Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Model choice in time series studies of air pollution and mortality

Summary. Multicity time series studies of particulate matter and mortality and morbidity have provided evidence that daily variation in air pollution levels is associated with daily variation in mortality counts. These findings served as key epidemiological evidence for the recent review of the US national ambient air quality standards for particulate matter. As a result, methodological issues concerning time series analysis of the relationship between air pollution and health have attracted the attention of the scientific community and critics have raised concerns about the adequacy of current model formulations. Time series data on pollution and mortality are generally analysed by using log‐linear, Poisson regression models for overdispersed counts with the daily number of deaths as outcome, the (possibly lagged) daily level of pollution as a linear predictor and smooth functions of weather variables and calendar time used to adjust for time‐varying confounders. Investigators around the world have used different approaches to adjust for confounding, making it difficult to compare results across studies. To date, the statistical properties of these different approaches have not been comprehensively compared. To address these issues, we quantify and characterize model uncertainty and model choice in adjusting for seasonal and long‐term trends in time series models of air pollution and mortality. First, we conduct a simulation study to compare and describe the properties of statistical methods that are commonly used for confounding adjustment. We generate data under several confounding scenarios and systematically compare the performance of the various methods with respect to the mean‐squared error of the estimated air pollution coefficient. We find that the bias in the estimates generally decreases with more aggressive smoothing and that model selection methods which optimize prediction may not be suitable for obtaining an estimate with small bias. Second, we apply and compare the modelling approaches with the National Morbidity, Mortality, and Air Pollution Study database which comprises daily time series of several pollutants, weather variables and mortality counts covering the period 1987–2000 for the largest 100 cities in the USA. When applying these approaches to adjusting for seasonal and long‐term trends we find that the Study's estimates for the national average effect of PM10 at lag 1 on mortality vary over approximately a twofold range, with 95% posterior intervals always excluding zero risk.
Control of Polling in Presence of Vacations in Heavy Traffic with Applications to Satellite and Mobile Radio Systems

Consider a queueing system with many queues, each with its own input stream, but with only one server. The server must allocate its time among the queues to minimize or nearly minimize some cost criterion. The allocation of time among the queues is often called polling and is the subject of a large literature. Usually, it is assumed that the queues are always available, and the server can allocate at will. We consider the case where the queues are not always available due to disruption of the connection between them and the server. Such occurrences are common in wireless communications, where any of the mobile sources might become unavailable to the server from time to time due to obstacles, atmospheric or other effects. The possibility of such ``vacations'' complicates the polling problem enormously. Due to the complexity of the basic problem we analyze it in the heavy traffic regime where the server has little idle time over the average requirements. It is shown that the suitable scaled total workloads converge to a controlled limit diffusion process with jumps. The jumps are due to the effects of the vacations. The control enters the dynamics only via its value just before a vacation begins; hence it is only via the jump value that the control affects the dynamics. This type of model has not received much attention. The individual queued workloads and job numbers can be recovered (asymptotically) from the limit scaled workload. This state space collapse is critical for the effective numerical and analytical work, since the limit process is one dimensional. It is also shown, under appropriate conditions, that the arrival process during a vacation can be approximated by the scaled "fluid" process. With a suitable nonlinear discounted cost rate, it is shown that the optimal costs for the physical problems converge to that for the limit problem as the traffic intensity approaches its heavy traffic limit. Explicit solutions are obtained in some simple but important cases, and the $c\mu$-rule is asymptotically optimal if there are no vacations. The stability of the queues is analyzed via a perturbed Liapunov function method, under quite general conditions on the data. Finally, we extend the results to unreliable channels where the data might be received with errors and need to be retransmitted.
Neural systems supporting linguistic structure, linguistic experience, and symbolic communication in sign language and gesture

