Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Designing an Interactive Abacus Learning Application for beginners: A prototype

The abacus is an excellent substitute for rote memorization of simple numbering and multiplication tables, which some young children find daunting. Students who learn abacus are found to be superior in the accuracy of their memory and the number of digits they are able to memorize when compared to non-abacus learners of the same age. Apart from the Chinese medium schools, the teaching and learning of abacus is not part of the teaching syllabus in the public and private schools in Malaysia. Therefore, this research provides a step in the right direction by designing an Interactive Abacus Learning Application for beginners. This application is based on child centered approach with the use of interactive and multimedia elements. The use of cognitive and psychomotor skills was also applied in its learning process. Apart from that, a drag-and-drop technique was applied for student interactivity.
Online social networks for personal informatics to promote positive health behavior

Social network services are becoming increasingly popular, and people are using these networks to obtain and share information. The application of social network and social media to the collection, storage and review of personal information presents opportunities for improved personal health management. This paper presents a survey of the literature on the models for the use of online social networks and models for health behavior change. These are then combined to present a framework for health behavior change through social media. This framework is then used to develop a prototype for the system design.
MCE enzyme immunoassay for carcinoembryonic antigen and alpha‐fetoprotein using electrochemical detection

An MCE electrochemical enzyme immunoassay protocol for the determination of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and alpha‐fetoprotein (AFP) was reported. Two antigens (Ag), CEA and AFP, were incubated simultaneously with an excess amount of horseradish peroxidase‐labeled antibody (Ab*). The free Ab* and the Ab*–Ag complex produced in the solution were first separated through a postcolumn reaction and then traced by the enzyme substrate o‐aminophenol. The 3‐aminophenoxazine produced in enzyme reaction was detected with downstream amperometric detection. The separations were performed at a separation voltage of +1.4 kV and were completed in less than 60 s. The better analytical performance and distinct miniaturization/portability for MCE at less assay time and sample volume consumption was achieved. The detection limit of CEA and AFP was calculated to be 0.25 and 0.13 ng/mL, respectively. Therefore, MCE could be used as a sensitive and new tool in separation science and offered considerable promise in biological sample analysis or quick clinical diagnosis.
The importance of different timings of excitatory and inhibitory pathways in neural field models

In this paper, we consider a neural field model comprised of two distinct populations of neurons, excitatory and inhibitory, for which both the velocities of action potential propagation and the time courses of synaptic processing are different. Using recently-developed techniques, we construct the Evans function characterising the stability of both stationary and travelling wave solutions, under the assumption that the firing rate function is the Heaviside step. We find that these differences in timing for the two populations can cause instabilities of these solutions, leading to, for example, stationary breathers. We also analyse “anti-pulses”, a novel type of pattern for which all but a small interval of the domain (in moving coordinates) is active. These results extend previous work on neural fields with space-dependent delays, and demonstrate the importance of considering the effects of the different time-courses of excitatory and inhibitory neural activity.
The Conro modules for reconfigurable robots

The goal of the Conro Project is to build deployable modular robots that can reconfigure into different shapes such as snakes or hexapods. Each Conro module is, itself, a robot and hence a Conro robot is actually a multirobot system. In this paper we present an overview of the Conro modules, the design approach, an overview of the mechanical and electrical systems and a discussion on size versus power requirement of the module. Each module is self-contained; it has its own processor, power supply, communication system, sensors and actuators. The modules, although self-contained, were designed to work in groups, as part of a large modular robot. We conclude the paper by describing some of the robots that we have built using the Conro modules and describing the miniature custom-made Conro camera as an example of the type of sensors that can be carried as payload by these robots.
Adaptive Design for Performance-Optimized Robustness

We present adaptive design techniques that compensate for manufacturing induced process variations in deep sub-micron (DSM) integrated circuits. Process variations have a significant impact on parametric behavior of modern chips, and adaptive design techniques that make a chip self-configuring to work optimally across process corners are fast evolving as a potential solution to this problem. Such schemes have two main components, a mechanism for sensing process perturbations, and one or more process compensation schemes that are driven by this mechanism. The adaptive design schemes presented in this paper are simple, low overhead techniques for noise tolerance in DSM CMOS circuits, to enhance their manufacturing yield. The process perturbation sensing scheme is based on on-chip delay measurement with a performance based bound on adaptation, which enables performance optimized robustness to noise in the face of process variations
Influence of Natural Forcing Phenomena on Precipitation of Pakistan

