Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Multi-objective optimization approach to stock market technical indicators

In this paper the optimization of four technical indicators are analyzed (Exponential Moving Average - EMA; Relative Strength Index - RSI; Moving Average Convergence Divergence - MACD; and Larry Williams %R - %R). In the context of stock markets, technical indicators are widely used by investors to compose trading strategies with the purpose of define entry and exit points of stocks. Although investors want to maximize the profit of their investments with minimum risk, other objectives can be taken into consideration. Despite maximizing profit and minimizing the level of risk, this work also consider minimization of number of trades, what has impact on transaction costs. Multi-objective optimization procedures are used to generate a set of non-dominated solutions (Pareto front) from where the investor can analyze the tradeoff between objectives and choose a solution that best fit its strategy. In this paper an algorithm based on Differential Evolution is used to generate Pareto fronts for each technical indicator. To evaluate the potential excess returns generated using adequate settings for each indicator, the parameters are optimized in a 10 year period daily data from IBOVESPA index. To check whether the optimized parameters can be efficiently used in the future, a period-by-period optimization is performed, where the parameters are optimized in one year period and then tested in the next six month period.
Receding-horizon estimation for discrete-time linear systems

The problem of estimating the state of a discrete-time linear system can be addressed by minimizing an estimation cost function dependent on a batch of recent measure and input vectors. This problem has been solved by introducing a receding-horizon objective function that includes also a weighted penalty term related to the prediction of the state. For such an estimator, convergence results and unbiasedness properties have been proved. The issues concerning the design of this filter are discussed in terms of the choice of the free parameters in the cost function. The performance of the proposed receding-horizon filter is evaluated and compared with other techniques by means of a numerical example.
Discovery and Description of Ebola Zaire Virus in 1976 and Relevance to the West African Epidemic During 2013-2016.

BACKGROUND In 1976, the first cases of Ebola virus disease in northern Democratic Republic of the Congo (then referred to as Zaire) were reported. This article addresses who was responsible for recognizing the disease; recovering, identifying, and naming the virus; and describing the epidemic. Key scientific approaches used in 1976 and their relevance to the 3-country (Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia) West African epidemic during 2013-2016 are presented. METHODS Field and laboratory investigations started soon after notification, in mid-September 1976, and included virus cell culture, electron microscopy (EM), immunofluorescence antibody (IFA) testing of sera, case tracing, containment, and epidemiological surveys. In 2013-2016, medical care and public health work were delayed for months until the Ebola virus disease epidemic was officially declared an emergency by World Health Organization, but research in pathogenesis, clinical presentation, including sequelae, treatment, and prevention, has increased more recently. RESULTS Filoviruses were cultured and observed by EM in Antwerp, Belgium (Institute of Tropical Medicine); Porton Down, United Kingdom (Microbiological Research Establishment); and Atlanta, Georgia (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). In Atlanta, serological testing identified a new virus. The 1976 outbreak (280 deaths among 318 cases) stopped in <11 weeks, and basic clinical and epidemiological features were defined. The recent massive epidemic during 2013-2016 (11 310 deaths among 28 616 cases) has virtually stopped after >2 years. Transmission indices (R0) are higher in all 3 countries than in 1976. CONCLUSIONS An international commission working harmoniously in laboratories and with local communities was essential for rapid success in 1976. Control and understanding of the recent West African outbreak were delayed because of late recognition and because authorities were overwhelmed by many patients and poor community involvement. Despite obstacles, research was a priority in 1976 and recently.
The Method of Dolphin Hunting and the Distribution of Teeth and Meat : Dolphin Hunting in the Solomon Islands 2

La chasse aux dauphins, reprise dans les annees 1940, exige une certaine technique. Les Lau du village de Fanalei sur l'ile de Malaita se servent d'outillages simples (canoe, drapeau et pierres). Une formation en U de canoes repoussent les groupes de dauphins vers les terres. Toutes les parties de l'animal sont partagees, les dents etant l'element le plus important. Alors que la viande est equitablement distribuee entre tous les groupes domestiques, les dents sont reparties proportionnellement entre les hommes maries qui ont peche, ceux qui n'ont pas peche et les veuves et les vieux. La viande est vendue alors que les dents servent de monnaie d'echange et d'ornements
DELTA: A Security Assessment Framework for Software-Defined Networks

Developing a systematic understanding of the attack surface of emergent networks, such as software-defined networks (SDNs), is necessary and arguably the starting point toward making it more secure. Prior studies have largely relied on ad hoc empirical methods to evaluate the security of various SDN elements from different perspectives. However, they have stopped short of converging on a systematic methodology or developing automated systems to rigorously test for security flaws in SDNs. Thus, conducting security assessments of new SDN software remains a non-replicable and unregimented process. This paper makes the case for automating and standardizing the vulnerability identification process in SDNs. As a first step, we developed a security assessment framework, DELTA, that reinstantiates published SDN attacks in diverse test environments. Next, we enhanced our tool with a protocol-aware fuzzing module to automatically discover new vulnerabilities. In our evaluation, DELTA successfully reproduced 20 known attack scenarios across diverse SDN controller environments and discovered seven novel SDN application mislead attacks.
Compressed Sensing Based Apple Image Measurement Matrix Selection

