Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Constraint stroke-based oversketching for 3D curves

In this paper we present an extended approach for stroke oversketching. The stroke oversketching technique changes a curve by redrawing parts of it. Finding the part to replace and smoothing the transition is done automatically. Our extension to oversketching constraints the change of the curve to one single side profile leaving the other side profiles of the curve unchanged. Additionally we present the advantage of using this approach in car design following the classic four-side-view drawing approach.
The Effect of Job Demand-Control-Social Support Model on Nurses' Job Satisfaction in Specialized Teaching Hospitals, Ethiopia

Background The job demand-control-social support model has been widely studied in western countries but has not been theoretically addressed on health workers of sub-Saharan African countries. Therefore, this study investigates the relationship between Job Demand-Control-Support Model and job satisfaction in specialized teaching hospitals in Ethiopia. Method A cross-sectional survey was conducted from September 2014 to May 2015 in three public specialized teaching hospitals in Ethiopia. Among 1371 nurses, 360 were selected as sample. Data was collected using Job Content Questionnaire and Job Satisfaction Survey Questionnaire. After the data was collected, it was analyzed using SPSS version16.0 statistical software. The results were analyzed using of descriptive statistics followed by inferential statistics on the variables. Results The result revealed that control variables (gender, age, educational qualification, and work experience) accounted for a significant increment explaining 2.1 percent of the variance in job satisfaction. Job demand and social support together explained 24.5 percent of job satisfaction. Job demand(β=−0.152; p<0.01) had significant but negative relationship with job satisfaction and social support (β=0.458; p<0.01) had significant and positive relationship with job satisfaction. On the other hand, job control (β=0.042; p>0.05) did not have a significant relationship with job satisfaction. Furthermore, there was no straight three-way interaction effect among job demand, job control and social support (β=0.05, p>0.05). Conclusion Job demand and social support are related to nurses' job satisfaction, but job control neither related to nor moderated the relationship between job demands and job satisfaction. Furthermore, there was no joint three-way interaction effect among job demand, job control and social support.
A reassessment of the evidence of the Integrated Sachs–Wolfe effect through the WMAP–NVSS correlation

We reassess the estimate of the cross-correlation of the spatial distribution of the NRAO VLA Sky Survey (NVSS) radio sources with that of cosmic microwave background anisotropies from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP). This reanalysis is motivated by the fact that most previous studies adopted a redshift distribution of NVSS sources inconsistent with recent data. We find that the constraints on the bias-weighted redshift, of NVSS sources, set by the observed angular correlation function, w(θ), or, equivalently, by the power spectrum of their spatial distribution, strongly mitigate the effect of the choice of . If such constraints are met, even highly discrepant redshift distributions yield NVSS–WMAP cross-correlation functions consistent with each other within statistical errors. The models favoured by recent data imply a bias factor, b(z), decreasing with increasing z, rather than constant, as assumed by most previous analyses. As a consequence, the function has more weight at z < 1, i.e. in the redshift range yielding the maximum contribution to the Integrated Sachs–Wolfe (ISW) in a standard Lambda cold dark matter (ΛCDM) cosmology. On the whole, the NVSS turns out to be better suited for ISW studies than generally believed, even in the absence of an observational determination of the redshift distribution. The systematics introducing spurious power in the angular correlation function on scales of several degrees are strongly reduced restricting the analysis to the subsample brighter than 10 mJy. Even though this subsample comprises less than one-third of the NVSS sources, it yields a slightly more significant detection of the ISW effect than the full sample (3σ rather than 2.5σ). The NVSS–WMAP cross-correlation function is found to be fully consistent with the prediction of the standard ΛCDM cosmology.
A New Synchronization Scheme for Memory Consistency Model ( Extended Abstract )

