Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Self-Esteem, Achievement Goals, and Self-Handicapping in College Physical Education

This study aims to investigate the relationships among self-esteem, achievement goals, and self-handicapping and the potential mediating role of achievement goals in the relationship between self-esteem and self-handicapping in college physical education. The participants were 320 Chinese college students. Three validated scales were employed to assess participants’ self-esteem, achievement goals, and self-handicapping in college physical education. Results showed that self-esteem had a negative effect on self-handicapping. Self-esteem had a positive effect on mastery goals, but had a negative effect on performance-avoidance goals. Mastery goals had a negative effect and performance-avoidance goals had a positive effect on self-handicapping. Moreover, mastery goals and performance-avoidance goals partially mediated the relationship between self-esteem and self-handicapping, and self-esteem had both direct and indirect effects on self-handicapping in college physical education. The findings indicate that improving individual’s self-esteem and promoting mastery goals while reducing performance-avoidance goals may be relevant strategies to reduce self-handicapping in college physical education.
3D face recognition using weighted geodesic distances

In this paper, we develop a novel face recognition method based on weighted geodesic distances for recognizing 3D facial models. Firstly, an automatic 3D landmarks extracting method combining with 2D texture is proposed. Then we present how to obtain stable distances set which is a specific subset of geodesic distances and insensitive to facial expressions. Finally, we test the proposed 3D face recognition method on CAIAS 3D face database. And conclude that it is feasible to utilize weighted geodesic distances on 3D face recognition.
The Pichia pastoris PER6 gene product is a peroxisomal integral membrane protein essential for peroxisome biogenesis and has sequence similarity to the Zellweger syndrome protein PAF-1

We report the cloning of PER6, a gene essential for peroxisome biogenesis in the methylotrophic yeast Pichia pastoris. The PER6 sequence predicts that its product Per6p is a 52-kDa polypeptide with the cysteine-rich C3HC4 motif. Per6p has significant overall sequence similarity with the human peroxisome assembly factor PAF-1, a protein that is defective in certain patients suffering from the peroxisomal disorder Zellweger syndrome, and with car1, a protein required for peroxisome biogenesis and caryogamy in the filamentous fungus Podospora anserina. In addition, the C3HC4 motif and two of the three membrane-spanning segments predicted for Per6p align with the C3HC4 motifs and the two membrane-spanning segments predicted for PAF-1 and car1. Like PAF-1, Per6p is a peroxisomal integral membrane protein. In methanol- or oleic acid-induced cells of per6 mutants, morphologically recognizable peroxisomes are absent. Instead, peroxisomal remnants are observed. In addition, peroxisomal matrix proteins are synthesized but located in the cytosol. The similarities between Per6p and PAF-1 in amino acid sequence and biochemical properties, and between mutants defective in their respective genes, suggest that Per6p is the putative yeast homolog of PAF-1.
An novel hierarchical control of microgrid composed of multi-droop controlled distributed power resources

To improve power sharing and power quality in ac microgrid composed of distributed power resources based on droop controlled voltage source converter, a novel hierarchical control of ac micro-grid according to different time scales is proposed in this paper. In short time scale, larger droop gains is adopted to improve power sharing. In larger time scale, the no load frequency and voltage set points of droop characteristics are adjusted, improving the voltage and frequency quality. The proposed hierarchical control can both limit the reactive power sharing errors and improve the power quality, which can be applied in complex microgrid configurations. Finally, the performance of the proposed control strategy is verified by digital time-domain simulation in PSCAD/EMTDC software.
Does pretreatment severity moderate the efficacy of psychological treatment of adult outpatient depression? A meta-analysis.

