Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Personalization Privacy Paradox: An Empirical Evaluation of Information Transparency and the Willingness to be Profiled Online for Personalization

Firms today use information about customers to improve service and design personalized offerings. To do this successfully, however, firms must collect consumer information. This study enhances awareness about a central paradox for firms investing in personalization; namely, that consumers who value information transparency are also less likely to participate in personalization. We examine the relationship between information technology features, specifically information transparency features, and consumer willingness to share information for online personalization. Based on a survey of over 400 online consumers, we examine the question of whether customer perceived information transparency is associated with consumer willingness to be profiled online. Our results indicate that customers who desire greater information transparency are less willing to be profiled. This result poses a dilemma for firms, as the consumers that value information transparency features most are also the consumers who are less willing to be profiled online. In order to manage this dilemma, we suggest that firms adopt a strategy of providing features that address the needs of consumers who are more willing to partake in personalization, therefore accepting that the privacy sensitive minority of consumers are unwilling to participate in personalization, despite additional privacy features.
Distributed Control Scheme for Package-Level State-of-Charge Balancing of Grid-Connected Battery Energy Storage System

For the battery energy storage system (BESS) consisting of multiple battery packages, package-level state-of-charge (SOC) balancing can provide safety redundancy in protecting battery packages from overcharging or overdischarging, and maintain the maximum power capacity of the overall BESS. In this paper, a distributed control scheme is proposed for package-level SOC balancing of a grid-connected BESS. The proposed control scheme comprises three parts. First, each battery package shares its SOC with its neighboring battery packages over the communication network. Based on the SOCs of its own and its neighbors, each battery package is equipped with an energy coordinator. Second, for each battery package, a distributed observer is employed to estimate the average desired power output, which is used to determine the local reference power output together with the energy coordinator. Third, local current controller is synthesized for each battery package to achieve local reference power output tracking. Comprehensive case studies are conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme.
ONLINE COURSE DESIGN AND MATERIALS DEVELOPMENT FOR TEACHING READING OF RESEARCH ARTICLES TO EFL UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS AT A GREEK TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY

Recent research findings suggest that reading research articles (RAs) enhances undergraduate engineering students’ technical knowledge and fosters their lifelong learning skills. Nevertheless, the RA genre inherently displays challenging features for novice readers, especially EFL readers. Previous works on developing materials for teaching the reading of RAs to undergraduate students are limited and mostly report on the effectiveness of interventions rather than on course design and materials development. This paper presents the design and development of online materials for a Moodle-based, English for Specific Academic Purposes course that aimed to help Greek undergraduate Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) students to learn how to read RAs within their field. The materials design was based on the theories of genre analysis, metacognition and cognitive apprenticeship. Initially, a small RA corpus consisting of thirty RAs from high-ranking ECE journals and conferences from IEEE, ACM, Elsevier and Springer was created in cooperation with the ECE faculty. Subsequently, a move analysis was performed based on a simplified coding scheme of rhetorical moves in the target genre adjusted to the needs of novice Greek EFL readers. The results from our corpus analysis were used as the foundation of the genre-based materials that aimed at fostering learners’ declarative, procedural and conditional genre knowledge and included various examples of move structures and patterns, terminology, grammar as well as weekly genre analysis reflective tasks. We then created materials that intended to provide further support so that students could convert their newly acquired genre knowledge into procedural knowledge and explicitly taught top-down RA expeditious reading strategies and conditional knowledge by including metacognitive strategy training that intended to raise their awareness of when and why they should use the taught strategies. In an attempt to further tailor the materials to the needs of our students we included audiovisual enhancements in both L1 and L2 for presentation and feedback purposes, metacognitive prompts, online dictionaries and concordancers.
Induced nucleotide specificity in a GTPase

In signal-recognition particle (SRP)-dependent protein targeting to the bacterial plasma membrane, two GTPases, Ffh (a subunit of the bacterial SRP) and FtsY (the bacterial SRP receptor), act as GTPase activating proteins for one another. The molecular mechanism of this reciprocal GTPase activation is poorly understood. In this work, we show that, unlike other GTPases, free FtsY exhibits only low preference for GTP over other nucleotides. On formation of the SRP⋅FtsY complex, however, the nucleotide specificity of FtsY is enhanced 103-fold. Thus, interactions with SRP must induce conformational changes that directly affect the FtsY GTP-binding site: in response to SRP binding, FtsY switches from a nonspecific “open” state to a “closed” state that provides discrimination between cognate and noncognate nucleotides. We propose that this conformational change leads to more accurate positioning of the nucleotide and thus could contribute to activation of FtsY's GTPase activity by a novel mechanism.
Adding structure to web search with itrails [position paper]

