Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An essay on Kenneth E. Boulding's General Systems Theory: the skeleton of science

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the hierarchy of system complexity that Kenneth E. Boulding proposed in the article General Systems Thinking—The Skeleton of Science, originally published in Management Science, 2, (1956, pp. 197–208) and to explore the implications of the Skeleton for systems theory and practice as it currently stands. The nine-level Skeleton of Science is presented and discussed with reference to four perceived underlying frameworks within the Skeleton. The implications of the Skeleton and suggested future directions for further research are also presented. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Approximating discrete probability distributions with decomposable models

A heuristic procedure is presented for approximating an n-dimensional discrete probability distribution with a decomposable model of a given complexity. It is shown that, without loss of generality, the search space can be restricted to a suitable subclass of decomposable models, whose members are called elementary models. The selected elementary model is constructed in an incremental manner according to a local-optimality criterion that consists of minimizing a suitable cost function. It is shown by an example that the solution computed by the procedure is sometimes optimal. >
Mental Imagery Inflates Performance Expectations but Not Actual Performance of a Novel and Challenging Motor Task

The current study re-examined the “estimation inflation” effect previously found with performance estimates of motor skills. After viewing a demonstration of a balancing task, 54 participants performed either physical practice, imagery practice, or no practice (n = 18 per group). Self-efficacy ratings were obtained regarding perceived ability to perform the task before and after a test phase where actual performance was measured. Prior to the test phase, the imagery group reported significantly higher levels of self-efficacy compared to the physical practice group. However, imagery practice did not benefit performance as only the physical practice group performed better on the balance task compared to control. Thus, imagery practice and physical practice produced dissociable effects on performance estimates and actual performance. Furthermore, inflated performance expectations elicited through imagery disappeared following the test phase. These results provide further evidence that short bouts of imagery can inflate expectations, but not actual performance of a novel motor task. Once individuals gained authentic experience of the task, the initial misjudgement about performance was replaced with more realistic expectations. Therefore, creating overly optimistic expectations of ability did not hamper future expectations once authentic experience was gained.
Use of systematic surface roughing to enhance the spatial resolution of the dual-ended readout of axially-oriented 100 mm long LYSO crystals

In this work we explored the effects of using systematic band patterns of surface roughing to modulate the light transport in a dual-ended readout detector for PET imaging that uses 100 mm long LYSO crystals oriented in the axial direction. The long surfaces of 3 × 2 × 100 mm3 LYSO crystals, initially polished on all sides, were systematically roughed in a band pattern with 0.8 mm bands of roughed surface spaced at 5 mm increments over the central 8 cm of the crystal length. Cases of one to four surfaces of the crystal roughed with this pattern were explored. Two configurations of bands were examined for the opposite surfaces of the crystals: (i) bands created in the same axial location (coinciding bands) and (ii) band locations interleaved (interleaving bands). Each crystal was then wrapped in Teflon and read out at both ends using position sensitive photomultiplier tubes (PSPMTs). An electronically collimated 511 keV photon beam was oriented perpendicular to the long direction of the crystal and data acquired at discrete locations along the crystal length. The ratio of the two PMT signals was used to find the axial position of interaction and axial-positioning resolution in the light sharing direction of the dual-ended readout detector while their sum was used to determine the light output and energy resolution. The axial-positioning resolution corrected for the beam width improved from an average of 8.7 mm FWHM with no surface treatment to 5.9, 3.9 or 3.4 mm FWHM for coinciding band patterns on one, two or four surfaces, respectively. The banding patterns resulted in degraded energy resolution, with a decrease from 11.1% FWHM for the untreated crystal to 12.0%, 13.5% and 13.6% for the patterns on one, two and four surfaces, respectively. When the axial-positioning resolution is corrected for the beam width, we estimated the best resolution for the case of four banded surfaces to be 3.4 mm FWHM in this study. The same axial-positioning resolution was obtained when interleaving bands were created on only two opposite surfaces with a better energy resolution of 12.2%.
Mobile Services and ICT4D, To the Network Economy - Bridging the Digital Divide, Ethiopia's Case

This paper presents a development paradigm for Ethiopia, based on appropriate services and innovative use of mobile communications technologies via applications tailored for sectors like business, finance, healthcare, governance, education and infotainment. The experience of other developing countries like India and Kenya is cited so as to adapt those to the Ethiopian context. Notable application areas in the aforementioned sectors have been outlined. The ETC 'next generation network' is taken into consideration, with an emphasis on mobile service offering by the Telco itself and/or third party service providers. In addition, enabling technologies like mobile internet, location-based systems, open interfaces to large telecom networks, specifically service-oriented architecture (SOA), Parlay/JAIN and the like are discussed. The paper points out possible endeavors by such stakeholders like: telecom agencies and network operators; businesses, government and NGOs; entrepreneurs and innovators; technology companies and professionals; as well as researchers and academic institutions. ICT4D through mobile services and their role in bridging the digital divide by building a virtual 'network economy' is presented.
Please Scroll down for Article the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Variation in Verbal Fluency: a Latent Variable Analysis of Clustering, Switching, and Overall Performance

