Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Toward the Development of a Self-Management Intervention to Promote Pro-Social Behaviors for Students With Visual Impairment

Students with visual impairment (VI) lack access to the same models and reinforcers as students with sight. Consequentially, behaviors that children with sight acquire through observation must be explicitly taught to children with VI. In addition, children with VI have difficulty maintaining such behaviors. Therefore, interventions that promote self-management of students’ own behavior are desirable. In this study, three adolescents used self-talk to increase chewing with a closed mouth during mealtimes. We used explicit instruction to teach students the target behavior and to use a small vibrating device as a reminder to self-talk during mealtimes. Prompts were faded as participants increased chewing with a closed mouth. Following mealtimes, performance feedback and reinforcement were provided. All students increased percentage of intervals chewing with a closed mouth immediately at the start of intervention and maintained this behavior for up to 1 month post-intervention. Implications for practice and directions for future research are discussed.
Energy-Efficient Space-Time Coded Cooperative Routing in Multihop Wireless Networks

Due to the limited energy supplies of nodes in many applications like wireless sensor networks, energy efficiency is crucial for extending the lifetime of these networks. This paper addresses the routing problem for outage-restricted multihop wireless ad hoc networks based on cooperative transmission. The source node wants to transmit messages to a single destination. Other nodes in the network may operate as relay nodes. In this paper, a new cooperative routing protocol is introduced using the Alamouti space-time code for the purpose of energy savings, given a required outage probability at the destination. Two efficient power allocation schemes are derived, which depend only on the statistics of the channels. In the first scheme, each node needs to know only the local channel statistics, and can be implemented in a distributed manner. In the second scheme, a centralized power control strategy is proposed, which has a higher energy efficiency, at the expense of more complexity and signalling overhead. Compared to non-cooperative multihop routing, an energy saving of 80% is achievable in line networks with 3 relays and an outage probability constraint of 10-3 at the destination.
Fixed-structure LPV controller synthesis based on implicit input output representations

In this paper a novel LPV controller synthesis approach to design fixed-structure LPV controllers in input output (IO) form is presented. The LPV-IO model and the LPV-IO controller are assumed to depend affinely as well as statically on the scheduling variable. By using an implicit representation of the system model and the controller, an exact representation of the closed-loop behavior is achieved. Using Finsler's Lemma, novel stability conditions are derived in the form of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). Based on these conditions a quadratic performance synthesis approach is introduced in form of bilinear matrix inequalities (BMIs) and solved using a DK-iteration based approach.
Two Visual Pathways in Primates Based on Sampling of Space: Exploitation and Exploration of Visual Information

Evidence is strong that the visual pathway is segregated into two distinct streams—ventral and dorsal. Two proposals theorize that the pathways are segregated in function: The ventral stream processes information about object identity, whereas the dorsal stream, according to one model, processes information about either object location, and according to another, is responsible in executing movements under visual control. The models are influential; however recent experimental evidence challenges them, e.g., the ventral stream is not solely responsible for object recognition; conversely, its function is not strictly limited to object vision; the dorsal stream is not responsible by itself for spatial vision or visuomotor control; conversely, its function extends beyond vision or visuomotor control. In their place, we suggest a robust dichotomy consisting of a ventral stream selectively sampling high-resolution/focal spaces, and a dorsal stream sampling nearly all of space with reduced foveal bias. The proposal hews closely to the theme of embodied cognition: Function arises as a consequence of an extant sensory underpinning. A continuous, not sharp, segregation based on function emerges, and carries with it an undercurrent of an exploitation-exploration dichotomy. Under this interpretation, cells of the ventral stream, which individually have more punctate receptive fields that generally include the fovea or parafovea, provide detailed information about object shapes and features and lead to the systematic exploitation of said information; cells of the dorsal stream, which individually have large receptive fields, contribute to visuospatial perception, provide information about the presence/absence of salient objects and their locations for novel exploration and subsequent exploitation by the ventral stream or, under certain conditions, the dorsal stream. We leverage the dichotomy to unify neuropsychological cases under a common umbrella, account for the increased prevalence of multisensory integration in the dorsal stream under a Bayesian framework, predict conditions under which object recognition utilizes the ventral or dorsal stream, and explain why cells of the dorsal stream drive sensorimotor control and motion processing and have poorer feature selectivity. Finally, the model speculates on a dynamic interaction between the two streams that underscores a unified, seamless perception. Existing theories are subsumed under our proposal.
Effect of scale-dependent corrections to flow intensity on turbulent burning rate

