Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The bounded rationality of probability distortion

Significance People distort probability in decision under risk and many other tasks. These distortions can be large, leading us to make markedly suboptimal decisions. There is no agreement on why we distort probability. Distortion changes systematically with task, hinting that distortions are dynamic compensations for some intrinsic “bound” on working memory. We first develop a model of the bound and compensation process and then report an experiment showing that the model accounts for individual human performance in decision under risk and relative frequency judgments. Last, we show that the particular compensation in each experimental condition serves to maximize the mutual information between objective decision variables and their internal representations. We distort probability to compensate for our own perceptual and cognitive limitations. In decision making under risk (DMR) participants’ choices are based on probability values systematically different from those that are objectively correct. Similar systematic distortions are found in tasks involving relative frequency judgments (JRF). These distortions limit performance in a wide variety of tasks and an evident question is, Why do we systematically fail in our use of probability and relative frequency information? We propose a bounded log-odds model (BLO) of probability and relative frequency distortion based on three assumptions: 1) log-odds: probability and relative frequency are mapped to an internal log-odds scale, 2) boundedness: the range of representations of probability and relative frequency are bounded and the bounds change dynamically with task, and 3) variance compensation: the mapping compensates in part for uncertainty in probability and relative frequency values. We compared human performance in both DMR and JRF tasks to the predictions of the BLO model as well as 11 alternative models, each missing one or more of the underlying BLO assumptions (factorial model comparison). The BLO model and its assumptions proved to be superior to any of the alternatives. In a separate analysis, we found that BLO accounts for individual participants’ data better than any previous model in the DMR literature. We also found that, subject to the boundedness limitation, participants’ choice of distortion approximately maximized the mutual information between objective task-relevant values and internal values, a form of bounded rationality.
RECOMMENDATION GENERATION BY INTEGRATING SEQUENTIAL PATTERN MINING AND SEMANTICS

As the Internet usage keeps increasing, the number of web sites and hence the number of web pages also keeps increasing. A recommendation system can be used to provide person alized web service by suggesting the pages that are likely to be accessed in future. Most of the recommendation systems are base d on association rule mining or based on keywords. Using the association rule mining the prediction rate is less as it doesn’t take into account the order of access of the web page s by the users. The recommendation systems that are key-word based prov ides lesser relevant results. This paper proposes a recommendation system that uses the advantages of sequential pattern mining an d semantics over the association rule mining and ke yword based systems respectively.
Efficacy of the trans‑obturator and retropubic mid‑urethral slings for stress urinary incontinence

Background: The aim of our study was to report the extended long-term results of the use of tension-free vaginal tape (TVT) and trans-obturator tape (TOT) for the treatment of female urinary stress incontinence (SUI) at the Division of Gynaecology and Obstetrics / UMC Ljubljana. There are few data on this topic in the literature. Our aim was to find out whether and how the procedure improved the patients’ quality of life and for how long, whether the patients had complications after the procedure, and how this type of procedure affected the long-term results.Methods: A retrospective clinical trial comparing the use of TVT and TOT was carried out from January to August 2017 and included all the patients operated on at the Division of Gynaecology and Obstetrics / UMC Ljubljana with TVT or TOT procedure for stress or mixed urinary incontinence (UI) associated with urethral hyper mobility (the stress component was clinically predominant). The exclusion criteria were more than 10 years from procedure, age more than 80 years in 2016, previous anti-incontinence surgery and/or pelvic organ prolapse more than stage I on POP–q in any vaginal compartment. After inclusion and exclusion criteria, 1104 patients were sent quality-of-life questionnaires (PGI-S, PGI-I, SANDVIK SEVERITY SCALE, UDI-6, IIQ-7, ICIQ-UI Short Form (Slovenian)) with questions about the diagnosis, procedures, complications, reoperations, post-operative results, and satisfaction with the procedure. Till August 2017 (6 months after sending) we received 466 questionnaires (42.2 % response rate). After 225 questionnaires were excluded due to incomplete data, 241 questionnaires were analysed.Results: In the analysed group of patients (N = 241), 189 (78 %) had TOT and 52 (22 %) had TVT. Our retrospective study has confirmed that the efficacy and safety of TOT and TVT in the surgical treatment of SUI are comparable. The TOT and TVT groups did not differ significantly from each other in PGI-S, PGI-I, SANDVIK SEVERITY SCALE, UDI-6, IIQ-7, and ICIQ-UI Short Form or in postoperative complication rate. Repeat surgery was needed in 25/189 (13.2 %) TOT patients and 12/52 (23.1 %) TVT patients; p = 0.082. Urinary retention appeared in 18/189 (9.5 %) TOT patients and 7/52 (13.5 %) TVT patients; p = 0.411. Mesh erosion/inflammation appeared in 12/189 (6.3 %) TOT patients and 2/52 (38 %) TVT patients; p = 0495.Conclusion: We can conclude that the efficacy and safety of TOT and TVT in the surgical treatment of SUI are comparable. The choice of the technique should be based on the relative pros and cons of techniques and the surgeon’s experience.
The Influence of Dominant Bacteria from Various Lakes of East Java, Indonesia on Chlorella sp. Culture

