Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dynamics and statistics of heavy particles in turbulent flows

We present the results of direct numerical simulations (DNS) of turbulent flows seeded with millions of passive inertial particles. The maximum Reynolds number is Re λ∼ 200. We consider particles much heavier than the carrier flow in the limit when the Stokes drag force dominates their dynamical evolution. We discuss both the transient and the stationary regimes. In the transient regime, we study the growth of inhomogeneities in the particle spatial distribution driven by the preferential concentration out of intense vortex filaments. In the stationary regime, we study the acceleration fluctuations as a function of the Stokes number in the range St ∈ [0.16:3.3]. We also compare our results with those of pure fluid tracers (St = 0) and we find a critical behavior of inertia for small Stokes values. Starting from the pure monodisperse statistics we also characterize polydisperse suspensions with a given mean Stokes, .
Self-organised maps for online detection of faults in non-linear industrial processes

Fault detection in linear systems is a fairly matured area where the well-known principal component analysis (PCA) and its variants are widely used. However, a large class of non-linear systems exist, especially chemical processes, on which such techniques cannot be applied. The present work aims at demonstrating the application of self-organising maps (SOM) for fault detection in non-linear processes. SOM belongs to the class of unsupervised and competitive learning algorithms and it is highly capable of handling nonlinear relationships. Application of SOM to fault detection involves generation of a reference template for the process under fault-free conditions. Online fault detection is performed by generating a new template using a windowing of the data, which is compared with the reference template using a novel metric based on the node weights obtained from SOM to detect possible faults in the process. Simulation studies on two non-linear systems, namely, (1) continuously stirred tank reactor (CSTR) and (2) bioreactor process demonstrate the practicality and utility of the proposed method.
The Changing Face of Language Learning: Learning Beyond the Classroom

There are two important dimensions to successful second language learning: what goes on inside the classroom and what goes on outside of the classroom. While language teaching has always been seen as a preparation for out-of-class uses of language, much of the focus in language teaching in the past has typically been on classroom-based language learning. At the same time the limitations of classroom-based learning have been frequently acknowledged. The opportunities for learning or ‘affordances’ available in the classroom are hence quite restricted, consisting of a limited range of discourse and literacy practices. Today, however, the internet, technology and the media, and the use of English in face-to-face as well as virtual social networks provide greater opportunities for meaningful and authentic language use than are available in the classroom. In view of the growing range of opportunities and resources available to support out-of-class learning the paper examines what some of these opportunities are, how they are used, the kinds of learning affordances they provide, and the issues they raise for classroom based teaching as well as second language teacher education.
Characterization of Immortalized Dairy Goat Male Germline Stem Cells (mGSCs)

Male germline stem cells (mGSCs), in charge for the fertility in male testis, are the only kind of adult stem cells that transmit genetic information to next generation, with promising prospects in germplasm resources preservation and optimization, and production of transgenic animals. Mouse male germline stem cell lines have been established and are valuable for studying the mechanisms of spermatogenesis. However, there is a lack of stable mGSC cell lines in livestock, which restricts the progress of transgenic research and related biotechnology. Here, we firstly established an immortalized dairy goat mGSC cell line to study the biological properties and the signaling pathways associated with mGSCs self‐renewal and differentiation. The ectopic factors SV40 large T antigen and Bmi1 genes were transduced into dairy goat mGSCs, and the results showed that the proliferation of these cells that were named mGSCs‐I‐SB was improved significantly. They maintained the typical characteristics including the expression of mGSC markers, and the potential to differentiate into all three germ layers, sperm‐like cells in vitro. Additionally, mGSCs‐I‐SB survived and differentiated into three germ layer cell types when they were transplanted into chicken embryos. Importantly, the cells also survived in mouse spermatogenesis deficiency model testis which seemed to be the golden standard to examine mGSCs. Conclusively, our results demonstrate that mGSCs‐I‐SB present the characteristics of mGSCs and may promote the future study on goat mGSCs. J. Cell. Biochem. 115: 1549–1560, 2014. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
The Effects of 'Alley-Gating' in an English Town

Terraced housing is particularly vulnerable to burglary where the offender gains access from the rear of the premises. 'Alley-gating' attempts to prevent this by fitting robust gates across alleyway access points and is currently used in Oldham, North West England. This study evaluates its effectiveness at preventing burglary via statistical and geographic information system (GIS) analysis of crime data from alley-gate treatment sites in Oldham. Focus group data also identify secondary effects beyond crime reduction not apparent from the quantitative analyses. We argue that clearer understanding of the contextual dynamics specific to the gated area, together with careful analytical work and use of computerized crime mapping programmes, can inform strategic decision-making and further reduce victimization.
On Hybrid Systems and the Modal / z-Calculus ( extended abstract )

