Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Healthy Aging by Staying Selectively Connected: A Mini-Review

Cognitive neuroscience of the healthy aging human brain has thus far addressed age-related changes of local functional and structural properties of gray and white matter and their association with declining or preserved cognitive functions. In addition to these localized changes, recent neuroimaging research has attributed an important role to neural networks with a stronger focus on interacting rather than isolated brain regions. The analysis of functional connectivity encompasses task-dependent and -independent synchronous activity in the brain, and thus reflects the organization of the brain in distinct performance-relevant networks. Structural connectivity in white matter pathways, representing the integrity of anatomical connections, underlies the communication between the nodes of these functional networks. Both functional and structural connectivity within these networks have been demonstrated to change with aging, and to have different predictive values for cognitive abilities in older compared to young adults. Structural degeneration has been found in the entire cerebral white matter with greatest deterioration in frontal areas, affecting whole brain structural network efficiency. With regard to functional connectivity, both higher and lower functional coupling has been observed in the aging compared to the young brain. Here, high connectivity within the nodes of specific functional networks on the one hand, and low connectivity to regions outside this network on the other hand, were associated with preserved cognitive functions in aging in most cases. For example, in the language domain, connections between left-hemisphere language-related prefrontal, posterior temporal and parietal areas were described as beneficial, whereas connections between the left and right hemisphere were detrimental for language task performance. Of note, interactions between structural and functional network properties may change in the course of aging and differentially impact behavioral performance in older versus young adults. Finally, studies using noninvasive brain stimulation techniques like transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to simultaneously modulate behavior and functional connectivity support the importance of ‘selective connectivity' of aging brain networks for preserved cognitive functions. These studies demonstrate that enhancing task performance by tDCS is paralleled by increased connectivity within functional networks. In this review, we outline the network perspective on healthy brain aging and discuss recent developments in this field.
Advancing Digital Government The Research-Practice-Knowledge Connection

Digital government is both a research domain and a field of practice. As such, it needs both new knowledge and research-based problem solving and innovation. To achieve both ends, researchers need to bring their full array of theories, standards and methodologies to the actual needs of government, while practitioners’ deep knowledge of policy domains, and organizational and political environments can challenge and enrich how researchers frame questions, explore explanations, and convey results. Deeply-rooted differences in these two professional cultures make this kind of engagement difficult and prone to failure, but improvement is both needed and possible. This essay reflects on twenty years of experience with researchpractice partnerships and offers strategies that individual researchers can use to make it more feasible and successful. The strategies address relationship building, choice of research methods, research management techniques, the timing of research, and realistic appreciation for costs, benefits and risks.
Long-term renormalization of chromatic mechanisms following cataract surgery

The optical density of the human crystalline lens progressively increases with age, the greatest increase in the visible spectrum being at short wavelengths. This produces a gradual shift in the spectral distribution of the light reaching the retina, yet color appearance remains relatively stable across the life span, implying that the visual system adapts to compensate for changes in spectral sensitivity. We explored properties of this adaptive renormalization by measuring changes in color appearance following cataract surgery. When the lens is removed, cataract patients often report a large perceptual shift in color appearance that can last for months. This change in color appearance was quantified for four cataract patients (63–84 years) by determining the chromaticity of stimuli that appeared achromatic before surgery, and at various intervals after surgery for up to 1 year. Stimuli were presented on a calibrated CRT as 9.5-deg spots, with 3-s duration and 3-s interstimulus intervals (ISIs). Chromaticity was adjusted by the subjects in CIE L*a*b* color space with luminance fixed at 32 cd/m2, on a dark background. We also estimated the optical density of the cataractous lens by comparing absolute scotopic thresholds from 410 nm to 600 nm before and after surgery. The results demonstrated that immediately following surgery there is a large increase in the short-wave light reaching the retina, mainly below 500 nm. The achromatic settings generally showed an initial large shift in the “yellow” direction after surgery that gradually (but never fully) returned to the original achromatic point before surgery. The shifts in the achromatic point occur over a number of months and appear to occur independently of the fellow eye.
Incremental Mining of Across-streams Sequential Patterns in Multiple Data Streams

