Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
2006-600: THE GAME OF LIFE WORKSHOP - REACHING OUT TO HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES

Since engineers and computer scientists build tools and provide solutions for diverse audiences, those who practice engineering should represent a diverse population. Among the several underrepresented groups in engineering and computer science are people with disabilities. Furthermore, people with disabilities pursue post-secondary education at a lower rate than their non-disabled peers. The combination of these factors suggest the importance of outreach efforts to help students with disabilities transition to and succeed in college and careers related to engineering and computer science. This paper describes a week-long workshop related to computer science that is part of a one-week-long summer session of a multiple-year program for high school students with disabilities. The program and specific workshop have been offered every summer since 1994. The overall goal of the computer science workshop is to build confidence in the students as they create and build successful programs to solve specific problems. We evaluate the program by answering the questions: Can high school students with disabilities, and with little or no programming experience, be successful innovators and implementers of a week-long programming project? and How does workshop participation impact students’ futures and confidence? We demonstrate success of the computer science workshop by providing examples of students’ projects, a report from one workshop participant who is currently enrolled in college and a co-author of this paper, and data collected from participants over time. The
P2P traffic classification using clustering technology

Network traffic classification has been always an important technology of network management for a long time. In recent years, the more unknown P2P traffic flows on the Internet new applications produce, the more network bandwidth the traffic flows of P2P network applications will fully occupy. In order to preserve the quality of network service, it is very necessary to classify the P2P traffic flows. In this paper, a P2P traffic flow classification method, based on the clustering technology, is proposed. The system aggregates the labeled traffic flows and similar unknown ones to the same cluster by the distance ratio according to their features. The proposed method does not need to make the decision of the cluster number in advance. In addition, it also solves the classification of unknown traffic flows by checking if the labeled traffic flows exist in the same clusters.
Measurement of ultrasonic diaphragmatic motion

The motion characteristics of the diaphragmatic muscle may provide useful information about normal and abnormal diaphragmatic function and indicate diaphragmatic weakness. The objective of this paper was to introduce a simple system for the quantitative analysis of ultrasonic diaphragmatic motion. The measurements routinely carried out by the experts were computed and these include: (i) excursion, (ii) inspiration time (Tinsp) and (iii) cycle duration (Ttot). The system was evaluated on four simulated videos and one real video. Manual and automated measurements were very close. Further work in a larger number of videos is needed for validating the proposed method.
Pedestrian Reactive Navigation for Crowd Simulation: a Predictive Approach

This paper addresses the problem of virtual pedestrian autonomous navigation for crowd simulation. It describes a method for solving interactions between pedestrians and avoiding inter‐collisions. Our approach is agent‐based and predictive: each agent perceives surrounding agents and extrapolates their trajectory in order to react to potential collisions. We aim at obtaining realistic results, thus the proposed model is calibrated from experimental motion capture data. Our method is shown to be valid and solves major drawbacks compared to previous approaches such as oscillations due to a lack of anticipation. We first describe the mathematical representation used in our model, we then detail its implementation, and finally, its calibration and validation from real data.
iTop: interaction based topic centric community discovery on twitter

Automatic detection of communities (or cohesive groups of actors in social network) in online social media platforms based on user interests and interaction is a problem that has recently attracted a lot of research attention. Mining user interactions on Twitter to discover such communities is a technically challenging information retrieval task. We present an algorithm - iTop - to discover interaction based topic centric communities by mining user interaction signals (such as @-messages and retweets) which indicate cohesion. iTop takes any topic as an input keyword and exploits local information to infer global topic-centric communities. We evaluate the discovered communities along three dimensions: graph based (node-edge quality), empirical-based (Twitter lists) and semantic based (frequent n-grams in tweets). We conduct experiments on a publicly available scrape of Twitter provided by InfoChimps via a web service. We perform a case study on two diverse topics - 'Computer Aided Design (CAD)' and 'Kashmir' to demonstrate the efficacy of iTop. Empirical results from both case studies show that iTop is successfully able to discover topic-centric, interaction based communities on Twitter.
Effects of Vitamin A Status on Expression of Ucp1 and Brown/Beige Adipocyte-Related Genes in White Adipose Tissues of Beef Cattle

