Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Radiative Efficiencies of Continuously Powered Blast Waves

We use general arguments to show that a continuously powered radiative blast wave can behave self-similarly if the energy injection and radiation mechanisms are self-similar. In that case, the power-law indices of the blast wave evolution are set by only one of the two constituent physical mechanisms. If the luminosity of the energy source drops fast enough, the radiation mechanisms set the power-law indices; otherwise, they are set by the behavior of the energy source itself. We obtain self-similar solutions for the Newtonian and the ultrarelativistic limits. Both limits behave self-similarly if we assume that the central source supplies energy in the form of a hot wind and that the radiative mechanism is the semiradiative mechanism of Cohen, Piran, and Sari. We calculate the instantaneous radiative efficiencies for both limits and find that a relativistic blast wave has a higher efficiency than a Newtonian one. The instantaneous radiative efficiency depends strongly on the hydrodynamics and cannot be approximated by an estimate of local microscopic radiative efficiencies, since a fraction of the injected energy is deposited in shocked matter. These solutions can be used to calculate gamma-ray-burst afterglows for cases in which the energy is not supplied instantaneously.
The influence of time-varying channels synchronized with commercial power supply on PLC equipments

The regulation on power line communication (PLC) has been eased in Japan and the frequency band between 2 and 30 MHz can be exploited for in-home PLC. Several commercial PLC equipments are available in the market. Almost all PLC equipments take on a form of PLC adapters interconverting Ethernet signals and power line signals. We can construct in- home network by these PLC adapters easily because there are many power outlets in every room. However there are various factors destabilizing the communication among PLC adapters. These factors involve time-varying channel response and noise characteristics which are synchronized with commercial power supply. In particular, it has been seen that the noise on power line has significant variations rather than the channel response. Therefore, many PLC adapters are taking some measures to mitigate the time-varying noise on power line. On the other hand, we show a number of examples of more significant variations of the channel response synchronized with power supply due to some kinds of switching regulators. In this paper, we deal with such the time-varying channel response synchronized with commercial power supply. We show that the PLC adapters suffer from the time-varying channel response and analyze its influence on the PLC adapters.
THE INVESTIGATION OF CRITERION VALIDITY OF THE MODIFIED ASHWORTH SCALE USING THE ALPHA MOTONEURON EXCITABILITY INDICATORS

The purpose of this study was to investigate the validity of the modified Ashworth Scale (MAS) by using both the conventional (Hmax/Mmax ratio) and the new indicators (Hslp/Mslp) of motoneuron excitability. This research was a correlational study on twenty post-stroke patients. Main outcome measures were the MAS and electrophysiologic assessments. The latter was performed using both conventional and new indicators of alpha motoneuron excitability. Data on 20 hemiplegic patients (seventeen men and three women) were analyzed. Correlation between the MAS and either soleus Hmax/Mmax or soleus Hslope/Mslope was not significant (P >0.05). In ten patients whose H-reflex could be evoked bilaterally, only new spinal excitability indicator showed significant difference between the affected and non-affected sides (P
Quadratic Gaussian gossiping

This paper presents an information theoretic source coding formulation of distributed averaging. We assume a network with m nodes each observing an i.i. d. Gaussian source; the nodes communicate and perform local processing with the goal of computing the average of the sources to within a prescribed mean squared error distortion. A general cutset lower bound on the network rate distortion function is established and shown to be achievable to within a factor of 2 via a centralized protocol in the star network. A lower bound on the network rate distortion function for distributed weighted-sum protocols that is larger than the cutset bound by a factor of logm is established. We also establish an upper bound on the expected network rate distortion function for gossip-based weighted-sum protocols that is only a factor of log logm larger than this lower bound. The results suggest that using distributed protocols results in a factor of logm increase in communication relative to centralized protocols.
Transgender policy in the Australian Defence Force: Medicalization and its discontents

ABSTRACT In 2010, the Australian Defence Force (ADF) repealed a Defence Instruction that had effectively barred transgender people from serving. Transgender personnel have slowly been coming out since 2010, positioning Australia as an international leader in terms of recognizing the contribution that transgender and gender diverse people can make to military institutions. Yet ADF documents, media reports, and the testimonies of transgender personnel, past and present, suggest a more complex picture of evolving ADF policies toward transgender personnel. This article traces the history of ADF policies toward transgender service and focuses on the medical frameworks deployed. Repealing the ban on transgender service in 2010 left what was essentially a policy vacuum, and gradually medical regulations have filled that void. Medicalized understandings of gender dysphoria (as distinct from transgender identity) had the potential to support transgender personnel through health benefits not available to civilian Australians. Yet as policies evolved, the ADF developed directives around particular treatments for gender dysphoria, adopting subjective time frames and medical downgrades and restricting transition options. So while ADF rhetoric has emphasized diversity and transgender (among LGBTI) inclusion within the ADF, gradually the medicalized approach to transgenderism has disempowered and restricted transgender service members' opportunities.
Dynamic assessment of ecosystem service value in Huangfuchuan basin based on LUCC

