Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
OsirisBFT: Say No to Task Replication for Scalable Byzantine Fault Tolerant Analytics

We present a verification-based Byzantine Fault Tolerant processing system, called OsirisBFT, for distributed task-parallel applications. OsirisBFT treats computation tasks differently from state update tasks, allowing the application to scale independently from number of expected failures. OsirisBFT captures application-specific verification semantics via generic verification operators and employs lightweight verification strategies with little coordination during graceful execution. Evaluation across multiple applications and workloads shows that OsirisBFT delivers high processing throughput and scalability compared to replicated processing. Importantly, the scalable nature of OsirisBFT enables it to reduce the performance gap compared to baseline with no fault tolerance by simply scaling out. CCS Concepts: • Computer systems organization → Dependable and fault-tolerant systems and networks ; Distributed architectures ; • Computing methodologies → Distributed computing methodologies .
Wrench zone reactivation in the Adriatic Block; the example of the Mattinata fault system (SE Italy)

The reactivation of discontinuities in response to stress field variations was a common feature in the structural evolution of the Adriatic Block in the central Mediterranean. This elongate crustal element of African origin, which is characterized by a thick Mesozoic carbonate section, constitutes the foreland to the orogenic belts of the Apennines as well as the Dinarides. Between the Southern Apennines and the Dinarides, its northwest-southeast trending longitudinal fault trends are dissected by oblique discontinuities corresponding to prominent wrench zones, such as the east-west trending Mattinata Fault System. Field data from the Gargano Promontory in southeastern Italy, integrated with subsurface data from the adjacent Bradanic Trough, have revealed that the Mattinata Fault System during the Cretaceous acted as a transfer zone linking synsedimentary normal fault trends. In consequence of the Late Miocene through Early Pliocene paroxysm of Apenninic tangential shortening, it was reactivated in a sinistral sense with local convergent and divergent shearing according to the orientation of fault segments. The stress regime from the Late Pliocene on, instead, favored dextral strike slip. Some fault segments were unaffected by this complete reversal of relative motion as pre-existing longitudinal discontinuities accommodated a diffuse northward slip transfer, thereby allowing the partial preservation of earlier features.
Learning Nonlinear Dynamical Systems Using an Em Algorithm

The Expectation{Maximization (EM) algorithm is an iterative procedure for maximum likelihood parameter estimation from data sets with missing or hidden variables 2]. It has been applied to system identiication in linear stochastic state-space models, where the state variables are hidden from the observer and both the state and the parameters of the model have to be estimated simultaneously 9]. We present a generalization of the EM algorithm for parameter estimation in nonlinear dynamical systems. The \expec-tation" step makes use of Extended Kalman Smoothing to estimate the state, while the \maximization" step re-estimates the parameters using these uncertain state estimates. In general, the nonlinear maximization step is diicult because it requires integrating out the uncertainty in the states. However, if Gaussian radial basis function (RBF) approximators are used to model the nonlinearities, the integrals become tractable and the maximization step can be solved via systems of linear equations. We examine inference and learning in discrete-time dynamical systems with hidden state x t , inputs u t , and outputs y t. 1 The state evolves according to stationary nonlinear dynamics driven by the inputs and by additive noise x t+1 = f(x t ; u t) + w (1) 1 All lowercase characters (except indices) denote vectors. Matrices are represented by uppercase characters.
Leader Affective Displays and Attributions of Charisma: The Role of Arousal

Research suggests that leader displays of positive affect are conducive to attributions of charisma. We qualify and extend this conclusion by arguing that this mainly holds for displays of positive affect that are associated with high levels of arousal. Results of a scenario experiment and a survey support this hypothesis, and show that besides the transfer of positive feelings per se, it is the transfer of arousal that mediates the relationship between leader affective displays and attributions of charisma.
Evaluating the Concordance between ICD-10 and Stroke Severity as Measured by the NIHSS

