Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Advances in optical phased array technology

Commercially available Liquid Crystal on Silicon (LCoS) Optical Phase Arrays (OPA) are capable of non-mechanically beamsteering up to ±3 degrees at 1550 nm. While the existing technology is useful for many applications such as laser communications and pulse-shaping, it is desirable to increase the steer angle and decrease the response time of the OPA. This was accomplished through a research effort funded by Langley Research Center at NASA. Under this research effort Boulder Nonlinear Systems (BNS) designed a new 1x12288 pixel OPA. In the new backplane design the pixel pitch was decreased from 1.8 um to 1.6 um, the backplane voltage was increased from 5 volts to 13 volts, and the aperture was increased from 7.4 x 6.0 mm to 19.66 x 19.66 mm. The OPA, when built with new liquid crystals and calibrated with new automated calibration procedures demonstrated a greater than 2x improvement in steer angle. The OPA that was tested, which was built for operation at 1550 nm, demonstrated the ability to steer to ±6.95 degrees. Additionally the relaxation time of the OPA was improved to 24.8 ms. This paper discusses the benefits of the new backplane design, the liquid crystal (LC) properties that are most desirable for beamsteering, the implementation of the automated calibration procedures, and the results.
In Vivo Quantification of Myelin Changes in the Vertebrate Nervous System

Destruction or changes associated with myelin membranes in the CNS play a key role in the pathogenesis of multiple sclerosis and other related neurodegenerative disorders. A long-standing goal has been to detect and quantify myelin content in vivo. For this reason, we have developed a myelin-imaging technique based on positron emission tomography (PET). PET is a quantitative imaging modality that has been widely used in clinical settings for direct assessment of biological processes at the molecular level. However, lack of myelin-imaging probes has hampered the use of PET for imaging of myelination in the CNS. Here, we report a myelin-imaging agent, termed Case Imaging Compound (CIC) that readily penetrates the blood–brain barrier and preferentially localizes to myelinated regions of the brain. After radiolabeling with positron-emitting carbon-11, [11C]CIC–PET was conducted in longitudinal studies using a lysolethicin-induced rat model of focal demyelination and subsequent remyelination. Quantitative analysis showed that the retention of [11C]CIC correlates with the level of demyelination/remyelination. These studies indicate that, for the first time, [11C]CIC–PET can be used as an imaging marker of myelination, which has the potential to be translated into clinical studies in multiple sclerosis and other myelin-related diseases for early diagnosis, subtyping, and efficacy evaluation of therapeutic treatments aimed at myelin repair.
Understanding Intimate Partner Sexual Assaults: Findings from Sexual Assault Kits

ABSTRACT In 2013, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, began DNA testing and investigating nearly 5000 previously unsubmitted sexual assault kits (SAKs) from 1993 through 2009. We examined case files from a sample of SAKs that were tested but not previously adjudicated (n = 429). More than 10% (n = 45) involved victims who reported to police that a former or current intimate partner sexually assaulted them. This article integrates the available data on the offenders, the victims, the initial investigation, and the specifics of the assaults to provide a more complete understanding of intimate partner sexual assault (IPSA). More than one-third of the IPSA offenders were serial sex offenders; that is, the offenders sexually assaulted an intimate partner and another person(s). Comparing IPSAs to all other sexual assaults, IPSAs more frequently involved bodily force, less frequently involved a weapon, and IPSA investigations were more frequently closed because (1) the victims stated they lied or the police doubted the victims and (2) the victims declined to prosecute. The most common sequencing of events was a demand for sex by the offender followed by a verbal refusal by the victim and the use of bodily force in the sexual assault. The findings, however, indicate a great deal of variation in the sequencing of events surrounding the sexual assault, with over 25% involving no physical confrontation before or after the sexual assault and no demands for sex. Unsubmitted SAK data provide a unique window into understanding the understudied and underreported issue of IPSA.
STEWARD: architecture of a spatio-textual search engine

STEWARD ("Spatio-Textual Extraction on the Web Aiding Retrieval of Documents"), a system for extracting, querying, and visualizing textual references to geographic locations in unstructured text documents, is presented. Methods for retrieving and processing web documents, extracting and disambiguating georeferences, and identifying geographic focus are described. A brief overview of STEWARD's querying capabilities, as well as the design of an intuitive user interface, are provided. Finally, several application scenarios and future extensions to STEWARD are discussed.
Non-Negative Matrix Factorization with Orthogonality Constraints for Chemical Agent Detection in Raman Spectra

