Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Performance improvement for GPRS, WLAN integration using ad hoc networks

As the wireless technology evolves, one can access the Internet almost everywhere via many wireless access networks such as wireless LAN and GPRS. People would like to use the wireless networks with high data rate, large coverage and low cost. Some networks such as GPRS can provide large coverage, but they only provide low data rate; some networks like wireless LAN can provide high data rate, but the access points are not widely deployed. None of the wireless networks can meet all requirements of a mobile user. Heterogeneous networks solve parts of the problem. In heterogeneous networks, users can roam among different kind of networks such as 802.11 wireless LAN and GPRS through vertical handoffs. But in heterogeneous networks, each kind of wireless networks provide different quality of services. Users roaming among the wireless networks suffer enormous change of quality of services. We propose three access network selection strategies that keep mobile users staying in the wireless networks with higher quality services longer and thus improve the average available bandwidth and decrease the call blocking probability.
Quality control Genome maintenance in pluripotent stem cells

Correspondence to Nissim Benvenisty: nissimb@cc.huji. ac.il; or Uri Ben-David: uri.ben-david@mail.huji. ac.il Abbreviations used in this paper: CNV, copy number variation; DSB, doublestrand break; ESC, embryonic stem cell; hPSC, human PSC; iPSC, induced PSC; IR, ionizing radiation; mESC, mouse ESC; NHEJ, nonhomologous end joining; PSC, pluripotent stem cell; ROS, reactive oxygen species; SNV, single nucleotide variation. Pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) can be obtained from the inner cell mass of the embryonic blastocyst, resulting in embryonic stem cells (ESCs), or by reprogramming somatic cells into a pluripotent state (iPSCs). Pluripotent cells can self-renew indefinitely without losing their cellular identity, and can also differentiate into all the different cell types of the embryo. Importantly, while the latter trait is an inherent characteristic of pluripotent cells by definition, the former is actually a culture artifact, as pluripotent cells exist only transiently in vivo. Maintaining a proper genomic content is crucial for proper embryonic development in vivo, and is also critical for most applications of PSCs, such as cell therapy, disease modeling, and research of early development. Hence, it is important to understand the genome maintenance challenges that PSCs cope with, to characterize the recurrent genomic aberrations that they acquire, and to identify their functional consequences, in order to monitor, and potentially minimize, these genomic abnormalities.
Characterizing minimum-length coordinated motions for two discs

We study the problem of determining optimal coordinated motions for two disc robots in an otherwise obstacle-free plane. Using the total path length traced by the two disc centres as a measure of distance, we give an exact characterization of a shortest collision-avoiding motion for all initial and final configurations of the robots. The individual paths are composed of at most six (straight or circular-arc) segments, and their total length can be expressed as a simple integral with a closed form solution depending only on the initial and final configuration of the robots. Furthermore, the paths can be parametrized in such a way that (i) only one robot is moving at any given time (decoupled motion), or (ii) the angle between the two robots' centres changes monotonically.
Strength/endurance training versus endurance training in congestive heart failure.

PURPOSE The aim of this study was to compare the effects of endurance training alone (ET) with combined endurance and strength training (CT) on hemodynamic and strength parameters in patients with congestive heart failure (CHF). METHODS Twenty male patients with CHF were randomized into one of two training regimens consisting of endurance training or a combination of endurance and resistance training. Group ET had 40-min interval cycle ergometer endurance training three times per week. Group CT combined endurance and strength training with the same interval endurance training for 20 min, followed by 20 min of strength training. Left ventricular function was assessed at baseline and after 40 training sessions by echocardiography and radionuclide ventriculography. Work capacity was measured with cardiopulmonary exercise test (CPX) and lactate determination. Strength was measured with an isokinetic dynamometer. RESULTS After 40 sessions, the ET group improved functional class, work capacity, peak torque, and muscular endurance. However, peak O2 remained unchanged. Left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) and fractional shortening (FS) decreased, whereas left ventricular end-diastolic diameter (LVED) increased. The CT group improved NYHA score, working capacity, peak O2, and peak lactate; peak torque and muscular endurance, LVEF, and FS increased, whereas LVED decreased. Compared with ET, CT was significantly (P < 0.05) better in improving LV function. CONCLUSION Combined endurance/strength training was superior to endurance training alone concerning improvement of LV function, peak VO2, and strength parameters. It appears that for stable CHF patients, a greater benefit can be derived from this training modality.
An Improved Grafting Technique for Mature Arabidopsis Plants Demonstrates Long-Distance Shoot-to-Root Transport of Phytochelatins in Arabidopsis1[W]

