Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Reconstructing Big Semantic Similarity Networks

Distance metric learning from high (thousands or more) dimensional data with hundreds or thousands of classes is intractable but in NLP and IR, high dimensionality is usually required to represent data points, such as in modeling semantic similarity. This paper presents algorithms to scale up learning of a Mahalanobis distance metric from a large data graph in a high dimensional space. Our novel contributions include random projection that reduces dimensionality and a new objective function that regularizes intra-class and inter-class distances to handle a large number of classes. We show that the new objective function is convex and can be efficiently optimized by a stochastic-batch subgradient descent method. We applied our algorithm to two different domains; semantic similarity of documents collected from the Web, and phenotype descriptions in genomic data. Experiments show that our algorithm can handle the high-dimensional big data and outperform competing approximations in both domains.
Relational complexity and the imaginative power of strategic spatial planning1

Abstract This paper explores the imaginations of place and spatial organization and of governance mobilized in recent experiences of strategic spatial planning for urban regions in Europe. Drawing on examples of such experiences, it examines how far these imaginations reflect a relational understanding of spatial dynamics and of governance processes. Spatial imaginations are assessed in terms of the nature of the spatial consciousness expressed in a strategy, the way the multiple scales of the social relations of a place are conceived, and the extent to which relational complexity is understood and reflected in a strategy. Governance imaginations are assessed in terms of how the relation between government and society is imagined, how the tensions between functional/sectoral and territorial principles of policy organization are addressed, and what assumptions are made about the nature and trajectory of transformative processes in governance dynamics. The paper concludes that signs of a recognition of the “relational complexity” of urban and regional dynamics and of territorially-focused governance processes can be found in these experiences, but a relational understanding is weakly-developed and often displaced by more traditional ways of seeing place/space and governance process. The paper concludes with some comments on the challenge of developing a stronger understanding of “relational complexity” within strategic spatial planning endeavours.
Monolithic passively mode-locked semiconductor quantum-well laser emitting at 1070 nm: Picosecond pulse generation and pulse train stability analysis

We study experimentally the pulsed emission of a passively mode-locked multi-section quantum-well semiconductor laser emitting picosecond short optical pulses at a fundamental repetition rate of 20 GHz and at a wavelength of 1070 nm. We identify different regions of picosecond short pulses dependent on the laser biasing conditions and relate them to the investigated mode-locking stability by means of timing jitter and amplitude jitter analysis. We obtain timing jitter values in a two-digit femtosecond range and operating regions without relative amplitude jitter at pulse widths in the order of a few picoseconds.
Data Farming in support of NATO operations - methodology and proof-of-concept

Data Farming is a process that has been developed to support decision-makers by answering questions that are not currently addressed. It uses an inter-disciplinary approach that includes modeling and simulation, high performance computing and statistical analysis to examine questions of interest with large number of alternatives. Data Farming allows for the examination of uncertain events with numerous possible outcomes and provides the capability of executing enough experiments so that both overall and unexpected results may be captured and examined for insights. In 2010, the NATO Science and Technology Organization started the three-year Task Group “Data Farming in Support of NATO” to assess and document the data farming methodology to be used for decision support. Two case studies were performed as proof-of-concept explorations to demonstrate the power of Data Farming. The paper describes the Data Farming methodology as an iterative process and summarizes the results of the case studies.
Despikifying SEEG signals using a temporal basis set

The current trend in the diagnosis of epilepsy is oriented towards high frequency activity that is used to characterize the epileptogenic zone. Still, interictal spikes, i.e. transient activity, remain a classical marker. A difficult question is to separate these two classes of activity that overlap in the time-frequency plane. We propose to use a temporal basis set in order to describe and subtract spiking activity from the traces, as a preprocessing step for further space-time-frequency analysis. The set is based on singular value decomposition. We select the first three temporal components, construct a model of the spikes by projecting the data on the new basis and obtain a spike-free signal by subtracting the model from the original signal. We prove that despikifying results in a better characterization of oscillatory activity, promoting time and frequency separation. The resulting spatio-temporal maps could help for a better characterization of the oscillatory activity in electrophysiology of epilepsy.
Mild obstructive sleep apnea does not modulate baroreflex sensitivity in adult patients

