Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Annual decline in forced expiratory volume is steeper in aluminum potroom workers than in workers without exposure to potroom fumes

Background Aluminum potroom exposure is associated with increased mortality of COPD but the association between potroom exposure and annual decline in lung function is unknown. We have measured lung volumes annually using spirometry from 1986 to 1996. The objective was to compare annual decline in forced expiratory volume in 1 s (dFEV1) and forced vital capacity (dFVC). Methods The number of aluminum potroom workers was 4,546 (81% males) and the number of workers in the reference group was 651 (76% males). The number of spirometries in the index group and the references were 24,060 and 2,243, respectively. Results After adjustment for confounders, the difference in dFEV1 and dFVC between the index and reference groups were 13.5 (P < 0.001) and −8.0 (P = 0.060) ml/year. Conclusion Aluminum potroom operators have increased annual decline in FEV1 relative to a comparable group with non‐exposure to potroom fumes and gases. Am. J. Ind. Med. 59:322–329, 2016. © 2016 The Authors. American Journal of Industrial Medicine Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Optimization of Knowledge Sharing & Transfer Network

Knowledge sharing & transfer is a critical step for successful knowledge management, and constructing knowledge sharing & transfer network is an important approach to enhance the efficiency of knowledge sharing & transfer. Because of different sharing & transfer patterns of explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge, the methods to improve efficiency of knowledge sharing and transfer are different. This paper constructs knowledge sharing & transfer network in view of behaviors, analyzes mutual relations between network members and calculates the optimal knowledge transfer path. The general algorithm for shortest path - "Floyd" algorithm is used to optimize transfer path for explicit knowledge; social network analysis (SNA) is applied to analyze and optimize transfer path for tacit knowledge.
Understanding and Improving Ratio Incentives in Private Communities

Incentive mechanisms play a critical role in P2P systems. Private BitTorrent sites use a novel incentive paradigm, where the sites record upload and download amounts of users and require each user to maintain its upload-to-download ratio above a specified threshold. This paper explores in-depth incentives in private P2P file-sharing systems. Our contributions are threefold. We first conduct a measurement study on a representative private BitTorrent site, examining how incentives influence user behavior. Our measurement study shows that, as compared with public torrents, a private BitTorrent site provides more incentive for users to contribute and seed. Second, we develop a game theoretic model and analytically show that the ratio mechanism indeed provides effective incentives. But existing ratio incentives in private BitTorrent sites are vulnerable to collusions. Third, to prevent collusion, we propose an upload entropy scheme, and show through analysis and experiment that the entropy scheme successfully limits colluding, while rarely affecting normal users who do not collude.
Music Recommendation Based on Acoustic Features and User Access Patterns

Music recommendation is receiving increasing attention as the music industry develops venues to deliver music over the Internet. The goal of music recommendation is to present users lists of songs that they are likely to enjoy. Collaborative-filtering and content-based recommendations are two widely used approaches that have been proposed for music recommendation. However, both approaches have their own disadvantages: collaborative-filtering methods need a large collection of user history data and content-based methods lack the ability of understanding the interests and preferences of users. To overcome these limitations, this paper presents a novel dynamic music similarity measurement strategy that utilizes both content features and user access patterns. The seamless integration of them significantly improves the music similarity measurement accuracy and performance. Based on this strategy, recommended songs are obtained by a means of label propagation over a graph representing music similarity. Experimental results on a real data set collected from http://www.newwisdom. net demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
Specific tyrosine phosphorylation induced in Schistosoma mansoni miracidia by haemolymph from schistosome susceptible, but not resistant, Biomphalaria glabrata

SUMMARY Molecular interplay during snail-schistosome interactions is poorly understood and there is much to discover concerning the effect of snail host molecules on molecular processes in schistosomes. Using the Biomphalaria glabrata – Schistosoma mansoni host-parasite system, the effects of exposure to haemolymph, derived from schistosome-resistant and susceptible snail strains, on protein tyrosine phosphorylation in miracidia have been investigated. Western blotting revealed several tyrosine phosphorylated proteins in this larval stage. Exposure of miracidia to haemolymph from susceptible snails for 60 min resulted in a striking, 5-fold, increase in the tyrosine phosphorylation of a 56 kDa (p56) S. mansoni protein. In contrast, haemolymph from resistant snails had little effect on protein tyrosine phosphorylation levels in miracidia. Confocal microscopy revealed that tyrosine phosphorylation was predominantly associated with proteins present in the tegument. Finally, treatment of miracidia with the tyrosine kinase inhibitor genistein significantly impaired their development into primary sporocysts. The results open avenues for research that focus on the potential importance of phospho-p56 to the outcome of schistosome infection in snails, and the significance of protein tyrosine kinase-mediated signalling events to the transformation of S. mansoni larvae.
Emergent gravity from noncommutative gauge theory