Significance Although sign languages and nonlinguistic gesture use the same modalities, only sign languages have established vocabularies and follow grammatical principles. This is the first study (to our knowledge) to ask how the brain systems engaged by sign language differ from those used for nonlinguistic gesture matched in content, using appropriate visual controls. Signers engaged classic left-lateralized language centers when viewing both sign language and gesture; nonsigners showed activation only in areas attuned to human movement, indicating that sign language experience influences gesture perception. In signers, sign language activated left hemisphere language areas more strongly than gestural sequences. Thus, sign language constructions—even those similar to gesture—engage language-related brain systems and are not processed in the same ways that nonsigners interpret gesture. Sign languages used by deaf communities around the world possess the same structural and organizational properties as spoken languages: In particular, they are richly expressive and also tightly grammatically constrained. They therefore offer the opportunity to investigate the extent to which the neural organization for language is modality independent, as well as to identify ways in which modality influences this organization. The fact that sign languages share the visual–manual modality with a nonlinguistic symbolic communicative system—gesture—further allows us to investigate where the boundaries lie between language and symbolic communication more generally. In the present study, we had three goals: to investigate the neural processing of linguistic structure in American Sign Language (using verbs of motion classifier constructions, which may lie at the boundary between language and gesture); to determine whether we could dissociate the brain systems involved in deriving meaning from symbolic communication (including both language and gesture) from those specifically engaged by linguistically structured content (sign language); and to assess whether sign language experience influences the neural systems used for understanding nonlinguistic gesture. The results demonstrated that even sign language constructions that appear on the surface to be similar to gesture are processed within the left-lateralized frontal-temporal network used for spoken languages—supporting claims that these constructions are linguistically structured. Moreover, although nonsigners engage regions involved in human action perception to process communicative, symbolic gestures, signers instead engage parts of the language-processing network—demonstrating an influence of experience on the perception of nonlinguistic stimuli.
Learning Online Trends for Interactive Query Auto-Completion

Query auto-completion (QAC) is widely used by modern search engines to assist users by predicting their intended queries. Most QAC approaches rely on deterministic batch learning algorithms trained from past query log data. However, query popularities keep changing all the time and QAC operates in a real-time scenario where users interact with the search engine continually. So, ideally, QAC must be timely and adaptive enough to reflect time-sensitive changes in an online fashion. Second, due to the vertical position bias, a query suggestion with a higher rank tends to attract more clicks regardless of user’s original intention. Hence, in the long run, it is important to place some lower ranked yet potentially more relevant queries to higher positions to collect more valuable user feedbacks. In order to tackle these issues, we propose to formulate QAC as a ranked Multi-Armed Bandits (MAB) problem which enjoys theoretical soundness. To utilize prior knowledge from query logs, we propose to use Bayesian inference and Thompson Sampling to solve this MAB problem. Extensive experiments on large scale datasets show that our QAC algorithm has the capacity to adaptively learn temporal trends, and outperforms existing QAC algorithms in ranking qualities.
The Complexity of Planar Graph Isomorphism

The Graph Isomorphism problem restricted to planar graphs has been known to be solvable in polynomial time many years ago. In terms of complexity classes however, the exact complexity of the problem has been established only very recently. It was proved in [? ] that planar graph isomorphism can be computed within logarithmic space. Since there is a matching hardness result [? ], this shows that the problem is complete for L. Although this could be considered a result in in algorithmics its proof relies on several important new developments in the area of logarithmic space complexity classes and reflects the close connections between algorithms and complexity theory. In this column we give an overview of this result mentioning the developments that led to it.
Configuration space based efficient view planning and exploration with occupancy grids

The concept of C-space entropy for sensor-based exploration and view planning for general robot-sensor systems has been introduced in [? ], [? ], [? ], [? ]. The robot plans the next sensing action (also called the next best view) to maximize the expected C-space entropy reduction, (known as Maximal expected Entropy Reduction, or MER). It gives priority to those areas that increase the maneuverable space around the robot, taking into account its physical size and shape, thereby facilitating reachability for further views. However, previous work had assumed a Poisson point process model for obstacle distribution in the physical space, a simplifying assumption. In this paper we derive an expression for MER criterion assuming an occupancy grid map, a commonly used representation for workspace representation in much of the mobile robot community. This model is easily obtained from typical range sensors such as laser range finders, stereo vision, etc., and furthermore, we can incorporate occlusion constraints and their effect in the MER formulation, making it more realistic. Simulations show that even for holonomic mobile robots with relatively simple geometric shapes (such as a rectangle), the MER criterion yields improvement in exploration efficiency (number of views needed to explore the C-space) over physical space based criteria.
WebCom-G: Middleware To Hide The Grid

