Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity

stewardship) are described in terms of how they can be transformed into daily metrics. The impetus to start a lean program is covered from the perspectives of cost reduction, patient satisfaction, labor costs, and satisfaction, and the needs for revenue and growth. The vision of a lean hospital is presented comprehensively from the perspectives of the facility, the patient experience, and the employee. As a resource, this reference is supported by the inclusion of lean lessons and discussion points following every chapter, as well as glossary terms for lean tools and techniques. These summaries and provocative questions reinforce the chapter highlights, and provide an effective diagnostic tool to support lean project definition and management even beyond healthcare. This publication overall surpassed my expectations as a serious and relevant reference, as well as an endto-end resource for deploying lean techniques in the workplace. This would also be a very useful book for people aspiring to prepare themselves for ASQ lean certification, or an equivalent peer recognition.
Analysis of the Role of Igf2 in Adrenal Tumour Development in Transgenic Mouse Models

Adrenal cortical carcinomas (ACC) are rare but aggressive tumours associated with poor prognosis. The two most frequent alterations in ACC in patients are overexpression of the growth factor IGF2 and constitutive activation of Wnt/β-catenin signalling. Using a transgenic mouse model, we have previously shown that constitutive active β-catenin is a bona fide adrenal oncogene. However, although all these mice developed benign adrenal hyperplasia, malignant progression was infrequent, suggesting that secondary genetic events were required for aggressive tumour development. In the present paper, we have tested IGF2 oncogenic properties by developing two distinct transgenic mouse models of Igf2 overexpression in the adrenal cortex. Our analysis shows that despite overexpression levels ranging from 7 (basal) to 87 (ACTH-induced) fold, Igf2 has no tumour initiating potential in the adrenal cortex. However, it induces aberrant accumulation of Gli1 and Pod1-positive progenitor cells, in a hedgehog-independent manner. We have also tested the hypothesis that Igf2 may cooperate with Wnt signalling by mating Igf2 overexpressing lines with mice that express constitutive active β-catenin in the adrenal cortex. We show that the combination of both alterations has no effect on tumour phenotype at stages when β-catenin-induced tumours are benign. However, there is a mild promoting effect at later stages, characterised by increased Weiss score and proliferation. Formation of malignant tumours is nonetheless a rare event, even when Igf2 expression is further increased by ACTH treatment. Altogether these experiments suggest that the growth factor IGF2 is a mild contributor to malignant adrenocortical tumourigenesis.
Learning bag of visual words for motorbike detection

Recent growth of traffic surveillance based on computer vision techniques has caught more and more attentions from researchers. Since the detection of vehicles is the primary step of such system, there is a large body of works towards developing an efficient detection scheme on various operating conditions. However, those works mainly focus on the detection of car and pedestrian. In this paper, we shift our attention to motorbike, which is also a common road user, especially in developing country. In comparison to other target objects, motorbike is rather small in size but has more complex structure. Thus, detecting motorbike is not a trivial task in real-life context where there is variance due to presence of motorbike drivers and high degree of occlusions. To address this problem, we propose a method for detecting motorbike from the scenes. Our method can achieve robustness to changes in illuminations, affine transformations and occlusions. Firstly, local features are extracted from images which contain one single target object. These local features represent parts of objects and are used to construct a Bag-of-Visual Words model. Using this model, each object is represented as a histogram of their parts. Next, a Support Vector Machine classifier is trained with these representations for classifying motorbike and non-motorbike objects. Finally, we develop an algorithm to form a detection hypothesis to detect multiple target objects from the scene. We collect a dataset of 3000 images for evaluating our proposed method. The experimental results indicate that our method can achieve high accuracy in the context of real-life motorbike detection applications.
VERBAL INTERFACE FOR VAGUE DISCRETE SHAPE MODELER

A method and apparatus for changing the operational state of an optical or optoelectronic sighting device from the READY state to an operational state and vice versa, wherein the change in the state of the device is effected automatically, thereby freeing the user's hands for use in other immediate tasks. The apparatus comprises an eyepiece, a deformable eye rest, shutter means formed integrally therewith, transmitter means, receiver means, reflecting means fixed to the shutter means, and switch means. In the READY state, only those parts of the apparatus which require a relatively longer start-up time are energized. Also, in the READY state, a beam is transmitted from the transmitter means to the reflecting means and then back to the receiver means. When the user presses his head against the deformable eye rest, the eye rest deforms and the shutter means opens, uncovering the sight channel formed by the eyepiece and the eye rest. Also, the optical path of the transmitted beam is interrupted. The switch means opens in response to this interruption, thereby fully energizing the apparatus and transferring it from the READY state to its operational state. When the head of the user is removed, the shutter means are restored to the closed position and the apparatus is switched back to the READY state.
Modeling Perfect and Minimal Rejuvenation for Client Server Systems with Heterogeneous Load

