Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Phenology of a Vegetation Barrier and Resulting Impacts on Near-Highway Particle Number and Black Carbon Concentrations on a School Campus

Traffic-related air pollution is a persistent concern especially in urban areas where populations live in close proximity to roadways. Innovative solutions are needed to minimize human exposure and the installation of vegetative barriers shows potential as a method to reduce near-road concentrations. This study investigates the impact of an existing stand of deciduous and evergreen trees on near-road total particle number (PNC) and black carbon (BC) concentrations across three seasons. Measurements were taken during spring, fall and winter on the campus of a middle school in the Atlanta (GA, USA) area at distances of 10 m and 50 m from a major interstate highway. We identified consistent decreases in BC concentrations, but not for PNC, with increased distance from the highway. In multivariable models, hour of day, downwind conditions, distance to highway, temperature and relative humidity significantly predicted pollutant concentrations. The magnitude of effect of these variables differed by season, however, we were not able to show a definitive impact of the vegetative barrier on near-road concentrations. More detailed studies are necessary to further examine the specific configurations and scenarios that may produce pollutant and exposure reductions.
Divisionalization and Size: A Theoretical and Empirical Critique

Previous work on large business organizations in advanced industrial countries has established that the substitution of a multidivisional for a functional structure is related to the degree of diversification. However, there also exists some theory and evidence which asserts the importance of size for divisionalization. This article examines the issue theoretically and empirically and concludes that divisionalization is more closely associated with diversification than with size, and that the former relationship predominates statistically. The argument from diversification is shown to be more cogent theoretically than that from size.
Doctor-patient communication after endoscopy: drowning in information, starving for knowledge?

(the studies are based on otherwise normal individuals)? Should the value at 24 h be considered (the Boston group demonstrated the highest negative predictive value for necrosis at 24 h)? My opinion is that hemoconcentration in an otherwise healthy individual should be defined as a hematocrit greater than the upper limits of normal for the particular lab based upon gender. In a patient with chronic disease, perhaps a baseline hematocrit with which to compare would be helpful, with hemoconcentration defined arbitrarily as a hematocrit elevated . 5% over the baseline value. Finally, I think the 24-h level may be useful to evaluate, despite Lankisch et al. suggesting that it is not as reliable because of differences in volume resuscitation. When interpreted in the proper context, the hematocrit alone may save additional health care dollars in avoiding more expensive tests and unnecessary ICU monitoring. Unfortunately, the ideal biochemical marker that will reliably distinguish necrotizing pancreatitis from interstitial pancreatitis upon admission, is of low cost, and is widely available remains elusive. The truth is still out there, somewhere.
Biology of free radical scavengers: an evaluation of ascorbate

Reactive free radical species (R∗) are associated with several forms of tissue damage and disease, and also with the process of aging. Protection is thought to be available in the form of endogenous compounds that react with and thereby “scavenge” the R∗. Because many R∗ are reactive forms of oxygen, an effective scavenger is often referred to as an antioxidant. To be an effective antioxidant physiologically, a substance must have certain chemical and biological properties: it must be present in adequate amounts in the body; it must react with a variety of R∗; it must be suitable for compartmentation; it must be readily available; it might be suitable for regeneration; it must be conserved by the kidneys; and it must have tolerable toxicity. Several water‐soluble candidates are mentioned, with most having no more than one or two of the attributes listed. Ascorbic acid is discussed in detail, and an analysis is made of whether it has the properties mentioned. —Rose, R. C. , Bode, A. M. Biology of free radical scavengers: an evaluation of ascorbate. FASEB J. 7: 1135‐1142; 1993.
On wires at low electron densities

When analyzing reliability, wires have in most cases been ignored, with gates taking the lion's share, and devices being considered only once in a while. With scaling, this “only-computations-fail” approach is not going to be accurate enough as wires will also start to err. Trying to do justice to communication (wires), this paper details a statistical failure analysis of wires following on the few papers which have made wires' reliability their concern. We will use a classical particle-like probabilistic approach to enhance on the accuracy of wires' length-dependent probabilities of failure due to the discreetness of charge. Covering some of the intrinsic noises, such an approach leads to “lower bound”-like wire reliability estimates, as ignoring other intrinsic noises, as well as extrinsic noises, variations, and defects. These results should have implications for design strategies of multi-/many-cores and networks-on-chip, as well as for forward-looking investigations on emerging nano-architectures.
Consumer voters in imagined communities