Synergetic bacteria need to be explored which can accelerate the growth of microalgae which have potential as oil producer related to renewable energy. This research aimed to analyze the influence of the dominant bacteria from Ranu Pane (POD code), Ranu Grati (GOD code), Ranu Regulo (ROD code), and the recombinant dominant bacteria from all sampling areas (PGR code) on the growth of Chlorella sp. in co-culture. Also, the individual crosscheck was done by making co-interaction between the predominant bacteria from each and biofuel producing microalgae (Chlorella sp.). The co-culture data between the dominant bacteria species and Chlorella sp. showed that dominant species had different effects on the number of microalgae cells in the co-culture. Thus, co-culture could accelerate the growth of Chlorella sp, extend the log and stationary phases and enhance the environmental carrying capacity.
Implication des systèmes de dégradation cellulaire, de la protéine VCP et de nouvelles molécules sur le métabolisme de l’APP : aspects fondamentaux et appliqués à la maladie d’Alzheimer

La maladie d’Alzheimer (MA) est une pathologie neurodegenerative lente, progressive et irreversible. Elle est principalement caracterisee par deux lesions histopathologiques : les degenerescences neurofibrillaires, causees par l’accumulation intraneuronale d'agregats de proteines Tau hyper- et anormalement phosphorylees ; et les depots amyloides parenchymateux, constitues d’agregats de peptides amyloides (Aβ) issus du clivage de la proteine precurseur du peptide amyloide (APP). A ces deux lesions s'ajoute entre autres une deregulation de l'homeostasie proteique et des systemes de degradation des proteines : proteasome, autophagie et voie endosome/lysosome qui sont les mecanismes principaux mis en jeu pour l'elimination des agregats proteiques. Plusieurs etudes suggerent que la surproduction et l'agregation des peptides Aβ sont les causes principales de la MA. Ainsi, la reduction de leur production et/ou l’amelioration de leur clairance representent des strategies potentielles pour le developpement de traitement contre la MA. Les objectifs de mes travaux de these furent d’etudier de facon plus approfondie l’implication respective des voies de degradation de l’APP et de ses metabolites ; de determiner le mode d’action biologique de derives chimiques de la chloroquine sur le metabolisme de l’APP en relation avec la Valosin-Containing proteine (VCP), supposee etre la cible de ces molecules, et par la meme occasion d’etudier la relation existante entre l’APP et VCP. Dans un premier temps, nous avons pu demontrer que l’APP et ses fragments carboxyterminaux (APP-CTFs) etaient principalement degrades par deux voies : la g-secretase et la voie endolysosome. Ensuite, nous avons demontre que VCP regulait le trafic intracellulaire de l’APP. Enfin, nous avons decouvert que l’action des molecules etait independante de la proteine VCP et qu’il s’agissait de modulateurs indirects de l’activite β-secretase permettant ainsi de reduire la secretion de peptides Aβ. En conclusion, ces travaux ont permis de contribuer a une meilleure comprehension du metabolisme de l’APP et de ses processus de degradation ainsi que de caracteriser l’effet biologique de nouveaux inhibiteurs indirects de la β-secretase.
Biochemical Characterization of Fig (Ficus carica L.) Seeds

