Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Thin Red Line between Indentured and Bonded Labour: Javanese Workers in New Caledonia in the Early 20th Century

This short article presents a relatively unknown historical experience of indentured labour having seen thousands of Javanese workers being sent from the end of the 19th century to the outbreak of WWII by the colonial authorities of the Netherlands Indies to New Caledonia, a French colony in the south-west Pacific. Being drawn from a comprehensive study of historical sociology written in French and published in 2006, it summarises the reasons behind this odd labour migration movement and focuses on the recruitment and working conditions of these indentured labourers. Its main argument is to show that there are many points of comparison between past and present forms of labour migration and that one finds some elements of bondage in both of them, the red line being therefore very thin indeed between indentured labour of the colonial period and present day globalisation migrant workers recruitment and employment practices.
Functional Behavioral Assessment for a Boy With Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and Problem Behavior

This article focuses on the application of functional behavioral assessment (FBA) to design a positive behavior intervention (PBI) for a boy with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) who encounters serious difficulties at the mainstream school because of behavioral problems and physical limitations. After the definition of problem behavior and its causes, a number of environmental changes in the context of positive behavior support (PBS) aiming at learning outcome and social engagement were implemented. The assessment steps and the intervention are thoroughly discussed. This work expands the existing literature by highlighting the feasibility and applicability of FBA and PBS in a low-incidence population within a Greek classroom environment.
The influence of preceding consonant on perceptual epenthesis in Japanese

Research on perceptual epenthesis in Japanese has revealed high back [ɯ] to be the vowel commonly perceived in illicit consonant sequences. However, loanword studies suggest that there are three epenthetic vowels, which reflect phonotactic restrictions on certain consonant + vowel sequences. Expanding previous perception studies, this paper investigates the extent to which perceptual epenthesis in Japanese is also constrained by the language’s phonotactic patterns. In particular, we seek to determine to what extent the preceding consonant influences perceptual epenthesis, reflecting native phonotactics. Our results show that the preceding consonant does influence the vowel perceived yet, at the same time, there is a strong bias toward perceiving [ɯ] in contexts not predicted by the language’s phonotactic patterns.
Using a distributed rectangle bin-packing approach for core-based SoC test scheduling with power constraints

We present a new algorithm to co-optimize test scheduling and wrapper design under power constraints for core-based SoCs (System on Chip). Core testing solutions are generated as a set of wrapper designs, each represented by a rectangle with width equal to the test time and height equal to the number of TAM (Test Access Mechanism) wires used. The test-scheduling problem with power constraints is formulated as the distributed rectangle bin-packing problem, which allows wrapper pins to be assigned to non-consecutive SoC pins. The generalized problem for multiple-TAMs is solved by global optimization using evolutionary strategy and the sequence-pair representation. Experiments on ITC'02 benchmarks are very encouraging.
Diversity of Culturable Soil Micro-fungi along Altitudinal Gradients of Eastern Himalayas

Very few studies have addressed the phylogenetic diversity of fungi from Northeast India under the Eastern Himalayan range. In the present study, an attempt has been made to study the phylogenetic diversity of culturable soil fungi along the altitudinal gradients of eastern Himalayas. Soil samples from 24 m above sea level to 2,000 m above sea level altitudes of North-East India were collected to investigate soil micro-fungal community structure and diversity. Molecular characterization of the isolates was done by PCR amplification of 18S rDNA using universal primers. Phylogenetic analysis using BLAST revealed variation in the distribution and richness of different fungal biodiversity over a wide range of altitudes. A total of 107 isolates were characterized belonging to the phyla Ascomycota and Zygomycota, corresponding to seven orders (Eurotiales, Hypocreales, Calosphaeriales, Capnodiales, Pleosporales, Mucorales, and Mortierellales) and Incertae sedis. The characterized isolates were analysed for richness, evenness and diversity indices. Fungal diversity had significant correlation with soil physico-chemical parameters and the altitude. Eurotiales and Hypocreales were most diverse and abundant group of fungi along the entire altitudinal stretch. Species of Penicillium (D = 1.44) and Aspergillus (D = 1.288) were found to have highest diversity index followed by Talaromyces (D = 1.26) and Fusarium (D = 1.26). Fungal distribution showed negative correlation with altitude and soil moisture content. Soil temperature, pH, humidity and ambient temperature showed positive correlation with fungal distribution.
Oligonucleotide Functionalised Microbeads: Indispensable Tools for High-Throughput Aptamer Selection