Sequential pattern mining is the mining of data sequences for frequent sequential patterns with time sequence, which has a wide application. Data streams are streams of data that arrive at high speed. Due to the limitation of memory capacity and the need of real-time mining, the results of mining need to be updated in real time. Multiple data streams are the simultaneous arrival of a plurality of data streams, for which a much larger amount of data needs to be processed. Due to the inapplicability of traditional sequential pattern mining techniques, sequential pattern mining in multiple data streams has become an important research issue. Previous research can only handle a single item at a time and hence is incapable of coping with the changing environment of multiple data streams. In this paper, therefore, we propose the IAspam algorithm that not only can handle a set of items at a time but also can incrementally mine across-streams sequential patterns. In the process, stream data are converted into bitmap representation for mining. Experimental results show that the IAspam algorithm is effective in execution time when processing large amounts of stream data.
Design and Analysis of Optimization Algorithms Using Computational Statistics

We propose a highly flexible sequential methodology for the experimental analysis of optimization algorithms. The proposed technique employs computational statistic methods to investigate the interactions among optimization problems, algorithms, and environments. The workings of the proposed technique are illustrated on the parameterization and comparison of both a population–based and a direct search algorithm, on a well– known benchmark problem, as well as on a simplified model of a real–world problem. Experimental results are reported and conclusions are derived.
Designing a text entry multimodal keypad for blind users of touchscreen mobile phones

In this report, we share our experience and observations on the challenges blind people face with text entry on touch-based mobile phones, particularly from the perspective of one of the authors, who is blind. To better understand these issues we developed and tested Multimodal Text Input Touchscreen Keypad (MTITK), an audio-tactile text entry prototype based on multitap, which relies on a telephone keypad layout organized into five key groups with distinct audio-tactile feedback. Users explore the screen to identify the current selected key, tap to enter text, and gesture to edit it, while receiving the corresponding voice, audio, and tactile feedback; no additional equipment is necessary in our software-only approach. We implemented a prototype on Android and tested its usability with visually impaired participants; they welcomed its multimodality and the familiar layout, but also expressed the need to increase vibration pattern differentiation and refine the character selection mechanism.
SOUND SOURCE SEPARATION WITH DISTRIBUTED MICROPHONE ARRAYS IN THE PRESENCE OF CLOCK SYNCHRONIZATION ERRORS

We first present our studies on how clock synchronization errors affect the performance of sound source separation wi th a distributed microphone array. We show that our previously proposed energy-based sound source separation method is robust to constant clock shift errors but is more sensitive to clock drift errors. We then propose a novel technique to address the clock drift errors. The key observation is that as the amount of clock drift increases, so does the correlation between the energies of the separated sources which are obtained from the Independent Component Analysis (ICA). Based on this observation, we propose an optimization technique to solve the clock drifting parameter. Experiment results are shown to validate our approach.
The Thermal Wake of Kauai Island: Satellite Observations and Numerical Simulations*

Abstract Island thermal effects on the trail cloud band over the central North Pacific are investigated for the lee of Hawaii using satellite observations and a regional atmospheric model. The trail cloud band develops around noon and peaks in cloudiness in the early afternoon. The analysis of numerical simulations of the Kauai wake suggests that a dynamically induced convergence zone forms in the lee of Kauai and Oahu (maximum elevation at 1.5 and 1.2 km, respectively) under the trade wind flow. The island thermal effect significantly modulates the island wake and creates a diurnal cycle of development and decay in the lee cloud band. As solar radiation heats up the island from morning to afternoon, warm air moves downstream (warm advection) from the island in the wake zone, increasing the air temperature, decreasing the air pressure, and enhancing low-level wind convergence in favor of the formation of the trail clouds. Conversely the cold advection during night suppresses cloud formation in the wake. T.
Comparison-Based Nearest Neighbor Search

We consider machine learning in a comparison-based setting where we are given a set of points in a metric space, but we have no access to the actual distances between the points. Instead, we can only ask an oracle whether the distance between two points $i$ and $j$ is smaller than the distance between the points $i$ and $k$. We are concerned with data structures and algorithms to find nearest neighbors based on such comparisons. We focus on a simple yet effective algorithm that recursively splits the space by first selecting two random pivot points and then assigning all other points to the closer of the two (comparison tree). We prove that if the metric space satisfies certain expansion conditions, then with high probability the height of the comparison tree is logarithmic in the number of points, leading to efficient search performance. We also provide an upper bound for the failure probability to return the true nearest neighbor. Experiments show that the comparison tree is competitive with algorithms that have access to the actual distance values, and needs less triplet comparisons than other competitors.
DE SITTER SPACE AND SPATIAL TOPOLOGY

Morrow-Jones and Witt have shown that generic spatial topologies admit initial data that evolve to locally de Sitter spacetimes under Einstein's equations. We simplify their arguments, make them a little more general, and solve for the global time evolution of the wormhole initial data considered by them. Finally, we give explicit examples of locally de Sitter domains of development whose universal covers cannot be embedded in de Sitter space.
Emerging Infectious Diseases

