Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
On the fairness of transport protocols in a multi-path environment

Today, a steadily growing number of devices contains multiple network interfaces. For example, nearly all smartphones are equipped with at least W-LAN as well as 3G/4G interfaces. In consequence, there is a rising demand for so-called multi-path transfer, which utilizes all of these interfaces simultaneously in order to maximize the payload throughput of applications. Currently, this so-called multi-path transfer is very actively discussed by the IETF, in form of the Multi-Path TCP (MPTCP) extension for TCP as well as the Concurrent Multi-path Transfer extension for SCTP (CMT-SCTP). Their larger-scale deployment in the Internet is expected for the near future. A key issue that prevents the standardization of these approaches is the fairness to concurrent TCP flows. A multi-path transfer should behave “TCP-friendly”, i.e. cause no harm to the performance of the very widely deployed TCP-based applications. In this paper, we first extend the notion of “fairness” from single-path transport to multi-path transport. Furthermore, we introduce the relevant congestion control approaches in the IETF context for single-path as well as multi-path transfer. We simulatively analyze these approaches in a couple of interesting network configuration scenarios, in order to show their behavior with special regard to the fairness definitions. Particularly, we also point out items of further discussion which are the result of the current approaches.
Controlling Change on Agile Software Development Projects

The importance of effective change control when developing software is well known throughout the Information Technology (IT) industry. Any software development project will deal with various forms of change throughout its lifetime, and without effective change control processes in place changes can lead to unforeseen, and often negative, consequences for an organization (8). Yet despite this, change will almost always occur, and should therefore be anticipated. The change control processes in place on a software development project vary depending on the software development methodology being utilized (3). Agile software development methodologies have become increasingly popular in recent years, with eighty-eight percent of respondents in a 2013 survey stating that their organization was practicing Agile (1). According to Winter (1), Scrum is the most popular of the various Agile methodologies. A primary motivation for switching to Agile methodologies such as Scrum has been to better manage changes that were always inevitable, yet difficult to manage when utilizing traditional software development methodologies, such as the Waterfall methodology (4). As more and more organizations transition to the Agile Scrum methodology, they must ensure processes are in place to properly control all forms of change. This includes changes that fall within the scope of a single project, as well as changes with a scope that extends across the enterprise. This paper explores various forms of change control and provides strategies and methods for effectively controlling and managing all forms of change on Agile software development projects.
Hypertension in elderly persons.

OBJECTIVE To provide an overview of the prevalence of hypertension in the elderly population and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of various classes of antihypertensive drugs. METHODS We review the published clinical trials on treatment of elderly patients with hypertension and describe adverse reactions that are frequently associated with antihypertensive therapy. RESULTS On the basis of the standard for control of hypertension established by the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey for 1988-1991 (140/90 mm Hg), almost 75% of all African-Americans and 50% of all whites 60 to 74 years of age have hypertension. If modifications in lifestyle (such as weight reduction and increase in exercise) do not normalize blood pressure levels, drug therapy is warranted. Meta-analyses of major trials of treatment of hypertension have revealed significant reductions in cardiovascular-related mortality and stroke, and available data indicate that prudent use of antihypertensive agents is associated with an acceptable degree of toxicity. Low-dose thiazide diuretics and b-blockers remain the agents of choice. CONCLUSION Several trials have substantiated the effectiveness of treatment of hypertension in elderly subjects. Drug therapy should be initiated at low doses, and careful follow-up should monitor for adverse effects.
Contract Shop Epistemology: Credibility and Problem Construction in Applied Social Science

The use of social scientific expertise in forming state policies alters the social structure of scientific fields in a way that has important cognitive consequences. In particular, it leads to a competition between holders of traditional forms of academic recognition, and those who are distinguished by their administrative capacity and links to state personnel. Controversies over the authoritative measurement of the effects of state social policies reflect a social struggle between holders of these two kinds of capital or `credibility. ' Based on a case study of evaluation of federal job training programmes in the USA, this paper shows that researchers in academic departments and in non-academic `contract-shops' compete to impose different definitions of research problems and objects of study. These definitions, in turn, favour their interests in accumulating different forms of credibility. Academic economists favour a rationalist approach using formal models, while contract shop researchers promote a case-based empiricism and social experiments.
Direct manipulation of free-form deformations

Free-form deformation (FFD) is a powerful modeling tool, but controlling the shape of an object under complex deformations is often difﬁcult. The interface to FFD in most conventional systems simply represents the underlying mathematics directly; users describe deformations by manipulating control points. The difﬁculty in controlling shape precisely is largely due to the control points being extraneous to the object; the deformed object does not follow the control points exactly. In addition, the number of degrees of freedom presented to the user can be overwhelming. We present a method that allows a user to control a free-form deformation of an object by manipulating the object directly, leading to better control of the deformation and a more intuitive interface.
[The effects of a Korean traditional dance movement program in elderly women].