OBJECTIVE It is widely believed that psychological treatment has little effect on more severely depressed patients. This study assessed whether pretreatment severity moderates psychological treatment outcome relative to controls by means of meta-analyses. METHOD We included 132 studies (10,134 participants) from a database of studies (www.evidencebasedpsychotherapies.org) in which the effects of psychological treatment on adult outpatients with a depressive disorder or an elevated level of depressive symptoms were compared with a control condition in a randomized controlled trial. Two raters independently extracted outcome data and rated study characteristics. We conducted metaregression analyses assessing whether mean pretreatment depression scores predicted psychological treatment versus control condition posttreatment effect size and subgroup analyses summarizing the results of studies reporting within-study analyses of depression severity and psychological treatment outcome. RESULTS Psychological treatment was found to be consistently superior to control conditions (d = 0.40-0.88). We found no indication that pretreatment mean depression scores predicted psychological treatment versus control condition posttreatment effect size, even after adjusting for relevant study characteristics. However, among the smaller subset of studies that reported within-study severity analyses, posttreatment effect sizes were higher for high-severity patients (d = 0.63) than for low-severity patients (d = 0.22) when psychological treatment was efficacious relative to a more stringent control. CONCLUSION Contrary to conventional wisdom, our findings suggest that when compared with control conditions, psychological treatment might be more efficacious for high-severity than for low-severity patients. Because the number of studies reporting within-study severity analyses is small, we recommend that future studies routinely report tests for Severity × Treatment interactions.
An Improved ARIMA-Based Traffic Anomaly Detection Algorithm for Wireless Sensor Networks

Traffic anomaly detection is emerging as a necessary component as wireless networks gain popularity. In this paper, based on the improved Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) model, we propose a traffic anomaly detection algorithm for wireless sensor networks (WSNs) which considers the particular imbalanced, nonstationary properties of the WSN traffic and the limited energy and computing capacity of the wireless sensors at the same time. We systematically analyze the characteristics of WSN traffic, the causes of WSN abnormal traffic, and the latest related research and development. Specifically, we improve the traditional time series ARIMA model to make traffic prediction and judge the traffic anomaly in a WSN. Simulated and real WSN traffic data gathered from University of North Carolina are used to carry out simulations on Matlab. Simulation results and comparative analyses demonstrate that our proposed WSN traffic anomaly detection scheme has better anomaly detection accuracy than traditional traffic anomaly detection algorithms.
BIOMARKERS OF OXIDANT STRESS IN BRONCHIAL ASTHMA

Summary: Oxidant stress is believed to contribute to both the initiation and development of bronchial asthma (BA). As such, the pathophysiology of BA is characterised by the large generation of reactive oxygen spe cies (ROS) and reactive nitrogen species (RNS), predominantly by inflammatory cells of asthmatic airways. These species play an important role in remodelling airways and in orchestrating the type of inflammatory response. Oxidants influence the specific balance of Th1/Th2 cytokines, and together with Th2-cytokines and Th2 induced cells can cause many of the features typical of asthma. They induce bronchoconstriction, mucus secretion, effects on airway vasculature, and increase airway responsiveness to several agonists. This review discusses the necessity of oxidant stress evaluation in BA using reliable biomarkers, which provide an appropriate tool for studying oxidant stress. It is desirable to determine prooxidants and antioxidant systemic and local parameters in lung specific media such as bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL), sputum, exhaled air and breath condensate. These airway biomarkers may be representative indicators which could show the processes occurring on the airway surface, the initial site of oxidation. Thus, the examination of biomarkers is essential for establishing the potential target for antioxidant supplementation that would be able to normalise the oxidant/ antioxidant imbalance.
Expression of Kv 1 . 1 , a Shaker-Like Potassium Channel , Is Temporally Regulated in Embryonic Neurons and Glia

