Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evaluating Arabic Retrieval from English or French Queries : The TREC2001 TREC2001 TREC2001 CrossLanguage CrossLanguage CrossLanguage Information Retrieval Track

TheCross-language informationretrieval trackat the2001Text Retrieval Conference(TREC-2001)producedthefirst largeinformation retrieval testcollectionfor Arabic. The collectioncontains383,872Arabic news stories,25 topic descriptionsin Arabic, Englishand Frenchfrom which queriescanbe formed,andmanual(groundtruth) relevancejudgmentsfor a usefulsubsetof the topic-document combinations.This paperdescribestheway in which thecollectionwascreated,explainstheevaluationmeasuresthat thecollectionis designedto support,andprovidesanoverview of the resultsfrom the first setof experimentswith the collection. The resultsmake it possibleto draw someinferencesregardingtheutility of thecollectionfor post hoc evaluations.
Affordances on Facebook, Stress, and Emotional Support

This study discusses Facebook as a social network site and a social media application. It compares perceived emotional support, general life stress, and media affordance-based stress from two participant samples one that reported using the Facebook desktop site most frequently to reach out for emotional support, and one that reported using the mobile application The media affordance measure asked participants if perceiving a media affordance was more likely to increase or decrease their stress. In both samples, persistence was more likely to decrease stress, and personalization was more likely to increase stress. On the Facebook desktop site, searchability was more likely to increase stress. On the Facebook mobile application, pervasiveness was more likely to decrease stress, and association to increase stress. When comparing affordances between samples, there were no significant differences found. When comparing samples, the Facebook mobile application users reported higher life stress, but there was no difference found in perception of emotional support. Within samples, there was no correlation between perceived stress and perceived emotional support. Finally, there was a significant correlation found between perception of emotional support on the site and frequency of reaching out for emotional support. On the Facebook desktop site, users reached out by public post and by private message significantly less frequently if they perceived a higher level of emotional support to be available on the site. On the Facebook mobile application, users reached out by public post significantly
Predictors of uncontrolled hypertension and antihypertensive medication nonadherence

Background: Although hypertension is, in most cases, a controllable major risk factor in the development of cardiovascular disease, studies have demonstrated that hypertension remains poorly controlled in Portugal. Our aim was to evaluate the covariates associated with poor blood pressure (BP) control in a Portuguese hypertensive population. Patients and Results: We conducted a cross-sectional survey in a hospital hypertension outpatient clinic, located in the Eastern Central Region of Portugal. Patients attending the clinic from July to September 2009 were asked to participate in a structured interview including medication adherence and knowledge about hypertension. Eligible participants were all adults aged 18 or over with an established diagnosis of arterial hypertension and had been on antihypertensive drug treatment for at least 6 months. Exclusion criteria were dementia, pregnancy, and breastfeeding. Detailed clinical information was prospectively obtained from medical records. A total of 197 patients meeting the inclusion criteria and consenting to participate completed the interview. Of these, only 33.0% had their BP controlled according to the JNC 7 guidelines. Logistic regression analysis revealed three independent predictors of poor BP control: living alone (OR = 5.3, P = 0.004), medication nonadherence (OR = 4.8, P < 0.001), and diabetes (OR = 4.4, P = 0.011). Predictors of medication nonadherence were: unawareness of target BP values (OR = 3.7, P < 0.001), a report of drug side effects (OR = 3.7, P = 0.002), lack of BP monitoring (OR = 2.5, P = 0.015) and unawareness of medication indications (OR = 2.4, P = 0.021), and of hypertension risks (OR = 2.1, P = 0.026). Conclusions: Poor medication adherence, lack of information about hypertension, and side effects should be considered as possible underlying causes of uncontrolled BP and must be addressed in any intervention aimed to improve BP control.
The Visual Perception of 3-Dimensional Structure from Motion

One of the most perplexing phenomena in the study of human vision is the ability of observers to perceive the 3-dimensional layout of the environment from patterns of light that project onto the retina. Indeed, were it not for the facts of our day-to-day experiences, it would be tempting to conclude that the perception of 3dimensional form is a mathematical impossibility, since the properties of optical stimulation appear to have so little in common with the properties of real objects encountered in nature. Whereas real objects exist in 3-dimensional space and are composed of tangible substances such as earth, metal or flesh, an optical image of an object is confined to a 2-dimensional projection surface and consists of nothing more than flickering patterns of light. Nevertheless, for many animals including humans these seemingly uninterpretable patterns of light are the primary source of sensory information about the layout of objects and surfaces in the surrounding environment.
Identifying and Evaluating Contrarian Strategies for NCAA Tournament Pools

