Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Game Theoretic Analysis of the Adversarial Retrieval Setting

The main goal of search engines is ad hoc retrieval: ranking documents in a corpus by their relevance to the information need expressed by a query. The Probability Ranking Principle (PRP) --- ranking the documents by their relevance probabilities --- is the theoretical foundation of most existing ad hoc document retrieval methods. A key observation that motivates our work is that the PRP does not account for potential post-ranking effects; specifically, changes to documents that result from a given ranking. Yet, in adversarial retrieval settings such as the Web, authors may consistently try to promote their documents in rankings by changing them. We prove that, indeed, the PRP can be sub-optimal in adversarial retrieval settings. We do so by presenting a novel game theoretic analysis of the adversarial setting. The analysis is performed for different types of documents (single-topic and multi-topic) and is based on different assumptions about the writing qualities of documents' authors. We show that in some cases, introducing randomization into the document ranking function yields an overall user utility that transcends that of applying the PRP.
Grip strength and bone mineral density in older women

Most previous literature on muscle strength and bone density examined the association between specific muscle groups and adjacent bones. This study examined the association of grip strength with bone density at distant sites, such as the spine and hip, as well as at the wrist and radius. Subjects were 649 postmenopausal women aged 65 years and older. Bone mineral density was measured at the ultradistal wrist and midshaft radius in the nondominant arm using single‐photon absorptiometry and at the lumbar spine and hip using dual‐energy x‐ray absorptiometry. Grip strength was measured in both the dominant and nondominant hands using a dynamometer. Overweight women had significantly stronger grip strength in both hands (p < 0.01 for dominant hand, p < 0.05 for nondominant hand grip strengths). Exercisers had significantly stronger grip strength in the nondominant hand than nonexercisers (p < 0.05). Women reporting arthritis had significantly weaker grip strength in both hands than women not reporting arthritis (p < 0.001). There were no significant differences in grip strength by estrogen use, cigarette smoking, or thiazide use. Regression analyses adjusted for age, obesity, exercise, cigarette smoking, thiazide use, arthritis, years postmenopausal, and estrogen use indicated significant positive associations between grip strength and bone density at all sites. Regression analyses stratified by exercise indicated that only women who exercised had significant associations of grip strength with bone mineral density (all p < 0.05). In this cohort of older women, grip strength was an independent indicator of general bone density. These results are compatible with the thesis that grip strength is a marker for overall fragility and general health and for the adequacy of skeletal loading exercise.
Quality in face and iris research ensemble (Q-FIRE)

Identification of individuals using biometric information has found great success in many security and law enforcement applications. Up until the present time, most research in the field has been focused on ideal conditions and most available databases are constructed in these ideal conditions. There has been a growing interest in the perfection of these technologies at a distance and in less than ideal conditions, i.e. low lighting, out-of-focus blur, off angles, etc. This paper presents a dataset consisting of face and iris videos obtained at distances of 5 to 25 feet and in conditions of varying quality. The purpose of this database is to set a standard for quality measurement in face and iris data and to provide a means for analyzing biométrie systems in less than ideal conditions. The structure of the dataset as well as a quantified metric for quality measurement based on a 25 subject subset of the dataset is presented.
Wall thickness uniformity in plastic pipes : computer simulations of the effectiveness of die mandrel offsetting and pipe rotation in combatting sag

A computer simulation, based on a thermoviscous model of cooling and gravity induced flow (sag) in plastic pipe manufacture, which has previously been described in detail and validated against experimental results, is here used to investigate the effectiveness of die mandrel offsetting and pipe rotation in combatting sag. SDRII MDPE pipes of 315, 560, 800, and 1000 mm diameter are considered. Results are examined in terms of a waste percentage, representing polymer used in excess of that corresponding to the minimum wall thickness. With a concentric mandrel, waste is predicted to be 4.3, 14.0, 17.9, and 18.7% for the four sizes, respectively. Optimum offsets and minimum waste percentages are found to be : 2 mm, 0.8% ; 15 mm, 4.6% ; 42 m, 9.8% ; 63 mm, 12.7%, respectively. For the largest pipe this corresponds to a wall thickness variation of 19.6 mm. Simulations of rotation of the 800-mm pipe show waste falling rapidly to 5% at 1 revolution/4800s, then a slower decrease, reaching 1.6% at 1 revolution/600s. The simulation is equally applicable to all grades and sizes of pipe, and provides a valuable computer aid for the design and operation of pipe cooling lines.
Preventive care of older urban American Indians and Alaska Natives in primary care

