Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cooperating Agents for Information Retrieval

Abstract : With the vast number of information resources available today, a critical problem is how to locate, retrieve and process information. It would be impratical to build a single unified system that combines all of these information resources. A more promising approach is to build specialized information retrieval agents that provide access to a subset of the information resources and can send requests to other information retrieval agents when appropriate. In this paper we present the architecture of the individual information retrieval agents and describe how this architecture supports a network of cooperating information agents. We describe how these information agents represent their knowledge, communicate with other agents, dynamically construct information retrieval plans, and learn about other agents to improve efficiency. We have already built a small network of agents that have these capabilities and provide access to information for transportation planning. Information agents, Information access, Distributed, Heterogeneous, Autonomous, Knowledge representation, Planning.
Illusions of Knowledge: Media Exposure and Citizens’ Perceived Political Competence

Citizens’ willingness to participate in politics is contingent on not only factual political knowledge but their subjective perceptions of competence. We argue that media exposure influences such subjective perceptions as being knowledgeable and capable of judging political issues. More specifically, we assume that incomprehensible news items impair people’s perceived political competence, while comprehensible news items strengthen citizens’ perceived knowledge and power of judgment without necessarily contributing to political learning. An online experiment reveals that cognitive style moderates the assumed relationship. Participants with a high need for cognition (NFC) feel more competent when confronted with a comprehensible news item; for participants with a low NFC, reading a less comprehensible news item resulted in a more pronounced sense of competence.
How much is not enough? Human resources requirements for primary health care: a case study from South Africa.

OBJECTIVE To quantify staff requirements in primary health care facilities in South Africa through an adaptation of the WHO workload indicator of staff needs tool. METHODS We use a model to estimate staffing requirements at primary health care facilities. The model integrates several empirically-based assumptions including time and type of health worker required for each type of consultation, amount of management time required, amount of clinical support required and minimum staff requirements per type of facility. We also calculate the number of HIV-related consultations per district. The model incorporates type of facility, monthly travelling time for mobile clinics, opening hours per week, yearly activity and current staffing and calculates the expected staffing per category of staff per facility and compares it to the actual staffing. FINDINGS Across all the districts there is either an absence of doctors visiting clinics or too few doctors to cover the opening times of community health centres. Overall the number of doctors is only 7% of the required amount. There is 94% of the required number of professional nurses but with wide variations between districts, with a few districts having excesses while most have shortages. The number of enrolled nurses is 60% of what it should be. There are 17% too few enrolled nurse assistants. Across all districts there is wide variation in staffing levels between facilities leading to inefficient use of professional staff. CONCLUSION The application of an adapted WHO workload tool identified important human resource planning issues.
Remodeling the Dendritic Spines in the Hindlimb Representation of the Sensory Cortex after Spinal Cord Hemisection in Mice

Spinal cord injury (SCI) can induce remodeling of multiple levels of the cerebral cortex system especially in the sensory cortex. The aim of this study was to assess, in vivo and bilaterally, the remodeling of dendritic spines in the hindlimb representation of the sensory cortex after spinal cord hemisection. Thy1-YFP transgenic mice were randomly divided into the control group and the SCI group, and the spinal vertebral plates (T11–T12) of all mice were excised. Next, the left hemisphere of the spinal cord (T12) was hemisected in the SCI group. The hindlimb representations of the sensory cortex in both groups were imaged bilaterally on the day before (0d), and three days (3d), two weeks (2w), and one month (1m) after the SCI. The rates of stable, newly formed, and eliminated spines were calculated by comparing images of individual dendritic spine in the same areas at different time points. In comparison to the control group, the rate of newly formed spines in the contralateral sensory cortex of the SCI group increased at three days and two weeks after injury. The rates of eliminated spines in the bilateral sensory cortices increased and the rate of stable spines in the bilateral cortices declined at two weeks and one month. From three days to two weeks, the stable rates of bilaterally stable spines in the SCI group decreased. In comparison to the control group and contralateral cortex in the SCI group, the re-emerging rate of eliminated spines in ipsilateral cortex of the SCI group decreased significantly. The stable rates of newly formed spines in bilateral cortices of the SCI group decreased from two weeks to one month. We found that the remodeling in the hindlimb representation of the sensory cortex after spinal cord hemisection occurred bilaterally. This remodeling included eliminating spines and forming new spines, as well as changing the reorganized regions of the brain cortex after the SCI over time. Soon after the SCI, the cortex was remodeled by increasing spine formation in the contralateral cortex. Then it was remodeled prominently by eliminating spines of bilateral cortices. Spinal cord hemisection also caused traditional stable spines to become unstable and led the eliminated spines even more hard to recur especially in the ipsilateral cortex of the SCI group. In addition, it also made the new formed spines unstable.
Testing reionization with gamma-ray burst absorption spectra