In the present study a client-server system is considered, which experiences resource degradation as clients' requests increase. Software rejuvenation is performed in order to counteract resource exhaustion. Two different levels of rejuvenation actions are implemented, perfect, and minimal. Moreover the concept of a failed rejuvenation is introduced to model the fact that rejuvenation due to some circumstances cannot be accomplished. As the load of such a system varies from hour to hour but reveals a cyclic behavior from day to day, different rejuvenation policies for each period of the day are proposed using a cyclic non-homogeneous Markov (CNHM) model. As a measure of performance, the steady-state expected downtime cost is considered. Additionally, to set off the need of CNHM modeling, the system is also modeled by a Homogeneous Markov Chain (HMC) and the performance results are compared.
AN EMPIRICAL VALIDATION OF THE METHODOLOGY FOR MEASURING SELF-PERCEIVED AGE IN THE MIDDLE EASTERN MARKET

The authors present and validate a method for measuring cognitive age in the Middle Eastern market. The proposed cognitive age measure appears to show internal consistency, reliability, and correlation with actual chronological age. Specifically, cognitive age is only slightly lower on average than actual chronological age among Middle Eastern consumers, and these differences are much less pronounced than has been found in previous cross-cultural studies. The cognitive age measure also demonstrates predictive validity regarding consumption behavior in the retail coffee industry. The findings show that as both measures of age increase, buyers are satisfied with a greater percentage of retailers. Nevertheless, as both forms of age increase, consumers visit fewer coffee shops per year. Although they tend to make fewer visits, both cognitively and chronologically older consumers spend more money on each retail coffee shop visit. In addition, total coffee consumption increases with increased cognitive and chronological age, presumably driven by greater consumption in non-retail venues.
DISCUSSION of “Evidence of chaos in the rainfall-runoff process” Which chaos in the rainfall-runoff process?

Abstract In the 1980s, there were numerous claims, based on estimates of the correlation dimension, that the variability of various geophysical processes, in particular rainfall, is generated by a low-dimensional deterministic chaos. Due to a recent attempt (Sivakumar et al., 2001) to revive the same approach and with claims of an analogous result for the rainfall-runoff process, we think it is necessary to clarify why this approach can be easily misleading. At the same time, we ask which chaos is involved in the rainfall-runoff process and what are the prospects for its modelling?
HIGH PERFORMANCE LOW PHASE NOISE PLL CLOCK SYNTHESIZER WITH LVDS OUTPUTS

This paper presents the design and performance of a phase-locked-loop (PLL) clock synthesizer for low-jitter clock synthesizer applications. This product operates in the range of 100 MHz to 700 MHz with very low phase noise and low-voltage-differential-signal (LVDS) outputs. The design focuses on the minimization of the phase noise, or timing jitter, of the PLL. Reduction of phase noise is achieved with proper choice of PLL circuit architecture, optimization of PLL loop parameters, careful design of the voltage-controlled-oscillator (VCO), cognizant matching of the charge pump currents, and careful physical layout design throughout. This novel PLL design does not require external components for operation that are typically required for load capacitors of the crystal oscillator. Additionally, the high-frequency LVDS outputs are compliant with the TIA/EIA-644 specification (IEEE Std 1596.3-1996). Clock generation is obtained with the use of a fundamental crystal in the range of 5-27 MHz or an external applied clock operating in the same frequency range. Within the PLL architecture is an internal RC filter that helps to determine the dynamic performance of the loop. Power is applied to a single VDD supply pin with operation in the range 3V-5V and capable of functioning down to 2.7V. The LVDS outputs produce a 400mV signal swing on a 1.2V common mode level under 50Omega load. The output common-mode level is maintained internally with common-mode-feedback (CMFB). This PLL design utilizes a 0.5-mum N-well CMOS process technology. The active die area is 1.6 mm2. It has been fully characterized after fabrication and meets all electrical specifications. For normal operation with a 3.3V supply, only 60mW is dissipated.
IT and Strategic Breakthroughs: How High Does High-Tech Need To Be?

