Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Pre-equalized faster than Nyquist transmission for 5G cellular microwave backhaul

Microwave backhaul links can nowadays deliver rather impressive throughput, however 5G systems will require further higher efficiencies and a promising solution is the so-called faster than Nyqust (FTN) transmission. A FTN communication is obtained when the Nyquist inter-symbol interference (ISI) criterion is not respected because the transmission rate is higher than that for which the shaping filter is designed. While increasing the achievable rate, the complexity increase has up to now discouraged application of FTN in practical systems. In this paper, we propose to compensate for the ISI by means of a non-linear precoding strategy, i.e. the Tomlinson-Harashima precoder (THP), in turn eliminating the need for costly equalizations at the receiver. We characterize the performance of the proposed FTN system by deriving analytical bounds on the achievable rates of the transmissions over a FTN microwave link using high-order modulations and capacity achieving codes. The proposed solution is capacity-achieving at high SNR (which is the operating regime of backhaul microwave links) and has a complexity that does not increase with the density of the constellation. Numerical results show the effectiveness of the THP-FTN solution paving the way towards its implementations on microwave links.
The Effect of Superstition on Health: Evidence from the Taiwanese Ghost Month

Superstition is a widespread phenomenon. We empirically examine its impact on health-related behavior and health outcomes. We study the case of the Taiwanese Ghost month. During this period, which is believed to increase the likelihood of bad outcomes, we observe substantial adaptions in health-related behavior. Our identification exploits idiosyncratic variation in the timing of the Ghost Month across Gregorian calendar years. Using high-quality administrative data, we document for the period of the Ghost Months reductions in mortality, hospital admissions, and births. While the effect on mortality is a quantum effect, the latter two effects reflect changes in the timing of events. Efficient public health policy should account for emotional and cultural factors.
War atrocities and inattention-hyperactivity: The mediating role of religiosity in children

ABSTRACT The study investigated whether religiosity mediates or moderates the relationship between war atrocities and inattention-hyperactivity in children from Gaza Strip and South Lebanon. Participants were 600 children aged 12–16 years, of whom 273 were males and 327 were females from public schools. Questionnaires were administered by two psychologists. To examine the mediating and moderating effects of religiosity, Baron and Kenney’s mediational criteria and hierarchal regression analysis were conducted. Results indicated that religiosity mediated and moderated the relationship between war atrocities and inattention–hyperactivity in children. The clinical and research implications of these conclusions are discussed.
Traffic Enforcement Through the Lens of Race: A Sequential Analysis of Post-Stop Outcomes in San Diego, California

Research has shown that Black and Hispanic drivers are subject to disproportionate stop and post-stop outcomes compared with White drivers. Yet scholars’ understanding of how and why such disparities persist remains underdeveloped. To address this shortcoming, this article applies a sequential approach to the analysis of traffic stop data generated by San Diego Police Department officers in 2014 and 2015. Results show that despite being subject to higher rates of discretionary and nondiscretionary searches, Black drivers were less likely to be found with contraband than matched Whites and were more than twice as likely to be subjected to a field interview where no citation is issued or arrest made. Black drivers were also more likely to face any type of search, as well as high-discretion consent searches, that end in neither citation nor arrest. The article concludes with a discussion of the findings and a series of recommendations.
An Image Segmentation Method by Combining Fuzzy C-Means Clustering and Graph Cuts Optimization for Multiphase Level Set Algorithms

Multiphase level set model is sensitive to initial contour curve and has huge computation in the process of the multiple objects' segmentation. This paper presents a novel Image segmentation method for multiphase scenario, which initialize the multiphase level set function by coarse image segmentation using fuzzy C-means clustering algorithm and apply graph cut algorithm to acquire multiphase output image. The method effectively reduces the sensitivity of the multiphase level set algorithm to initial contour and is easier to gain the multiphase output image by graph cut algorithm. At the same time, because of using the graph cut algorithm, the multiphase level set function quickly converge to the minimum energy value with small amount of calculation and high computational efficiency. The experiments show that this method has better segmentation effect and higher efficiency of image segmentation.
A Streaming Dataflow Engine for Sparse Matrix-Vector Multiplication Using High-Level Synthesis