Little is known about prevention among elderly or urban American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) populations. We reviewed the medical records of 550 older urban AI/AN primary care patients to evaluate how frequently preventive measures were received. Adherence to guidelines was examined by a culturally appropriate (≥50 years) and standard age threshold (≥65 years), and by performance of preventive measures at any time (“ever”) and in the past year. Lifetime performance was inadequate for the many measures, including mammograms (56%), fecal occult blood testing (37%), audiometry (33%), visual acuity testing (50%), smoking cessation counseling (50%), and pneumococcal (22%) and influenza (49%) vaccinations. Performance of the measures was less frequent in the prior year, but did not differ by age threshold. Predictors of adherence included female gender, having insurance, and having more health problems and medications. Nonadherence infrequently resulted from patients’ failure to comply with recommendations. We conclude that use of most preventive services among elderly urban AI/ANs is suboptimal and should be improved.
Conservative modeling of shared resource contention for dependent tasks in partitioned multi-core systems

In a multi-core system with shared resources, the accesses to the shared resources from several cores may experience non-deterministic arbitration delay due to resource contention. Such delay should be considered conservatively in the worst case response time (WCRT) analysis of multi-core systems. Recently, several techniques have been proposed to account for arbitration delay for shared resource contention, based on the event stream modeling of resource access. While they all assume independent tasks, in this paper, we propose a conservative modeling technique of shared resource contention supporting dependent tasks. To find a tight upper bound of arbitration delay, we derive a shared resource demand bound for each processing element, considering the task dependency. The proposed technique is not specific to a particular WCRT analysis method, and supports both preemptive and non-preemptive scheduling policy. In the experiments, the significance of considering data dependency of parallel applications and the performance of our technique are verified by synthetic examples and a real-life example.
Current-controlled curled tip

There have been several cantilever-based actuators which provide movement in a direction transverse to the length of the cantilever. Here we describe a novel actuator which gives movement in the same direction as that of the length of the element. This is achieved by a curling up action of a bimetal like 'metal on silicon dioxide' straight element due to large differences in the coefficients of linear expansions and the high temperature which is obtained during the metal deposition.
Cosmic strings and superstrings

Cosmic strings are predicted by many field-theory models, and may have been formed at a symmetry-breaking transition early in the history of the universe, such as that associated with grand unification. They could have important cosmological effects. Scenarios suggested by fundamental string theory or M-theory, in particular the popular idea of brane inflation, also strongly suggest the appearance of similar structures. Here we review the reasons for postulating the existence of cosmic strings or superstrings, the various possible ways in which they might be detected observationally and the special features that might discriminate between ordinary cosmic strings and superstrings.
Investigation of effect of geometry design on the galvanic corrosion of Mg component

The effect of geometry design on the galvanic corrosion of magnesium component (AXJ530) coupled with aluminum block (A380) by steel bolt under salt spray conditions was investigated by experimental measurements and numerical model simulation. The experimental measurements were compared with the simulation from numerical models. Both experimental measurements and simulation results show that the geometry design has an important influence on the corrosion performance of magnesium component. It is also indicated that numerical models has the potential in predicting the galvanic corrosion in salt spray conditions.
Metabolomics as a Hypothesis-Generating Functional Genomics Tool for the Annotation of Arabidopsis thaliana Genes of “Unknown Function”

Metabolomics is the methodology that identifies and measures global pools of small molecules (of less than about 1,000 Da) of a biological sample, which are collectively called the metabolome. Metabolomics can therefore reveal the metabolic outcome of a genetic or environmental perturbation of a metabolic regulatory network, and thus provide insights into the structure and regulation of that network. Because of the chemical complexity of the metabolome and limitations associated with individual analytical platforms for determining the metabolome, it is currently difficult to capture the complete metabolome of an organism or tissue, which is in contrast to genomics and transcriptomics. This paper describes the analysis of Arabidopsis metabolomics data sets acquired by a consortium that includes five analytical laboratories, bioinformaticists, and biostatisticians, which aims to develop and validate metabolomics as a hypothesis-generating functional genomics tool. The consortium is determining the metabolomes of Arabidopsis T-DNA mutant stocks, grown in standardized controlled environment optimized to minimize environmental impacts on the metabolomes. Metabolomics data were generated with seven analytical platforms, and the combined data is being provided to the research community to formulate initial hypotheses about genes of unknown function (GUFs). A public database (www.PlantMetabolomics.org) has been developed to provide the scientific community with access to the data along with tools to allow for its interactive analysis. Exemplary datasets are discussed to validate the approach, which illustrate how initial hypotheses can be generated from the consortium-produced metabolomics data, integrated with prior knowledge to provide a testable hypothesis concerning the functionality of GUFs.
Genes Involved in Fatty Acid Partitioning and Binding, Lipolysis, Monocyte/Macrophage Recruitment, and Inflammation Are Overexpressed in the Human Fatty Liver of Insulin-Resistant Subjects

