Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Optimization of generalized processor sharing using Interleaved Stratified Timer Wheels

Packet scheduling algorithms are the main center of attraction in packet switched network. Multiple researches are proposed on to provide fairness and protection to the packet flow through a router, A General Processor Sharing (GPS) has been used as a conceptual scheduler with many desirable properties, GPS supports guaranteed service traffic and to provide best-effort service traffic. A novel data structure called Interleaved Stratified Timer Wheels (ISTW) is introduced. This design enables the construction of a set of novel packet schedulers with effectively constant complexity, constant fairness and delay characteristics in all relevant dimensions. The ISTW data structure is used as a compact and efficient priority queue that enables the virtual traffic shaping necessary for achieving these characteristics. ISTW parallelization of the GPS is done.
Recursive Bayesian Updates for Occupancy Mapping and Surface Reconstruction

This paper proposes a new method to build two kinds of map representations, occupancy maps and surface meshes, in a single framework of Gaussian processes and update recursively using Bayesian Committee Machines. Previously, Gaussian processes were applied to robotic mapping as a batch process considering all the observations at once. However, that approach not only increases the number of training data, which is critical to the time complexity of Gaussian processes, but also is not able to update the final map with new observations. Therefore, we propose to recursively update Gaussian process maps using Bayesian Committee Machines based on the static world assumption. We demonstrate our method with a real dataset and compare the accuracy and run time with OctoMaps. Experimental results confirm that our method successfully works with a sequence of observations. Our method is slower than OctoMaps but generates more accurate occupancy maps as well as surface meshes without additional cost of computation.
Variable Stiffness Legs for Robust, Efficient, and Stable Dynamic Running

Humans and animals adapt their leg impedance during running for both internal (e.g., loading) and external (e.g., surface) changes. To date, the mechanical complexity of designing usefully robust tunable passive compliance into legs has precluded their implementation on practical running robots. This work describes the design of novel, structure-controlled stiffness legs for a hexapedal running robot to enable runtime modification of leg stiffness in a small, lightweight, and rugged package. As part of this investigation, we also study the effect of varying leg stiffness on the performance of a dynamical running robot. For more information: Kod*Lab
Philosophical histories can be contextual without being sociological: Comment on Araujo’s historiography

The future of the History of Psychology is bright, and the recent historiographical debates in this journal play an important role in that. Yet Araujo’s recent contribution could be misunderstood: ignoring context is not the way to do a philosophical history. Instead, philosophical assumptions can be presented as part of the context that informed an historical subject. Hence the necessity, here, of a response: the History of Psychology is becoming disciplined, but slowly. There are still plenty of non-specialists who will misunderstand Araujo’s contribution as a step forward in its rhetoric (many of whom teach the history course in their department). And because even specialists also sometimes dismiss methods-talk as a false step toward methodolatry, there is a danger in leaving such misunderstandings unaddressed. Simply put, then, ideas are never only lights in the attic: as the historian looks in, we must always remember that—at the time—someone was looking out.
A DUAL-BAND DUAL-POLARIZED MICROSTRIP ARRAY ANTENNA FOR BASE STATIONS

This paper presents a new dual-band, dual-polarized 1£4 antenna array design for telecommunication base station. One of the bands covers global system for mobile communication (GSM) band, while the other covers both digital communication system (DCS) and universal mobile telecommunication system (UMTS) bands. The antenna is based upon an aperture stacked patch layout and incorporates a simple and novel dual-layered feeding technique to achieve dual polarized radiation. For feeding the array elements, a corporate feed network is used. In order to achieve appropriate matching in both bands, a three-section Chebyshev transformer has been designed. The proposed antenna shows good port decoupling, less than i30dB for dual linear polarization over its operating bands. Peak antenna gains about 11dBi and 11.6dBi have been obtained for lower and upper bands, respectively. The efiort was directed toward the design of a single standalone dual-polarized antenna to cover all three bands.
Retinal Electrophysiological Effects of Intravitreal Bone Marrow Derived Mesenchymal Stem Cells in Streptozotocin Induced Diabetic Rats

