Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
On compensating nonlinear distortions of an OFDM system using an efficient adaptive predistorter

This paper presents an efficient adaptive predistortion technique compensating for nonlinear distortions caused by a high-power amplifier (HPA) cascaded with a linear filter in an OFDM system. In the proposed approach, the memoryless HPA, preceded by a linear filter with memory in OFDM systems, is modeled by the Wiener system, which is then precompensated by the proposed adaptive predistorter with a minimum number of filter taps. It is confirmed by computer simulation that the proposed approach produces a faster convergence speed than the previous adaptive predistortion technique, and provides a small output backoff as low as 5.5 dB for an OFDM system employing an HPA with a linear filter.
Vocalization activity of breeding shorebirds: documentation of its seasonal decline and applications for breeding bird surveys

We documented vocalization activity of breeding shorebirds at two sites in northern and western Alaska, on the Colville River Delta and on the Yukon - Kuskokwim Delta. At both sites, number of calling individuals decreased throughout the season. Variation in vocalization activity was significantly higher at the Colville River Delta towards the end of the season, while weather variables affected vocalization activity only on the Yukon - Kuskokwim Delta. Our results highlight the importance of timing, weather, and site-specific attributes on number of birds detected. We discuss our findings in the context of different methods to monitor breeding shorebirds. Resume : Nous avons etudie les emissions de vocalises des oiseaux de rivage pendant la periode de reproduction a deux sites du nord et de l'ouest de l'Alaska, le delta du fleuve Colville et le delta des fleuves Yukon et Kuskokwim. Aux deux endroits, le nombre d'individus qui font des vocalises diminue au cours de la saison. La variation de l'emission de vocalises est significativement plus elevee a delta du fleuve Colville vers la fin de la saison, alors que les variables climatiques n'affectent ces activites qu'a delta des fleuves Yukon et Kuskokwim. Nos observations mettent en evidence l'influence du moment, du climat et des caracteristiques specifiques au site sur le nombre d'oiseaux recenses. Nous discutons de nos resultats en fonction des differentes methodes de recensement des oiseaux de rivage pendant la periode de reproduction. (Traduit par la Redaction) Nebel and McCaffery 1708
Factors Derived From Escherichia Coli Nissle 1917, Grown in Different Growth Media, Enhance Cell Death in a Model of 5-Fluorouracil-Induced Caco-2 Intestinal Epithelial Cell Damage

We evaluated supernatants (SNs) from Escherichia coli Nissle 1917 (EcN) grown in commonly used growth media for their capacity to affect the viability of Caco-2 colon cancer cells in the presence and absence of 5-Fluorouracil (5-FU) chemotherapy. EcN was grown in Luria-Bertani (LB), tryptone soya (TSB), Man Rogosa Sharpe (MRS), and M17 broth supplemented with 10% (v/v) lactose solution (M17). Human Caco-2 colon cancer cells were treated with DMEM (control), growth media alone (LB, TSB, MRS, and M17) or EcN SNs derived from these 4 media, in the presence and absence of 5-FU. Cell viability, reactive oxygen species (ROS), and cell monolayer permeability were determined. EcN SN in LB medium reduced Caco-2 cell viability significantly, to 51% at 48 h. The combination of this EcN SN and 5-FU further reduced cell viability to 37% at 48 h, compared to 5-FU control. MRS broth and EcN SN in MRS, together with 5-FU, generated significantly lower levels of ROS compared to 5-FU control. However, all 5-FU treatments significantly disrupted the Caco-2 cell barrier compared to control; with no significant differences observed among any of the 5-FU treatments. EcN SNs (LB+) was most effective at decreasing the viability of Caco-2 cells. This could indicate a potential role for this EcN SN in chemoprevention for colon cancer.
Construction and characterization of three BAC libraries for analysis of the chicken genome.

Source/description: Large-insert BAC libraries have been essential components in the physical mapping and sequencing of the human genome and those of other species. Crooijmans et al. constructed a chicken BAC library with a 5.5-fold representation of the chicken genome using HindIII partial digest fragments. However, this is unlikely to provide full coverage by itself, as the use of only a single enzyme will bias against regions of the genome with unusually high or low densities of restriction sites. Kato et al. recently described a HindIII-based library of similar size, but this is not publicly available. This paper describes chicken BAC libraries constructed with three different restriction enzyme-generated inserts (HindIII, BamHI and EcoRI). Together, the three libraries should provide nearly full coverage of the chicken genome, suitable for high-resolution physical mapping and sequence analysis. All three libraries are publicly available, distributed as duplicated libraries, individual BACs and high-density colony filters. A female of the Red Jungle Fowl (Gallus gallus gallus) line UCD001 was the DNA source. A single bird from an inbred line was chosen to minimize heterozygosity that could impede eventual BAC contig assembly using fingerprint analysis. In addition, comparison of the UCD001 sequence to numerous available White Leghorn accessions should generate dense single-nucleotide polymorphism coverage of the genome.
Factors Influencing District Health Information Software Version 2 Success – A Case of the Greater Bushenyi Districts, Uganda