We would like to discuss with workshop participants the iTrails framework for pay-as-you-go information integration, which was recently presented at VLDB 2007 (M. A. V. Salles et al., 2007). iTrails allows users to provide mini-mappings on their data that sharply increase the quality of search results. The core idea is to extend the semantics of a standard graphical search engine such that the quality of search results approaches the quality of a full-blown information integration system. In contrast to (M. A. V. Salles et al., 2007), this paper shows how iTrails can be used to tackle the challenges of adding structured information support to web search engines. We will show how iTrails enriches a web search engine with a powerful query rewriting mechanism enabling this engine to perform not only search but also integration of structured information.
Evaluation of Future Mobile Services Based on the Technology Acceptance Model

The Technology Acceptance Model is a widely used approach for a systematic research into the user acceptance of information technology. The Technology Acceptance Model has been recently successfully applied to different services in the telecommunication industry. This paper suggests to use the TAM to approximate the user acceptance of non-existing mobile services based on the Multimedia Broadcast and Multicast Service.
Attentional Bias in Remitted Depressed Patients: Evidence from an Eye-Tracking Study

Objectives: To investigate the attentional bias characteristics of remitted depressed (RD) patients toward both happy and sad facial expressions. Methods: Eye-movement data for the free-viewing facial expressions information of two groups (RD patients and healthy control (HC)) were acquired using the eye-tracking technique. The RD patients’ initial attentional orientation toward different pieces of emotional information and their attentional bias related to the attention-maintenance components were analyzed. Results: (1) On the initial orienting indicators (direction of initial gaze and initial fixation latency) and the initial attention maintenance indicators (first fixation duration), the RD patients showed no attentional bias toward the emotional faces; (2) For the late-stage attention maintenance indicators (total fixation time), both the RD group and the HC group exhibited attentional bias toward happy faces; the bias was smaller in the RD group than in the HC group; (3) For the RD group, there was a positive correlation between the direction of the initial gaze toward happy faces and total fixation time and a negative correlation between the initial fixation latency toward happy faces and total fixation time, whereas there were no such correlations in the HC group. Conclusions: The RD group displayed an attentional bias trend for happy faces, and this increase in the positive bias reflected the RD patients’ subjective, active efforts to establish a "protective bias" that would both alleviate and improve depressive symptoms.
Subspace Alignment For Domain Adaptation

In this paper, we introduce a new domain adaptation (DA) algorithm where the source and target domains are represented by subspaces spanned by eigenvectors. Our method seeks a domain invariant feature space by learning a mapping function which aligns the source subspace with the target one. We show that the solution of the corresponding optimization problem can be obtained in a simple closed form, leading to an extremely fast algorithm. We present two approaches to determine the only hyper-parameter in our method corresponding to the size of the subspaces. In the first approach we tune the size of subspaces using a theoretical bound on the stability of the obtained result. In the second approach, we use maximum likelihood estimation to determine the subspace size, which is particularly useful for high dimensional data. Apart from PCA, we propose a subspace creation method that outperform partial least squares (PLS) and linear discriminant analysis (LDA) in domain adaptation. We test our method on various datasets and show that, despite its intrinsic simplicity, it outperforms state of the art DA methods.
A CPPLL hierarchical optimization methodology considering jitter, power and locking time

In this paper, a hierarchical optimization methodology for charge pump phase-locked loops (CPPLLs) is proposed. It has the following features: 1) A comprehensive and efficient behavioral modeling of the PLL enables fast simulations and includes the important PLL performances jitter, power and locking time, as well as stability constraints for the nonlinear locking process and the linear lock-in state; 2) Behavioral modeling of the PLL building blocks addresses as behavioral-level parameters: current and jitter of the charge pump (CP), gain, current and jitter of the voltage controlled oscillator (VCO), as well as R, C's of the loop filter (LF). It enables a proper propagation of PLL specifications down to the circuit-level design parameters; 3) An accurate and efficient performance space exploration technique on circuit level provides the feasible regions of the behavioral-level parameters of the building block by multidimensional Pareto-optimal fronts. This enables a first-time-successful top-down optimization process. Experimental results show the efficacy and efficiency of the presented method. The methodology can be applied to other large-scale analog circuits
The Pitfalls of “Love and Kindness”: On the Challenges to Compassion/Pity as a Political Emotion