Using high-level synthesis techniques, this paper proposes an adaptable high-performance streaming dataflow engine for sparse matrix dense vector multiplication (SpMV) suitable for embedded FPGAs. As the SpMV is a memory-bound algorithm, this engine combines the three concepts of loop pipelining, dataflow graph, and data streaming to utilize most of the memory bandwidth available to the FPGA. The main goal of this paper is to show that FPGAs can provide comparable performance for memory-bound applications to that of the corresponding CPUs and GPUs but with significantly less energy consumption. The experimental results indicate that the FPGA provides higher performance compared to that of embedded GPUs for small and medium-size matrices by an average factor of 3.25 whereas the embedded GPU is faster for larger size matrices by an average factor of 1.58. In addition, the FPGA implementation is more energy efficient for the range of considered matrices by an average factor of 8.9 compared to the embedded CPU and GPU. A case study based on adapting the proposed SpMV optimization to accelerate the support vector machine (SVM) algorithm, one of the successful classification techniques in the machine learning literature, justifies the benefits of utilizing the proposed FPGA-based SpMV compared to that of the embedded CPU and GPU. The experimental results show that the FPGA is faster by an average factor of 1.7 and consumes less energy by an average factor of 6.8 compared to the GPU.
LIFLET: light field live with thousands of lenslets

LIFLET has a Fresnel lens, a GRIN lens-array, an IEEE1394 XGA camera, and a PC. Figure 2 illustrates a diagram of the system. The Fresnel lens helps the GRIN lens-array to pick up wider range of a scene by controlling the depth of field. The GRIN lens-array produces thousands of elemental images (for instance, 50×40 images of 20×20 pixels). The PC synthesizes free-viewpoint images from the elemental images captured by the IEEE1394 XGA camera.
Cloned foal derived from in vivo matured horse oocytes aspirated by the short disposable needle system

Transvaginal ultrasound-guided follicle aspiration is one method of obtaining recipient oocytes for equine somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). This study was conducted: (1) to evaluate the possibility of oocyte aspiration from pre-ovulatory follicles using a short disposable needle system (14-G) by comparing the oocyte recovery rate with that of a long double lumen needle (12-G); (2) to investigate the developmental competence of recovered oocytes after SCNT and embryo transfer. The recovery rates with the short disposable needle vs. the long needle were not significantly different (47.5% and 35.0%, respectively). Twenty-six SCNT embryos were transferred to 13 mares, and one mare delivered a live offspring at Day 342. There was a perfect identity match between the cloned foal and the cell donor after analysis of microsatellite DNA, and the mitochondrial DNA of the cloned foal was identical with that of the oocyte donor. These results demonstrated that the short disposable needle system can be used to recover oocytes to use as cytoplasts for SCNT, in the production of cloned foals and for other applications in equine embryology
RANS modeling for compressible and transitional flows

Recent LES suggested that the turbulence fluctuation in the wall-normal direction v′ plays an important role in the evolution of transition. This motivates the use of v − f model for turbomachinery flows, in which different types of transition co-exist. An ‘ad hoc’ Reynolds-number-dependent term is added to Cε1 in the εequation in order to reduce the level of near-wall dissipation rate. As a result, the onset and length of transition are greatly improved for a moderate level of freestream turbulence intensity. However, the peak of streamwise turbulence intensity within the transition zone is underestimated. The implication of this is that the intermittency effect needs to be incorporated into the model – for example, based on the ‘conditioned Navier-Stokes equation’ which splits the equation into turbulent and nonturbulent parts – in order to capture the correct physical mechanism of transition. Another objective of this study is to resolve the issue of whether the ‘elliptic relaxation’ model can be used for supersonic flows. The results for the RAE2822 transonic airfoil will demonstrate that a good agreement with experimental data has been achieved. This is because the pressure-strain term (∼ f), though elliptic in nature, acts simply as a source term in the v2-equation, which is not associated with the convection process.
Spectrum of activity and molecular correlates of response to phosphatidylinositol ether lipid analogues, novel lipid-based inhibitors of Akt

