Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Throughput improvement of IEEE 802.11 using adaptive slot size

Although recent IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN standards (such as 802.11n/ac) support physical layer (PHY) transmission speed more than 10 times that of 802.11g, the user level throughput has not seen a proportionate increase. The primary reason for this anomaly are the various overheads of channel access, preamble and acknowledgements. In this paper, we present a MAC protocol that enables the access point (AP) in an infrastructure based 802.11 WLAN system to dynamically reduce the slot time used in the protocol thereby reducing the channel access overhead. A major component of slot time is the clear channel assessment (CCA) time, which is the time taken by a node to determine if the wireless medium is idle or busy. A key fact we exploit is that any node requires less time for CCA if the SNR of all nodes in the network at this node are high. Our protocol first determines the worst-case pair-wise SNR of all nodes in the WLAN by polling nodes by leveraging the PCF mode of 802.11 and then determines the optimal CCA and slot time. We present a theoretical analysis to determine the optimal CCA time given SNR and evaluate our protocol using the Qualnet Simulator.
Apical CFTR Expression in Human Nasal Epithelium Correlates with Lung Disease in Cystic Fibrosis

Introduction Although most individuals with cystic fibrosis (CF) develop progressive obstructive lung disease, disease severity is highly variable, even for individuals with similar CFTR mutations. Measurements of chloride transport as expression of CFTR function in nasal epithelial cells correlate with pulmonary function and suggest that F508del-CFTR is expressed at the apical membrane. However, an association between quantitative apical CFTR expression in nasal epithelium and CF disease severity is still missing. Methods and Materials Nasal epithelial cells from healthy individuals and individuals with CF between 12–18 years were obtained by nasal brushing. Apical CFTR expression was measured by confocal microscopy using CFTR mAb 596. Expression was compared between both groups and expression in CF nasal epithelial cells was associated with standardized pulmonary function (FEV1%). Results The proportion of cells expressing apical CFTR in columnar epithelium is lower in CF compared to non-CF. The apical CFTR expression level was significantly correlated with FEV1% in F508del homozygous subjects (r = 0.63, p = 0.012). Conclusion CFTR expression in nasal epithelial cells is lower in subjects with CF compared to healthy subjects. The proportion of cells expressing F508del-CFTR at the apical membrane is variable between subjects and is positively correlated with FEV1% in F508del-CFTR homozygous subjects.
Psychosocial sequelae of homicide among murder victims' family members: An appraisal of depression, grief, and posttraumatic stress

The current investigation explored what is known regarding the psychological sequelae of the posthomicide experience for murder victims’ family members and friends (MVFM). Participants were also asked about whether they felt they had attained closure, a term which populates anecdotal and theoretical accounts of MVFM’s experience. Previous literature guided a theoretical definition of closure as a dimensional construct that represents adaptive functioning following a murder, and includes (1) absence of disabling symptomatology, (2) absence of ruminations about the event or murder victim, and (3) subjective return to baseline functioning. This quasi-experiment consisted of a between-subjects cross-sectional design. The dependent variable (DV) was the post-homicide psychological functioning of the participant, consisting of (1) depressive, posttraumatic stress, and complicated grief symptomatology as well as (2) self-reports of closure. The independent variable (IV) is the perpetrators’ case disposition. Participants (N = 92) were recruited via organizations that serve MVFM as well as a sample of MVFM selected from a random sample of death row inmates. All participants were administered a structured interview and standardized psychodiagnostic measures by telephone. Of the total sample, 33% of the participants’ offenders were sentenced to LWOP, 25% to death, 14.1% to a sentence less than LWOP, and 2.2% were found Not Guilty By Reason of Insanity. Twenty-three (25.0%) participants’ offenders did not qualify for a penal sentence, as the case was unsolved (n = 10), the trial or sentencing phase was in process (n = 7), or the offender took his or her own life during the course of the murder (n = 4). Participants were, on average, approximately 15 years post-homicide at the time of the interview. Participants were diverse with regard to age and geography, but were disproportionately female (83.7%) and Caucasian (81.5%). The results of the current study indicated that participants were highly symptomatic, with particularly high rates of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Complicated Grief. Few MVFM were amenable to endorsing closure regardless of penal sentence. Sentence of the offender was correlated with PTSD scores and was uncorrelated with scores of depression, complicated grief, and quality of life. The results of the current study suggest a conceptual distinction between these often conflated diagnoses for this population and impart empirical insight into the commonly-held yet largely untested assumption that the DP serves a restorative, if not psychologically rehabilitative, function for survivors.
Tissue-Specific Signatures in the Transcriptional Response to Anaplasma phagocytophilum Infection of Ixodes scapularis and Ixodes ricinus Tick Cell Lines

