Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Communications over noncoherent doubly selective channels

Wireless communication systems transferring broadband data in high mobility situations encounter fading channels which are both time and frequency selective. In the noncoherent scenario, the time varying impulse response of the doubly selective channel (DSC) is not available at both the transmitter and the receiver. In this dissertation, we consider the problem of communications over such noncoherent doubly selective channels. Our work has two main themes: to find the fundamental limits on the information rates for reliable communication across noncoherent DSC and to develop simple and efficient encoding/decoding techniques to achieve the promised information rates. Towards this end, we consider block transmissions over DSC and utilize complex-exponential (CE) basis expansion model (BEM) to characterize the channel variation within a block. For noncoherent CE-BEM DSC, we characterize the pre-log factor of the constrained ergodic channel capacity in the high SNR regime, when the channel inputs are continuously distributed. Next, we consider the design of pilot aided transmissions (PAT) for CE-BEM DSC, which embeds known pilot (i.e., training) signals that the receiver uses to estimate the channel. For a given fixed pilot energy, we derive the necessary and sufficient conditions on the pilot/data pattern to attain minimum mean squared error (MMSE), uncover time-frequency duality of MMSE-PAT structures and obtain novel MMSE-PAT patterns. We obtain bounds on the ergodic achievable ii rates of MMSE-PAT schemes and perform high signal to noise ratio (SNR) asymptotic analysis which suggests that, a multi-carrier MMSE-PAT achieves higher rates than a single-carrier MMSE-PAT when the channel’s delay spread dominates its Doppler spread, and vice versa. We also establish that the pre-log factor of the ergodic rates of all the MMSE-PAT patterns are strictly less than that of the constrained channel capacity, for strictly doubly selective channels. We also design spectrally efficient PAT schemes whose asymptotic achievable rates have the same pre-log factor as that of the constrained channel capacity. Our results show that there are fundamental differences between singly selective and doubly selective channels and provide insights on how the DSC’s delay spread and Doppler spread influence the constrained channel capacity and the PAT design. We extend the MMSE-PAT design to multi-input multi-output (MIMO) CE-BEM DSC. We establish that the spectral efficiency of MIMO-MMSE-PAT does not necessarily increase even if the number of transmit and receive antennas are increased simultaneously. We also present the optimal number of active antennas which maximizes the spectral efficiency.
Court interpreting in England: what works? (and for whom)? : how Interpreted Prison Video Link impacts upon courtroom interaction

All defendants who do not speak the language of the court are at a disadvantage. This article considers how the impact of two factors upon the quality of interpreting in our courts might confer additional disadvantage. Firstly it considers the contracting out of interpreting services to private companies, whose main consideration is prot rather than competent interpreting or justice for the defendant, a political dimension often ignored by interpreting scholars. Secondly it explores diering viewpoints and perceptions of interpreted court hearings by ve groups of participating court actors where prisoners appear in court via video link from prison. Using in-depth interviews, audio-recordings of court hearings and ethnographic observation, these diering perceptions will be used to provide vignettes of court hearings and prisoners as they appear remotely, dependent upon the interpreter’s renditions to orientate themselves to court proceedings. Finally, training and a best practice protocol for court actors and interpreters is suggested.
Shaping of Moral Intensity regarding Software Piracy in University Students: Immediate Community Effects

In an increasingly digital and global environment, businesses are concerned about protecting their digital assets. In particular, protection against software piracy is a top priority for businesses and economies that are major producers of software. In prior research scholars have argued that software piracy can be reduced by increasing moral intensity regarding software piracy in individuals. In this research we were interested in studying the impact of the immediate community on the development of moral intensity of students. We report our findings from an empirical study of over 800 students from two U.S. universities. Results indicate that the moral intensity of any student is significantly related to the perceived level of moral intensity of other students and is not related to the perceived levels of moral intensity of other immediate community groups, the faculty and university employees. Results of this research have implications for developing and implementing appropriate policies to reduce software piracy.
Learning Styles and Metacognitive Awareness: How They Affect the L2 Listening Process of At-Risk Students in a Modified Foreign Language Program (MFLP).