We propose to study cosmic reionization using absorption-line spectra of high-redshift gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglows. We show that the statistics of the dark portions (gaps) in GRB absorption spectra represent exquisite tools to discriminate among different reionization models. We then compute the probability to find the largest gap in a given width range [Wmax, Wmax+ dW] at a flux threshold Fth for burst afterglows at redshifts 6.3 ≤z≤ 6.7. We show that different reionization scenarios populate the (Wmax, Fth) plane in a very different way, allowing to distinguish among different reionization histories. We provide here useful plots that allow a very simple and direct comparison between observations and model results. Finally, we apply our methods to GRB 050904 detected at z= 6.29. We show that the observation of this burst strongly favours reionization models which predict a highly ionized intergalactic medium at z∼ 6, with an estimated mean neutral hydrogen fraction xH i= 6.4 ± 0.3 × 10−5 along the line of sight towards GRB 050904.
Impact of an Antimicrobial Utilization Program on Antimicrobial Use at a Large Teaching Hospital A Randomized Controlled Trial

Background. Multidisciplinary antimicrobial utilization teams (AUTs) have been proposed as a mechanism for improving antimicrobial use, but data on their efficacy remain limited. Objective. To determine the impact of an AUT on antimicrobial use at a teaching hospital. Design. Randomized controlled intervention trial. Setting. A 953-bed, public, university-affiliated, urban teaching hospital. Patients. Patients who were given selected antimicrobial agents (piperacillin-tazobactam, levofloxacin, or vancomycin) by internal medicine ward teams. Intervention. Twelve internal medicine teams were randomly assigned monthly: 6 teams to an intervention group (academic detailing by the AUT) and 6 teams to a control group that was given indication-based guidelines for prescription of broad-spectrum antimicrobials (standard of care), during a 10-month study period. Measurements. Proportion of appropriate empirical, definitive (therapeutic), and end (overall) antimicrobial usage. Results. A total of 784 new prescriptions of piperacillin-tazobactam, levofloxacin, and vancomycin were reviewed. The proportion of antimicrobial prescriptions written by the intervention teams that was considered to be appropriate was significantly higher than the proportion of antimicrobial prescriptions written by the control teams that was considered to be appropriate: 82% versus 73% for empirical (risk ratio [RR], 1.14; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.04-1.24), 82% versus 43% for definitive (RR, 1.89; 95% CI, 1.53-2.33), and 94% versus 70% for end antimicrobial usage (RR, 1.34; 95% CI, 1.25-1.43). In multivariate analysis, teams that received feedback from the AUT alone (adjusted RR, 1.37; 95% CI, 1.27-1.48) or from both the AUT and the infectious diseases consultation service (adjusted RR, 2.28; 95% CI, 1.64-3.19) were significantiy more likely to prescribe end antimicrobial usage appropriately, compared with control teams. Conclusions. A multidisciplinary AUT that provides feedback to prescribing physicians was an effective method in improving antimicrobial use. Trial Registration. ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT00552838.
Do Companies Pay CIOs More After the Adoption of International Financial Accounting Standards?

This study investigates the association between regulatory reporting change and Chief Information Officer (CIO) pay. Mandatory reporting standards change such as International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) calls for the increased information systems demand in order to provide satisfactory reporting quality. Anecdote evidence suggests that CIOs, who are responsible for managing information technology (IT) resources, should involve more in the conversion project to make sure the IT capital is well structured for meeting the new reporting requirements. The results show a significant increase in CIO pay in the post adoption period. Such pay increase varies from industries which have different levels of IT investments. Specifically, compared to IT firms, non-IT firms increase more CIO pay in the post adoption period. The results of this study shed lights on the implications for the role of CIO affected regarding to the relevant technological changes in the context of regulatory reporting reform.
Comparison of Power Consumption and Strict Avalanche Criteria at Encryption / Decryption Side of Different AES Standards

The selective application of technological and related procedural safeguards is an important responsibility of every organization in providing adequate security to its electronic data systems. Now as the world is moving towards high speed of communication (larger data rate),more secure and fast algorithms are required to keep the information secret. In the present work, a new model is proposed and implemented, which is very similar to the conventional AES. The fundamental difference in the AES and proposed model is in block size which has been increased from 128 bits in conventional AES to 200 bits in proposed algorithm[1-4]. The proposed algorithm is giving very good randomness and hence enhances the security in comparison to conventional AES. The performance is measured based upon Power Consumption at Encryption/Decryption time, and Strict Avalanche Criteria of various AES Standards. In this paper, we showed the effect in security increment through AES methodology.
An MPC strategy for automatic generation control with consideration of deterministic power imbalances