Ecosystem services value assessment is currently the research hotspot in ecology, ecological economics etc, which can provide theoretical and decision-making basis for regional ecological environment improvement. Based on the data of LUCC (land use and cover change) from 1989 to 2000 and ecosystem services value per unit area in Loess Plateau, changes of ecosystem services value in Huangfuchuan basin were calculated, and the result was verified by using coefficients of sensitivity. Results were showed as follows: Firstly, the area of each land use type of Huangfuchuan basin changed in different degrees, while land use degree had no significant change, which to some extent showed the local land use degree didn't deepen under national water and soil erosion control project. Secondly, ecosystem service value in Huangfuchuan basin changed from 8805.471 × 106 yuan in 1989 to 8818.508 × 106 yuan in 2000 with an increment of 13.037 × 106 yuan and increase rate of 0.148%. This was owing to not only the area increase of grassland and waters, but also the implementation of water and soil erosion control project. Furthermore, grassland was the greatest contributor to the ecosystem services value; the ecosystem services value of farmland and forestland both declined; the change rate and contribution ratio of waters' ecosystem services value were both great. Lastly, the sensitivity coefficient of ESV to VC of all the land use types in the research area were less than 1, which suggested that ESV was in lack of flexibility compared with VC, and the research results were credible.
Soil conservation planning at the small watershed level using RUSLE with GIS : a case study in the Three Gorge Area of China

The Three Gorge Project (TGP) of China necessitates the resettlement of over 1 million population (mostly farmers) to more rugged and isolated areas than their original settlements. Soil erosion is a serious environmental and production problem in this area. To decrease the risk on environmental impacts, there is an increasing demand for sound, and readily applicable techniques for soil conservation planning in the Three Gorge Areas (TGA). The objectives of the study were to develop and validate a soil erosion-predicting model based on the revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) in a geographic information systems (GIS) environment. The use of GIS to develop conservation-oriented watershed management strategies in the Wangjiaqiao watershed is presented. Data used for the RUSLE were either determined or taken from published literature pertaining to the Wangjiaqiao watershed. In combination with IDRISI, GIS software (Eastman, R.J., 1997. IDRISI for Windows: User’s guide (Version 2.0). Clark University, Graduate School of Geography, Worcester, MA, Chapters 4–17) was used to evaluate different agricultural management strategies in terms of predicted soil loss in the watershed. This model allowed for easy assessment of soil erosion hazards under different crop and land management options over the entire watershed. The study revealed that the annual average soil loss rate from relatively flat agricultural land was approximately 26 t/ha, whereas 52 t/ha was found on the cultivated sloping lands, which constitutes a large proportion of soil loss in the watershed. In the watershed, approximately 38 ha of agricultural land had slopes >47% (25j) and should be reforested or returned to pasture. Contour tillage (CT) and contour farming with a seasonal no-till ridge (CTN) were most effective in reducing soil loss rates. If CT and CTN were implemented, approximately 31% and 70%, respectively, of the areas with soil loss >TEP would be reduced to < TEP. TEP is soil loss tolerance for economic planning and was set at V 10 t/ha year. In addition to soil loss reduction, the CTN has the potential to increase crop yield. 0341-8162/$ see front matter D 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/S0341-8162(03)00088-2 * Corresponding author. Tel. : +1-506-452-4834; fax: +1-506-452-3316. E-mail address: chowl@agr.gc. ca (T.L. Chow). Z.H. Shi et al. / Catena 55 (2004) 33–48 34 Soil erosion hazards may be alleviated in over 91% of the agricultural lands if combined conservation measures including terraces, CTN, CT, and crop rotations were implemented in the watershed. The results of the study indicate that the RUSLE-GIS model is a useful tool for resource management and soil conservation planning. This technology is readily transferable and accessible to other land managers and agronomists in the TGA. D 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Secure Virtual Layer Management in Clouds

