Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Metamodeling Techniques For Evolutionary Optimization of Computationally Expensive Problems: Promises and Limitations

It is often the case in many problems in science and engineering that the analysis codes used are computationally very expensive. This can pose a serious impediment to the successful application of evolutionary optimization techniques. Metamodeling techniques present an enabling methodology for reducing the computational cost of such optimization problems. We present here a general framework for coupling metamodeling techniques with evolutionary algorithms to reduce the computational burden of solving this class of optimization problems. This framework aims to balance the concerns of optimization with that of design of experiments. Experiments on test problems and a practical engineering design problem serve to illustrate our arguments. The practical limitations of this approach are also outlined.
Components of Decreased Sound Tolerance : Hyperacusis, Misophonia, Phonophobia

This report is an attempt to bring to your attention some important information related to decreased sound tolerance and it is based on a short paper (Jastreboff, MM and Jastreboff PJ, Hyperacusis, Audiology Online, June 2001, http://www.audiologyonline.com). In particular, as we recently proposed a new term “misophonia” and we would like to provide some explanation and justification for it (Jastreboff, PJ and Jastreboff, MM, Tinnitus and hyperacusis, In: Otorhinolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery, JJ Ballenger and JB Snow (eds), Singular, in press).
Dynamic primitives in the control of locomotion Citation

Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use. The MIT Faculty has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters. Humans achieve locomotor dexterity that far exceeds the capability of modern robots, yet this is achieved despite slower actuators, imprecise sensors, and vastly slower communication. We propose that this spectacular performance arises from encoding motor commands in terms of dynamic primitives. We propose three primitives as a foundation for a comprehensive theoretical framework that can embrace a wide range of upper-and lower-limb behaviors. Building on previous work that suggested discrete and rhythmic movements as elementary dynamic behaviors, we define submovements and oscillations: as discrete movements cannot be combined with sufficient flexibility, we argue that suitably-defined submovements are primitives. As the term " rhythmic " may be ambiguous, we define oscillations as the corresponding class of primitives. We further propose mechanical impedances as a third class of dynamic primitives, necessary for interaction with the physical environment. Combination of these three classes of primitive requires care. One approach is through a generalized equivalent network: a virtual trajectory composed of simultaneous and/or sequential submovements and/or oscillations that interacts with mechanical impedances to produce observable forces and motions. Reliable experimental identification of these dynamic primitives presents challenges: identification of mechanical impedances is exquisitely sensitive to assumptions about their dynamic structure; identification of submovements and oscillations is sensitive to their assumed form and to details of the algorithm used to extract them. Some methods to address these challenges are presented. Some implications of this theoretical framework for locomotor rehabilitation are considered.
Tailoring electrically induced properties by stretching relaxor polymer films

Electrically induced behavior was investigated and compared in the non-stretched and uniaxially stretched poly(vinylidene fluoride-trifluoroethylene-chlorofluoroethylene), P(VDF-TrFE-CFE) terpolymer—a member of the P(VDF-TrFE)-based relaxor polymers family that exhibits fast response speeds, giant electrostriction, high electric energy density, and large electrocaloric effect. Although the temperature dependence of the low-field complex dielectric constant is almost identical in the non-stretched and stretched samples, the dc bias electric field via higher nonlinear contribution more heavily alters the dielectric response of the non-stretched terpolymer. The polarization response and, particularly, the induced electrostrictive strain are, on the other hand, much higher in the more-oriented stretched films. The changes in polar-correlation range induced by film stretching also strongly influence the directly measured electrocaloric response, which shows more pronounced temperature dependence in the stretch.
H.264 Layered Coded Video over Wireless Networks: Channel Coding and Modulation Constraints

This paper considers the prioritised transmission of H.264 layered coded video over wireless channels. For appropriate protection of video data, methods such as prioritised forward error correction coding (FEC) or hierarchical quadrature amplitude modulation (HQAM) can be employed, but each imposes system constraints. FEC provides good protection but at the price of a high overhead and complexity. HQAM is less complex and does not introduce any overhead, but permits only fixed data ratios between the priority layers. Such constraints are analysed and practical solutions are proposed for layered transmission of data-partitioned and SNR-scalable coded video where combinations of HQAM and FEC are used to exploit the advantages of both coding methods. Simulation results show that the flexibility of SNR scalability and absence of picture drift imply that SNR scalability as modelled is superior to data partitioning in such applications.
The Demand for Different Types of Childcare by Working Mothers in Palembang, South Sumatera, Indonesia

