Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Design, Implementation and Evaluation of an Indoor Navigation System for Visually Impaired People

Indoor navigation is a challenging task for visually impaired people. Although there are guidance systems available for such purposes, they have some drawbacks that hamper their direct application in real-life situations. These systems are either too complex, inaccurate, or require very special conditions (i.e., rare in everyday life) to operate. In this regard, Ultra-Wideband (UWB) technology has been shown to be effective for indoor positioning, providing a high level of accuracy and low installation complexity. This paper presents SUGAR, an indoor navigation system for visually impaired people which uses UWB for positioning, a spatial database of the environment for pathfinding through the application of the A* algorithm, and a guidance module. The interaction with the user takes place using acoustic signals and voice commands played through headphones. The suitability of the system for indoor navigation has been verified by means of a functional and usable prototype through a field test with a blind person. In addition, other tests have been conducted in order to show the accuracy of different relevant parts of the system.
Microbial Proline 4-Hydroxylase Screening and Gene Cloning

ABSTRACT Microbial proline 4-hydroxylases, which hydroxylate freel-proline totrans-4-hydroxy-l-proline, were screened in order to establish an industrial system for biotransformation of l-proline totrans-4-hydroxy-l-proline. Enzyme activities were detected in eight strains, including strains ofDactylosporangium spp. and Amycolatopsis spp. The Dactylosporangium sp. strain RH1 enzyme was partially purified 3,300-fold and was estimated to be a monomer polypeptide with an apparent molecular mass of 31 kDa by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Degenerate primers based on the N-terminal amino acid sequence of the 31-kDa polypeptide were synthesized in order to amplify the corresponding 71-bp DNA fragment. A 5.5-kbp DNA fragment was isolated by using the 71-bp fragment labeled with digoxigenin as a probe for a genomic library ofDactylosporangium sp. strain RH1 constructed inEscherichia coli. One of the open reading frames found in the cloned DNA, which encoded a 272-amino-acid polypeptide (molecular mass, 29,715 daltons), was thought to be a proline 4-hydroxylase gene. The gene was expressed in E. coli as a fused protein with the N-terminal 34 amino acids of the β-galactosidase α-fragment. The E. coli recombinant exhibited proline 4-hydroxylase activity that was 13.6-fold higher than the activity in the original strain, Dactylosporangium sp. strain RH1. No homology was detected with other 2-oxoglutarate-dependent dioxygenases when databases were searched; however, the histidine motif conserved in 2-oxoglutarate-dependent dioxygenases was found in the gene.
Spatial Memory Performance of Socially Mature Wistar Rats is Impaired after Exposure to Low (5 cGy) Doses of 1 GeV/n 48Ti Particles

Prolonged deep space missions to planets and asteroids will expose astronauts to galactic cosmic radiation (GCR), a mixture of low-LET ionizing radiations, high-energy protons and high-Z and energy (HZE) particles. Ground-based experiments are used to determine whether this radiation environment will have an effect on the long-term health of astronauts and their ability to complete various tasks during their mission. Emerging data suggest that mission-relevant HZE doses impair several hippocampus-dependent neurocognitive processes in rodents, but that there is substantial interindividual variation in the severity of neurocognitive impairment, ranging from no observable effects to severe impairment. While the majority of studies have established the effect that the most abundant HZE species (56Fe) has on neurocognition, some studies suggest that the lighter 48Ti HZE particles may be equally, if not more, potent at impairing neurocognition. In this study, we assessed the effect that exposure to 5–20 cGy 1 GeV/n 48Ti had on the spatial memory performance of socially mature male Wistar rats. Acute exposures to mission-relevant doses (≤5 cGy) of 1 GeV/n 48Ti significantly (P < 0.05) reduced the mean spatial memory performance of the rats at three months after exposure, and significantly (P < 0.015) increased the percentage of rats that have severe (Z score ≥ 2) impairment, i.e., poor performers. Collectively, these data further support the notion that the LET dependency of neurocognitive impairment may differ from that of cell killing.
REFERENCES TO PAST DESIGNS

Designing by adaptation is almost invariably a dominantambiguity feature of designing, and references to past designs are ubiquitous in design discourse. Object references serve as indices into designers' stocks of design concepts, in which memories for concrete embodiments and exemplars are tightly bound to solution principles. Thinking and talking by reference to past designs serves as a way to reduce the overwhelming complexity of complex design tasks by enabling designers to use parsimonious mental representations to which details can be added as needed. However object references can be ambiguous, and import more of the past design than is intended or may be desirable.
Protecting caches against multi-bit errors using embedded erasure coding

