Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Street-Centric Opportunistic Routing Protocol Based on Link Correlation for Urban VANETs

In urban vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs), due to the high mobility and uneven distribution of vehicles, how to select an optimal relaying node in an intra-street and how to determine a street selection at the intersection are two challenging issues in designing an efficient routing protocol in complex urban environments. In this paper, we build a link model with a Wiener process to predict the probability of link availability, which considers the stable and unstable vehicle states according to the behavior of vehicles. We introduce a novel concept called the link correlation which represents the influence of different link combinations in network topology to transmit a packet with less network resource consumption and higher goodput. Based on this concept, we design an opportunistic routing metric called the expected transmission cost over a multi-hop path (ETCoP) implemented with our link model as the selection guidance of a relaying node in intra-streets. This metric can also provide assistance for the next street selection at an intersection. Finally, we propose a street-centric opportunistic routing protocol based on ETCoP for VANETs (SRPE). Simulation results show that our proposed SRPE outperforms the conventional protocols in terms of packet delivery ratio, average end-to-end delay, and network yield.
Executive function is an important consideration for coping strategy use in people with multiple sclerosis

ABSTRACT Introduction: Executive function deficits are prevalent in people with multiple sclerosis (PwMS), and PwMS use less adaptive coping than healthy controls. This cross-sectional study assessed whether there is a relationship between executive function and coping in PwMS. Method: One hundred and seven participants with relapsing remitting or secondary progressive MS (n = 83 and 24, respectively; age M = 48.8 ± 11.1 years) completed measures of coping and executive function. Results: A positive relationship was found between verbal fluency and use of active, emotional, and instrumental social support coping, and total executive function and substance abuse coping. There was a negative relationship between coping strategies and core (social support, acceptance, religion, restraint, and total coping), higher order (denial and humor), and total executive function indices (acceptance, religion, behavioral disengagement, denial, and total coping). Conclusion: These directional differences provide support for the importance of specific executive functions in coping strategy utilization. Understanding these relationships will assist psychologists and neuropsychologists with patient psychoeducation, adaptive coping strategy intervention and management for PwMS with reduced executive function ability.
Multiple biomarker use for detection of adverse events in patients presenting with symptoms suggestive of acute coronary syndrome.

BACKGROUND We investigated multiple biomarkers of various pathophysiologic pathways to determine their relationships with adverse outcomes in patients presenting with symptoms of acute coronary syndrome. METHODS We obtained plasma specimens from 457 patients on admission and measured 7 biomarkers: myeloperoxidase (MPO), soluble CD40 ligand (CD40L), placental growth factor (PlGF), metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9), high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP), cardiac troponin I (cTnI), and N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP). We used the Modification of Diet in Renal Disease formula to calculate the estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR). Endpoints were cardiac events (myocardial infarction, percutaneous coronary intervention, coronary artery bypass graft, cardiac death) and all-cause mortality. We estimated cumulative event rates over a 4-month period with the Kaplan-Meier method and relative risk (RR) with the Cox proportional hazards model. RESULTS Patients with increased PlGF, NT-proBNP, hsCRP, or cTnI or decreased eGFR had 11% to 20% higher all-cause mortality rates than patients with concentrations within reference intervals: 20.4% (eGFR), 16.0% (PlGF), 15.8% (hsCRP), 12.7% (NT-proBNP), and 11.3% (cTnI; all P < or = 0.03). No differences in mortality rates were observed between those with increased vs normal concentrations of MPO, CD40L, or MMP-9. Decreased eGFR (RR 3.4, P = 0.004) and increased NT-proBNP (RR 7.9, P = 0.04) were independently predictive of mortality, and PlGF (RR 2.0, P = 0.08) approached significance. Patients with increased NT-proBNP (12.3%) or cTnI (33.8%) had higher cardiac event rates (each P <0.02), with increased MPO (11.1%) showing a trend (P = 0.09). Patients in whom both cTnI and MPO were increased had a cardiac event rate of 43%. CONCLUSION Multiple biomarkers that are likely indicative of different underlying pathophysiologic mechanisms are independently predictive of increased risk for adverse events in patients with acute coronary syndrome.
Modest Changes, Revolutionary Possibilities: Distance Learning and the Future of Education

In this essay, I take stock of the developments shaping distance learning and consider the implications for educational researchers and for the future of education. I proceed in four stages. First, I consider the constellation of forces leading to the development of distance education and the emerging shape of this part of the education sector. Second, I review the development of distance learning to date, a path of development based largely on the extension of and borrowing from existing educational arrangements and patterns in face-to-face education. Third, I explore developments at the leading edge of contemporary distance learning that depart in some more substantial way from patterns characteristic of face-to-face education. Fourth, I consider the implications for educational researchers as well as those for policy makers and educators.
Customizing Travel Packages with Interactive Composite Items

