Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Device self-calibration in location systems using signal strength histograms

Received signal strength (RSS) fingerprinting is an attractive solution for indoor positioning using Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) due to the wide availability of WLAN access points and the ease of monitoring RSS measurements on WLAN-enabled mobile devices. Fingerprinting systems rely on a radiomap collected using a reference device inside the localisation area; however, a major limitation is that the quality of the location information can be degraded if the user carries a different device. This is because diverse devices tend to report the RSS values very differently for a variety of reasons. To ensure compatibility with the existing radiomap, we propose a self-calibration method that attains a good mapping between the reference and user devices using RSS histograms. We do so by relating the RSS histogram of the reference device, which is deduced from the radiomap, and the RSS histogram of the user device, which is updated concurrently with positioning. Unlike other approaches, our calibration method does not require any user intervention, e.g. collecting calibration data using the new device prior to positioning. Experimental results with five smartphones in a real indoor environment demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method and indicate that it is more robust to device diversity compared with other calibration methods in the literature.
Unintentional chaos in vocabulary and spelling: British and American English preferences of English teachers

In Turkey, in order to become an English teacher one must have a bachelor’s degree from a variety of language-related departments. Considering that the variety of departments’ syllabuses at instruction in such departments is based heavily on specific fields, language proficiency and attitudes of their graduates towards the language turns into a question. This question gets even more significant in terms of their proficiency and attitudes in the two most common varieties of the language, namely, British English (BE) and American English (AE). In this study, it was aimed to find out English Language Teachers' vocabulary and spelling preferences and their attitudes in adopting BE or AE. The data were collected with a four-staged instrument which consisted of word-translation from Turkish to English, sentence translation, standardization of a paragraph and an attitude survey. The results of the study indicated a complexity in terms of vocabulary preferences while BE was found dominant in spelling. Participants defined themselves as BE users in general; however, their preferences in vocabulary items seemed in balance between the two varieties, which was related to a mismatch between the expressed preferences of some participants and the results of the vocabulary analysis carried out. BE was reported to be more popular in grammar, however, the examples provided by the participants were not considered sufficient. Besides, BE was considered more prestigious and the majority of the participants wanted to be perfect in BE. It should also be noted that the participants were of the opinion that both varieties should be taught.
Genetic Variation in the Nuclear and Organellar Genomes Modulates Stochastic Variation in the Metabolome, Growth, and Defense

Recent studies are starting to show that genetic control over stochastic variation is a key evolutionary solution of single celled organisms in the face of unpredictable environments. This has been expanded to show that genetic variation can alter stochastic variation in transcriptional processes within multi-cellular eukaryotes. However, little is known about how genetic diversity can control stochastic variation within more non-cell autonomous phenotypes. Using an Arabidopsis reciprocal RIL population, we showed that there is significant genetic diversity influencing stochastic variation in the plant metabolome, defense chemistry, and growth. This genetic diversity included loci specific for the stochastic variation of each phenotypic class that did not affect the other phenotypic classes or the average phenotype. This suggests that the organism's networks are established so that noise can exist in one phenotypic level like metabolism and not permeate up or down to different phenotypic levels. Further, the genomic variation within the plastid and mitochondria also had significant effects on the stochastic variation of all phenotypic classes. The genetic influence over stochastic variation within the metabolome was highly metabolite specific, with neighboring metabolites in the same metabolic pathway frequently showing different levels of noise. As expected from bet-hedging theory, there was more genetic diversity and a wider range of stochastic variation for defense chemistry than found for primary metabolism. Thus, it is possible to begin dissecting the stochastic variation of whole organismal phenotypes in multi-cellular organisms. Further, there are loci that modulate stochastic variation at different phenotypic levels. Finding the identity of these genes will be key to developing complete models linking genotype to phenotype.
The Addition of a Video Game to Stationary Cycling: The Impact on Energy Expenditure in Overweight Children.

INTRODUCTION: The prevalence of obesity in children has reached epidemic proportions with over 37% of children aged 6-11 years in the U.S. being classified as "at risk for overweight" or "overweight. " Utilization of active video games has been proposed as one possible mechanism to help shift the tide of the obesity epidemic. PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to determine if riding a stationary bike that controlled a video game would lead to significantly greater energy expenditure than riding the same bike without the video game connected. METHODS: Twenty children, 7-14 years old, with a BMI classification of "at risk for overweight" or "overweight" participated in this study. Following familiarization, energy expenditure was evaluated while riding a stationary bike for 20 minutes. One test was performed without the addition of a video game and one test with the bike controlling the speed of a car on the video game. RESULTS: Oxygen consumption and energy expenditure were significantly elevated above baseline in both conditions. Energy expenditure was significantly higher while riding the bike as it controlled the video game (4.4 ± 1.2 Kcal·min(-1)) than when riding the bike by itself (3.7 ± 1.1 Kcal·min(-1)) (p<0.05). Perceived exertion was not significantly different between the two sessions (p>0.05). CONCLUSION: Using a stationary bike to control a video game led to greater energy expenditure than riding a stationary bike without the video game and without a related increase in perceived exertion.
Association of Hypercalcemia Before Treatment With Hypocalcemia After Treatment in Dogs With Primary Hyperparathyroidism

