Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Efficient and Stable Routing Algorithm Based on User Mobility and Node Density in Urban Vehicular Network

Vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) are considered an emerging technology in the industrial and educational fields. This technology is essential in the deployment of the intelligent transportation system, which is targeted to improve safety and efficiency of traffic. The implementation of VANETs can be effectively executed by transmitting data among vehicles with the use of multiple hops. However, the intrinsic characteristics of VANETs, such as its dynamic network topology and intermittent connectivity, limit data delivery. One particular challenge of this network is the possibility that the contributing node may only remain in the network for a limited time. Hence, to prevent data loss from that node, the information must reach the destination node via multi-hop routing techniques. An appropriate, efficient, and stable routing algorithm must be developed for various VANET applications to address the issues of dynamic topology and intermittent connectivity. Therefore, this paper proposes a novel routing algorithm called efficient and stable routing algorithm based on user mobility and node density (ESRA-MD). The proposed algorithm can adapt to significant changes that may occur in the urban vehicular environment. This algorithm works by selecting an optimal route on the basis of hop count and link duration for delivering data from source to destination, thereby satisfying various quality of service considerations. The validity of the proposed algorithm is investigated by its comparison with ARP-QD protocol, which works on the mechanism of optimal route finding in VANETs in urban environments. Simulation results reveal that the proposed ESRA-MD algorithm shows remarkable improvement in terms of delivery ratio, delivery delay, and communication overhead.
The impact of multiple impairments on disability in community-dwelling older people.

INTRODUCTION we have tested the hypothesis that the co-occurrence of common impairments (motor and cognitive impairments, vision and hearing loss, depressive symptoms) of later life have exacerbating effects on disability [activities and instrumental activities of daily living, social and role function, (in)activity]. METHOD data were drawn from a community-based sample of 624 people aged 57 and older. RESULTS motor impairments and depressive symptoms were associated with all disability measures, even when the effects of other impairments, age and gender were controlled. This indicates independent, predominant effects of motor impairments and depressive symptoms. Although several significant first-order interaction effects (indicating exacerbation) of impairments on disability were found, they were not very strong, but vision and hearing losses exacerbate the impact of the other impairments on disability. CONCLUSIONS impairments, particularly motor impairments and depressive symptoms, largely act 'solo', by main effects on disability. Only a few combinations including vision or hearing loss further exacerbate the effects of other impairments on disability.
Toward a Framework for Localisation of Product Software across Organisational Boundaries

Distributed agile development (DAD) is a current trend for software development. It uses agile practices to promote iteration and flexibility in the distributed development of software projects. DAD involves a software vendor and their customers working together, leading to an overlap between their organisations. In this report, which is a progress report submitted for continuation towards a PhD, we introduce the agile software development and propose a framework for the localisation of software products across organisational and cultural boundaries. The framework addresses and accommodates the key components of the area between software vendors and customers. Our approach is useful in that it helps project managers, stakeholders and developers to understand the correlations and critical factors associated with customers and software vendors. This framework tries to cover all the important aspects of the development of agile software across distributed organisational cultures instead of focusing on a specific aspect such as project management.
Astrin is required for the maintenance of sister chromatid cohesion and centrosome integrity

Faithful chromosome segregation in mitosis requires the formation of a bipolar mitotic spindle with stably attached chromosomes. Once all of the chromosomes are aligned, the connection between the sister chromatids is severed by the cysteine protease separase. Separase also promotes centriole disengagement at the end of mitosis. Temporal coordination of these two activities with the rest of the cell cycle is required for the successful completion of mitosis. In this study, we report that depletion of the microtubule and kinetochore protein astrin results in checkpoint-arrested cells with multipolar spindles and separated sister chromatids, which is consistent with untimely separase activation. Supporting this idea, astrin-depleted cells contain active separase, and separase depletion suppresses the premature sister chromatid separation and centriole disengagement in these cells. We suggest that astrin contributes to the regulatory network that controls separase activity.
Gates: A Graphical Notation for Mixture Models

Gates are a new notation for representing mixture models and context-sensitive independence in factor graphs. Factor graphs provide a natural representation for message-passing algorithms, such as expectation propagation. However, message passing in mixture models is not well captured by factor graphs unless the entire mixture is represented by one factor, because the message equations have a containment structure. Gates capture this containment structure graphically, allowing both the independences and the message-passing equations for a model to be readily visualized. Different variational approximations for mixture models can be understood as different ways of drawing the gates in a model. We present general equations for expectation propagation and variational message passing in the presence of gates.
Multisensor Based Indoor Vehicle Localization System for Production and Logistic