The functionalisation of microbeads with oligonucleotides has become an indispensable technique for high-throughput aptamer selection in SELEX protocols. In addition to simplifying the separation of binding and non-binding aptamer candidates, microbeads have facilitated the integration of other technologies such as emulsion PCR (ePCR) and Fluorescence Activated Cell Sorting (FACS) to high-throughput selection techniques. Within these systems, monoclonal aptamer microbeads can be individually generated and assayed to assess aptamer candidate fitness thereby helping eliminate stochastic effects which are common to classical SELEX techniques. Such techniques have given rise to aptamers with 1000 times greater binding affinities when compared to traditional SELEX. Another emerging technique is Fluorescence Activated Droplet Sorting (FADS) whereby selection does not rely on binding capture allowing evolution of a greater diversity of aptamer properties such as fluorescence or enzymatic activity. Within this review we explore examples and applications of oligonucleotide functionalised microbeads in aptamer selection and reflect upon new opportunities arising for aptamer science.
Brain oscillations and connectivity in autism spectrum disorders (ASD): new approaches to methodology, measurement and modelling

Although atypical social behaviour remains a key characterisation of ASD, the presence of sensory and perceptual abnormalities has been given a more central role in recent classification changes. An understanding of the origins of such aberrations could thus prove a fruitful focus for ASD research. Early neurocognitive models of ASD suggested that the study of high frequency activity in the brain as a measure of cortical connectivity might provide the key to understanding the neural correlates of sensory and perceptual deviations in ASD. As our review shows, the findings from subsequent research have been inconsistent, with a lack of agreement about the nature of any high frequency disturbances in ASD brains. Based on the application of new techniques using more sophisticated measures of brain synchronisation, direction of information flow, and invoking the coupling between high and low frequency bands, we propose a framework which could reconcile apparently conflicting findings in this area and would be consistent both with emerging neurocognitive models of autism and with the heterogeneity of the condition. Highlights Sensory and perceptual aberrations are becoming a core feature of the ASD symptom prolife. Brain oscillations and functional connectivity are consistently affected in ASD. Relationships (coupling) between high and low frequencies are also deficient. Novel framework proposes the ASD brain is marked by local dysregulation and reduced top-down connectivity The ASD brain’s ability to predict stimuli and events in the environment may be affected This may underlie perceptual sensitives and cascade into social processing deficits in ASD
Client perspectives of midwifery care in the transition from subfertility to parenthood: a qualitative study in the Netherlands

Abstract Background: Pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum period after fertility treatment are considered “normal” in the Netherlands, with no indication of an increased obstetric risk, and can therefore be monitored by a primary care midwife. However, there is little evidence on the experiences of couples and women who finally get pregnant after fertility treatment and a lack of training for midwives exists on this subject. The aim of this study was to map the midwifery care needs of the subfertile client with past fertility problems. Methods: In 2011, we interviewed two couples and seven women who conceived through fertility treatment and received primary midwifery care at some point during their pregnancies. This explorative, qualitative study was based on the interpretivist/constructivist paradigm. Results: Although the participants are not representative of all subfertile clients, the findings of our qualitative study highlight the needs of women and their partners who have become pregnant through fertility treatment including help from the primary care midwife in understanding the likely course of their pregnancy, more psychosocial support and acknowledgement of the fertility treatment history, and more consultations and frequent ultrasound scans than usual to confirm pregnancy. Conclusions: Our study points out that the women who have become pregnant through fertility treatment and their partners communicate seemingly paradoxical prenatal care needs. It can help maternity care providers to optimally meet the care needs of subfertile clients and empower them during their transition from subfertility to parenthood.
Virtual communicating, conflicts and performance in teams

Purpose – This paper aims to examine the influence of the level of team virtuality on the effects of intra‐team conflicts on team performance, which have hardly been investigated.Design/methodology/approach – A framework is proposed based on the extent to which team members use communication media to coordinate their actions and execute their tasks, taking into account the extent to which the communication media are synchronous and the extent to which the communication media convey para‐verbal and nonverbal aspects of communication. Data of 49 teams with 172 team members were analyzed using stepwise multiple regression analysis.Findings – The level of team virtuality influences the relation between intra‐team conflict and perceived team performance. The higher the level of team virtuality, the greater the positive impact of task conflict on perceived team performance. In teams with a low level of virtuality task conflict has a negative impact on perceived team performance, and in high virtual teams task c.
The state and internal conflict

Research into the causes of contemporary international conflict faces a number of conceptual limitations, which in turn limits the effectiveness of international conflict resolution efforts. Typically, today's internal conflicts are conceived of as irrational outbursts of 'ethnic' hatred, or the breakdown of normally peaceful political systems. In this paper, I argue that the causes of internal conflicts are, in fact, located in the structures of weak states and the actions of weak state elites, who may deliberately engender conflict as a rational response to the internal and external demands brought on by the intrusive processes of globalisation. In this sense, internal conflict is a 'normal' aspect of weak state politics. The weak state framework not only provides a more satisfying explanation of internal conflict, but it has profound implications for conflict resolution. It suggests that conflict resolution must be focused on state reconstruction activities, rather than on saving failing states. It also suggests that there are likely to be many more internal conflicts which demand international action in the future.
Person memory: A semantic category model of personality traits

