Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
ADAPTATION PROCESS TO DELIVER CONTENT BASED ON USER LEARNING STYLES

This work describes a model for an adaptation process to deliver educational content in a learning management system (LMS), according to a user learning style in the context of eLearning process based on competences. To achieve this purpose, a user model based on the Felder and Silverman learning styles and the design of an adaptive process are presented. We use machine learning techniques to support adaptation, learning technologic standards to specify and to characterize important elements of the learning process, and also, intelligent agents for developing an independent multiagent platform. The result of adaptation process is to deliver learning resources sorted in a specific order of presentation, according to each specific user learning style. The first prototype of our proposal has been developed upon dotLRN, an open source LMS, that allows to present implementation details in the context of this adaptation process. The work implemented will contribute to ADAPTAPLan project (TIN2005-08945-C06-00).
Detection of climate system bifurcations by degenerate fingerprinting

A method is introduced to estimate the proximity of climate sub‐systems to non‐linear thresholds. We suggest to measure the smallest decay rate of the system under investigation and to consider its trend. We argue that this is the diagnostic variable most directly linked to the distance from a bifurcation threshold. With the climate model of intermediate complexity CLIMBER2 we demonstrate our method for the North Atlantic thermohaline circulation. It is shown that proper analysis of paleo information could significantly reduce the uncertainty which plagues current estimates of the distance from the shutdown of the thermohaline circulation.
Performance analysis of cooperative schemes under total transmit power constraint in single hop wireless relaying system

In wireless communication, physical layer security is widely used for secure communication between the transmitter and the receiver. In this paper, the secrecy performance of two cooperative schemes, decode-and-forward (DF) and amplify-and-forward (AF) relays is investigated in a single hop wireless relaying system. The achievable secrecy rate is investigated with these two types of relays under the constraint of total power transmitted. In the given jamming relay network, the relay transmits jamming signal while receiving data signal from the source. It is indicated by the resulting analysis that the AF relays have better secrecy rate as compared to the DF relays in the given condition. The secrecy rate of the AF relay is higher than that of the DF relay by 71.88% at a distance of 70 m between the relay and the eavesdropper in this jamming relay network.
Broad-band microstrip-to-CPW transition via frequency-dependent electromagnetic coupling

An improved broad-band microstrip-to-coplanar-waveguide (CPW) transition is developed on a basis of the frequency-dependence characteristic of an electromagnetic surface-to-surface coupling. A self-calibrated method of moments is extended to model this unbounded two-port discontinuity with the two dissimilar microstrip/CPW feeding lines. Numerical results are provided to demonstrate its frequency response of transmission under varied strip/slot dimensions and further exhibit its attractive ultra-broad-band transmission with low radiation loss. Next, the back-to-back transition circuits with the two different lengths are fabricated and measured to deembed in experiment the S-parameters of two single-transition structures. Predicted and measured results show good agreement with the return loss less than -10dB over the frequency of 3.2-11.2 GHz.
Dispersed filters for power system state estimation

The article proposes an approach to power system state estimation allowing the division of the network into smaller parts and performing calculations for each part at the same time. The latter can be implemented in parallel, but the main aim has been to propose a method for dispersed calculations, i.e. calculations that may be performed on computing units located at various points of the whole power system. In the paper, there are 3 algorithms for which dispersed versions have been proposed: Extended Kalman Filter, Particle Filter and Extended Kalman Particle Filter. As a result of the simulations, it has been verified that the Dispersed Particle Filter works better than simple Particle Filter. In two other cases, distributed algorithms work worse, but for the Extended Kalman Filter degradation in the estimation quality is not significant.
Task and Exposure Time Modulate Laterality of Spatial Frequency for Faces

The present study psychophysically investigated the laterality of low spatial frequencies (LSFs) and high spatial frequencies (HSFs) during face recognition at different exposure times. Spatial frequency–filtered faces were presented in a divided visual field at high and low temporal constraints in 2 tasks: face recognition (Experiment 1) and face gender recognition (Experiment 2). Both experiments revealed general primacy in the recognition of LSF over HSF faces. In Experiment 1, LSF and HSF facial information was more efficiently processed in the right and left hemispheres, respectively, and exposure time had no effect. Experiment 2 showed right hemisphere asymmetry for LSF faces at a low temporal constraint. These results suggest that the spatial frequency processing for face recognition is lateralized in the brain hemispheres. However, the contributions of LSFs and HSFs depend on the task and exposure time.
Creditor Control Rights and Managerial Risk Shifting

