Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Overview of the IWSLT 2005 Evaluation Campaign

This paper reports an overview of the evaluation campaign results of the IWSLT 2005 workshop 1 . The BTEC corpus, which consists of typical travel domain phrases, was used. Data for the five language pairs Arabic/Chinese/Japanese/Korean to English and English to Chinese was prepared. To study how much the amount of the training data and how much different training and decoding approaches contribute to the performance, a supplied data and an unrestricted data track were introduced. In addition, translation results were evaluated not only for text input but also speech recognition output. 19 systems from 17 organizations participated in the evaluation. All machine translation results were evaluated using automatic evaluation metrics . The most popular track, translating text form Chinese to English, was graded by 3 humans in terms of Fluency, Adequacy and Meaning Maintenance. The correlation between automatic evaluation metrics and human judgment was examined.
Persistence of Pathogenic Challenge Virus in Macaques Protected by Simian Immunodeficiency Virus SIVmacΔnef

ABSTRACT Live attenuated simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) is the most efficient vaccine yet developed in monkey models of human immunodeficiency virus infection. In all successful vaccine trials, attenuation was achieved by inactivating at least the nefgene. We investigated some virological and immunological characteristics of five rhesus macaques immunized with anef-inactivated SIVmac251 molecular clone (SIVmac251Δnef) and challenged 15 months later with the pathogenic SIVmac251 isolate. Three animals were killed 2 weeks postchallenge (p.c.) to search for the challenge virus and to assess immunological changes in various organs. The other two animals have been monitored up for 7 years p.c. , with clinical and nefgene changes being noted. The animals killed showed no increase in viral load and no sign of a secondary immune response, although the challenged virus was occasionally detected by PCR. In one of the monkeys being monitored, the vaccine virus persisted and an additional deletion occured in nef. In the other monkey that was monitored, the challenge and the vaccine (Δnef) viruses were both detected by PCR until a virus with a hybrid nefallele was isolated 48 months p.c. This nef hybrid encodes a 245-amino-acid protein. Thus, our results show (i) that monkeys were not totally protected against homologous virus challenge but controlled the challenge very efficiently in the absence of a secondary immune response, and (ii) that the challenge and vaccine viruses may persist in a replication-competent form for long periods after the challenge, possibly resulting in recombination between the two viruses.
New Caledonian Crows Learn the Functional Properties of Novel Tool Types

New Caledonian crows were presented with Bird and Emery's (2009a) Aesop's fable paradigm, which requires stones to be dropped into a water-filled tube to bring floating food within reach. The crows did not spontaneously use stones as tools, but quickly learned to do so, and to choose objects and materials with functional properties. Some crows discarded both inefficient and non-functional objects before observing their effects on the water level. Interestingly, the crows did not learn to discriminate between functional and non-functional objects and materials when there was an arbitrary, rather than causal, link between object and reward. This finding suggests that the crows' performances were not based on associative learning alone. That is, learning was not guided solely by the covariation rate between stimuli and outcomes or the conditioned reinforcement properties acquired by functional objects. Our results, therefore, show that New Caledonian crows can process causal information not only when it is linked to sticks and stick-like tools but also when it concerns the functional properties of novel types of tool.
Low-loss, tunable microwave capacitors using bismuth zinc niobate thin films

A new high dielectric constant material, bismuth zinc niobate that combines low dielectric losses with an electric-field dependent permittivity was implemented as the dielectric in MIM capacitors. Dielectric properties up to 20 GHz were evaluated by measuring the reflection coefficient with a vector network analyzer. The dielectric constant was around 180 and the quality factor remained greater than 100 up to 5 GHz for 64 /spl mu/m/sup 2/ devices. No onset of a dielectric relaxation, as expected from bulk data, could be detected in the measured frequency range. The results show that BZN thin films have great potential for low loss, tunable microwave devices.
A Service-Oriented approach for interactive computing systems

The introduction of new technologies leads to a more and more complex interactive systems design. In order to describe the future interactive system, the human computer interaction domain uses specific models, design processes and tools in order to represent, create, store and manipulate models. The aim of our work is to provide a theoretical conceptual approach to facilitate the work of model designers and project managers by helping them in choosing processes, models and modeling environments adapted to their specific needs. This paper details the use of a service-oriented approach for model management. Our proposals are related to three different abstract levels: the operational level to choose the appropriate modelling tool, the organisational level to select a design process and the intentional level to define modelling goals.
Prognostic Value of Isocitrate Dehydrogenase Mutations in Myelodysplastic Syndromes: A Retrospective Cohort Study and Meta-Analysis