In this paper a multisensor based indoor vehicle localization system for production and logistics is introduced. To track the position and the orientation of a moving vehicle a set of distance values to several points on the vehicle is measured by a wireless ranging system. The beacons of the wireless system are mounted at known positions in the surrounding infrastructure. It is shown that conventional multilateralization is not very practical to solve the required positioning task. In order to match the complete geometry of the forklift to a set of measured distance data, a heuristic nonlinear optimization method is applied. With our novel approach it is possible to solve the complex underlying transformation problem and to calculate the position and angle of the forklift for nearly arbitrary measuring conditions. The achieved accuracy is optimal in the least squares sense. For situations where the wireless access to the vehicle is disturbed, the localization system is assisted by data from a laser scanner. By matching subsequent scans relative movements of the vehicle are be determined precisely. The fusion of an optical relative sensors and a wireless absolute localization system allows for a flexible and steady control of transportation processes even in complex and dynamically changing environments
Open-Domain Web-Based List Question Answering with LX-ListQuestion

Research in the field of Question Answering (QA) has experienced many advances. However, the development of QA systems continues to be a challenging task. We present a QA Web Application, LX-ListQuestion that focuses on answering list questions where the answers are extracted and composed from several documents retrieved from the Web. The system exploits the redundancy of information available in the Web, combined with word occurrence patterns to improve QA accuracy. Answers are presented in the form of a Word Cloud that uses font size to depict relevance. This paper addresses the main problems that must be dealt with when answering list questions and describes the architecture of the system. We also present an experimental evaluation using a set of questions from QA competition.
The evolution of file carving

Presents the evolution of file carving and describes in detail the techniques that are now being used to recover files without using any file system meta-data information. We show the benefits and problems that exist with current techniques. In the future, solid-state devices (SSDs) will become much more prevalent. SSDs will incorporate wear-leveling, which results in files being moved around so as to not allow some clusters to be written to more than others. This is done because after a certain amount of writes a cluster will fail and, therefore, the SSD controller will attempt to spread the write load across all clusters in the disk. As a result, SSDs will be naturally fragmented, and should the disk controller fail the clusters on the disk will require file carving techniques to recover. There is a lot of research yet to be done in this area for data recovery. Finally, while Pal et. al's techniques are useful for recovering text and images, new weighting techniques need to be created for video, audio, executable and other file formats, thus allowing the recovery to extend to those formats.
Younger supervisors, older subordinates: An organizational-level study of age differences, emotions, and performance

Summary Younger employees are often promoted into supervisory positions in which they then manage older subordinates. Do companies benefit or suffer when supervisors and subordinates have inverse age differences? In this study, we examine how average age differences between younger supervisors and older subordinates are linked to the emotions that prevail in the workforce, and to company performance. We propose that the average age differences determine how frequently older subordinates and their coworkers experience negative emotions, and that these emotion frequency levels in turn relate to company performance. The indirect relationship between age differences and performance occurs only if subordinates express their feelings toward their supervisor, but the association is neutralized if emotions are suppressed. We find consistent evidence for this theoretical model in a study of 61 companies with multiple respondents. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Effect of Nerve-Sparing Radical Prostatectomy on Urinary Continence in Patients With Preoperative Erectile Dysfunction

Purpose: We aimed to assess whether nerve-sparing radical prostatectomy (nsRP) is associated with improved recovery of urinary continence compared to non–nerve-sparing radical prostatectomy (nnsRP) in patients with localized prostate cancer and preoperative erectile dysfunction. Methods: A total of 360 patients with organ-confined prostate cancer and an International Index of Erectile Function score of less than 17 were treated with nsRP or nnsRP in Seoul St. Mary’s Hospital. Patients who received neoadjuvant or adjuvant androgen deprivation therapy or had a history of prostate-related surgery were excluded. Recovery of urinary continence was assessed at 0, 1, 3, 6, and 12 months. Postoperative recovery of continence was defined as zero pad usage. The association between nerve-sparing status and urinary continence was assessed by using univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses after controlling for known predictive factors. Results: Urinary continence recovered in 279 patients (77.5%) within the mean follow-up period of 22.5 months (range, 6–123 months). Recovery of urinary continence was reported in 74.6% and 86.4% of patients after nnsRP and nsRP, respectively, at 12 months (P=0.022). All groups had comparable perioperative criteria and had no significant preoperative morbidities. Age, American Society of Anesthesiologists score, and nerve-sparing status were significantly associated with recovery of urinary continence on univariate analysis. On multivariate analysis, age (hazard ratio [HR], 1.254; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.002–1.478; P=0.026) and nerve-sparing status (HR, 0.713; 95% CI, 0.548–0.929; P=0.012) were independently associated with recovery of urinary continence. Conclusions: nsRP, as compared to nnsRP, improves recovery rates of urinary incontinence and decreases surgical morbidity without compromising pathologic outcomes.
“At-Risk” Rural Middle-School Students’ Perceptions of Problem-Based Learning in Mathematics