We show that the matrix-model action for noncommutative U(n) gauge theory actually describes SU(n) gauge theory coupled to gravity. This is elaborated in the 4-dimensional case. The SU(n) gauge fields as well as additional scalar fields couple to an effective metric Gab, which is determined by a dynamical Poisson structure. The emergent gravity is intimately related to noncommutativity, encoding those degrees of freedom which are usually interpreted as U(1) gauge fields. This leads to a class of metrics which contains the physical degrees of freedom of gravitational waves, and allows to recover e.g. the Newtonian limit with arbitrary mass distribution. It also suggests a consistent picture of UV/IR mixing in terms of an induced gravity action. This should provide a suitable framework for quantizing gravity.
Video Skimming for Quick Browsing based on Audio and Image Characterization

Digital video is rapidly becoming an important source for information, entertainment and a host of multimedia applications. With the size of these collections growing to thousands of hours, technology is needed to effectively browse segments in a short time without losing the content of the video. We propose a method to extract the significant audio and video information and create a “skim” video which represents a short synopsis of the original. The extraction of significant information, such as specific objects, audio keywords and relevant video structure, is made possible through the integration of techniques in image and language understanding. The resulting skim is much smaller, and retains the essential content of the original segment. This research is sponsored by the National Science Foundation under grant no. IRI9411299, the National Space and Aeronautics Administration, and the Advanced Research Projects Agency. The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing official policies or endorsements, either expressed or implied, of the United States Government.
Robot Learning a New Subfield? The Robolearn-96 Workshop

This article posits the idea of robot learning as a new subfield. The results of the Robolearn-96 Workshop provide evidence that learning in modern robotics is distinct from traditional machine learning. The article examines the role of robotics in the social and natural sciences and the potential impact of learning on robotics, generating both a continuum of research issues and a description of the divergent terminology, target domains, and standards of proof associated with robot learning. The article argues that although robot learning is a new subfield, there is significant potential for synergy with traditional machine learning if the differences in research cultures can be overcome.
A Two-Dimensional Markov Model for Cross-Layer Design in AMC/ARQ-Based Wireless Networks

Nowadays, there are lots of research efforts focusing on cross-layer designs combining adaptive modulation and coding (AMC) with an automatic repeat request (ARQ) protocol. One of the main drawbacks of these research works is that they rely on first-order amplitude-based finite-state Markov chains (AFSMC) to model the wireless fading channel. Furthermore, most of the analytical models used in these works present several deficiencies that could compromise the design of cross-layer protocols. To overcome the aforementioned problems, in this paper we propose a novel cross-layer analytical framework that is based on both the use of a first-order two-dimensional Markov model and a judicious implementation of the AMC threshold searching algorithm used in the transmission mode (TM) selection. This threshold search is designed independently from the channel model and is able to discriminate between useful and useless TMs. To exploit the joint impact on QoS performance measures of both AMC and ARQ we present a formulation of an AMC/ARQ cross-layer design as a constrained optimization problem.
Results of Intradiscal Pulsed Radiofrequency for Lumbar Discogenic Pain: Comparison with Intradiscal Electrothermal Therapy

Background We have developed an intradiscal pulsed radiofrequency (Disc PRF) technique, using Diskit II® needles (NeuroTherm, Wilmington, MA, USA), as a minimally invasive treatment option for chronic discogenic low back pain (LBP). The purpose of this study was to compare the representative outcomes of Disc PRF and Intradiscal Electrothermal Therapy (IDET) in terms of pain relief and reduction of disability. Methods Thirty-one patients with chronic discogenic LBP who underwent either Disc PRF (n = 15) or IDET (n = 16) were enrolled in the study. A Diskit II® needle (15-cm length, 20-gauge needle with a 20-mm active tip) was placed centrally in the disc. PRF was applied for 15 min at a setting of 5 × 50 ms/s and 60 V. The pain intensity score on a 0-10 numeric rating scale (NRS) and the Roland-Morris Disability Questionnaire (RMDQ) were assessed pretreatment and at 1, 3, and 6 months post-treatment. Results The mean NRS was significantly improved from 7.2 ± 0.6 pretreatment to 2.5 ± 0.9 in the Disc PRF group, and from 7.5 ± 1.0 to 1.7 ± 1.5 in the IDET group, at the 6-month follow-up. The mean RMDQ also showed significant improvement in both the Disc PRF group and the IDET group at the 6-month follow-up. There were no significant differences in the pretreatment NRS and RMDQ scores between the groups. Conclusions Disc PRF appears to be an alternative to IDET as a safe, minimally invasive treatment option for patients with chronic discogenic LBP.
Completions of ε ‐Dense Partial Latin Squares