Research on the acquisition of foreign languages by at-risk students has primarily focused on the Linguistic Coding Deficit Hypothesis (Horwitz, 2000). Recently, there has been a growing discussion regarding the effects of learning style rigidity (Castro, 2006; Castro and Peck, 2005; Corbitt, 2011; Sparks, 2006) and metacognitive awareness (Corbitt, 2013) on the acquisition of Spanish by at-risk students in Modified Foreign Language Programs (MFLPs). This pilot study seeks to expand the conversation to include a discussion on foreign language listening. MFLP and non-MFLP participants completed the Metacognitive Awareness of Listening Questionnaire (Vandergrift, Goh, Mareschal, & Tafaghodtari; 2006) and the Learning Style Survey: Assessing Your Learning Styles (Cohen, Oxford, & Chi, 2001). The data were subjected to independent sample t-tests, ANOVAs, and a linear regression analysis to determine the relationship between and differences in learning styles and perceived metacognitive listening strategy use for each group. The findings suggest that MFLP and non-MFLP students diverge in their perceived usage of metacognitive listening strategies and MFLP students have a very strong visual learning style preference (p < .05). Pedagogical implications and recommendations for future research are discussed.
An Experimental Paradigm for Inducing Emotions in a Real World Driving Scenario Evidence from Self-Report, Annotation of Speech Data and Peripheral Physiology

Empathic vehicles are a promising concept to increase the safety and acceptance of automated vehicles. However, on the way towards empathic vehicles a lot of research in the area of automated emotion recognition is necessary. Successful methods to detect emotions need to be trained on realistic data that contain the target emotion and come from a setting close to the final application. At the moment, data sets fulfilling these requirements are lacking. Therefore, the goal of this work is to present an experimental paradigm that induces four different emotional states (neutral, positive, frustration and mild anxiety) in a real-world driving setting using a combination of secondary tasks and conversation-based emotional recall. An evaluation of the paradigm using self-report data, annotation of speech data and peripheral physiology indicates that the methods to induce the target emotions were successful. Based on the insights of the experiment, finally a list of recommendations for the induction of emotions in real world driving settings is given.
Intensity of Physical Education Lessons in Children According to the Type of Activity: Soccer, Badminton, Aerobics and Motor Skills

Due to the increase of childhood obesity, Physical Education becomes the best tool to combat overweight. Furthermore, the type of content may affect the intensity of the lessons. OBJECTIVES: To check the effect of different activities —soccer, badminton, aerobics and motor skills— on the intensity of Physical Education lessons. METHOD: Non-experimental descriptive-comparative design. The average heart rate of 20 children from the Region of Murcia (Spain) (11 boys and 9 girls), aged between 10 and 12 years, was assessed during 8 different Physical Education lessons. RESULTS: The Moderate to Vigorous Physical Activity percentage and the time spent in Moderate to Vigorous Physical Activity are significantly higher (p=0.020) for motor skills (40.80±18.69 % MVPA; 12.37±5.66 min) and soccer (37.77±13.77 % MVPA; 11.44±4.17 min) in comparison to aerobics and badminton. Girls attained higher Moderate to Vigorous Physical Activity percentage and time spent in Moderate to Vigorous Physical Activity than boys (p=0.034). CONCLUSIONS: Although results show that intensity and duration of the analyzed lessons do not comply with the recommendations to improve the cardiovascular exercise, the highest heart rate values were observed in lessons with soccer and motor skills as main activity.
Factors Associated with Programmatic Orientation and Supervision in Schools.

Programmatic orientation is the level of intentional implementation of school counseling program components that are based on data and are proactive in nature. To explore relationships between school counselor supervision and programmatic orientation, 188 school counselors answered questions regarding the presence of supervision elements and programmatic orientation levels. Results indicated that higher levels of programmatic orientation were associated with higher presence of supervision elements.
Is buying behavior influenced by segmentation?

Buying behavior in choosing health care is a long process. Segmentation is one of the things that underlies the decision of the patient. This study aims to determine the buying behavior of patients who do the first child labor and its relationship with buying behavior in RSIA Puri Bunda (PB) Malang. This research uses the cross-sectional method. The sampling technique used the total sampling method, ie all inpatients who gave birth to the first child at the time of this study were executed. The number of samples was 55 respondents in April-May 2017. Data were analyzed using multinomial logistic regression. The results showed that customer segmentation of RSIA PB was from Blimbing sub-district, 21-25 years old, last high school education, income <Rp.1. 500.000,00, housewife, Islam, class of 3rd class and payment method using BPJS . Buying behavior of respondents is included in complex type and dissonance reducing buying behavior. Geographic, demographic, psychographic and behavioral segmentation is not related to buying behavior. Segments that have been detected are expected to get attention from the hospital to determine the marketing efforts that will be done next. In its marketing efforts, RSIA PB should pay more attention to customers who have a high-involvement type in order to provide all the information expected by the customer.
Predictive model of students’ continuance intention in massive open online course among university students