We examine the applicability of Composite Items (CIs) for generating customized travel packages consisting of Points of Interest (POIs) in a given city. CIs have been shown to serve complex information needs such as selecting books for a reading club, identifying a set of products for a promotion, or planning a city tour. In the travel domain, a synthesized view of travel options in a city can be provided with a set of cohesive CIs, each of which is covering a different region in the city. In this paper, we attempt to understand the benefit of letting users customize travel packages, and examine the relationship between customization and personalization. For personalization, we gather user preferences on POI features when available or on latent topics extracted from POI tags. For customization, we develop a framework within which a user interacts with proposed travel packages and the system suggests new CIs according to refined user preferences. Our experiments reveal a tension between personalization and the cohesiveness of items forming each CI. As a result, customization is necessary to find a balance between POI personalization and CI cohesiveness. We also show that the refined user preferences obtained from customization in one city help build better travel packages in another city.
Models in Educational Administration: Revisiting Willower’s ‘Theoretically Oriented’ Critique

Three decades ago, Willower (1975) argued that much of what we take to be theory in educational administration is in fact only theoretically oriented. If we accept Willower’s assessment of the field as true, what implications does this statement hold for the academic study and practical application of the theoretically oriented aspects of our field being espoused as theory? In this article, the authors examine this question, and suggest that the theoretically oriented of Willower’s assessment has been called models in other fields of study. Further, models are examined and characterized as conceptually distinct from theory and the application of models as a ‘way of doing’ educational administration is discussed.
Analysis of industry-generated data. Part 2: Risk-based sampling plan for efficient self-control of aflatoxin M1 contamination in raw milk

Aflatoxin M1 (AFM1) contamination in 21 969 milk samples taken in Italy during 2005–08 and 2010 provided the basis for designing an early warning self-control plan. Additionally, 4148 AFM1 data points from the mycotoxin crisis (2003–04) represented the worst case. No parametric function provided a good fit for the skewed and scattered AFM1 concentrations. The acceptable reference values, reflecting the combined uncertainty of AFM1 measured in consignments consisting of milk from one to six farms, ranged from 40 to 16.7 ng kg−1, respectively. Asymmetric control charts with these reference values, 40 and 50 ng kg−1 warning and action limits are recommended to assess immediately the distribution of AFM1 concentration in incoming consignments. The moving window method, presented as a worked example including 5 days with five samples/day, enabled verification of compliance of production with the legal limit in 98% of the consignments at a 94% probability level. The sampling plan developed assumes consecutive analyses of samples taken from individual farms, which makes early detection of contamination possible and also immediate corrective actions if the AFM1 concentration in a consignment exceeds the reference value. In the latter case different control plans with increased sampling frequency should be applied depending on the level and frequency of contamination. As aflatoxin B1 increases in feed at about the same time, therefore a coordinated sampling programme performed by the milk processing plants operating in a confined geographic area is more effective and economical then the individual ones. The applicability of the sample size calculation based on binomial theorem and the fast response rate resulting from the recommended sampling plan were verified by taking 1000–10 000 random samples with replacement from the experimental databases representing the normal, moderately and highly contaminated periods. The efficiency of the control plan could be substantially enhanced if the dairy farms used feed with a tolerable level of AFB1.
What Forty Years of Research Says About the Impact of Technology on Learning

This research study employs a second-order meta-analysis procedure to summarize 40 years of research activity addressing the question, does computer technology use affect student achievement in formal face-to-face classrooms as compared to classrooms that do not use technology? A study-level meta-analytic validation was also conducted for purposes of comparison. An extensive literature search and a systematic review process resulted in the inclusion of 25 meta-analyses with minimal overlap in primary literature, encompassing 1,055 primary studies. The random effects mean effect size of 0.35 was significantly different from zero. The distribution was heterogeneous under the fixed effects model. To validate the second-order meta-analysis, 574 individual independent effect sizes were extracted from 13 out of the 25 meta-analyses. The mean effect size was 0.33 under the random effects model, and the distribution was heterogeneous. Insights about the state of the field, implications for technology use, and prospects for future research are discussed.
Retinopathy of prematurity in infants of birth weight > 2000 g after haemorrhagic shock at birth.