This paper explores the role of Information Systems in breakthrough strategies and offers an alternative perspective to that found in most of the literature on this topic, which tends to be dominated by large, high-tech organizations. It presents a longitudinal case study of a comparatively small French based company that creates and manages wedding lists. This study demonstrates that it is possible for an organization to achieve a strategic breakthrough using relatively modest 'off the shelf' Information Technology. It indicates that, firstly, breakthrough strategies are based more upon innovations in business models than innovations in technology and secondly, that breakthrough strategies may actually reduce a company's reliance on high-tech solutions as a means of maintaining their competitive advantage. The nature of breakthrough strategies is discussed and the paper examines how well they fit into Henderson and Venkatraman's model of strategic alignment. The study highlights some areas of similarity, such as the iterative and interactive nature of strategic alignment; it also highlights some the difficulties of representing this particular strategy using this model.
Detecting anomalous Web server usage through mining access logs

Most operating systems services generate log files that can be used for debugging and supervision. One important function of log files is logging security related or debug information, for example logging unsuccessful authentication or error logging. This paper shows how to implement an anomaly detection process of web server's unexpected events using the the Apache web server's logs and applying supervised machine learning algorithms to extracted features. Also, we compare the classification performance of several algorithms that can be easily implemented in real-world scenarios.
A Sentiment Analysis of the Beliefs of the Pre-Service Practicum Students

In contemporary teacher education practice, teachers’ beliefs, practices and attitudes have always been an important aspect of training continuum and important for understanding and improving educational processes. Beliefs are supposed to be linked to teachers’ strategies to handle the difficulties in their professional life and to their overall psychological mood. Furthermore, they essentially construct students’ learning ambiance and influence their motivation and achievement. They are also considered as means to handle the effects of professional policies – such as revisions and improvements in curricula for teachers’ initial education or professional development on student learning. The purpose of this study is to investigate teaching practice from the perspective of student teachers' experiences and personal views using the sentiment and semantic analysis of the students’ essays on their views on practicum. The participants of the study are forty-seven senior year ELT students of Cukurova University. The sentiment analysis tool, LIWC, used was developed by Tausczik and Pennebaker (2010) based on psychometric properties of the categories of the lexical items.
Global Approaches to the Role of miRNAs in Drug-Induced Changes in Gene Expression

Neurons modulate gene expression with subcellular precision through excitation-coupled local protein synthesis, a process that is regulated in part through the involvement of microRNAs (miRNAs), a class of small non-coding RNAs. The biosynthesis of miRNAs is reviewed, with special emphasis on miRNA families, the subcellular localization of specific miRNAs in neurons, and their potential roles in the response to drugs of abuse. For over a decade, DNA microarrays have dominated genome-wide gene expression studies, revealing widespread effects of drug exposure on neuronal gene expression. We review a number of recent studies that explore the emerging role of miRNAs in the biochemical and behavioral responses to cocaine. The more powerful next-generation sequencing technology offers certain advantages and is supplanting microarrays for the analysis of complex transcriptomes. Next-generation sequencing is unparalleled in its ability to identify and quantify low-abundance transcripts without prior sequence knowledge, facilitating the accurate detection and quantification of miRNAs expressed in total tissue and miRNAs localized to postsynaptic densities (PSDs). We previously identified cocaine-responsive miRNAs, synaptically enriched and depleted miRNA families, and confirmed cocaine-induced changes in protein expression for several bioinformatically predicted target genes. The miR-8 family was found to be highly enriched and cocaine-regulated at the PSD, where its members may modulate expression of cell adhesion molecules. An integrative approach that combines mRNA, miRNA, and protein expression profiling in combination with focused single gene studies and innovative behavioral paradigms should facilitate the development of more effective therapeutic approaches to treat addiction.
Evaluating CORBA portability: the case of an object group service

One of the most attractive aspects of the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) lies in its open standard nature. Code that is based only on constructs described in the CORBA specification is portable between object request brokers (ORBs) without depending on any single ORB implementation. However, this portability feature is not completely achieved in real-world applications. This paper discusses CORBA portability issues through our experience in implementing a CORBA object group service (OGS) and porting it on different ORBs. In particular, we discuss some implementation choices we made with Orbix and VisiBroker, and we point out the impact of these choices on the service portability and interoperability. This sheds some light on whether the current CORBA specification is mature enough to be deployed in industrial systems that have requirements regarding portability and interoperability. We also present how new CORBA specifications solve part of the shortcomings mentioned in this paper.
Efficient Algorithms for Two-Phase Collision Detection