According to IPCC TAR (2001), some natural climate variations such as ENSO (El-Nino Southern Oscillation), PDO (Pacific Decadal Oscillation), IOD (Indian Ocean Dipole) and NAO (Northern Atlantic Oscillation) / NAM (Northern Hemisphere Annular Mode), can significantly alter the behavior of extreme events, including floods, droughts, hurricanes and cold waves. This paper examines ENSO, NAO and IOD (DMI) in the context of their influence on the precipitation of Pakistan, by analyzing the historical data of rainfall for the period 1951-2012 supplemented by the re-analysis NCEP pressure data and the CRU precipitation data. These phenomena have been analyzed in relation to rainfall departures (monsoon rains in the case of ENSO, winter rains in the case of NAO and both monsoon & winter rains in the case of IOD) and the corresponding correlations are developed. Decadal correlations have also been worked out. The impact of IOD on El-Nino and La-Nina events in the monsoon dominated region and over the whole of Pakistan, particularly during the years of ENSO episodes, has also been studied. In most of the cases, the monsoon rainfall was found to drop drastically during the strong El-Nino years and positive IOD values, whereas it generally increased during the La-Nina years. During most of the strong El-Nino years, the monsoon depressions emerging from the Bay of Bengal and moving towards Pakistan dissipated over either Bangladesh or India, and did not reach Pakistan. The NAO forcing is seen positively correlated with the winter rains. Some NAO decadal correlations are found to be significantly high.
Graph-Cut and Belief-Propagation Stereo on Real-World Image Sequences

This paper deals with stereo correspondence search, using graph cuts and belief propagation, for estimating depth maps. The results following different preprocessing steps are evaluated, using the quality of the disparity map. Running times are also investigated. For evaluation purposes, different kinds of images have been used: reference images from the Middlebury Stereo website, synthetic driving scenes, and real-world stereo sequences, either provided by Daimler AG or self-recorded with the research vehicle of the . enpeda. project at Auckland University.
The Romance Approach to Replicated Object Management 1

The ROMANCE project aims at building a Replicated Object MANagement Con gurable Environment based on Group Technology. Ultimately, we aim to develop a programming environment to support sharing passive replicated data objects regardless of data persistence or durability requirements. ROMANCE objects are distributed and can be accessed from any node in the system (in a location transparent way). Object access can be implemented either by issuing remote invocations or by maintaining a local copy of the object. Thus, shared objects may be replicated, both in volatile storage, in the context of user processes, and/or in stable memory. Additionally, ROMANCE intends to provide support for fault-tolerance and controlled inconsistency of object replicas in the presence of network partitions. This paper details the goals of the ROMANCE project, presents its software architecture and current status. A fundamental goal of the project is to experiment with Group Technology. In ROMANCE, distribution and replication are implemented using underlying group communication and membership services. The paper also describes how these tools are used to achieve ROMANCE goals.
Carbon and nitrogen balances for six shrublands across Europe

Shrublands constitute significant and important parts of European landscapes providing a large number of important ecosystem services. Biogeochemical cycles in these ecosystems have gained little attention relative to forests and grassland systems, but data on such cycles are required for developing and testing ecosystem models. As climate change progresses, the potential feedback from terrestrial ecosystems to the atmosphere through changes in carbon stocks, carbon sequestration, and general knowledge on biogeochemical cycles becomes increasingly important. Here we present carbon and nitrogen balances of six shrublands along a climatic gradient across the European continent. The aim of the study was to provide a basis for assessing the range and variability in carbon storage in European shrublands. Across the sites the net carbon storage in the systems ranged from 1,163 g C m−2 to 18,546 g C m−2, and the systems ranged from being net sinks (126 g C m−2 a−1) to being net sources (−536 g C m−2 a−1) of carbon with the largest storage and sink of carbon at wet and cold climatic conditions. The soil carbon store dominates the carbon budget at all sites and in particular at the site with a cold and wet climate where soil C constitutes 95% of the total carbon in the ecosystem. Respiration of carbon from the soil organic matter pool dominated the carbon loss at all sites while carbon loss from aboveground litter decomposition appeared less important. Total belowground carbon allocation was more than 5 times aboveground litterfall carbon which is significantly greater than the factor of 2 reported in a global analysis of forest data. Nitrogen storage was also dominated by the soil pools generally showing small losses except when atmospheric N input was high. The study shows that in the future a climate‐driven land cover change between grasslands and shrublands in Europe will likely lead to increased ecosystem C where shrublands are promoted and less where grasses are promoted. However, it also emphasizes that if feedbacks on the global carbon cycle are to be predicted it is critically important to quantify and understand belowground carbon allocation and processes as well as soil carbon pools, particularly on wet organic soils, rather than plant functional change as the soil stores dominate the overall budget and fluxes of carbon.
AND FREE FERMIONS

