Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Enhanced Microgrid Load Demand Sharing Strategy

For the operation of autonomous microgrids, an important task is to share the load demand using multiple distributed generation (DG) units. In order to realize satisfied power sharing without the communication between DG units, the voltage droop control and its different variations have been reported in the literature. However, in a low-voltage microgrid, due to the effects of nontrivial feeder impedance, the conventional droop control is subject to the real and reactive power coupling and steady-state reactive power sharing errors. Furthermore, complex microgrid configurations (looped or mesh networks) often make the reactive power sharing more challenging. To improve the reactive power sharing accuracy, this paper proposes an enhanced control strategy that estimates the reactive power control error through injecting small real power disturbances, which is activated by the low-bandwidth synchronization signals from the central controller. At the same time, a slow integration term for reactive power sharing error elimination is added to the conventional reactive power droop control. The proposed compensation method achieves accurate reactive power sharing at the steady state, just like the performance of real power sharing through frequency droop control. Simulation and experimental results validate the feasibility of the proposed method.
Requirements for Open-Ended Evolution in Natural and Artificial Systems

Open-ended evolutionary dynamics remains an elusive goal for artificial evolutionary systems. Many ideas exist in the biological literature beyond the basic Darwinian requirements of variation, differential reproduction and inheritance. I argue that these ideas can be seen as aspects of five fundamental requirements for open-ended evolution: (1) robustly reproductive individuals, (2) a medium allowing the possible existence of a practically unlimited diversity of individuals and interactions, (3) individuals capable of producing more complex offspring, (4) mutational pathways to other viable individuals, and (5) drive for continued evolution. I briefly discuss implications of this view for the design of artificial systems with greater evolutionary potential.
Super-Resolution Reconstruction in Frequency-Domain Optical-Coherence Tomography Using the Finite-Rate-of-Innovation Principle

The standard approach to signal reconstruction in frequency-domain optical-coherence tomography (FDOCT) is to apply the inverse Fourier transform to the measurements. This technique offers limited resolution (due to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle). We propose a new super-resolution reconstruction method based on a parametric representation. We consider multilayer specimens, wherein each layer has a constant refractive index and show that the backscattered signal from such a specimen fits accurately in to the framework of finite-rate-of-innovation (FRI) signal model and is represented by a finite number of free parameters. We deploy the high-resolution Prony method and show that high-quality, super-resolved reconstruction is possible with fewer measurements (about one-fourth of the number required for the standard Fourier technique). To further improve robustness to noise in practical scenarios, we take advantage of an iterated singular-value decomposition algorithm (Cadzow denoiser). We present results of Monte Carlo analyses, and assess statistical efficiency of the reconstruction techniques by comparing their performance against the Cramér-Rao bound. Reconstruction results on experimental data obtained from technical as well as biological specimens show a distinct improvement in resolution and signal-to-reconstruction noise offered by the proposed method in comparison with the standard approach.
Statistical-Computational Tradeoffs in Planted Problems and Submatrix Localization with a Growing Number of Clusters and Submatrices

We consider two closely related problems: planted clustering and submatrix localization. In the planted clustering problem, a random graph is generated based on an underlying cluster structure of the nodes; the task is to recover these clusters given the graph. The submatrix localization problem concerns locating hidden submatrices with elevated means inside a large real-valued random matrix. Of particular interest is the setting where the number of clusters/submatrices is allowed to grow unbounded with the problem size. These formulations cover several classical models such as planted clique, planted densest subgraph, planted partition, planted coloring, and the stochastic block model, which are widely used for studying community detection, graph clustering and bi-clustering. For both problems, we show that the space of the model parameters (cluster/submatrix size, edge probabilities and the mean of the submatrices) can be partitioned into four disjoint regions corresponding to decreasing statistical and computational complexities: (1) the impossible regime, where all algorithms fail; (2) the hard regime, where the computationally expensive Maximum Likelihood Estimator (MLE) succeeds; (3) the easy regime, where the polynomial-time convexified MLE succeeds; (4) the simple regime, where a local counting/thresholding procedure succeeds. Moreover, we show that each of these algorithms provably fails in the harder regimes. Our results establish the minimax recovery limits, which are tight up to universal constants and hold even with a growing number of clusters/submatrices, and provide order-wise stronger performance guarantees for polynomial-time algorithms than previously known. Our study demonstrates the tradeoffs between statistical and computational considerations, and suggests that the minimax limits may not be achievable by polynomial-time algorithms.
Serotonin Modulates Striatal Responses to Fairness and Retaliation in Humans