Fig fruit has been a typical component of the health-promoting Mediterranean diet since centuries. One of the fig fruit’s parts responsible for health effects is fig seeds that do not come to mind. Firstly, the proximate compositions of Sarilop fig seed cultivars were determined in this study. It was seen that the fig seeds were rich in oil and carbohydrate contents. Then, the mineral contents of fig seeds were analyzed by UV-vis spectrophotometer and an atomic absorption spectrometer. The major minerals in fig seeds were found as Ca, K and P. Moreover, the fatty acid compositions of the seeds were evaluated by gas chromatography. The fig seed oil had greater amount of the unsaturated fatty acids than saturated fatty acids. The chemical compositions of fig seeds are presented for the first time in this study.
STATE-OF-THE-ART OF M-LEARNING USABILITY AND USER EXPERIENCE

This paper starts with a literature review of the mobile learning usability contributions in various conferences and journals during 2002-2010. This review helps us to identify the user-centred methods and practices for developing mobile learning applications. In addition to the literature review, three ongoing m-learning projects are reviewed for user-centred development activities. This paper argues that despite the user-centered design (UCD) and participatory design (PD) methods support the development of mobile learning applications, the emotional factors are emerging as significant design issues in m-learning and provide important support for m-learning application development in the future.
3D visual tracking using a network of low-cost pan/tilt cameras

This paper describes a distributed system of cameras for tracking feature points in 3-space. A low-cost camera unit has been designed using off-the-shelf components that include a small CCD board camera and two servo-controlled mechanisms for pan and tilt. Triangulation is used with two or more calibrated cameras in a network of cameras to compute the location of a point in 3-space based on camera positions and pan/tilt angles. Experimental results demonstrate the advantage of using the redundant data from multiple pan/tilt cameras.
Scalable Video Transport over IP Networks

of a dissertation at the University of Miami. Dissertation supervised by Professor James W. Modestino. No. of pages in text. (113) With the advances in video compression and networking techniques, the last ten years have witnessed an explosive growth of video applications over the Internet. However, the service model of the current best-effort network was never engineered to handle video traffic and, as a result, video applications still suffer from varying and unpredictable network conditions, in terms of bandwidth, packet loss and delay. To address these problems, a lot of innovative techniques have been proposed and researched. Among them, scalable video coding is a promising one to cope with the dynamics of the available bandwidth and heterogeneous terminals. This work aims at improving the efficacy of scalable video transport over IP networks. In this work, we first propose an optimal interleaving scheme combined with motion-compensated fine granularity scalability video source coding and unequal loss protection schemes, under an imposed delay constraint. The network is modeled as a packet-loss channel with random delays. The motion compensation prediction, ULP allocation and the depth of the interleaver are jointly optimized based on the network status and the delay constraint. We then proceed to investigate the multiple path transport technique. A unified approach which incorporates adaptive motion compensation prediction, multiple description coding and unequal multiple path allocation, is proposed to improve both the robustness and error resilience property of the video coding and transmission system, while the delivered video quality is improved simultaneously. To analytically investigate the efficacy of error resilient transport schemes for progressively encoded sources, including unequal loss protection, best-effort and FEC transport schemes, we develop evaluation and optimization approaches for these transport schemes. In this part of the work, the network is modeled as an M/D/1/K queue, and then a comprehensive queueing analysis is provided. Armed with these results, the efficacy of these transport schemes for progressively encoded sources are investigated and compared.
THE EFFECT OF HYOSCINE-N-BUTYLBROMIDE (BUSCOPAN) ON OXIDATIVE STRESS PARAMETERS IN ALBINO RATS

