Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Parallel combinatory OFDM signaling

A parallel combinatory-orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (PC-OFDM) system is proposed and analyzed. The proposed system selects at each symbol interval a subset of the available subcarriers, and the selected subcarriers are modulated by points from an M-PSK signal constellation, PC-OFDM systems can be designed to have lower peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR), higher bandwidth efficiency, and lower bit error probability on Gaussian channels compared to ordinary OFDM systems. A bit mapping procedure using the Johnson (1993) association, together with a position algorithm for the PSK symbols, is proposed. Good analytical approximations of the BER for PC-OFDM systems are derived for AWGN and Ricean fading channels, and extensive simulation results are presented.
Walking in the uncanny valley: importance of the attractiveness on the acceptance of a robot as a working partner

The Uncanny valley hypothesis, which tells us that almost-human characteristics in a robot or a device could cause uneasiness in human observers, is an important research theme in the Human Robot Interaction (HRI) field. Yet, that phenomenon is still not well-understood. Many have investigated the external design of humanoid robot faces and bodies but only a few studies have focused on the influence of robot movements on our perception and feelings of the Uncanny valley. Moreover, no research has investigated the possible relation between our uneasiness feeling and whether or not we would accept robots having a job in an office, a hospital or elsewhere. To better understand the Uncanny valley, we explore several factors which might have an influence on our perception of robots, be it related to the subjects, such as culture or attitude toward robots, or related to the robot such as emotions and emotional intensity displayed in its motion. We asked 69 subjects (N = 69) to rate the motions of a humanoid robot (Perceived Humanity, Eeriness, and Attractiveness) and state where they would rather see the robot performing a task. Our results suggest that, among the factors we chose to test, the attitude toward robots is the main influence on the perception of the robot related to the Uncanny valley. Robot occupation acceptability was affected only by Attractiveness, mitigating any Uncanny valley effect. We discuss the implications of these findings for the Uncanny valley and the acceptability of a robotic worker in our society.
A niche analysis of three interpersonal media: examining the competition among Facebook, Line, and e-mail

Dimmick’s niche theory was applied to examine the gratifications obtained from the use of Facebook, Line, and e-mail to understand the competitive relationships among them in Taiwan. Two methods were adopted, the first of which was to conduct 20 intensive interviews. The second method was a telephone survey that consisted of 1,042 valid calls. The results of the data analysis showed that among the three media, Line had the widest niche breadth and the highest scores for competitive superiority, and it competed strongly with Facebook. However, the overall findings actually indicate that the strengths of Facebook and Line were more complementary than competitive. Therefore, based on these results, it is predicted that Facebook and Line are able to coexist. Furthermore, based on the results, it is predicted that Line is unable to replace e-mail in safe and formal communication because it is effective in task coordination whereas the strength of e-mail is in documentation. The results also showed that Facebook and Line had wide niche breadths, indicating that they are “generalists” in terms of communication. In contrast, e-mail had a narrow niche breadth, indicating that it is a “specialist” focusing on safe and formal communication. The results also showed that the competitive superiority scores of a medium were a powerful predictor of the use history of that medium only when individuals perceived that two media were similar.
Free viewpoint action recognition based on self-similarities

Action recognition is an important topic in computer vision and most current work focuses on view-dependent representations. In this paper, we develop a novel free viewpoint action recognition based on Self-similarity matrix (SSM), which tends to be stable across views. We choose Local Self-similarity (LSS) descriptor as our low-level feature, then SSM is calculated by computing the similarity between any pair of frame features. Each video sequence is represented using a diagonal descriptor vector extracted from the SSM. Support Vector Machines (SVM) is employed for classification. The encouraging experimental results on the public IXMAS multi-view data set demonstrate effectiveness of the proposed method.
Perils of speed dating: an Australian success story in Chinese outbound tourism

