Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fast Focus Mechanism with Constant Magnification Using a Varifocal Lens and Its Application to Three-Dimensional Imaging

A differential pair of convergent and divergent lenses with adjustable lens spacing (“differential lens”) was devised as a varifocal lens and was successfully integrated into an object-space telecentric lens to build a focus mechanism with constant magnification. This integration was done by placing the front principal point of the varifocal lens at the rear focal point of the telecentric lens within a practical tolerance of positioning. Although the constant-magnification focus mechanism is a parallel projection system, a system for perfect perspective projection imaging without shifting the projection center during focusing could be built simply by properly setting this focus mechanism between an image-taking lens with image-space telecentricity and an image sensor. The focus resolution experimentally obtained was 0.92 μm (σ) for the parallel projection system with a depth range of 1.0 mm and this was 0.25 mm (σ) for the perspective projection system with a range from 120 to 350 mm within a desktop space. A marginal image resolution of 100 lp/mm was obtained with optical distortion of less than 0.2% in the parallel projection system. The differential lens could work up to 55 Hz for a sinusoidal change in lens spacing with a peak-to-valley amplitude of 425 μm when a tiny divergent lens that was plano-concave was translated by a piezoelectric positioner. Therefore, images that were entirely in focus were generated at a frame rate of 30 Hz for an object moving at a speed of around 150 mm/s in depth within the desk top space. Thus, three-dimensional (3-D) imaging that provided 3-D resolution based on fast focusing was accomplished in both microscopic and macroscopic spaces. key words: varifocal lens, telecentric lens, parallel projection, perspective projection, 3-D imaging
Gambits in a New Light

This paper examines the substance of a term, often heard but rarely explained, in the discussion of language teaching, namely gambits. More specially, the focus of this paper is to explore the inadequacies in the literature regarding gambits, in order to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the term. To this end, this paper argues that there may be more to gambits than merely strategies for communication. Gambits may serve a didactic function by shifting the learners’ attention to form, or as self-regulation devices mediating the process of learning which is a central concept in sociocultural theory. Not all the criteria mentioned in literature are efficient in distinguishing gambits. This paper concludes by introducing a new classification based on the specificity of gambit use to aid its perception. It is hoped that in this light, a deeper understanding of gambits can be achieved, one which can ease the process of learning, leading to more independent and effective learners.
Source expertise, source attractiveness, and the processing of persuasive information: A functional approach.

Male undergraduates high and low in self-monitoring listened to either an expert or attractive male source deliver a counterattitudinal message supported by either strong or weak arguments. As expected, high self-monitoring individuals agreed with the expert source regardless of the quality of the arguments presented but agreed with the attractive source only when he delivered strong arguments. By contrast, low self-monitoring individuals agreed with the attractive source regardless of the quality of the arguments presented but agreed with the expert source only when he delivered strong arguments. Cognitive response and recall data suggested that high-self monitoring individuals were systematically processing the attractive source's message and were heuristically processing the expert source's message, whereas low self-monitoring individuals were systematically processing the expert source's message and were heuristically processing the attractive source's message. We discuss the role of source variables in persuasion settings, the determinants of an information-processing strategy, and the functional underpinnings of attitudes.
Lyapunov Based Frugal Incentive Mechanism for Periodical Mobile Crowdsensing

Mobile crowdsensing (MCS) has been intensively explored recently due to its flexible and pervasive sensing ability. Although many incentive mechanisms have been built to attract extensive user participation, Most of these mechanisms focus only on independent task scenarios, where the sensing tasks are independent of each other. On the contrary, we focus on a periodical task scenario, where each user participates in the same type of sensing tasks periodically. In this work, we consider the frugal payment problem in a general time-dependent and location-aware periodical MCS system, taking the long-term user participation incentive into explicit consideration. We study the problem systematically under both semi-online (the intra-period interactive process is synchronous while the inter-period interactive process is sequential and asynchronous during each period) and online user arrival models (the previous two interactive processes are sequential and asynchronous). In particular, we first propose a Lyapunov-based semi-online frugal incentive mechanism, which converges asymptotically to the optimal benchmark performance. Moreover, we also present Lyapunov-based online frugal incentive mechanism, which satisfies the constant frugality. Besides, the two mechanisms can also satisfy computational efficiency, individual rationality and truthfulness. Through extensive simulations, we evaluate the performance and validate the theoretical properties of our online mechanisms.
Brushing of Attribute Clouds for the Visualization of Multivariate Data

