Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hebbian Covariance Learning and Self-Tuning Optimal Control

A novel adaptive optimal control paradigm is presented that is inspired by Hebbian covariance learning, the celebrated biological synaptic process thought to underlie learning and memory and other complex biological functions. The adaptation is driven by the spontaneous fluctuations in the system input and output, the covariance of which provides useful information about the changes in the system behavior. Theoretical foundations for the paradigm are derived using Lyapunov theory. In numerous computer simulations, the controller is shown to effectively optimize linear and non-linear systems of arbitrary order in the presence of noise disturbances. The on-line adaptation method is computationally simple to apply in comparison to other optimal control schemes which may require complete parameter estimation. Furthermore, the learning algorithm is applicable to a wide class of real-world optimal control problems. This thesis also explores the plausibility that Hebbian covariance learning may underlie respiratory control, satisfying certain physiological and neurobiological constraints. The respiratory system has been hypothesized to be regulated in an optimal fashion by a specialized brainstem center. The positive results of these simulations lend themselves to future inquiries into the computational functions of synaptic plasticity in biological neurons and into the neuronal processes which may underlie respiratory control. Thesis Supervisor: Dr. Chi-Sang Poon Title: Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology
The Future of Human Reproduction: Will Birth Rates Recover or Continue to Fall?

Today more than half of the world population has fertility below the replacement level, i.e., less than two surviving children per woman; and there are now several countries where fertility has dropped to levels that are of serious concern to policy-makers. All major population projections currently assume that fertility in the countries with the lowest levels will recover or at least not decline any further. Should birth rates, however, defy these projections and continue to decline, then these populations would shrink and age much more rapidly than currently assumed. The "low fertility trap hypothesis" discussed in this contribution gives plausible reasons why indeed fewer and fewer people may want to have children in the future.
The Problem of Human Agency in Organizational Analysis

This paper explores the manner in which 'the problem of agency' has been reflected in the development of organizational analysis as a field of study and as an intellectual practice. The development of the latter is seen to be shaped by successive attempts to come to terms with the former in four interrelated aspects. First, as an intellectual leitmotif directing the trajectory of the historical development of organizational analysis. Second, as an analytical and methodological conundrum focussing theoretical and technical debate within the field. Third, as a moral preoccupation shaping a wider ethical debate over the implications of organized action for individual conduct. Fourth, as an ideological discourse within which conflicting views concerning the socio-political relevance of complex organizations can be expressed. The general implications of this exploration for the present condition and future development of organizational analysis are also considered.
Force-frequency coefficient of symmetrical incomplete circular quartz crystal resonator

The changes in the resonance frequencies of the thickness-shear vibration of symmetrical incomplete circular AT-cut quartz crystal resonators (QXRs), which are used as sensing elements in digital force sensors or pressure transducers, by the application of diametrical forces are discussed by considering the piezoelectric effect and the anisotropic characteristics of crystal plates. Two-dimensional motion equations for predicting the frequency changes are derived from three-dimensional piezoelectricity equations, and equations deduced by Janiaud for solving the stress distribution in crystal plates are used to calculate the force-frequency coefficients of incomplete circular resonators. The results show that the piezoelectric effect of crystal plates decreases the force-frequency coefficient of the azimuth angle 0/spl deg/ by 7% as compared with no piezoelectricity assumption. The incomplete circular shape can be applied to a larger load than the circular disc because the flat regions of the incomplete shape provide a distributed load application without the problems of stress concentration of a point force inherent to a circular disc. The incomplete shape gives an increased force sensitivity when compared with the complete disc near azimuth angle 0/spl deg/. The theoretical curves agree well with Ratajski's experimental results.
Giant Congenital Cervical Teratoma: Diagnosis, Management and Long-term Follow-up

We report two cases of newborns with giant teratomas of the neck prenatally diagnosed. Severe polyhydramnios were present in both cases. Cesarean delivery was necessary in order to planified resuscitation and further operation of the teratoma. Prenatal diagnosis has improved the prognosis of these patients, which in different circumstances have a high morbid-mortality. At long-term follow-up both child are healthy.
A power-utilization based virtual machine allocation algorithm

Cloud computing becomes a buzzword now a day because of its simplicity, reliability, portability and security in maintaining and manipulating services from remote locations in the world. As the uses of cloud computing increase, more and more data centers are deploying throughout the world for providing high quality services to the consumers. The incremental performance of these data centers deserves a vast amount of energy to keep breathing and to response on demand immediately. Hence, development of efficient solutions is necessary that can reduce energy consumption without violating the performance much. Utilizing the physical resources at their best can be an answer to this problem. In this work, we have used the Simulated Annealing algorithm where it uses both of the power and the CPU utilization to select the best power saving host for allocating a VM. We have developed the algorithm in such way that as much workloads as possible can be served using least number of servers in a data center. We also cared about the SLA violation, performance degradation, VM migration etc. which is clearly clarified in the outcomes. We have performed exhaustive simulation study using our algorithm and the outcome of simulation results confirm the efficient resource utilization of our algorithm.
Generic Object Recognition based on Feature fusion in robot perception

