Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A hybrid channel hopping scheme for Wireless Sensor Networks Based on IEEE 802.15.4

To possess more sensor nodes and maximize the capacity of future networks, anti-interference technology becomes one of the important research subjects in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). The previous studies indicate that the dynamic timeslot allocation and channel hopping can solve the interference problem, while a pure channel hopping technology may lose other network performances. Combined with the dynamic resource allocation (DRA) and the theory of the channel hopping technology, this paper proposes a hybrid channel hopping scheme for WSNs based on IEEE 802.15. 4. In this scheme, it introduces two channel modes (channel hopping mode and channel adaption mode). Nodes select the channel mode, dynamically apply for a channel or timeslots by DRA request, and automatically switch the channel mode according to the channel condition. The experimental results show that the proposed scheme can effectively improve the anti-interference capability and enhance the network capacity.
Performance Analysis and Best Implementations of Old and New Algorithms for the Open-Pit Mining Problem

The open-pit mining problem is to determine the contours of a mine, based on economic data and engineering feasibility requirements, to yield maximum possible net income. This practical problem needs to be solved for very large data sets. In practice, moreover, it is necessary to test multiple scenarios, taking into account a variety of realizations of geological predictions and forecasts of ore value.The industry is experiencing computational difficulties in solving the problem. Yet, the problem is known to be equivalent to the minimum cut or maximum flow problem. For the maximum flow problem there are a number of very efficient algorithms that have been developed over the last decade. On the other hand, the algorithm that is most commonly used by the mining industry has been devised by Lerchs and Grossmann (LG). This algorithm is used in most commercial software packages for open-pit mining.This paper describes a detailed study of the LG algorithm as compared to the maximum flow "push-relabel" algorithm. We propose here an efficient implementation of the push-relabel algorithm adapted to the features of the open-pit mining problem. We study issues such as the properties of the mine and ore distribution and how they affect the running time of the algorithm. We also study some features that improve the performance of the LG algorithm. The proposed implementations offer significant improvements compared to existing algorithms and make the related sensitivity analysis problem practically solvable.
What is there in a training sample?

Two factors that are known to have direct influence on the classification accuracy of any neural network are (1) the network complexity and (2) the representational accuracy of the training data. While pruning algorithms are used to tackle the complexity problem, no direct solutions are known for the second. Selecting training data at random from the sample space is the most popular method followed. Despite its simplicity, this method does not ensure nor guarantee that the training would be optimal. In this brief paper, we present a new method that is specific to a difference boosting neural network (DBNN) but could probably be extended to other networks as well. The method is iterative and fast, ensuring optimal selection of the minimum training data from a larger set in an automated manner. We test the performance of the new method on the some of the well known datasets from the UCI repository for benchmarking machine learning tools and show that the performance of the new method in almost all cases is better than that in any published method of comparable network complexity and that it requires only a fraction of the usual training data, thereby, making learning faster and more generic.
A particle swarm optimization for economic dispatch with nonsmooth cost functions

This work presents a new approach to economic dispatch (ED) problems with nonsmooth cost functions using a particle swarm optimization (PSO) technique. The practical ED problems have nonsmooth cost functions with equality and inequality constraints that make the problem of finding the global optimum difficult using any mathematical approaches. A modified PSO (MPSO) mechanism is suggested to deal with the equality and inequality constraints in the ED problems. A constraint treatment mechanism is devised in such a way that the dynamic process inherent in the conventional PSO is preserved. Moreover, a dynamic search-space reduction strategy is devised to accelerate the optimization process. To show its efficiency and effectiveness, the proposed MPSO is applied to test ED problems, one with smooth cost functions and others with nonsmooth cost functions considering valve-point effects and multi-fuel problems. The results of the MPSO are compared with the results of conventional numerical methods, Tabu search method, evolutionary programming approaches, genetic algorithm, and modified Hopfield neural network approaches.
EMBEDDED FOUR SWITCH THREE PHASE INVERTER FED INDUCTION MOTOR DRIVE

The objective of the paper is to develop a microcontroller controlled four switch three phase inverter (FSTPI) to drive three phase induction motor with minimum hardware. This inverter uses four switches instead of conventional six switches, it has lesser switching losses, lower electromagnetic interference (EMI), less complexity of control algorithms, robust control and reduced circuit complexity. Controller DSPIC2010 is used to generate the switching pulses for FSTPI to drive 1 hp three phase induction motor.
Physiological responses to the 6-min walk test in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

