Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Active star formation in the large Bok globule CB 34

We present near-infrared and millimetre observations of the large Bok globule CB 34. Two long parallel trails of H 2 knots are discovered on wide-field images in the 1–0 S(1) 2.12 μ m emission line. These parsec scale H 2 jets extend to the edge of the dark globule where they disappear without the trace of bow shocks. This suggests that the outflows physically extend into a lower density ambient medium where their terminating bows are beyond present detection limits. The two outflows are extremely well collimated and parallel to within 3°. The outflow mechanical luminosity, derived from CO measurements, and the shocked luminosity, estimated from the H 2 emission, are similar, consistent with jet-driven non-evolving outflow structure. The jets appear to originate from the densest cores, as observed in H 13 CO + line emission. A central concentration of reddened stars and a lower density halo of less reddened stars within the globule are revealed by JHK photometry. Disordered motions are observed in the CO $J=2-1$ line velocity channel maps and can be driven by the power of the outflows emanating from dense cores. We sketch a picture for the star formation history of the globule in which two star phases have been formed. A weak diffuse emission halo is detected in the near infrared with colours consistent with either scattered light or a ro-vibrational H 2 cascade. We propose that the halo is produced by ongoing H 2 formation. Cloud evolution and halo H 2 formation timescales are then both a few $\times$ 10 5 yr. Thus, we may be witnessing the formation of a molecular cloud out of diffuse atomic gas. This supports a scheme in which this Bok globule has formed independently rather than through dislocation from a nearby molecular cloud.
Inside the Virtual Robotics Challenge: Simulating Real-Time Robotic Disaster Response

This paper presents the software framework established to facilitate cloud-hosted robot simulation. The framework addresses the challenges associated with conducting a task-oriented and real-time robot competition, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Virtual Robotics Challenge (VRC), designed to mimic reality. The core of the framework is the Gazebo simulator, a platform to simulate robots, objects, and environments, as well as the enhancements made for the VRC to maintain a high fidelity simulation using a high degree of freedom and multisensor robot. The other major component used is the CloudSim tool, designed to enhance the automation of robotics simulation using existing cloud technologies. The results from the VRC and a discussion are also detailed in this work. Note to Practitioners - Advances in robot simulation, cloud hosted infrastructure, and web technology have made it possible to accurately and efficiently simulate complex robots and environments on remote servers while providing realistic data streams for human-in-the-loop robot control. This paper presents the software and hardware frameworks established to facilitate cloud-hosted robot simulation, and addresses the challenges associated with conducting a task-oriented robot competition designed to mimic reality. The competition that spurred this innovation was the VRC, a precursor to the DARPA Robotics Challenge, in which teams from around the world utilized custom human-robot interfaces and control code to solve disaster response-related tasks in simulation. Winners of the VRC received both funding and access to Atlas, a humanoid robot developed by Boston Dynamics. The Gazebo simulator, an open source and high fidelity robot simulator, was improved upon to met the needs of the VRC competition. Additionally, CloudSim was created to act as an interface between users and the cloud-hosted simulations. As a result of this work, we have achieved automated deployment of cloud resources for robotic simulations, near real-time simulation performance, and simulation accuracy that closely mimics real hardware. These tools have been released under open source licenses and are freely available, and can be used to help reduce robot and algorithm design and development time, and increase robot software robustness.
Effectiveness of RTS/CTS in IEEE 802.11 wireless adhoc network in light of order dependent capture

IEEE 802.11 MAC protocol is the de facto standard for wireless local area networks (LANs) and it employs two access methods, basic access and optional four way handshaking technique, known as request-to-send/clear-to-send (RTS/CTS) mechanism. RTS/CTS scheme is employed to improve network performance as it shortens packet collision duration and thereby addresses the hidden station problem. Order dependent capture (ODC) is a recently known PHY phenomenon according to which the minimum signal-to-interference (SIR) requirement of modern receivers depends on the arrival order of frames. We have implemented ODC by modifying standard mac protocol. To the best of our knowledge none of the researcher has studied the effectiveness of RTS/CTS mechanism in light of ODC. In this paper via simulation based analysis we observe that RTS/CTS scheme with ODC shows improved throughput performance in grid and random topologies up to 35% and 20% respectively over disengagement of RTS/CTS scheme. In a regular chain topology which inherently does not have any hidden terminals, a performance gain of 60% is achieved when RTS/CTS is disengaged.
Distributed Gateways in MultiPlane Ad hoc Networks