Recent evidence shows that corporate policies change significantly following financial covenant violations. These changes are attributed to increased creditor influence over borrowing firms in ways that benefit both shareholders and debtholders. In this paper, I investigate whether shareholders engage in activities counter to creditors’ interests following violations. I find that the expected negative relation between volatility and investment reverses for firms once they violate a covenant, consistent with risk-shifting behavior. This behavior is more pronounced in firms with high CEO portfolio sensitivity to stock return volatility and firms with high CEO equity ownership. Moreover, I document a significant increase in firm risk in the year following the violation. Overall, these findings suggest that even in the presence of increased creditor control risk shifting still occurs. The prior conclusions that shareholder-debtholder incentives are congruent at violations do not appear to be the case.
Nitric Oxide Synthase (NOS) Inhibition during Porcine In Vitro Maturation Modifies Oocyte Protein S-Nitrosylation and In Vitro Fertilization

Nitric oxide (NO) is a molecule involved in many reproductive processes. Its importance during oocyte in vitro maturation (IVM) has been demonstrated in various species although sometimes with contradictory results. The objective of this study was to determine the effect of NO during IVM of cumulus oocyte complexes and its subsequent impact on gamete interaction in porcine species. For this purpose, IVM media were supplemented with three NOS inhibitors: NG-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME), NG-monomethyl-L-arginine (L-NMMA) and aminoguanidine (AG). A NO donor, S-nitrosoglutathione (GSNO), was also used. The effects on the cumulus cell expansion, meiotic resumption, zona pellucida digestion time (ZPdt) and, finally, on in vitro fertilization (IVF) parameters were evaluated. The oocyte S-nitrosoproteins were also studied by in situ nitrosylation. The results showed that after 42 h of IVM, AG, L-NAME and L-NMMA had an inhibitory effect on cumulus cell expansion. Meiotic resumption was suppressed only when AG was added, with 78.7% of the oocytes arrested at the germinal vesicle state (P<0.05). Supplementation of the IVM medium with NOS inhibitors or NO donor did not enhance the efficiency of IVF, but revealed the importance of NO in maturation and subsequent fertilization. Furthermore, protein S-nitrosylation is reported for the first time as a pathway through which NO exerts its effect on porcine IVM; therefore, it would be important to determine which proteins are nitrosylated in the oocyte and their functions, in order to throw light on the mechanism of action of NO in oocyte maturation and subsequent fertilization.
Prizes for innovation : Impact analysis in the ICT for Education sector

textabstractThe use of prizes to stimulate innovation in education has dramatically increased in recent years, but, to date, no organization has attempted to critically examine the impact these prizes have had on education. This report attempts to fill this gap by conducting a landscape review of education prizes with a focus on technology innovation. This report critically analyses the diversity of education prizes to gauge the extent to which these new funding mechanisms lead to innovative solutions in this sector. This is supplemented with interviews with sponsors and prize participants to gain the much needed practitioner’s perspective. We address important questions that pervade as prizes are being implemented in this sector: What seems to be working and why? How do prizes compare to other funding mechanisms to stimulate technology innovations? How is sustainability achieved? What can be learned that can inform the design of future prizes? A number of important assumptions are re-examined, namely, that technology innovation is central to educational reform, prizes stimulate innovation, scalability is a proxy for sustainability, and prizes are the most efficient funding mechanism to stimulate innovation. We recalibrate expectations of technology innovation prizes in the educational field against empirical evidence. We reveal key trends through the deploying of prizes in this field and offer case studies as good practices for sponsors to consider when designing future prizes. The report makes recommendations to enhance the impact of prizes, drawing from interdisciplinary sources. The intent of this report is to enable sponsors to distinguish the hype surrounding these prizes and proceed to design prizes that can best serve the education sector.
Balance: A Key Factor for the Evaluation of Semantic Web Application

Balance is very important in all areas from art down to the details of our daily life. There is no exception in research work especially when we want to develop an application which will be used in the real world. Currently more and more semantic Web applications are emerging. Although there are some researches on the evaluation and benchmarking of semantic Web applications, they mainly focused on the semantic Web technology itself or specific types of applications. The evaluation of general features of Semantic Web applications is not sufficient. In this paper, we will focus on the evaluation of one of the general characteristics -- balance of semantic Web applications. An analysis of current semantic Web applications will be given first in order to summarize their statistical features and get some hints for identifying the aspects that are critical for balance evaluation. Then we summarize the main aspects of balance evaluation, and present the key factors for each balance evaluation aspect. Finally, suggestions for future semantic Web application development and evaluation will be made based on the analysis of semantic Web applications and the summarizing of balance evaluation aspects.
Using Noun Phrases Extraction for the Improvement of Hybrid Clustering with Text- and Citation-based Components. The Example of "Information System Research"

