Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Real time Wireless Sensor Network for building automation applications: A simulation study and practical implementation

In recent years, Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is considered as a potential solution for real time applications in industrial automatic control. However, there are several challenges to develop real time WSN due to its wireless nature, limited resources (power, processing and memory), low node reliability and dynamic network topology. Several researches have been carried out, but there has been little discussion about practical design and implementation of real time WSN in building automation system. This paper describes a simulation study and practical implementation of real time WSN for controlling and monitoring system in multi-storey building environment. A prototype building automation system using Microchip ZigBee WSN was developed with more than thirty sensor nodes and controlling nodes has been developed and tested successfully in multi-storey building. We also discuss future improvements of our current implementation.
Evaluating the Impact of Increasing General Education Teachers’ Ratio of Positive-to-Negative Interactions on Students’ Classroom Behavior

The aim of this study was to isolate and evaluate the impact of increasing teachers’ ratios of positive-to-negative interactions with their students. Training teachers on the 5:1 ratio was evaluated using a randomized-block pre–post control design with general education classroom teachers (N = 6) that were characterized by a higher ratio of negative-to-positive interactions between students, as well as low academic engagement and high disruptive behaviors. Teachers in the intervention group were trained on the 5:1 ratio, instructed to wear a device that prompted them on a VI 5-min schedule to deliver specific praise, approval statements, and positive non-verbal gestures to specific students exhibiting expected behaviors or the entire class as a whole, and completing a self-monitoring chart to increase their awareness of their ratios. Results revealed that students in the intervention group displayed significantly fewer disruptive behavior problems and higher academic engaged time when compared with students in control classrooms. Social validity results also revealed that teachers found the strategy feasible, acceptable, and effective. Limitations of this research, including the small-scale nature of this study, and future directions for teacher training, retention, and schoolwide universal prevention are discussed.
Increased fetal DNA concentrations in the plasma of pregnant women carrying fetuses with trisomy 21.

BACKGROUND The recent discovery of the presence of circulating cell-free fetal DNA in maternal plasma opens up new prenatal diagnostic applications and provides new avenues for clinical investigation. It is of research and potential diagnostic interest to determine whether fetal trisomy 21 may be associated with quantitative abnormalities of circulating fetal DNA in maternal plasma. METHODS Maternal plasma samples were prospectively collected from two centers situated in Hong Kong and Boston. Samples collected from Boston consisted of 7 women carrying male trisomy 21 fetuses, 19 carrying euploid male fetuses, and 13 carrying female fetuses. Samples collected from Hong Kong consisted of 6 women carrying male trisomy 21 fetuses, 18 carrying euploid male fetuses, and 10 carrying female fetuses. Male fetal DNA in maternal plasma was measured using real-time quantitative Y-chromosomal PCR. RESULTS For patients recruited from Boston, the median circulating fetal DNA concentrations in women carrying trisomy 21 and euploid male fetuses were 46.0 genome-equivalents/mL and 23.3 genome-equivalents/mL, respectively (P = 0.028). For patients recruited from Hong Kong, the median circulating fetal DNA concentrations in women carrying trisomy 21 and euploid male fetuses were 48.2 genome-equivalents/mL and 16.3 genome-equivalents/mL, respectively (P = 0.026). None of the samples from women carrying female fetuses had detectable Y-chromosomal signals. CONCLUSIONS Abnormally high concentrations of circulating fetal DNA are found in a proportion of women carrying fetuses with trisomy 21. The robustness and reproducibility of real-time PCR analysis of maternal plasma makes it a valuable tool for cross-institutional collaboration involving centers located in different parts of the world.
Travel Time Reliability-Based Optimal Path Finding

A heuristic solution algorithm for travel time reliability-based path finding problem is proposed in this paper. Due to network uncertainties, the travel times are not deterministic and suffer from fluctuations. Under this circumstance, traditional optimal path methods based on least expected travel time can not capture the network user’s risk-taking behaviors in path finding. In reorganization of this limitation, the definition of effective travel time is introduced to take into account travel time reliability issue. Then, the optimal path defined in this paper is to find the path with minimum effective travel time. Due to the non-additive property of the effective travel time, the optimal path is difficult to find unless enumerate all the paths. To avoid path enumeration while finding the optimal path, the k-shortest paths algorithm is adopted to generate a path set by iterations. This path set is generated in an attempt to include the optimal path. Then, the optimal path can be easily found in such path set. A numerical example is carried out to show the applications and efficiency of the proposed algorithm.
Protocol for a prospective, multicentre registry study of stenting for symptomatic intracranial artery stenosis in China