Modernistic scalable multiprocessors are mostly built with a distributed-shared memory architecture. Large scale shared memory multiprocessors have long memory latencies for the remote memory access. And these latencies can quickly offset system performance earned from the exploitation of parallelism. In order to improve system performance, we must reduce memory latencies. The useful way for the improvement is to use efficient synchronization scheme. However, the past relaxed memory consistency models are not suitable for the out of order execution environment. In this paper, we present a new synchronization scheme based on superscalar multiprocessors to exploit the parallelism. Several synchronization primitives are proposed to create a more weak memory consistency environment. Extra hardware is added to support the new synchronization operation. A simulator is developed to evaluate the performance enhancement of various synchronization schemes. Experimental results display that the performance improvement of our proposed synchronization scheme is significant.
The Psychology of Marathon Television Viewing: Antecedents and Viewer Involvement

This study focuses on the expanding trend of marathon (“binge”) television viewing. It examines the personality antecedents of such media consumption (attachment style, depression, and self-regulation deficiency) as well as the psychological experiences of marathon viewers relative to the narrative (transportation, enjoyment) and its characters (parasocial relationship, identification). In a two-study design, theoretical models of media use and involvement, on one hand, and models of media addiction, on the other hand, are applied to predict the extent of marathon viewing and to compare it with “traditional” viewing. Results advance understanding of enjoyment and involvement theory and support cognitive theories of media addiction. At the same time, the study’s findings reveal that marathon television viewers are active both cognitively and emotionally during and after the media exposure, thus alleviating some concerns about the “problematic” nature of the “binge” viewing phenomenon.
Cognitive and behavioural effects of music-based exercises in patients with dementia

Objective: To evaluate the effect of a musical exercise programme on mood state and cognitive function in women with dementia. Design: Randomized controlled trial. Setting: Public Psychiatric Hospital Rekem, Belgium. Patients: Twenty-five patients with dementia. Interventions: Fifteen patients attended exercise training for three months, which consisted of daily physical exercises supported by music for 30 min/session. They were compared with a group of 10 control patients, who received an equal amount of attention through daily conversation. Main measures: The effect on cognition was measured by the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and the Amsterdam Dementia Screening Test 6 (ADS 6). Behaviour was evaluated with the abbreviated Stockton Geriatric Rating Scale (BOP scale). The assessments were made before, after six weeks of intervention and immediately after the three-month experimental period. Results: The exercise group showed a significant improvement in cognition. This was documented by an increased MMSE mean score of 12.87-15.53, and by a higher median score, rising from 10 to 14 points, on the subset ‘fluency’ (ADS 6 test). The control group showed no significant improvement, either on the MMSE (mean score of 10.80 -11.00) or on the fluency subtest of the ADS 6 (median scores were 6.5-7 points). The effects on behavioural changes were not significant. Conclusion: The present study suggests a beneficial effect of cognition using a music-based exercise programme in a group of patients with moderate to severe dementia. Further studies are needed to confirm these findings.
Evidence and consensus-based German guidelines for the management of analgesia, sedation and delirium in intensive care – short version

Targeted monitoring of analgesia, sedation and delirium, as well as their appropriate management in critically ill patients is a standard of care in intensive care medicine. With the undisputed advantages of goal-oriented therapy established, there was a need to develop our own guidelines on analgesia and sedation in intensive care in Germany and these were published as 2nd Generation Guidelines in 2005. Through the dissemination of these guidelines in 2006, use of monitoring was shown to have improved from 8 to 51% and the use of protocol-based approaches increased to 46% (from 21%). Between 2006–2009, the existing guidelines from the DGAI (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Anästhesiologie und Intensivmedizin) and DIVI (Deutsche Interdisziplinäre Vereinigung für Intensiv- und Notfallmedizin) were developed into 3rd Generation Guidelines for the securing and optimization of quality of analgesia, sedation and delirium management in the intensive care unit (ICU). In collaboration with another 10 professional societies, the literature has been reviewed using the criteria of the Oxford Center of Evidence Based Medicine. Using data from 671 reference works, text, diagrams and recommendations were drawn up. In the recommendations, Grade “A” (very strong recommendation), Grade “B” (strong recommendation) and Grade “0” (open recommendation) were agreed. As a result of this process we now have an interdisciplinary and consensus-based set of 3rd Generation Guidelines that take into account all critically illness patient populations. The use of protocols for analgesia, sedation and treatment of delirium are repeatedly demonstrated. These guidelines offer treatment recommendations for the ICU team. The implementation of scores and protocols into routine ICU practice is necessary for their success.
Video-based fire detection with spatio-temporal SURF and color features