Background Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a chronic and progressive disease. OSA is associated with increased cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, the risk being more frequently encountered with severe degrees of OSA. Increased sympathetic activation and impaired cardiac autonomic control as reflected by depressed baroreceptor reflex sensitivity (BRS) are possible mechanisms involved in the cardiovascular complications of OSA. However, it is not known at what stage of OSA that changes in BRS appear. The aim of this study was to evaluate BRS in patients with mild OSA. Methods The study population consisted of 81 overweight patients with mild OSA and 46 body weight-matched non-OSA subjects. BRS, apnea-hypopnea index, body mass index, and metabolic parameters were assessed. The phenylephrine test was used to measure BRS. Results Patients in the OSA group were slightly but significantly older than the non-OSA population (50.3±9.3 years vs 45.7±11.1 years, P=0.02). Body mass index, percentage body fat, blood pressure, fasting glucose, insulin, and lipid levels did not differ between the OSA patients and non-OSA subjects. Absolute BRS values in patients with mild OSA and non-OSA subjects (9.97±6.70 ms/mmHg vs 10.51±7.16 ms/mmHg, P=0.67) and BRS values proportional to age-related and sex-related reference values (91.4%±22.7% vs 92.2%±21.8%, P=0.84) did not differ from each other. BRS <50% of the sex-specific reference value was found in 6% of patients with mild OSA and in 2% of non-OSA subjects (P=0.29). Conclusion Patients with mild OSA did not show evidence of disturbed BRS in comparison with weight-matched non-OSA controls.
Working Mothers: A Review

Books reviewed in this article: Elizabeth Bortalaia Silva (eds), Good Enough Mothering? Feminist Perspectives on Lone Motherhood Simon Duncan and Rosalind Edwards (eds), Single Mothers in an International Context: Mothers or Workers? Kim England, Who Will Mind the Baby? Geographies of Child Care and Working Mothers
Modeling Recreation Demand When the Access Point is Unknown

Not observing where an individual enters a geographically large recreation area complicates the task of modeling recreation demand. Traditionally, analysts have arbitrarily defined distances on the basis of the midpoint of a river or beach segment or on the basis of the nearest access point. In this article, we draw on the aggregation literature to generate a consistent framework for incorporating information on site characteristics and travel costs gathered at a finer level than that used to obtain trip counts. We use Monte Carlo experiments to illustrate the performance of the traditional midpoint and nearest access point approximations. Our results suggest that, while the nearest access point approach often provides a good approximation to underlying preferences, use of the midpoint approach can lead to significant bias in the travel cost parameter and corresponding welfare calculations. Finally, we use our approach to model recreation demand for the major river systems in Iowa using data from the 2009 Iowa Rivers and River Corridors Survey.
Formal Approach to the Deployment of Distributed Robotic Teams

We present a computational framework for automatic synthesis of control and communication strategies for a robotic team from task specifications that are given as regular expressions about servicing requests in an environment. We assume that the location of the requests in the environment and the robot capacities and cooperation requirements to service the requests are known. Our approach is based on two main ideas. First, we extend recent results from formal synthesis of distributed systems to check for the distributability of the task specification and to generate local specifications, while accounting for the service and communication capabilities of the robots. Second, by using a technique that is inspired by linear temporal logic model checking, we generate individual control and communication strategies. We illustrate the method with experimental results in our robotic urban-like environment.
Relational ruin or social glue? The joint effect of relationship type and gossip valence on liking, trust, and expertise

Although scholars have discussed the occurrence of gossip in social situations, gossip's function as a social influence tool has received little theoretical attention. Of particular interest is the issue of whether gossip is untrustworthy, leading to relational demise, or whether gossip can lead to perceived liking, trust, and expertise. The prediction was made that whether gossip acts as relational ruin or social glue depends on the valence of the gossip and the type of relationship among the communicators. It was proposed that source cue perceptions will be the function of an interaction between relationship type and gossip valence. Specifically, friends' judgments will not be affected by gossip valence, but strangers' assessments of liking, trust, and expertise will increase when gossip is positive and will decrease when gossip is negative (when controlling for propensity to gossip). An experiment was designed to test these predictions. The data indicated that both positive and negative gossip are perceived negatively for both friends and strangers.
Microbial Activity Response to Solar Radiation across Contrasting Environmental Conditions in Salar de Huasco, Northern Chilean Altiplano

