Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Patterns of Spatial and Temporal Distribution of Humpback Whales at the Southern Limit of the Southeast Pacific Breeding Area

Understanding the patterns of spatial and temporal distribution in threshold habitats of highly migratory and endangered species is important for understanding their habitat requirements and recovery trends. Herein, we present new data about the distribution of humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) in neritic waters off the northern coast of Peru: an area that constitutes a transitional path from cold, upwelling waters to warm equatorial waters where the breeding habitat is located. Data was collected during four consecutive austral winter/spring seasons from 2010 to 2013, using whale-watching boats as platforms for research. A total of 1048 whales distributed between 487 groups were sighted. The spatial distribution of humpbacks resembled the characteristic segregation of whale groups according to their size/age class and social context in breeding habitats; mother and calf pairs were present in very shallow waters close to the coast, while dyads, trios or more whales were widely distributed from shallow to moderate depths over the continental shelf break. Sea surface temperatures (range: 18.2–25.9°C) in coastal waters were slightly colder than those closer to the oceanic realm, likely due to the influence of cold upwelled waters from the Humboldt Current system. Our results provide new evidence of the southward extension of the breeding region of humpback whales in the Southeast Pacific. Integrating this information with the knowledge from the rest of the breeding region and foraging grounds would enhance our current understanding of population dynamics and recovery trends of this species.
Matrix and Tensor Completion on a Human Activity Recognition Framework

Sensor-based activity recognition is encountered in innumerable applications of the arena of pervasive healthcare and plays a crucial role in biomedical research. Nonetheless, the frequent situation of unobserved measurements impairs the ability of machine learning algorithms to efficiently extract context from raw streams of data. In this paper, we study the problem of accurate estimation of missing multimodal inertial data and we propose a classification framework that considers the reconstruction of subsampled data during the test phase. We introduce the concept of forming the available data streams into low-rank two-dimensional (2-D) and 3-D Hankel structures, and we exploit data redundancies using sophisticated imputation techniques, namely matrix and tensor completion. Moreover, we examine the impact of reconstruction on the classification performance by experimenting with several state-of-the-art classifiers. The system is evaluated with respect to different data structuring scenarios, the volume of data available for reconstruction, and various levels of missing values per device. Finally, the tradeoff between subsampling accuracy and energy conservation in wearable platforms is examined. Our analysis relies on two public datasets containing inertial data, which extend to numerous activities, multiple sensing parameters, and body locations. The results highlight that robust classification accuracy can be achieved through recovery, even for extremely subsampled data streams.
Campylobacter fetus subspecies venerealis transport medium for enrichment and PCR

BOVINE genital campylobacteriosis, caused by Campylobacter fetus subspecies venerealis ( C venerealis ), is a major cause of abortion and infertility in cattle ([BonDurant 2005][1]). Accurate diagnosis is necessary to avoid the spread of the disease and consequent economic losses, which can be large
Submodular Dictionary Selection for Sparse Representation

We develop an efficient learning framework to construct signal dictionaries for sparse representation by selecting the dictionary columns from multiple candidate bases. By sparse, we mean that only a few dictionary elements, compared to the ambient signal dimension, can exactly represent or well-approximate the signals of interest. We formulate both the selection of the dictionary columns and the sparse representation of signals as a joint combinatorial optimization problem. The proposed combinatorial objective maximizes variance reduction over the set of training signals by constraining the size of the dictionary as well as the number of dictionary columns that can be used to represent each signal. We show that if the available dictionary column vectors are incoherent, our objective function satisfies approximate submodularity. We exploit this property to develop SDSOMP and SDSMA, two greedy algorithms with approximation guarantees. We also describe how our learning framework enables dictionary selection for structured sparse representations, e.g., where the sparse coefficients occur in restricted patterns. We evaluate our approach on synthetic signals and natural images for representation and inpainting problems.
Limited effectiveness of HIV prevention for young people in sub-Saharan Africa: studying the role of intervention and evaluation

