Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Optimization Under Constraints by Applying an Asymmetric Entropy Measure

Complex functions, such as the output of computer simulators, can be difficult to optimize. The task becomes even more difficult when only some of the function evaluations return real numbers and others simply fail to return a value. We combine statistical emulation, classification, sequential design, and optimization with an asymmetric entropy measure to solve the thorny problem of finding an optimum along a constraint boundary. This approach is demonstrated on simulated examples and a real problem in groundwater remediation.
Preliminary Findings Supporting a New Model of How Couples Maintain Excitement in Romantic Relationships

In Study 1, 103 adults involved in an exciting romantic relationship described how they keep their relationship exciting. The responses provided the foundation for a new model of how couples keep their relationship exciting. The model includes exciting activities that are passionate, adventurous, playful, sexual, spontaneous, and romantic, along with three relationship-maintaining activities: communicating effectively, joint activities, and autonomy. In Study 2, 104 adults rated their relationship on the three relationship-maintenance variables, on exciting activities, on excitement, and on relationship satisfaction. The relationship-maintenance and exciting activities showed significant associations with both excitement and satisfaction, providing preliminary support for the model.
A redução do ditongo [ãw] postônico na morfologia verbal do português brasileiro: uma abordagem baseada no uso

This article aims to investigate the unstressed [aw] diphthong reduction in the verbal morphology of Brazilian Portuguese (BP). Three verb tenses from the first conjugation were considered: 1) present tense: cantam (they sing); 2) past perfect tense: cantaram (they sang) and 3) past imperfect tense: cantavam (they used to sing). Results indicate that PB has an ongoing mechanism of change which aims to reorganize the verbal paradigm to a reduced number of verbal endings (Duarte, 1996). Such mechanism is implemented through constraints and allowances in grammatical organization. Thus, the [aw] diphthong reduction in the verbal morphology operates in BP Phonology through segmental reduction in prosodically weak positions. More frequent verbs are affected at higher levels than less frequent ones due to the phonetic motivation of the phenomenon in unstressed position, and regularizing the verbal paradigm by analogical leveling.
First spaceborne observation of sea surface height using GPS‐Reflectometry

An analysis of spaceborne Global Positioning System reflectometry (GPS‐R) data from the TechDemoSat‐1 (TDS‐1) satellite is carried out to image the ocean sea surface height (SSH). An SSH estimation algorithm is applied to GPS‐R delay waveforms over two regions in the South Atlantic and the North Pacific. Estimates made from TDS‐1 overpasses during a 6 month period are aggregated to produce SSH maps of the two regions. The maps generally agree with the global DTU10 mean sea surface height. The GPS‐R instrument is designed to make bistatic measurements of radar cross section for ocean wind observations, and its altimetric performance is not optimized. The differences observed between measured and DTU10 SSH can be attributed to limitations with the GPS‐R instrument and the lack of precision orbit determination by the TDS‐1 platform. These results represent the first observations of SSH by a spaceborne GPS‐R instrument.
Attachment point theory revisited: the fouling response to a microtextured matrix

This paper examines attachment point theory in detail by testing the fouling attachment of several fouling groups to a microtextured matrix. Static bioassays were conducted on polycarbonate plates with nine equal regions, comprising eight scales of microtexture (4–512 µm) and one untextured region. The microtextures examined were continuous sinusoidal ridges and troughs of defined height and width. Attachment over the microtextured plates was examined for the diatom Amphora sp. , the green alga Ulva rigida, the red alga Centroceras clavulatum, the serpulid tube worm Hydroides elegans and the bryozoan Bugula neritina. It was found that the size of the microtexture in relation to the size of the settling propagules/larvae was important in the selection of attachment sites. Attachment was generally lower when the microtexture wavelength was slightly smaller than the width of the settling propagules/larvae and increased when the wavelength was wider than their width. The effect of attachment points was weak for small motile microfoulers (Amphora sp. and U. rigida) (7 µm), strong for large macrofouling larvae (H. elegans and B. neritina) (129–321 µm) and non-existent for the non-motile algal spores (C. clavulatum) (37 µm). This study reinforces the potential of using attachment points to develop surfaces with increased fouling resistance or, alternatively, surfaces which promote the attachment of selected target sizes of motile propagules or larvae.
Should we worry about memory loss?