"Objective – This study aims to analyse the factors effecting the different demand on childcare services made by working mothers, focusing on two types of childcare. Methodology/Technique – The analysis method used is a logit regression with a binary dependent variable worth. The respondents are working mothers who with young children, living in Palembang. This research uses primary data to perform the data collection, through the use of questionnaires and interviews. Findings – The results show that the cost of daycare and the hours spent in daycare have an affect on a working mother's choice of the type of daycare used. Novelty – This study represents a different approach from previous studies because: (i) the study examines whether the cost of child care has an effect on a working mothers' choice of the type of daycare and (ii) the study also tests whether the number of hours mothers leave their children in daycare has an effect on their choice of daycare. "
Analysis of Multilayer Neural Networks for Object Recognition

In 2012 Krizhevsky et al. demonstrated that a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) trained on large amount of data as part of the ImageNet challenge significantly outperformed traditional computer vision approaches on image classification. Subsequently, Girshick et al. (2013) exploited these features to establish the new state of the art on PASCAL object detection. This suggests that computer vision maybe in the process of a feature revolution akin to that following SIFT and HOG nearly a decade ago. It is therefore important to get more insights into features learned by these networks. Our work provides answer to the following four questions: (a) What happens during finetuning of a discriminatively pretrained network? (b) How much information is in the location and how much of it is in the magnitude of filter activation? (c) Does a multilayer CNN contain Grand-Mother Cells? How distributed is the code? (d) How does training of CNN progress over time? Does too much pre-training hurt generalization performance?
QoS Provision for IPv6 Traffic Using Dynamic Packet State

With the emergence of various multimedia applications, the best-effort service provided by today's Internet has been not sufficient. To support QoS, flow label field is provided in IPv6 packet header, which can be used to specify the QoS requirements. Dynamic packet state is a key technology that aims providing services as powerful and flexible as ones implemented by a stateful network using a stateless architecture. Combining these two features, this paper proposes some QoS provision mechanism for IPv6 traffic flows in a stateless architecture that has high scalability. Simulations are also run to evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm
Diverse Effects of Phytoestrogens on the Reproductive Performance: Cow as a Model

Phytoestrogens, polyphenolic compounds derived from plants, are more and more common constituents of human and animal diets. In most of the cases, these chemicals are much less potent than endogenous estrogens but exert their biological effects via similar mechanisms of action. The most common source of phytoestrogen exposure to humans as well as ruminants is soybean-derived foods that are rich in the isoflavones genistein and daidzein being metabolized in the digestive tract to even more potent metabolites—para-ethyl-phenol and equol. Phytoestrogens have recently come into considerable interest due to the increasing information on their adverse effects in human and animal reproduction, increasing the number of people substituting animal proteins with plant-derived proteins. Finally, the soybean becomes the main source of protein in animal fodder because of an absolute prohibition of bone meal use for animal feeding in 1995 in Europe. The review describes how exposure of soybean-derived phytoestrogens can have adverse effects on reproductive performance in female adults.
Dalfampridine sustained-release for symptomatic improvement of walking speed in patients with multiple sclerosis

Dalfampridine sustained-release (SR) is a time-release formulation of 4-aminopyridine, recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration to improve walking in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). In Phase II trials, walking speed and lower extremity muscle strength was increased in patients with MS, but the increase in walking speed did not reach statistical significance. A responder analysis revealed that approximately 35% of treated patients had a statistically significant and clinically meaningful increase in walking speed. When treated responders were compared with treated nonresponders, walking speed significantly increased in the responder group, but not in the nonresponder or placebo groups. This result was duplicated in two larger Phase III trials. The optimal dose to maximize the risk–benefit ratio was 10 mg twice daily. Higher doses were associated with a greater risk of seizure, but no further improvement in walking speed or in the proportion of responders. Dalfampridine SR is eliminated by renal clearance and undergoes only limited metabolism (<10%). It is contraindicated in patients with moderate or severe renal insufficiency and in those with a history of seizures or epileptiform activity on electroencephalography. The development of time-released 4-aminopyridine represents a major advance in symptomatic therapy for MS.
Empirical Study on Alignment of Cloud Computing in Enterprises

As the cloud computing is being adopted by users, the alignment of cloud computing is receiving increasing attention from researchers. On the basis of related theories about organizational fit of Information Technology (IT), this paper constructed a theoretical model to analyze factors affecting the cloud computing alignment in companies. In this model, task-technology fit and technology-organization compatibility are considered as two key factors for the alignment between cloud computing and enterprise business. Further the alignment is evaluated from two aspects: the depth of alignment and the breadth of alignment. Analyzing data collected via questionnaires with Statistical Product and Service Solutions (SPSS) and Partial Least Squares (PLS), this paper shows that the technology-organization compatibility has significant positive effects on both depth and breadth of cloud computing alignment. On the other hand, the task-technology fit has significant positive effects on breadth of cloud computing alignment, and it has no significant effects on depth of cloud computing alignment.
[MEDICINE] The Use of Statistics in Medical Research: A Comparison of The New England Journal of Medicine and Nature Medicine

