Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Recovery Timer Adaptation in SRM

SRM is a generic framework for reliable multicast data delivery. The retransmission requests and replies used in SRM error recovery are multicast to the entire group. SRM uses random timers to avoid the message implosion problem, and the eeectiveness of SRM's duplicate suppression depends critically on the design of these random timers. In order to achieve good performance in a dynamic network environment, the random timers should be adaptive to the network and session dynamics. This paper focuses on the scaling behavior of the random timer adaptation mechanisms in SRM. Through analysis and simulations, we analyze the relationship between the timer setting parameters and performance, investigate the representative timer adaptation approach proposed in 1], and present a collaborative approach of random timer adjustment. Generally speaking, the representative approach elects representatives to send retransmission requests or replies; whereas the collaborative approach distributes the error recovery workload among members.
Social justice in South Africa

A Africa do Sul e o pais mais desigual do mundo. A pobreza e a desigualdade, agravadas pelo desemprego, sao os desafios mais importante do pais. O atual governo tem feito progressos significativos em relacao a prestacao de servicos basicos e ampliacao dos beneficios sociais. No entanto, a triste realidade e que a desigualdade cresceu desde o advento da democracia, mais de vinte anos atras. Esta evolucao e contraria aos compromissos da Constituicao Sul-Africana e a provisao de politicas sociais, tornando assim mais graves as questoes de direitos e justica social. A continuidade, profundidade e amplitude da desigualdade, incluindo os custos financeiros e sociais extraordinarias, estao ligados ao legado do apartheid. A desigualdade e estruturalmente condicionada, espacial e economicamente. Fundamentalmente, a desigualdade e resultado do acesso diferencial a oportunidades e produtos do desenvolvimento humano. O artigo apresenta uma discussao teorica sobre a relacao entre a desigualdade, a pobreza e o desemprego; identifica tambem algumas barreiras para mudancas; e apresenta abordagens experimentais de reducao da desigualdade.
Some Results on Bent-Negabent Boolean Functions over Finite Fields

We consider negabent Boolean functions that have Trace representation. We completely characterize quadratic negabent monomial functions. We show the relation between negabent functions and bent functions via a quadratic function. Using this characterization, we give infinite classes of bent-negabent Boolean functions over the finite field $\F_{2^n}$, with the maximum possible degree, $n \over 2$. These are the first ever constructions of negabent functions with trace representation that have optimal degree.
Getting into living rooms: NGO media relations work as strategic practice

Research on the publicity strategies of non-governmental organizations suggests that they seek out coverage from the news media. In so doing, they typically adopt traditional news values, thus adapting to the institutional demands of journalism in ways potentially harmful to organizational goals. This study suggests that, while employees do court news coverage through events and strategies designed to capture media attention, they do so strategically. The research presented here draws on institutional theories of organizational behavior to understand the strategic behaviors undertaken. Through participant observation and document analysis of the media relations office at World Vision US, a key player among international development non-governmental organizations, I find evidence that media relations employees engage in strategic practices of bargaining and compliance. These behaviors allow them to work within and beyond given institutional parameters to accomplish organizational goals not aligned with traditional news values.
Evolution of sociology freshmen into a friendship network

In this paper we both describe and analyze the meeting process and the evolution of a friendship network among sociology freshmen in the Netherlands. We develop a theory that explains how changes in the network structure depend on one or more of four main effects: proximity, visible similarity, invisible similarity, and network opportunity. We formulate expectations with regard to what factors are important at what stages of the friendship development, making a distinction between 'meeting' and 'mating. ' To some extent, the results confirm our expectations. The proximity and visible similarity variables determine change in network structure in the early stages, whereas network opportunity is important during all stages. Unfortunately, no significant effects of invisible similarity are found.
Relationship Between Facebook Use and Problematic Internet Use Among College Students

The popularity of Facebook and other online social-networking sites has led to research on the potential risks of use, including Internet addiction. Previous studies have reported that between 8 percent and 50 percent of college students report problems consistent with Internet addiction. The current study assessed a range of variables related to Facebook use, and sought to determine how the use of Facebook relates to problematic Internet use. Undergraduate participants (N=281, 72 percent women) completed a battery of self-report measures, including the Internet Addiction Test, via an online interface. The results of the current study suggest that a sizable minority of students experience problems related to Internet use and that the use of Facebook may contribute to the severity of symptoms associated with Internet addiction.
Cellular Mechanisms of Zinc Dysregulation: A Perspective on Zinc Homeostasis as an Etiological Factor in the Development and Progression of Breast Cancer

