Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Non-parametric change point detection for spike trains

Two techniques of non-parametric change point detection are applied to two different neuroscience datasets. In the first dataset, we show how the multivariate non-parametric change point detection can precisely estimate reaction times to input stimulation in the olfactory system using joint information of spike trains from several neurons. In the second example, we propose to analyze communication and sequence coding using change point formalism as a time segmentation of homogeneous pieces of information, revealing cues to elucidate directionality of the communication in electric fish. We are also sharing our software implementation Chapolins at GitHub.
Electron and Hole Transport Layers: Their Use in Inverted Bulk Heterojunction Polymer Solar Cells

Bulk heterojunction polymer solar cells (BHJ PSCs) are very promising organic-based devices for low-cost solar energy conversion, compatible with roll-to-roll or general printing methods for mass production. Nevertheless, to date, many issues should still be addressed, one of these being the poor stability in ambient conditions. One elegant way to overcome such an issue is the so-called "inverted" BHJ PSC, a device geometry in which the charge collection is reverted in comparison with the standard geometry device, i.e., the electrons are collected by the bottom electrode and the holes by the top electrode (in contact with air). This reverted geometry allows one to use a high work function top metal electrode, like silver or gold (thus avoiding its fast oxidation and degradation), and eliminates the need of a polymeric hole transport layer, typically of an acidic nature, on top of the transparent metal oxide bottom electrode. Moreover, this geometry is fully compatible with standard roll-to-roll manufacturing in air and is less demanding for a good post-production encapsulation process. To date, the external power conversion efficiencies of the inverted devices are generally comparable to their standard analogues, once both the electron transport layer and the hole transport layer are fully optimized for the particular device. Here, the most recent results on this particular optimization process will be reviewed, and a general outlook regarding the inverted BHJ PSC will be depicted.
The Age-Time-Cohort Problem and the Identification of Structural Parameters in Life-Cycle Models

The standard approach to estimating structural parameters in life-cycle models imposes sufficient assumptions on the data to identify the "age profile" of outcomes, then chooses model parameters so that the model's age profile matches this empirical age profile. I show that the standard approach is both incorrect and unnecessary: incorrect, because it generically produces inconsistent estimators of the structural parameters, and unnecessary, because consistent estimators can be obtained under weaker fewer assumptions. I derive an identification method that avoids the problems of the standard approach and illustrate its benefits in a simple model of consumption inequality.
How an open learning environment affects the motivation of secondary and higher education students

Technology mediated learning is very actively and widely researched, yet there are few studies on if and how open learning environments (OLEs) affect the motivation of students. It is very important to showcase not only the effect on different groups of students but on students in various educational levels. This paper is a report on the findings of a study conducted in parallel, using the same OLE, on the students of a postgraduate engineering course and on the lyceum students attending their mandatory secondary education curriculum. The students used the Student Diagnosis, Assistance, Evaluation System based on Artificial Intelligence (StuDiAsE), an open learning system for unattended student diagnosis, assistance and evaluation based on artificial intelligence. The report indicates that the use of the OLE has particularly beneficial effects on the performance of certain student groups.
Gatekeeping in professional higher education in Norway: ambivalence among academic staff and placement supervisors towards students with disabilities

ABSTRACT Despite legislative regulations, many students with disabilities face barriers to their participation in higher education. In professional education, the requirements for placement practice add to the barriers for both students who need to disclose their impairments and request special arrangements, and staff who need to make the arrangements to accommodate to the students’ special needs. The aim of this qualitative study was to explore the perspectives of academic staff and placement supervisors on supporting students with disabilities in professional programmes within health care, social work and teaching. Data were generated from focus group discussions with 13 lecturers who worked with students on campus, and 8 professionals who supervised students during practice placement. The results indicate an ambivalence among the staff and supervisors regarding working with students with disabilities. This ambivalence seems to be triggered by conflicting roles and values, unclear outcome measures to evaluate the students, a lack of knowledge of how to accommodate, time constraints, insufficient institutional support, as well as a lack of openness regarding students with disabilities in professional courses. The results call for an increased awareness of how complex processes in the structural and cultural environments affect students’ disclosure of disability and the collaboration between the stakeholders.
Compact Tunable Filtering Power Divider With Constant Absolute Bandwidth

