Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Self Triggered Task Model for Real-Time Control Systems

In this paper we present a control-based model for control tasks that allows each control task to trigger itself optimizing computing resources and control performance. Using this model, at each control task instance execution, the executing instance informs the scheduler when the next instance should be executed. The next instance execution point in time is dynamically obtained as a function of the utilization factor and control performance. Preliminary results show that control activities, at run time, are able to define self-execution patterns that dynamically balance optimal levels of control performance and resource
Testing Portfolio Efficiency with Conditioning Information

We develop asset pricing models' implications for portfolio efficiency when there is conditioning information in the form of a set of lagged instruments. A model of expected returns identifies a portfolio that should be minimum variance efficient with respect to the conditioning information. Our tests refine previous tests of portfolio efficiency, using the conditioning information optimally. We reject the efficiency of all static or time-varying combinations of the three Fama-French (1996) factors with respect to the conditioning information and also the conditional efficiency of time-varying combinations of the factors, given standard lagged instruments.
Reviews and Syntheses: Responses of coccolithophores to ocean acidification: a meta-analysis

Concerning their sensitivity to ocean acidification, coccolithophores, a group of calcifying single-celled phytoplankton, are one of the best-studied groups of marine organisms. However, in spite of the large number of studies investigating coccolithophore physiological responses to ocean acidification, uncertainties still remain due to variable and partly contradictory results. In the present study we have used all existing data in a meta-analysis to estimate the effect size of future pCO2 changes on the rates of calcification and photosynthesis and the ratio of particulate inorganic to organic carbon (PIC / POC) in different coccolithophore species. Our results indicate that ocean acidification has a negative effect on calcification and the cellular PIC / POC ratio in the two most abundant coccolithophore species: Emiliania huxleyi and Gephyrocapsa oceanica. In contrast, the more heavily calcified species Coccolithus braarudii did not show a distinct response when exposed to elevated pCO2/reduced pH. Photosynthesis in Gephyrocapsa oceanica was positively affected by high CO2, while no effect was observed for the other coccolithophore species. There was no indication that the method of carbonate chemistry manipulation was responsible for the inconsistent results regarding observed responses in calcification and the PIC / POC ratio. The perturbation method, however, appears to affect photosynthesis, as responses varied significantly between total alkalinity (TA) and dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) manipulations. These results emphasize that coccolithophore species respond differently to ocean acidification, both in terms of calcification and photosynthesis. Where negative effects occur, they become evident at CO2 levels in the range projected for this century in the case of unabated CO2 emissions. As the data sets used in this meta-analysis do not account for adaptive responses, ecological fitness and ecosystem interactions, the question remains as to how these physiological responses play out in the natural environment.
GRK2-Mediated Inhibition of Adrenergic and Dopaminergic Signaling in Right Ventricular Hypertrophy: Therapeutic Implications in Pulmonary Hypertension

Background—The cause and consequences of impaired adrenergic signaling in right ventricular failure/hypertrophy (RVH) are poorly understood. We hypothesized that G protein–coupled receptor kinase-2 (GRK2)–mediated uncoupling of &bgr;-adrenergic receptor signaling impairs inotropic reserve. The implications of right ventricular (RV) adrenergic remodeling for inotrope selection and the therapeutic benefit of interrupting G&bgr;&ggr;–GRK2 interaction, using gallein, were tested. Methods and Results—Chamber-specificity and cellular localization of adrenergic remodeling were compared in rodent RVH associated with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH-RVH; SU5416+chronic-hypoxia or Monocrotaline) versus pulmonary artery banding–induced RVH (PAB-RVH). Results were corroborated in RV arrays from 10 PAH patients versus controls. Inotropic reserve was assessed in RV- and left ventricular–Langendorff models and in vivo. Gallein therapy (1.8 mg/kg/day ×2-weeks) was assessed. Despite similar RVH, cardiac output (58.3±4.9 versus 82.9±4.8 mL/min; P<0.001) and treadmill distance (41.5±11.6 versus 244.1±12.4 m; P<0.001) were lower in PAH-RVH versus PAB-RVH. In PAH-RVH versus PAB-RVH there was greater downregulation of &bgr;1-, &agr;1- and dopamine-1 receptors, more left ventricular involvement, and greater impairment of RV contractile reserve. RV GRK2 activity increased in parallel with a reduction in both adrenergic receptor expression and inotrope-stimulated cAMP levels (P<0.01). &bgr;1-receptor downregulation also occurred in human PAH-RVH. Dobutamine was superior to dopamine as an RV inotrope, both ex vivo and in vivo. Conclusions—GRK2-mediated desensitization-downregulation of adrenergic and dopaminergic receptors impairs inotropic reserve in PAH-RVH. Acute inotropic support in RVH is best accomplished by dobutamine, reflecting its better coupling to adenylyl cyclase and the reliance of dopamine on dopamine-1–receptor signaling, which is impaired in RVH. Inhibiting G&bgr;&ggr;–GRK2 interactions has therapeutic benefit in RVH.
Improved Bottleneck Features Using Pretrained Deep Neural Networks

