Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Variables affecting the maintenance of L2 proficiency and fluency four years post-study abroad

This study explored the attrition / maintenance of second language (L2) proficiency by examining longitudinally the oral skills of a group of L2 French and L2 Spanish participants (n = 33) four years after study abroad, and three years after completing an undergraduate degree in languages. Multiple regressions were conducted to determine the extent to which language contact / use and attained proficiency at the end of study abroad could predict changes in fluency and oral proficiency. Results demonstrated that those variables that improved significantly during study abroad (e.g., speech rate) were maintained four years later. The amount of target language contact / use played a role in maintenance of aspects of fluency such as speech rate and frequency of silent pauses, whereas proficiency attained at the end of study abroad played a role in the use of corrections. Both language contact / use and proficiency attained are important variables in the long-term maintenance of overall proficiency.
A study on rough null space based support vector machine

Automatic document classification is becoming an important research field with the rapid increase of electronic documents. The main purpose of this research is to construct an accurate document classifier based on support vector machines (SVM), which is known as the state of the art algorithm for document classification. The rough null space (RNS) based approach is also known as a good linear approach for image recognition. The question is, can we combine RNS with SVM, and obtain a better system for document classification? In this paper, we introduce the basic idea of RNS+SVM, and compare it with SVM using experimental results.
Synthesis of Environmentally Responsive Polymers by Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization: Generation of Reversible Hydrophilic and Hydrophobic Surfaces

Environmentally responsive poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) brushes were grafted from the surface of polymer particles or flat surfaces in order to generate reversible hydrophilic and hydrophobic surfaces. The use of atom transfer radical polymerization was demonstrated for the grafting of polymer brushes as it allows efficient control on the amount of grafted polymer. The polymer particles were generated with or without surfactant in the emulsion polymerization and their surface could be modified with the atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) initiator. The uniform functionalization of the surface with ATRP initiator was responsible for the uniform grafting of polymer brushes. The grafted brushes responded reversibly with changes in temperature indicating that the reversible responsive behavior could be translated to the particle surfaces. The particles were observed to adsorb and desorb protein and virus molecules by changing the temperatures below or higher than 32 °C. The initiator functionalized particles could also be adsorbed on the flat surfaces. The adsorption process also required optimization of the heat treatment conditions to form a uniform layer of the particles on the substrate. The grafted polymer brushes also responded to the changes in temperatures similar to the spherical particles studied through water droplets placed on the flat substrates.
A Survey on Wireless Sensor Networks for Smart Grid

With the increasing concern for reliability and quality of service, power grid in many countries is undergoing revolution towards a more distribute and flexible "Smart Grid". In the development of envisioned smart grid, situational data awareness takes a fundamental role for a number of crucial advanced operations in the areas of sensing, communication, monitoring and decision making. It is very important that applications of smart grid should always be monitored. The wireless sensors in combination with actuators in the smart grid network would significantly advance the existing networks and could perform more comfortable application preferential control actions. The smart grid needs an efficient medium access approach based on the data prioritization and delay responsiveness. The wireless sensor communication within smart grid system is based on data rate, delay, latency, congestion and so on. The data is collected in a reliable and timely manner from the entire system and based on collected data the entire system is monitored for more advanced controlling schemes. This article surveys a sample of algorithms that can be adaptable for smart grid applications. Copyright © 2015 IFSA Publishing, S. L.
AHA: An Easily Extendible High-Resolution Camera Array

Video-based rendering demand multi-channel video captured from multi-directions and the quality of capturing video directly influences the rendering quality of the dynamic scene. In order to capture synchronously multi-channel video with resolution 1280 x 1024 and the capture rate 27 fps in real-time, designing and implementing an easily extendible high- resolution camera array (AHA). In AHA, a CMOS camera unit is designed and a binary tree routing topology is presented for propagating synchronization signals used to synchronize all of cameras. A strategy based on distributed store is presented for storing high-resolution video in real-time. The architecture of AHA ensures three characteristic of system: real-time, high-resolution and easily extendible. This paper described mainly the architecture of AHA and the key techniques related to video capturing.
Collective Intention Recognition and Elder Care

The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, we present a new method for collective intention recognition based on mainstream philosophical accounts. Second, we extend our previous Elder Care system with collective intention recognition ability for assisting a couple of elderly people. The previous system was just capable of individual intention recognition, and so it has now been enabled to deal with situations where the elders intend to do things together.
Many-to-one matching game towards secure virtual machines migration in cloud computing