The hybrid clustering approach combining lexical and link-based similarities suffered for a long time from the different properties of the underlying networks. We propose a method based on noun phrase extraction using natural language processing to improve the measurement of the lexical component. Term shingles of different length are created form each of the extracted noun phrases. Hybrid networks are built based on weighted combination of the two types of similarities with seven different weights. We conclude that removing all single term shingles provides the best results at the level of computational feasibility, comparability with bibliographic coupling and also in a community detection application.
WIRELESS DIGITAL MODULATION AND SPACE-TIME CODING FORENSICS DETECTOR FOR SPECTRUM SENSING

Modulation forensics detect the modulation type in wireless communications by the received signal only. It provides a powerful tool for spectrum sensing since by identifying the modulation type, the secondary users in cognitive radio systems can detect whether the primary user occupies the spectrum. In this paper, we investigate modulation forensics of linear digital modulations and space-time diagonal algebraic codes in slowly varying, frequency-selective fading channels. With unknown channel vector, and phase distortion at the receive side, we derive a composite test consisting of second-moment nonlinearity and maximum likelihood tests, and discuss the performance and the forensics system confidence measure. It is shown that the proposed algorithm achieves almost perfect identification of the space-time coding, and high accuracy rate of the modulation type.
Prediction of 3-Dimensional Structure of Cathepsin L Protein of Rattus Norvegicus

Cathepsin L is a cysteine protease which degrades connective tissue proteins like collagen, elastin and fibronectin. Increase in the expression of cathepsin L in aged kidney leading to considerable loss of organ function in old age. Recently it has been reported that SARS-CoV or SARS-CoV spike protein-pseudotyped retroviruses utilize the enzymatic activity of endosomal cathepsin L protease for viral entry. A 3D structure of rat cathepsin L was constructed in this report through homology modeling using the X-ray structure of procathepsin L from Homo sapiens (PDB code: 1CS8). The homology modeling was done by using the MODELLER 9v2 software. The final model obtained by molecular mechanics and dynamics method and was assessed by PROCHECK and VERIFY 3D graph, which showed that the final refined model is reliable. The model could be further explored for characterizing the protein.
Gender, Free Will, and Woman-to-Woman Sexual Assault in Service Provider Discourses

Although still less recognized than man-to-woman sexual assault, awareness of woman-to-woman sexual assault has grown sufficiently over the past three decades that we should no longer speak of its discursive emergence as the breaking of hitherto uninterrupted silence. This article begins the project of exploring and comparing discourses used to frame this phenomenon. Based on a situational analysis of interviews with service providers who had experience supporting survivors of woman-to-woman sexual assault, this text presents three discourses used to think about this form of violence: all violence is men’s violence, violence is a choice, and nonviolence is learned. Each discourse is characterized by a specific relationship between sexual violence, free will/determinism, and gender and by attendant rules for what can and cannot be said. As such, each communicates ideological commitments, which reflect and sustain specific approaches to antisexual violence work. Each seeks to negotiate a sociopolitical context of gender-based oppression and sexuality-based oppression that includes the risks and realities of silencing and recuperation of survivor speech. The objective of this article is to enable service provider reflection about the implications of diverse discourses used to frame woman-to-woman sexual assault and to discourage naturalization of any given approach.
Encoding probability propagation in belief networks

Complexity reduction is an important task in Bayesian networks. Recently, an approach known as the linear potential function (LPF) model has been proposed for approximating Bayesian computations. The LPF model can effectively compress a conditional probability table into a linear function. This correspondence extends the LPF model to approximate propagation in Bayesian networks. The extension focuses on encoding probability propagation as a polynomial function for a class of tractable problems.
Improving the quality of ring oscillator PUFs on FPGAs

Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) based on Ring Oscillators (ROs) are a promising primitive for FPGA security. However, the quality of their implementation depends on several design parameters. In this paper, we show that ring oscillator frequencies strongly depend on surrounding logic. Based on these findings, we propose a strategy for improving the quality of RO PUF designs by placing and comparing ROs in a chain-like structure. We also show that an increased RO runtime and RO disabling has a clear positive effect on the quality of a RO PUF. We implemented a RO PUF key generation system on an FPGA using our design strategy. Our results clearly indicate that our proposed design strategy can significantly improve the quality of a RO PUF implementation.
Epigenetic determinants of ovarian clear cell carcinoma biology

