Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Network modeling for distributed simulations of unbalanced power systems

With the increasing presence of distributed intelligence throughout power systems, the possibilities for distributed control and operation schemes are becoming progressively more attractive and feasible. Multi-phase distribution power flow is a tool which calculates the operating state of an electric power distribution system and is used to support all other planning and operation applications. This paper will derive models for the distributed analysis and simulation of distribution systems and will present their use in calculating the power flow solution using physically remote distributed processors. To perform the power flow, distributed analysis models for multi-phase distribution systems have been developed and are embedded in a distributed algorithm. These include network partition models and equivalent source and load models which are used to represent each of the subsystems in the distributed analysis. A distributed processor test bed has been designed to test the performance of the models in distributed simulations. Results will be presented which validate the accuracy of the proposed models and algorithm.
Construction of an Experimental Measure of Motivation.

EDRS PRICE MF-$0.65 HC-$3.29 DESCRIPTORS College Students; Community Colleges; Construction (Process); Evaluation Criteria; Factor Analysis; *Measurement Instruments; *Motivation; Need Gratification, Personality Studies; *Personality Tests; *Psychological Characteristics; Psychological Evaluation; Psychological Needs; Psychological Studies; *Psychological Tests; Research Methodology; Social Reinforcement
A two-phased evolutionary approach for intelligent task assignment & scheduling

In this paper, a two-phased evolutionary approach that integrates particle swarm optimization (PSO) and genetic algorithm (GA) is proposed to help assigning and scheduling maintenance crews to maintenance tasks automatically. The validity of the proposed system is verified experimentally. Results from the experiments indicate that the two-phased integration of PSO and GA in the proposed system is a robust and effective intelligent planning mechanism to help make decisions for task assignment and scheduling with higher efficiency.
Unsupervised analysis of polyphonic music by sparse coding

We investigate a data-driven approach to the analysis and transcription of polyphonic music, using a probabilistic model which is able to find sparse linear decompositions of a sequence of short-term Fourier spectra. The resulting system represents each input spectrum as a weighted sum of a small number of "atomic" spectra chosen from a larger dictionary; this dictionary is, in turn, learned from the data in such a way as to represent the given training set in an (information theoretically) efficient way. When exposed to examples of polyphonic music, most of the dictionary elements take on the spectral characteristics of individual notes in the music, so that the sparse decomposition can be used to identify the notes in a polyphonic mixture. Our approach differs from other methods of polyphonic analysis based on spectral decomposition by combining all of the following: a) a formulation in terms of an explicitly given probabilistic model, in which the process estimating which notes are present corresponds naturally with the inference of latent variables in the model; b) a particularly simple generative model, motivated by very general considerations about efficient coding, that makes very few assumptions about the musical origins of the signals being processed; and c) the ability to learn a dictionary of atomic spectra (most of which converge to harmonic spectral profiles associated with specific notes) from polyphonic examples alone-no separate training on monophonic examples is required.
Bioactive Compounds, Antioxidant, Xanthine Oxidase Inhibitory, Tyrosinase Inhibitory and Anti-Inflammatory Activities of Selected Agro-Industrial By-products

Evaluation of abundantly available agro-industrial by-products for their bioactive compounds and biological activities is beneficial in particular for the food and pharmaceutical industries. In this study, rapeseed meal, cottonseed meal and soybean meal were investigated for the presence of bioactive compounds and antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, xanthine oxidase and tyrosinase inhibitory activities. Methanolic extracts of rapeseed meal showed significantly (P < 0.01) higher phenolics and flavonoids contents; and significantly (P < 0.01) higher DPPH and nitric oxide free radical scavenging activities when compared to that of cottonseed meal and soybean meal extracts. Ferric thiocyanate and thiobarbituric acid tests results showed rapeseed meal with the highest antioxidant activity (P < 0.01) followed by BHT, cotton seed meal and soybean meal. Rapeseed meal extract in xanthine oxidase and tyrosinase inhibitory assays showed the lowest IC50 values followed by cottonseed and soybean meals. Anti-inflammatory assay using IFN-γ/LPS stimulated RAW 264.7 cells indicated rapeseed meal is a potent source of anti-inflammatory agent. Correlation analysis showed that phenolics and flavonoids were highly correlated to both antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities. Rapeseed meal was found to be promising as a natural source of bioactive compounds with high antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, xanthine oxidase and tyrosinase inhibitory activities in contrast to cotton and soybean meals.
Phospholipase D and Its Essential Role in Cancer

