Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Variable preselection list length estimation using neural networks in a telephone speech hypothesis-verification system

At ICSLP’98 we presented some preliminary results on automatic preselection list length estimation using parametric and non-parametric techniques, for a flexible large and very large vocabulary, speaker independent, isolated-word hypothesis generation system in a telephone environment, with vocabularies of up to 10000 words. In the baseline system, the preselection module generates a fixed-length list of candidate words, to be given to the verification stage. Our idea is making this length variable, depending on any known-in-advance system parameter, to allow decreasing computational demands. In this paper we present a novel approach to preselection list length estimation. A neural network is used to give an initial estimate of the required length, which is further processed to obtain a final value. The key factor to evaluate different methods is calculating the average preselection list length (effort) while keeping the required error rate.
Rikkunshito for Preventing Chemotherapy-Induced Nausea and Vomiting in Lung Cancer Patients: Results from 2 Prospective, Randomized Phase 2 Trials

The herbal medicine rikkunshito has the potential to improve chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV) by stimulating ghrelin secretion. We aimed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of rikkunshito in preventing CINV for patients with lung cancer. Two separate prospective, randomized, phase II parallel design studies were conducted in patients with lung cancer. Fifty-eight and sixty-two patients scheduled to receive highly emetogenic chemotherapy (HEC) and moderately emetogenic chemotherapy (MEC), respectively, were randomized 1:1 to receive either standard antiemetic therapy in accordance with international guidelines (S group) or standard antiemetic therapy plus oral rikkunshito (R group). The primary endpoint was overall complete response (CR)—that is, no emesis and rescue medication in the first 120 h post-chemotherapy. Secondary endpoints included CR in the acute (0–24 h) and delayed (>24–120 h) phases and safety. Fifty-seven patients (S group, 28; R group, 29) receiving HEC and sixty-two patients (S group, 30; R group, 32) receiving MEC with comparable characteristics were evaluated. The CR rates were similar across the S and R groups for the HEC study in the overall (67.9% vs. 62.1%), acute (96.4% vs. 89.6%), and delayed (67.9% vs. 62.1%) phases, respectively, and for the MEC study in the overall (83.3% vs. 84.4%), acute (100% vs. 100%), and delayed (83.3% vs. 84.4%) phases, respectively. No severe adverse events were observed. Although rikkunshito was well tolerated, it did not demonstrate an additional preventative effect against CINV in lung cancer patients receiving HEC or MEC. Clinical Trial Registry Information: This study is registered with the University Hospital Medical Information Network (UMIN) Clinical Trial Registry1, identification numbers UMIN 000014239 and UMIN 000014240.
Quantitative proteomic analysis of rat liver for carcinogenicity prediction in a 28‐day repeated dose study

The potential of quantitative proteomic analysis to predict carcinogenicity of chemical compounds was investigated. Using 2D‐DIGE, we analyzed the effects of 63 chemical compounds on protein expression in the rat liver after 28 daily doses. Types of carcinogens were categorized depending on the species and organ specificity. The carcinogen characteristic proteins for each classification were identified by Welch's t value. For evaluation of the predictive concordance we used support vector machines. The rat hepatic carcinogen‐specific classification gave higher concordance than the other classification. The generalization performance was measured by leave‐one‐out cross‐validation. For genotoxic and non‐genotoxic compounds, a concordance of 79.3 and 76.5%, respectively, was obtained by the top 30 ranked proteins with Welch's t value. Furthermore, we found that the increase of the expression level of the stress response proteins as the common feature of poorly predicted chemical compounds in the leave‐20%‐out cross‐validation. Quantitative proteomics could be promising technique for developing biomarker panels that can be used for carcinogenicity prediction. The list of proteins identified in this study and the zoomed gel images of the top ranked proteins in statistic analysis are provided in Supplementary Data.
Possible models of hydrodynamic nonstationary phenomena in the processes of laser beam deep penetration into materials

Some possible qualitative models of nonstationary hydrodynamical phenomena in the melt surrounding the 'key-hole' in processes of laser beam or hole punching are presented. Different mechanisms of excitation of such nonstationarities are discussed: thermocapillary, evaporative and 'wind' instabilities of the surface of the melt; a 'shelf' instability of melt layers subjected to the action of intense laser irradiation. Estimations of the laser beam intensity value I and processing velocity v, representing the limits of different mechanisms of instabilities, are presented. The ranges of these two parameters are: I equals 104 - 107 W/cm2; v equals 10-1 - 102 cm/s. These estimations give some preliminary ideas concerning the choice of (I,v) range, which enables it to provide the stability and quality of deep penetration laser materials processing.
A Tableless Approach for High-Level Power Modeling Using Neural Networks

