Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Reinforcement Learning in Partially Observable Markov Decision Processes using Hybrid Probabilistic Logic Programs

We present a probabilistic logic programming framework to reinforcement learning, by integrating reinforce-ment learning, in POMDP environments, with normal hybrid probabilistic logic programs with probabilistic answer set seman-tics, that is capable of representing domain-specific knowledge. We formally prove the correctness of our approach. We show that the complexity of finding a policy for a reinforcement learning problem in our approach is NP-complete. In addition, we show that any reinforcement learning problem can be encoded as a classical logic program with answer set semantics. We also show that a reinforcement learning problem can be encoded as a SAT problem. We present a new high level action description language that allows the factored representation of POMDP. Moreover, we modify the original model of POMDP so that it be able to distinguish between knowledge producing actions and actions that change the environment.
Microparticles prepared from sulfenamide-based polymers

Abstract Polysulfenamides (PSN), with a SN linkage (RSNR2) along the polymer backbone, are a new class of biodegradable and biocompatible polymers. These polymers were unknown prior to 2012 when their synthesis and medicinally relevant properties were reported. The aim of this study was to develop microparticles as a controlled drug delivery system using polysulfenamide as the matrix material. The microparticles were prepared by a water-in-oil-in-water double-emulsion solvent-evaporation method. For producing drug-loaded particles, FITC-dextran was used as a model hydrophilic compound. At the optimal formulation conditions, the external morphology of the PSN microparticles was examined by scanning electron microscopy to show the formation of smooth-surfaced spherical particles with low polydispersity. The microparticles had a net negative surface charge (–23 mV) as analyzed by the zetasizer. The drug encapsulation efficiency of the particles and the drug loading were found to be dependent on the drug molecular weight, amount of FITC-dextran used in fabricating FITC-dextran–loaded microparticles, concentration of PSN and surfactant, and volume of the internal and external water phases. FITC-dextran was found to be distributed throughout the PSN microparticles and was released in an initial burst followed by more continuous release over time. Confocal laser scanning microscopy was used to qualitatively observe the cellular uptake of PSN microparticles and indicated localization of the particles in both the cytoplasm and the nucleus.
How to wake up an access point?

The significant growth in the number of access points deployed in WLAN stimulates research efforts to focus on finding solutions to reduce the power consumed by their components. One promising approach is to put the access points (or at least its radio interface) into sleep mode when no activity is detected on the channel. In this paper we designed and implemented a measurement platform which can automatically send repeated sleep/wake up request to an access point, and measure the energy it consumes in each state. We define and conduct several experiments to evaluate four different techniques to control and manage the sleep/wake up procedure of an access point. We compare their performance in terms of the time needed to complete the wake up, the energy consumed, and the changes, if any, needed in the mobile terminals.
Multi-population competitive co-evolution of car racing controllers

Multi-population competitive co-evolution is explored as a way of developing controllers for a simple (but definitely not trivial) car racing game. The three main uses we see for this method are to evolve more complex general intelligence than would be possible with other methods, to compare different evolvable architectures for controllers, and to develop behaviourally diverse populations of agents for computer games. Nine-population co-evolution is compared with single-population co-evolution and standard evolution strategies, steady-state and generational versions of the algorithm are compared, and a number of different controller architectures are compared with each other.
Adaptive Frequency Control of Packet Processing Engines in Telecommunication Networks

This letter addresses the problem of energy saving in packet processing engines of network devices. The case of a single traffic queue is considered. The aim is to guarantee a delay constraint while adjusting the power consumption and the queue service rate. A feedback control is used, which is adaptive to the statistical behavior of traffic sources. The feedback is exploited by a heuristics and an optimal control technique. The latter approach, in particular, is capable of driving indications about which system conditions (statistical parameters and buffer size) are potentially more sensitive to energy saving.
Supporting Mobility and Collaboration in Ubiquitous Computing

For unknown reasons, research into ubiquitous computing seems to pay no attention to collaboration among users in such an environment. This paper presents the design philosophy of activity-based computing (abc) and a technical implementation of it in a ubiquitous computing infrastructure, the ABC framework, which takes collaboration in ubiquitous environments as its starting point. The idea of activity-based computing and the aim of the framework is to: (i) support the human activity by managing its collection of work tasks on a computer, (ii) to support mobility by porting activities across heterogeneous computing environments, (iii) to support asynchronous collaboration by allowing several people to participate in an activity, and (iv) to support synchronous, real-time collaboration by enabling ‘desktop conferring’ by sharing the activity across several clients. During a period of two years, our framework have been co-designed and evaluated in cooperation with a range of clinicians in a hospital.
Graph Based Constrained Semi-Supervised Learning Framework via Label Propagation over Adaptive Neighborhood

