Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Radial Basis Collocation Method for the Solution of Differential-difference Equations

In this paper, the aim is to solve the differential-difference equations using a radial basis collocation method. We present the advantages and improvement of using the proposed method for solving differential-difference equations. Some experiments are also employed to illustrate the validity and flexibility of the proposed method even where the data points are scattered. 2010 mathematics subject classification: 65L10 • 65N55
Recent Advances in Decellularization and Recellularization for Tissue-Engineered Liver Grafts

Liver transplantation from deceased or living human donors remains the only proven option for patients with end-stage liver disease. However, the shortage of donor organs is a significant clinical concern that has led to the pursuit of tissue-engineered liver grafts generated from decellularized liver extracellular matrix and functional cells. Investigative efforts on optimizing both liver decellularization and recellularization protocols have been made in recent decades. In the current review, we briefly summarize these advances, including the generation of high-quality liver extracellular matrix scaffolds, evaluation criteria for quality control, modification of matrix for enhanced properties, and reseeding strategies. These efforts to optimize the methods of decellularization and recellularization lay the groundwork towards generating a transplantable, human-sized liver graft for the treatment of patients with severe liver disease.
Zur Erfassung von Schuld und Scham bei Kindern und Jugendlichen

Test of Self-Conscious Affect for Children and Adolescents (TOSCA-C/A). Test zur Erfassung selbstwertbezogener Emotionen für Kinder und Jugendliche (TESE-KJ) Test of Self-Conscious Affect for Children and Adolescents (TOSCA-C/A). TOSCA-C/A
ICA-based super resolution pulse compression algorithm incorporated by MUSIC algorithm

Pulse compression promises higher range resolution in radar systems while avoiding high instantaneous power transmission. For super-high-resolution estimation of the time of arrival, multiple-signal classification (MUSIC) has been already proposed. However, this method suffers severely from accuracy distortion or low resolution when a number of highly correlated interference signals are mixed in the same range gate. As a solution to this problem, we propose a novel pulse compression algorithm by incorporating independent component analysis, which is a powerful tools for blind signal separation, into MUSIC. Numerical simulation shows that the proposed method achieves higher range resolution and accuracy than conventional MUSIC, particularly for lower signal-to-noise ratios.
Trace amines depress D2‐autoreceptor‐mediated responses on midbrain dopaminergic cells

Background and purpose: Although trace amines (TAs) are historically considered ‘false neurotransmitters’ on the basis of their ability to induce catecholamine release, there is evidence that they directly affect neuronal activity via TA receptors, ligand‐gated receptor channels and/or σ receptors. Here, we have investigated the effects of two TAs, tyramine (TYR) and β‐phenylethylamine (β‐PEA), on electrophysiological responses of substantia nigra pars compacta (SNpc) dopaminergic cells to the D2 receptor agonist, quinpirole.
On Acquiescence and Ends-Less War: An Inquiry into the New War Rhetoric

Our nation faces a number of grave problems today, but none is more dangerous to democracy than war. War saps resources, destroys bodies, and perverts public discussion. Of course, war is nothing new in the United States. Our nation is founded on the rhetoric of enemyship, and thus one hears distant roar of today’s violent rhetoric in the founding documents of the United States. What is new is the length and cost, both human and economic, of the various wars occurring under the openended umbrella of the ‘‘war on terror,’’ a conflict of perpetual exception with neither definite rhetorical boundaries nor a foreseeable end. The ongoing war in Afghanistan is the longest war in American history. Over 2,000 soldiers have died, and more than 68,000 have been wounded. The war has cost nearly $1.2 trillion, according to the US Department of Defense. The UN estimates that nearly 13,000 civilians have died in Afghanistan. The US invaded Iraq in 2003 and removed most of its remaining troops in December 2011. Iraq Body Count estimates that between 110,000 and 120,000 civilians died during the US war in Iraq, though this might be a terrible underestimate by hundreds of thousands. The Wall Street Journal projects that the Iraq War will cost US taxpayers $4 trillion, including the ever-accelerating health care costs for returning veterans. In sum, as The Christian Science monitor points out, the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is greater than the cost of World War II. These wars, along with military action in Pakistan, Yemen, and Libya have US defense spending near all-time highs, doubling from 2001 to 2008: in 2011, 20 percent of the federal budget was spent on ‘‘defense’’ ($718 billion). Turning away from the monetized discourses of neo-liberalism, we can already see that the human costs of war are of themselves unacceptable. Rhetorical critics must describe and ultimately demystify the discourses justifying war. We must do this not merely to exercise our critical chops but instead to instruct
Knowledge system for dropout prevention

