Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
AuthScan: Enabling fast handoff across already deployed IEEE 802.11 wireless networks

Handoff procedure in IEEE 802.11 wireless networks must be accomplished with as little interruption as possible to maintain the required quality of service (QoS). We have developed a fast handoff scheme, called AuthScan, to provide a novel usage of the open system authentication phase to reduce channel scanning latency. AuthScan comprises two steps: firstly, a client caches its handoff history with beacon information. Secondly, when in need of handoff, a client transmits authentication request frames to the selected access points (APs) from the cache instead of broadcasting probe request frames as in active scan to discover the available APs. The next AP is selected by comparing quickly acquired handoff metrics during the handoff procedure. This fast handoff is possible by upgrading only software on the client side. This paper presents the theoretical handoff latency of AuthScan in comparison with other approaches, and shows the effectiveness of our system through implementation and experiments.
In vitro osteoinductive potential of porous monetite for bone tissue engineering

Tissue engineering–based bone grafts are emerging as a viable alternative treatment modality to repair and regenerate tissues damaged as a result of disease or injury. The choice of the biomaterial component is a critical determinant of the success of the graft or scaffold; essentially, it must induce and allow native tissue integration, and most importantly mimic the hierarchical structure of the native bone. Calcium phosphate bioceramics are widely used in orthopaedics and dentistry applications due to their similarity to bone mineral and their ability to induce a favourable biological response. One such material is monetite, which is biocompatible, osteoconductive and has the ability to be resorbed under physiological conditions. The osteoinductive properties of monetite in vivo are known; however, little is known of the direct effect on osteoinduction of human mesenchymal stem cells in vitro. In this study, we evaluated the potential of monetite to induce and sustain human mesenchymal stem cells towards osteogenic differentiation. Human mesenchymal stem cells were seeded on the monetite scaffold in the absence of differentiating factors for up to 28 days. The gene expression profile of bone-specific markers in cells on monetite scaffold was compared to the control material hydroxyapatite. At day 14, we observed a marked increase in alkaline phosphatase, osteocalcin and osteonectin expressions. This study provides evidence of a suitable material that has potential properties to be used as a tissue engineering scaffold.
Digital predistortion for dual-input Doherty amplifiers

This paper presents a digital predistortion technique for dual-input Doherty power amplifiers. The proposed technique utilizes both RF inputs of the main and peak amplifiers in the digital predistorter. The effectiveness of the resulting dual-input predistorter is evaluated on a two-way Doherty amplifier operating at 2.14 GHz with 53.5 dBm peak output power. The experimental results demonstrate that the dual-input approach outperforms the conventional single-input predistortion technique by ~3 dB in terms of adjacent channel leakage ratio.
Predicting Tie Strength with the Facebook API

This paper presents a user study that employed a Facebook application to calculate the strength of Facebook users' friendships. Specifically, 18 variables were collected via the Facebook API for 1728 friendships and used to predict tie strength reported by 90 participants. The resulting model had an accuracy of 65.9% in differentiating between strong and weak ties, and 86.3% in differentiating between very strong and weaker ties. The tie-strength calculation was performed in real time by the application, conferring the key advantage that the result can be instantly used by the live application. We argue this functionality has the potential to enable many novel customization and recommendation scenarios. Furthermore, examining the effect of the use of different Facebook features and types of communication on the perceived tie strength gives a more comprehensive understanding of the concept of tie strength in social media and sheds light on people's use of social network sites.
Novel ENAM mutation responsible for autosomal recessive amelogenesis imperfecta and localised enamel defects

