Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A brief introduction into the path integration approach in Ashtekar variables

In this paper we demonstrate the formal equivalence of the canon-ical to the path integration approaches to quantization of gravity in Ashtekar variables coupled to matter fields in four dimensions. First, we outline the problems facing the path integration and canonical approaches to quantization in traditional variables as well as a survey of various efforts to address them, and then illustrate how these problems can be overcome in the Ashtekar variables when applied to a special set of states called the generalized Kodama states. We demonstrate a method to construct these states in direct analogy with the Hartle–Hawking no boundary proposal. The criterion for finiteness of quantum gravity in Ashtekar variables is set by the equivalence of the canonical to the path integral approach unlike in traditional variables where it is set by perturbative renormalizability. The implication of our work is the convergence and finiteness of the path integral representation for quantum gravity in the full theory subject to finiteness of the canonically determined state itself. We hypothesize regarding the implication of general relativity in Ashtekar variables as a nonpertur-batively renormalizable theory with a good semiclassical limit by way of this equivalence, provided that the generalized Kodama states can be shown to be finite by explicit construction. Finally, we illustrate how the existence of generalized Kodama states could be utilized to address our interpretation of the problem of time in quantum gravity.
The Distribution of PSA Age-Specific Profiles in Healthy Irish Men between 20 and 70

Background. Ireland is estimated to have the highest European incidence rate of prostate cancer (Pca) in 2006 which will increase by 275% by 2025. This study aimed to determine PSA cutoff values in different age groups of healthy male patients without Pca. Methods. 660 men in a pilot men's health programme, aged 18–67, had PSA assayed. Men were grouped into 8 age groups at 5-year intervals: 30–34, 35–39, 40–44, 45–49, 50–54, 55–59, 60–64, and 64–70. Results. Linear regression demonstrates a PSA velocity of 0.024 ng/ml/year. The 95% confidence interval demonstrates a near flat line of PSA values from age 20 to 50 and rises after. When transformed logarithmically, PSA correlates highly with expected values from the normal distribution (0.98). A fractional polynomial quantile regression model was used to predict median and 95th percentile for PSA as follows: 30–34 (0.73, 1.57), 35–39 (0.71, 1.65), 40–44 (0.73, 1.85), 45–49 (0.78, 2.17), 50–54 (0.88, 2.63), 55–59 (1.01, 3.25), 60–64 (1.20, 4.02), and 64–70 (1.43, 4.96). Conclusions. PSA levels are similar to other racial groups but not as high as US Caucasians until 65 years. These data define the predicted PSA for the Irish population and provide a reference for future screening programmes.
A Quantum Observable for theGraph Isomorphism

Suppose we are given two graphs on n vertices. We deene an observable in the Hilbert space C (S n o S 2) m ] which returns the answer \yes" with certainty if the graphs are isomorphic and \no" with probability at least 1 ? n! 2 m if the graphs are not isomorphic. We do not know if this observable is eeciently implementable.
3D Keypoint Detection Based on Deep Neural Network with Sparse Autoencoder

Researchers have proposed various methods to extract 3D keypoints from the surface of 3D mesh models over the last decades, but most of them are based on geometric methods, which lack enough flexibility to meet the requirements for various applications. In this paper, we propose a new method on the basis of deep learning by formulating the 3D keypoint detection as a regression problem using deep neural network (DNN) with sparse autoencoder (SAE) as our regression model. Both local information and global information of a 3D mesh model in multi-scale space are fully utilized to detect whether a vertex is a keypoint or not. SAE can effectively extract the internal structure of these two kinds of information and formulate high-level features for them, which is beneficial to the regression model. Three SAEs are used to formulate the hidden layers of the DNN and then a logistic regression layer is trained to process the high-level features produced in the third SAE. Numerical experiments show that the proposed DNN based 3D keypoint detection algorithm outperforms current five state-of-the-art methods for various 3D mesh models.
Why are Modal Logics so Robustly Decidable?

Modal logics are widely used in a number of areas in computer science, in particular for the speci(cid:12)cation and veri(cid:12)cation of hardware and software systems, for knowledge representation, in databases, and in arti(cid:12)cial intelligence. The most important reason for the successful applications of these logics is that they provide a good balance between expressive power and computational complexity. In [30] Vardi adressed the question to identify the main reasons for the robust decidability properties of modal logics. In particular he stressed the importance of the tree model property, which permits the use of powerful automata-theoretic techniques. Here we discuss this question in the light of recent research on guarded fragments of (cid:12)rst-order logic and (cid:12)xed point logic
Dissection of Multibeam Satellite Communications with a Large-scale Antenna System Toolbox

Current multibeam satellite systems consist of a very large number of spot beams. In this paper, we analyze them from the large scale MIMO perspective, and establish a comparison with massive MIMO systems. It will be shown that the large number of beams has important operational implications, and that it simplifies the analysis because it allows using asymptotic results. However, it will also be shown that current multibeam satellite links, despite their large number of antennas, do not qualify as massive MIMO systems.
Cardiovascular risk factors and increased carotid intima-media thickness in healthy young adults: the Atherosclerosis Risk in Young Adults (ARYA) Study.

