Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Capacity enhanced scheduler for LTE downlink system based on PF algorithm

The mechanisms of allocating the resources in Long Term Evolution (LTE) cellular networks are very critical issues, because scheduling algorithms have the main responsibility for determining how to allocate radio resources for different users. In this work a dynamically adopted Proportional Fair (PF) scheduling strategy for capacity enhancement of LTE system is proposed. Performance comparison with the conventional PF downlink scheduler and the Best-Channel Quality Indicator (Best-CQI) scheduling algorithm is presented. The results of the simulation demonstrate that the introduced scheduling strategy enhances the overall system capacity and also provides a high level of fairness among all active Users Equipment (UEs). The proposed algorithm improves the average cell throughput by more than 31 %, with a slight degradation in the fairness level with respect to the conventional PF scheduling strategy.
Personalized Feedback for Open-Response Mathematical Questions using Long Short-Term Memory Networks

In this paper, we explore the problem of automatic grading and feedback generation for open-response mathematical questions. We resort to the long short-term memory (LSTM) network to learn the simple task of polynomial factorization and use the trained network for grading and feed-back. We use Wolfram Alpha to synthetically generate a training dataset that consists of step-by-step responses to polynomial factorization questions to train the LSTM network. Preliminary results validate the eﬃcacy of LSTMs in learning to factor low-order polynomials; we also demonstrate how to leverage the trained network for automatic grading and personalized feedback generation.
What 21st Century Leadership in Career and Technical Education Should Look Like

When speaking of educational leadership today there are many characteristics of leadership that are needed that perhaps were not necessary five, ten, or fifteen years ago. Technology’s impact on how students learn and how teachers teach has had educational leadership think about more innovative ways in which to prepare, deliver, and assess curriculum. It is necessary now to empower our teachers as they are in the trenches and to lead in a way that that reflects unconditional positive regard through relationships. Trust and love take the place of power and fear in order for employees to buy into educational reform and it’s important for them to know that they are in the forefront of change and are key agents of change. It is equally as imperative for today’s CTE leaders to stay abreast of current and future trends in business and industry and to encourage technical educators to stay current in their professional and trade areas as well as in pedagogy.
Institutional Reinvestments in Private Equity Funds as a Double-Edged Sword: The Role of the Status Quo Bias

Reinvestments can be a rational investment strategy for institutional investors in private equity funds to make use of inside information from previous funds or to get preferred access to restricted funds. However, reinvestments could also be motivated by a status quo bias, which describes a behavioral tendency to pursue the status quo option disproportionately often. This paper investigates the role of the status quo bias for institutional investments in private equity funds. Based on our fieldwork and a unique data set of 136 institutional investors and private equity firms in Germany, we show that institutional investors strongly prefer private equity firms in which they have invested before. The magnitude of the status quo bias depends on the nature of the investment opportunity and certain investor characteristics. Our results suggest that reinvestments are a double-edged sword for institutional investors that can result from a rational investment strategy, but also from an irrational investment behavior.
Isolation and domestication of Aerobic Denitrifying Effective Micro-organisms and the analysis of PCR-DGGE

Aerobic Denitrifying Effective Micro-organisms were isolated and domesticated by the denitrifying culture medium; the ammonia could be aerobically oxidized to molecular nitrogen with no NO2- and NO3-was accumulated while the 24 hour ammonia nitrogen elimination rate achieves 90.3%. Using the method of PCR-DGGE to analysis the various stages domesticates of the micro-flora structure, when the micro-flora structure have no obviously Changed and the ammonia nitrogen elimination rate was relative stabilization, shows that the domestication stage completes basically. The aerobic denitrifying effective micro-organisms had strongpoints of simple medium components and faster gentrification rate, etc., which has better application fore-ground.
Reamed Transacral Interbody Fusion for L5–S1 Pseudoarthrosis: A Novel Salvage Technique in 10 Patients

