Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Understanding the Relationship Between Parental Education and STEM Course Taking Through Identity-Based and Expectancy-Value Theories of Motivation

High school students from lower–socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds are less likely to enroll in advanced mathematics and science courses compared to students from higher-SES backgrounds. The current longitudinal study draws on identity-based and expectancy-value theories of motivation to explain the SES and mathematics and science course-taking relationship. This was done by gathering reports from students and their parents about their expectations, values, and future identities for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) topics beginning in middle school through age 20. Results showed that parental education predicted mathematics and science course taking in high school and college, and this relationship was partially mediated by students’ and parents’ future identity and motivational beliefs concerning mathematics and science. These findings suggest that psychological interventions may be useful for reducing social class gaps in STEM course taking, which has critical implications for the types of opportunities and careers available to students.
Study of Electroweak Interactions at the Energy Frontier

With the discovery of the Higgs boson, the spectrum of particles in the Standard Model (SM) is complete. It is more important than ever to perform precision measurements and to test for deviations from SM predictions in the electroweak sector. In this report, we investigate two themes in the arena of precision electroweak measurements: the electroweak precision observables (EWPOs) that test the particle content and couplings in the SM and the minimal supersymmetric SM, and the measurements involving multiple gauge bosons in the nal state which provide unique probes of the basic tenets of electroweak symmetry breaking. Among the important EWPOs we focus our discussion on MW and sin 2 ‘ and on anomalous quartic gauge couplings probed by triboson production and vector boson scattering. We investigate the thresholds of precision that need to be achieved in order to be sensitive to new physics. We study the precision that can be achieved at various facilities on these observables. We discuss the calculational tools needed to predict SM rates and distributions in order to perform these measurements at the required precision. This report summarizes the work of the Energy Frontier Precision Study of Electroweak Interactions working group of the 2013 Community Summer Study (Snowmass).
Discovering the Language of Wine Reviews: A Text Mining Account

It is widely held that smells and flavors are impossible to put into words. In this paper we test this claim by seeking predictive patterns in wine reviews, which ostensibly aim to provide guides to perceptual content. Wine reviews have previously been critiqued as random and meaningless. We collected an English corpus of wine reviews with their structured metadata, and applied machine learning techniques to automatically predict the wine's color, grape variety, and country of origin. To train the three supervised classifiers, three different information sources were incorporated: lexical bag-of-words features, domain-specific terminology features, and semantic word embedding features. In addition, using regression analysis we investigated basic review properties, i.e., review length, average word length, and their relationship to the scalar values of price and review score. Our results show that wine experts do share a common vocabulary to describe wines and they use this in a consistent way, which makes it possible to automatically predict wine characteristics based on the review text alone. This means that odors and flavors may be more expressible in language than typically acknowledged.
The internalisation of environmental costs: implementing the Polluter Pays principle in the European Union

This paper frames the problem of implementing 'the polluter pays' in the European Union as a social–political process in which conflicts emerge and must be resolved between competing interests, between people holding different value systems and different principles of judgement, and also between different representations of future states and different visions of the world. 'The polluter pays' is a principle for internalising external costs and assigning liability. Its application may seem to entail a need for monetary valuation of damages. This allows environmental impacts and protection questions to be formulated as optimal resource use problems through the extension of traditional cost–benefit analysis techniques. However, reasons such as uncertainty, distributional concerns, and diversity of ethical positions make monetary valuation difficult or inappropriate. Decision support techniques are then sought that do not depend exclusively on monetisation, such as multicriteria and deliberative methods. The process of 'internalisation' of environmental damages is thus expressed through broad societal adjustments. Procedures need to be found that are socially legitimate and effective in the sense that the stakeholders can accept it as dealing adequately with their concerns. This is a collective 'internalisation': we are all polluters; we all pay – shouldering the clean up burdens, the institutional adjustments, the worries and the risks – in more or less unequal shares. The burden distribution will inevitably be a matter of controversy.
A Wideband Low-Profile All-Metal Cavity Slot Antenna With Filtering Performance for Space-Borne SAR Applications

This letter presents a wideband all-metal cavity slot antenna with a filtering performance for space-borne synthetic aperture radar applications. The proposed antenna element consists of a metal cavity and several radiation slots. It is fabricated by aluminium through milling and welding process, the techniques of which are reliable for the space environment. Benefiting from multiresonances of the cavity and slots, the antenna is able to obtain a wide operating bandwidth. Additionally, the cavity has a very low profile of 2.8 mm, equivalent to 0.093 wavelength at the central operating frequency. An 8 × 12 antenna array is designed, fabricated, and measured for performance verification. The measured impedance bandwidth with S11<−10 dB is achieved from 7.2 to 12.2 GHz, giving a relative bandwidth of 51%. Furthermore, it shows good filtering characteristic with more than 20 dB out-of-band rejections, which is capable to suppress unwanted interferences and contribute to a good electromagnetic compatibility design.
Path sensitive static analysis of taint-style vulnerabilities in PHP code

