Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Wi-Fi and Satellite-Based Location Techniques for Intelligent Agricultural Machinery Controlled by a Human Operator

In the new agricultural scenarios, the interaction between autonomous tractors and a human operator is important when they jointly perform a task. Obtaining and exchanging accurate localization information between autonomous tractors and the human operator, working as a team, is a critical to maintaining safety, synchronization, and efficiency during the execution of a mission. An advanced localization system for both entities involved in the joint work, i.e., the autonomous tractors and the human operator, provides a basis for meeting the task requirements. In this paper, different localization techniques for a human operator and an autonomous tractor in a field environment were tested. First, we compared the localization performances of two global navigation satellite systems’ (GNSS) receivers carried by the human operator: (1) an internal GNSS receiver built into a handheld device; and (2) an external DGNSS receiver with centimeter-level accuracy. To investigate autonomous tractor localization, a real-time kinematic (RTK)-based localization system installed on autonomous tractor developed for agricultural applications was evaluated. Finally, a hybrid localization approach, which combines distance estimates obtained using a wireless scheme with the position of an autonomous tractor obtained using an RTK-GNSS system, is proposed. The hybrid solution is intended for user localization in unstructured environments in which the GNSS signal is obstructed. The hybrid localization approach has two components: (1) a localization algorithm based on the received signal strength indication (RSSI) from the wireless environment; and (2) the acquisition of the tractor RTK coordinates when the human operator is near the tractor. In five RSSI tests, the best result achieved was an average localization error of 4 m. In tests of real-time position correction between rows, RMS error of 2.4 cm demonstrated that the passes were straight, as was desired for the autonomous tractor. From these preliminary results, future work will address the use of autonomous tractor localization in the hybrid localization approach.
Is Japan Really a 'Buy'? The Corporate Governance, Cash Holdings, and Economic Performance of Japanese Companies

We investigate whether Japan’s much touted governance reforms improve its firms’ management of cash, economic performance, and valuation. Consistent with an improvement in governance since 2000, Japanese firms hold less cash and increase payouts to shareholders. Improvements in performance are associated with reductions in (excess) cash, reductions in the influence of the banks that traditionally sit at the center of horizontal keiretsu, and increases in the holdings of management and foreign investors. The market valuation of Japanese firms’ cash holdings was lower than for US firms during the 1990s but increases to levels closer to those of US firms in the 2000s. Collectively, the evidence suggests that performance improves in those Japanese companies that reform their governance practices. These findings have implications for other Asian economies, such as China, India, and Korea, where there are ongoing discussions of whether improved governance can increase firm performance and valuation.
Force and torque simulation in virtual tennis

This work presents an overview of the development of various ungrounded haptic devices to render a variety of tennis ball impact accelerations and torques in an interactive virtual tennis system. The primary virtual tennis system, shown in Figure 1, consists of a four wall display with front, left, right and floor, high-resolution stereoscopic projection displays, to produce an immersive experience. The secondary system, shown in Figure 2, consisted of a single stereoscopic projector display, designed to be portable and easily assembled by two persons. Both systems use an in-house developed low-latency, low-jitter, all optical tracking system. The primary system has been demonstrated to several hundred visitors, while the secondary portable system has been demonstrated at the Emerging Technologies at both SIGGRAPH 2012 [Fong et al. 2012] in Los Angeles and SIGGRAPH Asia 2011 [Fong et al. 2011] in Hong Kong. The current prototype is the V-shaped actuator based haptic racket, shown in Figure 3.
The Effect of Fathers' Language Training Program on the Receptive Language Development of Children *

program so as to support language development in children provided for the fathers, having 36-48 month-old children who do not get pre-school education. For this purpose, "Father Language Assistance Program" has been developed by the researcher. The sample of the study consisted of 42 fathers, living in Emet county in Kutahya, whose children do not get preschool education, and the children of these fathers. In the study, the research design with pre-and post-test control groups was used. 22 fathers in the sample were involved randomly in the experimental group and exposed to 8-week father language assistance training program while the other 20 fathers were determined as the control group and did not get any kind of father training. The language development levels of the children were assessed with "Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test". In the analysis of data Mann Whitney U Test and Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test were used. According to the findings of the study, a statistically significant difference was found between the language development levels of the children whose fathers were involved in "Father Language Assistance Program" and the levels of other children whose fathers weren't. Therefore, "Father Language Assistance Program" affects children's language development levels positively. The study also proves the positive effect of the training program given to the fathers on children's language development and so contributes to the literature.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder:An Investigation into the Potential Factors that Influence Attitudes towards OCD

