Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Switching between Hybrid MIMO Structures for Video Transmission Based on Distortion Model

In this paper, we propose a switching between hybrid Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) structures based on a distortion model per Group of Pictures (GOP) to improve the transmission of video streaming over wireless systems. The proposed algorithm uses measurements of the application and physical layers. In the application layer, a distortion model for GOP is used based on the packet loss rate and media data units. In the physical layer, the switching between hybrid MIMO structures is realized by simultaneously taking advantage of multiplexing and diversity gains provided by hybrid MIMO structure. The simulation results presented in this article show that the switching between hybrid MIMO structures based in the distortion model per GOPs is capable of improving the objective and subjective video quality at the end user.
Assessing Helminth Community Structure and Patterns in Gizzard Helminths of Blue-Winged Teal (Anas Discors)

Abstract: Helminth community structure (prevalence and abundance) and patterns (associations and distributions) of gizzard worms were examined in blue-winged teal (Anas discors) migrating through south Texas to their wintering grounds (n = 50) and as they migrated back to their breeding grounds (n = 50). Three species of nematodes (Amidostomum acutum, Epomidiostomum uncinatum, and Streptocara crassicauda) and 1 species of cestode (Gastrotaenia cygni) were recovered, representing 1,164 helminth individuals. Amidostomum acutum was the most prevalent (92%) and abundant (817 individuals; 70% of total worms), while G. cygni was the least prevalent (16%) and abundant (23 individuals; 2%). Ninety-eight blue-winged teal were infected with 1 to 4 species. Amidostomum acutum and E. uncinatum were the most frequently (45%) observed association of 2 or more species, followed by A. acutum, E. uncinatum, and S. crassicauda (19%), and A. acutum and S. crassicauda (14%). Significant positive correlations were mainly between A. acutum and E. uncinatum, whereas negative correlations were found between each of these 2 species and S. crassicauda. Prevalence and abundance of A. acutum and S. crassicauda were not influenced by season, host age, or host sex. However, E. uncinatum varied by season and host age. The percent similarity index indicated a relatively consistent component community pattern of high similarity irrespective of season, host age, and sex. The same helminth species were found in both fall and spring, indicating that other helminth species were not being acquired on the wintering grounds.
EA Anamnesis: An Approach for Decision Making Analysis in Enterprise Architecture

Enterprise Architecture (EA) modeling languages can express the business-to-IT-stack for an organization, showing how changes in the IT landscape impact business aspects and vice versa. Yet EA languages provide only the final architectural design, not the rationale behind this design. In earlier work, the authors presented the EA Anamnesis approach for EA rationalization. The authors discussed how EA Anamnesis forms a complement to current EA modeling languages, showing for example design alternatives, EA artifact selection criteria and the decision making strategy that was used. In this paper, the authors extend EA Anamnesis with a capability for organizational learning. In particular, the authors present an integration of two viewpoints presented in earlier work: (1) an ex-ante decision making viewpoint for rationalizing EA during decision making, which for example captures a decision and its anticipated consequences, and (2) an ex-post decision making viewpoint, which for example captures the unanticipated decision consequences, and possible adjustments in criteria. The authors use a fictitious, yet realistic, case study to illustrate our approach.
Robust network flow against attackers with knowledge of routing method

Recently, many algorithms are proposed to find a communication flow that is robust against k-edges failures. That flow can be weaker, if attackers can obtain forwarding information in each router. In this paper, we propose an algorithm that find a forwarding algorithm maximizing the remaining flow in that situation. We show that Kishimoto's multiroute flow is a (k + 1)-approximation algorithm for the problem, when the route number is k + 1. When the route number is optimally chosen, we show that the multiroute flow is a 2-approximation algorithm for most of randomly generated graphs. Our experimental results show that our algorithm has 15%-37% better performance than max-flow algorithm.
Seasonal Patterns of Invasive Pneumococcal Disease

