Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The mutual benefits of primary-secondary user cooperation in wireless cognitive networks

In cognitive radio networks, secondary users (SUs) may cooperate with the primary user (PU) in order to obtain more transmission opportunities and thus maximize their throughput. The synergy consists in the following: the SU opts to cooperate by using its own transmit power to improve the probability of successful transmission of the PU. By increasing the probability of successful packet transmission for the PU, the SU essentially increases the service rate of the PU queue and thus, for given packet arrival rate, it increases the chances that it will be empty, and the channel will be free to use. Due to power limitations however, SUs have to take intelligent decisions on whether to cooperate or not and at which power level. Cooperation policies in this framework require the solution of a constrained Markov decision problem with infinite state space. In our work, we restrict attention to the class of stationary policies that take randomized decisions of an SU activation and its transmit power in every time slot based only on spectrum sensing. The proposed class of policies is shown to achieve the same set of SU rates as the more general policies, while significantly enlarging the stability region of the PU queue. Finally, a lightweight distributed protocol based on the proposed class of policies is presented, which is amenable to implementation in realistic scenarios.
Identification of a Novel Alternatively Spliced Variant Endothelin Converting Enzyme-1 Lacking a Transmembrane Domain

Endothelin-converting enzyme (ECE)-1 cleaves big endothelins, as well as bradykinin and β-amyloid peptide. Several isoforms of ECE-1 (ECE-1a, 1b, 1c, and 1d) have been identified to date, they differ only in their amino terminus and share the catalytic domain located in the C-terminal end. In addition to full-length ECE-1 forms, we identified novel, alternatively spliced messenger RNAs (mRNAs) of ECE-1b, 1c, and 1d. These splice variants (SVs) lack exon 3′, which codes for the transmembrane (TM) region and is present in full-length forms. SV mRNAs were highly expressed in endothelial cells (EC) derived from macrovascular and microvascular beds. Analyses of ECE-1d and its SV forms in stably transfected human embryonic kidney (HEK)-293 cells revealed that both proteins were recognized by antibodies to C-terminal ECE-1, but an antibody to the N-terminal only bound ECE-1d. The novel protein, designated ECE-1sv, has an apparent molecular weight of 75 kDa. ECE-1sv lacks the TM sequence (or signal peptide) and, therefore, is expected to remain cytosolic. Presence of ECE-1sv in different cellular compartments than the full-length forms of the ECE-1 may suggest a distinct physiologic role for these proteins.
Automating the Acquisition of Tactical Knowledge for Military Missions

It is widely accepted that acquisition of the knowledge behind military tactics has been one limiting factor in the development of computer generated forces (CGF) for training simulations. This has been addressed by several researchers with varying degrees of success. A system capable of building a knowledge base directly from a dialogue with a subject-matter expert (SME) could significantly reduce the human effort involved in capturing the knowledge and representing it directly in the modeling language. Because of its highly modular and hierarchical nature, the context-based reasoning (CxBR) modeling paradigm lends itself very well to facilitating the knowledge acquisition process for tactical behaviors. This paper describes an investigation into using CxBR as the foundation for a system that creates a (partial) model of tactical behavior through an interactive process with an SME. Through a sequence of queries from the system, the SME is progressively asked to provide details about the contexts that compose the context-based model of the expert's tactical know-how. A prototype was built and evaluated. A comparison to the effort taken to manually develop a knowledge base is reported. We use the simulation of a non-trivial maritime military confrontation as the benchmark for the comparisons.
Organisational change : understanding the pattern and the dynamics

Extracted from text . Organisational change: understanding the pattern and the dynamics I Rosabeth Moss Kanter is a professor at Harvard Business School, the author of 15 books and a business consultant. This interview was first published in Business Minds and is reproduced with permission. Culture is not fuzzy attitudes; it includes all the pieces of the organisational structure and the culture of innovation. In this interview which first appeared in Business Minds, published by Financial Times Prentice Hall, Rosabeth Moss Kanter talks about business change and the dimensions of this phenomenon when she discusses the influences and aspirations that lie behind her .
Listening Level Changes Music Similarity

We examine the effect of listening level, i.e. the absolute sound pressure level at which sounds are reproduced, on music similarity, and in particular, on playlist generation. Current methods commonly use similarity metrics based on Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCCs), which are derived from the objective frequency spectrum of a sound. We follow this approach, but use the level-dependent auditory spectrum, evaluated using the loudness models of Glasberg and Moore, at three listening levels, to produce auditory spectrum cepstral coefficients (ASCCs). The ASCCs are used to generate sets of playlists at each listening level, using a typical method, and these playlists were found to differ greatly. From this we conclude that music recommendation systems could be made more perceptually relevant if listening level information were included. We discuss the findings in relation to other fields within MIR where inclusion of listening level might also be of benefit.
Consumer antibacterial soaps: effective or just risky?

