Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
On Normality Assumption in Residual Simulation for Probabilistic Load Forecasting

Grid modernization has brought in various types of active demand, and intermittent and distributed generation resources to challenge the traditional power system planning and operation practices. As a result, more and more decision making processes rely on probabilistic forecasts as an input. While residual simulation has been recognized as one way to generate probabilistic load forecasts, the research on the application side of probabilistic load forecasting has been heavily relying on unverified distributions of load forecasting residuals, such as normal distribution. In this paper, we study the normality assumption from a different angle. Instead of trying to prove or disprove its validity via hypothesis tests, we attempt to understand whether applying the normality assumption helps improve the quality of probabilistic load forecasts. We apply a proper scoring rule, the pinball loss function, to evaluate a set of probabilistic load forecasts developed from different underlying linear and nonlinear models. To ensure the solidity of our conclusion, we conduct two case studies, one based on data from a large generation and transmission cooperative in the U.S., and the other based on data from the probabilistic load forecasting track of the Global Energy Forecasting Competition 2014.
The formulation of flurbiprofen loaded microspheres using hydroxypropylmethycellulose and ethylcellulose.

OBJECTIVES The aim of the present work was to formulate flurbiprofen (FLB) loaded microspheres of hydroxypropylmethycellulose and ethylcellulose polymers to study the effect of different proportions of the polymer mixture on the release behavior of the drug. MATERIAL AND METHODS A series of microspheres were prepared using tween-80 as a surfactant. The prepared microspheres were evaluated for entrapment efficiency (%) and percentage recovery. Drug release was performed in USP phosphate buffers of pH 1.2 and 6.8. Drug release data were plotted in various kinetic models, including zero-order, first-order, Higuchi and Korsmeyer-Peppas models to investigate the optimum composition suitable for sustained drug delivery. RESULTS A significant difference in drug release kinetics was observed by varying the composition of hydroxypropylmethycellulose/ethylcellulose. As the ratio of EC/HPMC was increased, the release rate of ﬂurbiprofen decreased. CONCLUSIONS This study demonstrated the potential of polymer combinations in the formulation of microspheres for water-insoluble drugs utilizing HPMC and EC as release retardant materials, using a simple solvent evaporation microencapsulation technique. It was observed that various physico-chemical properties of the microspheres varied according to the change in polymer concentrations used in the formulations.
The Habit of a Lifetime

This article presents analysis from a social constructionist perspective of data collected from British and Japanese university students on the desirability of lifetime employment at a single organisation. The article emphasises two related processes and in so doing helps to account for the diversity of employment structures both between and within the two countries as well as the persistence of lifetime employment in Japan. First, it shows that the two groups display some similarities in their attitudes but that their assumptions about employment practices in their countries may differ. These lead the two groups to develop the belief that they may be offered different outcomes and, thus, the students develop different conclusions as to the desirability of lifetime employment for themselves. Second, the research shows some differences in the students’ approaches and these too lead them to reach different conclusions as to the desirability of lifelong employment. In addition, the research will highlight how, in both Britain and Japan, medical students’ expectations are at times at odds with those of their colleagues in other subjects, and this may have important consequences for our understanding of how the respective employment systems are reproduced over time.
Toward Position-Only Time-Delayed Control for Uncertain Euler–Lagrange Systems: Experiments on Wheeled Mobile Robots

This letter addresses the various practical design issues of a continuous-time time-delayed control (TDC) and proposes a new controller to make the TDC more suitable and applicable for real-life systems. While TDC has been renowned for its robust performance and simplicity in form, it requires state-derivatives feedback which may not be available explicitly in practice; and multiple numerical differentiations of the noisy state data deteriorate performance by invoking measurement error. In this letter, position-only time-delayed control (POTDC) has been proposed for a class of Euler–Lagrange systems which encompasses a large class of practical systems such as robotic manipulators and unmanned mobile robots. Contrary to the conventional TDC, the proposed POTDC eliminates explicit requirement of velocity and acceleration feedbacks and uses only position information of present and past instances to estimate the velocity and acceleration terms. It thus alleviates the measurement error arising from a numerical computation of state-derivatives. Moreover, based on the Razumikhin theorem, continuous-time stability is rigorously analyzed with consideration of the time-delay element in POTDC, which indeed establishes a selection criterion for the sampling interval and provides the designer a range of sampling intervals for same choice of controller gains. This allows POTDC to be suitable for systems which specifically operate with high sampling intervals due to application requirement. Accordingly, experimental validations of POTDC are provided in comparison with TDC under various sampling intervals, using a wheeled mobile robot.
A Large-scale Protein–protein Interaction Analysis in Synechocystis sp. PCC6803

