Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Experimental Approach to Examine a Multi-Channel Multi-Hop Wireless Backbone Network

This paper presents an experimental deployment of a multi-channel multi-hop wireless backbone network (WBN) with an OpenFlow-based traffic management method. Specifically, a set of APs, each of which uses a single but different channel, is connected by Ethernet and thus constructs a Virtual AP (VAP), thereby achieving a WBN with multi- ple channels. To exibly control traffic ows transmitted over a multi-channel multi-hop WBN, we propose a simple traffic management method based on the OpenFlow control. In the performance evaluation, we rst conduct a preliminary experiment as a lab scale and then deploy a 6-hop WBN enabling to provide the Internet access service in a conference (from proof-of-concept to a practical environment). Since the control messages are inherently transmitted with the introduction of OpenFlow, the way of isolation be- tween control plane and data plane will become a critical issue to actually deploy the proposed system for the Internet service. We additionally employ a wireless control network for the conference experiment. The experimental results show that the proposed WBN can increase the network capacity in accordance with the number of channels, thereby providing significant throughput performance for various applications.
A Spatial Downscaling Algorithm for Satellite-Based Precipitation over the Tibetan Plateau Based on NDVI, DEM, and Land Surface Temperature

Precipitation is an important controlling parameter for land surface processes, and is crucial to ecological, environmental, and hydrological modeling. In this study, we propose a spatial downscaling approach based on precipitation–land surface characteristics. Land surface temperature features were introduced as new variables in addition to the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Digital Elevation Model (DEM) to improve the spatial downscaling algorithm. Two machine learning algorithms, Random Forests (RF) and support vector machine (SVM), were implemented to downscale the yearly Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission 3B43 V7 (TRMM 3B43 V7) precipitation data from 25 km to 1 km over the Tibetan Plateau area, and the downscaled results were validated on the basis of observations from meteorological stations and comparisons with previous downscaling algorithms. According to the validation results, the RF and SVM-based models produced higher accuracy than the exponential regression (ER) model and multiple linear regression (MLR) model. The downscaled results also had higher accuracy than the original TRMM 3B43 V7 dataset. Moreover, models including land surface temperature variables (LSTs) performed better than those without LSTs, indicating the significance of considering precipitation–land surface temperature when downscaling TRMM 3B43 V7 precipitation data. The RF model with only NDVI and DEM produced much worse accuracy than the SVM model with the same variables. This indicates that the Random Forests algorithm is more sensitive to LSTs than the SVM when downscaling yearly TRMM 3B43 V7 precipitation data over Tibetan Plateau. Moreover, the precipitation–LSTs relationship is more instantaneous, making it more likely to downscale precipitation at a monthly or weekly temporal scale.
Use of recombinant rotavirus VP6 nanotubes as a multifunctional template for the synthesis of nanobiomaterials functionalized with metals

The structural characteristics and predefined constant size and shape of viral assemblies make them useful tools for nanobiotechnology, in particular as scaffolds for constructing highly organized novel nanomaterials. In this work it is shown for the first time that nanotubes formed by recombinant rotavirus VP6 protein can be used as scaffolds for the synthesis of hybrid nanocomposites. Rotavirus VP6 was produced by the insect cell‐baculovirus expression vector system. Nanotubes of several micrometers in length and various diameters in the nanometer range were functionalized with Ag, Au, Pt, and Pd through strong (sodium borohydride) or mild (sodium citrate) chemical reduction. The nanocomposites obtained were characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), high‐resolution TEM (HRTEM) with energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), dynamic light scattering, and their characteristic plasmon resonance. The outer surface of VP6 nanotubes had intrinsic affinity to metal deposition that allowed in situ synthesis of nanoparticles. Furthermore, the use of preassembled recombinant protein structures resulted in highly ordered integrated materials. It was possible to obtain different extents and characteristics of the metal coverage by manipulating the reaction conditions. TEM revealed either a continuous coverage with an electrodense thin film when using sodium citrate as reductant or a discrete coverage with well‐dispersed metal nanoparticles of diameters between 2 and 9 nm when using sodium borohydride and short reaction times. At long reaction times and using sodium borohydride, the metal nanoparticles coalesced and resulted in a thick metal layer. HRTEM‐EDS confirmed the identity of the metal nanoparticles. Compared to other non‐recombinant viral scaffolds used until now, the recombinant VP6 nanotubes employed here have important advantages, including a longer axial dimension, a dynamic multifunctional hollow structure, and the possibility of producing them massively by a safe and efficient bioprocess. Such characteristics confer important potential applications in nanotechnology to the novel nanobiomaterials produced here. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 2009; 104: 871–881. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
miRecords: an integrated resource for microRNA–target interactions

