Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sampling modulation: An energy efficient novel feature extraction for biosignal processing

Extracting useful information from human bio potentials is an essential component of many wearable health applications. Yet the feature extraction itself can be computationally demanding, and may rapidly exhaust the meager energy supply available to the sensor node. General-purpose time-frequency analysis techniques, such as the Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) are widely used, but are computationally demanding and may represent overkill. This work presents a feature extraction technique for biopotential time-frequency analysis, based on the modulation of finite sample differences. The technique is applied to EEG-based seizure detection (feeding a Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier) and reaches the performance of a DWT implementation, while offering a gain of 5× in power efficiency and 41× in execution.
Experimental gene interaction studies with SERT mutant mice as models for human polygenic and epistatic traits and disorders

Current evidence indicates that virtually all neuropsychiatric disorders, like many other common medical disorders, are genetically complex, with combined influences from multiple interacting genes, as well as from the environment. However, additive or epistatic gene interactions have proved quite difficult to detect and evaluate in human studies. Mouse phenotypes, including behaviors and drug responses, can provide relevant models for human disorders. Studies of gene–gene interactions in mice could thus help efforts to understand the molecular genetic bases of complex human disorders. The serotonin transporter (SERT, 5‐HTT, SLC6A4) provides a relevant model for studying such interactions for several reasons: human variants in SERT have been associated with several neuropsychiatric and other medical disorders and quantitative traits; SERT blockers are effective treatments for a number of neuropsychiatric disorders; there is a good initial understanding of the phenotypic features of heterozygous and homozygous SERT knockout mice; and there is an expanding understanding of the interactions between variations in SERT expression and variations in the expression of a number of other genes of interest for neuropsychiatry and neuropharmacology. This paper provides examples of experimentally–obtained interactions between quantitative variations in SERT gene expression and variations in the expression of five other mouse genes: DAT, NET, MAOA, 5‐HT1B and BDNF. In humans, all six of these genes possess polymorphisms that have been independently investigated as candidates for neuropsychiatric and other disorders in a total of > 500 reports. In the experimental studies in mice reviewed here, gene–gene interactions resulted in either synergistic, antagonistic (including ‘rescue’ or ‘complementation’) or more complex, quantitative alterations. These were identified in comparisons of the behavioral, physiological and neurochemical phenotypes of wildtype mice vs. mice with single allele or single gene targeted disruptions and mice with partial or complete disruptions of multiple genes. Several of the descriptive phenotypes could be best understood on the basis of intermediate, quantitative alterations such as brain serotonin differences. We discuss the ways in which these interactions could provide models for studies of gene–gene interactions in complex human neuropsychiatric and other disorders to which SERT may contribute, including developmental disorders, obesity, polysubstance abuse and others.
Context processing during irony comprehension in right-frontal brain-damaged individuals

ABSTRACT The aim of the present study was to investigate whether the degree of incongruity between contextual information and a target sentence influences the extent to which irony is understood in individuals with right-frontal-hemisphere damage (RHD). A psycholinguistic paradigm was used, allowing us to assess whether impairment in irony understanding is likely to be due to insensitivity (i.e. difficulty in capturing or detecting relevant contextual information) to relevant contextual information or to difficulties in integrating contextual information. Twenty individuals with RHD and 20 healthy control (HC) participants were tested on their understanding of a speaker’s ironic intent and their executive functions. The main results revealed that individuals with RHD exhibit different patterns of performance, some of them being able to understand irony while in others this ability was impaired. The present study gives support to the hypothesis that difficulties in adequately using contextual information may account for pragmatic impairment of individuals with RHD. More importantly, the results suggested that these difficulties are related to a lack of sensitivity to contextual information instead of difficulty integrating it along with the ironic utterance. A subgroup of individuals with RHD processed the speaker’s utterance without any reference to contextual information, which led them to a literal interpretation of the utterance.
Nonminimum phase deconvolution in the log domain: A sparse inversion approach

ABSTRACTBeing disturbed by the discrepancy between the Ricker wavelet and minimum phase wavelets, we wondered if a sparseness criterion could get us deconvolved data with the event polarity being more clearly evident. Five data sets found it does. The sparseness criterion we used is a hyperbolic penalty function. It ranged from l2 at small residuals to l1 at large residuals. The main pitfall was that introducing negative filter lags introduced a null space (obviously so for Gaussian data). The null space demanded a regularization. We found a formulation in the domain of the Fourier transform of a log spectrum, in which a Ricker-style regularization appeared. Curiously, this regularization eliminated the leg jumps. A quasi-Newton solver was faster than that of our earlier work, a combination of conjugate directions with a Newton solver.
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL REWARDS OF A RURAL LANDSCAPE 1 Exploring the Psychological Rewards of a Familiar Semi-Rural Landscape : Connecting to Local Nature Through a Mindful Approach

