Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Text simplification and comprehensible input: A case for an intuitive approach

Texts are routinely simplified to make them more comprehensible for second language learners. However, the effects of simplification upon the linguistic features of texts remain largely unexplored. Here we examine the effects of one type of text simplification: intuitive text simplification. We use the computational tool, Coh-Metrix, to examine linguistic differences between proficiency levels of a corpus of 300 news texts that had been simplified to three levels of simplification (beginner, intermediate, advanced). The main analysis reveals significant differences between levels for a wide range of linguistic features, particularly between beginner and advanced levels. The results show that lower level texts are generally less lexically and syntactically sophisticated than higher-level texts. The analysis also reveals that lower level texts contain more cohesive features than higher-level texts. The analysis also provides strong evidence that these linguistic features can be used to classify levels of simplified reading texts. Overall, the findings support the notion that intuitively simplified texts at the beginning level contain more linguistic features related to comprehensible input than intuitively simplified texts at the advanced level.
Hepatitis C virus replicates in the same immune cell subsets in chronic hepatitis C and occult infection.

BACKGROUND & AIMS Infection of the lymphatic system by hepatitis C virus (HCV) appears to be an intrinsic characteristic of chronic hepatitis C (CHC) and low-level (occult) HCV infection, but the subsets of immune cells involved were not defined. The aim of this study was to characterize HCV replication status and to assess virus compartmentalization in CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes, B cells, and monocytes in CHC, and silent infection persisting after resolution of hepatitis C. METHODS Immune cell subtypes isolated from 7 patients with CHC and 7 individuals with occult infection were analyzed for HCV-RNA-positive and -negative strands and, in selected cases, nonstructural protein 5A display and HCV variants. RESULTS All subtypes of immune cells investigated support HCV replication in both forms of infection, although significant differences were found between patients, and virus loads in the cells were greater in CHC than in occult infection. Although HCV RNA occurred at a comparable frequency in all cell subtypes in CHC, monocytes contained the greatest loads. In contrast, B cells tended to carry the highest virus quantities in occult infection, whereas monocytes appeared to be the least frequently infected. Detection of HCV nonstructural protein 5A and HCV variants that were not found in plasma confirmed virus replication in different immune cell types. CONCLUSIONS This work documents that the immune system supports HCV replication regardless of clinical appearance of infection and identifies immune cells that are reservoirs of HCV in symptomatic and occult infections.
Methodology for adaptive and robust FDG-PET escalated dose painting by numbers in head and neck tumors

Objective. To develop a methodology for using FDG PET/CT in adaptive dose painting by numbers (DPBN) in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) patients. Issues related to noise in PET and treatment robustness against geometric errors are addressed. Methods. Five patients with locally advanced HNSCC scheduled for chemo-radiotherapy were imaged with FDG-PET/CT at baseline and 2–3 times during radiotherapy (RT). The GTVPET was segmented with a gradient-based method. A double median filter reduces the impact of noise in the PET uptake-to-dose conversion. Filtered FDG uptake values were linearly converted into a voxel-by-voxel prescription from 70 (median uptake) to 86 Gy (highest uptake). A PTVPET was obtained by applying a dilation of 2.5 mm to the entire prescription. Seven iso-uptake thresholds led to seven sub-levels compatible with the Tomotherapy HiArt® Treatment Planning System. Planning aimed to deliver a median dose of 56 Gy and 70 Gy in 35 fractions on the elective and therapeutic PTVs, respectively. Plan quality was assessed with quality volume histogram (QVH). At each time point, plans were generated with a total of 3–4 plans for each patient. Deformable image registration was used for automatic contour propagation and dose summation of the 3 or 4 treatment plans (MIMvista®). Results. GTVPET segmentations were performed successfully until week 2 of RT but failed in two patients at week 3. QVH analysis showed high conformity for all plans (mean VQ = 0.95 93%; mean VQ = 1.05 3.9%; mean QF 2.2%). Good OAR sparing was achieved while keeping high plan quality. Conclusion. Our results show that adaptive FDG-PET-based escalated dose painting in patients with locally advanced HNSCC is feasible while respecting strict dose constraints to organs at risk. Clinical studies must be conducted to evaluate toxicities and tumor response of such a strategy.
Corporate Employee Representation, Union Strategies, and Third-Party Union-Linked Monitoring

This article examines an unusual experiment in Brazil with an employee “social dialogue” process established at the BASF chemical company, following the broad outlines of European works councils (EWCs) created in the 1990s under European Union requirements for large companies operating in that region. The new representation-cum-consultation scheme was created under a global push by BASF’s German headquarters to emulate EWCs in its various regional operations overseas, though also in response to union pressures. Once the structure was in place, management attempted, with at least partial success, to carry out a pre-emptive strategy of “venue-shifting. ” Nonetheless, unions avoided institutionalized co-optation or management “divide and rule” and expanded the agenda of consultation and negotiation beyond their traditional scope. Third-party union-linked monitoring—quite distinct from typical “independent monitoring”—helped raise the salience and legitimacy of various union and worker grievances.
Rate of learning in hierarchical social networks

