Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Workpractice Theory - What it is and Why we need it

This is an introduction to the panel -Workpractice Theory as Foundation for IS Research- on the ALOIS*2005 conference. It is also a position statement concerning workpractice theory. It describes the needs for a workpractice theory in information systems research. It describes briefly also the workpractice theory developed by Goldkuhl & Rostlinger. This is an example of a workpractice theory to be used in information systems research.
Inverse dynamics control of bimanual object manipulation using orthogonal decomposition: An analytic approach

In this paper, the well-known problem of codependence between inverse dynamics torque and contact force in bimanual object manipulation is addressed. The common contact constraint, namely rigid grasping, is exploited to decompose the set of dynamics equations into two orthogonally decoupled sets. Subsequently, the inverse dynamics control is formulated in a sub-manifold that is independent of the contact force, leading to analytically correct solutions that do not need to resort to common approximations for the aforementioned codependence problem. The contact force is also analytically computed and, therefore, can be optimally distributed using the torque redundancy. Relying on this prediction is most significant in situations where a force sensor at the end-effector is not present or is faulty. Even in the availability of sensory data, the predicted force may be used to correct typically noisy or delayed when filtered measurements, resulting in improved robustness. Simulation experiments on a planar bimanual manipulation model are presented.
Effects of Inquiry-Based Teacher Practices on Science Excellence and Equity

Abstract Within science education reforms, a pedagogical shift from a teacher-centered, textbook-based instructional paradigm to a student-centered, inquiry-based model is called for. Despite strong theoretical grounding, there is limited empirical evidence that these reforms will achieve national goals of academic excellence and equity. The author used hierarchical linear models to estimate the extent to which 5 inquiry-based teacher practices promote achievement of all students (excellence) and reduce gaps in achievement among students with different demographic profiles (equity). Findings suggest that teacher practices that improve overall academic excellence simultaneously are as likely to contribute to greater inequities among more and less advantaged students as they are to close persistent achievement gaps.
A Simple Way of Increasing Estimation Accuracy of Generalized Adaptive Notch Filters

Generalized adaptive notch filters are used for identification/tracking of quasi-periodically varying dynamic systems and can be considered an extension, to the system case, of classical adaptive notch filters. It is shown that frequency biases, which arise in generalized adaptive notch filtering algorithms, can be significantly reduced by incorporating in the adaptive loop an appropriately chosen decision delay. The resulting performance gains can be substantial. The proposed method can be used both in the system case and in the signal case
An analytical model for estimating the delay in Bluetooth communications with serial port profile

Bluetooth is currently a major technology for the deployment of wireless short range communications. This paper presents an analytical model to compute the delay of Bluetooth transmissions with Serial Port Profile (SPP), which is nowadays widely utilized by commercial Bluetooth-enabled devices. In particular, the proposed equations permit to estimate the packet delay in ideal transmission conditions (when no retransmission occurs) and also when environmental noise induces losses and consequently there exist a certain probability that a packet has to be retransmitted. The model takes into consideration the overhead and segmentation introduced by the protocols involved in the transmission as well as the extra delay introduced by the retransmissions. The model has been empirically validated through the measurements of Bluetooth connections in an actual test-bed.
Gender and Crime: A General Strain Theory Perspective

This study applies Agnew's general strain theory (GST) to two fundamental questions about gender and crime: (1) How can we explain the higher rate of crime among males? (2) How can we explain why females engage in crime? With respect to the first question, the authors suggest that gender differences in types of strain and the reaction to strain help one understand the gender gap in criminal behavior. With respect to the second question, it is argued that several types of strain may lead to female crime under the proper circumstances. In this area, GST has much in common with numerous accounts that explain female crime in terms of oppression.
Forest Biomass Estimation Using Texture Measurements of High-Resolution Dual-Polarization C-Band SAR Data

Recent synthetic aperture radar (SAR) sensors with a capability of providing data with varying spatial resolutions, polarizations, and incidence angles have attracted greater interest for forest biomass and carbon storage estimation. This study investigates the capability of RADARSAT-2 fine-beam dual-polarization (C-HV and C-HH) data for forest biomass estimation in complex subtropical forest, with different types of processing: 1) raw intensity data (both polarizations separately and as polarization ratio) and 2) texture parameters of both polarizations (separately, jointly, and as polarization ratio). Field data (diameter at breast height and height) were collected from 53 field plots and converted to biomass (dry weight) using a newly developed allometric model. Finally, biomass estimation models were developed between SAR signatures from different processing steps and field plot biomass using stepwise multiple regression. All biomass estimation models using radar intensity data (C-HV, C-HH, and ratio of C-HV and C-HH) proved ineffective, but texture parameters derived from intensity data showed potential. We were able to estimate forest biomass amounts up to 360 t/ha with a goodness of fit of 0.78 (adjusted r2) and an rmse of 28.68 t/ha using the combination of texture parameters of both polarizations (C-HV and C-HH). However, goodness of fit could be improved to 0.91 (adjusted r2) and an rmse of 26.95 t/ha for biomass levels up to 532 t/ha using the ratio of texture parameters of C-HV/C-HH. The result is very encouraging and indicates that the dual-polarization C-band SAR sensor has a potential for the estimation of forest biomass, particularly using the polarization ratio of texture measurements, and biomass estimation can be improved substantially beyond the previously stated saturation level for C-band SAR.
Risk Prediction Modeling on Family-Based Sequencing Data Using a Random Field Method