BACKGROUND Much has been written recently about the potential hazards versus benefits of antibacterial (biocide)-containing soaps. The purpose of this systematic literature review was to assess the studies that have examined the efficacy of products containing triclosan, compared with that of plain soap, in the community setting, as well as to evaluate findings that address potential hazards of this use--namely, the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. METHODS The PubMed database was searched for English-language articles, using relevant keyword combinations for articles published between 1980 and 2006. Twenty-seven studies were eventually identified as being relevant to the review. RESULTS Soaps containing triclosan within the range of concentrations commonly used in the community setting (0.1%-0.45% wt/vol) were no more effective than plain soap at preventing infectious illness symptoms and reducing bacterial levels on the hands. Several laboratory studies demonstrated evidence of triclosan-adapted cross-resistance to antibiotics among different species of bacteria. CONCLUSIONS The lack of an additional health benefit associated with the use of triclosan-containing consumer soaps over regular soap, coupled with laboratory data demonstrating a potential risk of selecting for drug resistance, warrants further evaluation by governmental regulators regarding antibacterial product claims and advertising. Further studies of this issue are encouraged.
On Oscillation-free ε-random Sequences II

It has been shown (see [10]), that there are strongly MartinLöf-ε-random ω-words that behave in terms of complexity like random ω-words. That is, in particular, the a priori complexity of these ε-random ω-words is bounded from below and above by linear functions with the same slope ε. In this paper we will study the set of these ω-words in terms of Hausdorff measure and dimension. Additionally we find upper bounds on a priori complexity, monotone and simple complexity for a certain class of ω-power languages.
Spatial alignment over retinal scotomas.

PURPOSE Perceptual completion can mask the presence of physiological and pathologic retinal scotomas. This psychophysical study used a spatial alignment task to examine the processes underlying this perceptual completion. Similarities between the completion of pathologic and physiological scotomas would be consistent with large-scale reorganization of the visual system in eye disease METHODS In five control subjects with no eye disease, Vernier alignment thresholds were measured over the physiological blind spot at the optic nerve head and over equally eccentric temporal retina. For nine subjects with retinal scotomas, alignment thresholds were measured over the maximum vertical extent of the larger scotoma in one eye and at an equal separation and eccentricity in the eye with a smaller or no scotoma RESULTS In control subjects, alignment thresholds were better over the physiological blind spot than over equally eccentric temporal retina (P < 0.05). Alignment thresholds were no better over pathologic retinal scotomas than more intact, equally eccentric retina (P = 0.9) CONCLUSIONS These quantitative differences implicate different mechanisms for perceptual completion over pathologic and physiological retinal scotomas. Filling in across pathologic scotomas appears to involve higher level image processing-based mechanisms that operate even when their input is interrupted. Filling-in at the optic nerve head involves additional low-level processes that may be hardwired, in which receptive fields span the blind spot and support fine orientation discriminations. These results argue against low-level reorganization of the visual system in people with retinal disease.
Dreaming and the place of consciousness in nature

The research program defended by O'Regan & Noe (O&N) cannot give any plausible explanation for the fact that during REM-sleep the brain regularly generates subjective experiences (dreams) where visual phenomenology is especially prominent. This internal experience is almost invariably organized in the form of “being-in-the-world. ” Dreaming presents a serious unaccountable anomaly for the sensorimotor research program and reveals that some of its fundamental assumptions about the nature of consciousness are questionable.
Does Conforming Make Us More Liked? Perceptions of Conformist and Non-conformist Behaviour

Although social psychologists have long argued tha t conformity is motivated by a concern for social approval, very few studies have tested whether conformity actually results in increased approval of the conformist. The present r search examined participants’ evaluations of confederates who displayed either conformist or non -co formist behaviour. Studies 1 and 2 used a music task, in which remote confederates either c onformed or did not conform to participants’ choices for favourite music clips. Participants e valuated confederates by rating them on a series of both positive and negative descriptors. Relativ e o non-conformists, conformists were rated more favourably on items that referred to ‘liking’ (e.g., likeableness, willingness to befriend) (Studies 1 & 2), and less favourably on items that referred to “independence” (e.g., independence, originality, strength) (Study 2). In terestingly, although conforming confederates were judged as less independent than were confedera t s who simply agreed with (rather than conformed to) participants’ choices, conformity did not have a positive effect on liking over and above mere agreement (Study 2). Conformity, rather than being a means of gaining approval, might be better construed as a means of avoiding di sapproval. Study 2 further examined evaluations made by observers who were exposed to t he same confederate behaviours as were targets; however, no observer-target difference in rati gs was found.
Story segmentation and detection of commercials in broadcast news video