Background: The National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) scores have been used to evaluate Acute Ischemic Stroke (AIS) severity in clinical settings. Through the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision Code (ICD-10), documentation of NIHSS scores has been made possible for administrative purposes and has since been increasingly adopted in insurance claims. Per CMS guidelines, the stroke ICD-10 diagnosis code must be documented by the treating physician, but ICD-10 NIHSS scores can be documented by any healthcare provider involved in the patient's care. Accuracy of the administratively collected NIHSS compared to expert clinical evaluation as documented in the Paul Coverdell registry is however still uncertain. Methods: Leveraging a linked dataset comprised of the Paul Coverdell National Acute Stroke Program (PCNASP) clinical registry and probabilistically matched individuals on Medicare Claims data, we sampled patients aged 65 and above admitted for AIS across nine states, from 2016 to 2019. We excluded those lacking documentation for either clinical or ICD-10 based NIHSS scores. We then examined score concordance from both databases and measured discordance as the absolute difference between the PCNASP and ICD-10-based NIHSS scores. Results: Among 66,837 matched patients, mean NIHSS scores for PCNASP and Medicare ICD-10 were 7.26 (95% CI: 7.20 - 7.32) and 7.40 (95% CI: 7.34 - 7.46), respectively. Concordance between the two scores was high as indicated by an intraclass correlation coefficient of 0.93. Conclusion: The high concordance between clinical and ICD-10 NIHSS scores highlights the latter's potential as measure of stroke severity derived from structured claims data.
Comparison of the ScreenFire and Xpert HPV assays for the detection of human papillomavirus and cervical precancer among women living with HIV in Malawi

Background: The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends human papillomavirus (HPV) testing for primary cervical cancer screening, including among women living with HIV (WLWH). Low-and-middle-income countries (LMICs) account for 85% of the cervical cancer burden globally, yet have limited access to HPV-based screening, largely due to cost. This study aims to compare the performance of a rapid, isothermal amplification HPV assay (ScreenFire) to that of the Xpert HPV assay for the detection of HPV and cervical precancer among WLWH in Malawi. Methods: We utilized stored self- and provider-collected specimens from a prospective cohort study of WLWH in Malawi from July 2020 to February 2022. Specimens were tested with both Xpert and ScreenFire HPV assays. The overall and within-channel non-hierarchical agreement between ScreenFire and Xpert was determined for both self- and provider-collected specimens. Hierarchical ScreenFire HPV positivity by channel was compared to Xpert for each histological diagnosis - cervical intraepithelial neoplasia grade 2 or worse (CIN2+) compared to <CIN2. Results: 315 matched self- and provider-collected specimens had valid results from both Xpert and ScreenFire testing and were included in analyses. Of these, 245 (78%) had normal pathology, 21 CIN1 (7%), 14 CIN2 (4%), and 35 CIN3 (11%). Among provider-collected specimens, the assays had 80% agreement on overall HPV positivity (unweighted kappa 0.59, 95% 0.50-0.69). ScreenFire was HPV-positive in 90% of self-collected specimens that were HPV-positive on Xpert. Channel agreement between the assays was high for both self- and provider-collected specimens, but slightly lower for HPV18/45. In hierarchical analysis, ScreenFire demonstrated high concordance with Xpert testing for detecting CIN2+ cases in all channels, missing no HPV 16 or HPV 18/45 positive CIN2+ case that was positive on Xpert, in both self- and provider-collected specimens. Conclusion: In this study of stored specimens, the ScreenFire HPV assay performed well in the detection of HPV and CIN2+ among WLWH compared to the Xpert HPV assay. If supported by larger validation studies, ScreenFire could be an affordable alternative point-of-care HPV assay for use in LMICs.
The Catalytic Subunit β of PKA Affects Energy Balance and Catecholaminergic Activity