The genetic basis of non-syndromic autosomal recessive forms of amelogenesis imperfecta (AI) is unknown. To evaluate five candidate genes for an aetiological role in AI. In this study 20 consanguineous families with AI were identified in whom probands suggested autosomal recessive transmission. Family members were genotyped for genetic markers spanning five candidate genes: AMBN and ENAM (4q13.3), TUFT1 (1q21), MMP20 (11q22.3–q23), and KLK4 (19q13). Genotype data were evaluated to identify homozygosity in affected individuals. Mutational analysis was by genomic sequencing. Homozygosity linkage studies were consistent for localisation of an AI locus in three families to the chromosome 4q region containing the ENAM gene. ENAM sequence analysis in families identified a 2 bp insertion mutation that introduced a premature stop codon in exon 10. All three probands were homozygous for the same g. 13185_13186insAG mutation. These probands presented with a generalised hypoplastic AI phenotype and a class II openbite malocclusion. All heterozygous carriers of the g. 13185_13186insAG mutation had localised hypoplastic enamel pitting defects, but none had AI or openbite. The phenotype associated with the g. 13185_13186insAG ENAM mutation is dose dependent such that ARAI with openbite malocclusion segregates as a recessive trait, and enamel pitting as a dominant trait.
Passivity-based iterative learning control for 2DOF robot manipulators with antagonistic bi-articular muscles

This paper investigates iterative learning control based on passivity for two-degree-of-freedom (2DOF) robot manipulators with antagonistic bi-articular muscles. Firstly, a brief summary of dynamics of 2DOF robot manipulators with antagonistic bi-articular muscles is given. Next, an error dynamics of the bi-articular manipulator for iterative learning control that has an output strictly passivity property is constructed. Then, we propose an iterative learning control law for the bi-articular manipulator. The proposed torque input does not need the parameters for the accurate models. Convergence analysis of the closed-loop system is carried out based on passivity. Finally, simulation results are presented in order to confirm the effectiveness of the proposed control law.
Zigbee Wireless Technology and the Ieee 802.15.4 Radio – Enabling Simple Wireless

ZigBee wireless mesh technology makes wireless sensor and control network applications practical. Cost-effective, simple-touse, capable of very long product functionality from a pair of standard alkaline cells, it is meant for developers who want either to get rid of the tether that their product must use or provide a new level of functionality to their products with wireless communications. The ZigBee Specification [1] takes advantage of the IEEE STD 802.15. 4 [2] wireless protocol as the basic communications method, and expands on this with a robust mesh network, applications profiles and device descriptions as well as interoperability and compliance testing.
Rational curves on Calabi-Yau manifolds: verifying predictions of mirror symmetry

Mirror symmetry, a phenomenon in superstring theory, has recently been used to give tentative calculations of several numbers in algebraic geometry. In this paper, the numbers of lines and conics on various hypersurfaces which satisfy certain incidence properties are calculated, and shown to agree with the numbers predicted by Greene, Morrison, and Plesser using mirror symmetry in every instance. This increases the number of verified predictions from 3 to 65. Calculations are performed using the Maple package {\sc schubert} written by Katz and Str{\o}mme.
Approximating a Policy Can be Easier Than Approximating a Value Function

Value functions can speed the learning of a solution to Markov Decision Problems by providing a prediction of reinforcement against which received reinforcement is compared. Once the learned values relatively reect the optimal ordering of actions, further learning is not necessary. In fact, further learning can lead to the disruption of the optimal policy if the value function is implemented with a function approximator of limited complexity. This is illustrated here by comparing Q-learning (Watkins, 1989) and a policy-only algorithm (Baxter & Bartlett, 1999), both using a simple neural network as the function approximator. A Markov Decision Problem is shown for which Q-learning oscillates between the optimal policy and a sub-optimal one, while the direct-policy algorithm converges on the optimal policy.
Advancing Insulin Therapy in Type 2 Diabetes Previously Treated With Glargine Plus Oral Agents

