Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A dynamically reconfigured UMTS multi-channel complex code matched filter

This paper presents a novel application of in-situ dynamic reconfiguration to a multi-channel complex code matched filter. The filter forms the first stage of a UMTS basestation's searcher partition. New configuration data is generated on-chip and loaded into the active circuitry in parallel to operation using the Xilinx Virtex families SRL16 functionality. Data-folding (Foulk, 1993) produces reconfiguration frequencies in excess of 7 MHz without interrupting computation. Implementation results show a 33% saving in LUTs over the static equivalent, with the same maximum clock frequency
Large-Area Fault Clusters and Fault Tolerance in VLSI Circuits: A Review

Fault-tolerance techniques and redundant circuits have been used extensively to increase the manufacturing yield and productivity of integrated-circuit chips. Presented here is a review of relevant statistical models which have been used to account for the effects on manufacturing yield of the large-area defect and fault clusters commonly encountered during chip fabrication. A statistical criterion is described for determining whether such large-area clusters are present.
Distances to the High Galactic Latitude Molecular Clouds G192–67 and MBM 23-24

We report on distance determinations for two high-Galactic latitude cloud complexes, G192-67 and MBM 23-24. No distance determination exists in the literature for either cloud. Thirty-four early-type stars were observed toward the two clouds, more than half of which have parallaxes measured by the Hipparcos satellite. For the remaining stars, we have made spectroscopic distance estimates. The data consist of high-resolution echelle spectra centered on the Na I D lines and were obtained over six nights at the Coudé Feed telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory. Interstellar absorption lines were detected toward some of the stars, which enabled estimates of the distances to the clouds of 109±14 pc for G192-67 and 139±33 pc for MBM 23-24. We discuss the relationship of these clouds to other ISM features such as the Local Hot Bubble and the local cavity in neutral hydrogen.
A method of qualitative spatial heuristic reasoning and application for complex region

Qualitative spatial reasoning is a key spotlight in the domains of artificial intelligence, geographic information system, and robotics and so on. In this paper, we proposed a hierarchical qualitative spatial reasoning method for the spatial relations among multiple components in complex region. Firstly, an adjacency hierarchy matrix is defined based on adjacency link graph, which can be mutually exclusive and fully represent the connection relation among n components. Secondly, the heuristic reasoning on the binary hierarchical relations and the algorithm are proposed. Finally we simulate the relations of the robot and obstacles, and provide a basis for making the robot obstacle avoidance scheme, then the validity of this method is proved from theory and practice.
The effects of environmental context and personal resources on depressive symptomatology in older age: a test of the Lawton model

This study examines the environmental and psychosocial determinants of depression in older adults. Based on Lawton's environmental docility thesis, the question is posed: is the strong association between functional limitations and depressive symptomatology affected when environmental conditions, objective and subjective efficacy, and docile or proactive behaviour are taken into account. Data were used from LASA (the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam), a national survey of the population between 55 and 85 years of age, stratified by age and sex. Hierarchical regression analyses were performed on the data of 2,981 respondents. Empirical support was found for the extended Lawton model, including both environmental, efficacy and behavioural factors. In particular, living in a more urbanised area, not being able to perform heavy household tasks, having a low self-efficacy, not feeling safe, receiving help from others and having few social contacts within the neighbourhood, increase depressive symptoms in general but, in particular, when combined with lower functional status. It is concluded that both being able and feeling able to influence one's environment increases proactive behaviour and decreases depressive symptomatology in older adults with low functional status.
The Role of Informational Medium on Decisions to Respond to a Message

The dangers of texting while driving has been clearly reported in distracted driving studies. People generally see texting while driving a dangerous behavior but they do it. A new line of research in the area of driving distraction is concerned with why people do risky behavior such as texting while driving although most people believe it is a dangerous behavior. This study examined the value of responding to a message and factors that may influence the decision making process of people about responding to message. Using the delay discounting method in this study it was examined if information medium of message influences decisions to respond to a message. The results of first experiment showed that there is a quantitatively difference in the shape of the delay discounting function for different informational mediums suggesting discounting for a cell phone text message compared with post-it message and post card message. The results of the second experiment showed the same different shape of delay discounting function for the value of responding to a message depending on the weather condition and response medium of a message in driving condition. People could not wait to respond to a message while driving in a normal weather condition. They also showed inability to wait to respond to a message if it is received through a car in-dash system rather than cellphone. In sum this study showed that people’s decisions to respond to a message is valued differently given informational medium related factors.
Regional Changes in Cerebral Oxygenation During Repeated Passive Movement Measured by Functional Near-infrared Spectroscopy

