Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Stereocorrelation of Landsat TM images

A digital elevation model (DEM) developed from Landsat TM images of a rugged terrain area in north Georgia by automated stereocorrelation techniques yielded an rms error (z), RMSE(z), value of + or - 42 m. Based on the B/H ratio of 0.18 for the Landsat data, this Z-error corresponds to a planimetric correlation accuracy of about + or - 0.3 pixels, confirming that precise correlation can be achieved with operational satellite data. Contours at a 100-m interval interpolated from the DEM show a deviation of + or - 33 m from reference contours obtained from existing 1:24,000-scale maps. The 28.5-m pixel resolution and the weak B/H ratio impose limitations on the accuracy that can be achieved with Landsat TM data. However, it is anticipated that RMSE(z) values of + or - 10 m or less can be achieved with SPOT-1 panchromatic stereo images of 10-m resolution recorded at B/H ratios of 0.5 to 1.0. DEMs generated by stereocorrelation techniques can be used to create orthoimages, perspective views, and topographic map products.
Pianist: Scalable zkRollups via Fully Distributed Zero-Knowledge Proofs

—In the past decade, blockchains have seen various financial and technological innovations, with cryptocurrencies reaching a market cap of over 1 trillion dollars. However, scalability is one of the key issues hindering the deployment of blockchains in many applications. To improve the throughput of the transactions, zkRollups and zkEVM techniques using the cryptographic primitive of zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) have been proposed and many companies are adopting these technologies in the layer-2 solutions. However, in these technologies, the proof generation of the ZKP is the bottleneck and the companies have to deploy powerful machines with TBs of memory to batch a large number of transactions in a ZKP. In this work, we improve the scalability of these techniques by proposing new schemes of fully distributed ZKPs. Our schemes can improve the efficiency and the scalability of ZKPs using multiple machines, while the communication among the machines is minimal. With our schemes, the ZKP generation can be distributed to multiple participants in a model similar to the mining pools. Our protocols are based on Plonk, an efficient zero-knowledge proof system with a universal trusted setup. The first protocol is for data-parallel circuits. For a computation of M sub-circuits of size T each, using M machines, the prover time is O ( T log T + M log M ) , while the prover time of the original Plonk on a single machine is O ( MT log( MT )) . Our protocol incurs only O (1) communication per machine, and the proof size and verifier time are both O (1) , the same as the original Plonk. Moreover, we show that with minor modifications, our second protocol can support general circuits with arbitrary connections while preserving the same proving, verifying, and communication complexity. The technique is general and may be of independent interest for other applications of ZKP. We implement Pianist (Plonk vIA uNlimited dISTribu-tion), a fully distributed ZKP system using our protocols. Pianist can generate the proof for 8192 transactions in 313 seconds on 64 machines. This improves the scalability of the Plonk scheme by 64 × . The communication per machine is only 2 . 1 KB, regardless of the number of machines and the size of the circuit. The proof size is 2 . 2 KB and the verifier time is 3 . 5 ms. We further show that Pianist has similar improvements for general circuits. On a randomly generated circuit with 2 25 gates, it only takes 5 s to generate the proof using 32 machines, 24 . 2 × faster than Plonk on a single machine.
Preventing pneumococcal disease among infants and young children. Recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).