A new graph based constrained semi-supervised learning (G-CSSL) framework is proposed. Pairwise constraints (PC) are used to specify the types (intra- or inter-class) of points with labels. Since the number of labeled data is typically small in SSL setting, the core idea of this framework is to create and enrich the PC sets using the propagated soft labels from both labeled and unlabeled data by special label propagation (SLP), and hence obtaining more supervised information for delivering enhanced performance. We also propose a Two-stage Sparse Coding, termed TSC, for achieving adaptive neighborhood for SLP. The first stage aims at correcting the possible corruptions in data and training an informative dictionary, and the second stage focuses on sparse coding. To deliver enhanced inter-class separation and intra-class compactness, we also present a mixed soft-similarity measure to evaluate the similarity/dissimilarity of constrained pairs using the sparse codes and outputted probabilistic values by SLP. Simulations on the synthetic and real datasets demonstrated the validity of our algorithms for data representation and image recognition, compared with other related state-of-the-art graph based semi-supervised techniques.
A family of self-repair SRAM cores

In the present paper a family of BISR SRAM cores is proposed, characterized by a self-repair strategy performed on-line and without user intervention. Moreover, w.r. t. the BISR approaches presented so far, the proposed method is independent from the memory physical layout. In addition to the BISR architecture, to detect the faulty cells to be repaired, a complete set of test solutions is proposed ranging from an external test to an on-line concurrent BIST.
46 PARALLEL ALGORITHMS IN GEOMETRY

The goal of parallel algorithm design is to develop parallel computational methods that run very fast with as few processors as possible, and there is an extensive literature of such algorithms for computational geometry problems. There are several different parallel computing models, and in order to maintain a focus in this chapter, we will describe results in the Parallel Random Access Machine (PRAM) model, which is a synchronous parallel machine model in which processors share a common memory address space (and all inter-processor communication takes place through this shared memory). Although it does not capture all aspects of parallel computing, it does model the essential properties of parallelism. Moreover, it is a widely accepted model of parallel computation, and all other reasonable models of parallel computation can easily simulate a PRAM. Interestingly, parallel algorithms can have a direct impact on efficient sequential algorithms, using a technique called parametric search. This technique involves the use of a parallel algorithm to direct searches in a parameterized geometric space so as to find a critical location (e.g., where an important parameter changes sign or achieves a maximum or minimum value). The PRAM model is subdivided into submodels based on how one wishes to handle concurrent memory access to the same location. The Exclusive-Read, Exclusive-Write (EREW) variant does not allow for concurrent access. The Concurrent-Read, Exclusive-Write (CREW) variant permits concurrent memory reads, but memory writes must be exclusive. Finally, the Concurrent-Read, ConcurrentWrite (CRCW) variant allows for both concurrent memory reading and writing, with concurrent writes being resolved by some simple rule, such as having an arbitrary member of a collection of conflicting writes succeed. One can also define randomized versions of each of these models (e.g., an rCRCW PRAM), where in addition to the usual arithmetic and comparison operations, each processor can generate a random number from 1 to n in one step. Early work in parallel computational geometry, in the way we define it here, began with the work of Chow [Cho80], who designed several parallel algorithms with polylogarithmic running times using a linear number of processors. Subsequent to this work, several researchers initiated a systematic study of work-efficient parallel algorithms for geometric problems, including Aggarwal et al. [ACG88], Akl [Akl82, Akl84, Akl85], Amato and Preparata [AP92, AP95], Atallah and Goodrich [AG86, Goo87], and Reif and Sen [RS92, Sen89]. In Section 46.1 we give a brief discussion of general techniques for parallel geometric algorithm design. We then partition the research in parallel computational geometry into problems dealing with convexity (Section 46.2), arrangements and decompositions (Section 46.3), proximity (Section 46.4), geometric searching (Section 46.5), and visibility, envelopes, and geometric optimization (Section 46.6).
A Cautionary Tale of Technology: Not a Substitute for Careful Collaboration and Effective Communication

ABSTRACT This is an original case study highlighting the importance of careful collaboration and effective communication among healthcare providers. Amid the chaos of a new year, implementing a new healthcare act with an entirely new system of coding, patients are informed consumers interconnected through enhanced technological advances. This article describes a complicated situation involving long-term follow-up of a patient with a history of previous surgical removal of a rare tumor. The problem is one in which the patient is given exclusive access to a newly implemented electronic medical record system that has not fully completed the transition, including all healthcare specialties in the new system. What results is unnecessary, weeklong emotional turmoil, where the patient’s health status is misinterpreted and miscommunicated. The challenge is helping patients become aggressive advocates and consumers of quality care, without breaching confidentiality. How much access is too much and what can happen if patients are given full disclosure and access to the electronic medical record? Fortunately, in this case, the problem is solved when the main provider returns from out-of-town, and multiple providers unite, carefully collaborate, and effectively communicate with the patient.
Verbal Memory Functions in Unipolar Major Depression With and Without Co-Morbid Anxiety

