Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
HOMAGE: a heterogeneous object-based environment to develop multi-agent systems

This paper presents an object based programming environment, called HOMAGE, for the development of multiagent systems. This environment offers two different programming levels: object and agent. The object level allows the development of agent models and systems on the basis of two traditional object-oriented programming languages (i.e. C++ and Common Lisp). The agent level allows to specialize the agent models defined at the object level and to develop real multi-agent systems through a multi-agent oriented language, called MAPL++. Moreover, this environment offers a set of communication and distribution libraries to distribute a system on the Internet and to allow the communication between agents through different protocols. The paper includes a brief description of some personal assistants that have been implemented during experimentation with this environment.
Low Prevalence of Salmonella Enterica in Cull Dairy Cattle at Slaughter in Northern Italy

In order to evaluate Salmonella carrier status of cull dairy cattle at slaughter, 125 animals were randomly selected during the period February-May 2016. Dairy cows were reared in 89 farms located in two regions of Northern Italy (Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna regions), where bovine milk is primarily used for Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese and Grana Padano cheese production. Samples were collected by swabbing a 400-cm2 area of the brisket hide and by rectoanal mucosal swabs. They were tested following the reference ISO 6579 method and the isolates were serotyped following the Kauffmann-White-Le Minor scheme and genotyped by XbaI PFGE. Salmonella was detected in 1.6% of the brisket hide samples (2/125) (95% CI: 0.4-5.6) and never found in faecal samples (95% CI: 0-3%). The positive cattle were reared in two farms located only in Emilia-Romagna region. The isolates were typed as S. Derby and S. Seftenberg. The comparison of the pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) patterns of the bovine strains with all the PFGE patterns of the same serotypes responsible for human salmonellosis cases notified in Emilia-Romagna region in the years 2013-2015 did not find any correspondence. Therefore, the role of cull dairy cattle in transmitting Salmonella to humans seems to be less important than those of pigs and poultry in EU, but more data are needed for completing attribution source studies.
Evidence of neighborhood e?ects on educational performance in the chilean school voucher system

This paper uses alternative measures of neighborhood quality to study its impact on student performance in school. The Chilean voucher-based education system allows us to test separately for neighborhood and traditional in-classroom peer effects, which have been traditionally empha- sized by the literature. We use the Human Development Index reported by United Nations, and the relative number of books in public libraries at the county level, to measure neighborhood quality. We ? nd that a 5 basis point increase in the HDI Index, is related to an increase of 1 to 4 points in the SIMCE test, depending on the speci? cation. The e? ect is equivalent to half a year increase in mothers education (one additional year achieves a 7 point increase in SIMCE scores). Interestingly, the e? ect remains when we look at the sample of random movers.
An Empirical Study of Significant Variables for Trading Strategies

Nowadays, stock market investment is governed by investment strategies. An investment strategy consists in following a fixed philosophy over a period of time, and it can have a scientific, statistical or merely heuristic base. No method currently exists which is capable of measuring how good an investment strategy is either objectively or realistically. Through the use of Artificial Intelligence and Data Mining tools we have studied the different investment strategies of an important Spanish management agency and extracted a series of significant characteristics to describe them. Our objective is to evaluate and compare investment strategies in order to be able to use those which produce a peak return in our investment.
Vitamin C in Health and Disease: Its Role in the Metabolism of Cells and Redox State in the Brain

Ever since Linus Pauling published his studies, the effects of vitamin C have been surrounded by contradictory results. This may be because its effects depend on a number of factors such as the redox state of the body, the dose used, and also on the tissue metabolism. This review deals with vitamin C pharmacokinetics and its participation in neurophysiological processes, as well as its role in the maintenance of redox balance. The distribution and the concentration of vitamin C in the organs depend on the ascorbate requirements of each and on the tissue distribution of sodium-dependent vitamin C transporter 1 and 2 (SVCT1 and SVCT2). This determines the specific distribution pattern of vitamin C in the body. Vitamin C is involved in the physiology of the nervous system, including the support and the structure of the neurons, the processes of differentiation, maturation, and neuronal survival; the synthesis of catecholamine, and the modulation of neurotransmission. This antioxidant interacts with self-recycling mechanisms, including its participation in the endogenous antioxidant system. We conclude that the pharmacokinetic properties of ascorbate are related to the redox state and its functions and effects in tissues.
12 Introduction to Switched-Capacitor Circuits