Middle-grade students who fail math have at least a three-in-four chance of dropping out of high school (Neild & Balfanz, 2006). Furthermore, these students, especially female students, at risk of failure in mathematics and consequent dropout, may not be well served by traditional teaching methods because of their inequitable instructional practices (Lerner & Sadker, 1999). This case study of eight seventh-grade students from a rural school in Georgia sought to gain insight into whether PBL (problem-based learning) was perceived to be an effective teaching method for “atrisk” middle-school mathematics students and female students in particular. The goals of the study were to investigate and identify the thematic perceptions of “at-risk” seventh-grade students after their experience with PBL and determine gender influences on their perceptions. The results of the study revealed that PBL effectively met the perceived learning and motivational needs of the “at-risk” students and provided an equitable method of teaching for both the female and male students but for different reasons. Educational recommendations are provided to enhance further the implementation of PBL for “at-risk” mathematics students, especially female students. INDEX WORDS: Problem-Based Learning, STEM, Students At Risk, Gender Differences “AT-RISK” RURAL MIDDLE-SCHOOL STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF PROBLEMBASED LEARNING IN MATHEMATICS by DEBORAH ANN BOWERS B.S., Jones College, 1992 M.A.T, Augusta State University, 2009 Ed. S. , Augusta State University, 2010 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Georgia Southern in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF EDUCATION STATESBORO, GEORGIA
A cognitive perspective on software development methods: the case of extreme programming

One of the main dilemmas with which software development teams face is how to choose a software development method that suits the team as well as the organization. This short paper suggests an approach that may help in this process. Specifically, Extreme Programming (XP) is analyzed from a cognitive perspective. We suggest that such an analysis can support software development processes.
Series compensator based on cascaded transformers coupled with three-phase bridge converters

This paper proposes a multilevel series compensator (MSC) to deal with: (i) voltage sags/swells, (ii) harmonic compensation or (iii) reactive power compensation. Such a device can be considered as a dynamic voltage restorer (DVR) or a series active power filter (Series-APF). The MSC can improve the power-quality of loads located in stiff systems. The configuration is based on three-phase bridge (TPB) converters connected by means of cascaded single-phase transformers. This arrangement permits to use a single dc-link. A generalization for K-stages in which K-transformers are coupled with K-TPB converters, is presented. The topology permits to generate a high number of levels in the voltage waveforms with a low number of power switches. The multilevel waveforms are generated by the converters through a suitable PWM strategy that takes into consideration the transformer turns ratios. Modularity and simple maintenance makes proposed MSC an attractive solution compared to some conventional configurations. Model, PWM strategy and overall control are discussed in this paper. Simulation and experimental results are presented.
Fabrication of Bendable Circuits on a Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) Surface by Inkjet Printing Semi-Wrapped Structures

In this work, an effective method was developed to fabricate bendable circuits on a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) surface by inkjet printing semi-wrapped structures. It is demonstrated that the precured PDMS liquid film could influence the depositing morphology of coalesced silver precursor inkjet droplets. Accordingly, continuous and uniform lines with a semi-wrapped structure were fabricated on the PDMS surface. When the printed silver precursor was reduced to Ag nanoparticles, the fabricated conductive film exhibited good transparency and high bendability. This work presented a facile way to fabricate flexible patterns on a PDMS surface without any complicated modification or special equipment. Meanwhile, an in situ hydrazine reduction of Ag has been reported using the vapor phase method in the fabricating process.
Human Movement Detection and Idengification Using Pyroelectric Infrared Sensors

Pyroelectric infrared (PIR) sensors are widely used as a presence trigger, but the analog output of PIR sensors depends on several other aspects, including the distance of the body from the PIR sensor, the direction and speed of movement, the body shape and gait. In this paper, we present an empirical study of human movement detection and idengification using a set of PIR sensors. We have developed a data collection module having two pairs of PIR sensors orthogonally aligned and modified Fresnel lenses. We have placed three PIR-based modules in a hallway for monitoring people; one module on the ceiling; two modules on opposite walls facing each other. We have collected a data set from eight subjects when walking in three different conditions: two directions (back and forth), three distance intervals (close to one wall sensor, in the middle, close to the other wall sensor) and three speed levels (slow, moderate, fast). We have used two types of feature sets: a raw data set and a reduced feature set composed of amplitude and time to peaks; and passage duration extracted from each PIR sensor. We have performed classification analysis with well-known machine learning algorithms, including instance-based learning and support vector machine. Our findings show that with the raw data set captured from a single PIR sensor of each of the three modules, we could achieve more than 92% accuracy in classifying the direction and speed of movement, the distance interval and idengifying subjects. We could also achieve more than 94% accuracy in classifying the direction, speed and distance and idengifying subjects using the reduced feature set extracted from two pairs of PIR sensors of each of the three modules.
A new general framework for shot boundary detection and key-frame extraction