The annual NCAA men’s basketball tournament inspires many individuals to wager money in office and online pools that require entrants to predict the outcome of every game prior to the tournament’s onset. Coupled with the haphazard team selection behavior of many casual players, office pools’ complexity suggests the possible existence of well-informed strategies that are profitable in the long run. Previous work in this area has focused on development of strategies that attempt to maximize the expected score of a set of selections. Unfortunately, the vast majority of pools use simple scoring schemes that do not reward the correct picking of upsets, meaning that an entry sheet that maximizes expected points will feature mostly favorites. This in turn means the sheet will have too much in common with many other players’ sheets to be profitable. In this article, we seek to identify strategies that are contrarian in the sense that they favor teams that have a high probability of winning, yet are likely to be underbet by our opponents relative to other teams in the pool. Using 2003-2005 data from a medium-sized ongoing Chicago-based office pool, we show that such strategies can outperform the maximum expected score strategy in terms of expected payoff. We also developed “predicted contrarian” approaches that tackle the more difficult case where we assume opponent betting behavior is unknown, but may be estimated using web-downloadable data on the teams in the tournament.
Compact Stellarator Coils

Experimental devices to study the physics of high-beta (β & 4%), low aspect ratio (A . 4.5) stellarator plasmas require coils that will produce plasmas satisfying a set of physics goals, provide experimental flexibility, and be practical to construct. In the course of designing a flexible coil set for the National Compact Stellarator Experiment, we have made several innovations that may be useful in future stellarator design efforts. These include: the use of Singular Value Decomposition methods for obtaining families of smooth current potentials on distant coil winding surfaces from which low current density solutions may be identified; the use of a Control Matrix Method for identifying which few of the many detailed elements of a stellarator boundary must be targeted if a coil set is to provide fields to control the essential physics of the plasma; the use of a Genetic Algorithm for choosing an optimal set of discrete coils from a continuum of potential contours; the evaluation of alternate coil topologies for balancing the tradeoff between physics objective and engineering constraints; the development of a new coil optimization code for designing modular coils, and the identification of a “natural” basis for describing current sheet distributions.
The Attribute Reduce Based on Rough Sets and SAT Algorithm

Rough set theory introduced by Z.Pawlak in the early 1980s is a mathematical tool of reasoning about data. In recent years it has received much attention of the researchers around the world. Rough set theory has been successfully applied to many areas including machine learning, pattern recognition, decision analysis, process control, knowledge discovery from databases. An algorithm in finding minimal reduction based on Prepositional Satisfiability (abbreviated as SAT) algorithm is proposed. A branch and bound algorithm is presented to solve the proposed SAT problem. The experimental result shows that the proposed algorithm has significantly reduced the number of rules generated form the obtained reduction with high percentage of classification accuracy.
Three-way decision based Defect Prediction for Object Oriented Software

Early prediction of defective software module plays critical role in the software project development to reduce the overall development time, budgets and increases the customer satisfaction. The bug prediction based on two-way classification method classifies the software module as defective or non-defective. This method provides good accuracy measure but this metric is not sufficient in case if misclassification cost is concerned. Classifying the defective module as non-defective will lead to higher cost of entire software project at the end. In this study, three-way decision based classification method and Random Forest ensemble are used to predict the defect in Object Oriented Software to reduce the misclassification cost which will lead to avoid the cost overrun. The eclipse bug prediction dataset is used and experimental results show that the decision cost is reduced and accuracy is increased using our proposed method.
Output-Feedback H 2 / H ∞ Control of a Class of Networked Fault Tolerant Control Systems

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés. Output-Feedback H2/Hinf Control of a Class of Networked Fault Tolerant Control Systems Samir Aberkane, Jean-Christophe Ponsart, Dominique Sauter
Competition between Jagged-Notch and Endothelin1 Signaling Selectively Restricts Cartilage Formation in the Zebrafish Upper Face

The intricate shaping of the facial skeleton is essential for function of the vertebrate jaw and middle ear. While much has been learned about the signaling pathways and transcription factors that control facial patterning, the downstream cellular mechanisms dictating skeletal shapes have remained unclear. Here we present genetic evidence in zebrafish that three major signaling pathways − Jagged-Notch, Endothelin1 (Edn1), and Bmp − regulate the pattern of facial cartilage and bone formation by controlling the timing of cartilage differentiation along the dorsoventral axis of the pharyngeal arches. A genomic analysis of purified facial skeletal precursors in mutant and overexpression embryos revealed a core set of differentiation genes that were commonly repressed by Jagged-Notch and induced by Edn1. Further analysis of the pre-cartilage condensation gene barx1, as well as in vivo imaging of cartilage differentiation, revealed that cartilage forms first in regions of high Edn1 and low Jagged-Notch activity. Consistent with a role of Jagged-Notch signaling in restricting cartilage differentiation, loss of Notch pathway components resulted in expanded barx1 expression in the dorsal arches, with mutation of barx1 rescuing some aspects of dorsal skeletal patterning in jag1b mutants. We also identified prrx1a and prrx1b as negative Edn1 and positive Bmp targets that function in parallel to Jagged-Notch signaling to restrict the formation of dorsal barx1+ pre-cartilage condensations. Simultaneous loss of jag1b and prrx1a/b better rescued lower facial defects of edn1 mutants than loss of either pathway alone, showing that combined overactivation of Jagged-Notch and Bmp/Prrx1 pathways contribute to the absence of cartilage differentiation in the edn1 mutant lower face. These findings support a model in which Notch-mediated restriction of cartilage differentiation, particularly in the second pharyngeal arch, helps to establish a distinct skeletal pattern in the upper face.
Investigation of Testosterone, Androstenone, and Estradiol Metabolism in HepG2 Cells and Primary Culture Pig Hepatocytes and Their Effects on 17βHSD7 Gene Expression