In high altitude environments, extreme levels of solar radiation and important differences of ionic concentrations over narrow spatial scales may modulate microbial activity. In Salar de Huasco, a high-altitude wetland in the Andean mountains, the high diversity of microbial communities has been characterized and associated with strong environmental variability. Communities that differed in light history and environmental conditions, such as nutrient concentrations and salinity from different spatial locations, were assessed for bacterial secondary production (BSP, 3H-leucine incorporation) response from short-term exposures to solar radiation. We sampled during austral spring seven stations categorized as: (a) source stations, with recently emerged groundwater (no-previous solar exposure); (b) stream running water stations; (c) stations connected to source waters but far downstream from source points; and (d) isolated ponds disconnected from ground sources or streams with a longer isolation and solar exposure history. Very high values of 0.25 μE m-2 s-1, 72 W m-2 and 12 W m-2 were measured for PAR, UVA, and UVB incident solar radiation, respectively. The environmental factors measured formed two groups of stations reflected by principal component analyses (near to groundwater sources and isolated systems) where isolated ponds had the highest BSP and microbial abundance (35 microalgae taxa, picoeukaryotes, nanoflagellates, and bacteria) plus higher salinities and PO43- concentrations. BSP short-term response (4 h) to solar radiation was measured by 3H-leucine incorporation under four different solar conditions: full sun, no UVB, PAR, and dark. Microbial communities established in waters with the longest surface exposure (e.g., isolated ponds) had the lowest BSP response to solar radiation treatments, and thus were likely best adapted to solar radiation exposure contrary to ground source waters. These results support our light history (solar exposure) hypothesis where the more isolated the community is from ground water sources, the better adapted it is to solar radiation. We suggest that factors other than solar radiation (e.g., salinity, PO43-, NO3-) are also important in determining microbial productivity in heterogeneous environments such as the Salar de Huasco.
A 76-kb duplicon maps close to the BCR gene on chromosome 22 and the ABL gene on chromosome 9: Possible involvement in the genesis of the Philadelphia chromosome translocation

A patient with a typical form of chronic myeloid leukemia was found to carry a large deletion on the derivative chromosome 9q+ and an unusual BCR-ABL transcript characterized by the insertion, between BCR exon 14 and ABL exon 2, of 126 bp derived from a region located on chromosome 9, 1.4 Mb 5′ to ABL. This sequence was contained in the bacterial artificial chromosome RP11-65J3, which in fluorescence in situ hybridization experiments on normal metaphases was found to detect, in addition to the predicted clear signal at 9q34, a faint but distinct signal at 22q11.2, where the BCR gene is located, suggesting the presence of a large region of homology between the two chromosomal regions. Indeed, blast analysis of the RP11-65J3 sequence against the entire human genome revealed the presence of a stretch of homology, about 76 kb long, located approximately 150 kb 3′ to the BCR gene, and containing the 126-bp insertion sequence. Evolutionary studies using fluorescence in situ hybridization identified the region as a duplicon, which transposed from the region orthologous to human 9q34 to chromosome 22 after the divergence of orangutan from the human-chimpanzee-gorilla common ancestor about 14 million years ago. Recent sequence analyses have disclosed an unpredicted extensive segmental duplication of our genome, and the impact of duplicons in triggering genomic disorders is becoming more and more apparent. The discovery of a large duplicon relatively close to the ABL and BCR genes and the finding that the 126-bp insertion is very close to the duplicon at 9q34 open the question of the possible involvement of the duplicon in the formation of the Philadelphia chromosome translocation.
Exploring the independence of gene regulatory modules

We study the discovery of gene regulatory modules based on transcription factor (TF) binding data and expression data from gene knockouts. We invoke the natural assumption that regulatory modules predominantly operate independently, which makes it possible to apply a new method for extracting them: the Independent Variable Group Analysis. We demonstrate that i) the independence assumption helps in discovering the regulatory modules from TF data, and ii) the independent gene modules discovered from TF-data can be found also in expression data from gene knockouts. This demonstrates that the regulatory effects by transcription factors are observable in knockout experiments. It additionally suggests that the difficult interpretation of the knockout experiments could be eased by taking into account the independent
Self-tuning PID control of liquid level system based on Fuzzy Wavelet Neural Network model

In this paper two objectives are followed; one is to illustrate the capability of Fuzzy Wavelet Neural Network (FWNN) in modeling; and the other is to propose a self-tuning PID controller based on this model. The controller is constructed by a FWNN structure combined with a PID controller. Gradient descent algorithm is used to accomplish tuning rules. The proposed method is applied for a nonlinear system, which is a liquid level system. The capability of FWNN in the modeling of nonlinear system by a few rules and susceptibility of the proposed controller will be shown by simulation. The convergence analysis of the algorithm will be done using Lyapunov theorem. It will be shown that the proposed method would increase the speed of tracking while having very little steady state error which is due to the high accuracy of fuzzy wavelet neural network.
Occupational respiratory diseases in the South African mining industry