Video shot boundary detection is an important step in many video applications. Since the rapid development of video editing technology, especially, the extensive use of sub-window in news video, the original method of video segmentation cannot efficiently detect the video shot boundary caused by special video technique. In this paper, previous temporal multi-resolution analysis (TMRA) work was extended by first using SVM (Supported Vector Machines) classify the video frames within a sliding window into normal frames, gradual transition frames and CUT frames, then clustering the classified frames into different shot categories. The experimental result on ground truth, which has about 21 hours (10,250 shots) news video clip, shows that the new framework has relatively good accuracy for the detection of shot boundaries. It basically resolves the difficulties of shot boundaries detection caused by sub-window technique in video. The framework also greatly improves accuracy of gradual transitions of shot.
Modeling the effects of nanoparticles on neuronal cells: From ionic channels to network dynamics

Engineered nanoparticles (NPs) offer great application potential in various fields, for example the chemical industry, energy management or medical sciences. Nanoparticles are increasingly being incorporated into daily products. But what happens, if living organisms are exposed to those NPs? Their ability to move seemingly barrier-free in organic tissue could be both beneficial and harmful. Even though research concerning nanotoxicity has already begun, there are still many open questions to be addressed. In this report, we propose a computational model applying the steady-state Hodgkin-Huxley-equations and the Differential Evolution Algorithm for fitting the model to the data of patch-clamp measurements carried out by our group: Coated silvernanoparticles (Ag-Nano) in different concentrations were applied to single chromaffin cells while measuring the ionic currents in the whole-cell configuration. Compared to controls, significant differences in sodium-currents were observed after the application of NPs. Using the computational model, we could evaluate the parameters which model the change in behavior of neuronal cells due to the addition of Ag-Nano. This can ultimately give insight to underlying mechanisms. An integration to model the dynamic behavior of neuronal networks exposed to NP is easily conceivable using this technique.
Depressive realism in relation to judgment of control and future life events and a test of the hopelessness theory of depression

The present study aimed to clarify the position of the cognitive theories of depression for some of the asssumed differences between the depressed and nondepressed individuals and also to investigate the hypotheses derived from the hopelessness theory of depression. These differences were related to judgment of control and future life events. [Continues. ]
The Design of a 17 . 35 GHz LNA and Mixer

The performance of radio-frequency integrated circuit (RFIC) blocks such as low noise amplifiers (LNA) or mixers is enhanced by achieving a simultaneous noise and power match at the input. This paper presents a design strategy for achieving this match for circuits built from bipolar transistors with inductive degeneration. The strategy is applied to the design of a 17.35 GHz LNA and a 17.35 GHz direct down-conversion mixer. Simulated results with extracted parasitics show a simultaneous noise and power match for both the LNA and mixer. The results for these two components are compared with those previously published by other authors.
Analysis of Gene‐Expression Data Using J‐Express

The J‐Express package has been designed to facilitate the analysis of microarray data with an emphasis on efficiency, usability, and comprehensibility. The J‐Express system provides a powerful and integrated platform for the analysis of microarray gene expression data. It is platform‐independent in that it requires only the availability of a Java virtual machine on the system. The system includes a range of analysis tools and a project management system supporting the organization and documentation of an analysis project. This unit describes the J‐Express tool, emphasizing central concepts and principles, and gives examples of how it can be used to explore gene expression data sets. Curr. Protoc. Bioinform. 21:7.3. 1‐7.3. 25. © 2008 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Space Alignment for Cognitive Transmission in MIMO Uplink Channels

This paper investigates a new transmission technique for cognitive access in multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) uplink channels with waterfilling power allocation- (WPA-) based primary transmission. The proposed technique allows a cognitive node to access the common destination simultaneously with the primary node, without affecting the MIMO primary performance. By using an appropriate precoding design, the cognitive node aligns its transmitted signal to the unused primary eigenmodes and ensures an orthogonality between the primary and the cognitive links. In order to overcome the limitation of the conventional WPA at high signal-to-noise ratios, a modified WPA enables the primary node to release some eigenmodes in order to provide a positive cognitive rate for all the cases.