Background Development of hypocalcemia after treatment of hyperparathyroidism results in increased costs and risk of poorer outcomes. Previous studies have shown conflicting data about predictors of hypocalcemia after these procedures. Hypothesis/Objectives The objective of this study was to investigate whether ionized calcium (iCa) concentrations before treatment are predictive of hypocalcemia or its clinical signs after surgical removal or heat ablation in dogs with primary hyperparathyroidism. Animals Fifty‐four dogs with primary hyperparathyroidism (29 female, 25 male; 49 retrospective, 5 prospective). Methods Dogs were enrolled if they met the inclusion criteria: persistent hypercalcemia (iCa >1.41 mmol/L) due to primary hyperparathyroidism and absence of preemptive calcitriol treatment. All dogs were treated with parathyroidectomy (n = 37) or percutaneous ultrasound‐guided heat ablation (n = 17). After treatment, iCa was monitored twice daily until plateau or intervention. Results There was a moderate correlation between before‐treatment hypercalcemia and after‐treatment hypocalcemia. The prospective study was terminated due to ethical concerns given findings in the retrospective section. All dogs were placed into groups according to their pretreatment iCa: 1.46–1.61 mmol/L, 1.62–1.71 mmol/L, iCa 1.72–1.81 mmol/L, or >1.81 mmol/L. After treatment, the mean lowest iCa for each group, respectively, was 1.19, 1.18, 1.13, and 1.01 mmol/L. There was a significant association between higher group and proportion of dogs with iCa <1.00 mmol/L (P = .014). Conclusions and Clinical Importance This study demonstrates a moderate correlation between iCa concentration before treatment and hypocalcemia after treatment. Dogs with higher initial iCa concentrations should be treated to prevent rapid decline and development of clinical hypocalcemia.
Relationship Between Organizational Justice in Performance Appraisal Context and Outcomes : Study on Islamic Unversity in Yogyakarta

The purpose of this research is to test the relationship between organizational justice and outcomes within the two -factor model on Performance appraisal in one of Provate Islamic University context . The two-factor model is a concept introduced by Sweeney and McFarlin who explained that distributive and procedural justices have different influences on outcomes . In the two-factor model, the effects of distributive justice on personal outcomes . In the two-factor model, the effects of distributive justice on personal outcomes are more dominant compared to procedural justice. On the other side, procedural justice will be more accurate to predict the organizational outcomes compared to distributive justice. This model is based on USA setting research. Empirically, that model os not always supported in the field. The different empirical results indicate that the model is not universal cross population but more depend on context. This research is done on Islamic University setting where the researcher gathered 426 samples of full-time islamic university employees in Yogyakarta. In general the result supported the hypothesis the relationship between organizational justices and personal organizational outcomes.
Early Childhood Educators' Perceptions of Creativity in Education

It is commonly accepted that teachers can play a crucial role in the development of students' creative potential in either a positive or a negative way. Therefore, it is of high importance that teachers comprehend the notion of creativity and that they can identify the characteristics and traits of a creative student and use the appropriate strategies and teaching methods to enhance children's creativity. Towards this direction, several studies have addressed questions such as "what are the teachers' conceptions of creativity", "do they know how to facilitate students' creative potential", "which variables seem to contribute to students' creativity", etc. Especially in early childhood, educators are considered as important gatekeepers of fostering creative development in young children. However, very few studies have placed these questions in early childhood teachers and they pointed out a contradiction among teachers' self-reports according to which, they value creativity in theory but they do not appreciate personality traits associated with creativity, such as impulsivity and independence. The purpose of the current study was to examine early childhood teachers' perceptions and conceptualizations regarding (a) the nature of creativity, (b) the characteristics of a creative child, and (c) the teaching strategies that promote children's creativity. A total of 279 early childhood teachers participated in the study from childcare centers and kindergarten schools, by completing the questionnaire 'Perceptions of Creativity in Education' (POCE), (2008). Results showed that the majority of early educators have an adequate theoretical knowledge of the notion of creativity and its various cognates. Teachers also acknowledged efficiently certain characteristics and personality traits of the creative student, but displayed a lack of training and awareness concerning the strategies and the teaching methods that can promote a child's creative potential. This could mean the existence of a relative gap in teachers' perceptions and implicit theories regarding creativity in theory and in the process itself, in the praxis. This finding can be considered important especially if we take under consideration that the ecology of creative teaching is strongly associated with the ecology of creative learning.
Planning Experience and Planners’ Ethics