The visualization and exploration of multivariate data is still a challenging task. Methods either try to visualize all variables simultaneously at each position using glyph-based approaches or use linked views for the interaction between attribute space and physical domain such as brushing of scatterplots. Most visualizations of the attribute space are either difficult to understand or suffer from visual clutter. We propose a transformation of the high-dimensional data in attribute space to 2D that results in a point cloud, called attribute cloud, such that points with similar multivariate attributes are located close to each other. The transformation is based on ideas from multivariate density estimation and manifold learning. The resulting attribute cloud is an easy to understand visualization of multivariate data in two dimensions. We explain several techniques to incorporate additional information into the attribute cloud, that help the user get a better understanding of multivariate data. Using different examples from fluid dynamics and climate simulation, we show how brushing can be used to explore the attribute cloud and find interesting structures in physical space.
SAR Target Configuration Recognition Using Tensor Global and Local Discriminant Embedding

This letter proposes a method that can preserve the global and local discriminative information based on the tensor representation to achieve feature extraction for synthetic aperture radar (SAR) target configuration recognition. We model SAR images of targets with different configurations as different manifolds, and each manifold is represented as a collection of maximal linear patches (MLPs), each depicted by a subspace. The manifold-to-manifold distance and subspace-to-subspace distance are used to maintain the global discriminative structure of data. Meanwhile, point-to-point distance (PPD) in an MLP is exploited to keep the local discriminative information of data. These two terms are then integrated to maintain the structure of data. Experimental results on the moving and stationary target automatic recognition (MSTAR) database demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Demonstration of a social aware wireless content delivery paradigm

Cloud based Content Delivery Networks have emerged over the last years as a viable cost-effective alternative to traditional CDNs. In this work we demonstrate a novel surrogate server placement strategy for fostering content delivery within the evolving wireless Cloud environment by combining Social Network Analysis inspired metrics and virtual network embedding strategies. The proposed paradigm, in terms of its feasibility and operational efficiency, is validated over the OpenLab infrastructure that offers a realistic large-scale experimentation environment.
Culturally Responsive Gifted Classrooms for Culturally Different Students

This article expands the notion of culturally responsive learning environments by including Purkey and Novak’s (1996) work on invitational learning. Their typology of four types of schools is described and applied to gifted education classrooms, along with associated characteristics of each. Specific attention is focused on implications for Black and Hispanic students. The author maintains that all classrooms must be culturally responsive, which will help with recruiting and retaining culturally different students in gifted education.
Leisure and social capital : An analysis of types of company and activities

The relation between leisure activities and social capital is examined in this paper. The focus is on two dimensions: the company in which the activities were performed (household members versus friends and acquaintances) and the nature of the activities (productive versus consumptive). Data are employed from a time-use survey conducted in the United Kingdom in 2000. Productive activities are positively related to the social capital indicators of civic engagement and helping, while consumptive activities are not. The type of activity matters more than the type of company. Leisure activities especially further people's social capital among groups that are already gifted with high levels of civic engagement and helping.
Psychology of News Decisions

This article is about causal explanations for the way journalists report the news. In its first part, the article reviews traditional and current models or theories of journalists’ news decisions, concentrating on news factors, institutional objectives, the manipulative power of public relations by news sources and the subjective beliefs of journalists. It comes to the conclusion that most of these approaches do not explain the underlying processes leading to news judgements. Starting from these shortcomings and from the assumption that most of journalists’ work is about perceptions, conclusions and judgements, it then attempts to apply psychological theories to news decision-making. The author holds that two general needs or functions involving specific psychological processes can explain news decisions: a need for social validation of perceptions and a need to preserve one’s existing predispositions. Empirical data from several surveys and studies among journalists are used to demonstrate the appropriateness of this approach to journalists’ behavior.
Joint Throughput Maximization and Power Control in Poisson CoopMAC Networks

A cooperative medium access control (CoopMAC) network with randomly distributed helpers is considered. We introduce a new helper selection scheme which maximizes the average throughput while maintaining a low power consumption profile in the network. To this end, all transmissions are assumed to be performed using power control. We assume that each node can estimate the channel between itself and a receiving node. Then, it evaluates the minimum transmission power needed to achieve the desired signal to noise ratio (SNR). If the required transmission power is less than the maximum transmission power of the node, the communication is regarded as successful. Otherwise, the transmission is canceled. %Also, we classify the helpers into six groups according to their transmission rates IEEE 802.11b Standard. In order to increase the average throughput, we assume that the cooperative link with the highest transmission rate is chosen from those that can successfully forward the source signal to destination. Also, when there are several links with the same rates, the one with minimum required power is given the highest priority. Assuming that the helpers are distributed as a Poisson point process with fixed intensity, we derive exact expressions for the average throughput and the power consumption of the network. Simulation results show that our scheme is able to significantly increase the throughput in comparison to the conventional CoopMAC network. It is also able to reduce the power consumption compared to a network with no power control approach.
Dissociation, somatization, and affect dysregulation: the complexity of adaptation of trauma.