For complex digital circuits, building their power models is a popular approach to estimate their power consumption without detailed circuit information. In the literature, most of power models have to increase their complexity in order to meet the accuracy requirement. In this paper, we propose a tableless power model for complex circuits that uses neural networks to learn the relationship between power dissipation and input/ output signal statistics. The complexity of our neural power model has almost no rela- tionship with circuit size and number of inputs and outputs such that this power model can be kept very small even for complex circuits. Using such a simple structure, the neural power models can still have high accuracy because they can automatically con- sider the non-linear characteristic of power distributions and the effects of both state- dependent leakage power and transition-dependent switching power. The experimental results have shown the accuracy and efficiency of our approach on benchmark circuits and one practical design for different test sequences with wide range of input distribu- tions.
Purine biosynthesis in the domain Archaea without folates or modified folates

The established pathway for the last two steps in purine biosynthesis, the conversion of 5-aminoimidazole-4-carboxamide ribonucleotide (ZMP) to IMP, is known to utilize 10-formyl-tetrahydrofolate as the required C1 donor cofactor. The biosynthetic conversion of ZMP to IMP in three members of the domain Archaea, Methanobacterium thermoautotrophicum deltaH, M. thermoautotrophicum Marburg, and Sulfolobus solfataricus, however, has been demonstrated to occur with only formate and ATP serving as cofactors. Thus, in these archaea, which use methanopterin (MPT) or another modified folate in place of folate as the C1 carrier coenzyme, neither folate nor a modified folate serves as a cofactor for this biosynthetic transformation. It is concluded that archaea, which function with modified folates such as MPT, are able to carry out purine biosynthesis without the involvement of folates or modified folates.
Exploiting Data-Dependent Slack Using Dynamic Multi-VDD to Minimize Energy Consumption in Datapath Circuits

Modern microprocessors feature wide datapaths to support large on-chip memory and to enable computation on large-magnitude operands. With device scaling and rising clock frequencies, energy consumption and power density have become critical concerns, especially in datapath circuits. Datapaths are typically designed to optimize delay for worst-case operands. However, such operands rarely occur; the most frequently occurring input operand words (comprising long strings or subwords of 0's and 1's) present two major opportunities for energy optimization: (1) avoiding unnecessary computation involving such "special" input operand subword values and (2) exploiting timing slack in circuits (designed to accommodate worst-case inputs) arising due to such values. Previous techniques have exploited only one or the other of these factors, but not both simultaneously. Our new technique, dynamic multi-VDD, which is capable of dynamically switching between supply voltages in hardware submodules, simultaneously exploits both factors. Using the computation bypass framework and multiple supply voltages, we estimate data-dependent slack based on submodules that will be bypassed and exploit this slack by operating active submodules at a lower supply voltage. Our analysis of SPEC CPU2K benchmarks shows energy savings of up to 55% (and 46.53% on average) in functional units with minimal performance overheads
Prototype implementations of an architectural model for service-based flexible software

The need to change software easily to meet evolving business requirements is urgent, and a radical shift is required in the development of software, with a more demand-centric view leading to software which will be delivered as a service, within the framework of an open marketplace. We describe a service architecture and its rationale, in which components may be bound instantly, just at the time they are needed and then the binding may be disengaged. This allows highly flexible software services to be evolved in "Internet time". The paper focuses on early results: some of the aims have been demonstrated and amplified through two experimental implementations, enabling us to assess the strengths and weakness of the approach. It is concluded that some of the key underpinning concepts discovery and late binding - are viable and demonstrate the basic feasibility of the architecture.
Premature Ventricular beat classification using a dynamic Bayesian Network

This paper investigates the viability of using the dynamic Bayesian Network framework as a tool to classify heart beats in long term ECG records. A Decision Support System composed by two layers is considered. The first layer performs the segmentation of each heartbeat available in the ECG record, whereas the second layer classifies the heartbeat as Premature Ventricular Contraction (PVC) or Other. The use of both static and dynamic Bayesian Networks is evaluated through using the records available in the MIT-BIH database, and the results show that the Dynamic one performs better, obtaining 95% of sensitivity and 98% of positive predictivity, showing that to consider the temporal relation among events is a good strategy to increase the certainty about present events.
Study on universal cleaning solution in removing blended pesticide residues in Chinese cabbage

