Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Bandwidth Adjustable DVTS on the Heterogeneous Internet Environments for Distance Learning

We propose a new schematic design for sending and receiving a digital video stream on the heterogeneous Internet environment such as a Gigabit Ethernet and a narrow bandwidth satellite link. On such network, a sender can send the full 30fps digital video stream, but not all sites can receive a full quality video. In our proposed scheme, a DVTS repeater named Dvrelay is introduced to reduce frame rate of a DVTS stream going through it. To receive site-aware quality of DVTS stream, Dvrelay can be set up at the nearest point to the receiver site and it can thin out frames to adjust the transmission rate for the narrow bandwidth environment. With this scheme, it is not necessary to modify DVTS sender and receiver. Therefore, it can apply to any DVTS environments and adjust traffic according to capacity of the network links available to recipients. Consequently, all sites in the Internet can receive the site-aware best quality of digital video stream. Then all sites in the Internet can receive the lecture with the quality of the digital video
A Dutch public-private strategy for innovation in sustainable construction

Influenced by the sustainable construction policy of the authorities, organizations in The Netherlands are developing, designing and building sustainable areas and objects. The actions of the authorities, authority-related organizations and commercial organizations in the Dutch construction industry and the interaction between them contribute to the realization of goals that fit with the sustainability policy of the government. Research in the house building sector of the Dutch construction industry, covering a 10-year period, has found that action by and interaction between public and private organizations directed towards innovation in sustainable construction is part of a sector-wide strategy. In this strategy public and private organizations interactively develop and adopt sustainable construction innovations.
The Writing's on the Wall: Large, Remotely Controlled Displays

Large display devices are now affordable and desirable in fixed environments such as offices, and scalable methods are available to combine multiple projectors to form such displays with high resolutions. With new input devices, they can facilitate new interaction paradigms. This paper describes the hardware and software of a wall-sized projected display controlled at a distance by a pointing device. The display can replace the monitor and mouse of a computer that uses any of the major operating systems and window systems. Experiences in using it to control a drawing program as a demonstration tool indicate that it is a useful tool for presenting information, especially when the speaker is responding to questions from the audience, and when an audience member wishes to accompany a question with some addition to the existing information. Plans are described to use the technology as part of a collaborative medium that will be tested with a teaching application.
Engaging students in a simulated collaborative action research project: an evaluation of a participatory approach to learning

This article reports an action research project designed to develop and implement a new participatory learning and teaching approach to enable postgraduate healthcare students to develop skills and knowledge in preparation for undertaking an action research study within their practice setting. The learning and teaching approach was based upon the principles of action learning and involved engaging students in a simulated collaborative action research project. The goal was to assist students to apply action research approaches to advance healthcare practice. Since action research is premised upon the core concepts of democracy and collaboration, the primary emphasis was to engage students in a democratic collaborative learning process in order to develop skills and knowledge related to action research. Requiring them to act as both students and co‐researchers during the simulated action research project was considered an appropriate means to facilitate such processes whilst fostering confidence in students to direct and importantly take ownership of the learning process. The findings demonstrate that the relinquishment of power from lecturer to student was pivotal to the success of this participatory approach to learning. The process leading to this, however, created a decentring of role identities and a stage of dissonance within the student group.
Impact of Vacuum Cooling on Escherichia coli O157:H7 Infiltration into Lettuce Tissue

ABSTRACT Vacuum cooling is a common practice in the California leafy green industry. This study addressed the impact of vacuum cooling on the infiltration of Escherichia coli O157:H7 into lettuce as part of the risk assessment responding to the E. coli O157:H7 outbreaks associated with leafy green produce from California. Vacuum cooling significantly increased the infiltration of E. coli O157:H7 into the lettuce tissue (2.65E+06 CFU/g) compared to the nonvacuumed condition (1.98E+05 CFU/g). A stringent surface sterilization and quadruple washing could not eliminate the internalized bacteria from lettuce. It appeared that vacuuming forcibly changed the structure of lettuce tissue such as the stomata, suggesting a possible mechanism of E. coli O157:H7 internalization. Vacuuming also caused a lower reduction rate of E. coli O157:H7 in stored lettuce leaves than that for the nonvacuumed condition.
Becoming grown-ups: a qualitative study of the experiences of peer mentors