We introduce non-negative matrix factorization with orthogonality constraints (NMF-OC) for detection of a target spectrum in a given set of Raman spectra data. An orthogonality measure is defined and two different orthogonality constraints are imposed on the standard NMF to incorporate prior information into the estimation and hence to facilitate the subsequent detection procedure. Experimental results are presented to compare NMF-OC with the basic NMF and ICA methods in detection, and to demonstrate its effectiveness in the chemical agent detection problem
Key design elements of daily newspapers: Impact on the reader's perception and visual impression

Existing studies of newspaper design point to an interaction of form and content through the impact of visual format on the impression, perception, and understanding of the content. This paper aims to further explore the topic, i.e., the impact of design elements (layout, color, photographs, and front page) of the daily newspapers on the perception and visual impression of readers. The purpose of the paper is twofold. The first part briefly presents summarized theoretical considerations of newspaper design from a perspective of the marketing approach to the newspaper as a specific type of product. The second part is devoted to the primary research undertaken in order to explore and understand readers’ perceptions of design elements of the daily newspaper on the Croatian market. The research findings confirmed the assumptions about the link between layout style and photographs on the one hand and the perception of the content, the interaction and the effect of color on the perception of the product (newspapers) character on the other hand, and the assumption of the role of front page design as a sales argument. Findings add to the existing knowledge with insights from the new research context—Croatia, and as such might help in increasing the understanding about the visual perception and behavior of readers from the emerging European market. Also, findings might serve as the basis for future improvements in the visual ergonomics of newspapers.
Ginkgo biloba and donepezil: a comparison in the treatment of Alzheimer's dementia in a randomized placebo‐controlled double‐blind study

The Ginkgo biloba special extract EGb 761 seems to produce neuroprotective effects in neurodegenerative diseases of multifactorial origin. There is still debate about the efficacy of Ginkgo biloba special extract EGb 761 compared with second‐generation cholinesterase inhibitors in the treatment of mild to moderate Alzheimer's dementia. Our aim is to assess the efficacy of the Ginkgo biloba special extract E.S. in patients with dementia of the Alzheimer type in slowing down the disease's degenerative progression and the patients' cognitive impairment compared with donepezil and placebo. The trial was designed as a 24‐week randomized, placebo‐controlled, double‐blind study. Patients aged 50–80 years, suffering from mild to moderate dementia, were allocated into one of the three treatments: Ginkgo biloba (160 mg daily dose), donepezil (5 mg daily dose), or placebo group. The degree of severity of dementia was assessed by the Syndrom Kurz test and the Mini‐Mental State Examination. Clinical Global Impression score was recorded to assess the change in the patients’ conditions and the therapeutic efficacy of tested medications. Our results confirm the clinical efficacy of Ginkgo biloba E.S. (Flavogin) in the dementia of the Alzheimer type, comparable with donepezil clinical efficacy. There are few published trials that have directly compared a cholinesterase inhibitor with Ginkgo for dementia. This study directly compares a cholinesterase inhibitor with Ginkgo biloba for dementia of the Alzheimer type and could be a valid contribution in this debate. Our study suggests that there is no evidence of relevant differences in the efficacy of EGb 761 and donepezil in the treatment of mild to moderate Alzheimer's dementia, so the use of both substances can be justified. In addition, this study contributes to establish the efficacy and tolerability of the Ginkgo biloba special extract E.S. in the dementia of the Alzheimer type with special respect to moderately severe stages.
The Cuoa Case: a humanistic approach of an Italian MBA

The paper shows how an innovative approach based on competence measurement, could be seen as humanistic. It describes briefly a methodology focused on customizing trainee needs at the beginning and at the end of MBA courses hold by Fondazione CUOA, a leading business school in Italy. After introducing the concept of metacompetencies it introduces the capabilities needed in order to cultivate humanity in a management environment: a) platonic skepsis b) world citizenship c) narrative imagination Descending from last capability is the issue of ”imaginism ” ( or philosophy of imagine) of Luigi Stefanini, an Italian philosopher active in the field of education, aesthetic, religion. (Treviso 1891-Padova 1956) ∗Alessandro Passarelli, humanities’ enthusiast, degree in Electronic Engineering from University of Padova, Master MBA CUOA 1997, lived for many years in the USA working for an Italian subsidiary company. He is now living in Venice as management consultant in public and private sector. He is also Member of Executive Board of CUOA Alumni Association. He can be reached by email at alessandropass@tiscali.it
Parsimonious Kinematic Control of Nonholonomic Mobile Manipulators