Study Design: A retrospective cohort study. Objective: To present the technique, radiographic, and clinical outcomes of a series of patients who underwent a novel method for revision L5–S1 interbody fusion. Summary of Background Data: Pseudoarthrosis at L5–S1 is a relatively common problem after long fusion to the sacrum. Revision approach to L5–S1 for cage or graft removal by anterior lumbar interbody fusion, posterior lumbar interbody fusion, or transforaminal interbody fusion is challenging and potentially dangerous which makes salvage by a posterior reamed transacral technique appealing. Methods: Consecutive patients with symptomatic pseudoarthrosis at L5–S1, who underwent posterior reamed fluoroscopically guided fusion were identified over a 3-year period. Operative notes, medical records, preoperative and postoperative plain radiographs, computed tomography scans, Visual Analog Scores (VAS) (lower extremity and low back) preoperatively, and at most recent follow-up were studied. Results: Ten patients (age, 53±2.8 y) with prior lumbar spinal operations (mean, 3.5±0.6) met the inclusion criteria. Prior procedures at L5–S1 were anterior lumbar interbody fusion (n=4), posterior lumbar interbody fusion (n=3), and posterolateral fusion (n=3). Mean Meyerding grade was 1.41 (range, 0–4). Reaming was performed between the S1 and S2 (n=9) or S2 and S3 (n=1) nerve roots and allowed fragmentation/removal of polyetheretherketone interbody grafts (n=3) or femoral ring allografts (n=3). Transacral Harms cage (n=8) or autograft (n=1) was passed through the reamed channel or a carbon fiber-reinforced polyetheretherketone directly into the interspace (n=1). VAS scores lower extremity (P=0.003) and low back (P=0.001) were improved at a mean follow-up of 13.5±3.6 months. No neurologic sequelae occurred and solid fusion was achieved in 9/10 (90%). Conclusions: We report a series of patients who underwent a novel revision technique for symptomatic lumbosacral pseudoarthrosis. Despite the small numbers in this cohort, a salvage technique is presented that permitted fusion as confirmed by computed tomography scan and improved VAS scores in the majority of patients. The data suggest that this technique should be considered as an alternative to the revision anterior or posterior approaches to L5–S1 and merits further investigation.
Science and governance of modern biotechnology in Sub‐Saharan Africa—the case of Uganda

Science policy, particularly as it applies to biotechnology and biosafety, has no single 'correct' approach to follow. An objective approach to biotechnology policy however requires three essential components: scientific advice, the engagement of a range of stakeholders in policy dialogue, and effective governance at a systemic level, in an 'innovation systems' sense, forming closer interaction between organizations and personnel to ensure that knowledge flows are maintained at all times. The article discusses the governance of modern biotechnology in Uganda. It shows that some progress is being made on interactivity among scientific organizations-many of whom are on the threshold of a capacity to become involved in gene transfer with potential application to the national needs. Interactivity, however, does not appear to be strong amongst governance bodies. Similarly the development of national policy, while strong in inspirational terms, seems in practice to be rather ad hoc and piecemeal, with uncertainty about who makes decisions and how these are to be implemented, monitored and evaluated. So, from an 'innovation systems' standpoint the governance of modern biotechnology in Uganda still has some way to go. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Functional Neuroimaging in Motor Recovery After Stroke

Abstract Neuroimaging techniques provide information on the neural substrates underlying functional recovery after stroke, the number one cause of long-term disability. Despite the methodological difficulties, they promise to offer insight into the mechanisms by which therapeutic interventions can modulate human cortical plasticity. This information should lead to the development of new, targeted interventions to maximize recovery.
Intrapreneurship conditioning factors from a resource-based theory

The objective of this research is to analyse from a resource-based theory the companies’ resources and capabilities that condition intrapreneurship. The study uses a logistic regression analysis and a specific database on intrapreneurship from the 2008 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), which includes 24,304 observations from 10 countries. The main results show that both resources and capabilities affect the intrapreneurial activities. That is, specific training in entrepreneurship, previous entrepreneurial experience, firm size, entrepreneurial competences, as well as the ability to detect business opportunities influence intrapreneurship. However, personal contact with other entrepreneurs does not seem to have a significant effect. The study contributes both theoretically, advancing in the application of the resource-based theory for the study of intrapreneurship, and practically, the research could be useful for the design of policies to promote corporate entrepreneurship.
Unpaired Multi-Domain Image Generation via Regularized Conditional GANs

In this paper, we study the problem of multi-domain image generation, the goal of which is to generate pairs of corresponding images from different domains. With the recent development in generative models, image generation has achieved great progress and has been applied to various computer vision tasks. However, multi-domain image generation may not achieve the desired performance due to the difficulty of learning the correspondence of different domain images, especially when the information of paired samples is not given. To tackle this problem, we propose Regularized Conditional GAN (RegCGAN) which is capable of learning to generate corresponding images in the absence of paired training data. RegCGAN is based on the conditional GAN, and we introduce two regularizers to guide the model to learn the corresponding semantics of different domains. We evaluate the proposed model on several tasks for which paired training data is not given, including the generation of edges and photos, the generation of faces with different attributes, etc. The experimental results show that our model can successfully generate corresponding images for all these tasks, while outperforms the baseline methods. We also introduce an approach of applying RegCGAN to unsupervised domain adaptation.
A Human Activity Recognition Framework for Healthcare Applications: Ontology, Labelling Strategies, and Best Practice

