Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Two Approaches to Aspect Assignment in an English-Polish Machine Translation System

The paper presents two approaches to aspect assignment in a knowledge-based English-Polish machine translation (MT) system. The first method uses a set of heuristic rules based on interlingua (IR) representation provided by the system, whereas the other employs machine learning techniques. Both methods have similar performance and obtain high accuracy of over 88% on test data. The crucial difference, however, is the development effort: the machine learning technique is fully automatic, whereas heuristic rules are derived manually.
MetroEye: Smart Tracking Your Metro Trips Underground

Metro has become the first choice of traveling for tourists and citizens in metropolis due to its efficiency and convenience. Yet passengers have to rely on metro broadcasts to know their locations because popular localization services (e.g. GPS and wireless localization technologies) are often inaccessible underground. To this end, we propose MetroEye, an intelligent smartphone-based tracking system for metro passengers underground. MetroEye leverages low-power sensors embedded in modern smartphones to record ambient contextual features, and infers the state of passengers (Stop, Running, and Interchange) during an entire metro trip using a Conditional Random Field (CRF) model. MetroEye further provides arrival alarm services based on individual passenger state, and aggregates crowdsourced interchange durations to guide passengers for intelligent metro trip planning. Experimental results within 6 months across over 14 subway trains in 3 major cities demonstrate that MetroEye yields an overall accuracy of 80.5% outperforming the state-of-the-art.
Gaussian Process Learning from Order Relationships Using Expectation Propagation

A method for Gaussian process learning of a scalar function from a set of pair-wise order relationships is presented. Expectation propagation is used to obtain an approximation to the log marginal likelihood which is optimised using an analytical expression for its gradient. Experimental results show that the proposed method performs well compared with a previous method for Gaussian process preference learning.
Should low-dose computed tomography kidneys, ureter and bladder be the new investigation of choice in suspected renal colic?: A systematic review

Introduction: Computed tomography kidneys, ureter and bladder (CTKUB) is the accepted gold standard investigation for suspected renal colic. Dose considerations are particularly pertinent in the context of detecting urolithiasis given the high risk of disease recurrence, which can necessitate multiple radiological examinations over the lifetime of a stone-former. We performed a systematic review of the literature to see whether there was any evidence that reducing the effective radiation dose of a CTKUB compromised the diagnostic accuracy of the scan. Materials and Methods: Relevant databases including MedLine, EMBASE, DARE and the Cochrane Library were searched from inception to October 2012. All English language articles reporting on prospective studies where non-contrast, low-dose CT (LDCT) was used to investigate adults (males and non-pregnant females) presenting with flank pain or suspected urolithiasis were included. LDCT was defined as an effective radiation dose <3 mSv per examination. Results: Our initial search identified 497 records. After removing duplicates, 390 abstracts were screened, of which 375 were excluded, principally because outcomes of interest were not presented. Six papers remained for the final analysis, reporting on a total of 903 patients. Individual studies showed a prevalence of urolithiasis ranging between 36% and 88%, with additional pathologies found in 5-16%. The effective radiation dose of the LDCT techniques used ranged from 0.5 to 2.8 mSv. The sensitivity of LDCT for diagnosing stone disease was 90-97% with a specificity of 86-100%. Conclusions: The sensitivity and specificity of CTKUB for diagnosing urolithiasis remains high, even when the effective radiation dose is lowered. LDCT may miss some small stones (<3 mm), especially in obese patients (>30 kg/m2), but in this group LDCT still identifies most alternative diagnoses. With at least one level 1A and two level 1B studies supporting the use of LDCT, there is Grade A recommendation for its use as the first-line investigation in suspected renal colic in non-obese patients.
The Petrol approach to high-level power estimation

High-level power estimation is essential for designing complex low-power ICs. However, the lack of flexibility, or restriction to synthesizable code of previously presented high-level power estimation approaches limits their use. In this paper we present a novel, more general and flexible high-level power estimation approach, that avoids these limitations. Petrol, as we call it, is not limited to specialized application domains, synthesizable VHDL, or data path parts of a design. We show that glitches can be usefully modeled at higher levels of abstraction. The Petrol approach shows good correlation with gate-level power estimates. It is currently used for commercial designs.
Overcoming a Standard Bearer: Challenges to NEC's Personal Computer in Japan

In this paper we examine the process by which a standard bearer loses its leading position in a market. We put forth a framework of four factors needed to overturn existing standard bearers, including superior price/performance competition in the context of network externalities, the ability of the standard bearer to adopt new technologies, the strength of proprietary rights of the existing standard, and competitor's willingness and ability to challenge the standard bearer. We use this framework to examine three types of failed challenges to NEC's position as the standard bearer in the Japanese personal computer market, along with a recent attempt that appear more likely to succeed.
Location, location, location: the role of spatial locality in asymptotic energy minimization