Evaluating success factors of District Health information software version2 (DHIS2) is an essential in the field of information systems in a developing country context. DHIS2is vital for Uganda health care system particularly for monitoring sustainable development goals and thus facilitating public health decision making, health sector reviews, planning, resource allocation. From the literature reviewed the desire to determine the variables that measure the success factors for information Systems continues. Despite, the studies, in the developing countries context like Uganda, there are few and with inadequate criteria to evaluate the DHIS2 success factors. This study aims at identifying success factors in relation to the theoretical framework of DeLeon and MacLean model 2003. Considerations for Resource supply, Education and training and Management support are key for the success of the District Health information Software Version2 in the five districts of the greater Bushenyi Districts- Uganda in developing country perspective.
Stability, Oscillations, and Noise in the Human Pupil Servomechanism

The pupil reflex to light has been considered as a servomechanism, a self-regulated error-actuated control device. This cybernetic approach, requiring the experimenter to make quantitative measurements in animals with a fully intact central nervous system, was made possible using a pupillometer designed for awake, cooperative human subjects. This instrument provided an electronically controlled light stimulus as well as continuous records of both pupil area and light intensity. Sinusoidal changes in light intensity, small enough for linearization assumptions, were injected in an open loop fashion to determine the transfer function for pupil system behavior. The pupil servo is quite stable and has a low gain with an attenuation slope of 18 db per octave beyond 1.5 cps. One line of investigation using pharmacological agents has suggested the triple lag to be contributed by the physical law representing the viscosity of the iris neuromuscular system. Another experiment used artificially increased gain to produce instability oscillations whose frequency was predictable from the low gain transfer function. Still another investigation has shown the pupil system to contain much noise. This noise is not a result of instability, nor generated by the smooth muscle of the iris, nor by other elements of the pupil servoloop, but is injected into the loop from another part of the brain. Further studies in progress are defining nonlinearities in the pupil and retinal system in order to set up an accurate analog model of the pupil system in the form of a program for a digital computer.
Met office and ECMWF contribution to NPP and NPOESS cal/val effort

The use of numerical weather prediction (NWP) models m validating and characterizing satellite sounder data is described. The next generation U.S. polar-orbiter missions will be the NPOESS Preparatory Project (NPP) and the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS). The Met Office and ECMWF will be participating in the calibration/validation activities for these missions, and the planned contributions are described. These contributions include both pre-processing expertise and the assessment of instrument bias and noise, using NWP models as a reference.
Drivers of companies’ willingness to co-create B2B services

Co-creation, namely, the involvement of customers in the different stages of the new product development process, is increasingly viewed as an effective strategy to improve the new service success rate. However, many companies remain reluctant to co-create with customers. Therefore, one question arises: why are some companies willing to co-create whereas others are less disposed to do so? The findings of an empirical study among 175 service providers indicate that the main drivers of the willingness to co-create are the customer benefits expected by a company. The perception of these customer benefits is essentially influenced by relational factors such as the company’s prior use of collaborative tools and trust between partners.
Association of the catechol-O-methyltransferase val158met polymorphism and anxiety-related traits: a meta-analysis

Objectives The aims of this study were (i) to examine genotypic association of the catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) val158met polymorphism with anxiety-related traits with a meta-analysis; (ii) to examine sex and ethnicity as moderators of the association; and (iii) to evaluate whether the association differed by particular anxiety traits. Methods Association studies of the COMT val158met polymorphism and anxiety traits were identified from the PubMed or PsycInfo databases, conference abstracts, and listserv postings. Exclusion criteria were (a) pediatric samples, (b) exclusively clinical samples, and (c) samples selected for a nonanxiety phenotype. Standardized mean differences in anxiety between genotypes were aggregated to produce mean effect sizes across all available samples, and for subgroups stratified by sex and ethnicity (Whites vs. Asians). Construct-specific analysis was conducted to evaluate the association of COMT with neuroticism, harm avoidance, and behavioral inhibition. Results Twenty-seven eligible studies (N=15 979) with available data were identified. Overall findings indicate sex-specific and ethnic-specific effects: valine homozygotes had higher neuroticism than methionine homozygotes in studies of White males [mean effect size =0.13; 95% CI 0.02, 0.25; P=0.03], and higher harm avoidance in studies of Asian males ( =0.43; 95% CI 0.14, 0.72; P=0.004). No significant associations were found in women and effect sizes were diminished when studies were aggregated across ethnicity or anxiety traits. Conclusion This meta-analysis provides evidence for sex and ethnic differences in the association of the COMT val158met polymorphism with anxiety traits. Our findings contribute to current knowledge on the relation between prefrontal dopaminergic transmission and anxiety.
Neuroprotective effect of ischemic preconditioning in focal cerebral infarction: relationship with upregulation of vascular endothelial growth factor

