Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Similarity Measures on Preference Structures, Part II: Utility Functions

In previous work [8] we presented a casebased approach to eliciting and reasoning with preferences. A key issue in this approach is the definition of similarity between user preferences. We introduced the probabilistic distance as a measure of similarity on user preferences, and provided an algorithm to compute the distance between two partially specified value functions. This is for the case of decision making under certainty. In this paper we address the more challenging issue of computing the probabilistie distance in the ease of decision making under uncertainty. We present algorithms to compute the probabilistic distance between two completely or partially specified utility functions. We demonstrate the use of this algorithm with a medical data set of partially specified patient preferences, where none of the other existing distance measures appear definable. Using this data set, we also demonstrate that the case-based approach to preference elicitation is applicable in domains with uncertainty.
Characteristics of Earlier Versus Delayed Presentation of Very Late Drug‐Eluting Stent Thrombosis: An Optical Coherence Tomographic Study

Background The pathophysiology underlying very late drug‐eluting stent (DES) thrombosis is not sufficiently understood. Using optical coherence tomography, we investigated characteristics of very late stent thrombosis (VLST) according to different onset times. Methods and Results A total of 98 patients from 10 South Korean hospitals who underwent optical coherence tomography for evaluation of very late DES thrombosis were retrospectively included in analyses. VLST occurred at a median of 55.1 months after DES implantation. All patients were divided into 2 equal groups of earlier versus delayed presentation of VLST, according to median onset time. In total, 27 patients were treated with next‐generation DES and 71 with first‐generation DES. Based on optical coherence tomography findings at thrombotic sites, main VLST mechanisms were as follows, in descending order: neoatherosclerosis (34.7%), stent malapposition (33.7%), and uncovered struts without stent malapposition or evagination (24.5%). Compared with patients with earlier VLST, patients with delayed VLST had lower frequency of uncovered struts without stent malapposition or evagination (34.7% versus 14.3%, respectively; P=0.019). Conversely, the frequency of neoatherosclerosis was higher in patients with delayed versus earlier VLST (44.9% versus 24.5%, respectively; P=0.034). The frequency of stent malapposition was not different between patients with earlier and delayed VLST (34.7% versus 32.7%, respectively; P=0.831). The frequency of stent malapposition, evagination, and uncovered struts was still half of delayed VLST. Conclusions The pathological mechanisms of very late DES thrombosis changed over time. Delayed neointimal healing remained a substantial substrate for VLST, even long after DES implantation.
Time-series Paschen-β spectroscopy of SU Aurigae

We present time-series echelle spectra of the Paβ line of the T Tauri star SU Aur, observed over three consecutive nights. The line shows strong variability (� 10 per cent) over the velocity range (100 km s 1 , 420 km s 1 ) in the red broad absorption component, and weaker variability (� 2 per cent) over the velocity range ( 200 km s 1 , 0 km s 1 ) in the blue wing. The variability in the velocity range ( 200 km s 1 , 0 km s 1 ) is correlated with that in (200 km s 1 , 400 km s 1 ), and the variability in these velocity ranges anti-correl ates with that in (0 km s 1 , 100 km s 1 ). The mean spectrum from the second night shows a suggestion of a blue-shifted absorption component at about 150 km s 1 , similar to that found in the Hα and Hβ lines. We find the position of the subpeak in the red absorptio n component changes steadily with time, and its motion modulates on half the rotational period. We also find that the modulation of the line equivalent width is assoc iated with a half and a third of the rotational period, which is consistent with the surface Doppler images of SU Aur. Radiative transfer models of a rotationally modulated Paβ line, produced in the shock-heated magnetospheric accretion flow, are also presented. Models with a mag netic dipole offset reproduce the overall characteristics of the observed line variability, including the line equivalent width and the motion of the subpeak in the red absorption trough.
ORGANIC AQUACULTURE AS PROMISING TREND OF THE FISH INDUSTRY DEVELOPMENT (review)