In recent years the High Performance Computing (HPC) industry has benefited from the development of higher density multi-core processors. With recent chips capable of executing up to 32 tasks in parallel, this rate of growth also shows no sign of slowing. Alongside the development of denser micro-processors has been the considerably more modest rate of improvement in random access memory (RAM). The effect has been that the available memory-per-core has reduced and current projections suggest that this is set to reduce still further. In this paper we present three studies into the use and measurement of memory in parallel applications; our aim is to capture, understand and, if possible, reduce the memory-per-core needed by complete multi-component applications. First, we present benchmarked memory usage and runtimes of a six scientific benchmarks, which represent algorithms that are common to a host of production-grade codes. Memory usage of each benchmark is measured and reported for a variety of compiler toolkits, and we show >30% variation in memory high-water mark requirements between compilers. Second, we utilise this benchmark data combined with runtime data, to simulate via the Maui scheduler simulator, the effect on a multi-science workow if memory-per-core is reduced from 1.5GB-per-core to only 256MB. Finally, we present initial results from a new memory profiling tool currently in development at the University of Warwick. This tool is applied to a finite-element benchmark and is able to map high-water-mark memory allocations to individual program functions. This demonstrates a lightweight and accurate method of identifying potential memory problems, a technique we expect to become commonplace as memory capacities decrease.
Dimensions of Concerns: The Case of Turkish Adolescents.

Abstract The purpose of the present study is to explore the type and seriousness of concerns reported by Turkish adolescents and to investigate the association of these concerns with self-reported psychological distress. The subjects were 957 secondary school students, 471 females and 486 males (ages 11 to 19) sampled from six different schools representing three socioeconomic status levels in Ankara, Turkey. A 40-item, Adolescent Concerns Scale was administered to subjects together with the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI-T) and the UCLA Loneliness Scale. An exploratory factor analysis revealed that the concerns could be grouped into five distinct clusters. These were concerns related to "personal future", "interpersonal relations", "local-universal issues", "social identity" and "use of drugs". Among them, "concerns over social identity issues" were found to be related to and predicting the anxiety scores. Even though concerns over the "use of drugs" received the lowest rating, as a factor subscale this cluster was also found to be related to depression, anxiety and loneliness scores. The results were compared with the four-factor model of adolescent concerns proposed by Violato and Holden (1988). Cultural differences were observed in the ranking of the importance attributed to each concern cluster.
Snap : A Local , Asynchronous Interaction Framework For Pervasive Applications

OF THE THESIS Snap: A Local, Asynchronous Interaction Framework For Pervasive Applications by Venkatesh Putty Thesis Director: Professor Manish Parashar Evolution in our computing needs has seen evolution in all spheres of computing with advances in device technology and the software infrastructure driving these systems. The road ahead is through frameworks that aid us in comprehending, developing applications for and managing this wide-ranging evolution resulting in pervasive computing. But, pervasive applications differ significantly enough from traditional distributed computing, to warrant thought on suitable distributed computing interaction primitives. This thesis presents an interaction framework for such applications that do not need transactional properties in interactions and can function with minimal guarantees. The framework offers an interaction protocol that is used for effecting asynchronous local actions and uses a decentralized consistency maintenance mechanism to reconcile system inconsistencies.This thesis presents scenarios where applications can use the interaction protocol and thus adapt better to pervasive environments.
Screen feedback: How to overcome the expressive limitations of a social robot

It is the aim of this work to research how short-comings of a social robot due to its expressive limitations may be overcome by multimodal feedback. An experiment is proposed in which a robot that cannot produce facial expressions plays a game of rock, paper, scissors with people. A screen which is built-in the torso of the robot is used to compensate for these limitations in expressiveness and provide the participant with facial expressions during the game. To assess the impact of the screen on the user's rating of the robot and the interaction as such, there will be a control condition in which the screen will stay turned off. With this experiment we would like to show that sophisticated feedback setup can contribute to make a playful interaction between a human and a robot even more enjoyable.
Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder and the Courts: An Introduction for Legal Professionals

Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) is a complex, permanent condition resulting in a host of social, educational, vocational, and cognitive impairments. These impairments sometimes bring individuals with FASD into contact with the criminal justice system. Current estimates of FASD in the United States are believed to impact between 2 to 5 percent of the general population. Higher rates of FASD are commonly found in criminal justice populations. The present article is intended to provide legal professionals with an introduction to FASD, with special consideration given to the challenges defendants with this disorder face while navigating through the criminal trial process. Keywords : court, fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD), legal, screening
Using an Infinite Von Mises-Fisher Mixture Model to Cluster Treatment Beam Directions in External Radiation Therapy