A model of the cognitive representation of personality traits is proposed in which traits are regarded as categories which are applied to situation-specific action units composed of situational, behavioural and motivational attributes. Evidence to support the view that trait categories vary on a dimension of trait-behaviour associatedness and that instances of trait categories vary in terms of prototypicality is presented. The power of the model to account for previous findings in implicit personality theory, and to resolve the issue of the epistemological status of personality traits, is discussed.
Goal-Driven Query Answering for Existential Rules with Equality

Inspired by the magic sets for Datalog, we present a novel goal-driven approach for answering queries over terminating existential rules with equality (aka TGDs and EGDs). Our technique improves the performance of query answering by pruning the consequences that are not relevant for the query. This is challenging in our setting because equalities can potentially affect all predicates in a dataset. We address this problem by combining the existing singularization technique with two new ingredients: an algorithm for identifying the rules relevant to a query and a new magic sets algorithm. We show empirically that our technique can significantly improve the performance of query answering, and that it can mean the difference between answering a query in a few seconds or not being able to process the query at all.
Hypoxia Negatively Regulates Antimetastatic PEDF in Melanoma Cells by a Hypoxia Inducible Factor-Independent, Autophagy Dependent Mechanism

Pigment epithelium-derived factor (PEDF), a member of the serine protease inhibitor (SERPIN) superfamily, displays a potent antiangiogenic and antimetastatic activity in a broad range of tumor types. Melanocytes and low aggressive melanoma cells secrete high levels of PEDF, while its expression is lost in highly aggressive melanomas. PEDF efficiently abrogates a number of functional properties critical for the acquisition of metastatic ability by melanoma cells, such as neovascularization, proliferation, migration, invasiveness and extravasation. In this study, we identify hypoxia as a relevant negative regulator of PEDF in melanocytes and low aggressive melanoma cells. PEDF was regulated at the protein level. Importantly, although downregulation of PEDF was induced by inhibition of 2-oxoglutarate-dependent dioxygenases, it was independent of the hypoxia inducible factor (HIF), a key mediator of the adaptation to hypoxia. Decreased PEDF protein was not mediated by inhibition of translation through untranslated regions (UTRs) in melanoma cells. Degradation by metalloproteinases, implicated on PEDF degradation in retinal pigment epithelial cells, or by the proteasome, was also excluded as regulatory mechanism in melanoma cells. Instead, we found that degradation by autophagy was critical for PEDF downregulation under hypoxia in human melanoma cells. Our findings show that hypoxic conditions encountered during primary melanoma growth downregulate antiangiogenic and antimetastasic PEDF by a posttranslational mechanism involving degradation by autophagy and could therefore contribute to the acquisition of highly metastatic potential characteristic of aggressive melanoma cells.
The Role of Institutional Logics in the Design of E-Governance Systems

ABSTRACT E-governance is premised on the notion that information technology can be used to reconfigure relations among various government departments as well as between governments and other stakeholders such as the private sector and civil society. This study uses social construction of technology (SCOT) and institutional theory as the lenses through which to deconstruct the process involved in using information technology to enhance transparency and accountability of an urban local government in India. It highlights how diverse stakeholders, by tapping into existing notions of good governance, articulated the project as resolving the need for timely, accurate, and structured information for decision-making. This problem definition led to the recognition that fundamental to transforming how the urban local government works was a reform in its financial management systems.
Digital systems for chest imaging: study on dose increase in patients of different size

Aim of this work is to compare the radiation dose of two direct digital systems in the radiographic chest study in order to verify the overall exposure levels in patients of different sizes. Digital system FUJIFILM DR velocity Ufp and a KODAK DIRECT VIEW DR 7500 (with automatic exposure) were tested on a total of 300 patients randomly assigned to one of two groups of 150 subjects. The patients were further subdivided according to Body Mass Index (BMI) in three subgroups (underweight, normal weight, overweight). The Entrance Surface Dose (ESD) values for the posteroanterior (PA) and lateral (LL) projections of chest examinations were calculated based on the exposure parameters used in diagnostic practice. Mean dose delivered was smaller with Kodak system than Fuji system for all groups of patients in the PA view (40% for underweight, 32% normal type and 10% overweight); in the LL view mean dose delivered was smaller with Fuji system than Kodak for overweight patients with a difference of 52 %. From the preliminary results shown in this work, we concluded that digital systems for chest imaging can easily give an high dose if not used properly (no standard technique), especially in the presence of auto exposure systems with over standard patients.
Compensate Capacitor Optimization for Kilowatt-Level Magnetically Resonant Wireless Charging System