The role of phospholipase D (PLD) in cancer development and management has been a major area of interest for researchers. The purpose of this mini-review is to explore PLD and its distinct role during chemotherapy including anti-apoptotic function. PLD is an enzyme that belongs to the phospholipase super family and is found in a broad range of organisms such as viruses, yeast, bacteria, animals, and plants. The function and activity of PLD are widely dependent on and regulated by neurotransmitters, hormones, small monomeric GTPases, and lipids. A growing body of research has shown that PLD activity is significantly increased in cancer tissues and cells, indicating that it plays a critical role in signal transduction, cell proliferation, and anti-apoptotic processes. In addition, recent studies show that PLD is a downstream transcriptional target of proteins that contribute to inflammation and carcinogenesis such as Sp1, NFκB, TCF4, ATF-2, NFATc2, and EWS-Fli. Thus, compounds that inhibit expression or activity of PLD in cells can be potentially useful in reducing inflammation and sensitizing resistant cancers during chemotherapy.
Direction-of-motion stereotypes: a review.

The offets of directional relationships between controls and displays are examined, with special reference to the influence of experience and of conditions of stress. Methods of investigation are discussed. The literature is reviewed to determine what stereotypes appear to be reasonably well-established, and attention is drawn to a number of deficiencies in current knowledge. Consideration is given to the effects of the operator's orientation, the hand ho employs for response, the initial position of the display, and the direction of scale numbering.
Multitarget region tracking based on short-sight modelling of background and color distribution temporal variation

We address the problem of multitarget region tracking within image sequences. Following recent work on joint segmentation and tracking as well as non-parametric modeling of color statistics, we develop an energy-minimization based approach using color histograms measures. As in a few other existing approaches, a single color probability distribution per object and background is handled. In this context, global histograms may be problematic for tracking in real scenes with cluttered backgrounds, where statistical color data is highly scattered, preventing the estimation of reliable color statistics for object/background discrimination. To overcome this limitation, we introduce a short-sight perception modeling of background, which concentrates on the vicinity of tracked objects and thus extract more consistent statistical data for accurate separation between objects and background. To account for temporal consistency, our energy is also endowed with a novel data term explicitly based on temporal variation of color distribution within objects and local background regions.
Acute application of antioxidants protects against hyperoxia‐induced reduction of plasma nitrite concentration

We investigated the effects of acute intake of antioxidants on hyperoxia‐induced oxidative stress, reduction of plasma nitrite and change in arterial stiffness. Twelve healthy males randomly consumed either placebo or an oral antioxidant cocktail (vitamin C, 1000 mg; vitamin E, 600 IU; alpha‐lipoic acid, 600 mg). Every therapy was consumed once, a week apart, in a cross‐over design, 30 min before the experiment. The volunteers breathed 100% normobaric oxygen between 30th and 60th min of 1‐h study protocol. Plasma levels of nitrite, lipid peroxides (LOOH) and vitamin C, arterial stiffness (indicated by augmentation index, AIx) and arterial oxygen (PtcO2) pressure were measured before and after hyperoxia. Exposure to oxygen caused a similar increase of PtcO2 in both placebo and antioxidants groups, confirming comparable exposure to hyperoxia (438 ± 100 versus 455 ± 83 mm Hg). Vitamin C was increased in the antioxidants group confirming successful application of antioxidants (69 ± 14 versus 57 ± 15 μm). Hyperoxia resulted in increased AIx and LOOH and decreased nitrite in placebo (−32 ± 11 versus −47 ± 13%, 72 ± 7 versus 62 ± 6 μm H2O2 and 758 ± 184 versus 920 ± 191 nm, respectively), but not in the antioxidants group (−42 ± 13 versus −50 ± 13%, 64 ± 9 versus 61 ± 8 μm H2O2 and 847 ± 156 versus 936 ± 201 nm, respectively). The acute intake of selected antioxidants was effective in preserving bioavailabity of ˙NO and vascular function, against hyperoxia‐induced oxidative stress.
A Framework for Real-Time Hand Gesture Recognition in Uncontrolled Environments with Partition Matrix Model Based on Hidden Conditional Random Fields

The main obstructions of making hand gesture recognition methods robust in real-world applications are the challenges from the uncontrolled environments, including: gesturing hand out of the scene, pause during gestures, complex background, skin-coloured regions moving in background, performers wearing short sleeve and face overlapping with hand. Therefore, a framework for real-time hand gesture recognition in uncontrolled environments is proposed in this paper. A novel tracking scheme is proposed to track multiple hand candidates in unconstrained background, and a weighting model for gesture classification based on Hidden Conditional Random Fields which takes trajectories of multiple hand candidates under different frame rates into consideration is also introduced. The framework achieved invariance under change of scale, speed and location of the hand gestures. The Experimental results of the proposed framework on Palm Graffiti Digits database and Warwick Hand Gesture database show that it can perform well in uncontrolled environments.
Lexical/semantic processing in dorsal left inferior frontal gyrus