OBJECTIVE—The objective of this study is to quantitate expression of genes possibly contributing to insulin resistance and fat deposition in the human liver. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS—A total of 24 subjects who had varying amounts of histologically determined fat in the liver ranging from normal (n = 8) to steatosis due to a nonalcoholic fatty liver (NAFL) (n = 16) were studied. The mRNA concentrations of 21 candidate genes associated with fatty acid metabolism, inflammation, and insulin sensitivity were quantitated in liver biopsies using real-time PCR. In addition, the subjects were characterized with respect to body composition and circulating markers of insulin sensitivity. RESULTS—The following genes were significantly upregulated in NAFL: peroxisome proliferator–activated receptor (PPAR)γ2 (2.8-fold), the monocyte-attracting chemokine CCL2 (monocyte chemoattractant protein [MCP]-1, 1.8-fold), and four genes associated with fatty acid metabolism (acyl-CoA synthetase long-chain family member 4 [ACSL4] [2.8-fold], fatty acid binding protein [FABP]4 [3.9-fold], FABP5 [2.5-fold], and lipoprotein lipase [LPL] [3.6-fold]). PPARγ coactivator 1 (PGC1) was significantly lower in subjects with NAFL than in those without. Genes significantly associated with obesity included nine genes: plasminogen activator inhibitor 1, PPARγ, PPARδ, MCP-1, CCL3 (macrophage inflammatory protein [MIP]-1α), PPARγ2, carnitine palmitoyltransferase (CPT1A), FABP4, and FABP5. The following parameters were associated with liver fat independent of obesity: serum adiponectin, insulin, C-peptide, and HDL cholesterol concentrations and the mRNA concentrations of MCP-1, MIP-1α, ACSL4, FABP4, FABP5, and LPL. CONCLUSIONS—Genes involved in fatty acid partitioning and binding, lipolysis, and monocyte/macrophage recruitment and inflammation are overexpressed in the human fatty liver.
Distinct Profiles of α7 nAChR Positive Allosteric Modulation Revealed by Structurally Diverse Chemotypes

Selective modulation of α7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) is thought to regulate processes impaired in schizophrenia, Alzheimer's disease, and other dementias. One approach to target α7 nAChRs is by positive allosteric modulation. Structurally diverse compounds, including PNU-120596, 4-naphthalene-1-yl-3a,4,5,9b-tetrahydro-3-H-cyclopenta[c]quinoline-8-sulfonic acid amide (TQS), and 5-hydroxyindole (5-HI) have been identified as positive allosteric modulators (PAMs), but their receptor interactions and pharmacological profiles remain to be fully elucidated. In this study, we investigated interactions of these compounds at human α7 nAChRs, expressed in Xenopus laevis oocytes, along with genistein, a tyrosine kinase inhibitor. Genistein was found to function as a PAM. Two types of PAM profiles were observed. 5-HI and genistein predominantly affected the apparent peak current (type I) whereas PNU-120596 and TQS increased the apparent peak current and evoked a distinct weakly decaying current (type II). Concentration-responses to agonists [ACh, 3-[(3E)-3-[(2,4-dimethoxyphenyl)methylidene]-5,6-dihydro-4H-pyridin-2-yl]pyridine dihydrochloride (GTS-21), and N-[(3R)-1-azabicyclo[2.2. 2]oct-3-yl]-4-chlorobenzamide hydrochloride (PNU-282987)] were potentiated by both types, although type II PAMs had greater effects. When applied after α7 nAChRs were desensitized, type II, but not type I, PAMs could reactivate α7 currents. Both types of PAMs also increased the ACh-evoked α7 window currents, with type II PAMs generally showing larger potentiation. None of the PAMs tested increased nicotine-evoked Ca2+ transients in human embryonic kidney 293 cells expressing human α4β2 or α3β4 nAChRs, although some inhibition was noted for 5-HI, genistein, and TQS. In summary, our studies reveal two distinct α7 PAM profiles, which could offer unique opportunities for modulating α7 nAChRs in vivo and in the development of novel therapeutics for central nervous system indications.
Approximate processing of massive continuous quantile queries over high-speed data streams

Quantile computation has many applications including data mining and financial data analysis. It has been shown that an /spl epsi/-approximate summary can be maintained so that, given a quantile query (/spl phi/,/spl epsi/), the data item at rank /spl lceil//spl phi/N/spl rceil/ may be approximately obtained within the rank error precision /spl epsi/N over all N data items in a data stream or in a sliding window. However, scalable online processing of massive continuous quantile queries with different /spl phi/ and /spl epsi/ poses a new challenge because the summary is continuously updated with new arrivals of data items. In this paper, first we aim to dramatically reduce the number of distinct query results by grouping a set of different queries into a cluster so that they can be processed virtually as a single query while the precision requirements from users can be retained. Second, we aim to minimize the total query processing costs. Efficient algorithms are developed to minimize the total number of times for reprocessing clusters and to produce the minimum number of clusters, respectively. The techniques are extended to maintain near-optimal clustering when queries are registered and removed in an arbitrary fashion against whole data streams or sliding windows. In addition to theoretical analysis, our performance study indicates that the proposed techniques are indeed scalable with respect to the number of input queries as well as the number of items and the item arrival rate in a data stream.
Effects of dietary essential amino acid deficiencies on immunological variables in broiler chickens