A new generic object recognition (GOR) method for robot perception is proposed in this paper, based on multi-feature fusion of two-dimensional (2D) and 3D scale invariant feature transform descriptors drawn from 2D images and 3D point clouds. The trained support vector machine is utilized to construct multi-category classifiers that recognize the objects. According to our results, this new GOR approach achieves higher recognition rates than classical methods tested, even when one has large intra-class variations, or high inter-class similarities of the objects. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed GOR
To Weight or Not to Weight : The Welfare Foundations of Distributional Weights in the Global Warming Debate

This paper discusses when it is socially optimal to apply distributional weights in dealing with global environmental problems, where the distributional impacts are likely to be large, such as the greenhouse effect. This is shown to depend crucially on whether it is likely or not that an increase in rich countries’ valuation of costs in poor countries will be linked with corresponding changes in monetary transfers, such as aid. This, in turn, depends on what types of motives rich countries have to help poor countries. It also illustrates some consequences of applying a SWF characterized by constant inequality aversion together with a constant relative risk aversion utility function. In particular, it illustrates why some earlier results have been very counterintuitive when the relative risk aversion has been close to one or larger, and it proposes a straight forward way to avoid these problems, namely by adding a constant term to the utility function, so that utility is always positive in the relevant range considered.
Learning-Related Plasticity of Temporal Coding in Simultaneously Recorded Amygdala–Cortical Ensembles

Emotional learning requires the coordinated action of neural populations in limbic and cortical networks. Here, we performed simultaneous extracellular recordings from gustatory cortical (GC) and basolateral amygdalar (BLA) neural ensembles as awake, behaving rats learned to dislike the taste of saccharin [via conditioned taste aversion (CTA)]. Learning-related changes in single-neuron sensory responses were observed in both regions, but the nature of the changes was region specific. In GC, most changes were restricted to relatively late aspects of the response (starting ∼1.0 s after stimulus administration), supporting our hypothesis that in this paradigm palatability-related information resides exclusively in later cortical responses. In contrast, and consistent with data suggesting the amygdala's primary role in judging stimulus palatability, CTA altered all components of BLA taste responses, including the earliest. Finally, learning caused dramatic increases in the functional connectivity (measured in terms of cross-correlation peak heights) between pairs of simultaneously recorded BLA and GC neurons, increases that were evident only during taste processing. Our simultaneous assays of the activity of single neurons in multiple relevant brain regions across learning suggest that the transmission of taste information through amygdala–cortical circuits plays a vital role in CTA memory formation.
Online PLSA: Batch Updating Techniques Including Out-of-Vocabulary Words

A novel method is proposed for updating an already trained asymmetric and symmetric probabilistic latent semantic analysis (PLSA) model within the context of a varying document stream. The proposed method is coined online PLSA (oPLSA). The oPLSA employs a fixed-size moving window over a document stream to incorporate new documents and at the same time to discard old ones (i.e., documents that fall outside the scope of the window). In addition, the oPLSA assimilates new words that had not been previously seen (out-of-vocabulary words), and discards the words that exclusively appear in the documents to be thrown away. To handle the new words, Good-Turing estimates for the probabilities of unseen words are exploited. The experimental results demonstrate the superiority in terms of accuracy of the oPLSA over well known PLSA updating methods, such as the PLSA folding-in (PLSA fold.), the PLSA rerun from the breakpoint, the quasi-Bayes PLSA, and the Incremental PLSA. A comparison with respect to the CPU run time reveals that the oPLSA is the second fastest method after the PLSA fold. However, the better accuracy of the oPLSA than that of the PLSA fold. pays off the longer computation time. The oPLSA and the other PLSA updating methods together with online LDA are tested for document clustering and F1 scores are also reported.
Msn2- and Msn4-Like Transcription Factors Play No Obvious Roles in the Stress Responses of the Fungal Pathogen Candida albicans