The aim of this study was to examine both executive control of verbal working memory and verbal learning as well as long-term storage function in outpatients with major depressive disorder (n = 61) compared to healthy controls (n = 92). A total of 37 patients had no co-morbid anxiety disorder, whereas 24 had a co-morbid anxiety disorder. Both patient groups showed impaired working memory test performance compared to healthy controls. Patients with co-morbid depression and anxiety disorder performed significantly below the depression group. Only patients with depression and co-morbid anxiety displayed deficient long-term memory function compared to healthy controls. The present results show impairments in various memory functions in patients presenting depression and depression with co-morbid anxiety disorder.
Implications of weight loss for cancer patients receiving radiotherapy

Purpose of review Cancer-associated weight loss is a common comorbid condition best described among patients with advanced malignancy receiving systemic therapy, but its relationship to patients undergoing radiation treatment is less well described. We review the interaction between cancer-associated weight loss and radiation treatment as well as its prognostic significance. Recent findings Multiple studies demonstrate a consistent detrimental effect of cancer-associated weight loss either existing prior to treatment or developing during radiotherapy. Emerging data suggest cancer-associated weight loss independently contributes to an aggressive malignant phenotype rather than simply reflecting a consequence of disease. Novel therapies are urgently needed to address the unmet burden of cancer-associated weight loss. Summary Consideration of cancer-associated weight loss is important among patients receiving radiotherapy. Further study will further characterize the relationship and identify targetable biologic mechanisms of cancer cachexia.
Fundamentals of endothelial function for the clinical cardiologist.

Case presentation 1: Mr Gundry is a 42-year-old construction worker who has had type II diabetes mellitus for the past 6 years. He has no other vascular risk factors and is currently asymptomatic. Is this patient at risk of developing endothelial dysfunction? Case presentation 2: Mr Sinha is a 64-year-old man who presents to your office for symptomatic intermittent claudication. Past medical history is unremarkable except for the presence of multiple vascular risk factors (smoking, hypertension, dyslipidemia, and obesity). How do vascular risk factors cause endothelial dysfunction? Is endothelial dysfunction treatable? A survey of medical history will reveal that major breakthroughs are often a result of simple and at times unexpected observations. Indeed, the era of endothelial biology was brought to the forefront through a simple pharmacological experiment conducted approximately 2 decades ago in Dr Furchgott’s laboratory.1 In this landmark study, the authors described the essential role of the endothelium in mediating the vasodilatory actions of acetylcholine, now known to be dependent on the release of nitric oxide (NO) from the endothelium. No one could have predicted that this observation would have the gargantuan impact on vascular biology that is evident today. Endothelial dysfunction now is implicated in the pathogenesis and clinical course of the majority of cardiovascular diseases. The purpose of this “Clinical Cardiology: Physician Update” is to provide the busy cardiovascular specialist with some of the fundamental principles of endothelial function as they relate to cardiovascular health and disease. The endothelium is a single-cell lining covering the internal surface of blood vessels, cardiac valves, and numerous body cavities. The strategic location of the endothelium allows it to “sense” changes in hemodynamic forces and blood-borne signals and “respond” by releasing vasoactive substances. A critical balance between endothelium-derived relaxing and contracting factors maintains vascular homeostasis. When this balance is …
Altered Lipid Levels in Untreated Patients with Early Polymyositis

Background Little is known so far on the lipid profile in polymyositis (PM) patients. Our aim is to identify lipid profiles in untreated patients with early PM, to assess the association between lipid profiles and C-reactive protein (a sensitive marker of inflammation) in these patients. Methods and Findings This work was conducted as a case-control study. Sixty untreated patients with PM and 60 age- and sex-matched healthy controls were included. The duration of PM was less than six months, and none of them had received intermittent or regular corticosteroids or disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs or biological agents prior to the study. Triglyceride (TG), total cholesterol (TC), LDL-cholesterol (LDL-C), and HDL-cholesterol (HDL-C), and C-reactive protein (CRP) were assessed using standard techniques. Thirty patients (50%) had a decreased level of HDL-C and 47% had an increased level of TG. The levels of HDL-C, LDL-C, and TC in PM were significantly lower than in controls (P<0.001, P<0.01, P<0.001, respectively). The level of TG was significantly higher in PM than in controls (P<0.001). The level of very low LDL-cholesterol (VLDL-C), and the ratios of VLDL-C/LDL-C, TC/HDL-C, and LDL-C/HDL-C were significantly higher than in controls (all P<0.001). Serum CRP levels correlated negatively with HDL-C (r = −0.352, P = 0.006) and TC (r = −0.262, P = 0.043). After adjustment for age, gender, smoking, drinking, body mass index, and pulmonary fibrosis/infection, linear regression model demonstrated that CRP is associated with HDL-C among PM patients (P = 0.028). Conclusions Dyslipidemia is a common feature in patients with PM that is characterized by a decrease in HDL-C and an increase in TG, suggesting a high risk of atherosclerosis. The Inflammatory condition in PM may account for the metabolism of HDL-C.
Comparison of Miniplates and Reconstruction Plates in Fibular Flap Reconstruction of the Mandible

