Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Interplay of "Big Five" Personality Factors and Metaphorical Schemas: A Pilot Study with 20 Lung Transplant Recipients

The aim of the present study was to investigate the interplay between personality factors and metaphorical schemas. The “Big Five” personality factors of 20 patients after lung transplantation were examined with the NEO-FFI. Patients were questioned about their social network , and self- and body-image. The interviews were assessed with metaphor analysis. Significant positive correlations were found between “extraversion” and metaphors for acoustics, play/sport and economy, furthermore between “openness to experience” and metaphors for acoustics, container, battle, illness. A positive correlation was also found between “openness to experience” and metaphor frequency. Significant negative correlations were found between “conscientiousness” and metaphors for illness. The results indicate that personality factors may correspond with certain implicit metaphorical schemas.
Pair-Copula Constructions for Financial Applications: A Review

This survey reviews the large and growing literature on the use of pair-copula constructions (PCCs) in financial applications. Using a PCC, multivariate data that exhibit complex patterns of dependence can be modeled using bivariate copulae as simple building blocks. Hence, this model represents a very flexible way of constructing higher-dimensional copulae. In this paper, we survey inference methods and goodness-of-fit tests for such models, as well as empirical applications of the PCCs in finance and economics.
Grid Parameter Estimation Using Model Predictive Direct Power Control

This paper presents a novel finite-control-set model predictive control (FS-MPC) approach for grid-connected converters. The control performance of such converters may get largely affected by variations in the supply impedance, especially for systems with low short-circuit ratio values. A novel idea for estimating the supply impedance variation, and hence the grid voltage, using an algorithm embedded in the MPC is presented in this paper. The estimation approach is based on the difference in grid voltage magnitudes at two consecutive sampling instants, calculated on the basis of supply currents and converter voltages directly within the MPC algorithm, achieving a fast estimation and integration between the controller and the impedance estimator. The proposed method has been verified, using simulation and experiments, on a three-phase two-level converter.
Effectiveness of Functional Electrical Stimulation in Improving Clinical Outcomes in the Upper Arm following Stroke: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background. Different therapeutic methods are being used to prevent or decrease long-term impairments of the upper arm in stroke patients. Functional electrical stimulation (FES) is one of these methods, which aims to stimulate the nerves of the weakened muscles so that the resulting muscle contractions resemble those of a functional task. Objectives. The objective of this study was to review the evidence for the effect of FES on (1) shoulder subluxation, (2) pain, and (3) upper arm motor function in stroke patients, when added to conventional therapy. Methods. From the 727 retrieved articles, 10 (9 RCTs, 1 quasi-RCT) were selected for final analysis and were rated based on the PEDro (Physiotherapy Evidence Database) scores and the Sackett's levels of evidence. A meta-analysis was performed for all three considered outcomes. Results. The results of the meta-analyses showed a significant difference in shoulder subluxation in experimental groups compared to control groups, only if FES was applied early after stroke. No effects were found on pain or motor function outcomes. Conclusion. FES can be used to prevent or reduce shoulder subluxation early after stroke. However, it should not be used to reduce pain or improve upper arm motor function after stroke.
An iterative algorithm for translation acquisition of adpositions.

This paper describes an algorithm which acquires prepositions for translation from large corpora. Corpora of both the source language and the target language are used, but they can be independent of each other. Moreover, the algorithm does not require any type of manual tagging. Using an iterative algorithm, the system selects preferred prepositions between specific verbs and nouns in the target language, and simultaneously detects compound verbs which may be obstacles to the proper selection of prepositions. This algorithm is applied for the translation of the Japanese postposition ‘de’ into English.
Interactive Person Following and Gesture Recognition with a Flying Robot

Gesture recognition and person following play a vital role in social robotics. In this paper, we present an approach that allows a quadrocopter to follow a person and to recognize simple gestures using an onboard depth camera. This enables novel applications such as hands-free video recording and picture taking. Moving platforms with an onboard camera make the problem of tracking a person highly challenging. To overcome this problem, we stabilize the depth image by warping it to a virtual-static camera, using the estimated pose of the quadrocopter obtained from vision and inertial sensors using an Extended Kalman filter. The stabilized depth video can be used with state of the art motion capture solutions such as the OpenNI tracker. It allows us to obtain the full body pose. The pose can then for example be used to recognize simple gestures to control the quadrocopter’s behaviour. Our approach recognizes a small set of example commands (“follow me”, “take picture”, “land”), and generate corresponding motion commands . We demonstrate the practical performance of our approach in an extensive set of experiments with a quadrocopter.
Opening Pandora’s box? Inclusive institutions and the onset of internal conflict in oil-rich countries