Thereiswidespreadevidenceoftheextensiveuseofstatisticalmethods in medical research. Just the same, standards are gen-erally low and a growing body of literature points to statisticalerrors in most medical journals. However, there is no compre-hensive study contrasting the top medical journals of basic andclinical science for recent practice in their use of statistics.All original research articles in Volume 10, Numbers 16 ofNature Medicine (Nat Med ) and Volume 350, Numbers 126 ofThe New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM ) were screenedfor their statistical content. Types, frequencies, and complexityof applied statistical methods were systematically recorded. A46-item checklist was used to evaluate statistical quality for asubgroup of papers.94. 5 percent (95% CI 87.698.2) of NEJM articles and 82.4percent(95%CI65.593.2)of NatMed articlescontainedinfer-ential statistics. NEJM papers were signi cantly more likely touseadvancedstatisticalmethods( 0 0001). Statisticalerrorswereidenti edinaconsiderableproportionofarticles,althoughnot always serious in nature. Documentation of applied statisti-cal methods was generally poor and insuf cient, particularly inNat Med . Compared to 1983, a vast increase in usage and complexityof statistical methods could be observed for NEJM papers. Thisdoes not necessarily hold true for Nat Med papers, as the resultsof the study indicate that basic science sticks with basic anal-ysis. As statistical errors seem to remain common in medicalliterature, closer attention to statistical methodology should beseriously considered to raise standards.KEY WORDS: Complexity; Errors and shortcomings; Statisti-cal methods in medical journals; Techniques.
Characterizing and detecting malicious crowdsourcing

Popular Internet services in recent years have shown that remarkable things can be achieved by harnessing the power of the masses. However, crowd-sourcing systems also pose a real challenge to existing security mechanisms deployed to protect Internet services, particularly those tools that identify malicious activity by detecting activities of automated programs such as CAPTCHAs. In this work, we leverage access to two large crowdturfing sites to gather a large corpus of ground-truth data generated by crowdturfing campaigns. We compare and contrast this data with "organic" content generated by normal users to identify unique characteristics and potential signatures for use in real-time detectors. This poster describes first steps taken focused on crowdturfing campaigns targeting the Sina Weibo microblogging system. We describe our methodology, our data (over 290K campaigns, 34K worker accounts, 61 million tweets.), and some initial results.
Quelles Conceptions 1 De La Confiance Au Cours De La Relation Bancaire (Client/Banque) ? : Une Approche Par Les Etudes De Cas Retrospectives

1 Par « conceptions » de la confiance, nous entendons le ou les types de confiance mobilises par le client ainsi que les significations donnees a chaque type de confiance au cours de la relation bancaire (depuis l'entree en relation avec la banque jusqu'a nos jours)-(types mobilises et sens donnes).
A quantitative analysis of improved DSRC system using repetition based broadcast safety messaging with hidden terminals

Broadcast communications are widely proposed for safety messaging. In the case of highway vehicular networks however, constantly broadcasting safety messages inevitably cause the well-known hidden terminal problem. Three existing repetition-based broadcasting protocols have shown to meet the reliability and delay requirements for DSRC safety systems. However, when compared with one another, all of these protocols have not been tested under hidden terminals scenario. In this paper, we propose a quantitative model to evaluate the quality of service (QoS) of DSRC systems using these three leading repetition-based protocols under hidden terminals and highway scenarios. The performance of our model is analyzed by means of probability of success and delay performances. Our performance study shows that the repetition-based protocols do not meet the DSRC critical safety reliability requirements when tested under higher transmission loads with hidden terminals taken into account. Under lower transmission loads, these protocols only meet the reliability requirements at relatively low vehicle densities. Our quantitative model and performance results presented in this study also serve as a benchmark for further improvement of DSRC systems' performance.
Directed Cyclic Graphical Representations of Feedback Models

The use of directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) to represent conditional independence relations among random variables has proved fruitful in a variety of ways. Recursive structural equation models are one kind of DAG model. However, non-recursive structural equation models of the kinds used to model economic processes are naturally represented by directeed cyclic graphs (DCG). For linear systems associated with DCGs with independent errors, a characterisation of conditional independence constraints is obtained, and it is shown that the result generalizes in a natural way to systems in which the error variables or noises are statistically dependent. For non-linear systems with independent errors a sufficient condition for conditional independence of variables in associated distributions is obtained.
The pre-frontal cortex: links between neuropsychological performance and the sleep and wake EEG