OBJECTIVE—The purpose of this study was to compare two analog insulin therapies (prandial premixed therapy [PPT] versus basal/bolus therapy [BBT]) in type 2 diabetic patients previously treated with insulin glargine (≥30 units/day) plus oral agents, with the aim of demonstrating noninferiority of PPT to BBT. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS—Patients were randomly assigned to PPT (lispro mix 50/50: 50% insulin lispro protamine suspension and 50% lispro; n = 187) t.i. d. with meals or BBT (glargine at bedtime plus mealtime lispro; n = 187) in a 24-week, multicenter, open-label, noninferiority trial. Investigators could replace lispro mix 50/50 with lispro mix 75/25 at the evening meal if the fasting plasma glucose target was unachievable. RESULTS—Baseline A1C was similar (PPT 8.8%; BBT 8.9%; P = 0.598). At week 24, A1C was lower with BBT (6.78 vs. 6.95%, P = 0.021). A1C was reduced significantly from baseline for both therapies (P < 0.0001). The difference in A1C change from baseline to the end point (BBT minus PPT) was −0.22% (90% CI −0.38 to −0.07). Noninferiority of PPT to BBT was not demonstrated based on the prespecified noninferiority margin of 0.3%. The percentages of patients achieving target A1C <7.0% (PPT versus BBT, respectively) were 54 vs. 69% (P = 0.009) and for target ≤6.5% were 35 vs. 50% (P = 0.01) but did not differ for target ≤6.0% or <7.5%. Rates of hypoglycemia were similar for both groups. CONCLUSIONS—Although noninferiority of PPT to BBT was not demonstrated, findings for A1C reduction, percentage of patients achieving A1C targets, hypoglycemia, and number of required injections should be considered in the individual decision-making process of advancing insulin replacement to PPT versus BBT in type 2 diabetes.
Move An Artificial Arm by Motor Imagery Data

— Some diseases or spinal cord injury completely destruct the sensory, motor and autonomous function for the limb movement. BCI (Brain computer Interface) provides a new communication pathway for those patients. Imagination of limb movements is used to operate a BCI. With analysis of acquired EEG signal due to motor imagery controlling of an artificial limb is possible. For this technique motor imagery EEG signal is classified and the classified part is fed to a controller to execute exactly that movement. State feedback PI controller can be used to control an artificial limb. With help of this controller not only position but also velocity can be controlled. In this paper, a simulated model of EEG driven artificial limb control using state feedback PI controller is presented. For this study, EEG data for motor imagery was taken from five healthy subjects. The wavelet coefficients are calculated from that EEG signals as features and the obtained features are classified by SVM classifier to determine the part of the limb the user wants to move. The initial and target position are fed to the controller and the controller move the artificial limb to reach the target position at the classified direction. The overall control procedure is done using Matlab 7.6.
Navigating a Robotic Wheelchair in a Railway Station during Rush Hour

This paper describes the hardware design, control, and navigation system of and some preliminary experiments with the robotic wheelchair Mobility Aid for elderly and disabled people (MAid). MAid’s general task is to transport people with severely impaired motion skills. The authors did not set out to reinvent and redevelop the set of standard skills of so-called intelligent wheelchairs, such as Follow Wall, FollowCorridor, PassDoorway, which are commonly described in the literature. These maneuvers require motion control skills that disabled people, in spite of their disabilities, are eager to learn and quite good at using. Instead, this work focused on generalizing the approach to fine motion control by considering those maneuvers identified as very burdensome due to their duration and required concentration. One of these functions is deliberative locomotion in rapidly changing, large-scale environments, such as shopping malls, entry halls of theaters, and concourses of airports or railway stations, where tens or hundreds of people and objects move around. MAid’s performance was tested in the central station of Ulm during rush hour and in the exhibition halls of the Hannover Messe ’98, the largest industrial fair in the world. Altogether, MAid has survived more than 36 h of testing in public, crowded environments with heavy passenger traffic.
A weighting approach for autoassociative memories to improve accuracy in memorization