Previous research on the topic of attitudes towards mental illness has identified several important factors that may influence these attitudes. However, compared to disorders such as depression or schizophrenia, little is known about the factors that influence attitudes towards obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), specifically. The current study aimed to further strengthen the research conducted in this area, by examining attitudes towards OCD and the potential factors that may influence these attitudes. This quantitative study was predominately cross sectional, however there was a manipulation applied as participants were presented with either a biological or psychosocial explanation of OCD. The current sample (N = 253) was recruited from the general population of the Republic of Ireland. The model used within the current study explained 23% of the variance pertaining to attitudes towards OCD. Mental health knowledge, older age, compassion, being familiar with mental illness and being female significantly predicted more positive attitudes towards OCD; however there was no significant difference between participants living in either an urban or rural area; or between participants that were presented with either the biological or psychosocial explanation of OCD. These findings have important implications for the development of effective interventions to reduce negative attitudes towards OCD. These findings alongside other clinical implications are discussed.
APlag: A plagiarism checker for Arabic texts

Plagiarism is a serious problem, especially in academia and education. Detecting it is a challenging task, particularly in natural language texts. Many plagiarism detection tools have been developed for diverse natural languages, mainly English. Language-independent tools exist as well, but are considered as too restrictive as they usually do not consider specific language features. In this paper, we introduce APlag, a new plagiarism detection tool for Arabic texts, based on a logical representation of a document as paragraphs, sentences, and words, and new heuristics for text comparison. We describe its main attributes and present the results of some experiments conducted on a dummy test set. We demonstrate its effectiveness by comparing its performance to that of APD, a plagiarism detection tool for Arabic. Overall, preliminary results show that APlag significantly improves the results obtained by APD in terms of recall and precision metrics.
Secreted Ectodomain of Sialic Acid-Binding Ig-Like Lectin-9 and Monocyte Chemoattractant Protein-1 Promote Recovery after Rat Spinal Cord Injury by Altering Macrophage Polarity

Engrafted mesenchymal stem cells from human deciduous dental pulp (SHEDs) support recovery from neural insults via paracrine mechanisms that are poorly understood. Here we show that the conditioned serum-free medium (CM) from SHEDs, administered intrathecally into rat injured spinal cord during the acute postinjury period, caused remarkable functional recovery. The ability of SHED-CM to induce recovery was associated with an immunoregulatory activity that induced anti-inflammatory M2-like macrophages. Secretome analysis of the SHED-CM revealed a previously unrecognized set of inducers for anti-inflammatory M2-like macrophages: monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1) and the secreted ectodomain of sialic acid-binding Ig-like lectin-9 (ED-Siglec-9). Depleting MCP-1 and ED-Siglec-9 from the SHED-CM prominently reduced its ability to induce M2-like macrophages and to promote functional recovery after spinal cord injury (SCI). The combination of MCP-1 and ED-Siglec-9 synergistically promoted the M2-like differentiation of bone marrow-derived macrophages in vitro, and this effect was abolished by a selective antagonist for CC chemokine receptor 2 (CCR2) or by the genetic knock-out of CCR2. Furthermore, MCP-1 and ED-Siglec-9 administration into the injured spinal cord induced M2-like macrophages and led to a marked recovery of hindlimb locomotor function after SCI. The inhibition of this M2 induction through the inactivation of CCR2 function abolished the therapeutic effects of both SHED-CM and MCP-1/ED-Siglec-9. Macrophages activated by MCP-1 and ED-Siglec-9 extended neurite and suppressed apoptosis of primary cerebellar granule neurons against the neurotoxic effects of chondroitin sulfate proteoglycans. Our data suggest that the unique combination of MCP-1 and ED-Siglec-9 repairs the SCI through anti-inflammatory M2-like macrophage induction.
Demonstration of the medullary lamellae of the human red nucleus with high-resolution gradient-echo MR imaging.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The human red nucleus is not a uniform structure. It is composed of caudally located magnocellular and rostrally located parvicellular subnuclei. In fact, the latter forms the bulk of the human red nucleus and can be subdivided histologically by two medullary lamellae into three parts. Because iron is deposited in the human red nucleus and gradient-echo sequences are more sensitive than spin-echo sequences in the detection of iron, a high-resolution gradient-echo MR sequence was used in this study to determine whether the medullary lamellae of the normal human red nucleus could be detected in vivo. METHODS Ten healthy volunteers (seven men and three women, 27-48 years old) were examined with a high-resolution T2-weighted gradient-echo MR sequence using a 1.9-T MR imager. The scanning parameters were 60/40/15 (TR/TE/excitations) with a flip angle of 20 degrees , a pixel size of 1 x 1 mm, and a slice thickness of 5 mm. RESULTS The medullary lamellae were depicted in all subjects in three imaging planes: coronal, oblique axial, and oblique sagittal. The signal intensity of the lamellae was consistently higher than that of other parts of the red nucleus on all images. With the lamellae, the parvicellular subnucleus of the human red nucleus can be divided into its subdivisions. CONCLUSION High-resolution gradient-echo MR imaging is capable of depicting the medullary lamellae of the normal human red nucleus in vivo.
A Psychometric Evaluation of the Lithuanian Version of the 14-Item Resilience Scale (RS-14)