Rapid development of digital technologies creates innovative ways of learning known as Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) which has been introduced at most universities. However, previous study have shown that low course completion rate and limited amount of studies to examine factors that influence students’ continuance intention towards using MOOC. Therefore, the main purpose of this study is to predict factors that influence students’ continuance intention towards using MOOC among university students based on Expectation-Confirmation model and Technology Acceptance Model. By means of reviewing the related literature, factors namely perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, expectation-confirmation, satisfaction and MOOC continuance intention were examined. This study implemented a survey research design. The instrument used was an online questionnaire. To measure the reliability of the instrument, a pilot study was conducted prior to the actual study towards 32 UPM students whereby a Cronbach alpha values ranged from . 738 to . 821 was obtained. The actual study was conducted on a sample of 368 undergraduate students. The data was analyzed descriptively using SPSS 22 and Analysis of Moment Structures (AMOS) 2I. The outcome of testing the model revealed that among the nine paths of the structural model, seven paths were significant and two were not. The paths that reflected significant effects were as follows: (1) students’ perceived ease of use have effects perceived usefulness of MOOC (β=. 481, p<. 001); (2) students’ expectation confirmation have effect on perceived usefulness (β=. 367, p<. 005); (3) students’ expectation-confirmation have effect perceived ease of use of MOOC (β=. 918, p<. 001); (4) perceived usefulness have effect on MOOC continuance intention (β=. 374, p<. 001); (5) students’ expectation-confirmation have effect on satisfaction with MOOC (β=.800. p<.001); (6) students’ perceived ease of use of MOOC have effect MOOC continuance intention (β=-.310, p<.001); (7) students’ satisfaction have effect on MOOC continuance intention (β=.840, p<.001). Besides, the paths with non-significant effects were: students’ perceived usefulness does not have effect on satisfaction with MOOC (β=. 058, p>.05); students’ perceived ease of use does not have effect on satisfaction with MOOC (β=. 074, p>.05). The empirical results of the study indicates that perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and satisfaction with the use of MOOC are strong predictors of MOOC continuance intention. The overall structural model with nine paths has explained 79.4% percent of the variance for putra MOOC continuance intention among public university students.
The Will and the Way? Associations Between Purpose and Grit Among Students in Three US Universities

Purpose is defined as a longstanding aim that is personally meaningful but also involves a desire to contribute to the world beyond the self (Damon, Menon, & Bronk, 2003). Research suggests that purpose is a key developmental task (Bronk, Hill, Lapsley, Talib, & Finch, 2009; Damon, 2009) as well as a major contributor to thriving (Damon et al., 2003; Bundick, Yeager, King, & Damon, 2010). Purpose is associated with positive outcomes including achievement, hope, life satisfaction, gratitude, compassion, and identity development (Bronk et al., 2009; Bronk, 2011; Damon et al., 2003; Malin, Liauw, & Damon, 2017). Adolescence and young adulthood represent critical periods in purpose cultivation (Damon, 2009). Along with youth purpose, Positive Youth Development researchers have become increasingly concerned with character. Grit is an aspect of performance character that can be defined as “perseverance and passion for longterm goals” (Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews, & Kelly, 2007, p. 1087). Grit has been linked with outcomes such as academic achievement in college students and educational attainment among adults (Duckworth et al., 2007) as well as success in life (e.g., job retention; EskreisWinkler, Shulman, Beal, & Duckworth, 2014). For all the importance placed on the notion of grit, it may be argued that grit is more likely to ensue when there is a worthy purpose—one that is worth fighting for. Indeed, research has suggested that youth purpose may promote academic engagement and motivation (Damon, 2009; Liang et al., 2017) in the face of academic pressures. With increasing reports of stress and mental health issues during the transition to college, purpose may be especially important during the college years (Eagan et al., 2017). Despite this evidence that purpose provides motivation or grit to “stay the course,” few researchers have explicitly examined the connection between grit and purpose among adolescents and college students. Malin et al. (2017) found significant, albeit small, cor relations between grit and purpose in a sample of adolescents. In contrast, Vela, Smith, Whittenberg, Guardiola, and Savage (2018) did not find significant associations between grit and commitment to purpose, controlling for other positive psychology variables like hope, in their study of Latinx college students. Finally, Hill, Burrow, and Bronk (2016) examined a “purpose commitment hypo thesis” through two studies of college students that demonstrated
Corporate skin: Biosocial relations, tropes, and institutions in prosthetics research and development

Modern orthopaedic prosthetics imitate biological organs or their functions, interacting with the body of amputees, and are designed and manufactured corporately. Thus, prosthetics constitute a privileged vantage point to witness the intermingling of society and nature, as well as how biosocial relations and institutions are understood, negotiated, and constituted. We develop methodologies of apprenticeship with a worldwide corporate leader in the development and manufacture of non-invasive orthopaedics, to explore the biosocial relations, the tropes, and the institutions involved in the research and development of lower-limb prosthetics. The ethnography reveals how understandings of biosocial relations are influenced by and simultaneously permeate corporate institutional practices, constituting specific organic tropes, such as the corporate skin. This trope reflects the continuous negotiation of understandings of what the skin is and what it does, of the biosocial relations associated with it, of the history of the company, its products, and how its institutional practices are being shaped by these understandings.
Organizational Citizenship Behaviour and Well-being.