Food safety problems caused by pesticide residues in vegetables have become one of the top issues of public interest. In order to find an effective method of removing pesticide residues in vegetables, Chinese cabbages were processed as simulated pesticide pollution using three types of pesticides, namely; organophosphorus pesticide, organochlorine pesticide and pyrethroid pesticides. The polluted Chinese cabbages were washed using five types of cleaning solutions namely; glycyrrhiza-mung bean solution, garlic juice solution, soda-salt solution, tap water and washed-rice water. Gas chromatograghy (GC) was adopted to detect the contents of pesticide residues in the cabbages after washing them using five types of cleaning solutions. The results showed that soda-salt solution had the best removal effects on three types of pesticide residues among the five types of cleaning solutions used. And the washed- rice water had worse effects on three types of pesticide residues than tap water. Glycyrrhiza-mung bean solution had better removal effects on pyrethroid pesticide residues than tap water; and garlic juice solution had better removal effects on organochlorine pesticide residues than tap water. Although the different cleaning solutions had different removal effect on different types of pesticides; the pesticide removal efficiency of soda-salt solution was significantly higher than that of tap water; and soda-salt solution itself is a non-chemical substance and it’s easily prepared; therefore, the soda-salt solution can be used as a general-purpose cleaning solution to remove mixed pesticide residues in vegetables. Key words: pesticide residue; washed-rice water; glycyrrhiza-mung bean solution; garlic juice solution; soda-salt solution; cleaning solution.
Financial time series prediction using least squares support vector machines within the evidence framework

The Bayesian evidence framework is applied in this paper to least squares support vector machine (LS-SVM) regression in order to infer nonlinear models for predicting a financial time series and the related volatility. On the first level of inference, a statistical framework is related to the LS-SVM formulation which allows one to include the time-varying volatility of the market by an appropriate choice of several hyper-parameters. The hyper-parameters of the model are inferred on the second level of inference. The inferred hyper-parameters, related to the volatility, are used to construct a volatility model within the evidence framework. Model comparison is performed on the third level of inference in order to automatically tune the parameters of the kernel function and to select the relevant inputs. The LS-SVM formulation allows one to derive analytic expressions in the feature space and practical expressions are obtained in the dual space replacing the inner product by the related kernel function using Mercer's theorem. The one step ahead prediction performances obtained on the prediction of the weekly 90-day T-bill rate and the daily DAX30 closing prices show that significant out of sample sign predictions can be made with respect to the Pesaran-Timmerman test statistic.
Reasoning about Intended Actions

In most research on reasoning about actions and reasoning about narratives one either reasons about hypothetical execution of actions, or about actions that actually occurred. In this paper we develop a high level language that allows the expression of intended or planned action sequences. Unlike observed action occurrences, planned or intended action occurrences may not actually take place. But often when they do not take place, they persist, and happen at an opportune future time. We give the syntax and semantics for expressing such intentions. We then give a logic programming axiomatization and show the correspondence between the semantics of a description in the high level language, and the answer sets of the corresponding logic programming axiomatization. We illustrate the application of our formalism with respect to reasoning about trips.
Inflammatory bowel disease: a Canadian burden of illness review.

BACKGROUND Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) - Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) - significantly impact quality of life and account for substantial costs to the health care system and society. OBJECTIVE To conduct a comprehensive review and summary of the burden of IBD that encompasses the epidemiology, direct medical costs, indirect costs and humanistic impact of these diseases in Canada. METHODS A literature search focused on Canadian data sources. Analyses were applied to the current 2012 Canadian population. RESULTS There are approximately 233,000 Canadians living with IBD in 2012 (129,000 individuals with CD and 104,000 with UC), corresponding to a prevalence of 0.67%. Approximately 10,200 incident cases occur annually. IBD can be diagnosed at any age, with typical onset occurring in the second or third decade of life. There are approximately 5900 Canadian children <18 years of age with IBD. The economic costs of IBD are estimated to be $2.8 billion in 2012 (almost $12,000 per IBD patient). Direct medical costs exceed $1.2 billion per annum and are driven by cost of medications ($521 million), hospitalizations ($395 million) and physician visits ($132 million). Indirect costs (society and patient costs) total $1.6 billion and are dominated by long-term work losses of $979 million. Compared with the general population, the quality of life patients experience is low across all dimensions of health. CONCLUSIONS The present review documents a high burden of illness from IBD due to its high prevalence in Canada combined with high per-patient costs. Canada has among the highest prevalence and incidence rates of IBD in the world. Individuals with IBD face challenges in the current environment including lack of awareness of IBD as a chronic disease, late or inappropriate diagnosis, inequitable access to health care services and expensive medications, diminished employment prospects and limited community-based support.
The origin of the ionization of the diffuse ionized gas in spirals - II. Modelling the distribution of ionizing radiation in NGC 157