In February 2000, a 7-valent pneumococcal polysaccharide-protein conjugate vaccine (Prevnar, marketed by Wyeth Lederle Vaccines) was licensed for use among infants and young children. CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommends that the vaccine be used for all children aged 2-23 months and for children aged 24-59 months who are at increased risk for pneumococcal disease (e.g., children with sickle cell disease, human immunodeficiency virus infection, and other immunocompromising or chronic medical conditions). ACIP also recommends that the vaccine be considered for all other children aged 24-59 months, with priority given to a) children aged 24-35 months, b) children who are of Alaska Native, American Indian, and African-American descent, and c) children who attend group day care centers. This report includes ACIP's recommended vaccination schedule for infants at ages 2, 4, 6, and 12-15 months. This report also includes a pneumococcal vaccination schedule for infants and young children who are beginning their vaccination series at an older age and for those who missed doses. In addition, this report updates earlier recommendations for use of 23-valent pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine among children aged > or =2 years. Among children aged 24-59 months for whom polysaccharide vaccine is already recommended, ACIP recommends vaccination with the new conjugate vaccine followed, > or =2 months later, by 23-valent polysaccharide vaccine. Conjugate vaccine has not been studied sufficiently among older children or adults to make recommendations for its use among persons aged > or =5 years. Persons aged > or =5 years who are at increased risk for serious pneumococcal disease should continue to receive 23-valent polysaccharide vaccine in accordance with previous ACIP recommendations.
A Statistical Study of Arabic Discourse Connectors in a Diachronic Bespoke Corpus of the Years 1950 and 2018

This paper discusses changes of Arabic discourse connectors in newspaper writing by comparing two distinct time periods: 1950 and 2018. It attempts to provide an answer to the question: How has the usage of Arabic discourse connectors changed, quantitatively and qualitatively, in Arabic newspapers as evidenced in the 1950 and 2018 sub-corpora? A specialized bespoke corpus has been built specifically for this study, Leeds Bespoke Corpus of Arabic Newspaper Writings (LBCANW), that contains rare material from the year 1950 and recent material from the year 2018 (Alajlan, 2019). It is part of an ongoing PhD study that approaches the changes in the lexicon and syntax via ‘lexis’ (Sinclair, 1991). The research methodology includes: recording the frequency of occurrences; normalizing the frequencies to per million words; and calculating the percentage of change by using %DIFF value (Gabrielatos and Marchi, 2011). Discourse connectors are arranged in descending order according to %DIFF value. Discourse connectors that are found in one sub-corpora are placed in separate tables. The results show noticeable degrees of change in most of the 95 discourse connectors included in this study across the two sub-corpora 1950 and 2018. Finally, detailed linguistic discussion of the changes in five selected discourse connectors is included with concordance lines examples from the corpus using the statistical information obtained from this study.
Different Skills: Identifying Differentially Effective Teachers of English Language Learners. Working Paper 68.

This study seeks to identify the characteristics and training experiences of teachers who are differentially effective at promoting academic achievement among English language learners (ELLs). Our analyses indicate that general skills such as those reflected by scores on teacher certification exams and experience teaching non-ELL students are less predictive of achievement for ELL students than for other students. However, specific experience teaching ELL students is more important for predicting effectiveness with future ELL students than non-ELL students as is both in-service and pre-service training focused on ELL-specific instructional strategies.
Monotone Additive Statistics∗

The expectation is an example of a descriptive statistic that is monotone with respect to stochastic dominance, and additive for sums of independent random variables. We provide a complete characterization of such statistics, and explore a number of applications to models of individual and group decision-making. These include a representation of stationary monotone time preferences, extending the work of Fishburn and Rubinstein (1982) to time lotteries. This extension offers a new perspective on risk attitudes toward time, as well as on the aggregation of multiple discount factors.
Fire-Front Propagation Using the Level Set Method

Propagation of an outdoor fire front in wildland or in a combination of wildland and structural fuels (the so-called wildland-urban interface or WUI fire), can be modelled as an initial-value problem using either a Lagrangian or an Eulerian description. The equations associated with each description are presented, and the methods used to solve the equations are discussed. Some comparisons between the two methods are also made. The emphasis in this report is on the Eulerian equations and on the level-set numerical method. Earlier studies had presented the Lagrangian formulation, and a method-of-lines solution. Advantages of the Eulerian/level-set method are discussed, and several examples that illustrate these advantages are presented.
Factors Affecting Mortality in Covid-19 Patients Treated with Intravenous Immunoglobulin