Resilience is an ability to adapt successfully to adversities in life. One of the measures to assess trait resilience is the Resilience Scale and its short version, the 14-Item Resilience Scale (RS-14). The aim of this study is to investigate the psychometric properties of the Lithuanian version of the RS-14. Methods. The RS14, the World Health Organization well-being index (WHO-5), the Revised Life Orientation Test (LOT-R) and the Trauma Screening Questionnaire (TSQ) were administered to 980 Lithuanian adults, 42% males and 58% females, between 18 to 86 years old. Results. The Lithuanian version of the RS-14 demonstrated good reliability and validity. Cronbach’s alpha was . 90 and CFA indices suggested a fair-to-good model fit of a one-factor RS14 solution. There was no significant effect of age on the RS-14 scores, but males scored significantly higher than females. Conclusions. The study confirms that the Lithuanian version of the RS-14 is a valid and reliable instrument to measure resilience.
Dementia—Epidemiological Considerations, Nomenclature, and a Tacit Consensus Definition

Epidemiologic inquiry requires the definition of a “case. ” Dementia may be defined clinically or alternatively by inference of irreversible brain pathology. Several iterations of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and International Classification of Diseases have skirted this issue by using criteria that are at once syndromic and neuropathological. The limitations of this compromise are revealed by large discrepancies in case identification when the various published criteria are strictly applied. Despite this problem, neuroepidemiologists have produced convergent estimates of the prevalence and incidence of dementia and its association with risk factors. This progress has reflected the tacit reliance of investigators on a simple definition of dementia as the syndrome of substantial global cognitive decline not attributable to alteration in level of consciousness. Beyond this description, our knowledge of pathology and, ultimately, the etiology of individual cases is extremely variable. Whatever its antecedents, syndromically defined dementia presents a looming public health crisis. (J Geriatr Psychiatry Neurol 2006;19:129-136)
Move structure and communication style of leaders’ messages in corporate discourse: A cross-cultural perspective

As an important tool to influence stakeholders’ perception, leader messages, subsumed under public relations discourse, play an integral role in corporate communication. Drawing on the analysis of linguistic move structure and communication styles employed by researchers, this study adopts a multidimensional framework by using both discourse and quantitative analysis to compare how leaders in Global 500 corporations in China and the United States rely upon specific linguistic features to engage stakeholders in corporate discourse published on their websites. The results show pertinent differences in communication styles, where Chinese corporations tend to be more instrumental, elaborate and competitive while US corporations are more affective, succinct and harmonious. These observations depart from previous findings on interpersonal communication styles in cross-cultural research. This study also extends the boundary of corporate genre analysis by suggesting that the moves adopted in the structure of corporate messages are highly specific to the particular genre.
Emptiness formation probability of the XXZ spin-1 2 Heisenberg chain at ∆ = 1 2

Using a multiple integral representation for the correlation functions, we compute the emptiness formation probability of the XXZ spin1 2 Heisenberg chain at anisotropy ∆ = 1 2 . We prove it is expressed in term of the number of alternating sign matrices. The Hamiltonian of the XXZ spin2 Heisenberg chain is given by H = M ∑ m=1 ( σ mσ x m+1 + σ y mσ y m+1 + ∆(σ z mσ z m+1 − 1) ) . (1) Graduate School of Mathematical Sciences, University of Tokyo, Japan, kitanine@ms.u-tokyo.ac. jp On leave of absence from Steklov Institute at St. Petersburg, Russia 2 Laboratoire de Physique, UMR 5672 du CNRS, ENS Lyon, France, maillet@ens-lyon.fr 3 Steklov Mathematical Institute, Moscow, Russia, nslavnov@mi.ras. ru Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rutgers University, USA, vterras@physics.rutgers. edu On leave of absence from LPMT, UMR 5825 du CNRS, Montpellier, France
Effects of suburbanization upon snowmelt runoff

Abstract The influence of suburbanization upon runoff response to snowmelt and rain-on-snow inputs was examined for a small drainage basin in south-central Ontario. Modification of more than 50% of the basin area over a 14 year period led to a six-fold increase in the spring quickflow response ratio and an increase in the number of snowmelt events that generate appreciable quickflow. Anticipated changes in mean peak discharge, time of rise and quickflow response ratio did not emerge, and the influence of development upon these streamflow characteristics may have been overshadowed by annual changes in basin antecedent conditions. The distinction between hydrograph properties associated with snowmelt and rain-on-snow events has become more pronounced with suburbanization. Rain-on-snow generated higher maximum peak flows and lower average peak discharge per unit input compared with snowmelt, and these differences were accentuated by development of the basin. Rain-on-snow also produced more variable time of r.
Effects of poly-γ-glutamic acid on serum and brain concentrations of glutamate and GABA in diet-induced obese rats

