Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Characterizing the Spatiotemporal Neural Representation of Concrete Nouns Across Paradigms

Most of the work investigating the representation of concrete nouns in the brain has focused on the locations that code the information. We present a model to study the contributions of perceptual and semantic features to the neural code representing concepts over time and space. The model is evaluated using magnetoencephalography data from different paradigms and not only corroborates previous findings regarding a distributed code, but provides further details about how the encoding of different subcomponents varies in the space-time spectrum. The model also successfully generalizes to novel concepts that it has never seen during training, which argues for the combination of specific properties in forming the meaning of concrete nouns in the brain. The results across paradigms are in agreement when the main differences among the experiments (namely, the number of repetitions of the stimulus, the task the subjects performed, and the type of stimulus provided) were taken into consideration. More specifically, these results suggest that features specific to the physical properties of the stimuli, such as word length and right-diagonalness, are encoded in posterior regions of the brain in the first hundreds of milliseconds after stimulus onset. Then, properties inherent to the nouns, such as is it alive? and can you pick it up? , are represented in the signal starting at about 250 ms, focusing on more anterior parts of the cortex. The code for these different features was found to be distributed over time and space, and it was common for several regions to simultaneously code for a particular property. Moreover, most anterior regions were found to code for multiple features, and a complex temporal profile could be observed for the majority of properties. For example, some features inherent to the nouns were encoded earlier than others, and the extent of time in which these properties could be decoded varied greatly among them. These findings complement much of the work previously described in the literature, and offer new insights about the temporal aspects of the neural encoding of concrete nouns. This model provides a spatiotemporal signature of the representation of objects in the brain. Paired with data from carefully-designed paradigms, the model is an important tool with which to analyze the commonalities of the neural code across stimulus modalities and tasks performed by the subjects.
Coastal protection technologies in a Danish context

in English Recent storm surge events along with the discussions on climate change and sea level rise make coastal protection a pertinent issue in Denmark. The purpose of this report is to analyse past and present coastal protection strategies in Denmark and use this as a baseline for a critical reflection on current practice and possible ways forward. The report is divided into three main parts. First, the study provides a state of the art on coastal protection technologies in Denmark and internationally. Second, we propose a framework for working with coastal protection. Third, four selected case studies are analysed in detail (i.e. Køge Bugt Strandpark, Nordkystens Fremtid, Vejle, and Gyldensteen Strand) using a multi-criteria assessment framework. The key findings include the prevalence of hard structural protection technologies such as sluice gates and dikes (24 of 32 reviewed projects in Denmark); the need to analyse and frame coastal regions with a view to the level of economic, social and technical complexity and capacity; and the need to go beyond coastal protection as a technical discipline and strive for holistic solutions with an emphasis on innovation and the collaborative and explorative process of planning, designing and implementing coastal protection measures in a sustainable manner. This report aims to spark a discussion on coastal development and highlights some of the key challenges and tasks that need to be addressed in the years to come to achieve the best possible outcome. Resumé på dansk De seneste års stormflodshændelser og diskussionen om klimaforandringer og globale havvandsstigninger er med til at gøre kystbeskyttelse et mere og mere aktuelt emne i Danmark. Formålet med denne rapport er at analysere historiske kystbeskyttelsesstrategier og bruge dette som et fundament for en kritisk refleksion over dansk praksis og mulige veje fremadrettet. Rapporten er inddelt i tre hovedafsnit. Først præsenteres en gennemgang af kystbeskyttelsesteknologier i Danmark og i en international kontekst. Derefter foreslås en metode til at arbejde med kystbeskyttelse, hvorefter fire udvalgte projekter (Køge Bugt Strandpark, Nordkystens Fremtid, Vejle, and Gyldensteen Strand) analyseres ved brug af en multikriteriemetode. Hovedresultaterne er, at hårde kystsikringsteknologier som sluser og diger er dominerende i Danmark (24 ud af 32 gennemgåede projekter), at det er relevant at analysere og differentiere kystområder ud fra deres økonomiske, sociale og teknologiske kapacitet og kompleksitet, og endelig at der er behov for at se kystbeskyttelse som mere end en teknisk disciplin og derfor stræbe efter helhedsorienterede løsninger med fokus på innovation og en samarbejdsorienteret proces omkring planlægning, design og implementering af bæredygtige kystbeskyttelsesløsninger. Denne rapport har til formål at starte en debat om kystudvikling og fremhæver nogle af de væsentligste udfordringer og opgaver, der skal adresseres i de kommende år for at løfte opgaven på bedst mulig vis.
Recent National Trends in Readmission Rates After Heart Failure Hospitalization