This paper presents a Model Predictive Control (MPC) approach for Automatic Generation Control, suitable for tackling deterministic frequency deviations in a multi-area interconnected power system. The current Proportional-Integral (PI) controllers were compared to the implementation of MPC in a single area and also in all areas of an interconnected system. In a direct comparison, the MPC-based frequency control proved to be superior to the traditional PI control scheme. Moreover, the effect of inaccuracies between the MPC model and the dynamic model of the power system was studied. The proposed controller was found to be robust against inaccuracies of the model and possible external disturbances.
Changes in Serum Cytokine Levels in Active Tuberculosis With Treatment

It has been reported that IFN-γ, TNF-α, and IL-12 stimulate, and that IL-10, TGF-β, and IL-4 suppress the protective immune response against tuberculosis. We aim to evaluate changes in the serum levels of pro and antiinflammatory cytokines in active pulmonary tuberculosis (APTB) and the possible effects of treatment on these changes. Serum IL-12p40, IL-4, IL-10, TNF-α, IFN-γ, and TGF-β1 levels were determined in 20 APTB cases (group 1) before and 2, 4, and 6 months after therapy. The same parameters were also determined in 9 inactive pulmonary tuberculosis (IPTB) cases (group 2) and 9 healthy controls (HC, group 3). Before treatment, the mean serum IFN-γ, TNF-α, and IL-10 levels in group 1 were statistically higher than those in group 2 (P = .001, P = .024, P = .016, resp) or group 3 (P = .003, P = .002, P = .011, resp). The levels in group 1 decreased significantly after treatment (P = .001 for IFN-γ, P = .004 for TNF-α, P = .000 for IL-10). The serum levels of IL-12p40 were significantly higher in group 1 than in group 3 (P = .012) and decreased insignificantly after treatment. There was no difference in serum IL-4 and TGF-β1 levels among the groups (P > .05). Because the serum IL-12p40, IL-10, TNF-α, and IFN-γ levels were high in APTB, we believe that these cytokines have important roles in the immune response to Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M tuberculosis). These parameters could be used in follow-up as indicators of the success of APTB therapy.
Hybrid Transform Coding for Channel State Information in MIMO-OFDM Systems

This paper is concerned with the efficient feedback of the channel state information (CSI) in multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems. A hybrid transform coding (HTC) scheme is proposed by exploiting the frequency and time correlation of CSI. An upper bound for the overhead-distortion performance of HTC is derived. Numerical results show that, compared with the available alternatives, the HTC scheme can achieve higher compression efficiency.
Being Authentic in Life and on Stage: A Phenomenological Investigation of the Actor as Character

The purpose of this study is to describe the process of character development as experienced by the actor. Twelve professional actors participated in 60 to 90 minute phenomenological interviews in which they were asked to talk about their experiences of character development. Each participant was asked to respond to the following statement, ''Take a moment to think about a specific character you played. Please describe for me in as much detail as you can what stood out for you during the development of that character. " Interviews were audiotaped and transcribed. The transcripts were analyzed individually and in a group format using an existential/phenomenological method. Data analysis revealed a thematic structure comprised of five themes: (a) Preparation, (b) Use of Self, (c) Connection, (d) Being in the Moment, and (e) Personal Gain. Analysis also revealed that the five figural themes were contextualized within the frame of one experiential ground: Authenticity. In other words, this ground provides the primary context through which the themes of the experience of character development become figural. Participants' descriptions of their experiences were always situated within the context of being authentic to all aspects of character development. The first theme Preparation was comprised of three sub-themes: The Script, Research, and Meaning of the Text. The theme Use of Self was comprised of six sub­ themes: Association of Self with Character/Past Experiences, Own Emotions, Body/Embodiment, Intuition, Availability of Self, and Reciprocity of Two Worlds. The theme Connection was comprised of three sub-themes: Relating to the Character,
A fast fuzzy clustering algorithm

Clustering algorithms have been utilized in a wide variety of application areas. One of these algorithms is the Fuzzy C-Means algorithm (FCM). One of the problems with these algorithms is the time needed to converge. In this paper, a Fast Fuzzy C-Means algorithm (FFCM) is proposed based on experimentations, for improving fuzzy clustering. The algorithm is based on decreasing the number of distance calculations by checking the membership value for each point and eliminating those points with a membership value smaller than a threshold value. We applied FFCM on several data sets. The experiments demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed algorithm.
Understanding the role of cerebrovascular health in cognitive aging: a multi-modal noninvasive human neuroimaging approach

The brain’s vasculature is likely to be subjected to the same age-related physiological and anatomical changes affecting the rest of the cardiovascular system. Since aerobic fitness is known to alleviate both cognitive and volumetric losses in the brain, it is important to investigate some of the possible mechanisms underlying these beneficial changes. Here we investigated the role that estimated cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) plays in determining the relationship between aging and cerebral blood flow (CBF) in a group of older adults (ages 55-85). Using arterial spin labeling to quantify CBF, we found that blood flow in the gray matter was positively correlated with CRF and negatively correlated with age. Subsequent analyses revealed that CRF fully mediated the effects of age on CBF in the gray matter, but not in the white matter. Additionally, regional measures of CBF were related to regional measures of brain volume. These findings provide evidence that age-related effects on cerebrovascular health and perfusion in older adults are largely influenced by their CRF levels.
Zygmund regularity of Colombeau generalized functions and applications to differential equations with nonsmooth coefficients

