Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
3 Topic-Sentiment Mixture Model Overview 3 . 1 Components of TSM Model

The finance portion of Yahoo! web portal hosts message boards for many stock ticker symbols. The message traffic on each of the tickers’ message board ranges from less than 10 messages per day to thousands of messages per day. While some discussions on the message boards are relevant to a company and its stock performance, there are many messages on the message boards which are off-topic or contain very little information (similar to spam for e-mail). This thesis aims to explore a new method of filtering the messages on these message boards, by combining concepts from a previously developed SVM-based message filtering system and the Topic-Sentiment Mixture (TSM) model. By applying the TSM model to output from the message filtering system, this new system aims to automatically extract the topics and sentiments of meaningful messages, and allow the user to more easily find topics and document sentiments that he or she is interested in. The SVM system and TSM are detailed below.
Mucoid Pseudomonas aeruginosa in cystic fibrosis: characterization of muc mutations in clinical isolates and analysis of clearance in a mouse model of respiratory infection

A distinguishing feature of Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates from cystic fibrosis (CF) patients is their mucoid, exopolysaccharide alginate-overproducing phenotype. One mechanism of conversion to mucoidy is based on mutations in the algU mucABCD cluster, encoding the stress sigma factor AlgU and its regulators. However, conversion to mucoidy in laboratory strains can be achieved via mutations in other chromosomal sites. Here, we investigated mechanisms of the emergence of mucoid P. aeruginosa in CF by analyzing the status of mucA in a collection of mucoid P. aeruginosa isolates from 53 CF patients. This negative regulator of algU, when inactivated under laboratory conditions, causes conversion to mucoidy. The overall frequency of mucA alterations in mucoid CF isolates was 84%. Nucleotide sequence analyses revealed that the majority of the alterations caused premature termination of the mucA coding sequence. Comparison of paired nonmucoid and mucoid P. aeruginosa isolates from three CF patients indicated the presence of mucA mutations only in the mucoid strains. Interestingly, mucoid P. aeruginosa isolates from urinary tract infections also had mutations in the mucA gene. Clearance of CF isolates from the murine lung was investigated in an aerosol infection model with C57BL/6J, BALB/c, and DBA/2NHsd mice. Two CF strains, selected for further study based on the dependence of their alginate production on the concentration of salt in the medium, were used to examine the effects of mucoidy on pulmonary clearance. Statistically significant improvement in recovery from the murine lung of viable mucoid P. aeruginosa cells relative to the nonmucoid bacteria was observed in the majority of mouse strains tested. Collectively, the results reported here suggest that mucA is most likely the preferential site for conversion to mucoidy in CF and that alginate overproduction in mucA-mutant P. aeruginosa improves its resistance to the innate clearance mechanisms in the lung.
OpenMary - Open Source Unit Selection as the Basis for Research on Expressive Synthesis

This paper describes the unit selection component of the open source text-to-speech system OpenMary. It is a generic unit selection component with parameterisable target and join cost functions followed by optional signal post-processing, and it h as been created for the Blizzard challenge 2006. We describe the creation process, the core properties of the system and the preparati on of a synthesis voice from the Blizzard data. We also point out the directions in which we are currently developing the system towards expressive unit selection. Index Terms: speech synthesis, unit selection, expressive speech, target cost, signal processing
Nonlinear Water Waves Generated by Submarine and Aerial Landslides

The two‐dimensional hydrodynamics program Nasa‐Vof2D is modified to study the generation, propagation, and run‐up on the shore of water waves created by landslides. Nasa‐Vof2D, developed by the Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico, is a nonlinear Eulerian code, which solves the complete incompressible Navier‐Stokes equations by a finite difference method. The modification includes making the fluid domain boundaries (i.e., the bathymetry) time‐dependent. It allows a complex geometry box to slide down any incline, provided that the body kinetic is known and that the phenomenon is two‐dimensional or axisymmetric. To verify this numerical Nasa‐Vof2D extension, an experimental study on nonlinear waves generated by a two‐dimensional triangular body sliding a 45° inclined plane is conducted. The computed wave profiles show very close agreement with the experimental ones, except when free‐surface turbulence occurs, which the present numerical method cannot simulate.
Isolated Elderly in the U.S. Great Plains. The Roles of Environment and Demography in Creating a Vulnerable Population