We present new evidence for the conjecture that BPS correlation functions in the N = 2 supersymmetric gauge theories are described by an auxiliary two dimensional conformal field theory. We study deformations of the N = 2 supersymmetric gauge theory by all gaugeinvariant chiral operators. We calculate the partition function of the N = 2 theory on R with appropriately twisted boundary conditions. For the U(1) theory with instantons (either noncommutative, or D-instantons, depending on the construction) the partition function, as it turns out, has a representation in terms of the theory of free fermions on a sphere, and coincides with the tau-function of the Toda lattice hierarchy. Using this result we prove to all orders in string loop expansion that the effective prepotential (for U(1) with all chiral couplings included) is given by the free energy of the topological string on CP. We show that the gravitational descendants play an important rôle in the gauge fields/string correspondence. We then identify this string with the little string bound to the fivebrane wrapped on the two-sphere. We also discuss the theory with fundamental matter hypermultiplets.
ESTIMATING THE TAX BENEFITS OF DEBT

The standard approach to valuing interest tax shields assumes that full tax benefits are realized on every dollar of interest deduction in every scenario. The approach presented in this paper takes account of the possibility that interest tax shields cannot be used in some scenarios, in part because of variations in the firm's profitability. Because of the dynamic nature of the tax code (e.g., tax-loss carrybacks and carryforwards), it is necessary to consider past and future taxable income when estimating today's effective marginal tax rate. The paper uses a series of numerical examples to show that (1) the incremental value of an extra dollar of interest deduction is equal to the marginal tax rate appropriate for "that dollar"; and (2) a firm's effective marginal tax rate (and therefore the marginal benefit of incremental interest deductions) can actually decline as the firm takes on additional debt. 2001 Morgan Stanley.
Using multiple samples to learn mixture models

In the mixture models problem it is assumed that there are K distributions θ1,. , θK and one gets to observe a sample from a mixture of these distributions with unknown coefficients. The goal is to associate instances with their generating distributions, or to identify the parameters of the hidden distributions. In this work we make the assumption that we have access to several samples drawn from the same K underlying distributions, but with different mixing weights. As with topic modeling, having multiple samples is often a reasonable assumption. Instead of pooling the data into one sample, we prove that it is possible to use the differences between the samples to better recover the underlying structure. We present algorithms that recover the underlying structure under milder assumptions than the current state of art when either the dimensionality or the separation is high. The methods, when applied to topic modeling, allow generalization to words not present in the training data.
Development of statistical geomechanical models for forecasting seismicity induced by gas production from the Groningen field

Abstract This paper reviews the evolution of a sequence of seismological models developed and implemented as part of a workflow for Probabilistic Seismic Hazard and Risk Assessment of the seismicity induced by gas production from the Groningen gas field. These are semi-empirical statistical geomechanical models derived from observations of production-induced seismicity, reservoir compaction and structure of the field itself. Initial versions of the seismological model were based on a characterisation of the seismicity in terms of its moment budget. Subsequent versions of the model were formulated in terms of seismic event rates, this change being driven in part by the reduction in variability of the model forecasts in this domain. Our approach makes use of the Epidemic Type After Shock model (ETAS) to characterise spatial and temporal clustering of earthquakes and has been extended to also incorporate the concentration of moment release on pre-existing faults and other reservoir topographic structures.
Peripheral Upregulation of Parkinson’s Disease-Associated Genes Encoding α-Synuclein, β-Glucocerebrosidase, and Ceramide Glucosyltransferase in Major Depression

Due to the high comorbidity of Parkinson’s disease (PD) with major depressive disorder (MDD) and the involvement of sphingolipids in both conditions, we investigated the peripheral expression levels of three primarily PD-associated genes: α-synuclein (SNCA), lysosomal enzyme β-glucocerebrosidase (GBA1), and UDP-glucose ceramide glucosyltransferase (UGCG) in a sex-balanced MDD cohort. Normalized gene expression was determined by quantitative PCR in patients suffering from MDD (unmedicated n = 63, medicated n = 66) and controls (remitted MDD n = 39, healthy subjects n = 61). We observed that expression levels of SNCA (p = 0.036), GBA1 (p = 0.014), and UGCG (p = 0.0002) were higher in currently depressed patients compared to controls and remitted patients, and expression of GBA1 and UGCG decreased in medicated patients during three weeks of therapy. Additionally, in subgroups, expression was positively correlated with the severity of depression and anxiety. Furthermore, we identified correlations between the gene expression levels and PD-related laboratory parameters. Our findings suggest that SNCA, GBA1, and UGCG analysis could be instrumental in the search for biomarkers of MDD and in understanding the overlapping pathological mechanisms underlying neuro-psychiatric diseases.
Physical activity, smoking, and obesity among Canadian school youth. Comparison between urban and rural schools.