Humans are willing to incur personal costs to punish others who violate social norms. Such “costly punishment” is an important force for sustaining human cooperation, but the causal neurobiological determinants of punishment decisions remain unclear. Using a combination of behavioral, pharmacological, and neuroimaging techniques, we show that manipulating the serotonin system in humans alters costly punishment decisions by modulating responses to fairness and retaliation in the striatum. Following dietary depletion of the serotonin precursor tryptophan, participants were more likely to punish those who treated them unfairly, and were slower to accept fair exchanges. Neuroimaging data revealed activations in the ventral and dorsal striatum that were associated with fairness and punishment, respectively. Depletion simultaneously reduced ventral striatal responses to fairness and increased dorsal striatal responses during punishment, an effect that predicted its influence on punishment behavior. Finally, we provide behavioral evidence that serotonin modulates specific retaliation, rather than general norm enforcement: depleted participants were more likely to punish unfair behavior directed toward themselves, but not unfair behavior directed toward others. Our findings demonstrate that serotonin modulates social value processing in the striatum, producing context-dependent effects on social behavior.
Oxytocin Modulates Neural Circuitry for Social Cognition and Fear in Humans

In non-human mammals, the neuropeptide oxytocin is a key mediator of complex emotional and social behaviors, including attachment, social recognition, and aggression. Oxytocin reduces anxiety and impacts on fear conditioning and extinction. Recently, oxytocin administration in humans was shown to increase trust, suggesting involvement of the amygdala, a central component of the neurocircuitry of fear and social cognition that has been linked to trust and highly expresses oxytocin receptors in many mammals. However, no human data on the effects of this peptide on brain function were available. Here, we show that human amygdala function is strongly modulated by oxytocin. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to image amygdala activation by fear-inducing visual stimuli in 15 healthy males after double-blind crossover intranasal application of placebo or oxytocin. Compared with placebo, oxytocin potently reduced activation of the amygdala and reduced coupling of the amygdala to brainstem regions implicated in autonomic and behavioral manifestations of fear. Our results indicate a neural mechanism for the effects of oxytocin in social cognition in the human brain and provide a methodology and rationale for exploring therapeutic strategies in disorders in which abnormal amygdala function has been implicated, such as social phobia or autism.
Calcium digestibility in cows as influenced by the excess of alkaline ions over stable acid ions in their diets

1. Statistical analyses were carried out on results obtained under strictly-controlled conditions in metabolism stalls with forty-one different rations fed to 127 adult non-pregnant dry cows, and with fourteen other different rations fed to thirty-five adult non-pregnant lactating cows that had calved 2–6 months earlier and whose daily milk production ranged from 11 to 20 kg. 2. Correlations between calcium digestibility and values for the sum of the alkaline ions sodium and potassium minus the sum of the stable acid ions chloride, sulphate and phosphate were calculated for all fifty-five experimental diets. 3. The results showed that the excess of the anions over the cations, in rations maintaining a positive Ca balance but not in rations allowing a negative Ca balance, increases the absorption of Ca from the intestine. Phosphorus, not alone but with chloride and sulphate, is the most important component of this effect.
Inadequate nutrient intake among the Brazilian elderly: National Dietary Survey 2008-2009.