The purpose of this paper is to design a measurement matrix of apple image based on compressed sensing to realize low cost sampling apple image. Compressed sensing based apple image sampling method makes a breakthrough to the limitation of the Nyquist sampling theorem. By investigating the matrix measurement signal, the method can project a higher dimensional signal to a low-dimensional space for data compression and reconstruct the original image using less observed values. But this method requires that the measurement matrix and sparse transformation base satisfy the conditions of RIP or incoherence. Real time acquiring and transmitting apple image has great importance for monitoring the growth of fruit trees and efficiently picking apple. This paper firstly chooses sym5 wavelet base as apple image sparse transformation base, and then it uses Gaussian random matrices, Bernoulli random matrices, Partial Orthogonal random matrices, Partial Hadamard matrices, and Toeplitz matrices to measure apple images, respectively. Using the same measure quantity, we select the matrix that has best reconstruction effect as the apple image measurement matrix. The reconstruction PSNR values and runtime were used to compare and contrast the simulation results. According to the experiment results, this paper selects Partial Orthogonal random matrices as apple image measurement matrix.
Ability-aware trust for vehicular networks

Future vehicles will exchange much information through a wireless network in order to efficiently maintain their inner model of the environment. Before they can believe received pieces of information, they must evaluate their reliability. Trust is a mechanism to estimate this reliability based on the sender. It depends on friendship-like relations between vehicles, the social structure. Our traffic and network simulation shows that such relations indeed arise, because vehicles often drive the same route. Within this simulation, all vehicles are equipped with the proposed trust model, which continuously monitors the experiences made with others. The model focuses on these direct experiences of the individual and does not depend on a central reputation unit. It continuously evaluates the performance and reputation of other vehicles and includes a feedback loop to faster adapt to changes in the other’s behaviour. Since the performance of a vehicle depends on the abilities of its sensors, like different abilities in velocity measurement or in traffic sign detection, the proposed model develops trust depending on the sender and on the type of the information.
GAD, Metacognition, and Mindfulness: An Information Processing Analysis

In this commentary I discuss the integration of mindful procedures in cognitive therapy of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and attempt to answer questions concerning the effects of mindfulness on information processing and on mechanisms purported to maintain GAD in the metacognitive model of this disorder. Different techniques that promote mindfulness can be identified, including mindfulness meditation and attention training. These techniques are intended to disrupt repetitive styles of dysfunctional thinking. I argue that the effect of mindfulness strategies on information processing in emotional disorder can be conceptualized in metacognitive terms as (a) activating a metacognitive mode of processing; (b) disconnecting the influence of maladaptive beliefs on processing; (c) strengthening flexible responding to threat; and (d) strengthening metacognitive plans for controlling cognition. Although mindfulness meditation may have general treatment applications, the metacognitive model of GAD suggests caution in using this treatment in GAD. It is unclear which dimension of worry should be targeted, and mindfulness meditation does not contain information that can lead to unambiguous disconfirmation of erroneous beliefs about worry.
Exchange Rate Volatility and its Impact on the Transaction Costs of Covered Interest Rate Parity

This paper provides empirical evidence on the linkage between foreign exchange market volatility and daily 90-day covered interest rate parity conditions of the three major exchange rates against the US$. Markov regime shifting models were utilized to generate time series of volatility regime probabilities and these were used to explain the first and second moments of the daily deviations from and the transaction cost bands around the covered parity conditions. We find a significant positive relationship between the deviations and the regime probabilities, indicating an increasing probability of higher volatility state being associated with rising deviations (both first and second moments) from the parity condition. Similar positive relationship is found for the transaction bands. Rising (Falling) probabilities of high (low) volatility regimes increased the first and second moments of the bands. Furthermore, we find a higher volatility state combined with a US$ depreciation is associated with significantly higher volatility in the daily deviations than an appreciation. Also, US$ depreciation is associated with widening transaction bands. This suggests that the level of market uncertainty was higher when the US$ was depreciating. Keywords: Deviations from CIP, Markov regime shifting probabilities
Chromatin dynamics during DNA replication

