Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Using clustering techniques to detect usage patterns in a Web-based information system

Different users of a Web-based information system will have different goals and different ways of performing their work. This article explores the possibility that we can automatically detect usage patterns without demographic information about the individuals. First, a set of 47 variables was defined that can be used to characterize a user session. The values of these variables were computed for approximately 257,000 sessions. Second, principal component analysis was employed to reduce the dimensions of the original data set. Third, a two-stage, hybrid clustering method was proposed to categorize sessions into groups. Finally, an external criteria-based test of cluster validity was performed to verify the validity of the resulting usage groups (clusters). The proposed methodology was demonstrated and tested for validity using two independent samples of user sessions drawn from the transaction logs of the University of California's MELVYL® on-line library catalog system (www.melvyl.ucop.edu). The results indicate that there were six distinct categories of use in the MELVYL system: knowledgeable and sophisticated use, unsophisticated use, highly interactive use with good search performance, known-item searching, help-intensive searching, and relatively unsuccessful use. Their characteristics were interpreted and compared qualitatively. The analysis shows that each group had distinct patterns of use of the system, which justifies the methodology employed in this study.
Lysogeny and virus‐induced mortality of bacterioplankton in surface, deep, and anoxic marine waters

Lysogeny (bacteria containing inducible prophages) and lytic viral infection (bacteria in a lytic stage of infection) were investigated at the community level in contrasting marine environments such as estuarine versus offshore waters, surface versus deep waters, and oxic versus anoxic waters in the Mediterranean and Baltic Seas. The frequency of lysogenic cells (FLC) in bacterioplankton communities ranged from not detectable to 84% as estimated by prophage induction due to mitomycin C, and highest values were typically found in deep waters (800–2,000 m). Transmission electron microscopy based estimates of virus‐induced mortality of bacterioplankton (VMB) ranged from a few percent to 71%, and highest values were found in anoxic waters of the Baltic Sea. FLC and the frequency of infected cells (FIC) were related in form of a negative power function indicating that environments exist where one of the two viral life strategies prevails. Across all investigated environments, FLC was negatively related to bacterial abundance and production, whereas FIC showed a positive relationship with viral and bacterial parameters. FIC was higher and FLC was lower in moderately productive estuarine and offshore surface waters than in less productive mesopelagic and deep waters. Thus, lysogeny seems to be a survival strategy at low host abundance and activity, whereas high host abundance and activity seems to favor the lytic life cycle. The key process for the prevalence of lytic infection compared to prophage replication at high host abundance could be competition due to outnumbering. Between 11% and 88% (average, 35%) of the bacteria contained a functional (lytic or lysogenic) viral genome.
Resource Allocation in OFDMA Wireless Networks with Time-Varying Arrivals

This paper considers the issue of optimal subcarrier allocation in OFDMA wireless networks when the arrivals and channels are stochastic and time-varying. Our objective is to minimize the long-term average packet delay over multiple time epochs. We show by example that water-filling-based subcarrier allocation policy which maximizes throughput at each time epoch is not optimal in this case. This is because such policy ignores variable queue state information, while in fact such information is necessary to minimize long-term average delay. We present an optimal policy for a special case of ON-OFF channel and homogeneous users. For general channel, the optimal policy is complicated and not known. However, we provide heuristic algorithms that use different degrees of knowledge about the channel and queue state information. Through simulations, we show that the value of queue vs. channel information varies with the load. For instance, at low load scenarios, an algorithm which ignores much of channel state information outperforms a water-filling algorithm which ignores queue state information. The opposite is true when considering heavy traffic scenarios. Index Terms OFDMA, resource allocation, water-filling
The relationship between critical incidents, hostility and PTSD symptoms in police officers

