Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Robust precoding with general power constraints considering unbounded channel uncertainty

In this contribution we deal with a cooperative cellular downlink scenario, where collaborating base stations jointly serve multiple users in a multiple-input multiple-output fashion. Linear spatial signal processing filters are applied at transmitter and receiver. The filters are designed in order to optimize four different mean square error related objective functions, considering general power constraints, i.e., transmit power constraints per arbitrary group of antennas. This optimization is based on channel state information, which is only imperfectly known in practical setups. In this contribution, we present a filter design for the stated optimization problems, taking statistical knowledge of unbounded channel uncertainty into account.
Trophic discrimination factor of nitrogen isotopes within amino acids in the dobsonfly Protohermes grandis (Megaloptera: Corydalidae) larvae in a controlled feeding experiment

Abstract The trophic discrimination factor (TDF) of nitrogen isotopes (15N/14N) within amino acids, between a stream‐dwelling dobsonfly larva (Protohermes grandis: Megaloptera; Corydalidae) and its diet (chironomid larvae), was determined in controlled feeding experiments. Last‐instar larvae of P. grandis were collected from the Yozawa‐gawa River, central Japan, and reared in the laboratory. After fed to satiation for 1 month, one group of larvae was each fed one living chironomid larva per day for 4 weeks, while a second group was starved for 8 weeks. The larvae were harvested at intervals and the nitrogen isotopic composition of glutamic acid (δ 15NGlu) and phenylalanine (δ 15NPhe) were determined to calculate TDF. The mean TDF of satiated and starved larvae were 7.1‰ ± 0.5‰ (n = 3) and 7.3‰ ± 0.5‰ (n = 5), respectively. Thus, the TDF for P. grandis larvae in this study was similar to that reported for other arthropods (approximately 7‰) and was independent of satiation or starvation. A previous study of wild P. grandis larvae, based on the δ 15NGlu and δ 15NPhe values, estimated its trophic position (TP) as approximately 2.0 ± 0.1 (n = 5), a low value close to that of algivores, although they are generally characterized as carnivores (usually accepted as TP ≥ 3). The TDF for P. grandis larvae suggests that their low TPs in nature were caused by incorporation of vascular plant‐derived amino acids (with a different δ 15N profile from that of algae) and not by an unusually low TDF or by the effects of the satiation/starvation on amino acid metabolism.
Indian Sign Language Recognition Using Eigen Value Weighted Euclidean Distance Based Classification Technique

Sign Language Recognition is one of the most growing fields of research today. Many new techniques have been developed recently in these fields. Here in this paper, we have proposed a system using Eigen value weighted Euclidean distance as a classification technique for recognition of various Sign Languages of India. The system comprises of four parts: Skin Filtering, Hand Cropping, Feature Extraction and Classification. Twenty four signs were considered in this paper, each having ten samples, thus a total of two hundred forty images was considered for which recognition rate obtained was 97 percent.
Swarm robotics for a dynamic cleaning problem

Several recent works considered multi agents robotics in static environments. In this work we examine ways of operating in dynamic environments, in which changes may take place regardless of the agents' activity. The work focuses on a dynamic variant of the known Cooperative Cleaners problem (described and analyzed in [I.A. Wagner et al., (1997)]). This problem assumes a grid, part of which is "dirty", when the "dirty" part is a connected region of the grid. On this dirty region several agents move, each having the ability to "clean" the place it is located in. The dynamic variant of the problem involves a deterministic evolution of the environment, simulating a spreading contamination, or fire. A cleaning protocol for the problem is presented, as well as several analytic bounds for it. In addition, the work contains simulative results for the proposed protocol.
Parkinson’s Narratives: Onset Experiences and Perceived Benefits of Preferred Physical Activity

Background: Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a relatively common brain-based movement disorder and there are many experimental studies illustrating the wide ranging effects of activity therapy in PD patients. Purpose: This narrative study addresses two key research questions; how do persons with Parkinson’s disease (PD) experience loss of physical activity? And, second, what experiences have persons with PD had with dance and/or movement therapy in managing their symptoms? Method: Four anonymous voluntary participants (two men and two women) ranging in age from 61-90 years old suffering from mild to severe Parkinson’s were recruited. In-depth interviews were used in order to gather each participant’s unique story. At a follow-up meeting, participants had a chance to review, correct or add to their stories and selected an alias to protect their identity. Results: Four sub-questions and eight themes emerged from the participants’ narratives: These were: 1) Symptom discovery during activity and the emotional responses to the discovery. 2) Curtailing their favorite activities and identifying the importance of the activity before PD. 3) Involvement with different movement therapies, and activity therapy was suggested by friends, family or physicians. 4) Exercise helps PD patients experience joy and also helps functional mobility. Discussion: This study provides insights into the direct experiences of PD patients with loss of activity and exercise-based movement therapies. These results add to the prior experimental studies reporting that exercise with movement therapies is effective for helping PD patients with their symptoms, and that is that they are also enjoyable and acceptable to them.
Investment , Cash Flow , and Value : A Neoclassical Benchmark