Effects of Hyoscine-N-butylbromide (Buscopan) on oxidative stress parameters of albino rats were studied. Catalase, reduced glutathione, superoxide dismutase and malonylaldehyde levels were determined using standard methods. The rats were placed into two groups A and B where group A was sub-divided into three sub-groups. Subgroup A1 received normal recommended dose of 10mg/60kg body weight while A2 and A3 received two and four times the recommended dose respectively. Group B was used as control. The results revealed no significant difference (p>0.05) in the activity of reduced glutathione, superoxide dismutase and malonylaldehyde in the test groups. The effect on the activity of catalase showed a significant increase (p<0.05). The result showed that there may be some side effects of overdose as it might lead to increased oxidative stress.
Some Antioxidant Enzymes in Workers Exposed to Pollutants

The study was conducted in Mosul city to show the effect of pollutants on some antioxidant enzymes which included: catlase (CAT.), glutathione S-transferase (GST), superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione peroxidase (GPx). The study included (153) persons represented in four groups, three of which were subjected directly to different pollutants (petroleum station workers (n= 37), workers in x-ray diagnosis (n=39) and cement production workers (n=33)). The fourth group as a control included outside city center living (n=44). The results showed a significant decrease for CAT and GPx enzymes in all groups incomparison with control group. On the other hand, there was a significant decrease in GST with petroleum station and cement workers. For SOD, the results revealed a significant increase in workers of x-ray diagnosis , but a decrease non significantly in other groups. In addition, the increase of period of pollution, produced a decrease in CAT for all groups except in petroleum station workers and workers in x-ray diagnosis. Moreover a decrease in GST, SOD and GPx for all different pollutant groups were observed. In conclusion, an increase exposure of different pollutants led to an increase in the oxidative stress in workers which decreased the antioxidant enzymes levels. This behaviors might give an indication for the oxidation that take place in exposed persons.
244-LB: Glutamate Is Associated with Type 2 Diabetes through PLG Regulation

Glutamate is a major excitatory neurotransmitter and is involved in the ER stress and β-cell dysfunction, which are important clinical features of diabetes mellitus. However, metabolic studies of diabetes in relation to glutamate are not well understood. In this regard, we tried to search for the function of glutamate in type 2 diabetes. We found that glutamate levels were significantly increased in both prediabetic and diabetic participants in 10 years follow-up study (Korean Genome and Epidemiology Study: Ansan-Ansung cohort). And also, we observed that glutamate is associated with FERM domain-containing protein 4B (FRMD4B), plasminogen (PLG) and partitioning-defective 3 (PARD3) by genome-wide association studies (GWAS). Among them, PLG levels were not only significantly increased by palmitate treatment, which is general model for induction of insulin resistance, but also increased by glutamate treatment. To demonstrate the association between PLG and type 2 diabetes, we treated thapsigargin (ER stress) or oligomysin (mitochondrial dysfunction) in Sk-Hep I cells, and observed that PLG levels were significantly increased in these conditions. Consistently, PLG overexpression increased expression of ER stress-related factors; however, repression of PLG expression by plg siRNA attenuated these changes. Our results demonstrate that high levels of glutamate are associated with development of diabetes, and are assumedly regulated by PLG. Disclosure H. Lee: None. J. Yun: None. H. Kim: None. H. Jang: None. S. Park: None. H. Lee: None. Funding Korea National Institute of Health (2017-NG64001-02)
Comparison of Several Multiple Antenna Multiuser Detectors in Wireless CDMA Systems