Locality exploitation is essential to asymptotic energy minimization for gate array netlist evaluation. Naive implementations that ignore locality, including flat crossbars and simple processors based on monolithic memories, can require O(N2) energy for an N node graph. Specifically, it is important to exploit locality (1) to reduce the size of the description of the graph, (2) to reduce data movement, and (3) to reduce instruction movement. FPGAs exploit all three. FPGAs with a Rent Exponent p<0.5 running designs with p<0.5 achieve asymptotically optimal Theta(N) energy. FPGA designs with p>0.5 and implementations with metal layers that grow as O(N(p-0.5)) require only O(N(p+0.5)) energy; this bound can be achieved with O(1) metal layers with a novel multicontext design that has heterogeneous context depth. In contrast, a p>0.5 FPGA design on an implementation technology with O(1) metal layers requires O(N(2p)) energy.
A fast semi-blind source separation algorithm

Many algorithms have been invented to perform blind source separation. There, it is assumed that the sources are completely unknown. However, in many cases of time series separation there exists some a priori knowledge on the behaviour of the sources. This is the case especially, when the data is collected in a controlled experiment. In this paper we introduce a fast semi-blind source separation algorithm (SBSS) when either the power spectrum of the sources is partly known or in case of on/off -non-stationary sources, the onsets and offsets of the sources are known at least partially or the sources are quasi-periodic. We also suggest a method how this algorithm can be generalised to blind source separation with certain conditions. The algorithm is tested on simulated data.
Non-Destructive Evaluation for Corrosion Monitoring in Concrete: A Review and Capability of Acoustic Emission Technique

Corrosion of reinforced concrete (RC) structures has been one of the major causes of structural failure. Early detection of the corrosion process could help limit the location and the extent of necessary repairs or replacement, as well as reduce the cost associated with rehabilitation work. Non-destructive testing (NDT) methods have been found to be useful for in-situ evaluation of steel corrosion in RC, where the effect of steel corrosion and the integrity of the concrete structure can be assessed effectively. A complementary study of NDT methods for the investigation of corrosion is presented here. In this paper, acoustic emission (AE) effectively detects the corrosion of concrete structures at an early stage. The capability of the AE technique to detect corrosion occurring in real-time makes it a strong candidate for serving as an efficient NDT method, giving it an advantage over other NDT methods.
On the Need to Live Educational Foundations.

I recently retired from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) where I was a faculty member since 1975. My field is known as Curriculum Studies, which I consider to be a kindred spirit with Foundations of Education. I feel that I gained immense sustenance from the study of educational foundations throughout my life in education. As I continue to write and to be active in the field, I continue to live educational foundations. However, I can pick and choose meetings to attend, and thus select very few. More importantly, I can decide what I wish to ponder and reflect on it as long as I wish. Almost invariably this involves basic questions of philosophy, history, culture, and socio-economic life—the basic issues of life. Good foundational teaching assumes that such issues should never be fully settled. I am convinced that we need to teach this today more than ever. In Modes of Thought, Alfred North Whitehead elaborates on the never-ending character of philosophical endeavor: “Philosophy begins in wonder. And, in the end, when philosophic thought has done its best, the wonder remains. ” 1 This unending philosophizing has made the wonder more meaningful and my life more fulfilling. One of my heartfelt wishes is to continue pondering sources of meaning in my educational life. It occurs to me that this pondering began long ago, perhaps when I was a child. Indeed, I have been reflecting on the foundations of education since long before I knew they were the Foundations of Education. Sadly, the Foundations of Education are being pushed toward the precipice of extinction. The same is happening to its cousin, curriculum studies—particularly curriculum theory—my major educational concern since I was an elementary school teacher. Opposition exists, and I want to offer a brief autobiographical portrayal of my life in education as but one illustration of resistance to potential extinction. I urge others to do so, too, for there must be solidarity of efforts to revive deep foundational and curricular concerns. I am convinced that such a revival is absolutely necessary. We must resist the tendency to diminish or extinguish foundational courses and departments, including curriculum studies, in colleges and universities. We must simultaneously be ready to teach foundational questions in whatever courses we are obliged to teach and in every opportunity we have to engage with teachers, school leaders, educational policy makers, and the general public. I have lived through many attacks on foundations of education, so I begin here with a brief diatribe against a prominent attack of today: the furor surrounding STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). It seems that every college of education is falling head over heels to acquire STEM funding as if it were the pinnacle of educational pursuit. Ever since post-Sputnik curriculum reform the federal government (in league with the military, corporate, and other private interests) has taken over research and policy through the kinds of grant opportunities it provides for educational researchers and schools. Only a few have resisted the lures of
Increased axon regeneration in astrocytes grown in the presence of proteoglycan synthesis inhibitors.