Targeted approaches have revealed frequent epigenetic alterations in ovarian cancer, but the scope and relation of these changes to histologic subtype of disease is unclear. Genome‐wide methylation and expression data for 14 clear cell carcinoma (CCC), 32 non‐CCC and four corresponding normal cell lines were generated to determine how methylation profiles differ between cells of different histological derivations of ovarian cancer. Consensus clustering showed that CCC is epigenetically distinct. Inverse relationships between expression and methylation in CCC were identified, suggesting functional regulation by methylation, and included 22 hypomethylated (UM) genes and 276 hypermethylated (HM) genes. Categorical and pathway analyses indicated that the CCC‐specific UM genes were involved in response to stress and many contain hepatocyte nuclear factor (HNF) 1‐binding sites, while the CCC‐specific HM genes included members of the estrogen receptor alpha (ERalpha) network and genes involved in tumor development. We independently validated the methylation status of 17 of these pathway‐specific genes, and confirmed increased expression of HNF1 network genes and repression of ERalpha pathway genes in CCC cell lines and primary cancer tissues relative to non‐CCC specimens. Treatment of three CCC cell lines with the demethylating agent Decitabine significantly induced expression for all five genes analyzed. Coordinate changes in pathway expression were confirmed using two primary ovarian cancer datasets (p < 0.0001 for both). Our results suggest that methylation regulates specific pathways and biological functions in CCC, with hypomethylation influencing the characteristic biology of the disease while hypermethylation contributes to the carcinogenic process.
Stable Stair Climbing in a Simple Hexapod Robot

Abstract : RHex is a hexapod robot with compliant legs and only six actuated degrees of freedom. Its ability to traverse highly fractured and unstable terrain has already been documented. In this paper, we describe open loop controllers for our small robot to climb and descend regular stairs. The reliability is 90% (9/10) for climbing and 100% (10/10) for descending, based on ten successive trials. Specific resistance, a measure of energy efficiency, during stair climbing is 10.9, and 4.5 during descent.
Radiative shocks in galaxy formation. I: Cooling of a primordial plasma with no sources of heating

We use a 1-D Lagrangian code which follows both a gaseous and a dark component to study the radiative shocks that appear in the evolution of spherical scale-free perturbations in an Einstein-de Sitter Universe. The detailed behaviour of the shock depends on whether the radiative cooling is dominated by bremsstrahlung or line cooling. Bremsstrahlung is the main energy loss mechanism for systems with circular velocity $V_{c} > 100 km s^{-1}$. In this case, we can reproduce the kinematics of the shock and of the cooling wave to a high degree of accuracy with a simple analytic model. When line cooling dominates, the shock front can be unstable to oscillations. The period and amplitude of the oscillations increase in time as the universe expands. For such systems, our analytic model provides only a rough estimate of the mean evolution. We believe that now we fully understand the effect radiative cooling has in the shocks that appear in spherical models for galaxy formation.
Microcephalin and pericentrin regulate mitotic entry via centrosome-associated Chk1

Primary microcephaly, Seckel syndrome, and microcephalic osteodysplastic primordial dwarfism type II (MOPD II) are disorders exhibiting marked microcephaly, with small brain sizes reflecting reduced neuron production during fetal life. Although primary microcephaly can be caused by mutations in microcephalin (MCPH1), cells from patients with Seckel syndrome and MOPD II harbor mutations in ataxia telangiectasia and Rad3 related (ATR) or pericentrin (PCNT), leading to disturbed ATR signaling. In this study, we show that a lack of MCPH1 or PCNT results in a loss of Chk1 from centrosomes with subsequently deregulated activation of centrosomal cyclin B–Cdk1.
Sparse Reconstruction of Hardy Signal and Applications to Time-frequency Distribution

In this paper, we introduce a sparse recovery strategy for analytic signals in Hardy space H2(𝔻), where 𝔻 denotes the unit disk of the complex plane. The representation strategy is based on the optimization technique. We investigate the asymptotic singular values distribution of the dictionary matrix and give an estimation of the number of rows of the random matrix. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that such result is given. This result demonstrates that the dictionary of the normalized Szego kernels (or reproducing kernels) is perfect for decompositions of analytic signals. A numerical example is presented exhibiting the theory. As applications, we still work on time-frequency analysis and propose a new type of non-negative time-frequency distribution associated with mono-components in the periodic case.
Resolving Fragments using Discourse Information

This paper describes an extension of RUDI, a dialogue system component for ‘Resolving Underspecification with Discourse Information’ (Schlangen et al., 2001). The extension handles the resolution of the intended meaning of non-sentential utterances that denote propositions or questions. Some researchers have observed that there are complex syntactic, semantic and pragmatic constraints on the acceptability of such fragments, and have used this to motivate an unmodular architecture for their analysis. In contrast, our implementation is based on a clear separation of the processes of constructing compositional semantics of fragments from those for resolving their meaning in context. This is shown to have certain theoretical and practical advantages.
Optimal design for population pk/pd models

ABSTRACT We provide some details of the implementation of optimal design algorithm in the PkStaMp library which is intended for constructing optimal sampling schemes for pharmacokinetic (PK) and pharmacodynamic (PD) studies. We discuss different types of approximation of individual Fisher information matrix and describe a user-defined option of the library.