Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hidden Markov Models

Hidden Markov chains was originally introduced and studied in the late 1960s and early 1970s. During the 1980s the models became increasingly popular. The reason for this is twofolded. Firstly, the hidden Markov models are very rich in mathematical structure and hence can form the theoretical basis for a wide range of applications. Secondly, the models have, when applied properly, turned out to be highly successful. Some of the notable applications are speech recognition and bioinformatics in particular protein modelling.
Diversity Enhancement for Micro-Differential Evolution

The differential evolution (DE) algorithm suffers from high computational time due to slow nature of evaluation. In contrast, micro-DE (MDE) algorithms employ a very small population size, which can converge faster to a reasonable solution. However, these algorithms are vulnerable to a premature convergence as well as to high risk of stagnation. In this paper, MDE algorithm with vectorized random mutation factor (MDEVM) is proposed, which utilizes the small size population benefit while empowers the exploration ability of mutation factor through randomizing it in the decision variable level. The idea is supported by analyzing mutation factor using Monte-Carlo based simulations. To facilitate the usage of MDE algorithms with very-small population sizes, new mutation schemes for population sizes less than four are also proposed. Furthermore, comprehensive comparative simulations and analysis on performance of the MDE algorithms over various mutation schemes, population sizes, problem types (i.e. uni-modal, multi-modal, and composite), problem dimensionalities, and mutation factor ranges are conducted by considering population diversity analysis for stagnation and trapping in local optimum situations. The studies are conducted on 28 benchmark functions provided for the IEEE CEC-2013 competition. Experimental results demonstrate high performance and convergence speed of the proposed MDEVM algorithm.
Attachment I--final Risk Assessment for Saccharomyces Uvarum

Saccharomyces uvarum is one species of a genus which has an extensive history of use in the fermentation and food processing industry. S. uvarum , also called S . bayanus , is referred to as a "wine yeast" due to their broad use in the production of wines. Taxonomically, S. uvarum is closely related to Saccharomyces cerevisiae . S. cerevesiae is the used extensively in the baking of bread and the production of beer. S. cerevisiae is the subject of extensive genetic research and genomic mapping. It is expected that research on S. cerevisiae will lead to greater understanding and better characterization of the entire genus including S. uvarum . Despite S. uvarum 's broad use and exposure, there is no reported incidence of adverse effects to either humans or the environment.
Integrated assessment of abrupt climatic changes

Abstract One of the most controversial conclusions to emerge from many of the first generation of integrated assessment models (IAMs) of climate policy was the perceived economic optimality of negligible near-term abatement of greenhouse gases.Typically, such studies were conducted using smoothly varying climate change scenarios or impact responses. Abrupt changes observed in the climatic record and documented in current models could substantially alter the stringency of economically optimal IAM policies. Such abrupt climatic changes—or consequent impacts—would be less foreseeable and provide less time to adapt, and thus would have far greater economic or environmental impacts than gradual warming.We extend conventional, smooth IAM analysis by coupling a climate model capable of one type of abrupt change to a well-established energy—economy model (DICE). We compare the DICE optimal policy using the standard climate sub-model to our version that allows for abrupt change—and consequent enhanced climate damage—through changes in the strength (and possible collapse) of the North Atlantic thermohaline circulation (THC). We confirm the potential significance of abrupt climate change to economically optimal IAM policies, thus calling into question all previous work neglecting such possibilities—at the least for the wide ranges of relevant social and climate system parameters we consider. In addition, we obtain an emergent property of our coupled social—natural system model: “optimal policies” that do consider abrupt changes may, under relatively low discount rates, calculate emission control levels sufficient to avoid significant abrupt change, whereas “optimalpolicies” disregarding abrupt change would not prevent this non-linear event. However, there is a threshold indiscount rate above which the present value of future damages is so low that even very large enhanced damages in the 22nd century, when a significant abrupt change such as a THC collapse would be most likely to occur, do not increase optimal control levels sufficiently to prevent such a collapse. Thus, any models not accounting for potential abrupt non-linear behavior and its interaction with the discounting formulation are likely to miss an important set of possibilities relevant to the climate policy debate.
The hippocampal intrinsic network oscillator