Virtual machine migration represents a new topic of research last years. In this context, we present a new system based on matching game theory to design efficient and practical migration algorithms that work well with huge numbers of VMs and servers. This strategy solves VM migration, resources managements and load balancing problems in cloud computing environment. The experimental results show that our algorithm not only obtains multi-resource load balancing performance but also improves the cloud security services and gets a gain of resources consummation on all servers.
Interactive Rendering with Bidirectional Texture Functions

We propose a new technique for efficiently rendering bidirectional texture functions (BTFs). A 6D BTF describesthe appearance of a material as a texture that depends on the lighting and viewing directions. As such, a BTFaccommodates self‐shadowing, interreflection, and masking effects of a complex material without needing anexplicit representation of the small scale geometry. Our method represents the BTF as a set of spatially varyingapparent BRDFs, that each encode the reflectance field of a single pixel in the BTF. Each apparent BRDF isdecomposed into a product of three or more two‐dimensional positive factors using a novel factorization technique,which we call chained matrix factorization (CMF). The proposed factorization technique is fully automatic andsuitable for both BRDFs and apparent BRDFs (which typically exhibit off‐specular peaks and non‐reciprocity). The main benefit of CMF is that it delivers factors well suited for the limited dynamic range of conventionaltexture maps. After factorization, an efficient representation of the BTF is obtained by clustering the factors intoa compact set of 2D textures. With this compact representation, BTFs can be rendered on recent consumer levelhardware with arbitrary viewing and lighting directions at interactive rates.
Harmonizing MPS.BR and CERTICS: A Case Study in a Maturity Level F Organization

Many different Software Process Reference Models (PRM) and standards have been developed in recent years leading several software organizations to the need of process alignment to two or more models or standards, due to legal obligations or market opportunities. How to deploy multiple PRMs within the same organization without parallel processes implementation and rework is a problem still under investigation. The CERTICS is one of those PRMs, created with a specific purpose of assessing whether the software products of a given organization are result of Brazilian national innovation, aiming to allow also benefits in government procurement. The MPS reference model for software (MR-MPS-SW) is other already well-established PRM that has been widely used in Brazil by software organizations. This paper presents an experience of harmonization of these two models and their implementation in a case study in a software organizational unit that already has an official MR-MPS-SW's "F" level seeking a complementary CERTICS certification. The methodological approach starts with a conceptual models comparison based on the literature, and then the harmonization and implementation of the two models in the context of a case study. The results observed in the case study and the successful official CERTICS certification, raised up preliminary indications that the harmonization experience was conducted without generating processes overlapping and applying acceptable organizational effort.
Exploring Patterns of Process Improvement with a Generic Model

Abstract: Building upon previous work in the field of system dynamics, a generic model of multiple improvement initiatives is outlined. The current model structure incorporates empirical data gathered by the author. The empirical data is taken from a large international survey of manufacturing plants and serves as calibration sets for several program implementation patterns. Statistical analyses and simulation experiments revealed noticeable preliminary results: (i) plants should strive for balanced implementation patterns that focus on multiple programs instead of favoring a single program. (ii) Plants should balance their implementation patterns according to the organizational and technological complexity of the improvement programs, i.e. that comparatively more efforts should be spent on more challenging improvement efforts. The value of the conducted approach lies (i) in the explicit investigation of the impact of different improvement programs (e.g. TQM, TPM, process automation, training) and (ii) in the integration of empirically gathered data.
Effects of flavonoids from Martynia annua and Tephrosia purpurea on cutaneous wound healing

Objective: Martynia annua L. (M. annua), (Martyniaccae) has been traditionally used in the treatment of epilepsy, sore throat and inflammatory disorders. The leaf paste is used topically on Tuberculosis of the lymphatic glands and wounds of domestic animals. Tephrosia purpurea (T. purpurea), (Fabaceae) has been used traditionally as a remedy for asthma, gonorrhea, rheumatism and ulcers. This study aimed to evaluate the potential wound healing effects of different fractions ofethanol extract of M. annua leaves and aerial parts of T. purpurea. Materials and Methods: Methanol fraction of M. annua (MAF-C) and ethyl acetate fraction of T. purpurea (TPF-A) were evaluated for healing potential in dead-space and burn wound models. An ointment (5% w/w) of MAF-C and TPF-A, pongamol (0.2 and 0.5% w/w) and luteolin (0.2 and 0.5% w/w) was applied topically twice a day. The effects were compared with Povidone Iodine ointment with respect to protein, collagen content, enzymatic assay and histopathological finding of granuloma tissues. Results: Ethanol extracts of M. annua and T. purpureawere exhibited total flavonoid contents of 126.2 ± 4.69 and 171.6 ± 6.38 mg (quercetin equivalent), respectively. HPLC fingerprinting confirmed the presence of luteolin in M. annua and quercetin in T. purpurea. TPF-A and MAF-C ointments (5% w/w) significantly increases the hydroxyproline and protein contents. Luteolin and pongamol ointments were also found to be effective in both wound models. Conclusion: Our findings suggested that 5% w/w ointment of TPF-A and MAF-C fractions were more effective than isolated flavonoids in wound healing which may be due to synergistic interactions between the flavonoids and other constituents.
Progressive Effects of N-myc Deficiency on Proliferation, Neurogenesis, and Morphogenesis in the Olfactory Epithelium

