Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Implications of the Embodied Language : From Learning in Humans to Multisensory Integration in Robots

A few decades of work in the AI field have focused efforts on developing a new generation of systems which can acquire knowledge via interaction with the world. Yet, until very recently, most such attempts were underpinned by research which predominantly regarded linguistic phenomena as separated from the brain and body. This could lead one into believing that to emulate linguistic behaviour, it suffices to develop ‘software’ operating on a bstract representations that will work on any computational machine. This picture is inaccurate for several reasons, which are elucidated in this paper and extend beyond sensorimotor and semantic resonance. Beginning with a review of research, I list several heterogeneous arguments against disembodied language, in an attempt to draw conclusions for developing embodied multisensory agents which communicate verbally and non-verbally with their environment. Without taking into account both the architecture of the human brain, and embodiment, it is unrealistic to replicate accurately the processes which take place during language acquisition, comprehension, production, or during non-linguistic actions. While robots are far from isomorphic with humans, they could benefit from strengthened associative connections in the optimization of their processes and their reactivity and sensitivity to environmental stimuli, and in situated human-machine interaction. The concept of multisensory integration should be extended to cover linguistic input and the complementary information combined from temporally coincident sensory impressions.
Working Mothers and the Welfare State (review)

This article shows that, after decades of inequality, the 1990s saw sudden and dramatic increases in lending to low income and minority groups. Drawing in part on the work of Williams, Nesiba and McConnell (2005), we argue that government deregulation, industry restructuring and government-insured loans all fueled this growth by increasing the sources of loans to minorities. We further argue that this increased lending had small but perceptible effects on residential segregation. But, the transformation of the home mortgage industry also gave rise to new lenders who were quite unlike the old. We contend that the nature of lending was even more important than the amount: some lenders and types of lending had much more of an impact on residential segregation than did others. Specifically, loans from traditional lenders tended to decrease segregation. Conversely, loans from subprime and manufactured housing lenders that specialized in serving low income and minority markets either had no statistically significant effect on segregation or even increased it.
2-2019 Using Bone Fragmentation Records to Investigate Coastal Human Ecodynamics : A Case Study From Č ḯ xwicən ( Washington State , USA )

Coastal shell middens are known for their generally excellent preservation and abundant identifiable faunal remains, including delicate fish and bird bones that are often rare or poorly preserved at non-shell midden sites. Thus, when we began our human ecodynamics research project focused on the fauna from Čḯxicən (45CA523, pronounced ch-WHEET-son), a large ancestral village of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, located on the shore of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Port Angeles, Washington (USA), we anticipated generally high levels of bone identifiability. We quickly realized that the mammal bones were more fragmented and less identifiable than we had expected, though this was not the case with the bird and fish bone or invertebrate remains. To better understand why this fragmentation occurred at Čḯxicən, we evaluate numerous hypotheses, including both post-depositional and behavioral explanations. We conclude that multiple factors intersected (to varying degrees) to produce the extreme bone fragmentation and low identifiability of mammal bones at the site, including bone fuel use, marrow extraction, grease rendering, tool production, and post-depositional breakdown. Using a human ecodynamics framework, we further consider how both social factors and external environmental forces may mediate human choices, such as the economic decision to use bone for fuel or render bone grease. We place our findings from Čḯxicən in a regional context and discuss the potential of the approach for other coastal archaeological sites worldwide.
THE INFLUENCE OF PASSIVE , LEADING EDGE TUBERCLES ON WING PERFORMANCE

Tubercles on the leading edges of humpback whale flippers enhance maneuverability during prey capture. Tubercles may therefore be functional adaptations. By extension, leading edge modifications of streamlined bodies apparently offer cost-effective performance enhancements, including a passive means of increasing vehicle maneuverability. We have developed an efficient panel method simulation applicable to wings that move immersed in a fluid at large Reynolds numbers. The numerical simulation is used to evaluate the forces acting on the wing. When acting on a control surface, these forces govern maneuverability. We compare lift and drag forces for a wing with leading edge tubercles versus the same wing without tubercles at a 10 ̊ angle of attack. We find a 4.8% increase in lift, a 10.9% reduction in induced drag, and a 17.6% increase in lift to drag ratio. Tubercles enhance wing performance at modest angles of attack while offering no detrimental effects at zero angle of attack. We evaluate viscous drag forces acting on the wing and show that tubercles may incur an 11% increase in form drag at a 10 ̊ angle of attack. Tubercles may also extend the operational envelope of a control surface by delaying the onset and severity of stall. Consequently, the maximum force of a control surface may be substantially increased.
Cancelamento de Distorções Não Lineares em Sistemas OFDM Cooperativos AF

