Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Distributed Online Optimal Energy Management for Smart Grids

Traditionally, economic dispatch and demand response (DR) are considered separately, or implemented sequentially, which may degrade the energy efficiency of the power grids. One important goal of optimal energy management (OEM) is to maximize the social welfare through the coordination of the suppliers' generations and customers' demands. Thus, it is desirable to consider the interactive operation of economic dispatch and DR, and solve them in an integrated way. This paper proposes a fully distributed online OEM solution for smart grids. The proposed solution considers the economic dispatch of conventional generators, DR of users, and operating conditions of renewable generators all together. The proposed distributed solution is developed based on a market-based self-interests motivation model since this model can realize the global social welfare maximization among system participants. The proposed solution can be implemented with multiagent system with each system participant assigned with an energy management agent. Based on the designed distributed algorithms for price updating and supply-demand mismatch discovery, the OEM among agents can be achieved in a distributed way. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed solution.
[Impacts of hypoxia on the features and chemoresistance of cancer stem cells in Hep-2 cells and underlying mechanism].

OBJECTIVE To investigate the effects of hypoxia on the features and chemoresistance of cancer stem cells in Hep-2 cells and underlying mechanism. METHODS The shRNA interference recombinant plasmid targeting HIF-1α was synthesized and transfected into Hep-2 cells. The HIF-1α knockdown Hep-2 cells were established after clonal selection and the expression of HIF-1α was measured. The cellular features including proliferation, clonal formation, cell cycle, apoptosis and CD133 phenotype were measured in Hep-2 cells cultured under hypoxic condition in vitro. CD133+ cells were sorted from Hep-2 cells with flow cytometry. Clonal formation test and cisplatin treatment were carried out, and the expressions of related genes (Oct-4, suvivin and p53) in CD133+ cells were measured. RESULTS HIF-1α knockdown Hep-2 cells was successfully established, as evidenced by the reduced mRNA and protein expressions of HIF-1α. The Hep-2 cells cultured under hypoxic microenvironment showed higher proliferation and clonal formation activity, cell cycle arrest in G0/G1, lower apoptosis, up-regulated CD133, however the effects of hypoxia reduced in HIF-1α knockdown Hep-2 cells. CD133+ cells were successfully sorted from Hep-2 cells, and the CD133+ cells showed increased clonal formation activity and cisplatin treatment resistance in hypoxia. Also the effects of hypoxia on CD133+ cells decreased with HIF-1α knockdown, showing down-regulated Oct-4 and survivin and up-regulated p53. CONCLUSIONS Hypoixa can induce the features of cancer stem cells in Hep-2 cells and increase proliferation, differentiation and chemoresistant ability of CD133+ cells, which might be correlated with the changes in expressions of HIF-1α and related genes regulated by HIF-1α.
A search engine for finding highly relevant applications

A fundamental problem of finding applications that are highly relevant to development tasks is the mismatch between the high-level intent reflected in the descriptions of these tasks and low-level implementation details of applications. To reduce this mismatch we created an approach called Exemplar (EXEcutable exaMPLes ARchive) for finding highly relevant software projects from large archives of applications. After a programmer enters a natural-language query that contains high-level concepts (e.g., MIME, data sets), Exemplar uses information retrieval and program analysis techniques to retrieve applications that implement these concepts. Our case study with 39 professional Java programmers shows that Exemplar is more effective than Sourceforge in helping programmers to quickly find highly relevant applications.
The Prevailing Origin of Psychological Problems in Young People: A Dissociation from the Future

Relative to young people several decades ago, young people in industrialized societies today are more likely to experience mood disorders, adopt an external locus of control, violate social norms, and exhibit signs of narcissism. This paper formulates a theory to explain the ultimate source of these problems: a sense of dissociation from the future. Compared with young individuals before the 1970s, young individuals now are embedded in a social environment characterized by unstable roles, status, skills, and reputation. Accordingly, young people today feel their identity in the future may diverge considerably from their identity now. According to socioemotional selectivity, psychological connectedness, and meaning maintenance theory, this dissociation from the future is likely to explain many of the characteristic problems of younger generations today. A set of social policies is recommended that could override this dissociation and thus resolve an array of issues simultaneously.
Decision Support Systems (DSS) Capabilities and Competencies Impact on Firm Performance: A Mediating Role of Absorptive Capacity