Technology scaling advancement coupled with operational and environmental effects make embedded memories more vulnerable to both manufacturing and transient errors including multi-bit upsets. Conventional error correcting codes incur high latency, area, and power overheads to correct multi-bit errors. In this paper, we propose Embedded Erasure Coding (EEC), a low-cost technique that can correct multi-bit errors with low overheads. This technique employs interleaved parity bits to provide a fast and low-cost multi-bit error detection. Using the erasure coding concept, the error correction is done by reconstructing the contents of the erroneous cache blocks within each cache set. Our proposed technique trades the performance for higher reliability by reserving a part of the cache (e.g. one way) to store the erasure codes. Our simulation results show that EEC provides high reliability (100% error detection and correction) with lower area overhead as compared to other state-of-the-art techniques while imposing negligible performance overhead (3%).
A User-Friendly Method of Pin Site Management for External Fixators

Pin tract inflammation and/or infection are common with the use of external fixation devices. Pin sites need to be managed to help prevent complications. There are a variety of regimens proposed for pin care in the literature. The authors present an efficient and simplified approach for addressing pin care protocol using cord locks with the use of compression sponges for external fixation devices. This method obviates the need for extensive bandaging and makes pin care easy for the patient to carry out. A brief review of the current evidence on pin care is presented, and an evidence-based pin care protocol is presented. Level of Evidence: Therapeutic, Level V
Worldwide Mental Health Correlates of Parental Acceptance-Rejection: Review of Cross-Cultural and Intracultural Evidence

Cross-cultural and intracultural evidence converges on the conclusion that four classes of mental health issues are possible worldwide correlates of parental acceptance-rejection. Strongest evidence supports parental acceptance-rejection theory's personality subtheory that postulates a universal relationship between perceived parental acceptance-rejection and psychological adjustment. Substantial evidence also supports the likelihood of worldwide correlations between parental acceptance-rejection and three other mental health issues: (a) unipolar depression and depressed affect; (b) behavior problems, including conduct disorder, externalizing behaviors, and delinquency; and (c) substance abuse. Finally, limitations in this body of research and implications of the findings for policy and practice are discussed.
Natural Assimilation Rules in Akan

The need for incorporating a valid account of phonological universals into a general model, or metatheory, of phonological descriptions may be taken as self-evident. In the first place, such a treatment of universals significantly simplifies descriptions of the phonologies of particular languages, since the universals, once incorporated into the metatheory, need not be explicitly mentioned in each description. Even more important, the incorporation of universals into the metatheory constitutes-as Chomsky and other generative phonologists have often pointed out-a kind of 'explanation' of otherwise apparently idiosyncratic features of particular phonological systems. That is, those features of particular systems that reflect phonological universals are, by definition, predictable, and this predictability is automatically accounted for if such features are assigned not to the particular systems themselves but, rather, to a metatheoretic model that specifies the features of phonological systems in general.1 The present paper is concerned with a class of phonologlcal universals that has thus far apparently not been scrutinized by generative phonologists: universals having to do with assimilation. The paper will attempt to show that, as in other cases, the ineorporation of these universals into the general phonological model can simplify the description of particular phonological systems and can explain otherwise apparently idiosyncratic features of these systems. Evidence in support of these claims will be drawn primarily from the phonological system of the Akan language of Ghana.2
Theoretical contexts of managing people in emerging Chinese multinational enterprises

Purpose – This article aims at reviewing existing theories relevant to human resource management (HRM) and providing theoretical contexts to explain the importance of managing people across borders for emerging Chinese multinational enterprises (MNEs). Design/methodology/approach – Based on a literature review approach, the author examines the phenomenon of emerging Chinese MNEs from the lenses of three streams of theories: organisation‐based view; resource‐based view; and institution‐based view.Findings – Existing theories offer sufficient insights to explore differences between emerging and established MNEs, particularly in strategic international HRM research. First, Chinese EMNEs were driven to internationalising by different motives, thus creating impact on the strategic choice and global HRM policy consideration. Second, Chinese EMNEs are operating under constantly changing institutional environments, both at home and in host countries. As a result, they are required to balance and rebalance the choi.
Does Universal Dependencies need a parsing representation? An investigation of English

This paper investigates the potential of defining a parsing representation for English data in Universal Dependencies, a crosslingual dependency scheme. We investigate structural transformations that change the choices of headedness in the dependency tree. The transformations make auxiliaries, copulas, subordinating conjunctions and prepositions heads, while in UD they are dependents of a lexical head. We show experimental results for the performance of MaltParser, a data-driven transition-based parser, on the product of each transformation. While some transformed representations favor performance, inverting the transformations to obtain UD for the final product propagates errors, in part due to the nature of lexical-head representations. This prevents the transformations from being profitably used to improve parser performance in that representation.
Working memory deficits in Math learning difficulties: a meta-analysis

