Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Modified Fruit-Fly Optimization Algorithm aided PID controller designing

Fruit Fly Optimization Algorithm (FOA) is one of the newest intelligent optimization algorithms. Attracted by its simple implement procedure with effective searching capability, our work is to popularize this algorithm to tackle some practical optimization applications requesting real-time performance. However, the updating strategy of FOA is with strong randomness, thus bringing in some blindness searching in solution updating, which will result in slow convergence rate and premature. Therefore, a modified FOA (MFOA) based on PSO and SA was proposed in this paper to improve the performance of basic FOA. Besides, Chaos function was used to enhance the stochastic and ergodic features of initial solution so as to improve the diversity of initial population in MFOA. PSO is introduced to reduce the blindness searching in solution updating. SA is used as a local search to improve the convergence rate. Finally, in order to verify the efficiency of MFOA algorithm, two common functions and a practical high-order AVR system with PID controller were tested in simulation. Experimental results revealed the encouraging performance of our proposed algorithm.
Multi-Criteria Inventory Classification Using a New Method of Evaluation Based on Distance from Average Solution (EDAS)

An effective way for managing and controlling a large number o f inventory items or stock keeping units (SKUs) is the inventory classification. Tradi tional ABC analysis which based on only a single criterion is commonly used for classification of SKU s. However, we should consider inven- tory classification as a multi-criteria problem in practice . In this study, a new method of Evaluation based on Distance from Average Solution (EDAS) is introduced for multi-criteria inventory clas- sification (MCIC) problems. In the proposed method, we use po sitive and negative distances from the average solution for appraising alternatives (SKUs). To represent performance of the proposed method in MCIC problems, we use a common example with 47 SKUs. Comparing the results of the proposed method with some existing methods shows the good performance of it in ABC classifica- tion. The proposed method can also be used for multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) problems. A comparative analysis is also made for showing the validity and stability of the proposed method in MCDM problems. We compare the proposed method with VIKOR, TOPSIS, SAW and COPRAS methods using an example. Seven sets of criteria weights and Spearman's correlation coefficient are used for this analysis. The results show that the proposed method is stable in different weights and well consistent with the other methods.
Implementation of parallel edit distance algorithm for protein sequences using reconfigurable accelerator

This paper describes the design of a parallel edit distance hardware, implemented in a FPGA device, using a dynamic programming (DP) algorithm. Such algorithms have computational complexity proportional to the length product of both involved sequences. The data dependency in DP imposes a serious constraint on the algorithm, not allowing its direct parallelization. To alleviate this serious problem, a reconfigurable accelerator for DP algorithm is presented. The main features include: a multistage PE (processing element) design which significantly reduces the FPGA resource usage and hence allows more parallelism to be exploited; and a pipelined control mechanism. Basing on these two techniques, the proposed accelerator can reach at 82-MHz frequency in an Altera EP1S30 device. This accelerator provides more than 380 speedup as compared to a standard desktop platform with a 2.8-GHz Xeon processor and 4-GB memory. Results show that reconfigurable computing can offer interesting solutions for bioinformatics problems.
Implementation and evaluation of a VR task-based training tool for conveyor belt safety training

Conveyor belts are dangerous to the working environment and the source of many injuries and fatalities that end up costing the industry a lot of money. In order to reduce the injuries that occur on an annual basis, better training techniques are examined. Virtual reality is examined as a way to enhance current training practices that consist mainly of slide show presentations and videos. Virtual reality is examined for task-based training where the user can interact with a working environment safely. The user is given tasks to complete within the virtual environment similar to tasks a worker would have to complete on a day to day basis. The purpose of the program is to be a method of rapidly training younger miners while supplementing on-the-job training practices and ultimately reduce accidents. The model was developed using CAD software and then imported into Deep Creators Right Hemisphere where animations were added and functions were programmed to objects. The users performance is tracked through the use of LISP programming and scores are tallied to judge user performance. The application was tested for quality of information, usability, and learning potential over other training methods. This paper is an expansion of a paper presented at the CONVR 2007 conference at Penn State University, State College, PA, USA on October 22-23, 2007 (Lucas and Thabet, 2007).
Fertility and family policy in Norway - A reflection on trends and possible connections

Below replacement fertility in many countries has lead to a renewed public interest in policies that may encourage young people to have more children. The Nordic countries are sometimes in focus in this respect, as their fertility rates remain relatively high in spite of very high female labour force participation. The key question is therefore whether there is a connection between generous public policies that facilitate childbearing and employment, and fertility. Using Norway as example and reviewing existing research evidence I conclude that generous family policies may be necessary, but not sufficient, to sustain fertility at a reasonable level. In particular, adverse macroeconomic conditions and rising unemployment have counteracting effects, as demonstrated by falling fertility rates in Sweden in the mid-1990s.
School climate and the experience of LGBT students: A comparison of the United States and Israel