Two experiments were conducted to determine the effects of essential amino acid deficiencies on several immunological variables in male broiler chickens. Essential amino acids were classified into five groups as follows: S-containing amino acids (SAA; methionine + cysteine), aromatic amino acids (AAA; phenylalanine + tyrosine), branched-chain amino acids (BCAA; isoleucine + leucine + valine), arginine plus lysine (Arg + Lys), and other essential amino acids (OEAA; glycine + serine + histidine + threonine + tryptophan). Chickens were fed ad libitum from 10 to 24 d of age on a control diet or amino-acid-deficient diets formulated to contain each amino acid group at 50 % and 16 % (Expt 1) at 50 % (Expt 2) of the recommended requirements (). Effects of feed consumption on immune responses were also considered by setting pair-feeding (Expt 1) or restricted-feeding (Expt 2) groups fed on the control diet. In Expt 1, changes in lymphoid organ weights varied with the type and degree of deficiency of amino acid groups, with BCAA deficiency markedly decreasing weights. The haemagglutinin titres against sheep erythrocytes did not change in any amino-acid-deficient chickens except that the titres were lower in chickens fed on the 50 %- and 16 %-BCAA diets as compared with their pair-fed counterparts. In Expt 2, the splenocyte proliferative response to concanavalin A was higher in the chickens fed on the BCAA- and Arg + Lys-deficient diets and lower in chickens fed on the SAA- and AAA-deficient diets than the control chickens, independent of feed consumption. These results suggest that the effects of specific amino acid deficiencies on immune responses cannot be generalized, and that BCAA have the greatest potential to modulate immune responses among the amino acids in chickens.
An approach to dry friction and wear for small volumes

Abstract Fracture and contact mechanics can synergistically contribute to the fundamental understanding essential to scaling of small volumes. Consider two levels of scale in terms of contact area: (i) light wear of tribological contacts at the nanometre level; (ii) delamination of hard protective coatings or ductile metal films at the micrometre level. We first briefly address two phenomena—one showing that oxide film fracture is responsible for yield excursions during nanoindentation and the other showing that analysis of acoustic events can sort out some of the discontinuous events of yield and fracture on the nanometre scale. These concern mostly the fracture process concomitant with a localized plasticity event. However, they do not address the fundamental aspects of what controls the size of the yield event or what controls the size of a localized fracture event, for example delamination. We propose that one way of understanding these two levels of scale and their interconnectivity is through a volume-surface area concept. At present, we show two levels of understanding for contacts to single-crystal surfaces and how these provide insight and potentially quantification of light wear contact.
On the power and limitation of strictness analysis based on abstract interpretation

Strictness analysis based on abstract interpretation is an important technique for optimization of lazy functional languages. It is well known that all strictness analysis methods are incomplete, i.e., fail to report some strictness properties. In this paper, we provide the first precise and formal characterization of the loss of information that leads to this incompleteness. Specifically, we establish the following characterization theorem for Mycroft’s strictness analysis method and its natural generalization to non-flat domains called ee-analysis: Mycroft’s method will deduce a strictness property for program P iff the property is independent of any constant appearing in any evaluation of P. To prove this, we specify a small set of equations called E-axioms, that capture the information loss in Mycroft’s method and develop a new proof technique called E-rewriting. E-rewriting extends the standard notion of rewriting to permit the use of reductions using E-axioms interspersed with standard reduction steps. E-axioms are a syntactic characterization of information loss and Erewriting provides an algorithm independent proof technique for characterizing the power of strictness analysis methods. It can be used to answer questions on completeness and incompleteness of Mycroft’s method on certain natural classes of programs. Finally, the techniques developed in this paper provide a generzd principle for establishing similar results for other strictness analysis methods based on abstract interpretation. As a demonstration of the generality of our technique, we give a characterization theorem for another variation of Mycroft’s method called old-analysis. *Partially supported by NSF grants CCR-8706973, 8805734 Permission to copy without fee all or part of this material is granted provided that the copies are not made or distributed for direct commercial advantage, the ACM copyright notice and the title of the publication and ha date appear, and notice is given that copying is by permission of the Association for Computing Machinery. To copy otherwise , or to republish, requires a fee and/or specific permission. @ 1990 ACM 089791-419-8/90/0012/0037 $1.50 37