Colonization and infection with vancomycinresistant enterococci (VRE) are emerging worldwide. In Europe, agricultural use of the glycopeptide growth promoter avoparcin has been implicated in the emergence of vanA VRE in the food chain (1), and fecal colonization rates of 2%28% have been reported in some communities (2,3). In the United States, where avoparcin is not used, both vanA and vanB VRE strains appear to be largely nosocomially spread, with fecal VRE colonization rare in nonhospitalized patients (4,5). By contrast, in Australia, where avoparcin has been used widely (10,000 kg/year) in agriculture for many years (6) and the per capita consumption of antibiotics is one of the highest in the world (7), VRE (mostly vanB [8]) has only recently emerged as an important nosocomial pathogen. We assessed the rate of fecal VRE colonization in a population of healthy Australians.
Analysis of Thymocyte Development Reveals That the Gtpase Rhoa Is a Positive Regulator of T Cell Receptor Responses in Vivo

Loss of function of the guanine nucleotide binding protein RhoA blocks pre-T cell differentiation and survival indicating that this GTPase is a critical signaling molecule during early thymocyte development. Previous work has shown that the Rho family GTPase Rac-1 can initiate changes in actin dynamics necessary and sufficient for pre-T cell development. The present data now show that Rac-1 actions in pre-T cells require Rho function but that RhoA cannot substitute for Rac-1 and induce the actin cytoskeletal changes necessary for pre-T cell development. Activation of Rho is thus not sufficient to induce pre-T cell differentiation or survival in the absence of the pre-T cell receptor (TCR). The failure of RhoA activation to impact on pre-TCR–mediated signaling was in marked contrast to its actions on T cell responses mediated by the mature TCR α/β complex. Cells expressing active RhoA were thus hyperresponsive in the context of TCR-induced proliferation in vitro and in vivo showed augmented positive selection of thymocytes expressing defined TCR complexes. This reveals that RhoA function is not only important for pre-T cells but also plays a role in determining the fate of mature T cells.
Hidden Parameter Markov Decision Processes: An Emerging Paradigm for Modeling Families of Related Tasks

Introduction The goal of transfer is to use knowledge obtained by solving one task to improve a robot’s (or software agent’s) performance in future tasks. In general, we do not expect this to work; for transfer to be feasible, there must be something in common between the source task(s) and goal task(s). The question at the core of the transfer learning enterprise is therefore: what makes two tasks related? , or more generally, how do you define a family of related tasks? Given a precise definition of how a particular family of tasks is related, we can formulate clear optimization methods for selecting source tasks and determining what knowledge should be imported from the source task(s), and how it should be used in the target task(s). This paper describes one model that has appeared in several different research scenarios where an agent is faced with a family of tasks that have similar, but not identical, dynamics (or reward functions). For example, a human learning to play baseball may, over the course of their career, be exposed to several different bats, each with slightly different weights and lengths. A human who has learned to play baseball well with one bat would be expected to be able to pick up any similar bat and use it. Similarly, when learning to drive a car, one may learn in more than one car, and then be expected to be able to drive any make and model of car (within reasonable variations) with little or no relearning. These examples are instances of exactly the kind of flexible, reliable, and sample-efficient behavior that we should be aiming to achieve in robotics applications. One way to model such a family of tasks is to posit that they are generated by a small set of latent parameters (e.g., the length and weight of the bat, or parameters describing the various physical properties of the car’s steering system and clutch) that are fixed for each problem instance (e.g., for each bat, or car), but are not directly observable by the agent. Defining a distribution over these latent parameters results in a family of related tasks, and transfer is feasible to the extent that the number of latent variables is small, the task dynamics (or reward function) vary smoothly with them, and to the extent to which they can either be ignored or identified using transition data from the task. This model has appeared
A Self-Assessment of a Philadelphia Group of Children, Youth and Family-Focused Agencies on Father Friendliness: A Descriptive Study

