Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Exploratory Study of Roles in Computer-Supported Groups

The emerging technology of group support systems has the potential to enhance the effectivenss of team work in organizations. One critical factor that has received little attention in technology-supported environments is that of the roles that participants fill in meetings. This paper develops a theoretical model of roles in computer-supported meetings and examines the impact of a group support system on roles. An exploratory field study of 10 work teams was conducted to investigate the perceptions of participants about their own roles and the roles that the group support system technology might fill. The study found a gap between the role expectations of meeting initiators and meeting participants, as well as between participants' role expectations and actual roles filled. The group support system technology was perceived to fill an unexpectedly large variety of roles. The study also showed that the group support system assumed some of the roles that participants expected to fill, resulting in fewer roles filled by participants.
Parking lot analysis and visualization from aerial images

We propose an elevation-based approach to parking lot structure analysis from aerial imagery. In contrast to image-based methods, the new approach treats parked vehicles as 3-D microstructures and attempts to locate them in the elevation domain. The STME (Surface Texture and Microstructure Extraction) system is applied to the elevation map to extract the 3-D microstructures. A hybrid application of this system to both intensity and elevation maps results in a complete extraction of individual vehicles. Based on a comparison of texture exploitation techniques, a WCC (weighted combination criterion) algorithm is presented to generate a clean parking lot ground surface, which facilitates visualization and simulation of parking lot activities with a high degree of visual realism.
Modeling Hsp70/Hsp40 interaction by multi-scale molecular simulations and coevolutionary sequence analysis

The interaction between the Heat Shock Proteins 70 and 40 is at the core of the ATPase regulation of the chaperone machinery that maintains protein homeostasis. However, the structural details of the interaction remain elusive and contrasting models have been proposed for the transient Hsp70/Hsp40 complexes. Here we combine molecular simulations based on both coarse-grained and atomistic models with coevolutionary sequence analysis to shed light on this problem by focusing on the bacterial DnaK/DnaJ system. The integration of these complementary approaches resulted in a novel structural model that rationalizes previous experimental observations. We identify an evolutionarily conserved interaction surface formed by helix II of the DnaJ J-domain and a structurally contiguous region of DnaK, involving lobe IIA of the nucleotide binding domain, the inter-domain linker, and the β-basket of the substrate binding domain. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.7554/eLife.23471. 001
Use it free: instantly knowing your phone attitude

The phone attitude is an essential input to many smartphone applications, which has been known very difficult to accurately estimate especially over long time. Based on in-depth understanding of the nature of the MEMS gyroscope and other IMU sensors commonly equipped on smartphones, we propose A3 - an accurate and automatic attitude detector for commodity smartphones. A3 primarily leverages the gyroscope, but intelligently incorporates the accelerometer and magnetometer to select the best sensing capabilities and derive the most accurate attitude estimation. Extensive experimental evaluation on various types of Android smartphones confirms the outstanding performance of A3. Compared with other existing solutions, A3 provides 3x improvement on the accuracy of attitude estimation.
Measurement of Acoustic Emission Signals: Influence of the Couplant

The acoustic emission (AE) technique, whose modern roots are found in the early 50’s, analyses the elastic waves generated into solid materials in a frequency range usually well above the human ears limit. AE are sound waves emitted when abrupt variations occur in the local distribution of strain in a medium. These variations are generally associated with, for example, the growth of fractures, phase transformations and corrosion under various loading conditions. This is why the AE technique can be applied as a non destructive and passive tool in condition monitoring of structures, a typical application being the pressure vessels and piping field. In this paper, after a short summary on wave propagation, the AE is simulated by a pulse generator, acting on a bar and a plate. The aim is to highlight the effects of the sensors positioning on some of the parameters frequently adopted to describe the AE activity, e.g. its amplitude and strength.
Transcriptional silencer of the human papillomavirus type 8 late promoter interacts alternatively with the viral trans activator E2 or with a cellular factor