The status of organic aquaculture which presents production (cultivation) aquatic species (fish, crustaceans, molluscs, sea plants etc.) and guarantees high quality and safety of the product in accordance with specific principles is evaluated on the base of a large amount of statistical data. The main limiting factor of the development of aquaculture, in particular organic aquaculture, in Russia and in the world is deficiency of feeds Feed production is con- strained by the deficit, expensiveness, and low ecological safety of fish meal which is a traditional raw material. The incentives of the development of aquaculture are changes in the culture of food consumption especially among young people, and willingness of the consumers to pay for the ecological safety of the products. The new formats of production based on technologies of sustainable, effective, integrated and organic production will contribute to the development of an aquaculture. Organic projects of aquaculture (S. Begleiter et al., 2015) become more attractive for investors. One of the first specialized venture capital funds, Aqua-Spark (Neth-erlands), has invested $7 mln in organic projects in Mozambique, Iceland and Norway since 2014. Global organic aquaculture production in 2015 is evaluated as 400 thousand tons that is about 0.54 % of the overall aquaculture production (without water plants) but twice as much as overall volume of Russian aquaculture production. Production of organic aquaculture is focused on rearing salmon (10 %), molluscs (5 %), carp (1 %), shrimp (1 %), trout (0.3 %), and stur-geons (0.3 %). Major part of organic products is produced in China (304 thousand tons, or 80 %) and in Europe (76 thousand tons, 19 %). Among manufacturers (about 1 thousand) those who are certified (200 in China, 465 in Europe) are of our particular interest. European manufacturers are certified according to the European (in fact, the international) standards, Chinese manufacturers are mainly certified according to national organic standard which is not identical to the international standards. Russian manufacturers will be certified with regard to the Russian and (or) inter- national certification systems. Since 2011, the pilot introduction of organic aquaculture in Russia occurs in the Astrakhan region at a small innovative enterprise Modern Fishery Complex “Shara-povskii” where aquaculture is combined with crop rotation. “Vitality Leaf. Organic” of Saint-Petersburg Ecological Union (the Russian system for voluntarily ecological certification of inter- national level) is acknowledged as congruent to European standards. To date, the development of organic aquaculture in Russia corresponds neither to natural potential of the country, nor to world average indicators of the industry. A way to solve the problem may lay in the development of feeds which will correspond to base requirements of organic standards.
An improved statistical downscaling scheme of Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission precipitation in the Heihe River basin, China

Estimating an accurate spatial distribution of precipitation with high resolution is necessary for hydrological and ecological applications, especially in data‐scarce and terrain‐complicated river basins. Satellite‐based precipitation data have been widely used to measure the spatial patterns of precipitation, but an improvement in accuracy and resolution is needed. In this article, a new statistical downscaling method is proposed to generate improved monthly precipitation fields at a higher spatial resolution of 1 km in Heihe River basin (HRB), China. The presented methods employed the geographical weighted regression (GWR) method to explore the non‐stationarity between precipitation and its factors, and used the high‐accuracy surface modelling method (HASM) to compensate for the errors produced in the GWR downscaling process. The GWR model was first established under five different spatial scales, and the optimal relation between precipitation derived from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) and its influencing factors was found for each month. The errors caused during the scale change were modified by performing HASM as a data merging framework, which considered both the local climate characteristics and meteorological observations. Results showed that the GWR downscaling method could not generate spatial patterns of precipitation similar to those of the original TRMM products. Although the performance of the GWR method after residual interpolations using Kriging, IDW, and tension Spline was improved, there existed significant variations in some regions, and the accuracy of those methods was still not satisfactory. In comparison with the other four models, GWR‐HASM showed better performance in reproducing the precipitation field at a high spatial resolution. Results indicate that the proposed downscaling method appears feasible for precipitation estimation in data‐scarce river basins.
Real-time control of Extremely Large Telescope mirror systems using on-line high performance computing

Many Big Physics applications require an enormous amount of computational power to solve large problems with demanding real-time constraints. Typically, a large number of data channels acquired in real-time feed mathematical routines that generate outputs that act on real-world processes. The number of sensor and actuator channels can be in the 100–100,000 range, and the mathematical routines can be as sophisticated as real-time solving of non-linear partial differential equations. The time constraints are often in the 1 ms range, or faster, per cycle.
Iterative joint source-channel decoding of variable-length codes using residual source redundancy

We present a novel symbol-based soft-input a posteriori probability (APP) decoder for packetized variable-length encoded source indexes transmitted over wireless channels where the residual redundancy after source encoding is exploited for error protection. In combination with a mean-square or maximum APP estimation of the reconstructed source data, the whole decoding process is close to optimal. Furthermore, solutions for the proposed APP decoder with reduced complexity are discussed and compared to the near-optimal solution. When, in addition, channel codes are employed for protecting the variable-length encoded data, an iterative source-channel decoder can be obtained in the same way as for serially concatenated codes, where the proposed APP source decoder then represents one of the two constituent decoders. The simulation results show that this iterative decoding technique leads to substantial error protection for variable-length encoded correlated source signals, especially, when they are transmitted over highly corrupted channels.
Omega 3 fatty acids on child growth, visual acuity and neurodevelopment

