Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Characterizing sleeping trends from postures

We present an approach to model sleeping trends, using a light-weight setup to be deployed over longer time-spans and with a minimum of maintenance by the user. Instead of characterizing sleep with traditional signals such as EEG and EMG, we propose to use sensor data that is a lot weaker, but also less invasive and that can be deployed unobtrusively for longer periods. By recording wrist-worn accelerometer data during a 4-week-long study, we explore in this poster how sleeping trends can be characterized over long periods of time by using sleeping postures only.
Light field assisted stereo matching using depth from focus and image-guided cost-volume filtering

Light field photography advances upon current digital imaging technology by making it possible to adjust focus after capturing a photograph. This capability is enabled by an array of microlenses mounted above the image sensor, allowing the camera to simultaneously capture both light intensity and approximate angle of incidence. The ability to adjust focus after capture makes light field photography wellsuited for computer vision techniques that aim to determine the depth of objects in a scene, such as depth from focus/defocus. Another commonly known method for extracting depth from images is stereo matching, which seeks to obtain a disparity map linking corresponding objects that appear in both images. This disparity map, along with the known geometry of the cameras can be used to compute the depth of objects in the scene. Whereas depth from focus/defocus using traditional cameras requires multiple sequential image captures, light field cameras capture these images simultaneously, making them more suitable for use in conjunction with stereo matching. A method is presented that combines both light field photography and stereo matching to achieve an enhanced disparity map. This joint approach takes advantage of the unique strengths of both methods to produce a result that is more accurate than either method produces in isolation.
Keeping Competitive: Hiring, Training, and Retaining Qualified Workers.

The Center for Workforce Preparation (CWP), a nonprofit affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, initiated the Workforce Academies demonstration project to help businesses remain successful in a competitive, tight economy. More than 1,800 business members of the 6 chambers engaged with the Workforce Academies demonstration in 2001 were surveyed to identify their current perspectives and challenges related to hiring, training, retaining, and advancing qualified employees. The following were among the key findings: (1) being able to recruit qualified workers and having a welltrained workforce are critical to the U.S. economy's continued success; (2) small and mid-sized employers are especially unlikely to have the resources to properly address the critical issues of hiring, training, retaining, and advancing qualified employees; and (3) local chambers of commerce are in a unique position to assist such employers and serve as intermediaries in the local marketplace. Next, the participating chambers of commerce conducted a series of workforce academies, which are 1-day forums to inform and catalyze business, workforce, and other community leaders on workforce issues. Next, roundtables were held to allow business leaders to formulate specific recommendations and actions to resolve workforce issues. The demonstration project has documented workforce academies' value in improving local workforce development systems. (Contains 12 figures.) (MN) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. 4 US DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement ED ATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) This document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy
UNDERSTANDING PHOSPHORUS , NITROGEN AND CADMIUM TRANSFER THROUGH A YOUNG STONY SOIL

In Canterbury land-use intensification, particularly irrigated dairy expansion, is occurring on stony soils. Concerns exist about the ability of these soils to sustain intensified land-use, while maintaining nutrient leaching within discharge limits. Environmental models consistently predict stony soils as having a high vulnerability to leaching under intensive land use, but there is little experimental research to validate model predictions. This paper presents scoping experiments to quantify the degree of leaching vulnerability of young stony sand soils, and to determine likely key drivers for leaching. Barrel lysimeters (460 mm in diameter by 700 mm deep) of intact soil columns were collected of a young stony sand soil from alluvium. Four lysimeters were used to study the preferential leaching of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and cadmium (Cd) from a pulse (25 mm depth) of dairy shed effluent (DSE) followed by continuous artificial rainfall – both applied at 5 mm/h. A further two lysimeters were used to study the preferential leaching of N, P, Cd, and carbon (C) under simulated periodic irrigation (12–18 mm depth applied every 3–4 days). Sequential treatments of superphosphate, cow urine, and DSE were applied, with intervals of at least one pore volume (>200 mm) of drainage between each treatment. The constant-rate experiment demonstrated that these soils have the potential for rapid leaching of N, P and Cd from an application of DSE. In contrast, no unequivocal increase in P, N and Cd leaching occurred after the DSE treatment in the simulated irrigation experiment, indicating strong sensitivity of these soils to application depth and rate of DSE. In the periodic-irrigation experiment the urine treatment resulted in rapid leaching of N, P, C, and Cd starting within 15–60 mm of drainage following the urine application. This indicates that under irrigated dairy grazing, urine will be a key driver for leaching of a range of possible contaminants. Given the intensification of agricultural development on these vulnerable soils, the results of this scoping study confirm predictions that young stony sand soils have high potential leaching vulnerability, and we argue that these results urgently justify further research. Introduction There are large areas of stony soils in the eastern plains of both the South and North Island of New Zealand, with 1.68 million hectares occurring on land of <15° slope, for which there is potential for intensive irrigated land use (Carrick et al. 2013). In Canterbury there is clear evidence of increasing land-use intensification on stony soils, particularly irrigated dairy expansion. However, there is concern about the ability of stony soils to sustain intensified land use, while maintaining nutrient leaching within discharge limits (PCE 2013). Environmental models consistently predict stony soils as having a high vulnerability to
Corporate Reputations, Branding and People Management: A Strategic Approach to HR