Two main problems in CDMA cellular systems are multiple access interference and multipath fading. To alleviate these problems, two usually used methods are multiuser detection and space-time coding. Many of works on multiuser detection are done for single antenna systems. In this paper, we study the multiuser detection in multiple transmit/receive antenna CDMA systems. We analyze the combination of linear and non-linear multiuser detection techniques with space-time block coding methods. We also compare the performance of various multiuser detection techniques in multiple transmit/receive antennas by computer simulations.
A THEORETICAL APPROACH FOR ITS DATA ANALYSES USING CYBER INFRASTRUCTURE

This paper presents a theoretical approach that has been developed to capture the computational intensity and computing resource requirements of intelligent transportation system (ITS) data and analysis methods. These requirements can be transformed into a common framework, region-based divisions of ITS computational data processing, which supports the efficient use of cyber infrastructure. The computational transformation is performed to characterize the computational intensity of a particular ITS data analyses. The application of the theoretical approach is illustrated using two ITS data processing methods: multi-sensor data fusion by integrating federated Kalman filter and D-S evidence theory, and geospatial computation on GPS data for urban traffic monitoring. Through the application, the development of region-based division method is decoupled from specific high performance computer architecture and implementations, which makes the design of generic parallel processing solutions feasible for ITS data analyses. The experimental results show that the framework can be applied to divide the ITS data analyses based on regions into a balanced set of computing tasks, and parallelizing data fusion and geospatial computation algorithms achieves better speedup.
A Novel Dynamic Detection for Flash Memory

The incorporation of powerful soft-decision error correction codes (e.g., LDPC) to replace legacy hard-decision codes (e.g., BCH) can boost the reliability of flash memory beyond its current limits at the expense of additional reading latency to generate soft information, namely in the form of log-likelihood ratios (LLRs). Unfortunately, the memory channel varies significantly depending on several factors (e.g., temperature, parasitic coupling, and retention time) which renders the use of precomputed LLR lookup table (LUT) ineffective especially as the device ages. In fact, the estimated LLRs need to be regularly updated to avoid any performance degradation. We provide a dynamic yet low-latency blind detection algorithm which is able to adaptively adjust the hard/soft-decision boundaries and estimate the corresponding LLR codebook. The proposed demodulator offers near-optimal performance with low-complexity overhead.
Perceptual grouping using global saliency-enhancing operators

Introduces saliency-enhancing operators capable of highlighting features which are considered perceptually relevant. One is able to extract salient curves and junctions and generate a description ranking these features by their likelihood of coming from the original scene. The authors suggest the global extension field as means of describing the behavior of a curve segment, in terms of its continuation. It is shown that a directional convolution of an edge image with the above field can produce useful descriptions. Other fields are also used in the same manner to produce similar results for domain-specific applications. The scheme is particularly useful and robust as a gap filler and in the presence of noise. <<ETX>>
Do popular males always lose out in sperm competition

The process of sexual selection has been a fascinating topic for scientist for a long time and still is intensively studied. Darwin already suggested two pathways for evolution of traits under sexual selection: male-male competition and female choice. Parker realized that sexual selection can continue after copulation: sperm competition and cryptic female choice were found as potential pathways as well. These processes are not mutually exclusive, and can oppose or reinforce each other. Total male reproductive success is determined by a male’s ability to acquire matings (precopulatory processes) and his share in fertilized ova (postcopulatory processes). From a life history point of view, as resources are limited, one would expect a trade-off between investing in precopulatory and postcopulatory success. However, do popular males that have invested in secondary sexual characteristics, always lose out in sperm competition? The phenotype-linked fertility hypothesis states that females should prefer fertile males and that fertility is in some way linked to exaggerated secondary sexual traits. In this review I look at the relation between pre- and postcopulatory success. Do popular males always lose out in sperm competition? Or are they not only more successful in acquiring matings, but also more fertile? For this comparison I compiled the results of studies done on this relation and look for support for the alternative scenarios. For both hypotheses we can find species where such a system appears to be present. No clear condition determining the relation between pre- and postcopulatory success has been found. However, there does seem to be a trend for cryptic female choice to favor males that were also successful before copulation.