Family-based design is one of the most popular designs in genetic studies and has many unique features for risk-prediction research. It is robust against genetic heterogeneity, and the relatedness among family members can be informative for predicting an individual’s risk for disease with polygenic and shared environmental components of risk. Despite these strengths, family-based designs have been used infrequently in current risk-prediction studies, and their related statistical methods have not been well developed. In this article, we developed a generalized random field (GRF) method for family-based risk-prediction modeling on sequencing data. In GRF, subjects’ phenotypes are viewed as stochastic realizations of a random field in a space, and a subject’s phenotype is predicted by adjacent subjects, where adjacencies between subjects are determined by their genetic and within-family similarities. Different from existing methods that adjust for familial correlations, the GRF uses this information to form surrogates to further improve prediction accuracy. It also uses within-family information to capture predictors (e.g., rare mutations) that are homogeneous in families. Through simulations, we have demonstrated that the GRF method attained better performance than an existing method by considering additional information from family members and accounting for genetic heterogeneity. We further provided practical recommendations for designing family-based risk prediction studies. Finally, we illustrated the GRF method with an application to a whole-genome exome data set from the Michigan State University Twin Registry study.
Hormones and Social Preferences

We examine whether social preferences are determined by hormones. We do this by investigating whether markers for the strength of prenatal testosterone exposure (finger length ratios) and current exposure to progesterone and oxytocin (the menstrual cycle) are correlated with choices in social preference games. We find that subjects with finger ratios indicating high prenatal testosterone exposure give less in the trust, ultimatum and public good games and return a smaller proportion in the trust game. The choices of female subjects vary over the menstrual cycle according to a pattern consistent with a positive impact of oxytocin on giving in the trust and ultimatum games and a positive impact of progesterone on altruism. We find no impact for subjects taking hormonal contraceptives. We conclude that both prenatal and current exposure to hormones play an important role in shaping social preferences.
System-level simulation of a noisy phase-locked loop

This paper presents a compact model of a noisy phase-locked loop (PLL) for inclusion in a time-domain system simulation. The phase noise of the reference is modeled as a Wiener process, and the phase noise contribution of the voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) is described as an Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process. The model is applied to phase error modeling for a 60 GHz OFDM system including correction of the common phase error. A close agreement is observed between the time-domain simulation and a frequency-domain model.
The assay design used for measurement of therapeutic antibody concentrations can affect pharmacokinetic parameters

To interpret pharmacokinetic (PK) data of biotherapeutics, it is critical to understand which drug species is being measured by the PK assay. For therapeutic antibodies, it is generally accepted that “free” circulating antibodies are the pharmacologically active form needed to determine the PK/ pharmacodynamic (PD) relationship, safety margin calculations, and dose projections from animals to humans and the eventual characterization of the exposure in the clinic. However, “total” drug may be important in evaluating the dynamic interaction between the drug and the target, as well as the total drug exposure. In the absence of or with low amounts of soluble ligand /shed receptor, total and free drug species are often equivalent and their detection is less sensitive to assay formats or reagent choices. In contrast, in the presence of a significant amount of ligand, assay design and characterization of assay reagents are critical to understanding the PK profiles. Here, we present case studies where different assay formats affected measured PK profiles and data interpretation. The results from reagent characterizations provide a potential explanation for the observed discrepancies and highlight the importance of reagent characterization in understanding which drug species are being measured to accurately interpret PK parameters.
An Investigation into the Relationship between Neuroticism, Extraversion and Cognitive Test Performance in Selection

This research reports an investigation into the relationship between neuroticism, extraversion and cognitive test performance in a real selection situation. Strong support is found for the proposition that neuroticism is associated with lower performance on numerical reasoning tests in stressful situations and that the obtained scores provide a significant under-estimate of the neurotic's true ability in such circumstances. The state-trait model of anxiety and the concept of cognitive interference appear to provide an adequate explanation of the findings. The implications of these findings for the assessment of cognitive ability in selection are discussed.
Incremental spare capacity allocation for optical networks restoration