ABSTRACT We previously reported the presence of brown/beige adipocytes in the white fat depots of mature cattle. The present study examined the effects of dietary vitamin A on the expression of brown/beige adipocyte-related genes in the white fat depots of fattening cattle. No significant differences were observed in the expression of Ucp1 between vitamin A-deficient cattle and control cattle. However, the expression of the other brown/beige adipocyte-related genes was slightly higher in the mesenteric fat depots of vitamin A-deficient cattle. The present results suggest that a vitamin A deficiency does not markedly affect the expression of Ucp1 in white fat depots, but imply that it may stimulate the emergence of beige adipocytes in the mesenteric fat depots of fattening cattle.
Transformer-Based Doherty Power Amplifiers for mm-Wave Applications in 40-nm CMOS

This paper presents a power amplifier (PA) topology to improve the back-off efficiency and the linearity of millimeter-wave (mm-wave) PAs without area overhead. In this paper, an asymmetrical series power combiner with LC tuning circuits is proposed to mimic the Doherty operation. Due to high back-off efficiency and high linearity behavior, the proposed Doherty topology well suits for E-band communication applications. Two transformer-based E-band PAs are designed and measured to demonstrate the proposed mm-wave Doherty concept. The first implementation achieves 16.2-dBm output power with a P1dB of 15.2 dBm using a 0.9-V supply. The second implementation demonstrates 21-dBm output power with a power-added efficiency (PAE) of 13.6% at a 1.5-V supply. The PAE at 6-dB power back-off is still as high as 7%.
Ethics in educational research: introducing a methodological tool for effective ethical analysis

Ethics is a complicated field and much has been written about its application to educational research. In this paper we introduce a way of planning for and dealing with situations that arise in the course of research that promotes detailed ethical analysis. We present a framework based on the work of Seedhouse and Flinders and describe a methodology for its use, alongside two examples in which the framework was used to achieve a comprehensive ethical analysis. The framework encourages us to view each situation from different philosophical perspectives and in doing so addresses issues about how to behave ethically, alongside methodological considerations, thus ensuring the integrity of the research. Use of the framework involves what Pring (2004) refers to as ‘practical thinking’ and addresses many of the concerns that other people raise about the limitations of linear codes and principles in a complex field.
Experimental allergic encephalomyelitis: A misleading model of multiple sclerosis

Despite many years of intensive research, multiple sclerosis (MS) defies understanding and treatment remains suboptimal. The prevailing hypothesis is that MS is immune mediated and that experimental allergic encephalomyelitis (EAE) is a suitable model to elucidate pathogenesis and devise therapy. This review examines critically the validity that EAE is an adequate and useful animal model of MS and finds credible evidence lacking. EAE represents more a model of acute central nervous system inflammation than the counterpart of MS. We propose to reconsider the utilization of EAE, especially when this model is used to define therapy. This will also force us to examine MS without the restraints imposed by EAE, as to what it is, rather than what it looks like. Ann Neurol 2005;58:939–945
Investigating the relationship between refutational text and conceptual change

The aim of this study was to identify the type of conceptual change (assimi- lation or accommodation) that can be induced by a refutational text. Individual interviews were carried out with a stratified sample of eighty-seven grade 9 students. Forty-four percent of them were found to have a misconception about the concept of ecological role—they believed that some living things do not have a role in nature. These 36 students were asked to read either a text that refuted the misconception, or a control text that consisted of a didactic explanation of ecological role. They then participated in an immediate posttest and a delayed posttest. Surprisingly, both texts were able to induce accommodation in a large proportion of the students. Factors such as the high motivation of the students, encour- agement of metacognition, age-readiness of the students, and a relative lack of robustness of the misconception were considered to have greatly facilitated the conceptual change process. C
Habitat Fragmentation and Breeding Bird Populations in Western North Dakota after the Introduction of Hydraulic Fracturing

This study quantifies the amount of habitat fragmentation experienced since the introduction of hydraulic fracturing in the Bakken region of North Dakota, using the Little Missouri National Grassland as a study area. All development in and immediately surrounding the Grassland was digitized for successive years between 2003 and 2016, and populations of grassland bird species were used as a proxy for measuring the effects of development within the Grassland during these same years. Results show that hydraulic fracturing has had a measurable but small impact on the Grassland overall; large portions of the Grassland have not yet seen large-scale oil development, whereas the northernmost portion of the Grassland has seen a substantial increase in fragmentation. Of thirteen bird species investigated, the Sprague’s pipit (Anthus spragueii) showed a significant decrease in population as habitat fragmentation increased, whereas the other twelve species did not have a significant relationship to fragmentation. We suggest that further development in the region could result in increased stresses placed on the local ecosystems. Key Words: Bakken, breeding birds, habitat fragmentation, hydraulic fracturing, North Dakota.
A Large-Scale Study of the Impact of Feature Selection Techniques on Defect Classification Models