Oscillatory activity characterizes the activity of the hippocampus in vivo; however, the underlying mechanism remains unknown. It is also known that during oscillations the number of action potentials provided by the principal cells is surprisingly low, and it is still an open question how oscillations can emerge under such constraints. One suggestion is that the discharge activity of inhibitory cells takes this function; however, this has been found, in my previous studies, not to be the case for cholinergically mediated and intrinsically generated hippocampal oscillations. This study identifies the hippocampal intrinsic network oscillator and the interactions which underlie the concurrent expression of cholinergically mediated theta (4–15 Hz) and gamma (20–80 Hz) oscillations. A particular axonal network that involves the hippocampal associative pathway, shown to consist of axonal collaterals of CA2 and some CA3 pyramidal cells, forms the oscillator core element. It is functionally activated via two cholinergically mediated reactions. First, direct activation of CA2 and CA3 pyramidal cells to discharge. Second, enhancement of gap junction‐mediated axo‐axonic interactions among axons of the core element and associated axons of interneurones, which together form the full oscillator. With these two reactions it is possible to explain the rhythmicities and patterns of activity, under the condition of a low number of action potentials. The discharge of CA3 pyramidals serves mainly as a trigger, while firing by CA2 pyramidals, and to a lesser degree by CA3 pyramidals, maintains the oscillatory activity. The cholinergically mediated 2‐fold increase in axonal gap junction communication between cells serves two functions: (a) creation of specific activation pathways to produce the rhythmicities and patterns, and (b) formation of a reverberatory system that extends the time during which the sparsely generated action potentials can interact in the network, thereby providing a new source of action potentials, critical for the expression of oscillatory activity.
An optimized Hβ index for disentangling stellar population ages

We have defined a new Hβ absorption index definition, Hβ o, which has been optimized as an age indicator for old and intermediate age stellar populations. Rather than using stellar spectra, we employed for this purpose a library of stellar population spectral energy distributions of different ages and metallicities at moderately high resolution. Hβ o provides us with improved abilities for lifting the age-metallicity degeneracy affecting the standard Hβ Lick index definition. The new index, which has also been optimized against photon noise and velocity dispersion, is fully characterized with wavelength shift, spectrum shape, dust extinction and [a/Fe] abundance ratio effects. Hβ o requires spectra of similar qualities as those commonly used for measuring the standard Hβ Lick index definition. Aiming at illustrating the use and capabilities of Hβ o as an age indicator we apply it to Milky Way globular clusters and to a well selected sample of early-type galaxies covering a wide range in mass. The results shown here are particularly useful for applying this index and understand the involved uncertainties.
Assessment of operation plan performance under uncertainty

A military air operations plan contains a number of sequential and/or parallel tasks. Given information about the battlefield situation (including a task status estimate) during the plan's execution, it is necessary to assess the situation impact on the plan, especially whether the entire plan would be delayed. Plan performance assessment fuses the task status estimate into the status estimate of the entire plan. The plan performance assessment assists the air operations commander in deciding the need for plan modification to assure the air operations goal. The performance assessment of the plan must deal with uncertainty in the task status estimate. This paper presents a comparative study of two information fusion techniques that infer the entire plan's status estimate from the task status estimate under uncertainty: a decomposition technique with low computational cost and a composition technique with high computational cost. The test results of these two techniques indicate their similar estimation accuracies. Due to its low computational cost, the decomposition technique is recommended. Guidelines for applying the decomposition technique to a large-scale complex task plan are also provided.
A self-paced BCI system to control an electric wheelchair: Evaluation of a commercial, low-cost EEG device

The electrical cerebral activity has been already used in several applications aiming at improving the daily life of impaired people with strong motor disabilities. In particular the Electroencephalogram signals (EEG) have been used to provide new ways for communication and control. However, such kind of technology presents some important drawbacks such as the price and the difficulty to prepare the system without an expert's support. This work intends to build a user-friendly, self-paced Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) system that allows using commercial EEG headsets in order to drive an electrical wheelchair with a motor imagery approach. Furthermore, the conceived system has been used for a first evaluation of a commercial, low-cost, EEG device compared with data coming from a professional device. The result shows that the low cost EEG device, at the actual state of the art, provide interesting results but can hardly be used for self-paced systems in error sensitive context.
A Feasibility of Incorporating PDAs into Problem-Based Learning Approach to Medical Education: An Overview