Pneumococcal infections increase each winter, a phenomenon that has not been well explained. We conducted population-based active surveillance for all cases of invasive pneumococcal disease in seven states; plotted annualized weekly rates by geographic location, age, and latitude; and assessed correlations by time-series analysis. In all geographic areas, invasive pneumococcal disease exhibited a distinct winter seasonality, including an increase among children in the fall preceding that for adults and a sharp spike in incidence among adults each year between December 24 and January 7. Pneumococcal disease correlated inversely with temperature (r –0.82 with a 1-week lag; p<0.0001), but paradoxically the coldest states had the lowest rates, and no threshold temperature could be identified. The pattern of disease correlated directly with the sinusoidal variations in photoperiod (r +0.85 with a 5-week lag; p<0.0001). Seemingly unrelated seasonal phenomena were also somewhat correlated. The reproducible seasonal patterns in varied geographic locations are consistent with the hypothesis that nationwide seasonal changes such as photoperiod-dependent variation in host susceptibility may underlie pneumococcal seasonality, but caution is indicated in assigning causality as a result of such correlations.
The Evolving Picture of Standardisation and Certification for Process Assessment

The International Standard for Process Assessment, ISO/IEC 15504, has evolved over a period of almost twenty years, supported by extensive research and empirical study. A forthcoming revision of the Standard is intended to transform it from a single, multi-part standard to a set of related standards using a defined numeric range. This transformation will lead to an expanded range of application, and to a significantly more open standards framework. The revised requirements for the Standard envisage that it will address the assessment of other process characteristics beyond that of process capability, which has been the focus of attention to date. The scope also makes possible the extension of assessment to fields outside the ICT domain. Hand in hand with this evolution is a concentration on verification of conformance, with a view to formal certification of the results of assessments, whether in terms of profiles of Process Capability, or of Organizational Maturity. The proposed scope of work also incorporates a body of knowledge for process assessment, setting a standard for eventual certification of assessment professionals.
Crossmodal attention

Most selective attention research has considered only a single sensory modality at a time, but in the real world, our attention must be coordinated crossmodally. Recent studies reveal extensive crossmodal links in attention across the various modalities (i.e. audition, vision, touch and proprioception). Attention typically shifts to a common location across the modalities, despite the vast differences in their initial coding of space. These spatial synergies in attention can be maintained even when receptors are realigned across the modalities by changes in posture. Some crossmodal integration can arise preattentively. The mechanisms underlying these crossmodal links can be examined in a convergent manner by integrating behavioural studies of normal subjects and brain-damaged patients with neuroimaging and neurophysiological studies.
Korean MULTEXT: a Korean prosody corpus

This paper describes the contents of the Korean prosody corpus (Korean MULTEXT), which is a Korean version of the speech database Eurom1. The corpus consists of about 2 hours of read speech, transcribed primarily in orthography (in Korean alphabet and in a Romanized transcription), in IPA and in SAMPA. Furthermore, it includes the original F0 values, stylized F0 values extracted using Momel, and hand-corrected F0 values. The prosodic events are annotated in two ways. They are annotated with the automatic annotation algorithm, INTSINT, and also labeled manually into prosodic units with two tones on the hand-corrected pitch targets. It is found that the resulting tone patterns from the proposed Momel-based two tone labeling correspond to those defined in K-ToBI.
Essays on philosophy and education 1916-1917

Except for "Democracy and Education, "the 53 items in Volume 10 include all of Dewey s writings from 19161917, the years when he moved into politics and began to write about topics of general public interest. The best known of Dewey s writings in this volume is the essay from "Creative Intelligence," " " The Need for a Recovery of Philosophy. Here Dewey asserts that Philosophy recovers itself when it ceases to be a device for dealing with the problems of philosophers and becomes a method for dealing with the problems of men. Dewey put that idea into practice, as Lewis E. Hahn points out in his introduction. In 19161917 [Dewey] commented on quite a range of issues from compulsory universal military training to the Wilson-Hughes presidential campaign, from conscription of thought to the future of pacifism, from what America will fight for to appropriate peace terms . and from American education and culture to contemporary issues in education, with the war casting a shadow over most of the items. "
Understanding Behaviorism: Behavior, Culture, and Evolution

