Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Battery-Aware Mobile Data Service

Significant research has been devoted to reduce the energy consumption of mobile devices, but how to increase their energy supply has received far less attention. Moreover, reducing the energy consumption alone does not always extend the device operation time due to a unique battery property—the capacity it delivers hinges critically upon how it is discharged. In this paper, we propose B-MODS, a novel design of battery-aware mobile data service on mobile devices. B-MODS constructs battery-friendly discharge patterns utilizing the recovery effect so as to increase the capacity delivered from batteries while meeting data service requirements. We implement B-MODS as an application layer library on the Android platform. Our experiments with diverse mobile devices under various application scenarios have shown that B-MODS increases the capacity delivery from the battery by up to 49.5 percent, with which an increase in the user-perceived data service utilities of up to 28.6 percent is observed.
Randomized controlled trial of teaching methods: Do classroom experiments improve economic education in high schools?

ABSTRACT The authors present results from a comprehensive field experiment at Swiss high schools in which they compare the effectiveness of teaching methods in economics. They randomly assigned classes into an experimental and a conventional teaching group, or a control group that received no specific instruction. Both teaching treatments improve economic understanding considerably, while effect sizes between teaching treatments are almost identical. However, preexisting economic competencies crucially affect learning outcomes as more competent students seem to benefit disproportionately from classroom experiments, while weaker students lose out. Supplemental data indicate that the experimental treatment crowded out time for adequately discussing the subject, which may have limited less competent students to generate a profound understanding.
Reaching beyond spatial perception: Effects of intended future actions on visually guided prehension

Three experiments examined whether manipulating actors' intentions, regarding forthcoming actions, influences the time course and kinematics of visually guided, reach‐to‐grasp movements. Subjects performed two‐step action sequences where the initial movement always involved reaching for and grasping cubes located at a constant distance. Demands of the second movement were systematically manipulated. Although the spatial parameters (cube size and distance) remained constant across all conditions, the durations of the initial movements differed substantially depending on the actions subjects intended to perform once the objects were in hand. Less time was required to engage a small (1 cm3) cube when the intention was to transport it to a new location on the workspace vs. a large (4 cm3) cube when the goal was to merely lift it above its current resting position (Experiment 1). This difference in duration of the initial movement reflects more time spent in the deceleration phase of the reach when the task does not require transporting the cube to a new location on the workspace. Further, this context effect is not related to accuracy demands (Experiment 2), or complexity (Experiment 3) of the intended second movement. These findings demonstrate that actions are determined both by the perceived spatial demands of the immediate movement as well as the intended goal of the entire action sequence.
Probabilistic and Extremal Combinatorics Organizers

Combinatorics, sometimes also called Discrete Mathematics, is a branch of mathematics focusing on the study of discrete objects and their properties. Although Combinatorics is probably as old as the human ability to count, the field experienced tremendous growth during the last fifty years and has matured into a thriving area with its own set of problems, approaches and methodology. Extremal and Probabilistic Combinatorics are two of the most central branches of the modern combinatorial theory. Extremal Combinatorics deals with problems of determining or estimating the maximum or minimum possible cardinality of a collection of finite objects satisfying certain requirements. Such problems are often related to other areas including Computer Science, Information Theory, Number Theory and Geometry. This branch of Combinatorics has developed spectacularly over the last few decades. Probabilistic Combinatorics can be described informally as a (very successful) hybrid between Combinatorics and Probability, whose main object of study is probability distributions on discrete structures. Although probabilistic arguments have proven to be extremely powerful when applied in problems from adjacent fields in Combinatorics and Theoretical Computer Science, Probabilistic Combinatorics can undoubtedly considered an independent discipline with its own methodology and objects of study, most notably random graphs. Roughly speaking, Probabilistic Combinatorics comprises three main topics, for each of which we give a short description. Naturally, there are considerable overlaps between these topics. The first topic is the application of probability to solve combinatorial problems. Typical examples are the ”existence” proofs in which one generating an appropriate probabilistic space to show existence of certain object. The last twenty years or so have witnessed significant progress in this topic. The development of new and powerful techniques, such as the semi-random method and various sharp concentration inequalities, has enabled researchers to attack many famous open problems, which were considered intractable not so long ago, with considerable success. The area in which this has been strikingly successful is Extremal Combinatorics. The second topic is the analysis of properties of random structures, mainly random graphs and hypergraphs. This study was initiated by Erdős and Rényi around 1960 and by now there is a rich and beautiful theory of random graphs, and many models of random graphs are fairly well understood. These include the classical models of Erdős and Renyi, the investigation of graph processes and hitting times, the well studied models of random regular graphs, and various less studied and more recent models based on preferential attachment in which the intention is to explain the behavior of real world networks, like the graph of the Internet. Other closely related models in which there have been some recent exciting developments and yet much less is known
Absolute Pitch as an Inability: Identification of Musical Intervals in a Tonal Context