In this paper, we propose an iterative technique for canceling nonlinear distortions in cooperative OFDM systems AF. The proposed technique estimates and cancels the nonlinear distortions caused by the use of PAs at source and relay. With this technique the receiver will estimate the nonlinear distortions of the source and these estimates will aid in the detection and cancellation of the nonlinear distortions of the relay. The proposed system was evaluated through numerical simulations. The obtained results showed that the proposed technique has a great hability to cancel the nonlinear distortions, providing results very close to the case with linear PAs. Keywords— OFDM, cooperative systems, iterative correction hard detection, nonlinear amplifier.
Estimation of Vertical Ground Reaction Force Using Low-Cost Insole With Force Plate-Free Learning From Single Leg Stance and Walking

For the evaluation of pathological gait, a machine learning-based estimation of the vertical ground reaction force (vGRF) using a low-cost insole is proposed as an alternative to costly force plates. However, learning a model for estimation still relies on the use of force plates, which is not accessible in small clinics and individuals. Therefore, this paper presents a force plate-free learning from a single leg stance (SLS) and natural walking measured only by the insoles. This method used a linear least squares regression that fits insole measurements during SLS to body weight in order to learn a model to estimate vGRF during walking. Constraints were added to the regression so that vGRF estimates during walking were of proper magnitude, and the constraint bounds were newly defined as a linear function of stance duration. Moreover, a lower bound for the estimated vGRF in mid-stance was added to the constraints to enhance estimation accuracy. The vGRF estimated by the proposed method was compared with force platforms for 4 healthy young adults and 13 elderly adults including patients with mild osteoarthritis, knee pain, and valgus hallux. Through the experiments, the proposed learning method had a normalized root mean squared error under 10% for healthy young and elderly adults with stance durations within a certain range (600–800 ms). From these results, the validity of the proposed learning method was verified for various users requiring assessment in the field of medicine and healthcare.
Search for sphalerons in the e μ final state at √ s = 13 TeV with the CMS experiment

This thesis is concerned with the first ever search for electroweak sphalerons in the electron-muon final state in proton-proton collisions at the LHC at a centre-of-mass energy of √ s = 13 TeV. The used data was collected with the CMS experiment in 2016 and sums up to an integrated luminosity of 35.9 fb−1. As no significant deviation from the simulated Standard Model background is observed, an upper limit of 2.22 is set on the fraction of quark-quark interactions above the sphaleron energy threshold of 9 TeV that undergo sphaleron transitions. Furthermore, both the statistical benefits and the emerging issues of various sphaleron-specific event selection criteria are discussed.
Non-AIDS comorbidity burden differs by sex, race, and insurance type in aging adults in HIV care.

OBJECTIVE To understand the epidemiology of non-AIDS-related chronic comorbidities (NACMs) among aging persons with HIV (PWH) DESIGN:: Prospective multicenter observational study to assess, in an age stratified fashion, number and types of NACMs by demographic and HIV factors. METHODS Eligible participants were seen during 1/1/1997 - 6/30/2015, followed >5.0 years, received antiretroviral therapy (ART), and virally suppressed [HIV viral load (VL) < 200 copies/mL ≥75% of observation time]. Age was stratified (18-40, 41-50, 51-60, ≥61 years). NACMs included cardiovascular disease, cancer, hypertension, diabetes, dyslipidemia, arthritis, viral hepatitis, anemia, and psychiatric illness. RESULTS Of 1540 patients, 1247 (81%) were men, 406 (26%) non-Hispanic blacks (NHB), 183 (12%) Hispanics/Latinos, 575 (37%) with public insurance, 939 (61%) men who have sex with men (MSM), and 125 (8%) with injection drug use history. By age strata 18-40, 41-50, 51-60, ≥61 years, there were 180, 502, 560, and 298 patients, respectively. Median HIV Outpatient Study (HOPS) observation was 10.8 years (range: min-max = 5.0-18.5). Mean number of NACMs increased with older age category; 1.4, 2.1, 3.0, and 3.9, respectively (P < 0.001), as did prevalence of most NACMs (P < 0.001). Age-related differences NACM number were primarily due to anemia, hepatitis C virus infection, and diabetes. Differences (all P < 0.05) in NACM number existed by sex (women >men, 3.9 vs 3.4), race/ethnicity (NHB >non-NHB, 3.8 vs 3.4), and insurance status (public >private, 4.3 vs 3.1). CONCLUSIONS Age-related increases existed in prevalence and number of NACMs, with disproportionate burden among women, NHBs, and the publicly insured. These groups should be targeted for screening and prevention strategies aimed at NACM reduction.
Reach, Uptake, and Satisfaction of Three Delivery Modes of FUEL Your Life