Background: Intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG), used as an option in the treatment of severe Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), has been shown to have effects on the suppression of the hyperinflammatory state through immunomodulatory actions. The aim of our study was to evaluate the factors associated with mortality in patients treated with IVIG for COVID-19. Methods: Patients diagnosed with COVID-19 and receiving IVIG therapy in addition to standard care therapy were included in the study. Results: A total of 46 patients who received IVIG treatment were included in the study. The mortality rate was higher in patients aged over 52 years (p:<0.001). The mortality rate was found to be higher in patients with an interval of more than 7 days between hospitalization and the start of IVIG treatment (p:0.009). Patients with a higher Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI) score had a more mortal course (p<0.001). Mortality rate was higher in patients with high immunoglobulin A (Ig A) levels before IVIG treatment (p:0.004). Survival rate was lower in patients with high neutrophil lymphocyte ratio (NLR), urea and prothrombin time (PT)and low albumin and lymphocyte counts. Conclusions: A high Charlson Comorbidity Index score and high immunoglobulin A level are poor prognostic in COVID 19 patients treated with IVIG. Studying mortality risk factors is valuable in predicting response to IVIG therapy and may help in early identification of patients with poor prognosis and re-evaluate of treatment strategy.
Ieee Transactions on Software Engineering Evaluating Dynamic Software Update Safety Using Systematic Testing

—Dynamic software updating (DSU) systems patch programs on the fly without incurring downtime. To avoid failures due to the updating process itself, many DSU systems employ timing restrictions. However, timing restrictions are theoretically imperfect, and their practical effectiveness is an open question. This paper presents the first significant empirical evaluation of three popular timing restrictions: activeness safety (AS), which prevents updates to active functions; con-freeness safety (CFS), which only allows modifications to active functions when doing so is provably type-safe; and manual identification of the event-handling loops during which an update may occur. We evaluated these timing restrictions using a series of DSU patches to three programs: OpenSSH, vsftpd, and ngIRCd. We systematically applied updates at each distinct update point reached during execution of a suite of system tests for these programs to determine which updates pass and which fail. We found that all three timing restrictions prevented most failures, but only manual identification allowed none. Further, although CFS and AS allowed many more update points, manual identification still supported updates with minimal delay. Finally, we found that manual identification required the least developer effort. Overall, we conclude that manual identification is most effective. I. INTRODUCTION Over the last 30+ years, researchers and practitioners have been exploring means to dynamically update the software of a running system with new code and data. Dynamic updates make it possible to fix bugs or to add features conveniently, without incurring downtime. Support for dynamic software updating (DSU) takes many forms. " Fix-and-continue " development, in which one incrementally develops and tests an application as it runs, has long been common for Smalltalk and CLOS, and Sun's HotSwap VM [20], [9] and Microsoft's . NET Visual Studio for C# and C ++ [11] both include
The determination of glacier speed by time-lapse photography under unfavorable conditions

Abstract Two practical problems in the use of time-lapse photography for the measurement of speed were encountered during the recent surge of West Fork Glacier in the central Alaska Range, Alaska, U.S.A. The first is severe rotational camera instability; we show how natural, unsurveyed features on the valley wall can be used to make the necessary corrections. The second problem is the computation of absolute speed when many different, unsurveyed glacier-surface features are used as targets. We give a method for connecting the data obtained from different targets, and for determining the scale using limited information obtained by surveying. Severe systematic errors can occur unless the angle between the axis of the lens and the direction of horizontal motion is determined.
Efficacy of interscalene regional block in shoulder surgery. A single-center observational study.