The Informedia Digital Library Project allows full content indexing and retrieval of text, audio and video material. Segmentation is an integral process in the Informedia digital video library. The success of the Informedia project hinges on two critical assumptions: that we can extract sufficiently accurate speech recognition transcripts from the broadcast audio and that we can segment the broadcast into video paragraphs, or stories, that are useful for information retrieval. In previous papers we have shown that speech recognition is sufficient for information retrieval of pre-segmented video news stories. We now address the issue of segmentation and demonstrate that a fully automatic system can extract story boundaries using available audio, video and closed-captioning cues. The story segmentation step for the Informedia Digital Video Library splits full-length news broadcasts into individual news stories. During this phase the system also labels commercials as separate "stories". We explain how the Informedia system takes advantage of the closed captioning frequently broadcast with the news, how it extracts timing information by aligning the closed-captions with the result of the speech recognition, and how the system integrates closed-caption cues with the results of image and audio processing.
Seeing Yourself in the Past: The Role of Situational (Dis)continuity and Conceptual Metaphor in the Understanding of Complex Cases of Character Perception

This article examines the role of situational (dis)continuity and con- ceptual metaphor in the cinematic construal of complex cases of character perception. It claims that filmed events of the script “a character S seeing something O” can impede the continuity of real-life perception by eliciting discontinuity along two situational dimensions—the temporal dimension (i.e., one cannot directly see events in the past or the future), and the entity dimension (i.e., one cannot see oneself in the act of looking). The article con- cludes with a case study of Christopher Smith’s Triangle (2009) as an example of contemporary complex narrative cinema.
Flow Transformation: An Investigation on Theoretical Aspects and Numerical Computation

— In this report we have discussed the theoretical aspects of the flow transformation, occurring through a series of bifurcations. The parameters and their continuous diversion, the intermittent bursts in the transition zone, variation of velocity and pressure with time, effect of roughness in turbulent zone, and changes in friction factor and head loss coefficient as a function of Reynolds number for a transverse flow across a cylinder have been discussed. An analysis of the variation in the wake length with Reynolds number was done in FORTRAN.
Toward a Rule-Based System for English-Amharic Translation

We describe key aspects of an ongoing project to implement a rule-based English-to-Amharic and Amharic-to-English machine translation system within our L 3 framework. L 3 is based on Extensible Dependency Grammar (Debusmann, 2007), a multi-layered dependency grammar formalism that relies on constraint satisfaction for parsing and generation. In L 3 , we extend XDG to multiple languages and translation. This requires a mechanism to handle cross-lingual relationships and mismatches in the number of words between source and target languages. In this paper, we focus on these features as well as the advantages that L 3 offers for handling structural divergences between English and Amharic and its capacity to accommodate shallow and deep translation within a single system
Image fusion based on the multi-exposed images

In order to improve the image quality, various techniques are used. The most commonly used technique for improving image quality relies on the fusion of multiple exposed images. In this way, the image details are highlighted, so the image becomes more informative. In this paper, four fusion algorithms are considered. Results obtained by using these four algorithms are compared.
The Crisis and Drama of the Global Partnership

In a way, the most interesting thing about these books1 is their titles. Unfortunately their content is disappointing for the authors do not really identify and analyse the present "crisis" and "drama" of underdevelopment or the true relationship underlying today's "global partnership. " While many interesting points are made, these works are on the whole misguided or mediocre and for this reason the non-specialist need not read them. But he should still pause to ask why these particular writers have chosen to write about this topic at this time, and, in this way. One's attitude towards these books should be a little like one's attitude towards the Pearson Commission appointed by the World Bank to examine foreign aid and development over the last twenty years on a budget of a few hundred thousand dollars and with about a year in which to conduct research. No one, and especially not L. B. Pearson, really believes that a former prime minister of Canada would know much about the problem of the two-thirds of mankind (the majority under the age of twenty-five) who live in degrading poverty that in an age of Sputnik and Apollo is not merely tragic but, as Frantz Fanon put it, absurd. Nor does McNamara come to his job with particularly good credentials. But these men have been trained to recognize a problem when it becomes important enough and their message is clear: things are not going well and a new strategy must be worked out to replace the one that has crumbled. The intelligent reader will take their concern as a sign that events must be moving rapidly. None the less, he will not rely on the mystifications of the authors under discussion for an answer to the problem. In McLuhanite terms, they are telling us something about the old environment, not about the current one. Or, as Brecht put it, "when our leaders speak of peace they are already preparing for war. "
Effect of colostrum administration by use of oroesophageal intubation on serum IgG concentrations in Holstein bull calves.