Diabetic retinopathy is the most common cause of legal blindness in developed countries at middle age adults. In this study diabetes was induced by streptozotocin (STZ) in male Wistar albino rats. After 3 months of diabetes, rights eye were injected intravitreally with green fluorescein protein (GFP) labelled bone marrow derived stem cells (BMSC) and left eyes with balanced salt solution (Sham). Animals were grouped as Baseline (n = 51), Diabetic (n = 45), Diabetic+BMSC (n = 45 eyes), Diabetic+Sham (n = 45 eyes), Healthy+BMSC (n = 6 eyes), Healthy+Sham (n = 6 eyes). Immunohistology analysis showed an increased retinal gliosis in the Diabetic group, compared to Baseline group, which was assessed with GFAP and vimentin expression. In the immunofluorescence analysis BMSC were observed to integrate mostly into the inner retina and expressing GFP. Diabetic group had prominently lower oscillatory potential wave amplitudes than the Baseline group. Three weeks after intravitreal injection Diabetic+BMSC group had significantly better amplitudes than the Diabetic+Sham group. Taken together intravitreal BMSC were thought to improve visual function.
Linguascaping the Other: Travelogues’ representations of Chinese languages

Abstract This article examines how the travel sections of China Daily (CD) appropriate dominant tourism discourses in representing Chinese languages. Incorporating language ideology into critical discourse analysis, an examination of 223 CD travelogues reveals three discourse strands: naming Chinese cuisine, referring to Chinese languages, and metapragmatic comments on Chinese languages. It is argued that CD’s touristic representations of Chinese languages constitute part of the repertoire of dominant tourism discourses rather than a challenge or resistance against them, and CD travel writing does constitute a voice in the “contact zone,” which, however, speaks in a language that is essentially complicit in Othering China for tourist consumption.
Evolution of the let-7 microRNA Family

The increase of bodyplan complexity in early bilaterian evolution is correlates with the advent and diversification of microRNAs. These small RNAs guide animal development by regulating temporal transitions in gene expression involved in cell fate choices and transitions between pluripotency and differentiation. One of the two known microRNAs whose origins date back before the bilaterian ancestor is mir-100. In Bilateria, it appears stably associated in polycistronic transcripts with let-7 and mir-125, two key regulators of development. In vertebrates, these three microRNA families have expanded to form a complex system of developmental regulators. In this contribution, we disentangle the evolutionary history of the let-7 locus, which was restructured independently in nematodes, platyhelminths, and deuterostomes. The foundation of a second let-7 locus in the common ancestor of vertebrates and urochordates predates the vertebrate-specific genome duplications, which then caused a rapid expansion of the let-7 family.
THE NASA-UC-UH ETA-EARTH PROGRAM. IV. A LOW-MASS PLANET ORBITING AN M DWARF 3.6 PC FROM EARTH

We report the discovery of a low-mass planet orbiting Gl 15 A based on radial velocities from the Eta-Earth Survey using HIRES at Keck Observatory. Gl 15 Ab is a planet with minimum mass Msin i = 5.35 ± 0.75 M⊕, orbital period P = 11.4433 ± 0.0016 days, and an orbit that is consistent with circular. We characterize the host star using a variety of techniques. Photometric observations at Fairborn Observatory show no evidence for rotational modulation of spots at the orbital period to a limit of ∼0.1 mmag, thus supporting the existence of the planet. We detect a second RV signal with a period of 44 days that we attribute to rotational modulation of stellar surface features, as confirmed by optical photometry and the Ca ii H & K activity indicator. Using infrared spectroscopy from Palomar-TripleSpec, we measure an M2 V spectral type and a sub-solar metallicity ([M/H] = −0.22, [Fe/H] = −0.32). We measure a stellar radius of 0.3863 ± 0.0021 R☉ based on interferometry from CHARA.
Activation of Methanogenesis in Arid Biological Soil Crusts Despite the Presence of Oxygen