The noncoding region of the highly oncogenic, epidermodysplasia verruciformis-associated human papillomavirus type 8 contains a negative regulatory element (NRE). Quantitative RNase protection analysis confirmed that the NRE sequence acts as a silencer of transcription. A 38-bp sequence upstream of late promoter P7535 down-regulated expression from the homologous P7535 promoter, as well as the heterologous tk gene promoter, independently of its orientation relative to the test promoters. It also reduced gene expression when cloned downstream of the transcription units. Transient expression assays with keratinocytes and fibroblasts of epidermodysplasia verruciformis patients and controls demonstrated that the NRE activity is not cell specific. Gel retardation tests suggested that NRE specifically interacts with only one nuclear factor. Mutational analysis identified three NRE mutants which no longer formed a detectable DNA-protein complex but still repressed transcription, indicating that protein-DNA interaction is not relevant for the silencer function. The NRE contains a binding site of viral trans activator protein E2. It was shown that expression of E2 overrides the inhibitory effect of the NRE sequences. Binding of E2 and that of the cellular factor were mutually exclusive. The bifunctional nature of NRE acting as a silencer and a target site for viral trans activator E2 offers an interesting opportunity to regulate the switch from early to late transcription in the human papillomavirus life cycle.
Approximate greatest common divisors of several polynomials with linearly constrained coefficients and singular polynomials

We consider the problem of computing minimal real or complex deformations to the coefficients in a list of relatively prime real or complex multivariate polynomials such that the deformed polynomials have a greatest common divisor (GCD) of at least a given degree k. In addition, we restrict the deformed coefficients by a given set of linear constraints, thus introducing the linearly constrained approximate GCD problem. We present an algorithm based on a version of the structured total least norm (STLN) method and demonstrate on a diverse set of benchmark polynomials that the algorithm in practice computes globally minimal approximations. As an application of the linearly constrained approximate GCD problem we present an STLN-based method that computes a real or complex polynomial the nearest real or complex polynomial that has a root of multiplicity at least k. We demonstrate that the algorithm in practice computes on the benchmark polynomials given in the literature the known globally optimal nearest singular polynomials. Our algorithms can handle, via randomized preconditioning, the difficult case when the nearest solution to a list of real input polynomials actually has non-real complex coefficients.
Acute Encephalitis Syndrome Surveillance, Kushinagar District, Uttar Pradesh, India, 2011–2012

In India, quality surveillance for acute encephalitis syndrome (AES), including laboratory testing, is necessary for understanding the epidemiology and etiology of AES, planning interventions, and developing policy. We reviewed AES surveillance data for January 2011–June 2012 from Kushinagar District, Uttar Pradesh, India. Data were cleaned, incidence was determined, and demographic characteristics of cases and data quality were analyzed. A total of 812 AES case records were identified, of which 23% had illogical entries. AES incidence was highest among boys <6 years of age, and cases peaked during monsoon season. Records for laboratory results (available for Japanese encephalitis but not AES) and vaccination history were largely incomplete, so inferences about the epidemiology and etiology of AES could not be made. The low-quality AES/Japanese encephalitis surveillance data in this area provide little evidence to support development of prevention and control measures, estimate the effect of interventions, and avoid the waste of public health resources.
Ruby benchmark tool using docker

The purpose of this paper is to introduce and describe a new Ruby benchmarking tool. We will describe the background of Ruby benchmarking and the advantages of the new tool. The paper documents the benchmarking process as well as methods used to obtain results and run tests. To illustrate the provided tool, results that were obtained by running a developed benchmarking tool on existing and available official ruby benchmarks are provided. These results document advantages in using various Ruby compilers or Ruby implementations.
Chloroplastic NAD(P)H Dehydrogenase in Tobacco Leaves Functions in Alleviation of Oxidative Damage Caused by Temperature Stress1[OA]