This paper presents the implementation and performance comparison of two whole-body kinematic control strategies for a robot composed of one manipulator with five degrees of freedom (DOF) serially coupled to a nonholonomic mobile base. The control strategy is based on a cascade scheme composed of an outer loop that takes into account all DOF and an inner loop that explicitly deals with the nonholonomic constraints of the mobile base. The comparison is performed between two techniques applied at the outer loop to deal with the whole-body motion, namely a traditional approach that uses the pseudoinverse of the robot Jacobian matrix and the parsimonious control recently introduced by Gonçalves et al. (2016). Experiments on a real robot show that the parsimonious approach uses fewer actuators than the traditional approach at the expense of more abrupt control signals.
Chinese and English speakers' neural representations of word meaning offer a different picture of cross-language semantics than corpus and behavioral measures

Speakers of Chinese and English share decodable neural semantic representations, which can be elicited by words in each language. We explore various, common models of semantic representation and their correspondences to each other and to these neural representations. Despite very strong cross-language similarity in the neural data, we find that two versions of a corpus-based semantic model do not show the same strong correlation between languages. Behavior-based models better approximate cross-language similarity, but these models also fail to explain the similarities observed in the neural data. Although none of the examined models explain cross-language neural similarity, we explore how they might provide additional information over and above crosslanguage neural similarity. We find that native speakers’ ratings of noun-noun similarity and one of the corpus models do further correlate with neural data after accounting for cross-language similarities.
Spectroscopy of bright quasars: emission lines and internal extinction

Aims. The main purpose of this work is to improve the existing knowledge about the most powerful engines in the Universe – quasars. Although a lot is already known, we still have only a vague idea how these engines work exactly, why they behave as they do, and what the relation is between their evolution and the evolution of their harboring galaxy. Methods. Methods we used are based on optical spectroscopy of visually bright quasars, many of which have recently been discovered as X-ray sources, but eventually missed in color-selected surveys. The spectra typically cover the 4200–7000 AA region, allowing measurements of the characteristics of the hydrogen lines, the FeII contribution, and other lines of interest. Results. We present accurate redshift estimates and Seyfert type classification of the objects. We also show that the contribution of the host galaxy to the optical continuum is non-negligible in many cases, as is the intrinsic AGN absorption. Consequences of not correcting for those factors when estimating different quasar parameters are discussed. We also find some evidence of a non-unity slope in the relation between the internal extinction based on the Balmer decrement and the one on the optical continuum slope, implying, if further confirmed, the intriguing possibility that some absorbing material might actually be located between the continuum source and the broad-line region.
Notice of violation of ieee publication principlesa fault tolerant election protocol in asynchronous distributed systems with fail-stop model

We introduce a new algorithm for fault-tolerant election protocol in asynchronous distributed systems. Informally, a safety strengthened election protocol is needed in a practical distributed computing environment. Consider a mission critical distributed system such as an electronic commerce system that runs multiple servers in which one of them roles a master (leader) and others are slaves. To have data consistency among the servers in the system, this system should not violate safety property, which means that all processes connected the system never disagree on a leader. In those systems the safety property is more important property than the liveness property. In this paper, we presents a safety strengthened Leader Election protocol with an unreliable failure detector and analyses it in terms of safety and liveness properties in asynchronous distributed systems.
Fast 3D mapping by matching planes extracted from range sensor point-clouds

This article addresses fast 3D mapping by a mobile robot in a predominantly planar environment. It is based on a novel pose registration algorithm based entirely on matching features composed of plane-segments extracted from point-clouds sampled from a 3D sensor. The approach has advantages in terms of robustness, speed and storage as compared to the voxel based approaches. Unlike previous approaches, the uncertainty in plane parameters is utilized to compute the uncertainty in the pose computed by scan-registration. The algorithm is illustrated by creating a full 3D model of a multi-level robot testing arena.
CREEPING FLOW THROUGH MICROCHANNELS WITH INTEGRATED MICRO-PILLARS

Pressure drop through micro-pillar-integrated mini/microchannels is studied experimentally and analytically. Following our previous studies, the low aspect ratio micropillars embedded in a microchannel are modeled as a porous medium sandwiched between channel walls. The pressure drop is expressed as a function of the salient geometrical parameters such as channel dimension, diameter and spacing between the adjacent cylinders as well as their arrangement. To verify the developed model, several silicon/glass samples with and without integrated pillars are fabricated using the deep reacting ion etching (DRIE) technique. Pressure drop measurements are performed over a range of water flow rates ranging from 0.1 ml/min to 0.5 ml/min. The proposed model is successfully verified with the present experimental data. A parametric study is performed by employing the proposed model, which shows that the flow resistance has a reverse relationship with the micro-pillar diameter and the mini/microchannel porosity. In addition, staggered arrangements have a significantly lower flow resistance than squared arrays of pillars especially in dense structures.Copyright © 2012 by ASME
A CMOS Class-E Power Amplifier With Voltage Stress Relief and Enhanced Efficiency