Introduction The SAMMPRIS trial suggested that aggressive treatment was superior to endovascular stenting in patients with severe symptomatic intracranial atherosclerotic stenosis (ICAS) due to high complication rates in patients in the stenting group. Given that 12.2% patients failed aggressive medical therapy in the SAMMPRIS study, it is imperative to perform a multicentre prospective registry study of stenting for patients with ICAS in China. This study aims to evaluate the safety and efficacy of endovascular stenting for patients with symptomatic intracranial artery stenosis and poor collaterals in China and to identify the characteristics of the population that would benefit the most from endovascular stenting in Chinese patients. Methods and analysis This multicentre prospective registry study will involve 20 stroke centres in China, and plans to recruit 300 patients into the registry. Patients with ≥70% stenosis and symptomatic intracranial atherosclerotic disease caused by hypoperfusion combined with poor collaterals who met the inclusion criteria and exclusion criteria would be enrolled for this study. The primary outcome is the target vessel stroke event (including haemorrhagic or ischaemic stroke) or death within 30 days after stenting. The secondary outcomes include the successful recanalisation rate, the incidence of recurrent ischaemic stroke in the territory of the stented artery between 30 days and 1 year postoperatively, the restenosis rate and health-related quality of life. Ethics and dissemination The protocol is approved by the ethics committee at the coordinating centre and by the local institutional review board at each participating centre. Findings will be shared with participating hospitals, policymakers and the academic community to promote quality monitoring, quality improvement and the efficient allocation and use of cerebral catheterisation and intracranial artery stenting in China. Trial registration number http://www.clinicaltrials. gov (NCT01968122).
Programming with agents: new metaphors for thinking about computation

Computer programming environments for learning should make it easy to create worlds of responsive and autonomous objects, such as video games or simulations of animal behavior. But building such worlds remains difficult, partly because the models and metaphors underlying traditional programming languages are not particularly suited to the task. This dissertation investigates new metaphors, environments, and languages that make possible new ways to create programs -and, more broadly, new ways to think about programs. In particular, it introduces the idea of programming with “agents” as a means to help people create worlds involving responsive, interacting objects. In this context, an agent is a simple mechanism intended to be understood through anthropomorphic metaphors and endowed with certain lifelike properties such as autonomy, purposefulness, and emotional state. Complex behavior is achieved by combining simple agents into more complex structures. While the agent metaphor enables new ways of thinking about programming, it also raises new problems such as interagent conflict and new tasks such as making the activity of a complex society of agents understandable to the user. To explore these ideas, a visual programming environment called LiveWorld has been developed that supports the creation of agent-based models, along with a series of agent languages that operate in this world.
A Semantic Wiki System Based on F-Logic

In this paper we present the TaOPis semantic wiki system based on F-Logic that we implemented. The system uses the FLORA-2 reasoning engine and supports the dynamic creation of queries in restricted FLORA-2 syntax. We show how we were able to apply a simple tagging system in order to support the creation of an object oriented ontology. In the end we give a comparison between other semantic wiki systems and the developed system as well as give guidelines for future research.
Real-Time Multi-Resolution Blob Tracking

Abstract : This paper introduces a new real-time blob tracking algorithm. Segmentation is the first step in many video analysis approaches. A number of successful segmentation techniques extract regions of interest, or blobs, in successive frames. the problem addressed here is that of establishing temporal relationships between blobs, without the use of domain-specific information. These relationships can then be analyzed at a higher semantic level. The proposed algorithm maintains a multi-resolution tracking graph that encodes, at each resolution, the temporal relationships of the blob detected in successive frames. As hypotheses generation, propagation and refinement approach allows to track not only large, slow blobs but also small, fast blobs. Tracking performance is illustrated on various simple application scenarios using a real-time implementation of an integrated segmentation and tracking systems. Blob tracking results are demonstrated on standard video surveillance datasets, as well as real-time ball (and player) tracking results in professional tennis and racquetball videos.
Design & Implementation of a Secure Sensitive Information System for Wireless Mobile Devices