We study a social network consisting of agents organized as a hierarchical M-ary rooted tree, common in enterprise and military organizational structures. The goal is to aggregate information to solve a binary hypothesis testing problem. Each agent at a leaf of the tree, and only such an agent, makes a direct measurement of the underlying true hypothesis. The leaf agent then generates a binary message and sends it to its supervising agent, at the next level of the tree. Each supervising agent aggregates the messages from the M members of its group, produces a summary message, and sends it to its supervisor at the next level, and so on. Ultimately, the agent at the root of the tree makes an overall decision. We derive upper and lower bounds for the Type I and Type II error probabilities associated with this decision with respect to the number of leaf agents, which in turn characterize the converge rates of the Type I, Type II, and total error probabilities.
Towards a Performance Tool Interface for OpenMP: An Approach based on Directive Rewriting

Abstract. In this article we propose a “stan-dard” performance tool interface for OpenMP, sim-ilar in spirit to the MPI proﬁling interface in its in-tent to deﬁne a clear and portable API that makesOpenMP execution events visible to performance li-braries. When used together with the MPI proﬁl-ing interface, it also allows tools to be built for hy-brid applications that mix shared and distributedmemory programming. We describe an instrumen-tation approach based on OpenMP directive rewrit-ing that generates calls to the interface and passescontext information (e.g., source code locations) ina portable and eﬃcient way. Our proposed OpenMPperformance API further allows user functions andarbitrary code regions to be marked and perfor-mance measurement to be controlled using new pro-posed OpenMP directives. The directive transfor-mations we deﬁne are implemented in a source-to-source translation tool called Opari. We have usedit to integrate the Tau performance analysis frame-work [13] and the automatic event trace analyzerexpert [17, 18] with the proposed OpenMP perfor-mance interface. Together, these tools show that aportable and robust solution to performance analy-sis of OpenMP and hybrid applications is possible.
Nocardiosis

Members of the genus Nocardia are associated with the group of microorganisms known as the aerobic actinomycetes and belong specifically to the family Mycobacteriaceae . The nocardiae contain tuberculostearic acids but differ from the mycobacteria by possession of shorter-chained (40- to 60-carbon)
Oral administration of a novel long-acting prostacyclin agonist with thromboxane synthase inhibitory activity for pulmonary arterial hypertension.

BACKGROUND Continuous administration of prostacyclin has improved the survival of patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). However, this treatment has some problems, including its short duration of activity and difficult delivery. Therefore, we developed ONO-1301, an orally active, long-acting prostacyclin agonist with thromboxane synthase inhibitory activity. METHODS AND RESULTS We investigated whether oral administration of ONO-1301 can both prevent and reverse monocrotaline (MCT)-induced PAH in rats. Rats were randomly assigned to receive repeated oral administration of ONO-1301 twice daily beginning either 1 or 8 days after subcutaneous injection of MCT. A control group received oral saline, and a sham group received a subcutaneous injection of saline instead of MCT. MCT-treated controls developed significant pulmonary hypertension. Treatment with ONO-1301 from day 1 or 8 significantly attenuated the increases in right ventricular systolic pressure and the increase in medial wall thickness of pulmonary arterioles. Kaplan-Meier survival curves demonstrated that the effect of ONO-1301 was equivalent to that of an endothelin receptor antagonist and a phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitor. A single oral dose of ONO-1301 increased plasma cAMP levels for up to 6h. Treatment with ONO-1301 significantly decreased urinary 11-dehydro-thromboxane B2 and increased the plasma hepatocyte growth factor concentration. CONCLUSIONS Oral administration of ONO-1301 ameliorated PAH in rats, an effect that may occur through cAMP and hepatocyte growth factor.
Thinning and the Law of Small Numbers

The "thinning" operation on a discrete random variable is the natural discrete analog of scaling a continuous variable, i.e., multiplying it by a constant. We examine the role and properties of thinning in the context of information-theoretic inequalities for Poisson approximation. The classical Binomial-to-Poisson convergence, often referred to as the "law of small numbers," is seen to be a special case of a thinning limit theorem for convolutions of discrete distributions. A rate of convergence is also provided for this limit. A Nash equilibrium is established for a channel game, where Poisson noise and a Poisson input are optimal strategies. Our development partly parallels the development of Gaussian inequalities leading to the information- theoretic version of the central limit theorem.
Learning Spatiotemporal-Aware Representation for POI Recommendation

