively. CONCLUSION Extending AS duration from 8 weeks to 28 weeks before radiotherapy did not improve outcomes. A lower than expected prostate cancer death rate reduced ability to detect a between-group difference in disease-specific survival. The schedule of 8 weeks of AS before radiotherapy plus 8 weeks of AS during radiotherapy remains a standard of care in intermediate-risk prostate cancer.