1 The Corporate Agenda and its Links with Human Resource Management 2 Managing Corporate Brands and Reputations 3 Organizational Identity, Action and Image: The Lynchpin 4 The Quality of Individual Employment Relationships and Individual Employee Behavior 5 Four Lenses on HR Strategy and the Employment Relationship 6 New Developments in HR Strategy and the Employment Relationship 7 Corporate Reputation and Branding in Global Companies: The Challenges for People Management and HR 8 Corporate Communications and the Employment Relationship 9 Corporate Strategy, Leadership and Identity, and Corporate Social Responsibility 10 Corporate Reputations, Branding and the Future of HR
What is behind the structure of regional networks in the German biotechnology industry

By using methods of network analysis I uncover the underlying structure of cooperation-linkages within and between regions on firm level for the German biotechnology industry. I show that intraregional as well as interregional linkages expose a distinctive set of regions as the most important players in the German biotechnology. These regions cannot be located in one specific spatially delimited area but are distributed over wide distances. The description shows that regarding the biotechnology industry neither local clustering nor far-ranging cooperation on its own seems to be sufficient when thinking about the role of distance.
The Roles of Degree of Competition and Types of Business Strategies in Adopting Multiple Performance Measurement Practices: Some Reflections from Bangladesh

Aim – This empirical study explores the association between competition, business strategy, and the uses of a multiple performance measurement system in Bangladesh manufacturing firms. Design/methodology – The study uses a questionnaire survey of 50 manufacturing companies. Data were analyzed using multiple regression analysis and other descriptive statistics. Findings – The results suggest that greater emphasis on multiple measures for performance evaluation is associated with businesses that are facing high competition. The practices of multiple performance measures are also significantly related to the types of business strategy being followed. Specifically, firms pursuing a prospector strategy have relied more on multiple performance measures to rate business performance than the firms pursuing a defender strategy. Practical implications – The article notes that the designers of performance measurement systems need to consider contingent factors that affect an organizations' control system. Originality/value – Substantiating the connection between contingent variables and the use of multiple performance measures in manufacturing firms facilitate a better acceptance of firms' tendency toward new measurement tools. The study contributes to the performance measurement and contingency literature since it presents empirical evidence of the state of multiple performance measures with organizational contingent variables using a developing country's manufacturing sector data.
Self-pulsing Dynamics in Yb-doped Fiber Lasers

There is worldwide considerable interest in the study and development of high-power Yb-doped continuous wave (CW) and pulsed fiber lasers for various material processing applications. Although it appears to be trivial to generate high-power CW output from Yb-doped CW fiber lasers by pumping with high-power CW laser diodes; however, it is not so easy to generate truly CW output without amplitude modulations due to self-puls‐ ing phenomenon. The observation of random self-pulses overriding CW output has been reported by several authors. These random self-pulses may have very high peak power to cause catastrophic damage of fiber laser components and thereby inhibit generation of high-power CW output. This chapter describes self-pulsing dynamics and its elimination in different Yb-doped CW fiber laser configurations.
Large-scale power systems state estimation using PMU and SCADA data

Power system monitoring and control relies on the result of dynamic state estimation. Installation of PMU in power grids in recent years makes it possible to study the dynamic properties of power system. However it's hard to replace PMU on all buses with the conventional measurement of SCADA system in near future and there are lots of traditional measurements of SCADA system. Therefore, it is reasonable to use both measured data. This paper presents a hybrid dynamic state estimation algorithm by the PMU and SCADA measurements and because we have different measurements gained by PMU and SCADA system with different sampling rates, we can apply data fusion methods to improve the estimation results. The proposed method is examined on 14-IEEE buses power systems and the results show estimation improvement by the hybrid approach.
Plesiomonas shigelloides infection in Hong Kong: retrospective study of 167 laboratory-confirmed cases.

