Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Constructive global analysis of hybrid systems

Many systems of interest are dynamic systems whose behavior is determined by the interaction of continuous and discrete dynamics. These systems typically contain variables or signals that take values from a continuous set and also variables that take values from a discrete, typically finite set. These continuous or discrete-valued variables or signals depend on independent variables such as time, which may also be continuous or discrete. Such systems are known as Hybrid Systems. Although widely used, not much is known about analysis of hybrid systems. This thesis attempts to take a step forward in understanding and developing tools to systematically analyze certain classes of hybrid systems. In particular, it focuses on a class of hybrid systems known as Piecewise Linear Systems (PLS). These are characterized by a finite number of affine linear dynamical models together with a set of rules for switching among these models. Even for simple classes of PLS, very little theoretical results are known. More precisely, one typically cannot assess a priori the guaranteed stability, robustness, and performance properties of PLS designs. Rather, any such properties are inferred from extensive computer simulations. In other words, complete and systematic analysis and design methodologies have yet emerge. In this thesis, we develop an entirely new constructive global analysis methodology for PLS. This methodology consists in inferring global properties of PLS solely by studying their behavior at switching surfaces associated with PLS. The main idea is to analyze impact maps, i.e., maps from one switching surface to the next switching surface. These maps are proven globally stable by constructing quadratic Lyapunov functions on switching surfaces. Impact maps are known to be "unfriendly" maps in the sense that they are highly nonlinear, multivalued, and not continuous. We found, however, that an impact map induced by an LTI flow between two switching surfaces can be represented as a linear transformation analytically parametrized by a scalar function of the state. Moreover, level sets of this function are convex subsets of linear manifolds. This representation of impact maps allows the search for quadratic Lyapunov functions on switching surfaces to be done by simply solving a set of LMIs. Global asymptotic stability of limit cycles and equilibrium points of PLS can this way be efficiently checked. The classes of PLS analyzed in this thesis are LTI systems in feedback with an hysteresis, an on/off controller, or a saturation. Although this analysis methodology yields only sufficient criteria of stability, it has shown to be very successful in globally analyzing a large number of examples with a locally stable limit
Understanding networks of natural mentoring support among underrepresented college students

Abstract Naturally-occurring mentoring relationships with caring, nonparental adults can provide critical support to underrepresented students during the transition to college. The current study sought to examine the nature of underrepresented students’ relationships with natural mentors during their first three semesters in college. Results revealed that participants perceived greater relational closeness with natural mentors who were extended family members or family friends compared to natural mentors from other categories (e.g., natural mentors who were teachers). Moreover, natural mentors who were extended family or family friends provided greater levels of emotional, appraisal, informational, and instrumental support to students relative to natural mentors who were former teachers or other school staff. Natural mentors who were college faculty or staff provided more informational support than natural mentors who were family or family friends. Findings have implications for understanding intergenerational mentoring relationships that may promote resilient outcomes among underrepresented students transitioning to elite, predominantly white colleges and universities.
Psychopathology of Stalking Offenders: Examining the Clinical, Demographic, and Stalking Characteristics of a Community-Based Sample

This study examined the correlates of stalking behavior and psychopathology among stalking offenders assessed using a rigorous diagnostic tool. A total of 137 stalking offenders were interviewed and diagnosed using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis I and Axis II Disorders. Analyses examined the extent to which stalking behaviors and offender characteristics differed across diagnostic groups. Study participants were African American (29%), Hispanic (28%), or Caucasian (28%), and had an average age of 36 years old (SD = 11). The most common instant offenses were stalking/harassment (53%) and violation of an order of protection or criminal contempt (18%). Seventy-two percent met criteria for a clinical diagnosis, and there were high rates of comorbidity: psychotic disorder (10%), mood or anxiety disorder (31%), substance use disorder (46%), and personality disorder (50%). Over a quarter (28%) of the sample’s stalking behaviors occurred in the absence of psychopathology. Clinical implications and future research directions are discussed.
Hyperactivation of monkey spermatozoa is triggered by Ca2+ and completed by cAMP