This article may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution , reselling , loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.
Integrating instruction of science, reading, and writing: Goals, teacher development, and assessment

This article describes the interplay of goals, teacher development, and assessment in the context of a yearlong research and development project. The aim of the project was to integrate the teaching of science, reading, and writing processes in a conceptually based, constructivist curriculum for middle school students who read below grade level. A performance-based assessment was designed and implemented to determine the level of student awareness and control over the processes taught during a unit of instruction. Interviews with science teachers and supervisors revealed the important interaction of curricular goals, the performance assessment, and instructional practice.
A computer system for econometric research

One important facet of econometric research is the analysis of relationships among observed economic variables using the techniques of model estimation, regression, multivariate analysis, spectral analysis, etc. Two &dquo; bottlenecks &dquo; in the current research environment are : 1) the time involved in gathering and verifying data, and 2) the time consumed in the manipulation of the data (even with &dquo; canned &dquo; computer programs). In this article a system for storage, maintenance, retrieval, and mani-
CHARACTERIZING AND MODELING MULTIPARTY VOICE COMMUNICATION FOR MULTIPLAYER GAMES

Over the last few years, the number of game players using voice communication to talk to each other while playing games has increased dramatically. Unlike traditional voice-over-IP technology, where most conversations are between two people, voice communication in games often has 5 or more people talking together as they play. We present the first measurement study on the characteristics of multiparty voice communications and develop a model of the observed talking and silence periods that can be used for future research, simulation, network engineering, and game development. Over a 3 month period, we measured over 7,000 sessions on an active multi-party voice communication server to quantify the characteristics of communication generated by game players, including group sizes, packet distributions, user and session frequencies, and speaking (and silence) durations. Unlike prior results, our measurements and models demonstrate that the speaking and silence periods fit a Weibull distribution.
Strategy-Enhanced Interactive Proving and Arithmetic Simplification for PVS

We describe an approach to strategy-based proving for improved interactive deduction in specialized domains. An experimental package of strategies (tactics) and support functions called Manip has been developed for PVS to reduce the tedium of arithmetic manipulation. Included are strategies aimed at algebraic simplification of real-valued expressions. A general deduction architecture is described in which domain-specific strategies, such as those for algebraic manipulation, are supported by more generic features, such as term-access techniques applicable in arbitrary settings. An extended expression language provides access to subterms within a sequent.
The Impact of National Culture and Social Pr esence on Trust and Communication Quality within Collabor ative Groups

In this empirical study we examine the impact of national culture and social presence on interpersonal trust in both culturally homogeneous and heterogeneous groups. Results demonstrate that interpersonal trust is higher in homogeneous, low-individualism groups (represented by Chinese participants) than that in homogeneous, high-individualism groups (represented by U.S. participants); however, interpersonal trust in heterogeneous groups is lower for low-individualism than high-individualism group members. It is also found that social presence has a positive impact on interpersonal trust; however, a difference in social presence between groups supported by two collaborative technologies is not detected. In addition, perceived communication quality is reported highest in face-to-face (FtF) groups without the support of collaborative software (CS), followed by FtF, CS-supported groups, and then virtual, CS groups. These findings have important implications for trust building in global groups as well as for the design of collaborative technologies in support of virtual groups
A Flexible Multiple Description Coding Framework for Adaptive Peer-to-Peer Video Streaming

Efficient peer-to-peer (P2P) video streaming is a challenging task due to time-varying nature of both the number of available peers and network/channel conditions. This paper proposes a novel adaptive P2P video streaming system, which features: (i) a new flexible multiple-description coding (F-MDC) framework, such that the number of base and enhancement descriptions, and the rate and redundancy level of each description can be adapted on the fly (by only post-processing of the encoded bitstream), and (ii) a new adaptive TCP-friendly rate-controlled (TFRC), on-demand, many-to-one P2P video streaming solution based on the proposed F-MDC framework. We extend the highly scalable video coder , to MDC within the proposed F-MDC framework. Optimization of the design parameters of the proposed F-MDC method is discussed within the context of the proposed adaptive P2P streaming solution, where the number and quality of available streaming peers/paths are a priori unknown and vary in time. Experimental results, by means of NS-2 network simulation of a P2P video streaming system, show that adaptation of the number, type of descriptions and the rate and redundancy level of each description according to network conditions yields significantly superior performance when compared to other scalable MDC schemes using a fixed number of descriptions/layers with fixed rate and redundancy level.
Fast resolution of hierarchized inverse kinematics with inequality constraints