: Human Activity Recognition (AR) is an area of great importance for health and well-being applications including Ambient Intelligent (AmI) spaces, Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) environments, and wearable healthcare systems. Such intelligent systems reason over large amounts of sensor-derived data in order to recognise users’ actions. The design of AR algorithms relies on ground-truth data of sufﬁcient quality and quantity to enable rigorous training and validation. Ground-truth is often acquired using video recordings which can produce detailed results given the appropriate labels. However, video annotation is not a trivial task and is, by deﬁnition, subjective. In addition, the sensitive nature of the recordings has to be foremost in minds of the researchers to protect the identity and privacy of participants. In this paper, a hierarchical ontology for the annotation of human activity recognition in the home is proposed. Strategies that support different levels of granularity are presented enabling consistent, and repeatable annotations for training and validating activity recognition algorithms. Best practice regarding the handling of this type of sensitive data is discussed.
Plant closures in multi-plant enterprises—the case of a declining industrial sector

Healey M. J. (1982) Plant closures in multi-plant enterprises — the case of a declining industrial sector, Reg. Studies 16, 37–51. The decline in British manufacturing industry and its uneven spatial manifestation has led to a growing interest in the study of plant closures. This paper examines the closures made by a group of multi-plant enterprises in the textile and clothing industries between 1967 and 1972. The frequency of closures is related to six enterprise characteristics (profitability, size, growth rate, organizational structure, industrial nature and investment strategy) and seven plant characteristics (size, age, length of time operated, location within enterprise, internal linkages, status and industrial nature). Where possible, the findings are compared with those of other relevant surveys. The implications for urban and regional development are discussed.
Quantifying Environmental Noise impact on Heart Rate Variability

The environmental factors in outdoor spaces can have a great influence on how people feel and behave. In this paper, we propose a new method to quantify the environmental noise impact on health and behavior in real-world settings. This is achieved by monitoring physiological signals such as heart rate variability in response to environmental noise. By employing wearable sensors and smart phones, we will be able to quantify and study both environmental noise levels and physiological data simultaneously. The heart rate data can be analyzed and visualized using Heart Rate Variability (HRV) responses to independent variables in real time. As a result, we can establish a better understanding of the inter-relations between human health (in particular heart rate) and personal exposure to environmental pollutants.
Comparison and Evaluation of the Molecular Typing Methods for Toxigenic Vibrio cholerae in Southwest China

Vibrio cholerae O1 strains taken from the repository of Yunnan province, southwest China, were abundant and special. We selected 70 typical toxigenic V. cholerae (69 O1 and one O139 serogroup strains) isolated from Yunnan province, performed the pulsed field gel electrophoresis (PFGE), multilocus sequence typing (MLST), and MLST of virulence gene (V-MLST) methods, and evaluated the resolution abilities for typing methods. The ctxB subunit sequence analysis for all strains have shown that cholera between 1986 and 1995 was associated with mixed infections with El Tor and El Tor variants, while infections after 1996 were all caused by El Tor variant strains. Seventy V. cholerae obtained 50 PFGE patterns, with a high resolution. The strains could be divided into three groups with predominance of strains isolated during 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, respectively, showing a good consistency with the epidemiological investigation. We also evaluated two MLST method for V. cholerae, one was used seven housekeeping genes (adk, gyrB, metE, pntA, mdh, purM, and pyrC), and all the isolates belonged to ST69; another was used nine housekeeping genes (cat, chi, dnaE, gyrB, lap, pgm, recA, rstA, and gmd). A total of seven sequence types (STs) were found by using this method for all the strains; among them, rstA gene had five alleles, recA and gmd have two alleles, and others had only one allele. The virulence gene sequence typing method (ctxAB, tcpA, and toxR) showed that 70 strains were divided into nine STs; among them, tcpA gene had six alleles, toxR had five alleles, while ctxAB was identical for all the strains. The latter two sequences based typing methods also had consistency with epidemiology of the strains. PFGE had a higher resolution ability compared with the sequence based typing method, and MLST used seven housekeeping genes showed the lower resolution power than nine housekeeping genes and virulence genes methods. These two sequence typing methods could distinguish some epidemiological special strains in local area.
Customer requirements segmentation (CRS): A prerequisite technique for quality function deployment (QFD)

Abstract Since customers are not all created equal, it could not be overemphasised that a precise knowledge of Customer Requirements (CR) holds the key to business success. This paper offers Customer Requirements Segmentation (CRS) as a novel technique for categorizing CR with precision. CRS involves three different types of segmentation according to: service encounters or the service provided within each service encounter (CRS-I); customers' characteristics, e.g. age, gender, etc (CRS-II); and prioritized CR importance (CRS-III). Starting with a comprehensive list of Service Quality Dimensions (SQD), the CRS-I, II and IIIs will successively emerge. Although Quality Function Deployment (QFD) has been widely used in analysing and eventually delivering what the customers want, its implementation has not always been effective. CRS would help overcome some of the major difficulties in QFD implementation which are particularly acute in the Service Sector, namely: in ascertaining the ambiguities in the voice of the customer (VoC); in handling large houses of quality (HoQ); and in resolving conflicts among different variety of CR. A case study on using CRS to analyse the service encounter at the front desk of a four-star hotel will be presented in order to demonstrate CRS in action. The implications of the findings are discussed in detail.
Multiple Velocity Profile Measurements in Hypersonic Flows Using Sequentially-Imaged Fluorescence Tagging