Background—In July 2009, Medicare began publicly reporting hospitals' risk-standardized 30-day all-cause readmission rates (RSRRs) among fee-for-service beneficiaries discharged after hospitalization for heart failure from all the US acute care nonfederal hospitals. No recent national trends in RSRRs have been reported, and it is not known whether hospital-specific performance is improving or variation in performance is decreasing. Methods and Results—We used 2004–2006 Medicare administrative data to identify all fee-for-service beneficiaries admitted to a US acute care hospital for heart failure and discharged alive. We estimated mean annual RSRRs, a National Quality Forum–endorsed metric for quality, using 2-level hierarchical models that accounted for age, sex, and multiple comorbidities; variation in quality was estimated by the SD of the RSRRs. There were 570 996 distinct hospitalizations for heart failure in which the patient was discharged alive in 4728 hospitals in 2004, 544 550 in 4694 hospitals in 2005, and 501 234 in 4674 hospitals in 2006. Unadjusted 30-day all-cause readmission rates were virtually identical over this period: 23.0% in 2004, 23.3% in 2005, and 22.9% in 2006. The mean and SD of RSRRs were also similar: mean (SD) of 23.7% (1.3) in 2004, 23.9% (1.4) in 2005, and 23.8% (1.4) in 2006, suggesting similar hospital variation throughout the study period. Conclusions—National mean and RSRR distributions among Medicare beneficiaries discharged after hospitalization for heart failure have not changed in recent years, indicating that there was neither improvement in hospital readmission rates nor in hospital variations in rates over this time period.
A Facile in Situ and UV Printing Process for Bioinspired Self-Cleaning Surfaces

A facile in situ and UV printing process was demonstrated to create self-cleaning synthetic replica of natural petals and leaves. The process relied on the spontaneous migration of a fluorinated acrylate surfactant (PFUA) within a low-shrinkage acrylated hyperbranched polymer (HBP) and its chemical immobilization at the polymer-air interface. Dilute concentrations of 1 wt. % PFUA saturated the polymer-air interface within 30 min, leading to a ten-fold increase of fluorine concentration at the surface compared with the initial bulk concentration and a water contact angle (WCA) of 108°. A 200 ms flash of UV light was used to chemically crosslink the PFUA at the HBP surface prior to UV printing with a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) negative template of red and yellow rose petals and lotus leaves. This flash immobilization hindered the reverse migration of PFUA within the bulk HBP upon contacting the PDMS template, and enabled to produce texturized surfaces with WCA well above 108°. The synthetic red rose petal was hydrophobic (WCA of 125°) and exhibited the adhesive petal effect. It was not superhydrophobic due to insufficient concentration of fluorine at its surface, a result of the very large increase of the surface of the printed texture. The synthetic yellow rose petal was quasi-superhydrophobic (WCA of 143°, roll-off angle of 10°) and its self-cleaning ability was not good also due to lack of fluorine. The synthetic lotus leaf did not accurately replicate the intricate nanotubular crystal structures of the plant. In spite of this, the fluorine concentration at the surface was high enough and the leaf was superhydrophobic (WCA of 151°, roll-off angle below 5°) and also featured self-cleaning properties.
Efficient techniques for range search queries on earth science data

We consider the problem of organizing large scale earth science raster data to efficiently handle queries for identifying regions whose parameters fall within certain range values specified by the queries. This problem seems to be critical to enabling basic data mining tasks such as determining associations between physical phenomena and spatial factors, detecting changes and trends, and content based retrieval. We assume that the input is too large to fit in internal memory and hence focus on data structures and algorithms that minimize the I/O bounds. A new data structure, called a tree-of-regions (ToR), is introduced and involves a combination of an R-tree and efficient representation of regions. It is shown that such a data structure enables the handling of range queries in an optimal I/O time, under certain reasonable assumptions. We also show that updates to the ToR can be handled efficiently. Experimental results for a variety of multi-valued earth science data illustrate the fast execution times of a wide range of queries, as predicted by our theoretical analysis.
Artificial neural networks for document analysis and recognition

Artificial neural networks have been extensively applied to document analysis and recognition. Most efforts have been devoted to the recognition of isolated handwritten and printed characters with widely recognized successful results. However, many other document processing tasks, like preprocessing, layout analysis, character segmentation, word recognition, and signature verification, have been effectively faced with very promising results. This paper surveys the most significant problems in the area of offline document image processing, where connectionist-based approaches have been applied. Similarities and differences between approaches belonging to different categories are discussed. A particular emphasis is given on the crucial role of prior knowledge for the conception of both appropriate architectures and learning algorithms. Finally, the paper provides a critical analysts on the reviewed approaches and depicts the most promising research guidelines in the field. In particular, a second generation of connectionist-based models are foreseen which are based on appropriate graphical representations of the learning environment.
Adaptive multiuser MIMO-OFDM QoS-based scheduler using virtual channel state information

