Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Special Issue: Successful Aging

Purpose of the Study: This article critiques Rowe and Kahn’s conceptualization of successful aging using tenets of the life course perspective. Design and Methods: A review and synthesis of the literature on successful aging and studies that use a life course perspective. Results: We draw on life course principles that view development as a dynamic lifelong process, embedded in historical time and place, and influenced by the web of rela tionships individuals are linked to, as well as more distal social structural factors. This discussion questions the relatively static nature of Rowe and Kahn’s successful aging model, its emphasis on personal control over one’s later-life outcomes, and neglect of historical and cultural context, social relationships, and structural forces in influencing later-life functioning. Implications: Caution in using the model in its current formulation is needed, and we promote thinking about how successful aging can better align with micro- and macrolevel issues through utilization of a life course perspective.
Optimal Path Planning for Car-like Off-road Vehicles

A simple algorithm for planning the optimal path for a car-like vehicle operating in outdoor environments is presented. The algorithm is based on the well-known A* approach, which is applied in the vehicle's "configuration space" and is adapted to take into account constraints that are specific to the type of vehicle and environment considered: limited steering angle, limited range of pitch and roll angles permissible, forward motion preferable, frequent turning not desirable. The performance of the algorithm is illustrated on several examples based on randomly generated maps as well as on more realistic orchard maps.
ASK-BAN: authenticated secret key extraction utilizing channel characteristics for body area networks

Recently there has been an increasing interest on bootstrapping security for wireless networks merely using physical layer characteristics. In particular, the focus has been on two fundamental security issues - device authentication and secret key extraction. While most existing works emphasize on tackling the two issues separately, it remains an open problem to simultaneously achieve device authentication and fast secret key extraction merely using wireless physical layer characteristics, without the help of advanced hardware or out-of-band channel. In this paper, for the first time, we answer this open problem in the setting of Wireless Body Area Networks (BANs). We propose ASK-BAN, a lightweight fast authenticated secret key extraction scheme for intra-BAN communication. Our scheme neither introduces any advanced hardware nor relies on out-of-band channels. To perform device authentication and fast secret key extraction at the same time, we exploit the heterogeneous channel characteristics among the collection of on-body channels during body motion. Specifically, with simple body movements, channel variations between line-of-sight on-body devices are relatively stable while those for non-line-of-sight devices are unstable. ASK-BAN utilizes the relatively static channels for device authentication and the dynamic ones for secret key generation. On one hand, ASK-BAN achieves authentication through multi-hop stable channels, which greatly reduces the false positive rate as compared to existing work. On the other hand, based on dynamic channels, the key extraction process between two on-body devices with multi-hop relay nodes is modeled as a max-flow problem, and a novel collaborative secret key generation algorithm is introduced to maximize the key generation rate. Extensive real-world experiments on low-end COTS sensor devices validate that ASK-BAN has a high secret key generation rate while being able to authenticate body devices effectively.
Effects of Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy on Romanian Foster Parents’ Psychological Functioning and their Perceived Parenting

The primary aim of this study was to explore the effects of Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) intervention on Romanian foster parents’ psychological functioning (emotional distress) and how this intervention affects their perceived parenting behavior within their family. The participants included 80 Romanian foster parents (78 female and 2 male) ranging in age from 28 to 59 years (M = 45.73 years, SD = 6.38) in one county. Participants in the present study were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: REBT group (or the experimental group) and Control group. REBT group received Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) and the Control group was given the standard training program on abuse and neglect that was taught within the Romanian child protection system. A pre-post design was used that included the Profile of Mood States (POMS) and Alabama Parenting Questionnaire (APQ) as outcome measures. The results of the present study supported our hypothesis that professional foster parents receiving REBT would show lower levels of emotional distress (anxiety, depression, and anger) and an increased use of improved parenting behaviors (involvement, positive parenting, poor monitoring/supervision, inconsistent discipline, corporal punishments, and other behaviors) compared with foster parents who received the standard training program, as showed by parents self-reported change scores. The results of the present study highlight the usefulness of understanding the importance of professional foster parents receiving REBT.
Predictors of Tuition Worth: Psychological Sense of Community, Institutional Integrity, and Student Thriving

ABSTRACT Using hierarchical multiple regression analysis, this study examined the factors that contribute to the variation in students' subjective perceptions of the value of their tuition dollars. This study utilized data on 6,322 undergraduate students from 11 institutions in the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities (CCCU) who completed the Thriving Quotient questionnaire. The results revealed that psychological sense of community (β = .321) was the strongest predictor of students' perception that their tuition was a worthwhile investment. Financial difficulty was the second strongest predictor (β = –.245), and students' perception of institutional integrity was the third strongest (β = .161). These findings indicate that helping students develop a sense of community on campus and perceive that their institutions are meeting the expectations created during the admissions process are important elements of helping students appreciate the value of their tuition. Further discussion on the theoretical and practical applications of the findings are included.
Differences in Expression Level of Helios and Neuropilin-1 Do Not Distinguish Thymus-Derived from Extrathymically-Induced CD4+Foxp3+ Regulatory T Cells