OBJECTIVE To study the epidemiological, clinical, and microbiological features of Plesiomonas shigelloides infection in Hong Kong. DESIGN Retrospective study. SETTING Infectious Disease Unit of a district hospital, Hong Kong. PATIENTS Patients with laboratory-confirmed cases of Plesiomonas shigelloides infection between 1 January 1995 and 31 December 1998. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Epidemiological and clinical data, antibiotic sensitivity, and clinical outcome. RESULTS There was an increasing trend in the number of isolates of Plesiomonas shigelloides obtained and the prevalence of the bacterium. A total of 197 isolates were obtained from 188 patients, and most isolates (172; 87.3%) were obtained during the summer. Clinical and epidemiological data were available for 167 patients (85 males, 82 females). Patient age ranged from 1 month to 95 years; the mean and median ages of the patients older than 15 years were 51.0 and 40.5 years, respectively (n=132). Only 35 (21.0%) of the 167 patients had a history of travel outside Hong Kong, whereas 21 (12.6%) had a history of consuming seafood or uncooked food; 39 (23.4%) had underlying medical conditions. Most patients (165; 98.8%) had symptoms of Plesiomonas shigelloides infection. Nine (5.4%) patients had had chronic diarrhoea for more than 2 weeks; watery and bloody diarrhoea was discharged by 122 (73.1%) and 42 (25.1%) of the patients, respectively. All 197 Plesiomonas shigelloides isolates were sensitive to ofloxacin, or levofloxacin and ceftriaxone. Resistance or partial resistance was recorded for ampicillin (72%), tetracycline (67%), co-trimoxazole (12%), and chloramphenicol (5%). The majority of patients (142/167; 85.0%) had self-limiting cases of infection, but 25 patients were given antibiotics for more severe symptoms at the time of presentation; there were two deaths. CONCLUSIONS The occurrence of Plesiomonas shigelloides infection in Hong Kong is increasing, although most cases of are self-limiting.
DNA strand breaks by direct energy deposition by Auger and photo‐electrons ejected from DNA constituent atoms following K‐shell photoabsorption

Purpose: To study DNA strand breaks induced by direct energy deposition by photo‐ and Auger electrons ejected following K‐shell photoabsorption of DNA constituent atoms (carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and phosphorus). Method: Using a Monte Carlo code which has been developed to simulate the photoelectric effect on plasmid DNA pBR322, the energy deposition pattern of secondary electrons ejected after photoabsorption in DNA constituent atoms (not including the hydration shell) was calculated. Experimentally obtained X‐ray absorption near edge structures were considered of the cross‐sections at the K‐shell resonant absorption (1s→σ*) of carbon, nitrogen and oxygen, and the K‐shell resonant absorption (1s→t2*) of phosphorus. Direct energy deposition by secondary electrons was scored using two different DNA models with and without the hydrated shell. The yields of SSB, DSB per photoabsorption events as well as break complexity were estimated for monochromatic X‐rays around the K‐edges of DNA constituent atoms (200–3000 eV). Results: Higher SSB and DSB yields were obtained below the carbon, nitrogen and oxygen K‐edges compared to at or above the resonance, and at the K‐shell resonant absorption of phosphorus compared to below the resonance. The number of electrons with sufficient energy to induce strand breaks was found to change depending on the photon energy. Electrons with 120 and 250 eV are shown to be rather more effective in SSB and DSB induction than electrons with higher energy. Inclusion of hydrated water in the DNA volume did not affect the photon energy dependence of the strand break yields. Conclusion: The small difference of photon energies around K‐absorption edges of the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and phosphorus is indicated to induce variation in strand break yields by direct effect. Higher SSB and DSB induction efficiencies could be due to a higher yield of more than two electrons with around 120 eV to 250 eV per photoabsorption event.
Mulloidichthys flavolineatus flavicaudus Fernandez-Silva & Randall (Perciformes, Mullidae), a new subspecies of goatfish from the Red Sea and Arabian Sea