The literature on institutional determinants of intra-state violence commonly asserts that the presence of multiple political parties reduces the conflict potential within countries. By co-opting oppositional groups into an institutionalized political arena, dissidents would prefer parliamentary means over violent rebellion in order to pursue their goals. The present article shows that this proposition does not necessarily hold true for resource-abundant states. In the presence of vast natural resources such as oil, countries exhibiting numerous non-competitive parties are actually more susceptible to internal conflict. Logit models that employ different estimation techniques and alternative operationalizations are shown to corroborate the proposed claim.
WEARABLE WIRELESS BODY AREA NETWORK IN HEALTHCARE

Wearable Wireless Body Area Networks (WWBANs) are an emergent technology enabling the gathering of real-time data, for instance, towards decision making by healthcare professionals in the case of remote monitoring of vital signs of patients. Recent research, however, does not describe in a straightforward way how hardware, software and wireless communication platforms fit together in order to fully support a WWBAN-based healthcare application. In this paper we propose a maturity analysis method of research on WWBANs in healthcare. The goal is to analyze whether a paper contemplates features that a research project on WWBAN in healthcare should have to apply it in a real world scenario. As a result of our method, features not addressed might indicate the lack of maturity of research papers, or even suggest open issues on that field.
Changes in the distributed temporal response properties of SI cortical neurons reflect improvements in performance on a temporally based tactile discrimination task.

1. Temporal response characteristics of neurons were sampled in fine spatial grain throughout the hand representations in cortical areas 3a and 3b in adult owl monkeys. These monkeys had been trained to detect small differences in tactile stimulus frequencies in the range of 20-30 Hz. Stimuli were presented to an invariant, restricted spot on a single digit. 2. The absolute numbers of cortical locations and the cortical area over which neurons showed entrained frequency-following responses to behaviorally important stimuli were significantly greater when stimulation was applied to the trained skin, as compared with stimulation on an adjacent control digit, or at corresponding skin sites in passively stimulated control animals. 3. Representational maps defined with sinusoidal stimuli were not identical to maps defined with just-visible tapping stimuli. Receptive-field/frequency-following response site mismatches were recorded in every trained monkey. Mismatches were less frequently recorded in the representations of control skin surfaces. 4. At cortical locations with entrained responses, neither the absolute firing rates of neurons nor the degree of the entrainment of the response were correlated with behavioral discrimination performance. 5. All area 3b cortical locations with entrained responses evoked by stimulation at trained or untrained skin sites were combined to create population peristimulus time and cycle histograms. In all cases, stimulation of the trained skin resulted in 1) larger-amplitude responses, 2) peak responses earlier in the stimulus cycle, and 3) temporally sharper responses, than did stimulation applied to control skin sites. 6. The sharpening of the response of cortical area 3b neurons relative to the period of the stimulus could be accounted for by a large subpopulation of neurons that had highly coherent responses. 7. Analysis of cycle histograms for area 3b neuron responses revealed that the decreased variance in the representation of each stimulus cycle could account for behaviorally measured frequency discrimination performance. A strong correlation between these temporal response distributions and the discriminative performances for stimuli applied at all studied skin surfaces was even stronger (r = 0.98) if only the rising phases of cycle histogram were considered in the analysis. 8. The responses of neurons in area 3a could not account for measured differences in frequency discrimination performance. 9. These representational changes did not occur in monkeys that were stimulated on the same schedule but were performing an auditory discrimination task during skin stimulation. 10. It is concluded that by behaviorally training adult owl monkeys to discriminate the temporal features of a tactile stimulus, distributed spatial and temporal response properties of cortical neurons are altered. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
New Type-I and Type-II Clathrates in the Systems Cs–Na–Ga–Si, Rb–Na–Ga–Si, and Rb–Na–Zn–Si

Systematic studies in the systems Cs–Na–Ga–Si, Rb–Na–Ga–Si, and Rb–Na–Zn–Si yielded the novel type-I clathrates with refined compositions Cs6Na2Ga8.25Si37. 75(3), Rb6.34Na1. 66(2)Ga8.02Si37. 98(3), and Rb5.20Na2. 80(4)Zn3.85Si42. 15(2) (cubic, ), as well as the type-II clathrates with formulae Cs8Na16Ga22.7Si113. 3(1), Rb8.4Na15. 6(1)Ga19.6Si116. 4(1), and Rb8Na16Zn8.4Si127. 6(1) (cubic, ). In each system, the type-I and -II compounds are always co-crystallizing, irrespective of the reaction conditions. The structures derived from single-crystal X-ray diffraction confirm complete ordering of Cs and Na atoms, and nearly complete ordering of the Rb and Na guest atoms. The framework-building Si atoms are randomly substituted by Ga or Zn atoms on all framework sites with notable difference in the substitution patterns between the type-I and type-II structure. This, and other details of the crystal chemistry are discussed in this paper.
Extending Models of Flow and E-Loyalty