Absolute pitch is generally believed to be a remarkable ability, whose possessors can quite accurately identify musical pitch characteristics (pitch classes) of single tones presented in isolation. However, identifying pitch out of context is irrelevant and even meaningless to music. It is unclear how listeners with absolute pitch process musical pitch information in more meaningful musical situations. The present experiment was done to examine how listeners with absolute pitch perform in a relative pitch task. Listeners tried to identify melodic intervals of various sizes (260–540 cents) presented in three different tonal contexts established by a preceding tonal cadence. Listeners without absolute pitch showed equal accuracy and speed in doing the task in the three tonal contexts, as expected from the principle of transposability of musical pitch relations. In contrast, some absolute pitch listeners snowed a marked decline in accuracy and longer response times in the F# major and the out-of-tune E major contexts compared with the C major context. This result suggests that some absolute pitch listeners are relatively poor in identifying pitch relations in tonal contexts and sometimes tend to stick to absolute pitch even in a task that needs relative pitch, resulting in poor performance in perceiving musical pitch relations.
Plasma turbulence in the equatorial electrojet: A two-dimensional Hamiltonian fluid model

A nonlinear unified fluid model that describes the Equatorial Electrojet, including the Farley-Buneman and gradient-drift plasma instabilities, is defined and shown to be a noncanonical Hamiltonian system. Two geometric constants of motion for the model are obtained and shown to be Casimir invariants. A reformulation of the model shows the roles of the density-gradient scale-length (Ln) and the cross-field drift-velocity ( υE) in controlling the dynamics of unstable modes in the growing, transition, and saturation phases of a simulation.
Linguistic change and diffusion: description and explanation in sociolinguistic dialect geography

ABSTRACT Linguistic geography has remained relatively unaffected by recent developments in sociolinguistic theory and method and theoretical geography. In this paper it is argued that insights and techniques from both these disciplines will be of value in improving descriptions of geographical variation in language, and that these improvements will in turn lead to more adequate explanations for certain of the social and spatial characteristics of linguistic change. Evidence in favour of a sociolinguistic methodology and new cartographic techniques in dialect geography is drawn from empirical studies in urban dialectology, in East Anglia, England, and rural dialectology, in Norway. (Sociolinguistic variation, dialectology, linguistic change, British English, Norwegian.)
User studies and usability evaluations: from research to products

Six features of user studies are presented and contrasted with the same features in another assessment method, usability evaluation. The connection between these assessment methods and the disciplines of research, engineering, and design is analysed. The three disciplines are presented in a timeline chart showing their inter-relationship with the final goal the creation of computing products. Background discussions explore three definitions of research as well as three methodologies for conducting research: experimental, observational, and correlational. It is demonstrated that a user study is an example of experimental research and that a usability evaluation is an example of observational research. In terms of the timeline, a user study is performed early (after research but before engineering and design), whereas a usability evaluation is performed late (after engineering and design but before product release).
Trinucleotide Repeat Expansion in the TCF4 Gene in Fuchs' Endothelial Corneal Dystrophy in Japanese.

PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to evaluate the association between the intronic expansion of a trinucleotide repeat (TNR) in the TCF4 gene and Fuchs' endothelial corneal dystrophy (FECD) in a Japanese population. METHODS Forty-seven Japanese FECD patients and 96 age-matched controls were recruited. FECD patients and controls were examined by slit-lamp and noncontact specular microscopy. The repeat length was determined by direct sequencing and short tandem repeat assay of PCR-amplified DNA and Southern blotting of unamplified DNA. RESULTS A TNR expansion, defined as >50 CTG repeats in the TCF4 gene was identified in 12 of 47 FECD cases (26%) and 0 of 96 controls (0%; P < 0.001). Sensitivity and specificity in this study were 26% and 100%, respectively. The clinical characteristics of FECD patients with TNR expansion were not distinct from those without TNR expansion. CONCLUSIONS These findings show for the first time in a Japanese population the association of the TNR expansion in TCF4 with FECD. In contrast to Caucasian cohorts in whom the TNR expansion is present in most patients with FECD, a CTG expansion is present in a minority of Japanese subjects, indicating other genetic variants as common causes of phenotypically identical disease in this population.
Reliability performances of optical ATM switches based on different routing and buffering schemes