The 6-min walking test (6MWT) is frequently used to assess functional capacity in chronic cardiopulmonary disorders because of its simplicity. The study examines the physiological responses during encouraged 6MWT in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Pulmonary oxygen (O2) uptake (V′O2) was measured in 20 male patients (age 66±6 yrs, forced expiratory volume in one second 45±14% predicted) during 6MWT and incremental cycling, in random order. O2 tension in arterial blood, carbon dioxide tension in arterial blood and arterial lactate concentration ([La]art) were obtained in the last 10 patients. During the 6MWT, V′O2 showed a plateau after the 3rd min (1.39±0.28, 1.42±0.31, and 1.40±0.30 L·min−1, 4th, 5th and 6th min, respectively), and minute ventilation (V′E) (42±8 L·min−1) was 91% maximal voluntary ventilation. No differences were shown between 6MWT (6th min) and peak cycling exercise in V′O2 (1.40±0.30 versus 1.41±0.28 L·min−1, respectively), cardiac frequency (126±13 versus 130±12 beats·min−1), or arterial respiratory blood gases. The two tests were significantly different in V′E (42±8 versus 47±8 L·min−1, 6MWT versus cycling, respectively), carbon dioxide production (1.30±0.31 versus 1.45±0.18 L·min−1) and [La]art (2.9±1.99 versus 5.9±1.51 M). The study demonstrates that an encouraged 6-min walking test generates a high but sustainable oxygen uptake. Since the oxygen uptake plateau reflects the integrated response of the system, it may explain the high prognostic value of the 6-min walking test.
Disc Golf and Walking Benefits: A Pedometer-Based Physical Activity Assessment

Background: The purpose of this study was to assess the contributions of walking when participating in disc golf and achieving the recommended 10,000 steps per day. Data from men (n = 226) and women (n= 109) participants who played on 15 disc golf courses were analyzed to determine if gender, age, score or playing format had an effect on the average number of steps walked per hole. Each participant wore a pedometer while playing. Participants averaged 311 steps per hole, which equates to 5613 steps for an 18- hole round of disc golf. Women took 69.3 fewer steps per hole than men and each additional throw resulted in 3.2 additional steps per hole. Playing an 18-hole round of disc golf provided for over half of the recommended 10,000 steps per day for healthy living, but these steps were not evenly distributed across all types of players.
Gene Expression Analysis of Corynebacterium glutamicum Subjected to Long-Term Lactic Acid Adaptation

ABSTRACT Corynebacteria form an important part of the red smear cheese microbial surface consortium. To gain a better understanding of molecular adaptation due to low pH induced by lactose fermentation, the global gene expression profile of Corynebacterium glutamicum adapted to pH 5.7 with lactic acid under continuous growth in a chemostat was characterized by DNA microarray analysis. Expression of a total of 116 genes was increased and that of 90 genes was decreased compared to pH 7.5 without lactic acid, representing 7% of the genes in the genome. The up-regulated genes encode mainly transcriptional regulators, proteins responsible for export, import, and metabolism, and several proteins of unknown function. As much as 45% of the up-regulated open reading frames code for hypothetical proteins. These results were validated using real-time reverse transcription-PCR. To characterize the functions of 38 up-regulated genes, 36 single-crossover disruption mutants were generated and analyzed for their lactic acid sensitivities. However, only a sigB knockout mutant showed a highly significant negative effect on growth at low pH, suggesting a function in organic-acid adaptation. A sigE mutant already displayed growth retardation at neutral pH but grew better at acidic pH than the sigB mutant. The lack of acid-sensitive phenotypes in 34 out of 36 disrupted genes suggests either a considerable redundancy in acid adaptation response or coincidental effects. Other up-regulated genes included genes for ion transporters and metabolic pathways, including carbohydrate and respiratory metabolism. The enhanced expression of the nrd (ribonucleotide reductase) operon and a DNA ATPase repair protein implies a cellular response to combat acid-induced DNA damage. Surprisingly, multiple iron uptake systems (totaling 15% of the genes induced ≥2-fold) were induced at low pH. This induction was shown to be coincidental and could be attributed to iron-sequestering effects in complex media at low pH.
CLOUD CAVITATION ON AN OSCILLATING HYDROFOIL

Cloud cavitation, often formed by the breakdown of a sheet or vortex cavity, is believed to be responsible for much of the noise and erosion damage that occurs under cavitating conditions. For this paper, cloud cavitation was produced through the periodic forcing of the flow by an oscillating hydrofoil. The present work examines the acoustic signal generated by the collapse of cloud cavitation, and compares the results to those obtained by studies of single travelling bubble cavitation. In addition, preliminary studies involving the use of air injection on the suction surface of the hydrofoil explore its mitigating effects on the cavitation noise.
Découverte de communautés par analyse des usages

Dans les sites Web collaboratifs actuels, un effort de saisie important est demande aux utilisateurs afin d'identifier la communaute a laquelle ils appartiennent (description du profil personnel, du reseau social, etc.). Dans cet article, nous proposons une methode de decouverte de communautes basee sur les actions des utilisateurs. Elle repose sur une analyse en composantes principales des usages (ACP) et a ete validee sur une base de donnees de preferences filmographiques de grande taille (MovieLens).
A D-tree grammars account for Romanian cases of fronting