Flow, a state of mind experienced by those deeply involved in an activity, has become increasingly relevant to online merchants. Flow leads to positive and excited engagement with a website and an increased likelihood of return visits, or e-loyalty. However, researchers have struggled with the definition and measurement of flow in an e-commerce environment. Recent work has examined flow as a function of either user attitudes or cognitive evaluations about a website such as whether or not one is challenged by the site, or is able to control it. However, in other work, a more design-based approach has been used in which the visual design or information design of a website is considered. In this paper, we aim to blend these approaches and to consider dual elements of both cognition and design as antecedents to flow and online loyalty. A five-factor model is presented that defines the antecedents of flow and loyalty. Cognitive-based elements of the model are User Concentration and User Satisfaction, while design-based elements include Internet System Quality, Design Quality, and Content Visibility. The paper concludes with six hypotheses which might guide researchers in testing and validating this model.
Taming the densification challenge in next generation wireless LANs: An investigation into the use of dynamic sensitivity control

The IEEE 802.11ax Working Group is aiming to devise ways to improve spectrum efficiency, in particular to enhance the system throughput in highly dense scenarios, frequently referred to as Overlapped Basic Service Set (OBSS). Several techniques are being considered to achieve these objectives. In this paper we explore receiver sensitivity adaptation, one of these techniques, as a potential lever for accomplishing the above mentioned objectives. In particular, we propose a practical method of adapting receiver sensitivity and highlight findings from a comprehensive simulation based study conducted using the network simulator ns3. Findings from this study indicate that the proposed method significantly outperforms the baseline technique currently being considered in the 11ax working group. The proposed method achieves this without requiring any changes to the hardware, the existing infrastructure and the WLAN standard. Moreover, STAs employing the proposed technique can co-exist with legacy devices that do not employ such adaptation. Findings also highlight that the traditional conservative approach of using a static CCA threshold (no sensitivity adaptation) may not always yield the best performance and that identifying the optimal CCA threshold at design time is a non-trivial problem.
The Political Culture of Planning: American Land Use Planning in Comparative Perspective

1. The Institutional Framework 2. Historical Background 3. The Objectives and Nature of Zoning 4. Zoning with a Difference 5. Exlusionary Zoning and Affordable Housing 6. Development Charges 7. Planning by Agreement 8. Aesthetics 9. Historic Preservation 10. Growth Management and Local Government 11. Growth Management and the States 12. The Federal Government and Urban Policy 13. Cross-Cultural Perspectives 14. Local Government Systems 15. Land Use Planning Systems 16. Prospects for Reform
Ranking Algorithm Based on Counts of Link Hits ( PRCLH ) : An Implementation

Mining of World Wide Web (WWW) data encounters many new challenges with increased amount of information on data repository. The search engines play vital role for retrieving the required information from huge information. Nowadays, the well-known search engines, such as Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc, have provided the users with good search results based on special search strategies. One of the key components which ensure the acceptance of web search service is the web page ranker a component which is said to have been the main contributing factor of Google. This paper discusses the page ranking algorithms based on contents, structures and usages in web mining. Keywords— Web Mining, Page Rank, WCM, WSM, PRCLH.
Traumatic aortocaval fistula from gunshot wound, complicated by bullet embolization to the right ventricle

Aortocaval fistulas are most commonly the result of spontaneous rupture or erosion of an abdominal aortic aneurysm into the inferior vena cava (80-90%). The remaining 10-20% of aortocaval fistulas are usually the result of penetrating or iatrogenic trauma from gunshot or stab wounds. We report the case of a 19-year-old male, status post multiple gunshot wounds. To our knowledge, this is the first case report of bullet embolization to the right ventricle from a traumatic aortocaval fistula. We discuss pertinent imaging findings and management of both aortocaval fistulas and bullet emboli.
Folksonomies versus Automatic Keyword Extraction: An Empirical Study