Purpose – Increasingly, reports of consumers are witnessed expressing their concerns regarding corporate practices through behaviours of boycotting, buycotting and voice. The theory of consumer votes suggests that such consumers may view their purchases as “votes” in the marketplace. The purpose of this paper is to explore consumer voting within competing theories of community.Design/methodology/approach – The study adopts an exploratory approach through semi‐structured in‐depth interviews with a purposive sample of ten ethical consumers.Findings – Findings reveal that consumers adopted a voting metaphor in their approaches to ethical consumption. While choices were mainly individual in nature they were characterised as part of a wider, largely imagined community of like‐minded consumers.Research limitations/implications – This research is limited to a single country and location and focused on a specific consumer group. Expansion of the research to a wider group would be valuable.Practical implications –.
The positive impact of children with an intellectual disability on the family

This paper reports the findings of a qualitative study on the positive impacts of children with an intellectual disability on their families. The study identified nine core themes: source of joy and happiness; increased sense of purpose and priorities; expanded personal and social networks and community involvement; increased spirituality; source of family unity and closeness; increased tolerance and understanding; personal growth and strength; positive impacts on others/community. In addition to the positive impacts, the study identified a high degree of negative interaction with professionals. Implications for policy, practice and research are discussed.
Inclusion in Brunei Darussalam: the role of teacher education

In 1994, Brunei Darussalam adopted an inclusive educational policy and began a number of educational reforms to support the implementation of inclusion within the regular mainstream education system. These reforms include teacher education, which has witnessed the establishment and expansion of training and education opportunities for teachers to equip themselves with the knowledge and skills to promote inclusion at pre-service and in-service levels. This paper begins by describing how teacher education has changed over the past decade to support and promote inclusive education in Brunei Darussalam. It describes the multi-pronged strategy adopted by the Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah Institute of Education (SHBIE) to include the component of inclusive education within its teacher education programmes. Relevant research conducted by the academic community at the SHBIE to evaluate the quality of inclusion efforts as well as to inform the further development and implementation of the inclusive educational policy is also shared.
Post-Industrial Lives: Roles and Relationships in the 21st Century

From the Publisher: The shift from an industrial to a post-industrial society has been documented extensively, as has its impact on the macro-level institutions of society -- government, the workplace, and the economy. But how has post-industrial life impacted the individual and relationships between individuals? Hage and Powers examine this intriguing question by linking global changes in work patterns, information flow and knowledge to the practice of everyday life. They conclude that the complexities of society require a different kind of people, those with complex selves and creative minds, capable of confronting the challenges of the forthcoming century. Creativity, flexibility, and emotional astuteness will be the buzzwords of the future, as well as personality traits that will enable people to successfully adapt to the ever-changing swirl of workplace, familial, personal, and leisure roles. Based on the tenets of social theory, the authors present a window into the future and a plan for personal and interpersonal action. Their insights will shed light for social psychologists, social theorists, futurologists, organizational theorists, network analysts, and communication researchers.
Semi-supervised Evolutionary Distance Metric Learning for Clustering

Exising method for supervised clustering called Evolutionary Distance Metric Learning (EDML) has never been compared to other clustering method. This work conducted experiments to compare EDML with other semisupervised clusterings, such as COP-Kmeans and other DML methods. The result empirically confirms that EDML gives better clustering structure than the candidate clustering methods-i.e. K-means, COP-Kmeans, and MPC-Kmeans. Also, we justify the effect of the number of constraints, effect of smoothing, and the feasibility to evaluate EDML in various criteria. Therefore, EDML is assured that it has potential to improve clustering quality and is capable of using various clustering indices.
Effects of Peer Coaching on the Rate of Responsive Teacher Statements During a Child-directed Period in an Inclusive Preschool Setting

Several barriers to preschool inclusion exist, including the lack of collaboration between early childhood educators and early childhood special educators and the lack of high quality early childhood programs. In this study a multiple probe design across participants was used to evaluate the effectiveness of peer coaching on the rate of responsive statements made by general education preschool teachers. Three Head Start teachers who served students with special needs in their inclusive classrooms participated with an early childhood special education teacher conducting peer coaching sessions. Results indicated that all Head Start teachers increased their rate of responsive statements. Given these preliminary results a discussion on whether or not peer coaching is an effective and practical model for professional development in inclusive preschools follows.
Balanced Codon Usage Optimizes Eukaryotic Translational Efficiency

