Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mean Estimation of Truncated Mixtures of Two Gaussians: A Gradient Based Approach

Even though data is abundant, it is often subjected to some form of censoring or truncation which inherently creates biases. Removing such biases and performing parameter estimation is a classical challenge in Statistics. In this paper, we focus on the problem of estimating the means of a mixture of two balanced d-dimensional Gaussians when the samples are prone to truncation. A recent theoretical study on the performance of the Expectation-Maximization (EM) algorithm for the aforementioned problem showed EM almost surely converges for d=1 and exhibits local convergence for d>1 to the true means. Nevertheless, the EM algorithm for the case of truncated mixture of two Gaussians is not easy to implement as it requires solving a set of nonlinear equations at every iteration which makes the algorithm impractical. In this work, we propose a gradient based variant of the EM algorithm that has global convergence guarantees when d=1 and local convergence for d>1 to the true means. Moreover, the update rule at every iteration is easy to compute which makes the proposed method practical. We also provide numerous experiments to obtain more insights into the effect of truncation on the convergence to the true parameters in high dimensions.
Investors risk perception effect on share prices: A case study on Kuwaiti cement companies

The aim of this study is to examine investors risk perception effect on the share prices of Kuwaiti cement companies listed at Kuwait stock exchange (KSE) over the period 2010-2018. The risk perception is driven by investors’ expectations on the future financial soundness of companies they invest in. As a result, when investors have negative expectations this would lead them to reduce their investment in these companies resulting in lower share prices and vice-versa. In this research Zmijewski x-score model is used as risk proxy to evaluate the financial soundness of Kuwaiti cement companies and its effect on their share prices. The research uses ordinary least square regression (OLS) to examine the relation between x-score and the share prices. While OLS regression is used to examine the relation between the variables that relation does not necessarily imply any cause-and-effect relationship. For that matter Granger causality test was used to examine the cause-and-effect relationship. Results obtained from this study showed that Kuwaiti cement companies had a strong financial positions and are safe from bankruptcy, at least for the next two years. The research also revealed that there is a statistically significant relation between Zmijewski x-score and the stock price but at the same time Granger causality test showed that Zmijewski x-score does not cause the movement in the price of the share.
Technical analysis of Indian stock market with special reference with individual stock

The concept of informational efficiency suggests that the more efficient the market, the more random the sequence of price changes generated by such a market, and the most efficient market of all is one in which price changes are completely random and unpredictable. This is not an accident of Nature, but is in fact the direct result of many active market participants attempting to profit from their information. Driven by profit opportunities, a myriad of investors pounce on even the smallest informational advantages at their disposal and in doing so; they incorporate their information into market prices and quickly eliminate the profit opportunities that first motivated their trades. If this occurs instantaneously, which it m ust in an “idealized world of frictionless" markets and costless trading, then prices must always fully reflect all the available information. Therefore, no profits can be from information-based trading because such profits must have already been captured.
Pharmacological Treatments for Localized Provoked Vulvodynia: A Scoping Review

Abstract Introduction Localized provoked vulvodynia (LPV) is a chronic pain condition without an identifiable cause that is localized to a portion of the vulva and provoked by pressure or touch. LPV is a commonly occurring but poorly understood condition lacking consensus on management. Method This scoping review used Arksey and O’Malley’s approach to identify and evaluate literature published between 2010 and 2023 that addressed the question: What is the current evidence on the efficacy or effectiveness of pharmacological treatments in the management of LPV? Results This review evaluated 18 papers reporting on the efficacy or effectiveness of oral, topical, and injectable medications. Seven of the studies were randomized controlled trials. Oral gabapentin and oral desipramine showed some improvement in sexual function compared to placebo. Small sample sizes and methodological issues limited confidence in interpreting findings. Pain was reduced in descriptive studies of tricyclic antidepressants, milnacipran, injectable anesthetics, and botulinum toxin. Where pain did not improve with treatment, some oral medications improved participants’ mood and sexual function. Some topical agents may be effective in reducing peripherally mediated neuropathic pain. Botulinum toxin was the most well-studied injectable but yielded mixed outcomes related to pain, quality of life, and sexual function. Conclusion There is a lack of convincing evidence to draw conclusions about the efficacy or effectiveness of pharmacological therapies for LPV. The breadth of therapies for treating LPV warrants the development of evidence-based, consensus guidelines for measuring treatment outcomes and improving comparisons across studies. Recommendations for research include addressing methodological shortcomings and diversifying the participant pool to increase the generalizability of findings.
Learning structured models on weighted graphs, with applications to spatial data analysis