Previous studies have not determined whether the dorsal left inferior frontal gyrus has a lexical or semantic function. This study conducted an event-related functional MRI experiment to explore its function using Japanese words and nonsense words in a syllable counting task. The word task activated a dorsal area (BA6/44) and a ventral area (BA45/47) more extensively than did the nonsense word task. The results indicate that the dorsal area also has lexical or semantic functions, despite that it has been related to phonological processing from studies using written stimuli. The more extensive activation by the word task might result from the same level of effort during phonological processing of Japanese words and nonsense words.
Topic-Aware Physical Activity Propagation with Temporal Dynamics in a Health Social Network

Modeling physical activity propagation, such as activity level and intensity, is a key to preventing obesity from cascading through communities, and to helping spread wellness and healthy behavior in a social network. However, there have not been enough scientific and quantitative studies to elucidate how social communication may deliver physical activity interventions. In this work, we introduce a novel model named Topic-aware Community-level Physical Activity Propagation with Temporal Dynamics (TCPT) to analyze physical activity propagation and social influence at different granularities (i.e., individual level and community level). Given a social network, the TCPT model first integrates the correlations between the content of social communication, social influences, and temporal dynamics. Then, a hierarchical approach is utilized to detect a set of communities and their reciprocal influence strength of physical activities. The experimental evaluation shows not only the effectiveness of our approach but also the correlation of the detected communities with various health outcome measures. Our promising results pave a way for knowledge discovery in health social networks.
The effect of cataract surgery on ocular dominance

Purpose The aim of this study is to assess whether eye dominance may change after cataract surgery. Methods This is a prospective case series. Cataract surgery candidates were examined prior to surgery for best-corrected visual acuity, eye dominance, and handedness. Patients with ocular conditions that may affect visual acuity were excluded from the study. A month following surgery, best-corrected visual acuity and eye dominance examinations were repeated. Results The study included 33 patients with a mean age of 70.5±9.4 years. Eighteen patients (54.5%) had right eye dominance. Following surgery, seven patients (21.2%) had a change in eye dominance. The change in dominance was linked to improved visual acuity in the operated eye and to a younger age, although with no statistical significance. Conclusion This is the first study reported in the literature to show that ocular dominance is a plastic characteristic following cataract surgeries. The results may change the importance given to eye dominance measurement prior to surgeries that rely on this examination, such as monovision surgeries.
Colored Multiway Cuts in Generalized Tree Networks

Given a graph with color dependent edge weights and a partial coloration on some distinguished vertices, the colored multiway cut problem is to extend the partial coloration such that all the vertices are colored and the total weight of edges that have different colored endpoints is minimized. A polynomial time algorithm is presented that solves the problem exactly for generalized tree networks.
Lexical Models to Identify Unmarked Discourse Relations: Does WordNet help?

In this paper, we address the task of automatically determining which discourse relation holds between two text spans. We focus on relations that are not explicitly signalled by a discourse marker like but. While lexical models have been found useful for the task, they are also prone to data sparseness problems, which is a big drawback given the scarcity of discourse annotated data. We therefore investigate whether the use of lexical-semantic resources, such as WordNet, can be exploited to back-off to a more general representation of lexical information in cases were data are sparse. We compare such a semantic back-off strategy to morphological generalisations over word forms, such as stemming and lemmatising.
Virtual Garments: A Fully Geometric Approach for Clothing Design

Modeling dressed characters is known as a very tedious process. It usually requires specifying 2D fabric patterns, positioning and assembling the min 3D, and then performing a physically‐based simulation. The latter accounts for gravity and collisions to compute the rest shape of the garment, with the adequate folds and wrinkles.
PET Approaches for Diagnosis of Dementia

SUMMARY: There is increasing use of neuroimaging modalities, including PET, for diagnosing dementia. For example, FDG-PET demonstrates hypometabolic regions in the posterior cingulate gyri, precuneus, and parietotemporal association cortices, while amyloid PET indicates amyloid deposition in Alzheimer disease and mild cognitive impairment due to Alzheimer disease. Furthermore, the use of combination PET with structural MR imaging can improve the diagnostic accuracy of dementia. In other neurodegenerative dementias, each disease exhibits a specific metabolic reduction pattern. In dementia with Lewy bodies, occipital glucose metabolism is decreased, while in frontotemporal dementia, frontal and anterior temporal metabolism is predominantly decreased. These FDG-PET findings and positive or negative amyloid deposits are important biomarkers for various neurodegenerative dementias.
Predator Cat Odors Activate Sexual Arousal Pathways in Brains of Toxoplasma gondii Infected Rats