Helios transcription factor and semaphorin receptor Nrp-1 were originally described as constitutively expressed at high levels on CD4+Foxp3+ T regulatory cells of intrathymic origin (tTregs). On the other hand, CD4+Foxp3+ Tregs generated in the periphery (pTregs) or induced ex vivo (iTregs) were reported to express low levels of Helios and Nrp-1. Soon afterwards the reliability of Nrp-1 and Helios as markers discriminating between tTregs and pTregs was questioned and until now no consensus has been reached. Here, we used several genetically modified mouse strains that favor pTregs or tTregs formation and analyzed the TCR repertoire of these cells. We found that Tregs with variable levels of Nrp-1 and Helios were abundant in mice with compromised ability to support natural differentiation of tTregs or pTregs. We also report that TCR repertoires of Treg clones expressing high or low levels of Nrp-1 or Helios are similar and more alike repertoire of CD4+Foxp3+ than repertoire of CD4+Foxp3- thymocytes. These results show that high vs. low expression of Nrp-1 or Helios does not unequivocally identify Treg clones of thymic or peripheral origin.
Advancements in Actuated Musical Instruments

This article presents recent developments in actuated musical instruments created by the authors, who also describe an ecosystemic model of actuated performance activities that blur traditional boundaries between the physical and virtual elements of musical interfaces. Actuated musical instruments are physical instruments that have been endowed with virtual qualities controlled by a computer in real-time but which are nevertheless tangible. These instruments provide intuitive and engaging new forms of interaction. They are different from traditional (acoustic) and fully automated (robotic) instruments in that they produce sound via vibrating element(s) that are co-manipulated by humans and electromechanical systems. We examine the possibilities that arise when such instruments are played in different performative environments and music-making scenarios, and we postulate that such designs may give rise to new methods of musical performance. The Haptic Drum, the Feedback Resonance Guitar, the Electromagnetically Prepared Piano, the Overtone Fiddle and Teleoperation with Robothands are described, along with musical examples and reflections on the emergent properties of the performance ecologies that these instruments enable. We look at some of the conceptual and perceptual issues introduced by actuated musical instruments, and finally we propose some directions in which such research may be headed in the future.
k-Times Attribute-Based Anonymous Access Control for Cloud Computing

In this paper, we propose a new notion called $k$ -times attribute-based anonymous access control , which is particularly designed for supporting cloud computing environment. In this new notion, a user can authenticate himself/herself to the cloud computing server anonymously. The server only knows the user acquires some required attributes, yet it does not know the identity of this user. In addition, we provide a $k$ -times limit for anonymous access control. That is, the server may limit a particular set of users (i.e., those users with the same set of attribute) to access the system for a maximum $k$ -times within a period or an event. Further additional access will be denied. We also prove the security of our instantiation. Our implementation result shows that our scheme is practical.
Eecient Scheduling of Loop Nests for Bsp Programs Eecient Scheduling of Loop Nests for Bsp Programs

This paper presents a theoretical framework for the eecient scheduling of a class of parallel loop nests on distributed memory parallel computers. The method generates two classes of schedules, evaluates them according to a full-edged cost model and then selects the best option. The cost model used is the Bulk Synchronous Parallel model. The method can generate schedules whose eeciency is tailored to any parallel architecture and any parameters characterizing the parallel loops. As an application, we generate optimal schedules for the matrix-matrix multiplication problem for general matrices, thus extending previous results for square matrices. This is an example of a compiler optimization for transportable parallel software.
Capturing Intention‐based Full‐Frame Video Stabilization

Annoying shaky motion is one of the significant problems in home videos, since hand shake is an unavoidable effect when capturing by using a hand‐held camcorder. Video stabilization is an important technique to solve this problem, but the stabilized videos resulting from some current methods usually have decreased resolution and are still not so stable. In this paper, we propose a robust and practical method of full‐frame video stabilization while considering user's capturing intention to remove not only the high frequency shaky motions but also the low frequency unexpected movements. To guess the user's capturing intention, we first consider the regions of interest in the video to estimate which regions or objects the user wants to capture, and then use a polyline to estimate a new stable camcorder motion path while avoiding the user's interested regions or objects being cut out. Then, we fill the dynamic and static missing areas caused by frame alignment from other frames to keep the same resolution and quality as the original video. Furthermore, we smooth the discontinuous regions by using a three‐dimensional Poisson‐based method. After the above automatic operations, a full‐frame stabilized video can be achieved and the important regions and objects can also be preserved.
Improved dialect recognition for colloquial Arabic speakers