The performance of a defect classification modeldepends on the features that are used to train it. Feature redundancy, correlation, and irrelevance can hinder the performance of a classification model. To mitigate this risk, researchers often use feature selection techniques, which transform or select a subset of the features in order to improve the performance of a classification model. Recent studies compare the impact of different feature selection techniques on the performance of defect classification models. However, these studies compare a limited number of classification techniques and have arrived at contradictory conclusions about the impact of feature selection techniques. To address this limitation, we study 30 feature selection techniques (11 filter-based ranking techniques, six filter based subset techniques, 12 wrapper-based subset techniques, and a no feature selection configuration) and 21 classification techniques when applied to 18 datasets from the NASA and PROMISE corpora. Our results show that a correlation-based filter-subset feature selection technique with a BestFirst search method outperforms other feature selection techniques across the studied datasets (it outperforms in 70%–87% of the PROMISE–NASA data sets) and across the studied classification techniques (it outperforms for 90% of the techniques). Hence, we recommend the application of such a selection technique when building defect classification models.
Neuronal Ca2+ sensor protein VILIP-1 affects cGMP signalling of guanylyl cyclase B by regulating clathrin-dependent receptor recycling in hippocampal neurons

The family of neuronal Ca2+ sensor (NCS) proteins is known to influence a variety of physiological and pathological processes by affecting signalling of different receptors and ion channels. Recently, it has been shown that the NCS protein VILIP-1 influences the activity of the receptor guanylyl cyclase GC-B. In transfected cell lines, VILIP-1 performs a Ca2+-dependent membrane association, the reversible Ca2+-myristoyl switch of VILIP-1, which leads to an increase in natriuretic peptide-stimulated cGMP levels. In this study, we have investigated the effect of VILIP-1 on cGMP signalling in C6 cells and in primary hippocampal neurons, where VILIP-1 and GC-B are co-expressed in many but not all neurons and partially co-localize in the soma and in dendrites. Our data indicate that VILIP-1 modulates GC-B activity by influencing clathrin-dependent receptor recycling. These data support a general physiological role for VILIP-1 in membrane trafficking in the intact hippocampus, where the NCS protein may affect processes, such as neuronal differentiation and synaptic plasticity e.g. by influencing cGMP-signalling.
Combined coding and spreading in CDMA systems using maximum free distance convolutional codes

In CDMA systems maximum theoretical performance can be obtained by spreading with low-rate error control codes. Previously, orthogonal and superorthogonal codes have been proposed for this purpose. We present a family of rate-compatible low-rate convolutional codes with maximum free distance. The performance of these codes for spectrum spreading in a CDMA system is evaluated and shown to outperform that of orthogonal and superorthogonal codes as well as conventional coding/spreading schemes. We also show that our low-rate codes will give simple encoder and decoder implementation. With these codes any 1/n rate can be obtained regardless of the constraint length, resulting in a more flexible and powerful scheme than those proposed up to now.
On the Performance Characteristics of Latent-Factor and Knowledge Tracing Models

Modeling student knowledge is a fundamental task of an intelligent tutoring system. A popular approach for modeling the acquisition of knowledge is Bayesian Knowledge Tracing (BKT). Various extensions to the original BKT model have been proposed, among them two novel models that unify BKT and Item Response Theory (IRT). Latent Factor Knowledge Tracing (LFKT) and Feature Aware Student knowledge Tracing (FAST) exhibit state of the art prediction accuracy. However, only few studies have analyzed the characteristics of these different models. In this paper, we therefore evaluate and compare properties of the models using synthetic data sets. We sample from a combined student model that encompasses all four models. Based on the true parameters of the data generating process, we assess model performance characteristics for over 66’000 parameter configurations and identify best and worst case performance. Using regression we analyze the influence of different sampling parameters on the performance of the models and study their robustness under different model assumption violations.
Document Relation System Based on Ontologies for the Security Domain

Finding semantic similarity or semantic relatedness between unstructured text documents is an ongoing research field in the semantic web area. For larger text corpuses often lexical matching - the matching of shared terms - is applied. Related sematic terms and concepts are not considered in this solution. Also documents that use heterogeneous perspectives on a domain could not be set into a relation properly. In this paper, we present our ongoing work on a flexible and expandable system that handles text documents with different points of view, languages and level of detail. The system is presented in the security domain but could be adapted to other domains. The decision making process is transparent and the result is a ranked list.
A Satisficing Approach to Aircraft Conflict Resolution