Anaplasma phagocytophilum are transmitted by Ixodes spp. ticks and have become one of the most common and relevant tick-borne pathogens due to their impact on human and animal health. Recent results have increased our understanding of the molecular interactions between Ixodes scapularis and A. phagocytophilum through the demonstration of tissue-specific molecular pathways that ensure pathogen infection, development and transmission by ticks. However, little is known about the Ixodes ricinus genes and proteins involved in the response to A. phagocytophilum infection. The tick species I. scapularis and I. ricinus are evolutionarily closely related and therefore similar responses are expected in A. phagocytophilum-infected cells. However, differences may exist between I. scapularis ISE6 and I. ricinus IRE/CTVM20 tick cells associated with tissue-specific signatures of these cell lines. To address this hypothesis, the transcriptional response to A. phagocytophilum infection was characterized by RNA sequencing and compared between I. scapularis ISE6 and I. ricinus IRE/CTVM20 tick cell lines. The transcriptional response to infection of I. scapularis ISE6 cells resembled that of tick hemocytes while the response in I. ricinus IRE/CTVM20 cells was more closely related to that reported previously in infected tick midguts. The inhibition of cell apoptosis by A. phagocytophilum appears to be a key adaptation mechanism to facilitate infection of both vertebrate and tick cells and was used to investigate further the tissue-specific response of tick cell lines to pathogen infection. The results supported a role for the intrinsic pathway in the inhibition of cell apoptosis by A. phagocytophilum infection of I. scapularis ISE6 cells. In contrast, the results in I. ricinus IRE/CTVM20 cells were similar to those obtained in tick midguts and suggested a role for the JAK/STAT pathway in the inhibition of apoptosis in tick cells infected with A. phagocytophilum. Nevertheless, tick cell lines were derived from embryonated eggs and may contain various cell populations with different morphology and behavior that could affect transcriptional response to infection. These results suggested tissue-specific signatures in I. scapularis ISE6 and I. ricinus IRE/CTVM20 tick cell line response to A. phagocytophilum infection that support their use as models for the study of tick-pathogen interactions.
Chemical composition and in sacco ruminal degradation of tropical trees rich in condensed tannins

The study was aimed at determining the chemical composition, in sacco ruminal dry matter and organic matter degradability of leaves and fruits of tropical condensed tannin rich multipurpose tree species (MPTS). The MPTS studied were Ekebergia capenesis, Ficus sycomorus, Maesa lanceolata, and Rhus glutinosa. Chemical composition of dry matter (DM), crude protein (CP), crude ash (CA), ether extract (EE), crude fibre (CF), neutral detergent fibre (NDF), non-fibre carbohydrates (NFC), and condensed tannin (CT) was determined. In sacco rumen degradability was measured using three rumen fistulated Holstein Friesian- Boran cross steers at 0, 6, 12, 24, 48, 72, and 96 h. The DM and organic matter (OM) degradability data were fitted to the equation Y = a + b(1 - e -ct ). The values for each chemical constituent ranged 5.43-11.49% (CA), 7.97-17.06% (CP), 1.57-31% (EE), 12.20-27.5% (CF), 5.84-39.30% (NFC), and 7.2-16.72% (CT). Ekebergia capensis leaves had the greatest values for slowly degradable fraction (b ), effective degradability (ED ), and rate of degradation (c ) in DM (P < 0.001) whereas E. capensis fruit had significantly the greatest soluble fraction (a ), potential degradability (b ), and effective degradability (ED ) values as compared to the a , PD, and ED values in the fruits of other plants(P < 0.001). Yet in OM degradation kinetics, the greatest and least values of potential degradability (PD) were recorded for F. sycomorus (89.89%) and E. capensis (55.90%) leaves (P < 0.001). Similar to the rapidly soluble fraction a , ED was found to be the greatest in fruits as compared to leaves of the plants (P < 0.001). Generally variation of plant parts led to significant differences in chemical composition, DM, and OM degradability and the degradable parameters. The leaves and fruits recorded more than 60% DM and OM degradability at 24 h, which implied that they were all greatly degradable in the rumen.
Trajectory Tracking Control of a Redundantly Actuated Parallel Robot Using Diagonal Recurrent Neural Network