Les populations de vieillards sont considerees comme les populations les plus vulnerables du monde. L’isolement contribue a leur vulnerabilite, a l’affaiblissement de leurs reseaux de relations sociales et aux difficultes croissantes d’acces aux services sociaux et de sante. Tandis que la population des Etats-Unis a vieilli tres rapidement depuis 1920, les Grandes Plaines ont vieilli davantage que l’ensemble de la nation depuis 1950, et le pourcentage de la population de 65 ans et plus a augmente a un rythme plus rapide. Dans plus d’un comte sur quatre, un resident sur cinq est une personne âgee. En outre, ces populations sont egalement isolees en raison d’un habitat disperse dans cette region, et de caracteristiques d’environnement qui sont la faiblesse des pluies, les variations saisonnieres extremes et, tout simplement, l’echelle geographique. Cette situation est l’aboutissement de decennies de declin de la population (faible immigration, forte emigration en particulier chez les jeunes adultes, faible taux de natalite, et le vieillissement sur place des anciens). Nous proposons une synthese des processus interdependants qui ont abouti a creer des populations actuellement (et dans l’avenir) isolees de personnes âgees dans les Grandes Plaines, et du role que les caracteristiques particulieres de l’environnement ont joue dans le faconnement des trajectoires demographiques. Les possibilites d’emploi dans l’agriculture sont associees a une population adulte plus jeune. Cependant, la decroissance de la population ainsi que le retrecissement de la pyramide des âges correspondent aux principaux facteurs de la creation de populations âgees et d’une vulnerabilite des vieillards. Le manque de potentiel social et naturel est aussi important ; il illustre la difficulte d’inverser la tendance a la hausse de populations de plus en plus âgees et isolees dans la region.
Upper Limb Outcome Measures Used in Stroke Rehabilitation Studies: A Systematic Literature Review

Background Establishing which upper limb outcome measures are most commonly used in stroke studies may help in improving consensus among scientists and clinicians. Objective In this study we aimed to identify the most commonly used upper limb outcome measures in intervention studies after stroke and to describe domains covered according to ICF, how measures are combined, and how their use varies geographically and over time. Methods Pubmed, CinHAL, and PeDRO databases were searched for upper limb intervention studies in stroke according to PRISMA guidelines and477 studies were included. Results In studies 48different outcome measures were found. Only 15 of these outcome measures were used in more than 5% of the studies. The Fugl-Meyer Test (FMT)was the most commonly used measure (in 36% of studies). Commonly used measures covered ICF domains of body function and activity to varying extents. Most studies (72%) combined multiple outcome measures: the FMT was often combined with the Motor Activity Log (MAL), the Wolf Motor Function Test and the Action Research Arm Test, but infrequently combined with the Motor Assessment Scale or the Nine Hole Peg Test. Key components of manual dexterity such as selective finger movements were rarely measured. Frequency of use increased over a twelve-year period for the FMT and for assessments of kinematics, whereas other measures, such as the MAL and the Jebsen Taylor Hand Test showed decreased use over time. Use varied largely between countries showing low international consensus. Conclusions The results showed a large diversity of outcome measures used across studies. However, a growing number of studies used the FMT, a neurological test with good psychometric properties. For thorough assessment the FMT needs to be combined with functional measures. These findings illustrate the need for strategies to build international consensus on appropriate outcome measures for upper limb function after stroke.
Geometric Aspects of Biological Sequence Comparison

We introduce a geometric framework suitable for studying the relationships among biological sequences. In contrast to previous works, our formulation allows asymmetric distances (quasi-metrics), originating from uneven weighting of strings, which may induce non-trivial partial orders on sets of biosequences. The distances considered are more general than traditional generalized string edit distances. In particular, our framework enables non-trivial conversion between sequence similarities, both local and global, and distances. Our constructions apply to a wide class of scoring schemes and require much less restrictive gap penalties than the ones regularly used. Numerous examples are provided to illustrate the concepts introduced and their potential applications.
Soil productivity and erosion: Biophysical and farmer-perspective assessment for hillslopes.