On average, 2,500 young people (15-24 years) get infected with HIV every day; 80% of which live in sub-Saharan Africa. Since no cure or vaccine is available, reducing sexual risk behaviour in this group is crucial in tackling the epidemic. The general objective of this doctoral study was to improve the effectiveness of HIV prevention interventions for young people in sub-Saharan Africa. First, we assessed the overall effectiveness of such interventions (systematic literature review, meta-analysis). Secondly, we evaluated a school-based peer-led HIV prevention interventions in Rwanda (longitudinal, non-randomized controlled trial), to get insight into how interventions are developed, implemented and evaluated. While the first two objectives demonstrated limited effectiveness, the third objective aimed to identify reasons for this limited effectiveness: a) baseline characteristics of respondents that predict participation were identified (using data from objective 2); b) we studied determinants of young people’s sexual behavior using a qualitative ‘mailbox study’ that assessed the spontaneous thoughts of Rwandan adolescents on sexuality; c) we assessed the role of one specific structural factor: education (literature review and analysis of existing datasets); d) we assessed the theoretical underpinnings of existing HIV prevention interventions for young people in sub-Saharan Africa (literature review). Based on these studies, we discuss two main reasons for the observed limited effectiveness: factors associated with the intervention (strong focus on cognitions and moral, and implementation issues), and with evaluation (design, power, indicators). Recommendations for improving interventions, evaluations and for further research are provided.
A descriptive study of prostate cancer mortality in the state of São Paulo, from 1980 to 2007.

OBJECTIVE Prostate cancer is the second most common neoplasm among men worldwide. This study aimed to examine the trend in mortality rates of prostate cancer among the population in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, from 1980 to 2007. METHODS a descriptive study of temporal series was conducted using mortality data due to prostate cancer between1980 and 2007 in the state of São Paulo. Mortality rates were obtained from the SUS Information System on Mortality (SIM/SUS - DATASUS). The age-specific mortality rates were calculated as well as linear regression and temporal trend analysis. RESULTS It could be observed that mortality increased according to age, being very similar only between the age group 70-79 years and ≥ 80 years (p = 0.047). The mortality peak in the age group 50-79 years occurred at the same time; however, the drop in mortality rates since then has been much more pronounced in the group of 50-59 years. There was a linear increase and direct association between the number of biopsies and the incidence of prostate cancer (r = 0.714, p = 0.024). CONCLUSIONS Prostate cancer is a major cause of mortality in São Paulo and effective screening and treatment measures should be adopted to improve this scenario.
Undoing Misperceptions: A Microscopic Analysis of Consistent Confusions Through Signal Modifications

Consistent confusions — word misperceptions reported in an open set task with a high agreement across listeners — can be especially valuable in understanding the detailed processes underlying speech perception. The current study investigates the origin of a set of consistent confusions collected in a variety of masking conditions, by applying signal-level modifications to the stimuli eliciting the confusion, and subsequently reevaluating listeners’ percepts. Modifications were selected to provide release from either the energetic or the informational component of the maskers and involved manipulations of signalto-noise ratio, fundamental frequency, and resynthesis of the noise-mixture in glimpsed regions of the target speech. Increasing signal-to-noise ratio and glimpse resynthesis showed the expected release from energetic and informational masking respectively. However, manipulations targeting informational masking release, including fundamental frequency modification, affected a surprisingly high number of confusions stemming from energetic maskers. The degree of fundamental frequency shift did not have a significant effect on the response patterns observed. Around 30% of confusions can be explained solely based on the information contained within the target glimpses surviving energetic masking, while for the rest of the cases additional factors, such as recruitment of information from the masker, appear to be involved.
Semantic Security Policy for Web Service

A primary problem for the security of web service is how to precisely express and match the security policy of each participant that may be in different security domain. Presently, most schemes use syntactic approaches, where pairs of policies are compared for structural and syntactic similarity to determine compatibility, which is prone to result in false negative because of lacking semantics. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to express and match the security policy of web service based on semantics. Through constructing a general security ontology, we present the definition method and matching algorithm of semantic security policy for web service. The use of semantic security policy enables richer representations of policy intent and allows matching of policies with compatible intent, but dissimilar syntax, which is not possible with syntactic approaches. The proposed security ontology is extensible and the semantic security policy is of strong inferability and adaptability, and these characteristics are extremely important to the heterogeneous and dynamic environment of web service.
The Impact of Self-Handicapping in Strategic Board Games Upon New Player’s Experiences

To test our first research question we performed one way between subjects ANOVAs using various composite and individual variables (described above) and the self-handicapping condition of the confederate. We found that the condition had a significant effect on the items “I had a good time playing The Builders” [F(2, 32) = 3.478, p = . 043] and the 2-item measure motivation to win, [F(2,32) = 4.942, p = . 013]. Sidak post hoc tests showed that the significant difference for both of these variables was between the control and covert self-handicapping conditions only.
Stochastic Processes in Credit Risk Modelling