This paper reports on an evaluation of the keywords produced by Yahoo API context-based term extractor compared to a folksonomy set for the same website. The evaluation process is made in two ways: automatically, by measuring the percentage of overlap between the folksonomy set and Yahoo keywords set; and subjectively, by asking a human indexer to rate the quality of the generated keywords from both systems. The result of the experiment will be considered as an evidence for the rich semantics of folksonomies, thus, they can be used in generating “Semantic Metadata” for annotating web resources stored in del.icio. us.
νMOS-BASED COMPRESSOR DESIGNS

Partial-product reduction circuits (compressors) are of capital importance in the design of high performance parallel multipliers. This paper proposes compressor designs based on threshold gates which have been implemented as νMOS circuits. A typical block, a (4,2) compressor is fully developed. Data for a (6,2) compressor are also provided. Results show that such compressors have the best performance in delay and power-delay product when compared to conventional implementations.
Energy Demand for Heating in Spain: An Empirical Analysis with Policy Purposes

Household energy consumption, mostly due to residential heating, is a large component of energy demand in developed countries and thus a target for public policies aimed at reducing negative environmental effects and energy dependence. This paper uses detailed Spanish household micro data to model the related decisions on the type of heating energy source and on the amount of energy used for heating. This way, the article provides accurate estimates that may be used to assess the short and long term effects of public policies in this field. In particular, the relative prices of the three main energy sources for heating influence the discrete decision on the type of energy source in a sort of medium/long term effect. Moreover, the short-term demand reactions to energy price changes are found to be limited but variable across the different energy sources for heating in Spain.
Propranolol, a β-adrenergic antagonist, attenuates the decrease in trabecular bone mass in high calorie diet fed growing mice

We investigated the effects of high calorie and low calorie diets on skeletal integrity, and whether β-adrenergic blockade (BB) attenuates bone loss induced by dietary calorie alteration. Male 6-week-old C57BL/6 mice were assigned to either an ad-lib fed control diet (CON), a high calorie diet (HIGH), or a low calorie diet (LOW) group. In each diet group, mice were treated with either vehicle (VEH) or propranolol, a β-adrenergic antagonist. Over 12-weeks, β-blockade mitigated body weight and fat mass increases induced by the high calorie diet. Femoral trabecular bone mineral density and the expression levels of osteogenic marker genes in bone marrow cells were reduced in HIGHVEH and LOWVEH mice, and BB significantly attenuated this decline only in HIGH mice. In summary, the magnitude of bone loss induced by low calorie diet was greater than that caused by high calorie diet in growing mice, and β-blockade mitigated high calorie diet-induced bone loss. [BMB Reports 2014; 47(9): 506-511]
The effectiveness of e-learning: An explorative and integrative review of the definitions, methodologies and factors that promote e-Learning effectiveness

A structured search of library databases revealed that research examining the effectiveness of e-Learning has heavily increased within the last five years. After taking a closer look at the search results, the authors discovered that previous researchers defined and investigated effectiveness in multiple ways. At the same time, learning and development professionals within public and private organisations are increasingly being asked to prove the effectiveness of their learning and development initiatives. This paper investigates the effectiveness of e-Learning through an integrative review. The paper answers the following research questions: How is the effectiveness of e-Learning defined? How is the effectiveness of e-Learning measured? What makes e-Learning solutions effective? The authors discovered 19 distinct ways to define effectiveness, the most common of which is ‘learning outcome’, appearing in 41 % of the articles examined in the literature review. Moreover, the most common way to measure effectiveness is quantitatively with preand post-tests. This paper includes an empirical study of an e-Learning solution for science teachers (K–12) which serves as a valuable addition to the findings of the literature study. The study suggests that it is difficult to use e-Learning to improve teaching performance, as participating teachers can apply several strategies to avoid substantially changing their work-related practices. Furthermore, the study shows that only using the fulfilment of pre-defined learning objectives as an effectiveness parameter does not allow developers and researchers to see unexpected and unintended changes in practice that occur as a result of the e-Learning program. Finally, the research provides insight into the validity of self-assessments, suggesting that participants are able to successfully report their own practices, provided certain qualitative survey approaches are used. In this paper, a model for understanding the relationships of the key factors that influence effectiveness is developed. The model categorises these factors from three perspectives: the context in which the eLearning solution is used, the artefact (the e-Learning solution itself) and the individuals that use the artefact. It was found that support and resources, the individuals’ motivation and prior experience and interaction between the artefact and the individuals that use it all influence effectiveness. Finally, this paper discusses whether e-Learning and traditional face-toface learning should be measured according to the same definitions of and approaches to effectiveness, ending with a call for learning designers and researchers to target their measurement efforts to counting what counts for them and their stakeholders.