Methanogenesis is traditionally thought to occur only in highly reduced, anoxic environments. Wetland and rice field soils are well known sources for atmospheric methane, while aerated soils are considered sinks. Although methanogens have been detected in low numbers in some aerated, and even in desert soils, it remains unclear whether they are active under natural oxic conditions, such as in biological soil crusts (BSCs) of arid regions. To answer this question we carried out a factorial experiment using microcosms under simulated natural conditions. The BSC on top of an arid soil was incubated under moist conditions in all possible combinations of flooding and drainage, light and dark, air and nitrogen headspace. In the light, oxygen was produced by photosynthesis. Methane production was detected in all microcosms, but rates were much lower when oxygen was present. In addition, the δ13C of the methane differed between the oxic/oxygenic and anoxic microcosms. While under anoxic conditions methane was mainly produced from acetate, it was almost entirely produced from H2/CO2 under oxic/oxygenic conditions. Only two genera of methanogens were identified in the BSC-Methanosarcina and Methanocella; their abundance and activity in transcribing the mcrA gene (coding for methyl-CoM reductase) was higher under anoxic than oxic/oxygenic conditions, respectively. Both methanogens also actively transcribed the oxygen detoxifying gene catalase. Since methanotrophs were not detectable in the BSC, all the methane produced was released into the atmosphere. Our findings point to a formerly unknown participation of desert soils in the global methane cycle.
The Economic Burden of Road Traffic Injuries on Households in South Asia

Globally, road traffic injuries accounted for about 1.36 million deaths in 2015 and are projected to become the fourth leading cause of disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) lost by 2030. One-fifth of these deaths occurred in South Asia where road traffic injuries are projected to increase by 144% by 2020. Despite this rapidly increasing disease burden there is limited evidence on the economic burden of road traffic injuries on households in South Asia. We applied a novel coarsened exact matching method to assess the household economic burden of road traffic injuries using nationally representative World Health Survey data from five South Asian countries- Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka collected during 2002–2003. We examined the impact of road traffic injuries on household out-of-pocket (OOP) health spending, household non-medical consumption expenditure and the employment status of the traffic injury-affected respondent. We exactly matched a household (after ‘coarsening’) where a respondent reported being involved in a road traffic injury to households where the respondent did not report a road traffic injury on each of multiple observed household characteristics. Our analysis found that road traffic injury-affected households had significantly higher levels of OOP health spending per member (I$0.75, p<0.01), higher OOP spending on drugs per member (I$0.30, p = 0.03), and higher OOP hospital spending per member (I$0.29, p<0.01) in the four weeks preceding the survey. Indicators of “catastrophic spending” were also significantly higher in road traffic injury-affected households: 6.45% (p<0.01) for a threshold of OOP health spending to total household spending ratio of 20%, and 7.40% (p<0.01) for a threshold of OOP health spending to household ‘capacity to pay’ ratio of 40%. However, no statistically significant effects were observed for household non-medical consumption expenditure, and employment status of the road traffic injury-affected individual. Our analysis points to the need for financial risk protection against the road traffic injury-related OOP health expenditure and a focus on prevention.
Linear and Nonlinear Regression Techniques for Simultaneous and Proportional Myoelectric Control

In recent years the number of active controllable joints in electrically powered hand-prostheses has increased significantly. However, the control strategies for these devices in current clinical use are inadequate as they require separate and sequential control of each degree-of-freedom (DoF). In this study we systematically compare linear and nonlinear regression techniques for an independent, simultaneous and proportional myoelectric control of wrist movements with two DoF. These techniques include linear regression, mixture of linear experts (ME), multilayer-perceptron, and kernel ridge regression (KRR). They are investigated offline with electro-myographic signals acquired from ten able-bodied subjects and one person with congenital upper limb deficiency. The control accuracy is reported as a function of the number of electrodes and the amount and diversity of training data providing guidance for the requirements in clinical practice. The results showed that KRR, a nonparametric statistical learning method, outperformed the other methods. However, simple transformations in the feature space could linearize the problem, so that linear models could achieve similar performance as KRR at much lower computational costs. Especially ME, a physiologically inspired extension of linear regression represents a promising candidate for the next generation of prosthetic devices.
The effect of people presence on WLAN RSS is governed by influence distance