The Relationship between Critical Incidents, Hostility, and PTSD Symptoms in Police Officers Mary Elizabeth Clair, M.S. Christine M. Nezu, Ph.D., ABPP Research indicates that 12-35% of police officers in the United States suffer from Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). To experience PTSD symptoms, an individual must be exposed to a traumatic event, which is referred to in the police literature as a critical incident. Some research suggests that the more critical incidents to which an individual is exposed, the more intense PTSD symptoms they are likely to experience. However, not everyone who experiences numerous critical incidents develops more intense PTSD symptoms indicating that other variables may influence this relationship. The current study examined the relationship between frequency of critical incidents, organizational stressors, coping appraisal, hostility negative life events, and intensity of PTSD symptoms in a sample of police officers. The results suggest that although frequency of critical incidents predicted intensity of PTSD symptoms in a simple regression analysis, when all of the independent variables were simultaneously entered into a multiple regression analysis, only coping appraisal and negative life events emerged as significant predictors of intensity of PTSD symptoms. Coping appraisal and hostility did not moderate the relationship as hypothesized. Clinical and research implications are discussed.
Fuzzy random chance-constrained programming

By fuzzy random programming, we mean the optimization theory dealing with fuzzy random decision problems. This paper presents a new concept of chance of fuzzy random events, and constructs a general framework of fuzzy random chance-constrained programming. We also design a spectrum of fuzzy random simulations for computing uncertain functions arising in the area of fuzzy random programming. To speed up the process of handling uncertain functions, we train a neural network to approximate uncertain functions based on the training data generated by fuzzy random simulation. Finally, we integrate the fuzzy random simulation, neural network, and genetic algorithm to produce a more powerful and effective hybrid intelligent algorithm for solving fuzzy random programming models and illustrate its effectiveness by some numerical examples.
Age Moderates the Relationships between Family Functioning and Neck Pain/Disability

This cross-sectional clinical study was designed to explore the relationships between family functioning, coping styles, and neck pain and neck disability. It was hypothesized that better family functioning and more effective coping styles would be associated with less pain and pain-related disability. It also was hypothesized that these relationships would be stronger in older people because they have fewer resources, more limited coping styles, and may depend more on their family for support. In this study, 88 women with chronic non-traumatic neck pain completed the Family Assessment Measure (FAM), Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations (CISS), Neck Disability Index (NDI), and a Visual-Analogue Scale (VAS) measuring the subjective intensity of neck pain. Zero-order and partial correlations and hierarchical stepwise regression were performed. CISS was not correlated with the NDI orVAS. Good family functioning was correlated with lower NDI and VAS scores. Age was found to moderate the relationship between the FAM and both NDI and VAS. This relationship was significant and positive in older patients, but non-significant in younger patients. It was concluded that better family functioning is associated with lower neck disability and pain intensity, especially in the case of older women suffering from non-traumatic neck pain.
Effects of Glycosylation on the Enzymatic Activity and Mechanisms of Proteases

Posttranslational modifications are an important feature of most proteases in higher organisms, such as the conversion of inactive zymogens into active proteases. To date, little information is available on the role of glycosylation and functional implications for secreted proteases. Besides a stabilizing effect and protection against proteolysis, several proteases show a significant influence of glycosylation on the catalytic activity. Glycans can alter the substrate recognition, the specificity and binding affinity, as well as the turnover rates. However, there is currently no known general pattern, since glycosylation can have both stimulating and inhibiting effects on activity. Thus, a comparative analysis of individual cases with sufficient enzyme kinetic and structural data is a first approach to describe mechanistic principles that govern the effects of glycosylation on the function of proteases. The understanding of glycan functions becomes highly significant in proteomic and glycomic studies, which demonstrated that cancer-associated proteases, such as kallikrein-related peptidase 3, exhibit strongly altered glycosylation patterns in pathological cases. Such findings can contribute to a variety of future biomedical applications.
Reversible Data Hiding Based on Two-level HDWT Coefficient Histograms