Martha Nussbaum’s political theory of compassion offers an extensive and compelling study of the potential of employing compassionate emotions in the political realm to further social justice and societal “love”. In this article, two pitfalls of Nussbaum’s affirming theory of a politics of compassion are highlighted: the problem of a dual-level hierarchisation and the “magic” of feeling compassion that potentially removes the subject of compassion from reality. I will argue that Hannah Arendt’s thoughts on pity provide substantial challenges to a democratic theory of compassion in this respect. Following these theoretical reflections, I will turn to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 US-American presidential election campaign, to her video ads “Love and Kindness” in particular, in order to provide fitting illustrations from current realpolitik for these specific pitfalls of the political employment of compassionate emotions.
Linearized model Fokker-Planck collision operators for gyrokinetic simulations. II. Numerical implementation and tests

A set of key properties for an ideal dissipation scheme in gyrokinetic simulations is proposed, and implementation of a model collision operator satisfying these properties is described. This operator is based on the exact linearized test-particle collision operator, with approximations to the field-particle terms that preserve conservation laws and an H-theorem. It includes energy diffusion, pitch-angle scattering, and finite Larmor radius effects corresponding to classical real-space diffusion. The numerical implementation in the continuum gyrokinetic code GS2 Kotschenreuther et al., Comput. Phys. Comm. 88, 128 1995 is fully implicit and guarantees exact satisfaction of conservation properties. Numerical results are presented showing that the correct physics is captured over the entire range of collisionalities, from the collisionless to the strongly collisional regimes, without recourse to artificial dissipation. © 2009 American Institute of Physics. DOI: 10.1063/1.3155085
How do religious leaders experience the psychological distress of their congregation

Religious leaders are at the forefront of religious faith and considered to be the gateway between humankind and God in all things, from matters of a spiritual kind, to the psychological. Whilst religious leaders may be acquainted with the spiritual realm, how do they perceive their engagement with the psychological? Furthermore, how do they manage the psychological distresses that they encounter given their pivotal position within the community? This empirical study explores how religious leaders experience the psychological distress of their congregation using the methodological approach of Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Eight religious leaders gave an account of their experiences through semi-structured interviews, the transcripts of which were then analysed implementing IPA protocol (Smith, Flowers, & Larkin, 2009). Four superordinate themes emerged from the data: ‘expectations of religious leadership’, which explored the participants’ experiences of the expectations placed upon them and their role; ‘proficiencies and limitations within the role’, which explored how the participants understood their professional remit in regard to providing psychological support; ‘the interconnectedness of religion and psychology’, which provided an insight into the participants’ experiences of the overlap between the fields of psychology and religion, and their contribution to each other; and ‘personal implications of religious leadership’, which explored the psychological impact of the religious leadership role on the participants. The four themes were discussed in relation to the religious leaders’ encounters with psychological distress. For most participants this was an external encounter, but reports of personal psychological distress were also presented. The findings have implications for Counselling Psychologists who work with religious individuals entering into therapy, and in particular those with religious leadership status. This study explores the link between religion and psychology from the perspective of those integral to this phenomenon, yet who appear to have received little empirical consideration. The findings are discussed in the light of previous research. The quality and limitations of this study are also considered, alongside proposals for future research.
Sendai Virus Infection Induces Apoptosis through Activation of Caspase-8 (FLICE) and Caspase-3 (CPP32)

ABSTRACT Sendai virus (SV) infection and replication lead to a strong cytopathic effect with subsequent death of host cells. We now show that SV infection triggers an apoptotic program in target cells. Incubation of infected cells with the peptide inhibitor z-VAD-fmk abrogated SV-induced apoptosis, indicating that proteases of the caspase family were involved. Moreover, proteolytic activation of two distinct caspases, CPP32/caspase-3 and, as shown for the first time in virus-infected cells, FLICE/caspase-8, could be detected. So far, activation of FLICE/caspase-8 has been described in apoptosis triggered by death receptors, including CD95 and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-R1. In contrast, we could show that SV-induced apoptosis did not require TNF or CD95 ligand. We further found that apoptosis of infected cells did not influence the maturation and budding of SV progeny. In conclusion, SV-induced cell injury is mediated by CD95- and TNF-R1-independent activation of caspases, leading to the death of host cells without impairment of the viral life cycle.
Low-Complexity Lattice Reduction-Aided Regularized Block Diagonalization for MU-MIMO Systems