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are an important class of small noncoding RNAs capable of regulating other genes' expression. Much progress has been made in computational target prediction of miRNAs in recent years. More than 10 miRNA target prediction programs have been established, yet, the prediction of animal miRNA targets remains a challenging task. We have developed miRecords, an integrated resource for animal miRNA-target interactions. The Validated Targets component of this resource hosts a large, high-quality manually curated database of experimentally validated miRNA-target interactions with systematic documentation of experimental support for each interaction. The current release of this database includes 1135 records of validated miRNA-target interactions between 301 miRNAs and 902 target genes in seven animal species. The Predicted Targets component of miRecords stores predicted miRNA targets produced by 11 established miRNA target prediction programs. miRecords is expected to serve as a useful resource not only for experimental miRNA researchers, but also for informatics scientists developing the next-generation miRNA target prediction programs. The miRecords is available at http://miRecords.umn. edu/miRecords.
Hierarchical Image-Region Labeling via Structured Learning

We present a graphical model which encodes a series of hierarchical constraints for classifying image regions at multiple scales. We show that inference in this model can be performed efficiently and exactly, rendering it amenable to structured learning. Rather than using feature vectors derived from images themselves, our model is parametrised using the outputs of a series of first-order classifiers. Thus our model learns which classifiers are useful at different scales, and also the relationships between classifiers at different scales. We present promising results on the VOC2007 and VOC2008 datasets.
Manhood: A Journey from Childhood into the Fierce Order of Virility

"Not only one of the frankest of autobiographies, but also a brilliantly written book, Leiris' "Manhood" mingles memories, philosophic reflections, sexual revelation, meditations on bullfighting, and the life-long progress of self-discovery. " "Washington Post Book World " "Leiris writes to appall, and thereby to receive from his readers the gift of a strong emotion the emotion needed to defend himself against the indignation and disgust he expects to arouse in his readers. " Susan Sontag, "New York Review of Books ""
The Validity and Reliability of Chinese Frontal Assessment Battery in Evaluating Executive Dysfunction Among Chinese Patients With Small Subcortical Infarct

Objectives:Frontal Assessment Battery (FAB) is a valid and reliable screening test for evaluating executive dysfunction among whites with frontal and subcortical degenerative lesions. We studied the properties of a Chinese version of FAB (CFAB) in evaluating executive dysfunction among Chinese stroke patients with small subcortical infarct. Methods:Concurrent validity was evaluated using Wisconsin Card Sorting Tst (WCST) and Mattis Dementia Rating Scale–Initiation/Perseveration Subset (MDRS I/P) among 41 controls and 30 stroke patients with small subcortical infarct. Discriminant validities of CFAB and its subitems were compared with those of Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE). Internal consistency, test-retest, and interrater reliability of CFAB were evaluated. Results:The CFAB had low to good correlation with various executive measures: MDRS I/P (r = 0.63, p < 0.001), number of category completed (r = 0.45, p < 0.001), and number of perseverative errors (r = −0.37, p < 0.01) of WCST. Among the executive measures, only number of category completed had significant but small contribution (6.5%, p = 0.001) to the variance of CFAB. A short version of CFAB using three items yielded higher overall classification accuracy (86.6%) than that of CFAB full version (80.6%) and MMSE (77.6%). Internal consistency (alpha = 0.77), test-retest reliability (rho = 0.89, p < 0.001), and interrater reliability (rho = 0.85, p < 0.001) of CFAB were good. Conclusion:Although CFAB is reliable, it is only moderately valid in evaluating executive dysfunction among Chinese stroke patients with small subcortical infarct. The clinical use of CFAB in the evaluation of executive dysfunction among this group of patients cannot be recommended at this stage.
Wi2Me: A Mobile Sensing Platform for Wireless Heterogeneous Networks