An autoassociative memory can store multiple information in a neural network, and if some distorted information is presented, the memory can retrieve the most likely information from the network. However, in mathematical models of the autoassociative memory, it is a significant problem that some given information may not be stored correctly in a recurrent artificial neural network (ANN). In this paper, in order to investigate the cause of errors with memorization rules in such a mathematical model, we understand the structure of the energy function for the ANN as a sum of elemental quadratic functions. Then, in order to improve the accuracy in memorization, we propose a weighting approach for the memorization rules so that the structure of the energy function can be altered in a desirable manner. The weights can be determined by solving a theoretically-derived linear program to guarantee perfect memorization of all the given information. Numerical examples demonstrate the effectiveness of the weighting approach.
Where is who: large-scale photo retrieval by facial attributes and canvas layout

The ubiquitous availability of digital cameras has made it easier than ever to capture moments of life, especially the ones accompanied with friends and family. It is generally believed that most family photos are with faces that are sparsely tagged. Therefore, a better solution to manage and search in the tremendously growing personal or group photos is highly anticipated. In this paper, we propose a novel way to search for face photos by simultaneously considering attributes (e.g., gender, age, and race), positions, and sizes of the target faces. To better match the content and layout of the multiple faces in mind, our system allows the user to graphically specify the face positions and sizes on a query "canvas," where each attribute combination is defined as an icon for easier representation. As a secondary feature, the user can even place specific faces from the previous search results for appearance-based retrieval. The scenario has been realized on a tablet device with an intuitive touch interface. Experimenting with a large-scale Flickr dataset of more than 200k faces, the proposed formulation and joint ranking have made us achieve a hit rate of 0.420 at rank 100, significantly improving from 0.036 of the prior search scheme using attributes alone. We have also achieved an average running time of 0.0558 second by the proposed block-based indexing approach.
The Sustainable Suburban High Street: A Review of Themes and Approaches

Whether suburbs are regarded as a distinctive feature of the contemporary urban landscape or as symptomatic of ‘sprawl’ the recent upsurge of scholarly interest in suburbia has done little to displace the dominant image of the suburb as a primarily residential phenomenon. In a wide ranging survey of the academic literature, taking account of current developments in the policy debate relating to suburban regeneration and also drawing on research conducted by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council's Towards Successful Suburban Town Centres project at University College London, this article argues for an approach to the suburbs that emphasises their importance as historical centres of diverse social and economic activity. The focus is on the ‘typical’ British suburban high street, regarded as a complex and dynamic socio-spatial entity facing particular challenges to its vitality and viability in the light of ongoing socio-economic change. It is suggested that an improved understanding of the relation between suburban society and the built form of suburban centres over time would lead to a fuller appreciation of the actual and potential contribution of the local high street to achieving sustainable built environments.
Language planning and development aid: the (in)visibility of language in development aid discourse

ABSTRACT Despite the essential role of local, regional, national and international languages in human development, there is little reference to language planning in development aid discourse. Beginning with definitions of development aid and language planning, the paper examines how the two were linked in pre- and post-colonial times, showing how language planning scholarship has responded to the overarching shifts in understandings of development over time. While we find that language planning maintains a low profile in human development documents, we note some positive signs in UNESCO’s and UNICEF’s continuing support for language issues. We contrast this support with the World Bank’s concern with measurable outcomes. We conclude with an analysis of how the contributions to this special issue exemplify some of the tensions inherent in language planning for development in a global age.
WHY DO WE FEAR DEATH? THE CONSTRUCTION AND VALIDATION OF THE REASONS FOR DEATH FEAR SCALE

Previous research has disclosed different meanings of death, varieties of death anxiety, and hundreds of factors extracted from the uni- and multi-dimensional death anxiety scales. However, there have been no empirical studies to elucidate the reasons for death fear.The Reasons for Death Fear Scale (RDFS) was constructed and validated. It consists of 18 brief items, with good reliabilities ( > .8). Four factors of the RDFS were labeled Fear of Pain and Punishment,Fear of LosingWorldly Involvements, ReligiousTransgressions and Failures, and Parting from Loved Ones. A high-loaded factor was extracted in which the RDFS'sloading was.45,while the loadings of the scales of death anxiety, death depression, and death obsession ranged between . 8 and . 9.Of interest is that the correlation between the RDFS and death anxiety was higher than that with general anxiety. No gender-differences were detected with college students. It is important to note that the findings of this study were o nly researched through Arabic and mainly Muslim college stu de nts. The generalizability of the present results to other populations would seem to merit further investigation.
A Brief History of the Capital Asset Pricing Model