In this paper we make a quantitative study of the hypothesis that the diuse H emitted from the discs of spiral galaxies owes its origin to the ionizing photons escaping from H ii regions. The basis of the models is the assumption that a fraction of the Lyman continuum (Lyc) luminosity from the OB stars within each H ii region escapes from the region, leaking into the diuse gas. A basic input element of any such model is a position and luminosity catalogue in H of the H ii regions in the galaxy under examination, down to a low limiting luminosity, and we have previously produced a catalogue of this type for NGC 157. An initial family of models can then be generated in which the Lyc escaping from an H ii region is parametrized in terms of the observed H luminosity of the region and the escaping fluxes allowed through the diuse disc gas. These models can then be rened using a measured map of H i surface density to eect the down-conversion of the Lyc to H. For NGC 157 an H i map was available. Although its moderate angular resolution did limit the accuracy with which we could test our models, the predicted diuse H surface brightness distributions from our models were compared with the observed distributions showing that, in general terms, the hypothesis of density bounding for the H ii regions allows us to predict well the spatial distribution of the diuse ionized gas. In the model yielding the best t to the data, the regions of lower luminosity lose a constant fraction of their ionizing flux to their surroundings, while for H ii region luminosities above a specic transition value the ionizing escape fraction is a rising function of the H luminosity.
Renal Denervation for Hypertension Refractory to Renal Artery Stenting

Purpose To investigate the effect of renal denervation (RDN) on blood pressure and renal function in refractory hypertension after renal artery recanalization and optimal medical therapy. Methods Ten patients (6 women; mean age 70.0±5.1 years) with an office systolic blood pressure >160 mmHg despite taking ≥3 antihypertensive drugs and uni- or bilateral renal artery stenting were treated with RDN. Radiofrequency (RF) energy was delivered to the native segment of the artery keeping a 5-mm safe distance from the stented segments. Standardized office (OBP) and ambulatory (ABP) blood pressure measurements, medication, and renal assessment, including renal duplex ultrasound and renal function, were determined at baseline and on follow-up to 12 months. Results OBP (systolic/diastolic) at baseline was 190.0±20.4 / 84.2±10.1 mmHg. It decreased to 171.1±28.7* / 82.2±8.7, 165.5±28.4† / 76.1±7.4, and 158.3±14.2† / 75.5±9.5† mmHg (*p<0.001; †p<0.01) at 3, 6, and 12 months after RDN, respectively. Average ABP (systolic/diastolic) after 6 and 12 months decreased by −7.6‡ / −3.1 and −11.3‡ / −5.1‡ mmHg (‡p<0.05). There was no renal artery (re)stenosis, dissection, or aneurysm within 12 months. Creatinine, cystatin C, and glomerular filtration rate remained unchanged. Urine albumin excretion decreased in 4/10 patients. Renal resistive indices improved in native, but not in stented renal arteries within the follow-up period. Conclusion This proof-of-concept study demonstrates that RF-based RDN can be safely and effectively delivered in patients with resistant hypertension and previous renal artery stenting.
Porcine Ear Skin as a Biological Substrate for in vitro Testing of Sunscreen Performance

Purpose: The purpose of the study was to examine the use of skin from porcine ears as a biological substrate for in vitro testing of sunscreens in order to overcome the shortcomings of the presently used polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) plates that generally fail to yield a satisfactory correlation between sun protection factors (SPF) in vitro and in vivo. Procedures: Trypsin-separated stratum corneum and heat-separated epidermis provided UV-transparent substrates that were laid on quartz or on PMMA plates. These were used to determine surface roughness by chromatic confocal imaging and to measure SPF in vitro of 2 sunscreens by diffuse transmission spectroscopy. Results: The recovered skin layers showed a lower roughness than full-thickness skin but yielded SPF in vitro values that more accurately reflected the SPF determined in vivo by a validated procedure than PMMA plates, although the latter had in part roughness values identical to those of intact skin. Combination of skin tissue with a high roughness PMMA plate also provided accurate SPF in vitro. Conclusions: Besides roughness, the improved affinity of the sunscreen to the skin substrate compared to PMMA plates may explain the better in vitro prediction of SPF achieved with the use of a biological substrate. i 2014 S. Karger AG, Basel
Achieving independence in logarithmic number of rounds

Simultaneous broadcast [CGMAJ is a fundamental tool in designing secure protocols for fault tolerant distributed computing. A system that supports it enables n processes to globally commit to independently chosen values (a significantly harder task than mere agreement). It is also a basic building block in a recent %ompleteness” theorem of [GMWZ]. In this paper we present a new protocol for simultaneous broadcast. Building upon past work, we introduce a novel method of concurrently alternating and interleaving n executions of verifiable secret sharing protocols. This approach greatly improves the time complexity (number of communication rounds) of simultaneous broadcast. Previous protocols (combination of [CGMA] and [GMW]) q re uired the complete serialization of the ra verifiable secret sharings, resulting in n(n) communication rounds. Our protocol is constructive, and requires only log n + log log n serial executions of verifiable secret sharings. It preserves maximum fault tolerance (t < n/2 faults), and polynomial resource bounds (internal computation and communication bits). The same improvement appiies to the general simulation in [GMWX]. In light of its improved performance, it is significant that our our protocol has a fairly simple correctness proof. In the slippery business of distributed cryptographic protocols, simpler proofs are important. * Research supported by NSF Grant MCS81-21431 at Harvard University t Contact author. Email address: rabinQharvard.harvard. edu 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 its 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.