The concept of multi-plane ad hoc networks is introduced for two emerging applications, namely, multi-plane three-dimensional indoor topologies and virtual multi-plane routing in dense networks. The connectivity between different planes is established with the use of distributed gateways consisting of a prescribed number of interconnected nodes on each plane. Several typical node configurations are considered analytically as open Johnson’s networks. The load balancing in a distributed gateway consisting of a number of connected nodes in a prescribed topology is considered in terms of the flow equalization of both departing and internal rates for arbitrary arrival rates.
Positive and implicit stochastic volatility simulation

For nonlinear stochastic differential systems, we develop strong fully implicit positivity preserving numerical methods in the case that the zero boundary is non-attracting. These methods are implicit in the diffusion vector fields. They thus apply to a restricted class, namely those with sublinear form. This however, still includes most Langevin derived processes typical of volatility models in finance and molecular simulation in physics. When the zero boundary is attracting and attainable, we specialize to a prototypical model, namely the mean-reverting Cox–Ingersoll–Ross process. We thus consider the non-central chi-squared transition density with fractional degrees of freedom. We prove that we can sample from this density by simulating Poisson distributed sums of powers of generalized Gaussian random variables. Further we prove that Marsaglia’s polar method extends to the generalized Gaussian distribution, providing an exact and efficient method for generalized Gaussian sampling. We apply our methods to a variance curve model and the Heston model.
THE USE OF SCAFFOLDING STRATEGIES AMONG ESL LEARNERS IN THE COMPREHENSION OF LITERARY TEXTS

Research involving comprehension among adult learners has been tremendously influential in the field of learning. This has led researchers across various disciplines to study the strategies adult learners use in an attempt to gain understanding of materials read. For example studies conducted by O’Malley and Chamot (1985) involving beginning and intermediate ESL students resulted in identification of 26 language learning strategies. On the other hand, Kalmbach (1986) identifies retelling as a form of strategy that could enhance comprehension among learners. One interesting aspect highlighted by the sociocultural theory is the use of scaffolding as a form of strategy to make sense of information. Various researches carried out in this field have shown the importance and effectiveness of scaffolding strategy. For example, studies by Donato & McCormick (1994) and Anton & DiCamilla (1998) on second language users of English have identified several scaffolding strategies that assist learners in gaining knowledge. Bearing this view in mind, this paper discusses how a group of teacher trainees of differing proficiency levels attempt to create meaning of two selected short stories. The study mainly focuses on the types of scaffolding utilized by teacher trainees from three different levels of proficiency; dyads of high proficiency, dyads of low proficiency and dyads of mixed proficiency. Based on the transcripts of the recorded discussions, the findings indicate that the types of scaffolding utilized by the respondents differ based on their proficiency levels. (234 words ). Keywords: Scaffolding strategies; Comprehension processes, Literary texts
Pluralism, Realism, and Truth: The Keys to Knowledge in Information Systems Research

The aim of this paper is to outline some of the key themes that I believe are important, first in applying the systems approach to produce high quality IS research in general, and second to consider more specifically some of the questions and debates that are of interest within the philosophy of IS and of the systems approach. Four themes are identified: being systemic, being critical and realist, being pluralist in approach, and having a concern for truth and knowledge.
Post-processig Techniques for Compression Artifact Removal in Block- Coded Video and Images. Review and Implementation of Post-processing Techniques for Compression Artifact Removal

Preface In the master program of the Electrical Engineering study at Technical University of Eindhoven two internships are obligated, each with a duration of 50 half-days. These internships are part of the preparation phase for graduation. The goal is to practice the skills needed for graduation, and to get acquainted with a professional level of certain research areas. The two internships should, therefore, be at different research chairs. Haan of the Electronic Systems (ES) chair, which is part of the sub-department Information and Communication Systems (lCS). The assignment focuses on image processing, more particularly on post-processing techniques for compression artifact removal in block-coded video and images.
EEG Frontal Asymmetry Predicts Product Purchase Differently for National Brands and Private Labels

The results of the following study show that among various neurophysiological measures, only the frontal asymmetry index measured with electroencephalography was significant in predicting further purchase decisions. The decision to buy was also influenced by the brand type (national brand or private label). Data from 21 participants were recorded during exposure to 20 fast-moving consumer goods. The electroencephalographic signal from the frontal lobe (F3 and F4) served to calculate the frontal asymmetry index for alpha, beta, and gamma bands. Electromyographic electrodes were placed on the zygomaticus major and corrugator supercilii muscles, whereas the galvanic skin responses were gathered from the forefinger and ring finger of the nondominant hand. Eye tracking glasses were used to control for eye movements. After product exposure, participants filled in the Purchase Intentions Scale, which then served to assess the final binary decision. A logistic regression model was applied to determine which neurophysiological factors play a crucial role in predicting a purchase decision and whether the brand type is relevant. The prediction rate of the resulting model was 65.8%. The article describes the possible implications of these results.
REUSE OF DIGITAL SLICING FOR ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING

Additive manufacturing, also known as 3D printing, enables production of complex customized shapes without requiring specialized tooling and fixture, and mass customization can then be realized with larger adoption. The slicing procedure is one of the fundamental tasks for 3D printing, and the slicing resolution has to be very high for fine fabrication, especially in the recent developed Continuous Liquid Interface Production (CLIP) process. The slicing procedure is then becoming the bottleneck in the pre-fabrication process, which could take hours for one model. This becomes even more significant in mass customization, where hundreds or thousands of models have to be fabricated. We observe that the customized products are generally in a same homogeneous class of shape with small variation. Our study finds that the slicing information of one model can be reused for other models in the same homogeneous group under a properly defined parameterization. Experimental results show that the reuse of slicing information have a maximum of 50 times speedup, and its utilization is dropped from more than 90% to less than 50% in the pre-fabrication process.
The effect of blanking of TDMA interference on radio-astronomical observations: experimental results

The fast growth of the wireless communication industry poses severe limitations on radio-astronomical observations. This is largely due to the fact that in radio astronomy, in contrast to communication systems, the signals of interest are many orders of magnitude below the receiver noise power levels. The structure of some communication signals opens the possibility to reduce the effect on radio-astronomical observations using advanced array processing techniques. One such structure is time slots, used in TDMA communication systems such as the Iridium system and the GSM system. We present the results of blanking of time-slotted interfering signals measured at the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope.
Virtual Machine-level Software Transactional Memory: Principles, Techniques, and Implementation

Abstract : Software transactional memory (STM) has emerged as an easy to program synchronization abstraction for multicore computer architectures. But performance of current STMframeworks are inferior and heavily influenced by infrastructure resource management (e.g., operating system scheduling, garbage collection, memory allocation). The project's first major result is ByteSTM, a virtual machine-level Java STMimplementation that is built by extending the Jikes RVM. The project modified Jikes RVM's optimizing compiler to transparently support implicit transactions. Being implemented at the VM-level, which enables direct memory accesses, ByteSTMavoids Java garbage collection overhead by manually managing memory for transactional metadata, and provides pluggable support for implementing different STMalgorithms. Three well-known STM algorithms have been integrated into ByteSTM: TL2, NOrec, and RingSTM. The project's experimental studies revealed throughput improvement over other non-VM STMs by 6-70% on micro-benchmarks and by 7-60% on macro-benchmarks. ByteSTM is open-source, publicly available (http://hydravm.org/bytestm/), and is used by the TM community.The project s second major result is a set of possibility and impossibility results on the feasibility of ensuring the Disjoint-Access Parallelism (DAP) property for STM implementations (PODC 15). DAP is one of the most desirable properties for maximizing TM s scalability. The project investigated the possibility and inherent cost of implementing a DAP TM that ensures the two most important properties for maximizing performance of read-dominated workloads, namely, having invisible and wait-free read-only transactions. The project proved that relaxing the Real-Time Order (RTO) is necessary to implement such a TM. This result motivated the project to introduce Witnessable Real-Time Order (WRTO), a weaker variant of RTO that demands enforcing RTO only between directly conflicting transactions.
Teachers’ Infusion of Social Emotional Learning

This study is part of a larger study that examines the infusion of social emotional learning in the classroom. For this paper, teachers’ infusion of social emotional learning will be examined more explicitly. A three full-day Social Emotional Training programme equipping teachers in infusing social emotional learning (SEL) in their curriculum content areas was conducted. Twenty-nine videotaped lessons of 15 primary teachers and 47 videotaped lessons of 26 secondary teachers in the experimental group were transcribed and assessed based on 5 domains, namely, their scaffolding of instruction, teacher-student rapport, classroom climate, their infusion of SEL and their teaching competencies. The inter-rater reliability for primary and secondary teacher videos were . 88 and . 92, respectively. In general, teachers were found to be able to infuse SEL in their Character Education and English curriculum content areas better than in their Mathematics and Science subject areas. Also, teachers were able to generate more self-awareness and social awareness questions and less on relationship management or selfmanagement questions. The manner of scaffolding instruction and spontaneous response to their students’ inappropriate responses to SEL scenarios may require more time for practice. Implications for infusion of SEL in academic subjects are discussed.
Parental Supervision, Executive Functions, and Emotional-Behavioral Problems in Chinese Immigrant and Italian Nonimmigrant Early Adolescents in Italy

