Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dynamics of Generalization in Linear Perceptrons

We study the evolution of the generalization ability of a simple linear perceptron with N inputs which learns to imitate a "teacher perceptron". The system is trained on p = αN binary example inputs and the generalization ability measured by testing for agreement with the teacher on all 2N possible binary input patterns. The dynamics may be solved analytically and exhibits a phase transition from imperfect to perfect generalization at α = 1. Except at this point the generalization ability approaches its asymptotic value exponentially, with critical slowing down near the transition; the relaxation time is ∞ (1 - √α)-2. Right at the critical point, the approach to perfect generalization follows a power law ∞ t-1/2. In the presence of noise, the generalization ability is degraded by an amount ∞ (√α - 1)-1 just above α = 1.
Assessment of Intestinal Absorption of Vitexin-2″-O-Rhamnoside in Hawthorn Leaves Flavonoids in Rat Using In Situ and In Vitro Absorption Models

The purpose of this study was to investigate the absorption mechanism of vitexin-2″-O-rhamnoside, the index component in hawthorn leaves flavonoids (HLF) in the rat intestine, using two different absorption models, the in situ single-pass intestinal perfusion and the in vitro everted gut sac model. The effective permeability coefficients (Peff) in the in situ single-pass intestinal perfusion experiments and the apparent permeability coefficients (Papp) in the in vitro everted gut sac experiments were calculated. Furthermore, the influences of the P-glycoprotein inhibitors, verapamil and digoxin, on the intestinal absorption of vitexin-2″-O- rhamnoside in HLF were studied using the above-mentioned two models. Results showed that there were no significant differences in the absorption of vitexin-2″-O-rhamnoside in HLF in four segments of the rat intestine, duodenum, jejunum, ileum, and colon, and at different concentrations of HLF ranging from 0.05 mg/ml to 0.5 mg/ml (P > 0.05). The Peff values for vitexin-2″-O-rhamnoside in the rat jejunal perfusion at the concentration of 0.05, 0.1, 0.25, and 0.5 mg/ml were (2.48 ± 0.33) × 10−5; (2.23 ± 0.67) × 10−5; (2.18 ± 0.48) × 10−5; and (2.25 ± 0.17) × 10−5 cm/s, respectively. But there was significant difference between absence and presence of verapamil or digoxin (P < 0.05). Peff and Papp values of vitexin-2″-O-rhamnoside in HLF were increased in the presence of verapamil or digoxin. In conclusion, vitexin-2″-O-rhamnoside can be classified into high permeability class drug according to the biopharmaceutical classification system. Passive diffusion dominates the absorptive transport behavior of vitexin-2″-O-rhamnoside in HLF. The absorption and secretion are mediated by the efflux transport system, P-gp. The absorption of vitexin-2″-O-rhamnoside in HLF can be enhanced administered together with P-gp inhibitors.
Hyperpolarized C13 MRS surface coil: Design and signal-to-noise ratio estimation.

PURPOSE Hyperpolarized carbon-13 magnetic resonance spectroscopy is a novel and powerful tool for exploring the metabolic state of tissue, but a number of technological problems still limit this technology and need innovative solutions. In particular, the low molar concentration of derivate metabolites give rise to low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), which makes the design and development of dedicated RF coils a task of fundamental importance. In this article, the authors describe the simulation and the design of a dedicatedC13 surface coil for cardiac metabolism assessment in pig models. METHODS A SNR model for a circular loop is presented and applied to the design of aC13 coil which guarantees the desired field-of-view and provides high SNR with a good penetration in deep sample regions. The coil resistance was calculated from Ohm's law and the magnetic field pattern was calculated using Biot-Savart law, while the sample induced resistance was calculated using a numerical finite-difference time-domain algorithm. Successively, a prototype of the coil was built and tested on the workbench and by acquisition of MR data. RESULTS The comparison of SNR-vs-depth profiles between the theoretical SNR model and the experimental SNR extracted from the phantom chemical shift image (CSI) showed the accuracy of the authors' model. Moreover, the authors demonstrated the use of the coil for the acquisition of a CSI of a hyperpolarized[1-C13] pyruvate phantom. CONCLUSIONS The results demonstrated the design trade-offs to successfully design a dedicated coil for cardiac imaging in the pig with hyperpolarizedC13 by developing a SNR model which allows the prediction of the coil performance. This approach can be employed for deriving SNR formulations for coil with more complex geometries.
Quantitative Analysis of UML Statechart Models of Dependable Systems

