Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Translation and validation study of the Malaysian versionof the childbirth experience questionnaire - CEQ

Establishing maternity services in a medical institution needs to be monitored to target client satisfaction which can be implemented by using a validated questionnaire such as the Childbirth Experience Questionnaire (CEQ). The objective of this study is to translate the English version of CEQ into Malay language; Bahasa Malaysia (BM) and to validate this Malaysian version. Two forward and backward translations were done in BM in accordance to guideline, and its validation was determined by using confirmatory factor analysis. A total of 400 pregnant women presented for labour at the Hospital Tengku Ampuan Afzan, Pahang state, Malaysia were approached to represent Malaysian population for reliability and validity purposes. Reliability of Malaysian Childbirth Experience Questionnaire revealed good Cronbach’s alpha value of 0.70. Construct validity, evaluated using exploratory factor analysis, had good factor loadings most of its items except 2 out of 22 items. The Malaysian Childbirth Experience Questionnaire had good psychometric properties among the tested population. Further studies are needed to verify these preliminary outcomes especially for higher analysis such Confirmatory factor analysis to affirm the validity among Malaysian population.
A novel dynamic particle swarm optimization algorithm based on improved artificial immune network

To resolve the problem of the premature and low precision of the common particles swarm optimization (CPSO), the paper presents a novel dynamic particle swarm optimization algorithm based on improved artificial immune network (IAINPSO). Based on the variance of the population's fitness, a kind of convergence factor is adopted in order to adjust the ability of search. It is an effective way to combine with linear decreasing inertia weight. To enhance the performance of the local search ability and the search precision of the new algorithm, the improved artificial immune network is introduced in this paper. The experimental results show that the new algorithm has not only satisfied convergence precision, but also the number of iterations is much less than traditional scheme, and has much faster convergent speed, with excellent performance of in the search of optimal solution to multidimensional function.
Olfactory-like Responses in Pyriform Area to Non-Olfactory Stimulation *

Considerable doubt continues to exist about the r6le of finely myelinated and unmyelinatedt visceral afferents in the function of the cerebral cortex. Recent evoked potential studies involving stimulation of the chorda tympani, "" the vagus, 7l and the splanchnic nerves' have failed to establish that impulses transmitted along the slow-conductingt components of these nerves reach the cortex. It is inferred, however, from clinical evidence that the slowly conducted signals are discriminated at the cortical level. The inability to resolve the foregoing problem by the usual physiological techniques indicated the need for other methods. For this reason it was decided to re-explore the bioelectrical properties of the olfactory system in the hope of gaining a clue to the physiology of visceral systems in general. Olfaction is unique in being both an exteroand visceroceptive sense. Its anatomical substratum has attributes that make it a prototype of a primitive visceral system. The primary olfactory neurone manifests a most primitive characteristic insofar as it assumes a position in the dermal layer. The olfactory nerves going to the bulb are entirely unmyelinated. From the primary cell station in the bulb a large proportion of fibers travel in the olfactory tract directly to a phylogenetically ancient part of the cortex. In short, one has in the olfactory apparatus a system that begins with entirely unmyelinated fibers and is irrefutably known to reach the cerebral cortex. The cortical responses in the pyriform area following natural olfactory stimulation are strikingly dissimilar to those obtained from the neocortex by natural activation of visual, auditory, or somesthetic receptors. In contrast to the latter, one finds an olfactory stimulus is followed by a sustained train of rhythmically recurring sinusoidal potentials of high voltage. Adrian, employing the hedgehog and the cat, appears to have been the first to describe such potentials as occurring in both the olfactory bulb and the pyriform cortex. ' Figure 1 shows responses to olfactory stimulation recorded from the pyriform area in the opossum, rabbit, cat, and the squirrel
AN EXTENSIVE REVIEW OF SIGNIFICANT RESEARCHES ON CHANNEL ESTIMATION IN MIMO-OFDM 1

In communication systems, Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) plays a major role because of its high performance. In MIMO systems, multiple antennas are used in both transmitter and receiver to improve the communication performance, whereas the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is a multicarrier modulation method. MIMO-OFDM is commonly used for communication systems due to its high transmission rates and robustness against multipath fading. In MIMO-OFDM, channel estimation plays a major role and channel estimation is the estimation of the transmitted signal bits using the corresponding received signal bits. While designing the channel estimator for wireless OFDM systems, two main problems will occur. The first problem is the arrangement of pilot information, in which pilot is the reference signal employed by both transmitters and receivers, whereas the second problem is the design of an estimator with both less intricacy and excellent channel tracking ability. In this paper an extensive review on different channel estimation methods used in MIMO-OFDM like pilot based, least square (LS) & minimum mean square error method (MMSE), least mean square (LMS) & recursive least squares (RLS) methods and also other channel estimation methods used in MIMO-OFDM was discussed with their achieved results.
Applying queuing theory to optimizing the performance of enterprise software applications

