Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cohesion-based Online Actor-Critic Reinforcement Learning for mHealth Intervention

In the wake of the vast population of smart device users worldwide, mobile health (mHealth) technologies are hopeful to generate positive and wide influence on people's health. They are able to provide flexible, affordable and portable health guides to device users. Current online decision-making methods for mHealth assume that the users are completely heterogeneous. They share no information among users and learn a separate policy for each user. However, data for each user is very limited in size to support the separate online learning, leading to unstable policies that contain lots of variances. Besides, we find the truth that a user may be similar with some, but not all, users, and connected users tend to have similar behaviors. In this paper, we propose a network cohesion constrained (actor-critic) Reinforcement Learning (RL) method for mHealth. The goal is to explore how to share information among similar users to better convert the limited user information into sharper learned policies. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first online actor-critic RL for mHealth and first network cohesion constrained (actor-critic) RL method in all applications. The network cohesion is important to derive effective policies. We come up with a novel method to learn the network by using the warm start trajectory, which directly reflects the users' property. The optimization of our model is difficult and very different from the general supervised learning due to the indirect observation of values. As a contribution, we propose two algorithms for the proposed online RLs. Apart from mHealth, the proposed methods can be easily applied or adapted to other health-related tasks. Extensive experiment results on the HeartSteps dataset demonstrates that in a variety of parameter settings, the proposed two methods obtain obvious improvements over the state-of-the-art methods.
The Differential Diagnosis and Treatment of Children With Speech Disorder

Preface. General Preface. Contributors. Acknowledgements. PART I: UNDERSTANDING SPEECH-DISORDERED CHILDREN. Chapter 1. Children with speech disorder: defining the problem. Chapter 2. Children's quisition of phonology. Chapter 3. Differential diagnosis of phonological disorders. Chapter 4. Childhood apraxia of speech. Chapter 5. Epidemiology of speech disorders. Chapter 6. The relationship between specch disorder and language. PART II: TREATMENT OF PHONOLOGICAL DISORDER. Chapter 7. A problem-solving approach to clinical management. Chapter 8. A procedure for classification of speech disoder. Chapter 9. Phonological approaches to intervention. Chapter 10. Treating inconsistent speech disorders. Chapter 11. Childhood apraxia of speech: treatment case studies. Chapter 12. Clinical differences. PART III: SPEECH DISORDERS IN SPECIAL POPULATIONS. Chapter 13. Phonological abilities of children with cognitive impairment. Chapter 14. Hearing impairment. Chapter 15. The relationship between auditory processing and phonological impairment. Chapter 16. Bilingual children with phonological disorders: identification and intervention. Chapter 17. Understanding the relationship between speech and language impairment and literacy difficulties: the central role of phonology. Appendices. References. Index.
Latency Tails of Byte-Addressable Non-Volatile Memories in Systems

Next generation non-volatile memories, like Resistive RAM, Spin-Transfer Torque Magnetic RAM and Phase Change Memory, are byte- addressable with very low latency, bridging the large performance gap between DRAM memory and NAND flash storage. For this reason we think of them as Storage Class Memories (SCMs), meaning their main use could ideally be as main memory but the non-volatility and high density could also fill some of the needs for durable storage. The path to using SCMs as main memory will necessitate significant changes to prevailing CPU architectures, so at first our focus was on enabling their early market adoption as ultrafast storage in commodity systems. In stark contrast to NAND flash, whose read latency of a tenth of a millisecond dominates the total system response latency to a storage request, SCM-based devices are so fast that attach interface and host device driver latencies, which are in the microsecond domain, start to dominate the total response latency, hindering greatly the performance of SCMs in commodity systems. Moreover, the latency jitter introduced by host hardware and software and by controller firmware further affects the Quality of Service (QoS) of solid-state drives based on SCMs. In this paper we discuss various factors that degrade the QoS, including host software and machine configurations. A particular fine- tuning of an x86 host machine, a well-designed device driver and a low latency device controller result in an ultra-low latency system with excellent QoS. We measure less than 4 &#956;s latency for 99.999% of I/O requests at queue depth one, and less than 7 &#956;s at queue depth 32, from an SCM-based block device on PCI Express interface.
Color constancy at a pixel.