The study emphasizes the importance of Decision support systems (DSS) for corporate performance. Prior studies have been reviewed to validate theories that explain how Decision support systems (DSS) affect corporate performance. Decision support systems (DSS) provides information that is valuable to take decisions and reflects current economic, and financial state of the company: efficiency, output rates, information on the effect of different events, that relate to the impact that the employees’ decision has on the performance of other departments. Furthermore, greater management information system capability leads to a higher degree of strategic performance. These and many other factors are suggested to be critical features of DSS that have a direct influence on the financial and strategic performance of companies. This paper uses resource based view in order to explain the importance of DSS capabilities and their direct influence on firm performance. In other words, the main idea behind the paper involves the analysis of company performance based on how information system capabilities are used. For this purpose, this paper formulates conceptual framework which explains the link of DSS capabilities to absorptive capacity through the interaction of market access competency, integrated related competency, functionality related competency. Finally, the influence of DSS capabilities is described in terms of their influence on companies market based and operation performance.
On the Merits of Distributed Work-Stealing on Selective Locality-Aware Tasks

Improving the performance of work-stealing load-balancing algorithms in distributed shared-memory systems is challenging. These algorithms need to overcome high costs of contention among workers, communication and remote data-references between nodes, and their impact on the locality preferences of tasks. Prior research focus on stealing from a victim that best exploits data locality, and on using special deques that minimize the contention between local and remote workers. This work explores the selection of tasks that are favourable for migration across nodes in a distributed memory cluster, a lesser-explored dimension to distributed work-stealing. The selection of tasks is guided by the application-level task locality rather than hardware memory topology as is the norm in the literature. The prototype for the performance evaluation of these ideas is implemented in X10, a realization of the asynchronous partitioned global address space programming model. This evaluation reveals the applicability of this new approach on several real-world applications chosen from the Cowichan and the Lone star suites. On a cluster of 128 processors, the new work-stealing strategy demonstrates a speedup between 12% and 31% over X10's existing scheduler. Moreover, the new strategy does not degrade the performance of any of the applications studied.
Approaching Experiential Discourse Iconicity from the Field

Abstract In this paper, experiential discourse iconicity is examined, shown to be useful in practical studies of planetary exploration and aviation safety, and related to the structure of language. In his ‘Philosophy of Rhetoric', first published in 1776, George Campbell oered a bold theory of experiential iconicity in discourse and language that has significant practical value. He asserted that patterns of relatedness among things in the world of experience influence patterns of relatedness among words in discourse and language. This suggests, for example, that the structures of particular experiences can be derived from the structures of corresponding discourses. In Campbell's formulation these structures are networks, which have greater representational power than conventional linear models of experiential iconicity such as that of Enkvist (1981). The experientially iconic nature of practical discourse emerged as an essential resource in studies to support NASA's missions in planetary exploration and aviation safety, leading to development of new search engine technologies called Perilog. A comparison of Campbell's experiential iconicity with Saussure's dichotomies of ‘langue’ versus ‘parole’ and associative versus syntagmatic relations suggests that, in addition to being part of discourse structure, experiential iconicity is part of the structure of language.
Pediatricians' knowledge and attitudes concerning diagnosis and treatment of attention deficit and hyperactivity disorders. A national survey approach.

OBJECTIVE To examine pediatricians' knowledge and attitudes concerning the diagnosis and treatment of attention deficit disorder (ADD) and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorders (ADHD). DESIGN Cross-sectional survey. SETTING United States. PARTICIPANTS Three hundred eighty pediatricians comprising respondents from a random sample of 1000 members of the American Academy of Pediatrics. INTERVENTIONS None. MEASUREMENTS/MAIN RESULTS Pediatricians' perceptions of diagnostic modalities, child and family communication concerning ADD and ADHD diagnosis and treatment, and a variety of treatment issues were assessed in this study. Findings indicate that methylphenidate (Ritalin) hydrochloride is the most prescribed medication for treatment of ADD and ADHD. Pediatricians reported common parent and child misperceptions about ADD and ADHD treatment. Results suggest a wide range of reported physician behavior with respect to the diagnosis and treatment of ADD and ADHD. CONCLUSION Greater attention could be paid to providing accurate information in medical and educator training with respect to the cause, diagnosis, and treatment of ADD and ADHD.
Security and the social mind: attachment and therapeutic communities