In this article we provide examples of D-Tree Grammars analysis for Romanian phrases which can not be correctly accounted for by plane TAG. We show that such cases are not isolated in Romanian: the case of questions with object fronting, multiple wh-words fronting and preposition phrase fronting (which actually ends in second position). We argue that DTG is a suitable framework for Romanian, both because they are linguistically well-motivated (they can be lexicalized, the elementary trees can be constructed based on linguistic evidence, the derivation tree is semantically relevant, etc) and because of their capability of accounting for diffcult Romanian syntactic construction of the type we present in this article.
IR-97-081 / December 1997 Demand Dynamics With Socially Evolving Preferences

Interim Reports on work of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis receive only limited review. Views or opinions expressed herein do not necessarily represent those of the Institute, its National Member Organizations, or other organizations supporting the work. is gratefully acknowledged. Marianna Vintiadis has provided a very knowledgeable assistant researchship, and S. Crivellini has been a uniquely valuable support to the implementation of the simulation program. Endless discussions with Luigi Marengo and Helénè Tordjman have contributed to imprint the importance of cognitive representations in economic behaviours. Comments by Geoffrey Hodgson have been very useful in shaping this version of the work. The usual caveats of course apply.
Boundary structure and size in terms of interior and exterior harmonic measures in higher dimensions

In this work we introduce the use of powerful tools from geometric measure theory (GMT) to study problems related to the size and structure of sets of mutual absolute continuity for the harmonic measure $ \omega^+$ of a domain $ \Omega=\Omega^+\subset\mathbb{R}^n$ and the harmonic measure $ \omega^-$ of $ \Omega^-$, $ \Omega^-=$int$ (\Omega^c)$, in dimension $ n\ge 3$.
USING THE X-RAY DUST SCATTERING HALO OF CYGNUS X-1 TO DETERMINE DISTANCE AND DUST DISTRIBUTIONS

We present a detailed study of the X-ray dust scattering halo of the black hole candidate Cygnus X-1 based on two Chandra High Energy Transmission Gratings Spectrometer observations. Using 18 different dust models, including one modified by us (eponymously dubbed XLNW), we probe the interstellar medium between us and this source. A consistent description of the cloud properties along the line of sight (LOS) that describes at the same time the halo radial profile, the halo light curves, and the column density from source spectroscopy is best achieved with a small subset of these models. Combining the studies of the halo radial profile and the halo light curves, we favor a geometric distance to Cygnus X-1 of d = 1.81 ± 0.09 kpc. Our study also shows that there is a dense cloud, which contributes ∼50% of the dust grains along the LOS to Cygnus X-1, located at ∼1.6 kpc from us. The remainder of the dust along the LOS is close to the black hole binary.
Privacy-Preserving Querying in Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) provide sensing and monitoring services by means of many tiny autonomous devices equipped with wireless radio transceivers. With large- scale WSNs being deployed on a long-term basis, not only security but also privacy issues must be taken into account. Furthermore, when network operators offer on-demand access to sensor measurements to their clients, query mechanisms should ideally leak neither client interests nor query patterns. In this paper, we present a privacy-preserving WSN query mechanism that uses standard cryptographic techniques. Besides preventing unauthorized entities from accessing sensor readings, it minimizes leakage of (potentially sensitive) information about users' query targets and patterns.
ANALYSIS OF NON-STOP TRAFFIC AT ISOLATED SIGNALISED INTERSECTION BY MEANS OF DISCRETE EVENT SIMULATION

This paper includes a simulation-based analysis of non-stop traffic at isolated signalised intersections. A Min-Max traffic control method is proposed to replace conventional traffic signals and maintain a continuous traffic flow. The method applicability is tested by means of Discrete Event Simulation (DES) using AutoMod software package. A set of quantitative Measures of Performance (MOP) is used to demonstrate the benefits of the proposed method compared to conventional traffic signals. In addition to eliminating vehicles stoppages, simulation results of the proposed method showed improvement in the overall traffic flow by reducing vehicle average travel time, average delay time, and the average number of vehicles at the intersection. The proposed method can be adapted to suit other types of traffic intersections and flow patterns and conditions.
Animal Cloning: A Risk Assessment

glycogen cells, and unusually large giant cells. They also found limited distribution of maternal blood vessels in the spongio-trophoblast layer and suppressed development of the labyrinth layer. They suggested that these abnormalities would greatly reduce the functional capacity of the placenta and could contribute to high rates of neonatal death in mouse pup clones derived from somatic cells. Ogura et al. (2002) compared the histological findings for mouse clone placentae with those of embryos derived from other micromanipulation techniques, such as microinsemination, aggregation chimera, and pronuclear exchange. Disruption of labyrinth layer morphology was common to placentae from cloning and other micromanipulation techniques, whereas disruption of the basal layer with marked proliferation of glycogen cells was the only phenotype unique to cloning.
NTNU: Measuring Semantic Similarity with Sublexical Feature Representations and Soft Cardinality