With the increasing popularity of WiFi technologies, mobile users may now take advantage of heterogeneous wireless networks. In contrast to cellular networks, community networks, based on sharing WiFi residential accesses, show a high access points density in urban areas but uncontrolled performance. We present Wi2Me Traces Explorer, an extensible mobile sensing application to characterize current deployments. This application allows any mobile user to gather not only access point locations but also their performance in terms of bandwidth, link quality and successful connection rate.
Violent video games and social behaviour

II DECLARATION BY AUTHOR . IV PUBLICATIONS DURING CANDIDATURE . V PUBLICATIONS INCLUDED IN THIS THESIS . VI CONTRIBUTIONS BY OTHERS TO THE THESIS . VII ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . VIII KEYWORDS . X AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND STANDARD RESEARCH CLASSIFICATIONS (ANZSRC) . X FIELDS OF RESEARCH (FOR) CLASSIFICATION . X TABLE OF CONTENTS . XI LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES . XIV CHAPTER 1 – INTRODUCTION . 1 VIDEO GAMES AND SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR . 2 PUBLIC CONCERN AND MEDIA IN THE 20TH CENTURY . 3 EPISTEMOLOGY OF MEDIA EFFECTS RESEARCH . 4 THE GENERAL AGGRESSION MODEL . 6 VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES AND AGGRESSION . 7 VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES AND PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOUR . 9 RATIONALE FOR THE PRESENT THESIS . 11 OVERVIEW AND PREDICTIONS . 11 CHAPTER 2 – FAILURE TO DEMONSTRATE THAT VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES DIMINISHES PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOUR . 13 PREFACE . 14 ABSTRACT . 15 INTRODUCTION . 16 EXPERIMENT 1 . 17 METHOD . 18 Participants . 18 Video games . 18 Procedure and design . 19 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION . 20 EXPERIMENT 2 . 22 METHOD . 23 Participants . 23 Video games . 23 Procedure and Design . 23 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION . 24 EXPERIMENT 3 . 26 METHOD . 26 Participants . 26 Video games . 26 Procedure and design . 26
Cost‐effectiveness of clean air administered to the breathing zone in allergic asthma

Introduction: Airsonett Airshower (AA) is a novel non‐pharmaceutical treatment for patients with perennial allergic asthma that uses a laminar airflow directed to the breathing zone of patients during sleep. It has been shown that AA treatment in addition to optimized standard therapy significantly increases asthma‐related quality of life among adolescent asthmatics. However, the cost‐effectiveness of AA treatment has not yet been assessed. As reimbursement decisions are increasingly guided by results from the cost‐effectiveness analysis, such information is valuable for health‐care policy‐makers.
Cloning and genetic characterization of the Helicobacter pylori and Helicobacter mustelae flaB flagellin genes and construction of H. pylori flaA- and flaB-negative mutants by electroporation-mediated allelic exchange