Part I: What Is Behaviorism? 1. Behaviorism: Definition and History.Historical Background.Free Will Versus Determinism.Summary.Further Reading.2. Behaviorism as Philosophy of Science.Realism Versus Pragmatism.Radical Behaviroism and Pragmatism.Summary.Further Reading.3. Public, Private, Natural, and Fictional.Mentalism. Category Mistakes.Private Events.Summary.Further Reading.Part II: A Scientific Model of Behavior.4. Evolutionary Theory and Reinforcemen.Evolutionary History.History of Reinforcement.Summary.Further Reading.5. Purpose and Reinforcement.Hisotry and Function.Three Meanings of Purpose.Summary.Further Reading.6. Stimulus Control and Knowledge.Stimulus Control.Knowledge. The Behavior of Scientists.Summary.Further Reading.7. Verbal Behavior and Language.What Is Verbal Behavior? Functional Units and Stimulus Control.Meaning. Grammar and Syntax.Summary.Further Reading.8. Rule-Governed Behavior and Thinking.What Is Rule-Governed Behavior? Learning To Follow Rules.Thinking and Problem-Solving.Summary.Further Reading.Part III: Social Issues.9. Freedom.Uses of the Word Free.The Challenge of Traditional Thinking.Summary.Further Reading.10. Responsibility, Credit, and Blame.Responsibility and the Causes of Behavior.Responsibility and the Consequences of Behavior.Summary.Further Reading.11. Relationships, Management, and Government.Relationships. Exploitation.Control and Counter-Control.Summary.Further Reading.12. Values: Religion and Science.Questions About Value.A Scientific Approach to Values.Summary.Further Reading.13. The Evolution of Culture.Biological Evolution and Culture.Variation, Transmission, and Selection.Summary.Further Reading.14. Design of Culture: Experimenting for Survival.Design from Evolution.The Experimental Society.Objections. Summary.Further Reading.Index.
1H MRS in acute traumatic brain injury

The objective of this study was to demonstrate 1H MR spectroscopy (MRS) changes in cerebral metabolites after acute head trauma. Twenty‐five patients (12 children, 13 adults) were examined with quantitative 1H MRS after closed head injury. Clinical grade (Glasgow Coma Scale [GCS]) and outcome (Rancho Los Amigos Medical Center Outcome Score [ROS]) were correlated with quantitative neurochemical findings. N‐acetylas‐partate (NAA), a neuronal and axonal marker, was reduced (P < .03−.001). In children, a reduced NAA/creatine plus phosphocreatine (Cr) level and the presence of detectable lipid/lactate predicted bad outcome (sensitivity, 89%; specificity, 89%). The first MRS examination of all patients correlated with ROS versus NAA (r = .65, P < .0001). Although most patients showed MRS abnormalities, striking heterogeneity of 1H MRS characterized the individual patients. 1H MRS identifies multiple patterns of diffuse brain injury after blunt head trauma. There was a strong correlation between MRS and outcome. Future prospective studies will be needed to determine the clinical usefulness of MRS in predicting outcome from closed head injury.
Intrapulmonary Expression of Macrophage Inflammatory Protein 1α (CCL3) Induces Neutrophil and NK Cell Accumulation and Stimulates Innate Immunity in Murine Bacterial Pneumonia

ABSTRACT Macrophage inflammatory protein 1α (MIP-1α) (CCL3) is an important mediator of leukocyte recruitment and activation in a variety of inflammatory states, including infection. A recombinant human type 5 adenovirus containing the murine MIP-1α cDNA (AdMIP-1α) was constructed to determine the effect of transient intrapulmonary expression of MIP-1α on leukocyte recruitment, activation, and bacterial clearance in a murine model of Klebsiella pneumoniae pneumonia. The intratracheal administration of AdMIP-1α resulted in both time- and dose-dependent expression of MIP-1α mRNA and protein within the lung. Importantly, the intrapulmonary overexpression of MIP-1α resulted in a maximal 35- and 100-fold reduction in lung and blood bacterial burden, respectively, in animals cochallenged with K. pneumoniae, which was associated with a significant increase in neutrophil and activated NK cell accumulation. Furthermore, the transgenic expression of MIP-1α during bacterial pneumonia resulted in enhanced expression of gamma interferon mRNA, compared to that observed in Klebsiella-challenged animals pretreated with control vector. These findings indicate an important role for MIP-1α in the recruitment and activation of selected leukocyte populations in vivo and identify this cytokine as a potential immunoadjuvant to be employed in the setting of localized bacterial infection.
Learning impedance control for physical robot–environment interaction