We present a method for fully automated selection of treatment beam ensembles for external radiation therapy. We reformulate the beam angle selection problem as a clustering problem of locally ideal beam orientations distributed on the unit sphere. For this purpose we construct an infinite mixture of von Mises-Fisher distributions, which is suited in general for density estimation from data on the D-dimensional sphere. Using a nonparametric Dirichlet process prior, our model infers probability distributions over both the number of clusters and their parameter values. We describe an efficient Markov chain Monte Carlo inference algorithm for posterior inference from experimental data in this model. The performance of the suggested beam angle selection framework is illustrated for one intra-cranial, pancreas, and prostate case each. The infinite von Mises-Fisher mixture model (iMFMM) creates between 18 and 32 clusters, depending on the patient anatomy. This suggests to use the iMFMM directly for beam ensemble selection in robotic radio surgery, or to generate low-dimensional input for both subsequent optimization of trajectories for arc therapy and beam ensemble selection for conventional radiation therapy.
Statistics and the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation

This article critiques the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation's claim that recent research indicates that "Canada must move beyond (its focus on) student financial assistance" as a means of ensuring access to postsecondary education since "three out of four Canadian youth cite non-financial reasons to explain why they chose not to pursue postsecondary studies. " This article argues that the Scholarship Foundation's research claims are not entirely accurate and are presented in a manner that is misleading.
RDR1 and SGS3, Components of RNA-Mediated Gene Silencing, Are Required for the Regulation of Cuticular Wax Biosynthesis in Developing Inflorescence Stems of Arabidopsis1[W][OA]

The cuticle is a protective layer that coats the primary aerial surfaces of land plants and mediates plant interactions with the environment. It is synthesized by epidermal cells and is composed of a cutin polyester matrix that is embedded and covered with cuticular waxes. Recently, we have discovered a novel regulatory mechanism of cuticular wax biosynthesis that involves the ECERIFERUM7 (CER7) ribonuclease, a core subunit of the exosome. We hypothesized that at the onset of wax production, the CER7 ribonuclease degrades an mRNA specifying a repressor of CER3, a wax biosynthetic gene whose protein product is required for wax formation via the decarbonylation pathway. In the absence of this repressor, CER3 is expressed, leading to wax production. To identify the putative repressor of CER3 and to unravel the mechanism of CER7-mediated regulation of wax production, we performed a screen for suppressors of the cer7 mutant. Our screen resulted in the isolation of components of the RNA-silencing machinery, RNA-DEPENDENT RNA POLYMERASE1 and SUPPRESSOR OF GENE SILENCING3, implicating RNA silencing in the control of cuticular wax deposition during inflorescence stem development in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana).
The Tooley Report on Educational Research: two philosophical objections

The report on educational research, commissioned by the Office for Standards in Education, written by James Tooley with assistance, and published under the title Educational Research: a critique, set out to ‘help provide some badly needed evidence to inform the debate about the quality of educational research’ (Tooley, 1998, p. 9). Whether this ‘snapshot’ actually upholds Hargreaves' (1996, p. 1) contention that there is a considerable amount of ‘second rate educational research’ is far from clear, although Tooley does conclude that the majority of studies surveyed lacked a clear focus, employed sloppy methodology and displayed partisanship. Now, those whose work was critiqued might, with some justification, grumble about Tooley's own ideological bias given his well-known right-wing, market-oriented views about education. Concern could also be directed at the report's methodological inadequacies, including the procedures adopted to select the journal sample, the categories employed for analysis, and the validity of the conclusions reached. I leave all of these for others to address. Rather, I shall examine two basic distinctions which Tooley adopts and deems important for his investigation into the state of educational research in Britain. The first is between empirical and non-empirical research, the second is between quantitative and qualitative empirical research. Philosophically, both of these distinctions are highly problematic and as a philosopher Tooley should, at the very least, have acknowledged their contentiousness rather than simply taking them for granted. The purpose of this short note is to indicate why Tooley's reliance on these two distinctions will not do.
Adolescent Behaviors and Cerebral Development: Psychoanalysis and the Neurosciences

Constatations empiriques, enquetes epidemiologiques, clinique psychopathologique et neurosciences confirment la specificite de certains comportements a l’adolescence : impulsivite, recherche de sensations et comportements a risque.Ces comportements plus frequents entre quinze et vingt-cinq ans sont contemporains d’une reorganisation cerebrale majeure qui affecte electivement le cortex prefrontal. La decouverte des caracteristiques anatomiques et fonctionnelles du remaniement cerebral permet la mise en perspective des neurosciences et de la psychanalyse. Deux conceptions de l’adolescence s’expriment tout a la fois dans ces deux champs. L’une de ces conceptions dresse le tableau d’un adolescent aisement deborde par le pulsionnel (en psychanalyse) ou par l’emotion (en neurosciences) : dans le premier cas, il est postule un defaut de mentalisation, dans le second, un defaut de controle du cortex prefrontal encore immature sur le cerveau limbique (emotionnel). L’autre conception, que nous soutenons, consiste en ce que le desequilibre relatif entre emotion et cognition au cours de cette periode, permet par le biais de l’experimentation sociale, y compris « impulsive », une adaptation fine de la structure, de la connectivite et de la fonctionnalite des regions prefrontales. Dans une perspective evolutionniste, les modifications tardives de ces regions cerebrales, les dernieres a se developper tant sur le plan de la phylogenese que de l’ontogenese, permettent non seulement la transition vers l’âge adulte, mais aussi une adaptation aux changements de valeurs operes d’une generation a l’autre. La presentation d’approches croisees entre neurosciences et psychanalyse conduit a des remarques d’ordre epistemologique.
Implementation of Dynamic Coupling Measurement of Distributed Object Oriented Software Based on Trace Events