Protecting sensitive information systems from security threats such as unauthorised access, information eavesdropping and information interfering, is significant. Most of the natural approaches employ strong authentication and/or cryptography systems to protect critical data. But those approaches do not stress on the potential amount of risks associated with sensitive information, especially the vulnerability of long term cryptographic keys. Therefore, in this paper, a secure sensitive information system is proposed and implemented based on a dynamic key generation technique. It associates with elliptic curve key exchange protocol as a design solution for wireless mobile devices to achieve critical information data security and network security.
Functional MR imaging of the cervical spinal cord by use of median nerve stimulation and fist clenching.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Findings of blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) functional MR (fMR) imaging of the cervical spinal cord, obtained by using a fist-clenching motor task, have been sporadically reported. Because spinal activation by sensory stimuli has a potential at least equal to that of fist clenching, its feasibility was assessed. Whether stimulation of the median nerve could evoke an fMR imaging response at 1.5 T in the cervical spinal cord was investigated, and the response pattern was compared with that obtained by fist clenching. METHODS A dynamic cardiac-gated T2*-weighted imaging sequence was used to quantify cervical spinal cord activation under two paradigms with different numbers of subjects. Seven subjects underwent electrical median nerve stimulation at the elbow sufficient to elicit a maximal compound muscle action potential in the flexor carpi radialis muscle. Eleven subjects performed self-paced fist clenching. Cord activation was measured in the sagittal and transverse imaging planes. RESULTS In the sagittal view, five of seven subjects had an fMR imaging response in the lower cervical spinal cord upon median nerve stimulation, whereas seven of 11 subjects showed activation with the fist-clenching task. Within the cord, the measured fMR imaging response level was approximately 8-15% with respect to the baseline signal level. In the transverse imaging plane, significant fMR imaging responses could be measured in only two of six and six of nine subjects with median nerve stimulation or fist clenching, respectively. A consistent cross-sectional localization of the activity measured in the spinal cord was not detected, either in terms of the right and left sides or in terms of the posterior and anterior directions. CONCLUSION In the sagittal plane, median nerve stimulation at the elbow can evoke an fMR imaging response in the lower cervical spinal cord. The activation pattern was comparable with that obtained by fist clenching. The localization of the segmental fMR imaging activation (C4 through T1) is consistent with the known functional neuroanatomy for both paradigms. In the transverse plane, reliable fMR imaging responses were obtained much less frequently, and assignment of distinct areas of the spinal cord to the stimulation methods used was not possible.
Predictability of bird community-based ecological integrity using landscape measurements.

A fundamental premise of landscape ecology is that finer-scaled local ecological integrity is directly influenced by larger-scaled land use patterns. Therefore, characterizing landscape patterns that are mapped from satellite imagery may provide valuable covariate information about average integrity “on the ground”. This conjecture was evaluated in Pennsylvania for 102 watersheds where land cover patterns were represented by an eight-category raster map that was based on 30-meter resolution LANDSAT TM images. For each watershed, a suite of conventional landscape variables was obtained (McGarigal and Marks, 1995), along with a “conditional entropy profile”, which is a new technique for quantifying landscape fragmentation pattern over multiple measurement resolutions (Johnson and Patil, 1998; Johnson, et al., 1999). Ecological integrity for each watershed was assessed from data in the Pennsylvania Breeding Bird Atlas (Brauning, 1992) by computing bird community indices (BCIs), first based on songbird guilds only, then based on a much larger set of guilds that incorporated all species
Machine Discovery in Chemistry: New Results

Earlier we proposed an idea for conjecturing unseen entities in science, and described its application within MECHEM to the chemistry task of inferring the mechanism of a chemical reaction based on experimental evidence. However, the program was a prototype, and lacked several capabilities that rendered it incompetent on current science. We now describe extensions that enable reasoning about the molecular structural transformations that are the focus of modern chemistry. We also report successful applications of MECHEM to chemical problems of current interest, and point out subsequent machine discovery work that the MECHEM project has strongly innuenced. These new results demonstrate the eecacy and generality of the original idea for machine discovery, and vindicate the research strategy of emphasizing speciic task competence and deferring concerns with generality.
An Analysis of Injection Locked Clocking with Ring Oscillators

In the recent years, injection locked clocking (ILC) has been proposed as a solution to the power and skew problems of high-speed clocking in mixed-signal VLSI systems and microprocessors. A number of ILC schemes have been proposed that use local oscillators based on LC-tanks and complex digital feedback systems, but these have proved impractical for area-constrained digital design. Here we explore the possibility of using current staved ring oscillators for ILC. We develop a simple analytic model for performing optimal sizing of conventional and ILRO clock trees. Through analytic and Cadence simulations, we find that ILROs consume about 4% more energy and have potentially 23% more delay than conventional clock trees.
Original Paper

We report a series of microarray-based leaf and crown transcriptome comparisons involving three barley cultivars (cvs. Luxor, Igri and Atlas 68) which express differing degrees of frost tolerance. The transcripts were obtained following the exposure of seedlings to low (above and below zero) temperatures, aiming to identify those genes and signalling/metabolic pathways which are associated with frost tolerance. Both the leaves and the crowns responded to low temperature by the up-regulation of a suite of abscisic acid (ABA)-responsive genes, most of which have already been recognized as components of the plant low temperature response. The inter-cultivar comparison indicated that genes involved in maintaining the leaf's capacity to synthesize protein and to retain chloroplast activity were important for the expression of frost tolerance. In the crown, the repression of genes associated with nu-cleosome assembly and transposon regulation were the most relevant transcriptional changes associated with frost tolerance, highlighting the role of gene repression in the cold acclimation response.
Relationship between epicardial fat and coronary microvascular dysfunction.

