Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Guidance of a moving collocated actuator/sensor for improved control of distributed parameter systems

This paper proposes a scheme for the guidance of a moving collocated sensor/actuator pair for the performance enhancement of a class of spatially distributed processes. It is assumed that a spatially moving source forces the process state to deviate from its equilibrium throughout the spatial domain. Such a configuration minimizes the control effectiveness of a fixed-in-space sensor/actuator pair. To minimize the effects of the moving source on the state regulation, it is assumed that a locally distributed sensor, capable of moving within the spatial domain with a prescribed velocity can also provide locally distributed actuator. Such a pair utilizes locally distributed state information in order to generate the control signal, which takes the form of a locally distributed static output feedback. At a given time interval, the maximum deviation of the spatially localized state from the equilibrium is used to guide the sensor/actuator pair to the next position and at the same time provide a simplified static output feedback controller in order to improve performance. As an extension, a time varying scalar gain is proposed which is updated adaptively, according to the distributed state deviation. Extensive simulation studies applied to a diffusion-advection system are included to verify the effectiveness of a such a moving actuator/sensor pair.
Rapid requirements checks with requirements smells: two case studies

Bad requirements quality can have expensive consequences during the software development lifecycle. Especially, if iterations are long and feedback comes late - the faster a problem is found, the cheaper it is to fix. We propose to detect issues in requirements based on requirements (bad) smells by applying a light-weight static requirements analysis. This light-weight technique allows for instant checks as soon as a requirement is written down. In this paper, we derive a set of smells, including automatic smell detection, from the natural language criteria of the ISO/IEC/IEEE 29148 standard. We evaluated the approach with 336 requirements and 53 use cases from 9 specifications that were written by the car manufacturer Daimler AG and the chemical business company Wacker Chemie AG, and discussed the results with their requirements and domain experts. While not all problems can be detected, the case study shows that lightweight smell analysis can uncover many practically relevant requirements defects. Based on these results and the discussion with our industry partners, we conclude that requirements smells can serve as an efficient supplement to traditional reviews or team discussions, in order to create fast feedback on requirements quality.
On the use of numerically computed transfer functions for processing of data from bistatic SARs and high squint orbital SARs

Standard SAR processing algorithms use analytically derived transfer functions in the 2-D frequency and the range/Doppler domains. These rely on the assumption of hyperbolic range histories of monostatic SARs with straight flight paths. A moderate deviation from these conditions can often be handled satisfactorily by modified hyperbolic range functions. This paper shows how the zero-Doppler range and the velocity parameter must be adapted. It is also shown that for bistatic SARs the assumption of an equivalent monostatic flight path is not sufficient. However, very high resolution or very high squinted SARs on curved orbits and bistatic SARs with considerable separation of transmitter and receiver can no longer be modelled by hyperbolic range histories. This paper shows how such data can still be processed by standard SAR processors, if the involved transfer functions are replaced by numerically computed ones.
Epidemiological support for genetic variability at hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis and serotonergic system as risk factors for major depression

Background Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a serious, and common psychiatric disorder worldwide. By the year 2020, MDD will be the second cause of disability in the world. The GranadΣp study is the first, to the best of our knowledge, epidemiological study of mental disorders carried out in Andalusia (South Spain), being one of its main objectives to identify genetic and environmental risk factors for MDD and other major psychiatric disorders. In this study, we focused on the possible association of 91 candidate single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) with MDD. Methods A total of 711 community-based individuals participated in the GranadΣp study. All individuals were extensively assessed for clinical, psychological, sociodemographic, life style, and other environmental variables. A biological sample was also collected for subsequent genetic analyses in 91 candidate SNPs for MDD. DSM-IV diagnosis of MDD was used as the outcome variable. Logistic regression analysis assuming an additive genetic model was performed to test the association between MDD and the genetic data. The experiment-wide significance threshold adjusted with the SNP spectral decomposition method provided a maximum P-value (8×10−3) required to identify an association. Haplotype analyses were also performed. Results One SNP (rs623580) located in the tryptophan hydroxylase 1 gene (TPH1; chromosome 11), one intergenic variant (rs9526236) upstream of the 5-hydroxytryptamine receptor 2A gene (HTR2A; chromosome 13), and five polymorphisms (rs17689966, rs173365, rs7209436, rs110402, and rs242924) located in the corticotropin-releasing hormone receptor 1 gene (CRHR1; chromosome 17), all showed suggestive trends for association with MDD (P<0.05). Within CRHR1 gene, the TATGA haplotype combination was found to increase significantly the risk for MDD with an odds ratio =1.68 (95% CI: 1.16–2.42, P=0.006). Conclusion Although limited, perhaps due to insufficient sample size power, our results seem to support the notion that the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal and serotonergic systems are likely to be involved in the genetic susceptibility for MDD. Future studies, including larger samples, should be addressed for further validation and replication of the present findings.
Specious reward: a behavioral theory of impulsiveness and impulse control.