OBJECTIVE To estimate the prevalence of inadequate nutrient intake in the Brazilian elderly. METHODS This study was based on data from the National Dietary Survey, part of the Household Budget Survey 2008-2009. All individuals aged 60 and over, totaling 4,322 individuals, were included. Individual food intake was obtained from food records from two non-consecutive days. The habitual intake for each nutrient was estimated by the National Cancer Institute method, in which sex and region were included as covariates. The prevalence of inadequate nutrient intake was estimated stratified by sex and region using the EAR method to define cut-off points. RESULTS A high prevalence of inadequate intake (> 50%) of vitamins E, D and A, calcium, magnesium and pyridoxine was observed for both sexes. In all regions, 100% inadequate vitamin E intake was observed. Vitamin D showed almost 100% inadequate intake except in the North region. The prevalence of inadequate vitamin A intake was higher than 70% in the North, Northeast, and Midwest regions. Among the minerals evaluated, calcium and magnesium showed the highest prevalence of inadequate intake (> 80%) in all regions. CONCLUSIONS The present study found a high prevalence of inadequate intake of nutrients recognized as being protective against chronic diseases among the Brazilian elderly.
Promotion , Brand Awareness , and Price Competition in Large Online Markets

We study a model where retailers endogenously engage in both promotional advertising to attract loyal customers as well as informational advertising, which consists of deciding whether and what price to list on a price comparison site. We derive a symmetric subgame perfect equilibrium of the model and study the limiting properties of equilibrium prices, promotion, and listing decisions as the number of competitors grow large. In equilibrium, firms choose positive promotion levels, thereby creating loyal customers, but competition in this dimension ultimately reduces firm and industry profits. We show that prices do not converge, regardless of the number of competing e-retailers. As a consequence, the model predicts persistent price dispersion online regardless of the number of competing firms. Finally, we show that this price dispersion persists even when it is prohibitively costly for firms to create loyal customers. A key testable prediction of our analysis is that the observed levels of price dispersion (measured by the range) will differ systematically across markets with different costs of creating loyal customers.
Novel Therapeutic Paradigms to Treat Hemodialysis Access Dysfunction

Vascular access dysfunction continues to be a major factor contributor to the morbidity and mortality of hemodialysis patient. Percutaneous intervention has been the central therapeutic modality used to treat dialysis vascular access dysfunction with limited success. Vascular biology research has shed considerable light on the pathophysiologic processes that lead to the development of neointimal hyperplasia, the culprit lesion for vascular access dysfunction, suggesting possible newer novel therapeutic interventions. In this review we discuss; (1) recent advances in the utilization of image based predictive medicine in improving access type selection prior to access creation; (2) current and promising treatment modalities including brachytherapy, gene therapy and pharmacotherapy for prevention of neointimal hyperplasia; (3) alternate imaging modalities during percutaneous endovascular interventions. Though novel therapeutic interventions are evolving, robust clinical studies to identify optimal therapeutic method are needed. A combination of evidenced based interventions from pre access creation up until final abandonment of vascular access is worthy of exploration.
The Radio Afterglow and Host Galaxy of the Dark GRB 020819

Of the 14 gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) localized to better than 2' radius with the SXC on HETE-2, only two lack optical afterglow detections, and the high recovery rate among this sample has been used to argue that the fraction of truly dark bursts is ~10%. While a large fraction of earlier dark bursts can be explained by the failure of ground-based searches to reach appropriate limiting magnitudes, suppression of the optical light of these SXC dark bursts seems likely. Here we report the discovery and observation of the radio afterglow of GRB 020819, an SXC dark burst, which enables us to identify the likely host galaxy (probability of 99.2%) and hence the redshift (z = 0.41) of the GRB. The radio light curve is qualitatively similar to that of several other radio afterglows and may include an early-time contribution from the emission of the reverse shock. The proposed host is a bright, R = 19.5 mag barred spiral galaxy, with a faint R ≈ 24.0 mag "blob" of emission, 3'' from the galaxy core (16 kpc in projection), that is coincident with the radio afterglow. Optical photometry of the galaxy and blob, beginning 3 hr after the burst and extending over more than 100 days, establishes strong upper limits to the optical brightness of any afterglow or associated supernova. Combining the afterglow radio fluxes and our earliest R-band limit, we find that the most likely afterglow model invokes a spherical expansion into a constant-density (rather than stellar wind-like) external environment. Within the context of this model, a modest local extinction of AV ≈ 1 mag is sufficient to suppress the optical flux below our limits.
Extinction, Extirpation, and Exotics: Effects on the Correlation between Traits and Environment at the Continental Level