PURPOSE This study was aimed to identify the effects of a 12 week Korean traditional dance movement program on balance, depression, medical cost, medical institution's utilization and fall among elderly women. METHODS Using a quasi-experimental design, the experimental group was composed of 130 subjects and the control group was composed of 123 subjects. The experimental group participated in a 12 week Korean traditional dance movement program 3 times a week from December 2002 to February 2003. Data was analyzed with descriptive statistics, the chi-square test, paired t-test and t-test. RESULTS There was significant improvement in balance (right leg p=.000, left leg p=.004), depression (p=.000), and the medical institution's utilization (p=.001) and fall (p=.002) in the experimental group compared to the control group. CONCLUSION A Korean traditional dance movement program improved balance, depression, and decreased fall and medical cost in elderly women. Therefore, we recommend this program be utilized as a health promoting program and falls preventing program for the elderly in the community.
On the embodiment that enables passive dynamic bipedal running

The control and mechanical systems of an embodied agent should be tightly coupled so as to emerge useful functionalities such as adaptivity. This indicates that the mechanical system as well as the control system should be responsible for a certain amount of "computation" for generating the behavior. However, there still leaves much to be understood about to what extent "computational offloading" from the control system to the mechanical system should be achieved. In order to effectively consider this, here we particularly focus on a passive dynamic running biped whose behavior is generated purely from its mechanical system, and investigate how the body's properties influence the resulting behavior. Through the numerical simulations, we have found that two elastic parameters of its body, leg spring constant and hip coil spring constant, play a crucial role, and depending on which various kinds of stable gait patterns are generated. To the best of our knowledge, this has not been explicitly addressed so far. The results obtained are expected to shed a new light on to what extent the mechanical system should be responsible for generating the behavior.
A cloud-based approach to big graphs

Data sizes in today's Big Data age presents a profound scalability challenge to modeling networks as graphs. Historically, memory-based solutions were utilized to cope with high latency incurred by irregular data access common in many natural networks. But current data rates impose both economic and environmental challenges to continually expand the total aggregate system memory to “fit” the graph. Graph scalability has wide-reaching impact since network analysis has expanded beyond its traditional fields into many areas of research including neuroscience, genomics, bioinformatics, and social network analysis. We present a Cloud-based approach that scales with Big Data while being fault-tolerant, applying it on the largest problem size in the Graph500 benchmark to traverse a Petabyte graph consisting of over 4 trillion vertices and 70 trillion edges, a size nearly twenty times the physical memory capacity of our computing platform.
The Professional Development of Principals: Innovations and Opportunities

This article articulates the importance of professional development programs as complementary to preservice preparation. While on-the-job inservice programs offer preservice administrators a glimpse of the requirements for the position, they do not offer ample time to learn everything about the job prior to practicing. This article offers information about sources of professional development including universities, professional associations, governmental agencies, and not-for-profit organizations. Each source is analyzed, including the focus of the program, its purpose, curriculum, instructional strategies, location, internal coherence and integration of technology. The article also provides examples of exemplary programs offered by each source.
Development of a flexible imaging probe integrated to a surgical telerobot system: Preliminary remote control test and probe design

This work presents the current state of a project that aims to develop a new level of integration within the control of networked surgical telerobotics and to evaluate the capabilities of communication to support hardware and software architectures over Internet. The project will integrate a portable working prototype of a flexible, multi-bending imaging device to RAVEN, a 7-DOF cable-actuated surgical robot developed by the Biorobotics Laboratory at the University of Washington, USA. A preliminary test of remote operation from Qatar University in Doha to the RAVEN robot in Seattle, US, is presented as well as details concerning the design and implementation of a first prototype of the flexible endoscope.
Updated Information on Risk Factors for Lung Cancer: Findings from the JACC Study