It is hardly controversial to claim that the p-calculus is a formal logic of central import for the analysis and verification of hybrid automata and related classes of systems. The fundamental concepts of teachability and invariance for hybrid trajectories are expressible in terms of fixed-points of operators mapping sets of states to sets of states, and thus definable in the p-calculus. The iterative computation of the denotation of such fixed point formulas lies at the heart of symbolic model checking tools for hybrid and real-time systems such as HYTECH (Alur, Henzinger, & Ho 1996), (Henzinger 1996) and KRONOS (Daws et hi. 1996). More generally, the propositional p-calculus is well-recognized as a richly expressive logic over transition system models: the power of its fixed-point quantifiers is such that it subsumes virtually all temporal, modal and dynamic logics (Emerson 1997), (Janin & Walukiewicz 1996). However, the current practice, within the allied field of automated verification of (discrete) reactive systems as well as within the hybrid systems community, is to treat the p-calculus not as a working or usable logic but rather as a logic of the substratum. It provides a common "machine" language and semantics for verification by model checking over transition system models, with user-input specifications written in the more "natural" languages of temporal logics, and then translated into that of the p-calculus (Kupferman & Vardi 1998), (Henzinger 1996). In the hybrid and real-time systems literature, the bulk of the current work on logics and formal methods is an expansion of, but firmly anchored in, the framework of temporal logic verification of finite state systems (see, for example, (Manna & Pnueli 1993), (Henzinger 1996), (Manna & Sipma 1998)). The core putational model is that of a hybrid automaton, which is represented formally as a labeled transition system over a hybrid state space X C__ Q × ~n, where Q is a finite set of discrete modes, and II~ n is Euclidean space.
Modelling active contours using neural networks isomorphic to boundaries

We propose a new technique, based on self-organization, for localizing salient contours in an image, with applications to, for instance, object and character recognition, stereopsis and motion tracking. A neuronal network which is isomorphic to the template/initial contour is created. This network acts as an active contour, which, using self-organization, undergoes deformation in an attempt to cling on to the nearest salient contour in the test image. The application areas of the model proposed are similar to "snake", but distinct from it both in the underlying mathematics and implementation. The new technique is illustrated with some examples.
Personality Testing and Industrial–Organizational Psychology: Reflections, Progress, and Prospects

As the title suggests, this article takes a broad perspective on personality as it is conceptualized and measured in organizational research, and in the spirit of this Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology journal, we framed the article as a series of 7 questions. These 7 questions deal with (1) personality and multidimensional models of performance, (2) personality taxonomies and the five-factor model, (3) the effects of situations on personality–performance relationships, (4) the incremental validity of personality over cognitive ability, (5) the need to differentiate personality constructs from personality measures, (6) the concern with faking on personality tests, and (7) the use of personality tests in attempting to address adverse impact. We dovetail these questions with our perspectives and insights in the hope that this will stimulate further discussion with our readership.
Achieving Higher Seat Belt Usage: The Role of Habit in Bridging the Attitude‐Behavior Gap1

The Triandis (1977, 1980) model of habit is applied in an investigation of attitude-behavior discrepancy for seat belt use behavior. Habit is conceptualized as automated response, and the measure employed here is shown to be discriminated from measures of intentions and behavior. A case is also made for a distinction between pro-intentional and counter-intentional habits. Data from a random sample of 197 adult respondents show that the two habits (a) are distinct; (b) operate differently, that is, use habit has a main effect whereas nonuse habit interacts with attitude/intentions; and (c) explain belt use behavior nonredundantly with intention and attitude (e.g., their addition to attitude raises R2 from 38.8% to 62.9%). Theoretical implications for understanding habit processes and programmatic directions for increasing the belt usage are discussed.
Ecological Perspectives in Teaching Research

My goal is to provide an overview of the field of teacher effectiveness research, and then to more specifically describe the approaches my students and I have taken in our programmatic research examining teacher effectiveness from an ecological perspective of classroom life. Throughout, I will focus a great deal on methodologies because good data are the key to successful research. Findings and implications may be more interesting, but findings can’t be better than the data on which they are based, and no implications can be drawn from inadequate data sets. For a quarter-century dating from the mid-1960s, a research field defined by its intent to understand teacher effectiveness in K–12 settings grew conceptually and methodologically, producing a group of replicated, generalized outcomes that have allowed for an increasingly sophisticated understanding of effective teaching. In so doing, teacher effectiveness research also identified a repertoire of teaching skills that can be learned and improved through practice, and the evidence strongly supports that when these teaching skills are applied with appropriate sensitivity to context, they result in improved student performance (Siedentop, 1986). The leadership in this field was in classroom research, but physical educators developed a parallel stream of research, and while taking many leads from the generic parent field, we also developed research agendas that were specific to the context in which our subject matter is pursued in schools. This remarkably productive period was enabled primarily by widespread adoption of two methodologies. The first was a reliance on low-inference obser vation over long periods of time in real school settings as the primary data collection strategy. The second was utilization of student performance indices as primary criteria for judging the relative effectiveness of teachers. Observation systems provided varied lenses through which researchers began to understand the dynamics of classroom life, not in some idealized state, and not to assess the degree to which that collective life might conform to some theoretical view of how classrooms should be, but rather to understand classroom life, and more particularly to understand how classroom life differed in classrooms where students were performing differentially better. In this sense, all we have learned about teacher effectiveness comes from what teachers and their students have taught us through our observations of their shared lives over extended periods of time in schools.
Strategic Human Resource Practices and Product Innovation