Reliability performances of seven equal-capacity optical asynchronous transfer mode switches based on different routing and buffering schemes are compared. Calculations are based on available reliability data for commercial components as well as expected life lengths for new components and systems. In general, for switching systems, the average downtime is required to be held below 3 min/year. However, our results indicate that the average downtime for the proposed configurations is much longer than requested, over ten times longer for the best case and over 1500 times longer for the worst case. Therefore, the multiplane structures (i.e., multiplying of the entire systems) have to be provided for the switching systems investigated here in order to satisfy reliability requirements.
Metabolic remodeling: a pyruvate transport affair

Metabolic remodeling is a major determinant for many cell fate decisions, and a switch from respiration to aerobic glycolysis is generally considered as a hallmark of cancer cell transformation. Pyruvate is a key metabolite at the major junction of carbohydrate metabolism between cytosolic glycolysis and the mitochondrial Krebs cycle. In this issue of The EMBO Journal, Bender et al show that yeast cells regulate pyruvate uptake into mitochondria, and thus its metabolic fate, by expressing alternative pyruvate carrier complexes with different activities.
L’influence mitigée des migrations masculines sur les activités économiques des femmes « qui restent » : étude de cas dans la vallée du fleuve Sénégal

L’objectif de cette contribution est d’analyser l’impact des migrations masculines de travail sur les activites economiques generatrices de revenus des femmes qui restent dans les communautes d’origine. Les recherches anterieures arrivent a des conclusions contrastees. Certaines montrent que la migration des hommes decourage les activites economiques de leurs epouses, augmentant la dependance des femmes a leur egard. Selon d’autres, les ressources generees dans la migration soutiennent de nouvelles activites feminines. Nos conclusions, fondees sur une recherche qualitative menee dans un village situe dans la vallee du fleuve Senegal, n’appuient pas la these d’une dependance economique accrue des epouses de migrants. Les femmes cherchent, avec plus ou moins de succes, a s’attirer une partie des ressources issues de l’emigration de leurs epoux, ou parfois de leurs freres, pour developper et renforcer leurs activites economiques. Cependant, plusieurs facteurs limitent leurs efforts et entravent leur autonomie economique.
Correlation between the severity of periodontitis and coronary artery stenosis in a Chinese population.

BACKGROUND The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between the severity of periodontitis and the extent and degree of coronary artery stenosis in a Chinese population. METHODS Patients (n = 853) with coronary artery stenosis confirmed by coronary angiography were eligible to take part in the study. Only subjects that were ≥60 years old, had ≥50% stenosis in at least one coronary artery, and did not have diabetes or a history of smoking were included (n = 115). After periodontal examination, including bleeding index, probing depth calculus index, plaque index and periodontal attachment loss, four groups were defined based on the severity of periodontitis: no periodontitis/gingivitis (M0, n = 19); mild periodontitis (M1, n = 27); moderate periodontitis (M2, n = 31); and severe periodontitis (M3, n = 38). The extent and degree of coronary artery stenosis was obtained by calculating the Gensini score (GS). RESULTS The GS was significantly greater in the M3 group compared with the M0 group. Multiple linear regression analysis revealed that probing depth and plaque index were significantly correlated with the GS. CONCLUSIONS The extent and severity of coronary artery stenosis in Chinese patients ≥60 years old is positively correlated with the severity of periodontitis.
Low-poly style image and video processing

Low-poly has lately become a trending style in flat designs, Web designs, illustrations, and etc., in which only a small amount of triangles are used to provide an abstract and artistic effect. However, creating designs in low-poly style manually is obviously a tiring job. In this paper, we propose a real-time triangulation method to synthesize images and videos automatically into low-poly style. In order to keep edge and color information out of limited triangles, vertices on the edges detected in the image have a greater probability to be selected to compose triangles. For video low-poly stylization, an anti-jittering method is proposed to eliminate the abrupt changes in position and color of the triangles between adjacent frames. We use OpenGL Shading Language (GLSL) to speed up the calculation in GPU. We compare images generated with our method with other algorithms and those drawn manually by artists. Results show that our method provides an elegant and artistic effect for low-poly in real-time.
Representation of numerosity in posterior parietal cortex