Ecometrics is the study of the relationship between organismal traits and environments. This study used Monte Carlo methods to assess the effects of extinction, extirpation, and exotic species on ecometric correlations at the continental scale. These potentially confounding processes arise from anthropogenic activities, taphonomic biases in fossil assemblages, and selective mass extinctions. Random, independent local extinctions introduced a predictable downward bias in ecometric correlations, which can be corrected by rarefaction if correlations are being estimated from fossil assemblages. Random global extinctions on species have a less predictable effect on ecometric correlations and introduce pronounced effects if more than 25% of the continental fauna is affected; however, global extinctions do not bias the estimation of R2 even though they increase its uncertainty. Selective extinction and introduction of exotic species had little impact on ecometric correlations, though caution is urged in generalizing this result.
Web engineering: managing the complexity of web systems development

In the last few years our knowledge about how to develop large complex web systems have grown rapidly. In this paper we attempt to arrange this knowledge into a schema based on how our knowledge gets matured as we get more experience in developing large complex web systems. Based on this we propose a systematic approach to developing large complex web systems. We call this body of knowledge consisting of technologies, methodologies and standards that enable us to successfully develop large complex web systems Web Engineering.
Effectiveness of health tourism application as the basis of health related recreational technology in primary school pupils’ physical education

Цель: поиск эффективных направлений применения средств оздоровительного туризма в процессе физического воспитания детей младшего школьного возраста. Материал: в исследовании принимали участие 40 детей, которые были разделены на контрольную (9 мальчиков и 11 девочек) и экспериментальную (10 мальчиков и 10 девочек) группы. Использовалась оценка физической подготовленности, физического здоровья, адаптационно-резервных возможностей и психологического состояния младших школьников. Результаты: определены особенности использования средств оздоровительного туризма в качестве основы рекреационно-оздоровительной технологии. Раскрыта структура и программное содержание такой технологии. Установлено повышение уровня физического здоровья у детей на 10%. Также наблюдается преимущественное повышение степени сопротивляемости организма к неблагоприятным факторам внешней среды и показателей психоэмоционального состояния. Выводы: использование средств оздоровительного туризма повышает функциональные возможности организма, уровень физического здоровья и улучшает показатели психоэмоционального состояния школьников.
Identifying the Extent of Completeness of Query Answers over Partially Complete Databases

In many applications including loosely coupled cloud databases, collaborative editing and network monitoring, data from multiple sources is regularly used for query answering. For reasons such as system failures, insufficient author knowledge or network issues, data may be temporarily unavailable or generally nonexistent. Hence, not all data needed for query answering may be available. In this paper, we propose a natural class of completeness patterns, expressed by selections on database tables, to specify complete parts of database tables. We then show how to adapt the operators of relational algebra so that they manipulate these completeness patterns to compute completeness patterns pertaining to query answers. Our proposed algebra is computationally sound and complete with respect to the information that the patterns provide. We show that stronger completeness patterns can be obtained by considering not only the schema but also the database instance and we extend the algebra to take into account this additional information. We develop novel techniques to efficiently implement the computation of completeness patterns on query answers and demonstrate their scalability on real data.
Trade Liberalization and Firm Dynamics ∗