Background. FUEL Your Life (FYL) is a worksite translation of the Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP). In a randomized controlled trial, participants in a phone coaching condition demonstrated greater weight loss compared to participants in a group coaching or self-study condition. The purpose of this article is to describe the differences in participant reach, intervention uptake, and participant satisfaction for each delivery mode. Method. Employees who were overweight, obese, or at high risk for diabetes were recruited from city–county governments. Process evaluation data were collected from health coach records, participant surveys, and research team records. Differences between groups were tested using Pearson chi-square test and one-way analysis of variance. Results. Employee reach of targeted enrollment was highest for the self-study condition. Overall, intervention uptake was highest in the phone coaching condition. Participants who received phone coaching had increased uptake of the participant manual and self-monitoring of food compared to participants who received group coaching or self-study. Discussion. FYL demonstrated that DPP could be effectively delivered in the worksite by three different modalities. When implemented in a self-study mode, reach is greater but intervention uptake is lower. Phone health coaching was associated with greater intervention exposure.
Treadmill : Attributing the Source of Server Tail Latency through Precise Load Testing and Statistical Inference

Managing tail latency of requests has become one of the primary challenges for large-scale Internet services. Data centers are quickly evolving and service operators frequently desire to make changes to deployed software and hardware features. Such changes demand a confident understanding of the impact on one’s service, in particular its effect on tail latency (e.g., 95thor 99th-percentile response latency of the service). Evaluating the impact on the tail is challenging because of its inherent variability. Existing tools and methodologies for measuring these effects suffer from a number of deficiencies including poor load tester design, statistically inaccurate aggregation, and improper attribution of effects. As shown in the paper, these pitfalls can often result in misleading conclusions. In this paper, we develop a methodology for statistically rigorous performance evaluation for server workloads. First, we find that the design of the server load tester is critical to ensuring quality results and empirically demonstrate the inaccuracy of load testers in previous work. Learning from these flaws, we design and develop a modular load tester platform, Treadmill, that overcomes many pitfalls of existing tools. Next, utilizing Treadmill, we then construct measurement and analysis procedures that can properly attribute performance factors. We build on prior research in statistically-sound performance evaluation and quantile regression, extending it to accommodate the idiosyncrasies of server systems. Finally, we use our augmented methodology to evaluate the utility of common server hardware features with Facebook production workloads on production hardware. We decompose the effects of these features on request tail latency and demonstrate that our evaluation methodology provides superior results, particularly in capturing complicated and counter-intuitive performance behaviors. By tuning the hardware features as suggested by the attribution, we reduce the 99th-percentile latency by 43% and its variance by 93%. Keywords-tail latency; load testing; data center;
P o S ( M Q W 6 ) 0 3 6 A unified paradigm for the spectral and temporal evolution of Black Hole X-ray Binaries

We present a unified picture to explain the spectral states of BH binaries based on the two-flow model developed in our team since several years and already a pplied with success to AGNs. In our view, the central regions have a multi-flow configuration c sisting in (1) an outer standard accretion disc (SAD) down to a transition radius rtr , (2) an inner magnetized jet emitting disc (JED) belowrtr driving (3) a self-collimated non relativistic MHD jet surr ounding, when conditions for pair creation are met, (4) a ultra relativistic pai r beam. Large values of rtr correspond to Hard states while small values correspond to Soft states. In between these extremes, in the high intermediate state, rtr can reach values that switch on a pair cascade process giving birth to ultra-relativistic pair blobs that explain the superlumin al events. In this model the accretion rate but also the disc magnetization μ play important roles, the latter being necessarily in the ra nge 0.1–1 for the MHD jet to exist. Then, with simple assumptionsμ , we propose an explanation for the hysteresis behavior observed in microquasars durin g their outburst . We also discuss the nature, in our framework, of the X-ray corona. While it is com monly believed to be at the base of the jet it cannot be in the jet itself, its optical depth bei ng to small to be consistent with the X-ray spectra observed in the Hard state. We show that it is ex pected to form naturally in the JED itself. Finally we investigate the nature of the X-ray va riability in the hard state by assuming an oscillating hot plasma whose temperature and density var y locally through the propagation of a magneto-sonic wave. The variable comptonized spectra a re computed through Monte-Carlo simulation. Preliminary results are discussed.
DprA-Dependent Exit from the Competent State Regulates Multifaceted Streptococcus pneumoniae Virulence

Streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumococcus) causes multiple infectious diseases. The pneumococcal competence system facilitates genetic transformation, spreads antibiotic resistance, and contributes to virulence. DNA-processing protein A (DprA) regulates the exit of pneumococcus from the competent state. Previously, we have shown that DprA is important in both bacteremia and pneumonia infections. Here, we examined the mechanisms of virulence attenuation in a ΔdprA mutant. ABSTRACT Streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumococcus) causes multiple infectious diseases. The pneumococcal competence system facilitates genetic transformation, spreads antibiotic resistance, and contributes to virulence. DNA-processing protein A (DprA) regulates the exit of pneumococcus from the competent state. Previously, we have shown that DprA is important in both bacteremia and pneumonia infections. Here, we examined the mechanisms of virulence attenuation in a ΔdprA mutant. Compared to the parental wild-type D39, the ΔdprA mutant enters the competent state when exposed to lower concentrations of the competence-stimulating peptide CSP1. The ΔdprA mutant overexpresses ComM, which delays cell separation after division. Additionally, the ΔdprA mutant overexpresses allolytic factors LytA, CbpD, and CibAB and is more susceptible to detergent-triggered lysis. Disabling of the competent-state-specific induction of ComM and allolytic factors compensated for the virulence loss in the ΔdprA mutant, suggesting that overexpression of these factors contributes to virulence attenuation. Finally, the ΔdprA mutant fails to downregulate the expression of multiple competence-regulated genes, leading to the excessive energy consumption. Collectively, these results indicate that an inability to properly exit the competent state disrupts multiple cellular processes that cause virulence attenuation in the ΔdprA mutant.
Effect of Maxigrain ® supplemented G liricidiasepium ( Jacq ) Leaf Meal on Performance Characteristics and Nutrients Utilization in Laying hens ( Gallus domesticus )

Sixty(60) laying hens (Rhode Island Red strains)were usedto study the nutritive value of Gliricidia leaf meal (GLM) supplemented with Maxigrain enzyme The birds were randomly allotted to five dietary treatments of 12 birds per treatment; each treatment was replicated into 4 groups with 3 birds per replicate. Five experimental diets were formulated; the test ingredient being Gliricidiasepium. Four of the diets were formulated with enzyme supplementation i.e. diets B, C, D, E while diet A was without enzyme supplementation. Gliricidiasepium leaf meal was included at 5%, 7.5% and 10% replacement of dietary soyabean meal in diets C, D and E respectively. The feeding trial lasted for twelve weeks during which data performance characteristics in terms of Henday production, feed intake, weight gain, and body weight changes were monitored. Digestibility trial was carried out in the last four days of the experiment. All data collected wereanalysed using One-way ANOVA,Diet C was comparable(P>0.0 5) to control in virtually allperformance characteristics variables and almost even higher(P<0.05)in nutrients utilization at a cheaper rate . Maxigrain supplemented GLM will serve as a cheap abundant non-conventional feedand pigmenting stuff with high nutrients utilization efficiency.
A Coordinated Response at The Transcriptome and Interactome Level is Required to Ensure Uropathogenic Escherichia coli Survival during Bacteremia

Localized infections or disruption of the skin barrier can enable the entry of bacteria into the bloodstream, possibly leading to acute inflammation and sepsis. There is currently no holistic view on how bacteria can survive and spread in the bloodstream. In this context, we combined transposon mutagenesis, gene-expression profiling and a protein interaction network analysis to examine how uropathogenic Escherichia coli can proliferate in blood. Our results indicate that, upon migration from the urea to serum, E. coli reacts to the osmolarity difference, triggering a transcriptomic response in order to express survival genes. The proteins codified by these genes are precisely organized at the interactome level and specifically target short linear motifs located in disordered regions of host proteins. Such a coordinated response helps to explain how bacteria can adapt to and survive environmental changes within the host. Overall, our results provide a general framework for the study of bacteremia and reveal new targets for potential study as novel antimicrobials.
Effects of Livelihood Diversification on the Poverty Status of Cassava Farmers in Edo South , Edo State , Nigeria

Cassava farmers are faced with several constraints that have often times led to reduced income and consequently, poverty. Hence, they tend to find alternative means to generate income. This study therefore focused on the effect of livelihood diversification on the poverty status of cassava farmers in Edo South, Edo State, Nigeria. A three-stage sampling procedure was used to select 104 cassava farmers in the study area. The data were analysed using descriptive statistics, budgetary technique, FosterGreerThorbecke (FGT) poverty measure and logit regression model. Results showed that many of the cassava farmers were growing plantain (67.6%), maize (64.7%) and yam (56.9%), while the off farm activity mainly engaged in was trading (16.7%). The result also showed that the gross margin and net profit per hectare of cassava farm per production cycle were ₦133,527.59and ₦124,279.2 respectively. The result showed that the average income of farmers that engaged in other on-farm activities was ₦100,898.04, while, the average income of the farmers that engaged in off farm activities was ₦134,352.94. The relative poverty lines of the farmers with and without diversification were ₦323.11 and ₦253.04 respectively. The absolute poverty line was ₦456.56. Result on the poverty status showed that about 49% and 45% of farmers with and without diversification respectively were poor. The significant determinants of poverty were household size and farm size at 1% level of significance. It was concluded that livelihood diversification reduced the poverty of the cassava farmers in the study area.