ABSTRACT This article examines the school experience of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students in the United States and Israel. Through comparison of the sociocultural and edu-cational contexts, the authors assess whether school experience of LGBT students differs or operates similarly across countries. The authors use data from the National School Climate Survey conducted in 2007 in the United States and the Israeli School Climate Survey conducted in 2008 in Israel. In comparison with their Israeli counterparts, LGBT students in the United States were more likely to experience assault and harassment in schools but were more likely to have access to LGBT supportive resources in their schools. Results from multi-variate analysis show that negative school climate affect absent-eeism and school belonging similarly for both countries.
Sleep deprivation suppresses aggression in Drosophila

Sleep disturbances negatively impact numerous functions and have been linked to aggression and violence. However, a clear effect of sleep deprivation on aggressive behaviors remains unclear. We find that acute sleep deprivation profoundly suppresses aggressive behaviors in the fruit fly, while other social behaviors are unaffected. This suppression is recovered following post-deprivation sleep rebound, and occurs regardless of the approach to achieve sleep loss. Genetic and pharmacologic approaches suggest octopamine signaling transmits changes in aggression upon sleep deprivation, and reduced aggression places sleep-deprived flies at a competitive disadvantage for obtaining a reproductive partner. These findings demonstrate an interaction between two phylogenetically conserved behaviors, and suggest that previous sleep experiences strongly modulate aggression with consequences for reproductive fitness. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.7554/eLife.07643. 001
Hyperactivity in the Ventral Cochlear Nucleus after Cochlear Trauma

The emergence of hyperactivity in the form of elevated spontaneous firing rates after cochlear trauma has been well documented in a number of central auditory structures, including the auditory cortex, inferior colliculus, and dorsal subdivision of the cochlear nucleus. This hyperactivity is of interest as a possible neural substrate of tinnitus. Whether the ventral subdivision of the cochlear nucleus shows hyperactivity has never been investigated despite the fact that, like the dorsal division, it also receives direct input from the damaged cochlea and supplies major ascending inputs to brainstem and midbrain auditory centers. We investigated spontaneous neuronal firing rates in the ventral cochlear nucleus in a guinea pig model of cochlear trauma in which we have shown that hyperactivity consistently develops in the inferior colliculus (Mulders and Robertson, 2009). The mean spontaneous firing rates of ventral cochlear nucleus neurons was significantly elevated compared to sham controls. This hyperactivity was more evident in primary-like and onset categories of neurons. Hyperactivity in the ventral subdivision of cochlear nucleus therefore needs to be considered in relation to neural models of the genesis of tinnitus.
Sleep Deprivation and Vigilant Attention

Sleep deprivation severely compromises the ability of human beings to respond to stimuli in a timely fashion. These deficits have been attributed in large part to failures of vigilant attention, which many theorists believe forms the bedrock of the other more complex components of cognition. One of the leading paradigms used as an assay of vigilant attention is the psychomotor vigilance test (PVT), a high signal‐load reaction‐time test that is extremely sensitive to sleep deprivation. Over the last twenty years, four dominant findings have emerged from the use of this paradigm. First, sleep deprivation results in an overall slowing of responses. Second, sleep deprivation increases the propensity of individuals to lapse for lengthy periods (>500 ms), as well as make errors of commission. Third, sleep deprivation enhances the time‐on‐task effect within each test bout. Finally, PVT results during extended periods of wakefulness reveal the presence of interacting circadian and homeostatic sleep drives. A theme that links these findings is the interplay of “top‐down” and “bottom‐up” attention in producing the unstable and unpredictable patterns of behavior that are the hallmark of the sleep‐deprived state.
Media Multitasking Effects on Cognitive vs. Attitudinal Outcomes: A Meta-Analysis

Despite the recent proliferation of research on media multitasking, a comprehensive meta-analytic review of its effects has not been available. Based on a review of 49 media multitasking studies, this meta-analysis showed that multitasking has negative effects on cognitive outcomes, whereas it has positive effects on attitudinal (or persuasion-related) outcomes. Moderator analyses suggested that the negative effects of multitasking on cognitive outcomes varied by (a) user control, (b) task relevance, and (c) task contiguity. Specifically, multitasking had greater effects (a) when media users had less control over the media, (b) for tasks that were unrelated, and (c) for tasks that were physically distant. Implications for future multitasking research are further discussed.
A Linear Time Algorithm for the Hitchcock Transportation Problem with Fixed Number of Supply Points