Abstract Protein–protein interactions (PPIs) play crucial roles in protein function for a variety of biological processes. Data from large-scale PPI screening has contributed to understanding the function of a large number of predicted genes from fully sequenced genomes. Here, we report the systematic identification of protein interactions for the unicellular cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. strain PCC6803. Using a modified high-throughput yeast two-hybrid assay, we screened 1825 genes selected primarily from (i) genes of two-component signal transducers of Synechocystis, (ii) Synechocystis genes whose homologues are conserved in the genome of Arabidopsis thaliana, and (iii) genes of unknown function on the Synechocystis chromosome. A total of 3236 independent two-hybrid interactions involving 1920 proteins (52% of the total protein coding genes) were identified and each interaction was evaluated using an interaction generality (IG) measure, as well as the general features of interacting partners. The interaction data obtained in this study should provide new insights and novel strategies for functional analyses of genes in Synechocystis, and, additionally, genes in other cyanobacteria and plant genes of cyanobacterial origin.
Occupational Adaptation: Perspectives of People with Traumatic Brain Injury

Abstract This paper describes a qualitative study carried out to understand the process of occupational adaptation after traumatic brain injury. Seven people, injured two to seventeen years previously, were interviewed. Transcripts were analysed using the constant comparative method, with peer review, journaling, and a member‐checking group to maximize truthfulness. Participants described experiencing a change in self‐identity following injury that was related to, and influenced, occupational adaptation. Self‐identity and engagement in occupation were closely related. Acceptance of the new self was fundamental to successful occupational adaptation. Participants also shifted environmental contexts of doing to reflect their new persona. Reframing self‐identity was thus an important aspect of participants’ rehabilitation. These findings resonate with other qualitative studies with brain injury survivors, theories of occupational adaptation, and social psychological perspectives. Yet, the literature on brain injury rehabilitation rarely discusses the need to address self‐identity. Occupational science can play an important role by integrating these bodies of literature.
The X-flex cross-platform scheduler: who's the fairest of them all?

We introduce the X-Flex cross-platform scheduler. X-Flex is intended as an alternative to the Dominant Resource Fairness (DRF) scheduler currently employed by both YARN and Mesos. There are multiple design differences between X-Flex and DRF. For one thing, DRF is based on an instantaneous notion of fairness, while X-Flex monitors instantaneous fairness in order to take a long-term view. The definition of instantaneous fairness itself is different among the two schedulers. Furthermore, the packing of containers into processing nodes in DRF is done online, while in X-Flex it is performed offline in order to improve packing quality. Finally, DRF is essentially an extension to multiple dimensions of the Fair MapReduce scheduler. As such it makes scheduling decisions at a very low level. X-Flex, on the other hand, takes the perspective that some frameworks have sufficient structure to make higher level scheduling decisions. So X-Flex allows this, and also gives platforms a great deal of autonomy over the degree of sharing they will permit with other platforms. We describe the technical details of X-Flex and provide experiments to show its excellent performance.
Decreased expression and activity of G‐protein‐coupled receptor kinases in peripheral blood mononuclear cells of patients with rheumatoid arthritis

β2‐Adrenergic and chemokine receptor antagonists delay the onset and reduce the severity of joint injury in rheumatoid arthritis. β2‐Adrenergic and chemokine receptors belong to the G‐protein‐coupled receptor family whose responsiveness is turned off by the G‐protein‐coupled receptor kinase family (GRK‐1 to 6). GRKs phosphorylate receptors in an agonist‐dependent manner resulting in receptor/G‐protein uncoupling via subsequent binding of arrestin proteins. We assessed the activity of GRKs in lymphocytes of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients by rhodopsin phosphorylation. We found a significant decrease in GRK activity in RA subjects that is mirrored by a decrease in GRK‐2 protein expression. Moreover, GRK‐6 protein expression is reduced in RA patients whereas GRK‐5 protein levels were unchanged. In search of an underlying mechanism, we demonstrated that proinflammatory cytokines induce a decrease in GRK‐2 protein levels in leukocytes from healthy donors. Since proinflammatory cytokines are abundantly expressed in RA, it may provide an explanation for the decrease in GRK‐2 expression and activity in patients. No changes in β2‐adrenergic receptor number and Kd were detected. However, RA patients showed a significantly increased cAMP production and inhibition of TNF‐α production by β2‐adrenergic stimulation, suggesting that reduced GRK activity is associated with increased sensitivity to β2‐adrenergic activation. —Lombardi, M. S. , Kavelaars, A. , Schedlowski, M. , Bijlsma, J. W. J., Okihara, K. L. , Van de Pol, M. , Ochsmann, S. , Pawlak, C. , Schmidt, R. E. , Heijnen, C. J. Decreased expression and activity of G‐protein‐coupled receptor kinases in peripheral blood mono‐nuclear cells of patients with rheumatoid arthritis. FASEB J. 13, 715–725 (1999)
Philanthropy, Voluntary Association, and Governance Beyond the State