This study analyses a 53,000 word diary of a year s pent engaging with nature through over 200 short trips to a semi-rural landscape. Thematic an alysis revealed two themes; the transition from observer to nature connectedness and the ways in wh ich the natural environment was experienced once a connection was made. These theme s are discussed in relation to theories that seek to explain the positive effect of nature and n ature connectedness. The findings are important as they suggest that repeated engagement with local semi-rural countryside can lead to a mindful approach and psychological rewards that do not requ ir travel into the wilderness. The work also informs further research intro trip frequency, dura tion, diary keeping and mindfulness in the
Prevalence and outcomes of peritumor fat involvement following partial nephrectomy for radiologic T1 renal cancer

Context: Partial nephrectomy is becoming the standard of care in management of small renal tumors and excision of the peritumor fat is recommended for accurate staging. During the surgery, the overlying fat may be excised for accurate visualization of margins or maybe inadvertently left behind when performing a partial nephrectomy in an obese patient. We investigated the prevalence of fat involvement in these patients. Aims: The aim was to document the prevalence of peritumor fat involvement discovered after partial nephrectomy performed for radiologic T1 renal cancer. Settings and Design: Between 2005 and 2011, 107 partial nephrectomy procedures were performed for radiologic T1 disease. Statistical Analysis: All analyses were performed using SAS 9.2. Subjects and Methods: Patients were classified as: Group A (n = 88 patients), patients with stage T1a (tumor size ≤4 cm) and Group B (n = 24 patients) patients with stage T1b (tumor size 4-7 cm). Results: The overall prevalence of peritumor fat involvement was 1.86% (n = 2). The two patients had tumor ≤4 cm in size of the papillary subtype and were followed for 61 and 57 months, respectively. Both were living and without recurrence. Patient demographics and tumor characteristics did not differ between the two groups except, Fuhrman Grades 3 and 4 were statistically more prevalent in Group B (<0.01). Tumor grade, clear cell type cancer and stage T1b did not correlate with peritumor fat involvement in the study population. Conclusions: Our study revealed a low prevalence of peritumor fat involvement in radiologic pT1 renal cancer; however, peritumor fat removal is still recommended.
Control of melting using nanoscale coatings

This article summarizes previous work using density-functional simulations to investigate the effects of nanoscale surface coatings on the dynamics of semiconductor surfaces near their melting points. We demonstrate that a coating of GaAs only a single monolayer thick causes a dramatic reduction in the diffusive motion of the surface atoms of a Ge(110) crystal, and causes superheating of the bulk at temperatures well above the Ge melting point, on the 10 ps time scale. In direct contrast, a similar single-monolayer coating of Ge will induce melting of a GaAs(110) surface, even 300 K below the bulk GaAs melting point. Using these atomicscale simulations, we suggest that the Ge monolayer causes the GaAs(110) surface to melt through transient penetration into the bulk, initiating collective diffusive motion of the Ga and As atoms. This work has important implications for high-temperature materials design, while simultaneously uncovering the fundamental causes of the melting phase transition.
Effects of Respirator Ambient Air Cooling on Thermophysiological Responses and Comfort Sensations

This investigation assessed the thermophysiological and subjective impacts of different respirator ambient air cooling options while wearing chemical and biological personal protective equipment in a warm environment (32.7 ± 0.4°C, 49.6 ± 6.5% RH). Ten volunteers participated in 90-min heat exposure trials with and without respirator (Control) wear and performed computer-generated tasks while seated. Ambient air cooling was provided to respirators modified to blow air to the forehead (FHC) or to the forehead and the breathing zone (BZC) of a full-facepiece air-purifying respirator using a low-flow (45 L·min−1) mini-blower. An unmodified respirator (APR) trial was also completed. The highest body temperatures (TTY) and least favorable comfort ratings were observed for the APR condition. With ambient cooling over the last 60 min of heat exposure, TTY averaged 37.4 ± 0.6°C for Control, 38.0 ± 0.4°C for APR, 37.8 ± 0.5°C for FHC, and 37.6 ± 0.7°C for BZC conditions independent of time. Both the FHC and BZC ambient air cooling conditions reduced facial skin temperatures, reduced the rise in body temperatures, and led to more favorable subjective comfort and thermal sensation ratings over time compared to the APR condition; however statistical differences among conditions were inconsistent. Independent of exposure time, average breathing apparatus comfort scores with BZC (7.2 ± 2.5) were significantly different from both Control (8.9 ± 1.4) and APR (6.5 ± 2.2) conditions when ambient cooling was activated. These findings suggest that low-flow ambient air cooling of the face under low work rate conditions and mild hyperthermia may be a practical method to minimize the thermophysiological strain and reduce perceived respirator discomfort.
Estimating Availability of Logging Residue using Forest Management Data at Aggregated Stands of the Takahara Area of Tochigi Prefecture, Japan