In this paper, we propose an O(n) time algorithm for the Hitchcock transportation problem with n demand points and xed number of supply points. When the number of supply points is very small and the number of demand points is much larger than that of supply points, our algorithm is e cient. If we have m supply points, the time complexity of our algorithm is bounded by O((m! ) 2 n) .
Benchmarking SMT Performance for Farsi Using the TEP++ Corpus

Statistical machine translation (SMT) suffers from various problems which are exacerbated where training data is in short supply. In this paper we address the data sparsity problem in the Farsi (Persian) language and introduce a new parallel corpus, TEP++. Compared to previous results the new dataset is more efficient for Farsi SMT engines and yields better output. In our experiments using TEP++ as bilingual training data and BLEU as a metric, we achieved improvements of +11.17 (60%) and +7.76 (63.92%) in the Farsi– English and English–Farsi directions, respectively. Furthermore we describe an engine (SF2FF) to translate between formal and informal Farsi which in terms of syntax and terminology can be seen as different languages. The SF2FF engine also works as an intelligent normalizer for Farsi texts. To demonstrate its use, SF2FF was used to clean the IWSLT–2013 dataset to produce normalized data, which gave improvements in translation quality over FBK’s Farsi engine when used as training data
Compatible genericity with run-time types for the Java programming language

The most serious impediment to writing substantial programs in the Java&trade; programming language is the lack of a gentricity mechanism for abstracting classes and methods with respect to type. During the past two years, several research groups have developed Java extensions that support various forms of genericity, but none has succeeded in accommodating general type parameterization (akin to Java arrays) while retaining compatibility with the existing. Java Virtual Machine. In this paper, we explain how to support general type parameterization---including both non-variant and covariant subtyping---on top of the existing Java Virtual Machine at the cost of a larger code footprint and the forwarding of some method calls involving parameterized classes and methods. Our language extension is forward and backward compatible with the Java 1.2 language and run-time environment: programs in the extended language will run on existing Java 1.2 virtual machines (relying only on the unparameterized Java core libraries) and all existing Java 1.2 programs have the same binary representation and semantics (behavior) in the extended language.
Spatially Global Representations in Human Primary Visual Cortex during Working Memory Maintenance

Recent studies suggest that visual features are stored in working memory (WM) via sensory recruitment or sustained stimulus-specific patterns of activity in cortical regions that encode memoranda. One important question concerns the spatial extent of sensory recruitment. One possibility is that sensory recruitment is restricted to neurons that are retinotopically mapped to the positions occupied by the remembered items. Alternatively, specific feature values could be represented via a spatially global recruitment of neurons that encode the remembered feature, regardless of the retinotopic position of the remembered stimulus. Here, we evaluated these alternatives by requiring subjects to remember the orientation of a grating presented in the left or right visual field. Functional magnetic resonance imaging and multivoxel pattern analysis were then used to examine feature-specific activations in early visual regions during memory maintenance. Activation patterns that discriminated the remembered feature were found in regions of contralateral visual cortex that corresponded to the retinotopic position of the remembered item, as well as in ipsilateral regions that were not retinotopically mapped to the position of the stored stimulus. These results suggest that visual details are held in WM through a spatially global recruitment of early sensory cortex. This spatially global recruitment may enhance memory precision by facilitating robust population coding of the stored information.
Extrapolation of the Benzene Inhalation Unit Risk Estimate to the Oral Route of Exposure November

A simple method for extrapolation of benzene-induced cancer risk from the inhalation to oral route is proposed. The method is based on the relative efficiency of benzene absorption across routes of exposure, especially pulmonary and gastrointestinal barriers. There exists substantial literature on pulmonary absorption in humans and a few laboratory animal species. Data on oral absorption in humans are lacking; hence extrapolation is based on gastrointestinal absorption studies in several experimental animal species. Currently, available physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) animal models are not useful for human risk extrapolation. A review of the relevant literature suggests absorption efficiencies of 50% and 100% for inhalation and oral routes of exposure, respectively. Application of these absorption factors to the current inhalation unit risk range of 2.2 × 10 – 7.8 × 10 per μg/m results in a proposed range for the oral unit risk of 4.4 × 10 to 1.6 × 10/μg/L.
Nonreceptor tyrosine kinases in prostate cancer.