Our study of amplifiers in previous chapters has dealt with only cases where the input signal is continuously available and applied to the circuit and the output signal is continuously observed. Called “continuous-time” circuits, such amplifiers find wide application in audio, video, and highspeed analog systems. In many situations, however, we may sense the input only at periodic instants of time, ignoring its value at other times. The circuit then processes each “sample,” producing a valid output at the end of each period. Such circuits are called “discrete-time” or “sampled-data” systems. In this chapter, we study a common class of discrete-time systems called “switched-capacitor (SC) circuits. ” Our objective is to provide the foundation for more advanced topics such as filters, comparators, ADCs, and DACs. Most of our study deals with switched-capacitor amplifiers but the concepts can be applied to other discrete-time circuits as well. Beginning with a general view of SC circuits, we describe sampling switches and their speed and precision issues. Next, we analyze switched-capacitor amplifiers, considering unity-gain, noninverting, and multiply-by-two topologies. Finally, we examine a switched-capacitor integrator.
Approximately Counting Knapsack Solutions

#KNAPSACK: We are given n objects, together with each object i ∈ [n] (recall [n] = {1, 2, . . . , n}) we have its integer weight wi, and the total weight W our knapsack can hold. Our objective is to find the number of subsets S ⊆ [n] such that ∑ i∈S wi ≤ W . We call the sets satisfying this weight constraint feasible, and denote them as S. Thus, we are computing |S|. A geometric interpretation of the problem is the following. Recall, the n-dimensional hypercube has vertex set {0, 1} and edges connecting vertices which differ in exactly one coordinate. The constraint ∑ i wi ≤ W defines a hyperplane. Thus, we are counting the number of points of the hypercube that intersect the hyperplane.
A framework for modeling population strategies by depth of reasoning

This article presents a population-based cognitive hierarchy model that can be used to estimate the reasoning depth and sophistication of a collection of opponents' strategies from observed behavior in repeated games. This framework provides a compact representation of a distribution of complicated strategies by reducing them to a small number of parameters. This estimated population model can be then used to compute a best response to the observed distribution over these parameters. As such, it provides a basis for building improved strategies given a history of observations of the community of agents. Results show that this model predicts and explains the winning strategies in the recent 2011 Lemonade Stand Game competition, where eight algorithms were pitted against each other. The Lemonade Stand Game is a three-player game with simple rules that includes both cooperative and competitive elements. Despite its apparent simplicity, the fact that success depends crucially on what other players do gives rise to complex interaction patterns, which our new framework captures well.
Guidelines on Conducting Software Process Improvement Studies in Industry

Initiating and conducting empirical case studies in industry are non-trivial tasks. There are many pitfalls, and many researchers have failed in their research. For example, there is the risk that the results are not particularly useful for the IT organization. As a result, the IT organization will be reluctant to cooperate with the researchers again. The purpose of this paper is to share the authors' experience and lessons learnt in conducting empirical case studies within software process improvement in cooperation with industry. In particular, we focus on the potential conflicts between the organizational goals and the research goals. Our experiences are summarized in terms of guidelines that we believe are useful for researchers in this area.
Spotlight on lenvatinib in the treatment of thyroid cancer: patient selection and perspectives

Thyroid cancer is the most common endocrine malignancy, with over 60,000 cases reported per year in the US alone. The incidence of thyroid cancer has increased in the last several years. Patients with metastatic differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC) generally have a good prognosis. Metastatic DTC can often be treated in a targeted manner with radioactive iodine, but the ability to accumulate iodine is lost with decreasing differentiation. Until recently, chemotherapy was the only treatment in patients with advanced thyroid cancer, which is no longer amenable to therapy with radioactive iodine. The modest efficacy and significant toxicity of chemotherapy necessitated the need for urgent advances in the medical field. New insights in thyroid cancer biology propelled the development of targeted therapies for this disease, including the tyrosine kinase inhibitor sorafenib as salvage treatment for DTC. In 2015, the US Food and Drug Administration approved a second tyrosine kinase inhibitor, lenvatinib, for the treatment of radioiodine-refractory thyroid cancer. Although associated with a significant progression-free survival improvement as compared to placebo in a large Phase III study (median progression-free survival 18.2 vs 3.6 months; hazard ratio 0.21; 99% confidence interval 0.14–0.31; P<0.001), the benefit of lenvatinib needs to be proved in the context of associated moderate to severe toxicities that require frequent dose reduction and delays. This article reviews the evidence supporting the use of lenvatinib as salvage therapy for radioactive iodine-refractory thyroid cancer, with a focus on the toxicity profile of this new therapy.
A Model for Science Education Reform in Rural Schools: An Inservice Program for Local Team Leadership Development.