Phytochelatins (PCs) are peptides that function in heavy-metal chelation and detoxification in plants and fungi. A recent study showed that PCs have the ability to undergo long-distance transport in a root-to-shoot direction in transgenic Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana). To determine whether long-distance transport of PCs can occur in the opposite direction, from shoots to roots, the wheat (Triticum aestivum) PC synthase (TaPCS1) gene was expressed under the control of a shoot-specific promoter (CAB2) in an Arabidopsis PC-deficient mutant, cad1-3 (CAB2∷TaPCS1/cad1-3). Analyses demonstrated that TaPCS1 is expressed only in shoots and that CAB2∷TaPCS1/cad1-3 lines complement the cadmium (Cd) and arsenic metal sensitivity of cad1-3 shoots. CAB2∷TaPCS1/cad1-3 plants exhibited higher Cd accumulation in roots and lower Cd accumulation in shoots compared to wild type. Fluorescence HPLC coupled to mass spectrometry analyses directly detected PC2 in the roots of CAB2:TaPCS1/cad1-3 but not in cad1-3 controls, suggesting that PC2 is transported over long distances in the shoot-to-root direction. In addition, wild-type shoot tissues were grafted onto PC synthase cad1-3 atpcs2-1 double loss-of-function mutant root tissues. An Arabidopsis grafting technique for mature plants was modified to obtain an 84% success rate, significantly greater than a previous rate of approximately 11%. Fluorescence HPLC-mass spectrometry showed the presence of PC2, PC3, and PC4 in the root tissue of grafts between wild-type shoots and cad1-3 atpcs2-1 double-mutant roots, demonstrating that PCs are transported over long distances from shoots to roots in Arabidopsis.
Measuring the quality of corporate governance in the banking sector of Bosnia and Herzegovina

A good system of corporate governance is a key prerequisite for sustainable economic growth and increased efficiency of an economic system and it guarantees easier access to foreign sources of capital. The financial system of Bosnia and Herzegovina is dominated by the banking system. The banking system is mostly owned by foreign enterprises. It is characterised by a very high level of ownership concentration and a closed system of corporate governance. A successful corporation requires efficient and successful management, as development of good practice in corporate governance is a sine qua non for corporations aiming to prosper on the market. Measuring corporate governance provides a clear overview of strengths and weaknesses of the system of corporate governance, not only for banks, but also for other enterprises. It is a foundation for a long-term sustainable and socially responsible growth and development, both of the banking system and the entire economic system of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
How Should We Express Moral Concern?

In this article I discuss whether talk of ‘rights’ or talk of ‘needs’ should be used to express moral concerns. I argue that needs are the fundamental basis of morality: hence, we should only move beyond them to talk of ‘rights’ if rights can offer us a conception that cannot be included in the term ‘needs’. I then to show that all the traditional strong points of rights can be included within the term ‘needs’ (albeit with some qualification), that is, needs can allow us to make claims on others, and can protect us from the government; as can needs promote the individualism and self–respect usually associated with rights. Apart from adding clarity to moral debates, I argue that expressing morality in terms of needs also offers us two main advantages over rights: it discourages anthropocentrism (a view greatly responsible for the environmental destruction we cause the planet) and it assists those trying to alleviate human suffering.
Identifying Regulators of Morphogenesis Common to Vertebrate Neural Tube Closure and Caenorhabditis elegans Gastrulation

Neural tube defects including spina bifida are common and severe congenital disorders. In mice, mutations in more than 200 genes can result in neural tube defects. We hypothesized that this large gene set might include genes whose homologs contribute to morphogenesis in diverse animals. To test this hypothesis, we screened a set of Caenorhabditis elegans homologs for roles in gastrulation, a topologically similar process to vertebrate neural tube closure. Both C. elegans gastrulation and vertebrate neural tube closure involve the internalization of surface cells, requiring tissue-specific gene regulation, actomyosin-driven apical constriction, and establishment and maintenance of adhesions between specific cells. Our screen identified several neural tube defect gene homologs that are required for gastrulation in C. elegans, including the transcription factor sptf-3. Disruption of sptf-3 in C. elegans reduced the expression of early endodermally expressed genes as well as genes expressed in other early cell lineages, establishing sptf-3 as a key contributor to multiple well-studied C. elegans cell fate specification pathways. We also identified members of the actin regulatory WAVE complex (wve-1, gex-2, gex-3, abi-1, and nuo-3a). Disruption of WAVE complex members reduced the narrowing of endodermal cells’ apical surfaces. Although WAVE complex members are expressed broadly in C. elegans, we found that expression of a vertebrate WAVE complex member, nckap1, is enriched in the developing neural tube of Xenopus. We show that nckap1 contributes to neural tube closure in Xenopus. This work identifies in vivo roles for homologs of mammalian neural tube defect genes in two manipulable genetic model systems.
Kinome Screen Identifies PFKFB3 and Glucose Metabolism as Important Regulators of the Insulin/Insulin-like Growth Factor (IGF)-1 Signaling Pathway*