Abstract In the present study, we made a quantitative synthesis of the literature comparing children with Math learning difficulties to average-achieving, age-matched children on measures of working memory in view of Baddeley and Hitch’s multicomponential working memory model. Our meta-analytic investigation drew from the literature a number of 18 studies that matched the inclusion criteria. We hypothesized that all three components of Baddeley and Hitch’s model should contribute to the poor Math performance displayed by children with Math learning difficulties, and that this relation varies as a function of age. Also, we hypothesized that children with Math learning difficulties would present more accentuated working memory deficits for numerical material and/or processing. Based upon Cohen’s criteria, the results indicate a large effect size, in favor of the controls for the relationship between Math performance and central executive component, as well as Math performance and the visual–spatial sketchpad, more accentuated in younger ages. Only a moderate effect size emerged in the case of Math performance and the phonological loop (PL). With respect to numerical versus non-numerical working memory deficits, a large effect size emerged for numerical central executive measures, along with a moderate effect size for the PL numerical measures, and a weak effect size for non-numerical PL. The results indicate that Math difficulties are attributable to a central executive deficit or delay, more accentuated for numerical stimuli and/or processing and to a visual–spatial working memory deficit.
Entrainment in Slovak collaborative dialogues

Entrainment is a natural inclination of people who interact with each other to develop similar, matching, or synchronized forms of behavior. In spoken interactions, this was observed at many linguistic (syntactic structures, referring expressions, dialectal features) and para-linguistic (intensity, speech rate) levels. Numerous studies have shown that the degree of spoken entrainment correlates with several social conversational attributes such as task success, likability, attractiveness, power distribution, and others. This feature of human-human interactions promises great potential for improving the naturalness and social acceptability of voice applications in human-machine interactions. However, despite many findings of various forms of entrainment in various languages and cultures, there is very little work on analyzing the effect of language or culture on speech entrainment in comparable spoken corpora. This is a significant gap since many applications utilizing spoken interaction and entrainment will be deployed to be used by native and non-native speakers of many cultures and languages. A welcome exception filling this gap is a recent paper by Xia et al. (2014) comparing entrainment in Standard American English and Mandarin Chinese. In this paper we provide a first analysis of speech entrainment in Slovak based on comparable corpus to the ones analyzed in Xia et al. This work contributes to our understanding and future modeling of cross-cultural aspects of behavioral entrainment.
Using mutual information for feature selection in programmatic advertising

Click-through rate estimation, the core task of programmatic display advertising, is associated with typical big data problems. Online algorithms for generalized linear models, such as Logistic Regression, are the most widely used data mining techniques for learning at such a massive scale. Since these models are unable to capture the underlying nonlinear data patterns, conjunction features are often introduced. This paper is focused on the problem of selecting the most informative 2nd and 3rd order conjunction features used in Logistic Regression. The performance of different feature selection methods based on mutual information is compared over a real-world dataset with over 10 million records. The empirical evaluation show the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
Understanding the Experience of Crime Victims with Disabilities and Deaf Victims

Interpersonal violence is a serious problem for adults with disabilities. The purpose of this study was to understand experiences of crime victims with disabilities and barriers they faced when reporting crime. Fifty-two adults with disabilities whose interpersonal violence was reported to law enforcement participated in focus groups investigating their experiences and recommendations. Participants identified barriers and improvement strategies related to disability identification and disclosure, victim involvement and blaming, credibility and misunderstandings, communication challenges, and accommodations. Barriers exist for people with disabilities navigating the criminal justice system. A need for improved understanding between the disability community and law enforcement was noted.
The effect of soil type and climate on hookworm (Necator americanus) distribution in KwaZulu‐Natal, South Africa

We investigated environmental factors influencing the distribution of hookworm infection in KwaZulu‐Natal, South Africa. Prevalence data were sourced from previous studies and additional surveys carried out to supplement the database. When geo‐referenced the data revealed that higher prevalences are limited to areas below 150 m above sea level, and low prevalences to areas above this altitude. Using univariate analysis we investigated the differences in environmental factors in the two areas. The relationship between hookworm prevalence, altitude and climate‐derived variables was assessed using Pearson correlation coefficient, and that of soil type using the t‐test. Multivariate analysis was used to determine environmental factors that combine best to provide favourable conditions for hookworm distribution. The results revealed that areas ≤150 m above sea level, i.e. the coastal plain, supported high prevalences (x̄ = 45, n = 51), and were characterized by sandy soils with a clay content of less than 15%, warm temperatures and relatively high rainfall. Areas >150 m above sea level, i.e. inland, supported low mean hookworm prevalences (x̄ = 6, n = 21), and were characterized by soils with a clay content of more than 45%, variable temperatures and moderate rainfall. Hookworm prevalence also decreased southwards as temperatures became slightly cooler, rainfall remained more‐or‐less constant and the coastal plain narrowed. In the multivariate model prevalence was most significantly correlated with the mean daily minimum temperature for January followed by the mean number of rainy days for January. This indicates the importance of summer conditions in the transmission of hookworm infection in KwaZulu‐Natal and suggests that transmission may be seasonal.
Remnants of the U.S. Civil War and modern consumer behavior

