Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Network orchestrator for QoS-enabled service function chaining in reliable NFV/SDN infrastructure

The promise of SDN/NFV to offer enhanced functionalities to the service provider networks is now tangible as both technologies have started being steadily investigated and experimentally demonstrated. However, a number of research challenges have not been fully addressed yet. More specifically, a limited interest has been devoted on how to assure reliability and QoS performance while data traverse service chain paths. In this work, we present an SDN orchestrator that periodically evaluate the availability status of the network and, accordingly, adapt service chain paths to recover from congestion events and to preserve QoS performance thus avoiding SLA violations. A prototype is presented along with a performance evaluation of the orchestrator in terms of improved data transfer capabilities against the cost of path adaptations and the controller overhead.
Trend: Podcasting in Academic and Corporate Learning

A method for curing mineral filled, ethylene-containing polymeric compositions with heat and without applying high pressures, which produces relatively dense and substantially non-porous cured polymeric products. The method comprises the addition of an organic titanate to a curable, mineral filled polymeric composition, and heat curing the composition at approximately ambient atmospheric pressures.
The U.S. Radiologist Workforce: An Analysis of Temporal and Geographic Variation by Using Large National Datasets.

PURPOSE To determine recent trends related to temporal as well as national and statewide geographic variation in the U.S. radiologist and radiology resident workforce. MATERIALS AND METHODS This retrospective HIPAA-compliant study was exempted from the internal review board. Federal Area Health Resources Files and Medicare 5% research identifiable files were used to compute parameters related to the radiologist workforce. Geographic variation and annual temporal trends were analyzed. Pearson and Spearman correlations were assessed. RESULTS Nationally, the number of radiology trainees increased 84.2% from a nadir in 1997 (3080 trainees) to 2011 (5674 trainees) and showed high state-to-state variation (range, 0-678 trainees in 2011). However, total radiologists nationally increased 39.2% from 1995 (27 906 radiologists) to 2011 (38 875 radiologists), and radiologists per 100 000 population nationally increased by 7.5% from 1995 (10.62%) to 2011 (11.42%), while showing high state-to-state variation (highest-to-lowest state ratio of 4.3). Radiologists' share of the overall physician workforce declined nationally by 8.8% from 1995 (4.0%) to 2011 (3.7%), with moderate state-to-state variation (highest-to-lowest state ratio of 1.7). Radiology trainee numbers exhibited weak-to-moderate positive state-by-state correlation with radiologists per 100 000 population (r = 0.292-0.532), but moderate-to-strong inverse correlation with the percentage of radiologists in rural practice (r = -0.464 to -0.635). CONCLUSION Although the number of radiology trainees dramatically increased, radiologists per 100 000 population increased only slightly, and radiologists' share of the overall physician workforce declined. State-to-state variations in radiologist and radiology resident workforces are high, which suggests a potential role for geographic redistribution rather than changes in the overall workforce size.
Evolution of Concept and Practice in Personnel Administration/Human Resource Management (PA/HRM)

This review describes the evolution of personnel administrationlhuman resource management (PAIHRM) and discusses current trends and issues in the field. Recent shifts in orientation, such as changes from personnel to human resources, from administration to management, andfrom human relations to organizational effectiveness, are surveyed. These shifts are interpreted as indicative of a search for a unifying analyticalframeworkfor PAIHRM. Integrative concepts from the organization sciences, particularly the idea of different labor market structures, are viewed as possibilities for synthesizing HRM strategy. Approaches for future research and practice are suggested.
Incense / Catfish and Mandala: Triple Vision

In this essay I provide a reading of Andrew X. Pham's Catfish and Mandala within a theoretical framework that I call Pham's "triple vision. " This vision expands upon W.E. B. Du- Bois's concept of "double consciousness," which describes the tension produced by white attitudes and prejudices toward black subjectivity. "Triple vision," on the other hand, includes his experience of "threeness," three warring ideals in one body. I do not see Pham as a giant standing straight, one foot in each country, his body symbolizing the ability to transcend rigid national boundaries. I instead argue that an unresolved struggle takes place, not between two, but at least three worlds: a Vietnamese American community dominated by first-generation Vietnamese, mainstream America, and Vietnam.
SHIFTED NMF WITH GROUP SPARSITY FOR CLUSTERING NMF BASIS FUNCTIONS

Recently, Non-negative Matrix Factorisation (NMF) has found application in separation of individual sound sources. NMF decomposes the spectrogram of an audio mixture into an additive parts based representation where the parts typically correspond to individual notes or chords. However, there is a need to cluster the NMF basis functions to their sources. Although, many attempts have been made to improve the clustering of the basis functions to sources, much research is still required in this area. Recently, Shifted Non-negative Matrix Factorisation (SNMF) was used to cluster these basis functions. To this end, we propose that the incorporation of group sparsity to the Shifted NMF based methods may benefit the clustering algorithms. We have tested this on SNMF algorithms with improved separation quality. Results show that this gives improved clustering of pitched basis functions over previous methods.
Compact Single-Layer RFID Tag Antenna Tolerant to Background Materials