Hayashis (1982) model implies that the optimal investment-capital ratio depends only on Tobins average Q. Regressions of the investment-capital ratio on average Q and cash ow nd signi cant cash-ow e¤ects. These e¤ects are generally interpreted as reecting the presence of nancial frictions. This interpretation is conditional on Hayashis model being a good benchmark for the behavior of investment in rms una¤ected by nancial frictions. In this paper we argue that Hayashis model is not a good frictionless benchmark. We propose an alternative benchmark that we estimate using Compustat data. We nd that the features that are important to make the model consistent with rm-level data are: decreasing returns to scale, quadratic investment adjustment costs, a xed operating cost, and regime-switching shocks to productivity or demand. We nd that neither asymmetric investment adjustment costs nor irreversibility in investment improve the empirical performance of our model. Our model generates cash-ow e¤ects similar to those found in Compustat data even though it was not designed to so. This result suggest that cash-ow e¤ects occur because the assumptions necessary to make the investment-capital ratio depend only on average Q do not hold in the data. Northwestern University and NBER. yNorthwestern University, NBER and CEPR. zNorthwestern University. USC FBE MACROECONOMICS AND presented by Janice Eberly FRIDAY, December 8, 2006 10:30 am 12:00 pm, Room: JKP-202 INTERNATIONAL FINANCE WORKSHOP JOINT USC FBE FINANCE SEMINAR and
Automatic segmentation of crop leaf spot disease images by integrating local threshold and seeded region growing

At present, the region growing algorithm has been used as a segmentation technique of digital images. Most region growing algorithms are using fixed or determinate criterions to distinguish disease spots from leaf image with gray level differences between leaf and disease spot. But in practice, the objects in the disease leaf image have fuzziness and uncertainty, and edges of the objects are unclear. What's more, the color of leaf and disease spots is uneven, and the gray level is overlapping, so it is difficult to use fixed threshold or determinate criteria to determine the uncertain objects in leaf disease spot images accurately. In order to improve the crop leaf spot disease image segmentation accuracy, an adaptive segmentation algorithm by integrating local threshold and seeded region growing (LTSRG) is proposed. The algorithm was implemented on VC6.0. The segmentation algorithm uses the pixels of which the R-channel gray level is more than the G-channel gray level as initial seed points (pixels), and then local threshold Ci is calculated for each connected seed region by Otsu. New seed pixels are included and the threshold C is re-calculated until no new seed pixel can be included. The results of LTSRG are compared with the results of threshold-based Otsu and clustering -based EM. The experiments show: The adapted segmentation method is satisfactory and highly efficient to separate disease spots from normal part of corn leaves. LTSRG algorithm is easy to realize, and can improve the precision of crop disease spot segmentation. Its image segmentation results have good region consistency and high efficiency. It is an adapting algorithm for image segmentation.
Human giardiasis in Serbia: asymptomatic vs symptomatic infection

Despite the public health importance of giardiasis in all of Europe, reliable data on the incidence and prevalence in Western Balkan Countries (Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro and FYR Macedonia) are scarce, and the relative contribution of waterborne and food-borne, or person-to-person and/or animalto- person, transmission of human giardiasis is not yet clear. To provide baseline data for the estimation of the public health risk caused by Giardia, we here review the information available on the epidemiological characteristics of asymptomatic and symptomatic human infection in Serbia. Although asymptomatic cases of Giardia represent a major proportion of the total cases of infection, high rates of Giardia infection were found in both asymptomatic and symptomatic populations. No waterborne outbreaks of giardiasis have been reported, and it thus seems that giardiasis mostly occurs sporadically in our milieu. Under such circumstances, control measures to reduce the high prevalence of giardiasis in Serbia have focused on person-to-person transmission, encouraging proper hygiene, but for more targeted intervention measures, studies to identify other risk factors for asymptomatic and symptomatic infections are needed.
The Effect of Situational and Individual Factors on Young and Older Adults' Cognitive Fatigue.