Parallel robots have good performance in terms of rigidity, accuracy and dynamic characteristics. In this paper, a 2-DOF redundantly actuated parallel robot is taken as the object of study. Diagonal recurrent neural network (DRNN) is known for its dynamic mapping and fit for nonlinear dynamical systems. A neural network PID controller which is composed of the conventional PID control and the DRNN neural network is proposed. The DRNN neural network makes up the deficiency of the conventional PID control, and strengthens the adaptivity of the whole system. The conventional PID controller is applied to compare with the proposed controller. The two controllers are used to track a straight line under the trapezoidal velocity planning. The obtained results confirm the theoretical findings, i.e., the neural network PID controller can make further reduction on tracking errors. The neural network PID controller can be an effective control approach to improve the trajectory tracking performance of parallel robotic systems.
Presidential Debate Format and Perceptions of Personality: Warmth Matters

2 INTRODUCTION I. The History of Presidential Debate 3 II. 1976 Presidential Election 11 A. Campaign 11 B. Election 15 III. Debates and Persuasion 19 IV. The Present Study 27 METHODS I. Study Overview 29 II. Debate Stimuli 29 III. Participants and Procedures 31 IV. Measures 33 RESULTS I. Summary of Hypotheses 37 II. Results 37 III. Ancillary Tests 49 DISCUSSION I. Summary of Results 52 II. Memory Tests 53 III. Characteristic Observations 54 IV. Warmth Matters 55 V. Limitations and Future Research 58 VI. Conclusion 59 REFERENCES CITED 61 APPENDIX A (Transcript) 65 APPENDIX B (Email) 68 APPENDIX C (Video Questions) 69 APPENDIX D (Survey)
Beyond interference control impairment in ADHD: Evidence from increased intraindividual variability in the color-stroop test

The present study investigates intraindividual variability (IIV) in the Color-Stroop test and in a simple reaction time (SRT) task. Performance level and variability in reaction times (RTs)—quantified with different measures such as individual standard deviation (ISD) and coefficient of variation (ICV), as well as ex-Gaussian parameters (mu, sigma, tau)—were analyzed in 24 children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and 24 typically developing children (TDC). Children with ADHD and TDC presented equivalent Color-Stroop interference effects when mean RTs were considered, and the two groups did not differ in the SRT task. Interestingly, compared to TDC, children with ADHD were more variable in their responses, showing increased ISD and ICV in the Color-Stroop interference condition and in the SRT task. Moreover, children with ADHD exhibited higher tau values—that is, more frequent abnormally long RTs—in the Color-Stroop interference condition than did the TDC, but comparable tau values in the SRT, suggesting more variable responses. These results speak in favor of a general deficit in more basic and central processes that only secondarily may affect the efficiency of inhibitory processes in children with ADHD. Overall the present findings confirm the role of IIV as a cornerstone in the ADHD cognitive profile and support the search for fine-grained analysis of performance fluctuations.
Structure learning and the Occam's razor principle: a new view of human function acquisition