This paper presents a novel path-sensitive static analysis method for detecting taint-style vulnerabilities in PHP code. The new method includes three key, the first of which is path searching during a basic block, the second is path searching between blocks, and the third is path searching crossing function call. A tool name POSE implements the new method and the testing results show the method is valid for taint-style vulnerabilities in PHP code.
Reversing the direction of time: Does the visibility of spatial representations of time shape temporal focus?

While people around the world mentally represent time in terms of space, there is substantial cross-cultural variability regarding which temporal constructs are mapped onto which parts in space. Do particular spatial layouts of time – as expressed through metaphors in language – shape temporal focus? We trained native English speakers to use spatiotemporal metaphors in a way such that the flow of time is reversed, representing the future behind the body (out of visible space) and the past ahead of the body (within visible space). In a task measuring perceived relevance of past events, people considered past events and present (or immediate past) events to be more relevant after using the reversed metaphors compared to a control group that used canonical metaphors spatializing the past behind and the future ahead of the body (Experiment 1). In a control measure in which temporal information was removed, this effect disappeared (Experiment 2). Taken together, these findings suggest that the degree to which people focus on the past may be shaped by the visibility of the past in spatiotemporal metaphors used in language.
Systematic testing of actor systems

Testing concurrent systems requires exploring all possible nondeterministic interleavings that the concurrent execution may have, as any of the interleavings may reveal the erroneous behavior. In testing of actor systems, we can distinguish 2 sources of nondeterminism: (1) actor selection, the order in which actors are explored, and (2) task selection, the order in which the tasks within each actor are explored. This article provides new strategies and heuristics for pruning redundant state‐exploration when testing actor systems by reducing the amount of unnecessary nondeterminism of both types. Furthermore, we extend these techniques to handle synchronization primitives that allow awaiting for the completion of an asynchronous task. We report on an implementation and experimental evaluation of the proposed techniques in SYCO, a testing tool for actor‐based concurrency.
An Advanced Low Complexity Adaptive Filter for Echo Cancellation

: In Digital Signal Processing Adaptive filtering concept considered as one of the core fundamental concept. The concept of adaptive filtering is used in several DSP applications such as adaptive noise cancellation, including echo cancellation, adaptive equalization, and adaptive beam forming. Today’s telecommunication systems are severely faces “Acoustic echo cancellation” problem i
Global assessment of its network dynamics reveals that the kinase Plk1 inhibits the phosphatase PP6 to promote Aurora A activity

Network analysis shows how the kinase Plk1 supports the mitotic activity of Aurora A. Plk1 network dynamics Mitosis, a process of cell division, is regulated by a network of kinases, including Plk1 and Aurora A. Kettenbach et al. examined the Plk1 protein interaction network upon disruption of phosphorylation-dependent substrate targeting. From the interactions that persisted, the authors discovered that Plk1 promotes amplification of Aurora A activity during mitosis by binding to, phosphorylating, and inhibiting the phosphatase PP6. This explains the previously puzzling finding that Plk1 not only is activated by Aurora A but is also critical for Aurora A activity. The wealth of network data in this study more generally furthers our understanding of mitosis control, which may inform drug development against cancer and other diseases. Polo-like kinase 1 (Plk1) is an essential protein kinase that promotes faithful mitotic progression in eukaryotes. The subcellular localization and substrate interactions of Plk1 are tightly controlled and require its binding to phosphorylated residues. To identify phosphorylation-dependent interactions within the Plk1 network in human mitotic cells, we performed quantitative proteomics on HeLa cells cultured with kinase inhibitors or expressing a Plk1 mutant that was deficient in phosphorylation-dependent substrate binding. We found that many interactions were abolished upon kinase inhibition; however, a subset was protected from phosphatase opposition or was unopposed, resulting in persistent interaction of the substrate with Plk1. This subset includes phosphoprotein phosphatase 6 (PP6), whose activity toward Aurora kinase A (Aurora A) was inhibited by Plk1. Our data suggest that this Plk1-PP6 interaction generates a feedback loop that coordinates and reinforces the activities of Plk1 and Aurora A during mitotic entry and is terminated by the degradation of Plk1 during mitotic exit. Thus, we have identified a mechanism for the previously puzzling observation of the Plk1-dependent regulation of Aurora A.
Robust Adaptive Median Binary Pattern for Noisy Texture Classification and Retrieval