Kv1.1, a Shaker-like voltage-gated potassium channel, is strongly expressed in a variety of neurons in adult rodents, in which it appears to be involved in regulating neuronal excitability. Here we show that Kv1.1 is also expressed during embryonic development in the mouse, exhibiting two transient peaks of expression around embryonic day 9.5 (E9.5) and E14.5. Using both in situ hybridization and immunocytochemistry, we have identified several cell types and tissues that express Kv1.1 RNA and protein. At E9.5, Kv1.1 RNA and protein are detected transiently in non-neuronal cells in several regions of the early CNS, including rhombomeres 3 and 5 and ventricular zones in the mesencephalon and diencephalon. At E14.5, several cell types in both the CNS and peripheral nervous system express Kv1.1, including neuronal cells (sensory ganglia and outer aspect of cerebral hemispheres) and glial cells (radial glia, satellite cells, and Schwann cell precursors). These data show that Kv1.1 is expressed transiently in a variety of neuronal and non-neuronal cells during restricted periods of embryonic development. Although the functional roles of Kv1.1 in development are not understood, the cell-specific localization and timing of expression suggest this channel may play a role in several developmental processes, including proliferation, migration, or cell–cell adhesion.
Impedance Method Simplifies the Analysis of Double Dielectric Resonator (DDR)

A Double Dielectric Resonator (DDR) is used to obtain a wider frequency tuning range than a single resonator, with minimum reduction in the quality factor (Q). This paper presents a simple procedure for calculating the resonant frequency and the Q factor of a DDR in the TE01¿ mode. Analysis for coupling coefficient of a DDR to a microstripline in the TE01¿ mode is also given. Theoretical and measured results for DDR resonant frequency and the coupling coefficient are presented. The results show that a wider tuning range, high temperature stability oscillator can be realized using DDR with the two resonators having equal and opposite temperature coefficients.
Estimating the Expected Warning Time of Outbreak-Detection Algorithms

There are some existing evaluation methods, such as the AMOC curve [1], which focus on evaluating the timeliness of alerting algorithms. As the AMOC curve is typically applied in biosurveillance, it plots the expected time to computer-based detection (since the outbreak began) as a function of the false alert rate. In an EWT curve, we add a clinician model and plot the expected time that an algorithm would detect the outbreak before clinicians, as a function of the false alert rate.
A novel dual-hydrophone localization method in underwater sensor networks

In this paper, we propose a novel dual-hydrophone localization method, termed DHL, in underwater sensor networks. The objective is to reduce the impact of the serious disturbance of noise, poor link quality, long latency, limited bandwidth and low data rate. For underwater localization problems, DHL uses dual-hydrophone nodes to convert the localization problem into half-plane intersection issues. In particular, DHL adopts the sign of TDOA (Time difference of arrival) from the acoustic source to the pairwise hydrophones as the binary measurement information, in order to narrow the feasible region of the acoustic source. To test the performance of DHL, we evaluate it with extensive simulations. The simulation results demonstrate that DHL achieves higher robustness than the TDOA-based method when location and angle errors of nodes exist. Consequently, DHL is a promising scheme for underwater localization in adverse conditions.
Wavelet-Based Approach for Online Fuel Cell Remaining Useful Lifetime Prediction

Prognostics and health management (PHM) techniques for proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) systems are of great importance for increasing their reliability and sustainability. PEMFC systems suffer from relatively poor long-term performance and durability, and prediction and prognosis can give early indications about when components should be fixed or replaced. Prognostics modeling needs to take account of a number of phenomena, including degradation mechanisms that are not easily measured. A number of works are currently investigating PHM in fuel cell systems, as well as the problem of estimating remaining useful lifetime. Any reduction in the volume of data required for making predictions is clearly advantageous. In this paper, a univariate prognostic approach based on signal processing, namely discrete wavelet transform (DWT), is proposed. The proposed approach aims at achieving an online prognostic for PEMFC systems. DWT is first introduced, and then, the predictions are built using the power signals of two different PEMFC stacks in two different scenarios, namely static and dynamic operating conditions. Results show that the method is reliable for online prediction of power, with prediction errors less than 3%.
Materialized View Selection : A Survey