SMITH, BRIAN THOMAS. The Effect of Situational and Individual Factors on Young and Older Adults’ Cognitive Fatigue. (Under the direction of Dr. Thomas Hess.) This study examines whether there are age differences in subjective and objective aspects and cognitive fatigue, and whether cognitive control beliefs and situational factors moderate the experience of fatigue. This study included a sample of 130 participants, 50 younger adults (18-20 years) and 80 older adults (64-85 years) equally split across genders. Participants performed the Attention Network Test for Interactions and Vigilance (ANTI-V), a measure that evaluates three separate components of the attention network. I was most interested in performance on the executive network as it was hypothetically most related to cognitive fatigue. In addition, I measured cognitive fatigue using both subjective (Piper Fatigue Scale-12; NASA-TLX) and objective measures (Systolic Blood Pressure Reactivity). Finally, I was interested in whether or not older adults responses to a fatiguing task depended on situational factors such as the time of day at which they were tested or individual difference factors such as their beliefs about their cognitive control. As in previous studies, older adults generally reported greater levels of fatigue and required more effort and workload to successfully complete the task than younger adults. However, there were very few significant fatigue findings in the objective measures. Control beliefs and time of day did have significant effects on individuals’ responses to the task. The results suggest that the ANTI-V may not be a strong indicator of fatigue in high functioning older adults. Implications of the findings for control beliefs and time of day are also discussed. © Copyright 2016 by Brian Thomas Smith All Rights Reserved The Effect of Situational and Individual Factors on Young and Older Adults’ Cognitive Fatigue by Brian Thomas Smith A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty of North Carolina State University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Explaining Purchasing Behavior within World of Warcraft

Virtual worlds, e.g. World of Warcraft (WoW) and RuneScape — have demonstrated huge economic potential. However, little empirical research has been conducted into players' purchase behavior in virtual worlds. This research was designed to help gain a better understanding of factors influencing purchase behavior in virtual worlds by empirically developing and testing a conceptual model of purchase behavior in virtual worlds. An online survey was conducted within WoW (n=253) and structural equation modeling was used to test the research model. Among the statistically significant paths found in the model, effort expectancy, performance expectancy, advancement, perceived value, customization, habit, enjoyment and perceived social status all have strong impact on players' purchase intention and actual purchase behavior. The study rounds off with a discussion and conclusions, highlighting implications for research and practice, research limitations.
Circulating cytokines as mediators of fever.

The febrile response is thought to be mediated by endogenous mediators, generically called "endogenous pyrogens. " In the classical model of pathogenesis, induction of fever is mediated by the release of pyrogenic cytokines such as tumor necrosis factor (TNF), interleukin (IL)-1, IL-6, and interferons into the bloodstream in response to exogenous pyrogens. These mediators act at the level of the organum vasculosum of the lamina terminalis in the central nervous system (CNS), inducing synthesis of prostaglandins, which are the central mediators of the coordinated responses leading to fever. However, analysis of recent data suggests that multiple pathways may be involved in the induction of fever by cytokines, such as local cytokine production leading to signaling through vagal fibers, release of cytokine-induced circulating mediators at the tissue level, the use of membrane-bound cytokines as mediators, or the local release of cytokines in the hypothalamus by circulating activated monocytes. In addition, certain bacterial products can stimulate cytokine production directly at the level of hypothalamus, probably by activation of Toll-like receptors. A multipathway mechanism for the induction of fever is therefore suggested.
Electrophysiologic effects of the IK 1 inhibitor PA‐6 are modulated by extracellular potassium in isolated guinea pig hearts

The pentamidine analog PA‐6 was developed as a specific inward rectifier potassium current (IK1) antagonist, because established inhibitors either lack specificity or have side effects that prohibit their use in vivo. We previously demonstrated that BaCl2, an established IK1 inhibitor, could prolong action potential duration (APD) and increase cardiac conduction velocity (CV). However, few studies have addressed whether targeted IK1 inhibition similarly affects ventricular electrophysiology. The aim of this study was to determine the effects of PA‐6 on cardiac repolarization and conduction in Langendorff‐perfused guinea pig hearts. PA‐6 (200 nm) or vehicle was perfused into ex‐vivo guinea pig hearts for 60 min. Hearts were optically mapped with di‐4‐ANEPPS to quantify CV and APD at 90% repolarization (APD90). Ventricular APD90 was significantly prolonged in hearts treated with PA‐6 (115 ± 2% of baseline; P < 0.05), but not vehicle (105 ± 2% of baseline). PA‐6 slightly, but significantly, increased transverse CV by 7%. PA‐6 significantly prolonged APD90 during hypokalemia (2 mmol/L [K+]o), although to a lesser degree than observed at 4.56 mmol/L [K+]o. In contrast, the effect of PA‐6 on CV was more pronounced during hypokalemia, where transverse CV with PA‐6 (24 ± 2 cm/sec) was significantly faster than with vehicle (13 ± 3 cm/sec, P < 0.05). These results show that under normokalemic conditions, PA‐6 significantly prolonged APD90, whereas its effect on CV was modest. During hypokalemia, PA‐6 prolonged APD90 to a lesser degree, but profoundly increased CV. Thus, in intact guinea pig hearts, the electrophysiologic effects of the IK1 inhibitor, PA‐6, are [K+]o‐dependent.
Electron-spin decoherence in bulk and quantum-well zinc-blende semiconductors