Texture is an important characteristic for different computer vision tasks and applications. Local binary pattern (LBP) is considered one of the most efficient texture descriptors yet. However, LBP has some notable limitations, in particular its sensitivity to noise. In this paper, we address these criteria by introducing a novel texture descriptor, robust adaptive median binary pattern (RAMBP). RAMBP is based on a process involving classification of noisy pixels, adaptive analysis window, scale analysis, and a comparison of image medians. The proposed method handles images with highly noisy textures and increases the discriminative properties by capturing microstructure and macrostructure texture information. The method was evaluated on popular texture datasets for classification and retrieval tasks and under different high noise conditions. Without any training or prior knowledge of the noise type, RAMBP achieved the best classification compared to state-of-the-art techniques. It scored more than 90% under 50% impulse noise densities, more than 95% under Gaussian noised textures with a standard deviation $\sigma = 5$ , more than 99% under Gaussian blurred textures with a standard deviation $\sigma = 1.25$ , and more than 90% for mixed noise. The proposed method yielded competitive results and proved to be one of the best descriptors in noise-free texture classification. Furthermore, RAMBP showed high performance for the problem of noisy texture retrieval providing high scores of recall and precision measures for textures with high noise levels. Finally, compared with the state-of-the-art methods, RAMBP achieves a good running time with low feature dimensionality.
Low switching frequency explicit model predictive control of induction machines fed by an NPC

This paper proposes a low switching frequency predictive control scheme for the induction machine, employing a 3L-NPC. The mismatch between sampled and average current is modeled and compensated. The control strategy is implemented as an explicit model predictive controller with PWM, considering a sampling time of 1[ms], which results in a 500[Hz] switching frequency. The results show that the controller achieves a fast dynamic response and an excellent steady state current tracking.
The NAD(P)H Dehydrogenase Complex in Photosynthetic Organisms: Subunit Composition and Physiological Function

The chloroplast NAD(P)H dehydrogenase (NDH) complex is believed to originate from the cyanobacterial NDH-1 complex because of their similarity in structure and function. In both cyanobacteria and chloroplasts, NDH is involved in respiratory electron transport (chlororespiration in chloroplasts) and photosystem I cyclic electron transport. By modifying its subunit composition, cyanobacterial NDH also contributes to CO2 concentration. In Arabidopsis thaliana, photosystem I cyclic electron transport consists of two partly redundant pathways. Although the knockout of chloroplast NDH gives only a subtle phenotype, it causes a severe defect in photosynthesis under the mutant background of pgr5 (proton gradient regulation 5), in which another pathway of photosystem I cyclic electron transport is impaired. Although the characteristics of the mutant phenotype suggest that PGR5-dependent photosystem I cyclic electron transport contributes markedly to ATP synthesis during photosynthesis, chloroplast NDH may function as a safety valve to prevent the overreduction of stroma. In cyanobacterial and chloroplast NDH, we have not discovered the electron donor-binding subunits that are conserved in bacterial NDH-1. This fact implies that the NDH complex is equipped with a different electron-donor binding module in cyanobacteria and chloroplasts, and thus the identity of the electron donor to the complex is still unclear.
Clinical Performance of Dental Implants Following Sinus Floor Augmentation: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Clinical Trials with at Least 3 Years of Follow-up.

PURPOSE The purpose of this systematic review was to assess the survival of implants placed in augmented sinuses on a medium- to long-term basis, and identify factors affecting implant survival such as surgical technique, bone grafts, and timing of implant placement. MATERIALS AND METHODS A literature search up to July 2016 was performed to identify prospective clinical studies on sinus floor augmentation in conjunction with implant placement with a minimum follow-up of 3 years. Meta-analytic methods were implemented to calculate implant survival rates and relative risks (RR) for failure and the effect of surgical technique, use of bone graft, graft type, use of membrane, mean residual bone height, and timing of implant insertion. RESULTS A total of 17 clinical trials (1 randomized and 16 prospective nonrandomized) were included, which pertained to 637 patients (at least 48% male) and 1,610 implants placed after sinus floor augmentation with the osteotome (transalveolar) or lateral window approach. The pooled implant survival rate at 3 to 6 years of follow-up was 97.7% (17 studies; 95% CI = 94.4% to 99.7%) with high heterogeneity. Smoking was associated with significantly worse implant survival (2 studies; RR = 4.8; 95% CI = 1.2 to 19.4; P < .05). However, evidence of influencing factors varied from very low to moderate after adopting the GRADE approach, due to risk of bias, imprecision, inconsistency, and small-study effects. CONCLUSION Current evidence suggests that implants in augmented sinuses have high survival rates, with smoking playing a potentially important negative role in their prognosis. Both indirect and direct maxillary sinus floor augmentation seem to have a low frequency of manageable complications.
Deadline-Aware Scheduling and Routing for Inter-Datacenter Multicast Transfers