This is a draft of my contribution to a book chapter (doi: 10.4018/978-1-60566-816-1.ch005). We mainly categorize and review the existing approaches to materialized view selection. View selection addresses the problem of choosing materialized views in the design process of data warehouses. Informally, it can be stated as, given an estimated query workload and possibly also sets of candidate views, to select a set of views, such that some operation goals (e.g., average query response time, maintenance costs, or both) are optimized and meanwhile some resource constraints are satisfied. View selection, view maintenance, and answering queries using views (Halevy, 2001) comprise a relatively complete framework for query processing in data warehousing. In this section, we discuss the challenges of and solutions to the view selection problem. We first state the formal framework of the view selection problem and some theoretical aspects based on the framework (Section 1). We then describe a taxonomy that we use to classify view selection techniques (Section 2). The main body of view selection approaches in the static setting is then discussed (Section 3), where the query workload is assumed to be known in advance. Finally, dynamic view selection approaches are introduced (Section 4). 1 Theoretical Perspectives We focus on static view selection in this section and start by introducing a model treating the view selection problem as an optimization problem. View selection is handled as an optimization problem, which can be described as a tuple (S, V,M,Q), where S is the schema together with some size estimation model, V is the set of all the possible views to choose from, M is a quantity denoting the space available for materializing views, and Q is a set of queries. The problem is to find a subset of V that optimizes the queries against Q while the storage requirement is no larger than M . The overall evaluation cost is formulated as a weighted sum over Q: E(V ) = Σq∈QE(q, V )× f q where f q denotes the frequency of query q, and E(q, V ) is the minimal possible evaluation cost of q using the selected views V . Besides the cost of queries, view maintenance can be considered in a similar way : U(V ) = Σv∈VU(v)× f v
Nutritional status of rural adolescent school children in Paschim Medinipur, West Bengal.

This cross-sectional study was conducted in a higher secondary school, situated in a rural area within the Paschim Medinipur Sadar north subdivision about 29 Km from Midnapore town. Verification of age was done from the school records, as well from the answers to specific questions in the pre-tested questionnaire which was completed by every subject. A total of 1094 students, out of 665 (60.8%) boys and 429 (39.2%) girls aged 11-18 years were randomly selected.
Storing massive Resource Description Framework (RDF) data: a survey

Abstract The Resource Description Framework (RDF) is a flexible model for representing information about resources on the Web. As a W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) Recommendation, RDF has rapidly gained popularity. With the widespread acceptance of RDF on the Web and in the enterprise, a huge amount of RDF data is being proliferated and becoming available. Efficient and scalable management of RDF data is therefore of increasing importance. RDF data management has attracted attention in the database and Semantic Web communities. Much work has been devoted to proposing different solutions to store RDF data efficiently. This paper focusses on using relational databases and NoSQL (for ‘not only SQL (Structured Query Language)’) databases to store massive RDF data. A full up-to-date overview of the current state of the art in RDF data storage is provided in the paper.
Calibrating the power of schedulers for probabilistic polynomial-time calculus

It is customary to view the scheduler as an intruder when modelling security protocols by means of process calculi that express both nondeterministic and probabilistic behavior. It has been established that traditional schedulers need to be carefully calibrated in order to more accurately reflect an intruder's real power. We propose such a class of schedulers through a variant of the Probabilistic Poly-time Calculus (PPC) of Mitchell et al. (Theoretical Computer Science 353 (2006), 118-164) called PPC νσ. We define two levels of schedulers: adversarial schedulers which schedule a class of indistinguishable actions i.e. actions that we do not want an attacker to distinguish, and internal schedulers, called task schedulers, which resolve the remaining nondeterminism within a chosen class. We also show how to apply them in order to design schedulers for the analysis of cryptographic protocols that accurately reflect an intruder's capacity for controlling communication networks, without allowing it to control the internal reactions of the protocol under attack. We give a new characterization of the asymptotic observational equivalence of Mitchell et al. (Theoretical Computer Science 353 (2006), 118-164) that is more suited for taking into account any observable trace rather than just one single action. This asymptotic observational equivalence is a congruence in accordance with these new schedulers. We illustrate the aptness of our approach by an extensive study of the Dining Cryptographers (DCP) (J. Cryptology 1 (1988), 65-75) protocol. Research partially supported by an individual NSERC research grant (Canada) of the author.
Microwave single-scattering properties of randomly oriented soft-ice hydrometeors