A classical question in combinatorics is the following: given a partial Latin square P, when can we complete P to a Latin square L? In this paper, we investigate the class of ε‐dense partial Latin squares: partial Latin squares in which each symbol, row, and column contains no more than εn ‐many nonblank cells. Based on a conjecture of Nash‐Williams, Daykin and Häggkvist conjectured that all 14 ‐dense partial Latin squares are completable. In this paper, we will discuss the proof methods and results used in previous attempts to resolve this conjecture, introduce a novel technique derived from a paper by Jacobson and Matthews on generating random Latin squares, and use this technique to study ε‐dense partial Latin squares that contain no more than δn2 filled cells in total. In this paper, we construct completions for all ε‐dense partial Latin squares containing no more than δn2 filled cells in total, given that ε<112,δ<1−12ε210,409 . In particular, we show that all 9.8·10−5 ‐dense partial Latin squares are completable. These results improve prior work by Gustavsson, which required ε=δ≤10−7 , as well as Chetwynd and Häggkvist, which required ε=δ=10−5 , n even and greater than 107.
Minimax design of FIR filters with low group delay using enhanced sequential quadratic programming

Sequential quadratic programming (SQP) algorithms are widely recognized to be among the most successful algorithms for general constrained optimization. This paper attempts to develop an SQP-based method for equiripple FIR filters with low group delay. We explain how the complimentarily conditions in an SQP design algorithm help reduce the amount of computation required to update the Lagrange multipliers in a significant manner. Design examples are presented to illustrate the algorithm's performance that compares favorably with several existing design methods.
Cellular Automata Model Tuned for Efficient Computation on GPU with Global Memory Cache

Models based on Cellular Automata paradigm are inherently parallel and give the opportunity to achieve very high efficiency when they are implemented on GPUs. In previous works, the Author presented two versions of the CA model of water flow: one that uses only the global memory, and a second that uses local memory as a manually managed cache. In this paper, these two algorithms are tested on processors with Fermi architecture. The results of performance evaluations are presented and discussed.
Acetonic and Methanolic Extracts of Heterotheca inuloides, and Quercetin, Decrease CCl4-Oxidative Stress in Several Rat Tissues

The present study was designed to test the hypothesis that the acetonic and methanolic extracts of H. inuloides prevent carbon tetrachloride-(CCl4) induced oxidative stress in vital tissues. Pretreatment with both H. inuloides extracts or quercetin attenuated the increase in serum activity of alkaline phosphatase (ALP), total bilirubin (BB), creatinine (CRE), and creatine kinase (CK), and impeded the decrease of γ-globulin (γ-GLOB) and albumin (ALB) observed in CCl4-induced tissue injury. The protective effect was confirmed by histological analysis with hematoxylin-eosin and periodic acid/Schiff's reagent. Level of lipid peroxidation was higher in the organs of rats exposed to CCl4 than in those of the animals treated with Heterohteca extracts or quercetin, and these showed levels similar to the untreated group. Pretreatment of animals with either of the extracts or quercetin also prevented the increase of 4-hydroxynonenal and 3-nitrotyrosine. Pretreatment with the plant extracts or quercetin attenuated CCl4 toxic effects on the activity of several antioxidant enzymes. The present results strongly suggest that the chemopreventive effect of the extracts used and quercetin, against CCl4 toxicity, is associated with their antioxidant properties and corroborated previous results obtained in liver tissue.
Regression Testing of Web Service: A Systematic Mapping Study

Web service is a widely used implementation technique under the paradigm of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA). A service-based system is subjected to continuous evolution and regression testing is required to check whether new faults have been introduced. Based on the current scientific work of web service regression testing, this survey aims to identify gaps in current research and suggests some promising areas for further study. To this end, we performed a broad automatic search on publications in the selected electronic databases published from 2000 to 2013. Through our careful review and manual screening, a total of 30 papers have been selected as primary studies for answering our research questions. We presented a qualitative analysis of the findings, including stakeholders, challenges, standards, techniques, and validations employed in these primary studies. Our main results include the following: (1) Service integrator is the key stakeholder that largely impacts how regression testing is performed. (2) Challenges of cost and autonomy issues have been studied heavily. However, more emphasis should be put on the other challenges, such as test timing, dynamics, privacy, quota constraints, and concurrency issues. (3) Orchestration-based services have been largely studied, while little attention has been paid to either choreography-based services or semantic-based services. (4) An appreciable amount of web service regression testing techniques have been proposed, including 48 test case prioritization techniques, 10 test selection techniques, two test suite minimization techniques, and another collaborative technique. (5) Many regression test techniques have not been theoretically proven or experimentally analyzed, which limits their application in large-scale systems. We believe that our survey has identified gaps in current research work and reveals new insights for the future work.
Tracheoesophageal Speech. A Multidimensional Assessment of Voice Quality

