Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Highly biocompatible nanofibrous microspheres self-assembled from chitin in NaOH/urea aqueous solution as cell carriers.

In this work, chitin microspheres (NCM) having a nanofibrous architecture were constructed using a "bottom-up" fabrication pathway. The chitin chains rapidly self-assembled into nanofibers in NaOH/urea aqueous solution by a thermally induced method and subsequently formed weaved microspheres. The diameter of the chitin nanofibers and the size of the NCM were tunable by controlling the temperature and the processing parameters to be in the range from 26 to 55 nm and 3 to 130 μm, respectively. As a result of the nanofibrous surface and the inherent biocompatibility of chitin, cells could adhere to the chitin microspheres and showed a high attachment efficiency, indicating the great potential of the NCM for 3D cell microcarriers.
Response time analysis with offsets for mixed messages in CAN supporting transmission abort requests

The existing worst-case response-time analysis for Controller Area Network (CAN) does not support mixed messages that are scheduled with offsets in the systems where the CAN controllers implement abortable transmit buffers. Mixed messages are partly periodic and partly sporadic. These messages are implemented by several higher-level protocols based on CAN that are used in the automotive industry. Moreover, most of the CAN controllers implement abortable transmit buffers. We extend the existing analysis with offsets for mixed messages in CAN. The extended analysis is applicable to any higher-level protocol for CAN that uses periodic, sporadic, and mixed transmission of messages where periodic and mixed messages can be scheduled with offsets in the systems that implement abortable transmit buffers in the CAN controllers. The extended analysis also supports gateway nodes in CAN by considering arbitrary jitter and deadlines for the messages. We also perform comparative evaluation of the existing and extended analyses.
Novel 3D Geometry-Based Stochastic Models for Non-Isotropic MIMO Vehicle-to-Vehicle Channels

This paper proposes a novel three-dimensional (3D) theoretical regular-shaped geometry-based stochastic model (RS-GBSM) and the corresponding sum-of-sinusoids (SoS) simulation model for non-isotropic multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) Ricean fading channels. The proposed RS-GBSM, combining line-of-sight (LoS) components, a two-sphere model, and an elliptic-cylinder model, has the ability to study the impact of the vehicular traffic density (VTD) on channel statistics, and jointly considers the azimuth and elevation angles by using the von Mises Fisher distribution. Moreover, a novel parameter computation method is proposed for jointly calculating the azimuth and elevation angles in the SoS channel simulator. Based on the proposed 3D theoretical RS-GBSM and its SoS simulation model, statistical properties are derived and thoroughly investigated. The impact of the elevation angle in the 3D model on key statistical properties is investigated by comparing with those of the corresponding two-dimensional (2D) model. It is demonstrated that the 3D model is more accurate to characterize real V2V channels, in particular for pico cell scenarios. Finally, close agreement is achieved between the theoretical model, SoS simulation model, and simulation results, demonstrating the utility of the proposed models.
The Two Dualities of Computation: Negative and Fractional Types

Every functional programmer knows about sum and product types, a+b anda b respectively. Negative and fractional types,a b and a=b respectively, are much less known and their computational interpretation is unfamiliar and often complicated. We show that in a programming model in which information is preserved (such as the model introduced in our recent paper on Information Effects), these types have particularly natural computational interpretations. Intuitively, values of negative types are values that flow “backwards” to satisfy demands and values of fractional types are values that impose constraints on their context. The combination of these negative and fractional types enables greater flexibility in programming by breaking global invariants into local ones that can be autonomously satisfied by a subcomputation. Theoretically, these types give rise to two function spaces and to two notions of continuations, suggesting that the previously observed duality of computation conflated two orthogonal notions: an additive duality that corresponds to backtracking and a multiplicative duality that corresponds to constraint propagation.
Student and School Factors Affecting Mathematics Achievement

The purpose of the study was to comparatively investigate student- and school-level factors affecting mathematics achievement of Korean, Japanese and American students. For international comparisons, the PISA 2003 data were analysed by using the Hierarchical Linear Modeling method. The variables of competitive-learning preference, instrumental motivation and mathematics interest were used as student-level predictors on mathematics achievement. The variables of student-teacher relationship and school disciplinary climate were also used as school-level variables. The results of the study showed that different patterns of the relations between student- and school-level predictors and mathematics achievement were present among the three countries. Specifically, the predictor of competitive-learning preference was significant on mathematics achievement in Korea and Japan, but not in the US. For Korean and Japanese students, unexpectedly, mathematics interest was a stronger predictor than was instrumental motivation; in contrast, the pattern was the reverse for American students. For school-level predictors, school disciplinary climate was a significant predictor on the achievement differences in all three countries; however, the variable of student-teacher relationship turned out to be significant only in Japan. Implications of the results are discussed from the comparative perspectives of cultures and educational contexts of the three countries.
Migration in an Enlarged EU: A Challenging Solution?