The wide spread of location-based social networks brings about a huge volume of user check-in data, which facilitates the recommendation of points of interest (POIs). Recent advances on distributed representation shed light on learning low dimensional dense vectors to alleviate the data sparsity problem. Current studies on representation learning for POI recommendation embed both users and POIs in a common latent space, and users' preference is inferred based on the distance/similarity between a user and a POI. Such an approach is not in accordance with the semantics of users and POIs as they are inherently different objects. In this paper, we present a novel spatiotemporal aware (STA) representation, which models the spatial and temporal information as \emph{a relationship connecting users and POIs}. Our model generalizes the recent advances in knowledge graph embedding. The basic idea is that the embedding of a $ $ pair corresponds to a translation from embeddings of users to POIs. Since the POI embedding should be close to the user embedding plus the relationship vector, the recommendation can be performed by selecting the top-\emph{k} POIs similar to the translated POI, which are all of the same type of objects. We conduct extensive experiments on two real-world datasets. The results demonstrate that our STA model achieves the state-of-the-art performance in terms of high recommendation accuracy, robustness to data sparsity and effectiveness in handling cold start problem.
Performance Analysis of Packet Length in Multiple Optical Channels for Local Area Network

The advances in Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) technology have tremendously increased the bandwidth of a single fiber optic, for local and metropolitan area network (LAN and MAN). This paper presents and discusses analysis on packet length for multiple optical channel, which coupled Ethernet with WDM to decrease the average queuing delay and increases the normalized throughput. The performances of three channels with several range of packet length were evaluated by employing discrete event simulator. It has been proved that longer packets gives better performance on throughput, however it does increased the average queuing delay. Packet length in range of 4096-8192 bits per packets gave similar result of throughput with normal packet length for Ethernet (512-12144 bits per packets).
Analysis of the claimed robustness for PI/PID robust tuning rules

This paper analyzes how recognized robust PI/PID tuning rules accomplish with respect to its robustness specification. A concrete analysis is conducted where the chosen PI/PID controller tuning rules are based on a precise quantitative robustness specification such as the Maximum Sensitivity; Ms; value. It is reported that the claimed robustness specification in most of the cases is not accomplished for some set of plants, on other cases it is accomplished with excessive margin, therefore providing a not satisfactory Robustness/Performance tradeoff. The conclusion drawn from this study is that even if the robustness issue has been incorporated in the new approaches for tuning and design of PI/PID controllers, this does not sufficient. In order to appropriately tackle the Robustness/Performance tradeoff, the achieved robustness level should not only be an integral specification, but its accomplishment should be checked.
Regulation of intestinal homeostasis and tumorigenesis by the transcriptional coregulator RIP140

Colon cancer frequently results from mutations that constitutively activate the Wnt signaling pathway, a major target being the tumor suppressor gene adenomatous polyposis coli (APC). We recently identified the transcription factor RIP140 as a new inducer of APC gene transcription that inhibits colon cancer cell growth and impedes the Wnt signaling pathway by reducing β-catenin activation.
Teach for América

Motivated by shifting demographics and the persistently low academic performance of Latinas/os in U.S. schools, the authors examine factors that influence the recruitment and retention of Latina/o teachers. Applying Latina/o critical race theory and cross-case analysis to data collected from three groups of Latinas/os at distinct points in the teacher pipeline—high school students, undergraduate preservice teachers, and inservice teachers—the authors conclude that the perspectives and experiences of Latinas/os differ significantly from the dominant narrative on teacher recruitment and retention, which is largely defined by White teachers’ career histories. The findings of this study serve as an important race- and culture-conscious counternarrative that can inform efforts to systematically diversify the teaching profession.
Assessing the Impact of Time Spent in Custody and Mortality on the Estimation of Recidivism

Abstract This article reports on findings from a methodological study which investigated the impact of two potentially biasing factors — time spent in custody and mortality — on the estimation of recidivism. Using survival analysis techniques to derive estimates of reoffending, the study compared adjusted and unadjusted recidivism rates and assessed how rates vary for different offender populations and over different follow-up periods. In contrast to many previous studies, the research found that adjusting for time spent in custody and mortality makes little difference to the two-year recidivism rates of large offender populations. However, for certain offender groups and over shorter follow-up periods, the under-estimation of recidivism is more marked. The study concludes that current methods of estimating population-level recidivism rates are adequate and do not require wholesale re-calibration to account for either factor.
A VCG mechanism for electricity storage