BACKGROUND: In Japan, lung cancer is the top cause of cancer death in men and the third leading cause in women. Updated information on risk factors for lung cancer, therefore, is of great importance. The Japan Collaborative Cohort Study, a large prospective study started in 1988, has provided such information. METHODS: We reviewed published findings for lung cancer from the study. The endpoint was death from this cancer. RESULTS: The major findings were as follows. (1) The relative risks in current smokers versus nonsmokers were 4.46 in men and 3.58 in women. (2) Cigarette smoking accounted for 67.0% of lung cancer deaths in men and only 14.6% in women. (3) More than 15 years of smoking cessation may be required to decrease the risk of lung cancer to the level of never smokers. (4) A reduced risk was associated with frequent intake of green-leafy vegetables and fruit in men but not in women. These foods seemed to decrease the risk in male current or former smokers more than in female nonsmokers. (5) Serum levels of α- and β-carotenes, β-cryptoxanthin, and lycopene were inversely correlated with the risk in men. (6) In a preliminary study, serum 8-hydroxy-deoxyguanosine was higher in current smokers than in nonsmokers. CONCLUSIONS: The relative and attributable risks of smoking were smaller in Japan than in Western countries. In addition to smoking habits, therefore, we must pay attention to other risk factors for lung cancer or factors that modify the adverse effects of smoking including dietary factors.
The Relationships between Climate Variability and Crop Yield in a Mountainous Environment: A Case Study in Lamjung District, Nepal

Several studies have concluded that mountainous countries such as Nepal are more vulnerable to climate change; thus, a changing climate should have a significant impact on crop yields. This work aims to explore the impact of climate change on major crop yields in the mountainous parts of Nepal and to determine their relationships based on a regression model between historical climatic data and yield data for food crops. The study starts with an analysis of the last 30 years of climatic data from Lamjung district. Mann-Kendall and Sen’s Slope methods have been used for the trend analysis and quantification. The results showed an increase in temperature of approximately 0.02 ̋C to 0.07 ̋C per year in different seasons and a mixed trend in precipitation. Although there was no significant impact of the climate variables on the yields of all crops, the regression analysis revealed negative relationships between maize yield and summer precipitation and between wheat yield and winter minimum temperature, and a positive relationship between millet yield and summer maximum temperature.
Synthesis and local structure of doped nanocrystalline zinc oxides

Nanocrystalline zinc oxides are produced by chemical vapor synthesis and characterized by x-ray diffraction, high resolution transmission electron microscopy, nitrogen sorption, and extended x-ray absorption fine structure. Dopant elements (aluminum, gallium, and indium) influence the particle size of the powders as well as lattice parameters and local structure. The different effects of the three dopant elements are characterized.
KM Critical Success Factors: A Comparison of Perceived Importance Versus Implementation in Malaysian ICT Companies

Purpose – This research examines the level of perception and implementation of 11 identified knowledge management (KM) success factors and their differences among the information and communication technology (ICT) companies operating in Malaysia.Design/methodology/approach – The survey data was obtained from a study of 427 middle managers from 194 ICT companies using a set of structured questionnaire. Factor analysis was used to confirm that the 11 KM variables are valid and are in conformity to the literature review. Paired t‐test was then used to identify the differences between the KM factors perceived as important and the implementation of those factors.Findings – The results show that all the 11 factors are perceived as important for successful KM implementation, but there are significant differences between all the factors perceived as important and the level of implementation of those factors.Research limitations/implications – Future studies should include a bigger sample size and from various ind.
An Assessment of a Ka-Band Radar Interferometer Mission Accuracy Over Eurasian Rivers

The Water Elevation Recovery satellite mission is dedicated to the determination of land surface water extent, elevation, and slope using a Ka-band radar interferometer (KaRIn) as its primary instrument. Determining these parameters to the accuracy desired for hydrologic applications is challenging. The scientific objectives of the mission have been set up to 10 cm for the height budget and 10 murad (1 cm/1 km) for the slope budget. In this paper, we implement a Virtual Mission simulation and use it to examine the measurement performances for three case studies in Europe: a relatively small river such as the Meuse in Northern Western Europe, the Lena river in Russia, one of the major Siberian rivers, and Lake Leman in Western Europe. We simulate KaRIn data with the associated instrument and geophysical error sources and implement ground processing techniques to go from the original raw data to science data. We examine the impact of external errors in detail and implement calibration techniques that rely on the use of ancillary topographic data, such as the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission digital elevation model (DEM). We find that the impact of external errors can be reduced to a few centimeters. The random error budget can also be reduced below 10 cm by means of appropriate processing. The scientific requirements of the mission are shown to be met for all cases.
Multi-modality treatment for intracranial arteriovenous malformation associated with arterial aneurysm.