Recently, there is high demand for implementing Location Based Services (LBS) indoor. Many technologies and methods have been investigated for this issue since GPS could not prove accurate positioning indoor. Although WLAN-fingerprinting is considered as one of the most accurate IPS method, its accuracy vulnerable to WLAN RSS fluctuation. This fluctuation occurs due to the physical obstacles presence. Many research papers highlighted people's presence near to mobile device (MD) between it and Access point (AP) as RSS attenuate factor, but it is hard to find a research paper investigated this attenuation factor as in the case of walls and ceilings. People presence effect was estimated in previous work as -5dBm on closed distance from MD but it still need a lot of investigation. This paper raises the existence of people presence influence distance as a new concept related to people presence effect. In addition to this, it provides experimental work in order to prove the truth of this claim. The obtained results proved the truth of this claim and the existence of the influence distance became a fact.
Multi-parent recombination with simplex crossover in real coded genetic algorithms

In this paper, we proposed simplex crossover (SPX), a multi-parent recombination operator for real-coded genetic algorithms. SPX generates offspring vector values by uniformly sampling values from simplex formed by m (2 ≤ m ≤ number of parameters + 1) parent vectors. The SPX features an independence from of coordinate systems. Experimental results using test functions, which are commonly used in studies of evolutionary algorithms, showed SPX works well on functions having multimodality and/or epistasis with a medium number of parents: 3-parent on a low dimensional function or 4 parents on high dimensional functions.
An analytical path-loss model for on-body radio propagation

An analytical model for across the body surface communication systems is presented. The paper is focused on the calculation of the approximate path gain, both along and around planar and cylindrical geometries, representative of the human body for antennas polarized normal to the body surface. The model is validated at 2.45 GHz using finite-difference time-domain numerical analysis and in-situ measurements on an adult-male test subject.
An Assessment of Nobel Laureate A.K. Sen’s Economic Method

This article analyzes the methodological foundations of Nobel Laureate A.K. Sen’s economic method as it pertains to his work on equality, poverty and economic development. The fundamental approach of “functionings” and “capabilities” that has been the hallmark of Professor Sen’s approach to problems of inequality and development are first presented and the common bases identified. The basic methods used are then analyzed from a logical and empirical perspective. Three levels of economic discourse in Professor Sen’s work are examined in detail and a fundamental critique is developed on logical grounds. The adequacy of this approach is then scrutinized by contrasting alternative approaches of end-state and process notions of equality. These two notions are compared on nine characteristics and the underlying differences and methodological problems with these two approaches are then identified. A comprehensive critique is developed and the major shortcomings of Professor Sen’s method are detailed. Professor Sen’s approach is found to be inadequate on logical and empirical grounds. Hence, it is suggested that this approach may be an inappropriate guide for economic policy to facilitate human development.
Searching the Future

In this paper we define a new retrieval problem: future retrieval. The idea is to use news information to obtain future possible events and then search events related to our current (or future) information needs. In another words, we include time as a formal attribute for a document. We present a simple ranking model based on time segments, a prototype for it and some specific examples. This work also poses new challenges for natural language processing, information extraction, and answer evaluation.
Olfactory function and Parkinson's disease in Southern Brazil.

