Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
New Digital Predistorter Architecture for Signals with High Peak-to-Average Power Ratios

Two closely related non-linear distortions are introduced to the frontend of a transmitting multicarrier signal: a clipping noise due to a high peak-to-average-power-ratio (PAPR) reduction and intermodulation distortions from the nonlinearity of high power amplifiers (HPAs). In recent years, there has been growing interest in various PAPR reduction and linearization techniques using predistortion schemes. Although these two impairments are somewhat interdependent, most designs deal with them separately as it relates to problem formulation, optimization objectives and implementation issues. The overall performance may not be maximized even if each of them is optimized under their own criteria due to possible conflicts of interest. In this paper, we present a new predistorter architecture that jointly optimizes PAPR reduction and digital predistortion, and achieves better transmitting signal quality for desired levels of PAPR. During the optimization, only the clipping noise was employed, so the proposed predistorter became an independent PAPR-specific reduction scheme, i.e., it is robust, and it can therefore operate with various standard and non-standard PAPR reduction solutions.
Group initiative and self-organizational activities in industrial work groups

Autonomous work groups are involved in goal setting and planning and hence can define their jobs and the outcome idiosyncratically. Our interest lies in how job design restricts or creates possibilities for groups to redefine their work and thus go beyond formal requirements. The aim was to test a model of the relationships between dimensions of job design, group processes, group initiative, and self-organizational activities. The results are based on work task analyses and questionnaires administered to 31 work groups at four Swedish industrial companies. The theoretical input–process–output model received substantial support. Dimensions of job design affect whether a group, through collective reflexivity, can redefine work and proactively create conditions and organize work so that uncertainty can be handled and new tasks mastered. Group processes such as cooperation and social support enhance group initiative to achieve such meaningful change. In this study, reflexivity does not impact on group initiative, but does explain the major amount of variance in self-organizational activities. Work task analyses can be a useful tool for providing groups with the prerequisites for self-organizational activities. We believe these to be essential for the groups' capacity to be involved in the innovation process from idea to finished product.
Behaviorally Optimal Auction Design: Examples and Observations

This paper begins to explore behavioral mechanism design, replacing equilibrium by a model based on “level-k” thinking, which has strong support in experiments. In representative examples, we consider optimal sealed-bid auctions with two symmetric bidders who have independent private values, assuming that the designer knows the distribution of level-k bidders. We show that in a first-price auction, level-k bidding changes the optimal reserve price and often yields expected revenue that exceeds Myerson’s (1981) bound; and that an exotic auction that exploits bidders’ non-equilibrium beliefs can far exceed the revenue bound. We close with some general observations about level-k auction design. (JEL: C72, C92)
Compact wideband circularly polarized dielectric resonator antenna with an underlaid hybrid coupler

A compact dielectric resonator antenna (DRA), which is designed by incorporating an underlaid hybrid coupler, is studied. The proposed DRA has two output ports to provide both the wideband left- (LHCP) and right-hand (RHCP) circular polarizations, with little coupling between the ports. The return loss, axial ratio, mutual coupling, and radiation patterns of the proposed antenna configuration are studied.
Grammaticalization, lexicalization and intensification: English itself as a marker of middle situation types

Abstract The study discusses the use of reflexive pronouns as markers of middle situation types and questions the traditional generalization that only light or weak reflexives (e.g., German sich, Spanish se) appear as such markers. Based on an analysis of approximately 2000 examples drawn from the British National Corpus, it explores if and to what extent the English heavy reflexive itself can be found in such contexts. Moreover, it provides a typology of the middle situation types in which the form itself occurs and analyzes the processes that give rise to the use of itself in such contexts. While some incipient grammaticalization processes can be found, the study argues that self-intensification as well as various lexicalization processes need to be considered, too. It also provides an extensive quantitative analysis of the contexts in which itself occurs. The study concludes that morphologically complex or heavy reflexives can occur as markers of middle situation types, contrary to widely accepted accounts. Moreover, it argues that the traditional grammaticalization account given for the occurrence of reflexive pronouns as markers of middle situation types is too simplistic and needs to be revised.
Models-based Optimization Methods for the Specication of Fuzzy Inference Systems in Discrete EVent Simulation