ABSTRACT This paper provides insights and lessons about how Western tourism operators can build and maintain business-to-business relationships with Chinese tourism providers. The case analyses how Tangalooma Island Resort Pty Ltd approached the challenge of developing business networks and how they have sustained this activity for over a decade to become a major destination for Chinese visitors to Australia. While there is no shortage of research on the Chinese notion of guanxi, this study uses a novel multi-dimensional cultural intelligence perspective to synthesise Chinese and Australian views on the drivers of long-term commercial success. The frameworks and insights provided make a valuable and timely contribution to our understanding of how Western firms can approach China tourism opportunities, and importantly, provide lessons on the nuances of effective relationship development between Western and Chinese individuals and firms. This critical single case study highlights the importance of business negotiation and need for deepening cultural logic with appropriate pacing by key protagonists in the Western firm. Nurturing and growing interpersonal cultural skills is fundamental and helps build inter-firm bonds, resource ties and activity links. This is discussed using the actors–activities–resources model promoted within the context of industrial marketing and purchasing. Future research could extend the findings through additional case studies, or further empirical validation.
The effect of metal EOS 316L stainless steel additive manufacturing powder recycling on part characteristics and powder reusability

ABSTRACT Direct metal laser sintering (DMLS) is a powder bed fusion (PBF) process commonly used within the medical device and aerospace industries to fabricate high value, complex components. Powder material used in the DMLS process can be costly and it is rare for a single build to require a full batch of powder. The un-melted powder, which differs in particle size and morphology from virgin powder, is often recycled for further builds. This work presents a study of the effects that recycling a stainless steel metal powder used in the DMLS process has on finished parts. Hence, in this paper, powder material characteristics, such as particle size, particle morphology and bulk chemical composition have been monitored throughout the recycling process. An analysis of parts manufactured via DMLS on an EOS M280 demonstrate the negative effect of powder recycling on part quality in terms of surface roughness, part density, hardness and dimensional accuracy. Results from this research provide an insight to the effect that recycling AM powders has on the powder characteristics and on the quality of the parts produced.
A Study of Correlations between Perceived Supervisor Support, Organizational Identification, Organizational Citizenship Behavior, and Burnout at Schools

In this research, it is aimed to study the correlations between perceived supervisor supports (PSS), organizational identification (OI), organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), and burnout of teachers. The research was conducted from the perspective of social change and identity theories. The study group of the research consists of 234 teachers working in the public high schools in Giresun city center during the 2016. In order to collect data in the research, Perceived Supervisor Support Scale developed by Kottke & Sharafinski, Organizational Identification Scale developed by Mael & Ashforth, Organizational Citizenship Behaviors Scale developed by DiPaola, Tarter & Hoy, and "Burnout Scale" developed by Pines were used. The correlations between variables are tested with the structural equation model. According to the results, PSS positively affects the OI and OCB and negatively affects the burnout. OI positively affects the organizational citizenship behavior and negatively affects the burnout. OI plays a partial mediation role in the correlation between PSS of teachers and their OCB and burnout level. The results contribute to the integration of social change and social identity theories in description of organizational behavior.
ON STATISTICAL LIMIT POINTS