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe some of the basic features of attachment theory, and explore how they relate to the development of the “social mind” and the work of therapeutic communities (TC). Design/methodology/approach – The author describes the essentials of attachment theory in humans; and the development of both secure and insecure states of mind. The author will set out how insecure attachment systems are associated with deficits in mentalising processes which are fundamental to the activity of the social mind. Findings – The author suggests how attachment to a TC can promote mentalising processes. The author draws on the work of other speakers in the conclusions about how to “grow” secure minds and societies. Research limitations/implications – This paper is a brief over view only and does not address attachment process to TC in any depth. Practical implications – Attachment theory could help both service users and therapists who work in TCs understand some of the difficulties .
Making the quiet population of internationally adopted children heard through well-informed teacher preparation

A challenge of today's teacher preparation programmes is to educate teachers about families formed through international adoption and of the challenges they face, in order to meet their educational needs. This population has a unique developmental history affected by pre- and post-adoption conditions which stand to impact on learning experiences at school, yet this population is rarely mentioned in textbooks and discussed in teacher preparation programmes. It is of concern that teachers may only bring the knowledge they have acquired through life experience to their classrooms. As thousands of children have been adopted into developed nations, it is crucial for teachers to understand the educational challenges of this population and have access to current research to inform practice. This paper aims to highlight key differences that international adoptees bring to the classroom through a review of contemporary research, and subsequent discussion of the possible implications for teacher preparation programmes.
Multi-AUV cooperative task allocation based on improved contract network

This paper studies multi-AUV cooperation as the research object, aiming at the problems that the traditional contract network has low overall efficiency, unreasonable distribution and coexistence of multiple tenders, a multi-AUV target allocation strategy based on improved contract network is proposed. This paper introduces the token ring network can improve the efficiency of AUV internal communication and solve the coexistence of multiple tenders, the introduction of task load rate indicators to solve the problem of unreasonable allocation of tasks. The combination of the two can effectively improve the overall efficiency. The simulation experiment in the three-dimensional environment shows that the improved contract network can improve the overall efficiency and make reasonable allocation scheme.
Adaptive-Buffer Power Save Mechanism for Mobile Multimedia Streaming

Wireless networks are becoming a part of everyday life for many people. When a mobile device has wireless LAN capability, multimedia content can be streamed over a wireless network to that device. However, a major disadvantage of all mobile devices is their limited battery lifetime. Multimedia streaming puts extra pressure on the battery, causing it to discharge faster. In some cases, streaming tasks cannot be completed purely because the battery of the device becomes fully discharged, which causes significant user dissatisfaction. Consequently, it is necessary to devise mechanisms to enable longer battery lifetime in order to support complex applications such as those involving mobile multimedia streaming. This paper proposes an adaptive-buffer power save mechanism (AB-PSM) for increasing the battery life of mobile devices during multimedia streaming. This increase is achieved by controlling how and when data is sent over a wireless LAN. AB-PSM introduces an additional buffer which hides data from the station it is intended for, allowing it to return to sleep and consequently saving power. Data is eventually delivered in one of the station's following attempts to receive it. Tests involving AB-PSM have been performed and show good results in terms of significant increases in battery lifetime. The comparison between AB-PSM and the IEEE 802.11 legacy power save mechanism shows important increases in battery lifetime of more than 100%.
Effects of Amphetamine on Conditioned Place Preference and Locomotion in the Male Green Tree Frog, Hyla cinerea

Neural systems mediating motivation and reward have been well described in mammalian model systems, especially with reference to reward properties of drugs of abuse. Far less is known of the neural mechanisms underlying motivation and reward in non-mammals. The behavioral procedure conditioned place preference (CPP) is often used to quantify reward properties of psychoactive drugs. The indirect dopamine agonist d-amphetamine (AMPH) is known for its properties for inducing CPP in mammals and for inducing dose-related stereotypic movements. We used the green tree frog, Hyla cinerea, to examine whether AMPH could induce both CPP and a dose response change in motor behaviors. We demonstrated that H. cinerea can show place conditioning to AMPH following 14 days of training and that AMPH can cause reversal of a strong baseline place preference. Amphetamine-treated animals (20 mg/kg b.w.) received the drug paired with the previously non-preferred context, and vehicle paired with the preferred context. Control animals received vehicle in both preferred and non-preferred contexts. Amphetamine-treated animals switched context preference following conditioning, whereas control animals did not. We also demonstrated in an open-field experiment that AMPH did not cause any noticeable changes in motor movement or behaviors across a range of doses (0, 10, 20 mg/kg b.w.). This study represents the first examination of the behavioral effects of AMPH in amphibians. These results may contribute to a better understanding of the function and pharmacology of a reward system that may mediate natural behaviors in frogs and other vertebrates.
bCloudBLAST: An efficient mapreduce program for bioinformatics applications