Many applications like geo-replication need to deliver multiple copies of data from a single datacenter to multiple datacenters, which has benefits of improving fault tolerance, increasing availability and achieving high service quality. These applications usually require completing multicast transfers before certain deadlines. Some of the existing works only consider unicast transfers, which is not appropriate for the multicast transmission type. An alternative approach proposed by existing works was to find a minimum weight Steiner tree for each transfer. Instead of using only one tree for each transfer, we propose to use one or multiple trees, which increases the flexibility of routing, improves the utilization of available bandwidth, and increases the throughput for each transfer. In this paper, we focus on the multicast transmission type, propose an efficient and effective solution that maximizes throughput for all transfer requests while meeting deadlines. We also show that our solution can reduce packet reordering by selecting very few Steiner trees for each transfer. We have implemented our solution on a software-defined overlay network at the application layer, and our real-world experiments on the Google Cloud Platform have shown that our system effectively improves the network throughput performance and has a lower traffic rejection rate compared to existing related works.
Personalized Next Point-of-Interest Recommendation via Latent Behavior Patterns Inference

In this paper, we address the problem of personalized next Point-of-interest (POI) recommendation which has become an important and very challenging task for location-based social networks (LBSNs), but not well studied yet. With the conjecture that, under different contextual scenarios, human exhibits distinct mobility pattern, we attempt here to jointly model the next POI recommendation under the influence of user's latent behavior pattern. We propose to adopt a third-rank tensor to model the successive check-in behaviors. By integrating categorical influence into mobility patterns and aggregating user's spatial preference on a POI, the proposed model deal with the next new POI recommendation problem by nature. By incorporating softmax function to fuse the personalized Markov chain with latent pattern, we furnish a Bayesian Personalized Ranking (BPR) approach and derive the optimization criterion accordingly. Expectation Maximization (EM) is then used to estimate the model parameters. We further develop a personalized model by taking into account personalized mobility patterns under the contextual scenario to improve the recommendation performance. Extensive experiments on two large-scale LBSNs datasets demonstrate the significant improvements of our model over several state-of-the-art methods.
Developing an Acoustic Sensing Yarn for Health Surveillance in a Military Setting

Overexposure to high levels of noise can cause permanent hearing disorders, which have a significant adverse effect on the quality of life of those affected. Injury due to noise can affect people in a variety of careers including construction workers, factory workers, and members of the armed forces. By monitoring the noise exposure of workers, overexposure can be avoided and suitable protective equipment can be provided. This work focused on the creation of a noise dosimeter suitable for use by members of the armed forces, where a discrete dosimeter was integrated into a textile helmet cover. In this way the sensing elements could be incorporated very close to the ears, providing a highly representative indication of the sound level entering the body, and also creating a device that would not interfere with military activities. This was achieved by utilising commercial microelectromechanical system microphones integrated within the fibres of yarn to create an acoustic sensing yarn. The acoustic sensing yarns were fully characterised over a range of relevant sound levels and frequencies at each stage in the yarn production process. The yarns were ultimately integrated into a knitted helmet cover to create a functional acoustic sensing helmet cover prototype.
The Impact of Financial Crisis on the Financial Asset in California Hospitals

During the financial crisis in 2008, the US economy experienced a massive economic collapse and financial market meltdown. However, how this financial crisis affected the healthcare industry has not been well investigated. Thus, this study examines the impact of the 2008 financial crisis on the financial assets of not-for-profit hospitals in California from 2006 to 2010. The data are analyzed using a generalized estimating equation with a normal distribution and log link function. This study found that not-for-profit hospitals were suffering in investing in financial assets during the financial crisis. This short of financial asset investment may lead to poor quality of care and the inability to meet growing demands for care and services.
Diagnostic and prognostic aspects of tubal patency testing

Sjors Coppus keek in zijn onderzoek naar methoden om in vruchtbaarheidsonderzoek vrouwen met de hoogste kans op afwijkingen in de eileiders vroegtijdig op te sporen. Verminderde vruchtbaarheid kan een gevolg zijn van afsluiting van de eileiders. Daarom wordt in het orienterend vruchtbaarheidsonderzoek vaak de doorgankelijkheid van de eileiders onderzocht. Bij de meerderheid van de vrouwen worden echter geen afwijkingen gevonden. Coppus onderzocht ook de waarde van diverse eileidertesten voor het voorspellen van een spontane zwangerschap.