Abstract The protein kinase A (PKA) signaling system mediates the effects of numerous hormones, neurotransmitters, and other molecules to regulate metabolism, cardiac function, and more. PKA defects may lead to diverse phenotypes that largely depend on the unique expression profile of the affected subunit. Deletion of the Prkarcb gene, which codes for PKA catalytic subunit β (Cβ), protects against diet-induced obesity (DIO), yet the mechanism for this phenotype remains unclear. We hypothesized that metabolic rate would be increased in Cβ knockout (KO) mice, which could explain DIO resistance. Male, but not female, CβKO mice had increased energy expenditure, and female but not male CβKO mice had increased subcutaneous temperature and increased locomotor activity compared with wild-type (WT) littermates. Urinary norepinephrine (NE) and normetanephrine were elevated in female CβKO mice. CβKO mice had increased heart rate (HR); blocking central NE release normalized HR to that of untreated WT mice. Basal and stimulated PKA enzymatic activities were unchanged in adipose tissue and heart and varied in different brain regions, suggesting that Prkacb deletion may mediate signaling changes in specific brain nuclei and may be less important in the peripheral regulation of PKA expression and activity. This is a demonstration of a distinct effect of the PKA Cβ catalytic subunit on catecholamines and sympathetic nerve signaling. The data provide an unexpected explanation for the metabolic phenotype of CβKO mice. Finally, the sexual dimorphism is consistent with mouse models of other PKA subunits and adds to the importance of these findings regarding the PKA system in human metabolism.
Fire and post-fire soil erosion in the Western Cape, South Africa: Field observations and management practices

This Minor Field Study addresses the fire and post-fire related issues in the Western Cape Province, South Africa. The study was carried out in May to July 2002 and consists of two parts: Post-fire water repellency in the Cederberg (study 1), and Management practices and perceptions of fire-related issues in the Western Cape (study 2). Study 1 aims to achieve a better understanding of the temporal and spatial variability of water repellency (hydrophobicity) in unburnt and burnt areas. The study also aims to find differences in water repellency in fynbos and Pine (alien) vegetation. The water repellency measurements were done by using the Water Drop Penetration Time test (WDPT). The results showed no tendency of water repellency in the soil. Early rain and frequent rainfall in 2002 is likely to have destroyed any water repellency present. Study 2 aims to provide an up-to-date synthesis of management perceptions and awareness of erosion impacts due to fires and, also, to identify and prioritise research questions to assist rational management of post-fire conditions. Different organisations and authorities were interviewed and additional information was obtained from existing reports, a fieldtrip and Internet. The results support that the alien vegetation clearing is an important issue in the Western Cape. The studied organisations/authorities focus on the prevention of invasion and clearing of alien vegetation. The post-fire soil erosion issues are dealt with on an ad hoc basis. Further, the studied organisations/authorities have a strong focus on employment. The discussion concludes that the fire-related issues need additional research for a more complete scientific understanding. The communication between the studied organisations/authorities and scientists could also be improved.
MODEL-BASED SPARSE COMPONENT ANALYSIS FOR MULTIPARTY DISTANT SPEECH RECOGNITION

This research takes place in the general context of improving the performance of the Distant Speech Recognition (DSR) systems, tackling the reverberation and recognition of overlap speech. Perceptual modeling indicates that sparse representation exists in the auditory cortex. The present project thus builds upon the hypothesis that incorporating this information in DSR front-end processing could improve the speech recognition performance in realistic conditions including overlap and reverberation. More specifically, the goal of my PhD thesis is to exploit blind (source) separation of the speech components in a sparse space, also referred to as sparse component analysis (SCA), for multi-party multi-channel speech recognition.
Evaluation of Anti-glycation Activities of Phlorotannins in Human and Bovine Serum Albumin-methylglyoxal Models