In computational terms we can solve the color constancy problem if device red, green, and blue sensor responses, or RGB's, for surfaces seen under an unknown illuminant can be mapped to corresponding RGB's under a known reference light. In recent years almost all authors have argued that this three-dimensional problem is too hard. It is argued that because a bright light striking a dark surface results in the same physical spectra as those of a dim light incident on a light surface, the magnitude of RGB's cannot be recovered. Consequently, modern color constancy algorithms attempt only to recover image chromaticities under the reference light: They solve a two-dimensional problem. While significant progress has been made toward achieving chromaticity constancy, recent work has shown that the most advanced algorithms are unable to render chromaticity stable enough so that it can be used as a cue for object recognition [B. V. Funt, K. Bernard, and L. Martin, in Proceedings of the Fifth European Conference on Computer Vision (European Vision Society, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1998), Vol. II, p. 445. ] We take this reductionist approach a little further and look at the one-dimensional color constancy problem. We ask, Is there a single color coordinate, a function of image chromaticities, for which the color constancy problem can be solved? Our answer is an emphatic yes. We show that there exists a single invariant color coordinate, a function of R, G, and B, that depends only on surface reflectance. Two corollaries follow. First, given an RGB image of a scene viewed under any illuminant, we can trivially synthesize the same gray-scale image (we simply code the invariant coordinate as a gray scale). Second, this result implies that we can solve the one-dimensional color constancy problem at a pixel (in scenes with no color diversity whatsoever). We present experiments that show that invariant gray-scale histograms are a stable feature for object recognition. Indexing on invariant distributions supports almost perfect recognition for a dataset of 11 objects viewed under five colored lights. In contrast, object recognition based on chromaticity histograms (post-color constancy preprocessing) delivers much poorer recognition.
Compacting Transactional Data in Hybrid OLTP & OLAP Databases

Growing main memory sizes have facilitated database management systems that keep the entire database in main memory. The drastic performance improvements that came along with these in-memory systems have made it possible to reunite the two areas of online transaction processing (OLTP) and online analytical processing (OLAP): An emerging class of hybrid OLTP and OLAP database systems allows to process analytical queries directly on the transactional data. By offering arbitrarily current snapshots of the transactional data for OLAP, these systems enable real-time business intelligence. Despite memory sizes of several Terabytes in a single commodity server, RAM is still a precious resource: Since free memory can be used for intermediate results in query processing, the amount of memory determines query performance to a large extent. Consequently, we propose the compaction of memory-resident databases. Compaction consists of two tasks: First, separating the mutable working set from the immutable "frozen" data. Second, compressing the immutable data and optimizing it for efficient, memory-consumption-friendly snapshotting. Our approach reorganizes and compresses transactional data online and yet hardly affects the mission-critical OLTP throughput. This is achieved by unburdening the OLTP threads from all additional processing and performing these tasks asynchronously.
Verification in the Design Process of Large Real-Time Systems: A Case Study

A verification case study of a complex real-time system from the automotive area, an emergency brake assistant, is conducted. In particular the application and usefulness of formal methods in the refinement process during the design of a large system is investigated, where we mean by "large system" a system which cannot be formally verified as a whole due to its complexity. We establish that the application of formal methods in the early phase of a system design is beneficial despite the limits of current tools. Useful directions of further work to improve the verified design of safety-critical systems are also shown.
Ethnic Families in America: Patterns and Variations.

