Katsir: A Framework for Harvesting Digital Libraries on the Web

The information era has brought with it the wellknown problem of \u27Information Explosion\u27. There are many and varied search engines on the Internet but it is still hard to locate and concentrate only on materials relevant to a specific task. Digital libraries, on the other hand, provide better services for focused discovery of relevant Web resources. However, digital libraries have been much less researched and implemented than search engines. The \u27Katsir/Harvest\u27 project laid the ground for our understanding that a new paradigm should to be developed - the Harvested Digital Library (HDL). The contribution of this article is in presenting a new framework and harvesting model for constructing HDLs. The open harvesting architecture proposed here uses advanced information retrieval tools and provides a set of integrated DL services to its users. This model and architecture are discussed throughout the article, including description of the implemented Katsir system and discussion of future research directions. The future DLs will be knowledge rich in the sense that each DL contains relevant meta-information on its domain and employs advanced knowledge management techniques

The Diagnostic and Phylogenetic Significance of Widened and Pronged Hamuli in Feathers

The taxonomic distribution of widened and/or pronged hamuli (hooklets) on distal barbules in the pennaceous part of feathers was studied with light microscopy (LM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) in order to assess the diagnostic and phylogenetic significance of these structures. Comparison of the LM and SEM appearance of these structures indicates that thickened hamuli are artifacts, arising from the misinterpretation of rotated tape-like structures. Pronged hamuli, on the contrary, are non-artifacts. These structures have a much wider taxonomic distribution than was reported by earlier workers, and therefore do not seem to be useful for identifying feather fragments

Assessing dynamics, spatial scale, and uncertainty in task-related brain network analyses

This is the publisher's version, also available electronically from http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fncom.2014.00031/abstractThe brain is a complex network of interconnected elements, whose interactions evolve dynamically in time to cooperatively perform specific functions. A common technique to probe these interactions involves multi-sensor recordings of brain activity during a repeated task. Many techniques exist to characterize the resulting task-related activity, including establishing functional networks, which represent the statistical associations between brain areas. Although functional network inference is commonly employed to analyze neural time series data, techniques to assess the uncertainty—both in the functional network edges and the corresponding aggregate measures of network topology—are lacking. To address this, we describe a statistically principled approach for computing uncertainty in functional networks and aggregate network measures in task-related data. The approach is based on a resampling procedure that utilizes the trial structure common in experimental recordings. We show in simulations that this approach successfully identifies functional networks and associated measures of confidence emergent during a task in a variety of scenarios, including dynamically evolving networks. In addition, we describe a principled technique for establishing functional networks based on predetermined regions of interest using canonical correlation. Doing so provides additional robustness to the functional network inference. Finally, we illustrate the use of these methods on example invasive brain voltage recordings collected during an overt speech task. The general strategy described here—appropriate for static and dynamic network inference and different statistical measures of coupling—permits the evaluation of confidence in network measures in a variety of settings common to neuroscience

WebArena: A Realistic Web Environment for Building Autonomous Agents

With advances in generative AI, there is now potential for autonomous agents to manage daily tasks via natural language commands. However, current agents are primarily created and tested in simplified synthetic environments, leading to a disconnect with real-world scenarios. In this paper, we build an environment for language-guided agents that is highly realistic and reproducible. Specifically, we focus on agents that perform tasks on the web, and create an environment with fully functional websites from four common domains: e-commerce, social forum discussions, collaborative software development, and content management. Our environment is enriched with tools (e.g., a map) and external knowledge bases (e.g., user manuals) to encourage human-like task-solving. Building upon our environment, we release a set of benchmark tasks focusing on evaluating the functional correctness of task completions. The tasks in our benchmark are diverse, long-horizon, and designed to emulate tasks that humans routinely perform on the internet. We experiment with several baseline agents, integrating recent techniques such as reasoning before acting. The results demonstrate that solving complex tasks is challenging: our best GPT-4-based agent only achieves an end-to-end task success rate of 14.41%, significantly lower than the human performance of 78.24%. These results highlight the need for further development of robust agents, that current state-of-the-art large language models are far from perfect performance in these real-life tasks, and that WebArena can be used to measure such progress.Comment: Our code, data, environment reproduction resources, and video demonstrations are publicly available at https://webarena.dev

Wirtschaftsbeziehungen zwischen Ost und West: Perspektiven und Probleme

Vorwort 3 I. Einleitung 5 II. Ost-West-Handel 8 a. Entwicklung 8 b. Aussichten für die nähere Zukunft 12 c. Der Handel mit China 14 d. Der sowjetische Ferne Osten 15 e. Komparative Vorteile im Ost-West-Süd-Handel . . 16 f. Gewinne aus dem Handel 17 III. Technologietransfer 20 IV. Die Finanzierung des Handels: Das Problem der Verschuldung . 26 V. Institutionelle Probleme 33 VI. Zusammenfassung und Schlußfolgerungen 37 Verzeichnis der Tabellen ^9 Literaturverzeichnis 40 --