We introduce an intrinsic notion of Zygmund regularity for Colombeau algebras of generalized functions. In case of embedded distributions belonging to some Zygmund-Hölder space this is shown to be consistent. The definition is motivated by the well-known use of the wavelet transform as a tool in studying Hölder regularity. It is based on a simple mollifier-wavelet interplay which translates wavelet estimates into properties of regularizations. We investigate basic properties of the newly defined subspaces as well as their application to differential equations whose coefficients and initial data are generalized functions in some Zygmund class. Problems of this kind occur, for example, in global seismology where Earth’s properties of fractal nature have to be taken into account.
A New Method on Personalized Privacy Preserving Multi-classification

Privacy-preserving data mining has become important since data mining has been widely used in many fields. Various privacy preserving techniques have been proposed to preserve the sensitive data. In this paper, we address two algorithms which can build classifiers accurately with less privacy disclosure in distributed system. These schemes can satisfy the different privacy disclosure level need of every client, which can meet clients' personalized needs. Besides this, our methods can be used for multi-classification.
Wireless across road: RF based road traffic congestion detection

Road congestion is a common problem worldwide. Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) seek to alleviate this problem using technology. But most ITS techniques, currently used in developed countries, are inapplicable in developing regions due to high cost and assumptions of orderly traffic. Efforts in developing regions have been few. In this paper, we seek to develop a low-cost ITS technique to detect congestion in disorderly road conditions. We take Indian traffic conditions as an example for our analysis. But we believe that most of our claims and experimental results can be extended to other developing countries too. Our technique is based on exploiting the variation in wireless link characteristics when line of sight conditions between a wireless sender and receiver vary. Our system comprises of a wireless sender-receiver pair across a road. The sender continuously sends packets. The receiver measures metrics like signal strength, link quality and packet reception. These metrics show a marked change in values depending on whether the road in between has free-flowing or congested traffic. We have experimented with off-theshelf IEEE 802.15. 4 compliant CROSSBOW Telosb motes. From about 15 hours of experimental data on two different roads in Mumbai, we show that we can classify traffic states as free-flowing and congested using a decision tree based classifier with 97% accuracy.
SHStream: Self-Healing Framework for HTTP Video-Streaming

HTTP video-streaming is leading delivery of video content over the Internet. This phenomenon is explained by the ubiquity of web browsers, the permeability of HTTP traffic and the recent video technologies around HTML5. However, the inclusion of multimedia requests imposes new requirements on web servers due to responses with life spans that can reach dozens of minutes and timing requirements for data fragments transmitted during the response period. Consequently, web-servers require real-time performance control to avoid playback outages caused by overloading and performance anomalies. We present SHStream, a self-healing framework for web servers delivering video-streaming content that provides (1) load admittance to avoid server overloading, (2) prediction of performance anomalies using online data stream learning algorithms, (3) continuous evaluation and selection of the best algorithm for prediction, and (4) proactive recovery by migrating the server to other hosts using container-based virtualization techniques. Evaluation of our framework using several variants of Hoeffding trees and ensemble algorithms showed that with a small number of learning instances, it is possible to achieve approximately 98% of recall and 99% of precision for failure predictions. Additionally, proactive fail over can be performed in less than 1 second.
How specialists can be generalists: resolving the “parasite paradox” and implications for emerging infectious disease

The parasite paradox arises from the dual observations that parasites (broadly construed, including phy- tophagous insects) are resource specialists with restricted host ranges, and yet shifts onto relatively unrelated hosts are common in the phylogenetic diversification of parasite lineages and directly observable in ecological time. We synthe- size the emerging solution to this paradox: phenotypic flexibility and phylogenetic conservatism in traits related to resource use, grouped under the term ecological fitting, provide substantial opportunities for rapid host switching in changing environments, in the absence of the evolution of novel host-utilization capabilities. We discuss mechanisms behind ecological fitting, its implications for defining specialists and generalists, and briefly review empirical examples of host shifts in the context of ecological fitting. We conclude that host shifts via ecological fitting provide the fuel for the expansion phase of the recently proposed oscillation hypothesis of host range and speciation, and, more generally, the generation of novel combinations of interacting species within the geographic mosaic theory of coevolution. Finally, we conclude that taxon pulses, driven by climate change and large-scale ecological perturbation are drivers of biotic mixing and resultant ecological fitting, which leads to increased rates of rapid host switching, including the agents of Emerging Infectious Disease.