Cellular efficiency in protein translation is an important fitness determinant in rapidly growing organisms. It is widely believed that synonymous codons are translated with unequal speeds and that translational efficiency is maximized by the exclusive use of rapidly translated codons. Here we estimate the in vivo translational speeds of all sense codons from the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Surprisingly, preferentially used codons are not translated faster than unpreferred ones. We hypothesize that this phenomenon is a result of codon usage in proportion to cognate tRNA concentrations, the optimal strategy in enhancing translational efficiency under tRNA shortage. Our predicted codon–tRNA balance is indeed observed from all model eukaryotes examined, and its impact on translational efficiency is further validated experimentally. Our study reveals a previously unsuspected mechanism by which unequal codon usage increases translational efficiency, demonstrates widespread natural selection for translational efficiency, and offers new strategies to improve synthetic biology.
Exploiting observation quality information to enhance the steady-state performance of incremental LMS adaptive networks

In this paper, we investigate the effect of observation quality on the steady-state performance of incremental adaptive networks with LMS learning. We exploit the knowledge of observation quality to adjust the step-size parameter in an adaptive network according to nodes observation quality. We formulate the step-size assignment as a constrained optimization problem and then solve it via Lagrange multipliers approach. We show that applying the optimal step sizes in an incremental adaptive network improves its the steady-state performance. The simulation results are also presented to illustrate the derived theoretical results.
Laryngotracheoesophageal Clefts

This article reviews laryngeal cleft anomalies from the Laryngeal Development Laboratory at Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago and includes a discussion of the classification of laryngotracheoesophageal clefts based on previous work and the information presented herein. Of the 115 laryngeal specimens obtained between 1975 and 1995, 11 have laryngeal cleft anomalies. Eight have a submucous laryngeal cleft. There is 1 laryngotracheoesophageal cleft, type II (partial cricoid cleft); and there are 2 laryngotracheoesophageal clefts, type III (complete cricoid cleft). The histopathologic findings are presented in detail and the literature is reviewed. Photomicrographs and drawings illustrate the pathology and classification. Clinical presentation, diagnosis, evaluation, and management are discussed, as is the embryology.
Performance analysis of the FICC-DiffServ architecture

This paper analyses the behaviour and evaluates the performance of a new QoS DiffServ model, called FICC-DiffServ, as implemented in [I]. The implementation proposed a comprehensive framework for DiffServ networks. In the model, the fair intelligent congestion control (FICC) algorithm is applied to provide fairness among traffic aggregates and control congestion inside the networks. Simulation results show that the FICC-DiffServ is robust and simple to implement. It provides excellent fairness and minimizes the packet delay and jitter under a wide range of variations of both internal and external network conditions. In addition, the paper investigates the dynamicity of the overall system by studying the impact of its target operating point on the overall system performance and suggesting a scheme to adjust the operating point adaptively
Restoration of function after brain damage using a neural prosthesis

Significance Closed-loop systems, or brain–machine–brain interfaces (BMBIs), have not been widely developed for brain repair. In this study, we targeted spared motor and somatosensory regions of the rat brain after traumatic brain injury for establishment of a functional bridge using a battery-powered microdevice. The results show that by using discriminated action potentials as a trigger for stimulating a distant cortical location, rapid recovery of fine motor skills is facilitated. This study provides strong evidence that BMBIs can be used to bridge damaged neural pathways functionally and promote recovery after brain injury. Although this study is restricted to a rodent model of TBI, it is likely that the approach will also be applicable to other types of acquired brain injuries. Neural interface systems are becoming increasingly more feasible for brain repair strategies. This paper tests the hypothesis that recovery after brain injury can be facilitated by a neural prosthesis serving as a communication link between distant locations in the cerebral cortex. The primary motor area in the cerebral cortex was injured in a rat model of focal brain injury, disrupting communication between motor and somatosensory areas and resulting in impaired reaching and grasping abilities. After implantation of microelectrodes in cerebral cortex, a neural prosthesis discriminated action potentials (spikes) in premotor cortex that triggered electrical stimulation in somatosensory cortex continuously over subsequent weeks. Within 1 wk, while receiving spike-triggered stimulation, rats showed substantially improved reaching and grasping functions that were indistinguishable from prelesion levels by 2 wk. Post hoc analysis of the spikes evoked by the stimulation provides compelling evidence that the neural prosthesis enhanced functional connectivity between the two target areas. This proof-of-concept study demonstrates that neural interface systems can be used effectively to bridge damaged neural pathways functionally and promote recovery after brain injury.
Virtual teamwork: students studying about ethics in an online environment