BACKGROUND: The risk of retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) is associated with low birth weight and low gestational age. For ROP screening examination is recommended in infants weighing < or = 1500 g or of less than 32 weeks' gestational age. METHODS: From 1991 ROP screening was performed in 452 premature infants with either a birth weight < or = 1500 g (n = 303) or a birth weight > 1500 g (n = 149) and who required additional oxygen supplementation or underwent surgery with general anaesthesia before estimated term. RESULTS: Unexpectedly, three infants with birth weights between 2080 and 2325 g and a gestational age of 32 or 33 weeks developed stage 2 or 3 ROP. One of these underwent cryocoagulation. In three infants, preterm birth was induced by sudden placental abruption with severe prenatal blood loss followed by haemorrhagic shock. The umbilical cord packed cell volume was reduced to 0.14-0.19 (normal 0.43-0.63). All three infants underwent surgery with general anaesthesia within the first weeks of life. Of the remaining 449 infants none with a birth weight > 1650 g developed any stage of ROP. CONCLUSION: Severe prenatal blood loss requiring blood transfusions and surgery with general anaesthesia may induce higher stages of ROP even in infants with birth weights exceeding the usual screening criteria.
How Emotions Develop and How they Organise Development

Abstract Concepts from functional theories of emotions are integrated with principles of skill development to produce a theory of emotional development. The theory provides tools for predicting both the sequences of emotional development and the ways emotions shape development. Emotions are characterised in terms of three component models: (a) the process of emotion generation from event appraisal, (b) a hierarchy of emotion categories organised around a handful of basic-emotion families, and (c) a characterisation of emotions in terms of prototypic event scripts. The basic emotions and the positive vs. negative hedonic components of emotions function as constraints or organisers that shape behaviour whenever an emotion is activated. Through these patterning effects, emotions shape both short-term behavioural organisation and long-term development. The skill-development component of the theory explains how, as children grow, they construct and control increasingly complex skills—which affect many aspects .
Distance browsing in spatial databases

We compare two different techniques for browsing through a collection of spatial objects stored in an R-tree spatial data structure on the basis of their distances from an arbitrary spatial query object. The conventional approach is one that makes use of a <italic>k</italic>-nearest neighbor algorithm where <italic>k</italic> is known prior to the invocation of the algorithm. Thus if <italic>m</italic> < <italic>k</italic> neighbors are needed, the <italic>k</italic>-nearest neighbor algorithm has to be reinvoked for <italic>m</italic> neighbors, thereby possibly performing some redundant computations. The second approach is incremental in the sense that having obtained the <italic>k</italic> nearest neighbors, the <italic>k</italic> + 1<italic><supscrpt>st</supscrpt></italic> neighbor can be obtained without having to calculate the <italic>k</italic> + 1 nearest neighbors from scratch. The incremental approach is useful when processing complex queries where one of the conditions involves spatial proximity (e.g., the nearest city to Chicago with population greater than a million), in which case a query engine can make use of a pipelined strategy. We present a general incremental nearest neighbor algorithm that is applicable to a large class of hierarchical spatial data structures. This algorithm is adapted to the R-tree and its performance is compared to an existing <italic>k</italic>-nearest neighbor algorithm for R-trees [Rousseopoulos et al. 1995]. Experiments show that the incremental nearest neighbor algorithm significantly outperforms the <italic>k</italic>-nearest neighbor algorithm for distance browsing queries in a spatial database that uses the R-tree as a spatial index. Moreover, the incremental nearest neighbor algorithm usually outperforms the <italic>k</italic>-nearest neighber algorithm when applied to the <italic>k</italic>-nearest neighbor problem for the R-tree, although the improvement is not nearly as large as for distance browsing queries. In fact, we prove informally that at any step in its execution the incremental nearest neighbor algorithm is optimal with respect to the spatial data structure that is employed. Furthermore, based on some simplifying assumptions, we prove that in two dimensions the number of distance computations and leaf nodes accesses made by the algorithm for finding <italic>k</italic> neighbors is <italic>O</italic>(<italic>k</italic> + <italic>k</italic>).
Getting ‘Entangled’: Reflexivity and the ‘Critical Turn’ in Tourism Studies

Reflecting a broader postmodern shift to unmask the cultural politics of research and knowledge-making in academia, tourism studies as a field is demonstrating a notable ‘critical turn’—a shift in thought that serves to provide and legitimize a space for more interpretative and critical modes of tourism inquiry. In response to this critical turn, this paper addresses the central issue of ‘reflexivity’ which, while alive in other disciplines and fields, has received rather limited attention within tourism studies. By drawing on our own personal academic/research experiences working at the crossroads of this turn in thought, we identify a range of ‘entanglements’ that influence and constrain our research choices, textual strategies and ability to pursue reflexive knowledge. These entanglements centre around four broad, but interlinking, themes: ‘ideologies and legitimacies’; ‘research accountability’; ‘positionality’, and ‘intersectionality with the researched’. In writing this paper, we aim to uncloak the current cultural politics in the tourism studies field, deferring as a basis to more mature debates on reflexivity in the social sciences. Ultimately, we stress the need to recognize reflexivity not only as a self-indulgent practice of writing ourselves in to our research, but also as a wider socio-political process which must incorporate and acknowledge the ‘researched’ and our responsibilities to them in the production of tourism knowledge. More importantly, in order to move the perceptions of reflexivity beyond the self, we urge all researchers to find a common territory and engage in the art of reflexivity, irrespective of their ontological, epistemological and methodological binds.
Improving light extraction from heavy inorganic scintillators by photonic crystals