This paper proposes a new video-based method for fire detection, which uses color, spatial and temporal information. Our method divides videos into spatio-temporal blocks and extracts a novel volume SURF features from three orthogonal planes of these blocks. Combining spatio-temporal SURF features and the global color histogram of Lab color space on blocks, we achieve a new final features to detect fire. And we use a linear SVM in classification stage. Experiments show that the classification performance of our proposed method is better than a previous method and can achieve better true positive rate in various scenes.
Artificial intelligence and knowledge management: questioning the tacit dimension

Abstract Knowledge management (KM) has matured to the point that many organisations either believe they have such practices in place or at least understand they are relevant to the knowledge work commonly undertaken in many industries. What is lacking from the literature, however, is a solid foundation for the philosophies underpinning KM and particularly for how tacit knowledge informs the KM space. Research over decades shows tacit knowledge underpins all other forms of knowledge, enabling the interpretation and judicious application of knowledge, leading (at its highest levels) to the concept of wisdom. As an academic discipline, artificial intelligence (AI) was established before KM, has been grounded in the computing discipline for many decades, and is applied broadly in many domains. This paper explores how AI can inform the KM debate. Rather than simply provide examples of AI success stories as applied to KM in practice, it explores the theoretical and practical limitations of AI and KM in unison, providing at the same time a strong epistemological understanding of both disciplines as a means of furthering the knowledge debate, with particular emphasis on the role of tacit knowledge within this jurisdiction.
MatPECS—A MATLAB-based Power Electronic Circuit Simulation Package with GUI for Effective Classroom Teaching*

Power electronics devices and circuits have revolutionized the concept of power control for power conversion and electrical motor drives. Power Electronics course is essential for electrical engineers and is included in the undergraduatelevel syllabus. With various circuit configurations like singlephase/three-phase circuits with R/RL/RLC/RLE loads and associated voltage and current waveforms to be dealt with, it is a tough subject to teach as well as to understand. This has led to a general disinterest in this field among the students. If all the circuit configurations and associated waveforms can be visualized for different operating conditions, the concepts become clearer and interesting. The objective of this paper is to introduce a MATLAB-based simulation package intended to make the classroom teaching of power electronics more effective and easy. MATLAB has proved itself to be a powerful tool for simulation. It is a software package available in almost all the technical institutions. This paper presents a simple menu-driven program that students can use to explore the behavior of power electronic circuits. The paper also explains how the graphical user interface (GUI) feature of MATLAB can be effectively used for making interactive software packages.
Determinization and information set Monte Carlo Tree Search for the card game Dou Di Zhu

Determinization is a technique for making decisions in games with stochasticity and/or imperfect information by sampling instances of the equivalent deterministic game of perfect information. Monte-Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) is an AI technique that has recently proved successful in the domain of deterministic games of perfect information. This paper studies the strengths and weaknesses of determinization coupled with MCTS on a game of imperfect information, the popular Chinese card game Dou Di Zhu. We compare a “cheating” agent (with access to hidden information) to an agent using determinization with random deals. We investigate the fraction of knowledge that a non-cheating agent could possibly infer about opponents' hidden cards. Furthermore, we show that an important source of error in determinization arises since this approach searches a tree that does not truly resemble the game tree for a game with stochasticity and imperfect information. Hence we introduce a novel variant of MCTS that operates directly on trees of information sets and show that our algorithm performs well in precisely those situations where determinization using random deals performs poorly.
Combining weak learners with probabilistic models for binary classi cation