In this paper, we present our work in the field of computational intelligence and discrete event systems. Knowledge representation and the inclusion of imperfect knowledge is a key step in an effort to optimally incorporate artificial intelligence methods in a modeling and simulation framework. Fuzzy Inference Systems (FIS) are one of the most used applications of Fuzzy Logic and Fuzzy Sets Theory. They have the advantage of relying on the properties of Fuzzy Logic to represent imperfect information so gradually, and manipulate them from a linguistic description. This flexibility of representation is more significant for the study of complex systems. We wish to extend the Discrete EVent system Specification (DEVS) formalism to represent FIS and we propose a modular and generic approach (DEVFIS) to integrate in this new extension various optimization methods.
Real-Time Crowd Simulation: A Review

This paper presents a review of current research in the area of real-time crowd simulation. Crowd simulation has many diverse uses, for example in safety modelling, entertainment software, architecture and urban modelling applications. We describe three main approaches to the problem - fluid-based, cellular automata and particle-based, concentrating on the latter. Finally, we describe CrowdSim, a simple but eective implementation of some of the techniques. In this paper, we present a review of research into the topic of real-time crowd simulation. We also describe the implementation of CrowdSim, a 2-dimensional simulation based upon some of the ideas presented in the paper. We define a crowd to be a collection of pedestrians occupying a common area and with varying degrees of interaction with each other. It is fair to ask the question of why we would want to model crowds. The following are some common reasons: • Safety simulation - crowd simulation has been successfully used to model the flow of pedestrians in emergency situations, for example exiting a building on fire ([Helbing et al. 2000]). • Architectural simulation - crowd models can be used to test the suitability of building designs and to enhance the realism of pre-construction models. • Urban modelling - realistic pedestrians can add to the realism of virtual tourism ([Ulicny and Thalmann 2002]) and can be an aid to town planning. • Entertainment software - many modern computer games create virtual worlds for players to inhabit and these are enhanced by the realistic simulation of pedestrians. • It’s an interesting problem - apart from anything else, the modelling of pedestrians is an interesting mathematical problem. The topic is a large one and it’s therefore been necessary to restrict detail in some areas. In particular, we have chosen to focus less on visualisation, as much of the work is equally applicable in 2-dimensional applications as it is in
EFNS guidelines on neurostimulation therapy for neuropathic pain

Pharmacological relief of neuropathic pain is often insufficient. Electrical neurostimulation is efficacious in chronic neuropathic pain and other neurological diseases. European Federation of Neurological Societies (EFNS) launched a Task Force to evaluate the evidence for these techniques and to produce relevant recommendations. We searched the literature from 1968 to 2006, looking for neurostimulation in neuropathic pain conditions, and classified the trials according to the EFNS scheme of evidence for therapeutic interventions. Spinal cord stimulation (SCS) is efficacious in failed back surgery syndrome (FBSS) and complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) type I (level B recommendation). High‐frequency transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) may be better than placebo (level C) although worse than electro‐acupuncture (level B). One kind of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) has transient efficacy in central and peripheral neuropathic pains (level B). Motor cortex stimulation (MCS) is efficacious in central post‐stroke and facial pain (level C). Deep brain stimulation (DBS) should only be performed in experienced centres. Evidence for implanted peripheral stimulations is inadequate. TENS and r‐TMS are non‐invasive and suitable as preliminary or add‐on therapies. Further controlled trials are warranted for SCS in conditions other than failed back surgery syndrome and CRPS and for MCS and DBS in general. These chronically implanted techniques provide satisfactory pain relief in many patients, including those resistant to medication or other means.
Circumscribed Agency: The Relevance of Standardized College Entrance Exams for Low SES High School Students