This paper presents a novel frequency-agile filtering power divider with constant absolute bandwidth and high selectivity. The proposed design utilizes four coupled resonators to obtain the two functions of power division and filtering. Synthesis of the filtering power divider is carried out and the design guidelines are given. Varactors are then loaded to the resonators to enable frequency tuning. By using capacitors as well as magnetic and electric coupling to obtain required external quality factors and coupling coefficients, a constant absolute bandwidth is maintained when tuning the frequency. To demonstrate the validity of the proposed design, a circuit was fabricated. Experimental results show that the operating frequency can be changed from 0.62 to 0.85 GHz with the 3-dB absolute bandwidth of 60 ± 2.5 MHz. Moreover, transmission zeros are generated near the passband, resulting in high selectivity for each tuning state. Comparisons between the measured and simulated results are presented and good agreement is observed.
Generalizing Experimental Findings

Abstract This note examines one of the most crucial questions in causal inference: “How generalizable are randomized clinical trials? ” The question has received a formal treatment recently, using a non-parametric setting, and has led to a simple and general solution. I will describe this solution and several of its ramifications, and compare it to the way researchers have attempted to tackle the problem using the language of ignorability. We will see that ignorability-type assumptions need to be enriched with structural assumptions in order to capture the full spectrum of conditions that permit generalizations, and in order to judge their plausibility in specific applications.
Predicting Kashan University Students’ mental stress coping strategies

Introduction: Previous studies conducted on attachment theory reflect the importance of attachment in different aspects of life. Based on this theory, attachment affects the quality of life and individual differences in methods of coping with stress. Given the importance ofthis issue, the aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between attachment styles and methods of coping with stress. Methods: The sample consisted of 400 students at the University of Kashan in 2014-2015 academic year. In the first stage, cluster sampling and then stratified sampling was used for participant selection for the study. Hazan and Shaver”s (1987) attachment styles questionnaire and coping styles scale by Endler and Parker (1990) were used for data collection. For data analysis, descriptive methods, correlation, regression analysis and analysis of variance were used. Results: Results showed links between insecure and secure attachment styles on the one hand and problem-solving approaches to coping style on the other. In examining relationships between attachment styles, a significant difference in the results was found for insecure attachment. The use of different coping styles was found to be gender independent. Conclusion: People with secure attachment style use problem-solving approaches to coping style. Based on the results, the formation and strengthening of attachment during growth and development affects adulthood and should be emphasized. Therefore, the creation of secure attachment for students, followed by the correct use of the stress coping styles can dramatically increase success among students in the country.
Analytical models and algorithms for the efficient signal integrity verification of inductance-effect-prominent multicoupled VLSI circuit interconnects

Novel signal integrity verification models and algorithms for inductance-effect- prominent RLC interconnect lines are developed by using a traveling-wave-based waveform approximation (TWA) technique. The multicoupled line responses are decoupled into the eigenmodes of the system in order to exploit the TWA technique. Then, the response signals are mathematically represented by the linear combination of each eigenmode response based on TWA, followed by reporting the signal integrity models and algorithms for the multicoupled lines. The signal integrity of VLSI circuit interconnects is complicatedly correlated with input signal switching-patterns, layout geometry, and termination conditions. It is shown that the technique can be efficiently employed for complicated multicoupled interconnect lines with various termination conditions and the signal transients based on the technique have excellent agreement with SPICE simulations. Thus, with the proposed technique, the switching-dependent signal delay, crosstalk, ringing, and glitches of the inductance-effect-prominent RLC interconnect lines can be accurately as well as efficiently determined.
A Simple Efficient Circuit Partitioning by Genetic Algorithm

Summary Circuit partitioning problem is a well known NP hard problem. The potential of Genetic Algorithm has been used to solve many computationally intensive problems (NP hard problems) because existing conventional methods are unable to perform the required breakthrough in terms of complexity, time and cost. This paper deals with the problem of partitioning of a circuit using Genetic Algorithm. The algorithm inputs the adjacency matrix generates graph of the circuit and partitions the circuit based on improved crossover operator. The algorithm produces a set of vertices that are highly connected to each other but highly disconnected from the other partitions and the results show that algorithm if far superior than the simple GA.
Co-Constraint Validation in a Streaming Context

In many use cases applications are bound to be run consuming only a limited amount of memory. When they need to validate large XML documents, they have to adopt streaming validation, which does not rely on an in-memory representation of the whole input document. In order to validate an XML document, different kinds of constraints need to be verified. Co-constraints—which relate the content of elements to the presence and values of other attributes or elements—are one such kind of constraints. In this paper we propose an approach to the problem of validating in a streaming fashion an XML document against a schema also specifying coconstraints. We describe how the streaming evaluation of co-constraints influences the output of the validation process. Our proposal makes use of the validation language SchemaPath [11], a light extension to XML Schema [14], adding conditional type assignment for the support of coconstraints. The paper is based on the description of our streaming SchemaPath validator [10].
A noninvasive multimodal technique to monitor brain tumor vascularization