Software metrics are increasingly playing a central role in the planning and control of software development projects. Coupling measures have important applications in software development and maintenance. Existing literature on software metrics is mainly focused on centralized systems, while work in the area of distributed systems, particularly in service-oriented systems, is scarce. Distributed systems with service oriented components are even more heterogeneous networking and execution environment. Traditional coupling measures take into account only “static” couplings. They do not account for “dynamic” couplings due to polymorphism and may significantly underestimate the complexity of software and misjudge the need for code inspection, testing and debugging. This is expected to result in poor predictive accuracy of the quality models in distributed Object Oriented systems that utilize static coupling measurements. In order to overcome these issues, we propose a hybrid model in Distributed Object Oriented Software for measure the coupling dynamically. In the proposed method, there are three steps such as Instrumentation process, Post processing and Coupling measurement. Initially the instrumentation process is done. In this process the instrumented JVM that has been modified to trace method calls. During this process, three trace files are created namely . prf, . clp, . svp. In the second step, the information in these file are merged. At the end of this step, the merged detailed trace of each JVM contains pointers to the merged trace files of the other JVM such that the path of every remote call from the client to the server can be uniquely identified. Finally, the coupling metrics are measured dynamically. The implementation results show that the proposed system will effectively measure the coupling metrics dynamically.
Routine use of oxygen in the treatment of myocardial infarction: systematic review

Context: International guidelines recommend the routine use of oxygen therapy in the treatment of myocardial infarction (MI). Objective: To undertake a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised placebo-controlled trials of oxygen therapy in MI. Data sources: Medline, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, EMBASE and CINHAL. Study selection: Randomised placebo-controlled trials of oxygen therapy in MI. Data extraction: The primary clinical outcome was mortality. Results: Two of 51 potential studies met the inclusion criteria. The one study with substantive clinical outcome data reported that in uncomplicated MI, high-flow oxygen was associated with a non-significant increased risk of death (risk ratio 2.9, 95% CI 0.8 to 10.3, p = 0.08) and a greater serum aspartate aminotransferase level (difference 19.2 IU/ml, 95% CI 0 to 38.4, p = 0.05) than room air. Conclusion: The limited evidence that does exist suggests that the routine use of high-flow oxygen in uncomplicated MI may result in a greater infarct size and possibly increase the risk of mortality.
Rasch-Built Measure of Pleasant Touch through Active Fingertip Exploration

Background: Evidence suggests that somatic sensation has a modality for pleasant touch. Objective: To investigate pleasant touch at the fingertip level (i.e., glabrous skin site) through the elaboration of a linear unidimensional scale that measures (i) various materials according to the level of pleasantness they elicit through active fingertip explorations and (ii) subjects according to their pleasantness leniency levels. Subjects: We enrolled 198 healthy subjects without any neurological disease. Methods: Blindfolded subjects actively explored 48 materials with their index fingertips and reported the perceived pleasantness of each on a 4-level scale. The fingertip moisture levels on each subject were measured before the experimental session. Data were analyzed using the Rasch model. Results: We elaborated unidimensional linear scale that included 37 materials according to their pleasantness of touch. The pleasantness level of 21 materials was perceived differently, depending on the fingertip moisture levels of the subjects. Conclusion: Based on our findings, we formulated a Pleasant Touch Scale. Fingertip moisture levels appeared to be a major factor for (un)pleasant feelings during active exploration.
Fuzziness based sample categorization for classifier performance improvement

This paper investigates a relationship between the fuzziness of a classifier and the misclassification rate of the classifier on a group of samples. For a given trained classifier that outputs a membership vector, we demonstrate experimentally that samples with higher fuzziness outputted by the classifier mean a bigger risk of misclassification. We then propose a fuzziness category based divide-and-conquer strategy which separates the high-fuzziness samples from the low fuzziness samples. A particular technique is used to handle the high-fuzziness samples for promoting the classifier performance. The reasonability of the approach is theoretically explained and its effectiveness is experimentally demonstrated.