This project explored the integration of Responsible Fatherhood within Foster Care Service within Philadelphia Pennsylvania. It was hypothesized that the key to reducing the number of children who are at risk of entering, re-entering and remaining in various systems of care are the social service programs and systems created to meet the needs of children. One element to improve the outcomes for children is to establish that engaging fathers of foster children can be important not only for the potential benefit of a child-father relationship but also for making placement decisions and gaining access to resources for the child. A diverse group of n=22 service providers voluntarily became involved in a multi-year participatory action research to explore the value of building capacity to integrate Responsible Fatherhood practices, programs, and/or initiatives within foster care service delivery and other children and youth servicing systems. The results from the study highlight a substantial distinction between baseline and post-evaluation of the agency’s father readiness. The findings suggest that there were significantly higher scores on the father friendly checklist in the areas of leadership, polices & procedures, staff development, parent programming, and fatherhood. The article summarizes key recommendation for social service agencies to develop initiatives that outreach to fathers not only to connect with their children, but to build a broader support network that enhances child safety, permanency and well-being.
The quasi-metric of complexity convergence

For any weightable quasi-metric space (X, d) having a maximum with respect to the associated order ≤ d , the notion of the quasi-metric of complexity convergence on the the function space (equivalently, the space of sequences) Xω , is introduced and studied. We observe that its induced quasi-uniformity is finer than the quasi-uniformity of pointwise convergence and weaker than the quasi-uniformity of uniform convergence. We show that it coincides with the quasi-uniformity of pointwise convergence if and only if the quasi-metric space (X, d) is bounded and it coincides with the quasi-uniformity of uniform convergence if and only if X is a singleton. We also investigate completeness of the quasi-metric of complexity convergence. Finally, we obtain versions of the celebrated Grothendieck theorem in this context.
Shock-Therapy vs. Gradualism : The Effectiveness of Foreign Direct Investment in Transitioning Economies

Throughout the latter half of the 20th century, many developing economies adopted a set of economic policies in order to transition to market economy. Reforms were introduced either simultaneously or gradually, fuelling the debate over whether the so-called shock-therapy reforms were more beneficial or less beneficial to growth than gradual reforms. This study focuses on the role of the mode of transition in determining the effectiveness of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) on the growth of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). FDI is valuable for development in transition economies since it has often been a main source of investment for these types of economies. An empirical analysis was conducted using sixty transitioning countries, examining the growth up to sixteen years after the initial reform. The results indicate that there is some evidence of a difference in the effects of FDI inflows on GDP growth between the shock-therapy and gradual reformers.
Chipping Away at Censorship Firewalls with User-Generated Content

Oppressive regimes and even democratic governments restrict Internet access. Existing anti-censorship systems often require users to connect through proxies, but these systems are relatively easy for a censor to discover and block. This paper offers a possible next step in the censorship arms race: rather than relying on a single system or set of proxies to circumvent censorship firewalls, we explore whether the vast deployment of sites that host user-generated content can breach these firewalls. To explore this possibility, we have developed Collage, which allows users to exchange messages through hidden channels in sites that host user-generated content. Collage has two components: a message vector layer for embedding content in cover traffic; and a rendezvous mechanism to allow parties to publish and retrieve messages in the cover traffic. Collage uses user-generated content (e.g., photo-sharing sites) as "drop sites" for hidden messages. To send a message, a user embeds it into cover traffic and posts the content on some site, where receivers retrieve this content using a sequence of tasks. Collage makes it difficult for a censor to monitor or block these messages by exploiting the sheer number of sites where users can exchange messages and the variety of ways that a message can be hidden. Our evaluation of Collage shows that the performance overhead is acceptable for sending small messages (e.g., Web articles, email). We show how Collage can be used to build two applications: a direct messaging application, and a Web content delivery system.
Asynchronous Parallel Computing Model of Global Motion Estimation with CUDA

For video coding, weighing the balance between and coding rate image quality, we apply global motion search algorithm to avoid loss of image quality and parallel computing capacity of graphics processors to accelerate the encoding process. According to the heterogeneous system of CPU+GPU, and the multi-threaded parallel structure, thread synchronization features of CUDA platform, we build a proper global motion search on CUDA computing model; taking CUDA thread synchronization mechanism to solve the problem of data consistency and improve the efficiency of on-chip data communication; taking CUDA asynchronous mechanism to hide the delay caused by the CPU functions. Demonstrated by the experimental results, parallel computing model based on CUDA could significantly improve the efficiency of motion estimation algorithm and a certain improvement gains from the asynchronous parallel model based on CUDA asynchronous system.
Public Key Cryptosystems with Partial

Yamamota's notion of partial secrecy is extended to Public Key Cryptosystems: the security of a cryptosystem depends on keeping some function of the original record secret, while sending the relevant message (also a function of the original record). Notions of security and semantic security are introduced and compared for such cryptosystems, and securitypreserving reductions between such systems are described.