Using creativity theory as a heuristic device, I develop hypotheses on the relation between strategic human resource practices and a firm's capability to generate product innovations. My empirical tests in a sample of 988 Dutch firms indicate the importance of task autonomy, training and performance-based pay for generating incremental innovations. Regarding radical innovations, the results point to the importance of task autonomy and flexible working hours. The use of standby contracts is associated with significantly lower levels of innovativeness. We also find interaction effects between individual HR practices, between HR practices and firm size, and between HR practices and R&D intensity.
Operational semantics-directed compilers and machine architectures

We consider the task of automatically constructing intermediate-level machine architectures and compilers generating code for these architectures, given operational semantics for source languages. We use operational semantics in the form of abstract machines given by rewrite systems in which the rewrite rules operate on terms representing states of computations. To construct compilers and new architectures we employ a particular strategy called pass separation, a form of staging transformation, that takes a program <italic>p</italic> and constructs a pair of programs <italic>p</italic><subscrpt>1</subscrpt>, <italic>p</italic><subscrpt>2</subscrpt> such that <italic>p(x, y)</italic> = <italic>p<subscrpt>2</subscrpt>(p<subscrpt>1</subscrpt>(x), y)</italic>) for all <italic>x,y</italic>. If <italic>p</italic> represents an operational semantics for a language, with arguments <italic>x</italic> and <italic>y</italic> denoting a source program and its input data, then pass separation constructs programs <italic>p<subscrpt>1</subscrpt></italic> and <italic>p<subscrpt>2</subscrpt></italic> corresponding to a compiler and an executor. The compiler translates the source language into an intermediate-level target language, and the executor provides the definition for this language. Our use of pass separation supports the automatic definition of target languages or architectures, and the structure of these architectures is directed by the structure of the given source semantics. These architectures resemble abstract machine languages found in hand-crafted compilers. Our method is restricted to a limited class of abstract machines given as term-rewriting systems, but we argue that this class encompasses a large set of language definitions derived from more natural operational semantics. We provide two examples of our method by constructing compilers and target architectures for a simple functional language and a simple imperative language. Though we construct these architectures automatically, they bear a striking resemblance to existing architectures constructed by hand.
Bilateral deep brain stimulation of the pallidum for myoclonus-dystonia due to ε-sarcoglycan mutations: a pilot study.

OBJECTIVE To assess the efficacy of bilateral deep brain stimulation of the internal pallidum in patients with myoclonus-dystonia due to genetically proved ε-sarcoglycan (SGCE-M-D) deficiency. DESIGN Patients with documented SGCE-M-D undergoing bilateral deep brain stimulation of the internal pallidum were recruited. Standardized assessments of M-D were videorecorded before surgery and 6 to 9 months and 15 to 18 months after surgery, using the movement and disability subscales of the Burke-Fahn-Marsden Dystonia Rating Scale and the Unified Myoclonus Rating Scale. The analysis was based on blinded evaluation of the recordings. SETTING Movement disorder unit in a university hospital in Paris. PATIENTS Five consecutive patients with documented SGCE-M-D. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Myoclonus and dystonia scores at follow-up. RESULTS The median myoclonus score decreased from 76 before surgery (range, 38-116) to 10 at 6 to 9 months after surgery (range, 6-31). The median dystonia score decreased from 30.0 before surgery (range, 18.5-53.0) to 4.5 after surgery (range, 3.5-16.0). Disability was also improved and symptoms remained stable between the postoperative evaluations. No adverse effects occurred. CONCLUSIONS Bilateral deep brain stimulation of the internal pallidum is safe and highly effective in this homogeneous population of patients with SGCE-M-D. This therapeutic option should therefore be considered for patients with severe, drug-resistant forms of the disorder.
The role of pulmonary surfactant in the asthmatic response