Abstract The number of goatfish species has increased recently, thanks in part to the application of molecular approaches to the taxonomy of a family with conservative morphology and widespread intraspecific color variation. A new subspecies Mulloidichthys flavolineatus flavicaudus Fernandez-Silva & Randall is described from the Red Sea and Arabian Sea, including Socotra and Gulf of Oman. It is characterized by a yellow caudal fin, 25–28 gill rakers, and 37–38 lateral-line scales and it is differentiated from nominal subspecies Mulloidichthys flavolineatus flavolineatus by 1.7% sequence divergence at the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene. The morphometric examination of specimens of Mulloidichthys flavolineatus flavolineatus revealed variation in head length, eye diameter, and barbel length, in western direction from the Hawaiian Islands, South Pacific, Micronesia, and the East Indies to the Indian Ocean. The population of Mulloidichthys flavolineatus flavicaudus subsp. n. in the Gulf of Aqaba differs from that of the remaining Red Sea by shorter barbels, smaller eyes, shorter head, and shorter pelvic fins. We present a list of 26 endemic fishes from the Gulf of Aqaba and discuss the probable basis for the endemism in the light of the geological history of this region.
Long-term effects of methylphenidate on neural networks associated with executive attention in children with ADHD: results from a longitudinal functional MRI study.

OBJECTIVE Little is known about the long-term effects of stimulants on the functional organization of the developing brain. Nonacute effects of stimulants on neural activity related to three aspects of attention (alerting, reorienting, and executive control) were examined in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) using a longitudinal functional magnetic resonance imaging approach. METHOD Nine boys with ADHD were scanned while drug naïve (t1) and after 1 year of methylphenidate treatment (t2). Eleven matched controls were also investigated twice. ADHD children stopped medication 1 week before t2. RESULTS Although all of the children showed stable alerting and reorienting performance from t1 to t2, normal controls significantly improved their executive control performance at t2, whereas children with ADHD did not. Neurally, controls showed a larger increase in neural activity from t1 to t2 in regions critical to task performance (i.e., in the temporoparietal junction during reorienting of attention and in the anterior cingulate cortex during executive control) compared to the patient group. However, only children with ADHD showed a decrease in neural activity in the insula and putamen during reorienting, indicating a reduction in compensatory brain activation over time. CONCLUSIONS These data suggest that 1 year of MPH treatment may be beneficial, albeit insufficient, to show enduring normalization of neural correlates of attention.
A Maximum Likelihood Estimation of Vocal-Tract-Related Filter Characteristics for Single Channel Speech Separation

We present a new technique for separating two speech signals from a single recording. The proposed method bridges the gap between underdetermined blind source separation techniques and those techniques that model the human auditory system, that is, computational auditory scene analysis (CASA). For this purpose, we decompose the speech signal into the excitation signal and the vocal-tract-related filter and then estimate the components from the mixed speech using a hybrid model. We first express the probability density function (PDF) of the mixed speech's log spectral vectors in terms of the PDFs of the underlying speech signal's vocal-tract-related filters. Then, the mean vectors of PDFs of the vocal-tract-related filters are obtained using a maximum likelihood estimator given the mixed signal. Finally, the estimated vocal-tract-related filters along with the extracted fundamental frequencies are used to reconstruct estimates of the individual speech signals. The proposed technique effectively adds vocal-tract-related filter characteristics as a new cue to CASA models using a new grouping technique based on an underdetermined blind source separation. We compare our model with both an underdetermined blind source separation and a CASA method. The experimental results show that our model outperforms both techniques in terms of SNR improvement and the percentage of crosstalk suppression.
Radio propagation channel characterisation using ultra wideband wireless tags for body-centric wireless networks in indoor environment

This paper presents an experimental characterisation of off-body radio channels using ultra wideband wireless tags for body-centric wireless networks to be applied in healthcare application. The operating frequency of the tags used for this measurement is 5.9∼7.25 GHz. Statistical path loss parameters and a path loss model of nine different off-body channels for the propagation in indoor environment are shown and analyzed. The results demonstrated that lognormal distribution provides the best fit for modelling the path loss in the indoor environment. A least square fit method was performed on the measured path loss results for all nine off-body channels at 54 different transmitter locations in indoor to extract the path loss exponent and mean path loss at the reference distance.
Wheat Streak Mosaic Virus Cylindrical Inclusion Body Protein

Summary A protein of apparent molecular weight 66000 was purified from wheat plants infected with wheat streak mosaic virus. Antiserum to this protein, labelled with gold, specifically stained cylindrical inclusions in ultrathin sections of virus-infected cells. Antiserum to the M r 66000 protein did not react with capsid protein in Western blots, nor did antiserum to capsid protein react with the M r 66000 protein. Both antisera reacted with homologous antigens. The concentration of the M r 66000 protein in extracts from infected leaves was about 100 µg per g of leaves, which is higher than the usual concentration of virions.