Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Value-sensitive design patterns for pervasive health care

Pervasive computing technologies offer solutions to many of the problems people face in aging. In doing so, they have the potential to support certain values such as human welfare. However, these solutions also have the potential to diminish human values such as trust, privacy and autonomy. Many of such value issues are recurrent, general problems that play out in specific application contexts. By accounting for values during the design of technology, designers would be in a better position to create technology that supports rather than hinders the values of its stakeholders. Yet, there are few methodical approaches to dealing with values in design. Moreover, knowledge on how specific value problems can be tackled is not captured systematically in a reusable way. We propose using Value Sensitive Design to analyze recurrent problems and identify affected stakeholders and their values. We use these analyses as a starting point for generating design patterns, or reusable solutions to recurrent problems, that explicitly include value considerations. We provide an initial set of value-sensitive design patterns as a proof-of-concept.
BO-1055, a novel DNA cross-linking agent with remarkable low myelotoxicity shows potent activity in sarcoma models

DNA damaging agents cause rapid shrinkage of tumors and form the basis of chemotherapy for sarcomas despite significant toxicities. Drugs having superior efficacy and wider therapeutic windows are needed to improve patient outcomes. We used cell proliferation and apoptosis assays in sarcoma cell lines and benign cells; γ-H2AX expression, comet assay, immunoblot analyses and drug combination studies in vitro and in patient derived xenograft (PDX) models. BO-1055 caused apoptosis and cell death in a concentration and time dependent manner in sarcoma cell lines. BO-1055 had potent activity (submicromolar IC50) against Ewing sarcoma and rhabdomyosarcoma, intermediate activity in DSRCT (IC50 = 2-3μM) and very weak activity in osteosarcoma (IC50 >10μM) cell lines. BO-1055 exhibited a wide therapeutic window compared to other DNA damaging drugs. BO-1055 induced more DNA double strand breaks and γH2AX expression in cancer cells compared to benign cells. BO-1055 showed inhibition of tumor growth in A673 xenografts and caused tumor regression in cyclophosphamide resistant patient-derived Ewing sarcoma xenografts and A204 xenografts. Combination of BO-1055 and irinotecan demonstrated synergism in Ewing sarcoma PDX models. Potent activity on sarcoma cells and its relative lack of toxicity presents a strong rationale for further development of BO-1055 as a therapeutic agent.
Stability for Neural Networks With Time-Varying Delays via Some New Approaches

This paper considers the problem of delay-dependent stability criteria for neural networks with time-varying delays. First, by constructing a newly augmented Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional, a less conservative stability criterion is established in terms of linear matrix inequalities. Second, by proposing novel activation function conditions which have not been proposed so far, further improved stability criteria are proposed. Finally, three numerical examples used in the literature are given to show the improvements over the existing criteria and the effectiveness of the proposed idea.
Highly malignant tumor variants retain tumor-specific antigens recognized by T helper cells

We have studied the components of a complex of tumor-specific antigens to determine if all of the components of the complex were lost during progression from a rather benign regressor tumor to a highly malignant (HM) cancer. We find that the HM tumor cells have lost antigens recognized by CTL but retained antigens recognized by Th cells. Immunization with variants expressing Th-defined antigens induced tumor- specific immunity to challenge with a parental variant that expressed a CTL-recognized target antigen, but did not induce immunity to challenge with the variant that expressed the Th-defined antigen alone. Together, these findings suggested that Th cells fail to exert direct selective pressure upon the tumor, resulting in retention of "lineage-specific," Th-recognized antigens by highly immunoselected variants. Possible advantage could be taken of this fact for the development of specific immunotherapy.
Forty-five years of cell-cycle genetics

In the early 1970s, studies in Leland Hartwell’s laboratory at the University of Washington launched the genetic analysis of the eukaryotic cell cycle and set the path that has led to our modern understanding of this centrally important process. This 45th-anniversary Retrospective reviews the steps by which the project took shape, the atmosphere in which this happened, and the possible morals for modern times. It also provides an up-to-date look at the 35 original CDC genes and their human homologues.
Are We Preparing or Training Teachers? Developing Professional Judgment in and Beyond Teacher Preparation Programs

This three phase longitudinal multiple-case study, framed by positioning theory, investigated how four novice teachers learned to use professional judgment in their literacy instruction. Data sources from coursework, student teaching, and novice teaching were included. Interviews, observations, researchers’ observational notes, and school and classroom demographics were compiled and analyzed to create case reports. Findings indicated while they differed in their use of professional judgment as novice teachers, participants learned this skill in student teaching rather than in coursework, which caused us to question whether teacher preparation programs are preparing teachers to use professional judgment or training them for technical compliance.
Optical scattering and absorption by metal nanoclusters in GaAs