In this chapter the results of the perceptual evaluations of the voice quality in tracheoesophageal speech are presented. The perceptual ratings were obtained from both naive and trained raters after listening to a read-aloud text. The naive listeners were used in order to gain insight in the normal daily communicative function of tracheoesophageal speech. The trained expert raters were used in order to gain insight in the opinion of the professionals working with laryngectomized patients and to obtain more specific information on the perceptual characteristics of tracheoesophageal voice. The perceptual evaluations were performed by means of 19 semantic bipolar 7-point scales for the naive raters, and 20 semantic bipolar 7-point scales for the trained raters. The same types of scales were used for both the naive and the trained raters. Apart from these 20 perceptual scales, the trained raters were also asked to judge the overall voice quality as good, reasonable, or poor. Results showed that naive raters judged the tracheoesophageal voice as very deviant. The trained raters gave higher ranks and listened more analytically than the naive raters did. It can be concluded that the ranks given by the trained experts are reliable and suitable to be used as a standard against which acoustical analyses, neoglottic characteristics investigated by means of videofluoroscopy and digital high-speed imaging, and sociodemographic and clinical factors can be evaluated.
Analysis of production decisions under budget limitations

The issue of when to intervene in the evolution of a production system is the focus of this study. The interventions take the form of changes to production depending on the current value of the products. Each change incurs a charge representing costs such as physical expansion, overtime or new hiring when production increases and costs such as severance or shut down when production decreases. The goal is to maximize the expected return subject to these intervention costs over at most a finite number of intervention cycles. This paper determines for a large class of problems an explicit formula for the value function and a set of optimal times at which to increase and to decrease production. The optimization is over a very general class of stopping times and proves that an optimal set of times in this general class is given as the hitting times of various levels, depending on the number of remaining interventions. These optimal hitting levels are characterized as a maximizing point for a high-dimensional nonlinear function and can be efficiently and iteratively determined as the solutions of successive 1D nonlinear maximization problems. The solution method is illustrated on some examples, including mean-reverting processes.
Sensor-field modeling based on in-network data prediction: an efficient strategy for answering complex queries in wireless sensor networks

In this work, we present a mechanism, denoted ADAGA -- P, for managing sensor-field regression models. ADAGA -- P implements an in-network data prediction mechanism in order to only transmit data which are novelties for a regression model applied by ADAGA -- P. Experiments using real data have been executed to validate our approach. The results show that ADAGA -- P is quite efficient regarding communication cost and the number of executed float-point operations. In fact, the energy consumption rate to run ADAGA -- P is 15 times lower than the energy consumed by kernel distributed regression for an RMSE difference of 0.003.
Coordinated regulation of shrinkage-induced Na/H exchange and swelling- induced [K-Cl] cotransport in dog red cells. Further evidence from activation kinetics and phosphatase inhibition

Hypertonic shrinkage of dog red cells caused rapid activation of Na/H exchange and rapid deactivation of [K-Cl] cotransport. Hypotonic swelling caused delayed deactivation of Na/H exchange and delayed activation of [K-Cl] cotransport. Okadaic acid stimulated shrinkage- induced Na/H exchange and inhibited swelling-induced [K-Cl] cotransport. The data are compatible with the kinetic model of Jennings and Al-Rohil (1990. J. Gen. Physiol. 95:1021-1040) for volume regulation of [K-Cl] cotransport in rabbit red cells and suggest that in dog red cells Na/H exchange and [K-Cl] cotransport are controlled by a common regulatory system. The proposal of Jennings and Schulz (1991. J. Gen. Physiol. 96:799-817) that activation/deactivation of volume- sensitive transport involves phosphorylation/dephosphorylation of a regulatory protein is supported by these observations.
Rotating virtual objects with real handles

Times for virtual object rotations reported in the literature are of the order of 10 seconds or more and this is far longer than it takes to manually orient a “real” object, such as a cup. This is a report of a series of experiments designed to investigate the reasons for this difference and to help design interfaces for object manipulation. The results suggest that two major factors are important. Having the hand physically in the same location as the virtual object being manipulated is one. The other is based on whether the object is being rotatted to a new, randomly determined orientation, or is always rotated to the same position. Making the object held in the hand have the same physical shape as the object being visually manipulated was not found to be a significant factor. The results are discussed in the context of interactive virtual environments.
Meta-Evolutionary Algorithms and recombination operators for satisfiability solving in fuzzy logics

In this work, we develop a new paradigm, called Meta-Evolutionary Algorithms, motivated by the challenging, continuous problems encountered in the domain of satisfiability in fuzzy logics (SAT∞). In Meta-Evolutionary Algorithms, the individuals in a population are optimization algorithms themselves. Mutation at the meta-population level is handled by performing an optimization step in each optimization algorithm, and recombination at the meta-population level is handled by exchanging information between different algorithms. We analyse different recombination operators and empirically show that simple Meta-Evolutionary Algorithms are able to outperform CMA-ES on a set of SAT∞ benchmark problems.