The BLAST programs are widely used tools for searching protein and DNA databases for sequence similarities. We present an improved MapReduce-parallel implementation by splitting both of input query sequence files and sequence databases for search, called bCloudBLAST, showing very good scaling and speedup behavior on large sequence database. bCloudBLAST is written in Java, executable on UNIX/Linux, Windows and NacOS systems. (Free) MapReduce and Hadoop libraries can be found at http://hadoop.apache. org/. For download: http://www.darwintree. cn/tools.htm
Emerging Models of Teacher Training: The Case of South Africa

Introduction Since the transition to democracy in 1994, South African education has witnessed remarkable changes. Teacher training, like all other elements of the national education system, is part of an evolving post-apartheid educational landscape. This paper describes important forces of change that have helped to shape the education landscape and it explores the significance of these on teacher training. The complexity of change, as a process that is frequently unpredictable and contradictory, is illuminated. The writer contends that change is fraught with uncertainties and challenges, yet vibrant, dynamic and full of opportunities. For the goals of transformation to be achieved, the thrust of teacher training must be towards enhanced professional status and responsibility. Central to this is the development of critically reflexive practitioners who have the capacity and the will to act as agents of change in a period of transformation.
Middle school girls + games programming = information technology fluency

In this paper we describe an after-school program that aims to develop information technology (IT) fluency by teaching middle school girls to make computer games. We focus on IT fluency rather than IT literacy because to participate in the current and future world of technology, students must develop fluency in three kinds of IT knowledge: contemporary skills, fundamental concepts, and intellectual capabilities rather than just literacy skills. The acquisition of fluency is more likely to happen in the context of a program like ours because of its emphasis on project-based work and a collaborative learning environment utilizing pair programming. The details of how IT fluency knowledge was acquired in the game programming part of our program are published elsewhere, so we only summarize those results here. The focus of this paper is on how participants have made substantial strides toward IT fluency due to aspects of our program as a whole. In this paper we provide many examples of how our program leads to IT fluency by addressing not just contemporary IT skills, but also intellectual capabilities and fundamental IT concepts.
Prio: Private, Robust, and Scalable Computation of Aggregate Statistics

This paper presents Prio, a privacy-preserving system for the collection of aggregate statistics. Each Prio client holds a private data value (e.g., its current location), and a small set of servers compute statistical functions over the values of all clients (e.g., the most popular location). As long as at least one server is honest, the Prio servers learn nearly nothing about the clients' private data, except what they can infer from the aggregate statistics that the system computes. To protect functionality in the face of faulty or malicious clients, Prio uses secret-shared non-interactive proofs (SNIPs), a new cryptographic technique that yields a hundred-fold performance improvement over conventional zero-knowledge approaches. Prio extends classic private aggregation techniques to enable the collection of a large class of useful statistics. For example, Prio can perform a least-squares regression on high-dimensional client-provided data without ever seeing the data in the clear.
Contention-based Distributed Scheduling in Densely Deployed Network Environments

While the very beginning of wireless communication started with humble beginnings, by exchanging Morse codes, the upcoming fourth generation wireless technologies, for instance, IEEE 802.11n, 802.16 m and LTE-advanced, are expected to achieve the wireless capacity of about 1 Gbps. The wireless capacity has doubled every 30 months over the last 100 years [1]. The core factor of the increase in capacity has been the reduction a cell size, which contributed to an increase of 1,600 times, While Advanced Physical (PHY) and Media Access Control (MAC) layer technologies, such as modulation and resource management schemes, contributed to only a 25 times increase in performance. The important advantage of reducing the cell size is that the receiver is able to get data packets with high Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR). Conventional wireless networks take advantage of this smaller cell size to increase the wireless capacity since receivers can get the desired signal with higher strength. However, the gain obtained from the smaller cell size could get compromised by the heavy interference that closes proximity cause between neighboring cells. This means that network systems are becoming interference dominated, thus a more important metric for network capacity is the Signal to Interference-plus-Noise Ratio (SINR) rather than SNR. Therefore, each transmitter in a cell cannot use full power to care about neighboring cells. That is, reducing the cell size is not that effective in increasing the network capacity. Recently another user establishing device, called Femtocell Access Point (FAP) [2], [3], has shown up in the market. FAPs work similarly to cellular Base stations (BSs)1), but each FAP covers a small indoor area. Because 887