The Pre-Frontal Cortex (PFC) has one of the highest Cerebral Metabolic Rates (CMR) during wakefulness (Braun et al., 1997, Maquet et al., 1990) and the lowest CMR during Slow Wave Sleep (SWS) at night (Maquet, 2000) . Inasmuch that the PFC is a focus for low frequency delta activity (e g. Werth et al., 1996, 1997), generated directly by the cortex (Steriade et al., 1993a-c), it is argued, here, that this serves a localised function of sleep and is thus reflective of enhanced recovery. Given the PFC-delta activity link, Clark et al. (1998) assessed daytime regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) and found increased 'brainwork' during the day resulted in increased delta activity at night, specifically in the (left) PFC. [Continues. ]
Kernelization Rules for Special Treewidth and Spaghetti Treewidth

Using the framework of kernelization we study whether efficient preprocessing schemes for the Special Treewidth problem can give provable bounds on the size of the processed instances. In this paper it is shown that Special Treewidth has a kernel with O(`) vertices, where ` denotes the size of a vertex cover. This implies that given an instance (G, k) of Special Treewidth we can efficiently reduce its size to O((`∗)3) vertices, where ` is the size of a vertex cover in G. Next we provide a characterization of the special-partial 2-trees, the class of graphs bounded by Special Treewidth 2, using the notion of mambas and Paths of Cycles. We also introduce a new cousin of Treewidth and Special Treewidth, the Spaghetti Treewidth problem. It is shown that Spaghetti Treewidth also has a kernel with O(`) vertices, where l denotes the size of a vertex cover.
Subsequence pattern discovery in Chinese university financial data

The financial data time series of a university contain important information of its resource allocation and developing trends, which can be revealed in their distinctive patterns. This work uses selective subsequence time series clustering based on motifs to discovery financial subsequence patterns in Chinese universities. The research finds out interesting patterns in eight university categories. The results can be used for guiding decision-making and forecasting the effects of decisions.
Efficient Sampling and Meta-Modeling for Computational Economic Models

Extensive exploration of simulation models comes at a high computational cost, all the more when the model involves a lot of parameters. Economists usually rely on random explorations, such as Monte Carlo simulations, and basic econometric modeling to approximate the properties of computational models. This paper aims to provide guidelines for the use of a much more efficient method that combines a parsimonious sampling of the parameter space using a specific design of experiments (DoE), with a well-suited metamodeling method first developed in geostatistics: kriging. We illustrate these guidelines by following them in the analysis of two simple and well known economic models: Nelson and Winter’s industrial dynamics model, and Cournot oligopoly with learning firms. In each case, we show that our DoE experiments can catch the main effects of the parameters on the models’ dynamics with a much lower number of simulations than the Monte-Carlo sampling (e.g. 85 simulations instead of 2,000 in the first case). In the analysis of the second model, we also introduce supplementary numerical tools that may be combined with this method, for characterizing configurations complying with a specific criterion (social optimal, replication of stylized facts, etc.). Our appendix gives an example of the R-project code that can be used to apply this method on other models, in order to encourage other researchers to quickly test this approach on their models.
Avoiding Omnidoxasticity in Logics of Belief: A Reply to MacPherson

In recent work MacPherson argues that the standard method of modeling belief logically, as a necessity operator in a modal logic, is doomed to fail. The problem with normal modal logics as logics of belief is that they treat believers as "ideal" in unrealistic ways (i.e., as omnidoxastic); however, simi- lar problems re-emerge for candidate non-normal logics. The authors argue that logics used to model belief in artificial intelligence (AI) are also flawed in this way. But for AI systems, omnidoxasticity is impossible because of their finite nature, and this fact can be exploited to produce operational models of fallible belief. The relevance of this point to various philosophical views about belief is discussed.
Parallel HTTP for Video Streaming in Wireless Networks

To stream video using HTTP, a client device sequentially requests and receives chunks of the video file from the server over a TCP connection. It is well-known that TCP performs poorly in networks with high latency and packet loss such as wireless networks. On mobile devices, in particular, using a single TCP connection for video streaming is not efficient, and thus, the user may not receive the highest video quality possible. In this paper, we design and analyze a system called ParS that uses parallel TCP connections to stream video on mobile devices. Our system uses parallel connections to fetch each chunk of the video file using HTTP range requests. We present measurement results to characterize the performance of ParS under various network conditions in terms of latency, loss rate and bandwidth. Given the limited communication and computational resources of mobile devices, we then focus on determining the minimum number of TCP connections required to achieve high utilization of the wireless bandwidth.