Bottleneck features have been shown to be effective in improving the accuracy of automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems. Conventionally, bottleneck features are extracted from a multi-layer perceptron (MLP) trained to predict context-independent monophone states. The MLP typically has three hidden layers and is trained using the backpropagation algorithm. In this paper, we propose two improvements to the training of bottleneck features motivated by recent advances in the use of deep neural networks (DNNs) for speech recognition. First, we show how the use of unsupervised pretraining of a DNN enhances the network’s discriminative power and improves the bottleneck features it generates. Second, we show that a neural network trained to predict context-dependent senone targets produces better bottleneck features than one trained to predict monophone states. Bottleneck features trained using the proposed methods produced a 16% relative reduction in sentence error rate over conventional bottleneck features on a large vocabulary business search task.
Parallel programming:a model the academi

The married women who educate simultaneously,ar they have multiple and even conflicting roles, their risk.Whether parallel planning:a total time managem achievement or not? A model which tries firstly to important tasks . The main goal of this study was deter model in academic achievement in the case of selected,multiple baseline(across subjects) design.Th selected in a purposive sampling way among Payame 24.2 years.Each subject had atleast 11 instructional,p had two phases of baseline and treatment(instru 4 th ,5 th ,6 th ,7 th &8 th session.In each session ,each subj questions) based on her thermic lesson design, along 100point scale and finally graphs and visual analysis baseline and instruction phase,demonstrated a clear Parallel programming instruction was effective on aca
An examination of crossover and spillover effects of spousal and expatriate cross-cultural adjustment on expatriate outcomes.

Integrating work-family and cross-cultural adjustment literatures, the researchers proposed and tested a spillover and crossover model of expatriates' cross-cultural adjustment with reciprocal relationships. Spillover effects refer to the influence that expatriate attitudes in a particular domain (e.g., work) have on attitudes in other domains (e.g., nonwork), whereas crossover effects refer to the influence of expatriate attitudes on the spouse's attitudes (and vice versa). Data collected from Japanese expatriates, their spouses, and their superiors strongly supported both spillover and crossover effects between expatriate and spousal cross-cultural adjustment. In addition, expatriates' cross-cultural adjustment was found to be related to satisfaction, which, in turn, was found to be negatively related to expatriates' intention to return to their homeland early.
Hip strength in collegiate female athletes with patellofemoral pain.