Worldwide, breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer among women and is the leading cause of female cancer deaths. Zinc (Zn) functions as an antioxidant and plays a role in maintaining genomic stability. Zn deficiency results in oxidative DNA damage and increased cancer risk. Studies suggest an inverse association between dietary and plasma Zn levels and the risk for developing breast cancer. In contrast, breast tumor biopsies display significantly higher Zn levels compared with normal tissue. Zn accumulation in tumor tissue also correlates with increased levels of Zn importing proteins. Further, aberrant expression of Zn transporters in tumors correlates with malignancy, suggesting that altered metal homeostasis in the breast could contribute to malignant transformation and the severity of cancer. However, studies have yet to link dysregulated Zn transport and abnormal Zn-dependent functions in breast cancer development. Herein, we summarize studies that address the multi-modal role of Zn dyshomeostasis in breast cancer with respect to the role of Zn in modulating oxidative stress, DNA damage response/repair pathways and cell proliferation/apoptosis, and the relationship to aberrant regulation of Zn transporters. We also compare Zn dysregulation in breast tissue to that of prostate, pancreatic and ovarian cancer where possible.
La perception des tabous dans la publicité : L’impact des variables socio-démographiques

Les publicitaires mettent aujourd’hui en scène des thèmes aussi sensibles que la mort et le sexe. Les auteurs s’interrogent sur l’efficacité de telles pratiques et examinent dans quelle mesure ces thèmes constituent aujourd’hui encore des tabous dans notre société. L’article étudie également quelles caractéristiques individuelles affectent les perceptions en la matière : il apparaît que les femmes et les seniors sont particulièrement réticents à l’utilisation de tels sujets, alors que les jeunes les acceptent plus facilement .
Stomatal uptake of O 3 in aspen and aspen-birch forests under free-air CO 2 and O 3 enrichment

Rising atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) may alleviate the toxicological impacts of concurrently rising tropospheric ozone (O3) during the present century if higher CO2 is accompanied by lower stomatal conductance (gs), as assumed by many models. We investigated how elevated concentrations of CO2 and O3, alone and in combination, affected the accumulated stomatal flux of O3 (AFst) by canopies and sun leaves in closed aspen and aspen-birch forests in the free-air CO2–O3 enrichment experiment near Rhinelander, Wisconsin. Stomatal conductance for O3 was derived from sap flux data and AFst was estimated either neglecting or accounting for the potential influence of non-stomatal leaf surface O3 deposition. Leaf-level AFst (AFstl) was not reduced by elevated CO2. Instead, there was a significant CO2 O3 interaction on AFstl, as a consequence of lower values of gs in control plots and the combination treatment than in the two single-gas treatments. In addition, aspen leaves had higher AFstl than birch leaves, and estimates of AFstl were not very sensitive to non-stomatal leaf surface O3 deposition. Our results suggest that model projections of large CO2-induced reductions in gs alleviating the adverse effect of rising tropospheric O3 may not be reasonable for northern hardwood forests. 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Guard reasoning for CHR optimization

Constraint Handling Rules (CHR) is a high-level language commonly used to write constraint solvers. Most CHR programs depend on the refined operational semantics, resulting in an obfuscated logical reading and potential misbehavior under the theoretical operational semantics. We introduce two source to source transformations: guard simplification and occurrence subsumption. By removing redundant guards and eliminating redundant generated code for subsumed occurrences, they improve performance and allow CHR programmers to write self-documented rules with a clear logical reading. Formal correctness proofs are given, implementation in the K.U. Leuven CHR compiler is presented and experimental results are discussed.
Security Analysis of IEEE 802.16

This paper analyzes some critical security issues in the family of IEEE 802.16 standard that has not been addressed so far. In particular two of the key features of the standard, the dynamic resources allocation and the mesh mode revealed to be vulnerable to attacks that represent serious threats to the robustness and privacy of the communications. In the first case the attacker is able to reduce bandwidth assigned to its neighbors, with the aim of obtaining more resources for himself; in the second case, we observed that there might be no real privacy in communications between two nodes of the mesh network. These vulnerabilities are still present even after the latest amendment to the standard, IEEE 802.16e that solved some previously addressed security flaws.
Stress and Characterization Strategies to Assess Oxide Breakdown in High-Voltage GaN Field-Effect Transistors

GaN metal-insulator-semiconductor high electron mobility transistors (MIS-HEMTs) are promising for high-voltage power switching applications. A concern with this new device technology is oxide reliability under prolonged high-field and high-temperature conditions. This paper studies an important aspect of oxide reliability, time-dependent dielectric breakdown (TDDB) in GaN MIS-HEMTs. We have developed an experimental methodology to characterize TDDB through time-dependent current-voltage and capacitance-voltage measurements. Our techniques isolate and observe different roles of VT shift, oxide trap formation and trapping, interface state generation, stress-induced leakage current (SILC), and eventual breakdown.
Admission Criteria for MBA Programs