The aim of this review is to evaluate the effects of omega-3 long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (n-3 LCPUFA) supplementation in pregnant and lactating women and infants during postnatal life, on the visual acuity, psychomotor development, mental performance and growth of infants and children. Eighteen publications (11 sets of randomized control clinical trial [RCTs]) assessed the effects of the n-3 LCPUFA supplementation during pregnancy on neurodevelopment and growth, in the same subjects at different time points; 4 publications (2 data sets from RCTs) addressed physiological responses to n-3 LCPUFA supplementation during pregnancy & lactation and 5 publications (3 data sets from RCTs) exclusively during lactation. Some of these studies showed beneficial effects of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) supplementation during pregnancy and/or lactation especially on visual acuity outcomes and some on long-term neurodevelopment; a few, showed positive effects on growth. There were also 15 RCTs involving term infants who received infant formula supplemented with DHA, which met our selection criteria. Many of these studies claimed a beneficial effect of such supplementation on visual, neural, or developmental outcomes and no effects on growth. Although new well designed and conducted studies are being published, evidence from RCTs does not demonstrate still a clear and consistent benefit of n-3 LCPUFA supplementation during pregnancy and/or lactation on term infants growth, neurodevelopment and visual acuity. These results should be interpreted with caution due to methodological limitations of the included studies.
Fast Detection of Access Control Vulnerabilities in PHP Applications

Access control vulnerabilities in web applications are on the rise. In its 2010 "Top 10 Most Critical Web Applications Security Risks", the OWASP reported that the prevalence of access control vulnerabilities in web applications increased compared to 2007. However, in contrast to SQL injection and cross-site scripting flaws, access control vulnerabilities comparatively received much less attention from the research community. This paper presents ACMA (Access Control Model Analyzer), a model checking-based tool for the detection of access control vulnerabilities in PHP applications. The core of ACMA uses a lightweight model checker to detect the privileges that are enforced at each statement of an application. Based on this information, ACMA can detect several types of access control vulnerabilities: from forced browsing vulnerabilities to faulty access controls. We show how, when compared to the state of the art, ACMA achieves advantageously comparable results with accelerations up to 890 times faster. Moreover, contrary to the state of the art, ACMA scales up to medium-large applications with large access control models, as shown by the analysis of Moodle, a 400,000+ LOC application counting more than 200 distinct privileges. Results show that ACMA is fast, precise and scalable making it a practical tool for the detection of access control vulnerabilities in real-world applications. A discussion about further extensions to ACMA is also presented.
Adaptive detection in asynchronous code-division multiple-access system in multipath fading channels

In code-division multiple-access systems transmitting data over time-varying multipath channels, both intersymbol interference (ISI) and multiple-access interference (MAI) arise. In this paper, we address interference suppression, multipath diversity and processing gain protection for multiuser detection with less noise enhancement by using a parallel cancelling scheme. The proposed detector consists of a RAKE filter, forward filter, and feedback filter with different functions for each filter. The RAKE filter increases the signal-to-noise ratio by taking the advantage of multipath and code diversities. The forward filter is proposed, in combination with the feedback filter, to remove the effects of MAI and ISI by parallel cancellation. In order to avoid performance deterioration due to unreliable initial estimation in the parallel cancellation, a cost function with proper weighting is introduced to improve the performance of the proposed detector. In the proposed design method, a recursive least square algorithm is employed to update the tap-coefficients of all filters for MAI and ISI cancellation. Finally, the performance of the proposed detector is analyzed and compared with other detectors.
Hibernating switched current cells for low power 14-bit Digital to Analog Converters

Static power dissipation remains an issue in low power, high speed and high resolution Digital to Analog Converters (DAC). The architecture of such converters often incorporate switched current sources for the higher significant bits of the input signal. In practice, a switched current source is completely turned off when not contributing to generate the analog output and turned on when required. The energy required to reactivate the circuit contribute to static power dissipation. This work proposes a new type of hibernating switched current source that has lower reactivation energy, thus lowers static power dissipation. Simulation shows that the reactivation energy for a 14-bit, 100MHz DAC utilizing this new type of current cell is only 52.5 pJoules. This allows a low power dissipation of only 25mW.
'Seeing' the learning community: An exploration of the development of a resource for monitoring online student networking

The trend to adopt more online technologies continues unabated in the higher education sector. This paper elaborates the means by which such technologies can be employed for pedagogical purposes beyond simply providing virtual spaces for bringing learners together. It shows how data about student ‘movement’ within and across a learning community can be captured and analysed for the purposes of making strategic interventions in the learning of ‘at risk’ students in particular, through the application of social network analysis to the engagement data. The study that is set out in the paper indicates that online technologies bring with them an unprecedented opportunity for educators to visualise changes in student behaviour and their learning network composition, including the interventions teachers make in those networks over time. To date, these evaluative opportunities have been beyond the reach of the everyday practitioner—they can now be integrated into every teaching and learning plan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Aspects of Climatic and Socioeconomic Parameters and Malaria Prevalence; Evidence from Nigeria

