Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Color of Reform

This article will focus on both the racial implications of the charter school “movement” in New Orleans after Katrina and the resistance to it by local citizens. We argue that it is difficult to ignore the manner in which White supremacist ideology has been normalized in the reform as it has historically in U.S. public education. Drawing on separate but complementary research by the authors, this article will be multi-vocal and reflect our positionalities as researchers who are “insiders. ”
User Selection for Multiple-Antenna Broadcast Channel with Zero-Forcing Beamforming

This paper investigates the zero-forcing (ZF) beamforming transmit strategy in the multiple-antenna multiuser downlink systems. We consider the case of mobile users equipped with multiple antennas. Although the capacity of such systems can be achieved by dirty paper coding (DPC), DPC is extremely difficult and challenging to implement. Thus, simple but suboptimal linear beamforming techniques like ZF beamforming can be deployed. However, the number of users that can be served using this strategy is limited by the number of transmit antennas at the base station. The solution for this limitation is user selection (scheduling), which also exploits multiuser diversity. Therefore, user selection can be used to enhance the throughput of the system. Recently, it has been shown that ZF beamforming strategy with user selection is asymptotically optimal for a large number of users. In this paper, a semi-orthogonal user selection (SUS) algorithm is extended to the system with multiple-antenna mobile users. This algorithm aims to select users, which are semi-orthogonal. The optimal ZF beamforming matrices are obtained and it is shown that the optimal ZF beamforming throughput is related to the eigenvalues of the user channels. Therefore, SUS is aimed to select the proper group of users based on maximizing the channel eigenvalues and therefore improving the optimal ZF beamforming throughput of the system.
Sparse Linear Operator identification without sparse regularization? Applications to mixed pixel problem in Time-of-Flight/Range imaging

In this paper, we consider the problem of Sparse Linear Operator identification which is also linked with the topic of Sparse Deconvolution. In its abstract form, the problem can be stated as follows: Given a well behaved probing function, is it possible to identify a Sparse Linear Operator from its response to the function? We present a constructive solution to this problem. Furthermore, our approach is devoid of any sparsity inducing penalty term and explores the idea of parametric modeling. Consequently, our algorithm is non-iterative by design and circumvents tuning of any regularization parameter. Our approach is computationally efficient when compared the ℓ0/ℓ1-norm regularized counterparts. Our work addresses a problem of industrial significance: decomposition of mixed-pixels in Time-of-Flight/Range imaging. In this case, each pixel records range measurements from multiple contributing depths and the goal is to isolate each depth. Practical experiments corroborate our theoretical set-up and establish the efficiency of our approach, that is, speed-up in processing with lesser mean squared error. We also derive Cramér-Rao Bounds for performance characterization.
A Scalable, Predictable Join Operator for Highly Concurrent Data Warehouses

Conventional data warehouses employ the query-at-a-time model, which maps each query to a distinct physical plan. When several queries execute concurrently, this model introduces contention, because the physical plans---unaware of each other---compete for access to the underlying I/O and computation resources. As a result, while modern systems can efficiently optimize and evaluate a single complex data analysis query, their performance suffers significantly when multiple complex queries run at the same time. We describe an augmentation of traditional query engines that improves join throughput in large-scale concurrent data warehouses. In contrast to the conventional query-at-a-time model, our approach employs a single physical plan that can share I/O, computation, and tuple storage across all in-flight join queries. We use an "always-on" pipeline of non-blocking operators, coupled with a controller that continuously examines the current query mix and performs run-time optimizations. Our design allows the query engine to scale gracefully to large data sets, provide predictable execution times, and reduce contention. In our empirical evaluation, we found that our prototype outperforms conventional commercial systems by an order of magnitude for tens to hundreds of concurrent queries.
Disablism in Housing and Comparative Community Care Discourse - Towards an Interventionist Model of Disability and Interventionist Welfare Regime Theory

This paper is presented in two parts. In this part I provide a critique of the socio-biological essentialism that infuses the community care discourses in ? housing studies? and ? comparative studies? I argue that this biological essentialism has encouraged researchers to accept the common sense assumption that the ? special needs? of disabled people are per se located within the incompetent body/mind. The effect of this has resulted in the construction of a reductionist academic discourse. This propagates the notion that recent policy initiatives taken in Britain and other European countries (which now encourage the regulation of ? special needs? in the home, rather than in the so-called ? institution? ) represent some form of cognate ? total change? or ? paradigm shift? In addition, the paper also challenges ? radical sociologies? of disability that, in per se locating disability outwith the body/mind, lie at the other extreme. To this end, discourses within this mode of thought contend that these policy shift.
Snail mediates PDGF‐BB‐induced invasion of rat bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells in 3D collagen and chick chorioallantoic membrane