PURPOSE Decreased hip strength has been theorized to contribute to the development of patellofemoral pain. The purpose of this study was to test for strength differences of six hip muscle groups in collegiate female athletes diagnosed with unilateral patellofemoral pain compared with the unaffected leg and noninjured sport-matched controls. METHODS At four Division III schools, all collegiate female athletes experiencing unilateral patellofemoral pain were recruited during the 2004-2005 academic school year. The athletes were diagnosed with patellofemoral pain by sports medicine-trained family physicians or orthopedic surgeons. Hip strength of six different muscle groups was tested using a handheld dynamometer. The highest value of two trials was used, and strength values were normalized to body weight. The measurements from the injured leg were compared with the uninvolved leg and also with uninjured control subjects matched for sport. RESULTS Thirteen athletes were diagnosed with unilateral patellofemoral pain. The injured-side hip abductor (P = 0.003) and external rotator muscle groups (P = 0.049) were significantly weaker than the noninjured sides. There were no significant differences in the other hip muscles tested. In addition, the injured legs were significantly weaker in five of the six hip muscle groups compared with the control group. CONCLUSIONS The results of this study show that hip abductors and external rotators were significantly weaker between the injured and unaffected legs of the injured athletes. In addition, injured collegiate female athletes exhibited global hip weakness compared with age- and sport-matched asymptomatic controls. Screening for hip muscle weakness and adding strengthening exercises to the affected hip muscles may be important factors in managing female athletes with patellofemoral pain.
Caste, Hierarchy and Race in a World-Historical Perspective: Louis Dumont and his Critique of Max Weber

This article examines a classical debate concerning intercultural comparisons of historical outcastes. It focuses on Louis Dumont's critical engagement with Max Weber's conceptualisation of caste and the definition of the Jews as a Pariah people. Dumont criticises Weber's influential discussion of caste and ethnic segregation in which a south Indian caste, the Pariyars, is linked with the Jews. He argues that Weber neglects hierarchy and undermines intercultural comparisons. Dumont's proposition is that racism emerged with the principle of equality. Based on the American transition from slavery to democracy, he speculates that the Western distinction between soul and body had reinvented the social order into a hierarchy of racial identities. Equality repressed its hierarchy, whereas India's caste system was explicitly hierarchical. This article concludes that Weber and Dumont represent a methodological contrast that is noteworthy for cross-cultural comparisons, while also emphasising the intellectualist inclination in Dumont's preoccupation with hierarchy in a world-historical perspective.
Performance characteristics of a newly developed PET/CT scanner using NEMA standards in 2D and 3D modes.

UNLABELLED This study evaluates the 2-dimensional (2D) and 3-dimensional (3D) performance characteristics of a newly developed PET/CT scanner using the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) NU 2-1994 (NU94) and NEMA NU 2-2001 (NU01) standards. The PET detector array consists of 10,080 individual bismuth germanate crystals arranged in 24 rings of 420 crystals each. The size of each crystal is 6.3 x 6.3 x 30 mm in the axial, transaxial, and radial dimensions, respectively. The PET detector ring diameter is 88.6 cm with axial and transaxial fields of view (FOVs) of 15.7 and 70 cm, respectively. The scanner has a uniform patient port of 70 cm throughout the PET and CT FOV, and the PET scanner is equipped with retractable septa to allow 2D and 3D imaging. METHODS Spatial resolution, scatter fraction, sensitivity, counting rate, image quality, and accuracy as defined by the NEMA protocols of NU94 and NU01 for 2D and 3D modes are evaluated. The 2D mode data were acquired with a maximum ring difference of 5, whereas the 3D mode acquisition used ring differences of 23. Both 2D and 3D mode data were acquired with an energy window of 375-650 keV. Random estimation from singles counting rate was applied to all relevant analysis. In addition, images from 2 clinical whole-body oncology studies acquired in 2D and 3D modes are shown to demonstrate the image quality obtained from this scanner. RESULTS The 2D NU94 transaxial resolution is 6.1-mm full width at half maximum (FWHM) 1 cm off center and increases to 6.9 mm tangential and 8.1 mm radial at a radius (R) of 20 cm. NU01 2D average transaxial (axial) FWHM resolution measured 6.1 (5.2) mm at R = 1 cm and 6.7 (6.1) mm at R = 10 cm. The NU94 scatter fraction for 2D (3D) was 13% (29%), whereas the NU01 scatter fraction gave 19% (45%). NU01 peak 2D (3D) noise equivalent counting rate (T(2)/[T + R + S]) was 90.2 (67.8) kilocount per second (kcps) at 52.5 (12) kBq/mL. Total 2D (3D) system sensitivity for true events is 8 (32.9) kcps/kBq/mL for NU94 and 1.95 (9.2) kcps/Bq for NU01. CONCLUSION The results show excellent system sensitivity with relatively uniform resolution throughout the FOV, making this scanner highly suitable for whole-body studies.
On the use of backward simulation in the particle Gibbs sampler