Cat odors induce rapid, innate and stereotyped defensive behaviors in rats at first exposure, a presumed response to the evolutionary pressures of predation. Bizarrely, rats infected with the brain parasite Toxoplasma gondii approach the cat odors they typically avoid. Since the protozoan Toxoplasma requires the cat to sexually reproduce, this change in host behavior is thought to be a remarkable example of a parasite manipulating a mammalian host for its own benefit. Toxoplasma does not influence host response to non-feline predator odor nor does it alter behavior on olfactory, social, fear or anxiety tests, arguing for specific manipulation in the processing of cat odor. We report that Toxoplasma infection alters neural activity in limbic brain areas necessary for innate defensive behavior in response to cat odor. Moreover, Toxoplasma increases activity in nearby limbic regions of sexual attraction when the rat is exposed to cat urine, compelling evidence that Toxoplasma overwhelms the innate fear response by causing, in its stead, a type of sexual attraction to the normally aversive cat odor.
Studying the effects of code inspection and structural testing on software quality

The paper contributes a controlled experiment to characterize the effects of code inspection and structural testing on software quality. Twenty subjects performed sequentially code inspection and structural testing using different coverage values as test criteria on a C-code module. The results of this experiment show that inspection significantly outperforms the defect detection effectiveness of structural testing. Furthermore, the experimental results indicate little evidence to support the hypothesis that structural testing detects different defects, that is, defects of a particular class, that were missed by inspection and vice versa. These findings suggest that inspection and structural testing do not complement each other well. Since 39 percent (on average) of the defects were not detected at all, it might be more valuable to apply inspection, together with other testing techniques, such as boundary value analysis, to achieve a better defect coverage. We are aware that a single experiment has many limitations and often does not provide conclusive evidence. Hence, we consider this experiment a starting point and encourage other researchers to investigate the optimal mix of defect detection techniques.
Earlybird: Real-Time Search at Twitter

The web today is increasingly characterized by social and real-time signals, which we believe represent two frontiers in information retrieval. In this paper, we present Early bird, the core retrieval engine that powers Twitter's real-time search service. Although Early bird builds and maintains inverted indexes like nearly all modern retrieval engines, its index structures differ from those built to support traditional web search. We describe these differences and present the rationale behind our design. A key requirement of real-time search is the ability to ingest content rapidly and make it searchable immediately, while concurrently supporting low-latency, high-throughput query evaluation. These demands are met with a single-writer, multiple-reader concurrency model and the targeted use of memory barriers. Early bird represents a point in the design space of real-time search engines that has worked well for Twitter's needs. By sharing our experiences, we hope to spur additional interest and innovation in this exciting space.
Physical-Layer Security against Non-Degraded Eavesdroppers

Most of current physical-layer security techniques rely on a degraded eavesdropper, thus warranting some sort of advantage that can be relied upon to achieve higher levels of security. We consider instead non-degraded eavesdroppers, that possess equal or better capabilities than legitimate receivers. Under this challenging setup, most of current physical-layer security techniques become hard to administer and new dimensions to establish advantageous periods of communication are needed. For that, we characterize the secrecy level of two schemes for physical-layer security under non-degraded eavesdroppers: a spread spectrum uncoordinated frequency hopping scheme, and a jamming receiver with self-interference cancellation.
Effects of cocaine self-administration on plasma corticosterone and prolactin in rats.

The effects of i.v. cocaine self-administration under "naturalistic" conditions on plasma corticosterone (CORT) and prolactin (PRL) were investigated in male Sprague-Dawley rats. After the determination of plasma CORT and PRL levels under basal conditions before access to cocaine for self-administration, rats were allowed to self-administer cocaine (0.25, 0.5, 1.0, or 2.0 mg/kg/infusion i.v.) by pressing a response lever under a continuous schedule of cocaine reinforcement during five daily consecutive 10-h sessions. Plasma CORT was significantly increased and plasma PRL was significantly reduced after each of the five self-administration sessions. The effects of cocaine on plasma CORT were intake-dependent, as demonstrated by significant positive correlations between postsession plasma CORT and total cocaine intake within the preceding sessions. The effects of cocaine on PRL were also intake-dependent but only on the first day of self-administration, on which a significant negative correlation was observed between cocaine intake and postsession PRL. In contrast, significant correlations between PRL and cocaine intake were not observed during any subsequent session, apparently reflecting adaptations to cocaine-induced PRL release. Alterations in neuroendocrine homeostasis emerged over time. Reductions in presession CORT values, as well as a persistent blunting of the diurnal CORT peak, were observed. Similarly, there was a modest but significant attenuation of plasma PRL when measured 4 days after the termination of cocaine self-administration. Alterations in neuroendocrine function associated with self-administration may be related to the development of cocaine dependence and could contribute to relapse in abstinent users.