Performance is one of the most stringent requirements for large scale enterprise software applications. It is crucial in determining the success or failure of a large project. It spans various stages of a software product life cycle from designing to developing, and to final delivering to the customer. In this paper, using the two most fundamental concepts, wait events and service demand, we demonstrate quantitatively how we can leverage wellknown queuing theory to help achieve the best possible performance for large scale enterprise software applications, both efficiently and effectively.
Stoichiometrically Explicit Food Webs: Feedbacks between Resource Supply, Elemental Constraints, and Species Diversity

A stoichiometrically explicit approach to food web ecology yields new insight into promotion and degradation of diversity, changes in species composition along environmental gradients, biomass partitioning among trophic levels, and limitation of primary production. These revelations emerge from food web modules that incorporate fundamental constraints imposed by mass balance and a key trait, stoichiometric body composition, into a species’ niche. These niche components involve a species’ requirements from its environment and its own impacts on its environment. More specifically, stoichiometric composition influences minimal nutrient requirements of consumers (perhaps especially grazers); this component becomes pertinent because large imbalances often arise between nutrient:carbon content of consumers relative to prey. Furthermore, these imbalances then modulate the impact of consumers on their own resources through nutrient recycling. Once these niche components become synthesized, their implications in s.
Mechanisms underlying fibronectin-induced up-regulation of P2X4R expression in microglia: distinct roles of PI3K–Akt and MEK–ERK signalling pathways

Microglia are resident immune cells in the central nervous system that become activated and produce pro‐inflammatory and neurotrophic factors upon activation of various cell‐surface receptors. The P2X4 receptor (P2X4R) is a sub‐type of the purinergic ion‐channel receptors expressed in microglia. P2X4R expression is up‐regulated under inflammatory or neurodegenerative conditions, and this up‐regulation is implicated in disease pathology. However, the molecular mechanism underlying up‐regulation of P2X4R in microglia remains unknown. In the present study, we investigated the intracellular signal transduction pathway that promotes P2X4R expression in microglia in response to fibronectin, an extracellular matrix protein that has previously been shown to stimulate P2X4R expression. We found that in fibronectin‐stimulated microglia, activation of phosphatidylinositol 3‐kinase (PI3K)–Akt and mitogen‐activated protein kinase kinase (MAPK kinase, MEK)–extracellular signal‐regulated kinase (ERK) signalling cascades occurred divergently downstream of Src‐family kinases (SFKs). Pharmacological interference of PI3K–Akt signalling inhibited fibronectin‐induced P2X4R gene expression. Activation of PI3K–Akt signalling resulted in a decrease in the protein level of the transcription factor p53 via mouse double minute 2 (MDM2), an effect that was prevented by MG‐132, an inhibitor of the proteasome. In microglia pre‐treated with MG‐132, fibronectin failed to up‐regulate P2X4R expression. Conversely, an inhibitor of p53 caused increased expression of P2X4R, implying a negative regulatory role of p53. On the other hand, inhibiting MEK–ERK signalling activated by fibronectin suppressed an increase in P2X4R protein but interestingly did not affect the level of P2X4R mRNA. We also found that fibronectin stimulation resulted in the activation of the translational factor eIF4E via MAPK‐interacting protein kinase‐1 (MNK1) in an MEK–ERK signalling‐dependent manner, and an MNK1 inhibitor attenuated the increase in P2X4R protein. Together, these results suggest that the PI3K–Akt and MEK–ERK signalling cascades have distinct roles in the up‐regulation of P2X4R expression in microglia at transcriptional and post‐transcriptional levels, respectively.
Encounter-driven accretion in young stellar clusters – A connection to FUors?