Optical extinction by a dilute dispersion of metal nanoclusters in GaAs is calculated using the optical theorem and Maxwell–Garnet theory with complex dielectric functions for Cr, Fe, Ni, Cu, Ag, Au, Er, and As. The large dielectric function of the semiconductor host shifts the surface plasmon resonance frequencies from the ultraviolet to the near infrared. The noble metals have well‐defined resonances with significant absorption and Rayleigh scattering at photon energies compatible with diode lasers and semiconductor electro‐optic modulators. Interband transitions in metals such as As, Cr, Fe, Ni, and Er strongly damp the surface plasmon modes, quenching the resonant absorption by the particles, but providing significant absorption to wavelengths longer than 1.5 μm. Metal‐semiconductor composites may arise during growth or processing of materials, such as GaAs:Er for fiber‐optic applications, and GaAs:As in which metallic precipitates of As form in GaAs after low temperature growth of GaAs using molecula.
On ADE Quiver Models and F-Theory

Based on mirror symmetry, we discuss geometric engineering of N = 1 ADE quiver models from F-theory compactifications on elliptic K3 surfaces fibered over certain fourdimensional base spaces. The latter are constructed as intersecting 4-cycles according to ADE Dynkin diagrams, thereby mimicking the construction of Calabi-Yau threefolds used in geometric engineering in type II superstring theory. Matter is incorporated by considering D7-branes wrapping these 4-cycles. Using a geometric procedure referred to as folding, we discuss how the corresponding physics can be converted into a scenario with D5-branes wrapping 2-cycles of ALE spaces. abelhaj@uottawa.ca J.Rasmussen@ms.unimelb. edu.au sebbar@mathstat.uottawa.ca sedra@ictp.it 1
Perceptual Structure Distortion Ratio: An Image Quality Metric Based on Robust Measures of Complex Phase Order

This paper investigates a novel perceptual driven approach to image quality assessment using complex wavelets called PSDR (Perceptual Structure Distortion Ratio). The measure is grounded in the modeling of the human vision system as a frequency-based processing system and that perceptual structural significance can be derived based on the concept of complex phase order. Built upon a robust complex phase order framework for measuring structural significance, preliminary results using test images under different types of distortions show that PSDR can be a promising direction for evaluating the quality of visual media.
Haptic rendering of deformable objects using a multiple FPGA parallel computing architecture

High-fidelity simulations of haptic interaction with deformable objects is computationally challenging. In this paper, hardwarebased parallel computing is proposed for finite-element (FE) analysis of soft-object deformation models. A distributed implementation of the Preconditioned Conjugate Gradient (PCG) algorithms on N Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) devices can solve the large system of equations arising from FE models at high update rates required for stable haptic interaction. Massive parallelization of the computations is achieved by customizing the hardware architecture to the problem at hand and concurrently employing a large number of adaptive fixed-point computing units. An implementation of this scalable hardware accelerator on four Altera EP3SE110 FPGA devices is capable of performing 230.4 Giga Operations per second in Sparse Matrix by Vector (SpMxV) multiplication. This architecture has successfully enabled real-time simulation of haptic interaction with a 3-dimensional FE model of 6000 nodes at an update rate of 200 Hz. Both static and dynamic linear elastic models have been successfully simulated.
Audio signal decomposition for pitch and time scaling

This paper describes a frame based audio signal decomposition approach. The aim of the proposed approach is first to decompose an audio signal into transient, sinusoidal and residual components (TSR). Applying linear prediction onto each signal frame, transient detection is started on the prediction error. Assuming that sudden changes like transients are difficult to predict, the prediction error is thus expected to have very high energy in transient areas. Using the estimated envelope of the prediction error and its first order statistical moments, a suitable adaptive threshold is derived which ensures correct transient detection in various audio signals. Once a transient region is detected in a signal frame, it is directly separated yielding a first residual signal containing sinusoids and noise. To extract the sinusoidal components, partial tracking based on psychoacoustic masking is performed on the first residual signal. A second residual signal is then obtained by subtracting the psychoacoustic relevant sinusoidal components. This second residual is then processed by tracking and removing remaining sinusoidal components yielding a final residual without transient and sinusoidal components. Pitch and time scaling can then be applied onto the decomposed signal components. Pitch scaling is only applied onto the sinusoidal components, transient and residual components are not changed. Time scaling is applied here to the sinusoidal and residual components, whereas the transient components are only shifted in time.
Effects of Power Distance Diversity within Workgroups on Work Role Performance and Organizational Citizenship Behavior