A priority for research is the quantification of the productive capability of soils on hillslopes. Data on soil biophysical changes and their impact on erosion are limited, especially on aspects which represent the farmers' perspective. The terms soil qual ity and soil productivity are defined and presented conceptually in models to identify information needs and to examine the bio physical and farming system components that are important to smallholders. Of the principal processes in declining soil productiv ity, reduction in soil depth and increasing difficulty of gaining production are most often identified by farmers. Using examples from Sri Lanka, field techniques of biophysical assessment of erosion, conservation, and their impacts are presented, with a focus on Gliricidia contour hedgerows. Techniques, such as measuring the armor layer of small stones, soil pedestals, and sedimentation in drains, are useful to assess erosion rates. Impacts can be identified by soil depth as a measure of historical erosion, differential growth of crops, and farmers' assessments of yields. Farmers' observations on the practices that they employ are essential in making realistic assessments of conservation measures for promotion. Field-based techniques are easy to use, rapid to undertake, and best represent the farmer-perspective.
Preventing Occupancy Detection From Smart Meters

Utilities are rapidly deploying smart meters that measure electricity usage in real-time. Unfortunately, smart meters indirectly leak sensitive information about a home's occupancy, which is easy to detect because it highly correlates with simple statistical metrics, such as power's mean, variance, and range. To prevent occupancy detection, we propose using the thermal energy storage of electric water heaters already present in many homes. In essence, our approach, which we call combined heat and privacy (CHPr), modulates a water heater's power usage to make it look like someone is always home. We design a CHPr-enabled water heater that regulates its energy usage to thwart a variety of occupancy detection attacks without violating its objective-to provide hot water on demand-and evaluate it in simulation using real data. Our results show that a standard 50-gal CHPr-enabled water heater prevents a wide range of state-of-the-art occupancy detection attacks.
Effect of thoracic epidural anaesthesia on serum vascular endothelial growth factor C and cytokines in patients undergoing anaesthesia and surgery for colon cancer.

BACKGROUND Serum vascular endothelial growth factor-C (VEGF-C), transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β), and interleukin (IL)-6 promote angiogenesis and metastases in colon cancer. We hypothesized that patients who received propofol-epidural anaesthesia (PEA) would exhibit decreases in VEGF-C, TGF-β, and IL-6 and an increase in IL-10 compared with patients who received general anaesthesia (GA). METHODS Colon cancer surgery patients were randomly assigned to the PEA (n=20) or GA (n=20) group. Serum VEGF-C, TGF-β, IL-6, and IL-10 levels before surgery and 24 h after surgery were measured. RESULTS Patients who received PEA showed decreases in VEGF-C [526 (261) vs 834 (304) pg ml(-1), P=0.001], TGF-β (P=0.027), and IL-6 (P=0.007) and an increase in IL-10 (P=0.001) 24 h after surgery compared with patients subjected to GA. The visual analogue scale scores at rest and during coughing at 2 and 24 h after operation were significantly lower in PEA patients (P<0.05). CONCLUSIONS PEA reduces serum concentrations of factors associated with angiogenesis during colon cancer surgery. CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION ChiCTR-TRC-13003146 (www.chictr.org).
Individual differences in facial expression: stability over time, relation to self-reported emotion, and ability to inform person identification