This paper explores the near-simultaneous development of the capital asset pricing model by four men: Jack Treynor, William Sharpe, John Lintner, and Jan Mossin. Further, it identifies the key ideas that inspired the research of these men. Lastly, it considers why the work of only one of them resulted in a Noble Prize in economic science.
Heritable Transmission of Stress Resistance by High Dietary Glucose in Caenorhabditis elegans

Glucose is a major energy source and is a key regulator of metabolism but excessive dietary glucose is linked to several disorders including type 2 diabetes, obesity and cardiac dysfunction. Dietary intake greatly influences organismal survival but whether the effects of nutritional status are transmitted to the offspring is an unresolved question. Here we show that exposing Caenorhabditis elegans to high glucose concentrations in the parental generation leads to opposing negative effects on fecundity, while having protective effects against cellular stress in the descendent progeny. The transgenerational inheritance of glucose-mediated phenotypes is dependent on the insulin/IGF-like signalling pathway and components of the histone H3 lysine 4 trimethylase complex are essential for transmission of inherited phenotypes. Thus dietary over-consumption phenotypes are heritable with profound effects on the health and survival of descendants.
Physical activity and risk of cognitive impairment and dementia in elderly persons.

CONTEXT Dementia is common, costly, and highly age related. Little attention has been paid to the identification of modifiable lifestyle habits for its prevention. OBJECTIVE To explore the association between physical activity and the risk of cognitive impairment and dementia. DESIGN, SETTING, AND SUBJECTS Data come from a community sample of 9008 randomly selected men and women 65 years or older, who were evaluated in the 1991-1992 Canadian Study of Health and Aging, a prospective cohort study of dementia. Of the 6434 eligible subjects who were cognitively normal at baseline, 4615 completed a 5-year follow-up. Screening and clinical evaluations were done at both waves of the study. In 1996-1997, 3894 remained without cognitive impairment, 436 were diagnosed as having cognitive impairment-no dementia, and 285 were diagnosed as having dementia. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE Incident cognitive impairment and dementia by levels of physical activity at baseline. RESULTS Compared with no exercise, physical activity was associated with lower risks of cognitive impairment, Alzheimer disease, and dementia of any type. Significant trends for increased protection with greater physical activity were observed. High levels of physical activity were associated with reduced risks of cognitive impairment (age-, sex-, and education-adjusted odds ratio, 0.58; 95% confidence interval, 0.41-0.83), Alzheimer disease (odds ratio, 0.50; 95% confidence interval, 0.28-0.90), and dementia of any type (odds ratio, 0.63; 95% confidence interval, 0.40-0.98). CONCLUSION Regular physical activity could represent an important and potent protective factor for cognitive decline and dementia in elderly persons.
What is worth learning from parallel workloads?: a user and session based analysis

Learning useful and predictable features from past workloads and exploiting them well is a major source of improvement in many operating system problems. We review known parallel workload features, and argue that the correct approach for future on-line algorithm design as well as workload modeling is user- and session-based modeling, instead of analyzing jobs directly as done today. We then provide statistically sound answers to two basic questions: Which user and session features are central enough to be potentially useful, answered using Principal Component Analysis, and which user and session classes exist and how they can be identified on-line, answered using K-means clustering. We identify variable sets that explain over 80% of the variance between sessions and between users, and also identify five stable session classes (clusters) and four stable user classes. Our analysis is based on logs from seven different parallel supercomputers, spanning over 87 months, which are analyzed together to ensure that results are location- and architecture-neutral.