About 9 per cent of the students in Israel drop out of school. Attendance officers, who are appointed to enforce education attendance laws, and other decision makers have to deal with many dropout cases with limited resources, leading to sub optimal or even wrong solutions. In contrast, creative, successful solutions adopted by one attendance officer, are not shared by others, since there is no system (manual or computational) that accumulates knowledge. In this work, we present a knowledge management model, developed for supporting attendance officers, that is based on problem solving according to precedents. The model was tested in lab settings with 12 attendance officers, each solving 6 problems, and was found to have remarkable potential for improving attendance officers' work and their understanding and perception of their work. The system developed is easy to use and can be easily deployed in real settings.
Comparisons between artificial neural networks and fuzzy logic models in forecasting general examinations results

MARA Junior Science College (MRSM) Lenggong is one of the educational institutes under Majlis Amanah Rakyat (MARA). Based on the current academic performance and selected criteria of 6A's in the Penilaian Menengah Rendah (PMR, now it is known as PT3), rationally there should be no reason for the failure to achieve excellent results in the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM). However, every time the results are announced, the average school achievement grade (GPS) does not meet the performance goals of an average grade of 1.00 for PMR and below 2.00 for SPM, even though it has been in operation for 10 years. Therefore, this research aimed at identifying the influencing factors that affected the students' academic performance. Early prediction is one of the strategies performed in order to improve the students' performance. Neural network and fuzzy logic models are used to realize the accurate prediction based on three factors namely demography, academic and co-curricular activities, including a combination of all three factors. Demography, academic and co-curricular information for the year 2008 to 2010 SPM candidates of MRSM Lenggong are the data sample used. It can be concluded that the prediction outcome using the neural network model shows that the academic factor influences the students' academic performance with the prediction accuracy around 93.65%. Meanwhile, the fuzzy logic model gives an opposite result, where the students' academic performance has also been influenced by the demography factor with an accuracy of 87.00%. Although different techniques yield different results, it is undeniable that the combination of demography and academic factors establishes a solid outcome in identifying the students' present and future academic performances.
Blind blockiness measure based on marginal distribution of wavelet coefficient and saliency

The objective measurement of blockiness plays an important role in many applications, such as the quality assessment of an image, and the design of image and video coding system. However, most of the existing no-reference blockiness metrics do not consider important influences of grid distortion of an image on the performance of the metric. In this paper, we propose a new blockiness metric, which is robust to grid distortion, based on the marginal distribution of local wavelet coefficients and saliency information. Experiments for several public image databases showed that the proposed metric provides consistent correlations with subjective blockiness scores and outperforms other existing no-reference blockiness metrics.
On the Boundary Conditions of Effort Losses and Effort Gains in Action Teams

While people’s willingness to work hard can be reduced in teams (i.e., effort losses in teams as compared with individual work), it is less recognized that teamwork can also stimulate additional efforts (i.e., effort gains). Building on and extending existing theory, we (a) suggest an integration of these two research streams, and (b) provide evidence for team-related effort gains in action teams. In a first study, we tested our predictions by reanalyzing a field data set of 302,576 swimming performances in individual and relay races (Neugart & Richiardi, 2013). Consistent with our hypotheses, we observed a linear increase in effort across the relay. The first relay swimmers showed effort losses in the relay as compared with the individual competition whereas the remaining relay swimmers showed effort gains. However, this was only evident (a) when team members could realistically expect meaningful team outcomes in return for their performance, and (b) when the valence of these outcomes was equivalent to individual competitions. If such favorable conditions were not given, we found effort losses in team as compared with individual competitions at all relay positions. Results of a second study (N = 228) showed that the linear increase in effort across the relay was indeed attributable to the team members’ serial position and not to their relative strength. Together, the studies demonstrate the motivating potential of teamwork even in the high performance contexts of action teams, such as competitive sports relays, where athletes are already highly motivated in their individual competitions.
Semantic business process management: a vision towards using semantic Web services for business process management

Business process management (BPM) is the approach to manage the execution of IT-supported business operations from a business expert's view rather than from a technical perspective. However, the degree of mechanization in BPM is still very limited, creating inertia in the necessary evolution and dynamics of business processes, and BPM does not provide a truly unified view on the process space of an organization. We trace back the problem of mechanization of BPM to an ontological one, i.e. the lack of machine-accessible semantics, and argue that the modeling constructs of semantic Web services frameworks, especially WSMO, are a natural fit to creating such a representation. As a consequence, we propose to combine SWS and BPM and create one consolidated technology, which we call semantic business process management (SBPM)
Assessment of myocardial repolarisation parameters in patients with familial Mediterranean fever

