Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Using Machine Learning for Efficient Flexible Regression Adjustment in Economic Experiments

This study investigates how to use regression adjustment to reduce variance in experimental data. We show that the estimators recommended in the literature satisfy an orthogonality property with respect to the parameters of the adjustment. This observation greatly simplifies the derivation of the asymptotic variance of these estimators and allows us to solve for the efficient regression adjustment in a large class of adjustments. Our efficiency results generalize a number of previous results known in the literature. We then discuss how this efficient regression adjustment can be feasibly implemented. We show the practical relevance of our theory in two ways. First, we use our efficiency results to improve common practices currently employed in field experiments. Second, we show how our theory allows researchers to robustly incorporate machine learning techniques into their experimental estimators to minimize variance.
Toward a 2-eV microcalorimeter x-ray spectrometer for Constellation-X

COnstellation-X is a cluster of identical observatories that together constitute a promising concept for a next- generation, high-throughput, high-resolution, astrophysical x-ray spectroscopy mission. The heart of the Constellation-X mission concept is a high-quantum-efficiency imaging spectrometer with 2 eV resolution at 6 keV. Collectively across the cluster, this imaging spectrometer will have twenty times the collecting efficiency of XRS on Astro-E and better than 0.25 arc minute imaging resolution. The spectrometer on each satellite will be able to handle count rates of up to 1000 counts per second per imaging pixel for a point source and 30 counts per second per pixel for an extended source filling the array. Focal plane coverage of at least 2.5 arc minutes X arc minutes, comparable to XRS but with a factor of thirty more pixels, is required. This paper will present the technologies that have the potential to meet al these requirements. It will identify the ones chosen for development for Constellation-X and explain why those were considered closer to realization, and it will summarize the results of the development work thus far.
Costs and benefits of polyandry in a sexually cannibalistic mantis

Mating with more than one male often provides direct or indirect benefits to female fitness but can also increase the chance of injury and death. Costs of mating are expected to increase linearly with increasing mating number. But how such costs interact with benefits to determine the net payoff of mating multiply is not well understood. Using the highly cannibalistic Springbok mantis, Miomantis caffra, a species where females are stabbed in the abdomen by males during violent premating struggles that males initiate to avoid being cannibalized, we took an experimental approach to assess the economics of polyandry under the risk of external, male‐inflicted injury. We predicted that females that mate multiply would be more likely to show abdominal injuries, have higher prereproductive mortality, produce fewer offspring and be more likely to engage in pre‐mating cannibalism to avoid unwanted matings. In line with our predictions, we found that the likelihood of abdominal injury was highest among females that mated at least once, and prereproductive death was highest among females that mated twice or three times. Virgin females completely avoided these costs and produced some offspring parthenogenetically but not enough to provide a net benefit. Although mating was better than not mating, there was no singularly optimal mating number: females that mated once and three times produced similarly high numbers of offspring from the first ootheca, which resulted in an intermediate trough in offspring production at two matings. We also found little evidence that cannibalism was deployed as a mate‐avoidance strategy: females consistently attacked and consumed males regardless of how many times they mated or how long they were housed with males. Our results suggest the possibility of two distinct mating strategies in M. caffra, where females either mate at a lower frequency to minimize costs or at a higher frequency to maximize benefits. We discuss possible explanations for this bimodal pattern in offspring production.
Implementing voluntary assisted dying laws in healthcare: Exploring beliefs to identify implementation hurdles