Humans and animals appear to share a similar representation of number as an analog magnitude on an internal, subjective scale. Neurological and neurophysiological data suggest that posterior parietal cortex (PPC) is a critical component of the circuits that form the basis of numerical abilities in humans. Patients with parietal lesions are impaired in their ability to access the deep meaning of numbers. Acalculiac patients with inferior parietal damage often have difficulty performing arithmetic (2 + 4? ) or number bisection (what is between 3 and 5? ) tasks, but are able to recite multiplication tables and read or write numerals. Functional imaging studies of neurologically intact humans performing subtraction, number comparison, and non-verbal magnitude comparison tasks show activity in areas within the intraparietal sulcus (IPS). Taken together, clinical cases and imaging studies support a critical role for parietal cortex in the mental manipulation of numerical quantities. Further, responses of single PPC neurons in non-human primates are sensitive to the numerosity of visual stimuli independent of low-level stimulus qualities. When monkeys are trained to make explicit judgments about the numerical value of such stimuli, PPC neurons encode their cardinal numerical value; without such training PPC neurons appear to encode numerical magnitude in an analog fashion. Here we suggest that the spatial and integrative properties of PPC neurons contribute to their critical role in numerical cognition.
Efficient Learning and Feature Selection in High-Dimensional Regression

We present a novel algorithm for efficient learning and feature selection in high-dimensional regression problems. We arrive at this model through a modification of the standard regression model, enabling us to derive a probabilistic version of the well-known statistical regression technique of backfitting. Using the expectation-maximization algorithm, along with variational approximation methods to overcome intractability, we extend our algorithm to include automatic relevance detection of the input features. This variational Bayesian least squares (VBLS) approach retains its simplicity as a linear model, but offers a novel statistically robust black-box approach to generalized linear regression with high-dimensional inputs. It can be easily extended to nonlinear regression and classification problems. In particular, we derive the framework of sparse Bayesian learning, the relevance vector machine, with VBLS at its core, offering significant computational and robustness advantages for this class of methods. The iterative nature of VBLS makes it most suitable for real-time incremental learning, which is crucial especially in the application domain of robotics, brain-machine interfaces, and neural prosthetics, where real-time learning of models for control is needed. We evaluate our algorithm on synthetic and neurophysiological data sets, as well as on standard regression and classification benchmark data sets, comparing it with other competitive statistical approaches and demonstrating its suitability as a drop-in replacement for other generalized linear regression techniques.
The accuracy of multidetector Computed Tomography for preoperative staging of renal cell carcinoma.

PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to evaluate the accuracy of multidetector computed tomography (MDCT) in the preoperative staging of renal cell carcinoma (RCC). MATERIALS AND METHODS We retrospectively reviewed the clinical and pathological records of 312 patients with RCC who underwent staging MDCT before surgery. Radiographic findings were compared to the findings at surgery and pathological examination. All staging used 2009 updated TNM classification. RESULTS The difference in tumor size between radiographic and pathological findings was 0.21 cm. In T1a group, the difference was 0.33 cm. Agreement between MDCT and histopathological findings was moderate for T staging (Kappa = 0.469), fair for N staging (Kappa = 0.322), and excellent for M staging (Kappa = 0.932). The sensitivity and specificity of MDCT in detecting perinephric fat invasion were 32.26% and 85.87%, in detecting tumor thrombosis were 84% and 100%, in detecting adrenal gland invasion were 60% and 95.79%, in detecting lymph node involvement were 50% and 96.36%, in detecting distant metastasis were 100% and 99.67%, respectively. In regard to stage grouping, 237 of 314 patients were correctly staged by MDCT, with an overall accuracy of 75.48%. CONCLUSIONS MDCT with a dynamic contrast protocol is able to delineate RCC with high accuracy. However, a great portion of tumors were overstaged by MDCT because of overestimation of tumor size and poor visualization of infiltration of the perinephric fat. In addition, nodal metastatic lesion evaluation relies on node size only and remains a difficult task.