OBJECTIVE A century of clinical research has noted a range of trauma-related psychological problems that are not captured in the DSM-IV framework of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This study investigated the relationships between exposure to extreme stress, the emergence of PTSD, and symptoms traditionally associated with "hysteria," which can be understood as problems with stimulus discrimination, self-regulation, and cognitive integration of experience. METHOD The DSM-IV field trial for PTSD studied 395 traumatized treatment-seeking subjects and 125 non-treatment-seeking subjects who had also been exposed to traumatic experiences. Data on age at onset, the nature of the trauma, PTSD, dissociation, somatization, and affect dysregulation were collected. RESULTS PTSD, dissociation, somatization, and affect dysregulation were highly interrelated. The subjects meeting the criteria for lifetime (but not current) PTSD scored significantly lower on these disorders than those with current PTSD, but significantly higher than those who never had PTSD. Subjects who developed PTSD after interpersonal trauma as adults had significantly fewer symptoms than those with childhood trauma, but significantly more than victims of disasters. CONCLUSIONS PTSD, dissociation, somatization, and affect dysregulation represent a spectrum of adaptations to trauma. They often occur together, but traumatized individuals may suffer from various combinations of symptoms over time. In treating these patients, it is critical to attend to the relative contributions of loss of stimulus discrimination, self-regulation, and cognitive integration of experience to overall impairment and provide systematic treatment that addresses both unbidden intrusive recollections and these other symptoms associated with having been overwhelmed by exposure to traumatic experiences.
Development of Standard Anchors for Scoring Generic Past‐Behaviour Questions in Structured Interviews

A structured interviewing system was developed which included an item bank of pre-written past-behaviour questions. Scoring anchors for each of 168 questions in the item bank were created from analysis of protocols from individual assessments. A concurrent validation study was conducted, focusing on the job of highway patrol sergeant. Job knowledge experts used a job analysis tool to select a subset of twelve questions from the item bank. Panel interviews were conducted with 32 highway patrol sergeants as subjects. Average inter-rater reliability was 0.65 and interview validity was 0.42 for group consensus scores and 0.44 for panel average scores. Discussion focused on practical issues affecting the interviewing system.
Spatial keyframing for performance-driven animation

This paper introduces spatial keyframing, a technique for performance-driven character animation. In traditional temporal keyframing, key poses are defined at specific points in time: i.e., we define a map from a set of key times to the configuration space of the character and then extend this map to the entire timeline by interpolation. By contrast, in spatial keyframing key poses are defined at specific key positions in a 3D space where the character lives; the mapping from the 3D space to the configuration space is again defined by interpolation. The user controls a character by adjusting the position of a control cursor in the 3D space; the pose of the character is given as a blend of nearby key poses. The user thus can make expressive motion in real time and the resulting motion can be recorded and interpreted as an animation sequence. Although similar ideas are present in previous systems, our system is unique in that the designer can quickly design a new set of keyframes from scratch, and make an animation without motion capture data or special input devices. Our technique is especially useful for imaginary characters other than human figures because we do not rely on motion-capture data. We also introduce several applications of the basic idea and give examples showing the expressiveness of the approach.
Epidemiology and Outcome of Pneumonia Caused by Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in Canadian Hospitals

Background MRSA remains a leading cause of hospital-acquired (HAP) and healthcare-associated pneumonia (HCAP). We describe the epidemiology and outcome of MRSA pneumonia in Canadian hospitals, and identify factors contributing to mortality. Methods Prospective surveillance for MRSA pneumonia in adults was done for one year (2011) in 11 Canadian hospitals. Standard criteria for MRSA HAP, HCAP, ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP), and community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) were used to identify cases. MRSA isolates underwent antimicrobial susceptibility testing, and were characterized by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and Panton-Valentine leukocidin (PVL) gene detection. The primary outcome was all-cause mortality at 30 days. A multivariable analysis was done to examine the association between various host and microbial factors and mortality. Results A total of 161 patients with MRSA pneumonia were identified: 90 (56%) with HAP, 26 (16%) HCAP, and 45 (28%) CAP; 23 (14%) patients had VAP. The mean (± SD) incidence of MRSA HAP was 0.32 (± 0.26) per 10,000 patient-days, and of MRSA VAP was 0.30 (± 0.5) per 1,000 ventilator-days. The 30-day all-cause mortality was 28.0%. In multivariable analysis, variables associated with mortality were the presence of multiorgan failure (OR 8.1; 95% CI 2.5-26.0), and infection with an isolate with reduced susceptibility to vancomycin (OR 2.5, 95% CI 1.0-6.3). Conclusions MRSA pneumonia is associated with significant mortality. Severity of disease at presentation, and infection caused by an isolate with elevated MIC to vancomcyin are associated with increased mortality. Additional studies are required to better understand the impact of host and microbial variables on outcome.
Creating Proprietary Terms Using Lightweight Ontology: A Case Study on Acquisition Phase in a Cyber Forensic Process