In a choice among assured, familiar outcomes of behavior, impulsiveness is the choice of less rewarding over more rewarding alternatives. Discussions of impulsiveness in the literature of economics, sociology, social psychology, dynamic psychology and psychiatry, behavioral psychology, and "behavior therapy" are reviewed. 'Impulsiveness seems to be best accounted for by the hyberbolic curves that have been found to describe the decline in effectiveness of rewards as the rewards are delayed from the time of choice. Such curves predict a reliable change of choice between some alternative rewards as a function of time. This change of choice provides a rationale for the known kinds of impulse control and relates them to several hitherto perplexing phenomena: behavioral rigidity, time-out from positive reinforcement, willpower, self-reward, compulsive traits, projection, boredom, and the capacity of punishing stimuli to attract attention.
Robust Image Transmission Based on Product-Code Optimization for Determinate State LDPC Decoding

We propose a novel scheme for error resilient image transmission. The proposed scheme employs a product coder consisting of LDPC codes and RS codes in order to deal effectively with bit errors. The efficiency of the proposed scheme is based on the exploitation of determinate symbols in Tanner graph decoding of LDPC codes and a novel product code optimization technique based on error estimation. Experimental evaluation demonstrates the superiority of the proposed system in comparison to recent state-of-the art techniques for image transmission.
Increase in work productivity of depressed individuals with improvement in depressive symptom severity.

OBJECTIVE The authors sought to identify baseline clinical and sociodemographic characteristics associated with work productivity in depressed outpatients and to assess the effect of treatment on work productivity. METHOD Employed depressed outpatients 18-75 years old who completed the Work Productivity and Activity Impairment scale (N=1,928) were treated with citalopram (20-40 mg/day) in the Sequenced Treatment Alternatives to Relieve Depression study. For patients who did not remit after an initial adequate antidepressant trial (level 1), either a switch to sertraline, sustained-release bupropion, or extended-release venlafaxine or an augmentation with sustained-release bupropion or buspirone was provided (level 2). Participants' clinical and demographic characteristics and treatment outcomes were analyzed for associations with baseline work productivity and change in productivity over time. RESULTS Education, baseline depression severity, and melancholic, atypical, and recurrent depression subtypes were all independently associated with lower benefit to work productivity domains. During level 1 treatment, work productivity in several domains improved with reductions in depressive symptom severity. However, these findings did not hold true for level 2 outcomes; there was no significant association between treatment response and reduction in work impairment. Results were largely confirmed when multiple imputations were employed to address missing data. During this additional analysis, an association was also observed between greater impairment in work productivity and higher levels of anxious depression. CONCLUSIONS Patients with clinically significant reductions in symptom severity during initial treatment were more likely than nonresponders to experience significant improvements in work productivity. In contrast, patients who achieved symptom remission in second-step treatment continued to have impairment at work. Patients who have demonstrated some degree of treatment resistance are more prone to persistent impairment in occupational productivity, implying a need for additional, possibly novel, treatments.
Quality of Life

Due to a lack of research, very little is known about the quality of life of African American males and females and the familial factors that influence it. Whereas the African American family is composed of both males and females, the African American male has often been portrayed in research as an absent family member. As a result, African American males often have been perceived as being in a subordinate status in the family. Furthermore, some African American males have been victimized and their quality of life diminished because many have been denied the opportunity to become wage earners and providers for their families (Morris, 1989). Some policy makers have identified African American males as individuals who display erratic behaviors and are unable to assume the responsibilities of fatherhood (Gadsden & Smith, 1994). On the other hand, Cready and Fossett (1997) reported when African American males have the opportunity to become wage earners and providers, they are more likely to be responsible and in husband-wife families. Not being able to function successfully in the male role can cause the African American male to lose a sense of masculinity and social identity. Moreover, evaluations of African American males in studies have often been based on the perceptions of African American females (McAdoo, 1983) and have also focused mainly on men at the lower economic levels (McAdoo, 1990). Historically, most studies have emphasized African American families in relation to women and children. Furthermore, African
Cultural experience of depression among white Britons in London