BACKGROUND The relation between cardiovascular risk factors and extent of atherosclerosis in middle-aged and elderly populations is well established. Autopsy studies have suggested that similar associations may be present at a young age. We evaluated the relationship between conventional risk factors and increased carotid intima-media thickness (CIMT) in 750 healthy young adults, aged 27 to 30 years. METHODS All participants completed a questionnaire on cardiovascular risk factors, had a fasting blood sample drawn, and underwent an ultrasonographic examination of both common carotid arteries to assess common CIMT (CCIMT). RESULTS Age (11.2 micro m/SD), body mass index (10.3 micro m/SD), pulse pressure (5.0 micro m/SD), sex (4.8 micro m/SD), and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol level (4.3 micro m/SD) were independent determinants of increased CCIMT in young adults (R2 = 0.36). Total pack-years of smoking, adjusted for age and sex, showed a linear trend with increased CCIMT (P =.02), which attenuated after further adjustment for body mass index. Common CIMT increased gradually and significantly with the number of cardiovascular risk factors present. The estimated absolute risk, based on the Framingham risk function, for development of coronary heart disease within 20 years was 2.5 times higher in individuals with mean CCIMT in the highest quartile compared with those in the lowest quartile of the distribution. CONCLUSIONS An unfavorable cardiovascular risk profile is associated with a marked increase in CCIMT in young adulthood. Efforts to change modifiable risk factors early in life may retard atherosclerosis development and hence delay the onset of clinical cardiovascular disease later in life.
Dynamic microtubules are essential for efficient chromosome capture and biorientation in S. cerevisiae

Attachment of chromosomes to the mitotic spindle has been proposed to require dynamic microtubules that randomly search three-dimensional space and become stabilized upon capture by kinetochores. In this study, we test this model by examining chromosome capture in Saccharomyces cerevisiae mutants with attenuated microtubule dynamics. Although viable, these cells are slow to progress through mitosis. Preanaphase cells contain a high proportion of chromosomes that are attached to only one spindle pole and missegregate in the absence of the spindle assembly checkpoint. Measurement of the rates of chromosome capture and biorientation demonstrate that both are severely decreased in the mutants. These results provide direct evidence that dynamic microtubules are critical for efficient chromosome capture and biorientation and support the hypothesis that microtubule search and capture plays a central role in assembly of the mitotic spindle.
Experimental Control of Annulus Pressure While Drilling Oil Wells

Abstract Under a conventional oil well drilling task, the pore pressure (minimum limit) and the fracture pressure (maximum limit) define mud density range and pressure operational window. During oil well drilling, several disturbances affect bottom hole pressure; for example, as the length of the well increases, the annulus bottom hole pressure varies for growing hydrostatic pressure levels. In addition, the pipe connection procedure produces disturbances in well fluids flow, changing well pressure. The objective being tracked is operating under desired pressure levels, which assures process safety, also reducing costs, as drilling operation demands around U$500,000.00/day. In this scenario, control techniques are important tools for narrow operational windows, commonly observed at deepwater and pre-salt layer environments. The major objective of this paper is controlling annulus bottom hole pressure of a drilling experimental unit, using the choke opening index as the manipulated variable, in order to guarantee safe operation (target annulus bottom hole pressure), despite the inherent process disturbances and under a scenario that maximization of ROP (rate of penetration) is a target.
Heat-Related Mortality and Adaptation to Heat in the United States