The set of all statistical limit points of a given sequence xn is characterized as an Fσ-set. It is also characterized in terms of discontinuity points of distribution functions of xn. Introduction Following the concept of a statistically convergent sequence, J. A. Fridy [Fr93] introduced the notion of a statistical limit point of a given sequence xn, n = 1, 2, . , of real numbers: A real number x is said to be a statistical limit point of the sequence xn if there exists a subsequence xkn , n = 1, 2, . , such that limn→∞ xkn = x and the set of indices kn has a positive upper asymptotic density (see Definitions and Notations). Fridy studied the set Λ(xn) of all such points. He has shown that this set need not be closed or open in R. In section 1 of the paper we prove that the set Λ(xn) is an Fσ-set in R for an arbitrary sequence xn and vice-versa for any given Fσ-set X there exists a sequence xn such that X = Λ(xn). In section 2 we prove that the set Λ(xn) coincides with the set of all discontinuity points of distribution functions of xn. This leads to some sufficient conditions for Λ(xn) = ∅. Finally, in section 3 we compute Λ(xn) using an explicit form of the set G(xn) of all distribution functions of xn for some special xn. Definitions and notations IfA ⊂ N, then we denote by |A| the cardinality ofA and A(n) = |{k ≤ n; k ∈ A}|. The numbers d(A) = lim inf n→∞ A(n) n , d(A) = lim sup n→∞ A(n) n are called the lower and upper asymptotic density of A, respectively. If there exists the limit limn→∞A(n)/n, then d(A) = d(A) = d(A) is said to be the asymptotic density of A (cf. [HR66, xix]). Received by the editors December 12, 1998 and, in revised form, January 10, 2000. 2000 Mathematics Subject Classification. Primary 40A05, 11K31, 11B05.
E-S-QUAL A Multiple-Item Scale for Assessing Electronic Service Quality

Using the means-end framework as a theoretical founda-tion, this article conceptualizes, constructs, refines, and tests a multiple-item scale (E-S-QUAL) for measuring the service quality delivered by Web sites on which customers shop online. Two stages of empirical data collection revealed that two different scales were necessary for captur-ing electronic service quality. The basic E-S-QUAL scale developed in the research is a 22-item scale of four dimensions: efficiency, fulfillment, system availability, and privacy. The second scale, E-RecS-QUAL, is salient only to customers who had nonroutine encounters with the sites and contains 11 items in three dimensions: responsiveness, compensation, and contact. Both scales demonstrate good psychometric properties based on findings from a variety of reliability and validity tests and build on the research already conducted on the topic. Directions for further research on electronic service quality are offered. Managerial implications stemming from the empirical findings about E-S-QUAL are also discussed.
Using Dependency Parses to Augment Feature Construction for Text Mining

(ABSTRACT) With the prevalence of large data stored in the cloud, including unstructured information in the form of text, there is now an increased emphasis on text mining. A broad range of techniques are now used for text mining, including algorithms adapted from machine learning, NLP, computational linguistics, and data mining. Applications are also multi-fold, including classification, clustering, segmentation, relationship discovery, and practically any task that discovers latent information from written natural language. Classical mining algorithms have traditionally focused on shallow representations such as bag-of-words and similar feature-based models. With the advent of modern high performance computing, deep sentence level linguistic analysis of large scale text corpora has become practical. In this dissertation, we evaluate the utility of dependency parses as textual features for different text mining applications. Dependency parsing is one form of syntactic parsing, based on the dependency grammar implicit in sentences. While dependency parsing has traditionally been used for text understanding, we investigate here its application to supply features for text mining applications. We specifically focus on three methods to construct textual features from dependency parses. First, we consider a dependency parse as a general feature akin to a traditional bag-of-words model. Second, we consider the dependency parse as the basis to build a feature graph representation. Finally, we use dependency parses in a supervised collocation mining method for feature selection. To investigate these three methods, several applications are studied, including: (i) movie spoiler detection, (ii) text segmentation, (iii) query expansion, and (iv) recommender systems.
Dietary fat intake and endometrial cancer risk

AbstractSince body fatness is a convincing risk factor for endometrial cancer, dietary fat intake was speculated to be associated with endometrial cancer risk. However, epidemiological studies are inconclusive. We aimed to conduct a meta-analysis to assess the associations between dietary fat intake and endometrial cancer risk. We searched the PubMed, Embase, and Web of science databases updated to September 2015. In total, 7 cohort and 14 case–control studies were included. Pooled analysis of case–control studies suggested that endometrial cancer risk was significantly increased by 5% per 10% kilocalories from total fat intake (P=0.02) and by 17% per 10 g/1000 kcal of saturated fat intake (P < 0.001). Summary of 3 cohort studies showed significant inverse association between monounsaturated fatty acids and endometrial cancer risk (odds ratio = 0.84, 95% confidence interval = 0.73–0.98) with a total of 524583 participants and 3503 incident cases. No significant associations were found for polyunsaturated fatty acids and linoleic acid. In conclusion, positive associations with endometrial cancer risk were observed for total fat and saturated fat intake in the case–control studies. Results from the cohort studies suggested higher monounsaturated fatty acids intake was significantly associated with lower endometrial cancer risk.
SRB measures for almost Axiom A diffeomorphisms