This paper reports a review of studies on admission criteria for MBA programs. The method consisted in a literary review based on a systematic search in international databases (Emerald, ABI/INFORM Global, ProQuest Education Journals, ProQuest European Business, ProQuest Science Journal, ProQuest Research Library, ProQuest Psychology Journals, ProQuest Social Science Journals and Business Source Complete) of studies published from January 1990 to December 2013, which explore the academic performance of students or graduates of MBA programs. A quantitative review was performed. Results show that most researchers studied relations between GMAT (Graduate Management Admission Test) and UGPA (Undergraduate Grade Point Average) as predictors of GGPA (Graduate Grade Point Average). On the other hand, work experience and personal traits (such as personality, motivation, learning strategies, self-efficacy beliefs and achievement expectations) and their relation with GGPA had been less studied, and results are not consistent enough to consider them valid predictors of student performance at this time.
Competing with the Neophyte : The Role of Mainstream Party Strategy in Rising Party Success

and the participants of the " Challenges to Political Parties " Conference for their useful comments and suggestions. I also thank Andrea Volkens for providing me with the latest data from the Comparative Manifestos Project. Abstract: This paper examines the variation in the electoral success of rising parties over the past thirty years. While institutional and sociological explanations for the electoral trajectories of these single-issue parties have been dominant, they tend to remove parties from party analysis. In this paper, I argue that the strategic behavior of mainstream parties shapes the competitiveness and electoral success of these new parties. However, in contrast to spatial theories, party tactics are no longer restricted to programmatic appeals within a fixed policy space; parties also have the ability to alter the salience of issue dimensions and the perceived ownership of those issues. I test the implications of this salience-based model of strategies in a cross-sectional, time-series analysis of rising party (green, radical right and ethnoterritorial) electoral support in eighteen Western European countries from 1970-2000. The regression results confirm that the strategic behavior of mainstream parties better accounts for intertemporal variations in support across rising parties than the dominant institutional and sociological explanations. Moreover, this reconceptualized view of strategies also outperforms spatial models of party interaction, better capturing how and why mainstream parties undermine and even bolster rising party electoral performance. 2 Over the past thirty years, political systems of Western Europe have been characterized by instability and change. New actors have burst onto the political scene, promoting a new set of expanding issue dimensions ranging from lifestyle and identity issues to concerns over immigration and declining state autonomy. Coming at a time of heightened partisan dealignment and voter volatility, these political neophytes were touted by many analysts as the bearers of political " revolution " ; they were to undermine the existing political party balance, challenge the organizational structure of the constituent parties and alter the style and content of political debate formation and electoral contestation of environmental, ethnoterritorial and radical right parties across Western Europe reveals the significance of this phenomenon, the more substantive predictions of new party impact have not been uniformly realized across countries and over time. Despite the generalized incorporation of new parties' issues into mainstream political debate, these new parties have only rarely become integral members of the political landscape and governmental scene; indeed, since 1970, the average vote …
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY PRELIMINARY GEOLOGIC MAP OF THE MOUNT HAYES QUADRANGLE , EASTERN ALASKA RANGE , ALASKA

This report is preliminary and has not been reviewed for conformity with U.S. Geological Survey editorial standards (or with the North American Stratigraphic Code). 1 U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, California. 2 U.S. Geological Survey, Denver, Colorado. 3 U.S. Geological Survey, Anchorage, Alaska and Department of Geology, University of Montana, Missoula, Montana 4 U.S. Geological Survey, Anchorage, Alaska. 5 Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory, Palisades, New York. 6 Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys, Fairbanks, Alaska 7 University of Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Lifestyle intervention is associated with lower prevalence of urinary incontinence: the Diabetes Prevention Program.

OBJECTIVE Diabetes is associated with increased urinary incontinence risk. Weight loss improves incontinence, but exercise may worsen this condition. We examined whether an intensive lifestyle intervention or metformin therapy among overweight pre-diabetic women was associated with a lower prevalence of incontinence. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS We analyzed data from the Diabetes Prevention Program, a randomized controlled trial in 27 U.S. centers. Of the 1,957 women included in this analysis, 660 (34%) were randomized to intensive lifestyle therapy, 636 (32%) to metformin, and 661 (34%) to placebo with standard lifestyle advice. The main outcome measure was incontinence symptoms by frequency and type by a validated questionnaire completed at the end-of-trial visit (mean 2.9 years). RESULTS The prevalence of total (stress or urge) weekly incontinence was lower among women in the intensive lifestyle group (38.3%) than those randomized to metformin (48.1%) or placebo (45.7%). This difference was most apparent among women with stress incontinence (31.3% for intensive lifestyle group vs. 39.7% for metformin vs. 36.7% for placebo, P = 0.006). Changes in weight accounted for most of the protective effect of the intensive lifestyle intervention on stress incontinence. CONCLUSIONS Less-frequent urinary incontinence may be a powerful motivator for women to choose lifestyle modification to prevent diabetes.
Selection for efficient translation initiation biases codon usage at second amino acid position in secretory proteins