In a sweeping effort to improve science education in Tennessee, a new curriculum framevork was developed that mandated "hands-on" experiences for students, beginning in kindergarten. To smooth out problems in elementary science instruction arising from the mandate, the Center of Excellence for the Enrichment of Science and Mathematics Education at the University of Tennessee Lt. Martin developed training programs and materials. The teacher education program model, ca ". :d the Elementary Science Education Institute (ESEI), included a four-member team training structure that was central to its success. The ESEI was a response to traditional problems in science education, including the lack of supportive administrators and science specialists in rural areas. Administrators and elementary teachers took part in the two-phase program, which consisted of intensive academic preparation for nine four-member teams, and in-service field training carried out by the teams in their schools and surrounding districts. Science academicians and educators provided the initial . nstruction. Use of tne MOdP1 favorable changes in science content mastery, attitudes toward science, computer literacy, knowledge of the "hands-on" approach, and achievement by the teams' elementary students. Through their participation, ESEI teachers, principals, and superintendents assumed leadership ro ? s. Also, public awareness and support for elementary science education were among the most important benefits the model
The Role of Design Characteristics in Shaping Perceptions of Similarity: The Case of Online Shopping Assistants

This research proposes that technological artifacts are perceived as social actors, and that users can attribute personality and behavioral traits to them. These formed perceptions interact with the user’s own characteristics to construct an evaluation of the similarity between the user and the technological artifact. Such perceptions of similarity are important because individuals tend to more positively evaluate others, in this case technological artifacts, to whom they are more similar. Using an automated shopping assistant as one type of technological artifact, we investigate two types of perceived similarity between the customer and the artifact: perceived personality similarity and perceived behavioral similarity. We then investigate how design characteristics drive a customer’s perceptions of these similarities and, importantly, the bases for those design characteristics. Decisional guidance and speech act theory provide the basis for personality manifestation, while normative versus heuristic-based decision rules provide the basis for behavioral manifestation. We apply these design bases in an experiment. The results demonstrate that IT design characteristics can be used to manifest desired personalities and behaviors in a technological artifact. Moreover, these manifestations of personality and behavior interact with the customer’s own personality and behaviors to create matching 1 Dennis Galetta was the accepting senior editor. This paper was submitted on March 1 2006 and went through 2 rounds of revision. Journal of the Association for Information Systems Vol. 7 No. 12, pp. 821-861/December 2006 821 The Role of Design Characteristics in Shaping Perceptions/Al-Natour et al. perceptions of personality and behavioral similarity between the customer and the artifact. This study emphasizes the need to consider technological artifacts as social actors and describes the specific ways in which technology design can manifest social attributes. In doing so, we show that it is possible to match the social attributes of a technological artifact with those of the user.
Towards Large-Scale 3D Face Recognition

3D face recognition holds great promise in achieving robustness to pose, expressions and occlusions. However, 3D face recognition algorithms are still far behind their 2D counterparts due to the lack of large-scale datasets. We present a model based algorithm for 3D face recognition and test its performance by combining two large public datasets of 3D faces. We propose a Fully Convolutional Deep Network (FCDN) to initialize our algorithm. Reliable seed points are then extracted from each 3D face by evolving level set curves with a single curvature dependent adaptive speed function. We then establish dense correspondence between the faces in the training set by matching the surface around the seed points on a template face to the ones on the target faces. A morphable model is then fitted to probe faces and face recognition is performed by matching the parameters of the probe and gallery faces. Our algorithm achieves state of the art landmark localization results. Face recognition results on the combined FRGCv2 and Bosphorus datasets show that our method is effective in recognizing query faces with real world variations in pose and expression, and with occlusion and missing data despite a huge gallery. Comparing results of individual and combined datasets show that the recognition accuracy drops when the size of the gallery increases.
Design of organic complementary circuits for RFID tags application

This paper presents organic complementary circuits that can be used in an all-organic sheet-to-sheet processed RFID tag on plastic foils. An integrated organic eight-stage rectifier reaching a 14 MHz maximum working frequency is presented, as well as a physical unclonable function generator able to generate a code depending on the organic process scattering.
Investigation of the Flexibility of Protein Kinases Implicated in the Pathology of Alzheimer’s Disease