We consider a diffeomorphism $f$ of a compact manifold $M$ which is almost Axiom A, i.e. $f$ is hyperbolic in a neighborhood of some compact $f$ -invariant set, except in some singular set of neutral points. We prove that if there exists some $f$ -invariant set of hyperbolic points with positive unstable Lebesgue measure such that for every point in this set the stable and unstable leaves are ‘long enough’, then $f$ admits an SRB (probability) measure.
A survey of experimental evidence for diachronic change

Abstract There are synchronic sources of data that can provide an additional line of evidence which may be useful in reconstructing sound changes: patterns of sound change in progress and experimentally induced changes, variation in production, natural errors in production and perception, experimentally elicited errors in perception and production, and experiments and simulations of iterated learning. This article surveys existing studies that have made use of such evidence in support of sound changes and reviews limitations of experimental methods and factors to consider when designing experiments to use these parallels to inform sound change. To demonstrate the parallels between patterns in synchronic data and sound changes, a sample typology of diachronic developments was compared with patterns of categorical errors from experimentally elicited misperception in adverse listening conditions and errors of perception and production in natural speech. All of these correlations are highly significant, demonstrating the potential of such synchronic data as a source of parallels to provide evidence for reconstructed sound changes.
Non‐parametric inference for density modes

We derive non‐parametric confidence intervals for the eigenvalues of the Hessian at modes of a density estimate. This provides information about the strength and shape of modes and can also be used as a significance test. We use a data‐splitting approach in which potential modes are identified by using the first half of the data and inference is done with the second half of the data. To obtain valid confidence sets for the eigenvalues, we use a bootstrap based on an elementary symmetric polynomial transformation. This leads to valid bootstrap confidence sets regardless of any multiplicities in the eigenvalues. We also suggest a new method for bandwidth selection, namely choosing the bandwidth to maximize the number of significant modes. We show by example that this method works well. Even when the true distribution is singular, and hence does not have a density (in which case cross‐validation chooses a zero bandwidth), our method chooses a reasonable bandwidth.
High Prevalence and Low Awareness of Hypertension in a Market Population in Enugu, Nigeria

Background. A community-based study put the prevalence of hypertension in Nigeria at 32.8%. Market workers in Nigeria lead sedentary life style and often depend on salt-laden fast food while at work. Method. An unselected population of market workers were screened for hypertension and its risk factors by a pretested, structured questionnaire, clinical examination, and laboratory investigation. Hypertension was defined as BP ≥ 140 and/or ≥ 90 mmHg or being on drug therapy. Results. Forty-two percent of the screened population were hypertensive. Of this number, 70.6% did not know they were hypertensive before the screening. More males than females (P = .022) were hypertensive. Prevalence of hypertension increased with age from 5.4% in the age group <20 years to 80% in the age group ≥70 years. Conclusion. The prevalence of hypertension in market workers in this study was 42%, and the majority of them were unaware of their disease.
Coarsening dynamics of a one-dimensional driven Cahn-Hilliard system.