The face can communicate varied personal information including subjective emotion, communicative intent, and cognitive appraisal. Accurate interpretation by observer or computer interface depends on attention to dynamic properties of the expression, context, and knowledge of what is normative for a given individual. In two separate studies, we investigated individual differences in the base rate of positive facial expression and in specific facial action units over intervals from 4 to 12 months. Facial expression was measured using convergent measures, including facial EMG, automatic feature-point tracking, and manual FACS coding. Individual differences in facial expression were stable over time, comparable in magnitude to stability of self-reported emotion, and sufficiently strong that individuals were recognized on the basis of their facial behavior alone at rates comparable to that for a commercial face recognition system (Facelt from Identix). Facial action units convey unique information about person identity that can inform interpretation of psychological states, person recognition, and design of individuated avatars.
Radiation-driven Warping. II. Nonisothermal Disks

Recent work by Pringle and by Maloney, Begelman, & Pringle has shown that geometrically thin, optically thick, accretion disks are unstable to warping driven by radiation torque from the central source. This work was confined to isothermal (i.e., surface density Σ ∝ R-3/2) disks. In this paper we generalize the study of radiation-driven warping to include general power-law surface density distributions, Σ ∝ R-δ. We consider the range from δ = 3/2 (the isothermal case) to δ = -3/2, which corresponds to a radiation-pressure-supported disk; this spans the range of surface density distributions likely to be found in real astrophysical disks. In all cases there are an infinite number of zero-crossing solutions (i.e., solutions that cross the equator), which are the physically relevant modes if the outer boundary of the disk is required to lie in a specified plane. However, unlike the isothermal disk, which is the degenerate case, the frequency eigenvalues for δ ≠ 3/2 are all distinct. In all cases the location of the zero moves outward from the steady state (pure precession) value with increasing growth rate; thus, there is a critical minimum size for unstable disks. Modes with zeros at smaller radii are damped. The critical radius and the steady state precession rate depend only weakly on δ. An additional analytic solution has been found for δ = 1. The case δ = 1 divides the solutions into two qualitatively different regimes. For δ ≥ 1, the fastest growing modes have maximum warp amplitude, βmax, close to the disk outer edge, and the ratio of βmax to the warp amplitude at the disk inner edge, β0, is ≫1. For δ < 1, βmax/β0 ≃ 1, and the warp maximum steadily approaches the origin as δ decreases. This implies that nonlinear effects must be important if the warp extends to the disk inner edge for δ ≥ 1, but for δ < 1 nonlinearity will be important only if the warp amplitude is large at the origin. Because of this qualitative difference in the shapes of the warps, the effects of shadowing of the central source by the warp will also be very different in the two regimes of δ. This has important implications for radiation-driven warping in X-ray binaries, for which the value of δ characterizing the disk is likely to be less than unity. In real accretion disks the outer boundary condition is likely to be different from the zero-crossing condition that we have assumed. In accretion disks around massive black holes in active galactic nuclei, the disk will probably become optically thin before the outer disk boundary is reached, whereas in X-ray binaries there will be an outer disk region (outside the circularization radius) in which the inflow velocity is zero but angular momentum is still transported. We show that in both these cases the solutions are similar to the zero-crossing eigenfunctions.
Simultaneous localization, mapping and deblurring

Handling motion blur is one of important issues in visual SLAM. For a fast-moving camera, motion blur is an unavoidable effect and it can degrade the results of localization and reconstruction severely. In this paper, we present a unified algorithm to handle motion blur for visual SLAM, including the blur-robust data association method and the fast deblurring method. In our framework, camera motion and 3-D point structures are reconstructed by SLAM, and the information from SLAM makes the estimation of motion blur quite easy and effective. Reversely, estimating motion blur enables robust data association and drift-free localization of SLAM with blurred images. The blurred images are recovered by fast deconvolution using SLAM data, and more features are extracted and registered to the map so that the SLAM procedure can be continued even with the blurred images. In this way, visual SLAM and deblurring are solved simultaneously, and improve each other's results significantly.
Motion Correction for Coronary Stent Reconstruction From Rotational X-ray Projection Sequences