Calculation of the burning rate is one of the basic problems in modern combustion science. The problem of flame propagation is practically solved for a planar flame front, which occurs infrequently in reality. Flame shape is usually curved due to the intrinsic flame instabilities, an external turbulent flow, flame interaction with shock and sound waves, flame interaction with the chamber walls, the interplay of all these effects and other features of the burning setup configuration (Williams 1985; Zeldovich et al. 1985; Poinsot & Veynante 2005). As a result, a real burning rate may exceed the planar flame speed SL considerably. Over the years, there have been attempts to express the turbulent burning rate ST as a function of the planar flame speed and the turbulent intensity u ′ (the root-mean-square flow velocity in one direction). The researchers were looking for a function in the form (Williams 1985)
Information and experience: audio-visual observations of reading activities in Swedish comprehensive school classrooms 1967–1969

Abstract This study investigates reading activities in Swedish primary school classrooms during the late 1960s. Sound and video recordings of 223 Swedish lessons held between 1967 and 1969 are used to analyse the activity of reading as taught and performed. The results indicate that the practice of informational reading, often based on finding predetermined, explicit ‘facts’ in textbooks through individual, silent reading, was common. The practice of experiential reading, based on fiction, imagination and the joy of reading, was not only less common, but also often compromised by instrumental concerns. In the national curriculum of the time, the practice of informational reading was related to study skills and was intended to prepare all pupils for higher-level education. While often appearing over-proportioned, superficial and fragmented, these reading practices were still intentional objects of learning and teaching, and were grounded in the democratic and egalitarian ideals of Swedish post-war educational policy.
Strength of Diversity : Exploiting Cheap Heterogeneous Noisy Sensors for Accurate Full-Chip Thermal Estimation

Thermal sensor characteristics and placement directly impacts the effectiveness and accuracy of full-chip thermal characterization necessary for dynamic thermal management (DTM) and reliable on-chip operation of multi/many-core chips. Temperature sensor characteristics widely vary in their area, power, and accuracy; the number of deployable sensors is constrained by the on-chip area/power constraints. However, recent approaches have considered only one type of sensor without leveraging the diversities among different sensor types. In this paper, we exploit the flexibility and trade-off in area/power and error characteristics of varied thermal sensors to perform a heterogeneous sensor allocation and placement (HSAP) to precisely recover the full-chip thermal map with high-fidelity. Unlike traditional sensor allocation and placement techniques that consider only one sensor type, HSAP finds the best combination of the heterogeneous sensors along with their placement for a given sensor area and power budget such that the full-chip thermal characterization error is minimized. Experimental results with multicore Alpha processor show significant improvements compared to the state-of-the-art in terms of reconstruction accuracy for the same sensor area and power budget. In particular, our HSAP approach achieves superior accuracy (around 10-100x error reduction with three types of sensors in comparison to a single type without any additional overhead) and execution speedup of over 20× for full-chip thermal monitoring over a state-of-the-art technique.
Disordered Microbial Communities in the Upper Respiratory Tract of Cigarette Smokers

Cigarette smokers have an increased risk of infectious diseases involving the respiratory tract. Some effects of smoking on specific respiratory tract bacteria have been described, but the consequences for global airway microbial community composition have not been determined. Here, we used culture-independent high-density sequencing to analyze the microbiota from the right and left nasopharynx and oropharynx of 29 smoking and 33 nonsmoking healthy asymptomatic adults to assess microbial composition and effects of cigarette smoking. Bacterial communities were profiled using 454 pyrosequencing of 16S sequence tags (803,391 total reads), aligned to 16S rRNA databases, and communities compared using the UniFrac distance metric. A Random Forest machine-learning algorithm was used to predict smoking status and identify taxa that best distinguished between smokers and nonsmokers. Community composition was primarily determined by airway site, with individuals exhibiting minimal side-of-body or temporal variation. Within airway habitats, microbiota from smokers were significantly more diverse than nonsmokers and clustered separately. The distributions of several genera were systematically altered by smoking in both the oro- and nasopharynx, and there was an enrichment of anaerobic lineages associated with periodontal disease in the oropharynx. These results indicate that distinct regions of the human upper respiratory tract contain characteristic microbial communities that exhibit disordered patterns in cigarette smokers, both in individual components and global structure, which may contribute to the prevalence of respiratory tract complications in this population.
Top-Higgs Yukawa Coupling Measurement at a Linear e+e- Collider

A feasibility study of the measurement of the top-Higgs Yukawa coupling at a future linear e+e- collider operating at sqrt(s)=800 GeV is presented. As compared to previous existing studies, much effort has been put in a ``realistic simulation'' by including irreducible+reducible backgrounds, realistic detector effects and reconstruction procedures and finally, a multivariate analysis. Both hadronic and semileptonic decay channels have been considered.
Wheat germ agglutinin-conjugated liposomes incorporated with cardiolipin to improve neuronal survival in Alzheimer’s disease treatment