Aim: Against the background that most disease eradication drives dwell more on controlling the proximal causes of diseases and the development of innovative measures for diseases treatment, this study investigates the impact of climatic parameters and the population’s socioeconomic conditions on disease prevalence on the premise that these conditions promote the preponderance of the proximal causes. Study Design: The study employed a quantitative research design of the correlational type. Place and Duration of Study: Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, Nigeria, 2015 – 2016. Methods: The study assesses the temporal patterns and contributions of rainfall and temperature and four socioeconomic indices on malaria prevalence in Nigeria between 1985 and 2014 using Standard Deviation, Kurtosis, Pearson Product Moment Correlation and Multiple Regression statistical techniques. Results: The results show a minimal but steady increase in malaria prevalence while changes in Original Research Article Adewoyin and Adeboyejo; IJTDH, 28(4): 1-9, 2017; Article no.IJTDH. 38942 2 the climatic parameters and socioeconomic conditions in the period reviewed accounted for 78.6% of the variations in malaria prevalence (R = .786, P < .001). The regression equation was used to project the incidence of malaria in the study area from 310 cases per 1,000 Population in 2016 to 366 cases per 1,000 Population in 2050. Conclusion: The paper recommends that to achieve noticeable improvements in malaria eradication, greater attention should be paid to improving the socioeconomic conditions of the population as these have implications for their susceptibility to ill health and also affect their adaptation to climate change.
On the Implications of Lookahead Search in Game Playing

Lookahead search is perhaps the most natural and widely used game playing strategy. Given the practical importance of the method, the aim of this paper is to provide a theoretical performance examination of lookahead search in a wide variety of applications. To determine a strategy play using lookahead search, each agent predicts multiple levels of possible re-actions to her move (via the use of a search tree), and then chooses the play that optimizes her future payo accounting for these re-actions. There are several choices of optimization function the agents can choose, where the most appropriate choice of function will depend on the specics of the actual game - we illustrate this in our examples. Furthermore, the type of search tree chosen by computationally-constrained agent can vary. We focus on the case where agents can evaluate only a bounded number, k, of moves into the future. That is, we use depth k search trees and call this approach k-lookahead search. We apply our method in ve well-known settings: AdWord auctions; industrial organization (Cournot's model); congestion games; valid-utility games and basic-utility games; cost-sharing network design games. We consider two questions. First, what is the expected social quality of outcome when agents apply lookahead search? Second, what interactive behaviours can be exhibited when players use lookahead search? Myopic game playing (whose corresponding equilibria are Nash equilibria), where each player can only foresee the immediate eect of her own actions, is the special case of 1-lookahead search. Thus, for the rst question, it is natural to ask whether social outcomes improve when players use more foresight than in myopic behaviour. The answer depends on the game played: (i) In Adword auctions (or generalized second-price auctions), we show that 2-lookahead game playing results in outcomes that are always optimal to within a constant factor; in contrast, myopic game play can produce arbitrarily poor equilibrium outcomes. (ii) For the Cournot game, applying 2-lookahead leads to a 12:5% increase in output and a 5:5% increase in social surplus compared with myopic competition. Similar bounds arise as the length k of foresight increases. (iii) For congestion games, as with myopic game playing, lookahead search leads to constant factor qualitative guarantees. (iv) For basic-utility games, on the other hand, whilst myopic game playing always leads to constant factor approximations, additional foresight can lead to arbitrarily bad solutions! (v) In a simple Shapley network design game, qualitative guarantees improve with the length of foresight. Regarding the second question, a variety of interesting game playing characteristics also arise with lookahead search. Stackelberg leader-follower behaviours can be induced when the players have asymmetric computational power. For example, Stackelberg equilibria can be pro- duced in the Cournot game. Lookahead search can also generate \uncoordinated" cooperative behaviour! An example of this is shown for the Shapely network design game.
Rhythmicity, synchronization and binding in human and primate motor systems

This review focuses on recent advances in our understanding of temporal pattern coding in the motor systems of animals and man. Examples of millisecond time scale rhythmic synchronization in the visual system are considered. Results of experiments that demonstrate similar phenomena in the motor system are discussed. Finally problems concerning the nature of the correlation between neurophysiological signals and the relationship of correlation to motor behaviour are explored.