Survivability of optical networks is one of the most relevant planning problems due to its impact on actual deployment cost. Indeed, survivability can only be achieved by deploying spare resources that will only be used under failure scenarios. In particular, the case of dual link failures on fiber optic cables (i.e., fiber cuts) has recently received much attention as repairing these cables typically takes too much time, which increases the probability of a second fiber cut. In this paper, we consider dual link failure scenarios and analyse the spare capacity allocation problem for restoration schemes, which have the potential to achieve better survivability performance than protection schemes in non-triconnected networks. However, since the traditional global optimization approach is not practical for large networks, we propose an incremental optimization approach that can find sub-optimal solutions in practical times even in large networks.
DETECTING PROTOCOL ERRORS USING PARTICLE SWARM OPTIMIZATION WITH JAVA PATHFINDER

Network protocols are critical software that must be ver-iﬁed in order to ensure that they fulﬁl the requirements. This veriﬁcation can be performed using model checking, which is a fully automatic technique for checking concurrent software properties in which the states of a concurrent system are explored in an explicit or implicit way. However, the state explosion problem limits the size of the models that are possible to check. Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is a metaheuristic technique that has obtained good results in optimization problems in which exhaustive techniques fail due to the size of the search space. Unlike exact techniques, metaheuristic techniques can not be used to verify that a program satisﬁes a given property, but they can ﬁnd errors on the software using a lower amount of resources than exact techniques. In this paper, we propose the application of PSO to solve the problem of ﬁnding safety errors in network protocols. We implemented our ideas in the Java Pathﬁnder (JPF) model checker to validate them and present our re-sults. To the best of our knowledge, this is the ﬁrst time that PSO is used to ﬁnd errors in concurrent systems. The results show that PSO is able to ﬁnd errors in protocols in which some traditional exhaustive techniques fail due to memory constraints. In addition, the lengths of the error trails obtained by PSO are shorter (better quality) than the ones obtained by the exhaustive algorithms.
GluN3A Promotes Dendritic Spine Pruning and Destabilization during Postnatal Development

Synaptic rearrangements during critical periods of postnatal brain development rely on the correct formation, strengthening, and elimination of synapses and associated dendritic spines to form functional networks. The correct balance of these processes is thought to be regulated by synapse-specific changes in the subunit composition of NMDA-type glutamate receptors (NMDARs). Among these, the nonconventional NMDAR subunit GluN3A has been suggested to play a role as a molecular brake in synaptic maturation. We tested here this hypothesis using confocal time-lapse imaging in rat hippocampal organotypic slices and assessed the role of GluN3A-containing NMDARs on spine dynamics. We found that overexpressing GluN3A reduced spine density over time, increased spine elimination, and decreased spine stability. The effect of GluN3A overexpression could be further enhanced by using an endocytosis-deficient GluN3A mutant and reproduced by silencing the adaptor protein PACSIN1, which prevents the endocytosis of endogenous GluN3A. Conversely, silencing of GluN3A reduced spine elimination and favored spine stability. Moreover, reexpression of GluN3A in more mature tissue reinstated an increased spine pruning and a low spine stability. Mechanistically, the decreased stability in GluN3A overexpressing neurons could be linked to a failure of plasticity-inducing protocols to selectively stabilize spines and was dependent on the ability of GluN3A to bind the postsynaptic scaffold GIT1. Together, these data provide strong evidence that GluN3A prevents the activity-dependent stabilization of synapses thereby promoting spine pruning, and suggest that GluN3A expression operates as a molecular signal for controlling the extent and timing of synapse maturation.
Input-Specific Spine Entry of Soma-Derived Vesl-1S Protein Conforms to Synaptic Tagging

Synaptic Tag Tagged Input-dependent synaptic plasticity is critical for the reproducible activation of a specific neuronal assembly encoding a particular memory. The synaptic tagging hypothesis, which suggests how input specificity is maintained in late-phase synaptic plasticity, attempts to explain the persistence of long-term memory. However, it has been difficult to identify proteins that behave as the hypothesis predicts. Okada et al. (p. 904) investigated if the regulated spine entry of a late-phase-related somatically synthesized plasticity-related protein, Vesl-1S, works as a synaptic tag. Vesl-1S protein was carried from the soma to every dendrite and recruited into spines by synaptic activation in an input-specific manner. Spine entry was protein-synthesis independent, was NMDA receptor dependent, and had a persistent lifetime of activation. These results provide long-sought evidence for the input-specific capturing of a plasticity-related protein as postulated by the synaptic tagging hypothesis. The protein Vesl-1S fulfills the synaptic tagging hypothesis for the maintenance of input-specific action of neuronal networks. Late-phase synaptic plasticity depends on the synthesis of new proteins that must function only in the activated synapses. The synaptic tag hypothesis requires input-specific functioning of these proteins after undirected transport. Confirmation of this hypothesis requires specification of a biochemical tagging activity and an example protein that behaves as the hypothesis predicts. We found that in rat neurons, soma-derived Vesl-1S (Homer-1a) protein, a late-phase plasticity-related synaptic protein, prevailed in every dendrite and did not enter spines. N-methyl-d-aspartate receptor activation triggered input-specific spine entry of Vesl-1S proteins, which met many criteria for synaptic tagging. These results suggest that Vesl-1S supports the hypothesis and that the activity-dependent regulation of spine entry functions as a synaptic tag.
Grand Challenges Canada Economic Returns to Mitigating Early Life Risks Project Working Paper Series Population Studies Center 9-24-2013 The Role of Maternal Education in Child Health : Evidence from a Compulsory Schooling Law