We have recently reported that the critical difference between astrocytic cell lines that are good or poor promoters of axon growth lies in the extracellular matrix. We demonstrated that much of this difference between matrix produced by permissive and non-permissive cell lines could be ascribed to one or more dermatan/keratan sulphate proteoglycans and that these proteoglycans are able to block the neurite-promoting effect of laminin. These proteoglycans are also produced by cultures of primary astrocytes. In the present study, we have demonstrated that treatment of both astrocytic cell lines and primary astrocytes with inhibitors of proteoglycan synthesis, beta-D-xylosides and sodium chlorate, can strongly influence the axon growth promoting properties of both matrix and whole cells. Dorsal root ganglia grown on matrix or in conditioned medium from cultures treated with beta-D-xylosides or sodium chlorate had twice as many axons and the axons grew to twice the length as in control cultures. Following treatment of Neu7 cells with proteoglycan synthesis inhibitors there was also a significant reduction in the ability of Neu7 conditioned medium to block the neurite-promoting effect of laminin. Dorsal root ganglia grown on Neu7 cells treated with sodium chlorate extended 2 to 3 times the number of axons for approximately 300 mm longer distance than on control cultures. Treatment of Neu7 cells with beta-D-xylosides, however, did not make the cells less inhibitory to axon growth. We have also examined the effects of proteoglycan synthesis inhibitors on three-dimensional primary astrocyte cultures, which closely mimic the in vivo effects of astrocytes on axon growth. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Widespread Sensitivity to Looming Stimuli and Small Moving Objects in the Central Complex of an Insect Brain

In many situations animals are confronted with approaching objects. Depending on whether the approach represents a potential threat or is intended during a goal-oriented approach, the adequate behavioral strategies differ. In all of these cases the visual system experiences an expanding or looming shape. The neuronal machinery mediating looming elicited behavioral responses has been studied most comprehensively in insects but is still far from being fully understood. It is particularly unknown how insects adjust their behavior to objects approaching from different directions. A brain structure that is thought to play an important role in spatial orientation in insects is the central complex (CC). We investigated whether CC neurons process information about approaching objects on a collision course. We recorded intracellularly from CC neurons in the locust Schistocerca gregaria during visual stimulation via lateral LCD screens. Many neurons in the locust CC, including columnar and tangential neurons, were sensitive to looming stimuli. Some of the neurons also responded to small moving targets. Several cell types showed binocular responses to looming objects, and some neurons were excited or inhibited depending on which eye was stimulated. These neurons may, therefore, detect the gross azimuthal direction of approaching objects and may mediate directional components of escape or steering movements.
Families and Careers∗

Recent research by Kambourov and Manovskii (2008a) has documented substantial returns to occupational tenure: everything else being constant, five years of occupational experience are associated with an increase in wages of at least 12%. This finding is consistent with human capital being specific to the occupation in which an individual works (e.g., truck driver, accountant, chemical engineer). However, despite the apparent costliness of occupational switching, Kambourov and Manovskii (2008b) found a substantial increase in occupational mobility over the 1969-1997 period among male workers in the United States. This finding poses a set of intriguing questions. Why did the occupational mobility of male workers increase? What happened with the occupational mobility of women? Are the two trends connected? That is, is there a relationship between the well-documented increase in the labor force attachment of women and the change in the occupational mobility of men? In this paper we present new facts that we hope will help guide the search for answers to these questions. In particular, we study changes in the occupational mobility of men and women conditional on their marital status. In addition, one might expect that the increased labor force participation of women affects not only the occupational mobility decisions of ∗JEL classification: E20, E24, E30, J24, J44, J62.
Illuminant Multiplexed Imaging: Basics and Demonstration

We present a novel spectral imaging technique that allows multiple gray-scale images to be combined in a single hardcopy print. The images are individually revealed when the print is illuminated by suitably chosen light sources. In its basic form, the technique utilizes the complementary relation between cyan, magenta, and yellow colorants and narrow band red, green, and blue illuminants to combine and extract the images. Instead of the conventional color imaging scenario, where three-dimensional color attributes of a print are controlled under a wide-band illuminant using a set of colorants, in illuminant multiplexed imaging, one dimensional luminance attributes under two or more narrow-band illuminants are simultaneously controlled using the same colorants. We present a brief mathematical framework for illuminant multiplexed imaging and describe useful approximations that significantly simplify implementation. Several applications of the technology are presented.
Human smile: Universal, innate, and cultural issues