The 2004 and 2007 enlargements of the European Union were unprecedented in a number of economic and policy aspects. This essay provides a broad and in-depth account of the effects of the post-enlargement migration flows on the receiving as well as sending countries in three broader areas: labour markets, welfare systems, and growth and competitiveness. Our analysis of the available literature and empirical evidence shows that (i) EU enlargement had a significant impact on migration flows from new to old member states, (ii) restrictions applied in some of the countries did not stop migrants from coming but changed the composition of the immigrants, (iii) any negative effects in the labour market on wages or employment are hard to detect, (iv) post-enlargement migration contributes to growth prospects of the EU, (v) these immigrants are strongly attached to the labour market, and (vi) they are quite unlikely to be among welfare recipients. These findings point out the difficulties that restrictions on the free movement of workers bring about.
The Five-Factor Model of Personality and Its Relevance to Personality Disorders

The five-factor model is a dimensional representation of personality structure that has recently gained widespread acceptance among personality psychologists. This article describes the five factors (Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness); summarizes evidence on their consensual validity, comprehensiveness, universality, heritability, and longitudinal stability; and reviews several approaches to the assessment of the factors and their defining traits. In research, measures of the five factors can be used to analyze personality disorder scales and to profile the traits of personality-disordered patient groups; findings may be useful in diagnosing individuals. As an alternative to the current categorical system for diagnosing personality disorders, it is proposed that Axis II be used for the description of personality in terms of the five factors and for the diagnosis of personality-related problems in affective, interpersonal, experiential, attitudinal, and motivational .
Abnormal affective startle modulation in individuals with psychogenical movement disorder

Despite recent advances, psychogenic movement disorder (PMD) remains a poorly understood phenomenon. Emotional functioning and responsiveness to stress are believed to play a role in the development of psychogenic symptoms, but empirical studies examining emotional responsiveness in PMD and other conversion disorders are lacking. We investigated modulation of the startle eyeblink reflex by affective pictures in 12 patients with PMD and 12 age‐ and education‐matched control participants. Participants viewed positive, neutral, and negative pictures, while eyeblink responses to white noise bursts were recorded. Control participants showed the expected pattern of startle modulation, with significant potentiation by negative pictures and slight (nonsignificant) inhibition by positive pictures. In the PMD group, however, both positive and negative pictures yielded significantly greater startle responses than neutral pictures. Depression and anxiety symptomatology did not correlate with startle modulation, and the two groups did not differ in self‐reported emotional reactions to the pictures. Our findings suggest that individuals with PMD show aversive physiological reactions to positive as well as negative stimuli. Abnormal affective startle modulation may be used to help distinguish between malingering and PMD. Future studies using larger samples are needed to better understand the role of emotions in conversion disorder. © 2007 Movement Disorder Society
Enabling remote deictic communication with mobile devices: an elicitation study

Mobile systems provide many means to relay information to a distant partner, but remote communication is still limited compared to face-to-face interaction. Deictic communication and pointing, in particular, are challenging when two parties communicate across distances. In this paper, we investigate how people envision remote pointing would work when using mobile devices. We report on an elicitation study where we asked participants to perform a series of remote pointing tasks. Our results provide initial insights into user behaviors and specific issues in this context. We discovered that most people follow one of two basic patterns, that their individual pointing behavior is very consistent and that the shape and location of the target object have little influence on the pointing gesture used. From our results, we derived a set of design guidelines for future user interfaces for remote pointing. Our contributions can benefit designers and researchers of such interfaces.
The preliminary study of EEG and ECG for epileptic seizure prediction based on Hilbert Huang Transform

Epilepsy is a chronic brain disorder. The patient are suffer from the unpredictable seizure. The conventional method for studies the characteristic of epileptic seizure is measuring the Electroencephalogram (EEG). On the other side, there are some studies reported about the relation between heart rate from Electrocardiogram (ECG) and epileptic seizure. This paper is a preliminary study about EEG and ECG based epileptic seizure prediction. The feature extraction method is based on the Hilbert Huang Transform (HHT) and we try to indicate some phenomena of EEG and ECG before the seizure onset. We extract the mean instantaneous frequency from EEG and R-R interval from ECG. The result shows the mean instantaneous frequency in mode one of intrinsic mode function was significantly dropped down simultaneously with R-R interval variation before seizure onset, the prior time is around 130 second. So, we can conclude that there is a possibility to use these two feature as a indicator for early prediction.
Effects of Alcohol on Picture Drawing During the Verification Phase of the Creative Process