In credit risk modelling, jump processes are widely used to de- scribe both default and rating migration events. This work is mainly a review of some basic de nitions and properties of the jump processes intended for a preliminary step before more ad- vanced lectures on credit risk modelling. We focus on the Poisson process and some generalisations, like the compounded and the double stochastic Poisson processes, which are widely used for describing the time-inhomogeneous dynamic either of the default process or of the credit rating transition. As such, much of the material is not new, but focused and organized from a credit risk perspective. Moreover it contains detailed proofs of some funda- mental results. Other original contributions come from examples and simulated studies, which help the reader to better understand the features of the described processes.
Pragmatic Construction of Destination Descriptions for Urban Environments

Abstract Destination descriptions are route descriptions focusing on the “where” of the destination instead of the “how” to reach it. They provide first a coarse reference to the destination, and then increasingly more detailed ones as the description proceeds. We introduce a definition of destination descriptions, along with an analysis of the construction and interpretation of destination descriptions grounded in pragmatic communication theory. We present a formal model enabling the selection of references for destination descriptions from models of experiential hierarchies of urban environments. This model generates route directions for people with some knowledge of the environment. Destination descriptions are usually shorter and we conjecture that the cognitive workload required during their use is lower than for equivalent turn-based directions.
Legacy impacts of all‐time anthropogenic emissions on the global mercury cycle

Elevated mercury (Hg) in marine and terrestrial ecosystems is a global health concern because of the formation of toxic methylmercury. Humans have emitted Hg to the atmosphere for millennia, and this Hg has deposited and accumulated into ecosystems globally. Here we present a global biogeochemical model with fully coupled atmospheric, terrestrial, and oceanic Hg reservoirs to better understand human influence on Hg cycling and timescales for responses. We drive the model with a historical inventory of anthropogenic emissions from 2000 BC to present. Results show that anthropogenic perturbations introduced to surface reservoirs (atmosphere, ocean, or terrestrial) accumulate and persist in the subsurface ocean for decades to centuries. The simulated present‐day atmosphere is enriched by a factor of 2.6 relative to 1840 levels, consistent with sediment archives, and by a factor of 7.5 relative to natural levels (2000 BC). Legacy anthropogenic Hg re‐emitted from surface reservoirs accounts for 60% of present‐day atmospheric deposition, compared to 27% from primary anthropogenic emissions, and 13% from natural sources. We find that only 17% of the present‐day Hg in the surface ocean is natural and that half of its anthropogenic enrichment originates from pre‐1950 emissions. Although Asia is presently the dominant contributor to primary anthropogenic emissions, only 17% of the surface ocean reservoir is of Asian anthropogenic origin, as compared to 30% of North American and European origin. The accumulated burden of legacy anthropogenic Hg means that future deposition will increase even if primary anthropogenic emissions are held constant. Aggressive global Hg emission reductions will be necessary just to maintain oceanic Hg concentrations at present levels.
Exploring the Genomes of Cancer Cells: Progress and Promise

The description and interpretation of genomic abnormalities in cancer cells have been at the heart of cancer research for more than a century. With exhaustive sequencing of cancer genomes across a wide range of human tumors well under way, we are now entering the end game of this mission. In the forthcoming decade, essentially complete catalogs of somatic mutations will be generated for tens of thousands of human cancers. Here, I provide an overview of what these efforts have revealed to date about the origin and behavioral features of cancer cells and how this genomic information is being exploited to improve diagnosis and therapy of the disease.
BAD WORDS GONE GOOD: SEMANTIC REANALYSIS IN AFRICAN AMERICAN ENGLISH

Semantic reanalysis produces lexemes that bear positive connotations in AAE in contrast with their "Mainstream" American English (MAE) (Lippi-Green, 1997) homonyms. For example, bad-AAE, awesome, versus bad-MAE, characterized by negative qualities. This present survey of semantic reanalysis in AAE shows that lexical meaning is subject to analogous types of linguistic variation commonly discussed in variationist studies. It helps lay the foundation for a quantitative study of African American English (AAE) lexemes and semantic change through an exploration of semantic reanalysis.Previous investigations of semantic reanalysis (e.g. Smitherman, 1977) claim that using defamatory words, like bad, in positive ways derives from an African tradition, i.e. hypothesizing that these are semantic calquings from Niger-Congo languages. Although semantic reanalysis appears in West African languages, it is also used by minority groups with no West African connection. Additionally, although the sociohistorical evidence suggests that AAE is a restructured English variety, semantic reanalysis is not a necessary strategy for restructured Englishes. The inadequacy of Afro-genetic accounts, together with the fact that the linguistics literature lacks a cohesive discussion of AAE semantic reanalysis, has motivated the present study. It offers more accessible, verifiable and generalizable explanations for AAE semantics. This study reveals that AAE's distinct semantics cannot be attributed to Niger-Congo retention but rather to the ecology around which AAE emerged. I propose that AAE semantics derive from sociohistorical factors that have shaped the variety. I also suggest that semantic reanalysis is a productive, community-wide phenomenon that a number of AAE speakers employ as a form of responsive discourse, i.e. to differentiate themselves from non-community members.These results are based on quantitative and supplementary qualitative analyses of data from 53 AAE-speaking adults from the Rankin community in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. Participants provided definitions and positive/negative evaluations of a variety of lexemes, including semantically reanalyzed words. Responses were coded using AAE and MAE dictionaries alongside my own native-speaker intuitions. Frequency analyses helped assess the pervasiveness of semantic reanalysis in the AAE community.Mixed-effects regression tests identified a generation-stratified pattern of variation wherein participants born after 1959--i.e. post-de jure segregation--were more familiar with reanalyzed words.
Regret Bounds for Deterministic Gaussian Process Bandits