The study of emotions and emotional face expressions has provoked increasing interest in contemporary researchers. Understanding the mechanisms of production, regulation and perception of the emotions, as well as of ontogenesis of the emotional expressions, has been considered central for the comprehension of infant development, in its cognitive, affective and social aspects. However, many questions related to the origins of these expressions still remain as subjects of controversies. Thus, babies’ facial expressions of emotion are an important object of inquiry, including the ontogenesis of the smile. The aim of this work is to argue for a socio-cultural and evolutionary perspective for the study of the human smile, based on the discussion of literature on its innate and acquired aspects and its phylogenetic origins, enabling the formularization of hypotheses to be submitted to empirical test.
Cyclophosphamide Facilitates Antitumor Efficacy against Subcutaneous Tumors following Intravenous Delivery of Reovirus

Purpose: The purpose of the present study was to investigate whether it is possible to achieve truly systemic delivery of oncolytic reovirus, in immunocompetent hosts, using cyclophosphamide to overcome some of the barriers to effective intratumoral delivery and replication of i.v. injected virus. Experimental Design: I.v. delivery of reovirus was combined with different regimens of i.p. administered cyclophosphamide in C57Bl/6 mice bearing established s.c. B16 tumors. Intratumoral viral replication, tumor size, and survival were measured along with levels of neutralizing antibody (NAb) in the blood. Finally, differential toxicities of the virus/cyclophosphamide regimens were monitored through viral replication in systemic organs, survival, and cardiac damage. Results: Repeated i.v. injection of reovirus was poorly effective at seeding intratumoral viral replication/oncolysis. However, by combining i.v. virus with cyclophosphamide, viral titers of between 107 and 108 plaque-forming units per milligram were recovered from regressing tumors. Doses of cyclophosphamide that ablated NAb were associated with severe toxicities, characterized by viral replication in systemic organs—toxicities that are mirrored by repeated reovirus injections into B-cell knockout mice. Next, we restructured the dosing of cyclophosphamide and i.v. virus such that a dose of 3 mg cyclophosphamide was administered 24 h before reovirus injection, and this schedule was repeated every 6 days. Using this protocol, high levels of intratumoral viral access and replication (∼107 plaque-forming units per milligram tumor) were maintained along with systemically protective levels of NAb and only very mild, non–life-threatening toxicity. Conclusion: NAb to oncolytic viruses play a dual role in the context of systemic viral delivery; on one hand, they hinder repeated administration of virus but on the other, they provide an important safety mechanism by which virus released from vigorous intratumoral replication is neutralized before it can disseminate and cause toxicity. These data support the use of cyclophosphamide to modulate, but not ablate, patient NAb, in development of carefully controlled clinical trials of the systemic administration of oncolytic viruses.
Flushing and Locking of Venous Catheters: Available Evidence and Evidence Deficit

Flushing and locking of intravenous catheters are thought to be essential in the prevention of occlusion. The clinical sign of an occlusion is catheter malfunction and flushing is strongly recommended to ensure a well-functioning catheter. Therefore fluid dynamics, flushing techniques, and sufficient flushing volumes are important matters in adequate flushing in all catheter types. If a catheter is not in use, it is locked. For years, it has been thought that the catheter has to be filled with an anticoagulant to prevent catheter occlusion. Heparin has played a key role in locking venous catheters. However, the high number of risks associated with heparin forces us to look for alternatives. A long time ago, 0.9% sodium chloride was already introduced as locking solution in peripheral cannulas. More recently, a 0.9% sodium chloride lock has also been investigated in other types of catheters. Thrombolytic agents have also been studied as a locking solution because their antithrombotic effect was suggested as superior to heparin. Other catheter lock solutions focus on the anti-infective properties of the locks such as antibiotics and chelating agents. Still, the most effective locking solution will depend on the catheter type and the patient's condition.
Estruturas de poder e a questão ambiental: a reprodução da desigualdade de classe Power Structures and the Environmental Issue: the Reproduction of Class Inequality

The aim of this article is to place the so-called “environmental issue” in perspective. We seek to deny the notion of an essentialized universal cause, simultaneously reinforcing the unequal distribution of benefits of environmental conservation as well as the socialization of risks towards the various social groups. We emphasize the discursive disputes regarding the formulation of environmental problems and their solutions, noting the importance of cognition and classification in consensus building. The struggle for power, in this case, is essential, as it is articulated with the possibility of legitimizing some discourses and practices. Thus, the State emerges as a central figure once it ideologically unifies values embedded in the subjective structure of society, becoming an important subject of dispute for power. The environmental conflict is within this context of physical and symbolic disputes, and it helps to deconstruct the notion of a homogeneous society as well as the one of a universal State above class interests.