Energy storage seems set to play a key role in managing and balancing the future electricity system. Storage can act as a generator and as a load providing both energy and ancillary services such as fast frequency response and operating reserve. Therefore, it can provide the desired flexibility for the network. Current mechanism designs do not take advantage of the full potential of a given storage facility and the auctions used to buy and sell potential storage products have design flaws. This paper gives an overview of how storage products are bought and sold today and the problems of the current designs. It then presents a new mechanism design to integrate storage in the most efficient way, based on social welfare.
Antisperm Antibodies: Invaluable Tools Toward the Identification of Sperm Proteins Involved in Fertilization

The identification of sperm proteins involved in fertilization has been the subject of numerous investigations. Much interest has been dedicated to naturally occurring antisperm antibodies (ASA) and their impact in fertility. Their presence in men and women has been associated with 2–50% of infertility cases. ASA may impair pre‐ and post‐fertilization steps. Experimental models have been developed using sperm proteins as immunogens to evaluate their involvement in sperm function. Our team has pursued investigations to assess ASA presence in biological fluids from patients consulting for infertility and their effect on fertilization. We found ASA in follicular fluids with ability of inducing the acrosome reaction and blocking sperm–zona pellucida interaction and used them to identify sperm entities involved in these events. We generated and utilized antibodies against proacrosin/acrosin to characterize the sperm protease system. We implemented an ELISA to detect proacrosin/acrosin antibodies in human sera and evaluated their impact upon fertility by developing in vitro assays and a gene immunization model. This review presents a summary of ASA history, etiology, current approaches for detection and effects upon fertility. ASA (naturally occurring, generated by animal immunization and/or of commercial origin) are invaluable tools to understand the molecular basis of fertilization, better diagnose/treat immunoinfertility and develop immunocontraceptive methods.
A 0–1 program to form minimum cost clusters in the downlink of cooperating base stations

Base station cooperation in the downlink of cellular systems has been recently suggested as a promising concept towards a better exploitation of the communication system's physical resources. It may offer a high gain in capacity through interference mitigation. This however, comes at a cost of high information exchange between cooperating entities and a high computational burden. Clustering of base stations into subgroups is an alternative to guarantee such cooperation benefits in a lower scale. The optimal definition of clusters, however, and a systematic way to find a solution to such problem is not yet available. In this work, we highlight the combinatorial nature of the problem, exploit this to describe the system of users and base stations as a graph and formulate a pure 0-1 program. Its solution suggests a cost optimal way to form clusters and assign user subsets to them.
AD3: alternating directions dual decomposition for MAP inference in graphical models

We present AD3, a new algorithm for approximate maximum a posteriori (MAP) inference on factor graphs, based on the alternating directions method of multipliers. Like other dual decomposition algorithms, AD3 has a modular architecture, where local subproblems are solved independently, and their solutions are gathered to compute a global update. The key characteristic of AD3 is that each local subproblem has a quadratic regularizer, leading to faster convergence, both theoretically and in practice. We provide closed-form solutions for these AD3 subproblems for binary pairwise factors and factors imposing first-order logic constraints. For arbitrary factors (large or combinatorial), we introduce an active set method which requires only an oracle for computing a local MAP configuration, making AD3 applicable to a wide range of problems. Experiments on synthetic and real-world problems show that AD3 compares favorably with the state-of-the-art.
The P/E ratio and stock market performance

The U.S, stock market entered 2000 with five consecutive years of exceptional gains. The S&P 500 index gained more than 18 percent each of these five years, and its value tripled since 1995. > Concern has arisen recently that the stock market may be headed for a downturn because firms' share prices have become very high relative to their earnings. Analysts who hold this view point out that, in the past, high price-earnings ratios have usually been followed by slow growth in stock prices. Other analysts argue that history is no longer a true guide because fundamental changes in the economy have made stocks more attractive to investors, justifying a higher price-earnings ratio. > Shen examines the historical relationship between price-earnings ratios and subsequent stock market performance and discusses why history might not repeat itself this time. She finds strong historical evidence that high price-earnings ratios have been followed by disappointing stock market performance in the short and long term. Specifically, high price-earnings ratios have been followed by slow long-run growth in stock prices. Moreover, when high price-earnings ratios have reduced the earnings yield on stocks relative to returns on other investments, short-run stock market performance has suffered as well. Despite this evidence, however, she concludes that we cannot rule out the possibility that these historical relationships are of little relevance today due to fundamental changes in the economy.
Efficient SUM Query Processing over Uncertain Data

SUM queries are crucial for many applications that need to deal with probabilistic data. In this paper, we are interested in the queries, called ALL_SUM, that return all possible sum values and their probabilities. In general, there is no efficient solution for the problem of evaluating ALL_SUM queries. But, for many practical applications, where aggregate values are small integers or real numbers with small precision, it is possible to develop efficient solutions. In this paper, based on a recursive approach, we propose a new solution for this problem. We implemented our solution and conducted an extensive experimental evaluation over synthetic and real-world data sets; the results show its effectiveness.