The importance of lung surfactant function has become widely appreciated in the context of neonatal Respiratory Distress Syndrome (RDS). Preterm infants born with developmentally immature lungs suffer from a primary de®ciency of surfactant, which leads to alveolar instability, atelectasis and severe respiratory failure. One of the major success stories of respiratory care over the past decade has been treating RDS with exogenous surfactant. However, the dramatic improvement in survival of critically ill infants less than 30 weeks gestation has in many respects overshadowed the importance of adequate surfactant function to optimal lung function throughout life. Inactivation of lung surfactant by a variety of mechanisms has been proposed to contribute to the pathology of acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) [1], respiratory syncytial virus bronchiolitis in infants [2], and respiratory infections and cystic ®brosis [3,4]. In addition to opposing surface tension forces within the alveolus, surfactant has also been reported to promote mucociliary clearance [5], bind aeroallergens, pollens, bacteria and other particulates [6], oppose airway oedema [7] and prevent collapse of terminal airways [8]. The phospholipid component of surfactant will inhibit both proliferation of peripheral blood lymphoytes [9,10] and the neutrophil respiratory burst oxidase response [11], and is thought to act generally as an immunosuppressive agent in the lungs. In contrast, the water soluble surfactant proteins A (SP-A) and D (SP-D) bind and aggregate gram negative bacteria, act as opsonizing agents, and stimulate alveolar macrophage and neutrophil in ̄ammatory responses [12]. The paper by Hills and Chen in this issue highlights another proposed role for airway phospholipids in normal lung function that may become compromised in asthmatic patients [13]. They have previously presented microscopic evidence that multiple layers of phospholipid bind directly to the surface of the bronchial epithelium [for review see 14], and have suggested that such layers may contribute a barrier function at the epithelial surface. In their present paper they have administered a dry powder mixture of phospholipid to the lungs of ventilated rats, and report that this reduces the amplitude of neurological response to stretch receptors. They go on to hypothesize that, if this phospholipid barrier was eroded as part of the disease process in asthma, then it might contribute to the sensitivity and overall magnitude of the bronchoconstriction response. Finally, they use this suggestion to argue that administration of phospholipid mixtures may provide clinical bene®t in asthma. These suggestions are intriguing and deserve a full examination. There are three especially relevant questions in this context. First, what are the other proposed functions of lung surfactant in the pathology of asthma? Second, what is the relationship between epithelial bound phospholipid and lung surfactant? Third, what are the possibilities for surfactant therapy in asthma?
On setting the hyper-parameters of term frequency normalization for information retrieval

The setting of the term frequency normalization hyper-parameter suffers from the query dependence and collection dependence problems, which remarkably hurt the robustness of the retrieval performance. Our study in this article investigates three term frequency normalization methods, namely normalization 2, BM25's normalization and the Dirichlet Priors normalization. We tackle the query dependence problem by modifying the query term weight using a Divergence From Randomness term weighting model, and tackle the collection dependence problem by measuring the correlation of the normalized term frequency with the document length. Our research hypotheses for the two problems, as well as an automatic hyper-parameter setting methodology, are extensively validated and evaluated on four Text REtrieval Conference (TREC) collections.
Is it possible to decide whether a cryptographic protocol is secure or not

We consider the so called “cryptographic protocols” whose aim is to ensure some security properties when communication channels are not reliable. Such protocols usually rely on cryptographic primitives. Even if it is assumed that the cryptographic primitives are perfect, the security goals may not be achieved: the protocol itself may have weaknesses which can be exploited by an attacker. We survey recent work on decision techniques for the cryptographic protocol analysis.
Fraud Masters: Professional Credit Card Offenders and Crime

In this country, credit card companies, banks, and retail establishments suffer losses totaling $2 billion annually as the result of credit card abuse and fraud. This study examines the working habits of a gang of credit thieves. This clique of professional thieves, called fraud masters, are proficient in the art of securing credit cards and are willfully engaged in their abuse. Observations indicate that the criminal behavior of this gang of economic law violators reaffirms the strength of theoretical formulations regarding professional crime and criminals that were offered by Edwin H. Sutherland in 1937.
AN EVALUATION OF THE TEMPORAL COHERENCE HEURISTIC IN PARTIAL‐ORDER PLANNING

This paper presents an evaluation of a heuristic for partial‐order planning, known as temporal coherence. The temporal coherence heuristic was proposed by Drummond and Currie as a method to improve the efficiency of partial‐order planning without losing the ability to find a solution (i.e., completeness). It works by using a set of domain constraints to prune away plans that do not “make sense,” or are temporally incoherent. Our analysis shows that, while intuitively appealing, temporal coherence can only be applied to a very specific implementation of a partial‐order planner and still maintain completeness. Furthermore, the heuristic does not always improve planning efficiency; in some cases, its application can actually degrade the efficiency of planning dramatically. To understand when the heuristic will work well, we conducted complexity analysis and empirical tests. Our results show that temporal coherence works well when strong domain constraints exist that significantly reduce the search space, when the number of subgoals is small, when the plan size is not too large, and when it is inexpensive to check each domain constraint.