Digital image analysis of the flagellar movements of cynomolgus macaque spermatozoa hyperactivated by caffeine and cAMP was carried out to understand the change in flagellar movements during hyperactivation. The degree of flagellar bending increased remarkably after hyperactivation, especially at the base of the midpiece. Mainly two beating patterns were seen in the hyperactivated monkey sperm flagella: remarkably asymmetrical flagellar bends of large amplitude and relatively symmetrical flagellar bends of large amplitude. The asymmetrical bends were often seen in the early stage of hyperactivation, whereas the symmetrical bends executed nonprogressive, figure‐of‐eight movement. Beat frequency of the hyperactivated spermatozoa significantly decreased while wavelength of flagellar waves roughly doubled. To determine the conditions under which the axonemes of hyperactivated sperm flagella have asymmetrical or symmetrical bends, the plasma membranes of monkey spermatozoa were extracted with Triton X‐100 and motility was reactivated with MgATP2− under various conditions. The asymmetrical flagellar bends were brought about by Ca2+, whereas the symmetrical flagellar bends resulted from low levels of Ca2+ and high levels of cAMP. Under these conditions, beat frequency and wavelength of flagellar waves of demembranated, reactivated spermatozoa were similar to those of the hyperactivated spermatozoa. These results suggest that during hyperactivation of monkey spermatozoa intracellular Ca2+ concentrations first rise, and then decrease while cAMP concentrations increase simultaneously. Mol. Reprod. Dev. 1129–1139, 2006. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
‘Mitori’ practices at a Japanese Hospital: Interactional analysis of the processes of death and dying in Japan

Using 20 video recordings of Emergency Room treatment and over 5 years of Emergency Room fieldwork data, this study elucidates how interactional processes serve as resources for generating a cultural script of death in Japan called ‘Mitori’. A sudden death at a hospital, in which a patient is removed from their social network, is often considered as the opposite of a ‘good home death’. This study shows how hospital deaths in Japan are strongly interrelated with family participation. After showing the point where medical professionals decide to terminate resuscitation attempts, the analysis depicts interactional steps that shift the definition of environment from a place for treatment toward a place where ‘Mitori’ occurs; that is, a family encounter occurs with a dying patient. Conversation between a doctor and a family member consists of a step-by-step evidence- building story. The final section displays both conversational and physical resources used to establish ‘Mitori’.
Heterogeneous Tempo and Mode of Conserved Noncoding Sequence Evolution among Four Mammalian Orders

Conserved noncoding sequences (CNSs) of vertebrates are considered to be closely linked with protein-coding gene regulatory functions. We examined the abundance and genomic distribution of CNSs in four mammalian orders: primates, rodents, carnivores, and cetartiodactyls. We defined the two thresholds for CNS using conservation level of coding genes; using all the three coding positions and using only first and second codon positions. The abundance of CNSs varied among lineages, with primates and rodents having highest and lowest number of CNSs, respectively, whereas carnivores and cetartiodactyls had intermediate values. These CNSs cover 1.3–5.5% of the mammalian genomes and have signatures of selective constraints that are stronger in more ancestral than the recent ones. Evolution of new CNSs as well as retention of ancestral CNSs contribute to the differences in abundance. The genomic distribution of CNSs is dynamic with higher proportions of rodent and primate CNSs located in the introns compared with carnivores and cetartiodactyls. In fact, 19% of orthologous single-copy CNSs between human and dog are located in different genomic regions. If CNSs can be considered as candidates of gene expression regulatory sequences, heterogeneity of CNSs among the four mammalian orders may have played an important role in creating the order-specific phenotypes. Fewer CNSs in rodents suggest that rodent diversity is related to lower regulatory conservation. With CNSs shown to cluster around genes involved in nervous systems and the higher number of primate CNSs, our result suggests that CNSs may be involved in the higher complexity of the primate nervous system.
Fair management of social risk * January 2014