Background: Mandibular reconstruction using free fibular flaps can be performed using various plating techniques. Miniplates (≤2.0 mm) and reconstruction plates (>2.0 mm) have different characteristics that provide theoretical advantages and disadvantages with regard to successful neomandibular fixation. Methods: A retrospective review of 117 patients undergoing free fibular reconstruction of segmental mandibular defects over the past 10 years was performed. Characteristic data and complication rates were recorded; the authors compared patients who had fibular reconstruction of their mandibular defect with miniplates (n = 86) with those who underwent repair using reconstruction plates (n = 31). Results: No statistically significant difference was identified when comparing miniplates and reconstruction plates with regard to overall cumulative complication rates (46 versus 48 percent), flap failure (15 percent versus 27 percent), plate extrusion (23 percent versus 25 percent), malunion or nonunion (14 percent versus 13 percent), and plate fracture (10 percent versus 0 percent). (The cumulative percentage incidence weighs patient data according to length of follow-up.) The authors’ data did suggest a decreased incidence of osteonecrosis in the miniplate group (5 percent versus 38 percent; p = 0.02), but these results must be interpreted cautiously because of the small sample size. Conclusion: Selection of plate size, miniplate versus reconstruction plate, does not appear to affect the overall rate of complications in free fibular reconstruction of the mandible.
Investigating response similarities between real and mediated social touch: a first test

In this paper, we investigate whether the gender differences generally found in same and opposite sex social touch are also present in mediated situations. Participants were led to believe that a male or female stranger was remotely touching them by means of a vest equipped with vibrotactile actuators. Affective responses varied with the stimulated body location, but the effect of dyad composition was not significant. In sum, we found partial support for the assumption that mediated social touch is actually perceived of as a real touch. Possible improvements to haptic communication devices are discussed.
Optimal MMSE Beamforming for Multiuser Downlink with Delayed CSI Feedback Using Codebooks

This paper investigates the beamforming design for multiuser downlink with limited feedback, where a practical channel state information (CSI) feedback model consisting both feedback delay and CSI quantization error is considered. Under this circumstance, we derive a closed-form multiuser beamforming scheme via minimizing the expected mean square error (MSE) with respect to the feedback imperfection. Compared with conventional MMSE beamforming scheme, we find that not only the regularization factor but the optimal MMSE beamforming structure changes due to the CSI imperfection, especially the feedback delay. Numerical results verify in different cases that the optimized beamforming design outperforms conventional ones in terms of both sum rate and BER performance.
PBFilter: indexing flash-resident data through partitioned summaries

NAND Flash has become the most popular persistent data storage medium for mobile and embedded devices. The hardware characteristics of NAND Flash (e.g. page granularity for read/write with a block-erase-before-rewrite constraint, limited number of erase cycles) preclude in-place updates. In this paper, we propose a new indexing scheme, called PBFilter, designed from the outset to exploit the peculiarities of NAND Flash.
High-throughput microsatellite marker development for the distylous herb Primula mistassinica (Primulaceae)1

Premise of the study: Twelve microsatellite markers were developed for Primula mistassinica, a distylous, diploid arctic-alpine plant. The markers will be used to investigate the landscape genetics of a disjunct population on Isle Royale, Michigan, and the phylogeographic patterns of the species. Methods and Results: We used Roche/454 high-throughput technology to sequence microsatellite-enriched regions in the P. mistassinica genome. We developed 12 polymorphic microsatellite primer sets. These loci contained di-, tri-, and tetranucleotide repeats with two to nine alleles per locus when assessed in 23 individuals. Conclusions: Understanding the historical movements of P. mistassinica will provide insight to the survival prospects of current Arctic plant populations, which face the pressures of global, anthropogenic climate change.
Obesity and Eosinophilic Inflammation: Does Leptin Play a Role

It has been pointed out that obesity is a risk factor for, and is involved in the exacerbation of asthma. Mounting evidence about adipose tissue-derived proteins (adipokines) gave rise to the current understanding of obesity as a systemic inflammatory disorder. In this review, we summarized the involvement of leptin, focusing on eosinophil functions. Several studies have indicated that leptin can restrain eosinophil apoptosis, enhance migration, increase adhesion molecules and induce cytokine production. Since leptin also acts on a variety of immune cells related to allergic response, increased leptin in obese individuals potentially explains the mechanism by which obesity leads to an exacerbation of asthma. Further studies targeting adipokines will delineate the association between obesity and eosinophil-associated diseases.