The particle Gibbs (PG) sampler was introduced in [1] as a way to incorporate a particle filter (PF) in a Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampler. The resulting method was shown to be an efficient tool for joint Bayesian parameter and state inference in nonlinear, non-Gaussian state-space models. However, the mixing of the PG kernel can be very poor when there is severe degeneracy in the PF. Hence, the success of the PG sampler heavily relies on the, often unrealistic, assumption that we can implement a PF without suffering from any considerate degeneracy. However, as pointed out by Whiteley [2] in the discussion following [1], the mixing can be improved by adding a backward simulation step to the PG sampler. Here, we investigate this further, derive an explicit PG sampler with backward simulation (denoted PG-BSi) and show that this indeed is a valid MCMC method. Furthermore, we show in a numerical example that backward simulation can lead to a considerable increase in performance over the standard PG sampler.
Effects of Explanations on Applicant Reactions: A Meta-Analytic Review

One cost effective way to improve applicant reactions is by giving explanations. Although a literature on this topic has accumulated, the effects of explanations on applicant reactions have not been examined meta-analytically, and several aspects of giving explanations to applicants are unclear. For example, do explanations affect applicant reactions, and which outcomes are most affected? Do findings from lab studies generalize to field settings? Under what conditions are explanations most effective? To answer these questions, we meta-analytically examined the effects of providing explanations on applicant reactions. Based on 26 distinct samples from experiments and quasi-experiments (N=3481), our results suggest that explanations do affect applicants' fairness perceptions, perceptions of the hiring organization, test-taking motivation, and performance on cognitive ability tests. The effects on fairness are larger in field contexts than in lab settings and when they are used with a personality test rather than a cognitive ability test. Test-taking motivation mediated the relationship between explanations and test performance. Our discussion focuses on when to provide explanations to applicants in employment settings and directions for future research.
Age-related differences in walking stability.

BACKGROUND a large proportion of falls in older people occur when walking; however the mechanisms underlying impaired balance during gait are poorly understood. OBJECTIVE to evaluate acceleration patterns at the head and pelvis in young and older subjects when walking on a level and an irregular walking surface, in order to develop an understanding of how ageing affects postural responses to challenging walking conditions. METHODS temporo-spatial gait parameters and variables derived from acceleration signals were recorded in 30 young people aged 22-39 years (mean 29.0, SD 4.3), and 30 older people with a low risk of falling aged 75-85 years (mean 79.0, SD 3.0) while walking on a level and an irregular walking surface. Subjects also underwent tests of vision, sensation, strength, reaction time and balance. RESULTS older subjects exhibited a more conservative gait pattern, characterised by reduced velocity, shorter step length and increased step timing variability. These differences were particularly pronounced when walking on the irregular surface. The magnitude of accelerations at the head and pelvis were generally smaller in older subjects; however the smoothness of the acceleration signals did not differ between the two groups. Older subjects performed worse on tests of vision, peripheral sensation, strength, reaction time and balance. CONCLUSION the adoption of a more conservative basic gait pattern by older people with a low risk of falling reduces the magnitude of accelerations experienced by the head and pelvis when walking, which is likely to be a compensatory strategy to maintain balance in the presence of age-related deficits in physiological function, particularly reduced lower limb strength.
Insulin augments mechanical strain-induced ERK activation and cyclooxygenase-2 expression in MG63 cells through integrins