We previously reported that membrane type‐1 matrix metalloproteinase (MT1‐MMP) enables mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) to move through both three‐dimensional (3D) type I collagen and basement membrane barriers; however, its upstream regulating factors were unidentified. Here, we report that PDGF‐BB upregulates both mRNA and protein expression of snail in rat bone marrow MSCs (rBMMSCs). PDGF‐BB enhances rBMMSC invasion in 3D collagen, which is blocked by snail specific siRNA transfection. Snail overexpression induced by plasmid transfection results in increased rBMMSC invasion in 3D collagen. Snail expression induced by PDGF‐BB in MSCs is inhibited by LY294002 and PD98059, which are inhibitors of the PI3K/AKT and MAPK1/2/ERK1/2 signaling pathways, respectively. MT1‐MMP expression in rBMMSCs, both as mRNA and protein, is decreased by snail siRNA transfection, but increased by snail overexpression, indicating that they are controlled by snail. Finally, snail controls MSC transmigration through chorioallantoic membrane of 11‐day‐old chick embryos. Taken together, these in vitro and in vivo data identify snail as a critical mediator for rBMMSC invasion induced by PDGF‐BB. J. Cell. Physiol. 228: 1827–1833, 2013. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Phonological Processing in Primary Progressive Aphasia

Individuals with primary progressive aphasia (PPA) show selective breakdown in regions within the proposed dorsal (articulatory–phonological) and ventral (lexical–semantic) pathways involved in language processing. Phonological STM impairment, which has been attributed to selective damage to dorsal pathway structures, is considered to be a distinctive feature of the logopenic variant of PPA. By contrast, phonological abilities are considered to be relatively spared in the semantic variant and are largely unexplored in the nonfluent/agrammatic variant. Comprehensive assessment of phonological ability in the three variants of PPA has not been undertaken. We investigated phonological processing skills in a group of participants with PPA as well as healthy controls, with the goal of identifying whether patterns of performance support the dorsal versus ventral functional–anatomical framework and to discern whether phonological ability differs among PPA subtypes. We also explored the neural bases of phonological performance using voxel-based morphometry. Phonological performance was impaired in patients with damage to dorsal pathway structures (nonfluent/agrammatic and logopenic variants), with logopenic participants demonstrating particular difficulty on tasks involving nonwords. Binary logistic regression revealed that select phonological tasks predicted diagnostic group membership in the less fluent variants of PPA with a high degree of accuracy, particularly in conjunction with a motor speech measure. Brain–behavior correlations indicated a significant association between the integrity of gray matter in frontal and temporoparietal regions of the left hemisphere and phonological skill. Findings confirm the critical role of dorsal stream structures in phonological processing and demonstrate unique patterns of impaired phonological processing in logopenic and nonfluent/agrammatic variants of PPA.
Navigating through abstract decision spaces : Evaluating the role of state generalization in a dynamic decision-making task

flict with long-term benefits. Consider the case of global warming, for which a group’s difficulty in changing its behavior reflects a considerable difference in immediate payoffs between long-term beneficial and long-term detrimental actions. That is, the long-term detrimental action (unrestricted pollution) results in greater immediate reward (higher industrial output, greater comfort) than does the long-term beneficial option, which involves receiving smaller immediate rewards (lower industrial output, reduced comfort) but contributing to a larger overall pattern of reward in the long term (greater overall quality of life). Effective decision making in real-world situations involves not only weighing the costs and benefits of particular actions, but also understanding how actions in the past influence the costs and benefits of future actions. It should be noted that this class of problem differs from those used in studies of delay discounting in humans (e.g., Myerson & Green, 1995), in which single decisions are made on the basis of explicit instructions and it is made clear at what point in time the larger, delayed rewards will be received (Rachlin, 1995). In this article, we examine how information about the state of the world affects decision making in dynamic tasks that require valuing either long-term or short-term rewards. Unlike static and one-shot decision-making problems in which the payoff contingencies are not influenced by participants’ behavior (e.g., Erev & Barron, 2005), in our task, the possible payoffs associated with each choice change as a function of participants’ recent choices. Thus, participants’ behavior in the task can effectively influence the state of the task environment, which, in turn, has consequences for future rewards. In our experiments, we manipulated the information that people had about the current task state in order to study the relationship between their mental representation of the task and their ability to adopt effective decision strategies. For example, in Figure 1A, each curve represents the payoff from one of two choice options in a repeated-choice task. The horizontal axis represents the current state of the task environment, and the vertical axis represents the payoff from selecting either choice. In all states, one option (which we call long-term decreasing [LT-D]) always yields a higher payoff than does the other option (called long-term increasing [LT-I]). Note that the current task state is defined as the number of LT-I choices made over the last 10 trials. Increases in the proportion of LT-I selections in one’s history shift the current state of the system rightward on the horizontal axis (increasing the payoffs for both choices), whereas increases in the proportion of LT-D selections move the state leftward (decreasing the payoffs for both choices). Thus, options that lead to
Tracking Animal Location and Activity with an Automated Radio Telemetry System in a Tropical Rainforest