This article proposes a gender and geographical origin recognition system for Arabic speakers based on the dialect and accent characteristics. We demonstrate that the speaker gender and nationality can be determined from colloquial Arabic speech and recommend that this system can be integrated to more complex biometric applications. The acoustic features of our proposed dataset used to identify the speaker's dialect and accent, are extracted using Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC) and Relative Spectral Analysis (RASTA) techniques. We compare results of classification based on Gaussian Mixture Model with Universal Background Model (GMM-UBM) and Identity Vector (I-vector) classifiers implemented using the MSR Identity Toolbox, which is a MATLAB toolbox for speaker-recognition research from Microsoft. The results show a significant decrease of equal error rate (EER) when recognizing dialect or accent based on gender. In addition, feature fusion of RASTA and MFCC is used to enhance the EER. Results show a 9.8% enhancement in EER over using the RASTA features only.
NCluster: Using Multiple Active Name Nodes to Achieve High Availability for HDFS

Hadoop HDFS is an open source project from Apache Software Foundation for scalable, distributed computing and data storage. HDFS has become a critical component in today's cloud computing environment and a wide range of applications built on top of it. However, the initial design of HDFS has introduced a single-point-of-failure, HDFS contains only one active name node, if this name node experiences software or hardware failures, the whole HDFS cluster is unusable until the recovery of name node is finished, this is the reason why people are reluctant to deploy HDFS for an application whose requirement is high availability. In this paper, we present a solution to enable the high availability for HDFS's name node through efficient metadata replication. Our solution has two major advantages than existing ones: we utilize multiple active name nodes, instead of one, to build a cluster to serve request of metadata simultaneously. We implements a pub/sub system to handle the metadata replication process across these active namonodes efficiently. Based on the solution we implement a prototype called NCluster and integrate it with HDFS. We also evaluate NCluster to exhibit its feasibility and effectiveness. The experimental results show that our solution performs well with low replication cost, good throughput and scalability.
IVAR : A Conceptual Framework for Dependency Management

The design of software systems tend to degrade throughout time. Changes in code end up introducing new and unplanned dependencies among modules, causing the elegance of the design to be slowly lost in the form of structural patches and violations of previously established architectural rules. In this study, we propose a conceptual framework for dependency management. Our aim is to conceive a framework that adequately represents and organizes the core concepts of dependency management. The framework revolves around four main concepts, namely: identification, visualization, analysis, and restructuring of dependencies. In a long-term perspective, we envision that a systematization of the field will provide a solid ground for the development of more effective dependency management methods and tools.
Optogenetic-Mediated Release of Histamine Reveals Distal and Autoregulatory Mechanisms for Controlling Arousal

Histaminergic neurons in the tuberomammillary nucleus (TMN) are an important component of the ascending arousal system and may form part of a “flip–flop switch” hypothesized to regulate sleep and wakefulness. Anatomical studies have shown that the wake-active TMN and sleep-active ventrolateral preoptic nucleus (VLPO) are reciprocally connected, suggesting that each region can inhibit its counterpart when active. In this study, we determined how histamine affects the two branches of this circuit. We selectively expressed channelrhodopsin-2 (ChR2) in TMN neurons and used patch-clamp recordings in mouse brain slices to examine the effects of photo-evoked histamine release in the ventrolateral TMN and VLPO. Photostimulation decreased inhibitory GABAergic inputs to the ventrolateral TMN neurons but produced a membrane hyperpolarization and increased inhibitory synaptic input to the VLPO neurons. We found that in VLPO the response to histamine was indirect, most likely via a GABAergic interneuron. Our experiments demonstrate that release of histamine from TMN neurons can disinhibit the TMN and suppresses the activity of sleep-active VLPO neurons to promote TMN neuronal firing. This further supports the sleep–wake “flip–flop switch” hypothesis and a role for histamine in stabilizing the switch to favor wake states.
Resolving super-conflicts strategically

This paper describes conflict resolution trials on worst case situations. Instead of using natural trajectories from real traffic scenarios, this paper investigates the solution of super-conflicts. These are generated by scheduling multiple aircraft through one common 4-dimensional point. All generated aircraft are planned to have identical latitude, longitude and altitude position for one moment in time. Using different setups for the super-conflict, the paper discusses several conflict resolution strategies (lateral, vertical and time-based) with their associated costs.
High-Affinity Zinc Inhibition of NMDA NR1–NR2A Receptors