In this study, the anti-glycation activities of phlorotannins contained in the Japanese Lessoniaceae (Ecklonia cava, Eck. kurome, Eck. stolonifera, Eisenia arborea, and Eis. bicyclis) were tested using serum albumin-methlglyoxal (MGO) models. In the human serum albumin (HSA)-MGO model and the bovine serum albumin (BSA)-MGO model, the concentrations of crude phlorotannins at 50% inhibition (IC50) of fluorescent advanced glycation end products (AGEs) formation was in the range of 0.45 to 0.53 mg/mL and 0.43 to 0.53 mg/mL, respectively. Among the purified phlorotannins, phlorofucofuroeckol A with the benzobisbenzofuran skeleton had the highest inhibitory activities (IC50: 4.8 × 102 μM in HSA-MGO model and 4.1 × 102 μM in BSA-MGO model) against fluorescent AGEs formation, and showed about 13 times the inhibition in the HSA-MGO model, and about 20 times the inhibition in the BSA-MGO model, with respect to aminoguanidine hydrochloride, which was used as a positive control. In the test on MGO-scavenging activity using HPLC analysis, it showed that eckol and its simple dimers (dieckol and 8,8′-bieckol) had higher scavenging rate than aminoguanidine hydrochloride. In addition, it was revealed by liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry that eckol reacted with MGO and formed two adducts with it. These results strongly suggest that phlorotannins are novel and effective anti-glycation substances derived from natural plants.
InstructIE: A Chinese Instruction-based Information Extraction Dataset

We introduce a new Information Extraction (IE) task dubbed Instruction-based IE, which aims to ask the system to follow speciﬁc instructions or guidelines to extract information. To facilitate research in this area, we construct a dataset called InstructIE, consisting of 270,000 weakly supervised data from Chinese Wikipedia and 1,000 high-quality crowdsourced annotated instances. We further evaluate the performance of various baseline models on the Instruc-tIE dataset. The results reveal that although current models exhibit promising performance, there is still room for improvement. Furthermore, we conduct a comprehensive case study analysis, underlining the challenges inherent in the Instruction-based IE task 1 .
Biped Blind Walking on Changing Slope with Reflex Control System

This paper presents a novel reflex control system for passive biped walking on unknown slope varying terrains by extension of previous work in the fields of CPG. The algorithm takes advantage of the passive dynamics of walking, assisting only when necessary with an intermittent oscillator driving the hip joint. We analyze inherent reasons of falling for a biped system based on dynamic principles and assume that human walking relies more on instinct actions within the spinal cord rather than brain. Corresponding falling tendency function is proposed, based on which a reflex controller adjusting output of oscillator is designed. An auxiliary span angle controller is put forward to provide secondary actuations for compensation to improve landing performance. The proposed reflex system requires no prior knowledge of the terrain or tens of hundreds of experiments, which are necessary for machine learning methods. Results of simulations indicate that our reflex controllers are capable of ensuring stable passive blind walking on slope varying terrains without ankle torque.
outputs Making Sense of Microposts ( # Microposts 2016 ) Computational Social Sciences Track Conference Item

For the second time, the #Microposts workshop features a track to highlight social science perspectives on micro communication structures in online environments. This paper introduces the #Microposts2016 (Computational) Social Science Track, which all contribute to connecting research methods and approaches in computer science and social science. By providing a forum for closer interaction between the two fields, the track is becoming a platform for interdisciplinary projects and new ideas to combine different methodologies and theories. For this year’s special track we see the trend of relating Microposts to external demographics or survey data as a way to better understand Microposts in their broader contexts. CCS Concepts •Information systems→World Wide Web; •Applied computing → Enterprise computing;
An Integrated Framework for the Role of Managerial Accounting Information System in Business Process Reengineering: An Analytical Field Study

: We identify the role of Managerial Accounting Information System (MAIS) in providing the necessary information needed for Business Process Re-engineering (BPR). An analytical field study was conducted which comprises the BPR concepts, goals, motives and steps. The field study is conducted through personal interview and questionnaire to test the five hypotheses formulated from the theoretical study. It is shown that there are several factors that push the organizations to conduct the BPR, such as the accelerated developments in production and information technology, severe competition on both domestic and international levels and growth of the customer care concept. The BPR requires information in several areas which should be provided by the MAIS. The Traditional Managerial Accounting Information System (TMAIS) is not capable of fulfilling its role in the completion of BPR, and Strategic Managerial Accounting Information System (SMAIS) provides valued information about customers and competitors which help the organization to perform some of BPR. However, the BPR requires some more information which is not provided by SMAIS. There are several considerations that should be taken into account when the MAIS designed for the purposes of BPR. Furthermore, there are agreement between the finding of field study and the analytical study derived from the literature in this regard.
EVALUATION OF ANTHROPOMORPHIC USER INTERFACE FEEDBACK IN AN EMAIL CLIENT CONTEXT AND AFFORDANCES Dr