How do animals use their habitat? Where do they go and what do they do? These basic questions are key not only to understanding a species’ ecology and evolution, but also for addressing many of the environmental challenges we currently face, including problems posed by invasive species, the spread of zoonotic diseases and declines in wildlife populations due to anthropogenic climate and land-use changes. Monitoring the movements and activities of wild animals can be difficult, especially when the species in question are small, cryptic or move over large areas. In this paper, we describe an Automated Radio-Telemetry System (ARTS) that we designed and built on Barro Colorado Island (BCI), Panama to overcome these challenges. We describe the hardware and software we used to implement the ARTS, and discuss the scientific successes we have had using the system, as well as the logistical challenges we faced in maintaining the system in real-world, rainforest conditions. The ARTS uses automated radio-telemetry receivers mounted on 40-m towers topped with arrays of directional antennas to track the activity and location of radio-collared study animals, 24Â h a day, 7 days a week. These receiving units are connected by a wireless network to a server housed in the laboratory on BCI, making these data available in real time to researchers via a web-accessible database. As long as study animals are within the range of the towers, the ARTS system collects data more frequently than typical animal-borne global positioning system collars (~12Â locations/h) with lower accuracy (approximately 50Â m) but at much reduced cost per tag (~10X less expensive). The geographic range of ARTS, like all VHF telemetry, is affected by the size of the radio-tag as well as its position in the forest (e.g. tags in the canopy transmit farther than those on the forest floor). We present a model of signal propagation based on landscape conditions, which quantifies these effects and identifies sources of interference, including weather events and human activity. ARTS has been used to track 374 individual animals from 38 species, including 17 mammal species, 12 birds, 7 reptiles or amphibians, as well as two species of plant seeds. These data elucidate the spatio-temporal dynamics of animal activity and movement at the site and have produced numerous peer-reviewed publications, student theses, magazine articles, educational programs and film documentaries. These data are also relevant to long-term population monitoring and conservation plans. Both the successes and the failures of the ARTS system are applicable to broader sensor network applications and are valuable for advancing sensor network research.
The challenges of accountability in a national museum

Using documentary evidence of the Auditor-General's commentaries in the annual reports of the National Museum of Papua New Guinea (PNG) for the period 2004–2012, this paper considers the reporting compliance of the National Museum of PNG. Textual analysis takes into account the complexity of the expectations placed on museums to provide an account of their activities and the mandatory reporting requirements placed on the National Museum of PNG by PNG legislation. Recently, there have been no annual reports generated by the museum, suggesting a low level of compliance. Findings by the state auditor show that the museum often submits late financial statements for audit and receives disclaimers of opinion when they are submitted. The study suggests ways that the museum could achieve greater reporting compliance. It appears that greater funding and staffing of the museum would assist in the preparation of reports.
A new discrete dynamic model of ABA-induced stomatal closure predicts key feedback loops