Insulin has been proposed to be a positive regulator of osteoblast proliferation and bone formation. In vivo mechanical loading is essential for maintaining skeletal integrity and bone mass. Since insulin and mechanical force activate similar signaling pathways in osteoblasts, it was hypothesized that insulin may affect mechanical stimulation in osteoblasts. The present study tested the hypothesis that insulin augments mechanical strain-induced signaling and early gene expression in MG63 cells via activation of the extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) pathway and cyclooxygenase-2 (Cox-2) expression. Western blot analysis and quantitative polymerase chain reaction demonstrated respectively that insulin enhanced mechanical strain-induced ERK phosphorylation and Cox-2 expression levels in a dose-dependent manner. The effect of insulin on mechanical strain-induced Cox-2 expression was inhibited by blockade of the ERK pathway. In addition, echistatin, an inhibitor of integrin function, prevented the effects of insulin on mechanical strain-induced ERK phosphorylation and Cox-2 expression. The data obtained from this study suggested that insulin augments mechanical strain-induced Cox-2 expression levels via integrin-dependent activation of the ERK pathway in osteoblasts.
A randomized phase II study comparing gemcitabine plus nadroparine versus gemcitabine in patients with locally advanced or metastatic pancreatic carcinoma: The GEMFRAX trial.

4112 Background: Gemcitabine is considered to be the standard chemotherapy regimen for advanced pancreatic cancer. The advantage of gemcitabine over best supportive care however is limited. Preclinical and clinical data have shown that low molecular weight heparin (LMWH) has an inhibitory effect on tumor progression. Two years ago provoking and promising results were presented at ASCO in a pancreatic cancer population. In this study we wanted to confirm these promising results, in which 6-month survival was the primary endpoint. METHODS Patients (pts) with advanced pancreatic carcinoma were randomized to either gemcitabine 1000 mg/m2 on day 1, 8 and 15 every 4 weeks (arm A) or gemcitabine plus nadroparine 5700 IU twice daily from day 1 to 21 every 4 weeks (arm B). Simon's optimal two-stage design was applied to each arm to assess the treatment efficacy within each arm. This design required to enter 10 pts in the experimental arm in the first stage with the hypothesis that 70% instead of the expected 45% would be alive at 6 months. If 5 or less pts were alive at 6 months, the trial would be stopped and the regimen would be declared as ineffective. RESULTS 27 pts, all with metastatic disease, have been enrolled to date, 16 in arm A and 11 in arm B. Of the first 10 pts in the experimental arm only 4 were alive at 6 months (arm A: 6 of 10 pts alive). The median overall survival (OS) of these pts was 5.6 months and the median progression free survival (PFS) was 4.1 months (in arm A 8.7 and 5.1 months, respectively). The best response was stable disease (80%). No bleeding complications were seen. CONCLUSIONS This small sized study was designed to detect a large, clinically relevant, difference in 6-month survival in pts with advanced pancreatic cancer treated with a combination of gemcitabine plus nadroparine compared to gemcitabine alone. Adding nadroparine to gemcitabine was feasible and gave no serious toxicity attributable to nadroparine. According to Simon's two-step design a planned analysis after entering 10 pts in the experimental arm rejected the assumption that the combination induced an absolute increase in 6-month survival of 25% (5% type I error rate and 80% power). No significant financial relationships to disclose.
Distributed Gain-scheduling Output Regulation of Discrete-Time Multi-Agent Systems

The objective of this note is to explore the robust cooperative output regulation (COR) challenge faced by discrete-time linear multi-agent systems with parameter-dependent uncertainties that are represented by linear fractional transformation (LFT) models. To achieve cooperative tracking with disturbance rejection, an innovative scheme is devised, which is based on distributed observers and gain-scheduling output regulation. By employing appropriate coordinate transformations, the existence conditions of distributed controllers are formulated as solvability of output regulator equations plus stability of an equivalent parameter-dependent LFT system. Under some standard assumptions, independent sets of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) and regulator equations are then given to formulate the controller synthesis. By resorting polynomial and LMI techniques, solvability of the proposed method is guaranteed. Finally, a numerical example is simulated to evaluate the efficacy of the proposed methodology.