Curcumin (CRM) and nerve growth factor (NGF) were entrapped in liposomes (LIP) with surface wheat germ agglutinin (WGA) to downregulate the phosphorylation of kinases in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) therapy. Cardiolipin (CL)-conjugated LIP carrying CRM (CRM-CL/LIP) and also carrying NGF (NGF-CL/LIP) were used with AD models of SK-N-MC cells and Wistar rats after an insult with β-amyloid peptide (Aβ). We found that CRM-CL/LIP inhibited the expression of phosphorylated p38 (p-p38), phosphorylated c-Jun N-terminal kinase (p-JNK), and p-tau protein at serine 202 and prevented neurodegeneration of SK-N-MC cells. In addition, NGF-CL/LIP could enhance the quantities of p-neurotrophic tyrosine kinase receptor type 1 and p-extracellular signal-regulated kinase 5 for neuronal rescue. Moreover, WGA-grafted CRM-CL/LIP and WGA-grafted NGF-CL/LIP significantly improved the permeation of CRM and NGF across the blood–brain barrier, reduced Aβ plaque deposition and the malondialdehyde level, and increased the percentage of normal neurons and cholinergic activity in the hippocampus of AD rats. Based on the marker expressions and in vivo evidence, current LIP carriers can be promising drug delivery systems to protect nervous tissue against Aβ-induced apoptosis in the brain during the clinical management of AD.
tES Stimulation as a Tool to Investigate Cognitive Processes in Healthy Individuals

Abstract. This paper is aimed at providing an introduction to up-to-date noninvasive brain stimulation tools that have been successful in modulating higher-level cognitive functions in healthy individuals. The current review focuses on transcranial electrical stimulation (tES) studies aiming to explore cognitive models from an experimental rather than clinical viewpoint. It focuses primarily on major advances in language, working memory, learning, response inhibition, and other executive functions in healthy individuals, and the use of different methods of electrical brain stimulation such as transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS), and transcranial random noise stimulation (tRNS). The final section summarizes the scientific novelty of the reviewed papers and discusses the possible roles of brain stimulation in future experimental research and clinical applications.
Backstepping Control of Electro-Hydraulic System Based on Extended-State-Observer With Plant Dynamics Largely Unknown

In this paper, an output position feedback control of the electro-hydraulic system (EHS) is proposed based on an extended-state-observer (ESO) with backstepping. On the basis of the augmented state model of the EHS, the ESO is designed to handle the unknown load disturbance and uncertain nonlinearity. Then, an observer bandwidth constraint is derived to compromise between the dynamic performance and the maximal load capability of EHS. The effectiveness of the proposed control for the suppression of largely unknown disturbances has been demonstrated by comparative experimental study, which indicates the proposed approach can achieve better dynamic performance on the motion control of two-degree-of-freedom robotic arm.
Developmental and moult cycle related biochemical changes in larvae of the spider crab, Maja brachydactyla (Brachyura: Majidae)

Ontogenetic changes in dry weight, elemental composition (CHN), and digestive enzyme activities (total protease, amylase) were studied during the moulting cycle of all larval instars (zoea I-II, megalopa; ZI, ZII, M) of the spider crab Maja brachydactyla Balss, 1922 reared in the laboratory. A gradual but significant increase in biomass was observed throughout the zoeal instars, followed by steeper growth in the megalopa. Maximum values were reached in moult stage D 2 . Digestive enzyme activities also increased significantly throughout larval development. The ZI showed a continuous increase in total protease activity during its moult cycle, suggesting that newly hatched larvae have a gradually increasing need to take up proteins to provide amino acids, which are prime materials for growth and development, and possibly to use them as a metabolic energy source. The largest variations in digestive enzyme activites in relation to the moult cycle were observed in the megalopa instar. After an initial increase in postmoult, enzyme activities decreased to low levels similar to those measured in the zoeal instars at intermoult, followed by another increase to a maximum level in premoult. Metamorphosis involves great physiological and behavioural changes, which could explain the large variations in the megalopa moult cycle. We therefore suggest that the moult cycle stages should be taken into account when nutritional condition indices are used to estimate the physiological performance of decapod crustacean larvae.
Haptic Discrimination of Doubly Curved Surfaces

Active haptic discrimination of mathematically well-defined surfaces was investigated. The quadric surfaces were defined in terms of ‘shape index’—a quantity describing shape—and ‘curvedness’—a quantity describing overall curvature. In these experiments shape index was varied and curvedness kept constant. The influence of laterality (unilateral versus bilateral discrimination) was tested in separate sessions. No influence of shape on the discrimination of solid objects was found. From the results an estimate can be made of the just-noticable difference in terms of shape-index units. There was a significant effect of laterality on discrimination: performance with unilateral (successive) examination (both with left and with right hand) was better than with bilateral (simultaneous) examination.
Bioelectrical impedance self-measurement protocol development and daily variation between healthy volunteers and breast cancer survivors with lymphedema.