Clouds are composed of enormous resources and are associated with attractive properties, e.g. scalability and resilience. Such properties are the result of Clouds dynamic nature. Cloud dynamism is desirable property for different reasons such as resilience, resource consolidation, and maintenance windows. However, such dynamism exposes many security and management concerns for Cloud providers as well as for Cloud users. For example how can Cloud providers assure users that: (a.) dependent applications running on different VMs (Virtual Machines) are hosted within physical proximity (performance reasons); (b.) mutually exclusive VMs are not hosted at the same physical server (e.g. availability and security reasons); and (c.) when migrating VMs the new allocated physical servers satisfy users application requirements and security and privacy criteria. In this paper we explore this important problem. We then propose a framework, which at this foundation stage focuses on providing secure environment for the management of Clouds' virtual layer. It also helps in establishing trust in Cloud's operational management. We also propose our planned implementation layout using Open Stack.
Intensified Pre-Weaning Calf Feeding Programs : Impacts on Growth and Behavior

There are a range of viewpoints on how best to feed and manage dairy calves early in life. Traditional approaches to rearing dairy calves have focused on stimulating early solid feed intake through restricting intake of milk or milk replacer. A conventional milk feeding rate is approximately 10% of a calf’s birth weight, an amount that translates to between 4 and 5 L/day, supporting under 0.5 kg/d of weight gain (Appleby, 2001; Jasper and Weary, 2002). This conventional approach to feeding calves facilitates early weaning and has been viewed as economically appealing due to reduced feed costs. However, there is increasing on-farm adoption of alternative feeding programs which provide a higher plane of nutrition. Feeding programs which provide greater milk allowances support greater growth relative to outcomes of conventional restricted feeding, and thus are typically referred to as “intensified feeding,” or “feeding for accelerated growth. ” These feeding programs provide quantities of milk that more closely resemble intake levels of a suckling calf, and allow “biologically appropriate” growth rates (Drackley, 2008), which fall between 0.75 and 1 kg/d (Tedeschi and Fox, 2009; Appleby, 2001).
Bullying Cases Among Students: School Principals’ Self-Efficacy

Even though school principals have many responsibilities, dealing with destructive behavior such as bullying among students is something that cannot be avoided. Scant attention has been paid especially to sources of influence on school principal’s self-efficacy regarding to dealing with bullying and what actually is their ability when they deal with this type of problem. The purpose of this study is to identify the overall source of influence that contributes to school principal’s self-efficacy and what are the levels of their self-efficacy in terms of dealing with bullying in secondary schools. Responses to sources of influence and their sense of efficacy when dealing with bullying among students in secondary schoolswere sought from 428 in-service school principals across Malaysia by sending (mailed) questionnaires to respective respondents. Based on the result of this study the level of school principals’ self-efficacy in terms of dealing with bullying in secondary school was moderate. Although there is no documented record of local research that examine the sources of influence onschool principals’ self-efficacy in dealing with bullying among students, one clear finding that arises from this study is that, mastery experience is prominent predictor ofschool principals self-efficacy in dealing with bullying among students in secondary schools. This result is in line with Bandura’s finding (1977, 1997) where he had identified that mastery experience as the most important determinant of self-efficacy.Should there any developmental program for school principal regarding the issue of bullying among students in secondary schools, it is recommended that it should explicitly address this particular source of influence with specific types of training and educational experiences that focus on mastery building through cognitive and meta cognitive strategies as well as cultivating self-regulation competencies.
Optimal Contrast Agent Staining of Ligaments and Tendons for X-Ray Computed Tomography

X-ray computed tomography has become an important tool for studying the microstructures of biological soft tissues, such as ligaments and tendons. Due to the low X-ray attenuation of such tissues, chemical contrast agents are often necessary to enhance contrast during scanning. In this article, the effects of using three different contrast agents—iodine potassium iodide solution, phosphotungstic acid and phosphomolybdic acid—are evaluated and compared. Porcine anterior cruciate ligaments, patellar tendons, medial collateral ligaments and lateral collateral ligaments were used as the basis of the study. Three samples of each of the four ligament/tendon types were each assigned a different contrast agent (giving a total of twelve samples), and the progression of that agent through the tissue was monitored by performing a scan every day for a total period of five days (giving a total of sixty scans). Since the samples were unstained on day one, they had been stained for a total of four days by the time of the final scans. The relative contrast enhancement and tissue deformation were measured. It was observed that the iodine potassium iodide solution penetrated the samples fastest and caused the least sample shrinkage on average (although significant deformation was observed by the time of the final scans), whereas the phosphomolybdic acid caused the greatest sample shrinkage. Equations describing the observed behaviour of the contrast agents, which can be used to predict optimal staining times for ligament and tendon X-ray computed tomography, are presented.
Essential Role of Mitochondrial Function in Adiponectin Synthesis in Adipocytes