Chromatin is composed of DNA and histones, which provide a unified platform for regulating DNA-related processes, mostly through their post-translational modification. During DNA replication, histone arrangement is perturbed, first to allow progression of DNA polymerase and then during repackaging of the replicated DNA. To study how DNA replication influences the pattern of histone modification, we followed the cell-cycle dynamics of 10 histone marks in budding yeast. We find that histones deposited on newly replicated DNA are modified at different rates: While some marks appear immediately upon replication (e.g., H4K16ac, H3K4me1), others increase with transcription-dependent delays (e.g., H3K4me3, H3K36me3). Notably, H3K9ac was deposited as a wave preceding the replication fork by ∼5–6 kb. This replication-guided H3K9ac was fully dependent on the acetyltransferase Rtt109, while expression-guided H3K9ac was deposited by Gcn5. Further, topoisomerase depletion intensified H3K9ac in front of the replication fork and in sites where RNA polymerase II was trapped, suggesting supercoiling stresses trigger H3K9 acetylation. Our results assign complementary roles for DNA replication and gene expression in defining the pattern of histone modification.
Acute childhood leukemia: a ten-year study.

The introduction of antimetabolites and steroid hormones has resulted in an appreciable increase in the survival time of patients with acute stem-cell leukemia of childhood. The occurrence of prolonged remissions, extending in some cases over a period of several years, has permitted observations concerning the course of the disease, the development of formerly unknown or rare complications, and the response to varied therapeutic regimens which, in our present state of ignorance, may well provide clues for future investigations. In particular, a comparison of long-term survivors with less favorably responding patients should be of interest. Such a study has not been attempted before, although several recent articles1-4deal with the therapeutic results achieved with the newer agents. Case Material The analysis deals with an unselected group of 169 children in whom an unequivocal diagnosis of acute stem-cell leukemia could be made on the basis of peripheral blood findings, supported in
Real-time tracking of the creative music composition process

Abstract Verbal protocol methodologies have been used in a variety of research settings, and have, to some extent been used in music composition cognition studies. However, there has been little evaluation of such a research methodology. This paper discusses outcomes from a longitudinal single-case-study where immediately retrospective verbal reporting was combined with real-time digital data collection procedures. By triangulating data from computer ‘save-as’ files, transcription of the verbal protocol, semistructured interviews and verification sessions with the composer, it was possible to examine aspects of creative problem-solving and moments of insight in such activity. Mapping of the emerging structure was also possible and this, combined with analysis of procedures and strategies outlines in the verbal protocol, allowed a view into the compositional ‘flow’, and a resultant hypothetical model of composition process to be presented. Practical issues around the use of verbal protocol methodology are discussed.
SERAN: a new protocol to hide an equipment in ad hoc networks

The fourth generation wireless network represents the next generation of mobile networks. These networks include ad-hoc networks that are characterized as autonomous and independent of any existing infrastructure. One of the major problems of these networks is the security of data and equipment. Data should be confidential, and the equipments should also be protected for saving energy, or for isolation of a congestioned node, etc. In this study we propose a new protocol SERAN (security equipment protocol in routing in ad hoc networks), which permits to hide an equipment in ad hoc networks.
Effect of a Radiant Energy–Treated Lysozyme Antimicrobial Blend on the Control of Clostridial Necrotic Enteritis in Broiler Chickens

Abstract A cage study was conducted to demonstrate the effect of Entegard™REV, a lysozyme-based antimicrobial blend, on the performance of broiler chickens and necrotic enteritis (NE) disease reduction of birds that were challenged with Eimeria maxima and Clostridium perfringens. In the experiment, challenge by the infectious agents without medication resulted in impaired feed consumption, weight gain, and feed conversions and caused high incidence of gross NE lesions and NE mortality rate. Entegard™REV included in feed at 200 g/metric ton (MT) was very effective in reducing negative health effects in the birds after NE challenge, and its ability to control the disease was not statistically different from a commonly used antibiotic growth promotant, bacitracin methylene disalicilate, at 55 g/MT.
Textual entailment for modern standard Arabic