There has been little discussion about the democratic impacts of new roles and expectations put on private philanthropy and voluntarism in an era of governance beyond the state. This article explores tensions philanthropic voluntary associations face in balancing their internal democratic effects of enhancing civic education and participation of members on the one hand with meeting needs and solving problems in the community on the other. This is brought into focus through an analysis of giving circles, groups that entail individuals pooling resources and then deciding together how and where to give these away. Giving circles highlight the trade-off between the grassroots independence and noncoercive collaborative action that enables voluntary associations to contribute to democratic governance and the ability for these institutions to adequately and comprehensively address community problems; a trade-off that becomes important if one is concerned with serving the public good in an era of government cutbacks and privatization.
Motivational Effects of the Informativeness of Feedback

The motivational effects of feedback types consisting of the same evaluative components, but differing in the informative components, were studied with 156 German undergraduates in a computer-based learning experiment. A concept-formation task was the learning material. Three feedback conditions were designed: (1) knowledge about result (low informativeness); (2) knowledge about mistakes (medium informativeness); and (3) knowledge on how to proceed (high informativeness) . Results show that the informativeness of feedback exerts an influence not only on information processing but also on learner motivation. Greater informative value of the feedback was related to better performance, but the effects of the informativeness of feedback on the motivational variables were moderated by the motivational characteristics of the subjects. (Contains 4 figures and 22 references.) (SLD) ******************************************************************************** * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made * * from the original document. * ******************************************************************************** Motivational Effects of the Informativeness of Feedback
Structured motifs search

In this paper we describe an algorithm for the localization of structured models, i.e. sequences of (simple) motifs and distance constraints. It basically combines standard pattern matching procedures with a constraint satisfaction solver, and it has the ability, not present in similar tools, to search for partial matches. A significant feature of our approach, especially in terms of efficiency for the application context, is that the (potentially) exponentially many solutions to the considered problem are represented in compact form as a graph. Moreover, the time and space necessary to build the graph are linear in the number of occurrences of the component patterns.
Impact of Information Feedback in Continuous Combinatorial Auctions: An Experimental Study of Economic Performance

Advancements in information technology offer opportunities for designing and deploying innovative market mechanisms that can improve the allocation and procurement processes of businesses. For example, combinatorial auctions--in which bidders can bid on combinations of goods--have been shown to increase the economic efficiency of a trade when goods have complementarities. However, the lack of real-time decision support tools for bidders has prevented this mechanism from reaching its full potential. With the objective of facilitating bidder participation in combinatorial auctions, this study, using recent research in real-time bidder support metrics, discusses several novel feedback schemes that can aid bidders in formulating combinatorial bids in real-time. The feedback schemes allow us to conduct continuous combinatorial auctions, where bidders can submit bids at any time. Using laboratory experiments with two different setups, we compare the economic performance of the continuous mechanism under three progressively advanced levels of feedback. Our findings indicate that information feedback plays a major role in influencing the economic outcomes of combinatorial auctions. We compare several important bid characteristics to explain the observed differences in aggregate measures. This study advances the ongoing research on combinatorial auctions by developing continuous auctions that differentiate themselves from earlier combinatorial auction mechanisms by facilitating free-flowing participation of bidders and providing exact prices of bundles on demand in real time. For practitioners, the study provides insights on how the nature of feedback can influence the economic outcomes of a complex trading mechanism.
An introduction to the indirect exposure assessment approach: modeling human exposure using microenvironmental measurements and the recent National Human Activity Pattern Survey.