Background: In a changing climate, increasing temperatures are anticipated to have profound health impacts. These impacts could be mitigated if individuals and communities adapt to changing exposures; however, little is known about the extent to which the population may be adapting. Objective: We investigated the hypothesis that if adaptation is occurring, then heat-related mortality would be decreasing over time. Methods: We used a national database of daily weather, air pollution, and age-stratified mortality rates for 105 U.S. cities (covering 106 million people) during the summers of 1987–2005. Time-varying coefficient regression models and Bayesian hierarchical models were used to estimate city-specific, regional, and national temporal trends in heat-related mortality and to identify factors that might explain variation across cities. Results: On average across cities, the number of deaths (per 1,000 deaths) attributable to each 10°F increase in same-day temperature decreased from 51 [95% posterior interval (PI): 42, 61] in 1987 to 19 (95% PI: 12, 27) in 2005. This decline was largest among those ≥ 75 years of age, in northern regions, and in cities with cooler climates. Although central air conditioning (AC) prevalence has increased, we did not find statistically significant evidence of larger temporal declines among cities with larger increases in AC prevalence. Conclusions: The population has become more resilient to heat over time. Yet even with this increased resilience, substantial risks of heat-related mortality remain. Based on 2005 estimates, an increase in average temperatures by 5°F (central climate projection) would lead to an additional 1,907 deaths per summer across all cities. Citation: Bobb JF, Peng RD, Bell ML, Dominici F. 2014. Heat-related mortality and adaptation to heat in the United States. Environ Health Perspect 122:811–816; http://dx.doi. org/10.1289/ehp.1307392
A Survey and Future Vision of Data Mining in Educational Field

Educational data mining is an emerging trend, concerned with developing techniques for exploring, and analyzing the huge data that come from the educational context. EDM is poised to leverage an enormous amount of research from data mining community and apply that research to educational problems in learning, cognition and assessment. In recent years, Educational data mining has proven to be more successful at many of these educational statistics problems due to enormous computing power and data mining algorithms. This paper surveys the history and applications of data mining techniques in the educational field. The objective is to introduce data mining to traditional educational system, web-based educational system, intelligent tutoring system, and e-learning. This paper describes how to apply the main data mining techniques such as prediction, classification, relationship mining, clustering, and social area networking to educational data.
Evolution of Information System Based on Generalized Entropy Principle

Information system is a typical complex system with a great number of agents. With the current wave of Web 2.0, this concept has been widely mentioned. This paper has fully considered the complex interactions among agents in information system, and defines the generalized entropy of the system. Physical laws for the evolution dynamics of information system are expressed as the maximum generalized entropy principle (MGEP), that is to say, every system always follows an optimization process so that the generalized entropy of the whole information system is maximal under the given constraints. Nonlinear dynamic equation for information system is accordingly derived. Based on typical examples of China Internet system, simulations on the evolution of information system are conducted to show the dynamic process, by which profound discussions and analyses are provided. Thus, a new framework for studying the evolution and development of information system is obtained.
Ensuring content validity in instrument development: the case of the Scenes for Social Information Processing in Adolescence

The Scenes for Social Information Processing in Adolescence (SSIPA) proposes to evaluate several cognitive steps suggested by the social information processing model, in addition to considering emotional states that may interfere with such rational processing of information. Psychometric evaluation of this instrument points to its construct validity but very little information was given on its construction process so as to guarantee that, as claimed, it accurately reflects the adolescents’ unique social experiences. The current work presents detailed information on the three steps undertaken to develop the SSIPA: 1) three focus groups with a total of 23 adolescents and use of their verbalizations for item generation; 2) examination of the face validity of the items by 7 experts, who rated each item according to the content it was intended to evaluate, and 3) evaluation of test usability, understandability, and overall pertinence by a new sample of 23 adolescents. Focus groups and item evaluation procedures were considered optimal tools in helping to formulate items that surpass the initial acceptability threshold and accurately grasp 1 Research Unit of the Cognitive and Behavioral Research and Intervention Center, Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, University of Coimbra. E-mail: paulavagos@fpce.uc. pt 2 Research Unit of the Cognitive and Behavioral Research and Intervention Center, Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, University of Coimbra. E-mail: drijo@fpce.uc. pt 3 Center For Health Technology and Services Research (CINTESIS) and Department of Education, University of Aveiro. E-mail: isabel.santos@ua.pt This work was funded by a research scholarship by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, Portugal and the European Social Fund (SFRH / BPD / 72299 / 2010). Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank Inês Direito for her collaboration in the data gathering. Artigo recebido a 27-10-2016 e aprovado a 10-05-2017 52 Paula Vagos, Daniel Rijo e Isabel M. Santos the social information processing of adolescents, resulting in an innovative and psychometrically robust assessment instrument, potentially useful in clinical assessment and research.
A framework supporting the privacy policy life cycle helps guide the kind of research to consider before sound privacy answers may be realized . COMPREHENSIVE ONLINE PRIVACY POLICY MANAGEMENT

A framework supporting the privacy policy life cycle helps guide the kind of research to consider before sound privacy answers may be realized. nformation technology advances are making Internet and Web-based system use the common choice in many application domains, ranging from business to health care to scientific collaboration and distance learning. However, adoption is slowed by well-founded concerns about privacy, especially given that data collected about individuals is being combined with information from other sources and analyzed by powerful tools (such as data mining tools).
Distance Computation Between Binary Code and Real Vector for Efficient Keypoint Matching