In this project it is addressed the problem of binary classi cation i.e. we want to nd a model F : X! f0; 1g for the dependence of a class c on x from a set of samples D = fct;xtgt=1 with ct 2 f0; 1g. The approach is to combine multiple base learners with the use of probabilistic models. In particular, I used the methodology presented by Ghersen eld for doing regression in complex time series[1], but adapting it for classi cation, which I called Cluster Weighted Classi cation (CWC). I present the resulting methodology, highligthing the main changes that had to be done for the adaptation. The nal algorithm is then tested with benchmark datasets[2][3] and compared against the results obtained with some of the algorithms developed so far. Finally I used the probabilistic language used in the methodology to try to theoretically compare CWC against the boosting algorithms. 1 Introduction In this project it is addressed the problem of binary classi cation i.e. we want to nd a model F : X! f0; 1g for the dependence of a class c on x from a set of samples D = fct;xtgt=1 with ct 2 f0; 1g. The approach is to combine multiple base learners with the use of probabilistic models. In particular, I used the methodology presented by Gershenfeld et. al. for doing regression in complex time series[1], but adapting it for classi cation, which I called Cluster Weighted Classi cation (CWC)1. The 1This is a continuation of the project that I made last quarter for the class CS242. That project was mainly about the application of boosting methods to address the Machine Learning Contest and the rst step towards the implementation of this methodology.
Fine‐scale environmental variation and structure of understorey plant communities in two old‐growth pine forests

1 Although it is well established that nitrogen and light play major roles in structuring plant communities across the landscape, it is not as clear how they structure communities within forest stands. Virtually nothing is known about within‐stand structure of understorey communities of herbs and small shrubs in near‐boreal forests. 2 We tested the hypothesis that fine‐scale (5–20 m) variability in N and light structure forest‐floor plant communities in two old‐growth mixed Pinus resinosa and Pinus strobus forests in north‐eastern Minnesota, USA. 3 In each forest, all trees > 1.4 m tall were mapped on a 0.75–1.0 ha area. A grid of subplots 5–10 m apart was established (total n = 147), and N mineralization (µg g−1 soil day−1), soil depth (cm), light (% canopy openness), and percentage cover of all herbs and small shrubs were measured on each subplot. 4 Cluster analysis showed that the dominant understorey species fall into three groups. Group 1 is unrelated to N and light, and is negatively associated with a midstorey of the small tree Acer rubrum and the most abundant tall shrub Corylus cornuta. Group 2 reaches maximum abundance in places (mostly gaps) with relatively high light, but is unrelated to within‐stand variation in N availability. Group 3 consists of a single species, Aster macrophyllus, and reaches maximum abundance in areas with low N availability and low abundance of Corylus, but higher than average abundance of P. strobus and Betula papyrifera overstorey trees. 5 N and light have a moderate influence on understorey plant community structure. The plant species do arrange themselves along N and light gradients, but the gradients are likely to be too narrow to allow the degree of differentiation seen at the landscape level. Spatial patterning of the species groups is probably influenced by other factors, including disturbance history, chance and neighbourhood effects such as clonal reproduction.
A framework for locally convergent random-search algorithms for discrete optimization via simulation

The goal of this article is to provide a general framework for locally convergent random-search algorithms for stochastic optimization problems when the objective function is embedded in a stochastic simulation and the decision variables are integer ordered. The framework guarantees desirable asymptotic properties, including almost-sure convergence and known rate of convergence, for any algorithms that conform to its mild conditions. Within this framework, algorithm designers can incorporate sophisticated search schemes and complicated statistical procedures to design new algorithms.
Destruction of Lymphoid Organ Architecture and Hepatitis Caused by CD4+ T Cells