Neuroprotection by ischemic preconditioning has been confirmed by many studies, but the precise mechanism remains unclear. In the present study, we performed cerebral ischemic preconditioning in rats by simulating a transient ischemic attack twice (each a 20-minute occlusion of the middle cerebral artery) before inducing focal cerebral infarction (2 hour occlusion-reperfusion in the same artery). We also explored the mechanism underlying the neuroprotective effect of ischemic preconditioning. Seven days after occlusion-reperfusion, tetrazolium chloride staining and immunohistochemistry revealed that the infarct volume was significantly smaller in the group that underwent preconditioning than in the model group. Furthermore, vascular endothelial growth factor immunoreactivity was considerably greater in the hippocampal CA3 region of preconditioned rats than model rats. Our results suggest that the protective effects of ischemic preconditioning on focal cerebral infarction are associated with upregulation of vascular endothelial growth factor.
Distribution and prevalence of Wolbachia in Japanese populations of Lepidoptera

Wolbachia are cytoplasmically inherited bacteria that are reported to infect at least 18–30% of all insect species. Our survey of Lepidoptera indicated that 44.9% of forty‐nine species and 77.8% of nine families tested positive for Wolbachia using PCR with wsp primers. Nineteen species had not been described previously as infected. In particular, although Pieris rapae, which is a common species in Japan, is infected by Wolbachia, the prevalence was very low (3.4%) and there were some localities where Wolbachia could not be detected. The probability of detection of Wolbachia depends on the number of screened individuals of P. rapae. The results indicate that the actual number of species that are positive for Wolbachia may be higher than previously reported.
Fast and accurate 3D shape from focus using dynamic programming optimization technique

The conventional shape from focus (SFF) method for 3D shape recovery from image focus is fast but inaccurate. The SFF method based on the focused image surface (FIS) has shown better results by exhaustive search of the FIS shape using planar surface approximation at the cost of considerably higher computations. We investigate a fast and accurate SFF method. The conventional SFF method is used as a rough estimate for pixels at regular steps in the x and y directions, and this rough estimate is used to search the FIS shape for all pixels between the steps using a dynamic programming optimization technique. The proposed algorithm is very fast and shows comparable results with those of accurate SFF methods.
A novel hierarchical test generation method for processors

This paper describes a novel method for hierarchical functional test generation for processors. This method targets one embedded module at a time and uses commercial ATPG tools to derive tests for faults within the module. Since the commercial tools are unable to deal with the entire design, functional constraints are first extracted for the module. The extracted constraints are described in Verilog/VHDL and synthesized to the gate level. Then a commercial sequential ATPG is used to generate module level test vectors for faults within the module. Finally, these module level vectors are translated to processor level functional vectors and fault simulated to verify that the same coverage is obtained. Applying the technique to a benchmark processor design, we were able to obtain a test efficiency for the embedded ALU of the processor which was extremely close to what the commercial ATPG could do with complete access to the module.
Factors influencing customer loyalty to family businesses in the Eastern Cape, South Africa

In today? s competitive business environment, ensuring customer loyalty and the building and maintaining of relationships with customers is important to all businesses, especially family businesses. In South Africa approximately 80% of all businesses have family ownership involvement and more than 60% of all listed companies on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) Ltd are family businesses. In South Africa. Family businesses are in a unique position to leverage relationship building into a sustainable competitive advantage associated with positive customer referrals, repeat purchases and ultimately, increased profitability. Despite the benefits of building customer relationships, South African businesses are known for poor customer service. Additionally, limited research exists investigating customer loyalty in South African family businesses. Therefore, this paper investigates the factors influencing customer loyalty of family businesses in the Eastern Cape, South African. The sample consisted of customers that purchased a product or service from a family businesses that operate in the boundaries of the Eastern Cape. The statistical analysis was undertaken on 194 usable questionnaires. Factor analysis was undertaken and Cronbach alpha coefficients were calculated to assess the validity and reliability of the measuring instrument. Multiple regression analysis was utilised to investigate the relationships between the independent variables in this study, namely: Trust, Commitment, Two way communication and Conflict handling and the dependent variable Customer loyalty. The empirical findings revealed that Trust, Commitment and Two way communication have a positive significant influence on Customer loyalty. Finally, recommendations based on the findings of the study, are presented to family businesses owners/managers.
Robot-Assisted Therapy for Learning and Social Interaction of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