This paper proposes a class-E power amplifier (PA) with double-resonance circuit to reduce voltage stress on CMOS transistors. The voltage waveform applied to the CMOS transistor is shaped by harmonic control and the transistors are relieved from breakdowns. A negative capacitance is also implemented for efficiency enhancement, compensating for surplus capacitance from parasitic components on the drain node. Thus, nominal class-E operation is restored and high efficiency is achieved. We present a cascode differential class-E RF PA that is fabricated using a 0.13-¿ m CMOS technology that delivers 31.5-dBm output power with 54% drain efficiency and 51% power-added efficiency at 1.8 GHz.
A Workbench for Simulating Natural Language Evolution

We present an implemented architecture for simulating the e volution of natural language. The workbench allows parameterization of a large number of assu mptions that researchers in the field work with, allowing interactions of parameters to be explored in detail. The system is based on a social rather than genetic model of language evolution, on the basi s that complex interactive structures like stock exchanges are likely to lack genetic encoding. Rather , items selected for continued existence in this system are mappings between phoneme sequences and un derlying meanings. Representative experiments enabled by the system are discussed.
The small mechanosensitive channel: Adaptive gating and timing during hypoosmotic shock.

Title of dissertation: THE SMALL MECHANOSENSITIVE CHANNEL: ADAPTIVE GATING AND TIMING DURING HYPOOSMOTIC SHOCK. Miriam Sara Boer, Doctor of Philosophy, 2011 Dissertation directed by: Prof. Sergei Sukharev, Dept. of Biology Mechanosensation is the ability to respond to mechanical stimuli. It is present in many organisms. In Escherichia coli (E. coli), mechanosensation manifests in two membrane channels, the large mechanosensitive channel (MscL) and the small mechanosensitive channel (MscS). Both osmoregulatory channels sense membrane tension. MscS, the subject of these studies, consists of a transmembrane region and a cytoplasmic cage. It opens at tensions below those which can cause immediate damage to membranes, contrasting with MscL which opens at near-lytic tensions. Because it opens at non-threatening tensions, MscS not only opens and closes but also inactivates. Inactivation is non-conductive and tension insensitive, and this adaptive behavior was first observed on patch clamp. With the aid of carefully constructed molecular models, the first part of this dissertation evaluates whether inactivation is merely a patch clamp artifact or if it is indeed a part of in vivo MscS function. Working with wild type (WT) alongside fast inactivating and noninactivating mutants proved inactivation does confer a survival advantage to hypoosmotically shocked bacteria. Additionally, light scattering was used to view the swelling and channel response events in WT and knock out (KO) cells lacking mechanosensitive channels upon instantaneous hypoosmotic shock by way of stopped flow. THE SMALL MECHANOSENSITIVE CHANNEL: ADAPTIVE GATING AND TIMING DURING HYPOOSMOTIC SHOCK.
New German words: detection and description

In this paper, we discuss an efficient method of (semi-automatic) neologism detection for German and its application for the production of a dictionary of neologisms, focusing on the lexicographic process. By monitoring the language via editorial (print and online) media evaluation and interpreting the findings on the basis of lexicographic competence, many, but not all neologisms can be identified which qualify for inclusion in the Neologismenworterbuch (2006-today) at the Institute for the German Language in Mannheim (IDS). In addition, an automated corpus linguistic method offers neologism candidates based on a systematic analysis of large amounts of text to lexicographers. We explain the principles of the corpus linguistic compilation of a list of candidates and show how lexicographers work with the results, combining them with their own findings in order to continuously enlarge this specialized online dictionary of new words in German.
Guanxi Management in China : A Hierarchical Stakeholder Model of Effective Guanxi Chenting

Guanxi (literally interpersonal connections) is in essence a network of resource coalition-based stakeholders sharing resources for survival, and it plays a key role in achieving business success in China. However, the salience of guanxi stakeholders varies: not all guanxi relationships are necessary, and among the necessary guanxi participants, not all are equally important. A hierarchical stakeholder model of guanxi is developed drawing upon Mitchell et al.’s (1997) stakeholder salience theory and Anderson’s (1982) constituency theory. As an application of instrumental stakeholder theory, the model dimensionalizes the notion of stakeholder salience, and distinguishes between and among internal and external guanxi, core, major, and peripheral guanxi, and primary and secondary guanxi stakeholders. Guanxi management principles are developed based on a hierarchy of guanxi priorities and management specializations. The goal of this application of instrumental stakeholder theory is to construct, for Western business firms in China, a means to reliably identify guanxi partners by employing the principles of effective guanxi. These principles are described in the form of testable propositions that advance social scientific research in this area of international business ethics.