Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Financial Disclosure

The following information is to provide you with an idea of about how much membership would cost for each organization. Each chapter has dues that members are required to pay every semester; however, what is included in the dues vary chapter to chapter. We have provided a list of common fees that our chapters charge as a part of their dues structure. There is a possibility that some chapters may have additional fees that are unique to their organization, so it is important that you still ask for more information as you go through the Recruitment process. This information only applies for the Fall 2014 semester, dues may fluctuate semester to semester. Terminology Below are some general definitions for the common fees. Please keep in mind that some terms may have a different meaning depending on the organization. Rent and Board: This is the cost for members who live in the house. It varies chapter to chapter as to who lives in the house but keep in mind Texas State University requires all freshman to live on campus. House Usage Fee: Typically this money is given to the housing corporation which owns the house and allows the chapter to use the structure. Parlor Fee: This helps cover the maintenance of the housing structure. Houses are used for more than just sleeping as they are used for meetings as well. This fee is typically paid by members living out of the house. National Dues: These dues go directly to the national organization to maintain membership. Chapter Dues: These dues help cover the operations of the chapter. It typically includes your Panhellenic dues. National New Member Fee: Paid during the first semester of membership as a New Member. Typically, this fee goes directly to the national office to place you on the national roster. Badge Fee: The amount members pay for their membership badge. Insurance/Risk Management Fee: All of our chapters have an insurance policy that is required by their national organization.
Epistasis : Obstacle or advantage 1 Epistasis : Obstacle or advantage

Identification of genetic loci in complex traits has focused largely on one-dimensional genome scans to search for associations between single markers and the phenotype. There is mounting evidence that locus interactions, or epistasis, are a crucial component of the genetic architecture of biologically relevant traits. While discussion about the best way to identify models for complex traits is ongoing, recent work shows that fitting full models in exhaustive multi-locus genome scans can have higher power to detect epistatic loci than single-locus scans. This improvement comes despite a much larger multiple testing alpha-adjustment cost due to a dramatically larger number of tests that are performed. We demonstrate, both theoretically and via simulation in an association mapping context, that power to detect two loci when fitting full models is often larger when these loci act epistatically than when they act additively. Additionally, we show that in cases of molecular epistasis the power for single locus detection may be improved compared to the additive model. This indicates that the impression that epistasis is a nuisance factor that reduces power for locus detection may be false. Our brief exploration of a two step model selection procedure shows that identifying the true model is difficult, although this difficulty is certainly not exacerbated by the presence of epistasis and in some cases epistasis may aid in model selection. As technology becomes more cost effective, the amount and scale of data available for answering fundamental questions about the underlying genetic contribution to phenotypic outcomes of interest has dramatically increased. Genetic markers, particularly biallelic single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), are being developed for a wide variety of organisms et al. 2005), and current SNP discovery techniques and reduced genotyping costs make it feasible to score tens of thousands of markers in many individuals (Matsuzaki et al. 2004). The plethora of data has sparked interest in hypothesis testing for identifying genetic markers associated with the phenotype (e. et al. 2005). Testing for marker-phenotype associations is done within the context of a specific experimental design. The experimental design controls the structure of the population under consideration and is therefore a critical component to account for in subsequent modeling and testing. When the genetic structure of the population is under experimental control testing marker-phenotype association is often referred to as QTL mapping (Doerge 2002). In QTL mapping, the issue of which test statistics to use to detect main effects has been discussed …
Web-based System for Assessment and Continuous Improvement

Academic programs are required to monitor, evaluate and improve in order to acquire or maintain program accreditation from standards bodies. Data collection, management, statistical analysis and result aggregation are important tasks to achieve this goal. A manual approach may result is inconsistent, redundant and poor quality data that can be avoided using web-based technologies. This paper presents design and implementation of a web-based system that collects and maintains course related information, computes metrics for assessment and continuous improvement, and generates reports that can be manipulated off-line.
The New Economy, eValue and the Impact on User Acceptance of Pervasive IT

This paper explores the nature of eValue creation, assessment and distribution within communities joined through the Web, and the possible implications on end user acceptance of pervasive information technology (IT). Specifically, we draw on developments of the ”new economy” in order to understand the nature of ”value” within electronic networks, and its effects on the moderators of user acceptance.
Quantifying uncertainty in estimates of mineral dust flux: An intercomparison of model performance over the Bodélé Depression, northern Chad