This paper explores the feasibility of incorporating personal digital assistants (PDAs) into problem-based learning (PBL) approach in medical education. Method: Database searched was conducted by using relevant keywords. From 1,317 relevant journal articles, 489 articles (37%) are related to the use of PDAs in medical settings, medical education and aspects regarding PDA use in both areas. The appropriate materials were input into NVivo 7 for analysis. Results: Five PDA functionalities (clinical-log, reference, personal information management, communication and special functions) and 8 factors (data security and information privacy, interoperability, scalability and network connectivity, education and training, technology comfort, electromagnetic interference, social acceptance, and maintenance and support) for the incorporation of PDAs into PBL-medical curriculum were identified. Conclusion: A little is known whether PDAs can be incorporate at the beginning of medical study in particular to a PBL-medical curriculum at the University of Wollongong (UOW). Therefore the further study is to determine whether PDAs, their functionalities and influence factors are feasible to deploy into medical education and how possible they can be incorporated to medical education at the UOW.
The great tragedy of science : The slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact

Spinocerebellar ataxia type 7 (SCA7) is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by cerebellar ataxia and visual problems due to a progressive and selective loss of neurons within the cerebellum, brainstem and retina. The disease is caused by the expansion of a CAG repeat in the first coding exon of the SCA7 gene, resulting in an expanded polyglutamine domain in the N-terminal part of ataxin-7, a protein of unknown function. To expand our knowledge of the ataxin-7 protein and the mechanism by which mutant ataxin-7 causes disease, we have studied the expression and function of both the normal and the mutated ataxin-7 protein. Ataxin-7 expression was examination in brain and non-CNS tissues from SCA7 patients and age-matched controls. Expression was predominantly nuclear in neurons throughout the brain of both healthy and SCA7 individuals. We also observed aggregation of mutant ataxin-7 in the nuclei of neurons. No obvious difference in the expression level of ataxin-7 or the formation of aggregates could be observed between affected and nonaffected brain regions in SCA7 patients. Based on these findings, we could conclude that the cell type specific neurodegeneration in SCA7 is not due to differences in expression levels or to the formation of ataxin-7 aggregates. To widen our studies on ataxin-7 expression, we isolated and characterized the mouse SCA7 gene homolog. Cloning of the mouse SCA7 gene revealed two SCA7 mRNA isoforms that were highly homologous to their human counterparts. Immunohistochemical analysis also revealed a conserved expression pattern of ataxin-7 in adult mouse brain. In addition, ataxin-7 expression was observed during embryonic development in brain as well as in several non-neuronal tissues such as heart, liver and lung.
A framework for informal language: Opinion mining

Blog, Tweets, or any social networking sites are popularly used weblogs where consumers can broadcast their opinions. It has become a common practise among the users to express their feedback about any product or service. This information in-turn has now become a significant component of the global information. The information provided help's any organization to keep track of the user's opinion about the product or the service that they are providing and helps the company to find their product popularity and its rating in contrast to the other competitors. This information is important for any organization to improve their market share. Thus, these opinion rich resources need to be mined so that one can extract useful information out of it. The information written by the users is in the unstructured form. The techniques are then applied to extract the opinion or the sentiments about the product. The mining of such unstructured data gives rise to new challenges that need to be focused. In this paper, we have proposed a framework to mine the opinions expressed in form of unstructured data. The unstructured data is generally written in the abbreviated form and might not be syntactically correct. Our proposed framework will resolve such challenges which arise due to the commonly used informal language and to handle this we have introduced a new dictionary namely Slang. This dictionary contains the new commonly used abbreviations with their correct matched words and grows with time for every new abbreviated word.
From sonic Pi to overtone: creative musical experiences with domain-specific and functional languages

Domain Specific and Functional languages provide an excellent linguistic context for exploring new forms of music notation -- not just for formalising compositions but also for live interaction workflows. This experience report describes two novel live coding systems that employ code execution to modify live sounds and music. The first of these systems, Sonic Pi, aims at teaching core computing notions to school students using live-coded music as a means of stimulating and maintaining student engagement. We describe how an emphasis on a functional style improves the ease in which core computer science concepts can be communicated to students. Secondly we describe Overtone, a functional language and live coding environment aimed towards mprofessional electronic musicians. We describe how Overtone's abstractions and architecture strongly benefit from a functional-oriented implementation. Both Sonic Pi and Overtone are freely available open-source platforms.
A VECTOR CHANNEL MODEL WITH STOCHASTIC FADING SIMULATION

The simulation of wireless communication systems with multiple antennas requires a spatial channel model which reasonably characterizes the space and time variant effects of the mobile radio channel. This paper describes a vector channel model with stochastic fading simulation, which combines several advantages from purely stochastic and geometrical channel models. The resulting model is consistent with real world wireless channel characteristics and enables numerically efficient bit-level simulations. The channel model enables the investigation of several aspects of space-time-processing techniques. This includes the performance evaluation of space-time algorithms in dependence on time varying spatial channel characteristics and fading correlation effects between the antennas as well as the user tracking and separation abilities of those algorithms.
Impact of a Simulation-Based Communication Workshop on Resident Preparedness for End-of-Life Communication in the Intensive Care Unit