ABSTRACT In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the (C2H2)2 zinc finger transcription factors Msn2 and Msn4 play central roles in responses to a range of stresses by activating gene transcription via the stress response element (STRE; CCCCT). The pathogen Candida albicans displays stress responses that are thought to help it survive adverse environmental conditions encountered within its human host. However, these responses differ from those in S. cerevisiae, and hence we predicted that the roles of Msn2- and Msn4-like proteins might have been functionally reassigned in C. albicans. C. albicans has two such proteins: CaMsn4 and Mnl1 (for Msn2- and Msn4-like). CaMSN4, but not MNL1, weakly complemented the inability of an S. cerevisiae msn2 msn4 mutant to activate a STRE-lacZ reporter. Also, the disruption of CaMsn4 and Mnl1 had no discernible effect upon the resistance of C. albicans to heat, osmotic, ethanol, nutrient, oxidative, or heavy-metal stress or upon the stress-activated transcriptome in C. albicans. Furthermore, although Cap1-dependent activation of a Yap response element-luciferase reporter was observed, a STRE reporter was not activated in response to stresses in C. albicans. Ectopic expression of CaMsn4 or Mnl1 did not affect the cellular or molecular responses of C. albicans to stress. Under the conditions tested, the putative activation and DNA binding domains of CaMsn4 did not appear to be functional. These data suggest that CaMsn4 and Mnl1 do not contribute significantly to stress responses in C. albicans. The data are consistent with the idea that stress signaling in this fungus has diverged significantly from that in budding yeast.
Public Agencies and Private Firms

There is an increasing interest in applying organization theory to public organizations as such, and a need for clarifying the distinction between public and private organizations. This quantitative case study compares questionnaire responses by middle managers in nonprofit public agencies and private profit-making corporations, to test hypotheses concerning differences in incentive structures, organizational goal clarity, and individual role characteristics. The public managers perceive a weaker relationship between performance and extrinsic rewards (weaker "expectancies'") and regard formal personnel procedures (e.g., civil service systems) as constraints on the administration of such rewards. They show higher scores on formalization scales, and are lower on certain dimensions of work satisfaction. There are no differences on scales of organizational goal clarity, role conflict, role ambiguity, and motivational variables.
Residential Mobility in Greater Johannesburg: Patterns, Associations and Educational Outcomes amongst Children in the Birth to Twenty Cohort

Frequent residential movement challenges children to adapt to change, amongst others, houses and neighbourhoods, friends and schools, and this may have either or both negative and positive influences on their health and well-being. However, there is currently little knowledge of the patterns of child residential mobility within South Africa’s urban environment. This paper uses address data of children in the Birth to Twenty cohort to analyse the frequencies and patterns of residential mobility observed over the first 14 years of these children’s lives. Of the 3,273 children enrolled into the cohort in 1990, two thirds of the children (64%) have moved home at least once. Nonetheless, a third of the children never moved, Urban Forum (2009) 20:397–413 DOI 10.1007/s12132-009-9069-6 C. Ginsburg (*) Birth to Twenty Research Programme, Department of Paediatrics and Child Health, University of the Witwatersrand, 7 York Road, Parktown, Johannesburg 2193, South Africa e-mail: carren.ginsburg@wits.ac. za S. A. Norris MRC Mineral Metabolism Research Unit and Birth to Twenty Research Programme, Department of Paediatrics, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa L. M. Richter Child, Youth and Family Development, Human Sciences Research Council, Durban, South Africa L. M. Richter School of Psychology, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa L. M. Richter Birth to Twenty Research Programme, Department of Paediatrics, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa D. B. Coplan Department of Social Anthropology, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
Demystifying the myth about marginals: Implications for global leadership

Marginals are a type of bicultural (or multicultural) individual who have internalised more than one culture, yet do not identify strongly with either or any of them; they are simultaneously cultural insiders and outsiders. This duality has led them to be overlooked as positive contributors to organisations. On average, marginals have been found to experience worse psychological, social and adjustment outcomes than other biculturals. However, in this paper, we argue that new evidence challenges this view. We propose a conceptual explanation for the outliers from the average marginalised experience, to contend that under certain conditions, marginals may possess certain advantages that facilitate their potential to excel as global leaders.
Trapezoidal Inverted Sine PWM Techniques for Fundamental Fortification in PV Fed Multilevel Inverters

Renewable energy sources, especially solar photovoltaic systems (PV) are gaining popularity as the demand for electrical energy is increasing day by day. They can act as a voltage source feeding the power circuit. This work aims in utilising the PV system as a voltage source for a cascaded five level inverter. Further the performance of the PV panel fed cascaded multilevel inverter is analysed by applying trapezoidal inverted sine PWM schemes. Many pulse width modulation (PWM) techniques were proposed and reported in literature with the aim of reducing the total harmonic distortion and enhancing the fundamental output voltage. Trapezoidal PWM scheme is one such scheme which is found to enhance the fundamental output voltage than the commonly used sine PWM scheme. This paper proposes a new PWM technique where gating pulses are produced by comparing a trapezoidal reference with multiple high frequency inverted sine carriers. Perturb and Observe (P&O) maximum power point tracking (MPPT) algorithm is used to extract the maximum power form PV panel. Keywords— PV, MPPT, P&O, PWM, TISC PWM, TTC PWM, MLI,THD
Venous Thromboembolism: Mechanisms, Treatment, and Public Awareness Biomarkers and Venous Thromboembolism