Micromolar concentrations of extracellular Zn2+are known to antagonize native NMDA receptors via a dual mechanism involving both a voltage-independent and a voltage-dependent inhibition. We have tried to evaluate the relative importance of these two effects and their subunit specificity on recombinant NMDA receptors expressed in HEK 293 cells and Xenopus oocytes. The comparison of NR1a–NR2A and NR1a–NR2B receptors shows that the voltage-dependent inhibition is similar in both types of receptors but that the voltage-independent inhibition occurs at much lower Zn2+ concentrations in NR1a–NR2A receptors (IC50 in the nanomolar range) than in NR1a–NR2B receptors (IC50 in the micromolar range). The high affinity of the effect observed with NR1a–NR2A receptors was found to be attributable mostly to the slow dissociation of Zn2+ from its binding site. By analyzing the effects of Zn2+ on varied combinations of NR1 (NR1a or NR1b) and NR2 (NR2A, NR2B, NR2C), we show that both the NR1 and the NR2 subunits contribute to the voltage-independent Zn2+ inhibition. We have observed further that under control conditions, i.e., in zero nominal Zn2+ solutions, the addition of low concentrations of heavy metal chelators markedly potentiates the responses of NR1a–NR2A receptors, but not of NR1a–NR2B receptors. This result suggests that traces of a heavy metal (probably Zn2+) contaminate standard solutions and tonically inhibit NR1a–NR2A receptors. Chelation of a contaminant metal also could account for the rapid NR2A subunit-specific potentiations produced by reducing compounds like DTT or glutathione.
Aseptic versus Sterile Acellular Dermal Matrices in Breast Reconstruction: An Updated Review

Background: As the use of acellular dermal matrices in breast reconstruction has become more commonplace and efforts are made to improve on postoperative outcomes, the method of acellular dermal matrix (ADM) processing (aseptic versus sterile) has become a subject of interest. This article provides an updated overview of the critical aspects of ADM processing in addition to application of ADMs in single- and two-stage breast reconstruction, a review of the morbidity associated with ADM use, and alternatives. Methods: A literature review was performed in PubMed identifying recent systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and head-to-head comparisons on aseptically processed ADM and sterile-processed ADM in implant-based breast reconstruction. Results: Recent meta-analyses have shown a 2- to 3-fold increase in infections and tissue expander/implant explantation rates and a 3- to 4-fold increase in seroma formation compared with non-ADM reconstruction techniques. Comparisons of aseptic and sterile ADMs in multiple studies have shown no significant difference in infection rates and equivocal findings for other specific complications such as seroma formation. Conclusions: Current evidence on the impact of processing techniques that improve ADM sterility on postoperative morbidity in implant breast reconstruction is unclear. Deficiencies of the available data highlight the need for well-designed, multicenter, randomized controlled studies that will aid in optimizing outcomes in implant-based breast reconstruction.
Martingale measures for the geometric Lévy process models

The equivalent martingale measures for the geometric Lévy processes are investigated. They are separated to two groups. One is the group of martingale measures which are obtained by Esscher transform. The other one is such group that are obtained as the minimal distance martingale measures. We try to obtain the explicit forms of the martingale measures, and we compare the properties of the martingale measures to each other. Those discussions help for us to do the fitness analysis of the pricing models.
Sensitivity of Single Neurons in Auditory Cortex to Contour: Toward a Neurophysiology of Music Perception

The responses of single neurons in the primary (AI) and secondary (AII) auditory cortical fields of waking cats were recorded during presentation of sequences of five iso-intensity tones. Tonal contour was varied by employing sequences that either increased or decreased monotonically in frequency, or in which contour was non-monotonic. The vast majority of neurons in both auditory fields (84%) exhibited sensitivity to tonal contour, that is, the response to at least one frequency (usually more) in a sequence differed significantly between two or more types of contour. Although all of the mechanisms involved have not been identified, the serial position of a tone within a sequence could explain some of the findings. Responsivity may also depend upon the magnitude of the interval difference between two consecutive tones. Additionally, contour per se could be effective even for neurons that were not sensitive to differences in type of contour; for example, responses to the same tones could be facilitated when presented in sequences of different frequencies compared to sequences of the same frequency. Further, the range of frequency response and the best frequency of a neuron may depend upon whether these parameters are determined using isolated tones or contoured sequences. Finally, omission of one tone within a sequence produced significant modification of response to other tones in most (87%) cells, with effects extending up to 3 sec following the the gap. Neurons in both primary and secondary auditory cortical fields displayed all effects, the only difference was that neurons in All were more likely to exhibit sensitivity to tone omission than those in AI. The findings are discussed with reference to neurophysiological and psychophysical data. We conclude that the effects of contour and other aspects of tonal sequences are detectable at the level of single neurons in auditory cortex of waking animals and that the use of dynamic stimuli is likely to be critical for a neurophysiological account of music perception and the perception of other complex acoustic stimuli.