Civic republican social justice and the case of state grammar schools in England

The aim of this paper is to consider the ways in which civic republican theory can provide a meaningful and useful account of social justice, one that is which holds resonance for educational debates. Recognising the need for educationalists interested in civic republicanism to pay greater attention to ideas of justice – and in particular social justice as it concerns relationships between citizens (citizen to citizen, group to group or citizen to group) – it is argued that a form of civic republicanism committed to freedom as non-domination is capable of providing a substantive model for analysing social (in)justice within educational arenas. After positioning the contribution offered here within existing educational literature on civic republicanism, salient elements of social justice as freedom as non-domination are identified. On this basis, debates concerning the existence and potential expansion of state (public) grammar schools in England are considered in relation to the account of republican social justice as non-domination. It is argued that from this republican position grammar schools (1) represent an arbitrary domination of the interests of those less well off by those with greater material and cultural capital and (2) in doing so lead to advantages for some at the expense of others. Though the focus of the paper is on grammar schools in England, it is suggested that republican justice may be a useful frame for considering similar educational cases in England and elsewhere

Glioblastomas with primitive neuronal component harbor a distinct methylation and copy‑number profle with inactivation of TP53, PTEN, and RB1

Glioblastoma IDH-wildtype presents with a wide histological spectrum. Some features are so distinctive that they are considered as separate histological variants or patterns for the purpose of classification. However, these usually lack defined (epi-)genetic alterations or profiles correlating with this histology. Here, we describe a molecular subtype with overlap to the unique histological pattern of glioblastoma with primitive neuronal component. Our cohort consists of 63 IDH-wildtype glioblastomas that harbor a characteristic DNA methylation profile. Median age at diagnosis was 59.5 years. Copy-number variations and genetic sequencing revealed frequent alterations in TP53, RB1 and PTEN, with fewer gains of chromosome 7 and homozygous CDKN2A/B deletions than usually described for IDH-wildtype glioblastoma. Gains of chromosome 1 were detected in more than half of the cases. A poorly differentiated phenotype with frequent absence of GFAP expression, high proliferation index and strong staining for p53 and TTF1 often caused misleading histological classification as carcinoma metastasis or primitive neuroectodermal tumor. Clinically, many patients presented with leptomeningeal dissemination and spinal metastasis. Outcome was poor with a median overall survival of only 12 months. Overall, we describe a new molecular subtype of IDH-wildtype glioblastoma with a distinct histological appearance and genetic signature.publishedVersio

Vertical motions of the Puerto Rico Trench and Puerto Rico and their cause

This paper is not subject to U.S. copyright. Published in 2005 by the American Geophysical Union. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research 110 (2005): B06404, doi:10.1029/2004JB003459.The Puerto Rico trench exhibits great water depth, an extremely low gravity anomaly, and a tilted carbonate platform between (reconstructed) elevations of +1300 m and −4000 m. I argue that these features are manifestations of large vertical movements of a segment of the Puerto Rico trench, its forearc, and the island of Puerto Rico that took place 3.3 m.y. ago over a time period as short as 14–40 kyr. I explain these vertical movements by a sudden increase in the slab's descent angle that caused the trench to subside and the island to rise. The increased dip could have been caused by shearing or even by a complete tear of the descending North American slab, although the exact nature of this deformation is unknown. The rapid (14–40 kyr) and uniform tilt along a 250 km long section of the trench is compatible with scales of mantle flow and plate bending. The proposed shear zone or tear is inferred from seismic, morphological, and gravity observations to start at the trench at 64.5°W and trend southwestwardly toward eastern Puerto Rico. The tensile stresses necessary to deform or tear the slab could have been generated by increased curvature of the trench following a counterclockwise rotation of the upper plate and by the subduction of a large seamount

Structural Brain Magnetic Resonance Imaging to Rule out Comorbid Pathology in the Assessment of Alzheimer\u27s Disease Dementia: Findings from the Ontario Neurodegenerative Disease Research Initiative (ONDRI) Study and Clinical Trials over the Past 10 Years

Background/Objective: Structural brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is not mandatory in Alzheimer\u27s disease (AD) research or clinical guidelines. We aimed to explore the use of structural brain MRI in AD/mild cognitive impairment (MCI) trials over the past 10 years and determine the frequency with which inclusion of standardized structural MRI acquisitions detects comorbid vascular and non-vascular pathologies. Methods: We systematically searched ClinicalTrials.gov for AD clinical trials to determine their neuroimaging criteria and then used data from an AD/MCI cohort who underwent standardized MRI protocols, to determine type and incidence of clinically relevant comorbid pathologies. Results: Of 210 AD clinical trials, 105 (50%) included structural brain imaging in their eligibility criteria. Only 58 (27.6%) required MRI. 16,479 of 53,755 (30.7%) AD participants were in trials requiring MRI. In the observational AD/MCI cohort, 141 patients met clinical criteria; 22 (15.6%) had relevant MRI findings, of which 15 (10.6%) were exclusionary for the study. Discussion: In AD clinical trials over the last 10 years, over two-thirds of participants could have been enrolled without brain MRI and half without even a brain CT. In a study sample, relevant comorbid pathology was found in 15% of participants, despite careful screening. Standardized structural MRI should be incorporated into NIA-AA diagnostic guidelines (when available) and research frameworks routinely to reduce diagnostic heterogeneity