Immune responses have the important function of host defense and protection against pathogens. However, the immune response also causes inflammation and host tissue injury, termed immunopathology. For example, hepatitis B and C virus infection in humans cause immunopathological sequel with destruction of liver cells by the host's own immune response. Similarly, after infection with lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV) in mice, the adaptive immune response causes liver cell damage, choriomeningitis and destruction of lymphoid organ architecture. The immunopathological sequel during LCMV infection has been attributed to cytotoxic CD8+ T cells. However, we now show that during LCMV infection CD4+ T cells selectively induced the destruction of splenic marginal zone and caused liver cell damage with elevated serum alanin-transferase (ALT) levels. The destruction of the splenic marginal zone by CD4+ T cells included the reduction of marginal zone B cells, marginal zone macrophages and marginal zone metallophilic macrophages. Functionally, this resulted in an impaired production of neutralizing antibodies against LCMV. Furthermore, CD4+ T cells reduced B cells with an IgMhighIgDlow phenotype (transitional stage 1 and 2, marginal zone B cells), whereas other B cell subtypes such as follicular type 1 and 2 and germinal center/memory B cells were not affected. Adoptive transfer of CD4+ T cells lacking different important effector cytokines and cytolytic pathways such as IFNγ, TNFα, perforin and Fas-FasL interaction did reveal that these cytolytic pathways are redundant in the induction of immunopathological sequel in spleen. In conclusion, our results define an important role of CD4+ T cells in the induction of immunopathology in liver and spleen. This includes the CD4+ T cell mediated destruction of the splenic marginal zone with consecutively impaired protective neutralizing antibody responses.
Testosterone solid lipid microparticles for transdermal drug delivery. Formulation and physicochemical characterization

Purpose: The main objective of the study was to formulate and characterize testosterone (TS) solid lipid microparticles (SLM) to be applied as a transdermal delivery system. Methods: Testosterone SLMs were formulated using an emulsion melt homogenization method. Various types and concentrations of fatty materials, namely glyceryl monostearate (GM), glyceryl distearate (GD), stearic acid (SA) and glyceryl behanate (GB) were used. The formulations contained 2.5 or 5 mg TS g−1. Morphology, particle size, entrapment efficiency (EE), rheological properties and thermal behaviour of the prepared SLM were examined. In vitro release characteristics of TS from various prepared SLM were also evaluated over 24 h using a vertical Franz diffusion cell. In addition, the effect of storage and freeze-drying on particle size and release pattern of TS from the selected formulation was evaluated. Results: The results indicated that the type of lipid affected the morphology and particle size of SLM. A relatively high drug percentage entrapment efficiency ranging from 80.7–95.7% was obtained. Rheological studies showed plastic flow characteristics of the prepared formulations. DSC examination revealed that TS existed in amorphous form in the prepared SLM. Release studies revealed the following rank order of TS permeation through cellophane membrane after application of various formulations: 5% GM < 5% GD < 5% SA < 5% GB < 2.5% GM < 2.5% SA < 10% GD < 10% GB. The drug permeation through excised abdomen rat skin after application of 10% GB–2.5 mg TS g−1 SLM was lower than that permeated through cellophane membrane. Moreover, SLM containing 10% GB–2.5 mg TS g−1 stored at 5°C showed good stability as indicated by the release study and particle size analysis. Trehalose showed high potential as a cryoprotectant during freeze drying of the selected SLM formulation. Conclusions: The developed TS SLM delivery system seemed to be promising as a TS transdermal delivery system.
Solution to 0/1 Knapsack Problem Based on Improved Ant Colony Algorithm

Ant colony algorithms analogize the social behaviour of ant colonies, they are a class of meta-heuristics which are inspired from the behavior of real ants. It was applied successfully to the well-known traveling salesman problem and other hard combinational optimization problems. In order to apply it to the classical 0/1 knapsack problem, this paper compares the difference between the traveling salesman problem and the 0/1 knapsack problem and adapts the ant colony optimization (ACO) model to meet researches' purpose. At the same time, the parameters in ACO model are modified accordingly. The experiments based on improved ant colony algorithms show the robustness and the potential power of this kind of meta-heuristic algorithm.