In this study, the function of the NAD(P)H dehydrogenase (NDH)-dependent pathway in suppressing the accumulation of reactive oxygen species in chloroplasts was investigated. Hydrogen peroxide accumulated in the leaves of tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) defective in ndhC-ndhK-ndhJ (ΔndhCKJ) at 42°C and 4°C, and in that of wild-type leaves at 4°C. The maximum quantum efficiency of PSII decreased to a similar extent in both strains at 42°C, while it decreased more evidently in ΔndhCKJ at 4°C. The parameters linked to CO2 assimilation, such as the photochemical efficiency of PSII, the decrease of nonphotochemical quenching following the initial rise, and the photosynthetic O2 evolution, were inhibited more significantly in ΔndhCKJ than in wild type at 42°C and were seriously inhibited in both strains at 4°C. While cyclic electron flow around PSI mediated by NDH was remarkably enhanced at 42°C and suppressed at 4°C. The proton gradient across the thylakoid membranes and light-dependent ATP synthesis were higher in wild type than in ΔndhCKJ at either 25°C or 42°C, but were barely formed at 4°C. Based on these results, we suggest that cyclic photophosphorylation via the NDH pathway might play an important role in regulation of CO2 assimilation under heat-stressed condition but is less important under chilling-stressed condition, thus optimizing the photosynthetic electron transport and reducing the generation of reactive oxygen species.
Coupled-inductor AC-to-AC converters having improved input power factor, simple control, and variable output frequency

The main goal of this paper is to propose three single-phase AC-to-AC converters based on an improved version of the AC-DC Nabae converter. The proposed topologies improve input power factor and input current waveform without any complicated switching modulation, such as pulse width modulation, or feedback control. These topologies can operate with either variable output frequency or fixed output frequency. The main characteristics of the proposed configurations are presented and experimental results verify the theoretical studies.
Discourse analysis based segregation of relevant document segments for knowledge acquisition

Abstract Documents are a useful source of expert knowledge in organizations and can be used to foresee, in an earlier stage of a product's life cycle, potential issues and solutions that might occur in later stages of its life cycle. In this research, these stages are, respectively, design and assembly. Even if these documents are available online, it is rather difficult for users to access the knowledge contained in these documents. It is therefore desirable to automatically extract the knowledge contained in these documents and store them in a computer accessible or manipulable form. This paper describes an approach for the first step in this acquisition process: automatically identifying segments of documents that are relevant to aircraft assembly, so that they can be further processed for acquiring expert knowledge. Such identification of relevant segments is necessary for avoiding processing of unrelated information that is costly and possibly distracting for domain relevance. The approach to extracting relevant segments has two steps. The first step is the identification of sentences that form a coherent segment of text, within which the topic does not shift. The second step is to classify segments that are within the topics of interest for knowledge acquisition, that is, aircraft assembly in this instance. These steps filter out segments that are unrelated, and therefore need not be processed for subsequent knowledge acquisition. The steps are implemented by understanding the contents of documents. Using methods of discourse analysis, in particular, discourse representation theory, a list of discourse entities is obtained. The difference in discourse entities between sentences is used to distinguish between segments. The list of discourse entities in a segment is compared against a domain ontology for classification. The implementation and results of validation on sample texts for these steps are described.
Spectral optoacoustic imaging using a scanning transducer

A scanning optoacoustic transducer was used to generate images of biological tissue in vivo. The transducer consisted of an optical fiber for delivery of laser pulses and an annular piezoelectric film. Optoacoustic waves were generated by irradiating the tissue with 5 ns long pulses from an optical parametric oscillator (OPO) which was tuned between 500 and 600 nm. The motorized scanner allowed to generate a 200x200 pixel image within 20 seconds. In images of human skin in vivo, certain structures such as the epidermis, blood capillaries and deeper blood vessels could be localized and identified by their spectral characteristics. From the spectral dependence of blood containing structures the oxygenation level of hemoglobin could be estimated.
Use of Agile Methods in Software Engineering Education