We provide a general method for extending fair social preferences defined for riskless economic environments to the context of risk and uncertainty. We apply the method to the problems of managing unemployment allowances (in the context of macroeconomic fluctuations) and catastrophic risks (in the context of climate change). It requires paying attention to individuals’ risk attitudes and rationality properties of social preferences, revisiting basic ideas from Harsanyi’s seminal work (Harsanyi, 1955). The social preferences that we obtain do not in general take the form of an expected utility criterion, but they always satisfy statewise dominance. We also show how non-expected utility individual preferences can be accommodated in the approach.
PRIMARY TEACHERS’ AND STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION ON THE USE OF ICT-BASED INTERACTIVE GAME IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING

This study aimed at investigating (1) the teachers’ perception on the use of ICT-based Interactive Game in teaching English, and (2) the perception of the sixth graders on the use of ICT-based Interactive Game toward their learning motivation and English achievement. Methodically, this study was quantitative research in which survey was employed. In order to collect the data, different questionnaires were administered primarily as the instrument both for teachers and students. The samples of this study were 6 English teachers and 152 students of the sixth grade in 6 primary schools in Sukasada District, Buleleng Regency. Prior to data analysis, the results of this study were computed by finding out the percentage of each item and its average in order to withdraw the conclusion descriptively. The results were (1) there was a positive perception of the teachers with regard to the use of ICT-based Interactive Game in teaching English to the sixth grade of primary schools in the cluster IV and V in Sukasada District and (2) there was positive perception of the students on the use of ICT-based Interactive Game toward their learning motivation and English achievement.
Factors preventing Malaysian teachers from using Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in teaching mathematics

This article discusses the factors which prevent secondary school teachers from using Information and Communication Technology (ICT) during their teaching of Mathematics in schools. Five factors have been identified based on literature reviews; 1) Self-confidence, 2) Time constraint, 3) Programs and training, 4) Facilities and resources, 5) Teachers' self-perception and attitude. A set of questionnaire consists of the factors was then developed and distributed to 178 mathematics teachers. In the context of Malaysia, the factor with the highest mean is time constraint (x=3.53), followed by facilities and resources (x=3.48), supportive assistance (x=3.14) and, programs and trainings (x=3.12). In addition, self-confidence and attitude recorded the mean of less than 3. Based on the findings, it is hoped that appropriate actions ad strategies can be made by the education ministry, teachers, students, parents and administration in schools in order to benefit from the use of ICT in the teaching and learning of Mathematics.
Randomized routing schemes for large processor sharing systems with multiple service rates

We consider randomized job routing techniques for a system consisting of a large number of parallel processor sharing servers with heterogeneous server speeds. In particular, a scheme, that routes an incoming job request to the server providing the highest instantaneous processing rate per job among two servers, chosen uniformly at random, is proposed. We show that, unlike the homogeneous case, in the heterogeneous case, such randomized dynamic schemes need not always perform better than the optimal static scheme (in which jobs are assigned to servers with fixed probabilities independent of server states) in terms of reducing the mean response time of jobs. Specifically, we show that the stability region under the proposed scheme is a subset of that under the optimal static routing scheme. We also obtain the stationary tail distribution of server occupancies for the proposed scheme in the limit as the system size grows to infinity. This distribution has been shown to be insensitive to job length distribution and decay super-exponentially.
How the Spatial Scales of Dispersal, Competition, and Environmental Heterogeneity Interact to Affect Coexistence