Steroid metabolism is important in various species. The accumulation of androgen metabolite, androstenone, in pig adipose tissue is negatively associated with pork flavor, odour and makes the meat unfit for human consumption. The 17β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 7 (17βHSD7) expressed abundantly in porcine liver, and it was previously suggested to be associated with androstenone levels. Understanding the enzymes and metabolic pathways responsible for androstenone as well as other steroids metabolism is important for improving the meat quality. At the same time, metabolism of steroids is known to be species- and tissue-specific. Therefore it is important to investigate between-species variations in the hepatic steroid metabolism and to elucidate the role of 17βHSD7 in this process. Here we used an effective methodological approach, liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry, to investigate species-specific metabolism of androstenone, testosterone and beta-estradiol in HepG2 cell line, and pig cultured hepatocytes. Species- and concentration-depended effect of steroids on 17βHSD7 gene expression was also investigated. It was demonstrated that the investigated steroids can regulate the 17βHSD7 gene expression in HepG2 and primary cultured porcine hepatocytes in a concentration-dependent and species-dependent pattern. Investigation of steroid metabolites demonstrated that androstenone formed a 3′-hydroxy compound 3β-hydroxy-5α-androst-16-ene. Testosterone was metabolized to 4-androstene-3,17-dione. Estrone was found as the metabolite for β-estradiol. Inhibition study with 17βHSD inhibitor apigenin showed that apigenin didn’t affect androstenone metabolism. Apigenin at high concentration (50 µM) tends to inhibit testosterone metabolism but this inhibition effect was negligible. Beta-estradiol metabolism was notably inhibited with apigenin at high concentration. The study also established that the level of testosterone and β-estradiol metabolites was markedly increased after co-incubation with high concentration of apigenin. This study established that 17βHSD7 is not the key enzyme responsible for androstenone and testosterone metabolism in porcine liver cells.
Risk of Cancer in Patients with Insomnia, Parasomnia, and Obstructive Sleep Apnea: A Nationwide Nested Case-Control Study

Purpose: Insomnia, parasomnia, and obstructive sleep apnea have been associated with a number of disease pathologies, but little is known about the relationship of these sleep disorders and cancer. The study explored the risk of sleep disorder (SD)-induced cancer using nationwide population data. Two million data from the National Health Insurance system of Taiwan was used to assess for the relationship. Patients and Methods: Patients with cancer as our cases and patients without cancer as our control group in 2001-20011. The study patients were traced back to seek the exposure risk factor of sleep disorders, which was divided into three categories: insomnia, obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and parasomnia. Patients were selected excluding patients who had cancer prior to presenting with the sleep disorder and the person-year is less than 2 years. Each case was randomly matched with two cases with the same age, gender, and index year. Results: There were significantly increased risks of breast cancer in the patients with insomnia (AHR=1.73; 95% CI: 1.57-1.90), patients with parasomnia (AHR=2.76; 95% CI: 1.53-5.00), and patients with OSA (AHR=2.10; 95% CI: 1.16-3.80). Moreover, patients with parasomnia had significantly higher risk of developing oral cancer (AHR=2.71; 95% CI: 1.02-7.24) compared with patients without parasomnia. The risk of suffering from nasal cancer (AHR=5.96, 95% CI: 2.96-11.99) and prostate cancer (AHR=3.69, 95% CI: 1.98- 6.89) in patients with OSA was significantly higher than that of patients without OSA. Conclusions: Our findings provided the evidence that people diagnosed with insomnia, parasomnia and OSA are at a higher risk of developing cancers to remind people to improve sleep quality.
Restriction of Transient Receptor Potential Vanilloid-1 to the Peptidergic Subset of Primary Afferent Neurons Follows Its Developmental Downregulation in Nonpeptidergic Neurons