The fundamental concepts of ethics: value, obligation and responsibility are what many of us use in our everyday decision‐making on issues that affect our lives. Students in the coursework unit ‘Science and technology in contemporary society’ learn about these concepts in relation to science and technological research and development. The learning takes place in small teams within an online learning environment. This research study reports on a case study that investigated the nature of the collaboration by virtual team members undertaking semi‐structured online tasks to develop an understanding of the topic on ethics in the coursework unit. Students’ perceptions of the usefulness of this type of learning, the types of collaboration that took place between virtual team members and an analysis of the quality of the completed tasks resulting from the virtual teamwork are presented in this paper. Factors affecting the success of the learning experience are also discussed.
Generalized rank weights of reducible codes, optimal cases and related properties

Reducible codes for the rank metric were introduced for cryptographic purposes [1]. They have fast encoding and decoding algorithms, include maximum rank distance (MRD) codes when Gabidulin codes [2] may not be applied and can correct many rank errors beyond half of their minimum rank distance, which make them suitable for network coding [3]. In this paper, we give lower and upper bounds on their generalized rank weights (GRWs), which measure information leakage on the network [4]. We give conditions for them to be rank equivalent to cartesian products and conditions to be rank degenerate. We study their duality properties and MRD ranks. Finally, we obtain codes with optimal GRWs for all possible fixed packet and code sizes, and prove that they are the unique optimal codes up to rank equivalence. Moreover, we see that all of them have explicit polynomial-time decoding algorithms using any of their bases.
JammJoint: A Variable Stiffness Device Based on Granular Jamming for Wearable Joint Support

In robotics, controlling the stiffness of the joints that contribute to the robots’ degree of freedom dictates the adaptability, versatility, and safety of the whole system. We can achieve variable stiffness or impedance in a robotic system purely by the control or by introducing new material or mechanisms to address cases that require innate safety through system compliancy. This paper presents JammJoint, a compliant and flexible wearable robot, which uses jamming of granular media to vary its stiffness. It consists of a silicone sleeve with hollow sections that are filled with cubic rubber granules and subjected to different levels of vacuum pressure. Unlike contemporary vacuum-based actuators or systems, JammJoint is wearable, portable, and autonomous: It uses a powerful miniature vacuum pump, a small battery, and bluetooth-enabled electronics. Experiments revolving around bending and torsional stiffness show that the system is able to achieve up to a fourfold increase in spring stiffness. Further measurements of individual variable stiffness structures indicate that for other modes of deformation, including simply supported bending or compression for alternative linear applications, higher changes in stiffness over a factor of seven are possible. These aspects make mobile jamming-based stiffness variation as wearable joint assistance promising for future applications such as rehabilitation after injuries and joint support in challenging working conditions.
The Sociology of Education and Work

Author: Bills, David B. Abstract: In this publication, the author aims to examine the relationship between education and work, exploring the linkages between the various social practices referred to as education, e.g. schooling, learning, training, etc., and those referred to as work, e.g. the workplace, employment, labour, jobs, and how these have developed over time and what broad social trends are changing them in contemporary times. In addition, some empirically-based projections about how these relationships could develop in the future are proposed. Although adopting a sociological perspective, the author draws on. [+] Show more
NEW GENERALIZED PARAMETRIC MEASURES OF ENTROPY AND CROSS ENTROPY

The measure of entropy introduced by Shannon [12] is the key concept in the literature of information theory and has found tremendous applications in different disciplines of science and technology. The various researchers have generalized this entropy with different approaches. The object of the present manuscript is to develop a generalized measure of entropy by using the property of concavity. The proposed measure satisfies all essential and some desirable properties of the original Shannon’s [12] entropy. Moreover, we have developed a new generalized measure of cross entropy which corresponds to the newly introduced measure of entropy.
SECURING NETWORK TRAFFIC USING GENETICALLY EVOLVED TRANSFORMATIONS

The paper describes a new approach of classification using genetic programming. The proposed technique consists of genetically coevolving a population of non-linear transformations on the input data to be classified, and map them to a new space with a reduced dimension, in order to get maximum inter-classes discrimination. The classification of new samples is then performed on the transformed data, and so becomes much easier. Contrary to the existing GP-classification techniques, the proposed one uses a dynamic repartition of the transformed data in separated intervals, the efficacy of a given interval repartition is handled by the fitness criterion, with maximum classes discrimination. Experiments were first performed using the Fisher’s Iris dataset, and the KDD’99 Cup dataset was used to study the intrusion detection and classification problem. Obtained results demonstrate that the proposed genetic approach outperforms the existing GP-classification methods, and gives accepted results compared to other existing techniques.