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Ethical considerations are integral to most aspects of planning, but the bases of planners’ ethical decisions are not well understood. In fact, there has been no follow-up to Elizabeth Howe and Jerome Kaufman’s original 1979 survey of the ethics of American planners in this journal (45(3), 243–255). Our research evaluates the differences in planning roles and planners’ ethical perspectives since then. In their study, Howe and Kaufman use hypothetical scenarios to determine which of three roles planners play: technician, politician, or a hybrid. They also evaluate how the role that planners assume affects their ethical views. Our research uses similar scenarios to evaluate these relationships in contemporary planning practice while simultaneously evaluating the influence of professional experience on the ethical bases of those choices. We confirm many of Howe and Kaufman’s findings, but first we find that today’s planners assume different roles than they did in the mid-1970s, conforming more often to a technical role and less to a political or hybrid role. Second, today’s planners tend to make virtue-based choices when concerned with ideological and legal issues, but revert to rule-based or utilitarian choices when faced with the dissemination and quality of information and segments of the population receiving special advantages. Finally, we find that planners, at all stages in their careers, maintain a mixture of virtue- and rule-based ethical choices while affirming the profession’s core values (as represented in the 2009 AICP Code). Takeaway for practice: The vast majority of practicing planners in our sample (80%) use the AICP Code of Ethics in response to our hypothetical scenarios. At the same time, self-interested responses were rarely made. These findings reaffirm the code’s value to the profession.
Autonomic responses of autistic children to people and objects

Several recent lines of inquiry have pointed to the amygdala as a potential lesion site in autism. Because one function of the amygdala may be to produce autonomic arousal at the sight of a significant face, we compared the responses of autistic children to their mothers' face and to a plain paper cup. Unlike normals, the autistic children as a whole did not show a larger response to the person than to the cup. We also monitored sympathetic activity in autistic children as they engaged in a wide range of everyday behaviours. The children tended to use self–stimulation activities in order to calm hyper–responsive activity of the sympathetic (‘fight or flight’) branch of the autonomic nervous system. A small percentage of our autistic subjects had hyporesponsive sympathetic activity, with essentially no electrodermal responses except to self–injurious behaviour. We sketch a hypothesis about autism according to which autistic children use overt behaviour in order to control a malfunctioning autonomic nervous system and suggest that they have learned to avoid using certain processing areas in the temporal lobes.
Drivers and Inhibitors for Outsourcing Financial Processes - A Comparative Survey of Economies of Scale, Scope, and Skill

Economies of scale, scope, and skill are known to be major drivers or inhibitors for outsourcing business processes but they may play different roles for outsourcing primary or secondary processes. In this paper, based on two empirical surveys with Fortune 1,000 non-banks and Fortune 500 banks in Germany, a comparative analysis reveals different appreciation of (the impact of) economies of scale, scope, and skill by managers responsible for outsourcing financial processes in non-banks and banks. Consistent with the theory, economies of scale and skill are identified as drivers for outsourcing business processes while economies of scope represent an inhibitor. Overall, Chief Credit Officers estimate scale and skill effects due to outsourcing to be higher than non-bank Chief Financial Officers do. Furthermore, economies of scope, which inhibit selective sourcing, are evaluated as being less problematic. As a result, Chief Credit Officers are more likely to outsource (parts of) their - primary - financial processes. The surveys also suggest that quite in contrast to common perception German banks are on the verge of industrialization and modularization.
Using Fmri to Distinguish Components of the Multiple Object Tracking Task

Multiple object tracking (MOT) has proven to be a powerful technique for studying sustained selective attention. However, surprisingly little is known about its underlying neural mechanisms. Previous fMRI investigations have identified several brain areas thought to be involved in MOT, but there were disagreements between the studies, none distinguished between the act of tracking targets and the act of attending targets, and none attempted to determine which of these brain areas interact with each other. Here we address these three issues. First, using more observers and a random effects analysis, we show that some of the previously identified areas may not play a specific role in MOT. Second, we show that the frontal eye fields (FEF), the anterior intraparietal sulcus (AIPS), the superior parietal lobule (SPL), the posterior intraparietal sulcus (PIPS) and the human motion area (MT+) are differentially activated by the act of tracking, as distinguished from the act of attention. Finally, by using an algorithm modified from the computer science literature, we were able to map the interactions between these brain areas.
Increased expression of LXRα, ABCG5, ABCG8, and SR-BI in the liver from normolipidemic, nonobese Chinese gallstone patients Published, JLR Papers in Press, November 15, 2007.