This article describes practical collision detection algorithms for robot motion planning. Attention is restricted to algorithms that handle rigid, polyhedral geometries. Both broad phase and narrow phase detection strategies are discussed. For the broad phase, an algorithm using axes-aligned bounding boxes and a hierarchical spatial hash table is described. For the narrow-phase, the Lin-Canny algorithm is presented. Alternatives to these algorithms are also discussed. Finally, the article describes a scheduling paradigm for managing collision checks that can further reduce computation time. Pointers to downloadable software are included. To appear in Practical Motion Planning in Robotics: Current Approaches and Future Directions, K. Gupta and A.P. del Pobil, editors. This work may not be copied or reproduced in whole or in part for any commercial purpose. Permission to copy in whole or in part without payment of fee is granted for nonpro t educational and research purposes provided that all such whole or partial copies include the following: a notice that such copying is by permission of Mitsubishi Electric Information Technology Center America; an acknowledgment of the authors and individual contributions to the work; and all applicable portions of the copyright notice. Copying, reproduction, or republishing for any other purpose shall require a license with payment of fee to Mitsubishi Electric Information Technology Center America. All rights reserved. Copyright c Mitsubishi Electric Information Technology Center America, 1997 201 Broadway, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139 1. First printing, TR97-23, December 1997
Collaborative Incident Handling Based on the Blackboard-Pattern

Defending computer networks from ongoing security incidents is a key requirement to ensure service continuity. Handling incidents in real-time is a complex process consisting of the three single steps: intrusion detection, alert processing and intrusion response. For useful and automated incident handling a comprehensive view on the process and tightly interleaved single steps are required. Existing solutions for incident handling merely focus on a single step leaving the other steps completely aside. Incompatible and encapsulated partial solutions are the consequence. This paper proposes an incident handling systems (IHS) based on a novel execution model that allows interleaving and collaborative interaction between the incident handling steps realized using the Blackboard Pattern. Our holistic information model lays the foundation for a conflict-free collaboration. The incident handling steps are further segmented into exchangeable functional blocks distributed across the network. To show the applicability of our approach, typical use cases for incident handling systems are identified and tested with our implementation.
Structuring Manufacturing Strategy

Manufacturing strategy comprises decisionmaking problems in terms of manufacturing practices to achieve manufacturing objectives through linkages of performance measurement. It is pervasively influential, long-term, and dynamic owing to the conformance with corporate strategy, business strategy, and marketing strategy. Therefore, there are many underlying sub-problems which can be expressed in a wide spectrum of forms. In this study, we will firstly define the spectrum of problem-structuring. After that, a decision analysis framework as a guide for modeling problems in different forms is introduced. Finally, a realistic problem is illustrated for discussions.
A Knowledge-theoretic Approach to Distributed Problem Solving

Traditional approaches to distributed problem solving have treated the problem as one of distributed search. In this paper, we propose an alternative, logic-based view of distributed problem solv- ing, whereby agents cooperatively solve problems by exchanging in- formation in order to derive the solution to a problem using logi- cal deduction. In particular, we give a knowledge theoretic model of distributed problem solving, and show how various problem solving strategies can be represented within this scheme.
Topological mapping, localization and navigation using image collections

In this paper we present a highly scalable vision-based localization and mapping method using image collections. A topological world representation is created online during robot exploration by adding images to a database and maintaining a link graph. An efficient image matching scheme allows real-time mapping and global localization. The compact image representation allows us to create image collections containing millions of images, which enables mapping of very large environments. A path planning method using graph search is proposed and local geometric information is used to navigate in the topological map. Experiments show the good performance of the image matching for global localization and demonstrate path planning and navigation.
Directed lines in sparse potentials

We present a continuum formulation of a (d+1)-dimensional directed line interacting with sparse potentials (i.e., d-dimensional potentials defined only at discrete longitudinal locations.) An iterative solution for the partition function is derived. The impulsive influence of the potentials induces discontinuities in the evolution of the probability density P(x,t) of the directed line. The effects of these discontinuities are studied in detail for the simple case of a single defect. We then investigate sparse columnar potentials defined as a periodic array of defects in (2+1) dimensions, and solve exactly for P. A nontrivial binding-unbinding transition is found.
Triadic interactions with tools in a gorilla

Triadic interactions are an important developmental milestone for young human infants, ultimately enabling them to acquire language. When an infant and a caregiver share attention regarding an object, the label given to the object becomes linked with the object, hence referential communication is established through which infants learn to associate words with meanings. In fact, triadic interactions are considered so crucial to human language development that their phylogenetic origins have become the focus of investigation to study the evolutionary history of language. In this paper, we report a communicative instance of a captive zoo gorilla apparently trying to engage zoo visitors in a joint task of retrieving food. The gorilla seemed to i nitiate a series of combined triadic interactions with different tools used as pointing devices while attempting to recruit a human for help. Even though it is a single observation event, we argue that the gorilla possessed relevant knowledge about the various purposes for which a specific tool can be used and utilized sophisticated communicative means in her interaction with humans.