I. SETTING THE STAGE. 1. Diversity Among America's Ethnic Minorities. 2. A "Then and Now" Overview of the Immigrant Family in America. II. EUROPEAN ETHNIC MINORITIES. 3. The Irish-American Family, Ellen Somers Horgan. 4. The Greek-American Family: A Generational Approach, George Kourvetaris. 5. The Italian-American Family, D. Ann Squiers and Jill S. Quadagno. 6. The Polish-American Family, Helena Znaniecka Lopata. III. HISPANIC ETHNIC MINORITIES. 7. The Mexican-American Family, Rosina Becerra. 8. The Cuban-American Family, Zulima Suarez. 9. The Puerto Rican Family, Melba Sanchez-Ayendez. IV. ASIAN ETHNIC MINORITIES. 10. The Korean-American Family, Pyong Gap Min. 11. The Vietnamese-American Family, Thanh Van Tran. 12. The Chinese-American Family, Morrison G. Wong. 13. The Japanese-American Family, Kerrily J. Kitano and Harry H.L. Kitano. 14. The Asian Indian-American Family, Uma A. Segal. V. HISTORICALLY SUBJUGATED ETHNIC MINORITIES. 15. African-American Families, Harriet Pipes McAdoo. 16. Native American Families, Robert John. VI. SOCIORELIGIOUS ETHNIC MINORITIES. 17. The Jewish-American Family, Bernard Farber, Bernard Lazerwitz, and Charles H. Mindel. 18. The Amish Family, Gertrude Enders Huntington. 19. The Mormon Family, Bruce L. Campbell and Eugene E. Campbell. Index.
Binding of two DNA molecules by type II topoisomerases for decatenation

Topoisomerases (topos) maintain DNA topology and influence DNA transaction processes by catalysing relaxation, supercoiling and decatenation reactions. In the cellular milieu, division of labour between different topos ensures topological homeostasis and control of central processes. In Escherichia coli, DNA gyrase is the principal enzyme that carries out negative supercoiling, while topo IV catalyses decatenation, relaxation and unknotting. DNA gyrase apparently has the daunting task of undertaking both the enzyme functions in mycobacteria, where topo IV is absent. We have shown previously that mycobacterial DNA gyrase is an efficient decatenase. Here, we demonstrate that the strong decatenation property of the enzyme is due to its ability to capture two DNA segments in trans. Topo IV, a strong dedicated decatenase of E. coli, also captures two distinct DNA molecules in a similar manner. In contrast, E. coli DNA gyrase, which is a poor decatenase, does not appear to be able to hold two different DNA molecules in a stable complex. The binding of a second DNA molecule to GyrB/ParE is inhibited by ATP and the non-hydrolysable analogue, AMPPNP, and by the substitution of a prominent positively charged residue in the GyrB N-terminal cavity, suggesting that this binding represents a potential T-segment positioned in the cavity. Thus, after the GyrA/ParC mediated initial DNA capture, GyrB/ParE would bind efficiently to a second DNA in trans to form a T-segment prior to nucleotide binding and closure of the gate during decatenation.
Navigating the Problem Space of Academia: Exploring Processes of Course Design and Classroom Teaching in Postsecondary Settings. WCER Working Paper No. 2014-1.