In recent years, reversible data hiding has attracted much more attention than before. Reversibility signifies that the original media can be recovered without any loss from the marked media after extracting the embedded message. This paper presents a new method that adopts two-level wavelet transform and exploits the feature of large wavelet coefficient variance to achieve the goal of high capacity with imperceptibility. Our method differs from those of previous ones in which the wavelet coefficients histogram not gray-level histogram is manipulated. Besides, clever shifting rules are introduced into histogram to avoid the decimal problem in pixel values after recovery to achieve reversibility. With small alteration of the wavelet coefficients in the embedding process, and therefore low visual distortion is obtained in the marked image. In addition, an important feature of our design is that the use of threshold is much different from previous studies. The results indicate that our design is superior to many other state-of-the-art reversible data hiding schemes.
Design of a Radial Mode Piezoelectric Transformer for a Charge Pump Electronic Ballast with High Power Factor and Zero Voltage Switching

Electrical Engineering (ABSTRACT) In a conventional electronic ballast for a fluorescent lamp, inductor-capacitor-transformer tank circuit is used. A Piezoelectric Transformer (PT) can potentially be used to replace such a tank circuit to save space and cost. In the past, ballast design using a PT requires selecting a PT from available samples which are normally not matched to specific application and therefore resulting in poor performance. In this thesis, a design procedure was proposed for designing a PT tailored for a 120-V 32-W electronic ballast with high power factor, high efficiency and Zero-Voltage-Switching (ZVS) of the inverter transistors that drive the lamp. This involves selection of PT materials, determination of geometries and the number of physical layers of the PT. A radial mode piezoelectric transformer prototype based on this design process was fabricated by Face Electronics Inc. and was tested experimentally, the results showed that the ballast using this custom-made PT achieved high power factor, Zero-Voltage-Switching and a 83% overall efficiency. iii Acknowledgments
Evidence That Investors Trade on Private Event-Period Information around Earnings Announcements

I replicate Barron, Harris, and Stanford's (2005) " Evidence That Investors Trade on Private-Event-Period Information around Earnings Announcements " which provides empirical support for theoretical models developed in Holthausen and Verrecchia (1990) and Kim and Verrecchia (1997). These model predict that private information generated at the time of an earnings announcement (private event-period information) is associated with greater trading volume. Using analysts as a proxy for investors, Barron et al. (2005) utilize empirical proxies from Barron et al. (1998) to measure increases in private information around earnings announcements and find that announcements that increase analysts' private information are associated with increased trading volume. They also find that announcements that decrease analysts' consensus (i.e. the amount of common information) are associated with increased trading volume, leading them to conclude that, consistent with Kim and Verrecchia's (1997) model, it is possible for public earnings announcements to increase private information and the private information generated in the event-period to spur trading.
EEG correlates of social interaction at distance

This study investigated EEG correlates of social interaction at distance between twenty-five pairs of participants who were not connected by any traditional channels of communication. Each session involved the application of 128 stimulations separated by intervals of random duration ranging from 4 to 6 seconds. One of the pair received a one-second stimulation from a light signal produced by an arrangement of red LEDs, and a simultaneous 500 Hz sinusoidal audio signal of the same length. The other member of the pair sat in an isolated sound-proof room, such that any sensory interaction between the pair was impossible. An analysis of the Event-Related Potentials associated with sensory stimulation using traditional averaging methods showed a distinct peak at approximately 300 ms, but only in the EEG activity of subjects who were directly stimulated. However, when a new algorithm was applied to the EEG activity based on the correlation between signals from all active electrodes, a weak but robust response was also detected in the EEG activity of the passive member of the pair, particularly within 9 – 10 Hz in the Alpha range. Using the Bootstrap method and the Monte Carlo emulation, this signal was found to be statistically significant.
Difference of Normals as a Multi-scale Operator in Unorganized Point Clouds