In this article, learning impedance control is proposed for physical robot–environment interaction. Learning mechanism is developed such that the knowledge of the robot structure is not required. With the developed method, the dynamics of the robot arm is governed to follow a target impedance model and the interaction control objective is achieved. The control performance is discussed through the rigorous analysis. The validity of the proposed method is verified by simulation studies.
Robust general Kalman filter for echo cancellation

The Kalman filter is widely used in many practical applications. In this paper, we motivate the use of a more general form of the Kalman filter in the context of echo cancellation. This algorithm is derived by considering, at each iteration, a block of time samples instead of one time sample as it is the case in the conventional approach. The variance of the near-end signal explicitly appears within the algorithm, which allows us to better control it. Using a proper estimation of this parameter, the general Kalman filter is robust to large near-end signals (like double-talk). Simulation results indicate the appealing performance of the proposed algorithm.
Writing the Word and the World

I heard that Alice Walker said if we write long enough and hard enough we'll heal ourselves. Maybe that's true. But I've come to see that it is not enough. I have watched kids write through rapes, parental abuse, the humiliation of the SATs and tracking, the daily bombardment of messages from commercials ("you are not pretty enough, strong enough, smart enough"), budget cuts that mean they won't get any loans or scholarships for college-but these same kids passed out of this room every day and went back into the world that wounded them. I was patching them up and sending them out without tools to understand--or stop-the brawl they lived with. For the past fifteen years I've worked toward empowering students to use their own voices, to plumb their lives for stories, poems, essays, to engage them in a dialogue with their peers about their writing, about literature. And I've succeeded.
FRANSAC: Fast RANdom Sample Consensus for 3D Plane Segmentation

Scene analysis is a prior stage in many computer vision and robotics applications. Thanks to recent depth camera, we propose a fast plane segmentation approach for obstacle detection in indoor environments. The proposed method Fast RANdom Sample Consensus (FRANSAC) involves three steps: data input, data preprocessing and 3D RANSAC. Firstly, range data, obtained from 3D camera, is converted into 3D point clouds. Next, a preprocessing stage is introduced where a pass through and voxel grid filters are applied. Finally, planes are estimated using a modified 3D RANSAC. The experimental results demonstrate that our approach can segment planes and detect obstacles about 7 times faster than the standard RANSAC without losing the discriminative power.
Experience with an Object Reputation System for Peer-to-Peer Filesharing

The present invention relates to an actuator for an electric starter, comprising a thin sleeve of which the periphery comprises two flanges between which a two-piece collar is placed. The lugs of this collar engage in a notch in the lever to prevent rotation of the sleeve. The invention finds particular application in the automobile industry.
Lipocalin2 Promotes Invasion, Tumorigenicity and Gemcitabine Resistance in Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma

Lipocalin 2 (LCN2) is a small secreted protein and its elevated expression has been observed in pancreatic as well as other cancer types. LCN2 has been reported to promote resistance to drug-induced apoptosis, enhance invasion through its physical association with matrix metalloproteinase-9, and promote in vivo tumor growth. LCN2 was found to be commonly expressed in patient PDAC samples and its pattern of immunohistochemical staining intensified with increasing severity in high-grade precursor lesions. Downregulation of LCN2 in two pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma cell lines (BxPC3 and HPAF-II) with high LCN2 expression significantly reduced attachment, invasion, and tumour growth in vivo, but not proliferation or motility. Downregulation of LCN2 in two pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma cell lines (BxPC3 and HPAF-II) with high expression significantly reduced attachment, invasion, and tumour growth in vivo. In contrast, LCN2 overexpression in PANC1, with low endogenous expression, significantly increased invasion, attachment, and enhanced tumor growth. Suppression of LCN2 in BxPC3 and HPAF-II cells increased their sensitivity to gemcitabine in vitro, and in vivo when BxPC3 was tested. Furthermore, LCN2 promotes expression of VEGF and HIF1A which contribute to enhanced vascularity. These overall results demonstrate that LCN2 plays an important role in the malignant progression of pancreatic ductal carcinoma and is a potential therapeutic target for this disease.
PLK 1 PHOSPHORYLATES MCAK AND PROMOTES ITS DEPOLYMERASE ACTIVITY