Image recognition in client server system has a problem of data traffic. However, reducing data traffi cg ives rise to worsening of performance. Therefore, we represent binary codes as high dimensional local features in client side, and represent real vectors in server side. As a result, we can suppress the worsening of the performance, but it problems of an increase in the computational cost of the distance computation and a different scale of norm between feature vectors. Therefore, to solve the first problem, we optimize the scale factor so as to absorb the scale difference of Euclidean norm. For second problem, we compute efficiently the Euclidean distance by decomposing the real vector into weight factors and binary basis vectors. As a result, the proposed method achieves the keypoint matching with high-speed and high-precision even if the data traffic was reduced.
A Nyquist criterion for synchronization in networks of heterogeneous linear systems

We study the synchronization of a set of SISO subsystems interconnected via a time-invariant Laplacian matrix. By synchronization we mean that the outputs of all subsystems must be asymptotically equal to each other and behave in the same manner. We assume that the subsystems can be represented as the sum of a common nonzero transfer function plus a perturbation. A Nyquist-type criterion is established which ensures synchronization provided that the convex hull of the frequency responses of the subsystems does not intersect a certain region defined by the spectrum of the interconnection matrix. The result is applied to a variety of examples of different nature for which synchronization takes place. A counter example for which complete synchronization is impossible is also presented.
Response of non-equilibrium systems at criticality: exact results for the Glauber-Ising chain

We investigate the non-equilibrium two-time correlation and response functions and the associated fluctuation-dissipation ratio for the ferromagnetic Ising chain with Glauber dynamics. The scaling behaviour of these quantities at low temperature and large times is studied in detail. This analysis encompasses the self-similar domain-growth (aging) regime, the spatial and temporal Porod regimes, and the convergence toward equilibrium. The fluctuation-dissipation ratio admits a non-trivial limit value X = ½ at zero temperature, and more generally in the aging regime.
A comprehensive characterization of rhythmic spiking activity in the rat ventral striatum

The ventral striatum (vStr) is anatomically interconnected with brain structures that exhibit prominent rhythmic activity, suggesting that oscillations in ventral striatal activity are potentially informative about systems-level interactions between these structures. However, rhythmic activity in ventral striatal neurons during behavior has only been characterized piecemeal, with individual studies focusing on a single cell type or frequency band. We performed a comprehensive analysis of (1) rhythmic activity in vStr neurons without reference to the local field potential, and (2) average as well as time-resolved spike-field relationships. Spike train rhythmicity tended to be limited to low frequencies such as delta and theta, whereas spike-field relationships were seen across a broad spectrum of frequencies, with about 90% of neurons showing spike-field locking to at least one rhythm. Using a novel time-resolved generalized linear model approach, we further show that the contribution of local field potential (LFP) phase to spike timing is dynamic over time, and enhanced by the inclusion of the LFP from the hippocampus – a new measure of inter-area coupling. These results provide a foundation for a more accurate interpretation of the ventral striatal LFP, suggest the possibility of an oscillatory taxonomy of ventral striatal neurons, and provide a starting point for understanding how rhythmic activity links cell-, circuit-, and systems-level phenomena in the ventral striatum. Significance Statement Oscillations in neural activity are ubiquitous in the brain, readily accessible in the clinic and the lab, and shared by humans and animals to facilitate translational work. The ventral striatum (vStr) is a promising target structure for such a rhythmic activity perspective, not in the least because its local field potential (LFP) shows prominent task-related oscillations across a range of frequencies. However, recent work has shown that major components of the vStr LFP are in fact generated elsewhere in the brain, raising the question of how the LFP relates to local spiking activity. Unlike previous studies that focused on a specific cell type or frequency band of interest, we characterize rhythmic activity across a full range range of frequencies and cell types, and include novel analyses appropriate for a non-local LFP. Our results provide a foundation for more accurate interpretation of the vStr LFP and a starting point for an oscillatory taxonomy of vStr neurons.
Bose-Einstein condensation on a superconducting atom chip

We have produced a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) on an atom chip using only superconducting wires in a cryogenic environment. We observe the onset of condensation for 1·104 atoms at a temperature of 100 nK. This result opens the way for studies of atom losses and decoherence in a BEC interacting with a superconducting surface. Studies of dipole-blockade with long-lived Rydberg atoms in a small and dense atomic sample are underway.
Object Oriented Programming

Object Oriented Programming (OOP) is being used quite widely in the fields of both software engineering and artificial intelligence. The aim of this article is to give an idea of OOP and its features. It includes an indication of the available OOP environments and the Object-Oriented extensions made to the conventional languages such as C and Pascal. Some of the advantages in the use of OOP are also described briefly.