This thesis explores a range of approaches to the task of recognising textual entailment (RTE), i.e. determining whether one text snippet entails another, for Arabic, where we are faced with an exceptional level of lexical and structural ambiguity. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt to carry out this task for Arabic. Tree edit distance (TED) has been widely used as a component of natural language processing (NLP) systems that attempt to achieve the goal above, with the distance between pairs of dependency trees being taken as a measure of the likelihood that one entails the other. Such a technique relies on having accurate linguistic analyses. Obtaining such analyses for Arabic is notoriously difficult. To overcome these problems we have investigated strategies for improving tagging and parsing depending on system combination techniques. These strategies lead to substantially better performance than any of the contributing tools. We describe also a semi-automatic technique for creating a first dataset for RTE for Arabic using an extension of the ? headline-lead paragraph? technique because there are, again to the best of our knowledge, no such datasets available. We sketch the difficulties inherent in volunteer annotators-based judgment, and describe a regime to ameliorate some of these. The major contribution of this thesis is the introduction of two ways of improving the standard TED: (i) we present a novel approach, extended TED (ETED), for extending the standard TED algorithm for calculating the distance between two trees by allowing operations to apply to subtrees, rather than just to single nodes. This leads to useful improvements over the performance of the standard TED for determining entailment. The key here is that subtrees tend to correspond to single information units. By treating operations on subtrees as less costly than the corresponding set of individual node operations, ETED concentrates on entire information units, which are a more appropriate granularity than individual words for considering entailment relations; and (ii) we use the artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm to automatically estimate the cost of edit operations for single nodes and subtrees and to determine thresholds, since assigning an appropriate cost to each edit operation manually can become a tricky task.The current findings are encouraging. These extensions can substantially affect the F-score and accuracy and achieve a better RTE model when compared with a number of string-based algorithms and the standard TED approaches. The relative performance of the standard techniques on our Arabic test set replicates the results reported for these techniques for English test sets. We have also applied ETED with ABC to the English RTE2 test set, where it again outperforms the standard TED.
APOE: A potential marker of disease progression in ALS

Abstract—Although documented in AD, the role of APOE remains unclear in ALS. APOE phenotype and plasma levels were measured in 403 patients with ALS and were correlated with clinical parameters and survival time. No correlations were observed between the APOE phenotype and these variables. In contrast, APOE plasma levels were correlated with both rate of deterioration and survival time and appeared to be an important risk factor for decreased survival time with a relative risk of 0.647 (95% CI: 0.465 to 0.901;p = 0.01).
Neoadjuvant gemcitabine, docetaxel, and capecitabine followed by gemcitabine and capecitabine/radiation therapy and surgery in locally advanced, unresectable pancreatic adenocarcinoma

This prospective study was undertaken to assess toxicity, resectability, and survival in pancreatic adenocarcinoma patients presenting with locally advanced, unresectable disease treated with neoadjuvant gemcitabine, docetaxel, and capecitabine (GTX) and gemcitabine and capecitabine (GX)/radiation therapy (RT).
Racial differences in knowledge, attitudes, and cancer screening practices among a triracial rural population

Low‐income, minority, and rural women face a greater burden with regard to cancer‐related morbidity and mortality and are usually underrepresented in cancer control research. The Robeson County Outreach, Screening and Education Project sought to increase mammography use among low‐income, minority, and rural women age > 40 years. The current article reports on racial disparities and barriers to screening, especially those related to knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors.
Isolation of epithelial cells from tooth brush and gender identification by amplification of SRY gene

Introduction: This study determines the importance of tooth brush from which DNA can be isolated and used for sex determination in forensic analysis. Materials and Methods: A total of 30 samples were collected and stored at room temperature for different periods of time interval. The epithelial cells adhered to the bristles of tooth brush were collected and genomic DNA was extracted and quantified using Nanodrop 1000 spectrophotometer. Results: Gender identification was done by amplification of sex determining region on Y chromosome (SRY) gene using real-time polymerase chain reaction and minimal amount of DNA (in pico grams) with 100% sensitivity and 73.3% specificity, i.e., all male samples showed positive results and out of 15 female samples 4 showed false positive results, i.e wrongly identified as males. Conclusion: With this study, we conclude that PCR is a valuable and sensitive procedure where minute contamination may cause alteration in the result, i.e, 4 females showed false positive result. Minute amount of DNA in picograms, which was collected at different intervals is enough for amplification of SRY gene and tooth brush can be used as one of the very valuable sources of gender identification.
Pilot experiments with EB virus in owl monkeys (aotus trivirgatus). I. Reticuloproliferative disease in an inoculated animal

A pilot experiment is described in which EB virus‐containing cultured lymphoblasts were inoculated into a group of three adult owl monkeys. Virion‐free cells were inoculated into three other monkeys, and four further animals were kept as uninoculated controls. One of the animals receiving the virus died after 14 weeks with a striking reticulopro‐liferative disease very compatible with certain forms of malignant lymphoma. The findings are described and their significance considered in relation to a possible onocgenic capacity for EB virus.
Speaker adaptive confidence scoring using Bayesian combining

Bayesian combining of confidence measures is proposed for speech recognition. Bayesian combining is achieved by the estimation of joint pdf of confidence feature vector in correct and incorrect hypothesis classes. If the joint pdf in the two classes are correctly estimated, this method guarantees an optimal combining in the minimum Bayes risk sense. Investigating the distribution of confidence features, we found out that the pdf are well estimated by the Gaussian mixture model with full covariance matrix in combining small number of features. In addition, the adaptation of a confidence score by adapting the joint pdf is presented. The proposed methods reduced the classification error rate by 17% from the conventional single feature based confidence scoring method in an isolated word out-of-vocabulary rejection test.