Abstract. Large ice hydrometeors are usually present in intense convective clouds and may significantly affect the upwelling radiances that are measured by satellite-borne microwave radiometers – especially, at millimeter-wavelength frequencies. Thus, interpretation of these measurements (e.g., for precipitation retrieval) requires knowledge of the single scattering properties of ice particles. On the other hand, shape and internal structure of these particles (especially, the larger ones) is very complex and variable, and therefore it is necessary to resort to simplifying assumptions in order to compute their single-scattering parameters. In this study, we use the discrete dipole approximation (DDA) to compute the absorption and scattering efficiencies and the asymmetry factor of two kinds of quasi-spherical and non-homogeneous soft-ice particles in the frequency range 50–183 GHz. Particles of the first kind are modeled as quasi-spherical ice particles having randomly distributed spherical air inclusions. Particles of the second kind are modeled as random aggregates of ice spheres having random radii. In both cases, particle densities and dimensions are coherent with the snow hydrometeor category that is utilized by the University of Wisconsin – Non-hydrostatic Modeling System (UW-NMS) cloud-mesoscale model. Then, we compare our single-scattering results for randomly-oriented soft-ice hydrometeors with corresponding ones that make use of: a) effective-medium equivalent spheres, b) solid-ice equivalent spheres, and c) randomly-oriented aggregates of ice cylinders. Finally, we extend to our particles the scattering formulas that have been developed by other authors for randomly-oriented aggregates of ice cylinders.
Innovative Optical and Electronic Interconnect Printed Circuit Board Manufacturing research

An overview of the pound1.3 million EPSRC and company matched funded Innovative electronics Manufacturing Research Centre (IeMRC) Flagship project between 3 UK universities and 10 companies entitled ldquointegrated optical and electronic interconnect PCB manufacturingrdquo. The project aims to develop of optical waveguide design rules, layout software, fabrication methods compatible with commercial production, characterisation techniques and optical connector design to provide a supply chain for Polymer Multimode Optical Waveguide Printed Circuit Boards (OPCB) for 10 Gb/s board-to-board interconnections.
Using Panoramic Images and Optical Flow to Avoid Obstacles in Mobile Robot Navigation

This paper addresses the use of panoramic images to avoid obstacles in mobile robot indoor navigation. A catadioptric sensor installed onboard a mobile robot is used to acquire panoramic views covering 180 degrees of the horizon in front of the robot. The optical flow field corresponding to two of such views is calculated, which is used to guide the robot to reactively avoid obstacles. A strategy to define how much the current robot orientation should be changed and a controller to guarantee that such a change is accomplished are here proposed. Experimental results validating such a system are also presented. The main contribution of the proposed system is that the robot becomes able to avoid wide obstacles, which would be too much difficult using a camera with a narrow field of vision. An important aspect, regarding the narrow-field-of-vision case, is that the object becomes wider as the robot gets closer to it.
Effects of different stepwise reduction taper protocols on cycling performance.

This study examined the effects of different 7-day taper protocols on simulated 20-km time trials (20TT). Following 3 weeks of baseline training, 11 male cyclists (.VO2max = 4.78 +/- 0.66 L.min-1) were randomly assigned to one of three stepwise reduction tapers in which training volume was reduced by 30% (T30, n = 5), 50% (T50, n = 6), or 80% (T80, n = 6) of baseline training with intensity (85% .VO2max) maintained. Cardiorespiratory measurements were collected every 5 km during the 20TT. Results revealed a significant (5.4%, 0.05) improvement in 20TT performance in the T50 protocol with concomitant increases in . VO2 and O2 pulse. No significant differences were found in T30 or T80. These results showed that a moderate (50%) reduction in weekly training volume appeared to be optimal in terms of enhancing performance. This confirms the contention that proper placement of training volume during tapering, while maintaining exercise intensity, can elicit performance improvements.