The use of contemporary software development approaches such as agile methods is growing in widespread use throughout the world. Although some universities are starting to teach them, courses on agile methods at the undergraduate and graduate levels are still a new phenomenon. The University of Maryland University College (UMUC) adapted agile methods for its capstone course towards a master’s degree in software engineering in the Fall of 2008. Three distributed teams of five students were asked to use agile methods to build competing electronic commerce websites. With little training in agile methods, virtual teams, collaboration tools, or web design, each of the three teams completed fully functional e-commerce websites using agile methods in little more than 13 weeks. Teams who struck an optimum balance of customer collaboration, use of agile methods, and technical programming ability had better productivity and website quality.
Minimally Lexicalized Dependency Parsing

Dependency structures do not have the information of phrase categories in phrase structure grammar. Thus, dependency parsing relies heavily on the lexical information of words. This paper discusses our investigation into the effectiveness of lexicalization in dependency parsing. Specifically, by restricting the degree of lexicalization in the training phase of a parser, we examine the change in the accuracy of dependency relations. Experimental results indicate that minimal or low lexicalization is sufficient for parsing accuracy.
The role of the slow delayed rectifier potassium current

Background—Although pharmacological block of the slow, delayed rectifier potassium current (IKs) by chromanol 293B, L-735,821, or HMR-1556 produces little effect on action potential duration (APD) in isolated rabbit and dog ventricular myocytes, the effect of IKs block on normal human ventricular muscle APD is not known. Therefore, studies were conducted to elucidate the role of IKs in normal human ventricular muscle and in preparations in which both repolarization reserve was attenuated and sympathetic activation was increased by exogenous dofetilide and adrenaline. Methods and Results—Preparations were obtained from undiseased organ donors. Action potentials were measured in ventricular trabeculae and papillary muscles using conventional microelectrode techniques; membrane currents were measured in ventricular myocytes using voltage-clamp techniques. Chromanol 293B (10 mol/L), L-735,821 (100 nmol/L), and HMR-1556 (100 nmol/L and 1 mol/L) produced a 12-ms change in APD while pacing at cycle lengths ranging from 300 to 5000 ms, whereas the IKr blockers sotalol and E-4031 markedly lengthened APD. In voltage-clamp experiments, L-735,821 and chromanol 293B each blocked IKs in the presence of E-4031 to block IKr. The E-4031–sensitive current (IKr) at the end of a 150-ms-long test pulse to 30 mV was 32.9 6.7 pA (n 8); the L-735,821–sensitive current (IKs) magnitude was 17.8 2.94 pA (n 10). During a longer 500-ms test pulse, IKr was not substantially changed (33.6 6.1 pA; n 8), and IKs was significantly increased (49.6 7.24 pA; n 10). On application of an “action potential–like” test pulse, IKr increased as voltage became more negative, whereas IKs remained small throughout all phases of the action potential–like test pulse. In experiments in which APD was first lengthened by 50 nmol/L dofetilide and sympathetic activation was increased by 1 mol/L adrenaline, 1 mol/L HMR-1556 significantly increased APD by 14.7 3.2% (P 0.05; n 3). Conclusions—Pharmacological IKs block in the absence of sympathetic stimulation plays little role in increasing normal human ventricular muscle APD. However, when human ventricular muscle repolarization reserve is attenuated, IKs plays an increasingly important role in limiting action potential prolongation. (Circulation. 2005;112:1392-1399.)
VARIABILITY IN POST‐OPERATIVE FLUID AND ELECTROLYTE PRESCRIPTION