Abstract Introduction : Interscalene block (IEB) is a regional block that provides anesthesia and analgesia for shoulder surgery. This study aimed to determine the usefulness and efficiency of IEB in treating postoperative pain after shoulder surgery. Methods: The present observational study was conducted at the Alcívar Hospital in Guayaquil, Ecuador, from January to September 2022 with patients undergoing shoulder surgery, classified as Group 1: general anesthesia + EIB and Group 2: without EIB. The variables recorded were age, pain with a subjective rating scale (SRS), and subjective satisfaction (SS). The means were compared with Student’s t-test, and the proportions were compared with the chi-square test. Results: The study included 20 patients in each group. The analysis of postoperative pain at rest in 24 hours was EVS percentile 75 of Group 1: 1; in Group 2, it was 2. Pain in movement was EVS of 2.25 in Group 1 and 3 for Group 2 ( P< 0.05). The need for rescue occurred in 2 cases (5%) in Group 1 and 5 cases (12.5%) in Group 2 ( P <0.05). Nausea and vomiting did not occur in group 1, and 8 patients (20%) did not occur in group 2 ( P <0.05). The surgical time in Group 1 was 125 min, and in Group 2, it was 116 min ( P >0.05). The length of stay was 36 hours in Group 1 and 60 hours in Group 2 ( P <0.05). Conclusions : IEB produces better anesthesia, better shoulder movement in the postoperative period, and a shorter hospital stay.
Understanding route choice behavior: an analysis using GPS based data

The objective of this paper is to study route switch behavior to detect which trip and individual characteristics most influence the choice of multiple routes for the same origin-destination (OD) trip. In this study the authors used a database of 361 morning commute trips, regarding 66 users, collected in the metropolitan area of Cagliari (Italy) during the “Casteddu Mobility Styles” survey. Data were collected for a 14 days period through a personal probe system called Activity Locator (Meloni, et al., 2011), a smartphone that integrates a global positioning system (GPS) logger for the acquisition of the routes and an activity/travel diary. Mixed logit models are estimated, in order to take into account the variability of user perception. Results show that route switch behavior is influenced by the number of traffic lights per km, percent of highways, time perception, gender, age, individual income and driving experience in relation with the minutes per km.
New wholesale power market design using linked forward markets : a study for the DOE energy storage systems program.

This report proposes a reformulation of U.S. ISO/RTO-managed wholesale electric power mar- kets for improved reliability and e ciency of system operations. Current markets do not specify or compensate primary frequency response. They also unnecessarily limit the participation of new technologies in reserve markets and o er insu cient economic inducements for new capacity invest- ment. In the proposed market reformulation, energy products are represented as physically-covered rm contracts and reserve products as physically-covered call option contracts. Trading of these products is supported by a backbone of linked ISO/RTO-managed forward markets with planning horizons ranging from multiple years to minutes ahead. A principal advantage of this reformulation is that reserve needs can be speci ed in detail, and resources can o er the services for which they are best suited, without being forced to conform to rigid reserve product de nitions. This should improve the business case for electric energy storage and other emerging technologies to provide reserve. In addition, the facilitation of price discovery should help to ensure e cient energy/reserve procurement and adequate levels of new capacity investment.
¿Está Latinoamérica Alejándose De Las Cuentas Individuales De Pensiones? (Is Latin America Retreating from Individual Retirement Accounts?)