The current study aimed to examine whether executive functioning (EF) moderates the expected association between poor parental supervision and emotional-behavioral problems among early adolescents with and without a migration background in Italy. In total, 97 Chinese immigrant and 165 Italian nonimmigrant early adolescents, aged 11 to 13 years (52% girls), completed a series of performance and computer-based tasks assessing their EFs, whereas primary caregivers rated their own parental supervision and their offspring’s emotional-behavioral problems. Regression analyses indicated that in both groups, a better working memory capacity was associated with fewer problems. Moreover, low levels of inhibitory control strengthened the association between poor parental supervision and emotional-behavioral problems. In addition, among Chinese immigrant youth, higher levels of cognitive flexibility enhanced the link between poor parental supervision and emotional-behavioral problems. Results underscore the importance of parental supervision and EF processes for Chinese immigrant youths’ psychological functioning.
Acetylcholine receptor in a C2 muscle cell variant is retained in the endoplasmic reticulum

We have examined the properties and intracellular localization of acetylcholine receptors in the C2 muscle cell line and in a variant (T- ) that accumulates AChR intracellularly. On immunoblots, the subunit structures of the AChR from wild-type and T- cells were similar except that the gamma and delta subunits of the variant AChR had altered mobilities. Digestion with endoglycosidases H and F demonstrated that this difference results from a failure of high-mannose N-linked oligosaccharides on AChR subunits to be processed to complex forms in the variant. N-linked glycosylation of other proteins in the variant was normal. When examined by immunocytochemistry, the distribution of internal AChR in wild-type cells was consistent with a location both in the endoplasmic reticulum and in the Golgi. Variant cells, however, showed no evidence of Golgi staining. Subcellular fractionation experiments also demonstrated AChR in the Golgi fractions of wild-type cells, but not in those derived from T- cells. We conclude that in T- myotubes most of the AChR fails to be transported out of the endoplasmic reticulum.
Digitizing Work : Measuring Changes in Information Worker Time Use and Performance With a Quasi-Experiment Paper

We study the causal effects of digitizing work on information workers’ time-use and performance at a large insurance firm. We make causal inferences and obtain unbiased estimates by exploiting a quasi-experiment: the phased introduction of Electronic Document Management (EDM) across multiple offices at different dates. We apply a difference-in-differences methodology to econometrically measure changes in a suite of performance metrics. We further triangulate on the effects of digitizing work via three complementary research techniques: extensive onsite interviews before, during and after implementation; detailed time use diaries and observation; and a series of surveys. In addition to large changes in time-use and performance, we find that digitization leads to a decline in the substitutable routine labor input and an increase in complementary nonroutine cognitive labor input. We uncover a new micro-level mechanism, “IT-enabled slack”, that explains how exactly IT can lead to payoff in terms of information worker productivity.
Allometric scaling law questions the traditional mechanical model for axillary lymph node involvement in breast cancer.

PURPOSE To find a quantitative relationship between tumor size and frequency of axillary lymph node involvement. PATIENTS AND METHODS The frequency of axillary node involvement versus primary tumor volume was analyzed in 10 selected series of patients incorporating a total of 57,244 women with resectable breast cancer. The average number of events per unit volume resulting in tumor spread to axillary lymph nodes before tumor surgical removal Theta(V)/V, was estimated under simple probabilistic assumptions. RESULTS The allometric scaling law Theta(V)/V = 0.0586V(-0.7457) was estimated on the data, fitting the proportion of lymph node involvement on tumor volume V (in microliters). The estimate 0.7457 (95% CI, 0.7200 to 0.7713) suggests that the true scaling exponent, under the assumed model, may be the fractional value, which characterizes scaling relationships for a wide variety of biologic variables at both the whole organism level and organ level. CONCLUSION Results suggest that the phenomenon should be related to some internal structural trait of the tumor. The vascular network seems to be the best candidate. This result does not support a mere mechanical model of lymphatic tumor spread. A more complex biology-based model of lymphohematogenous spread is suggested, in which the axillary nodes draining the lymph from the primary tumor may become activated by factors produced by both tumor cells and tumor stroma, thus favoring cell-selective homing of otherwise circulating tumor cells. The success of fractal features related to the internal architecture brings additional support to the consideration of primary breast cancer as an organ-like structure.
Resource-limited sentence boundary detection

We examine the practical constraints imposed on the task of sentence boundary detection in speech recognizer output, by the requirements of a system that supports large-scale commercial off-line transcription of dictations. We develop and evaluate a method that observes these constraints, reformulating the best technique previously reported in order to allow the use a smoothing technique directly tailored to boundary prediction. We then show how this method can be generalized and improved upon, demonstrating significantly better performance in three different domains.