The serine/threonine kinase Akt is a promising target in cancer. We previously identified five phosphatidylinositol ether lipid analogues (PIA) that inhibited Akt activation and selectively killed lung and breast cancer cells with high levels of Akt activity. To assess the spectrum of activity in other cell types and to compare PIAs with other inhibitors of the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K)/Akt/mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) pathway, we compared growth inhibition by PIAs against the PI3K inhibitors LY294002 and wortmannin and the mTOR inhibitor rapamycin in the NCI60 cell line panel. Although each of these compounds inhibited the growth of all the cell lines, distinct patterns were observed. The PIAs were the least potent but the most cytotoxic. The broad spectrum of activity of PIAs was confirmed in vivo in hollow fiber assays. The response to PIAs was significantly correlated with levels of active but not total Akt in the NCI60, as assessed using COMPARE analysis. However, a number of molecular targets were identified whose expression was more highly correlated with sensitivity to PIAs than active Akt. Expression of these molecular targets did not overlap with those that correlated with sensitivity to LY294002, wortmannin, or rapamycin. A COMPARE analysis of the National Cancer Institute chemical screening database revealed that the patterns of activity of PIAs correlated best with patterns of activity of other lipid-based compounds. These studies show that although PIAs are widely active in cancer cells, which correlates with the presence of its intended target, active Akt, PIAs are biologically distinct from other known inhibitors of the PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathway. [Mol Cancer Ther 2006;5(3):713–22]
HIV-1 Gp120 Protein Downregulates Nef Induced IL-6 Release in Immature Dentritic Cells through Interplay of DC-SIGN

HIV-1 replication is a tightly controlled mechanism which demands the interplay of host as well as viral factors. Both gp120 (envelope glycoprotein) and Nef (regulatory protein) have been correlated with the development of AIDS disease in independent studies. In this context, the ability of HIV-1 to utilize immature dentritic cells for transfer of virus is pivotal for early pathogenesis. The presence of C-type lectins on dendritic cells (DCs) like DC-SIGN, are crucial in inducing antiviral immunity to HIV-1. Both gp120 and Nef induce the release of cytokines leading to multiple effects of viral pathogenesis. Our study elucidated for the first time the cross-talk of the signaling mechanism of these two viral proteins in immature monocyte derived dentritic cells (immDCs). Further, gp120 was found to downregulate the IL-6 release by Nef, depending on the interaction with DC-SIGN. A cascade of signaling followed thereafter, including the activation of SOCS-3, to mediate the diminishing effect of gp120. Our results also revealed that the anti-apoptotic signals emanated from Nef was put to halt by gp120 through inhibition of Nef induced STAT3. Thus our results implicate that the signaling generated by gp120 and Nef, undergoes a switch-over mechanism that significantly contributes to the pathogenesis of HIV-1 and widens our view towards the approach on battling the viral infection.
Eucommia ulmoides Oliver Extract, Aucubin, and Geniposide Enhance Lysosomal Activity to Regulate ER Stress and Hepatic Lipid Accumulation