En 1981, Chile inicio una ronda de reformas a los sistemas de pensiones que introdujo cuentas individuales de pension de tipo obligatorio, alejandose asi de los sistemas publicos. A principios de los 1990s, otros diez paises Latinoamericanos siguieron el ejemplo de Chile. En anos recientes, incluso antes del comienzo de la crisis financiera, una segunda ronda de reformas de pensiones fue iniciada para fortalecer el componente publico del sistema y enfrentar los problemas creados por las cuentas individuales. El caso mas extremo de contraccion es Argentina, donde las cotizaciones obligatorias a las cuentas individuales fueron eliminadas a finales de 2008, volviendo asi a un plan tradicional de beneficios definidos bajo un esquema de reparto. Este nota de investigacion analiza las dos rondas de reformas de pensiones en Latinoamerica para determinar si la region esta alejandose de las pensiones basadas en cuentas individuales. Aunque Latinoamerica es bastante heterogenea, sus mercados laborales y sus sistemas de seguridad social comparten caracteristicas como una economia informal extensa y la desarticulacion de una variedad de instituciones que proveen proteccion de los ingresos durante la vejez. A esto se le suma la crisis financiera y la recesion economica que esta generando nuevos desafios para los sistemas basados en cuentas individuales.In 1981, Chile initiated old-age pension reforms that introduced mandatory funded individual retirement accounts (IRAs) and moved away from public systems. Beginning in the 1990s, ten other Latin American countries followed in Chile’s wake. In recent years, even before the onset of the financial crisis, a second round of pension reforms was initiated to strengthen the public component and address the problems created by individual accounts. The most extreme case of retrenching is Argentina, where IRAs were eliminated for mandatory contributions in late 2008. This country has gone back to a traditional defined-benefit pay-as-you-go scheme. This brief reviews the two rounds of pension reforms to determine whether Latin American countries are moving away from individual pensions. Even though this region is quite heterogeneous, its labor markets and social security systems share some common features, such as a large informal economy and a variety of uncoordinated institutions providing old-age income protection. The 2008-2009 financial crisis and economic recession is posing new challenges to systems that have introduced IRAs.
Compact and Efficient Wireless Motor Drive With Bidirectional Motion Capability

In this letter, we proposed a compact and efficient wireless motor drive using self-lock circuit and timing control method. With this mechanism, it is possible to regulate the rotational direction of the motor at the transmitter side. The control mechanism employs common LCC-Serial (LCC-S) resonance topology in the industry, simplifying the implementation of soft switching. Moreover, the inventive adoption of a self-lock circuit at the receiver side significantly simplifies the system structure, as no extra resonant component or communication module is added. At the transmitting side, a microcontroller unit is used to generate control signals. Meanwhile, the receiver side employs a signal generation circuit, a self-lock circuit, and a full-bridge circuit to produce motor direction control signals. This control mechanism resolves many issues troubling researchers, including soft switching, power balancing, the necessity for additional communication modules, and transmission coil compensation. This letter presents a 180-W prototype for testing and experimental validation, demonstrating its effective operation. Besides, the system can achieve up to 88% transmission efficiency.
Two-Period Dynamic versus Fixed-Ratio Pricing Policies under Duopoly Competition

This paper introduces a two-period, pricing policy under duopoly competition between two firms offering an identical product to consumers who are intertemporal utility maximization. Firms have equal inventories of faultlessly replaceable and perishable products. The firms adjust prices to maximize profits and determine optimal pricing policies, choosing from dynamic pricing, fixed-ratio pricing, and elastic pricing policies. According to a duopoly competition model, the consumer is limited to a single firm visit per period. The consumer decides to purchase the product at current price from a firm and remain in the market to purchase product from the other firm in the next period or exit the market. The results offer three main conclusions. First, elastic pricing is consistent with dynamic pricing. Second, the more consumers visit the firm in the first period, the more profits the firm will make. Third, we explore the effectiveness of different pricing policies. The results show that although dynamic pricing is a more complex policy than fixed-ratio pricing, it may lead to decreased equilibrium profits when the firms sharply discounts prices and consumer rationality is unlimited.
The molecular mechanisms of drug resistance in single-step and multi-step drug-selected cancer cells

Multidrug resistance (MDR) remains one of the key determinants in chemotherapeutic success of cancer patients. Often, acquired resistance is mediated by the overexpression of ATP-binding cassette (ABC) drug transporters. To study the mechanisms involved in the MDR phenotype, investigators have generated a variety of in vitro cell culture models using both multi-step and single-step drug selections. Sublines produced from multi-step selections have led to the discovery of several crucial drug transporters including ABCB1, ABCC1 and ABCG2. Additionally, a number of mechanisms causing gene overexpression have been elucidated. To more closely mimic in vivo conditions, investigators have also established MDR sublines with single-step drug selections. Here we examine some of the multi-step and single-step selected cell lines generated to elucidate the mechanisms involved in the development of MDR in cancer cells.