We propose an adaptive multiuser QoS-based scheduler based on the users' channel measurements. In order to mitigate the complexity that results from computing non-codebook based beamformers for possibly infeasible users, we propose to preselect the optimal users using a virtual signal-to-noise ratio (vSNR). This is computed assuming non-interfering users and a total power constraint. Solely depending on vSNR, we obtain thresholds that fulfill the equivalent SINR constraints for a different number of users. In this paper, vSNR thresholds are utilized to develop a fast adaptive multiuser scheduling routine. Finally, a performance comparison to the unscheduled case will be demonstrated in the presence of channel state information uncertainty as well as with perfect channel information.
The influence of athletic status on maximal and rapid isometric torque characteristics and postural balance performance in Division I female soccer athletes and non‐athlete controls

The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of maximal and rapid isometric torque characteristics of the hip extensor muscles and postural balance performance to discriminate between female collegiate soccer athletes and non‐athlete controls. Ten athletes (mean ± SE: age = 19·20 ± 0·36 year; mass = 62·23 ± 3·12 kg; height = 162·43 ± 1·70 cm) and 10 non‐athletes (age = 20·30 ± 0·40 year; mass = 69·64 ± 3·20 kg; height = 163·22 ± 2·10 cm) performed two isometric maximal voluntary contractions (MVCs) of the hip extensor muscles. Peak torque (PT) and absolute and relative rate of torque development (RTD) at early (0–50 ms) and late (100–200 ms) phases of muscle contraction were examined during each MVC. Postural balance was assessed using a commercially designed balance testing device, which provides a measurement of static stability based on sway index (SI). Results indicated that absolute and relative RTD at 0–50 ms (RTD50 and RTD50norm) were greater (P = 0·007 and 0·026), and postural SI was lower (P = 0·022) in the athletes compared with the non‐athletes. However, no differences (P = 0·375–0·709) were observed for PT nor absolute and relative RTD at 100–200 ms (RTD100–200 and RTD100–200norm). Significant relationships were also observed between RTD50 and RTD50norm and SI (r = −0·559 and −0·521; P = 0·010 and 0·019). These findings suggest that early rapid torque characteristics of the hip extensor muscles and postural balance performance may be sensitive and effective measures for discriminating between college‐aged athletes and non‐athletes. Coaches and practitioners may use these findings as performance evaluation tools to help in identifying athletes with both superior early rapid torque and balance performance abilities, which may possibly be an indicator of overall athletic potential.
ELISA-Quantitation of Phosphorylated Tau Protein in the Alzheimer’s Disease Brain

A reliable, sensitive and specific sandwich ELISA for the quantitation of paired helical filament (PHF) tau in human brain was developed using well-defined monoclonal antibodies. We examined rapid-autopsy-derived brain tissue from 21 neuropathologically confirmed Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients and 14 nondemented controls, matched for age, sex and postmortem delay times. We demonstrated significant elevations of phosphorylated tau levels in the frontal and parietal cortex as well as in the hippocampus of AD patients as compared to the nondemented controls. No difference was observed in the cerebellum. Phosphorylated tau levels measured by ELISA were significantly correlated with the presence or absence of neurofibrillary tangles.
Predicting Spoken Language Level in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Thirty-five children who received an autism spectrum diagnosis at the age of 2 years (24 with autism, 11 with PDD-NOS) were re-evaluated 2 years later to examine factors related to the development of spoken language. Child variables (play level, motor imitation ability and joint attention) and environmental variables (socioeconomic status and hours of speech/language therapy between ages 2 and 3) were used to predict an aggregate measure of language outcome at age 4. After controlling for age 2 language skills, the only significant predictors were motor imitation and number of hours of sther speech/language therapy. Implications of these results for understanding the early developmental course of autism spectrum disorders and the effects of intervention are discussed.
Fluorescent lipid-peroxidation products in synovial fluid.

1. Samples and extracts from synovial effusions were examined for the presence of fluorescent degradation products of free-radical oxidation (peroxidation). 2. Two classes of fluorescent compounds were identified and their fluorescence and physical properties are described. The fluorescence in the aqueous methanol phase of the extracts had the characteristics of conjugated Schiff bases. 3. Changes in synovial fluid and synovial fluid extracts in vitro induced by u.v. irradiation, prolonged incubation and the enzymic generation of oxidizing free radicals, with or without admixed peroxidizing arachidonic acid, and in the absence and presence of antioxidants, suggest that the fluorescent material is derived from peroxidized polyunsaturated lipids in damaged synovial tissue.
A Simple and Efficient Method to Generate Word Sense Representations

Distributed representations of words have boosted the performance of many Natural Language Processing tasks. However, usually only one representation per word is obtained, not acknowledging the fact that some words have multiple meanings. This has a negative effect on the individual word representations and the language model as a whole. In this paper we present a simple model that enables recent techniques for building word vectors to represent distinct senses of polysemic words. In our assessment of this model we show that it is able to effectively discriminate between words' senses and to do so in a computationally efficient manner.
Adapt Mandarin TTS system to Chinese dialect TTS systems