The effect on well-being of engaging in prosocial behavior has become a topic of interest. However, among prosocial activities studied, one area of neglect is Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB). The purpose of this work was to analyze the relationship between OCB, citizenship motives (organizational concern, prosocial values and impression management), and employee well-being, and asked whether employee perceptions of OCB as an in-role vs. extra-role moderate these relationships. A total of 144 employees at 17 educational companies completed surveys measuring OCB, citizenship motives, and well-being. Partial correlation and moderated regression analysis showed that the perception of OCB as in-role not moderated the relationship between OCB, citizenship motives and well-being. Both OCB and its motives were associated with well-being, with altruistic motives showing a stronger correlation than egoistic motives. Engaging in citizenship activities leads to feeling good, especially when these behaviors are motivated by prosocial values or a genuine interest in the organization.
An Unsupervised Clustering-Based Intrusion Detection Method

An unsupervised clustering-based intrusion detection algorithm is discussed.The basic idea of the algorithm is to produce the cluster by comparing the distances of unlabeled training data sets.With the classified data instances,anomaly data clusters can be easily identified by normal cluster ratio.And then the identified cluster can be used in real data detection.The benefit of the algorithm is that it needn't labeled training data sets.Using the data sets of KDD99,the experiment result shows that this approach can detect unknown intrusions efficiently in the real network connections.
Morphological learning for spiking neurons with nonlinear active dendrites

There has been a lack of progress in developing spiking neuron models for pattern classification, which can achieve similar performance as state-of-the-art. To pursue this goal of creating powerful spike-based classifiers, the role of dendrites in neuronal information processing is considered. The neurobiological evidence for dendritic processing has been established in the last few years by neuroscientists across the globe. However, computational models of spiking neurons in machine learning systems have not utilized this mechanism yet. Our work attempts to bridge this gap and explore the possible computational benefits of passive delay and active ionic dendritic mechanisms. A spike-based model for pattern classification is presented which employs neurons with functionally distinct multicompartment dendritic branches. In this model, synaptic integration involves location-dependent processing of inputs on each dendritic compartment, followed by nonlinear processing of the total synaptic input on a dendrite and finally linear integration of the total dendritic output at the soma. This gives the neuron a capacity to perform a large number of input-output mappings. Firstly, a spiking neuron model is developed based on modifying delays associated with the spikes arriving at an afferent. The application of this model is demonstrated on memorizing spatio-temporal patterns by updating only a few delays corresponding to the most synchronous part of a spike pattern. This model explores the time-based computing approach to design a novel learning algorithm which provides an alternative to the traditional weight-based learning and offers the advantage of simpler hardware implementation without multipliers or digitalanalog converters (DACs). The classification accuracy of the system with a load (number of patterns relative to the number of synapses) of up to 2 was shown to be about 80−100%. In our pursuit of achieving improved performance and a hardware-friendly learning algorithm, a model is further proposed which consists of nonlinear dendrites and is inspired by the mechanism of
Experimental Study on the Effect of Feedback Methods on College Students’ English Writing—A Reasonable Combination of Teacher Feedback and Peer Feedback

By comparing three kinds of feedback methods (teacher’s feedback, peer feedback, the combination of teacher and peer feedback) on the writing performance of three groups and their writing scores of CET-4, it has been concluded that: (1) The writing performance of the three groups has been improved respectively in a certain degree; (2) The gap of the writing performance within each group has been narrowed. Among the 3 groups, the writing gap in “teacher + peer” feedback group students has been narrowed to the largest extent compared with the other 2 groups; (3) Both the writing performance and the overall level of the five error indicators (discourse cohesion, vocabulary, grammar, syntax and technical mistakes) of the subjects in “teacher + peer” feedback group are improved to the largest degree; (4) There is a significant difference among the three group subjects’ English writing ability after the experimental study; (5) The combination of “teacher + peer ”group showed a strong advantage than other two feedback ways; (6) The “teacher + peer” feedback group had the greatest impact on students’ CET-4 writing performance. It is hoped that these findings can expand the field of writing teaching and provide important reference to help English teachers to adopt effective feedback methods to improve the current situation of college English writing.
Extending the asset model of occupational stress among Chinese higher education staff

The main aim of this study is to extend the ASSET model of Occupational Stress in a sample of Chinese university employees. Using Partial Least Squares modelling, our findings showed that job stressors resulted in job dissatisfaction. Surprisingly, job stressors did not directly impact on the level of perceived commitment. Job stressors resulted in lower level of psychological health. Employees who reported job dissatisfaction tend to perceive that their organization is committed towards them and similarly, they report a positive level of commitment towards their organization. Those who reported a higher level of psychological wellbeing tend to report a higher level of physical wellbeing. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed in relation to changes in the Chinese higher education sector.