Mineral dust aerosols play an important role in the climate system. Coupled climate-aerosol models are an important tool with which to quantify dust fluxes and the associated climate impact. Over the last decade or more, numerous models have been developed, both global and regional, but to date, there have been few attempts to compare the performance of these models. In this paper a comparison of five regional atmospheric models with dust modules is made, in terms of their simulation of meteorology, dust emission and transport. The intercomparison focuses on a 3-day dust event over the Bodele depression in northern Chad, the world's single most important dust source. Simulations are compared to satellite data and in situ observations from the Bodele Dust Experiment (BoDEx 2005). Overall, the models reproduce many of the key features of the meteorology and the large dust plumes that occur over the study domain. However, there is at least an order of magnitude range in model estimates of key quantities including dust concentration, dust burden, dust flux, and aerosol optical thickness. As such, there remains considerable uncertainty in model estimates of the dust cycle and its interaction with climate. This paper discusses the issues associated with partitioning various sources of model uncertainty.
Optimal Power Allocation for Hybrid ARQ with Chase Combining in i

We consider the optimization of Chase combining (CC)-based hybrid-automatic repeat request (HARQ) schemes with a limit on the maximum number of retransmissions. We formulate two optimization problems: (i) minimizing the packet drop probability (PDP) under a total average transmit power constraint, and (ii) minimizing the average transmit power under a fixed PDP constraint. Towards solving these equivalent optimization problems, we provide a closed-form expression for the outage probability of a CC-HARQ scheme. We then show that solving the optimization problems using an exact expression of the outage probability becomes complex with an increase in the maximum number of retransmissions. We propose an alternative approach in which we approximate the optimization problems by using an approximate outage probability expression and formulate the two optimization problems as two equivalent geometric programming problems (GPPs), which can be solved efficiently even for a large limit on the maximum number of retransmissions. The results show that the optimal power allocation solution provides significant gains over the equal power allocation solution. For PDP values below 10, the optimal solution provided by the GPP approach has a performance close to that of the solution provided by solving the optimization problem exactly using nonlinear optimization techniques.
Asynchronous sliding block maps

We define a notion of asynchronous sliding block map that can be realized by transducers labeled in A * × B *. We show that, under some conditions, it is possible to synchronize this transducer by state splitting, in order to get a transducer which defines the same sliding block map and which is labeled in A × B k , where k is a constant integer. In the case of a transducer with a strongly connected graph, the synchronization process can be considered as an implementation of an algorithm of Frougny and Sakarovitch for synchronization of rational relations of bounded delay. The algorithm can be applied in the case where the transducer has a constant integer transmission rate on cycles and has a strongly connected graph. It keeps the locality of the input automaton of the transducer. We show that the size of the sliding window of the synchronous local map grows linearly during the process, but that the size of the transducer is intrinsically exponential. In the case of non strongly connected graphs, the algorithm of Frougny and Sakarovitch does not keep the locality of the input automaton of the transducer. We give another algorithm to solve this case without losing the good dynamic properties that guaranty the state splitting process.
Introspective analysis: context-sensitivity, across the board

Context-sensitivity is the primary approach for adding more precision to a points-to analysis, while hopefully also maintaining scalability. An oft-reported problem with context-sensitive analyses, however, is that they are bi-modal: either the analysis is precise enough that it manipulates only manageable sets of data, and thus scales impressively well, or the analysis gets quickly derailed at the first sign of imprecision and becomes orders-of-magnitude more expensive than would be expected given the program's size. There is currently no approach that makes precise context-sensitive analyses (of any flavor: call-site-, object-, or type-sensitive) scale across the board at a level comparable to that of a context-insensitive analysis. To address this issue, we propose introspective analysis: a technique for uniformly scaling context-sensitive analysis by eliminating its performance-detrimental behavior, at a small precision expense. Introspective analysis consists of a common adaptivity pattern: first perform a context-insensitive analysis, then use the results to selectively refine (i.e., analyze context-sensitively) program elements that will not cause explosion in the running time or space. The technical challenge is to appropriately identify such program elements. We show that a simple but principled approach can be remarkably effective, achieving scalability (often with dramatic speedup) for benchmarks previously completely out-of-reach for deep context-sensitive analyses.
Effects of Mineralocorticoid Receptor Overexpression on Anxiety and Memory after Early Life Stress in Female Mice