Summary Background: Familial Mediterranean fever (FMF) is a chronic, recurrent auto-inflammatory disease characterised by self-terminating attacks of fever and sterile polyserositis. The main cause of death in auto-inflammatory diseasesis cardiovascular events. Additionally, auto-inflammatory diseases have potential effects on the myocardial repolarisation parameters, including the T-wave peak-to-end (Tp-Te) interval, cTp-Te interval (corrected Tp-Te) and the cTp-Te/ QT ratio. The aim of this study was to analyse the efficacy of myocardial repolarisation alterations in anticipation of cardiovascular risks in patients with FMF. Methods: This study included 66 patients with FMF and 58 healthy control subjects. Tp-Te and cTp-Te intervals and the cTp-Te/QT ratio were measured from the 12-lead electrocardiogram. Results: In electrocardiographic parameters, analysis of QT, QT dispersion, corrected QT (QTc) and QTc dispersion were similar between the groups. The Tp-Te and cTp-Te intervals and Tp-Te/QT and cTp-Te/QT ratios were significantly prolonged in FMF patients. Multivariate linear regression analyses indicated that erythrocyte sedimentation rate was an independent predictor of a prolonged cTp-Te interval. Conclusions: Our study revealed that when compared with control subjects, Tp-Te and cTp-Te intervals and cTp-Te/QT ratio were increased in FMF patients.
Capacity-Constrained Network-Voronoi Diagram

Given a graph and a set of service center nodes, a Capacity Constrained Network-Voronoi Diagram (CCNVD) partitions the graph into a set of contiguous service areas that meet service center capacities and minimize the sum of the shortest distances from graph-nodes to allotted service centers. The CCNVD problem is important for critical societal applications such as assigning evacuees to shelters and assigning patients to hospitals. This problem is NP-hard; it is computationally challenging because of the large size of the transportation network and the constraint that service areas must be contiguous in the graph to simplify communication of allotments. Previous work has focused on honoring either service area contiguity (e.g., Network Voronoi Diagrams) or service center capacity constraints (e.g., min-cost flow), but not both. Our preliminary work introduced a novel Pressure Equalizer (PE) approach for CCNVD to meet the capacity constraints of service centers while maintaining the contiguity of service areas. However, we find that the main bottleneck of the PE algorithm is testing whether service areas are contiguous. In this paper, we extend our previous work and propose novel algorithms that reduce the computational cost. Experiments using road maps from five different regions demonstrate that the proposed approaches significantly reduce computational cost for the PE approach.
A Comparison of OS Extension Technologies

The current trend in operating systems research is to allow applications to dynamically extend the kernel to improve application performance or extend functionality, but the most effective approach to extensibility remains unclear. Some systems use safe languages to permit code to be downloaded directly into the kernel; other systems provide in-kernel interpreters to execute extension code; still others use software techniques to ensure the safety of kernel extensions. The key characteristics that distinguish these systems are the philosophy behind extensibility and the technology used to implement extensibility. This paper presents a taxonomy of the types of extensions that might be desirable in an extensible operating system, evaluates the performance cost of various extension technologies currently being employed, and compares the cost of adding a kernel extension to the benefit of having the extension in the kernel. Our results show that compiled technologies (e.g. Modula-3 and software fault isolation) are good candidates for implementing general-purpose kernel extensions, but that the overhead of interpreted languages is sufficiently high that they are inappropriate for this use.
A Compilation of total cross-section data on e+ e- ---> hadrons and pQCD tests

All available data on the total cross sections and R-ratio of e + e − → hadrons are compiled from the PPDS (DataGuide), PPDS (ReacData) and HEPDATA (Reaction) databases and transformed to a compilation of data on the e + e − → quark quark → hadrons in the continuum region which can be used in tests of the parton model and pQCD calculations. This evaluated data compilation is made available in PPDS system and is accessible through the Web. It is shown that current predictions from the parton model and pQCD are well supported by this world “continuum” data compilation which can then be used in future refinements of the $ % � � � � � � � � � � � �������������������� � � � � � � � � � � �������������������� � � � � � � � � � � �������������������� � � � � � � � � � � �������������������� � � � � � � � � � � �������������������� � � � � � � � � � � �������������������� � � � � � � � � � � �������������������� � � � � � � � � � � �������������������� ' & ' & � � � �
WRKY76 is a rice transcriptional repressor playing opposite roles in blast disease resistance and cold stress tolerance