BACKGROUND More information is needed to document the prevalence of health risk factors in youth. The purpose of this study is to compare the prevalence of physical inactivity, smoking and overweight/obesity among youth in urban and rural schools. METHODS Data were obtained from a Student Physical Activity and Smoking Survey of 2,697 high school students in four urban schools in Ontario and four rural schools in Alberta. Prevalence of physical inactivity was assessed by examining compliance with Canada's Physical Activity Guide to Healthy Active Living, and with daily energy expenditure classification values. Prevalence of smoking was assessed by examining current smoking status. Overweight and obesity prevalences were examined by comparing BMI values to the BMI index for age and sex percentiles set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. RESULTS Physical activity prevalence was found to be low in our study, with only 57.0% of youth achieving Canada's Physical Activity Guidelines, and with 26.0% classified as sedentary based on the daily energy expenditure classification values. A higher proportion of rural students reported "trying smoking" than urban school students (73.0% versus 64.4%, p<0.001). A significantly higher proportion of rural males were 'overweight' than urban males, and a significantly higher proportion of rural females were 'obese' in comparison to urban females. CONCLUSION Our findings add further support for an urgent need to promote physical activity among Canadian youth. Additionally, our results suggest that it is especially important to target rural students, particularly girls, for smoking prevention programs. Future studies are required to examine such rural and urban differences within provinces.
Debugging embedded multimedia application traces through periodic pattern mining

Increasing complexity in both the software and the underlying hardware, and ever tighter time-to-market pressures are some of the key challenges faced when designing multimedia embedded systems. Optimizing the debugging phase can help to reduce development time significantly. A powerful approach used extensively during this phase is the analysis of execution traces. However, huge trace volumes make manual trace analysis unmanageable. In such situations, Data Mining can help by automatically discovering interesting patterns in large amounts of data. In this paper, we are interested in discovering periodic behaviors in multimedia applications. Therefore, we propose a new pattern mining approach for automatically discovering all periodic patterns occurring in a multimedia application execution trace. Furthermore, gaps in the periodicity are of special interest since they can correspond to cracks or drop-outs in the stream. Existing periodic pattern definitions are too restrictive regarding the size of the gaps in the periodicity. So, in this paper, we specify a new definition of frequent periodic patterns that removes this limitation. Moreover, in order to simplify the analysis of the set of frequent periodic patterns we propose two complementary approaches: (a) a lossless representation that reduces the size of the set and facilitates its analysis, and (b) a tool to identify pairs of "competitors" where a pattern breaks the periodicity of another pattern. Several experiments were carried out on embedded video and audio decoding application traces, demonstrating that using these new patterns it is possible to identify abnormal behaviors.
Characterization of allergens in plant‐derived spices: Apiaceae spices, pepper (Piperaceae), and paprika (bell peppers, Solanaceae)

Allergens in spices from the botanic families Apiaceae, Piperaceae, and Solanaceae were characterized. IgE‐immunoblotting and IgE‐inhibition experiments revealed broad cross‐reactivity among spices and to pollen‐derived proteins. Moreover, monoclonal antibodies raised against cross‐reactive pollen allergens (profilin, Bet v 1) detected homologous proteins in almost every spice source analyzed. It can be concluded that allergy to spices rarely represents an autonomous sensitization, but is rather a consequence of pollen allergy on the basis of immunologic cross‐reactivity.
Slow transcranial magnetic stimulation, long-term depotentiation, and brain hyperexcitability disorders.

OBJECTIVE Many clinical syndromes in neuropsychiatry suggest focal brain activation. Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) has been proposed as a method for selectively altering neural activity. METHOD Studies assessing effects of "slow" rTMS, administered up to once per second, in normal people and in those with pathological conditions are reviewed. The findings are compared with those of animal studies examining long-term depression and long-term depotentiation through direct electrical stimulation of cortical tissue. RESULTS Data suggest that slow rTMS reduces cortical excitability, both locally and in functionally linked cortical regions. Preliminary studies of patients with focal dystonia, epileptic seizures, and auditory hallucinations indicate symptom reductions following slow rTMS. Long-term depotentiation exhibits many features congruent with those of slow rTMS, including frequency dependence, spread to functionally linked cortical regions, additive efficacy, and extended duration of effects. CONCLUSIONS Slow rTMS offers a new method for probing and possibly treating brain hyperexcitability syndromes. Further studies linking slow rTMS to animal models of neuroplasticity are indicated.