This paper presents a new method for 3-D tomographic reconstruction of stent in X-ray cardiac rotational angiography. The method relies on 2-D motion correction from two radiopaque markerballs located on each side of the stent. The two markerballs are on a guidewire and linked to the balloon, which is introduced into the artery. Once the balloon has been inflated, deflated, and the stent deployed, a rotational sequence around the patient is acquired. Under the assumption that the guidewire and the stent have the same 3-D motion during rotational acquisition, we developed an algorithm to correct cardiac stent motion on the 2-D X-ray projection images. The 3-D image of the deployed stent is then reconstructed with the Feldkamp algorithm using all the available projections. Although the correction is an approximation, we show that the intrinsic geometrical error of our method has no visual impact on the reconstruction when the 2-D markerball centers are exactly detected and the markerballs have the same 3-D motion as the stent. Qualitative and quantitative results on simulated sequences under different realistic conditions demonstrate the robustness of the method. Finally, results from animal data acquired on a rotational angiography device are presented.
Raster-spatial data declustering revisited: an interactive navigation perspective

Various declustering techniques have been proposed in the literature for raster-geospatial data. Their primary focus is on reducing response time for static range queries. We focus on interactive navigation queries, which exhibit a new class of data access patterns. We analyze and compare the performance of three well-known declustering schemes: Disk Modulo, Exclusive-OR, and Hilbert Curve Access Method. The results show that Disk Modulo is close to optimal and, contrary to the case of range queries, is significantly better than Hilbert Curve Access Method. In addition, we propose a new scheme that further improves Disk Module for a realistic situation when the navigation window is bounded by a maximum size-a common constraint due to either monitor resolution or limited memory size. Performance properties of the scheme are also analyzed.
Earthquakes induced by water injection at ∼3 km depth within the Rongchang gas field, Chongqing, China

[1] Unwanted water, amounting more than 1 million m 3 , has been injected intermittently at a pumping pressure of 2.1-2.9 MPa (over hydrostatic) at 2.6-2.9 km depth within the Rongchang gas field, western Chongqing, China, since July 1988. The injections have induced more than 32,000 surface-recorded earthquakes, including 2 of M L > 5, 14 of M L > 4, and more than 100 of M L > 3 up until the end of 2006. We examined the epidemic-type aftershock sequence (ETAS) model and the temporal evolution of several statistics of the earthquake sequence. The random component in the ETAS model can be considered as an indicator of fluid-driven activity, while the rate of Omori-law-type aftershocks indicates stress triggering of the preceding earthquakes. We observed three distinct seismic activity phases that were coincident with different injection periods. Phase I corresponds to initial injections with low injection rate (long time interval) and shows a vast majority of Omori-type events and only 8% externally forced activity. Phase II corresponds to a period of high injection rates and shows intense earthquake activity characterized by a high percentage (45%) of fluid-driven earthquakes. Phase III demonstrates decreasing seismicity as a result of a lowering in the injection rate; more than 70% of earthquakes occurred randomly over time, indicating the dominance of external triggering. The physical mechanism that induced the Rongchang earthquake sequence was a change in Coulomb's failure stress caused by pore pressure diffusion and transformed from seismic slip of preceding earthquakes. A pressure increase of 2.1-2.9 MPa at the injection well is more than sufficient to induce failure within the local formations.
User Experience Dimensions: A Systematic Approach to Experiential Qualities for Evaluating Information Interaction in Museums

The present study develops a set of 10 dimensions based on a systematic understanding of the concept of experience as a holistic psychological. Seven of these are derived from a psychological conception of what experiencing and experiences are. Three supplementary dimensions spring from the observation that experiences apparently have become especially valuable phenomena in Western societies. The 10 dimensions are tried out in a field study at the Center for Art and Media (ZKM) in Germany with the purpose to study their applicability in the evaluation of interactive sound archives. 29 walk-alongs were carried out with 58 museums visitors. Our analysis showed that it was possible to identify the 10 experience dimensions in the study material. Some dimensions were expressed more frequently than others. The distribution of expressed dimensions and the content of the user comments provided a clear picture of how the two sound archives differed in respect to the experiential qualities.