The impact of photonic crystal (PhC) slabs on the light extraction from heavy inorganic scintillators is reviewed. It is shown by means of simulations with a scattering-matrix algorithm that a PhC slab does change the extraction properties of the scintillator in a positive way; in particular, it permits the extraction of photons that hit the exit surface at an angle that is larger than the angle of total reflection of a plain surface. By combining these results with results from LITRANI simulations on the light propagation in scintillators, a model is developed that allows for calculating the light collection efficiency ηL of a scintillator with PhC coupling face. It is shown that such a scintillator can exhibit a gain in ηL of up to 100% relative to a scintillator with plain exit surface.
Three-dimensional color-modulated display of myocardial SPECT perfusion distributions accurately assesses coronary artery disease.

UNLABELLED The objective of this study was to compare visual assessment of 3-dimensional color-modulated (to counts) surface displays with visual assessment of oblique tomographic slices of myocardial SPECT perfusion distributions in the detection and localization of coronary artery disease (CAD). METHODS Sixty-two consecutive patients (41 men, 21 women; mean age, 61 +/- 11 y) who had undergone conventional dual-isotope perfusion SPECT were retrospectively chosen; 50 had undergone coronary arteriography previously, and 12 had less than a 5% likelihood of CAD. Four readers interpreted the 3-dimensional displays and slices in separate sessions while unaware of the findings of previous readings, the interpretations of others, and the angiographic results. The readers used a 5-point scoring system. Their average score was used for receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis. The area under the ROC curves was determined so that the ability of the 2 methods to detect and localize CAD could be compared. RESULTS No significant differences were found between visual interpretation of 3-dimensional displays and visual interpretation of slices. CONCLUSION These preliminary results indicate that visual interpretation of 3-dimensional displays of myocardial perfusion SPECT distributions may someday replace visual assessment of conventional slices without loss of diagnostic accuracy.
Analysis of Layered Social Networks

Abstract : Prevention of near-term terrorist attacks requires an understanding of current terrorist organizations to include their composition, the actors involved, and how they operate to achieve their objectives. To aid this understanding, operations research, sociological, and behavioral theory relevant to the study of social networks are applied, thereby providing theoretical foundations for new methodologies to analyze non-cooperative organizations, defined as those trying to hide their structure or are unwilling to provide information regarding their operations. Techniques applying information regarding multiple dimensions of interpersonal relationships, inferring from them the strengths of interpersonal ties, are explored. A layered network construct is offered that provides new analytic opportunities and insights generally unaccounted for in traditional social network analyses. These provide decision makers improved courses of action designed to impute influence upon an adversarial network, thereby achieving a desired influence, perception, or outcome to one or more actors within the target network. This knowledge may also be used to identify key individuals, relationships, and organizational practices. Subsequently, such analysis may lead to the identification of exploitable weaknesses to either eliminate the network as a whole, cause it to become operationally ineffective, or influence it to directly or indirectly support National Security Strategy.
Reference Effects on Revisit Intention: Involvement as a Moderator

ABSTRACT Past work has examined the reference effect in consumer choice, but most work has focused on referents centered on the service itself. This study examines two additional reference effects—alternative attractiveness and self-image congruity. An empirical study of visitors to a museum confirms that comparisons involving self-based reference point also contribute significantly to revisit intention. Furthermore, the effect of positive disconfirmation on revisit intention becomes weaker as the level of involvement increases. The effect of self-image congruity on revisit intention becomes greater as the level of involvement increases.
Integration of informal music technologies in secondary school music lessons

Technologies such as YouTube, mobile phones and MP3 players are increasingly integrated into secondary school music in the UK. At the same time, the gap between formal and informal music learning is being bridged by the incorporation of students’ preferred music into class activities. We conducted an ethnographic study in two secondary schools in London, investigating the roles of technology in the negotiation of musical concepts in music classes. From this, we report some observations on the relation between formal/informal and authorised/unauthorised activities in class, and some specific observations on the role of YouTube, mobile phones and MP3 players in the class context. In the lessons we observed, these technologies functioned as part of a richly multimodal ecosystem of technologies, combining aspects of formal and informal use. This carries implications for how we plan for the use of technology in the delivery of music education.