Indirect exposure approaches offer a feasible and accurate method for estimating population exposures to indoor pollutants, including environmental tobacco smoke (ETS). In an effort to make the indirect exposure assessment approach more accessible to people in the health and risk assessment fields, this paper provides examples using real data from (italic>a(/italic>) a week-long personal carbon monoxide monitoring survey conducted by the author; and (italic>b(/italic>) the 1992 to 1994 National Human Activity Pattern Survey (NHAPS) for the United States. The indirect approach uses measurements of exposures in specific microenvironments (e.g., homes, bars, offices), validated microenvironmental models (based on the mass balance equation), and human activity pattern data obtained from questionnaires to predict frequency distributions of exposure for entire populations. This approach requires fewer resources than the direct approach to exposure assessment, for which the distribution of monitors to a representative sample of a given population is necessary. In the indirect exposure assessment approach, average microenvironmental concentrations are multiplied by the total time spent in each microenvironment to give total integrated exposure. By assuming that the concentrations encountered in each of 10 location categories are the same for different members of the U.S. population (i.e., the NHAPS respondents), the hypothetical contribution that ETS makes to the average 24-hr respirable suspended particle exposure for Americans working their main job is calculated in this paper to be 18 microg/m3. This article is an illustrative review and does not contain an actual exposure assessment or model validation. ImagesFigure 3Figure 4
Improving write performance by enhancing internal parallelism of Solid State Drives

Most researches of Solid State Drives (SSDs) architectures rely on Flash Translation Layer (FTL) algorithms and wear-leveling; however, internal parallelism in Solid State Drives has not been well explored. In this research, we proposed a new strategy to improve SSD write performance by enhancing internal parallelism inside SSDs. A SDRAM buffer is added in the design for buffering and scheduling write requests. Because the same logical block numbers may be translated to different physical numbers at different times in FTL, the on-board SDRAM buffer is used to buffer requests at the lower level of FTL. When the buffer is full, same amount of data will be assigned to each storage package in SSDs to enhance internal parallelism. To accurately evaluate performance, we use both synthetic workloads and real-world applications in experiments. We compare the enhanced internal parallelism scheme with the traditional LRU strategy since it is unfair to compare an SSD having buffer with an SSD without a buffer. The simulation results demonstrate that the writing performance of our design is significantly improved compared with the LRU-cache strategy with the same amount of buffer sizes.
In vivo muscle force-length behavior during steady-speed hopping in tammar wallabies.

Moderate to large macropodids can increase their speed while hopping with little or no increase in energy expenditure. This has been interpreted by some workers as resulting from elastic energy savings in their hindlimb tendons. For this to occur, the muscle fibers must transmit force to their tendons with little or no length change. To test whether this is the case, we made in vivo measurements of muscle fiber length change and tendon force in the lateral gastrocnemius (LG) and plantaris (PL) muscles of tammar wallabies Macropus eugenii as they hopped at different speeds on a treadmill. Muscle fiber length changes were less than +/-0.5 mm in the plantaris and +/-2.2 mm in the lateral gastrocnemius, representing less than 2 % of total fiber length in the plantaris and less than 6 % in the lateral gastrocnemius, with respect to resting length. The length changes of the plantaris fibers suggest that this occurred by means of elastic extension of attached cross-bridges. Much of the length change in the lateral gastrocnemius fibers occurred at low force early in the stance phase, with generally isometric behavior at higher forces. Fiber length changes did not vary significantly with increased hopping speed in either muscle (P>0.05), despite a 1. 6-fold increase in muscle-tendon force between speeds of 2.5 and 6.0 m s-1. Length changes of the PL fibers were only 7+/-4 % and of the LG fibers 34+/-12 % (mean +/- S.D., N=170) of the stretch calculated for their tendons, resulting in little net work by either muscle (plantaris 0.01+/-0.03 J; gastrocnemius -0.04+/-0.30 J; mean +/- s.d. ). In contrast, elastic strain energy stored in the tendons increased with increasing speed and averaged 20-fold greater than the shortening work performed by the two muscles. These results show that an increasing amount of strain energy stored within the hindlimb tendons is usefully recovered at faster steady hopping speeds, without being dissipated by increased stretch of the muscles' fibers. This finding supports the view that tendon elastic saving of energy is an important mechanism by which this species is able to hop at faster speeds with little or no increase in metabolic energy expenditure.
Pharmacodynamics of two different dosing regimens of tirofiban in citrate or PPACK anticoagulated blood

The primary objective of this study was to compare the inhibitory activity of tirofiban measured with the rapid platelet function assay (RPFA) and with light transmission aggregometry using two different anticoagulants (citrate versus PPACK). Twenty patients treated with tirofiban for percutaneous coronary intervention were studied at six time points during tirofiban treatment. Tirofiban was given with a bolus dose of 10 µg/kg and an infusion of 0.10 µg/kg per min (10 patients) or with a bolus dose of 15 µg/kg and an infusion of 0.15 µg/kg per min (10 patients). Inhibition of platelet function appeared highest using citrated blood and the RPFA-device and lowest when assessed by aggregometry in PPACK-anticoagulated blood. Only the higher dose of tirofiban achieved an inhibition of platelet aggregation of at least 80% in all test systems.