Cultural pluralism that characterises many major urban centres, especially London, underscores needs for research in cultural psychiatry to identify distinctive needs for mental health services and clinical treatment. Such questions motivated development of this study of the cultural experience and meaning of depression amongst white Britons in London, involving development of a British EMIC interview for depression by adapting an earlier version of the EMIC used in Bangalore, India. Steps in the process involved historical and ethnographic study of depression, and extensive pilot testing. This report focuses on the experience of depression with reference to patterns of distress and its meaning with reference to perceived causes. A wide range of contradictory, overlapping and linked explanations, consistent with reports from previous studies of Indian and other non-Western cultures, were notable among white Britons, whose illness concepts are likely to appear as diverse and inconsistent to an outside observer as findings from research in South Asia may be for a Western medical anthropologist. Furthermore, somatic idioms of depression, although not spontaneously reported, were frequently reported when specifically probed, raising questions about the distinctiveness of depressive and somatoform disorders as discrete diagnostic headings. The range of perceived causes are reviewed, considering the relationship between coded categories and narrative accounts that specify the interrelationship of categories in a causal web. The discussion considers the utility of the EMIC for cultural study and reflections on methodological issues arising in its adaptation and use that may help other researchers wishing to apply the framework and use the tools of cultural epidemiology.
Estimating Allele Age and Selection Coefficient from Time-Serial Data

Recent advances in sequencing technologies have made available an ever-increasing amount of ancient genomic data. In particular, it is now possible to target specific single nucleotide polymorphisms in several samples at different time points. Such time-series data are also available in the context of experimental or viral evolution. Time-series data should allow for a more precise inference of population genetic parameters and to test hypotheses about the recent action of natural selection. In this manuscript, we develop a likelihood method to jointly estimate the selection coefficient and the age of an allele from time-serial data. Our method can be used for allele frequencies sampled from a single diallelic locus. The transition probabilities are calculated by approximating the standard diffusion equation of the Wright–Fisher model with a one-step process. We show that our method produces unbiased estimates. The accuracy of the method is tested via simulations. Finally, the utility of the method is illustrated with an application to several loci encoding coat color in horses, a pattern that has previously been linked with domestication. Importantly, given our ability to estimate the age of the allele, it is possible to gain traction on the important problem of distinguishing selection on new mutations from selection on standing variation. In this coat color example for instance, we estimate the age of this allele, which is found to predate domestication.
Assessing Text Readability Using Hierarchical Lexical Relations Retrieved from WordNet

Although some traditional readability formulas have shown high predictive validity in the r=0.8 range and above (Chall & Dale, 1995), they are generally not based on genuine linguistic processing factors, but on statistical correlations (Crossley et al., 2008). Improvement of readability assessment should focus on finding variables that truly represent the comprehensibility of text as well as the indices that accurately measure the correlations. In this study, we explore the hierarchical relations between lexical items based on the conceptual categories advanced from Prototype Theory (Rosch et al., 1976). According to this theory and its development, basic level words like guitar represent the objects humans interact with most readily. They are acquired by children earlier than their superordinate words like stringed instrument and their subordinate words like acoustic guitar. Accordingly, the readability of a text is presumably associated with the ratio of basic level words it contains. WordNet (Fellbaum, 1998), a network of meaningfully related words, provides the best online open source database for studying such lexical relations. Our study shows that a basic level noun can be identified by its ratio of forming compounds (e.g. chair→armchair) and the length difference in relation to its hyponyms. We compared graded readings for American children and high school English readings for Taiwanese students by several readability formulas and in terms of basic level noun ratios (i.e. the number of basic level noun types divided by the number of noun types in a text). It is suggested that basic level noun ratios provide a robust and meaningful index of lexical complexity, which is directly associated with text readability.
Scalable Segment Abstraction Method for Advertising Campaign Admission and Inventory Allocation Optimization

As publishers gather more information about their users, they can use that information to enable advertisers to create increasingly targeted campaigns. This enables better usage of advertising inventory. However, it also dramatically increases the complexity that the publisher faces when optimizing campaign admission decisions and inventory allocation to campaigns. We develop an optimal anytime algorithm for abstracting fine-grained audience segments into coarser abstract segments that are not too numerous for use in such optimization. Compared to the segment abstraction algorithm by Walsh et al. [2010] for the same problem, it yields two orders of magnitude improvement in run time and significant improvement in abstraction quality. These benefits hold both for guaranteed and non-guaranteed campaigns. The performance stems from three improvements: 1) a quadratic-time (as opposed to doubly exponential or heuristic) algorithm for finding an optimal split of an abstract segment, 2) a better scoring function for evaluating splits, and 3) splitting time lossily like any other targeting attribute (instead of losslessly segmenting time first).
High Release Rate 3-Methylcyclohex-2-en-1-one Dispensers Prevent Douglas-Fir Beetle (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) Infestation of Live Douglas-Fir