Current Grid enabling technologies consist of stand-alone architectures. A typical architecture provides middleware access to various services at different hierarchical levels. Services exposed at these levels may be leveraged by the application programmer. However, the level at which the service appears in the hierarchy determines both its richness and the complexity of its use. Thus, benefits gained by using these services are defined by the manner in which they are accessed. Generally, choosing to use a particular service inclines the application programmer to use the associated middleware suite as it is difficult to cherry-pick services across middlewares. Interoperability and independent service access are not easily facilitated in current middlewares. If it is accepted that Grid computing will be an important technology in the near to long term (indeed it can be credibly argued that it is already a very important technology to a select few), then wide spread acceptance will depend on making that technology easily accessible to general exploitation. In practice, this will not only involve interoperability and inclusiveness of key features, but, most importantly, it will require that non specialists be facilitated in constructing grid independent applications that run efficiently on the dynamic architecture that constitutes the Grid. The original problems of programming parallel and distributed systems still hold true: they are notoriously hard to program, since programmers usually have responsibility for synchronizing processes and for resource management. Solutions must be developed to free programmers from the low level details whose consideration gives rise to these problems. In effect, grid programming environments must evolve to a point where grid (and, in general, parallel) programs are freed from architecture details such as data locality, machine availability, inter-task synchronisation, communication topologies, task load-balancing, and fault tolerance in the same manner as present day sequential programmers are freed from explicit memory management, disk access protocols and process scheduling. At that point in the evolution of the Grid, the grid middleware will adopt the character of a grid operating system and many, if not all, of the issues that make grid programming difficult will migrate out of grid application programs. When this is achieved, the vision of hiding the Grid will have been realised and exploitation of the technology can begin in earnest.
Solid-Phase Extraction Protocol for Isolating Retinol-d 4 and Retinol from Plasma for Parallel Processing for EpidemiologicalStudies

Vol.39, No. 11, 1993 6. Lubega J. Evaluation of urinary proteins by sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide disc gel electrophoresis and molecular mass analysis. Clin Chim Acta 1983;128:151-67. 7. Marshall T, WillinmR KM. Simplified sodium dodecyl sulfatepolyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of unconcentrated urine with enhanced resolution and detectionsensitivity. Clin Chem 1987;33: 1886-7. 8. Miyasato F, Pollak YE. Serum proteins in urine: an examination of the effectsof some methods used to concentrate the urine. J Lab Clin Med 1966;67:1036-43. 9. Lindstedt G, Lundberg PA. Loss of tubular proteunuria pattern during urine concentration with a commercial membrane filter cell (Minicon B-15system). Clin Chim Acta 1974;56:125-6. 10. Lison AE, Doedt E, Meyer E. Automatic microdisc electrophoreals for urinary protein analysis: a comparison with standard analysis. Cliii Nephrol 1989;32:40-5. 11. Verdier JM, Dussol B, Dupuy P, Borland Y, Dagonn JC. Preliminary treatment of urinary proteins improves electrophoretic analysis and iinmunodetection. Clin Chem 1992;38:860-3.
Structural Injustice, Epistemic Opacity, and the Responsibilities of the Oppressed

Consider statements of the kind: "Citizens of poor countries are often plagued by corruption". "People who do not come from white middle class backgrounds tend to have less access to higher education opportunities". "Women in philosophy are disadvantaged compared to their male colleagues". Common to all these statements is the emphasis on how membership in particular groups renders members of those groups vulnerable to a particular form of disadvantage, one that is recursively implicated in a system of rules that persistently disempowers them. Call this form of disadvantage: structural injustice. And call the agents who are persistently subject to structural injustice: structurally oppressed agents. The aim of this paper is to examine the responsibilities of oppressed agents in circumstances of structural injustice. It is not to explain what structural injustice is and why it matters: we will assume that readers interested in the topic already have some answers to these questions. The point is also not to illustrate the baseline with regard to which we can detect structural disempowerment: e.g. with regard to lack of resources, opportunities, harm to interests or access to particular social roles. We begin with the intuition that the wrong of structural injustice consists in disempowering particular groups with reference to some baseline and turn to a different issue: that of the obligations of members of such groups to remedy structural injustice. We suggest that responsibilities to remedy structural injustice come in degrees and that they differ depending on agents’ degree of epistemic awareness concerning structural injustice.
Academic Motivation and the Student Athlete.