Background Recent genomic sequencing efforts have identified a number of recurrent mutations in myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) that may contribute to disease progression and overall survival, including mutations in isocitrate dehydrogenases 1 and 2 (IDH1 and IDH2). Methods Pretreatment bone marrow (BM) samples were acquired from mononuclear cells in 146 adult patients with de novo MDS from January 2006 to June 2013. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and direct sequencing were performed on exon 4 of IDH1/2 genes and mutation status was correlated with overall survival (OS) and leukemia-free survival (LFS). We then performed a meta-analysis combining previously published and current studies to explore the effect of IDH mutations on OS and LFS in MDS. Results In our study, somatic mutations of either IDH gene were discovered in 11 MDS patients (7.53%) and were significantly correlated with poorer OS (P = 0.007). IDH mutations were specifically associated with a poorer OS in the intermediate-1 risk group by the International Prognostic Scoring System (IPSS) (P = 0.039). In addition, we discovered decitabine achieved a better therapeutic effect compared to other treatments in IDH mutation-positive patients (P = 0.023). We identified six previous studies of IDH mutations in MDS. A meta-analysis of these studies included 111 MDS patients IDH mutations and 1671 MDS patients with wild-type IDH1/2. The hazard ratios (HRs) of OS and LFS for patients with IDH mutations were 1.62 (95% CI, 1.27–2.09) and 2.21 (95% CI, 1.48–3.30), respectively. Conclusion The results from our study and the meta-analysis provide firm evidence that IDH mutations are significantly associated with poorer clinical outcomes in MDS. Identification of IDH mutations may be pivotal for better risk stratification in MDS patients and improving IPSS score. Additionally, hypomethylating agents may be an effective treatment option for MDS patients with IDH mutations.
Sémantique interprétative appliquée à la détection automatique de documents racistes et xénophobes sur internet

La demande pressante des institutions en matiere de protection des usagers contre les contenus illicites ou prejudiciables sur Internet (racisme, xenophobie, pedophilie) invite a depasser les systemes de filtrage automatique conventionnels bases sur des listes de mots-cles ou des annuaires d'adresses preetablies, peu efficaces et exigeant de frequentes mises a jour. Princip, la plate-forme multilingue de detection de pages Web racistes dont nous presentons quelques aspects, met en jeu une analyse semantique globale, multicritere, et differentielle des documents. Elle repose a la fois sur les propositions theoriques de la semantique interpretative et les possibilites offertes par l'implementation dans un systeme multi-agents, tout en se demarquant des approches ontologiques classiques.
Modulation of Plasticity in Human Motor Cortex after Forearm Ischemic Nerve Block

Deafferentation leads to cortical reorganization that may be functionally beneficial or maladaptive. Therefore, we were interested in learning whether it is possible to purposely modulate deafferentation-induced reorganization. Transient forearm deafferentation was induced by ischemic nerve block (INB) in healthy volunteers. The following five interventions were tested: INB alone; INB plus low-frequency (0.1 Hz) repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation of the motor cortex ipsilateral to INB (INB+rTMSi); rTMSi alone; INB plus rTMS of the motor cortex contralateral to INB (INB+rTMSc); and rTMSc alone. Plastic changes in the motor cortex contralateral to deafferentation were probed with TMS, measuring motor threshold (MT), motor evoked-potential (MEP) size, and intracortical inhibition (ICI) and facilitation (ICF) to the biceps brachii muscle proximal to the level of deafferentation. INB alone induced a moderate increase in MEP size, which was significantly enhanced by INB+rTMSc but blocked by INB+rTMSi. INB alone had no effect on ICI or ICF, whereas INB+rTMSc reduced ICI and increased ICF, and conversely, INB+rTMSi deepened ICI and suppressed ICF. rTMSi and rTMSc alone were ineffective in changing any of these parameters. These findings indicate that the deafferented motor cortex becomes modifiable by inputs that are normally subthreshold for inducing changes in excitability. The deafferentation-induced plastic changes can be up-regulated by direct stimulation of the “plastic” cortex and likely via inhibitory projections down-regulated by stimulation of the opposite cortex. This modulation of cortical plasticity by noninvasive means might be used to facilitate plasticity when it is primarily beneficial or to suppress it when it is predominately maladaptive.
Understanding how people think about their daily spending

ISER commissioned Kantar Public to conduct 20 in-depth face-to-face qualitative interviews to explore how people think about their personal finances, with a view to understand how to design a mobile app to minimise the burden on participants recalling their daily spending, as part of the using a mobile app of Understanding Society: the UK Household Longitudinal Study. The research asked participants to recall recent spending both spontaneously and using three pre-defined models. As well as contributing to the understanding of how people conceptualise spending, the qualitative research also provides recommendations for improving the way that this information can be elicited from participants using an app.
Transmit Weights Optimization for Wireless Cooperative Communications in Rayleigh Fading Channels