Simple and low cost tag antenna with long reading distance in various environments is in great demand with its wide applications. This paper describes the design and optimization procedure of a single-layer tag antenna, which covers relatively long reading range when mounted on both metallic surface and various dielectrics. The antenna is based on the loop structure, with a small $ka$ of 0.66. Characteristic mode analysis is first performed to inspect how a typical loop structure radiates in free space and on PEC. Antenna structure is then designed based on the characteristics of the loop. Afterward, equivalent circuits of the tag antenna on dielectrics and on metal are extracted, in order to provide guidance for antenna optimization. The proposed tag antenna achieves the maximum reading distance of 6.1 m and 14.1 m, respectively, when mounted on metal and dielectrics with low permittivity. Measurements of the tag antenna were carried out in different environments, including outdoor scenario, indoor scenarios with low and high reflections. The measured results agree reasonably well with the predicted ones. The tag antenna is proved to be competitive in perspective of simple structure, low cost, long reading distance, and tolerance on various background materials.
Three-Dimensional Di use-Interface Simulation of Multispecies Tumor Growth-I: Numerical Method

A resilient sealing gasket of patch-like shape having a ring-like sealing lip that defines a continuous pressure chamber open to receive positive fluid flow, is mounted in a shape-conforming positioning on a valve control body that is adapted to be moved, slid or rotated into and out of a fluid flow closing-off position within a valve housing. The sealing portion of the gasket is cross connected along its central area, and the valve housing defines a fluid passageway therein that is serviced by inlet and outlet ports. A second sealing lip is also shown that is sensitive to positive fluid pressure applied in a direction opposite to fluid pressure applied to the first-mentioned sealing lip.
Teenagers’ Expectations of Applying to University: How do they Change?

We show how young people’s expectations about application to university change during the teenage years, drawing on the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England (LSYPE). We reveal the pattern of change by family background, prior attainment at the end of primary school (measured by Key Stage 2 tests) and, critically, the combination of the two. We document the relationship between expectations about university application and the decision on whether to stay on in full-time education at 16. We point to the importance of schools in sustaining or changing expectations. We relate the expectations reported by the teenagers in LSYPE to their actual university application decisions by age 20 or 21. Expectations are high but not universally high. Family background gaps in expectations widen during the teenage years.
Operating System Energy Accounting

Besides performance, energy is an important issue for operating systems—especially when they are running on a mobile platform. Targeting an optimal lifetime of the system battery, operating systems have to provide mechanisms for energy accounting and energy controlling. This document describes the prerequisites for an effective energy management. It also introduces ECOSystem and the Cinder operating system, two implementations of an energy-aware operating system, along with applications developed for these systems that demonstrate the benefits of energy management on operating systems.
Factor structures of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale: A meta-analysis of pattern matrices.

The dimensionality of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale was examined in this meta-analysis of 23 studies consisting of 80 independent samples representing a total sample of 32,491 participants. The 2-factor structure with a positive self-esteem factor defined by 5 positively worded items and a negative self-esteem factor defined by 5 negatively worded items was generally supported. However, samples in Schmitt and Allik (2005) generated a global self-esteem factor. High coefficients of congruence for noncounterpart factors revealed overlap between positive and negative self-esteem factors. Hence, the 1-factor solution is recommended unless further findings support that positive and negative self-esteem factors in fact measure substantively different underlying constructs.
Actin-induced Closure of the Actin-binding Cleft of Smooth Muscle Myosin*

The putative actin-binding interface of myosin is separated by a large cleft that extends into the base of the nucleotide binding pocket, suggesting that it may be important for mediating the nucleotide-dependent changes in the affinity for myosin on actin. We have genetically engineered a truncated version of smooth muscle myosin containing the motor domain and the essential light chain-binding region (MDE), with a single tryptophan residue at position 425 (F425W-MDE) in the actin-binding cleft. Steady-state fluorescence of F425W-MDE demonstrates that Trp-425 is in a more solvent-exposed conformation in the presence of MgATP than in the presence of MgADP or absence of nucleotide, consistent with closure of the actin-binding cleft in the strongly bound states of MgATPase cycle for myosin. Transient kinetic experiments demonstrate a direct correlation between the rates of strong actin binding and the conformation of Trp-425 in the actin-binding cleft, and suggest the existence of a novel conformation of myosin not previously seen in solution or by x-ray crystallography. Thus, these results directly demonstrate that: 1) the conformation of the actin-binding cleft mediates the affinity of myosin for actin in a nucleotide-dependent manner, and 2) actin induces conformational changes in myosin required to generate force and motion during muscle contraction.
Selecting Syntactic, Non-redundant Segments in Active Learning for Machine Translation