Classically, the inverse kinematics is performed by computing the singular value decomposition of the matrix to invert. This enables a very simple writing of the algorithm. However, the computation cost is high, especially when applied to complex robots and complex sets of constraints (typically around 5ms for 50 degrees of freedom - DOF). In this paper, we propose a dedicated adaptation of quadratic programming that enables fast computations of the hierarchical inverse kinematics (around 0.1ms for 50 DOF). We then extend this algorithm to deal with unilateral constraints, obtaining sufficiently high performances for reactive control.
A WTLS-Based Method for Remote Sensing Imagery Registration

This paper introduces a weighted total least squares (WTLS)-based estimator into image registration to deal with the coordinates of control points (CPs) that are of unequal accuracy. The performance of the estimator is investigated by means of simulation experiments using different coordinate errors. Comparisons with ordinary least squares (LS), total LS (TLS), scaled TLS, and weighted LS estimators are made. A novel adaptive weight determination scheme is applied to experiments with remotely sensed images. These illustrate the practicability and effectiveness of the proposed registration method by collecting CPs with different-sized errors from multiple reference images with different spatial resolutions. This paper concludes that the WTLS-based iteratively reweighted TLS method achieves a more robust estimation of model parameters and higher registration accuracy if heteroscedastic errors occur in both the coordinates of reference CPs and target CPs.
Effect of Olmesartan on Tissue Expression Balance Between Angiotensin II Receptor and Its Inhibitory Binding Molecule

We previously cloned a novel molecule interacting with angiotensin II (Ang II) type 1 receptor protein (ATRAP) and showed it to be an endogenous inhibitor of Ang II type 1 receptor signaling in cardiovascular cells. In this study, we tested a hypothesis that the balance of tissue expression of ATRAP and Ang II type 1 receptor is regulated in a tissue-specific manner during the development of hypertension and related cardiac hypertrophy. Concomitant with blood pressure increase and cardiac hypertrophy in spontaneously hypertensive rats, there was a constitutive decrease in the ratio of cardiac expression of ATRAP to Ang II type 1 receptor. However, treatment with olmesartan, an Ang II type 1 receptor–specific antagonist, either at a depressor or subdepressor dose, recovered the suppressed cardiac ATRAP to Ang II type 1 receptor ratio, which was accompanied by a decrease in Ang II type 1 receptor density, an inhibition of p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase activity, and a regression of cardiac hypertrophy. Furthermore, Ang II stimulation suppressed the ATRAP to Ang II type 1 receptor ratio with hypertrophic responses in both the cardiomyocytes and rat hearts. These findings show a tissue-specific regulatory balancing of the expression of ATRAP and Ang II type 1 receptor during the development of hypertension and cardiac remodeling and further suggest that the upregulation of the tissue ATRAP to Ang II type 1 receptor ratio may be one of the therapeutic benefits of olmesartan beyond its blood pressure-lowering effect.
Immigrant Students’ Homework: Ecological Perspective on Facilitators and Impediments to Task Completion

A significant body of research has addressed factors associated with homework completion among mainstream English-speaking students, yet there is little such research focusing on immigrant adolescents. This study uses data from the Longitudinal Immigrant Student Adaptation Study to examine individual and ecological context characteristics associated with homework completion among newcomer immigrant students from Central America, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Mexico, and China. Regression analyses showed that strong academic skills, classroom engagement, and school violence were significant predictors of homework completion. Additionally, several indirect effects were found. Students’ classroom engagement mediated the effects of parental employment and family composition on their homework completion. Classroom engagement and academic skills also mediated the effect of gender on homework completion. Implications for practice and policy are discussed.
The Dynamics of Performance Collapse in Large-Scale Networks and Computers

Failures in communication networks have become all too familiar. The AT&T phone system was brought to its knees in 1990 and their frame-relay network shut down west coast bank ATMs in 1998. These were hard network failures. Less obvious is the congestive failure of packet networks even without hard errors. This spontaneous collapse in performance is observed as orders-of-magnitude drop in packets/second delivered or increased packet delay. Such effects were seen on the Internet in 1986 and led to the implementation of the TCP/IP “slow-start” congestion avoidance algorithm. That same algorithm is now responsible for latency overhead in HTTP traffic on the World Wide Web. This paper outlines an approach developed by the author based on the surprising observation that the degree of instability in computer networks is logically equivalent to estimating the rate of decay in an unstable (radioactive) atom and suggests the application of the Feynman path integral from quantum mechanics. The advantage of this approach is threefold: (a) it makes the dynamics of large transients intuitively clear, (b) it furnishes an estimator for the mean time to collapse, and (c) it provides corrections to other estimators (e.g., Catastrophe Theory and the Theory of Large Deviations).
Real-Time Human Detection in Uncontrolled Camera Motion Environments