Determination of tumor oxygenation at the microvascular level will provide important insight into tumor growth, angiogenesis, necrosis and therapeutic response and will facilitate to develop protocols for studying tumor behavior. The non-ionizing near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) technique has the potential to differentiate lesion and hemoglobin dynamics; however, it has a limited spatial resolution. On the other hand, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has achieved high spatial resolution with excellent tissue discrimination but is more susceptible to limited ability to monitor the hemoglobin dynamics. In the present work, the vascular status and the pathophysiological changes that occur during tumor vascularization are studied in an orthotopic brain tumor model. A noninvasive multimodal approach based on the NIRS technique, namely steady state diffuse optical spectroscopy (SSDOS) along with MRI, is applied for monitoring the concentrations of oxyhemoglobin, deoxyhemoglobin and water within tumor region. The concentrations of oxyhemoglobin, deoxyhemoglobin and water within tumor vasculature are extracted at 15 discrete wavelengths in a spectral window of 675–780 nm. We found a direct correlation between tumor size, intratumoral microvessel density and tumor oxygenation. The relative decrease in tumor oxygenation with growth indicates that though blood vessels infiltrate and proliferate the tumor region, a hypoxic trend is clearly present.
Lead Induces Chondrogenesis and Alters Transforming Growth Factor-β and Bone Morphogenetic Protein Signaling in Mesenchymal Cell Populations

Background It has been established that skeletal growth is stunted in lead-exposed children. Because chondrogenesis is a seminal step during skeletal development, elucidating the impact of Pb on this process is the first step toward understanding the mechanism of Pb toxicity in the skeleton. Objectives The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that Pb alters chondrogenic commitment of mesenchymal cells and to assess the effects of Pb on various signaling pathways. Methods We assessed the influence of Pb on chondrogenesis in murine limb bud mesenchymal cells (MSCs) using nodule formation assays and gene analyses. The effects of Pb on transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) and bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) signaling was studied using luciferase-based reporters and Western analyses, and luciferase-based assays were used to study cyclic adenosine monophosphate response element binding protein (CREB), β-catenin, AP-1, and nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-κB) signaling. We also used an ectopic bone formation assay to determine how Pb affects chondrogenesis in vivo. Results Pb-exposed MSCs showed enhanced basal and TGF-β/BMP induction of chondrogenesis, evidenced by enhanced nodule formation and up-regulation of Sox-9, type 2 collagen, and aggrecan, all key markers of chondrogenesis. We observed enhanced chondrogenesis during ectopic bone formation in mice preexposed to Pb via drinking water. In MSCs, Pb enhanced TGF-β but inhibited BMP-2 signaling, as measured by luciferase reporter assays and Western analyses of Smad phosphorylation. Although Pb had no effect on basal CREB or Wnt/β-catenin pathway activity, it induced NFκB signaling and inhibited AP-1 signaling. Conclusions The in vitro and in vivo induction of chondrogenesis by Pb likely involves modulation and integration of multiple signaling pathways including TGF-β, BMP, AP-1, and NFκB.
New acoustic resonator based on periodically poled transducer in lithium niobate or tantalate

In this paper, we propose a new concept of acoustic resonator based on a waveguide structure. In the telecommunication market, composants used are indeed generally bases on Surface Acoustic Wave (SAW) or Bulk Acoustic Wave (BAW) devices. However, those systems present technological limits as short-circuits between the electrodes of the interdigital transducers (for SAW device) or the precise control of the piezoelectric material thick resonator (for BAW device). We suggest a new concept based on a periodically poled transducer (PPT) in a ferroelectric substrate (LiNbO3 or LiTaO3), embedded between two guiding substrates in order to create an acoustic waveguide. Periodically poled transducers have been investigated recently as an alternative to classical inter-digital transducers for the excitation and detection of guided acoustic waves. A resonator operating at 131MHz has been successfully fabricated and used in order to stabilize an oscillator at this frequency. However, the developed resonator presents a significant thermal sensitivity. The following experiments have consisted in studying a Si/thinned PPT layer/Si structure in order to reduce the thermal sensitivity.
Exploiting Asynchronous Amplify-and-Forward Relays to Enhance the Performance of IEEE 802.11 Networks

Cooperative communication is a promising path to recover from performance anomaly in IEEE 802.11 networks. However, a simple solution for employing multiple relays to enhance the relay link quality has not been proposed. The main obstacle for multiple relay utilization in distributed networks is that synchronizing relay transmissions requires huge signaling overhead. In this paper, we investigate the problem from both a physical-layer and MAC-layer point of view. In the physical layer, a simple, practical solution that provides diversity gain from asynchronous relay transmissions is introduced. In the MAC layer, a rate adaptation algorithm, RA-ARF, that takes the extra relay path into account is discussed, and R-MAC is designed to utilize relays in IEEE 802.11 networks. Our simulation results show considerable improvement in network performance using R-MAC.
Non-invasive Brain Stimulation, a Tool to Revert Maladaptive Plasticity in Neuropathic Pain