Terms and their meaning connections provided by the Resource Description Framework (RDF) present nowadays the standard mechanism for Linking Data (LD) on the web. All the existing terms, whether they are built-in terms (imported from well-known vocabularies on the semantic web) or proprietary terms (custom terms created by data publisher) can be used to describe and link different things in the world through RDF statements, and by applying the general architecture of the World Wide Web known as Linked Data Principles (LDP). Sometimes, these existing terms are not enough and adequate to describe a particular data set; more proprietary terms need to be created and developed in a dedicated vocabulary using lightweight ontology of LD. The latter uses the constructors of Resource Description Framework Schema (RDFS) and little features from Web Ontology Language (OWL) to create new proprietary terms describing such data set. This idea is depicted in this paper through a phase retrieved from a Cyber Forensic (CF) process, called acquisition phase, where different forensic tasks need to be described using new proprietary terms. This paper explains how these new proprietary terms can be created and published using the constructors of the lightweight ontology to describe this forensic phase. Keywords—Linked Data; Linked Data Principles; Resource Description Framework Schemas; Web Ontology Language; Proprietary Terms; Cyber Forensic; State Preservation.
On the origins of a sense of coherence: Sociodemographic characteristics or narcissism as a personality trait

This study had three main objectives: 1) to examine the relationship between sociodemographic characteristics - such as religion, age economic situation and education - and a sense of coherence; 2) to explore the relationship between a narcissistic personality trait and a sense of coherence, and 3) to find which of the variables, sociological or personality, best explains the sense of coherence. The results indicate a link between economic situation, education and a narcissistic trait, and coherence. Moreover, the study found that among all the variables, from the narcissistic personality questionnaire, those main themes linked to feelings of entitlement and self-satisfaction made the most significant contribution to a sense of coherence. The artidcle discusses the research significance of the study results.
Partially overlapping sensorimotor networks underlie speech praxis and verbal short-term memory: evidence from apraxia of speech following acute stroke

We tested the hypothesis that motor planning and programming of speech articulation and verbal short-term memory (vSTM) depend on partially overlapping networks of neural regions. We evaluated this proposal by testing 76 individuals with acute ischemic stroke for impairment in motor planning of speech articulation (apraxia of speech, AOS) and vSTM in the first day of stroke, before the opportunity for recovery or reorganization of structure-function relationships. We also evaluated areas of both infarct and low blood flow that might have contributed to AOS or impaired vSTM in each person. We found that AOS was associated with tissue dysfunction in motor-related areas (posterior primary motor cortex, pars opercularis; premotor cortex, insula) and sensory-related areas (primary somatosensory cortex, secondary somatosensory cortex, parietal operculum/auditory cortex); while impaired vSTM was associated with primarily motor-related areas (pars opercularis and pars triangularis, premotor cortex, and primary motor cortex). These results are consistent with the hypothesis, also supported by functional imaging data, that both speech praxis and vSTM rely on partially overlapping networks of brain regions.
Toxicity of biopesticides to green apple aphid, predatory insects and mite in an apple-tree orchard.

The investigations were carried out in 2005–2006 at the Lithuanian Institute of Horticulture. A two-year trial examined the toxicity of biopesticides BioNature R2000 (a.i. Azadirachta indica 210 g l -1 , Pinus resinosa 180 g l -1 and Ricinus communis), Bioshower (a.i. 100% fatty acids) and Insecticidal Soap (a.i. 20% fatty acids) to two species of predatory insects (Chrysopa perla L., Coccinella septempunctata L.) and predatory mite (Amblyseius andersoni Chant) in an apple-tree orchard. All tested products showed no toxicity to larvae of C. perla. BioNature R2000 was slightly or moderately toxic to larvae of C. septempunctata, meanwhile Bioshower and Insecticidal Soap had no toxicity to this predatory insect. Bioshower and Insecticidal Soap were moderately or very toxic to A. andersoni, but BioNature R2000 was only slightly toxic. Biopesticides BioNature R2000, Bioshower and Insecticidal Soap are allowed for use in organic farming in many countries and could be safely applied to control aphids.