Nitric-oxide planar laser-induced fluorescence (NO PLIF) was used to perform velocity measurements in hypersonic flows by generating multiple tagged lines which fluoresce as they convect downstream. For each laser pulse, a single interline, progressive scan intensified CCD (charge-coupled device) camera was used to obtain two sequential images of the NO molecules that had been tagged by the laser. The CCD configuration allowed for sub-microsecond acquisition of both images, resulting in sub-microsecond temporal resolution as well as sub-mm spatial resolution (0.5-mm horizontal, 0.7-mm vertical). Determination of axial velocity was made by application of a cross-correlation analysis of the horizontal shift of individual tagged lines. A numerical study of measured velocity error due to a uniform and linearly-varying collisional rate distribution was performed. Quantification of systematic errors, the contribution of gating/exposure duration errors, and the influence of collision rate on temporal uncertainty were made. Quantification of the spatial uncertainty depended upon the signal-to-noise ratio of the acquired profiles. This velocity measurement technique has been demonstrated for two hypersonic flow experiments: (1) a reaction control system (RCS) jet on an Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) wind tunnel model and (2) a 10-degree half-angle wedge containing a 2-mm tall, 4-mm wide cylindrical boundary layer trip. The experiments were performed at the NASA Langley Research Center's 31-Inch Mach 10 Air Tunnel.
Price discovery in German stock and futures markets

Compares the trading efficiency of electronic and open outcry futures markets. Argues that the difference between the German DAX (floor) and FDAX (electronic) markets is due to asset type, not to information processing speed. Describes the German trading environment, comparing trading data from 1992 to 1994. Shows that the returns for DAX are positively skewed and for FDAX negatively skewed and more volatile. From regression and Granger causality tests establishes a feedback relationship between the two markets, in which the spot market is slower to digest information than the futures market. Points out that the dominant DAX stocks are also traded electronically, so the means of trade is not the cause of the difference.
Parent Cardiac Response in the Context of Their Child’s Completion of the Cold Pressor Task: A Pilot Study

Parents’ ability to regulate their emotions is essential to providing supportive caregiving behaviours when their child is in pain. Extant research focuses on parent self-reported experience or observable behavioural responses. Physiological responding, such as heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV), is critical to the experience and regulation of emotions and provides a complementary perspective on parent experience; yet, it is scarcely assessed. This pilot study examined parent (n = 25) cardiac response (HR, HRV) at rest (neutral film clip), immediately before the cold pressor task (pre-CPT), and following the CPT (post-CPT). Further, variables that may influence changes in HR and HRV in the context of pediatric pain were investigated, including (1) initial HRV, and (2) parent perception of their child’s typical response to needle procedures. Time-domain (root mean square of successive differences; RMSSD) and frequency-domain (high-frequency heart rate variability; HF-HRV) parameters of HRV were computed. HR and HF-HRV varied as a function of time block. Typical negative responses to needle pain related to higher parental HR and lower HRV at rest. Parents with higher HRV at baseline experienced the greatest decreases in HRV after the CPT. Consequently, considering previous experience with pain and resting HRV levels are relevant to understanding parent physiological responses before and after child pain.
Features for Unsupervised Document Classification

Unsupervised document classification is an important problem in practical text mining since training data is seldom available. In this paper we study the problem of term selection and the performance of various features for unsupervised text classification. The features studied are: principal components, independent components, and non-negative components. The clustering algorithm used is based on bipartite graph partitioning (Zha et al., 2001). The evaluation is performed using the newsgroups corpus.
Three-phase unidirectional buck-type third harmonic injection rectifier concepts

This work introduces three-phase unidirectional buck-type unity power factor rectifiers. The proposed rectifiers are assembled by incorporating auxiliary circuit branches into standard three-phase buck-type PFC topologies, each comprising an active switch and three diodes. These circuits can operate as active third harmonic current injection PFC systems. The characteristics of the buck-type converters, including their operation principle, appropriate modulation strategy and control structure, are described. The proposed converters are compared to state-of-the-art buck-type rectifiers. According to the results, the proposed rectifiers can achieve the highest efficiency and thus are the topology of choice for a 2.5 kW three-phase buck-type PFC rectifier.