The paper introduces a method which allows quantitative dependability analysis of systems modeled by using the Unified Modeling Language (UML) statechart diagrams. The analysis is performed by transforming the UML model to stochastic reward nets (SRNs). A large subset of statechart model elements is supported including event processing, state hierarchy and transition priorities. The transformation is presented by a set of SRN patterns. Performance-related measures can be directly derived using SRN tools, while dependability analysis requires explicit modeling of erroneous states and faulty behavior.
Methylmercury exposure and developmental neurotoxicity

We are concerned that certain aspects of the systematic review on methylmercury (MeHg) exposure from seafood consumption and the risk of developmental neurotoxicity published in the Bulletin of World Health Organization could be misinterpreted.1 Specifically, the review does not address the issue of whether naturally-occurring, background levels of prenatal exposure to MeHg from maternal fish consumption causes adverse neurodevelopmental effects in children. In our opinion, the title suggests that the article addresses this key issue, but the search terms used to review the literature and the text of the review itself clearly indicate that the focus is limited to assessing MeHg levels in infants, pregnant women, mothers and women without children. The authors base their conclusions about developmental neurotoxicity on whether or not exposures exceed the proposed permissible tolerable weekly intake (PTWI) of 1.6 μg of MeHg per kg body weight, established by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2003. This PTWI was derived from risk assessment procedures using epidemiological data and is used in risk characterization. It includes a safety factor to account for uncertainty in the exposure-response data and pharmacokinetics of MeHg. Our concern is that the readers might assume that this article reviews the evidence on which reference values were based. In fact, the authors review the evidence for exposure above the reference value. The distinction is important since fish is not only the primary human source of MeHg exposure, but it is also an essential part of daily nutrition for over 2.9 billion people worldwide, most of whom reside in developing countries with limited nutritional and health resources.2
Nursing Roles and Functions in the Acute and Subacute Rehabilitation of Patients With Stroke: Going All In for the Patient

ABSTRACT Background: The description of nursing roles and functions in rehabilitation of patients with stroke remains sparse. Aim: The aim of this study was to describe the experienced roles and functions of nurses during in-hospital rehabilitation of patients with stroke. Methods: Within a phenomenological hermeneutic approach, 19 nurses working with in-hospital rehabilitation of patients with stroke participated in three focus group interviews during 2013. Findings: The nurses’ experiences were described in two themes: (a) the nurse’s role and function in relation to the patient’s needs 24/7 and (b) the nurse’s role and function in the interdisciplinary team. Getting to know the patient as a person was essential to the nurses to care for the patient’s basic needs; these must come first working with rehabilitation and always include the relatives. Recognition of the team members’ individual skills with focus on the patient’s needs must be the center of attention. Conclusion: An interdisciplinary rehabilitation program actively needs to include the patient by integrating the patient’s perspective in the goals as well as in daily rehabilitation. In the team, nurses had the role of coordinator and the patient’s voice.
The effect of tooth shape on the breakdown of insects

This study investigates the effect of tooth sharpness on the force and energy necessary for a tooth to divide foods of differing physical properties. The material properties of foods are likely to affect the shape that is best to divide them. In order to test the effect of sharpness on a tooth's proficiency in dividing insect prey, experiments involving penetrating and driving through insect prey of differing physical properties were carried out using specially designed punches that varied in tip- and cusp-sharpness. A refinement of tooth measurements which are relevant to their effectiveness in penetrating and driving through food is expounded. ‘Tip-sharpness’ is defined as the radius of curvature at the tip of a cusp. ‘Cusp-sharpness’ is defined as the volume or surface area of the tooth per unit distance from the tip of a cusp. The experiments show that tooth shape is important in the force and energy needed for teeth to penetrate and drive through insects. Also, the scale of teeth is important – teeth of the same shape but different size vary in their effectiveness to divide foods.
Talker differences in clear and conversational speech: acoustic characteristics of vowels.