The definition of a typical sec-dependent bacterial signal peptide contains a positive charge at the N-terminus, thought to be required for membrane association. In this study the amino acid distribution of all Escherichia coli secretory proteins were analysed. This revealed that there was a statistically significant bias for lysine at the second codon position (P2), consistent with a role for the positive charge in secretion. Removal of the positively charged residue P2 in two different model systems revealed that a positive charge is not required for protein export. A well-characterized feature of large amino acids like lysine at P2 is inhibition of N-terminal methionine removal by methionyl amino-peptidase (MAP). Substitution of lysine at P2 for other large or small amino acids did not affect protein export. Analysis of codon usage revealed that there was a bias for the AAA lysine codon at P2, suggesting that a non-coding function for the AAA codon may be responsible for the strong bias for lysine at P2 of secretory signal sequences. We conclude that the selection for high translation initiation efficiency maybe the selective pressure that has led to codon and consequent amino acid usage at P2 of secretory proteins.
Sleepiness detection from speech by perceptual features

We propose a two-class classification scheme with a small number of features for sleepiness detection. Unlike the conventional methods that rely on the linguistics content of speech, we work with prosodic features extracted by psychoacoustic masking in spectral and temporal domain. Our features also model the variations between non-sleepy and sleepy modes in a quasi-continuum space with the help of code words learned by a bag-of-features scheme. These improve the unweighted recall rates for unseen people and minimize the language dependence. Recall rates reported based on Karolinska Sleepiness Scale (KSS) for Support Vector Machine and Learning Vector Quantization classifiers show that the developed system enable us monitoring sleepiness efficiently with a lower complexity compared to the reported benchmarking results for Sleepy Language Corpus.
Job security provisions and work hours

This study explores the impact of job security provisions on workplace absence and overtime work. We hypothesize that job security provisions give individuals bargaining power to resolve work hour conflicts in their favour, but they may also create incentives for shirking. To examine the impact of job security provisions empirically, we implement a quasi-experimental research design based on a British job security provisions reform that extended dismissal protection among low-tenure workers. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we find that the reform increased absence rates due to workers taking more sickness absence and vacation days and reduced overtime work. Regarding the underlying mechanism, we obtain suggestive but limited evidence that the observed effects were driven both by reduced presenteeism and increased shirking.
Landscape structure, predation of red foxes on grey partridges, and their spatial relations

The aim of this study was to estimate the effect of agricultural landscape structure on the predation rate of red foxes Vulpes vulpes on grey partridges Perdix perdix during the breeding season and on their spatial relations. The number of partridge remains found around fox breeding dens (N=165) was used as an index of the predation rate in 10 study areas. Moreover, the distribution of both species and the searching intensity of partridge nesting habitat (permanent semi-natural vegetation) by foxes in relation to the landscape structure were studied using scat, track and call counts. The predation index (range 0.06–0.46 partridges/den) increased with spring partridge density and decreased with the occurrence of crop boundaries. The distribution of foxes and partridges in large fields was positively correlated with the occurrence of permanent vegetation, but no such effect was observed in small fields. The searching intensity in permanent vegetation by foxes decreased with the occurrence of these structures among small fields, but not among large fields. The study showed that in a differentiated landscape foxes and partridges had various structural elements at their disposal, which led to partial separation of the predator and its prey in the space.
Anew high speed and low power four-quadrant CMOS analogmultiplier in currentmode

In this paper a new CMOS current-mode four-quadrant analog multiplier and divider circuit based on squarer circuit is proposed. The dual translinear loop is the basic building block in realization scheme. Supply voltage is 3.3V. The major advantages of this multiplier are high speed, low power, high linearity and less dc offset error. The circuit is designed and simulated using HSPICE simulator by level 49 parameters (BSIM3v3) in 0.35 m standard CMOS technology. The simulation results of analog multiplier demonstrate a linearity error of 1.1%, a THD of 0.97% in 1MHz, a −3dB bandwidth of 41.8MHz and a maximum power consumption of 0.34mW. 2008 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.