The pathological characteristics of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) have been linked to the activity of three particular kinases—Glycogen Synthase Kinase 3β (GSK3β), Cyclin-Dependent Kinase 5 (CDK5) and Extracellular-signal Regulated Kinase 2 (ERK2). As a consequence, the design of selective, potent and drug-like inhibitors of these kinases is of particular interest. Structure-based design methods are well-established in the development of kinase inhibitors. However, progress in this field is limited by the difficulty in obtaining X-ray crystal structures suitable for drug design and by the inability of this method to resolve highly flexible regions of the protein that are crucial for ligand binding. To address this issue, we have undertaken a study of human protein kinases CDK5/p25, CDK5, ERK2 and GSK3β using both conventional molecular dynamics (MD) and the new Active Site Pressurisation (ASP) methodology, to look for kinase-specific patterns of flexibility that could be leveraged for the design of selective inhibitors. ASP was used to examine the intrinsic flexibility of the ATP-binding pocket for CDK5/p25, CDK5 and GSK3β where it is shown to be capable of inducing significant conformational changes when compared with X-ray crystal structures. The results from these experiments were used to quantify the dynamics of each protein, which supported the observations made from the conventional MD simulations. Additional information was also derived from the ASP simulations, including the shape of the ATP-binding site and the rigidity of the ATP-binding pocket. These observations may be exploited in the design of selective inhibitors of GSK3β, CDK5 and ERK2.
Community Size Effects on Epidemic Spreading in Multiplex Social Networks

The dynamical process of epidemic spreading has drawn much attention of the complex network community. In the network paradigm, diseases spread from one person to another through the social ties amongst the population. There are a variety of factors that govern the processes of disease spreading on the networks. A common but not negligible factor is people’s reaction to the outbreak of epidemics. Such reaction can be related information dissemination or self-protection. In this work, we explore the interactions between disease spreading and population response in terms of information diffusion and individuals’ alertness. We model the system by mapping multiplex networks into two-layer networks and incorporating individuals’ risk awareness, on the assumption that their response to the disease spreading depends on the size of the community they belong to. By comparing the final incidence of diseases in multiplex networks, we find that there is considerable mitigation of diseases spreading for full phase of spreading speed when individuals’ protection responses are introduced. Interestingly, the degree of community overlap between the two layers is found to be critical factor that affects the final incidence. We also analyze the consequences of the epidemic incidence in communities with different sizes and the impacts of community overlap between two layers. Specifically, as the diseases information makes individuals alert and take measures to prevent the diseases, the effective protection is more striking in small community. These phenomena can be explained by the multiplexity of the networked system and the competition between two spreading processes.
The Commuting Game

We examine commuting in a game-theoretic setting with a continuum of commuters. Commutershome and work locations can be heterogeneous. The transport network is arbitrary but exogenous. Tra¢ c speed is determined by link capacity and by local congestion at a time and place along a link, where local congestion at a time and place is endogenous. Cars can catch up with others and slow them down. After formulating a static model, where consumers choose only routes to work, and a dynamic model, where they also choose departure times, we describe and examine existence of Nash equilibrium in both models and show that they di¤er, so prior claims about equivalence of the two models are false. Optima are shown to exist for both the static and dynamic models and are found to be di¤erent from the Nash equilibria in the respective models. Then it is shown via the folk theorem that for su¢ ciently large discount factors the repeated dynamic model has as equilibrium any strategy that is achievable in the one shot game with choice of departure times, including the e¢ cient ones. A similar result holds for the static model, restricting to strategies in the one shot game that yield individually rational payo¤s. Applicability of the anti-folk The authors are grateful to David Boyce, whose address at the 2007 Regional Science Association International North American Meetings in Savannah incited his discussants to write this paper. Gilles Duranton, Jan Eeckhout, Lewis Kornhauser and Bill Neilson contributed interesting comments. Mara Campbell and Bill Stone of the Missouri Department of Transportation helped us to obtain access to the important and abundant data on St. Louis tra¢ c, useful for detection of equilibrium strategies in the repeated commuting game, and for that we are especially grateful. yDepartment of Economics, University of California Riverside. zDepartment of Economics, Washington University, Campus Box 1208, 1 Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO 63130-4899 USA. Phone: (314) 935-8486, Fax: (314) 935-4156, e-mail: berliant@artsci.wustl. edu
Health care financing reform : a socio-economic perspective

This paper reviews some of the recent literature and experiences in healthcare reform in the light of the peculiarities of human nature. The review suggests that successful healthcare financing reform boils down to working out a cost/risk-sharing formula between government and citizens that can effectively preserve the incentives for efficient utilization of healthcare resources and for preventive care, while limiting the financial risk of citizens. The paper will also address issues arising from aging and redistributive concerns, as well as political and administrative feasibility.
Soft decision strategy and adaptive compensation for robust speech recognition against impulsive noise

The density of defects formed during the exposure of a positive resist layer, due to the loss of photoresist in circular areas is reduced by the addition of an antistatic agent. The resist layer includes a phenol-formaldehyde resin and an o-diazoquinone photoactive compound and a suitable antistatic agent is a 2-alkyl-N-hydroxyethyl imidazolinium salt.