OBJECTIVE To determine the amount of colostral IgG required for adequate passive transfer in calves administered colostrum by use of oroesophageal intubation and evaluate the impact of other factors on passive transfer of colostral immunoglobulins in calves. ANIMALS 120 Holstein bull calves. PROCEDURES Calves were randomly assigned to specific treatment groups on the basis of volume of colostrum administered and age of calf at administration of colostrum. Colostrum was administered once by oroesophageal intubation. Equal numbers of calves received 1, 2, 3, or 4 L of colostrum, and equal numbers of calves received colostrum at 2, 6, 10, 14, 18, or 22 hours after birth. Serum samples were obtained from calves 48 hours after birth for IgG determination by radial immunodiffusion assay. Effects of factors affecting transfer of colostral immunoglobulins were determined by use of a stepwise multiple regression model and logistic regression models. RESULTS A minimum of 153 g of colostral IgG was required for optimum colostral transfer of immunoglobulins when calves were fed 3L of colostrum at 2 hours after birth. Substantially larger IgG intakes were required by calves fed colostrum > 2 hours after birth. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE Feeding 100 g of colostral IgG by oroesophageal intubation was insufficient for adequate passive transfer of colostral immunoglobulins. At least 150 to 200 g of colostral IgG was required for adequate passive transfer of colostral immunoglobulins. Use of an oroesophageal tube for administration of 3 L of colostrum to calves within 2 hours after birth is recommended.
Enhanced Bayesian foreground segmentation using Brightness and Color Distortion region-based model for shadow removal

In this paper we present a novel foreground segmentation system for monocular static camera sequences and indoor scenarios that achieves a correct shadow removal via global MAP-MRF framework formulation for the foreground, background and shadow classification task. We propose to combine a region-based spatial-color foreground model and a pixel-wise background model in the RGB domain with an spatial-Brightness Distortion(BD) and Color Distortion(CD) shadow model which present specific features to classify potential shadow regions. The results presented in the paper show the improvement of the system avoiding the necessity of thresholds for shadow detection task and reducing false positive and false negative detections originated by the shadow effects that other methods of the state of the art present.
Tissue engineering with mesenchymal stem cells.

The possibilities of using stem cells in place of tissue-specific cells. This article focuses on tissue engineering therapies and presents the potential use of autologous stem cells in place of allogeneic or xenogeneic tissue-specific cells, with an emphasis on adult mesenchymal stem cells. Scaffolds, synthetic extracellular matrices to support cell growth and tissue development, are covered with respect to specific material requirements, scaffold types, and fabrication techniques.
Theoretical Design Issues of a Multi-Sensor Doppler Tolerant System Using Pseudorandom Codes

This paper investigates the effects that the Doppler shift will theoretically have on a complex ultrasonic rangefinding system that utilizes a ring of concurrently operating sensors, using unique codes to reduce cross-talk between individual sensors. A methodology for selecting pseudorandom codes to maximize autocorrelation performance, maximize Doppler tolerance, and minimize cross-talk is presented.
Evolution of artificial muscle-based robotic locomotion in PhysX

This paper investigates advanced features of the PhysX physics simulation engine for simulated robotic evolution, with the goal of applying the results to a real world soft robotic system which is under construction. The cloth feature in PhysX has the potential of taking into account complex dynamics while at the same time being accelerated by a graphics processing unit. As an initial approach, muscle-shaped structures are simulated with the cloth feature and employed as actuators in a robotic structure where both morphology and control parameters are subject to optimization by a genetic algorithm. A linear and a spring-damper-based model have also been applied for reference. Stable locomotion has been successfully evolved, however, attention to simulation parameters has been necessary in order to avoid simulator instability.
A Mashup Application to Support Complex Decision Making for Retail Consumers

Purchase processes often require complex decision making and consumers frequently use Web information sources to support these decisions. However, increasing amounts of information can make finding appropriate information problematic. This information overload, coupled with decision complexity, can increase time required to make a decision and reduce decision quality. This creates a need for tools that support these decision-making processes. Online tools that bring together data and partial solutions are one option to improve decision making in complex, multi-criteria environments. An experiment using a prototype mashup application indicates that these types of applications may significantly decrease time spent and improve overall quality of complex retail decisions.
Breast haemorrhage and gangrene during anticoagulant therapy

MASSIVE haemorrhage into the breast with conShe was in good health, though, in addition to the sequent gangrene, following anticoagulant therapy fracture, there was slight hepatic enlargement. The electrofor thrombo-embolic complications of surgery, has cardiograph was normal, as were routine blood examinaseldom been described. Cutler (1924) reported a case tions and liver function testsForty-eight hours after admission, under general Of ‘apoplexy Of the breast’ in which partial gangrene anaesthesia and radiographic control, a nail-plate was