Active learning is a framework that makes it possible to efﬁciently train statistical models by selecting informative examples from a pool of unlabeled data. Previous work has found this framework effective for machine translation (MT), making it possible to train better translation models with less effort, particularly when annotators translate short phrases instead of full sentences. However, previous methods for phrase-based active learning in MT fail to consider whether the selected units are coherent and easy for human translators to translate, and also have problems with selecting redundant phrases with similar content. In this paper, we tackle these problems by proposing two new methods for selecting more syntactically coherent and less redundant segments in active learning for MT. Experiments using both simulation and extensive manual translation by professional translators ﬁnd the proposed method effective, achieving both greater gain of BLEU score for the same number of translated words, and allowing translators to be more conﬁdent in their translations 1 .
Modelling Performance in the Sustained Attention to Response Task

We present a computational model of human performance on the Sustained Attention to Response Task, a computer-based task in which people must withhold responses to infrequent and unpredictable stimuli during a period of rapid and rhythmic responding to frequent stimuli. The model, formulated within the ACT-R cognitive architecture, accounts for human performance in terms of two competing strategies and the dynamic modification of priorities given competing task demands to minimise both response time and error. The model suggests that such strategic factors may be responsible for the observed speed-accuracy trade-off rather than the alternative proposal based on sustained attention.
Data selection for noise robust exemplar matching

Exemplar-based acoustic modeling is based on labeled training segments that are compared with the unseen test utterances with respect to a dissimilarity measure. Using a larger number of accurately labeled exemplars provides better generalization thus improved recognition performance which comes with increased computation and memory requirements. We have recently developed a noise robust exemplar matching-based automatic speech recognition system which uses a large number of undercomplete dictionaries containing speech exemplars of the same length and label to recognize noisy speech. In this work, we investigate several speech exemplar selection techniques proposed for undercomplete speech dictionaries to find a trade-off between the recognition accuracy and the acoustic model size in terms of the amount of speech exemplars used for recognition. The exemplar selection criterion has be to chosen carefully as the amount of redundancy in these dictionaries is very limited compared to overcomplete dictionaries containing plenty of exemplars. The recognition accuracies obtained on the small vocabulary track of the 2nd CHiME Challenge and the AURORA-2 database using the complete and pruned dictionaries are compared to investigate the performance of each selection criterion.
Optimal Layered Transmission Over Quasi-Static Fading Channels

We consider layered transmission of a successively refinable complex Gaussian source over a quasi-static fading channel. For a given number of source coding layers, we propose an efficient algorithm to calculate the optimal rate assignment for each layer, as well as the optimal size of each layer. The optimality of the algorithm is proved and numerical results for a multiple antenna Rayleigh fading channel are presented. It is numerically shown that a small number of layers is usually sufficient to achieve most of the layering gain
Job satisfaction among radiology assistants: a multicentre cross-sectional study in Italy.

OBJECTIVES Job satisfaction among physicians is an important occupational health issue since it is related to different factors such as work motivation or career decisions. The aim of this study was to investigate job satisfaction among radiology assistants for the first time in Italy. METHODS In 2012, a cross-sectional survey was conducted among a convenience sample of radiology assistants drawn from all Italian regions who submitted an electronic or paper-based self-administered questionnaire. The data collected were analysed using logistic regressions in order to assess the role of socio-demographic variables. RESULTS Overall, 574 radiology assistants were interviewed. More than half of the subjects were males and were younger than 40 years old. Around 76% of the sample was not satisfied as regards salary. Moreover, the majority of the participants (66.1%) was not satisfied with the professional refresher courses. Compared with males, females were more satisfied in terms of professional enrichment (OR=1.79, 95% CI: 1.23-2.62) but less satisfied with their relationships with superiors (OR=0.57, 95% CI: 0.38-0.85). CONCLUSIONS Since radiology assistants and, in general, healthcare workers assist medical doctors, thus playing a significant role in safeguarding patients' health , it would be desirable to give due importance to the issue of job satisfaction, from all points of view.
Schema therapy for borderline personality disorder: Patients' and therapists' perceptions

