Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
WORK REORGANIZATION IN AN ERA OF RESTUCUTURING; TRENDS IN DIFFUSION AND IMPACTS ON EMPLOYEE WELFARE

High Performance Work Organizations took root in the early 1990s but then faced the challenge of surviving in an environment of organizational turmoil and restructuring. This paper addresses two questions: the continued adoption, or lack thereof, of HPWO systems and whether the productivity and quality gains of these systems have rebounded to the benefit of employees. The paper draws upon a second round survey of employers which replicates and extends a 1992 survey. The new survey provides fresh estimates of the use of HPWO systems, permits the study of whether employers which had these systems in place were able to sustain them over the five years between the surveys, and provides evidence on whether employees who worked in organizations which had HPWO systems in 1992 experienced wage and/or job security gains relative to employees in organizations which lacked these systems in 1992. The results show that HPWO systems have continued to diffuse at a rapid rate during the 1990's although the rate of expansion in the use of self-managed teams has been slower than for other elements of these work systems. Evidently restructuring has not proved a major obstacle since the research shows no relationship between whether a firm had layoffs and its adoption or sustaining of HPWO systems. Models which try to distinguish those establishments which have adopted new systems from others find that various measures of product market competition and strategy are the most important explanations. When the paper asks whether HPWO systems in fact deliver benefits for the workforce it reaches a fairly pessimistic conclusion. HPWO in 1992 systems are associated with an increased chance of layoffs in subsequent years and no compensation gains. Finally, in asking about other organizational shifts associated with innovative work systems, the data show that the adoption of HPWO systems is associated with reduced employment of managers and lower usage of contingent employees. 3 The late 1980s and early 1990s were characterized by a widespread interest in the transformation of work organization in American firms. Many commentators hailed so-called High Performance Work Organizations (HPWO) for two interrelated reasons. First, HPWOs were seen as more productive in both output and quality terms. This was because they made more efficient use of labor (for example by building quality considerations directly into the production process and hence avoiding the need for a separate quality unit) and because they drew upon the ideas and creativity of …
Spatial filtering optimisation in motor imagery EEG-based BCI

Common spatial pattern (CSP) is becoming a standard way to combine linearly multi-channel EEG data in order to increase discrimination between two motor imagery tasks. We demonstrate in this article that the use of robust estimates allow improving the quality of CSP decomposition and CSP-based BCI. Furthermore, an evolutionary algorithm (EA)-type for electrode subset selection is proposed. It is shown that CSP with the obtained subset electrode yield comparable results with the ones obtained with CSP over large multi-channel recordings.
Sparse Contingency Tables and High-Dimensional Log-Linear Models for Alternative Splicing in Full-Length cDNA Libraries

Human protein diversity is partly due to a process called alternative splicing which enables di(cid:11)erent exon/intron combinations arising from a single gene. We know that the prevalence of these combinations is development and tissue speci(cid:12)c but we are far from understanding the mechanism of alternative splicing and what causes the spliceosome to produce an array of di(cid:11)erent proteins from the same genetic information in changing frequencies over time and di(cid:11)erent tissues. A (cid:12)rst step in the understanding of this process is the statistical analysis of the exon interaction structure. If we know which exons interact with each other, we might be able to draw conclusions about the associated functional domains. At present, the most advanced molecular technique to investigate this issue is to generate large-scale single-gene transcriptome data, so-called full-length cDNA libraries. Not all theoretically possible exon/intron combinations can be observed in these libraries, both due to functional restrictions at the protein level as well as to the sheer number of possible combinations. Statistically this poses the challenge of learning interactions in sparse contingency tables. To this end, we develop methods to perform model selection and parameter estimation in high-dimensional log-linear models. These include Bayesian methods as well as penalization approaches which generalize to this context the Lasso algorithm. We compare these procedures in a simulation study and we apply the proposed methods to full-length cDNA libraries, yielding valuable insight into the biological process of alternative splicing.
BP neural network-based web service selection algorithm in the smart distribution grid

A good web selection algorithm can provide the most suitable service for users. However, known for its slow convergence rate and proneness of oscillation in its learning process, the traditional error back propagation neural network algorithm cannot be applied in the service selection scenarios of actual smart distribution grid. In order to meet the requirements of telecommunication technology for smart distribution grid and improve the quality of telecommunication service, this paper proposes an improved error back propagation algorithm, in which the learning factor can be self-adjusted with every iteration. The simulation results show an optimization of the training speed and an oscillation reduction in the learning process with the new algorithm, thus obvious optimizing the web services selection in smart distribution grid.
Frame synchronization among base stations for TDD systems