Abstract The Douglas-fir beetle, Dendroctonus pseudotsugae Hopkins (Coleoptera: Curculionidae), antiaggregation pheromone, 3-methylcyclohex-2-en-1-one (MCH), has been used by natural resource managers and landowners to protect high-value, high-risk trees from Douglas-fir beetle infestation throughout the western United States since 2000. Labor is a major portion of the cost of MCH treatments. MCH is applied by walking through treatment areas and stapling the formulated pheromone in bubble capsules to trees and other objects on a regular grid pattern. Reducing the number of MCH release points and increasing the distance between them could significantly reduce labor costs, particularly in areas with steep terrain or large volumes of woody debris that could impede the movement of applicators. This study compared the standard MCH application method with a method releasing MCH at a 3 times higher rate and placed at three times fewer release points per unit area. Treatments were applied to 2-ha plots simulating an operational application. Aggregation pheromone-baited traps were placed at plot centers to ensure that dispersing adult beetles would be present on all plots. Both MCH treatments were equally effective at preventing the infestation of live Douglas-fir, Pseudotsugae menziesii (Mirbel) Franco, trees (≥30 cm diameter at breast height). These results confirm that MCH formulated to release at three times the current standard rate and placed at 3 times fewer points per unit area can effectively prevent the infestation of live Douglas-fir. The new treatment will significantly reduce the labor cost of MCH applications making them feasible for areas that may have previously been marginal economically.
Expression of somatostatin receptors in normal and cirrhotic human liver and in hepatocellular carcinoma

Background: Somatostatin analogues have been used with conflicting results to treat advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The aim of this study was to investigate expression of somatostatin receptor (SSTR) subtypes in human liver, and to examine the effect of selective SSTR agonists on proliferation, apoptosis, and migration of hepatoma cells (HepG2, HuH7) and hepatic stellate cells (HSCs). Methods: Expression of SSTRs in cell lines, normal and cirrhotic liver, and HCC was examined by immunohistochemistry and reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction. Effects of SSTR agonists on proliferation and apoptosis of tumour cells and HSCs were assessed by the 5-bromo-2′ deoxyuridine and TUNEL methods, respectively. The influence of SSTR agonists on migration was investigated using Boyden chambers. Results: In normal liver, both hepatocytes and HSCs were negative for all five SSTRs. Cirrhotic liver and HCC as well as cultured hepatoma cells and HSCs expressed all five SSTRs, both at the protein and mRNA levels, except for HuH7 cells which did not immunoreact with SSTR3. None of the agonists influenced proliferation or apoptosis. However, compared with untreated cells, L-797,591, an SSTR1 agonist, reduced migration of HepG2, HuH7, and HSCs significantly to 88 (7)% (p<0.05), 83 (11)% (p<0.05), and 67 (13)% (p<0.01), respectively. Conclusions: Cirrhotic liver and HCC express SSTRs. Although the somatostatin analogues used in this study did not affect proliferation and apoptosis, stimulation of SSTR1 may decrease invasiveness of HCC by reducing migration of hepatoma cells and/or HSCs. Clinical trials evaluating somatostatin analogues for the treatment of HCC should take these findings into account.
Personality correlates of attitudes toward the role and status of women in Ireland1

The purpose of the present study was to examine the possible relationships between personality and related social-psychological characteristics, on the one hand, and attitudes toward sex-roles and issues relevant to the status of women, on the other. The sample consisted of 420 male and female Dublin adults aged 18 to 65, who were randomly selected within stratification categories. Factor analytically derived measures of personality and related social-psychological characteristics were developed as well as similarly derived measures of attitudes toward the role and status of women. Composite scores on these two sets of factors were intercorrelated for the total sample and for males and females separately. The correlational analyses revealed that traditional sex-role attitudes and less favorable attitudes to equal pay, contraception, and maternal employment were significantly correlated with measures of religiosity. Traditional attitudes and opposition to social change in the area of sex-role behavior were also found to be positively correlated with less trust in people, feelings of self-deprecation and powerlessness, and a need for order and predictability. Analysis of variance and path analysis were used to explore the possible mediating role played by demographic characteristics, such as age and socioeconomic status, in these relationships.
Optimal and robust walking using intrinsic properties of a series-elastic robot

Series-Elastic Actuators (SEA) have been proposed as a technology to build robust humanoid robots. The aim of this work is to generate efficient and robust walking for such robots. We present a combined approach which exploits the system dynamics through optimization based trajectory generation and a robust control scheme. The compliant actuator dynamics are explicitly modeled in the optimal control problem. For local stabilization, a passivity based tracking controller distributes the required control forces onto the available contacts. Additionally, a predictive control scheme for step adaptation is presented, which provides feasible contact points in the future. Using a reduced model, this combines efficient walking with robustness against model or environment uncertainties and external disturbances.