N‐myc belongs to the myc proto‐oncogene family, which is involved in numerous cellular processes such as proliferation, growth, apoptosis, and differentiation. Conditional deletion of N‐myc in the mouse nervous system disrupted brain development, indicating that N‐myc plays an essential role during neural development. How the development of the olfactory epithelium and neurogenesis within are affected by the loss of N‐myc has, however, not been determined. To address these issues, we examined an N‐mycFoxg1Cre conditional mouse line, in which N‐myc is depleted in the olfactory epithelium. First changes in N‐myc mutants were detected at E11.5, with reduced proliferation and neurogenesis in a slightly smaller olfactory epithelium. The phenotype was more pronounced at E13.5, with a complete lack of Hes5‐positive progenitor cells, decreased proliferation, and neurogenesis. In addition, stereological analyses revealed reduced cell size of post‐mitotic neurons in the olfactory epithelium, which contributed to a smaller olfactory pit. Furthermore, we observed diminished proliferation and neurogenesis also in the vomeronasal organ, which likewise was reduced in size. In addition, the generation of gonadotropin‐releasing hormone neurons was severely reduced in N‐myc mutants. Thus, diminished neurogenesis and proliferation in combination with smaller neurons might explain the morphological defects in the N‐myc depleted olfactory structures. Moreover, our results suggest an important role for N‐myc in regulating ongoing neurogenesis, in part by maintaining the Hes5‐positive progenitor pool. In summary, our results provide evidence that N‐myc deficiency in the olfactory epithelium progressively diminishes proliferation and neurogenesis with negative consequences at structural and cellular levels. © 2013 The Authors. Developmental Neurobiology Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Develop Neurobiol 74: 643–656, 2014
The asymmetric exclusion model with sequential update

We present a solution for the stationary state of an asymmetric exclusion model with sequential update and open boundary conditions. We solve the model exactly for random hopping in both directions by applying a matrix-product formalism which was recently used to solve the model with sublattice-parallel update (Hinrichsen H 1995 Weizmann Inst. Preprint cond-mat/9512172). It is shown that the matrix-algebra describing the sequential update and sublattice-parallel update are identical and can be mapped onto the random sequential case treated by Derrida et al (Derrida B, Evans M R, Hakim V and Pasquier V 1993 J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 26 1493).
Last Stop Before Exit – Hepatitis C Assembly and Release as Antiviral Drug Targets

Chronic Hepatitis C infection is a global health problem. While primary infection is often inapparent, it becomes chronic in most cases. Chronic infection with Hepatitis C virus (HCV) frequently leads to liver cirrhosis or liver cancer. Consequently, HCV infection is one of the leading causes for liver transplantation in industrialized countries. Current treatment is not HCV specific and is only effective in about half of the infected patients. This situation underlines the need for new antivirals against HCV. To develop new and more efficient drugs, it is essential to specifically target the different steps of the viral life cycle. Of those steps, the targeting of HCV assembly has the potential to abolish virus production. This review summarizes the advances in our understanding of HCV particle assembly and the identification of new antiviral targets of potential interest in this late step of the HCV life cycle.
An Event-Detection Estimation Model for Hybrid Adaptive Routing in WSNs

A fundamental goal of a wireless sensor network (WSN) is to collect and deliver data to external applications. Due to the strong constraints of these networks, routing algorithms usually consider application-specific characteristics and, consequently, there is no self-contained algorithm appropriate for every case. In particular, many WSN applications are event- driven. In such scenarios, the behavior of the network may vary a lot, which favors different algorithms at different instants. In these cases, hybrid adaptive solutions are more suitable by allowing the adoption of a better routing strategy in response to the variation of the network conditions. In this work, we evolve this approach by considering the temporal characteristic of event occurrence and detection through an estimation model. The proposed solution, called multi, predicts the need of routing infrastructure creation and maintenance for the adaptation between a reactive and a proactive strategy. To show the advantages of the proposed approach, an instance of multi is evaluated through simulations. Comparisons with its independent reactive and proactive components and other proposed solutions show improvements on energy consumption.
Transcriptome sequencing identified hub genes for hepatocellular carcinoma by weighted-gene co-expression analysis