Modeling complex processes often involve a high number of variables with anintricate correlation structure. For example, many spatially-localized processes display spatial regularity, as variables corresponding to neighboring regions are more correlated than distant ones. The formalism of weighted graphs allows us to capture relationships between interacting variables in a compact manner, permitting the mathematical formulation of many spatial analysis tasks. The first part of this manuscript focuses on optimization problems with graph-structure dregularizers, such as the total variation or the total boundary size. We first present the convex formulation and its resolution with proximal splitting algorithms. We introduce a new preconditioning scheme for the existing generalized forward-backward proximal splitting algorithm, specifically designed for graphs with high variability in neighbourhood configurations and edge weights. We then introduce a new algorithm, cut pursuit, which used the links between graph cuts and total variation in a working set scheme. We also present a variation of this algorithm which solved the problem regularized by the non convex total boundary length penalty. We show that our proposed approaches reach or outperform state-of-the-art for geostatistical aggregation as well as image recovery problems. The second part focuses on the development of a new model, expanding continuous-time Markov chain models to general undirected weighted graphs. This allows us to take into account the interactions between neighbouring nodes in structured classification, as demonstrated for a supervised land-use classification task from cadastral data.
Health locus of control and quality of life in diabetes mellitus: A cross-sectional study

Background: Diabetes mellitus (DM) is an important global health problem. The aim of this study was to assess the impact of self-efficacy, health locus of control, demographic and clinical predictors on the level of quality of life among patients with type 2 DM as well as to explore the association between these variables. Methods: A community sample of 50 DM out clinic patients completed the Greek versions of the Missoula VITAS Quality of Life Index, the General Self-Efficacy Scale, the Multidimensional Health Locus of Control Scale and a questionnaire with demographic and clinical characteristics. Statistical analysis was performed using IBM SPSS Statistics version 20. The statistical significance level was set up at 0.05. Results : There was a statistically significant correlation between self-efficacy and total quality of life score (r=0.34, p< 0.05) and its dimensions “Interpersonal” (r=0.391, p<0.01) and “Transcendent” (r=0.362, p<0.01). There was no statistically significant correlation between the Health Locus of Control and quality of life. Significant but moderate correlations were found between the total score of quality of life and education (r=0.307, p<0.05), the total score of quality of life and height (r=0.34, p<0.05). Conclusions: Self-efficacy and type of treatment were among the predictors of quality of life. The more the self-efficacy increases, the more the quality of life and some of its dimensions increase. Health Locus of Control may not be associated with quality of life.
Measurement of Top Quark Pair Production Cross section at √s = 7 TeV and Estimation of Top Quark Mass using CMS Data

High center-of-mass energies at the LHC result in the production of a lot of top quarks, the heaviest elementary particle in the Standard Model. This makes data collected from LHC collisions ideal for studying properties of the top quark and its production cross section at LHC energy ranges. The cross section of top quark pair production from proton-proton collisions at √ s = 7 TeV is measured from 50 pb−1 of CMS data collected in 2011 at the LHC. The analysis is performed using the semi-leptonic (lepton+jets) decay channel of tt̄ pair. Hence, the mass of the top quark is estimated by reconstructing the final decay products and finding the mass distribution of the reconstructed top quark pair.
Secure spectral clustering: The approximation of eigenvectors in the integer domain

In this thesis, the adaptation of the spectral clustering algorithm to the privacy preserving domain was investigated. The spectral clustering algorithm divides data points into clusters according to a measure of connectivity. A pivotal part of spectral clustering is the partial eigendecomposition of the graph Laplacian. Two numerical algorithms are used to approximate the eigenvectors of the Laplacian: the Lanczos algorithm and the QR algorithm. These numerical methods are adapted to work on Paillier encrypted data values. The main challenge is the fact that Paillier encryption can only be applied to a field of positive integers. Moreover, cryptographic protocols have to be invoked to perform non-linear operations. Also, the square root and division operations are computationally heavy in the privacy preserving domain. The numerical algorithms are adapted to overcome these challenges and be more suitable to work on encrypted values.
Decomposed Guided Dynamic Filters for Efficient RGB-Guided Depth Completion

RGB-guided depth completion aims at predicting dense depth maps from sparse depth measurements and corresponding RGB images, where how to effectively and efficiently exploit the multi-modal information is a key issue. Guided dynamic filters, which generate spatially-variant depth-wise separable convolutional filters from RGB features to guide depth features, have been proven to be effective in this task. However, the dynamically generated filters require massive model parameters, computational costs and memory footprints when the number of feature channels is large. In this paper, we propose to decompose the guided dynamic filters into a spatially-shared component multiplied by content-adaptive adaptors at each spatial location. Based on the proposed idea, we introduce two decomposition schemes $\mathcal {A}$ and $\mathcal {B}$ , which decompose the filters by splitting the filter structure and using spatial-wise attention, respectively. The decomposed filters not only maintain the favorable properties of guided dynamic filters as being content-dependent and spatially-variant, but also reduce model parameters and hardware costs, as the learned adaptors are decoupled with the number of feature channels. Extensive experimental results demonstrate that the methods using our schemes outperform state-of-the-art methods on the KITTI dataset, and rank 1st and 2nd on the KITTI benchmark at the time of submission. Meanwhile, they also achieve comparable performance on the NYUv2 dataset. In addition, our proposed methods are general and could be employed as plug-and-play feature fusion blocks in other multi-modal fusion tasks such as RGB-D salient object detection.
Multidimensional time: A much delayed chapter in a phenomenological calculus