Poly-gamma-glutamic acid (γ-PGA) is a mucilaginous and biodegradable compound produced by Bacillus subtilis from fermented soybeans, and is found in the traditional Korean soy product, cheongkukjang. This study was carried out to evaluate the effects of γ-PGA from a food source on the concentration of the neurotransmitter GABA and its metabolic precursor glutamate in diet-induced obese rats. Eight-week old male Sprague-Dawley rats (n=60) were used. The rats were divided into two groups and obesity was induced by providing either a 10% control fat or 45% high fat diet for 5 weeks. The rats were then blocked into 6 groups and supplemented with a 0.1% γ-PGA diet for 4 weeks. After sacrifice, brain and serum GABA and glutamate concentrations were analyzed by high performance liquid chromatography with fluorometric detection. The rats fed the high fat diet had significantly increased body weights. γ-PGA supplementation significantly increased serum concentrations of glutamate and GABA in the control fat diet groups while this effect was not found in the high fat groups. In the brain, glutamate concentrations were significantly higher in the γ-PGA supplemented groups both in rats fed the normal and high fat diets than in the no γ-PGA controls. GABA concentrations showed the same tendency. The results indicated that γ-PGA intake increased GABA concentrations in the serum and brain. However, the effects were not shown in obese rats.
Virologically confirmed population-based burden of hospitalization caused by influenza A and B among children in Hong Kong.

BACKGROUND We sought to determine the virologically confirmed hospitalization rates associated with influenza virus infection among Hong Kong children. METHODS Patients <18 years of age who lived on Hong Kong Island (a separate island within Hong Kong) and were admitted to either of the only 2 public hospitals on the island for a febrile acute respiratory infection on 1 fixed day of the week in each hospital from October 2003 through September 2006 were prospectively recruited. These 2 hospitals together accounted for 72.5% of all general pediatric admissions in Hong Kong Island with a known population denominator. Nasopharyngeal aspirates were obtained from all recruited patients and were tested for influenza A and influenza B viruses by direct antigen detection and culture. RESULTS All cases of influenza A during 2003-2004 were caused by H3N2 virus, whereas 85.7% of cases during 2004-2005 were due to H3N2 virus, and 93.5% during 2005-2006 were due to H1N1 virus. During 2004-2005, infants <1 year of age had the highest rate of hospitalization for influenza A (103.8 cases per 10,000 population), whereas children 1 year of age had the highest rate of hospitalization during the other 2 seasons (95.5 and 54.6 cases per 10,000 population during 2003-2004 and 2005-2006, respectively). A protection rate of 25%, presumably attributable to maternal antibodies, was seen in infants <1 year of age who were hospitalized during 2003-2004 with infection due to an H3N2 virus that had been in circulation. The hospitalization rates for influenza B were highest among children 2-4 years of age. CONCLUSIONS This population-based study of hospitalizations due to virologically confirmed influenza demonstrated a very high burden of disease among young children in Hong Kong. The morbidity varied with virus type, subtype, and antigenic variants.
Pilot and data aided channel estimation for uplink MC-CDMA mobile systems

A pilot-aided joint channel estimation and data detection method for uplink MC-CDMA mobile system is proposed. Conventional pilot-aided estimation with low pilot overhead is used to obtain an initial estimate of channel. The information bits obtained from the first iteration are subsequently used to improve channel estimates. The second iteration uses a Parallel Interference Canceller (PIC) scheme followed by a frequency-time domain Wiener filter. Results show that the proposed pilot-and-data-aided channel estimator allows, at price of some complexity increase, the use of short pilot sequences and increases the number of uplink radio channel that can be simultaneously estimated.
Educational Psychology for Teachers: Selected Topics

The present textbook represents a review of selected topics from educational psychology that teachers should know in order to effectively enhance learning in students. Initially, relations between theory, research, and practice as well as the role of scientific theories and research findings for teachers' effective work and professional development are presented. In additional chapters, crucial models and concepts related to learning, learning motivation, classroom management, social relations, bullying and effective communication are demonstrated. Based on scientific models and research findings, some key recommendations and directions for the enhancement of quality learning, constructive motivational orientation, effective classroom management and positive peer and teacher-students relations are offered. The textbook is designed for students of teaching courses; however, it could be relevant also for teachers who want to refresh their knowledge of educational psychology.