Background: Insulin regulates metabolism via the PI3K/Akt pathway. Results: A kinome siRNA screen identified PFKFB3, a glycolysis regulator, as a modulator of insulin action. Manipulation of PFKFB3 activity or glycolysis affected insulin signaling. Conclusion: Intracellular metabolism modulates important signal transduction pathways. Significance: The novel link between glycolysis and growth factor signaling has important implications for the treatment of metabolic diseases. The insulin/insulin-like growth factor (IGF)-1 signaling pathway (ISP) plays a fundamental role in long term health in a range of organisms. Protein kinases including Akt and ERK are intimately involved in the ISP. To identify other kinases that may participate in this pathway or intersect with it in a regulatory manner, we performed a whole kinome (779 kinases) siRNA screen for positive or negative regulators of the ISP, using GLUT4 translocation to the cell surface as an output for pathway activity. We identified PFKFB3, a positive regulator of glycolysis that is highly expressed in cancer cells and adipocytes, as a positive ISP regulator. Pharmacological inhibition of PFKFB3 suppressed insulin-stimulated glucose uptake, GLUT4 translocation, and Akt signaling in 3T3-L1 adipocytes. In contrast, overexpression of PFKFB3 in HEK293 cells potentiated insulin-dependent phosphorylation of Akt and Akt substrates. Furthermore, pharmacological modulation of glycolysis in 3T3-L1 adipocytes affected Akt phosphorylation. These data add to an emerging body of evidence that metabolism plays a central role in regulating numerous biological processes including the ISP. Our findings have important implications for diseases such as type 2 diabetes and cancer that are characterized by marked disruption of both metabolism and growth factor signaling.
A simple and efficient burst error correcting code based on an array code

We show that a widely used array code, known as the even-odd code, which is targeted at phased burst errors, may also be useful for non-phased burst errors. A new decoder is proposed for this code which effectively converts it into a more general burst error correcting code. The proposed scheme is shown to be capable of correcting almost all bursts up to a certain length, such that its performance is attractive for many communication applications. Since the failure rate is sufficiently low, the code can be practically classified as a burst error correcting code. The redundancy in this code is equal to twice the maximal burst length, which is the same redundancy as the lower bound of conventional burst error correcting codes (the Reiger bound). Both the encoder and the decoder have very low complexity, both in terms of number of operations and in terms: of computer code size. We analyze the probability of failure, provide tight upper and lower bounds, and show that asymptotically this probability approaches zero for large blocks.
Implementing SODA in Embodied Robots

Giving robots the ability to learn without the guidance of a researcher is a practical method of developing more adaptable and intelligent systems. Self-Organizing Distinctive-State Abstraction (SODA) is an algorithm that allows a robot to learn routines from from raw sensorimotor inputs through training. The goal of our experiment was to implement SODA on a simulated version of the Khepera II robot in a T-shaped Maze environment. The task we aimed to complete was training our robot to complete a navigation task that consisted of finding a path from the upper left or upper right corner to a light placed at the bottom of the T-maze. We managed to successfully implement the phases dealing with exploration of the environment and training of HC and TF options, but were unsuccessful at training our robot to properly complete the the light-finding task.
Temporary jobs and first child fertility in Finland

This study examines the association between temporary employment and first child fertility among 20- to 44-year-old Finnish employees in partnership. In this endeavour, the moderating effects of employer sector and insecurity of employment situation are considered. The data consist of the Finnish Quality of Work Life Surveys 1984, 1990, 1997, 2003 and 2008, to which information from population register on children born to the respondents is merged. With a relatively high total fertility rate, a high female employment rate and a high prevalence of temporary employment among women at the age of family formation, Finland provides an interesting context for studying the association of temporary employment with fertility. The findings confirm a negative association of temporary employment with transition to parenthood in the year following the survey for both men and women. However, the positive association of the public sector employment on fertility is so strong that female temporaries in the public sector are about as likely to have a child as permanent employees in the private sector. Insecurity of employment situation interacts with the type of contract in the case of women. Among those with high levels of insecurity, temporary employees are more likely to opt for motherhood than permanent employees.
Educational Change in a Technology-Rich Environment.