Future generations of air traffic management systems may give appropriately equipped aircraft the freedom to change flight paths in real time. This would require a conflict avoidance and resolution scheme that is both decentralized and cooperative. We describe a multiagent solution to aircraft conflict resolution based on satisficing game theory. A key feature of the theory is that satisficing decision makers form their preferences by taking into consideration the preferences of others, unlike conventional game theory that models agents that maximize self-interest metrics. This makes possible situational altruism, a sophisticated form of unselfish behavior in which the preferences of another agent are accommodated provided that the other agent will actually take advantage of the sacrifice. This approach also makes possible the creation of groups in which every decision maker receives due consideration. We present simulation results from a variety of scenarios in which the aircraft are limited to constant-speed heading-change maneuvers to avoid conflicts. We show that the satisficing approach results in behavior that is attractive both in terms of safety and performance. The results underscore the applicability of satisficing game theory to multiagent problems in which self-interested participants are inclined to cooperation.
Design and development of a wind tunnel model for high angle of attack active control experiments

Aircraft that are able to fly at high angles of attack are very maneuverable. There are a number of interesting control problems associated with fighters performing PST maneuvers. A wind tunnel model was built to help develop and evaluate control law design methods. The rig design is described in some detail. Some open loop features of the model that restrict the achievable closed loop performance are presented. The use of H∞ loop-shaping to design controllers for the rig is motivated. A preliminary controller design is presented and tested in simulation.
A survey of display device properties and visual acuity for visualization

The advent of computers with high processing power has led to the generation of huge datasets containing large numbers of elements, where each element is often characterized by multiple attributes. This has led to a critical need for ways to explore and analyze large, multidimensional information spaces. Visualization lends itself well to this challenge by enabling users to visually explore, analyze, and discover patterns within their data. Most visualization techniques are based on the assumption that the display device has sufficient resolution, and that our visual acuity is adequate to complete the analysis tasks. This may not be true however, particularly for specialized display devices (e.g., PDAs, or large-format projection walls). This paper discusses which properties of a display device need to be considered when visualizing large, multidimensional datasets. We also investigate the strengths and limitations of our visual system, in particular to understand how basic visual properties like color, texture, and motion are distinguished. These findings will form the basis for new research on how to best match a visualization design to a display’s physical characteristics and a viewer’s visual abilities.
Nuclear efflux of heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein C1/C2 in apoptotic cells: a novel nuclear export dependent on Rho-associated kinase activation

Using a proteomic approach, we searched for protein changes dependent on Rho-associated kinase (ROCK) during phorbol-12-myristate-13-acetate (PMA)-induced apoptosis. We found that heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein C1 and C2 (hnRNP C1/C2), two nuclear restricted pre-mRNA binding proteins, are translocated to the cytosolic compartment in a ROCK-dependent manner in PMA-induced pro-apoptotic cells, where nuclear envelopes remain intact. The subcellular localization change of hnRNP C1/C2 appears to be dependent on ROCK-mediated cytoskeletal change and independent of caspase execution and new protein synthesis. Such a ROCK-dependent translocation is also seen in TNFα-induced apoptotic NIH3T3 cells. By overexpressing the dominant active form of ROCK, we showed that a ROCK-mediated signal is sufficient to induce translocation of hnRNP C1/C2. Deletion experiments indicated that the C-terminal 40-amino-acid region of hnRNP C1/C2 is required for ROCK-responsive translocation. By using nuclear yellow fluorescent protein (YFP) fusion, we determined that the C-terminal 40-amino-acid region of hnRNP C1/C2 is a novel nuclear export signal responsive to ROCK-activation. We conclude that a novel nuclear export is activated by the ROCK signaling pathway to exclude hnRNP C1/C2 from nucleus, by which the compartmentalization of specific hnRNP components is disturbed in apoptotic cells.
Continuous sampling from distributed streams

A fundamental problem in data management is to draw and maintain a sample of a large data set, for approximate query answering, selectivity estimation, and query planning. With large, streaming data sets, this problem becomes particularly difficult when the data is shared across multiple distributed sites. The main challenge is to ensure that a sample is drawn uniformly across the union of the data while minimizing the communication needed to run the protocol on the evolving data. At the same time, it is also necessary to make the protocol lightweight, by keeping the space and time costs low for each participant. In this article, we present communication-efficient protocols for continuously maintaining a sample (both with and without replacement) from k distributed streams. These apply to the case when we want a sample from the full streams, and to the sliding window cases of only the W most recent elements, or arrivals within the last w time units. We show that our protocols are optimal (up to logarithmic factors), not just in terms of the communication used, but also the time and space costs for each participant.