Venous thromboembolism (VTE) represents a significant health concern because of its high morbidity and mortality and is moreover characterized by high rates of recurrence. It would be useful to know biomarkers that enable early identification of patients at high or low risk of primary and recurrent VTE. Various established and novel biomarkers associated with VTE have been investigated with regard to their potential for predicting primary or recurrent VTE, for facilitating the diagnosis and for optimizing the clinical management of VTE. In this review, data on selected biomarkers (D-Dimer, soluble P-selectin, coagulation factor VIII, inflammatory markers and thrombin generation) having procoagulant properties or reflecting a prothrombotic state are summarized, and their role in clinical application is discussed. (Arterioscler Thromb Vasc Biol. 2009;29:332-336.)
Molecular typing of global isolates of Cryptococcus neoformans var. neoformans by polymerase chain reaction fingerprinting and randomly amplified polymorphic DNA — a pilot study to standardize techniques on which to base a detailed epidemiological survey

A total of 356 clinical isolates of the encapsulated basidiomycetous fungus Cryptococcus neoformans var. neoformans, obtained from Australia, Argentina, Brazil, India, Italy, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, South Africa, Thailand and the USA, were analyzed to lay the basis for a comprehensive evaluation of the global genetic structure of C. neoformans. Two polymerase chain reaction (PCR)‐based typing techniques were standardized: PCR fingerprinting using a single primer specific to minisatellite or microsatellite DNA, and randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) analysis using two combinations of three 20‐ to 22‐mer random primers. Previous studies showed that the resultant profiles are reproducible and stable over time. Identical results were obtained in two different laboratories and by different scientists in the same laboratory. Both typing techniques separated the isolates into four major groups (VNI and VNII, serotype A; VNIII, serotype A/D; and VNIV, serotype D). The majority (78%) of isolates belonged to VNI, compared with 18% VNII, 1% VNIII and 3% VNIV. All US isolates could be differentiated by a unique, strain‐specific PCR fingerprint or RAPD pattern in contrast to most of the non‐US isolates, which showed a substantially higher degree of genetic homogeneity, with some clonality, in different parts of the world. Isolates obtained from the same patient at different times and from different body sites, had identical banding patterns. Both typing techniques should provide powerful tools for epidemiological studies of medically important fungi.
Dynamic acyclic motion from a planar contact-stance to another

This paper addresses the problem of generating dynamic motion for a humanoid between two predefined postures. The humanoid robot starts its motion from a statically stable configuration to another known statically stable configuration when it is necessary to make step; that is, the center of mass (COM) is inside the support polygon at the initial and the goal configurations. A dynamic motion generation method is proposed in order to generate the whole-body robot motion. Zero moment point preview control is used for maintaining dynamic stability while the robot is taking the step and suitable splines are used for generating the hands, neck and foot motion because it is a free motion on the field of gravity; the screw theory is applied under Lie groups for kinematics and dynamics humanoid modeling, which allows smooth and natural humanoid motion. Successful results on the HRP-2 humanoid robot are shown and discussed.
Reconfiguração do trabalho docente: um exame a partir da introdução de programas de intervenção pedagógica

This paper analyzes the changes in the work of elementary school teachers in public schools of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, after the introduction of a pedagogical intervention program developed from 2007 to 2010. The concepts of disqualification, requalification, intensification, and performativity, based on the work of Michael Apple and Stephen Ball are mobilized in the research. The interviews with teachers, the observations, and the materials from the Alfa and Beto Institute – the program which was implemented – were analyzed through the theoretical focus of these concepts. The text characterizes the transformations that educational policies, based on managerialist configurations of the state – embodied in this program – generate in teachers' work. In the field that was studied, teachers are transformed into executors of a preconceived program and lose their autonomy at the same time that new tasks, dealing with the control of the contents and rhythms, have to be learned. In this transformed work, the choreographed measurement of teachers' actions becomes more important than the content of this action.
Logic Gates and Computation from Assembled Nanowire Building Blocks

Miniaturization in electronics through improvements in established “top-down” fabrication techniques is approaching the point where fundamental issues are expected to limit the dramatic increases in computing seen over the past several decades. Here we report a “bottom-up” approach in which functional device elements and element arrays have been assembled from solution through the use of electronically well-defined semiconductor nanowire building blocks. We show that crossed nanowire p-n junctions and junction arrays can be assembled in over 95% yield with controllable electrical characteristics, and in addition, that these junctions can be used to create integrated nanoscale field-effect transistor arrays with nanowires as both the conducting channel and gate electrode. Nanowire junction arrays have been configured as key OR, AND, and NOR logic-gate structures with substantial gain and have been used to implement basic computation.