This research introduces a construct termed regional animosity. Regional animosity represents individuals' preference for their own (ingroup) geographic region and incorporates elements of animosity toward people from an outgroup region. The construct emanates from an investigation of the historical divide between the northern and southern regions of the United States. The interrelated theories of social identity, stereotype activation, and consumer animosity provide theoretical rationale for the existence of regional animosity and its role in affecting consumers' evaluative judgments and price sensitivity. Data from three studies demonstrate that research respondents showed strong preference for products/services that originate in their home region. Results further reveal that scores on a scale measuring regional animosity correlated with the extent to which consumers chose products/services from their own region and the degree to which they were willing to pay premium prices to obtain these items. These findings support prior theory in a novel context and implicate a potentially important line of inquiry for future research. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
A hybrid heuristic for DAG scheduling on heterogeneous systems

Summary form only given. This paper is motivated by the observation that different methods to compute the weights of nodes and edges when scheduling DAGs onto heterogeneous machines may lead to significant variations in the generated schedule. To minimize such variations, we present a novel heuristic for DAG scheduling, which is based upon solving a series of independent task scheduling problems. A novel heuristic for the latter problem is also included. Both heuristics compare favourably with other related heuristics.
THEORY TESTING: THE LESSONS OF THE HERZBERG CONTROVERSY

Theory testing is part of sociological analysis and the procedural aspects of problem solving are bounded, to a certain extent, by an “explicit set of operations” (Dubin, 1969). Broadly stated, validation assessment is judged to be satisfactory if the researcher interprets the theoretical constructs of the paradigm correctly, if he has used adequate methods to test the paradigm, and if the results are interpreted correctly (Whitsett and Winslow, 1967: 413). Unfortunately, most attempts at theory testing merely serve to highlight the discrepancy between what the researcher is obliged to do and what occurs in practice. On this basis, the research situation invariably leads to the prolongation of controversies in the social sciences. Importantly, if the prolongment of a controversy is taken as the gauge of the prevalence of interpretative and testing errors, then controversies are deserving of close scrutiny for the lessons they provide concerning the ways in which “the breakdown of a paradigm” (Kuhn, 1962) is inhibited. In making the assumption that a lengthy (and sometimes heated) controversy would provide a more varied lesson content, it follows that the means is provided for approaching the issue of theory testing from the standpoint of the inadequacy of the repeated tests of certain theories.
The control systems structures of energy metabolism

The biochemical regulation of energy metabolism (EM) allows cells to modulate their energetic output depending on available substrates and requirements. To this end, numerous biomolecular mechanisms exist that allow the sensing of the energetic state and corresponding adjustment of enzymatic reaction rates. This regulation is known to induce dynamic systems properties such as oscillations or perfect adaptation. Although the various mechanisms of energy regulation have been studied in detail from many angles at the experimental and theoretical levels, no framework is available for the systematic analysis of EM from a control systems perspective. In this study, we have used principles well known in control to clarify the basic system features that govern EM. The major result is a subdivision of the biomolecular mechanisms of energy regulation in terms of widely used engineering control mechanisms: proportional, integral, derivative control, and structures: feedback, cascade and feed-forward control. Evidence for each mechanism and structure is demonstrated and the implications for systems properties are shown through simulations. As the equivalence between biological systems and control components presented here is generic, it is also hypothesized that our work could eventually have an applicability that is much wider than the focus of the current study.
Computer assisted assessment of wound appearance using digital imaging

This paper describes a digital image processing system for the analysis of colour in wound images under clinical conditions. The system uses a 3CCD array digital video camera together with a colour scale for reference. The accuracy of colour assessment was compared with clinicians' assessment of the amount of slough (necrotic tissue) in digital images. The system was found to be within the range of 10% in describing red hue values in red colour patches between different clinical sessions. There was agreement in 75% of the cases between clinicians' assessment of the amount of slough and a computer assessment using digital imaging. However, colour may not be sufficient to describe wound appearance accurately.