Hora, M. T. (2014). Navigating the problem space of academia: Exploring processes of course design and classroom teaching in postsecondary settings (WCER Working Paper No. 2014-1). Postsecondary institutions in the United States are under increasing public and political pressure to demonstrate their delivery of a high-quality educational experience that leads to demonstrable outcomes including student learning and employability in the labor market (Arum & Roksa, 2011; Bok, 2006). Many critiques of higher education and current policy initiatives center on the instrumental role of classroom teaching, and how the widespread adoption of techniques grounded in the learning sciences could lead to such positive outcomes (e.g., President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, 2012). As a result, a growing area of interest in both research and policymaking circles is whether faculty 1 effectively incorporate techniques such as problem-based learning (Hmelo-Silver, 2004) or Peer Instruction (Mazur, 1997) into their teaching, and, if not, what contributes to the rejection of these techniques. However, most analytic attention is on what happens in the classroom and not the planning processes that take place long before a class begins. This is problematic because improved teaching and student learning is as dependent upon faculty developing a pedagogically informed and deliberate approach to curriculum planning as it is to sound classroom practice. Indeed, instructional reforms such as the scientific teaching approach (Handelsman et al., 2004) encourage faculty to use formative and summative assessment data in an ongoing, iterative approach to planning and teaching their courses. Yet, as Joan Stark observed, " most attempts to improve teaching and learning in colleges have focused on the teacher's role as a 'classroom actor' rather than as an 'academic planner' " (Stark, 2000, p. 413). Thus, understanding the dynamics underlying faculty decisions about whether or not to adopt instructional innovations requires an expansive view of faculty practice that encompasses their roles as academic planners, not merely classroom actors. Furthermore, course planning and classroom teaching practices should be situated within their unique disciplinary and professional contexts. The ways in which the task environment influences how teachers approach classroom instruction has long been an active and influential area of research in K–12 settings. Notably, these lines of inquiry are deeply influenced by theory and method from cognitive psychology and the learning sciences, especially in exploring the subtle dynamics whereby individuals perceive and interpret 1 By faculty I mean all people who hold undergraduate teaching …
2 Constituency and Recursion in Language 3 4

6 Upon reflection, most people would agree that the words in a sen7 tence are not merely arranged like beads on a string. Rather, the 8 words group together to form coherent building blocks within a 9 sentence. Consider the sentence, The girl liked a boy. Intuitively, 10 the chunks the girl and liked a boy constitute the basic components 11 of this sentence (compared to a simple listing of the individual 12 words or alternative groupings, such as the girl liked and a boy). 13 Linguistically, these chunks comprise the two major constituents 14 of a sentence: a subject noun phrase (NP), the girl, and a verb 15 phrase (VP), liked a boy. Such phrasal constituents may contain 16 two types of syntactic elements: other phrasal constituents (e.g., 17 the NP a boy in the above VP) or lexical constituents (e.g., the 18 determiner the and the noun girl in the NP the girl). Both types of 19 constituent are typically defined distributionally using the so-called 20 replacement test: If a novel word or phrase has the same distribu21 tion as a word or phrase of a known constituent type—that is if the 22 former can be replaced by the latter—then they are the same type 23 of constituent. Thus, the lexical constituents the and a both belong 24 to the lexical category of determiners because they occur in similar 25 contexts and therefore can replace each other (e.g., A girl liked the 26 boy). Likewise, the girl and a boy belong to the same phrasal cate27 gory, NP, because they can be swapped around, as in A boy liked 28 the girl (note, however, that there may be semantic constraints on 29 constituent replacements. For example, replacing the animate sub30 ject NP the girl with the inanimate NP the chair yields the seman31 tically anomalous sentence, The chair liked a boy). 32 In linguistics, grammar rules and/or principles determine how 33 constituents can be put together to form sentences. For instance, 34 we can use the following phrase structure rules to describe the 35 relationship between the constituents in the example sentences 36 above:
Exact Thresholds for LDPC Codes Transmitted Over Binary Erasure Channels

In this paper we present a simple method for determining the exact decoder convergence thresholds of low-density parity-check codes analytically. We assume transmission over the binary erasure channel and belief propagation decoding. To this aim we use EXIT charts and derive analytical formulas for the EXIT functions of regular and irregular LDPC codes transmitted over the binary erasure channel. Our method is equivalent to density evolution but faster and does not utilize a search algorithm. Thus it is not affected by numerical inaccuracy and does not depend on the number of iterations performed.
The finite element analysis of thickness-shear vibrations of quartz crystal plates with ANSYS