SUMMARY A four‐week retrospective survey of intravenous fluid and electrolyte prescriptions on postoperative surgical patients revealed wide variability in fluid and electrolyte prescription by medical staff. Median volume of intravenous fluid prescribed was 3000 ml (range 1667‐5000). Total sodium prescribed varied from 0 to 770, median 242 mmol/day), with potassium infrequently added (range 0‐81, median 0 mmol/day). Patients undergoing emergency surgery were prescribed more sodium than those undergoing routine procedures (p=0.0403); 0.9% saline was the most common fluid prescribed overall. There was poor correlation between serum electrolyte values and the amounts of electrolytes prescribed. Intravenous fluid prescription should take into account the post‐operative stress response which reduces sodium requirements (unless there are other concomitant losses) and increases urinary potassium losses. A suitable post‐operative ‘maintenance’ fluid is 4% dextrose/0.18% saline with 1‐2 g potassium chloride, particularly if serum electrolyte levels are not known. Other fluid losses should be replaced with equivalent fluids.
Tamper-proofing of electronic and printed text documents via robust hashing and data-hiding

In this paper, we deal with the problem of authentication and tamper-proofing of text documents that can be distributed in electronic or printed forms. We advocate the combination of robust text hashing and text data-hiding technologies as an efficient solution to this problem. First, we consider the problem of text data-hiding in the scope of the Gel'fand-Pinsker data-hiding framework. For illustration, two modern text data-hiding methods, namely color index modulation (CIM) and location index modulation (LIM), are explained. Second, we study two approaches to robust text hashing that are well suited for the considered problem. In particular, both approaches are compatible with CIM and LIM. The first approach makes use of optical character recognition (OCR) and a classical cryptographic message authentication code (MAC). The second approach is new and can be used in some scenarios where OCR does not produce consistent results. The experimental work compares both approaches and shows their robustness against typical intentional/unintentional document distortions including electronic format conversion, printing, scanning, photocopying, and faxing.
Particle swarm optimization for security constrained economic dispatch

This paper presents an efficient and reliable evolutionary based approach to solve the economic load dispatch (ELD) with security constraints. The proposed approach employ particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm for ELD. Incorporation of type 1 PSO as a derivative-free optimization technique in solving ELD with voltages and lineflow constraints significantly relieves the assumptions imposed on the optimized objective function. The proposed approach has been tested on three representative systems, i.e. IEEE 14 bus, IEEE 30 bus and IEEE 57 bus systems respectively. The feasibility of the proposed method is demonstrated and the results are compared with linear programming, quadratic programming and genetic algorithm respectively. The developed algorithms are computationally faster (no. of load flows) than the other methods.
Theoretical and experimental descriptions of grain boundaries in rhombohedral α-Al2O3

Abstract Tables are given of all coincidence orientations with multiplicity Σ ≤ 36 for rhombohedral lattices with axial ratios in the range of corundum type structures (2.696 < c/a < 2-765). Measurements of the relative orientation of 133 pairs of neighbouring grains in sintered a-alumina showed that near-coincidence boundaries (14 cases) and one-dimensional coincidence boundaries (17 cases) occurred more frequently than would be the case for randomly distributed orientations and that many of these special boundaries contained periodic arrays of grain boundary dislocations. Their Burgers vectors have been determined for a rhombohedral twin boundary in order to decide which one among three possible coincidence descriptions best represents the boundary structure.
Swing-leg retraction: a simple control model for stable running

SUMMARY In running, the spring-like axial behavior of stance limbs is a well-known and remarkably general feature. Here we consider how the rotational behavior of limbs affects running stability. It is commonly observed that running animals retract their limbs just prior to ground contact, moving each foot rearward towards the ground. In this study, we employ a conservative spring-mass model to test the effects of swing-leg retraction on running stability. A feed-forward control scheme is applied where the swing-leg is retracted at constant angular velocity throughout the second half of the swing phase. The control scheme allows the spring-mass system to automatically adapt the angle of attack in response to disturbances in forward speed and stance-limb stiffness. Using a return map to investigate system stability, we propose an optimal swing-leg retraction model for the stabilization of flight phase apex height. The results of this study indicate that swing-leg retraction significantly improves the stability of spring-mass running, suggesting that swing-phase limb dynamics may play an important role in the stabilization of running animals.