Spatial coexistence depends on a variety of biological and physical processes, and the relative scales of these processes may promote or suppress coexistence. We model plant competition in a spatially varying environment to show how shifting scales of dispersal, competition, and environmental heterogeneity affect coexistence. Spatial coexistence mechanisms are partitioned into three types: the storage effect, nonlinear competitive variance, and growth‐density covariance. We first describe how the strength of each of these mechanisms depends on covariances between population densities and between population densities and the environment, and we then explain how changes in the scales of dispersal, competition, and environmental heterogeneity should affect these covariances. Our quantitative approach allows us to show how changes in the scales of biological and physical processes can shift the relative importance of different classes of spatial coexistence mechanisms and gives us a more complete understanding of how environmental heterogeneity can enable coexistence. For example, we show how environmental heterogeneity can promote coexistence even when competing species have identical responses to the environment.
“Black Genius, Asian Fail”: The Detriment of Stereotype Lift and Stereotype Threat in High-Achieving Asian and Black STEM Students

Asians are typically situated at the top of the STEM educational and career hierarchy and enjoy a host of material benefits as a result. Thus, their STEM lives are often considered problem-free. This article describes the role of race-based stereotypes in shaping the experiences of high-achieving Black and Asian STEM college students. Their experiences exposed the insidious presence of anti-Black and pro-Asian sentiment, operationalized through the frameworks of stereotype threat and stereotype lift. Stereotype threat and stereotype lift situate the racialized experiences of Black and Asian students as opposites, thereby ignoring their shared marginalization and responses to being stereotyped. I argue that both racial groups endure emotional distress because each group responds to its marginalization with an unrelenting motivation to succeed that imposes significant costs. I aim to demonstrate that Black and Asian college students are burdened with being stereotyped and judged unfairly, enduring sometimes debilitating consequences even while they are praised for fulfilling or defying stereotypes. Discussion includes coalition building among racial groups of color in STEM, serving in part to co-construct racialized psycho-social coping skills, and a strategy for more equitable material outcomes for Black STEMers.
Genetic improvement of bread wheat yield and associated traits in Spain during the 20th century

SUMMARY A collection of 26 wheat genotypes widely grown in Spain during the 20th century was evaluated in eight contrasting environments in order to quantify breeding achievements in yield and associated traits. From 1930 to 2000, yield increased at a rate of 35·1 kg/ha/yr or 0·88%/yr, but estimations of relative genetic gain (RGG) were environment-dependent. RGG estimated for yield were positively associated with the average minimum daily temperatures from sowing to heading in the testing environments (R2 = 0·81; P < 0·01). The number of grains/spike and the number of spikes/m2 increased at a rate of 0·60%/yr and 0·30%/yr, respectively, while grain weight remained unchanged. The present study detected two main episodes of yield improvement during the century. The first one coincided with the introduction, during the 1950s, of the first improved cultivars derived from intra-specific crosses, which increased the yield of landraces by 30% due to an increase of c. 58% in the number of grains/spike, accompanied by a 16% reduction in grain weight. These initial cultivars (termed ‘old-bred’ in a previous study by Sanchez-Garcia et al. 2012) exhibited a higher harvest index (HI), increased from 0·25 to 0·40, but maintained the same aboveground biomass at maturity as the landraces (despite reducing both plant height and the number of tillers/plant) due to increases in the proportion of tillers bearing spikes. The second yield gain occurred after the introduction, in the early 1970s, of semi-dwarf germplasm from CIMMYT (International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre) and some French cultivars. This new germplasm further reduced plant height, improved HI up to 0·45 and increased the number of tillers/plant while maintaining their rate of fertility, thus resulting in a yield gain of c. 37%. The cultivars released during the last decade of the century did not contribute to significant yield improvements.
Families, Markets and Self-Enforcing Reciprocity Norms

This paper studies the evolution of self-enforcing reciprocity norms in a developing economy with weak property rights. In the model, children are viewed as investments in old-age support. In order to increase support in their old age, parents attempt to instill preferences for reciprocity in their children. These educational investments create a nucleus of "reciprocators", inducing the remaining opportunistic types to mimic the reciprocators' behavior, in order to find partners in their market transactions.
Staggered Wages, Sticky Prices, and Labor Market Dynamics in Matching Models