AbstractThis article examines the visions that have been created for the redesign of schools and the ways in which computer and communication technology have provided the means for people to work toward these visions. It presents an integrated view of school reform ideas and describes the ways in which our current technology has provided the platform to support these changes in three areas, (a) instructional practices, (b) school design, and (c) school organization. It presents examples of how collaborative technology—tools that help individuals produce shared knowledge—and technological settings for new collaborative designs are continuing to change the process of education.
The public health importance of Ascaris lumbricoides

Numerous studies have shown that anthelminthic treatment can be effective in improving growth rates when given to malnourished children with ascariasis. Recent investigations have also indicated that Ascaris infections can affect mental processing in some school children. Poor socio-economic conditions are among the key factors linked with higher prevalences of ascariasis, as are defaecation practices, geophagia, cultural differences relating to personal and food hygiene, occupational necessity, agricultural factors, housing style, social class and gender. Chemotherapy is currently the major tool used for the strategic control of ascariasis as a short-term goal. In the long term, improvements in hygiene and sanitation are thought to aid long-term control considerably. Targeted treatment, especially when aimed at schoolchildren, has been a major focus of recent control efforts in some areas. Universal treatment reaches more people and thus decreases further aggregate morbidity, especially in nutritionally vulnerable preschool-age children. Selective treatment requires technical effort to identify heavily infected individuals; acceptance by the community may vary in less educated populations when some individuals receive treatment and others do not. Child-targeted treatment may be more cost-effective than population treatment in reducing the number of disease cases and, in high transmission areas, expanding coverage of a population can be a more cost-effective strategy than increasing the frequency of treatment.
Study of a Class of UWB CPW-Fed Monopole Antenna With Fractal Elements

This letter investigates a multiresonance technique to achieve ultrawideband (UWB) characteristics in a coplanar waveguide (CPW)-fed monopole antenna. It is found that by addition of small fractal elements at the corners of a polygon patch, standard UWB bandwidth can be covered while antenna dimensions are only 25 × 25 mm2. Parametric analysis is performed, and different shapes are added to the antenna as the fractal element in order to realize the multiresonance behavior. Fidelity factor of the antenna is greater than 0.92 in both elevation and azimuth planes. To validate the simulation results, prototypes of the proposed antenna are fabricated and tested.
Reader cellular deployment for RFID system

This paper presents a cellular deployment method for the RFID (radio frequency identification) system, which both time-division multiplexing and frequency-division multiplexing are applied to position the readers in the work area. Cellular deployment concept, popularly in mobile communication, is introduced to the planning of the RFID reader distribution. The cellular hexagonal can cover the biggest area with the number of Reader small. Besides, considering the indoor effect of none line of sight (NLOS), the experienced signal propagation model proposed by Bahl and Padmanabhan is used for the path loss model. The cell radius and the safe distance between the readers are obtained based on the consideration of the transmission link of system and the collision among the readers or the tags. Simulation results show that the proposed deployment is feasible and effective.
Adaptive neighbor discovery for mobile and low power wireless sensor networks

Wireless Sensor Networks are by nature highly dynamic and communication between sensors is completely ad hoc, especially when mobile devices are part of the setup. Numerous protocols and applications proposed for such networks operate on the assumption that knowledge of the neighborhood is a priori available to all nodes. As a result, WSN deployments need to use or implement from scratch a neighborhood discovery mechanism. In this work we present a new protocol based on adaptive periodic beacon exchanges. We totally avoid continuous beaconing by adjusting the rate of broadcasts using the concept of consistency over the understanding of neighborhood that nearby devices share. We propose, implement and evaluate our adaptive neighborhood discovery protocol over our experimental testbed and using large scale simulations. Our results indicate that the new protocol operates more efficiently than existing reference implementations while it provides valid information to applications that use it. Extensive performance evaluation indicates that it successfully reduces generated network traffic by 90% and increases network lifetime by 20% compared to existing mechanisms that rely on continuous beaconing.
Story-telling at work: a complex discursive resource for integrating personal, professional and social identities

Workplace narratives are one means of satisfying the complex demands of identity construction at work. Following reference to the relevant literature, this article discusses the range of narratives identified in our extensive New Zealand corpus of workplace interactions, distinguishing between more socially-oriented ‘workplace anecdotes’, and more transactionally-oriented ‘working stories’. While both orientations are often relevant, the distinction is useful in examining how different types of narratives function in the construction of diverse facets of an individual's identity. In the final section, one particular workplace narrative illustrates the complexities involved in accomplishing a narrative in a formal meeting, and the analysis explores how two members of a senior management team use the narrative to negotiate contrasting aspects of their professional and social workplace identities.
Knowing Where to Search: Personalized Search Strategies for Peers in P2P Networks

Optimizing and focusing search and results ranking in P2P networks becomes more and more important with the increasing size of these networks. Even though a few approaches have already started to investigate the computation of PageRank-like values in P2P environments, none so far has investigated how personalization could be added to it. This paper tackles the problem of distributedly computing Personalized PageRank values in such a distributed environment and presents an algorithm which uses them to optimize and focus search in the P2P network. The paper also discusses how these algorithms improve current distributed search in power law networks and gives some simulation results.