With the endpoint of securing a steady supply of logging residue, this study projects the supply potential and availability of logging residue by using 2005–2011 forest management records and 2012–2016 forest management plans for the Takahara area of Tochigi prefecture, Japan. Forest management plans do not list thinning methods (such as those of a precommercial or commercial variety); therefore, the relationship between stand ages and commercial thinning operation rates is analyzed using forest management records, and commercial thinning rates are estimated with stand ages. Trends vis-a-vis supply potential and logging residue availability between 2005 and 2016 are examined: the supply potential of logging residue from precommercial thinning operations significantly increased between 2009 and 2010, on account of a new tax levied in April 2008; on the other hand, a steady supply of logging residue is projected by using forest management plans. In forest management plans, it is assumed that precommercial and commercial thinning operations are conducted within the same subcompartments. Therefore, the profitability of subcompartments can be improved with commercial thinning operations, and the available logging residue amounts from precommercial thinning operations are estimated in forest management plans. Meanwhile, no available logging residue amounts from precommercial thinning operations are estimated through the use of forest management records. The available logging residue amounts of aggregated stands are increased; by aggregating stands, the stand areas can be increased to more than 6 ha and be made profitable, even with longer forwarding distances.
A Discrete Wavelet Transform Approach to Multiresolution Complex SAR Image Generation

We present a signal processing approach using discrete wavelet transform (DWT) for the generation of complex synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images at an arbitrary number of dyadic scales of resolution. The method is computationally efficient and is free from significant system-imposed limitations present in traditional subaperture-based multiresolution image formation. Problems due to aliasing associated with biorthogonal decomposition of the complex signals are addressed. The lifting scheme of DWT is adapted to handle complex signal approximations and employed to further enhance the computational efficiency. Multiresolution SAR images formed by the proposed method are presented.
Bandwidth Allocation for Multimedia Applications at Mobile Stations

A user in B3G (Beyond 3rd Generation) mobile communications systems may choose to simultaneously launch various multimedia applications. In this letter, we suggest that the mobile station (MS) shares its available resources among the user's applications, based on her/his preferences and the applications' quality of service (QoS) requirements. A utility maximiztion problem is formulated. From the formulated optimization problem, and using Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) conditions, we derive an optimum scheme to perform this task at the MS. The scheme maximizes user satisfaction under application- specific rate constraints, and is applicable to both downlink and uplink.
An on-chip antenna integrated with a transceiver in 0.18-µm CMOS technology

This paper presents an on-chip antenna integrated with a Kuband transceiver using a standard 0.18-μm CMOS process. An off-chip guard ring is used to improve the gain of the antenna. As the guard ring is implemented on the test carrier board, this gain improvement technology does not require additional process, and it is easy to implement. It is shown that, a gain improvement of 5.8 dBi can be obtained by using the guard ring with the radiation efficiency improved from 18% to 32%. Additionally, the influence of the CMOS process metal rules and the existence of the transceiver on the antenna performance are studied in this paper. The proposed antenna is fabricated with and without the transceiver, respectively. It is shown that the single-chip antenna (without transceiver) has a gain of 2.4 dBi at 17GHz, with a 3-dB bandwidth from 14.2GHz to 21.5GHz. Meanwhile, the transceiver (with integrated antenna) has a 3-dB bandwidth from 15.8GHz to 18.0GHz, with a peak gain of 13.5 dB in the transmitter link and a peak gain of 15.3 dB in the receiver link.
Application of Cloud Rank Framework to Achieve the Better Quality of Service ( QoS ) Ranking Prediction of Web Services

In Cloud computing the QoS rankings provides priceless information for making most favourable cloud service selection from a set of functionally comparable service candidates. To obtain QoS values, realworld invocations on the service candidates are usually required. To avoid the time-consuming and pricey real-world service invocation QoS ranking prediction framework is used. This framework requires no supplementary invocations of cloud services when making QoS ranking prediction. Two personalized QoS ranking prediction approaches such as cloud rank 1 ( CR1) and cloud rank 2 ( CR2) are used to envisage the QoS rankings unswervingly. Widespread experiments are conducted employing real-world QoS data, including 1000 distributed users and three real-world web services. The implemented framework uses modernized ranking approach which uses different QoS parameters to predict the ranking more accurately. Normalized Discounted Cumulative Gain (NDCG) has been used to analyze the accuracy of QoS ranking prediction for the implemented framework. Keywords— Cloud, Optimization, Quality of services, Ranking prediction, Similarity measure, Normalized Discounted Cumulative Gain
UvA-DARE ( Digital Academic Repository ) Sample Size Requirements for Traditional and Regression-Based Norms