During the cell division, interaction between kinetochores and dynamic spindle microtubules governs chromosome movements. The microtubule depolymerase MCAK is a key regulator of mitotic spindle assembly and dynamics. However, the regulatory mechanisms underlying its depolymerase activity during the cell cycle remain elusive. Here we show that PLK1 is a novel regulator of MCAK in mammalian cells. MCAK interacts with PLK1 in vitro and in vivo. The neck and motor domain of MCAK associates with the kinase domain of PLK1. MCAK is a novel substrate of PLK1 and the phosphorylation stimulates its microtubule depolymerization activity of MCAK in vivo. Overexpression of a PLK-phosphomimetic mutant MCAK causes a dramatic increase in misaligned chromosomes and in multi-polar spindles in mitotic cells, while overexpression of a non-phosphorylatable MCAK mutant results in aberrant anaphase with sister chromatid bridges, suggesting that precise regulation of the MCAK activity by PLK1 phosphorylation is critical for proper microtubule dynamics and essential for the faithful chromosome segregation. We reason that dynamic regulation of MCAK phosphorylation by PLK1 is required to orchestrate faithful cell division whereas the high levels of PLK1 and MCAK activities seen in cancer cells may account for a mechanism underlying the pathogenesis of genomic instability.
In vitro and in vivo studies of surface-structured implants for bone formation

Background and methods Micronanoscale topologies play an important role in implant osteointegration and determine the success of an implant. We investigated the effect of three different implant surface topologies on osteoblast response and bone regeneration. In this study, implants with nanotubes and micropores were used, and implants with flat surfaces were used as the control group. Results Our in vitro studies showed that the nanostructured topologies improved the proliferation, differentiation, and development of the osteoblastic phenotype. Histological analysis further revealed that the nanotopology increased cell aggregation at the implant-tissue interfaces and enhanced bone-forming ability. Pushout testing indicated that the nanostructured topology greatly increased the bone-implant interfacial strength within 4 weeks of implantation. Conclusion Nanotopography may improve regeneration of bone tissue and shows promise for dental implant applications.
Broadside high gain H-plane substrate integrated horn antenna for future 5G applications

A new broadside high gain H-plane SIW horn antenna is designed for future fifth generation (5G) applications. The proposed antenna is fed by substrate integrated rectangular coaxial cable. Moreover, the antenna has many advantages such as compact size, light weight, low cost, and low profile for no need to vertical plate. This antenna has a good impedance matching and achieved a high gain of 13.3 dBi in broadside direction. Furthermore, it has a good radiation performance.
A Mandarin-English Code-Switching Corpus

Generally the existing monolingual corpora are not suitable for large vocabulary continuous speech recognition (LVCSR) of code-switching speech. The motivation of this paper is to study the rules and constraints code-switching follows and design a corpus for code-switching LVCSR task. This paper presents the development of a Mandarin-English code-switching corpus. This corpus consists of four parts: 1) conversational meeting speech and its data; 2) project meeting speech data; 3) student interviews speech; 4) text data of on-line news. The speech was transcribed by an annotator and verified by Mandarin-English bilingual speakers manually. We propose an approach for automatically downloading from the web text data that contains code-switching. The corpus includes both intra-sentential code-switching (switch in the middle of a sentence) and inter-sentential code-switching (switch at the end of the sentence). The distribution of part-of-speech (POS) tags and code-switching reasons are reported.