Context. The brightness of FUors increases by several magnitudes within one to several years. The currently favoured explanation for this brightness boost is that of dramatically rising accretion from the disc material around a young star. The mechanism leading to this accretion increase is a point of debate. Aims. Choosing the Orion nebula cluster as representative, we simulate accretion bursts driven by encounters in dense stellar environments. We investigate whether properties like rise and decay times, event frequency, etc., speak for encounters as a possible cause for FUor phenomena. Methods. We combine cluster simulations performed with the Nbody6++ code with particle simulations that describe the effect of a fly-by on the disc around a young star to determine the induced mass accretion. Results. The induced accretion rates, the overall temporal accretion profile, the decay time, and possibly the binarity rate we obtain for encounter-induced accretion agree very well with observations of FUors. However, the rise time of one year observed in some FUors is difficult to achieve in our simulations unless the matter is stored somewhere close to the star and then released after a certain mass limit is transgressed. The severest argument against the FUors phenomenon being caused by encounters is that most FUors are found in environments of low stellar density. We extend the discussion to eccentric binaries and gravitationally unstable discs and find that both models have similar problems in achieving the necessary rise times. Conclusions. We find no conclusive answer as to whether the observed FUors are triggered by encounters. However, it seems an intense accretion burst phase should exist – possibly an FU phase – early on in the development of dense clusters. We predict that in dense young clusters these outbursts should happen predominantly close to the cluster centre and with high mass ratios between the involved stars.
Ecosystem Scale Declines in Elk Recruitment and Population Growth with Wolf Colonization: A Before-After-Control-Impact Approach

The reintroduction of wolves (Canis lupus) to Yellowstone provided the unusual opportunity for a quasi-experimental test of the effects of wolf predation on their primary prey (elk – Cervus elaphus) in a system where top-down, bottom-up, and abiotic forces on prey population dynamics were closely and consistently monitored before and after reintroduction. Here, we examined data from 33 years for 12 elk population segments spread across southwestern Montana and northwestern Wyoming in a large scale before-after-control-impact analysis of the effects of wolves on elk recruitment and population dynamics. Recruitment, as measured by the midwinter juvenile∶female ratio, was a strong determinant of elk dynamics, and declined by 35% in elk herds colonized by wolves as annual population growth shifted from increasing to decreasing. Negative effects of population density and winter severity on recruitment, long recognized as important for elk dynamics, were detected in uncolonized elk herds and in wolf-colonized elk herds prior to wolf colonization, but not after wolf colonization. Growing season precipitation and harvest had no detectable effect on recruitment in either wolf treatment or colonization period, although harvest rates of juveniles∶females declined by 37% in wolf-colonized herds. Even if it is assumed that mortality due to predation is completely additive, liberal estimates of wolf predation rates on juvenile elk could explain no more than 52% of the total decline in juvenile∶female ratios in wolf-colonized herds, after accounting for the effects of other limiting factors. Collectively, these long-term, large-scale patterns align well with prior studies that have reported substantial decrease in elk numbers immediately after wolf recolonization, relatively weak additive effects of direct wolf predation on elk survival, and decreased reproduction and recruitment with exposure to predation risk from wolves.
Lehrstuhl für Informatik 10 ( Systemsimulation ) Simulation of multi-phase and multi-component flows according to the Shan-Chen model

In many engineering disciplines arises the need of dealing with flows involving different chemical components. This is for example the case in the gas channel of a PEM fuel cell, where water results from the reaction of hydrogen protons with the oxygen of the surrounding air. This work evaluated a model for simulation of multi-phase and multi-component fluids, proposed a decade ago by Xiaowen Shan & Hudong Chen, with the background objective of using it for the PEM fuel cell simulation. This study found out that although the Shan-Chen model cannot directly be used for that kind of simulation, it can be extended by various means for either a direct use or at least a use by macroscopic analogy in the PEM fuel cell context.
User Identity-Aided Pilot Access Scheme for Massive MIMO-IDMA System

A novel pilot access scheme is presented to address the intra-cell pilot collision in crowded scenarios of massive multiple-input multiple-output with interleave-division multiple-access system. This scheme, termed identity-aided pilot access (IDPA), makes each user equipment (UE) transmit its identity number (ID) to the base station (BS), which makes its interleaver available at the BS according to the one-to-one correspondence between UE's ID and its interleaver. Then, the BS obtains the uplink message of the contenders selecting the same pilot by performing the multi-user detection, where the BS only needs to estimate the sum of contenders’ channel responses instead of each UE's channel response. Furthermore, we present a method of estimating the number of active UEs, based on which an access class barring factor is derived to reduce the traffic overload. We make an analysis on the uplink throughput of this IDPA scheme and the normalized root mean square error performance for the estimation about the number of active UEs. Numerical results verify the analytical results, and show that the IDPA scheme achieves extraordinary improvements in the uplink throughput.
A Multi-Document Multi-Lingual Automatic Summarization System