We study the one-dimensional Cahn-Hilliard equation with an additional driving term representing, say, the effect of gravity. We find that the driving field E has an asymmetric effect on the solution for a single stationary domain wall (or ``kink''), the direction of the field determining whether the analytic solutions found by Leung [J. Stat. Phys. 61, 345 (1990)] are unique. The dynamics of a kink-antikink pair (``bubble'') is then studied. The behavior of a bubble is dependent on the relative sizes of a characteristic length scale ${\mathit{E}}^{\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}1}$, where E is the driving field, and the separation L of the interfaces. For EL\ensuremath{\gg}1 the velocities of the interfaces are negligible, while in the opposite limit a traveling-wave solution is found with a velocity v\ensuremath{\propto}E/L. For this latter case (EL\ensuremath{\ll}1) a set of reduced equations, describing the evolution of the domain lengths, is obtained for a system with a large number of interfaces and implies a characteristic length scale growing as (Et${)}^{1/2}$. Numerical results for the domain-size distribution and structure factor confirm this behavior, and show that the system exhibits dynamical scaling from very early times. \textcopyright{} 1996 The American Physical Society.
Gender and Subject Area Differences in Academic Metacognition and Motivation

4 Introduction Self-Regulated Learning . 5 Cognition . 6 Metacognition . 8 Motivation . 11 Ability Beliefs . 14 Current Study . 17 Method . 19 Results . 23 Discussion . 26 References . 33 Tables . 37 Figures. 44 Appendices Appendix A . 49 Appendix B . 50 Appendix C . 52 Appendix D . 53
Prediction of Concrete Carbonization Depth Based on DE-BP Neural Network

Based on the DE-BP (Back Propagation-Differential Evolution) neural network, the predicting model of concrete carbonization depth is presented. The precision of the model is checked using the monitoring data. The comparisons between the predicted results of the three models (BP model, GA-BP model and DE-BP model) and the monitoring data show that the precision of the present algorithm is higher with the maximum relative error being 2.8%.
Explaining cross-country variation in collective action in the digital era

ABSTRACT The digital era has ushered in a new collective action landscape that scholars are now trying to understand. To date, scholars have assumed homogeneity in the effect of ICT (information and communications technology) on collective action. In this article, I show that the effect of ICT on collective action is heterogeneous, and that it is sensitive to national and cultural context by conducting a cross-case comparison of Japan and South Korea. These two countries present a particularly illuminating pair of cases, with Korea showing consistently high levels of collective action and Japan showing consistently low levels of collective action despite the introduction and diffusion of ICT. I argue that this participation gap is in part due to differences in the way social network dynamics operate in the two countries. I show that social network size is more strongly associated with participation in protests, boycotts, and petitions (PBP) in Korea. Additionally, I find that social network heterogeneity has a positive association with participation in political groups in Korea, whereas the two variables have a negative association in Japan. I conclude by discussing the broader implications for our understanding of the relationship between collective action, social networks, and culture.
The Operational Use of QuikSCAT Ocean Surface Vector Winds at the National Hurricane Center

Abstract The utility and shortcomings of near-real-time ocean surface vector wind retrievals from the NASA Quick Scatterometer (QuikSCAT) in operational forecast and analysis activities at the National Hurricane Center (NHC) are described. The use of QuikSCAT data in tropical cyclone (TC) analysis and forecasting for center location/identification, intensity (maximum sustained wind) estimation, and analysis of outer wind radii is presented, along with shortcomings of the data due to the effects of rain contamination and wind direction uncertainties. Automated QuikSCAT solutions in TCs often fail to show a closed circulation, and those that do are often biased to the southwest of the NHC best-track position. QuikSCAT winds show the greatest skill in TC intensity estimation in moderate to strong tropical storms. In tropical depressions, a positive bias in QuikSCAT winds is seen due to enhanced backscatter by rain, while in major hurricanes rain attenuation, resolution, and signal saturation result in a larg.
Above-CMOS a-Si and CIGS solar cells for powering autonomous microsystems

Two types of solar cells are successfully grown on chips from two CMOS generations. The efficiency of amorphous-silicon (a-Si) solar cells reaches 5.2%, copper-indium-gallium-selenide (CIGS) cells 7.1%. CMOS functionality is unaffected. The main integration issues: adhesion, surface topography, metal ion contamination, process temperature, and mechanical stress can be resolved while maintaining standard photovoltaic processing.