OBJECTIVE Intracranial arteriovenous malformation (AVM) associated with aneurysm has been infrequently encountered and the treatment for this malady is challenging. We report here on our clinical experience with AVMs associated with arterial aneurysms that were managed by multimodality treatments, including clipping of the aneurysm, microsurgery, Gamma-knife radiosurgery (GKS) and Guglielmi detachable coil (GDC) embolization. METHODS We reviewed the treatment plans, radiological findings and clinical courses of 21 patients who were treated with GKS for AVM associated with aneurysm. RESULTS Twenty-seven aneurysms in 21 patients with AVMs were enrolled in this study. Hemorrhage was the most frequent presenting symptom (17 patients : 80.9%). Bleeding was caused by an AVM nidus in 11 cases, aneurysm rupture in 5 and an undetermined origin in 1. Five patients were treated for associated aneurysm with clipping followed by GKS for the AVM and 11 patients were treated with GDC embolization combined with GKS for an AVM. Although 11 associated aneurysms remained untreated after GKS, none of them ruptured and 4 aneurysms regressed during the follow up period. Two aneurysms increased in size despite the disappearance of the AVM nidus after GKS and then these aneurysms were treated with GDC embolization. CONCLUSION If combined treatment using microsurgery, GKS and endovascular treatment can be adequately used for these patients, a better prognosis can be obtained. In particular, GKS and GDC embolization are considered to have significant roles to minimize neurologic injury.
The additive and synergistic antimicrobial effects of select frankincense and myrrh oils – a combination from the pharaonic pharmacopoeia

Aims: The in vitro antimicrobial activity of three essential oil samples of frankincense (Boswellia rivae, Boswellia neglecta and Boswellia papyrifera) and two essential oil samples of myrrh and sweet myrrh (Commiphora guidotti and Commiphora myrrha), collected from different regions of Ethiopia, was investigated independently and in combination to determine their anti‐infective properties.
Phenotypic plasticity and evolution by genetic assimilation

SUMMARY In addition to considerable debate in the recent evolutionary literature about the limits of the Modern Synthesis of the 1930s and 1940s, there has also been theoretical and empirical interest in a variety of new and not so new concepts such as phenotypic plasticity, genetic assimilation and phenotypic accommodation. Here we consider examples of the arguments and counter-arguments that have shaped this discussion. We suggest that much of the controversy hinges on several misunderstandings, including unwarranted fears of a general attempt at overthrowing the Modern Synthesis paradigm, and some fundamental conceptual confusion about the proper roles of phenotypic plasticity and natural selection within evolutionary theory.
Simulated patients in a mental health occupational therapy course: A pilot study

Introduction The use of simulated patients is well established in medicine and nursing. There is little research evaluating the use of simulated patients in occupational therapy education and none which focuses on mental health. This study sought to determine the acceptability and effectiveness of using simulated patients in a mental health occupational therapy course. The pilot also sought to address the challenge of providing simulation experience to a large number of students in a cost and time effective manner. Method Occupational therapy students participated in a simulation which involved an initial interview assessment with an actor portraying a person with a mental health diagnosis. The students worked in small groups for the simulation, rotating into the therapist role using a carousel model. Students completed a survey about their experience of the simulation. Results The students rated the simulation experience highly in terms of authenticity and learning outcomes. Qualitative analysis of open-ended responses produced five themes: authentic experience, developing skills, feedback and reflection, we should do more of this, and developing the experience further. Conclusion The pilot was effective in allowing a large number of students to engage directly with the simulated patient without negatively impacting on the experience.
Provider in Triage: Is This a Place for Nurse Practitioners?

The role of nurse practitioners (NPs) in emergency care continues to evolve. A new and exciting role is the provider-in-triage (PIT) role. This innovative role has been implemented in many emergency departments (EDs) across the country. It was developed primarily as a front-end strategy to improve throughput of patients receiving emergency care. The PIT process uses a provider, physician, NP, or physician assistant in the triage area. Patient satisfaction, quality measures, and financial improvements have been attributed to using a PIT. The emergency NP is an optimal choice for this role. Advanced emergency nursing knowledge, skills, and decision making confer the NP a cost-effective provider to improve throughput in the ED while providing quality emergency care.
An Exploration of Education

In this piece, the author explores the concepts of teaching and learning through the work of Plato and of the founders of Francis W. Parker School. The school was founded around a century ago as a progressive institution following viewpoints of leaders such as Francis Parker and John Dewey. After reading works by these authors and sitting in on a lower school classroom, the author attempts to formulate his personal philosophy of education. He then looks back on his own experience at the Francis W. Parker School in an attempt to determine how well he has followed his newfound philosophy and how well the institution he attends has followed the guidelines set down by its founders.