Abstract. In this paper, a new multidocument multi-lingual text summarization technique, based on singular value decomposition and hierarchical clustering, is proposed. The proposed approach relies on only two resources for any language: a word segmentation system and a dictionary of words along with their document frequencies. The summarizer initially takes a collection of related documents, and transforms them into a matrix; it then applies singular value decomposition to the resulted matrix. After using a binary hierarchical clustering algorithm, the most important sentences of the most important clusters form the summary. The appropriate place of each chosen sentence is determined by a novel technique. The system has been successfully tested on summarizIn this paper, a new multidocument multi-lingual text summarization technique, based on singular value decomposition and hierarchical clustering, is proposed. The proposed approach relies on only two resources for any language: a word segmentation system and a dictionary of words along with their document frequencies. The summarizer initially takes a collection of related documents, and transforms them into a matrix; it then applies singular value decomposition to the resulted matrix. After using a binary hierarchical clustering algorithm, the most important sentences of the most important clusters form the summary. The appropriate place of each chosen sentence is determined by a novel technique. The system has been successfully tested on summarizing several Persian document collections.
Convergence results for multi-agent rendezvous algorithm with rectilinear decision domain

This paper presents a proof of convergence of a computationally efficient decentralized rendezvous algorithm for a group of autonomous agents. The algorithm uses a rectilinear decision domain (RDD) as against the circular decision domain assumed in earlier work reducing its computational complexity considerably. Simulation results in earlier work has shown that, compared to the standard Ando's algorithm, the RDD algorithm shows very significant improvement in convergence time performance. In this paper analytical results to prove the convergence of the algorithm based on some relevant results on rendezvous problems are presented.
Topic Modeling Ensembles

In this paper we propose a framework of topic modeling ensembles, a novel solution to combine the models learned by topic modeling over each partition of the whole corpus. It has the potentials for applications such as distributed topic modeling for large corpora, and incremental topic modeling for rapidly growing corpora. Since only the base models, not the original documents, are required in the ensemble, all these applications can be performed in a privacy preserving manner. We explore the theoretical foundation of the proposed framework, give its geometric interpretation, and implement it for both PLSA and LDA. The evaluation of the implementations over the synthetic and real-life data sets shows that the proposed framework is much more efficient than modeling the original corpus directly while achieves comparable effectiveness in terms of perplexity and classification accuracy.
Visual analysis of social networks in space and time

We designed and applied novel interactive visualisation to investigate how social networks - derived from smartphone logs - are embedded in time and space. Social networks were identified through direct calls between participants and calls to mutual contacts of participants. Direct contact between participants was sparse and deriving networks through mutual contacts helped enrich the social networks. Our resulting interactive visualisation tool offers four linked and co-ordinated views of spatial, temporal, individual and social network aspects of the data. Brushing and altering techniques help us investigate how these aspects relate. We also simultaneously display some demographic and attitudinal variables to help add context to the behaviours we observe. Using these techniques, we were able to characterise spatial and temporal aspects of participants' social networks and suggest explanations for some of them. We reflect on the extent to which such analysis helps us understand social communication behaviour.
Sensitivity analysis of partitioning-based face recognition algorithms on occlusions

Holistic Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and holistic Independent Component Analysis (ICA) methods require long training times and large storage spaces for the recognition of facial images. These drawbacks can be avoided by using partitioning-based methods, namely partitioned PCA (pPCA) and partitioned ICA (pICA), which yield similar performance for pPCA and improved performance for pICA method compared to the holistic counterparts of these methods for the recognition of frontal facial images. This paper demonstrates the sensitivity analysis of pPCA and pICA methods on several types and sizes of occlusions for the recognition of facial images with similar facial expressions. The recognition rates for pPCA and pICA over occlusions are contrary to the recognition rates of these methods on occlusion-free facial images with different facial expressions.
An endosomal beta COP is involved in the pH-dependent formation of transport vesicles destined for late endosomes

In this paper, we show that beta COP is present on endosomes and is required for the formation of vesicles which mediate transport from early to late endosomes. Both the association of beta COP to endosomal membranes as well as transport vesicle formation depend on the lumenal pH. We find that epsilon COP, but not gamma COP, is also associated to endosomes, and that this association is also lumenal pH dependent. Our data, thus, indicate that a subset of COPs is part of the mechanism regulating endosomal membrane transport, and that membrane association of these COPs is controlled by the acidic properties of early endosomes, presumably via a trans-membrane pH sensor.
Dynamics of spatial solitons in laser with saturable absorber

The theoretical model of spatial soliton formation in lasers with saturable absorber based on the set of Maxwell-Bloch equations has been developed. The case of fast saturable absorber is considered. An analytical solution in form of one-dimensional laser autosolitons is obtained and the problem of soliton stability in respect with spatially inhomogeneous perturbations is analyzed. It is shown that the solitons in laser with fast saturable absorber are metastable and they decay to homogeneous lasing or non-lasing mode via repulsion of spatial domain walls. The results of numerical calculations of dynamics of the light field in the laser cavity, based on explicit and non-explicit two-layer finite-difference approximation of the laser field equation, illustrate the main features of the process of laser spatial solitons formation and evolution