A novel multi-scale operator for unorganized 3D point clouds is introduced. The Difference of Normals (DoN) provides a computationally efficient, multi-scale approach to processing large unorganized 3D point clouds. The application of DoN in the multi-scale filtering of two different real-world outdoor urban LIDAR scene datasets is quantitatively and qualitatively demonstrated. In both datasets the DoN operator is shown to segment large 3D point clouds into scale-salient clusters, such as cars, people, and lamp posts towards applications in semi-automatic annotation, and as a pre-processing step in automatic object recognition. The application of the operator to segmentation is evaluated on a large public dataset of outdoor LIDAR scenes with ground truth annotations.
Understanding the Online Doctoral Learning Experience: Factors That Contribute to Students' Sense of Community.

As the number of students taking online courses continues to grow steadily, it is becoming increasingly important to inquire about the experiences of these students in order to understand the factors that contribute to their success. It is imperative that the social needs of students be understood, as interaction is an important aspect of the educational experience. Sense of community, which results from interaction, can make a significant impact on the success of online students. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the lived experiences of doctoral students who have taken courses online in an effort to illuminate the factors that contribute to their sense of community. To achieve a better understanding of these factors, in depth interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of 12 doctoral students. As a result of the analysis, it was determined that the following four factors contributed to the sense of community felt amongst students enrolled in an online doctoral program: (a) a cohort experience, (b) a face to face, on campus orientation course, (c) faith, prayer, and spirituality, and (d) challenge and tragedy. The results of this study add to the existing literature on understanding the online student experience and sense of community within the context of online higher education, and the implications and recommendations made as a result of the findings in
Real-Time PCR Detection of Pathogenic Microorganisms in Roof-Harvested Rainwater in Southeast Queensland, Australia

ABSTRACT In this study, the microbiological quality of roof-harvested rainwater was assessed by monitoring the concentrations of Escherichia coli, enterococci, Clostridium perfringens, and Bacteroides spp. in rainwater obtained from tanks in Southeast Queensland, Australia. Samples were also tested using real-time PCR (with SYBR Green I dye) for the presence of potential pathogenic microorganisms. Of the 27 rainwater samples tested, 17 (63%), 21 (78%), 13 (48%), and 24 (89%) were positive for E. coli, enterococci, C. perfringens, and Bacteroides spp. , respectively. Of the 27 samples, 11 (41%), 7 (26%), 4 (15%), 3 (11%), and 1 (4%) were PCR positive for the Campylobacter coli ceuE gene, the Legionella pneumophila mip gene, the Aeromonas hydrophila lip gene, the Salmonella invA gene, and the Campylobacter jejuni mapA gene. Of the 21 samples tested, 4 (19%) were positive for the Giardia lamblia β-giardin gene. The binary logistic regression model indicated a positive correlation (P < 0.02) between the presence/absence of enterococci and A. hydrophila. In contrast, the presence/absence of the remaining potential pathogens did not correlate with traditional fecal indicators. The poor correlation between fecal indicators and potential pathogens suggested that fecal indicators may not be adequate to assess the microbiological quality of rainwater and consequent health risk.
Safe human-robot-coexistence: emergency-stop using a high-speed vision-chip

The coexistence of humans and industrial robots in a common workspace provides the advantage of increased flexibility in production or longer system up-time during maintenance. However, it is fundamentally necessary to guarantee the safety of the human. This paper presents an approach that uses a specialized tracking-vision-chip to realize a high-speed emergency-stop for safe human-robot-coexistence. The presented approach uses the ability of the vision-chip to perform pixel-parallel masking and fast summation-operations on binary images to detect whether the robot and human are too close. After initial evaluation in a (semi)-simulation, the approach was realized in an experimental system. Even with only a small 8-bit microcontroller controlling the vision-chip and the communication, a cycle time of more than 500Hz was achieved.
Posttraumatic Stress after SARS