In this paper, we propose a new frame synchronization method for femtocell base station (BS) in TDD (Time Division Duplex) systems. The proposed femtocell BS establishes the synchronization by receiving transmitted signals from adjacent BSs. In order to establish the precise frame synchronization, the distances between the femtocell BS and the adjacent BSs should be known. So, we introduce a method for estimating a position of a femtocell BS to our proposed method. By making use of the estimated position, we derive the propagation delay time from adjacent BSs to a femtocell BS. By using computer-based simulation, we indicate that our proposed method enables frame synchronization with a sufficient accuracy under difficult circumstances which degrade the accuracy of positioning affected by multipath and so on.
Analysis of coupled cavity-backed resonators and the design of more effective resonant antennas

The spectral characteristics of a system incorporating two spherical thin shells with circular apertures are rigorously investigated. The strong coupling between two single cavity backed resonators is realized by “face to face” position of apertures. Excitation of coupled resonators is due to the point source (monopole) located along the axis of symmetry. Both the unloaded and loaded Q-factors are calculated. After a mathematically correct formulation of the problem and utilization of the Method of Analytical Regularization, the problem is reduced to the numerical analysis of a well-conditioned infinite system of linear algebraic equations of the second kind. This provides the convergence of solution of the truncated system to the exact solution and guarantees any pre-specified accuracy of computations at any frequency including the resonance frequencies.
Cybernetics of Tao Zude Ye and Maurice Yolles Centre for the Creation of Coherent Change and Knowledge

Purpose – Taoist thought is not easily penetrable for Westerners, though it has growing importance with the globalisation of Chinese commerce. The purpose of this paper is to explore some aspects of Chinese and Taoist thought, and how they can be expressed in cybernetic terms, using a knowledge cybernetics (KC) schema. Design/methodology/approach – KC operates through metaphor the role of which is considered with respect to its application to the specific area of urban landscaping. Findings – A new methodological approach is indicated that is capable of linking Western landscape theory with Taoist feng shui. The traditional approach to critical planning has been in principle enhanced through the idea of landscape canonical harmony that comes from Taoist feng shui. It is also shown that the activity phases in urban landscape design are ontologically different, and use distinct types of energy measures. Research limitations/implications – The research uses KC as a vehicle for the development of a landscaping methodology that draws on both traditional Western and Chinese Taoist approaches. It requires application to real situations to draw out its practical capacities. Practical implications – This is apparently the first time that a synergy between Western and Chinese approaches to landscape design and development has been attempted that results in the proposal of a complete methodology. Originality/value – The successful use of this methodology could demonstrate that Western and Chinese approaches to landscape design are relatable.
Anaerobic Metabolism of Aromatic Compounds

Aromatic compounds comprise a wide variety of natural and synthetic compounds that can serve as substrates for bacterial growth. So far, four types of aromatic metabolism are known. (1) The aerobic aromatic metabolism is characterized by the extensive use of molecular oxygen as cosubstrate for oxygenases that introduce hydroxyl groups and cleave the aromatic ring. (2) In the presence of oxygen, facultative aerobes use another so‐called hybrid type of aerobic metabolism of benzoate, phenylacetate, and anthranilate (2‐aminobenzoate). These pathways use coenzyme A thioesters of the substrates and do not require oxygen for ring cleavage; rather they use an oxygenase/reductase to dearomatize the ring. (3) In the absence of oxygen, facultative aerobes and phototrophs use a reductive aromatic metabolism. Reduction of the aromatic ring of benzoyl‐coenzyme A is catalyzed by benzoyl‐coenzyme A reductase. This Birch‐like reduction is driven by the hydrolysis of 2 ATP molecules. (4) A completely different, still little characterized benzoyl‐coenzyme A reductase operates in strict anaerobes, which cannot afford the costly ATP‐dependent ring reduction.
Glutamic acid decarboxylase antibodies in screening for autoimmune diabetes: influence of comorbidity, age, and sex on specificity and threshold values.

Antibodies against the 65-kDa isoform of glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD65) can be applied as a predictive tool for childhood type-1 diabetes (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6) and to facilitate the differential diagnosis of diabetes in adults (7)(8)(9). However, the sensitivity and specificity of GAD antibody screening have not been fully characterized, and the positive predictive value of screening varies from 20% to 70%, depending on the strategy applied and the population studied (2)(3)(5)(6)(7)(9)(10)(11)(12). The current study aims to identify factors that may lead to false-positive results in GAD antibody screening. Previously, it has been demonstrated that the GAD antibody frequency in mixed connective tissue disease and stiff-man syndrome is increased, although not all patients who suffer from these diseases and are positive for GAD antibodies develop type-1 diabetes (13)(14). GAD is expressed in the islets of Langerhans, neuronal tissue, the ovaries, and the testes (15)(16). Similar to the above-mentioned examples, comorbidity involving these tissues may lead to GAD antibody formation but not to diabetes. Therefore, we compared the prevalence of GAD antibodies in patients with cystic fibrosis, epilepsy, Guillain-Barre syndrome, and premature ovarian failure to the prevalence in an unselected population of 1403 schoolchildren. In addition, thresholds for positivity for GAD antibodies have generally been defined in children. These thresholds might not be applicable when testing for type-1 diabetes in adults. Therefore, we studied whether GAD antibody concentrations are correlated to age and sex, and whether adjustment of assay thresholds to include these variables may improve screening specificity. The frequencies of positive results for GAD antibodies and the concentrations of GAD antibodies were established in a population of 1403 …
Building Bridges, Building Community: Transformational Leadership in a Challenging Urban Context