The authors interviewed Black and Latino students from five high-poverty high schools as they attempted to make the transition into college. Their ability to exert individual agency with regard to their entrance exams and their college transition was circumscribed by the messages and behavioral norms that dominated their low-performing high school context. Students preserved their sense of academic competence, yet they drastically misestimated the relevance of their scores while remaining uninformed about their level of college readiness or how to improve it. The framework for analysis comes from three theories: college choice process, cultural capital, and self-efficacy.
Japanese Case Frame Construction by Coupling the Verb and its Closest Case Component

This paper describes a method to construct a case frame dictionary automatically from a raw corpus. The main problem is how to handle the diversity of verb usages. We collect predicate-argument examples, which are distinguished by the verb and its closest case component in order to deal with verb usages, from parsed results of a corpus. Since these couples multiply to millions of combinations, it is difficult to make a wide-coverage case frame dictionary from a small corpus like an analyzed corpus. We, however, use a raw corpus, so that this problem can be addressed. Furthermore, we cluster and merge predicate-argument examples which does not have different usages but belong to different case frames because of different closest case components. We also report on an experimental result of case structure analysis using the constructed case frame dictionary.
Economic Evaluation of a Tai Ji Quan Intervention to Reduce Falls in People With Parkinson Disease, Oregon, 2008–2011

Introduction Exercise is effective in reducing falls in people with Parkinson disease. However, information on the cost effectiveness of this approach is lacking. We conducted a cost-effectiveness analysis of Tai Ji Quan for reducing falls among patients with mild-to-moderate Parkinson disease. Methods We used data from a previous intervention trial to analyze resource use costs related to intervention delivery and number of falls observed during a 9-month study period. Cost effectiveness was estimated via incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) in which Tai Ji Quan was compared with 2 alternative interventions (Resistance training and Stretching) on the primary outcome of per fall prevented and the secondary outcome of per participant quality-adjusted life years (QALY) gained. We also conducted subgroup and sensitivity analyses. Results Tai Ji Quan was more effective than either Resistance training or Stretching; it had the lowest cost and was the most effective in improving primary and secondary outcomes. Compared with Stretching, Tai Ji Quan cost an average of $175 less for each additional fall prevented and produced a substantial improvement in QALY gained at a lower cost. Results from subgroup and sensitivity analyses showed no variation in cost-effectiveness estimates. However, sensitivity analyses demonstrated a much lower ICER ($27) when only intervention costs were considered. Conclusion Tai Ji Quan represents a cost-effective strategy for optimizing spending to prevent falls and maximize health gains in people with Parkinson disease. While these results are promising, they warrant further validation.
Scintillation measurements of the millisecond pulsar PSR J0030+0451 and pulsar space velocities

Scintillation observations of the nearby single millisecond pulsar (MSP) PSR J0030+0451 were carried out with the Parkes 64 m radiotelescope at three different epochs in 1999. From analysis of the dynamic spectrum we obtained the amplitude of the electron density power spectrum $\log \overline{C_{\rm N}^2} \simeq -3.33$ and a scintillation velocity $V_{\rm iss} \la 15$ km s -1 . This result shows that the Shklovskii effect on the spin-down rate $\dot P$ is negligible. We also performed a correlation analysis between pulsar proper motions ( V pm ) and scintillation velocities ( V iss ) using updated measurements for a sample of 77 objects, 17 of which are MSPs. The full sample shows a correlation coefficient $r_{\rm s} \simeq 80\%$ at an extremely high significance level, while for the MSP sub-sample (excluding 2 outliers) we obtain $r_{\rm s} \simeq 90\%$.
SIMbaLink: towards a sustainable and feasible solar rural electrification system