Introduction. Although residents frequently lead end-of-life (EOL) discussions in the intensive care unit (ICU), training in EOL care during residency has been required only recently, and few educational interventions target EOL communication in the ICU. This study evaluated a simulation-based intervention designed to improve resident EOL communication skills with families in the ICU. Methods. Thirty-four second-year internal medicine residents at a large urban teaching hospital participated in small group sessions with faculty trained in the “VitalTalk” method. A Likert-type scale questionnaire measured self-assessed preparedness before, immediately following, and approximately 9 months after intervention. Data were analyzed using Wilcoxon rank-sum analysis. Results. Self-assessed preparedness significantly improved for all categories surveyed (preintervention mean; postintervention mean; p value), including discussing bad news (3.3; 4.2; p < 0.01), conducting a family conference (3.1; 4.1; p < 0.01), discussing treatment options (3.2; 3.9; p < 0.01), discussing discontinuing ICU treatments (2.9; 3.5; p < 0.01), and expressing empathy (3.9; 4.5; p < 0.01). Improvement persisted at follow-up for all items except “expressing empathy. ” Residents rated the educational quality highly. Conclusion. This study provides evidence that brief simulation-based interventions can produce lasting improvements in residents' confidence to discuss EOL care with family members of patients in the ICU.
Clubes deConvergência de Renda na América: uma abordagematravés de painel dinâmico não-linear

The main objective of this study consisted in empirically test the hypothesis of absolute vs. conditional convergence, and also, if this process is linear or nonlinear, between the countries of America and among the countries in the trade blocs in the American continent: North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Andean Community of Nations (CAN) and the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUL). The analysis of convergence in blocks of free trade is motivated by the greater degree of economic homogeneity among the members of these blocks and the possibility of free trade influence in the process of convergence (Ben-David, 1997). For this, it was used a nonlinear auto-regressive dynamic panel. This model was estimated for two different samples: one after and one before the creation of these commercial blocs. The results were not the same between these periods and blocs.
Whither Written Language Evaluation?

Common evaluations have grown to be a major component of all the ARPA Human Language Technology programs. In the written language community, the largest evaluation program has been the series of Message Understanding Conferences, which began in 1987 [2,3]. These evaluations have focussed on the task of analyzing text and automatically filling templates describing certain classes of events. These conferences have certainly been a major impetus in the development of systems for performing such "information extraction" tasks, and thus in demonstrating the potential practical value of some of the written language processing technology.
3.1 Mutual Exclusion for Shared Data Structures 3.1.1 Concurrency and the Synchronization Problem 3.1.2 Mutual Exclusion Algorithms Details: a Formal Proof 3.1.3 Semaphores and Monitors

Concurrency Given that the operating system supports multiple processes, there may be various interactions among them. We will study three rather different types of interactions: • Access to shared operating system data structures. This issue is concerned with internal operating system integrity. The problem is that several processes may request the operating system to take related actions, which require updates to internal operating system data structures. Note that there is only one operating system, but many processes. Therefore the operating system data structures are shared in some way by all the processes. Updates to such shared data structures must be made with care, so that data is not corrupted. • Deadlock due to resource contention. This issue is concerned with the resource management functionality of the operating system. Consider a scenario in which one application acquires lots of memory, and another acquires access to a tape drive. Then the first application requests the tape, and the second requests more memory. Neither request can be satisfied, and both applications are stuck, because each wants what the other has. This is called deadlock, and should be avoided. • Mechanisms for user-level inter-process communication. This issue is concerned with the abstraction and services functionality of the operating system. The point is that multiple processes may benefit from interacting with each other, e.g. as part of a parallel or distributed application. The operating system has to provide the mechanisms for processes to identify each other and to move data from one to the other. We'll discuss the first two here, and the third in Chapter 12. An operating system is an instance of concurrent programming. This means that multiple activities may be ongoing at the same time. For example, a process may make a system call, and while the system call is running, an interrupt may occur. Thus two different executions of operating system code — the system call and the interrupt handler — are active at the same time. Concurrency can happen on a single processor Concurrency does not necessarily imply parallelism. In a parallel program, different activities actually occur simultaneously on different processors. That is, they occur at the same time in different locations. In a concurrent program, different activities are interleaved with each other. This may happen because they really occur in parallel, but they may also be interleaved on the same processor. That is, one activity is started, but before …