Early-life stress (ELS) is a risk factor for the development of psychopathology, particularly in women. Human studies have shown that certain haplotypes of NR3C2, encoding the mineralocorticoid receptor (MR), that result in gain of function, may protect against the consequences of stress exposure, including childhood trauma. Here, we tested the hypothesis that forebrain-specific overexpression of MR in female mice would ameliorate the effects of ELS on anxiety and memory in adulthood. We found that ELS increased anxiety, did not alter spatial discrimination and reduced contextual fear memory in adult female mice. Transgenic overexpression of MR did not alter anxiety but affected spatial memory performance and enhanced contextual fear memory formation. The effects of ELS on anxiety and contextual fear were not affected by transgenic overexpression of MR. Thus, MR overexpression in the forebrain does not represent a major resilience factor to early life adversity in female mice.
Perceptual effects of spectral envelope and F0 manipulations using the STRAIGHT method

A versatile speech manipulation method, STRAIGHT (Speech Transformation and Representation using Adaptive Interpolation of weiGHTed spectrogram) [Kawahara, ICASSP (1997)], was applied to natural speech in order to test the effects of speech parameter manipulations. STRAIGHT consists of three procedures called STRAIGHT‐core, TEMPO (Temporal domain Excitation extraction using a Minimum Perturbation Operator) and SPIKES (Synthetic Phase Impulse for Keeping Equivalent Sound). STRAIGHT‐core is a method to extract a smoothed time‐frequency representation, which is free from interferences due to the source periodicity. TEMPO is used to extract F0 and other source‐related information. SPIKES provides artificial ‘‘naturalness’’ to the synthetic speech. As a base line, resynthesized speech, using the STRAIGHT method, was found to provide equivalent ‘‘naturalness’’ compared to the original speech when no parametric modification was introduced. Simultaneous manipulation of the spectral envelope and F0 illustrated tha.
Improvement of output voltage and input current for a matrix converter using genetic algorithm

Matrix converters are gaining attentions due to their direct AC/AC conversion nature, with no need of dc-link. In this study, a method, using the Genetic Algorithm (GA) optimization process is presented, in order to improve the quality of output voltage and input current waveforms. The proposed method results in significant improvement of quality, in terms of total harmonic distortion, in both the output voltages and input currents. The main objective in this study is, to utilize the existing parameters of the input ac filter and the matrix converter, in a Genetic Algorithm process of optimization, in order to decrease output voltages' harmonic content. Simulations have been carried out, in MATLAB®/SIMULINK™ environment, in order to verify and validate the expected results of the GA optimizations. Venturini algorithm is used to generate the duty cycle for each switch in the model. The results, obtained by this study, prove the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Wavelet method for computing energy band diagram of semiconductors

A wavelet expansion is applied for solving Schrodinger equation in order to compute band structure of an electronic crystal. In this paper we have used this method for finding band structure of one dimensional arbitrary potential. As discussed here, this algorithm could be easily applied to two- or three-dimensional arbitrary potentials. This paper is emphasizing on revealing the mathematical aspects of using wavelet expansion in computing electronic band structure. In order to find the full power of wavelets one needs to use this method in 2 or 3 dimension structures.
Combined snake robot: Analysis and verification of designed structure

Snake robots were realized in purpose of imitating of the snakes and worms movement. This purpose was achieved by applicable kinematic structure and segment design. After that the simulation and verification of designed structure was made with focus on the robot movement possibilities and dimensions. Advantage of introduced robot type is its simplicity and reliability of mechanism, which makes snake movement opposite robots, which are based on complex construction of wheel or track movement. In the presented structure various movement types are coupled into one snaking system. Designed system is verified by simulation and laboratory model of the snake robot segment.
Building modeling and control using multi-step ahead error minimization

As the buildings account for about 40% of global final energy use, the efficient building climate control can significantly contribute to the saving effort. Predictive control can be used to operate buildings in energy and cost effective manner instead of conventional room automation such as PID, weather-compensated controllers or Rule-Based Controllers (RBC). However, the predictive controller has (besides many advantages as the possibility to incorporate the restriction directly into the controller design or handling of MIMO systems in a simple natural way) a drawback - it is the necessity of a proper mathematical model of the controlled system. Therefore, adequate attention should be paid to the procedure leading to its acquirement. In this paper a multi-step ahead error minimization approach to a building modeling is presented and influence of the solar radiation on the quality of the constructed model is examined. Moreover, the results are demonstrated on a real control of six-floor building of the Czech Technical University in Prague.
Econometric Analysis on the Relationship Between Financial Development and Economic Growth in China Based on Var Model

Since the financial crisis, the issue of relationship between financial development and economic growth has been the focus of macroeconomic theory. Based on VAR model, the relationship between financial development and economic growth in China was studied using the method such as Grange causality test, impulse response, and variance decomposition. It is shown that economic growth and financial scale are mutually Granger cause to each other and economic growth is the Granger causality of financial intermediation efficiency. In the short- and long-term, financial scale and financial intermediation efficiency have positive impact on economic growth. The effect of financial market degree on economic growth is relatively small, which is showed that the degree of financial market in China is low, little contribution to economic development.
The Development of Open Access Journal Publishing from 1993 to 2009