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can arise in patients with medical illness. We used 2 Chinese self-report measures to examine features of PTSD, anxiety, and depression in 131 survivors of severe acute respiratory syndrome at 1 month and 3 months after discharge from the hospital. Risk factors associated with psychological distress were identified.
Prostaglandin-E2 is produced by adult human epidermal melanocytes in response to UVB in a melanogenesis-independent manner

Excessive ultraviolet radiation (UVR) exposure induces erythema, mediated in part by prostaglandin‐E2 (PGE2). While keratinocytes are a major PGE2 source, epidermal melanocytes (EM) also express PGE2‐production machinery. It is unclear whether EM‐produced PGE2 contributes to UVR‐induced skin inflammation, and whether this is correlated with melanogenesis. Epidermal melanocytes were cultured from skin phototype‐1 and ‐4 donors, followed by assessment of PGE2 production and melanogenesis. Epidermal melanocytes expressed cytoplasmic phospholipase‐A2, cyclooxygenase‐1, cytoplasmic prostaglandin‐E synthase and microsomal prostaglandin‐E synthase‐1, ‐2. Epidermal melanocytes produced PGE2 under basal conditions, which increased further after arachidonic acid stimulation. Epidermal melanocytes expressed cyclooxygenase‐2 (COX‐2) mRNA and a selective COX‐2 inhibitor (NS‐398) reduced PGE2 production. Ultraviolet B‐induced PGE2 production was positively correlated with skin phototype‐1, despite variability between individual EM donors. By contrast, there was no correlation between PGE2 production by EM and their melanogenic status. Thus, EM may contribute to UVR‐induced erythema, with role of donor skin phototype more important than their melanogenic status.
Migration, Acculturation and Environment: Determinants of Obesity among Iranian Migrants in Australia

While migration from low- to high-income countries is typically associated with weight gain, the obesity risks of migration from middle-income countries are less certain. In addition to changes in behaviours and cultural orientation upon migration, analyses of changes in environments are needed to explain post-migration risks for obesity. The present study examines the interaction between obesity-related environmental factors and the pattern of migrant acculturation in a sample of 152 Iranian immigrants in Victoria, Australia. Weight measurements, demographics, physical activity levels and diet habits were also surveyed. The pattern of acculturation (relative integration, assimilation, separation or marginalization) was not related to body mass index, diet, or physical activity behaviours. Three relevant aspects of participants’ perception of the Australian environment (physically active environments, social pressure to be fit, unhealthy food environments) varied considerably by demographic characteristics, but only one (physically active environments) was related to a pattern of acculturation (assimilation). Overall, this research highlighted a number of key relationships between acculturation and obesity-related environments and behaviours for our study sample. Theoretical models on migration, culture and obesity need to include environmental factors.
Pulmonary Endpoints (Lung Carcinomas and Asbestosis) Following Inhalation Exposure to Asbestos

Lung carcinomas and pulmonary fibrosis (asbestosis) occur in asbestos workers. Understanding the pathogenesis of these diseases is complicated because of potential confounding factors, such as smoking, which is not a risk factor in mesothelioma. The modes of action (MOA) of various types of asbestos in the development of lung cancers, asbestosis, and mesotheliomas appear to be different. Moreover, asbestos fibers may act differentially at various stages of these diseases, and have different potencies as compared to other naturally occurring and synthetic fibers. This literature review describes patterns of deposition and retention of various types of asbestos and other fibers after inhalation, methods of translocation within the lung, and dissolution of various fiber types in lung compartments and cells in vitro. Comprehensive dose-response studies at fiber concentrations inhaled by humans as well as bivariate size distributions (lengths and widths), types, and sources of fibers are rarely defined in published studies and are needed. Species-specific responses may occur. Mechanistic studies have some of these limitations, but have suggested that changes in gene expression (either fiber-catalyzed directly or by cell elaboration of oxidants), epigenetic changes, and receptor-mediated or other intracellular signaling cascades may play roles in various stages of the development of lung cancers or asbestosis.