Few empirical studies have been undertaken concerning successful leadership practices within challenging urban schools. Given that much of the school leadership literature relies on principals as the source of evidence for school improvement, this article explores, through multiperspective case study methodology, how one failing urban elementary school has become successful largely as a result of the transformative leadership of the principal. Our findings support more recent school-derived iterations of transformational leadership theory, in which principals stress support, care, trust, participation, facilitation, and the building of consensus. However, our data also draw attention to how this particular successful principal transcends the administrative immediacy of short-term innovation, by paying considerable attention to longer term, socially transformative, and morally grounded principles, rooted in democracy, equity, and social justice.
Incorporating Specificity in Extended Logic Programs for Belief Revision

In this paper a new operator for agent’s implicit belief revision is presented. This operator is conceptually based on the following requirement: an agent should find first an explanation for the observations it makes before it tries to revise its beliefs. As a consequence, the proposed belief revision model does not agree with the principle of minimal change, commonly accepted. A translation of an agent’s knowledge base, expressed by means of a conditional defaults set for an abducrive extended logic program, is also presented. This translation allows us to make explicit the specificity that exists among defaults and also the logic program allows us to determine the possible explanations for a recently observed fact.
Modulatory Effects of Metabotropic Glutamate Receptors on Local Cortical Circuits

Glutamatergic pathways in various thalamic and cortical circuits have been classified into two types: Class 1 and Class 2, where it has been suggested that Class 1 carries the main information for processing, and Class 2 is mainly modulatory. We now extend this to the local circuitry of visual cortex of the mouse by demonstrating the modulatory actions on the Class 1 pathway from layer 4 to layers 2/3 of a Class 2 input from adjacent locations in layers 2/3. We found that this Class 2 input produces a long-lasting hyperpolarization and suppresses the initial responses of input from layer 4 and that this involves the postsynaptic activation of Group II metabotropic glutamate receptors. This modulation also shifts the paired pulse ratio of the layer 4 input from depression to facilitation.
SoftMAC – Flexible Wireless Research Platform

Discontent with the traditional network protocol stack architecture has been steadily increasing as new network tech nologies and applications demand a greater degree of flexibility and “end to end” information than a strictly layered structure permits.Software-defined radio(SDR) systems have prompted some rethinking of the network stack, and schemes have been presented that attempt to take advantage of the opportunities afforded by these flexible radio systems. However, evaluation of these schemes has largely taken place only in simulation or on small testbeds. In order to seriously evaluate the utility and efficacy of archite ctures and heuristics that take advantage of SDR systems it is essential to construct and test these systems “in the wild ,” i.e. in environments outside of simulators and the laboratory. Unfortunately the SDR platforms currently available are not generally suitable for such deployments. We argue that network researchers should begin to design for software defined radio systems and move from simulation to prototypes. To this end, we have developed a software system that allows researchers to use inexpensive , commodity wireless networking cards to experiment with new MAC layer protocols. Individual radios still use the common 802.11a/b/g RF modulations, but by judicious control of the interface we are able to completely supplant the standard 802.11 MAC. On top of this radio subsystem, we have created a software architecture that permits research rs to easily construct and deploy experimental dynamic MAC layers on systems running Linux. We argue by example that such simple software defined radios provide robust, capable platforms for research. Using such inexpensive tools will allow wireless network research to address a number of the opportunities of software defined radio.
Using fuzzy control to maximize profits in service level management