This paper analyses the problem of Gaussian process (GP) bandits with deterministic observations. The analysis uses a branch and bound algorithm that is related to the UCB algorithm of (Srinivas et al., 2010). For GPs with Gaussian observation noise, with variance strictly greater than zero, (Srinivas et al., 2010) proved that the regret vanishes at the approximate rate of $O(\frac{1}{\sqrt{t}})$, where t is the number of observations. To complement their result, we attack the deterministic case and attain a much faster exponential convergence rate. Under some regularity assumptions, we show that the regret decreases asymptotically according to $O(e^{-\frac{\tau t}{(\ln t)^{d/4}}})$ with high probability. Here, d is the dimension of the search space and $\tau$ is a constant that depends on the behaviour of the objective function near its global maximum.
An Architecture for providing and defining student-oriented services

Current learning approaches are teacher oriented. The teacher is in control of the elements of the entire learning process. But different students have different capabilities and constraints. The student should be able to select the teaching style and method that best meets his requirements, while taking into consideration his capabilities and constraints. Due to the wide popularity of service-oriented architecture (SOA) and cloud computing, we propose an extended SOA model. This model extends traditional SOA models to support the provision of richer services that enable service providers to reach a wide range of customers and enable service requesters to find services that best match their requirements taking into consideration their capabilities. In the context of this paper, service providers are course providers and service requesters are the students. This paper also introduces a novel formal model for the specification of our newly introduced richer services.
A distortion measure for image artifacts based on human visual sensitivity

A visual model which gives a distortion measure for coding artifacts in images is presented. Given the original and the reproduced image as inputs, the model output is a numerical value, which quantifies the visibility of error in a region of the reproduced image. The model aims to predict accurately the visibility of the common types of coding artifacts blocking, ringing and blurring. Visual sensitivity to these artifacts is measured using psyche-visual experiments. The sensitivity measures thus obtained are used to derive the visual model which predicts the visibility of error. The final model is tested on real images, and the results show that the error visibility predicted by the model correlates well with the subjective ranking. <<ETX>>
Assessment of the Relationship Between Clinicophysiologic and Magnetic Resonance Imaging Findings of the Temporomandibular Disorder Patients.

Temporomandibular joint disorders (TMJDs) are a complex group of disorders that comprise dysfunctions of the temporomandibular joint (TMJ). In this study, we analyzed the objective and subjective findings of the TMJD patients by using Helkimo anamnesis (Ai) and clinical dysfunction (Di) indices, and tried to document a relation between these findings and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) results.Ninety-eight patients who were admitted to our clinic were included in the study. The clinical evaluation was performed by using Ai, an 8-question-survey based on the objective symptoms of patients; Di, concluded as the score of 5 objective measurements of physical examination. The morphology of the TMJ was evaluated by MRI, and the findings were analyzed and statistically compared with respect to the Di.The most commonly seen symptoms were noise during mandibular movement (58%), pain around the joint (42.5%), and pain with mandibular movements (40%). Seventeen patients (17.3%) were Di0, 47 (48%) were DiI, 24 (24.5%) were DiII, and 10 (10.2%) were DiIII. Thirty-seven patients (37.8%) had abnormal MRI findings, whereas 61 patients (62.2%) had normal MRI. The most commonly encountered pathology was anterior disc displacement with reduction, which was reported in 15 patients. Increased TMJ Di, which points a more progressed TMJD, was found to be significantly related with the pathological MRI findings (P < 0.05). MRI is especially effective in particularly those with high Di; therefore, the results of the study may give a prospect in which types of patients does MRI give a valuable data toward diagnosis, in which stages of the TMJD should we expect pathological findings, and thereby preventing unnecessary use of MRI in patients with symptoms of TMJD.