Cholesterol supersaturation of bile is one prerequisite for gallstone formation. In the present study of Chinese patients with gallstones, we investigated whether this phenomenon was correlated with the hepatic expression of genes participating in the metabolism of cholesterol and bile acids. Twenty-two nonobese, normolipidemic patients (female-male, 11:11) with gallstones were investigated with 13 age- and body mass index-matched gallstone-free controls (female-male, 10:3). The bile from the gallstone patients had higher cholesterol saturation than that from the controls. The mRNA levels of ABCG5, ABCG8, and liver X receptor α (LXRα) in the gallstone patients were increased by 51, 59, and 102%, respectively, and significantly correlated with the molar percentage of biliary cholesterol and cholesterol saturation index (CSI). The mRNA and protein levels of the hepatic scavenger receptor class B type I (SR-BI) were increased, and a significant correlation was found between the protein levels and the CSI. No differences were recorded between the two groups concerning the hepatic synthesis of cholesterol, bile acids, and esterification of cholesterol. Our results suggest that the upregulation of ABCG5/ABCG8 in gallstone patients, possibly mediated by increased LXRα, may contribute to the cholesterol supersaturation of bile. Our data are consistent with the possibility that increased amounts of biliary cholesterol may originate from plasma HDL cholesterol by enhanced transfer via SR-BI.
Strathprints Institutional Repository Stabilisation of Hybrid Stochastic Differential Equations by Delay Feedback Control

Strathprints is designed to allow users to access the research output of the University of Strathclyde. Copyright © and Moral Rights for the papers on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. You may not engage in further distribution of the material for any profitmaking activities or any commercial gain. You may freely distribute both the url (http://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/) and the content of this paper for research or study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge. Abstract This paper is concerned with the exponential mean-square stabilisation of hybrid stochastic differential equations (also known as stochastic differential equations with Markovian switching) by delay feedback controls. Although the stabilisation by non-delay feedback controls for such equations has been discussed by several authors, there is so far little on the stabilisation by delay feedback controls and our aim here is mainly to close the gap. To make our theory more understandable as well as to avoid complicated notations, we will restrict our underlying hybrid stochastic differential equations to a relatively simple form. However our theory can certainly be developed to cope with much more general equations without any difficulty.
Effect of femoral head size on risk of revision for dislocation after total hip arthroplasty

Background and purpose Previous population-based registry studies have shown that larger femoral head size is associated with reduced risk of revision for dislocation. However, the previous data have not included large numbers of hip resurfacing arthroplasties or large metal-on-metal (> 36-mm) femoral head arthroplasties. We evaluated the association between femoral component head size and the risk of revision for dislocation after THA by using Finnish Arthroplasty Register data. Patients and methods 42,379 patients who were operated during 1996–2010 fulfilled our criteria. 18 different cup/stem combinations were included. The head-size groups studied (numbers of cases) were 28 mm (23,800), 32 mm (4,815), 36 mm (3,320), and > 36 mm (10,444). Other risk factors studied were sex, age group (18–49 years, 50–59 years, 60–69 years, 70–79 years, and > 80 years), and time period of operation (1996–2000, 2001–2005, 2006–2010). Results The adjusted risk ratio in the Cox model for a revision operation due to dislocation was 0.40 (95% CI: 0.26–0.62) for 32-mm head size, 0.41 (0.24–0.70) for 36-mm head size, and 0.09 (0.05–0.17) for > 36-mm head size compared to implants with a head size of 28 mm. Interpretation Larger femoral heads clearly reduce the risk of dislocation. The difference in using heads of > 36 mm as opposed to 28-mm heads for the overall revision rate at 10 years follow-up is about 2%. Thus, although attractive from a mechanical point of view, based on recent less favorable clinical outcome data on these large heads, consisting mainly of metal-on-metal prostheses, one should be cautious using these implants.
Finding The Best Model Among Representative Compositional Models

The field of distributional-compositional semantics has yielded a range of computational models for composing the vector of a phrase from those of constituent word vectors. Existing models have various ranges of their expressiveness, recursivity, and trainability. However, these models have not been examined closely for their compositionality. We implement and compare these models under the same conditions. The experimentally obtained results demonstrate that the model using different composition matrices for different dependency relations achieved state-ofthe-art performance on a dataset for two-word compositions (Mitchell and Lapata, 2010).
Identity, Cooperation, and Punishment

Among economists, there is increased recognition of the role individuals’ identities play in decision-making. In this paper, we conduct laboratory experiments in which we explore the motivations for and the effects of group identity. We find that negative out-group opinion (acting as an inter-group identity threat) can motivate in-group/out-group effects in a simple bargaining context. Further, our results suggest that disparagement of group norms by members of the in-group (acting as an intra-group identity threat) increases the use of costly punishment within the in-group.