Abstract The number of countries introducing voluntary assisted dying (VAD) laws is increasing. Actively taking steps to end a person's life is contentious so implementing these laws into healthcare services presents unique challenges. Theoretically underpinned by the Advocacy Coalition Framework, this study identified the beliefs of classes of stakeholders who engaged with the parliamentary process associated with the introduction of VAD laws in Queensland, Australia. Submissions about VAD made to a parliamentary inquiry were allocated to a class and qualitatively analysed to identify underlying beliefs. The data were then subjected to statistical analysis including nonmetric dimensional scaling and one‐way analysis of similarity. Data visualisation techniques were used to generate a chord map and heatmap, to identify the belief types, as well as similarities and differences between beliefs and among classes. Fourteen different beliefs were identified in the 91 reviewed submissions. Six were deep core beliefs and eight were policy core beliefs. Beliefs could be associated with a positive or negative sentiment toward VAD. In this study, the class of Health Services expressed more negative sentiments to VAD than neutral or positive sentiments. The sentiments expressed by the class of Health Professionals were equally divided between positive, neutral and negative. These findings provide important insights for implementors as laws become operational. In particular, for organisations that provide health services, clear articulation of their stance in relevant policy and guidance documents is recommended.
An empirical sensitivity study of mixture proportion estimators

The sensitivity of several proposed estimators of the mixture proportions a = (a1,…,am)T defining the normal mixture density are investigated when the component densities pk are subjected to changes in location. The particular deviations studied are motivated by an application of this model to crop acreage assessment using satellite multispectral sensor data.
Mesh adaption by metric control for multi-scale phenomena and turbulence

We describe our experience in mesh adaption by metric control with particular emphasis to turbulent flows. In particular, different ingredients used for the metric definition are presented. These are suitable for multi-scale configurations and boundary layers. Turbulence modeling is done using the classical k — s model together with wall-laws. These laws are original and take into account for pressure and convection effects and are valid up to the wall.
Output feedback H∞ control of systems with parameter uncertainty

This paper deals with H ∞ control problem for systems with parametric uncertainty in all matrices of the system and output equations. The parametric uncertainty under consideration is of a linear fractional form. Both the continuous and the discrete-time cases are considered. Necessary and sufficient conditions for quadratic stability with H ∞ disturbance attenuation are obtained.
UNIVERSITY STUDENTS' OPINIONS ABOUT ACADEMIC PROCRASTINATION: KNOWING AND INTERVENING

: This article aims to analyze the view of undergraduate health students concerning academic procrastination and how they perceived an intervention program aimed at self-management of the university experience as a coping strategy. It adopted Bandura's Cognitive Social Theory as its theoretical foundation, mainly the constructs of self-regulation of learning and self-efficacy. The research involved 299 students from the Physical Education, Physiotherapy, Nutrition, Occupational Therapy, Psychology, and Social Work courses being carried out in three stages: 1) Application of an Academic Procrastination Scale questionnaire and an identification form for the participants; 2) intervention in small groups in the form of workshops based on conversation circles; 3) individualized intervention. It was concluded that procrastination is a behavior present in the students' daily lives and that it becomes important to create spaces for reflection and learning to experiment with a strategy that facilitates coping. The group intervention showed potency, as it made it possible to listen and exchange experiences. In it, the participants were able to analyze procrastination beyond the individual aspects
Life and land engulfed in the late Early Jurassic Karoo lavas of southern Gondwana

Abstract The rock record from the late Early Jurassic in southern Africa encompasses the history of voluminous continental flood basalt outpourings associated with the magmatic events in the Karoo–Ferrar Large Igneous Province (LIP) in southern and eastern Gondwana. This multiphase magmatism produced one of Earth’s largest continental flood basalt successions volumetrically and is assumed to have been a main driving mechanism in late Early Jurassic global environmental perturbations, including mass extinctions and changes in climate. In southern Africa, these Lower Jurassic flood basalts are interbedded with fossiliferous sedimentary rocks, which in turn host the last signs of ‘Karoo life’ in the form of fossil plants, invertebrates and vertebrates, including the trackways of hopping mammals and the ultimate Karoo dinosaurs. The sedimentology and palaeontology of the interbeds archived depositional and biotic processes in running water as well as in and around shallow, up to ∼10 m deep freshwater lakes and ponds in the late Early Jurassic. This study explains how a complex freshwater palaeo-habitat prevailed – albeit temporarily – in this extremely stressful environment, which was unlike any modern volcanic system. The evidence collectively points to seasonally wet, warm temperate climatic conditions during the early phases of Karoo volcanism. Moreover, the evidence in the rocks also suggests that the dynamic volcanic conditions resulted in shifting habitats that likely facilitated the migration of the ultimate Karoo biota towards the north and west, away from the main Karoo land of fire, just before Gondwana started to disassemble. This refinement of the environmental dynamics in southern Gondwana presented herein lays the groundwork for future high-resolution volcanological, geochronological and chemostratigraphical studies aimed at the nuanced understanding of the global environmental effect of the Karoo–Ferrar LIP.
Composite adaptive finite‐time fuzzy control for switched nonlinear systems with preassigned performance