With the fast growth of electronic products such as wireless telecommunication devices and personal computers, quartz crystal resonators are widely used as stable and precise frequency control components. Due to miniaturization of practical product and higher frequency requirements, how to avoid mode coupling which will severely affect product's quality becomes a key problem to be solved during the design stage. However, designers can only adjust the size and shape of quartz plate based on experiences. The Mindlin plate theory can be used to obtain analytical solutions of the straight-crested wave displacements and vibration frequency, but the effects of complex structure such as change of the three-dimensional sizes of the chip, electrodes, packaging and mounting on the quality factor cannot be accurately analyzed by this theory. Therefore, the sophisticated FEM becomes important for this problem. In this study, we employed the general purpose finite element method software ANSYS to analyze the fundamental thickness-shear vibrations of typical rectangular AT-cut quartz crystal plates, and obtained its free vibration frequencies and spatial distributions of displacements which verify known results. Based on these results, we further extended our research to investigate the effect of length of the rectangular plate on the vibration mode, establishing a plate model with conductive adhesive and analyze the impact of the position and the size of adhesive. These studies showed we can adjust these small sizes to enable quartz crystal resonator work in a stable thickness-shear vibration state. Our work is to establish a complete procedure of quartz crystal resonators with ANSYS and form the base of FEM analysis for product design.
Predicting Compound Selectivity by Self‐Organizing Maps: Cross‐Activities of Metabotropic Glutamate Receptor Antagonists

The self-organizing map (SOM) principle was introduced by Kohonen in 1982, and has been applied to a variety of tasks in chemistry and chemical biology ever since. In this study, we used the SOM algorithm for mapping known ligands according to a topological pharmacophore descriptor (CATS) and predicting potential cross-activities. Our aim was to see whether 1) the descriptor is able to discriminate antagonists of metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluR) 1 and 5, and 2) the SOM could be used for predicting potential additional binding behaviors of the ligands. First, an mGluR reference collection containing 338 compounds was compiled including published and Merz in-house structures of noncompetitive group I mGluR antagonists. The collection comprises two subsets: allosteric mGlu1 receptor antagonists (213 compounds), and allosteric mGlu5 receptor antagonists (125 compounds). These molecules cover a broad range of binding activities (Ki values between 1 nm and 10 mm) and represent different chemical classes. This mGluR reference library was complemented by the molecules from the COBRA database (v. 3.12; 5376 molecules) containing a broad set of known drugs, leads, and lead candidates affecting a large number of different drug targets. Subsequently, the molecules were converted to a vector representation giving the scaled occurrence frequencies of topological potential pharmacophore point pairs (CATS2D method). 7] In this study, intramolecular distances from zero to nine bonds were considered, resulting in a 150-dimensional vector representation of each molecular compound. The complete COBRA database was subjected to clustering and mapping onto a two-dimensional grid by the SOM approach. The SOM provides a nonlinear two-dimensional projection of the 150-dimensional data space (“chemical space”), where local neighborhood is conserved. This means, that molecules that are located close to each other on the map are also close in the original high-dimensional space. For SOM training we applied a slightly modified version of the Kohonen algorithm as described previously. 8] As a result, all molecules from COBRA were distributed into 225 (15A15) clusters ACHTUNGTRENNUNG(“neurons”
High level performance model based design space exploration for energy-efficient designs on FPGAs

Energy efficiency has become a key performance metric in implementing application on FPGA. Several parameters such as parallelism, data layout, data re-usability etc. determine energy efficiency. Therefore a parameterized architecture is required to analyze the trade-offs and select the most energy-efficient design. However, increasing the number of parameters exponentially increases the number of possible designs in the design space. It then becomes infeasible to simulate all the designs as time consumed in each simulation is quite significant. In this paper, we perform a high-level performance model based design space exploration for 2D image convolution. This technique allows us to explore the design space quickly and efficiently. We first develop a high level performance model which would allow us to do a parameter sweep of the large design space quickly. The parameter sweep will provide us with a small number of promising designs which can be simulated to arrive at the most energy-efficient design. We prove that a small design subspace will contain the dominating designs with respect to the metric of Energy Efficiency. We simulate the designs from this subspace and show that there is a considerable overlap of 77% between the top designs identified by the performance model and the designs simulated from the dominating design subspace.