The aim of this study is to investigate the influence of passive movement repetition frequency at 1.5-Hz and 1-Hz on changes in cerebral oxygenation and assess the temporal properties of these changes using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). No significant differences in systemic hemodynamics were observed between resting and passive movement phases for either 1.5-Hz or 1-Hz trial. Changes in cortical oxygenation as measured by fNIRS in bilateral supplementary motor cortex (SMC), left primary motor cortex (M1), left primary somatosensory cortex (S1), and left posterior association area (PAA) during passive movement of the right index finger revealed greater cortical activity at only 1.5-Hz movement frequency. However, there were no significant differences in the time for peak oxyhemoglobin (oxyHb) among regions (bilateral SMC, 206.4 ± 14.4 s; left M1, 199.1 ± 14.8 s; left S1, 207.3 ± 9.4 s; left PAA, 219.1 ± 10.2 s). Therefore, our results that passive movement above a specific frequency may be required to elicit a changed in cerebral oxygenation, and the times of peak ΔoxyHb did not differ significantly among measured regions.
Optimizing progressive query-by-example over pre-clustered large image databases

The typical mode for querying in an image content-based information system is query-by-example, which allows the user to provide an image as a query and to search for similar images (i.e., the nearest neighbors) based on one or a combination of low-level multidimensional features of the query example. Off-lime, this requires the time-consuming pre-computing of the whole set of visual descriptors over the image database. On-line, one major drawback is that multidimensional sequential NN-search is usually exhaustive over the whole image set face to the user who has a very limited patience. In this paper, we propose a technique for improving the performance of image query-by-example execution strategies over multiple visual features. This includes first, the pre-clustering of the large image database and then, the scheduling of the processing of the feature clusters before providing progressively the query results (i.e., intermediate results are sent continuously before the end of the exhaustive scan over the whole database). A cluster eligibility criterion and two filtering rules are proposed to select the most relevant clusters to a query-by-example. Experiments over more than 110 000 images and five MPEG-7 global features show that our approach significantly reduces the query time in two experimental cases: the query time is divided by 4.8 for 100 clusters per descriptor type and by 7 for 200 clusters per descriptor type compared to a "blind" sequential NN-search with keeping the same final query result. This constitutes a promising perspective for optimizing image query-by-example execution.
Judged Similarity and Brand-Switching Data as Similarity Measures

This article discusses a procedure for building a perceptual map of a market based on revealed preference data. Specifically, it suggests how the transition matrix, which is central to many stochastic models in marketing [2, 5, 7, 8, 14, 15], can be used as a similarity matrix for input to multidimensional scaling or cluster analysis in place of the more widely used judged similarity measures [3, 4, 18]. This article thus attempts to demonstrate a conceptual link between stochastic models of market share and individual choice models.
A Correlation Study Of Parental Involvement And Islamic Education’s Achievment Among Smka Students In Kuala Terengganu Malaysia

Lack of parental involvement in learning Islamic Education leads to increase the rate of failure in the school and negatively affect the learning interest as well as motivation for children. Nowadays, most of the parents do not know the extent to which their involvement relate to Islamic education’s achievment. This study focus to determine the extent to which parental involvement relate to Islamic education’s performance and intrinsic motivation on learning Islamic Education. In carrying out this study, the researcher utilized quantitative approach; a correlation and survey type of descriptive research have been adopted. Two questionnaires were administered to a sample of 335 parents with their children attending the National Religious Secondary Schools known as SMKA in Kuala Terengganu. However, students’ scores of islamic education was used to analyse their performance. Pearson’s’ product-moment correlation coefficient was employed as a statistical tool for data analysis through using a statistical package for social science often known as (SPSS) version 19. The findings revealed the moderate positive correlation between parental involvement and Islamic Education’s performance r = 0.647, n =335, p= 0.000. P
Mechanisms Regulating Acquisition of Platelet‐Derived Factor V/Va by Megakaryocytes

Factor Va serves as the nonenzymatic protein cofactor for the prothrombinase complex, which converts prothrombin to thrombin in the events leading to formation of a hemostatic plug. Several observations support the concept that platelet‐derived factor V/Va is physically and functionally distinct and plays a more important role in thrombin generation at sites of vascular injury as compared to its plasma counterpart. Platelet‐derived factor V/Va is generated following endocytosis of the plasma‐derived molecule by the platelet precursor cells, megakaryocytes, via a two receptor system consisting of low density lipoprotein (LDL) receptor‐related protein‐1 (LRP‐1) and an unidentified specific “binding site”. More recently, it was suggested that a cell surface‐expressed β‐galactoside binding protein, galectin‐8, was involved in factor V endocytosis. Endocytosed factor V is trafficked through the cell and retailored prior to its storage in α‐granules. Given the essential role of platelet‐derived factor Va in clot formation, understanding the cellular and molecular mechanisms that regulate how platelets acquire this molecule will be important for the treatment of excessive bleeding or clotting. J. Cell. Biochem. 116: 2121–2126, 2015. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Attenuating natural flicker patterns