nnatural consequence of the theory. For a general $2, the splitting of the dimensions is n n 2 for space and for time. In this paper, I revisit the theory that leads to universes 1 2 1 nn () + 1 2 1 nn () − with space of more than three dimensions and time of more than one dimensions.
Supervisi Program Pendidikan Kepala Madrasah Pada Profesionalisme Guru Di MA Al-Jauharotunnaqiyyah Palas Cilegon

One of the competencies that the principal must possess is the ability to supervise. Competence in academic supervision, or the capacity of school administrators to offer advice to educators, students, and instructors in order to raise teacher professionalism. Professionalism in the classroom refers to a teacher's capacity to comprehend pupils, plan and carry out instruction, mentor and educate, develop students, and assess their learning outcomes in order to help them realize their potential. In order to determine the planning, execution, and follow-up of the Principal's Supervision Management in Improving Teacher Professionalism at Madrasah Aliyah Al-Jauharotunnaqiyyah Palas Cilegon, this study employs a qualitative approach and the case study technique. The study's findings indicate that: First, planning for the school principal's academic supervision program entails holding supervision preparation meetings, creating supervision instruments, gathering data through class visits, determining the most effective ways to boost or increase teacher professionalism, and preparing the administration required for supervision implementation. Activities for planning supervision involve all educators and teachers. Second, the technical criteria for supervision are used by school principals to implement supervision in accordance with the standards for doing so. Third, provide direct, indirect, and situational coaching to teachers at Madrasah Aliyah Al-Jauharotunnaqiyyah Palas Cilegon in order to build on the academic supervision of the school principal's success in raising teacher professionalism. There was an increase in the professionalism of teachers after carrying out academic supervision by principals both in quality and quantity
Quantização da Informação Paralela em Codificadores de Imagem BTC

Na codificação BTC ( “Block Truncation Coding”) a imagem é dividida em blocos, que são representados por um plano de bits e por uma informação paralela. O objetivo deste trabalho é comparar as diferentes técnicas BTC quando submetidas a esquemas de quantização distintos dos parâmetros da informação paralela. Nesta análise considerou-se tanto a quantização escalar, como a quantização vetorial aplicada separadamente a cada parâmetro. Resultados de simulação são apresentados, permitindo apontar as melhores alternativas em cada caso.
Understanding cure and interphase effects in functionalized graphene‐epoxy nanocomposites

Agglomerations effects of graphene-based nanofillers are often reported in the literature to be the main reason on the deterioration of the mechanical properties, especially at high filler loadings. In our study, we focused on the correlated effects of plasma-treated graphene nanofillers on the curing reaction and mechanical properties of an epoxy matrix. Specifically, we explored the effect of dispersion state, planar size, filler content, surface functionalization and stoichiometric ratio on the epoxy curing process. The surface of the treated graphene nanofillers were studied in detail by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Raman spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The results indicated greater presence of oxygen containing groups with the crystallinity to be unaffected after the plasma process. Dynamic Mechanical Analysis (DMA) was used to assess the changes in both the T g and the mechanical properties of graphene-epoxy nanocomposites. Rheological and microscopic data showed that a well-dispersed material was achieved at high filler loadings with the use of calendaring and plasma functionalization. Although, a well-dispersed material was achieved on the bulk composite, no further mechanical reinforcement was observed at high filler loadings. The adsorption of epoxy groups onto the graphene nanofillers' surface, leading to a stoichiometric imbalance between the epoxy chains and hard-ener molecules, was proposed to explain the results.
Exploration of Dairy Calf Management Practices and Educational Needs in Vermont

Proper calf care is important on dairy farms as management practices affect animal well-being and productivity as well as farm profitability. This article highlights areas of calf management needing improvement according to the results of a mixed-mode survey intended to provide a snapshot of calf management practices in Vermont. Areas for which improvement is needed aligned with farmers' identification of topics of interest and included calving management, nutrition (particularly neonatal feeding practices), and biosecurity (including vaccination). Extension professionals can draw on information about practices needing improvement and topics of interest to farmers to better position themselves to provide outreach tailored to the real and perceived needs of their clients
Sleep Disturbances and Sensory Processing among Autism Spectrum Disorder Children