Peer mentoring is the most common type of peer support framework used in English secondary schools, involving a one-to-one supportive relationship between pupils. Interpersonal benefits have been found for pupils who provide support to others, but there has been little exploration of the experience of being a peer mentor. This qualitative study aimed to provide an initial in-depth look at young people’s experiences. A semi-structured focus group was conducted with seven pupils aged 16–17 years in an English secondary school, who were acting as peer mentors to younger mentees or were becoming a mentor. Central thematic categories were identified using abbreviated grounded theory analysis. The central category Becoming grown-ups reflected the way the peer mentors felt the role helped to prepare them for adulthood. Other categories revealed that the role involved a nurturing relationship which benefited mentors but was also challenging. These findings extend the literature by revealing that these pupils may experience personal growth due to both positive and negative aspects of the role. It is recommended that further qualitative exploration of the experiences of peer mentors across multiple settings should be conducted, with findings used to enhance pupil training.
Developing a Real-Time Data Analytics Framework Using Hadoop

Currently, the majority of existing workflows are based on meta-heuristics that produce good heuristics that are dynamic in nature, and map the workflow tasks to services on-the-fly, but unfortunately, they lack the ability of supporting analytical tasks considering data types and real-time processing. This paper aims to address this problem by developing a real-time data analytics framework capable of handling real-time processing of structured and unstructured data needed for performing different analytical tasks, ranging from data ingestion and processing to data exploration, and visualization. We propose architecture based on the Storm/YARN projects for data ingestion, processing exploration and visualization of streaming structured and unstructured data. We have implemented the proposed architecture using Apache Storm related APIs for both of a local mode and a distributed mode. We describe our experiments for the architecture prototype implementation and evaluate the functional requirements for each component and non-functional tests such as real time update performance and time taken for data flow among components. All components were able to handle their own functionalities properly. Also, we provide the main results for a non-functional test in order to discuss our system efficiency.
Entrepreneurial success, using online social networking: evaluation

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of online social networking by entrepreneurs in the Arabian Gulf.Design/methodology/approach – A descriptive research is conducted by interviewing a number of entrepreneurs in the Arabian Gulf who use online social networks as a method of promoting their products.Findings – It is found that social networking is a cheap and easy method of advertising and gives all entrepreneurs a better chance of reaching their target market and, thereby, in succeeding in their ventures.Social implications – With the rise in the use of social networking, entrepreneurs can now target their markets using online social networks. Social networking web sites allow businesses to introduce their products to specific market segments, with low expense, and with a low chance of failure. This rising phenomenon of web‐based social interaction can change the way businesses operate in future.Originality/value – The paper explores the possibilities of entrepreneurial su.
Supporting qualification: Safety standard compliant process planning and monitoring

Functional safety of embedded systems has become an integral part in automotive engineering activities due to the forthcoming safety standard ISO 26262. One main challenge is to perform development activities compliant to the standard and provide the respective documentation. Traceability between requirements from a standard, as well as project-specific process and product artifacts throughout the entire development cycle allows compliance assessment to support qualification. This paper proposes a methodology to plan and monitor the safety development process. Using a formalized requirements library of the ISO 26262 as well as a system description and its safety integrity level, a standard compliant process model is derived describing all necessary steps in the development process. Based on this process model, the methodology allows monitoring process activities and their degree of implementation, based on standard compliant confirmation measures. The main benefit is the reduced effort in preparing qualification or certification of a new safety-critical product. The development of an Adaptive Cruise Control system is sketched as an example application to illustrate the proposed proceeding.
A Task-First Individual-Differences Approach to Designing a Statistics and Methodology Course

child guidance setting. Professional Psychology, 1975, 6, 350-355. Coons, F. W. The resolution of adolescence in college. Personnel and Guidance Journal, 1970, 48, 533-541. Elkins, J. K. Factors in college students' career planning. Vocational Guidance Quarterly, 1975, 23. 354-357. Ellis, A. E. & Harper, R. A. A Guide to rational living. Hollywood: Wilshire Book Co., 1961. Erikson, E. H. Childhood and society. New York: Norton, 1950. Erikson, E. H. Identity, youth and crisis. New York: Norton, 1968. Gentry, W. D. Three models of training and utilization. Professional P s y ~ h ~ l ~ g y , 1974, 5, 207-214. Jourard, S. M. The transparent self. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1971. McCleneghan, J. S. , Sirns, 0. S. , Jr., & Suddick, D. E. The development of news sources of matriculating college freshmen. Journal of College Student Personnel, 1974, 15,138139. Nickerson, D. L. and Harrington, J. T. The college student as counselor: A guide to residence hall counseling. Moravia,' NY: Chronicle Guidance Publications, 1968. Schnelle, J. F. , McNees, P., Huff, T. M. , Marshall, R. S. , &Hannah, J. T. Behavior intervention teams: The utilization of paraprofessionals in a community mental health center. Journal of Community Psychology, 1975, 3, 258-265. Seeman, M. On the meaning of alienation. American Sociological Review, 1959, 24, 783-791. Wasserman, C. W. , McCarthy B. W. , & Ferree, E. H. Student paraprofessionals as behavior change agents. Professional Psychology, 1975, 6,217-223. White, R. Lives in progress. New York: Dryden Press, 1958. Wrenn, R. L. , & Mencke, R Students who counsel students. Personnel and Guidance Journal, 1972, 50, 687-689.
Estimation of some characteristic dispersal ranges of diamondback moth (Plutella xylostella) (Lepidoptera: Plutellidae)