This paper explores the effect of maternal education on child health and the channels in which education operates by exploiting a change in the compulsory schooling law (CSL) in Turkey. In order to account for the endogeneity of education, variation in the exposure to the CSL across cohorts induced by the timing of the policy is used as an instrumental variable. The results indicate that mother’s primary school completion improves infant health, as measured by very low birth weight, and child health, as measured by height-for-age and weight-for-age z-scores, even after controlling for many potential confounding factors. This paper also demonstrates that mother’s primary school completion leads to earlier preventive care initiation and reduces smoking.
Complication rates of radiofrequency surgery in the upper airways: a single institution experience

Conclusion: Radiofrequency (RF) surgery of the upper airways appears to be a safe procedure with an acceptable incidence of minor and moderate complications. Objectives: RF surgery is increasingly used in the treatment of patients with sleep disordered breathing and inferior turbinate hypertrophy. Our aim was to investigate the incidence and the severity of the complications of RF surgery in the upper airways. Patients and methods: This was a retrospective, observational study at a tertiary care centre, academic teaching hospital during 1 year. Data from medical records were collected on 753 consecutive patients treated with RF surgery of the inferior turbinate, soft palate and base of the tongue. Patients with synchronous surgical treatment were excluded. Results: In all, 413 patients (66.3% males) with a mean age of 44.7 years (range 8–83 years) were treated with 2926 RF surgery ablations in 524 treatment sessions. There were no severe complications. The overall incidence of minor and moderate complications was low, i.e. 2.7% (11/524) and 0.6% (3/524) of the treatment sessions, and 0.5% (11/2926) and 0.1% (3/2926) of the ablations, respectively.
Zeta-function regularization and the thermodynamic potential for quantum fields in symmetric spaces

We calculate a temperature-dependent part of the one-loop thermodynamic potential (and the free energy) for charged massive fields in a general class of irreducible rank 1 symmetric spaces. Both low- and high-temperature expansions are derived and the role of non-trivial topology influence on asymptotic properties of the potential is discussed.
Making Sense of Divergent Interpretations of Conflict and Developing an Interpretive Understanding of Mind

Our goals in this study were to develop a measure of children's understanding of divergent interpretations of conflict and relate that measure to children's more general interpretive understanding of mind (Carpendale & Chandler, 1996). Eighty-nine children between 4 and 9 years of age heard 4 conflict stories in which fault was ambiguous. Children overwhelmingly suggested that antagonists would blame each other and adequately justified those judgments. However, children under 7 years did not believe that it made sense for antagonists to disagree, and children were better able to explain why mutual blame made sense as they grew older. Children's judgments of the legitimacy of and explanations for divergent conflict interpretations were correlated with similar measures assessing their understanding of the general interpretive quality of mind. Findings are discussed in terms of the role of everyday interaction for the gradual acquisition of interpretive understanding.
SC3 - consensus clustering of single-cell RNA-Seq data

Single-cell RNA-seq enables the quantitative characterization of cell types based on global transcriptome profiles. We present single-cell consensus clustering (SC3), a user-friendly tool for unsupervised clustering, which achieves high accuracy and robustness by combining multiple clustering solutions through a consensus approach (http://bioconductor.org/packages/SC3). We demonstrate that SC3 is capable of identifying subclones from the transcriptomes of neoplastic cells collected from patients.
Building Adaptive Game-Based Learning Resources: The Marriage of IMS Learning Design and

IMS Learning Design (IMS-LD) is a specification to create Units of Learning (UoLs) which express a certain pedagogical model or strategy (e.g., adaptive learning with games). However, the authoring process of a UoL remains difficult due to the lack of high-level authoring tools for IMS-LD, even more so when we focus on specific topics like educational eGames. However, we can use external tools which are not specifically IMS-LD oriented. In this case, the main challenge is the integration between these external resources developed with other technologies and the personalized learning experience of an IMS-LD UoL. In this paper, we use the Project to develop conversational games that are engaged with IMS-LD UoLs to improve personalized learning. The main contribution of this setting is the integration of both parts, the IMS-LD specification and , and the communication that enables a mutual influence of the adaptive learning experience.