This article investigates the composite adaptive fuzzy finite‐time prescribed performance control issue of switched nonlinear systems subject to the unknown external disturbance and performance requirement. First, by utilizing the compensation and prediction errors, the piecewise switched composite parameter update law is employed to improve the approximation accuracy of the unknown nonlinearity. Then, the improved fractional‐order filter and error compensation signal are introduced to cope with the influences caused by the explosive calculation and filter error, respectively. Meanwhile, the effect of the compound disturbances consisting of the unknown disturbances and approximation errors is reduced appropriately by designing the piecewise switched nonlinear disturbance observer. Moreover, stability analysis results prove that the proposed preassigned performance control scheme not only ensures that all states of the closed‐loop system are practical finite‐time bounded, but also that the tracking error converges to a preassigned area with a finite time. Ultimately, the simulation examples are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy.
Three‐dimensional vs two‐dimensional endoscopic approach in urogynecology: A retrospective cohort study of laparoscopic sacrocolpopexy

The gold standard to treat an apical pelvic organ prolapse is the abdominal route via a sacrocolpopexy, which is also reproduced by laparoscopic route. A laparoscopic sacrocolpopexy however, requires surgical expertise. Three‐dimensional (3D) laparoscopy has been developed to overcome the lack of depth perception, that is a known disadvantage of conventional two‐dimensional (2D) laparoscopy. This procedure can accelerate the learning curve and optimize the intra‐, peri‐, and postoperative outcomes. This study aims to compare 3D laparoscopy to traditional 2D laparoscopy for sacrocolpopexy.
Optogenetic Suppression of Lateral Septum Somatostatin Neurons Enhances Hippocampus Cholinergic Theta Oscillations and Local Synchrony

The septal complex regulates both motivated and innate behaviors, chiefly by the action of its diverse population of long-range projection neurons. A small population of somatostatin-expressing GABAergic cells in the lateral septum projects deep into subcortical regions, yet on its way it also targets neighboring medial septum neurons that profusely innervate cortical targets by ascending synaptic pathways. Here, we used optogenetic stimulation and extracellular recordings in acutely anesthetized transgenic mice to show that lateral septum somatostatin neurons can disinhibit the cholinergic septo-hippocampal pathway, thus enhancing the amplitude and synchrony of theta oscillations while depressing sharp-wave ripple episodes in the dorsal hippocampus. These results suggest that septal somatostatin cells can recruit ascending cholinergic pathways to promote hippocampal theta oscillations.
Growth of inertia–gravity waves in sheared inertial currents

The linear stability of inviscid non-diffusive density-stratified shear flow in a rotating frame is considered. A temporally periodic base flow, characterized by vertical shear S, buoyancy frequency N and rotation frequency f, is perturbed by infinitesimal inertia–gravity waves. The temporal evolution and stability characteristics of the disturbances are analysed using Floquet theory and the growth rates of unstable solutions are computed numerically. The global structure of solutions is addressed in the dimensionless parameter space (N/f, S/f, φ) where φ is the wavenumber inclination angle from the horizontal for the wave-like perturbations. Both weakly stratified rapidly rotating flows (Nf) are examined. Distinct families of unstable modes are found, each of which can be associated with nearby stable solutions of periodicity T or 2T where T is the inertial frequency 2π/f. Rotation is found to be a destabilizing factor in the sense that stable non-rotating shear flows with N2/S2>1/4 can be unstable in a rotating frame. Morever, instabilities by parametric resonance are found associated with free oscillations at half and integer multiples of the inertial frequency.
Convolutional neural network based object detection system for video surveillance application