Helicobacter pylori is one of the most common human pathogens. It causes chronic gastritis and is involved in the pathogenesis of gastroduodenal ulcer disease and possibly gastric carcinoma. Helicobacter mustelae is a bacterium closely related to H. pylori that causes gastritis and ulcer disease in ferrets and is therefore considered an important animal model of gastric Helicobacter infections. Motility, even in a viscous environment, is conferred to the bacteria by several sheathed flagella and is regarded as one of their principal virulence factors. The flagellar filament of H. pylori consists of two different flagellin species expressed in different amounts. The gene (flaA) encoding the major flagellin has recently been cloned and sequenced. Here we report the cloning and sequencing of two highly homologous new flagellin genes from H. pylori 85P and H. mustelae NCTC 12032. The nucleotide sequence of the H. pylori gene proved that it encoded the second flagellin molecule found in H. pylori flagellar filaments. The genes were named flaB. The H. mustelae and H. pylori flaB genes both coded for proteins with 514 amino acids and molecular masses of 54.0 and 53.9 kDa, respectively. The proteins shared 81.7% identical amino acids. The degree of conservation between H. pylori FlaB and the H. pylori FlaA major flagellin was much lower (58%). Both flaB genes were preceded by sigma 54-like promoter sequences. Mapping of the transcription start site for the H. pylori flaB gene by a primer extension experiment confirmed the functional activity of the sigma 54 promoter. To evaluate the importance of both genes for motility, flaA- and flaB-disrupted mutants of H. pylori N6 were constructed by electroporation-mediated allelic exchange and characterized by Western blot (immunoblot) analysis and motility testing. Both mutations selectively abolished the expression of the targeted gene without affecting the synthesis of the other flagellin molecule. Whereas flaA mutants were completely nonmotile, flaB mutants retained motility.
Upgrading LTE-Sim with a Simulation Model for Relay Type 1 Networks with QoS Support

The growing traffic demand in broadband wireless access networks requires increasingly efficient resource allocation mechanisms and Quality of Service (QoS) guarantee, especially in mobility and low quality signal scenarios, with devices moving at high speed or positioned at the cell edge, for example. To overcome such limitations and optimize overall network performance, the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) specification of Long Term Evolution Advanced (LTE-A) networks with Relay Nodes Type 1 aims to improve channel quality at the cells edge in addition to expanding the coverage area, providing better quality and access to a greater number of devices. This paper presents a simulation model for LTE-A with Relay Nodes (RNs) developed in order to evaluate performance of such network. Presented model operates within the LTE-Sim simulator, a free open-source software widely known and validated in academic community. Additionally, we present a comparative evaluation carried out among different scheduling mechanisms available in literature over the developed platform.
Statement of Research Interests

My general research interests are within the area of text information management. Text information, notably the various types of online information, is continuously produced everywhere in every possible way. The dramatic growth of text information has brought changes to many aspects of one’s daily life. Even in our own research, online text information, such as scientific literature and technical wiki, is becoming increasingly useful. Search engines, as the most useful tools to help users find and access text information, have already made a huge impact in the real world. However, many challenges remain to be solved to make search more accurate, efficient, intelligent, and to go beyond search to discover, analyze, and summarize useful knowledge from the information found. Thus, there is an urgent need to develop more powerful tools to manage and make use of large-scale text information. The goal of my research is to develop both principled methodologies and innovative applications for automatically processing, managing, accessing, analyzing, discovering knowledge from, and summarizing large-scale text information. On a larger scope, this can be generalized to any symbolic information. Various disciplines are playing important roles along this research pipeline, including natural language processing, database management, information retrieval, and data mining, with machine learning and statistical models serving as a solid theoretical foundation. Thus I have been collaborating with researchers in many of these areas. My solid academic training and industry internship experiences have influenced me to develop a research methodology that emphasizes both theoretical principles and practical applications. My intern experiences with Microsoft Research and Yahoo! Research have taught me the importance of motivating my research to solve real-world problems that are valuable to common users, and evaluating my research results with large-scale real data and user judgements. In solving research problems, I appreciate principled approaches and often flexibly absorb and adapt ideas and techniques from multiple disciplines.
A Time-Limited Intensive Intervention Program Model to Support Community Placement for Persons with Severe Behavior Problems

This article describes a program model for meeting the needs of a widely diverse range of clients using nonaversive strategies to deal with their severe behavior problems in community environments. Data from 2 years of implementation and follow-up designed to evaluate the program are also presented which support the effectiveness of the model. Additional data collected from parents and an independent review committee provide additional support for the social validity of the program's goals and methods.
Realizing the Potential of Educational Technology.