BACKGROUND Carcinoma of the prostate (CaP) is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in men in the United States. Signal transduction molecules such as tyrosine kinases play important roles in CaP. Src, a nonreceptor tyrosine kinase (NRTK) and the first proto-oncogene discovered is shown to participate in processes such as cell proliferation and migration in CaP. Underscoring NRTK's and, specifically, Src's importance in cancer is the recent approval by the US Food and Drug Administration of dasatinib, the first commercial Src inhibitor for clinical use in chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML). In this review we will focus on NRTKs and their roles in the biology of CaP. MATERIALS AND METHODS Publicly available literature from PubMed regarding the topic of members of NRTKs in CaP was searched and reviewed. RESULTS Src, FAK, JaK1/2, and ETK are involved in processes indispensable to the biology of CaP: cell growth, migration, invasion, angiogenesis, and apoptosis. CONCLUSIONS Src emerges as a common signaling and regulatory molecule in multiple biological processes in CaP. Src's relative importance in particular stages of CaP, however, required further definition. Continued investigation of NRTKs will increase our understanding of their biological function and potential role as new therapeutic targets.
Ethanol exposure disrupts extraembryonic microtubule cytoskeleton and embryonic blastomere cell adhesion, producing epiboly and gastrulation defects

Summary Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) occurs when pregnant mothers consume alcohol, causing embryonic ethanol exposure and characteristic birth defects that include craniofacial, neural and cardiac defects. Gastrulation is a particularly sensitive developmental stage for teratogen exposure, and zebrafish is an outstanding model to study gastrulation and FASD. Epiboly (spreading blastomere cells over the yolk cell), prechordal plate migration and convergence/extension cell movements are sensitive to early ethanol exposure. Here, experiments are presented that characterize mechanisms of ethanol toxicity on epiboly and gastrulation. Epiboly mechanisms include blastomere radial intercalation cell movements and yolk cell microtubule cytoskeleton pulling the embryo to the vegetal pole. Both of these processes were disrupted by ethanol exposure. Ethanol effects on cell migration also indicated that cell adhesion was affected, which was confirmed by cell aggregation assays. E-cadherin cell adhesion molecule expression was not affected by ethanol exposure, but E-cadherin distribution, which controls epiboly and gastrulation, was changed. E-cadherin was redistributed into cytoplasmic aggregates in blastomeres and dramatically redistributed in the extraembryonic yolk cell. Gene expression microarray analysis was used to identify potential causative factors for early development defects, and expression of the cell adhesion molecule protocadherin-18a (pcdh18a), which controls epiboly, was significantly reduced in ethanol exposed embryos. Injecting pcdh18a synthetic mRNA in ethanol treated embryos partially rescued epiboly cell movements, including enveloping layer cell shape changes. Together, data show that epiboly and gastrulation defects induced by ethanol are multifactorial, and include yolk cell (extraembryonic tissue) microtubule cytoskeleton disruption and blastomere adhesion defects, in part caused by reduced pcdh18a expression.
Comparative Analysis of a Circularly Polarized Microstrip Antenna with a Cross-Slot using Single and Double Substrate

This paper compares the different parameters for differently configured single substrate circular patch and double substrate square patch microstrip antenna. The proposed antenna 1 is fed by proximity coupled feed whereas the proposed antenna 2 is single fed to excite the antenna. Copper clad substrate is used in this design. The circular polarization is achieved by the proposed antennas without 90° hybrid coupler. The proposed antennas are applicable for L and S band applications (1.26GHz and 2.56/2.65 GHz respectively). The gain of both of the antenna are approximately same. This comparison will provide the technique for miniaturization using single substrate.
Does CSR Have the Effects of Injury Insurance? Based on the Event Study of China Listed Companies with Violations

Prior studies showed that corporate social responsibility in developed countries could reduce the losses when negative events happened. Corporate social responsibility had the effects of injury insurance. Using a sample of listed companies in china that were denounced by security regulators, researches whether earlier corporate social responsibility acts can reduce losses when happened negative events on the first time. The empirical results suggest that the previous donation acts can bring down the losses when happened negative events, also the persistence of donation, the amount of donation and the differences of enterprise nature can influence the results. This essay shows that corporate social responsibility in china really has injury insurance effects. This paper extends the study on the relations between enterprise economic performance and corporate social responsibility. And companies in china that often encounters negative events can get some inspirations from this article.
New Bandwidth Efficient Parallel Concatenated Coding Schemes

We propose a new solution to parallel concatenation of trellis codes with multilevel amplitude/phase modulations and a suitable iterative decoding structure. Examples are given for throughputs 2 bits/see/Hz with 8PSK and 16QAM signal constellations. For parallel concate-* Part of the research described in this paper was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory , California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration nated trellis codes in the examples, rate 2/3 and 4/5, 16-state binary convolutional codes with Gray code mapping are used. The perfor-,(<i mance of these codes are within 1 d~ from the Shannon limit at a bit error probability of 10-6 for a given throughput. This outperforms the performance of all codes reported in the past for the same throughput.