Rural areas lack sustainable electrification solutions. Although solar solutions hold promise, they are fundamentally constrained by high maintenance costs (due to low user densities, equipment failure, poor handling) and a complete lack of accountability. In this paper, we describe our experiences deploying more than 5,000 Solar Home Systems in Ethiopia and the sustain-ability problems we faced. Towards developing a decentralized and sustainable solar solution, we have designed SIMbaLink, an extremely low-cost real-time solar monitoring system that significantly reduces both the maintenance costs and the time to repair. By explicitly exposing the real-time status of a solar system to all parties concerned, SIMbaLink addresses the lack of accountability and trust concerns. SIMbaLink can be easily integrated with existing solar systems and can reduce equipment failure rates through early detection of system malfunctions.
Deconstructing Myotonic Dystrophy

Triplet repeat diseases are disorders in which there is expansion of a repeat sequence of three nucleotides in the affected gene. Although the pathology usually results from production of a defective protein, myotonic dystrophy (DM) has proved to be a puzzle because the expanded repeats appear in a non-coding region of the affected DMPK gene. In a Perspective, Tapscott explains how findings from a new mouse model of DM (Mankodi et al.) could solve this paradox.
Information in black hole radiation.

If black hole formation evaporation can be described by an S matrix, information would be expected to come out in black hole radiation. An estimate shows that it may come out initially so slowly, or else be so spread out, that it would never show up in an analysis perturbative in ${\mathit{M}}_{\mathrm{Planck}}$/M, or in 1/N for two-dimensional dilatonic black holes with a large number N of minimally coupled scalar fields.
Whole exome sequencing reveals EP300 mutation in mildly affected female: expansion of the spectrum

Rubinstein–Taybi syndrome is associated with intellectual and physical features. CREBBP and EP300 are causative. Few cases of EP300 mutations are reported. We report a case with mild features of RSTS and EP300 mutation on exome sequencing. This illustrates the utility of exome sequencing to expand every genetic phenotype.
Elite golfers' kinematic sequence in full-swing and partial-swing shots

The aim of this study was to investigate whether kinematic proximal-to-distal sequencing (PDS) and speed-summation are common characteristics of both partial and full-swing shots in golf players of different skill levels and genders. A total of 45 golfers participated, 11 male tournament professionals, 21 male and 13 female elite amateurs. They performed partial shots with a wedge to targets at three submaximal distances, 40, 55 and 70 m, and full-swing shots with a 5 iron and a driver for maximal distance. Pelvis, upper torso and hand movements were recorded in 3D with an electromagnetic tracking system (Polhemus Liberty) at 240 Hz and the magnitude of the resultant angular velocity vector of each segment was computed. The results showed a significant proximal-to-distal temporal relationship and a concomitant successive increase in maximum (peak) segment angular speed in every shot condition for both genders and levels of expertise. A proximal-to-distal utilization of interaction torques is indicated. Using a common PDS movement strategy in partial and full-swing golf shots appears beneficial from mechanical and control points of view and could serve the purpose of providing both high speed and accuracy.
Down-regulation of OPA1 alters mouse mitochondrial morphology, PTP function, and cardiac adaptation to pressure overload.

AIMS The optic atrophy 1 (OPA1) protein is an essential protein involved in the fusion of the mitochondrial inner membrane. Despite its high level of expression, the role of OPA1 in the heart is largely unknown. We investigated the role of this protein in Opa1(+/-) mice, having a 50% reduction in OPA1 protein expression in cardiac tissue. METHODS AND RESULTS In mutant mice, cardiac function assessed by echocardiography was not significantly different from that of the Opa1(+/+). Electron and fluorescence microscopy revealed altered morphology of the Opa1(+/-) mice mitochondrial network; unexpectedly, mitochondria were larger with the presence of clusters of fused mitochondria and altered cristae. In permeabilized mutant ventricular fibres, mitochondrial functional properties were maintained, but direct energy channelling between mitochondria and myofilaments was weakened. Importantly, the mitochondrial permeability transition pore (PTP) opening in isolated permeabilized cardiomyocytes and in isolated mitochondria was significantly less sensitive to mitochondrial calcium accumulation. Finally, 6 weeks after transversal aortic constriction, Opa1(+/-) hearts demonstrated hypertrophy almost two-fold higher (P< 0.01) than in wild-type mice with altered ejection fraction (decrease in 43 vs. 22% in Opa1(+/+) mice, P< 0.05). CONCLUSIONS These results suggest that, in adult cardiomyocytes, OPA1 plays an important role in mitochondrial morphology and PTP functioning. These properties may be critical for cardiac function under conditions of chronic pressure overload.
Classifying the Wikipedia Articles into the OpenCyc Taxonomy