Schema therapy (ST) is effective in promoting clinically meaningful gains that ameliorate symptomatology for borderline personality disorder (BPD). However very little is known about how the therapy is experienced by patients or therapists including which elements of ST are effective from patients’ and therapists’ perspectives. The aim of this study is to explore BPD patients’ experiences of receiving ST and therapists’ experiences in delivering ST. Qualitative data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 11 patients who had a primary diagnosis of BPD and eight trained schema therapists. Interview data were analysed following the procedures of inductive, content analysis. Patients’ broad perceptions of ST included the experience of greater self-understanding, better awareness of their own emotional processes and better connections with their emotions. While the process of ST was perceived as emotionally confronting, patient narratives highlighted that this was perceived as necessary. Therapists generally regarded their experience as rewarding based on patients’ positive responses to treatment, and discussed changes made in their professional (e.g. incorporating more ST in their therapy) and personal (e.g. increased self-awareness) lives. However therapists also described being confronted with novel challenging situations despite having years of therapy experience. Patients and therapists were concordant on several therapeutic components of ST (e.g. ST provides insight, benefits of experiential techniques) and some therapeutic group factors not specific to ST (e.g. sense of connection among group members). On the other hand there exists a possible interplay between level of patient dysfunction within the group and therapists’ ability to manage group conflict. Recommendations for more effective implementation of schema therapy are discussed as well as issues for other specialist treatment approaches to BPD particularly concerning termination of therapy and definitions of recovery. Finally implications of the findings are discussed in terms of assessing the suitability of patients for group ST.
Latent Herpes Simplex Virus Infection of Sensory Neurons Alters Neuronal Gene Expression

ABSTRACT The persistence of herpes simplex virus (HSV) and the diseases that it causes in the human population can be attributed to the maintenance of a latent infection within neurons in sensory ganglia. Little is known about the effects of latent infection on the host neuron. We have addressed the question of whether latent HSV infection affects neuronal gene expression by using microarray transcript profiling of host gene expression in ganglia from latently infected versus mock-infected mouse trigeminal ganglia. 33P-labeled cDNA probes from pooled ganglia harvested at 30 days postinfection or post-mock infection were hybridized to nylon arrays printed with 2,556 mouse genes. Signal intensities were acquired by phosphorimager. Mean intensities (n = 4 replicates in each of three independent experiments) of signals from mock-infected versus latently infected ganglia were compared by using a variant of Student's t test. We identified significant changes in the expression of mouse neuronal genes, including several with roles in gene expression, such as the Clk2 gene, and neurotransmission, such as genes encoding potassium voltage-gated channels and a muscarinic acetylcholine receptor. We confirmed the neuronal localization of some of these transcripts by using in situ hybridization. To validate the microarray results, we performed real-time reverse transcriptase PCR analyses for a selection of the genes. These studies demonstrate that latent HSV infection can alter neuronal gene expression and might provide a new mechanism for how persistent viral infection can cause chronic disease.
A Generalization of Circulant Matrices for Non-Abelian Groups

A circulant matrix of order n is the matrix of convolution by a fixed element of the group algebra of the cyclic group Zn. Replacing Zn by an arbitrary finite group G gives the class of matrices that we call G-circulant. We determine the eigenvalues of such matrices with the tools of representation theory and the non-abelian Fourier transform. Definition 1 An n by n matrix C is circulant if there exist c0, . , cn−1 such that the i, j entry of C is ci−j mod n, where the rows and columns are numbered from 0 to n − 1 and k mod n means the number between 0 and n− 1 that is congruent to k modulo n. For n = 5 a circulant matrix looks like  c0 c4 c3 c2 c1 c1 c0 c4 c3 c2 c2 c1 c0 c4 c3 c3 c2 c1 c0 c4 c4 c3 c2 c1 c0  Definition 2 Let G = {σ1, . , σn} be a finite group of order n. An n by n matrix C is G-circulant (with respect to the ordering of G) if the entry in row i and column j is a function of σiσ j . A circulant matrix is a Zn-circulant matrix with the ordering Zn = {0, 1, . , n − 1}. We call a matrix group-circulant if it is G-circulant for some group G and an ordering of the elements of G. Group-circulant matrices naturally arise as the transition matrices of Markov chains on finite groups. The state space is G and the probability of moving from τ to στ is pσ.
Abnormal eating attitudes in London schoolgirls — a prospective epidemiological study: outcome at twelve month follow-up

Synopsis The occurrence and course of eating disorder in a large representative population of 15-year-old London schoolgirls has been assessed using a two-stage survey methodology. Attempts to control weight were common and often transient. Dieting was in the great majority of girls found to be a benign practice without progression to more extreme concerns about food and weight. However, a small proportion of dieters did become cases and formed the majority of new cases found at follow-up. The relative risk of dieters becoming cases was eight times that of non-dieters. Many factors conventionally associated with eating disorder were associated more with attempting weight control than caseness. These included pre-morbid personality, pre-morbid obesity and family weight pathology. Other factors, including social class, career choice and psychosexual development, had no association either with attempting weight control or caseness.