The purpose of this study was to analyze the effect of power distance diversity within workgroups, from the perspectives of work role performance and organizational citizenship behavior. A sample of 251 employees, from a multinational company’s subsidiary, was analyzed to determine the existence of relationships between power distance diversity, work role performance and organizational citizenship behavior. Results indicated two main findings. First, the most power distance diverse workgroups had a negative effect on the work role performance of the employees. Secondly, the most power distance diverse workgroups negatively influenced two dimensions of organizational citizenship behavior: altruism and civic virtue. In addition to the previous main findings, it was concluded that power distance had a negative impact within the workgroups of the organization that was studied. The development of this research made a significant contribution to the innovative research field of cultural dimensions’ relationship with the performance and the behavior of the employees. Additionally, this research is among the first to study the effects of power distance on the work role performance and the organizational citizenship behavior of employees.
Mechanical implementation of a variable-stiffness actuator for a softly strummed ukulele

This research illustrates the design, implementation, and evaluation of pneumatic variable-stiffness actuator (VSA) used to strum a four-stringed ukulele with audio variability. A guitar pick is antagonistically loaded with two inflatable polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) actuators, allowing for the independent control of both position or stiffness through the utilization of one and two PDMS solenoids, respectively. To generate smooth analog pressure signals, the bellows incorporate a controlled leak to atmospheric pressure, having synonymous properties to a low-pass filter circuit when fed a coarse pressure signal through PWM control. Experimental results illustrate a minimum to maximum stiffness range of 76 to 320 Nmm/rad, a maximum cyclical speeds of 2.04 Hz, and a stiffness change rate of 96 Nmm/rad/kPa. Additional to the VSA, alternative PDMS fabrication methods are presented to allow for complex, precise manufacturing of silicone bodies in a low-cost manner.
Serie research memoranda An explorative empirical analysis of the influence of labour flows on wage formation using the Johansen approach

This study presents an explorative econometric analysis of the influence of labour market flows on wage formation. It applies the vector cointegration and common trends methodology of Johansen (1995). According to this approach, a combination of the flow of layoffs (flow from employment to unemployment) and the flow. of filled vacancies (successful matches) appears to be an adequate alternative to the unemployment rate as indicator of labour market tightness in the wage equation for The Netherlands. * The first author is research associate at the University of Groningen and the second author is professor of economics at the Free University, Amsterdam, and is member of the Scientific Council for Government Policy at The Hague. Correspondence to second author, Free University, Department of Economics, Applied Labour Economics Reserach Team (ALERT), De Boelelaan 1105, NL-108 1 HV Amsterdam, telephone: +3 1 20 4446044, facsimile: 3-3 1 20 4446005, email: fbutteraecon. vu. nl; 1
Video concept detection based on spatio-temporal correlation

It has been proved that graph-based semi-supervised learning approaches can effectively and efficiently solve the problem of the limitation of labeled data in many real-world application areas, such as video concept detection. As a significant factor of these algorithms, however, similarity metric has not been fully investigated. Specifically, for existing approaches, the estimation of similarity between two samples relies on the spatial property of video data. On the other hand, temporal property, an essential characteristic of video data, is not embedded into the similarity measure. Accordingly, in this paper, a novel framework based on the spatio-temporal correlation is proposed for task of video concept detection. This framework is characterized by simultaneously taking into account both the spatial and temporal property of video data to improve the computation of similarity. We apply the proposed framework to video concept detection and report superior performance compared to key existing approaches over the benchmark TRECVID data set.
Personalized Proteomics: The Future of Precision Medicine

Medical diagnostics and treatment has advanced from a one size fits all science to treatment of the patient as a unique individual. Currently, this is limited solely to genetic analysis. However, epigenetic, transcriptional, proteomic, posttranslational modifications, metabolic, and environmental factors influence a patient’s response to disease and treatment. As more analytical and diagnostic techniques are incorporated into medical practice, the personalized medicine initiative transitions to precision medicine giving a holistic view of the patient’s condition. The high accuracy and sensitivity of mass spectrometric analysis of proteomes is well suited for the incorporation of proteomics into precision medicine. This review begins with an overview of the advance to precision medicine and the current state of the art in technology and instrumentation for mass spectrometry analysis. Thereafter, it focuses on the benefits and potential uses for personalized proteomic analysis in the diagnostic and treatment of individual patients. In conclusion, it calls for a synthesis between basic science and clinical researchers with practicing clinicians to design proteomic studies to generate meaningful and applicable translational medicine. As clinical proteomics is just beginning to come out of its infancy, this overview is provided for the new initiate.
Single frequency, widely tuneable green microchip laser