This paper estimates a search and matching model using Bayesian methods. We deviate from the existing literature in two ways. First, we provide a cross-country analysis by estimating the model for the United States and Australia. We document differences in structural parameters and key driving forces of business cycle fluctuations. Second, we find that staggered wages rather than sticky prices matter to fit the data.
Vacua of maximal gauged D = 3 supergravities

We analyse the scalar potentials of maximal gauged three-dimensional supergravities which reveal a surprisingly rich structure. In contrast to maxima ls upergravities in dimensions D 4, all these theories possess a maximally supersymmetric (N = 16) ground state with negative cosmological constant �< 0, except for the SO(4, 4) 2 gauged theory, whose maximally supersymmetric groundstate has � = 0. We compute the mass spectra of bosonic and fermionic fluctuations around these vacua and identify the unitary irreducible representations of the relevant background (super)isometry groups to whic ht hey belong. In addition, we find several stationary points which are not maximally supersymmetric, and determine their complete mass spectra as well. In particular, we show that there are analogues of all stationary points found in higher dimensions, among them are de Sitter (dS) vacua in the theories with noncompact gauge groups SO(5, 3) 2 and SO(4, 4) 2 ,a s well a sa nti-de Sitter (AdS) vacua in the compact gauged theory preserving 1 and 1 of the supersymmetries. All the dS vacua hav et achyonic instabilities, whereas there do exist nonsupersymmetric AdS vacua which are stable, again in contrast to the D 4t heories. PACS number: 0465
Energy-based Generative Adversarial Network

We introduce the "Energy-based Generative Adversarial Network" model (EBGAN) which views the discriminator as an energy function that attributes low energies to the regions near the data manifold and higher energies to other regions. Similar to the probabilistic GANs, a generator is seen as being trained to produce contrastive samples with minimal energies, while the discriminator is trained to assign high energies to these generated samples. Viewing the discriminator as an energy function allows to use a wide variety of architectures and loss functionals in addition to the usual binary classifier with logistic output. Among them, we show one instantiation of EBGAN framework as using an auto-encoder architecture, with the energy being the reconstruction error, in place of the discriminator. We show that this form of EBGAN exhibits more stable behavior than regular GANs during training. We also show that a single-scale architecture can be trained to generate high-resolution images.
A New Approach for Creating Polar Maps of Three-Dimensional Cardiac Perfusion Images

We present a new approach for creating polar maps of three-dimensional cardiac perfusion images. A po lar map is a two-dimensional plot of the reconstructed volume from the SPECT study, which provides concise information on myocardial perfusion in a single eas ily interpretable image. Unlike the traditional approac hes, our algorithm is automatic. It relies on image registration techniques to align the patient exam t o a previously computed model, avoiding the need of manual intervention by a specialist. Preliminary analysis made by a specialist in nuclear medicine indicates that this new approach is comparable to t he gold standard algorithm
Does Trust Matter? Analyzing the Impact of Trust on the Perceived Risk and Acceptance of Nuclear Power Energy

Recently, trust has been in vogue in the social sciences. However, in risk studies, there have been few causal models of trust. This study proposes and tests a causal model of trust in which (1) source credibility influences trust and (2) two kinds of trust—i.e., trust in government and trust in regulation—affect the perceived risk and acceptance of nuclear energy. Based on survey data with a sample of 1014 local residents living near a nuclear power station, we tested a causal model using structural equation modeling. As for the results of the analysis: first, we confirmed the validity of the proposed causal model of trust. Second, on the causal path, credibility directly influenced trust in government and trust in regulation and indirectly affected the perceived risk and acceptance of nuclear power. Third, the two kinds of trust had (in)direct impacts on perceived risk and acceptance. Trust in regulation had more power to explain perceived risks and acceptance than trust in government. Trust is important, but the kind of trust is more important.