This paper deals with how to construct Text To Speech (TTS) systems for Chinese dialects. The proposed method adapts Chinese Mandarin TTS system to dialects TTS systems through representing dialect phonology by Mandarin phonology using phonology mappings, and adding dialect vocabulary in the front end to handle lexical difference. But not all Chinese dialects are suitable for applying this adaptation. Investigations carried out in this paper show that this method can be used to construct TTS systems for the Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Dongbei dialects. Evaluation of such dialect systems are also given in this paper.
Entertainment Robot Hand Gesture Recognition

This paper presents a simple and useful entertainment robot hand gesture recognition algorithm,for the scissors. Stones. Cloth of three hand-type,camera capture an image of each participant in the game,integrated use of image processing in the form of treatment study and image synthesis method to distinguish the specific hand each picture type. Experiments show that the method has good recognition rate.
Characteristics and Significance of Intergenic Polyadenylated RNA Transcription in Arabidopsis1[W][OA]

The Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) genome is the most well-annotated plant genome. However, transcriptome sequencing in Arabidopsis continues to suggest the presence of polyadenylated (polyA) transcripts originating from presumed intergenic regions. It is not clear whether these transcripts represent novel noncoding or protein-coding genes. To understand the nature of intergenic polyA transcription, we first assessed its abundance using multiple messenger RNA sequencing data sets. We found 6,545 intergenic transcribed fragments (ITFs) occupying 3.6% of Arabidopsis intergenic space. In contrast to transcribed fragments that map to protein-coding and RNA genes, most ITFs are significantly shorter, are expressed at significantly lower levels, and tend to be more data set specific. A surprisingly large number of ITFs (32.1%) may be protein coding based on evidence of translation. However, our results indicate that these “translated” ITFs tend to be close to and are likely associated with known genes. To investigate if ITFs are under selection and are functional, we assessed ITF conservation through cross-species as well as within-species comparisons. Our analysis reveals that 237 ITFs, including 49 with translation evidence, are under strong selective constraint and relatively distant from annotated features. These ITFs are likely parts of novel genes. However, the selective pressure imposed on most ITFs is similar to that of randomly selected, untranscribed intergenic sequences. Our findings indicate that despite the prevalence of ITFs, apart from the possibility of genomic contamination, many may be background or noisy transcripts derived from “junk” DNA, whose production may be inherent to the process of transcription and which, on rare occasions, may act as catalysts for the creation of novel genes.
Partial Classification: The Benefit of Deferred Decision

It is shown that partial classification which allows for indecision in certain regions of the data space, can increase a benefit function, defined as the difference between the probabilities of correct and incorrect decisions, joint with the event that a decision is made. This is particularly true for small data samples, which may cause a large deviation of the estimated separation surface from the intersection surface between the corresponding probability density functions. Employing a particular density estimation method, an indecision domain is naturally defined by a single parameter whose optimal size, maximizing the benefit function, is derived from the data. The benefit function is shown to translate into profit in stock trading. Employing medical and economic data, it is shown that partial classification produces, on average, higher benefit values than full classification, assigning each new object to a class, and that the marginal benefit of partial classification reduces as the data size increases.
Revenue Optimization against Strategic Buyers

We present a revenue optimization algorithm for posted-price auctions when facing a buyer with random valuations who seeks to optimize his γ-discounted surplus. In order to analyze this problem we introduce the notion of e-strategic buyer, a more natural notion of strategic behavior than what has been considered in the past. We improve upon the previous state-of-the-art and achieve an optimal regret bound in O(log T + 1/log(1/γ)) when the seller selects prices from a finite set and provide a regret bound in O(√T + T1/4/ log(1/γ)) when the prices offered are selected out of the interval [0,1].
Beyond the lan: techniques from network games for improving groupware performance

Networked games can provide groupware developers with important lessons in how to deal with real-world networking issues such as latency, limited bandwidth and packet loss. Games have similar demands and characteristics to groupware, but unlike the applications studied by academics, games have provided production-quality real-time interaction for many years. The techniques used by games have not traditionally been made public, but several game networking libraries have recently been released as open source, providing the opportunity to learn how games achieve network performance. We examined five game libraries to find networking techniques that could benefit groupware; this paper presents the concepts most valuable to groupware developers, including techniques to deal with limited bandwidth, reliability, and latency. Some of the techniques have been previously reported in the networking literature; therefore, the contribution of this paper is to survey which techniques have been shown to work, over several years, and then to link these techniques to quality requirements specific to groupware. By adopting these techniques, groupware designers can dramatically improve network performance on the real-world Internet.