Cooperative communications among the users in the multiple access wireless environments is an efficient way to obtain the powerful benefits of multi-antenna system without the demand for physical arrays. This paper proposes a solution to optimize the weights of partnering user's signal for the minimum error probability at the output of maximum likelihood (ML) detector. Found weights adapt the propagation environment changes and are obtained by taking advantage of the channel state information (CSI) feedback from the receiver to the transmitter. The closed-form BER expressions were also derived and compared to the simulation results to evaluate the suggested method's validity. A variety of numerical results demonstrated the cooperation's superiority over single transmission under flat Rayleigh fading channel plus AWGN (additive white Gaussian noise)
Prevention of Nocturnal Hypoglycemia Using Predictive Alarm Algorithms and Insulin Pump Suspension

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to develop a partial closed-loop system to safely prevent nocturnal hypoglycemia by suspending insulin delivery when hypoglycemia is predicted in type 1 diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Forty subjects with type 1 diabetes (age range 12–39 years) were studied overnight in the hospital. For the first 14 subjects, hypoglycemia (<60 mg/dl) was induced by gradually increasing the basal insulin infusion rate (without the use of pump shutoff algorithms). During the subsequent 26 patient studies, pump shutoff occurred when either three of five (n = 10) or two of five (n = 16) algorithms predicted hypoglycemia based on the glucose levels measured with the FreeStyle Navigator (Abbott Diabetes Care). RESULTS The standardized protocol induced hypoglycemia on 13 (93%) of the 14 nights. With use of a voting scheme that required three algorithms to trigger insulin pump suspension, nocturnal hypoglycemia was prevented during 6 (60%) of 10 nights. When the voting scheme was changed to require only two algorithms to predict hypoglycemia to trigger pump suspension, hypoglycemia was prevented during 12 (75%) of 16 nights. In the latter study, there were 25 predictions of hypoglycemia because some subjects had multiple hypoglycemic events during a night, and hypoglycemia was prevented for 84% of these events. CONCLUSIONS Using algorithms to shut off the insulin pump when hypoglycemia is predicted, it is possible to prevent hypoglycemia on 75% of nights (84% of events) when it would otherwise be predicted to occur.
Predicting prognosis in cardiac surgery: a prophecy?

Physicians need to make predictions on the prognosis of a treatment that helps them in the choice of therapy. Medicine used to be much more subjective than in the current evidence-based era. Shared decision-making, where physicians and patients both participate in deciding on choices for therapy, is also more common [1]. Clinical prediction models like EuroSCORE may provide the evidence-based input for shared decision-making by providing an estimate of the operative risk of patients undergoing cardiac surgery. An ideal clinical model would be something simple dividing the patients into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ without further specification of the survival chances. The original EuroSCORE was a compromise between the ‘statistical ideal’ and the ‘clinical ideal’. It was developed from a large multinational European population and was a model predicting mortality based on 17 variables, either from a logistic regression equation or from an additive model. Numerous institutions throughout the world have tested and validated EuroSCORE. Loss of calibration with the additive and logistic EuroSCORE has been observed by many investigators and an update of the EuroSCORE was warranted. One possible reason for the poor calibration of the original EuroSCORE score is that the score was developed from patients undergoing surgery almost 20 years ago. As surgical and perioperative care evolves and the impact of clinical variables change, prediction models therefore require revision. These factors may also vary between institutions and it is well known that the quality of care and comorbidities of patients differs between countries. The original EuroSCORE already identified major differences in the risk profile of national samples [2]. This is therefore one of the major concerns with EuroSCORE II: 154 hospitals from 43 countries participated, of which many were outside Europe [3]. One may, therefore, question whether the term EuroSCORE is still valid or another name should be used that reflects the fact that so many countries outside Europe participated. With this in mind, it becomes even more important that, as indicated by the authors, units and surgeons calculate their own risk-adjusted mortality ratio. The model is probably more reliable in the prediction of death over a wide range of risk groups rather than the prediction of the vital status of an individual patient. Another reason for the poor calibration in the original EuroSCORE might be that a large number of risk factors in the model are highly correlated. It is important to recognize correlation between predicting variables, as the additional risk contribution of certain variables can in some part be explained by the effect of other variables. Some predicting variables may also be more important for some types of operations then for others. The large number of risk factors with potential interaction may overestimate risk in certain categories of patients (e.g. intermediate risk or extreme risk). It is therefore a pity that the authors have not explored possible interaction terms in the new
Learning, neural plasticity and sensitive periods: implications for language acquisition, music training and transfer across the lifespan