Neuromodulatory effects of non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) have been extensively studied in chronic pain. A hypothetic mechanism of action would be to prevent or revert the ongoing maladaptive plasticity within the pain matrix. In this review, the authors discuss the mechanisms underlying the development of maladaptive plasticity in patients with chronic pain and the putative mechanisms of NIBS in modulating synaptic plasticity in neuropathic pain conditions.
Big Graph Mining: Algorithms, Anomaly Detection, and Applications

Graphs are everywhere in our lives: social networks, the World Wide Web, biological networks, and many more. The size of real-world graphs are growing at unprecedented rate, spanning millions and billions of nodes and edges. What are the patterns and anomalies in such massive graphs? How to design scalable algorithms to nd them? How can we make sense of very large graphs? And what kind of real-world problems can we solve with such tools? These are exactly the goals of this tutorial. We start with important graph algorithms that are central to graph mining and pattern discoveries, and describe how we can implement their fast, scalable versions using a unied framework built on top of Hadoop. Then we describe graph-based anomaly detection techniques (complement of pattern discoveries) and how to scale them to massive graphs. Finally, we discuss how our aforementioned techniques can help solve large-scale, real-world problems that make impact to society, and to help solve challenging problems in visual analytics.
A robust algorithm for DPA-resistant ECC

A power analysis attack is an efficient way to break general ECC encryption implementations in hardware. The Simple Power Attack (SPA) and the Differential Power Attack (DPA) were initial mechanisms power analysis attacks. More advanced power attack techniques applicable to elliptic curve cryptosystems, such as Refined Power Analysis (RPA) and Zero Power Analysis (ZPA), were introduced. These techniques use the special features of the elliptic curve where the power consumption is zero to attack the implementation. In this paper, we also present a Differential Power Analysis (DPA) attack using an initial value, called an “initial value DPA” attack, which can compromise Kim's countermeasure against power analysis attacks. We then propose a novel countermeasure which provides a better defense against both SPA and DPA attacks.
Model-based registration to correct for motion between acquisitions in diffusion MR imaging

In diffusion tensor MRI, a number of diffusion-weighted images with different diffusion-weighting gradient directions are acquired during scanning. The tensor calculation assumes that each voxel corresponds to the same anatomical location in all the measurements. Movements and distortions violate this assumption and typically the images are realigned before model fitting. The traditional method uses a non-diffusion- weighted image as the reference for registration, but the differences between diffusion-weighted images and the non- diffusion weighted reference image can cause mismatching to occur during registration, even using metrics like the mutual information (MI) that accounts for non-linear contrast differences. We propose alternative model-based methods to improve motion correction and avoid the errors that the traditional method introduces. We demonstrate quantitative improvements using the new approaches on a full data with slight, but typical, movement during acquisition.
The Influence of Alignment on the Post-Implementation Success of a Core Banking Information System: An Embedded Case Study

The literature suggests that the success of an information system among others depends on its utilization. In this paper, we argue that operational IT business alignment is an important driver of system usage and thereby of the market success of the supported business process. Using an embedded case study in four branches, the back office, and the IT department of a retail bank, many findings of the recent alignment literature can be supported. Using a strict business process perspective, we also offer new insights by showing that alignment is important for IS success in operations as well and positively influences post-implementation IS usage. In particular, mutual understanding between the units and shared domain knowledge not only between IT and business but also between different business units supported by the same core IS turned out to be very important factors of IS usage that have so far been neglected
A risk hypothesis and risk measures for throughput capacity in systems

A basic risk hypothesis for system throughput capacity in the presence of risk is proposed. It is expressed as a basic risk equation , derived in the paper, and governs all nongrowth, nonevolving, agent-directed systems. The basic risk equation shows how expected throughput capacity increases linearly with positive risk of loss of throughput capacity. The conventional standard deviation risk measure, from financial systems, may be used. A proposed new measure, the mean-expected loss risk measure with respect to the hazard-free case, is shown to be more appropriate for systems in general. The concept of an efficient system environment is also proposed. The well-known financial risk equation, hitherto deduced empirically, may be derived from the basic risk equation. When there is both risk exposure and resource sharing, the basic risk equation may be combined with a resource-sharing equation that governs how throughput capacity changes with the resource-sharing level. The basic risk equation also allows for risk elimination and reduction. All quantities in the equation are precisely defined, and their units are specified. The risk equation reduces to a useful numerical expression in practice.