This paper describes an experiment and its results concerning research that has been going on for a number of years in the area of anthropomorphic user interface feedback. The main aims of the research have been to examine the effectiveness and user satisfaction of anthropomorphic feedback. The results are of use to all user interface designers. Currently the work in the area of anthropomorphic feedback does not have any global conclusions concerning its effectiveness and user satisfaction capabilities. This research is investigating finding a way for reaching some global conclusions concerning this type of feedback. This experiment, concerned the context of downloading, installing and configuring an email client which is part of the domain of software for systems usage. Anthropomorphic feedback was compared against an equivalent non-anthropomorphic feedback. The results indicated the anthropomorphic feedback to be more effective and preferred by users. It was also the aim to examine the types of feedback in relation to Affordances. The results obtained can be explained in terms of the Theory of Affordances.
2 . 1 Typing Binary Methods in the Presence of Inheritance

∗partially supported by NSF grant CCR-9121778 and NSF grant CCR-9424123. Internet:kim@cs.williams. edu †Internet: luca@src.dec.com. ‡Internet: castagna@dmi.ens. fr §Jonathan Eifrig, Scott Smith, Valery Trifonov. Contact Scott Smith. Research partially supported by NSF grant CCR-9301340 and AFOSR grant F49620-93-1-0169. Internet: scott@cs.jhu. edu. ¶partially supported by NSF grants CCR-9108654 and CCR9593168. Internet: leavens@cs.iastate. edu. ‖Internet: benjamin.pierce@cl.cam. ac.uk c © John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Multiscale analysis of collective motion and decision-making in swarms: An advection-diffusion equation with memory approach

We propose a (time) multiscale method for the coarse-grained analysis of self--propelled particle models of swarms comprising a mixture of `na\"{i}ve' and `informed' individuals, used to address questions related to collective motion and collective decision--making in animal groups. The method is based on projecting the particle configuration onto a single `meta-particle' that consists of the group elongation and the mean group velocity and position. The collective states of the configuration can be associated with the transient and asymptotic transport properties of the random walk followed by the meta-particle. These properties can be accurately predicted by an advection-diffusion equation with memory (ADEM) whose parameters are obtained from a mean group velocity time series obtained from a single simulation run of the individual-based model.
D3.1.2 Incremental Ontology Evolution - Evaluation

EU-IST Integrated Project (IP) IST-2003-506826 SEKT Deliverable D3.1. 2 (WP3.1) In this deliverable addresses we present the evaluation of our work performed in the task ‘T3.1 Incremental Ontology Evolution’. There are two aspects to this evaluation: First, we introduce the notion of ontology evaluation into our framework of incremental ontology evolution. Second, we present evaluation results of our methods in terms of effectiveness, performance and applicability. Keyword list: Ontology Evolution, Ontology Evaluation, Ontology Management Copyright c © 2006 Institute AIFB, University of Karlsruhe Document Id. Project Date Distribution SEKT/2005/D3.1. 2/v1.0 SEKT EU-IST-2003-506826 November 2, 2005 public
D3.3.2 Data-driven Change Discovery - Evaluation

EU-IST Integrated Project (IP) IST-2003-506826 SEKT Deliverable D3.3. 2 (WP3.3) In this deliverable we present the evaluation of our work performed in the task 'T3.3 Data-driven Change Discovery'. Keyword list: Data-driven Change Discovery, Ontology Learning, Ontology Management