OBJECTIVE—Adiponectin is an important adipocytokine that improves insulin action and reduces atherosclerotic processes. The plasma adiponectin level is paradoxically reduced in obese individuals, but the underlying mechanism is unknown. This study was undertaken to test the hypothesis that mitochondrial function is linked to adiponectin synthesis in adipocytes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS—We examined the effects of rosiglitazone and the measures that increase or decrease mitochondrial function on adiponectin synthesis. We also examined the molecular mechanism by which changes in mitochondrial function affect adiponectin synthesis. RESULTS—Adiponectin expression and mitochondrial content in adipose tissue were reduced in obese db/db mice, and these changes were reversed by the administration of rosiglitazone. In cultured adipocytes, induction of increased mitochondrial biogenesis (via adenoviral overexpression of nuclear respiratory factor-1) increased adiponectin synthesis, whereas impairment in mitochondrial function decreased it. Impaired mitochondrial function increased endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress, and agents causing mitochondrial or ER stress reduced adiponectin transcription via activation of c-Jun NH2-terminal kinase (JNK) and consequent induction of activating transcription factor (ATF)3. Increased mitochondrial biogenesis reversed all of these changes. CONCLUSIONS—Mitochondrial function is linked to adiponectin synthesis in adipocytes, and mitochondrial dysfunction in adipose tissue may explain decreased plasma adiponectin levels in obesity. Impaired mitochondrial function activates a series of mechanisms involving ER stress, JNK, and ATF3 to decrease adiponectin synthesis.
Estimating Quality in User-Guided Multi-Objective Bandits Optimization

Many real-world applications are characterized by a number of conflicting performance measures. As optimizing in a multi-objective setting leads to a set of non-dominated solutions, a preference function is required for selecting the solution with the appropriate trade-off between the objectives. This preference function is often unknown, especially when it comes from an expert human user. However, if we could provide the expert user with a proper estimation for each action, she would be able to pick her best choice. The question is: how good do these estimations have to be in order for her choice to remain the same as if she had access to the exact values? In this paper, we introduce the concept of preference radius to characterize the robustness of the preference function and provide guidelines for controlling the quality of estimations in the multi-objective setting. More specifically, we provide a general formulation of multi-objective optimization under the bandits setting and the pure exploration setting with user feedback for articulating the preferences. We show how the preference radius relates to the optimal gap and how it can be used to analyze algorithms in the bandits and pure exploration settings. We finally present experiments in the bandits setting, where we evaluate the impact of noise and delayed expert user feedback, and in the pure exploration setting, where we compare multi-objective Thompson sampling with uniform sampling.
Lean sigma: The new wave of business excellence, literature review and a framework

In order to improve and sustain competitive advantage, organisations across the world have embraced different tools and techniques that they hope will keep them alive within the cutthroat market place. Currently, Lean Management LM and Six Sigma SS are the most widely recognised continuous improvement CI initiatives accessible by organisations with faddish characteristics. At the same time they are considered a subject of a growth body of literature which lacks consensus regarding their origins and their association with their predecessor that is the TQM philosophy. This paper introduces evidence which proposes that LM and SS are not dizzying array of management fads rather the normal extension of TQM as evolved from the theories of Adam Smith. Finally, this paper develops an integrative Lean Sigma framework for SMEs based on research gaps and actual needs, the framework was formulated using a triangulation methodology consisting of literature review, Delphi survey and structured interviews.
The Folk Theorem in Repeated Games ofIncomplete

The paper analyzes the Nash equilibria of two-person discounted repeated games with one-sided incomplete information. If the informed player is arbitrarily patient relative to the uninformed player, then the characterization is essentially the same as that in the undiscounted case. This implies that even small amounts of incomplete information can lead to a dis-continuous change in the equilibrium payoo set. For the case of equal discount factors, however, a result akin to the Folk Theorem holds when a complete information game is perturbed by a small amount of incomplete information.
Social justice dilemmas: evidence on the successes and shortcomings of three principals trying to make a difference

Abstract Social justice leadership has become a popular topic and catchphrase in the field of educational leadership. However, most scholarly and empirical contributions have ignored the inherent tensions, challenges and dilemmas associated with the practice of school leadership and the realities principals confront on a daily basis. This is partly because researchers have tended to ignore multiple facets of justice in their empirical investigations as well as how larger forces outside the school associated with historical, political, social and economic injustices marginalize students and communities. This article explores three cases of challenging school–community contexts that confound and partially subdue the efforts of well-intentioned principals. Each case highlights a dedicated principal committed to their school and community, and documents the significant progress made in addressing particular social justice issues, but also how they confronted justice dilemmas that they believed required them to prioritize certain social justice issues over others. These findings have important implications for how principals view their communities and engage in critical reflection about the leadership decisions and actions they take on a daily basis. This article concludes with implications for future research and a discussion of how aspiring principals can be better prepared to lead for social justice and effectively address justice dilemmas without ignoring or putting off other injustices.