OsWRKY76 encodes a group IIa WRKY transcription factor of rice. The expression of OsWRKY76 was induced within 48h after inoculation with rice blast fungus (Magnaporthe oryzae), and by wounding, low temperature, benzothiadiazole, and abscisic acid. Green fluorescent protein-fused OsWRKY76 localized to the nuclei in rice epidermal cells. OsWRKY76 showed sequence-specific DNA binding to the W-box element in vitro and exhibited W-box-mediated transcriptional repressor activity in cultured rice cells. Overexpression of OsWRKY76 in rice plants resulted in drastically increased susceptibility to M. oryzae, but improved tolerance to cold stress. Microarray analysis revealed that overexpression of OsWRKY76 suppresses the induction of a specific set of PR genes and of genes involved in phytoalexin synthesis after inoculation with blast fungus, consistent with the observation that the levels of phytoalexins in the transgenic rice plants remained significantly lower than those in non-transformed control plants. Furthermore, overexpression of OsWRKY76 led to the increased expression of abiotic stress-associated genes such as peroxidase and lipid metabolism genes. These results strongly suggest that OsWRKY76 plays dual and opposing roles in blast disease resistance and cold tolerance.
The Multiple Determinants of Religious Behaviors and Spiritual Beliefs on Well-Being

The potential relationships among religious behaviors, spiritual beliefs, and well-being were investigated. Specifically, a canonical correlation analysis was used to explore the extent to which a set of religious and spiritual variables correlated with a set of well-being variables of general happiness, marital satisfaction, and physical health. The results demonstrated that the first two canonical dimensions Rc(1) = . 166 and Rc(2) = . 138, respectively, yielded noteworthy canonical correlations. The findings suggested important similarities and differences among various religious, spirituality, and well-being constructs that clearly warranted implications for counselors and other human service providers.
Development and validation of a short version of the Parental Authority Questionnaire

A short version of Buri’s (1991) 30-item Parental Authority Questionnaire (PAQ), a widely used measure of Baumrind’s (1971) model of authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive parenting styles, has been developed in this study. The participants were 3,025 middle and high school students from Oman. The sample was randomly divided into 2 subsamples. The first sample (N = 1,504) was used for the development of the short version, and the second sample (N = 1,521) served as the validation sample. The results indicate that a reduced 20-item PAQ fit the data better than the 30-item PAQ. The short version evidenced adequate validity and internal consistency. It was discussed and confirmed that the short version of the PAQ utilizes Baumrind’s model of parenting styles as well as the original long version of the PAQ, and functions appropriately. This result is consistent with previous research.
Dialogue act annotation for consulting dialogue corpus

This paper introduces a new corpus of consulting dialogues, which is designed for training a dialogue manager that can handle consulting dialogues through spontaneous interactions from the tagged dialogue corpus. We have collected 130 h of consulting dialogues in the tourist guidance domain. This paper outlines our taxonomy of dialogue act annotation that can describe two aspects of an utterances: the communicative function (speech act), and the semantic content of the utterance. We provide an overview of the Kyoto tour guide dialogue corpus and a preliminary analysis using the dialogue act tags.
Rapid Adaptation Induces Persistent Biases in Population Codes for Visual Motion

Each visual experience changes the neural response to subsequent stimuli. If the brain is unable to incorporate these encoding changes, the decoding, or perception, of subsequent stimuli is biased. Although the phenomenon of adaptation pervades the nervous system, its effects have been studied mainly in isolation, based on neuronal encoding changes induced by an isolated, prolonged stimulus. To understand how adaptation-induced biases arise and persist under continuous, naturalistic stimulation, we simultaneously recorded the responses of up to 61 neurons in the marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) middle temporal area to a sequence of directions that changed every 500 ms. We found that direction-specific adaptation following only 0.5 s of stimulation strongly affected encoding for up to 2 s by reducing both the gain and the spike count correlations between pairs of neurons with preferred directions close to the adapting direction. In addition, smaller changes in bandwidth and preferred direction were observed in some animals. Decoding individual trials of adaptation-affected activity in simultaneously recorded neurons predicted repulsive biases that are consistent with the direction aftereffect. Surprisingly, removing spike count correlations by trial shuffling did not impact decoding performance or bias. When adaptation had the largest effect on encoding, the decoder made the most errors. This suggests that neural and perceptual repulsion is not a mechanism to enhance perceptual performance but is instead a necessary consequence of optimizing neural encoding for the identification of a wide range of stimulus properties in diverse temporal contexts. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Although perception depends upon decoding the pattern of activity across a neuronal population, the encoding properties of individual neurons are unreliable: a single neuron's response to repetitions of the same stimulus is variable, and depends on both its spatial and temporal context. In this manuscript, we describe the complete cascade of adaptation-induced effects in sensory encoding and show how they predict population decoding errors consistent with perceptual biases. We measure the time course of adaptation-induced changes to the response properties of neurons in isolation, and to the correlation structure across pairs of simultaneously recorded neurons. These results provide novel insight into how and for how long adaptation affects the neural code, particularly during continuous, naturalistic vision.