This article presents a method of classification of the Wikipedia articles into the taxonomy of OpenCyc. This method utilises several sources of the classification information, namely the Wikipedia category system, the infoboxes attached to the articles, the first sentences of the articles, treated as their definitions and the direct mapping between the articles and the Cyc symbols. The classification decision made using these methods are accommodated using the Cyc built-in inconsistency detection mechanism. The combination of the best classification methods yields 1.47 millions of classified articles and has a manually verified precision above 97%, while the combination of all of them yields 2.2 millions of articles with estimated precision of 93%.
A Hybrid Neurogenetic Approach for Stock Forecasting

In this paper, we propose a hybrid neurogenetic system for stock trading. A recurrent neural network (NN) having one hidden layer is used for the prediction model. The input features are generated from a number of technical indicators being used by financial experts. The genetic algorithm (GA) optimizes the NN's weights under a 2-D encoding and crossover. We devised a context-based ensemble method of NNs which dynamically changes on the basis of the test day's context. To reduce the time in processing mass data, we parallelized the GA on a Linux cluster system using message passing interface. We tested the proposed method with 36 companies in NYSE and NASDAQ for 13 years from 1992 to 2004. The neurogenetic hybrid showed notable improvement on the average over the buy-and-hold strategy and the context-based ensemble further improved the results. We also observed that some companies were more predictable than others, which implies that the proposed neurogenetic hybrid can be used for financial portfolio construction
Factors affecting the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of PEGylated liposomal irinotecan (IHL-305) in patients with advanced solid tumors

IHL-305 is a PEGylated liposomal formulation of irinotecan (CPT-11). The objective of this study was to evaluate the factors associated with interpatient variability in the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of IHL-305 in patients with advanced solid tumors. IHL-305 was administered intravenously once every 4 weeks as part of a Phase I study. Pharmacokinetic studies of the liposomal sum total CPT-11, released CPT-11, SN-38, SN-38G, 7-ethyl-10-[4-N-(5-aminopentanoic acid)-1-piperidino]-carbonyloxycamptothecin, and 7-ethyl-10-[4-amino-1-piperidino]-carbonyloxycamptothecin in plasma were performed. Noncompartmental and compartmental pharmacokinetic analyses were conducted using pharmacokinetic data for sum total CPT-11. The pharmacokinetic variability of IHL-305 is associated with linear and nonlinear clearance. Patients whose age and body composition (ratio of total body weight to ideal body weight [TBW/IBW]) were greater than the median age and TBW/IBW of the study had a 1.7-fold to 2.6-fold higher ratio of released CPT-11 area under the concentration versus time curve (AUC) to sum total CPT-11 AUC. Patients aged <60 years had a 1.3-fold higher ratio of percent decrease in monocytes at nadir to percent decrease in absolute neutrophil count at nadir as compared with patients aged ≥60 years. There was an inverse relationship between patient age and percent decrease in monocytes at nadir, ie, younger patients have a higher percent decrease in monocytes. Patients with a higher percent decrease in monocytes at nadir have a decreased plasma exposure of sum total CPT-11. The pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of IHL-305 are consistent with those of other PEGylated liposomal carriers. Interpatient variability in the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of IHL-305 was associated with age, body composition, and monocytes.