The dispersal ranges of the diamondback moth (Plutella xylostella) were estimated with mark-recapture collected during 1998-2000 in commercial cauliflower and broccoli crops in the northern Adelaide plains. Moths were marked with fluorescent powder and released at one or more points within the experimental fields. Recaptures of the marked moths were made with pheromone traps and yellow sticky buckets (YSB), the latter were used to trap both sexes of the moth. Four indices of dispersal ranges were estimated, the average dispersal distances and the distances within which 95, 99 and 99.9% of the released moths were expected to remain. The average dispersal distances estimated from the recapture data with pheromone traps were 21-35 m and those from the YSB recapture data were 14-18 m for the males and 13-24 m for the females. The 95, 99 and 99.9% distances estimated from YSB recapture data were 41-54 m, 69-90 m and 117-164 m respectively for the males and 40-72 m, 63-120 m and 113 –203 m respectively for the females. The corresponding distances estimated from the recapture data with pheromone traps were 62-106 m, 104177 m and 176-300 m respectively. Implications of the results in the designing and implementation of insecticide resistance management strategies and in a number of alternative control strategies are discussed.
Explicit state model checking in the development process for interlocking software systems

We report on an ongoing project1 that addresses the use of explicit state model checking technology in the design of railroad interlocking systems. We discuss our modeling approach, the requirements on the use of formal methods as specified in the pertinent CENELEC standards, and the use of explicit state model checking in requirements verification and test case generation. In the context of test case generation we also illustrate the use of heuristic search strategies in model checking.
Primary Care Psychiatry in Italy

Abstract In Italy, the importance of integrating primary care and mental health has only recently been grasped. Several reasons may explain this delay: a) until 2005, primary care physicians worked individually instead of in group practices, without any functional network or structured contacts with colleagues; b) community mental health centers with multiprofessional teams were well structured and widespread in several regions but focused on people with severe and persistent mental disorders; and c) specific national government health policies were lacking. Only two regions have implemented explicit policies on this issue. The “G. Leggieri” program started by the Emilia-Romagna region health government in 1999 aims to coordinate unsolicited bottom-up cooperation initiatives developing since the 1980s. In Liguria, a regional work group was established in 2010 to boost the strategic role of collaborative programs between primary care and mental health services. This article describes the most innovative experiences relating to primary care psychiatry in Italy.
Incrementally port-Hamiltonian systems

This paper introduces the new class of incrementally port-Hamiltonian systems. This class can be obtained from standard port-Hamiltonian systems by replacing the composition of the Dirac structure and energy-dissipating relation by a maximal monotone relation. After introducing this new class of systems, we study their compositions and show that incrementally port-Hamiltonian systems are closed under composition. Also, we study existence and uniqueness os state trajectories for such systems as well as an energy-based state re-initialization principle.
Computer Simulation Using Excel without Programming

Tayeh and Sultaneh Abu-Tayeh for their financial support throughout my study, also for the technical advice and constant encouragement. Last, not least, my friend Eng. Maha El-Maheid, and my family for their encouragement and moral support. 6 ABSTRACT Defining Simulation in its broadest aspect as embodying a certain model to represent the behavior of a system, whether that may be an economic or an engineering one, with which conducting experiments is attainable. Such a technique enables the management, when studying models currently used, to take appropriate measures and make fitting decisions that would further complement today's growth sustainability efforts, apart from cost decrease, as well as service delivery assurance. As such, the Computer Simulation technique contributed in cost decline; depicting the "cause & effect", pinpointing task-oriented needs or service delivery assurance, exploring possible alternatives, identifying problems, as well as, proposing streamlined measurable deliverable solutions, providing the platform for change strategy introduction, introducing potential prudent investment opportunities, and finally providing safety net when conducting training courses. Yet, Simulation Development process is hindered due to many reasons. Like a rose, Computer Simulation technique, does not exist without thorns; of which the length, as well as, the communication during the development life cycle. While Computer Simulation technique proves to be highly specialized, nevertheless, it is task-oriented. Moreover, it reflects real life problems; hence, it addresses numerous scenarios with handful of variables. Not only is it costly, as well as, liable for human judgment, but also, the results are complicated and can be misinterpreted. Within this context, the researcher attempts to employ a method, using spreadsheets as simulation environment while simplifying the program code, and thus surmounting the aforementioned problems. The idea of this method is defined as follows; one procedure is defined for beginning any activity, one procedure is defined for ending any activity, and one procedure is defined for any activity process. This is attainable by using each entity as a parameter being passed from one procedure to another utilizing the Object Oriented programming language Visual Basic. Consequently, a computer simulation system, E3P-Sim, is realized. E3P-Sim is programmed based on: Three-Phase Discrete event, Activity Cycle Diagram (ACD), Object Oriented Language, and Microsoft Excel. E3P-Sim is a general-purpose package, and not a task-oriented package. E3P-Sim accepts the model, built using interactive ACD on Excel spreadsheet. As such, E3P-Sim is built using Three-Phase, to bypass the deadlock problems, Object Oriented Language during simulation package …
Classification of whole brain fMRI activation patterns