The paper describes the approaches taken by the NTNU team to the SemEval 2014 Semantic Textual Similarity shared task. The solutions combine measures based on lexical soft cardinality and character n-gram feature representations with lexical distance metrics from TakeLab’s baseline system. The final NTNU system is based on bagged support vector machine regression over the datasets from previous shared tasks and shows highly competitive performance, being the best system on three of the datasets and third best overall (on weighted mean over all six datasets).
Left-Shifted Nav Channels in Injured Bilayer: Primary Targets for Neuroprotective Nav Antagonists?

Mechanical, ischemic, and inflammatory injuries to voltage-gated sodium channel (Nav)-rich membranes of axon initial segments and nodes of Ranvier render Nav channels dangerously leaky. By what means? The behavior of recombinant Nav1.6 (Wang et al., 2009) leads us to postulate that, in neuropathologic conditions, structural degradation of axolemmal bilayer fosters chronically left-shifted Nav channel operation, resulting in ENa rundown. This “sick excitable cell Nav-leak” would encompass left-shifted fast- and slow-mode based persistent INa (i.e., Iwindow and slow-inactivating INa). Bilayer-damage-induced electrophysiological dysfunctions of native-Nav channels, and effects on inhibitors on those channels, should, we suggest, be studied in myelinated axons, exploiting INa(V,t) hysteresis data from sawtooth ramp clamp. We hypothesize that (like dihydropyridines for Ca channels), protective lipophilic Nav antagonists would partition more avidly into disorderly bilayers than into the well-packed bilayers characteristic of undamaged, healthy plasma membrane. Whereas inhibitors using aqueous routes would access all Navs equally, differential partitioning into “sick bilayer” would co-localize lipophilic antagonists with “sick-Nav channels,” allowing for more specific targeting of impaired cells. Molecular fine-tuning of Nav antagonists to favor more avid partitioning into damaged than into intact bilayers could reduce side effects. In potentially salvageable neurons of traumatic and/or ischemic penumbras, in inflammatory neuropathies, in muscular dystrophy, in myocytes of cardiac infarct borders, Nav-leak driven excitotoxicity overwhelms cellular repair mechanisms. Precision-tuning of a lipophilic Nav antagonist for greatest efficacy in mildly damaged membranes could render it suitable for the prolonged continuous administration needed to allow for the remodeling of the excitable membranes, and thus functional recovery.
The least degraded and the least upgraded channel with respect to a channel family

Given a family of binary-input memoryless output-symmetric (BMS) channels having a fixed capacity, we derive the BMS channel having the highest (resp. lowest) capacity among all channels that are degraded (resp. upgraded) with respect to the whole family. We give an explicit characterization of this channel as well as an explicit formula for the capacity of this channel.
Forward obstacle detection system by stereo vision

We have developed forward obstacle detection system which has good detectability and the accuracy of distance only by using stereo vision. The dense disparity images of a region-based matching can be obtained at real time by using FPGA-based stereo processing system. Road surfaces are detected and the space to drive can be limited. A smoothing filter is also used. Owing to these, the accuracy of distance is improved. This system runs in real time. In the experiments, this system could detect forward obstacles 100 m away, and also it could immediately detect cutting-in objects.
Persuading student involvement via peripheral services offered

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of peripheral services offered by distance education (DE) institutes on student involvement in DE and, examine whether this impact is mediated by student experience quality. Design/methodology/approach Quantitative research approach based on cross-sectional survey design was used where data were collected using a structured questionnaire. Sample consisted of 400 undergraduates of the Open University of Sri Lanka, drawn using simple random sampling technique. Collected data were analyzed using the structural equation model. Findings Data analysis revealed that there is a significant direct impact of peripheral services offered by DE institutes on student involvement in the Sri Lankan context. Furthermore, it is validated that this impact is mediated by student experience quality. Research limitations/implications Focus of the study is only on the impact of contextual elements rather than personal or demographic factors of students which can have an important impact on their experience quality as well as involvement. Practical implications Findings are useful in designing and redesigning service offering and policy development by DE institutes to make their services more appealing. Originality/value Even though previous studies have identified student dropout and lower academic excellence as issues in DE, how service offering can be used to overcome them via student involvement has not received considerable attention. Hence, the tested conceptual model developed on multiple theories is a novel contribution to the existing knowledge base.