Test norms enable determining the position of an individual test taker in the group. The most frequently used approach to obtain test norms is traditional norming. Regression-based norming may be more efficient than traditional norming and is rapidly growing in popularity, but little is known about its technical properties. A simulation study was conducted to compare the sample size requirements for traditional and regression-based norming by examining the 95% interpercentile ranges for percentile estimates as a function of sample size, norming method, size of covariate effects on the test score, test length, and number of answer categories in an item. Provided the assumptions of the linear regression model hold in the data, for a subdivision of the total group into eight equal-size subgroups, we found that regression-based norming requires samples 2.5 to 5.5 times smaller than traditional norming. Sample size requirements are presented for each norming method, test length, and number of answer categories. We emphasize that additional research is needed to establish sample size requirements when the assumptions of the linear regression model are violated.
PLC-Based Pulse-Train Generators

Novel planar-lightwave-circuit-based pulse-train-generator devices designed for use as repetition-rate multipliers are experimentally investigated. In addition to arrayed waveguide grating-based pulse-train generators and loss-engineered devices which have been previously demonstrated, novel excitation-engineered structures are described which illuminate design constraints that impact the practical implementation of various device designs
Microbial Reductive Dechlorination of Aroclor 1260 in Baltimore Harbor Sediment Microcosms Is Catalyzed by Three Phylotypes within the Phylum Chloroflexi

ABSTRACT The specific dechlorination pathways for Aroclor 1260 were determined in Baltimore Harbor sediment microcosms developed with the 11 most predominant congeners from this commercial mixture and their resulting dechlorination intermediates. Most of the polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) congeners were dechlorinated in the meta position, and the major products were tetrachlorobiphenyls with unflanked chlorines. Using PCR primers specific for the 16S rRNA genes of known PCB-dehalogenating bacteria, we detected three phylotypes within the microbial community that had the capability to dechlorinate PCB congeners present in Aroclor 1260 and identified their selective activities. Phylotype DEH10, which has a high level of sequence identity to Dehalococcoides spp. , removed the double-flanked chlorine in 234-substituted congeners and exhibited a preference for para-flanked meta-chlorines when no double-flanked chlorines were available. Phylotype SF1 had similarity to the o-17/DF-1 group of PCB-dechlorinating bacteria. Phylotype SF1 dechlorinated all of the 2345-substituted congeners, mostly in the double-flanked meta position and 2356-, 236-, and 235-substituted congeners in the ortho-flanked meta position, with a few exceptions. A phylotype with 100% sequence identity to PCB-dechlorinating bacterium o-17 was responsible for an ortho and a double-flanked meta dechlorination reaction. Most of the dechlorination pathways supported the growth of all three phylotypes based on competitive PCR enumeration assays, which indicates that PCB-impacted environments have the potential to sustain populations of these PCB-dechlorinating microorganisms. The results demonstrate that the variation in dechlorination patterns of congener mixtures typically observed at different PCB impacted sites can potentially be mediated by the synergistic activities of relatively few dechlorinating species.
Implementation Strategy of E-government System for Emerging Countries

Governments need to play an orchestration role in delivering public services, and the adoption of information and communication technologies is essential to productivity and progress. E-government is unquestionable one of the most critical development system in developing countries, where ICT infrastructure and information society remain the great challenges to overcome. Due to institutional conditions, and compared to developed countries, longer preparation and project time are to be expected when implementing E-government in developing countries. And the delay in implementation of e-government would only cause added cost. In our suggested implementation strategy GBC, where Government (G), Business (B), and Citizens (C) are the main player in e-government system, is not necessary to wait for technology to settle in, to be embedded in administrative and bureaucratic process, we adapted existing model and implemented proportionally along with development of digitizing process, with regard to different types of e-government interactions. We call it GBC due to order of implementation strategy.
The Impact of the Substantial Gainful Activity Cap on Disability Insurance Recipients’ Labor Supply

Disability Insurance (DI) beneficiaries in many countries lose benefits if their earnings exceed a specified cap. An earnings cap generates a discontinuous increase in tax liability—a notch—and creates an incentive to keep earnings below the threshold. Exploiting such a notch in Austria, we provide transparent and credible identification of the effect of financial incentives on DI beneficiaries’ earnings. Using rich administrative data, we document large and sharp bunching at the earnings cap. However, the elasticity driving these responses is modest. Our estimates suggest that abolishing the cap would increase the labor supply of beneficiaries and reduce fiscal costs.