Misha Miller, a 5th grader at Bloommgton. Minnesota's Normaldale Hills Elementary School, shou-s that she has sohvd the first LOGO challenge cf the day M any educational leaders be lieve that "the drive to inte grate computers into every as pea of education has lost much of its climbing power . and progress is largely stalled on a plateau Some experts blame the "stall" on lack of developmental research, equipment, and quality software. ' The "experts are wrong A growing body of evidence suggests that 198586 is a turning point school year in which educational technology has moved from a curiosity to a useful tool that will help schools provide better curriculum and instruction. After sev eral years of decision making based on technological biases and hunches, educators have access to the first gen eration of legitimate research and analysis of trends in educational tech nology. Although it is less easy to document, 1985-86 may also become known a^ the year in which extreme claims technology totally replacing teachers, on the one hand, or being just another fad. on the other have been replaced by a more balanced understanding of what technology can and cannot do. This year may also mark the departure from the overem phasis on programming in favor of broad-based use of technology in many subject areas to enhance think ing and learning. To accomplish this, educators are moving toward flexible "utility software" word processors, spreadsheets, and databases to match the technology to their own creativity
The DCS Theorem

Blockchain design involves many tradeoffs, and much debate has focused on tradeoffs related to scaling parameters such as blocksize. To address some of the confusion around this subject, we present a probability proof of the DCS Triangle. We use the triangle to show decentralized consensus systems, like blockchains, can have Decentralization, Consensus, or Scale, but not all three properties simultaneously. We then describe two methods for getting around the limitations suggested by the triangle.
Pest Protection Conferred by a Beta vulgaris Serine Proteinase Inhibitor Gene

Proteinase inhibitors provide a means of engineering plant resistance to insect pests. A Beta vulgaris serine proteinase inhibitor gene (BvSTI) was fused to the constitutive CaMV35S promoter for over-expression in Nicotiana benthamiana plants to study its effect on lepidopteran insect pests. Independently derived BvSTI transgenic tobacco T2 homozygous progeny were shown to have relatively high BvSTI gene transcript levels. BvSTI-specific polyclonal antibodies cross-reacted with the expected 30 kDA recombinant BvSTI protein on Western blots. In gel trypsin inhibitor activity assays revealed a major clear zone that corresponded to the BvSTI proteinase inhibitor that was not detected in the untransformed control plants. BvSTI-transgenic plants were bioassayed for resistance to five lepidopteran insect pests. Spodoptera frugiperda, S. exigua and Manduca sexta larvae fed BvSTI leaves had significant reductions in larval weights as compared to larvae fed on untransformed leaves. In contrast, larval weights increased relative to the controls when Heliothis virescens and Agrotis ipsilon larvae were fed on BvSTI leaves. As the larvae entered the pupal stage, pupal sizes reflected the overall larval weights. Some developmental abnormalities of the pupae and emerging moths were noted. These findings suggest that the sugar beet BvSTI gene may prove useful for effective control of several different lepidopteran insect pests in genetically modified tobacco and other plants. The sugar beet serine proteinase inhibitor may be more effective for insect control because sugar beet is cropped in restricted geographical areas thus limiting the exposure of the insects to sugar beet proteinase inhibitors and build up of non-sensitive midgut proteases.
Towards cyclic fabrication systems for modular robotics and rapid manufacturing

A cyclic fabrication system (CFS) is a network of materials, tools, and manufacturing processes that can produce all or most of its constituent components. This paper proposes an architecture for a robotic CFS based on modular components. The proposed system is intended to self-replicate via producing necessary components for replica devices. Some design challenges unique to self-replicating machines are discussed. Results from several proof-of-principle experiments are presented, including a manipulator designed to handle and assemble modules of the same type it is constructed from, a DC brush motor fabricated largely from raw materials, and basic manufacturing tools made with a simple CFS.