This paper puts forward the potential for designing a parrot-inspired robot and an indirect teaching technique, the adapted model-rival method (AMRM), to help improve learning and social interaction abilities of children with autism spectrum disorder. The AMRM was formulated by adapting two popular conventional approaches, namely, model-rival method and label-training procedure. In our validation trials, we used a semi-autonomous parrot-inspired robot, called KiliRo, to simulate a set of autonomous behaviors. A proposed robot-assisted therapy using AMRM was pilot tested with nine children with autism spectrum disorder for five consecutive days in a clinical setting. We analyzed the facial expressions of children when they interacted with KiliRo using an automated emotion recognition and classification system, Oxford emotion API (Application Programming Interface). Results provided some indication that the children with autism spectrum disorder appeared attracted and happy to interact with the parrot-inspired robot. Short qualitative interviews with the children’s parents, the pediatrician, and the child psychologist who participated in this pilot study, also acknowledged that the proposed parrot-inspired robot and the AMRM may have some merit in aiding in improving learning and social interaction abilities of children with autism spectrum disorder.
CRIDE: A Case Study in Multi-Criteria Analysis for Decision-Making Support in Rainwater Harvesting

This paper aims to develop a multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) tool for rainwater harvesting (RWH) on a university campus in Bogota, Colombia. The specific type of MCDA our research proposes is known as CRIDE (multi-CRIteria DEcision support tool), which allows us to study various methods of RWH. In order to account for uncertainties such as the variability of expert opinions and imprecision stemming from the different criteria required, we have designed this tool to incorporate ELECTRE II and the Monte Carlo method. For this case study we apply a methodology that evaluates the performance of six RWH scenarios. These six input scenarios emerged from an ideal one, wherein all rainwater throughout the campus is successfully harvested and treated until potable. From there, reality sets in: the other five scenarios are varying degrees of deviance from the ideal one, both in terms of water quantity and quality. In regard to collection and treatment we used sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS). As for the evaluation of each of the scenarios, we outline eight criteria, which include hydraulic performance, compatibility with the University's Master Plan and financial aspects. Our research concludes that CRIDE as a means of support during the decision-making process generates a complete view of possible solutions, in addition to ranking these solutions. The CRIDE-based approach allows for the proposal of a methodology that evaluates the relevance of an established criteria set, using robustness, redundancy and sensitivity.
Robot formations using only local sensing and control

We study the problem of achieving global behavior in a group of robots using only local sensing and interaction, in the context of formations, where the goal is to have N mobile robots establish and maintain some predetermined geometric shape. We have devised a simple, general, robust, localized, behavior-based algorithm that solves the problem for N robots each equipped with sonar, laser, camera, and a radio link for communicating with other robots. The method uses the idea of keeping a single friend at a desired angle (by panning the camera and keeping the friend centered in the image), and only communicating heartbeat messages. We also developed a general analytical method for evaluating formations and applied it to our algorithm. We validate our algorithm both in simulation and with physical robots.
Channel selection using n-best hypothesis for multi-microphone ASR

If speech is captured by several arbitrarily-located microphones in a room, the degree of distortion by noise and reverberation may vary strongly from one channel to another. Channel selection for automatic speech recognition aims to rank the signals according to their quality, and, in particular, to select the best one for further processing in the recognition system. To create this ranking, we propose here to use posterior probabilities estimated from the N-best hypothesis of each channel. When evaluated experimentally, this new channel selection technique outperforms the methods published so far. We also propose the combination of different channel selection techniques to further increase the recognition accuracy and to reduce the computational load without significant performance loss.
A functional connectivity based approach to visualize the event related changes in depression through cognitive information processing during working memory tasks

Depression is an affective mood disorder characterized by impaired cognitive functioning. This study was designed to elicit and visualize event-related changes during information encoding, maintenance and retrieval processes of working memory in depression. Electroencephalographic signals recorded during performance of 2 memory tasks were used for analysis. The alpha, beta, theta and gamma powers were computed using Welch power density estimation method. The magnitude of event related changes derived from these band powers were used to visualize the difference in functional connectivity between the groups. The results revealed a complete absence of alpha desynchronization (p<0.01), theta synchronization (p<0.01) and gamma synchronisation (p<0.05) in the depressed group for the difficult task. Since alpha desynchronisation is related to information capacity, theta synchronisation to information encoding and retrieval and gamma synchronisation to information transmission, it was concluded that there was a definite impairment of memory and cognitive processing in depression which was reflected in task performance and as compensatory and weak connectivities between the different lobes. The significance of this result was highlighted by SASI values (p<0.001) which were positive in the prefrontal cortex and parietal lobe for the depressed group indicating a negative approach/withdrawal response to the requirements of the difficult task.