Sensitive periods in human development have often been proposed to explain age-related differences in the attainment of a number of skills, such as a second language (L2) and musical expertise. It is difficult to reconcile the negative consequence this traditional view entails for learning after a sensitive period with our current understanding of the brain’s ability for experience-dependent plasticity across the lifespan. What is needed is a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying auditory learning and plasticity at different points in development. Drawing on research in language development and music training, this review examines not only what we learn and when we learn it, but also how learning occurs at different ages. First, we discuss differences in the mechanism of learning and plasticity during and after a sensitive period by examining how language exposure versus training forms language-specific phonetic representations in infants and adult L2 learners, respectively. Second, we examine the impact of musical training that begins at different ages on behavioral and neural indices of auditory and motor processing as well as sensorimotor integration. Third, we examine the extent to which childhood training in one auditory domain can enhance processing in another domain via the transfer of learning between shared neuro-cognitive systems. Specifically, we review evidence for a potential bi-directional transfer of skills between music and language by examining how speaking a tonal language may enhance music processing and, conversely, how early music training can enhance language processing. We conclude with a discussion of the role of attention in auditory learning for learning during and after sensitive periods and outline avenues of future research.
Direct Mesh : Visualization for Multiresolution Terrain Database

Multiresolution Triangular Mesh (MTM) models are widely used in terrain visualization to cope with the increasing data size. MTM model, which consists of both original and simplified data, it commonly stored in spatial database system due to its large size. Slow disk access speed makes retrieval performance of such database the bottleneck of many terrain visualization systems. Existing approaches rely on spatial access methods to improve retrieval efficiency. However, they are all built upon MTM models that are designed for main memory, which are not well suited for secondary-storage retrieval. In this paper we propose a novel MTM called direct meshdesigned specifically for secondary storage and supports available indexing methods natively. Experiment results, which are based on two real-world datasets, show significant performance improvement over the existing approaches.
Concurrency control in a system for distributed databases (SDD-1)

This paper presents the concurrency control strategy of SDD-1. SDD-1, a System for Distributed Databases, is a prototype distributed database system being developed by Computer Corporation of America. In SDD-1, portions of data distributed throughout a network may be replicated at multiple sites. The SDD-1 concurrency control guarantees database consistency in the face of such distribution and replication. This paper is one of a series of companion papers on SDD-1 [4, 10, 12, 21].
Magnetorotational Instability around a Rotating Black Hole

The magnetorotational instability (MRI) in the Kerr spacetime is studied on a 3 + 1 viewpoint. Maxwell's equations are expressed in a circularly orbiting observer's frame that corotates with matter in Keplerian orbits. The hydromagnetic equations are represented in a locally nonrotating frame (LNRF). There exist large proper growth rates in the MRI around a rapidly rotating black hole. The large "centrifugal force" and the rapid variations of magnetic fields are caused by the rotation of the spacetime geometry. As a result, in the extreme Kerr case the maximum proper growth rate at r = rms becomes about 12 times as large as that in Schwarzschild case, where rms is the radius of a marginally stable orbit. The unstable range of the wavenumber expands according to the rotational speed of the spacetime geometry. The overstable mode of the instability becomes remarkable when the circular motion of the disk is quasi-relativistic and the strength of the magnetic field is so large that the Alfvén velocity is vA ≥ 0.1c. When the waves of perturbations propagate in the radial direction, these waves oscillate, and their amplitudes grow exponentially. This instability is caused by the differential rotation of the circularly orbiting frame. The universality of the local Oort A-value of the disk is discussed in curved spacetime. In the extreme Kerr geometry, the amplitude of the maximum growth rate in the dynamical shear instability (DSI) reaches to infinity at r = rms. The behaviors of maximum growth rates in MRI and DSI are remarkably different from each other.
Harmonic rejection mixer at ADC input for complex IF dual carrier receiver architecture

This paper presents a receiver architecture for intra-band dual-carrier reception as specified for the upcoming releases of 3GPP HSPA and LTE standards. It is based on a time-discrete harmonic rejection complex-IF mixer to limit the bandwidth requirements on the ADCs to that of a single carrier. The mixer has been designed and fabricated together with a 3rd order continuous-time ΔΣ-ADC for proof-of-concept evaluation. Measurements show at least 68dB rejection at 2nd to 4th LO harmonic.
DIUM – An Incremental Dialogue Manager That Can Produce Self-Corrections

Incremental processing offers the potential for dialogue systems to produce more natural, spontaneous conversational behaviour. This processing strategy comes at a price, though, which is that processing results may have to be revised when more input becomes available. We distinguish between two possible consequences of such revisions: a) If no observable system reaction has been produced yet, revision is just a matter of properly keeping internal state, and can be handled along the lines of the IU model of (Schlangen and Skantze, 2009). b) If however an observable reaction has been produced, revocation itself becomes a dialogue move, and as such must be handled by the dialogue manager. In this paper, we describe a dialogue manager that is capable of doing so, and provide a first discussion of how to handle such self-corrections when producing output. This dialogue manager makes a connection between utterance-level incrementality and dialogue-level incrementality by using concepts from the IU model also internally; we discuss some of the implications of this approach.