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is an imaging technology which is primarily used to perform brain activation studies by measuring neural activity in the brain. It is an interesting question whether patterns of activity in the brain as measured by fMRI can be used to predict the cognitive state of a subject. Researchers successfully employed a discriminative approach by training classifiers on fMRI data to predict the mental state of a subject from distributed activation patterns in the brain. In this thesis, we investigate the utility of feature selection methods in improving the prediction accuracy of classifiers trained on functional neuroimaging data. We explore the use of classification methods in the context of an event related functional neuroimaging experiment where participants viewed images of scenes and predicted whether they would remember each scene in a post-scan recognition-memory test. We view the application of our tool to this memory encoding task as a step toward the development of tools that will enhance human learning. We train support vector machines on functional data to predict participants' performance in the recognition test and compare the classifier's performance with participants' subjective predictions. We show that the classifier achieves better than random predictions and the average accuracy is close to that of the subject's own prediction. Our classification method consists of feature extraction, feature selection and classification parts. We employ a feature extraction method based on the general linear model. We use the t-test and an SVM-based feature ranking method for feature selection. We train a weighted linear support vector machine, which imposes different penalties for misclassification of samples in different groups. We validate our tool on a simple motor task where we demonstrate an average prediction accuracy of over 90%. We show that feature selection significantly improves the classification accuracy compared to training the classifier on all features. In addition, the comparison of the results between the motor and the memory encoding task indicates that the classifier performance depends significantly on the complexity of the mental process of interest. Thesis Supervisor: Polina Golland Title: Associate Professor
Extremity vascular injuries on the battlefield: tips for surgeons deploying to war.

BACKGROUND Recent events have refocused attention on certain principles regarding the surgical management of casualties on the battlefield. Extremity vascular injuries predominate, representing 50 to 70% of all injuries treated during Operation Iraqi Freedom, and exsanguination from extremity wounds is the leading cause of preventable death on the modern battlefield. Recent advances in military medicine have translated into a greater percentage of wounded soldiers surviving during Operations Enduring and Iraqi Freedom than in any other previous American conflict. The combat-experienced military surgeon, a fraction of those in uniform until recently, rarely has had the opportunity to convey lessons learned to the newly indoctrinated war surgeon. The purpose of this review is to do exactly that. METHODS We collectively reviewed the experience and opinions of five U.S. Army surgeons with regard to management of extremity vascular injuries in a combat zone RESULTS The modern battlefield has a staunch reputation of being unclean, noisy, and lacking of valuable resources. High-kinetic energy injuries such as those resulting from high explosives, munitions, and high-velocity missiles often cause soft-tissue destruction that is not routinely seen in civilian settings. Military-specific considerations in the management of these injuries are reviewed. CONCLUSIONS The management of extremity vascular injuries on the modern battlefield presents many unique and demanding challenges to even the most seasoned of surgeons. Preparation goes a long way in overcoming some of the obstacles to seamless patient care.
A 1.2-V 1.5-Gb/s 72-Mb DDR3 SRAM

A 1.2-V 72-Mb double data rate 3 (DDR3) SRAM achieves a data rate of 1.5 Gb/s using dynamic self-resetting circuits. Single-ended main data lines halve the data line precharging power dissipation and the number of data lines. Clocks phase shifted by 0/spl deg/, 90/spl deg/, and 270/spl deg/ are generated through the proposed clock adjustment circuits. The latter circuits make input data sampled with an optimized setup/hold window. On-chip input termination with a linearity error of /spl plusmn/4.1% is developed to improve signal integrity at higher data rates. A 1.2-V 1.5-Gb/s 72-Mb DDR3 SRAM is fabricated in a 0.10-/spl mu/m CMOS process with five metals. The cell size and the chip size are 0.845 /spl mu/m/sup 2/ and 151.1 mm/sup 2/, respectively.