INTRODUCTION: Research on sleep disturbances and sensory processing disorder (SPD) among children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has received little attention. Identification of sensory components that cause sleep disturbances among ASD children will guide the therapists to select the best intervention for the condition. This study aims to identify the pattern of sensory processing that is responsible for sleep disturbance among ASD children. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 55 ASD children between three and 18 years old who participated in the study. SPD was analyzed using Short Sensory Profile (SSP) while sleep disturbances utilized the Sleep Disturbance Scale for Children (SDSC). RESULTS: The subscale of SPD showed a strong correlation with the score for overall sleep disturbances. The subscales SPD are movements sensitivity with a positive association and auditory filtering with a negative correlation association (p<0.05). However, no significant association between total SPD and sleep disturbances (p>0.05) were noted. CONCLUSION: This finding may therefore shed light that SPD and sleep disturbances need to be addressed reciprocally. Increasing the number of participants and battery of tests are required to accurately determine the relationship between SPD and sleep disturbances.
Mémoire sur la théorie des liaisons finies unilatérales

© Gauthier-Villars (Éditions scientifiques et médicales Elsevier), 1917, tous droits réservés. L’accès aux archives de la revue « Annales scientifiques de l’É. N.S. » (http://www. elsevier.com/locate/ansens) implique l’accord avec les conditions générales d’utilisation (http://www.numdam.org/legal.php). Toute utilisation commerciale ou impression systématique est constitutive d’une infraction pénale. Toute copie ou impression de ce fichier doit contenir la présente mention de copyright.
Editorial: Organic amendments: microbial communities and their role in plant fitness and disease suppression

COPYRIGHT © 2023 Pantelides, Stringlis, Finkel and Mercado-Blanco. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. TYPE Editorial PUBLISHED 06 July 2023 DOI 10.3389/fpls.2023. 1213092
Ab-initio description of optical nonlinear properties of semiconductors under an electrostatic field

A deep understanding of the optical properties of solids is crucial for the improvement of nonlinear materials and devices.It offers the opportunity to search for new materials with specific properties.One way to tune some of those properties is to apply an electrostatic field. This gives rise to electro-optic effects.The most known among those is the Pockel or linear electro-optic effect (LEO), which is a second order response property.An important nonlinear process is the second harmonic generation (SHG), where two photons are absorbed bythe material and a photon is emitted at twice the energy of the incoming photon. While this process is sensitive tothe symmetry of the material, adding a static field would enable a nonlinear response from every material,including centrosymmetric ones. This happens through a third order process, named EFISH (Electric Field Induced Second Harmonic). We have developed a theoretical approach and a numerical tool to study these two nonlinear properties (LEO and EFISH)in the context of Time-dependent Density Functional Theory (TDDFT), and we have applied it to the case of bulk SiC andGaAs as well as layered systems such as Si/Ge.
Local Elliptic Regularity for the Dirichlet Fractional Laplacian

Abstract We prove the Wloc2⁢s,p${W_{{\mathrm{loc}}}^{2s,p}}$ local elliptic regularity of weak solutions to the Dirichlet problem associated with the fractional Laplacian on an arbitrary bounded open set of ℝN${\mathbb{R}^{N}}$. The key tool consists in analyzing carefully the elliptic equation satisfied by the solution locally, after cut-off, to later employ sharp regularity results in the whole space. We do it by two different methods. First working directly in the variational formulation of the elliptic problem and then employing the heat kernel representation of solutions.
Continuous Glucose Monitoring in Transient Neonatal Diabetes Mellitus—2 Case Reports and Literature Review

Neonatal diabetes mellitus is a rare genetic disease that affects 1 in 90,000 live births. The start of the disease is often before the baby is 6 months old, with rare cases of onset between 6 months and 1 year. It is characterized by low or absent insulin levels in the blood, leading to severe hyperglycemia in the patient, which requires temporary insulin therapy in around 50% of cases or permanent insulin therapy in other cases. Two major processes involved in diabetes mellitus are a deformed pancreas with altered insulin-secreting cell development and/or survival or faulty functioning of the existing pancreatic beta cell. We will discuss the cases of two preterm girls with neonatal diabetes mellitus in this research. In addition to reviewing the literature on the topic, we examined the different mutations, patient care, and clinical outcomes both before and after insulin treatment.
STUDY OF SPECTRAL ENERGY DISTRIBUTION OF GALAXIES WITH PRINCIPAL COMPONENT ANALYSIS

We performed Principle Component Analysis (PCA) over 264 galaxies in the IRAS Revised Bright Galaxy Sample (Sanders et al., 2003) using 12, 25, 60 and 100μm flux data observed by IRAS and 9, 18, 65, 90 and 140μm flux data observed by AKARI. We found that (i)the first principle component was largely contributed by infrared to visible flux ratio, (ii)the second principal component was largely contributed by the flux ratio between IRAS and AKARI, (iii)the third principle component was largely contributed by infrared colors.