PURPOSE To determine the specific acoustic changes that underlie improved vowel intelligibility in clear speech. METHOD Seven acoustic metrics were measured for conversational and clear vowels produced by 12 talkers-6 who previously were found (S. H. Ferguson, 2004) to produce a large clear speech vowel intelligibility effect for listeners with normal hearing identifying vowels in background noise (the big benefit talkers), and 6 who produced no clear speech vowel intelligibility benefit (the no benefit talkers). RESULTS For vowel duration and for certain measures of the overall acoustic vowel space, the change from conversational to clear speech was significantly greater for big benefit talkers than for no benefit talkers. For measures of formant dynamics, in contrast, the clear speech effect was similar for the 2 groups. CONCLUSION These results suggest that acoustic vowel space expansion and large vowel duration increases improve vowel intelligibility. In contrast, changing the dynamic characteristics of vowels seems not to contribute to improved clear speech vowel intelligibility. However, talker variability suggested that improved vowel intelligibility can be achieved using a variety of clear speech strategies, including some apparently not measured here.
Definition, Detection, and Recovery of Single-Page Failures, a Fourth Class of Database Failures

The three traditional failure classes are system, media, and transaction failures. Sometimes, however, modern storage exhibits failures that differ from all of those. In order to capture and describe such cases, single-page failures are introduced as a fourth failure class. This class encompasses all failures to read a data page correctly and with plausible contents despite all correction attempts in lower system levels.Efficient recovery seems to require a new data structure called the page recovery index. Its transactional maintenance can be accomplished writing the same number of log records as today's efficient implementations of logging and recovery. Detection and recovery of a single-page failure can be sufficiently fast that the affected data access is merely delayed, without the need to abort the transaction.
Non-inductive variable reactor design and computer simulation of rectifier type superconducting fault current limiter

A rectifier type superconducting fault current limiter with noninductive reactor has been proposed by the authors. The concept behind this SFCL is that the high impedance generated during superconducting to normal state of the trigger coil limits the fault current. In the hybrid bridge circuit of the SFCL, two superconducting coils: a trigger coil and a limiting coil are connected in anti-parallel. Both the coils are magnetically coupled with each other and could have the same value of self inductance so that they can share the line current equally. At fault time when the trigger coil current reaches a certain level, the trigger coil changes from superconducting state to normal state. This super to normal transition of the trigger coil changes the current ratio of the coils and therefore the flux inside the reactor is no longer zero. So, the equivalent impedance of both the coils is increased and limits the fault current. We have carried out computer simulation using PSCAD/EMTDC and observed the results. Both the simulation and preliminary experiment shows good results. The advantage of using hybrid bridge circuit is that the SFCL can also be used as circuit breaker.
T2 Versus T2* MRI Mapping in the Knee Articular Cartilage at 1.5 Tesla and 3 Tesla

Recently, several studies have shown that T2 and T2* MRI parametric mapping are sensitive to structural and biochemical changes in the extracellular cartilage matrix. The objective of this study was to assess, compare and correlate quantitative T2 and T2* relaxation time of the knee articular cartilage at 1.5 Tesla (T) and 3 Tesla. Thirty-eight symptomatic patients with knee articular cartilage disease and forty-one asymptomatic volunteers were prospectively included in the study. Knee MRI examination was performed by 3 T and 1.5 T scanner. Multi-Echo Spin-Echo (MESE) and Multi-Echo Gradient Echo (MEGE) sequences were used to determine T2* and T2 maps. T2 and T2* relaxation times values were measured in three Regions Of Itnterest (ROI) on knee articular cartilage using mono-exponential analysis fitting algorithm. There was a significant difference between volunteers and patients for T2 and T2* relaxation times values at 1.5 T and 3 T (p<0.05). The comparison between magnetic fields has shown lower T2 and T2* relaxation times at 3 T compared to 1.5 T. Pearson’s correlation analysis between T2 and T2* at 1.5T revealed a significant positive correlation for volunteers (r=0.245, p = 0.01) and a significant negative correlation for patients (0.016, p = 0.018). At 3T, there was a significant positive correlation between T2 and T2* for volunteers (r=0.076) and patients (r=0.165). The correlation of T2 and T2* between 1.5 T and 3T showed a significant negative correlation (r=-0.087, p = 0.01). T2* mapping may be used for the diagnosis of knee articular cartilage osteoarthritis with the advantage of relatively short scanning time, higher SNR, shorter echo times and the non-effect of the stimulated echo compared to T2 mapping.
Exploratory Relation Extraction in Large Text Corpora