Video surveillance is emerging as a promising solution for the humans to lead a peaceful and independent life in their homes. The recognition and localization of moving objects plays a central role in the video surveillance. The manual surveillance is time consuming and tedious. Therefore, novel object detection via optimized deep learning model is developed in this work that supports the video surveillance application. In the initial phase, proposed angle and distance based Local Binary Pattern (LBP) features are extracted. Subsequently, these extracted features are subjected to object detection phase, where optimized Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) will expose the information about the detected object. Further, the learning quality of CNN is decided by the weight parameter, which is responsible to distinguish the objects with high accuracy. Therefore, a hybrid optimization concept referred as Sealion Leader Update with Particles (SLUP) is introduced in this research work to fine‐tune the weight of CNN. Finally, a comparative analysis is made between the proposed and the extant approaches in terms of “positive, negative, and other measures. ”
Competition of linearly polarized modes in fibers with Bragg gratings over a wide temperature range

Fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) embedded in conventional fibers may serve as temperature sensors over a wide temperature range and withstand temperatures around 1200 K. A variety of linearly polarized (LP) modes for the wavelengths between 400 and 700 nm may be sustained in fibers with and without FBGs. The composition of the LP modes and their competition is instrumental for understanding physics of thermo-optics and thermal expansion effects in silica-based fibers. The first objective of this work was to model mathematically the competition between LP modes and modal distribution using the solutions of Bessel equations for the fibers with and without the gratings. Computer generated modes were constructed and the cut-off V-numbers (and Eigen values W and U) were determined. Theoretical results then were compared with experimental observations of LP modes for two separate ranges of temperatures: 77– 300 K and 300-1200 K. To study the formation of LP modes over the first temperature range, liquid nitrogen was used to cool down the fiber and a thermocouple was used to monitor the temperature of the fiber. Real time recording of the modal structure was performed using digital imaging and data acquisition instrumentation. To study LP modes between 300– 1200 K, the fibers were inserted into a tube furnace with temperature control. The wavelength of the infrared radiation was reflected by a FBG and detected by an optical spectrum analyzer. Radiation at the visible wavelength propagated through the fibers, and transmitted visible light was collected, analyzed and recorded with a CCD camera to monitor distribution of the LP modes in the samples with and without the FBGs.
Influence of dietary organic trace minerals on enteric methane emissions and rumen microbiota of heat-stressed dairy steers

Abstract Ruminants are the main contributors to methane (CH4), a greenhouse gas emitted by livestock, which leads to global warming. In addition, animals experience heat stress (HS) when exposed to high ambient temperatures. Organic trace minerals are commonly used to prevent the adverse effects of HS in ruminants; however, little is known about the role of these minerals in reducing enteric methane emissions. Hence, this study aimed to investigate the influence of dietary organic trace minerals on rumen fermentation characteristics, enteric methane emissions, and the composition of rumen bacteria and methanogens in heat-stressed dairy steers. Holstein (n=3) and Jersey (n=3) steers were kept separately within a 3×3 Latin square design, and the animals were exposed to HS conditions (Temperature-Humidity Index [THI], 82.79 ± 1.10). For each experiment, the treatments included a Control (Con) consisting of only basal total mixed rations (TMR), National Research Council (NRC) recommended mineral supplementation group (NM; TMR + [Se 0.1 ppm + Zn 30 ppm + Cu 10 ppm]/kg dry matter), and higher concentration of mineral supplementation group (HM; basal TMR + [Se 3.5 ppm + Zn 350 ppm + Cu 28 ppm]/kg dry matter). Higher concentrations of trace mineral supplementation had no influence on methane emissions and rumen bacterial and methanogen communities regardless of breed (p > 0.05). Holstein steers had higher ruminal pH and lower total volatile fatty acid (VFA) concentrations than Jersey steers (p < 0.05). Methane production (g/d) and yield (g/kg dry matter intake) were higher in Jersey steers than in Holstein steers (p < 0.05). The relative abundances of Methanosarcina and Methanobrevibacter olleyae were significantly higher in Holstein steers than in Jersey steers (p < 0.05). Overall, dietary organic trace minerals have no influence on enteric methane emissions in heat-stressed dairy steers; however, breed can influence it through selective alteration of the rumen methanogen community.
Regression to the mean for nonnormal populations