A theory for longitudinal (T1) and transverse (T2) electron spin coherence times in zincblende semiconductor quantum wells is developed based on a non-perturbative nanostructure model solved in a fourteen-band restricted basis set. Distinctly different dependences of coherence times on mobility, quantization energy, and temperature are found from previous calculations. Quantitative agreement between our calculations and measurements is found for GaAs/AlGaAs, InGaAs/InP, and GaSb/AlSb quantum wells.
Institute of Physics Publishing Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering Investigation of the Response of Microstructures under the Combined Effect of Mechanical Shock and Electrostatic Forces

There is strong experimental evidence for the existence of strange modes of failure of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) devices under mechanical shock and impact. Such failures have not been explained with conventional models of MEMS. These failures are characterized by overlaps between moving microstructures and stationary electrodes, which cause electrical shorts. This work presents modeling and simulation of MEMS devices under the combination of shock loads and electrostatic actuation, which sheds light on the influence of these forces on the pull-in instability. Our results indicate that the reported strange failures can be attributed to early dynamic pull-in instability. The results show that the combination of a shock load and an electrostatic actuation makes the instability threshold much lower than the threshold predicted, considering the effect of shock alone or electrostatic actuation alone. In this work, a single-degree-of-freedom model is utilized to investigate the effect of the shock–electrostatic interaction on the response of MEMS devices. Then, a reduced-order model is used to demonstrate the effect of this interaction on MEMS devices employing cantilever and clamped–clamped microbeams. The results of the reduced-order model are verified by comparing with finite-element predictions. It is shown that the shock–electrostatic interaction can be used to design smart MEMS switches triggered at a predetermined level of shock and acceleration.
Experiments on Analysing Voice Production: Excised (Human, Animal) and In Vivo (Animal) Approaches.

Experiments on human and on animal excised specimens as well as in vivo animal preparations are so far the most realistic approaches to simulate the in vivo process of human phonation. These experiments do not have the disadvantage of limited space within the neck and enable studies of the actual organ necessary for phonation, i.e., the larynx. The studies additionally allow the analysis of flow, vocal fold dynamics, and resulting acoustics in relation to well-defined laryngeal alterations. PURPOSE OF REVIEW This paper provides an overview of the applications and usefulness of excised (human/animal) specimen and in vivo animal experiments in voice research. These experiments have enabled visualization and analysis of dehydration effects, vocal fold scarring, bifurcation and chaotic vibrations, three-dimensional vibrations, aerodynamic effects, and mucosal wave propagation along the medial surface. Quantitative data will be shown to give an overview of measured laryngeal parameter values. As yet, a full understanding of all existing interactions in voice production has not been achieved, and thus, where possible, we try to indicate areas needing further study. RECENT FINDINGS A further motivation behind this review is to highlight recent findings and technologies related to the study of vocal fold dynamics and its applications. For example, studies of interactions between vocal tract airflow and generation of acoustics have recently shown that airflow superior to the glottis is governed by not only vocal fold dynamics but also by subglottal and supraglottal structures. In addition, promising new methods to investigate kinematics and dynamics have been reported recently, including dynamic optical coherence tomography, X-ray stroboscopy and three-dimensional reconstruction with laser projection systems. Finally, we touch on the relevance of vocal fold dynamics to clinical laryngology and to clinically-oriented research.
Financial Globalization and Monetary Policy

The process of financial globalization has significantly altered the environment in which national monetary policy authorities operate. What implications does this have for the design of monetary policy? The question can be properly addressed only in the context of a model where monetary policy interacts with financial market efficiency. This paper is concerned with the effects of monetary policy when international portfolio choice is endogenous. We analyze the link between monetary policy and gross national bond and equity portfolios. With endogenous portfolio structure and incomplete markets, monetary policy takes on new importance due to its impact on the distribution of returns on nominal assets. Despite this, we find that the case for price stability as an optimal monetary rule still remains. In fact, it is reinforced. Even without nominal price rigidities, price stability has a welfare benefit through its enhancement of the risk sharing properties of nominal bond returns.