Primary afferent “pain” fibers (nociceptors) are divided into subclasses based on distinct molecular and anatomical features, and these classes mediate noxious modality-specific contributions to behaviors evoked by painful stimuli. Whether the heat and capsaicin receptor transient receptor potential vanilloid-1 (TRPV1) is expressed heterogeneously across several sensory populations, or is selectively expressed by a unique nociceptor subclass, however, is unclear. Here we used two lines of Trpv1 reporter mice to investigate the primary afferent expression of TRPV1, both during development and in the adult. We demonstrate, using Cre-induced lineage tracing, that during development TRPV1 is transiently expressed in a wide range of dorsal root ganglion neurons, and that its expression is gradually refined, such that TRPV1 transcripts become restricted to a specific subset of peptidergic sensory neurons. Finally, the remarkable sensitivity that is characteristic of these reporter mice revealed an innervation of central and peripheral targets by TRPV1+ primary afferents in the adult that is considerably more extensive than has previously been appreciated.
Farm Management in Organic and Conventional Dairy Production Systems Based on Pasture in Southern Brazil and Its Consequences on Production and Milk Quality

Simple Summary This study provides the characteristics of the conventional high input (C-HI), conventional low input (C-LI), and organic low input (O-LI) pasture-based production systems used in Southern Brazil, and its consequences on production and milk quality. C-HI farms had larger farms and herds, annual pasture with higher inputs and milk yield, whereas O-LI had smaller farms and herds, perennial pastures with lowest input and milk yields; C-LI was in between. O-LI farms may contribute to eco-system services, but low milk yield is a major concern. Hygienic and microbiological milk quality was poor for all farms and needs to be improved. Abstract Pasture-based dairy production is used widely on family dairy farms in Southern Brazil. This study investigates conventional high input (C-HI), conventional low input (C-LI), and organic low input (O-LI) pasture-based systems and their effects on quantity and quality of the milk produced. We conducted technical site visits and interviews monthly over one year on 24 family farms (n = 8 per type). C-HI farms had the greatest total area (28.9 ha), greatest percentage of area with annual pasture (38.7%), largest number of lactating animals (26.2) and greatest milk yield per cow (22.8 kg·day−1). O-LI farms had the largest perennial pasture area (52.3%), with the greatest botanical richness during all seasons. Area of perennial pasture was positively correlated with number of species consumed by the animals (R2 = 0.74). Milk from O-LI farms had higher levels of fat and total solids only during the winter. Hygienic and microbiological quality of the milk was poor for all farms and need to be improved. C-HI farms had high milk yield related to high input, C-LI had intermediate characteristics and O-LI utilized a year round perennial pasture as a strategy to diminish the use of supplements in animal diets, which is an important aspect in ensuring production sustainability.
Measurement bias and effect restoration in causal inference

This paper highlights several areas where graphical techniques can be harnessed to address the problem of measurement errors in causal inference. In particular, it discusses the control of unmeasured confounders in parametric and nonparametric models and the computational problem of obtaining bias-free effect estimates in such models. We derive new conditions under which causal effects can be restored by observing proxy variables of unmeasured confounders with/without external studies.
Integrating Knowledge of City Entities Extracted from DBpedia and GeoLite into the EKOSS Failure Cases Repository to Enhance Semantic Search Capabilities *

Domain-specific repositories of manually created semantic descriptors usually contain detailed knowledge with “heavy-weight” semantics about particular aspects of the domain, but they often lack common knowledge about the concepts and entities that are described. Integrating some of this common knowledge into the repository can enhance the capabilities of semantic search in the repository. We use common knowledge about city entities from DBpedia knowledge base and GeoLite city database to enhance the EKOSS failure cases repository, which contains knowledge about failures in engineering. Custom parsers are used to extract common knowledge from the two open data sources, and special semantic descriptors, which we call standard entity statements, are generated from the extracted knowledge. We link the city instances in failure case semantic statements with the standard city entity semantic statements, and we demonstrate the new types of semantic search capabilities that are made possible by the integration of the three semantic resources. *
Real-time Physical Activity classification and tracking using wearble sensors

A sensor-network physical activity monitoring system (SAMS) using wearable sensors is presented. It classifies and tracks body activity in real time. The system adopts a service-oriented architecture for data acquisition, sensor actuation & control, and real-time service management. The activity recognition and tracking are carried out using two levels of approaches. At level 1, the movement and flexion angles of body segments are recovered from accelerometer signal by using extended Kalman filter (EKF). At level 2, the movements of body segments are further aggregated by using Hidden Markov Model (HMM) for activity recognition. The proposed system is applied to monitoring and identifying normal daily activities in an apartment. Experimental results indicate that, by using the proposed system, body activity can be identified with high accuracy and short system latency.