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common malignancies worldwide, and it remains a challenge to understand the genetic mechanisms underlying hepatocarcinogenesis. A global gene network of differential expression profiles in HCC has yet to be fully characterized. In the present study, we performed transcriptome sequencing (mRNA and lncRNA) in liver cancer and cirrhotic tissues of nine HCC patients. We identified differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and constructed a weighted gene co-expression network for the DEGs. In total, 755 DEGs (747 mRNA and eight lncRNA) were identified, and several co-expression modules were significantly associated with HCC clinical traits, including tumor location, tumor grade, and the α-fetoprotein (AFP) level. Of note, we identified 15 hub genes in the module associated with AFP level, and three (SPX, AFP and ADGRE1) of four hub genes were validated in an independent HCC cohort (n=78). Identification of hub genes for HCC clinical traits has implications for further understanding of the molecular genetic basis of HCC.
Central Government Accounting and Financial Reporting: a Comparison between France, Italy and the European Union

In recent years, many countries have undertaken governmental accounting and financial reporting reforms, at central level as well as at local level, in order to meet transparency, accountability and comparison needs. In the meantime, the International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board issued the first set of accounting standards specifically dedicated to the public sector; but the adoption of these standards is not compulsory, so not all countries referred to them in reforming their government financial reporting. Given that a standardised governmental accounting and financial reporting model does not exist, the paper aims to focus the attention on the European continent: firstly, analyzing central government accounting and financial reporting systems of two European countries (France and Italy), paying particular attention on the reforms recently carried out, in order to compare these two systems, emphasizing similarities and differences; secondly, assessing if French and Italian central accounting models are in line with the EU system, as they are both EU member states.
Energy efficiency of outage constrained two-tier heterogeneous cellular networks

In this paper, the energy efficiency (EE) of a 2-tier cellular network subject to downlink transmission outage probability constraints is analyzed under a shared spectrum scenario. The heterogeneous network considered consists of randomly distributed microcell BSs overlaid with picocell BSs. Based on the analysis of the structure of the EE function, the sufficient condition that enables the EE of the 2-tier network to exceed that of a single tier network is determined. The operational bounds for the network in terms of the pico tier BS density is derived by analytically solving the optimization problem that maximizes the outage constrained 2-tier EE. The Lagrange multipliers attributed to the outage constraints, which quantify the marginal loss in the EE performance, are found to be strongly dependent on the power consumption parameters of both the micro and pico tier BSs. The implication of the findings is that, by carefully tuning the BS power consumption parameters, it is possible to realize significant improvement in the EE performance for different operational scenarios while satisfying the outage probability objectives.
An evaluation of the full level of response to alcohol model of heavy drinking and problems in COGA offspring.

OBJECTIVE The low level of response (LR) to alcohol is an endophenotype related to heavier drinking and alcohol problems. Structural equation models (SEMs) indicate LR affects alcohol outcomes (ALCOUT) both directly and through mediation by drinking in peers (PEER), alcohol expectancies (EXPECT), and drinking to cope with stress (COPE), with some variation depending on the sample tested. This article presents the first full test of this LR-based model in young subjects from the Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism (COGA). METHOD Data were generated from 325 12- to 22-year-old (47.4% male) drinking offspring from COGA families, using the Self-Report of the Effects of Alcohol questionnaire to determine LR early in the drinking career and a validated, structured interview for demography and alcohol use/problem patterns. Standardized questionnaires were used to measure PEER, EXPECT, and COPE, with the model tested through the maximum likelihood estimation for analyses of the variance/covariance matrix using both Amos and Mplus. RESULTS The SEM yielded good fit characteristics and explained 59% of the variance, with LR relating both directly to ALCOUT and as partially mediated by PEER and COPE. Although GENDER related to both LR and ALCOUT in the model, and AGE related to ALCOUT, the SEM results were invariant across both AGE and GENDER, with generally similar invariant results regarding the presence or absence of an alcohol-use disorder diagnosis. CONCLUSIONS The results support the applicability of the LR-based model of heavy drinking and alcohol problems in the COGA offspring, a group with different demography compared with the two other samples of adolescents tested to date. The modest differences observed across samples will be evaluated in future research to enhance understanding of how the model operates across socioeconomic groups.