In this paper, we analyze the transition dynamics associated with an economy’s response to trade liberalization. We start by reviewing the recent literature that incorporates firm dynamics into models of international trade. We then build upon that literature to characterize the role of firm dynamics, export-market selection, firm-level innovation, sunk export costs, and firms’ expectations regarding the time path of liberalization in generating those transition dynamics following trade liberalization. These modeling ingredients generate substantial aggregate transition dynamics as they shift and shape the endogenous distribution of firms over time. Our results show how the responses of trade volumes, innovation, and aggregate output can vary greatly over time depending on those modeling ingredients. This has important consequences for many issues in international economics that rely on predictions for the effects of globalization over time on those key aggregate outcomes. ∗We thank Javier Cravino for superb research assistance, and Daron Acemoglu and Steve Redding for many helpful comments and suggestions.
Authenticity, language and interaction in second language contexts

* Remi A. van Compernolle and Janice McGregor: Introducing Authenticity, Language and Interaction in Second Language Contexts * Remi A. van Compernolle and Ashlie Henery: Evaluating L2 Pragmatic Appropriateness and Authenticity in Synchronous Computer-Mediated Strategic Interaction Scenarios * Lawrence Williams: Authenticity and Pedagogical Grammar: A Concept-Based Approach to Teaching French Auxiliary Verbs * Remi A. van Compernolle: Sociolinguistic Authenticity and Classroom L2 Learners: Production, Perception, and Metapragmatics * Naoko Taguchi: Learning Speech Style in Japanese Study Abroad: Learners' Knowledge of Normative Use and Actual Use * Wenhao Diao: Gender, Youth and Authenticity: Peer Mandarin Socialization among American Students in a Chinese College Dorm * Julieta Fernandez: Authenticating Language Choices: Out-Of-Class Interactions in Study Abroad * Sheng-Hsun Lee and Celeste Kinginger: Authenticating Practices in Chinese Home Stay Interactions * Janice McGregor: Metapragmatic Talk and the Interactional Accomplishment of Authenticity in Study Abroad * Gabriele Kasper and Alfred Rue Burch: Focus on Form in the Wild * Remi A. van Compernolle and Janice McGregor: Conclusions and Future Directions
Acute Effects of Carbohydrate Supplementation on Intermittent Sports Performance

Intermittent sports (e.g., team sports) are diverse in their rules and regulations but similar in the pattern of play; that is, intermittent high-intensity movements and the execution of sport-specific skills over a prolonged period of time (~1–2 h). Performance during intermittent sports is dependent upon a combination of anaerobic and aerobic energy systems, both of which rely on muscle glycogen and/or blood glucose as an important substrate for energy production. The aims of this paper are to review: (1) potential biological mechanisms by which carbohydrate may impact intermittent sport performance; (2) the acute effects of carbohydrate ingestion on intermittent sport performance, including intermittent high-intensity exercise capacity, sprinting, jumping, skill, change of direction speed, and cognition; and (3) what recommendations can be derived for carbohydrate intake before/during exercise in intermittent sports based on the available evidence. The most researched intermittent sport is soccer but some sport-specific studies have also been conducted in other sports (e.g., rugby, field hockey, basketball, American football, and racquet sports). Carbohydrate ingestion before/during exercise has been shown in most studies to enhance intermittent high-intensity exercise capacity. However, studies have shown mixed results with regards to the acute effects of carbohydrate intake on sprinting, jumping, skill, change of direction speed, and cognition. In most of these studies the amount of carbohydrate consumed was ~30–60 g/h in the form of a 6%–7% carbohydrate solution comprised of sucrose, glucose, and/or maltodextrin. The magnitude of the impact that carbohydrate ingestion has on intermittent sport performance is likely dependent on the carbohydrate status of the individual; that is, carbohydrate ingestion has the greatest impact on performance under circumstances eliciting fatigue and/or hypoglycemia. Accordingly, carbohydrate ingestion before and during a game seems to have the greatest impact on intermittent sports performance towards the end of the game.