In this paper, conception and practical realization of single frequency, widely tuneable Nd:YVO4/YVO4/KTP microchip laser operation at 532 nm is presented. Theoretical analysis of the single mode operation of such laser configuration is introduced. The single frequency operation was obtained in birefringent filter configuration where YVO4 beam displacer acts like ideal polarizer. We obtain stable single frequency operation tuneable in the spectral range above 0.6 nm at 1064 nm. The laser operates with output power up to 70 mW at 532 nm.
A word-length adaptive method of Chinese dictionary construction

The Chinese dictionary is critical to the storage and search of text information in Chinese search engine. Basing on the Exclusive-OR algorithm, the machine code combined with stroke number of Chinese character was employed to hash the words with different length into the corresponding space of hash value with according to the probability statistics results of a word presenting. As a result, the collision rate of hash value is brought down to 0.034% and the search efficiency is up. This method can be used in the construction of large-scale dynamic dictionary as well as the other task of natural language processing such as the construction of Chinese corpus, Chinese word input method design and so on.
Fast object-level change detection for moving VHR images

A novel approach is presented for change detection of very high resolution images, which is accomplished by fast object level change feature extraction and progressive change feature classification. In addition, the Kalman filter used to track VHR images. Object-level change feature is helpful for improving the discriminability between the changed class and the unchanged class. Progressive change feature classification helps to improve the accuracy and the degree of automation, which is implemented by dynamically adjusting the training samples and gradually tuning the separating hyper plane. Experiments demonstrate the effectiveness and accuracy of the proposed approach. The simulation and experiment results of the model indicate that the algorithm efficiently solves the problem of nonlinear moving object Tracking.
A fractional-N frequency synthesizer using high-OSR delta-sigma modulator and nested-PLL

A nested-PLL(NPLL) architecture for low-noise wide-bandwidth fractional-N frequency synthesizer is presented. In order to reduce the quantization noise of the fractional-N PLL, delta-sigma modulator(DSM) is clocked at nine times of the reference frequency. A band pass filter, implemented in form of a PLL, is added to reduce the noise folding. Prototype implemented in 0.13um CMOS process achieves 26dB quantization noise suppression while consuming 9.6mW and occupying 0.46mm2.
An Architectural Model to Provide QoS in a Home Network and its Evaluation in a Real Testbed

Home networks are an evolution of office local area networks, answering the need for residential distribution of broadband services. The design of a home network must strive to keep low costs, easy installation and maintenance while at the same time providing a large variety of services, from voice and data applications to multimedia streaming. A successful platform for home networking must put together simple interfaces for the users and sophisticated mechanisms for managing the distribution of the desired broadband services. In this paper we propose mechanisms to support flows with different Quality of Service (QoS) requirements in a home network whose architectural model has been defined in the framework of the European IST ePerSpace project. The model is based on a centralized Residential Gateway (RG), which connects and coordinates different network technologies to support home services. The proposed mechanisms are simple to be implemented since they can be installed on top of existing home network technologies, without modifying them. We implement the whole model and our mechanisms in a real testbed and we perform an extensive performance evaluation over it. The performance evaluation allows us to understand the effect of different settings both on the wired and on the wireless interfaces of the RG, to comprehend which are the key aspects that influence the overall performance and to propose some RG configurations which turn out to be very effective in achieving the desired performance. Special attention is devoted to the wireless support of home services on IEEE 802.11b devices.
Why is action research suitable for education

Action research is actually suitable for any person who wishes to improve his or her performance; or any group or organization who hopes for doing the same. As a matter of fact, action research is widely used in education, especially by teachers who use it to improve their teaching. Teachers from all over the world, from the United States, Australia, New Zealand to Vietnam, etc have employed action research as a part of their teaching and research. Obviously, action research well matches with education and benefits both teachers and students in their teaching and learning since it meets the need of education and enables continuity in research with its cyclic process. The suitability of action research to education reveals in its nature, characteristics, "circle within circle" process, etc. In order to find a proper answer for the above question, this article will look at all aspects concerning action research including definitions, advantages, steps, etc to see the importance and the benefits of action research to education.