SUMMARY Regression to the mean is the term used to describe the effect by which individuals selected on the basis of an initial measurement which is particularly high or low compared with other members of the population have, upon remeasurement, values nearer to the population mean. For the normal distribution simple expressions for estimates of the magnitude of this effect are available. Many biological variables, however, are not normally distributed. Estimates for regression to the mean for nonnormal data are given based on Edgeworth series and saddlepoint approximations.
Intra-individual comparison of two-dimensional shear wave elastography techniques using plane wave imaging and the multi-beam technique: are they interchangeable in measuring liver fibrosis?

Purpose This study compared two different two-dimensional shear wave elastography techniques—plane wave imaging (PWI) and multi-beam (MB) imaging—from the same vendor to evaluate liver fibrosis. Methods In this prospective study, 42 patients with chronic liver disease who had recently undergone magnetic resonance elastography (<3 months) were enrolled, and their liver stiffness (LS) values were measured using PWI or MB. The LS values (kPa) were compared using the Wilcoxon rank-sum test. Inter-technique reproducibility and intra-observer repeatability were assessed using Bland-Altman analysis with 95% limits of agreement (LOA) and coefficients of variation (CVs). The cutoff values for predicting severe fibrosis (≥F3) were estimated using receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) analysis, with magnetic resonance elastography as the reference standard. Results PWI exhibited technical failure in four patients. Therefore, 38 patients underwent both examinations. The LS values showed moderate agreement between PWI and MB (CV, 22.5%) and 95% LOA of -3.71 to 7.44 kPa. The MB technique showed good intra-observer agreement (CV, 8.1%), while PWI showed moderate agreement (CV, 11.0%). The cutoff values of PWI and MB for diagnosing ≥F3 were 12.3 kPa and 13.8 kPa, respectively, with areas under the ROC curve of 0.89 and 0.95 (sensitivity, 100% and 100%; specificity, 65.6% and 85.7%). Conclusion The LS values significantly differed between PWI and MB, hindering their interchangeable use in longitudinal follow-up. Considering its low technical failure rate and better repeatability, the MB technique may be preferable for evaluating liver fibrosis in chronic liver disease patients.
Remarks on Localization in Semimagnetic Semiconductors

Results of magnetoconductivity and magnetospectroscopic measurements of semimagnetic semiconductors with impurity concentrations close to that corresponding to the Anderson-Mott transition are discussed. The effect of the s-d exchange spin-splitting, fluctuations of magnetization and alloy composition, as well as the RKKY interaction and magnetic polarons are considered in the reference to the data for n-Cd1-xMnxSe. It is concluded that quasi-delocalized states appear to exist on the insulating side of the transition while quasi-static s-spins seem to persist into the metallic phase.
Limiting crossing probabilities of random fields

Random fields on , with long-range weak dependence for each coordinate individually, usually present clustering of high values. For each one of the eight directions in , we formulate restriction conditions on local occurrence of two or more crossings of high levels. These smooth oscillation conditions enable computation of the extremal index as a clustering measure from the limiting mean number of crossings. In fact, only four directions must be inspected since for opposite directions we find the same local path crossing behaviour and the same limiting mean number of crossings. The general theory is illustrated with several 1-dependent nonstationary random fields.