BACKGROUND A significant percentage of breast cancer survivors are at risk for lymphedema for which lifelong self-care is required. Previous studies suggest that less than 50% of breast cancer survivors with lymphedema (BCS-LE) perform prescribed self-care tasks and that even wearing a compression sleeve, the most commonly reported self-care activity, is done irregularly. Reasons for poor self-care adherence include perceived lack of results from self-care (no available arm volume data) and perceived inability to manage the condition. METHODS AND RESULTS A two-part pilot study was conducted to: 1) develop and determine the feasibility of a self-measurement protocol using a single frequency bioelectrical impedance device; and 2) examine daily variation in extracellular volume in healthy and lymphedematous limbs. Healthy and BCS-LE volunteers were recruited to refine and test a self-measurement protocol. Volunteers were trained in the use of the device and measured for 5 consecutive days in a laboratory setting. They were then given the device to use at home for an additional 5 consecutive days of self-measurement. All volunteers completed each scheduled home measurement. Daily variability in both groups was noted. CONCLUSIONS Home self-measurement using bioelectrical impedance is feasible, acceptable, and captures change. This has implications for both self-care support and for the possibility of incorporating self-measurement using bioelectrical impedance in future clinical trials examining effectiveness of lymphedema treatment.
Performance and layout effects of SiGe channel in 14nm UTBB FDSOI: SiGe-first vs. SiGe-last integration

We report on the layout effects in strained SiGe channel FDSOI pMOSFETS down to 20nm gate length. Two SiGe integration schemes are compared: the SiGe-first approach, with Ge-enrichment performed prior to the STI module and the SiGe-last approach using only a SiGe epitaxy after the STI module. We evidence reduced layout effects in the SiGe-last integration featuring Si/SiGe bilayer. SiGe-last shows -39% mobility for 170nm narrow 2μm long channel, but +21% Ieff at Lg=20nm and gate-to-STI distance of 59nm. It is translated into a -15% delay reduction for ring oscillators of 1-finger inverters. Layout dependences are explained by physical strain measurements and reproduced by a stress-based electrical model.
On the nature of black hole entropy

I argue that black hole entropy counts only those states of a black hole that can influence the outside, and attempt (with only partial success) to defend this claim against various objections, all but one coming from string theory. Implications for the nature of the Bekenstein bound are discussed, and in particular the case for a holographic principle is challenged. Finally, a generalization of black hole thermodynamics to “partial event horizons” in general spacetimes without black holes is proposed.
Atypical cpb2 Genes, Encoding Beta2-Toxin in Clostridium perfringens Isolates of Nonporcine Origin

ABSTRACT Beta2-toxin, encoded by cpb2, is implicated in the pathogenesis of Clostridium perfringens enteritis. However, cpb2 genes from nonporcine C. perfringens isolates were not always expressed, at least in vitro. Nucleotide sequencing identified atypical cpb2 genes with 70.2 to 70.7% DNA identity to previously identified (consensus) cpb2. Atypical beta2-toxin displayed 62.3% identity and 80.4% similarity to consensus beta2-toxin. No porcine type C isolates (n = 16) and only 3.3% of porcine type A isolates (n = 60) carried atypical cpb2 genes. However, 88.5% of nonporcine isolates carried atypical cpb2 (n = 78), but beta2-toxin was not expressed. Almost half of the nonporcine consensus cpb2 genes (44.4%) carried a frameshift mutation (n = 9), resulting in an absence of beta2-toxin expression. These findings strengthen the role of beta2-toxin in the pathogenesis of enteritis in neonatal pigs. However, the identification of apparently nonexpressed, atypical cpb2 genes raises the question of whether this protein plays the same role in enteritis in other animal species.
The power of obedience.

Nicole Woolsey Biggart and Gary G. Hamilton Organizational roles provide actors with moral constructs for the enactment of power. Indeed, actors evaluate each other's acts of power in part on the willingness to obey role prescriptions. For a person to sustain power in an organizational setting he or she must self-consciously exercise power so as to signify the awareness of role obligations. Organizational power, paradoxically, stems from obedience to roles. The authors illustrate these points with interview data from a study of the gubernatorial administrations of Ronald Reagan and Jerry Brown.