UNLABELLED The idiopathic Parkinson disease (IPD) is traditionally diagnosed by motor signs, but non-motor symptoms and signs are frequent and may help in the clinical diagnosis. PURPOSE To evaluate the olfactory function in Brazilian healthy subjects, patients with early-onset PD (EOPD) and late-onset PD (LOPD) using the Sniffin' Sticks odor-identification test (SST). METHOD We studied 70 patients with IPD (19 EOPD and 51 LOPD) and 70 controls matched for gender, age and years of schooling. Subjects with dementia and loss of smell for other reasons were excluded. RESULTS The SST showed a significant difference (p<0.001) between groups: control groups (12.0 + or - 0.3), EOPD (8.3 + or - 0.7), and LOPD (6.7 + or - 0.4) when the groups were adjusted for gender, age, disease duration, and years of schooling. CONCLUSION Both groups of IPD patients presented olfactory impairments, but those whose symptoms started before 45 years-old (EOPD) had better sense of smell than the LOPD patients.
Minimizing Dissemination in a Population While Maintaining its Community Structure

Given a population represented as a graph (e.g., a social network), can we minimize the spread of an entity (such as a meme or a virus) while maintaining the population’s community structure (i.e., dense connections among nodes within a community but sparse connections between nodes in different communities)? At first glance, these two objectives seem at odds with each other. To minimize dissemination, nodes or links in the graph are often deleted to reduce the population’s connectivity. These deletions can (and often do) destroy the community structure present in the population, which is an important construction in society. We introduce the strategy of rewiring links to achieve both objectives. Examples of rewiring in real life are prevalent, such as purchasing products from a new farm since the local farm has signs of mad-cow disease; getting information from a new source after a disaster since your usual source is not longer available, etc. This paper has three parts. First, we formally introduce the problem of minimizing dissemination on a population (represented as a graph) while maintaining its community structure by rewiring a set of edges. Second, we propose two effective and efficient algorithms: CRlink (short for Community Edge Relink) and constrCRlink (short for Constraint Community Edge Relink). Third, we present the results of extensive experiments on different graphs to show that our algorithms perform well in both minimizing dissemination and maintaining community structure. When compared with the most effective algorithm for minimizing spread on a graph through edge deletions (namely, NetMelt), constrCRlink preserves (on average) 98.6% of NetMelt’s efficacy in minimizing dissemination and only changes 4.5% of the original community structure while NetMelt changes 13.6% of the original community structure.
The Empirical Saddlepoint Approximation for GMM Estimators Fallaw Sowell

The empirical saddlepoint distribution provides an approximation to the sampling distributions for the GMM parameter estimates and the statistics that test the overidentifying restrictions. The empirical saddlepoint distribution permits asymmetry, non-normal tails, and multiple modes. If identification assumptions are satisfied, the empirical saddlepoint distribution converges to the familiar asymptotic normal distribution. In small sample Monte Carlo simulations, the empirical saddlepoint performs as well as, and often better than, the bootstrap. The formulas necessary to transform the GMM moment conditions to the estimation equations needed for the saddlepoint approximation are provided. Unlike the absolute errors associated with the asymptotic normal distributions and the bootstrap, the empirical saddlepoint has a relative error. The relative error leads to a more accurate approximation, particularly in the tails.
A new compact CPW-fed dual-band monopole antenna for RFID applications

This paper presents a study of a new dual-band monopole antenna fed by a Coplanar Waveguide (CPW) line suitable for Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) applications especially designed for RFID readers and it operates at 2.45 GHz and 5.8 GHz. This antenna is designed with a reasonable gain, low profile and low cost achievement. The proposed antenna benefits from the advantages of the CPW line to simplify the structure of the antenna into a single metallic level, by consequent making it easier for integration with microwave integrated circuits. The simulation results carried out by ADS from Agilent technologies and CST Microwave Studio electromagnetic solvers, demonstrate that we have good performances in term of return loss, gain, radiation pattern and efficiency for the desired frequency bands. This antenna has a total area of 34×30.6mm2 and mounted on an FR4 substrate with dielectric permittivity constant 4.4, thickness of 1.6mm and loss tangent of 0.025. The gain obtained into simulation of this antenna is 1,1dB at 2.45GHz and 2dB at 5.8 GHz.