Magnetically resonant wireless power transfer (WPT) technique excels in delivering power over a relatively long distance, and WPT systems for bio-implants have been successfully developed. However, the preconception of resonant-operating results in a fact that most previous works pay little attention to the optimization of the compensate capacitors; these design methods cannot meet the newly arisen challenges when designing a high-power wireless charging system (WCS) for electric vehicles (EVs). This paper presents a design method featuring compensate capacitor optimizing for better design of practical kilowatt-level WCS. Comparison with conventional frequency tuning method is made based on equivalent circuit model analysis. Compensating characteristics of a typical WCS are studied to find out how the compensate capacitors affect the systemic performance. Furthermore, considering peculiar constraints and requirements of EV-oriented WCS, we present detailed optimizing procedure and adjustment criterion. Finally, correctness and effectiveness of the proposed optimizing method are verified by a 3.3-kW wireless charging prototype. A transfer efficiency value of 92% over 21 cm and 88.5% over 36 cm is achieved; voltages of the transmit and receive coils are simultaneously minimized and balanced for security.
An Ultra Low Phase Noise W-Band GaAs-Based PHEMT MMIC CPW VCO

A W-band voltage control oscillator (VCO) using 0.1- m AlGaAs/InGaAs/GaAs PHEMT MMIC technology with ultra low phase noise is presented. This VCO demonstrated an operation frequency centered at 97 GHz with a tuning range of 2 GHz and an output power of 1 mW. The measured single side-band phase noise is -88 dBc/Hz at 1MHz offset. To the best of our knowledge, this phase noise performance is not only the best among the previously reported results for HEMT MMIC VCO at this frequency, but also rivals those for most VCOs using HBTs.
Mixed Logit with Repeated Choices: Households' Choices of Appliance Efficiency Level

Mixed logit models, also called random-parameters or error-components logit, are a generalization of standard logit that do not exhibit the restrictive independence from irrelevant alternatives property and explicitly account for correlations in unobserved utility over repeated choices by each customer. Mixed logits are estimated for households' choices of appliances under utility-sponsored programs that offer rebates or loans on high-efficiency appliances.
A linked data-driven solution to user modeling in a Multi-Application Environment

The User Model plays a significant role in many personalized applications. Separated user modeling results in the fragments of the user model being distributed on the Web, but user modeling in a Multi-Application Environment (MAE) is increasingly required to provide a more complete user model view and more value-added user information to all relevant applications. In this paper, a Linked Data-driven user modeling approach is proposed to create links among the user model fragments of the same user who registers in different applications and, from these, construct a virtually global user model. Through these links, user information in one application can be acquired by another. An extendible Core User Model (CUM) is presented and used to describe both the common properties and the domain-specific features of the user. The advantages and disadvantages of this approach are analyzed by comparison with other user modeling methods in MAEs. The proposed solution appears to be more feasible and to offer increased flexibility.
Mexico Interval Neutrosophic Multi-Attribute Decision-Making Based on Grey Relational Analysis

The purpose of this paper is to introduce multiattribute decision making based on the concept of interval neutrosophic sets. While the concept of neutrosophic sets is a powerful tool to deal with indeterminate and inconsistent data, the interval neutrosophic set is also a powerful mathematical tool as well as more flexible to deal with incompleteness. The rating of all alternatives is expressed in terms of interval neutrosophic values characterized by interval truth-membership degree, interval indeterminacy-membership degree, and interval falsity-membership degree. Weight of each attribute is partially known to the decision maker. The authors have extended the single valued neutrosophic grey relational analysis method to interval neutrosophic environment and applied it to multiattribute decision making problem. Information entropy method is used to obtain the unknown attribute weights. Accumulated arithmetic operator is defined to transform interval neutrosophic set into single value neutrosophic set. Neutrosophic grey relational coefficient is determined by using Hamming distance between each alternative to ideal interval neutrosophic estimates reliability solution and the ideal interval neutrosophic estimates unreliability solution. Then interval neutrosophic relational degree is defined to determine the ranking order of all alternatives. Finally, an example is provided to illustrate the applicability and effectiveness of the proposed approach.
Optimal control of capacitors on distribution feeders

Capacitors have long been used on distribution feeders for, among other things, voltage profile management, power factor correction and loss reduction. The basic choice has been: fixed banks; or switched banks with a variety of local controls. Centralized Volt/VAR control allows for “optimal” feeder conditioning for loss reduction and demand reduction. To be effective, both local and centralized control strategies must incorporate the right types and settings to produce the most benefit over the load cycle. To address this issue, the distribution utilities of the DSTAR consortium recently commissioned a comprehensive study of capacitor control strategies for distribution feeders. This paper presents the study approach and discusses some findings from the work. The field data leveraged simulation method used in this study is also suitable for assessing the impact of a variety of load and generation technologies (such as solar PV) on distribution operation.