We often encounter pairs of variables in the world whose mutual relationship can be described by a function. After training, human responses closely correspond to these functional relationships. Here we study how humans predict unobserved segments of a function that they have been trained on and we compare how human predictions differ to those made by various function-learning models in the literature. Participants' performance was best predicted by the polynomial functions that generated the observations. Further, participants were able to explicitly report the correct generating function in most cases upon a post-experiment survey. This suggests that humans can abstract functions. To understand how they do so, we modeled human learning using an hierarchical Bayesian framework organized at two levels of abstraction: function learning and parameter learning, and used it to understand the time course of participants' learning as we surreptitiously changed the generating function over time. This Bayesian model selection framework allowed us to analyze the time course of function learning and parameter learning in relative isolation. We found that participants acquired new functions as they changed and even when parameter learning was not completely accurate, the probability that the correct function was learned remained high. Most importantly, we found that humans selected the simplest-fitting function with the highest probability and that they acquired simpler functions faster than more complex ones. Both aspects of this behavior, extent and rate of selection, present evidence that human function learning obeys the Occam's razor principle.
Strategic alignment with organizational priorities and work engagement: A multi‐wave analysis

This study advances the limited research on work alignment and work engagement by investigating how perceived alignment of job tasks and organizational strategic priorities (strategic alignment) in? uences work engagement. Measures of job control and work social support were also included to enable comparisons between strategic alignment and other well-established job resources. A total of 1011 employees of an Australian state police service responded to three electronic, self-report surveys. A reciprocal model was assessed over three waves of data, with varying time lags: 18 (Time 1 to Time 2), 12 (Time 2 to Time 3), and 30 months (Time 1 to Time 3). Longitudinal, reciprocal relationships were observed for work engagement and job control, strategic alignment, and colleague support. Work engagement also predicted supervisor support over time (reverse effect). This study demonstrated that, in addition to job resources, perceived alignment of job tasks and organizational priorities plays an important role in maintaining high levels of work engagement over time.
Efficient Private Information Retrieval

Informally, private information retrieval for k >= 1 databases (k-PIR) is an interactive scheme that enables a user to make access to (separated) k replicated copies of a database and privately retrieve any single bit out of the n bits of data stored in the database. In this model, “privacy” implies that the user retrieves the bit he is interested in but releases to each database nothing about which bit he really tries to get. Chor et. al. proposed 2-PIR with communication complexity 12n1/3 + 2 that is based on the covering codes. Then Ambainis recursively extended the scheme by Chor et. al. and showed that for each k >= 2, there exists k-PIR with communication complexity at most ck · n1/(2k−1) some constant ck > 0. In this paper, we relax the condition for the covering codes and present time-efficient 2-PIR with communication complexity 12n1/3. In addition, we generally formulate the recursive scheme by Ambainis and show that for each k >= 4, there exists k-PIR with communication complexity at most c′ k · n1/(2k−1) for some constant c′ k ck. key words: information retrieval, privacy, communication complexity, time complexity, covering codes
How Effective Are Code Coverage Criteria?

Code coverage is one of the main metrics to measure the adequacy of a test case/suite. It has been studied a lot in academia and used even more in industry. However, a test case may cover a piece of code (no matter what coverage metric is being used) but miss its faults. In this paper, we studied several existing and standard control and data flow coverage criteria on a set of developer-written fault-revealing test cases from several releases of five open source projects. We found that a) basic criteria such as statement coverage is very weak (detecting only 10% of the faults), b) combining several control-flow coverage together is better than the strongest criterion alone (28% vs. 19%), c) a basic data-flow coverage can detect many undetected faults (79% of the undetected faults by control-flow coverage can be detected by a basic def/use pair coverage), and d) on average 15% of the faults may not be detected by any of the standard control and data-flow coverage criteria. Classification of the undetected faults showed that they are mostly to do with specification (missing logic).
Évaluation d’un programme de développement professionnel en santé publique : le laboratoire de promotion de la santé