The researchers in this large-scale study of Division I athletes examined the achievement motivation of 361 universit' student athletes. The relationship of motivational orientation to academic performance and identification was investigated using a paper and pencil Like rr-t)pe scale instrument based on self-worth theory. Fear offailure and the relative commitment to athletics was found to play important roles in the academic motivation of both revenue and nonrevenue student athletes. University student athletes present an apparent motivational contradiction. Most are highly motivated to succeed in the athletic domain, having been selected to participate in inter collegiate athletics because of their proven ability and desire to succeed. However, many of the most visible student athletes seem to lack such motivation in the classroom. Although these individuals are expected to maintain their athletic motivation at the university, they are likewise expected to demonstrate a similar motivation to succeed in the classroom. The maintenance of this academic motivation and achievement is made more difficult because of the institutional demands of their sport. Student athletes are required to devote upwards of 25 hours per week when their sport is in season, miss numerous classes for university-sanctioned athletic compe titions, and deal with fatigue and injuries as a result of their athletic participation. These factors detract from the realistic likelihood of academic success, which in turn affects their academic motivation to succeed. (American Institutes for Research [AIR], 1989). Negative stereotypes about athletes' lack of academic ability only add to these motivational difficulties (Dundes, 1996; Edwards, 1984). Athletic success requires an individual to work hard, be self-disciplined, exhibit persever ance and determination, be able to concentrate. stay focused, and so forth. These qualities, if transferred to the academic domain, would seem to be important for academic success. A good deal of variation was found among student athletes in their willingness and success in making this transfer, In general, revenue athletes (football and men's basketball) seem less willing to make this transfer and show an apparent lack of academic motivation (Simons, Van Rheenen, & Covington, 1997). This perceived lack of motivation is often reflected in a general disidentification with school and reduced On the other hand, female and nonrevenue athletes (those who played sports other than football and men's basketball) seem more willing and able than revenue athletes to make this transfer, as demonstrated by their superior academic performance. Studies have consistently shown that female student athletes are …
Proactive Management of Software Systems

With the explosive growth in Internet technology and the emergence of a number of new and advanced applications, assured availability of computer systems has become a critical issue. The challenge is to provide the desired availability and performance at a low cost. Computer system manufacturers like SUN, IBM, HP and Microsoft have recently announced major highavailability initiatives. We refer to the SunUP program [10] and the RASCAL laboratory of Sun Microsystems and Motorola’s 5NINES initiative. Outages in computer systems consists of both hardware and software failures. While hardware failures have been studied extensively and varied mechanisms have been presented to increase the system availability with regard to such failures, software failures and the corresponding reliability/availability analysis has not drawn much attention from researchers. The study of software failures has now become more important since it has been recognized that computer systems outages are more due to software faults than to hardware faults. Recently, the phenomenon of software aging, one in which the state of the software system degrades with time, has been reported [2]. The primary causes of this degradation are the exhaustion of operating system resources, data corruption and numerical error accumulation. Eventually, software aging may lead to performance degradation or crash/hang failure or both. The phenomenon of “software aging”, far from being just anecdotal, has been reported while monitoring real applications [2]. It was observed that once the software was started, potential fault conditions gradually accumulated with time leading to either performance degradation or transient failures or both. Failures may be of crash/hang type or those resulting from data inconsistency because of aging. Typical causes of aging, i.e., slow degradation, are memory bloating or leaking, unreleased file-locks, data corruption, storage space fragmentation and accumulation of round off errors. Popular and widely used software like the web browser Netscape is known to suffer from serious memory leaks which lead to occasional crash/hang of the application. This problem is particularly pronounced in systems with low swap space. The newsreader software xrn also experiences problems due to memory leaks. Software aging has not only been observed in software used on a mass scale but numerous real life examples of aging in specialized software used in high availability and safety-critical applications also exist.
An optimized scheduling algorithm for migrated jobs in trusted distributed systems

In present computing plethora, the cluster technology seems to gain popularity day by day. The prime reason for this popularity is high availability, increased reliability and high performance through efficient resource usage. To realize these benefits, the processing capacity of various nodes in a cluster must be allocated fairly. Often the clusters suffer from under utilization due to inappropriate choice of scheduling policy. The goal of the scheduling is to exploit the true potential of the system. Hence, finding the appropriate granularity of tasks and distributing them in such a way so that each machine is assigned equal work and thus, balancing the load across the cluster, is major issue of concern. Usually, it is seen that local processes get priority over remote processes and migrated (remote) processes begin to starve. We propose an optimized scheduling approach for migrated processes that ensures reduced latency time along with no starvation policy for any (local or remote) process. Our experimental results have been able to establish that priority and criticality based scheduling approach can increase overall system throughput by about 30–50 percent.