This study tested effects of acute alcohol intoxication on elaboration and revision in the verification phase of Wallas' (1926/1970) four stage model of creativity. Forty-two male and female participants were randomly assigned to three groups of equal size--a control group, a placebo group, and an alcohol group. The alcohol dose was I ml 100% alcohol/kg body weight. Participants were instructed to read a poem and to draw a picture using the poem. These pictures were judged by 2 separate panels of judges. Panel A was comprised of 3 professional artists. Panel B was comprised of 3 college art instructors. No group differences were apparent in ratings given by Panel A, but Panel B gave the work of the alcohol group low handicraft ratings. Results were interpreted as an indication that a moderate dose of alcohol inhibits certain relevant abilities during the verification phase of the creative process.
Is nocturnal epilepsy cause of disturbed quality of sleep and elevated daytime sleepiness?

OBJECTIVES Authors evaluated quality of sleep and daytime vigilance in patients with nocturnal epilepsy and compared it to those with daytime epilepsy. BACKGROUND Nocturnal seizures are an important type of epilepsy. They can result in morbidity due to disruption of sleep architecture. Daytime sleepiness, as a serious consequence of nocturnal seizures, has negative influence on quality of life in patients with epilepsy. METHODS Authors examined 100 patients with epilepsy. The occurrence of epileptic seizures in circadian rhythm, type of epilepsy and epileptic seizures, as well as aetiology of epilepsy were evaluated. Patients were divided in two groups, 17 patients with nocturnal epilepsy and 83 patients with epileptic seizures not related to sleep. All of them underwent overnight video-EEG-polysomnography and they filled in the Epworth Sleepiness Scale questionnaire (ESS) as well as The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index questionnaire (PSQI). RESULTS Overnight video-EEG-polysomnography detected significant changes in the sleep architecture in patients with nocturnal epilepsy. Significant decrease of N3 stage of NREM sleep (14.31%±8.07 in the group of nocturnal epilepsy vs. 20.12%±9.24 in the group of daytime epilepsy, p=0.01). Concurrently, significantly poorer sleep quality according to PSQI (18.52±7.51 in the group of nocturnal epilepsy vs. 6.21±3.62 in the group of daytime epilepsy, p=0.01) and tendency to increased daytime sleepiness according to ESS was revealed in these patients. CONCLUSION Remarkable changes in sleep architecture associated with poor quality of sleep and increased daytime sleepiness were detected in patients with nocturnal epilepsy. In conclusion, we emphasize the importance of sleep history taking in patients with epilepsy and their further evaluation in sleep laboratory.
Downbeat Detection with Conditional Random Fields and Deep Learned Features

In this paper, we introduce a novel Conditional Random Field (CRF) system that detects the downbeat sequence of musical audio signals. Feature functions are computed from four deep learned representations based on harmony, rhythm, melody and bass content to take advantage of the high-level and multi-faceted aspect of this task. Downbeats being dynamic, the powerful CRF classification system allows us to combine our features with an adapted temporal model in a fully data-driven fashion. Some meters being under-represented in our training set, we show that data augmentation enables a statistically significant improvement of the results by taking into account class imbalance. An evaluation of different configurations of our system on nine datasets shows its efficiency and potential over a heuristic based approach and four downbeat tracking algo- rithms.
Children in Four Neighborhoods

Since children spend most of their time close to home, the neighborhood environment affects their daily life activity patterns in a number of important ways. Based on research conducted in Oakland, California, this paper reports results of a survey comparing children's play patterns across neighborhoods of different social status, different terrains, different levels of access to play space, and different levels of municipally provided after-school services. The paper argues that few neighborhoods are designed with the needs of young people in mind. By examining how children's play patterns in four neighborhoods are constrained or facilitated by the terrain, by the availability of "managed" and "unmanaged" play space, and by play problems associated with questions of safety and mobility, it is possible to see how planning and land-use decisions affect the everyday experience of the young.
Ventilatory responses to inhaled carbon dioxide, hypoxia, and exercise in idiopathic hyperventilation.