In this paper, we propose and demonstrate Exploratory Relation Extraction (ERE), a novel approach to identifying and extracting relations from large text corpora based on user-driven and data-guided incremental exploration. We draw upon ideas from the information seeking paradigm of Exploratory Search (ES) to enable an exploration process in which users begin with a vaguely defined information need and progressively sharpen their definition of extraction tasks as they identify relations of interest in the underlying data. This process extends the application of Relation Extraction to use cases characterized by imprecise information needs and uncertainty regarding the information content of available data. We present an interactive workflow that allows users to build extractors based on entity types and human-readable extraction patterns derived from subtrees in dependency trees. In order to evaluate the viability of our approach on large text corpora, we conduct experiments on a dataset of over 160 million sentences with mentions of over 6 million FREEBASE entities extracted from the CLUEWEB09 corpus. Our experiments indicate that even non-expert users can intuitively use our approach to identify relations and create high precision extractors with minimal effort.
Proceedings of the First Workshop on Information Retrieval in Advertising

Today’s killer applications on the internet – search, email, social networks - are all constrained by their underlying data stores which have limited understanding of meaning in content, its social context, or user actions and intentions. There is an opportunity to re-architect this information into an intelligent platform of connected data. This platform will create structured knowledge bringing together the content graph, the social graph and user activity over time. In this talk, we will present the vision of a web transformed using such an intelligent, connected data store. We envision that this platform can only be created by massive web ecosystem – developers using the integrated knowledge to create new compelling applications, which will bring more users to the system. As more data is added upstream, we imagine that this platform will add more intelligence downstream creating a virtuous cycle, thus building the ultimate collaborative knowledge web. We will discuss how this platform can be a disruptive powerhouse, spurring the creation of a series of new killer applications, including the next-generation search and advertising engines.
Molecular dissection of the humoral immune response to individual varicella-zoster viral proteins during chickenpox, quiescence, reinfection, and reactivation.

The sequence of antibody formation to molecularly defined varicella-zoster virus (VZV) proteins was examined during the course of chickenpox, quiescence, and subsequent VZV reactivation and reinfection. The first antibodies produced after primary VZV infection were to two virion envelope glycoproteins, gp66 and gp118 , and the nucleocapsid protein p155 . Within one to two months, antibodies to a greater array of viral proteins and glycoproteins were observed. Antibodies to the immunodominant viral proteins ( gp66 , gp118 , and p155 ) persisted for years after varicella and were, therefore, excellent markers of prior VZV infection. Subclinical VZV reinfection also was associated with transient rises in levels of the same polypeptide-specific antibodies as during primary disease. The immunoglobulin response to zoster appeared more rapidly than that to chickenpox or reinfection and was to the broadest complement of viral proteins, including the distinctive VZV polypeptide p32. These radioimmune-precipitation profiles could be subdivided into six different patterns characteristic of the following clinical states: acute- and convalescent-phase chickenpox, quiescence, acute- and convalescent-phase zoster, and postzoster quiescence.
Reconsidering off-task: a comparative study of PDA-mediated activities in four classrooms