Eucommia ulmoides Oliver is a natural product widely used as a dietary supplement and medicinal plant. Here, we examined the potential regulatory effects of Eucommia ulmoides Oliver extracts (EUE) on hepatic dyslipidemia and its related mechanisms by in vitro and in vivo studies. EUE and its two active constituents, aucubin and geniposide, inhibited palmitate-induced endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress, reducing hepatic lipid accumulation through secretion of apolipoprotein B and associated triglycerides and cholesterol in human HepG2 hepatocytes. To determine how EUE diminishes the ER stress response, lysosomal and proteasomal protein degradation activities were analyzed. Although proteasomal activity was not affected, lysosomal enzyme activities including V-ATPase were significantly increased by EUE as well as aucubin and geniposide in HepG2 cells. Treatment with the V-ATPase inhibitor, bafilomycin, reversed the inhibition of ER stress, secretion of apolipoprotein B, and hepatic lipid accumulation induced by EUE or its component, aucubin or geniposide. In addition, EUE was determined to regulate hepatic dyslipidemia by enhancing lysosomal activity and to regulate ER stress in rats fed a high-fat diet. Together, these results suggest that EUE and its active components enhance lysosomal activity, resulting in decreased ER stress and hepatic dyslipidemia.
Inter-rater agreement in assigning cognitive demand to Life Sciences examination questions

Taxonomies of cognitive demand are frequently used to ensure that assessment tasks include questions ranging from low to high cognitive demand. This paper investigates inter-rater agreement among four evaluators on the cognitive demand of the South African National Senior Certificate Life Sciences examinations after training, practice and revision. The taxonomy used was based on the cognitive dimension of the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy, with analysis, evaluation and synthesis combined into one category. Descriptors from the Revised Bloom’s taxonomy were slightly modified to suit Life Sciences. Inter-rater agreement was poor to fair, but pairwise percent agreement did not reach acceptable levels. Evaluators found it difficult to assign cognitive demand to examination items, and constantly referred to the descriptors. We question the usefulness of a taxonomy of cognitive demand when individuals differ in their interpretations of the levels of cognitive demand. The results indicate that standards of Life Sciences examination papers cannot reliably be assessed by evaluating cognitive demand using Bloom’s Taxonomy.
Evaluation of Document Retrieval Systems and Query Difficulty

There exist several document retrieval ( DR) evaluation framework. Two of them (T REC and Amaryllis) are presented in this paper. But evaluation of DR systems is a very difficult task because it has to deal with relevance which is not a clear notion and because we can question the generalization of the results obtained during the campaigns to bigger or different collections. Moreover, systems are mostly evaluated according to their recall/precision results whereas there are a lot of other features that can be evaluated (s peed, presentation of the results, user’s satisfaction, etc.). Finally, we think it is important to evaluate a query difficulty (both for user/system interaction and system evaluation). In the last part of this paper, we report some preliminary results on query evaluation
The dynamic network notation: harnessing network effects in PaaS-ecosystems

Web applications complement the Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) value by satisfying widespread and rapidly changing consumer requirements within limited time and budget. Successful PaaS providers excel in governing their market performance by leveraging complex network effects, which implicitly control PaaS-ecosystems. There is currently no methodically sound and easy to use tool available to business analysts and software engineers of PaaS-offerings that addresses challenges and opportunities in launching and governing such highly dynamic networks. In this paper, we capture network behavior through elements of complex system and control theory. Our dynamic network notation (DYNO) builds upon these theories. In more detail, DYNO models PaaS offerings with a focus on identifying and shaping network effects towards a sufficient user-base and an optimized portfolio of Web applications, all while maintaining a high quality of service.
The Impact of Homework Time on Academic Achievement

Several charter schools have shown great success in improving the academic performance of students from low-performing school districts. It has been argued, however, that their success may be due to student selection. This paper tests of two aspects of these charter schools’ reforms using nationally representative panel data on student behavior and academic performance. First, I examine a policy that increases the proportion of homework that students complete. Second, I examine the impact of increasing the amount of homework assigned. Previous studies have not been able to accurately estimate the impact of homework because of important omitted variables and measurement error, which strongly bias the estimated impact of homework time. This paper, however, uses an instrumental variables approach with student fixed effects to account for both time-varying and time-invariant unobserved characteristics and inputs. This approach produces estimates of the impact of homework time on academic achievement that are much higher than those of previous studies. Also, when compared to popular policy changes such as decreasing class size or increasing teachers’ wages, a policy of assigning more homework is found to be the most cost effective policy tool. Finally, these findings suggest that assigning additional homework primarily improves the achievement of low performing students and students in low performing schools. Thus, assigning more homework could help close the gap in achievement between high and low performing students. ∗ The author would like to thank Tom Mroz, David Blau, Donna Gilleskie, David Guilkey, and Helen Tauchen for their excellent assistance. Steven can be reached at mcmullen@unc.edu or Department of Economics, Gardner Hall CB# 3305, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3305. 2
Stress-based speech segmentation revisited