Idiopathic hyperventilation (IH) is a poorly understood condition of sustained hypocapnia and controversial etiology. Although behavioral/emotional factors may contribute, it is uncertain whether chemosensitivity is altered, hyperventilation is maintained during exercise, and the associated breathlessness reflects the hyperventilation. In 39 patients with IH and 23 control subjects, we described ventilatory responses to isocapnic-hypoxia, hyperoxic-hypercapnia, and exercise; breath-hold tolerance; breathlessness; and psychologic status. Patients demonstrated hyperventilation at rest, with hypocapnia (28 +/- 3.8 mm Hg), a normal (slightly alkaline) arterial pH and [H(+)]a, and a significant base excess (-4.5 +/- 2.7 mEq/L), consistent with compensated respiratory alkalosis. Hyperventilation was sustained during exercise, despite hyperoxic-hypercapnic ventilatory responsiveness being normal and isocapnic-hypoxic ventilatory responsiveness being low relative to control (but exceeding control [2.4 +/- 1.0 vs. 1.6 +/- 0.5 L/min/%, p < 0.05] with acute restoration to normocapnia). Hyperventilation was maintained during exercise, at the resting CO(2) "setpoint. " Relative to control, the breath-hold tolerance was attenuated, and dyspnea during exercise was significantly greater and not simply ascribable to the high ventilation. These observations suggest that patients with IH have a sustained hyperventilatory and dyspneic drive that, although not attributable to central chemosensitivity, may possibly have peripheral chemoreflex contributions. The nature and etiology of this chronic hyperventilatory drive remain unclear.
Unveiling the nature of three INTEGRAL sources through optical spectroscopy

The results of an optical spectroscopy campaign performed at the Astronomical Observatory of Bologna in Loiano (Italy) on three hard X-ray sources detected by INTEGRAL (IGR J17303−0601, IGR J18027−1455 and IGR J21247+5058) are presented. These data have allowed a determination of the nature for two of them, with IGR J17303−0601 being a low mass X-ray binary in the Galaxy and IGR J18027−1455 a background type 1 Seyfert galaxy at redshift z = 0.035. IGR J21247+5058, instead, has a quite puzzling spectroscopic appearance, with a broad, redshifted Hα complex superimposed onto a "normal" F/G-type Galactic star continuum: these features, together with the spatially coincident extended radio emission, might suggest a chance alignment between a relatively nearby star and a background radio galaxy. These results underline the still non- negligible importance of smaller telescopes in modern astrophysics.
La frontera del reino nazarí de Granada. Origen y transformaciones de un asentamiento fronterizo a partir de las excavaciones en el castillo de Moclín (Granada)

The present article will deal with the analysis of the castle of Moclin, one of the most emblematic from the established frontier between the Nasrid kingdom of Granada and the Crown of Castilla during the late Middle Ages. The study is based on the results from the last archeological interventions realised in this fortress all along 2010-2013. The results of the excavations let us know the origin of this settlement and its evolution throughout the Middles Ages, as well as its transformations after the Castilian conquest and it can be considered a worth to know historical-archeological reference of this frontier area.
Digital beamforming: A paradigm shift for spaceborne SAR

Spaceborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) provides high-resolution, day-and-night and weather-independent images for a multitude of applications ranging from geoscience and climate change research, environmental monitoring, global 2-D and 3-D mapping, change detection, 4-D mapping (space and time), security-related applications up to planetary exploration. By means of the development of new digital beamforming and waveform diversity technologies in combination with large reflector antennas, future SAR systems will outperform the imaging capacity of current systems by two orders of magnitude. This paper provides an overview of the state of the art in spaceborne SAR and describes the technological developments that will open the door to a future global remote sensing system for the continuous observation of dynamic processes over the Earth surface.
Pragmatic leadership development in Canada: investigating a mentoring approach

This study is part of the International Study of Principal Preparation project and reports on a Canadian Catholic Board’s mentoring programme for novice school principals. This programme aims to produce effective managers and provide formal collegial support. A pragmatic, mixed‐method approach involving interviews with participants along with an analysis of programme documentation is employed. Findings indicate the programme is successful in providing useful information and guidance to novices. Mentors refresh their enthusiasm for their own administrative role and are more conscious of organisational processes as a result of mentoring. Outcomes include increased comfort of mentees in their complex role. There are socialisation and enculturation outcomes for the organisation. Selection as a mentor represents a valuing of expertise and effectiveness. Potential challenges of the programme are time, uncomfortable pairings, power relationships, and the overt managerial focus. Recommendations to enhance this successful programme are presented.
Lateral Resolution Enhancement of Vertical Scanning Interferometry by Sub-Pixel Sampling

Abstract We apply common image enhancement principles and sub-pixel sample positioning to achieve a significant enhancement in the spatial resolution of a vertical scanning interferometer. We illustrate the potential of this new method using a standard atomic force microscope calibration grid and other materials having motifs of known lateral and vertical dimensions. This approach combines the high vertical resolution of vertical scanning interferometry and its native advantages (large field of view, rapid and nondestructive data acquisition) with important increases in lateral resolution. This combination offers the means to address a common challenge in microscopy: the integration of properties and processes that depend on, and vary as a function of observational length.