By employing the regularized block diagonalization (RBD) preprocessing technique, the MU-MIMO broadcast channel is decomposed into multiple parallel independent SU-MIMO channels and achieves the maximum diversity order at high data rates. The computational complexity of RBD, however, is relatively high due to two singular value decomposition (SVD) operations. In this letter, a low-complexity lattice reduction-aided RBD is proposed. The first SVD is replaced by a QR decomposition, and the orthogonalization procedure provided by the second SVD is substituted by a lattice-reduction whose complexity is mainly contributed by a QR decomposition. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can achieve almost the same sum-rate as RBD, substantial bit error rate (BER) performance gains and a simplified receiver structure, while requiring a lower complexity.
Mass Inflation in Dynamical Gravitational Collapse of a Charged Scalar Field

We study the inner-structure of a charged black-hole which is formed from the gravitational collapse of a self-gravitating charged scalar-field. Starting with a regular spacetime, we follow the evolution through the formation of an apparent horizon, a Cauchy horizon and a final central singularity. We find a null, weak, mass-inflation singularity along the Cauchy horizon, which is a precursor of a strong, spacelike singularity along the $r=0$ hypersurface.
Intravenous levosimendan vs. dobutamine in acute decompensated heart failure patients on beta-blockers

The aim of this study is to compare the effects of a 24 h intravenous infusion of levosimendan and a 48 h infusion of dobutamine on invasive haemodynamics in patients with acutely decompensated chronic NYHA class III–IV heart failure. All patients were receiving optimal oral therapy including a β‐blocker.
Levels of Integration between Low-Level Reasoning and Task Planning

We provide a systematic analysis of levels of integration between discrete high-level reasoning and continuous low-level reasoning to address hybrid planning problems in robotics. We identify four distinct strategies for such an integration: (i) low-level checks are done for all possible cases in advance and then this information is used during plan generation, (ii) low-level checks are done exactly when they are needed during the search for a plan, (iii) first all plans are computed and then infeasible ones are filtered, and (iv) by means of replanning, after finding a plan, low-level checks identify whether it is infeasible or not; if it is infeasible, a new plan is computed considering the results of previous low- level checks. We perform experiments on hybrid planning problems in robotic manipulation and legged locomotion domains considering these four methods of integration, as well as some of their combinations. We analyze the usefulness of levels of integration in these domains, both from the point of view of computational efficiency (in time and space) and from the point of view of plan quality relative to its feasibility. We discuss advantages and disadvantages of each strategy in the light of experimental results and provide some guidelines on choosing proper strategies for a given domain.
Single Shot Epidural Injection for Cervical and Lumbosaccral Radiculopathies: A Preliminary Study

Background Epidural steroid injection is an established treatment modality for intervertebral disc prolapse leading to radiculopathy. In cases where two levels of radiculopathy are present, two separate injections are warranted. Herein, we present our experience of management of such cases with a single epidural injection of local anaesthetic, tramadol and methylprednisolone, and table tilt for management of both radiculopathies. Methods 50 patients of either sex aged between 35-65 years presenting with features of cervical and lumbar radiculopathic pain were included and were subjected to single lumbar epidural injection of local anaesthetic, tramadol and methylprednisolone, in the lateral position. The table was then tilted in the trendelberg position with a tilt of 25 degrees, and patients were maintained for 10 minutes before being turned supine. All patients were administered 3 such injections with an interval of 2 weeks between subsequent injections, and pain relief was assessed with a visual analogue scale. Immediate complications after the block were assessed. Results Immediate and post procedural complications observed were nausea and vomiting (20%), painful injection site (4%), hypotension (10%) and high block (4%). Pain relief was assessed after the three injections by three grades: 37 (74%) had complete resolution of symptoms; 18% had partial relief and 8% did not benefit from the procedure. Conclusions This technique may be used as an alternative technique for pain relief in patients with unilateral cervical and lumbar radiculopathies.
The Importance of Being Flexible

Researchers have documented the consequences of both expressing and suppressing emotion using between-subjects designs. It may be argued, however, that successful adaptation depends not so much on any one regulatory process, but on the ability to flexibly enhance or suppress emotional expression in accord with situational demands. We tested this hypothesis among New York City college students in the aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attacks. Subjects' performance in a laboratory task in which they enhanced emotional expression, suppressed emotional expression, and behaved normally on different trials was examined as a prospective predictor of their adjustment across the first two years of college. Results supported the flexibility hypothesis. A regression analysis controlling for initial distress and motivation and cognitive resources found that subjects who were better able to enhance and suppress the expression of emotion evidenced less distress by the end of the second year. Memory deficits were also observed for both the enhancement and the suppression tasks, suggesting that both processes require cognitive resources.