The emergence of the health promotion discourse a few decades ago steered public health practice into a new direction, orienting it toward community-based, participatory, and intersectoral action. Meanwhile, in Quebec, the 2004 healthcare system reform restructured the local level through the creation of health and social services centres. The mandate of these new organizations is to integrate the public health and the healthcare sector across a continuum of services ranging from health promotion all the way to palliative care.All these changes have significant implications for healthcare and public health practitioners, who must come to terms with new professional roles and new intervention strategies. Professional development is considered to be a potential lever for action to support these changes. In 2009, a team from the Public Health Directorate of the Health and Social Services Agency of Montreal designed a professional development program called the Health Promotion Laboratory. This program builds on a team learning approach to enable participants to develop new competencies, a reflexive practice, and new health promotion practices within the organization. Based on a qualitative methodology and a collaborative evaluation approach, this doctoral thesis used several investigation strategies to evaluate three components of the Health Promotion Laboratory, i.e., the program’s conceptualization, implementation, and outcomes. More specifically, this thesis aims to: (1) examine the plausibility of the program’s intervention theory; (2) describe and understand the team learning processes involved in the program, as well as the factors influencing them; and (3) explore, from the participants’ perspective, the reflexivity outcomes of the program. In pursuing these objectives, this thesis adopts several theoretical perspectives related to adult learning, team learning, and organizational learning. The results show that: (1) while there is room for improvement, the program’s model is generally well designed to achieve the intended outcomes; (2) the model’s implementation in two sites resulted in different team learning processes, both of which depended on common factors related to the participants, the team, the organizational context, and the implementation
Enduring to gain new perspective: a grounded theory study of the experience of perinatal bereavement in Black adolescents.

Black adolescents in the US experience perinatal loss at a higher rate than other races and ethnicities. The experience of eight Black urban adolescents through the first 3 months after perinatal loss was studied using grounded theory. The process of "enduring to gain new perspective" began with "denying and hesitating" when surprised by unplanned pregnancy but led to "getting ready for this whole new life," followed by shock of "suffering through the loss," "all that pain for nothing," and "mixed emotions going everywhere. " Over time, the adolescents began "reaching out for support" and eventually "preserving the memory and maintaining relationship," "searching for meaning and asking why," and "gaining new perspective on life. " Parallels are noted to extant bereavement theory.
Three Arabidopsis Fatty Acyl-Coenzyme A Reductases, FAR1, FAR4, and FAR5, Generate Primary Fatty Alcohols Associated with Suberin Deposition1[C][W][OA]

Suberin is a protective hydrophobic barrier consisting of phenolics, glycerol, and a variety of fatty acid derivatives, including C18:0-C22:0 primary fatty alcohols. An eight-member gene family encoding alcohol-forming fatty acyl-coenzyme A reductases (FARs) has been identified in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana). Promoter-driven expression of the β-glucuronidase reporter gene indicated that three of these genes, FAR1(At5g22500), FAR4(At3g44540), and FAR5(At3g44550), are expressed in root endodermal cells. The three genes were transcriptionally induced by wounding and salt stress. These patterns of gene expression coincide with known sites of suberin deposition. We then characterized a set of mutants with T-DNA insertions in FAR1, FAR4, or FAR5 and found that the suberin compositions of roots and seed coats were modified in each far mutant. Specifically, C18:0-OH was reduced in far5-1, C20:0-OH was reduced in far4-1, and C22:0-OH was reduced in far1-1. We also analyzed the composition of polymer-bound lipids of leaves before and after wounding and found that the basal levels of C18:0-C22:0 primary alcohols in wild-type leaves were increased by wounding. In contrast, C18:0-OH and C22:0-OH were not increased by wounding in far5-1 and far1-1 mutants, respectively. Heterologous expression of FAR1, FAR4, and FAR5 in yeast confirmed that they are indeed active alcohol-forming FARs with distinct, but overlapping, chain length specificities ranging from C18:0 to C24:0. Altogether, these results indicate that Arabidopsis FAR1, FAR4, and FAR5 generate the fatty alcohols found in root, seed coat, and wound-induced leaf tissue.