Mobile technology is ubiquitous and diverse and permeates many aspects of daily life at home, during leisure activities, and in public spaces. The study presented here is of two sixth grade classes in Michigan, USA and two seventh grade classes in Norway. The students and the teachers in these four classrooms were equipped with mobile technologies (PDAs). We found that the students’ PDA-mediated actions in the classroom were not exclusively used for the tasks and activities set by the teacher, but that the students also used the PDAs on their own initiative – so-called ‘off-task’ activities. We analyze the findings by reconsidering off-task activities from a sociocultural perspective.
Prioritized Optimal Channel Allocation Schemes for Multi-Channel Vehicular Networks

The IEEE 1609.4 standard has been proposed to provide multi-channel operations in wireless access for vehicular environments (WAVE), where all channels are periodically synchronized into control and service intervals. Communication device in each vehicle will stay at the control channel for negotiation and contention during the control interval, and thereafter switch to one of the service channels for data transmission in the service interval. In this paper, based on the concept of cognitive radio (CR), the vehicles are categorized into primary providers (PPs) that intend to transmit safety-related messages and secondary providers (SPs) with non-safety information to be delivered. The prioritized optimal channel allocation (POCA) approaches are proposed to improve channel utilization of IEEE 1609.4 standard for multi-channel vehicular networks. Prioritized channel access is analyzed in the POCA schemes in order to increase the transmission opportunity of PPs. Moreover, depending on whether the CR network is distributed or centralized, the optimal channel-hopping sequence and optimal channel allocation is assigned for SPs based on dynamic programming and linear programming technique, respectively. These schemes are designed to consider optimal load balance between both channel availability and channel utilization within the throughput constraints of PPs. With the adoption of proposed POCA schemes, simulation results show that maximum throughput of SPs can be achieved with guaranteed quality-of-service requirement for PPs.
Verifying clock schedules

Timing verification and optimization have been formulated as mathematical programming problems. The computational aspects of using such a formulation for verifying clock schedules are considered. The formulation can have multiple solutions, and these extraneous solutions can cause previously published algorithms to produce incorrect or misleading results. The conditions under which multiple solutions exist are characterized, and it is shown that even when the solution is unique, the running times of these previous algorithms can be unbounded. By contrast, a simple polynomial time algorithm for clock schedule verification is exhibited. The algorithm was implemented and used to check the timing of all the circuits in the ISCAS-89 benchmark suite. Observed running times are linear in circuit size and quite practical. <<ETX>>
Understanding the Racial and Ethnic Differences in Cost and Mortality Among Advanced Stage Prostate Cancer Patients (STROBE)

AbstractThe aims of the study were to understand the racial/ethnic differences in cost of care and mortality in Medicare elderly with advanced stage prostate cancer.This retrospective, observational study used SEER-Medicare data. Cohort consisted of 10,509 men aged 66 or older and diagnosed with advanced-stage prostate cancer between 2001and 2004. The cohort was followed retrospectively up to 2009. Racial/ethnic variation in cost was analyzed using 2 part-models and quantile regression. Step-wise GLM log-link and Cox regression was used to study the association between race/ethnicity and cost and mortality. Propensity score approach was used to minimize selection bias.Pattern of cost and mortality varies between racial/ethnic groups. Compared with other racial/ethnic groups, non-Hispanic white patients had higher unadjusted costs in treatment and follow-up phases. Quintile regression results indicated that in treatment phase, Hispanics had higher costs in the 95th quantile and non-Hispanic blacks had lower cost in the 95th quantile, compared with non-Hispanic white men. In terminal phase non-Hispanic blacks and Hispanics had higher cost. After controlling for treatment, all-cause and prostate cancer-specific mortality was not significant for non-Hispanic black men, compared with non-Hispanic white men. However, for Asians, mortality remained significantly lower compared with non-Hispanic white men.In conclusion, relationship between race/ethnicity, cost of care, and mortality is intricate. For non-Hispanic black men, disparity in mortality can be attributed to treatment differences. To reduce racial/ethnic disparities in prostate cancer care and outcomes, tailored policies to address underuse, overuse, and misuse of treatment and health services are necessary.