Stomata, microscopic pores in leaf surfaces through which water loss and carbon dioxide uptake occur, are closed in response to drought by the phytohormone abscisic acid (ABA). This process is vital for drought tolerance and has been the topic of extensive experimental investigation in the last decades. Although a core signaling chain has been elucidated consisting of ABA binding to receptors, which alleviates negative regulation by protein phosphatases 2C (PP2Cs) of the protein kinase OPEN STOMATA 1 (OST1) and ultimately results in activation of anion channels, osmotic water loss, and stomatal closure, over 70 additional components have been identified, yet their relationships with each other and the core components are poorly elucidated. We integrated and processed hundreds of disparate observations regarding ABA signal transduction responses underlying stomatal closure into a network of 84 nodes and 156 edges and, as a result, established those relationships, including identification of a 36-node, strongly connected (feedback-rich) component as well as its in- and out-components. The network’s domination by a feedback-rich component may reflect a general feature of rapid signaling events. We developed a discrete dynamic model of this network and elucidated the effects of ABA plus knockout or constitutive activity of 79 nodes on both the outcome of the system (closure) and the status of all internal nodes. The model, with more than 1024 system states, is far from fully determined by the available data, yet model results agree with existing experiments in 82 cases and disagree in only 17 cases, a validation rate of 75%. Our results reveal nodes that could be engineered to impact stomatal closure in a controlled fashion and also provide over 140 novel predictions for which experimental data are currently lacking. Noting the paucity of wet-bench data regarding combinatorial effects of ABA and internal node activation, we experimentally confirmed several predictions of the model with regard to reactive oxygen species, cytosolic Ca2+ (Ca2+c), and heterotrimeric G-protein signaling. We analyzed dynamics-determining positive and negative feedback loops, thereby elucidating the attractor (dynamic behavior) repertoire of the system and the groups of nodes that determine each attractor. Based on this analysis, we predict the likely presence of a previously unrecognized feedback mechanism dependent on Ca2+c. This mechanism would provide model agreement with 10 additional experimental observations, for a validation rate of 85%. Our research underscores the importance of feedback regulation in generating robust and adaptable biological responses. The high validation rate of our model illustrates the advantages of discrete dynamic modeling for complex, nonlinear systems common in biology.
Explaining History to Children: Otto and Marie Neurath’s Work on the Visual History of Mankind

This essay traces the development of Otto Neurath’s ideas that led to the publication of one of the first series of children’s books produced by the Isotype Institute in the late 1940s, the Visual History of Mankind. Described in its publicity material as ‘new in content’ and ‘new in method’, it embodied much of Otto Neurath’s thinking about visual education, and also coincided with other educational ideas in the UK in the 1930s and 1940s. It exemplified the Isotype Institute’s approach: teamwork, thinking about the needs of younger readers, clear explanation, and accessible content. Further, drawing on correspondence, notes and drawings from the Otto and Marie Neurath Isotype Collection at the University of Reading, the essay presents insights to the making of the books and the people involved, the costs of production and the influence of this on design decisions, and how the books were received by teachers and children.
Design and characterization of a meander type dynamic inductively coupled power transfer coil

The aim of this paper is to present an alternative coil topology for ICPT (Inductively Coupled Power Transmission) links, called meander type coil, specifically for dynamic charging. The analysis is carried out using FEM software FLUX® supported by Matlab®. The goal is to design an inductive link in such a way that the coupling keeps constant while the receiver part is moving along the track, in order to make the converter and the control easier to implement. Different geometrical parameters are analyzed and compared to obtain the highest efficiency value.
A psychoanalytic investigation to improve the success rate of spinal cord stimulation as a treatment for chronic failed back surgery syndrome.

OBJECTIVE The analysis of patient data concerning psychological structure and functioning produced an instrument to determine whether a neurostimulator ought to be implanted or not. DESIGN A questionnaire containing 24 items was developed by a psychologist and tested in 40 chronic failed back surgery patients for whom a spinal cord stimulation seemed to be the only therapeutic approach. This questionnaire was based upon some crucial psychological themes, on which the patient took a position. A predictive indication factor (I.F.; %) for implantation of the neurostimulator was obtained from the 24 items. Six months after the implantation of the neurostimulator, we correlated the evaluation factor (E.F.; %) with a six-point evaluation scale considering the pain reduction. The aim was to compare the I.F. and E.F. to verify the correlation between them. This comparison was intended to answer the question if psychological variables included in our scale improve the success rate of the therapy. SETTING Data were collected by a psychologist at the Pain Clinic of the University Hospital of Gent, Belgium. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS The correlation between the I.F. and the E.F. was calculated for the 40 patients by the Spearman correlation test. A coefficient value of 0.8083 (p = 0.000) was found, indicating the existence of a very close correlation between the predictive I.F. and the E.F. The indication scale appears to be a useful instrument for clinical psychologists to predict the success rate of a spinal cord stimulator in this group of patients.
Typestate-like analysis of multiple interacting objects

This paper presents a static analysis of typestate-like temporal specifications of groups of interacting objects, which are expressed using tracematches. Whereas typestate expresses a temporal specification of one object, a tracematch state may change due to operations on any of a set of related objects bound by the tracematch. The paper proposes a lattice-based operational semantics equivalent to the original tracematch semantics but better suited to static analysis. The paper defines a static analysis that computes precise local points-to sets and tracks the flow of individual objects, thereby enabling strong updates of the tracematch state. The analysis has been proved sound with respect to the semantics. A context-sensitive version of the analysis has been implemented as instances of the IFDS and IDE algorithms. The analysis was evaluated on tracematches used in earlier work and found to be very precise. Remaining imprecisions could be eliminated with more precise modeling of references from the heap and of exceptional control flow.