Waves on the water surface create spatio-temporal illumination patterns underwater. Concave regions on the surface diverge light rays refracting into the water, while convex regions create convergence of rays (caustics). Therefore, the natural illumination of underwater objects is spatially varying. Moreover, in shallow water this nonuniform intensity distribution varies significantly in time, as the water surface changes with the wave motion. In this paper we present a method that attenuates these illumination patterns, and results in an image which appears as if taken under much more stable and uniform illumination. The method is based on just a few consecutive frames taken of the scene. These frames are analyzed by a non-linear algorithm which preserves consistent image components while filtering out fluctuations. The use of the nonlinear algorithm alleviates the need for long acquisition periods and is therefore fast. We demonstrate its effectiveness and efficiency in underwater experiments
Benchmarking the semi-supervised naïve Bayes classifier

Semi-supervised learning involves constructing predictive models with both labelled and unlabelled training data. The need for semi-supervised learning is driven by the fact that unlabelled data are often easy and cheap to obtain, whereas labelling data requires costly and time consuming human intervention and expertise. Semi-supervised methods commonly use self training, which involves using the labelled data to predict the unlabelled data, then iteratively reconstructing classifiers using the predicted labels. Our aim is to determine whether self training classifiers actually improves performance. Expectation maximization is a commonly used self training scheme. We investigate whether an expectation maximization scheme improves a naïve Bayes classifier through experimentation with 36 discrete and 20 continuous real world benchmark UCI datasets. Rather surprisingly, we find that in practice the self training actually makes the classifier worse. The cause for this detrimental affect on performance could either be with the self training scheme itself, or how self training works in conjunction with the classifier. Our hypothesis is that it is the latter cause, and the violation of the naïve Bayes model assumption of independence of attributes means predictive errors propagate through the self training scheme. To test whether this is the case, we generate simulated data with the same attribute distribution as the UCI data, but where the attributes are independent. Experiments with this data demonstrate that semi-supervised learning does improve performance, leading to significantly more accurate classifiers. These results demonstrate that semi-supervised learning cannot be applied blindly without considering the nature of the classifier, because the assumptions implicit in the classifier may result in a degradation in performance.
I am a smartphone and i can tell my user's walking direction

This paper describes WalkCompass, a system that exploits smartphone sensors to estimate the direction in which a user is walking. We find that several smartphone localization systems in the recent past, including our own, make a simplifying assumption that the user's walking direction is known. In trying to relax this assumption, we were not able to find a generic solution from past work. While intuition suggests that the walking direction should be detectable through the accelerometer, in reality this direction gets blended into various other motion patterns during the act of walking, including up and down bounce, side-to-side sway, swing of arms or legs, etc. Moreover, the walking direction is in the phone's local coordinate system (e.g., along Y axis), and translation to global directions, such as 45 degree North, can be challenging when the compass is itself erroneous. WalkCompass copes with these challenges and develops a stable technique to estimate the user's walking direction within a few steps. Results drawn from 15 different environments demonstrate median error of less than 8 degrees, across 6 different users, 3 surfaces, and 3 holding positions. While there is room for improvement, we believe our current system can be immediately useful to various applications centered around localization and human activity recognition.
Leading Change: A Case Study of Alamo Academies—An Industry-driven Workforce Partnership Program

ABSTRACT In this study, the authors focus on the initiation and development of the Alamo Academies, aiming to illustrate an exemplary industry-driven model that addresses workforce development in local community. After a brief introduction of the context, the authors summarized major factors that contribute to the success of the collaboration model, including matching industry needs, obtaining stakeholder support, and changing cultural bias. Finally, practical implications are provided for community college practitioners and administrators who are leading positive changes in their institutions. This study offers firsthand implications for program development, industry collaboration, workforce development, student success, and culture change in the setting of community college.
Detection of Misbehaviour Activities in Delay Tolerant Network Using Trust Authority

Malicious and selfish behaviors represent a serious threat against routing in Delay/Disruption Tolerant Networks (DTNs). Due to the unique network characteristics, designing a misbehavior detection scheme in DTN is regarded as a great challenge. iTrust, a probabilistic misbehavior detection scheme, for secure DTN routing towards efficient trust establishment. The basic idea of iTrust is introducing a periodically available Trusted Authority (TA) to judge the node's behavior based on the collected routing evidences and probabilistically checking. iTrust model as the Inspection Game and use game theoretical analysis to demonstrate that, by setting an appropriate investigation probability, TA could ensure the security of DTN routing at a reduced cost. To further improve the efficiency of the proposed scheme, to correlate detection probability with a node's reputation, which allows a dynamic detection probability determined by the trust of the users. The extensive analysis and simulation results show that the proposed scheme substantiates the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed scheme.
Regulation of Down Syndrome Critical Region 1 expression by Nuclear Factor of Activated T cells in megakaryocytes