In environments where a camera is installed on a freely moving platform, e.g. a vehicle or a robot, object detection and tracking becomes much more difficult. In this paper, we presents a real time system for human detection, tracking, and verification in such challenging environments. To deliver a robust performance, the system integrates several computer vision algorithms to perform its function: a human detection algorithm, an object tracking algorithm, and a motion analysis algorithm. To utilize the available computing resources to the maximum possible extent, each of the system components is designed to work in a separate thread that communicates with the other threads through shared data structures. The focus of this paper is more on the implementation issues than on the algorithmic issues of the system. Object oriented design was adopted to abstract algorithmic details away from the system structure.
Deciphering the rules by which 5′-UTR sequences affect protein expression in yeast

Significance This study quantifies how protein levels are determined by the underlying 5′-UTR sequence of an mRNA. We accurately measured protein abundance in 2,041 5′-UTR sequence variants, differing only in positions −10 to −1. We show that a few nucleotide substitutions can significantly alter protein expression. We also developed a predictive model that explains two-thirds of the expression variation. We provide convincing evidence that key regulatory elements, including AUG sequence context, mRNA secondary structure, and out-of-frame upstream AUGs conjointly modulate protein levels. Our study can aid in synthetic biology applications, by suggesting sequence manipulations for fine-tuning protein expression in a predictable manner. The 5′-untranslated region (5′-UTR) of mRNAs contains elements that affect expression, yet the rules by which these regions exert their effect are poorly understood. Here, we studied the impact of 5′-UTR sequences on protein levels in yeast, by constructing a large-scale library of mutants that differ only in the 10 bp preceding the translational start site of a fluorescent reporter. Using a high-throughput sequencing strategy, we obtained highly accurate measurements of protein abundance for over 2,000 unique sequence variants. The resulting pool spanned an approximately sevenfold range of protein levels, demonstrating the powerful consequences of sequence manipulations of even 1-10 nucleotides immediately upstream of the start codon. We devised computational models that predicted over 70% of the measured expression variability in held-out sequence variants. Notably, a combined model of the most prominent features successfully explained protein abundance in an additional, independently constructed library, whose nucleotide composition differed greatly from the library used to parameterize the model. Our analysis reveals the dominant contribution of the start codon context at positions −3 to −1, mRNA secondary structure, and out-of-frame upstream AUGs (uAUGs) to phenotypic diversity, thereby advancing our understanding of how protein levels are modulated by 5′-UTR sequences, and paving the way toward predictably tuning protein expression through manipulations of 5′-UTRs.
Cerebellar gray matter differentiates children with early language delay in autism

Early language delay (ELD) is one of the earliest indicators of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and predicts later cognitive and behavioral outcomes. We aimed to determine the neural correlates of ELD in autism, and examine the relationships between gray matter (GM), age of first word/phrase, and core ASD symptoms. We used voxel‐based morphometry to examine whole‐brain differences in GM in 8–13 year old children with autism (n = 13 ELD; n = 22 non‐ELD) and 35 age‐matched typically developing (TD) children. Multiple regression analyses examined the relationships between GM, age of first word/phrase, and autism diagnostic observation schedule (ADOS) scores. Composite age of first word/phrase negatively correlated with GM throughout the cerebellum. Both ASD groups (ELD and non‐ELD) had reduced GM in right cerebellar Crus I/II when compared to TD children. Left cerebellar Crus I/II was the only region in the brain that differentiated ELD and non‐ELD children, with ELD children showing reduced GM relative to both non‐ELD and TD groups. Group×score interactions converged in left Crus I/II, such that the non‐ELD group showed poorer ADOS scores with increasing GM, whereas the ELD group showed poorer ADOS scores as GM decreased. Reduced GM in right cerebellar Crus I/I was related ASD diagnosis, while children with ELD showed additional reduced GM in left Crus I/II. These findings highlight the importance of specific cerebellar networks in both ASD and early language development, and suggest that bilateral disruption in cerebellar regions that interconnect with fronto‐parietal networks could impact language acquisition in ASD. Autism Res 2016, 9: 1191–1204. © 2016 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.