The growth of e-commerce is creating demand for services with financial incentives for service providers. Such services are specified by service level agreements (SLAs) in which revenue accrues with the number of completed transactions, and costs are incurred if response times go above a specified threshold. In this paper we propose a profit-oriented feedback control system that automates the admission control decisions in a way that balances the loss of revenue due to rejected work against the penalties incurred if admitted work has excessive response times. One approach to making these trade-offs is to employ classical control theory (e.g., proportional integral controllers); however, doing so requires a labor-intensive design process that tailors the controller to a specific workload and profit model. Instead, we develop a fuzzy control algorithm that implements hill climbing logic to maximize profits and handle the stochastics that make profits quite "bumpy. " Our studies of a Lotus Notes® e-mail server reveal that the fuzzy controller requires little human intervention and is robust to changes in workloads and values of SLA parameters. Further, we prove that our design of the fuzzy controller leads to a value of the admission control parameter that maximizes steady state profits.
ffi cient Message Composition and Coding for Cooperative Vehicular Safety Applications

Wireless inter-vehicular communication will enable a broad range of applications in the future. However, multiple vehicles, multiple diverse applications, multiple vehicle manufacturers and the mobile vehicular environment raise several issues related to utilizing the wireless medium effectively. In this paper we present a method for efficiently communicating vehicle data amongst neighbouring vehicles, primarily for safety applications. The “Message Dispatcher” (MD) coordinates communication between applications and the wireless channel at the application level. It addresses technical implementation issues, business deployment considerations and issues of extensibility and system architecture. The Message Dispatcher concept has become an integral part of the Society of Automotive Engineers safety message standardization effort. We shall describe the Message Dispatcher and present results illustrating its utility. We also describe a deployment in several vehicles at the Toyota Technical Center in Ann Arbor, MI. Then, using data collected from the vehicles, we investigate a Predictive Coding method for data transmission using the Message Dispatcher. We show that this scheme can reduce wireless channel utilization and bandwidth requirements by over 80% compared to regular transmission methods. Several insights for future wireless channel usage optimization are provided.
Predicting the Intelligibility of Noisy and Nonlinearly Processed Binaural Speech

Objective speech intelligibility measures are gaining popularity in the development of speech enhancement algorithms and speech processing devices such as hearing aids. Such devices may process the input signals nonlinearly and modify the binaural cues presented to the user. We propose a method for predicting the intelligibility of noisy and nonlinearly processed binaural speech. This prediction is based on the noisy and processed signal as well as a clean speech reference signal. The method is obtained by extending a modified version of the short-time objective intelligibility (STOI) measure with a modified equalization-cancellation (EC) stage. We evaluate the performance of the method by comparing the predictions with measured intelligibility from four listening experiments. These comparisons indicate that the proposed measure can provide accurate predictions of (1) the intelligibility of diotic speech with an accuracy similar to that of the original STOI measure, (2) speech reception thresholds (SRTs) in conditions with a frontal target speaker and a single interferer in the horizontal plane, (3) SRTs in conditions with a frontal target and a single interferer when ideal time frequency segregation (ITFS) is applied to the left and right ears separately, and (4) the advantage of two-microphone beamforming as applied in state-of-the-art hearing aids. A MATLAB implementation of the proposed measure is available online1.
Examining how moderation is enacted within an assessment policy reform initiative: You just have to learn how to see

In 2008, the new Labor Government in Australia has introduced plans for a National Curriculum in mathematics, science, history and English in primary and secondary schools to be implemented in 2011 and extended to involve geography and languages other than English in a second phase. The intention is to establish a standards-referenced framework to "invigorate a national effort to improve student learning in the selected subjects" (National Curriculum Board, 2008: 3). In 2007 states and territories in Australia developed individual approaches to the use of standards in the implementation of curriculum, assessment and reporting. The latter involves schools to report using A-E grades that is consistent with the Federal government's requirement. This paper reports on a four year Australian Research Council Linkagei project, being conducted in the Australian State of Queensland. The major industry partner for this project is the Queensland Studies Authority (QSA). The intent of such partnerships is for research, conducted by academics in liaison with policy officers, to inform policy development. Too often policy officers have to 'grasp the complex remit quickly and take action' (Saunders, 2005) without the benefits of policy-related research. The findings from this study are being used developmentally to inform and influence the policy environment, particular assessment initiatives and practices.
Perspective analysis of machine learning algorithms for detecting network intrusions

Network security has become an important issue due to the evolution of internet. It brings people not only together but also provides huge potential threats. Intrusion detection technique is considered as the immense method to deploy networks security behind firewalls. An intrusion is defined as a violation of security policy of the system. Intrusion detection systems are developed to detect those violations. Due to the effective data analysis method, data mining is introduced into IDS. This paper brings an idea of applying data mining algorithms to intrusion detection database. Performance of various rule and function based classifiers like Part, Ridor, NNge, DTNB, JRip, Conjunctive Rule, One R, Zero R, Decision Table, RBF, Multi Layer Perception and SMO algorithms are compared and result shows that SMO classification algorithm performs well in terms of accuracy, specificity and sensitivity. The performance of the model is measured using 10- fold cross validation.