As precursors of platelets, megakaryocytes must fulfil the complex tasks of protein synthesis and platelet assembly. Megakaryocytic dysfunction can lead to neoplastic disorders, such as acute megakaryoblastic leukaemia, an entity with a 500‐fold increased incidence in children with Down syndrome (DS). Down Syndrome Critical Region 1 (DSCR1), a member of the calcipressin family of calcineurin inhibitors, is overexpressed in DS, and destabilization of the calcineurin/Nuclear Factor of Activated T cells (NFAT) pathway by overexpression of DSCR1 has been implicated in some of the pathophysiological features of the disease. The roles of NFAT and DSCR1 in megakaryocyte signalling and gene expression, however, are unknown. In this study, we show that calcineurin and NFAT are components of a calcium‐induced signalling cascade in megakaryocytes. NFAT activation in megakaryocytes was induced by fibrillar collagen type I and was completely sensitive to the calcineurin inhibitor cyclosporin A. We established DSCR1 as a calcium‐induced NFAT target gene in these cells and show that overexpression of DSCR1 in megakaryocytes strongly inhibits NFAT activation as well as NFAT‐dependent expression of the Fas ligand gene (FASLG). These results suggest that DSCR1 acts as an endogenous feedback inhibitor of NFAT signalling in megakaryocytes, and may have implications for megakaryocytic gene expression in DS.
A Series of TA-Based and Zero-Background Vectors for Plant Functional Genomics

With the sequencing of genomes from many organisms now complete and the development of high-throughput sequencing, life science research has entered the functional post-genome era. Therefore, deciphering the function of genes and how they interact is in greater demand. To study an unknown gene, the basic methods are either overexpression or gene knockout by creating transgenic plants, and gene construction is usually the first step. Although traditional cloning techniques using restriction enzymes or a site-specific recombination system (Gateway or Clontech cloning technology) are highly useful for efficiently transferring DNA fragments into destination plasmids, the process is time consuming and expensive. To facilitate the procedure of gene construction, we designed a TA-based cloning system in which only one step was needed to subclone a DNA fragment into vectors. Such a cloning system was developed from the pGreen binary vector, which has a minimal size and facilitates construction manipulation, combined with the negative selection marker gene ccdB, which has the advantages of eliminating the self-ligation background and directly enabling high-efficiency TA cloning technology. We previously developed a set of transient and stable transformation vectors for constitutive gene expression, gene silencing, protein tagging, subcellular localization analysis and promoter activity detection. Our results show that such a system is highly efficient and serves as a high-throughput platform for transient or stable transformation in plants for functional genome research.
ENTROPY: AN ASSESSMENT OF POTENTIALITIES IN GEOGRAPHY*

First is a paper by Wilson presented at the Budapest Congress of the Regional Science Association [16]. Its principal topic can be described as the explanation of the equivalence between a set of model-building approaches started by information theory and a similar set started by the theory of ensembles of statistical mechanics. The paper shows that the maximum entropy solution provides a rationale for many spatial interaction models.
Characterization of Glial Cell Models and In Vitro Manipulation of the Neuregulin1/ErbB System

The neuregulin1/ErbB system plays an important role in Schwann cell behavior both in normal and pathological conditions. Upon investigation of the expression of the neuregulin1/ErbB system in vitro, we explored the possibility to manipulate the system in order to increase the migration of Schwann cells, that play a fundamental role in the peripheral nerve regeneration. Comparison of primary cells and stable cell lines shows that both primary olfactory bulb ensheathing cells and a corresponding cell line express ErbB1-ErbB2 and neuregulin1, and that both primary Schwann cells and a corresponding cell line express ErbB2-ErbB3, while only primary Schwann cells express neuregulin1. To interfere with the neuregulin1/ErbB system, the soluble extracellular domain of the neuregulin1 receptor ErbB4 (ecto-ErbB4) was expressed in vitro in the neuregulin1 expressing cell line, and an unexpected increase in cell motility was observed. In vitro experiments suggest that the back signaling mediated by the transmembrane neuregulin1 plays a role in the migratory activity induced by ecto-ErbB4. These results indicate that ecto-ErbB4 could be used in vivo as a tool to manipulate the neuregulin1/ErbB system.