Background : Crystalline silica and asbestos are common minerals that occur throughout South Africa, exposure to either causes respiratory disease. Most studies on silicosis in South Africa have been cross-sectional and long-term trends have not been reported. Although much research has been conducted on the health effects of silica dust and asbestos fibre in the gold-mining and asbestos-mining sectors, little is known about their health effects in other mining sectors. Objective : The aims of this thesis were to describe silicosis trends in gold miners over three decades, and to explore the potential for diamond mine workers to develop asbestos-related diseases and platinum mine workers to develop silicosis. Methods : Mine workers for the three sub-studies were identified from a mine worker autopsy database at the National Institute for Occupational Health. Results : From 1975 to 2007, the proportions of white and black gold mine workers with silicosis increased from 18 to 22% and from 3 to 32% respectively. Cases of diamond and platinum mine workers with asbestos-related diseases and silicosis, respectively, were also identified. Conclusion : The trends in silicosis in gold miners at autopsy clearly demonstrate the failure of the gold mines to adequately control dust and prevent occupational respiratory disease. The two case series of diamond and platinum mine workers contribute to the evidence for the risk of asbestos-related diseases in diamond mine workers and silicosis in platinum mine workers, respectively. The absence of reliable environmental dust measurements and incomplete work history records impedes occupational health research in South Africa because it is difficult to identify and/or validate sources of dust exposure that may be associated with occupational respiratory disease.
The Experience of Abandonment and Adoption, as a Child and as a Parent, in a Psychological Motivational Perspective

The adopted child has experiences of loss, changes of goals for attachment, and of being biologically separate in the family, which are similar to the experiences of adoptive parents who are infertile. In this paper, the correspondence of experiences between the adopted child and the infertile adoptive parents will be examined with the motivational system theory constructed by Joseph Lichtenberg. This theory is based on psychoanalytical knowledge as well as on infant research. It comprises five motivational systems, all existing from the beginning of life, which promote the fulfilment and regulation of: 1. the need for psychic regulation of physiological requirements, 2. the need for attachment and later affiliation, 3. the need for exploration and assertion, 4. the need to react aversively through antagonism or withdrawal (or both) and 5. the need for sensual enjoyment and (later) sexual excitement. In regard to these basic needs, infertile parents have certain experiences that correspond to and correlate with those of the abandoned child. This implies a risk for the development of the adoptive family as well as a possibility for growth. The author suggests potential healing factors that may exist within an infertile couple regarding meeting and understanding an abandoned child.
A viable, integrative framework for contemporary research in health psychology: commentary on Hall and Fong's Temporal Self-regulation Theory

Temporal Self-regulation Theory (TST; Hall & Fong, 2007) is a valuable new theory in health psychology. In particular, TST (a) explains the seeming irrationality of health-risk behaviour (in terms of temporal shifts in the relative costs and benefits of behavioural performance); (b) encompasses findings from contemporary research on self-regulation (in terms of behavioural prepotency and self-regulatory capacity); and (c) integrates neurocognitive and socio-cognitive processes (in terms of biologically imbued executive function). Thus, the theory accounts for a large body of evidence and generates testable, new predictions the defining qualities of a viable scientific theory (Stanovich, 2007). Importantly, TST also provides an elegant framework that could be used to conceptualise and integrate other ideas that are useful for understanding and promoting health behaviours: behaviour priming (e.g., Bargh, 2005), willingness to engage in risk behaviours (Gibbons, Gerrard, Blanton, & Russell, 1998) and implementation intentions (Gollwitzer, 1993; Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006). This commentary argues that research on priming effects and behavioural willingness may usefully augment the elements of behavioural prepotency in TST, and that it may be advantageous to consider implementation intention formation as an additional component of self-regulatory capacity.
A metaheuristic for the pickup and delivery problem with time windows

In this paper, we propose a metaheuristic to solve the pickup and delivery problem with time windows. Our approach is a tabu-embedded simulated annealing algorithm which restarts a search procedure from the current best solution after several non-improving search iterations. The computational experiments on the six newly-generated different data sets marked our algorithm as the first approach to solve large multiple-vehicle PDPTW problem instances with various distribution properties.
Experimental demonstration of entanglement-enhanced rotation angle estimation using trapped ions.

We experimentally investigate three methods, utilizing different atomic observables and entangled states, to increase the sensitivity of rotation angle measurements beyond the "standard quantum limit" for nonentangled states. All methods use a form of quantum mechanical "squeezing. " In a system of two entangled trapped (9)Be(+) ions we observe a reduction in uncertainty of rotation angle below the standard quantum limit for all three methods including all sources of noise. As an application, we demonstrate an increase in precision of frequency measurement in a Ramsey spectroscopy experiment.