Although word stress is usually seen as a powerful speechsegmentation cue, the results of several cross-modal fragment priming experiments reveal strong limitations to stress-based segmentation. When stress was pitted against phonotactic and coarticulatory cues, substantial effects of the latter two cues were found, but there was no evidence for stress-based segmentation. However, when the stimuli were presented in a background of noise, the pattern of results reversed: Strong syllables generated more priming than weak ones, regardless of coarticulation and phonotactics. Furthermore, a similar dependency was found between stress and lexicality. Priming was stronger when the prime was preceded by a real than a nonsense word, regardless of the stress pattern of the prime. Yet, again, a reversal in cue dominance was oberved when the stimuli were played in noise. These results underscore the secondary role of stress-based segmentation in clear speech, and its efficiency in impoverished listening conditions. More generally, they call for an integrated, hierarchical, and signalcontingent approach to speech segmentation.
Do the Advantages of Incumbency Advantage Incumbents?

We develop a model that calls into question some longstanding presumptions about incumbency advantage. Our results show that increases in some of the ostensible benefits of incumbency frequently cited in the empirical and theoretical literature make it difficult for voters to differentiate incumbents of higher and lower quality. While this leads to an improvement in the electoral prospects of lower-quality incumbents, it is harmful to those of higher quality. Whether the net electoral consequence for high-quality incumbents is positive or negative depends on whether the source of incumbency advantage affects candidate entry and exit decisions directly or indirectly, as mediated through voters’ choices. Our findings suggest, further, that fundamental tensions may exist between different sources of incumbency advantage, and point to obstacles to disaggregating the sources of incumbency advantage empirically.
Factors influencing business of mobile telecommunication service providers in Vietnam

According to the Ministry of Information and Communications in Vietnam, as of November 2015, the number of mobile subscribers is over 120 million ones, accounting for over 86% of the total number of telephone subscribers. With a total population of over 92 million Vietnam citizens, a stable national economy and a large populations of young consumers in the country, mobile communication industries still have a huge potentials for future development. Telecommunication service providers in Vietnam are facing fierce competition. Subscribers are expecting OTT (Over the Top) applications, good quality service and handset subsidy. This study investigated whether legal frameworks, OTT applications, quality of service and handset subsidy are important components of mobile telecommunication service in Vietnam. This study used quantitative method to distribute surveys to mobile subscribers. Findings found that all four factors significantly influence mobile business in Vietnam. Thus, telecommunication service providers in Vietnam must continuously innovate to enhance operational competitiveness, improve business efficiency, expand business scale, and improve its position in the market in order to ensure sustainable development. Moreover, Vietnamese government needs to develop a legal framework to help mobile telecommunication service providers enhance the common interests and benefits of the entire society.
Application of Single-Mode Fiber-Coupled Receivers in Optical Satellite to High-Altitude Platform Communications

In a free-space optical communication system employing fiber-optic components, the phasefront distortions induced by atmospheric turbulence limit the efficiency with which the laser beam is coupled into a single-mode fiber. We analyze different link scenarios including a geostationary (GEO) satellite, a high-altitude platform (HAP), and an optical ground station (OGS). Single-mode coupled optically preamplified receivers allow for efficient suppression of background noise and highly sensitive detection. While GEO-to-OGS communication suffers from atmospheric turbulence, we demonstrate that GEO-to-HAP communication allows for close to diffraction-limited performance when applying tip-tilt correction.