Open Access (OA) is a model for publishing scholarly peer reviewed journals, made possible by the Internet. The full text of OA journals and articles can be freely read, as the publishing is funded through means other than subscriptions. Empirical research concerning the quantitative development of OA publishing has so far consisted of scattered individual studies providing brief snapshots, using varying methods and data sources. This study adopts a systematic method for studying the development of OA journals from their beginnings in the early 1990s until 2009. Because no comprehensive index of OA articles exists, systematic manual data collection from journal web sites was conducted based on journal-level data extracted from the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). Due to the high number of journals registered in the DOAJ, almost 5000 at the time of the study, stratified random sampling was used. A separate sample of verified early pioneer OA journals was also studied. The results show a very rapid growth of OA publishing during the period 1993–2009. During the last year an estimated 191 000 articles were published in 4769 journals. Since the year 2000, the average annual growth rate has been 18% for the number of journals and 30% for the number of articles. This can be contrasted to the reported 3,5% yearly volume increase in journal publishing in general. In 2009 the share of articles in OA journals, of all peer reviewed journal articles, reached 7,7%. Overall, the results document a rapid growth in OA journal publishing over the last fifteen years. Based on the sampling results and qualitative data a division into three distinct periods is suggested: The Pioneering years (1993–1999), the Innovation years (2000–2004), and the Consolidation years (2005–2009).
Delivery of newly synthesized tubulin to rapidly growing distal axons of sympathetic neurons in compartmented cultures

Growing axons receive a substantial supply of tubulin and other proteins delivered from sites of synthesis in the cell body by slow axonal transport. To investigate the mechanism of tubulin transport most previous studies have used in vitro models in which the transport of microtubules can be visualized during brief periods of growth. To investigate total tubulin transport in neurons displaying substantial growth over longer periods, we used rat sympathetic neurons in compartmented cultures. Tubulin synthesized during pulses of [35S]methionine was separated from other proteins by immunoprecipitation with monoclonal antibodies to alpha and beta tubulin, further separated on SDS-PAGE, and quantified by phosphorimaging. Results showed that 90% of newly synthesized tubulin moved into the distal axons within 2 d. Furthermore, the leading edge of tubulin was transported at a velocity faster than 4 mm/d, more than four times the rate of axon elongation. This velocity did not diminish with distance from the cell body, suggesting that the transport system is capable of distributing newly synthesized tubulin to growth cones throughout the axonal tree. Neither diffusion nor the an mass transport of axonal microtubules can account for the velocity and magnitude of tubulin transport that was observed. Thus, it is likely that most of the newly synthesized tubulin was supplied to the growing axonal tree in subunit form such as a heterodimer or an oligomer considerably smaller than a microtubule.
Race based inequalities for Indigenous Australians’ participation and engagement in VET: a targeted review of the research

Abstract The poor outcomes in education, training and employment achieved by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia have been well documented. The transition from a traditional Indigenous society to the statuses of mainstream Australian society has been, and continues to be problematic for Indigenous Australians. The participation in vocational education and training (VET) and employment outcomes for Indigenous Australians has been historically much lower than for non-Indigenous Australians. The aim of this paper is to undertake a targeted review of the existing literature and research into the participation and engagement of Indigenous Australians in VET through a content analysis of three VET based journals, nationally funded VET research and a VET database. The findings point to the publishing of very little research in academic journals however research funded through the National Centre for Vocational Education Research appears to be a prime source of published grey literature. The paper proceeds to discuss the findings in the light of a proposed future research agenda.
Name enhanced SDN framework for service function chaining of elastic Network functions

Middleboxes have become an integral part of Internet infrastructure, providing additional flow processing for policy control, security, and performance optimization. Network Function Virtualisation (NFV) proposes the deployment of software-based middleboxes on top of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS), enabling the dynamic adjustment of Virtual Network Functions (VNFs), both in terms of instance numbers and computational power. The performance of Data center and Enterprise networks depend strongly on efficient scaling of VNFs and the traffic load balance across VNF instances. To this end, we present Name enhanced SDN framework for service function chaining of elastic Network functions (NSN) that extends the Function-Centric Service Chaining (FCSC) with load balancing functionalities to achieve efficient network utilization while reducing the switch flow rules by 2-4× compared to traditional SDN approaches.