BACKGROUND Coronary microvascular dysfunction (CMVD) is often suggested in patients with typical chest pain and abnormal stress test results that are indicative of myocardial ischaemia, in whom coronary angiography fails to show fixed stenosis inepicardial coronary arteries. The efficacy of pharmacologic treatment on clinical outcome remains to be determined. AIM To determine the relationship between CMVD and epicardial fat thickness (EFT). METHODS A case-controlled study was conducted on 124 patients, aged 40-91 years. A matched set of 62 symptomatic and 62 asymptomatic patients underwent an exercise electrocardiogram and transthoracic echocardiography. Coronary angiography was performed in patients with abnormal exercise test results. Patients without coronary artery disease were considered for the study. EFT was measured by transthoracic echocardiography in all patients. RESULTS EFT was significantly higher in patients with positive exercise test results (but normal epicardial coronary arteries) compared to patients with negative exercise test results (p < 0.001). Additionally, the HDL-cholesterol level was significantly lower in patients with positive exercise test results (but normal epicardial coronary arteries) compared to patients with negative exercise test results (p < 0.0001). CONCLUSIONS Patients with increased EFT are at an increased risk for developing angina, recurrent hospitalisation and adverse outcomes, even with normal epicardial coronary arteries.
Effects of Media Channel, Crisis Type and Demographics on Audience Intent to Follow Instructing Information During Crisis

Media channel use during crisis is an underdeveloped area of crisis communication research. A thorough understanding of how and where people seek information during a crisis is central to effective crisis message strategy, and understanding how the media source of crisis information affects motivation to comply with crisis directives to audiences can further inform crisis management. A survey (N&#160;=&#160;454) examines how audiences use media during crisis communication and reveals that (1) people use different media for information seeking during different types of crisis, (2) among demographics, age predicts preferences in information channels during crisis and (3) crisis type and age shape the relationship between media choice and intent to follow recommended behaviours. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.
Evaluating semantic indexing techniques through cross-language fingerprinting

Users in search of on-line document sources are usually looking for content, not words. Hence, IR researchers generally agree that search techniques should be geared toward the meaning underlying documents rather than toward the text itself. The most visible examples of such techniques are Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA), and the Hyperspace Analog to Language (HAL). If these techniques really uncover semantic dependencies, then they should be applicable across languages. We investigated this using electronic versions of three kinds of translated material: a novel, a popular treatise about cosmology, and a data base of technical specifications. We used the analogy of fingerprinting used in forensics to establish if individuals are related. Genetic fingerprinting uses enzymes to split the DNA and then compare the resulting band patterns. Likewise, in our research we use queries to split a document into fragments. If a search technique really isolates fragments related to the query, then a document and its translation should have similar band patterns. In this paper we (1) present the fingerprinting technique, (2) introduce the material used, and (3) report preliminary results of an evaluation for two semantic indexing techniques.
Comparison of Electromagnetic Vibrator and Impact Coding Source

The geological structure in Jinchang deposit is deep and complicated,the traditional hammer and the explosive are not competent to the situation. Therefore,convenient and controllable vibrator is more applicable to metal deposits prospecting. To study the performance of the electromagnetic vibrator,the seismic group of Laboratory of geo-exploration and instrumentation of Ministry of Education in Jilin University carried out seismic method experiments in Jinchang copper-nickel mine.In this paper,we compared the time profiles of PHVS-500 electromagnetic vibrator and VIBSIST-50 impact coding source in Jinchang copper-nickel metal deposit.The results show that time profiles for two different sources are similar and comparable.It concludes that the electromagnetic vibrator we developed is effective in mineral deposit prospecting.
Optimal Control of Double Inverted Pendulum Using LQR Controller

Double Inverted Pendulum is a nonlinear system, unstable and fast reaction system. Double Inverted Pendulum is stable when its two pendulums allocated in vertically position and have no oscillation and movement and also inserting force should be zero. The aim of the paper is to design and performance analysis of the double inverted pendulum and simulation of Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR) controller. Main focus is to introduce how to built the mathematical model and the analysis of it's system performance, then design a LQR controller in order to get the much better control. Matlab simulations are used to show the efficiency and feasibility of proposed approach.