Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Automated Code Generation for Discontinuous Galerkin Methods

A compiler approach for generating low-level computer code from high-level input for discontinuous Galerkin finite element forms is presented. The input language mirrors conventional mathematical notation, and the compiler generates efficient code in a standard programming language. This facilitates the rapid generation of efficient code for general equations in varying spatial dimensions. Key concepts underlying the compiler approach and the automated generation of computer code are elaborated. The approach is demonstrated for a range of common problems, including the Poisson, biharmonic, advection-diffusion, and Stokes equations.
Fingertip contact suppresses the destabilizing influence of leg muscle vibration.

Touch of the hand with a stationary surface at nonmechanically supportive force levels (<1 N) greatly attenuates postural sway during quiet stance. We predicted such haptic contact would also suppress the postural destabilization caused by vibrating the right peroneus brevis and longus muscles of subjects standing heel-to-toe with eyes closed. In experiment 1, ten subjects were tested under four conditions: no-vibration, no-touch; no-vibration, touch; vibration, no-touch; and vibration, touch. A hand-held physiotherapy vibrator (120 Hz) was applied approximately 5 cm above the malleolous to stimulate the peroneus longus and brevis tendons. Touch conditions involved contact of the right index finger with a laterally positioned surface (<1 N of force) at waist height. Vibration in the absence of finger contact greatly increased the mean sway amplitude of the center of pressure and of the head relative to the no-vibration, no-touch control condition (P < 0.001). The touch, no-vibration and touch-vibration conditions were not significantly different (P > 0.05) from each other and both had significantly less mean sway amplitude of head and of center of pressure than the other conditions (P < 0.01). In experiment 2, eight subjects stood heel-to-toe under touch and no-touch conditions involving 40-s duration trials of peroneus tendon vibration at different duty cycles: 1-, 2-, 3-, and 4-s ON and OFF periods. The vibrator was attached to the subject's leg and remotely activated. In the no-touch conditions, subjects showed periodic postural disruptions contingent on the duty cycle and mirror image rebounds with the offset of vibration. In the touch conditions, subjects were much less disrupted and showed compensations occurring within 500 ms of vibration onset and mirror image rebounds with vibration offset. Subjects were able to suppress almost completely the destabilizing influence of the vibration in the 3- and 4-s duty cycle trials. These experiments show that haptic contact of the hand with a stable surface can suppress abnormal proprioceptive and motor signals in leg muscles.
Illumination Normalization Based on Local Binary Pattern Image

This paper presents a novel and efficient illumination normalization method based on the local binary pattern Image (LBPI). LBPI is a global description combined by the descriptions of every points in the face image using the local binary pattern (LBP) Compared with the traditional approaches, the experimental results show that our algorithms can significantly improve the performance of face recognition under varying illumination conditions on Yale Face database B.
Distinctive features arising in maximally random jammed packings of superballs.

Dense random packings of hard particles are useful models of granular media and are closely related to the structure of nonequilibrium low-temperature amorphous phases of matter. Most work has been done for random jammed packings of spheres and it is only recently that corresponding packings of nonspherical particles (e.g., ellipsoids) have received attention. Here we report a study of the maximally random jammed (MRJ) packings of binary superdisks and monodispersed superballs whose shapes are defined by |x1|2p+. +|xd|2p<or=1 with d=2 and 3, respectively, where p is the deformation parameter with values in the interval (0,infinity). As p increases from zero, one can get a family of both concave (0or=0.5) particles with square symmetry (d=2), or octahedral and cubic symmetry (d=3). In particular, for p=1 the particle is a perfect sphere (circular disk) and for p-->infinity the particle is a perfect cube (square). We find that the MRJ densities of such packings increase dramatically and nonanalytically as one moves away from the circular-disk and sphere point (p=1). Moreover, the disordered packings are hypostatic, i.e., the average number of contacting neighbors is less than twice the total number of degrees of freedom per particle, and yet the packings are mechanically stable. As a result, the local arrangements of particles are necessarily nontrivially correlated to achieve jamming. We term such correlated structures "nongeneric. " The degree of "nongenericity" of the packings is quantitatively characterized by determining the fraction of local coordination structures in which the central particles have fewer contacting neighbors than average. We also show that such seemingly "special" packing configurations are counterintuitively not rare. As the anisotropy of the particles increases, the fraction of rattlers decreases while the minimal orientational order as measured by the tetratic and cubatic order parameters increases. These characteristics result from the unique manner in which superballs break their rotational symmetry, which also makes the superdisk and superball packings distinctly different from other known nonspherical hard-particle packings.
Drosophila neuroblasts: a model for stem cell biology

Drosophila neuroblasts, the stem cells of the developing fly brain, have emerged as a key model system for neural stem cell biology and have provided key insights into the mechanisms underlying asymmetric cell division and tumor formation. More recently, they have also been used to understand how neural progenitors can generate different neuronal subtypes over time, how their cell cycle entry and exit are coordinated with development, and how proliferation in the brain is spared from the growth restrictions that occur in other organs upon starvation. In this Primer, we describe the biology of Drosophila neuroblasts and highlight the most recent advances made using neuroblasts as a model system.
THE MOTIVATIONAL DYNAMICS OF EFL TEACHERS: GOAL-SETTING, INTRINSIC INTEREST, AND TEACHING EFFECTIVENESS

The prominence of teacher motivation in teaching practices and behaviors and its impact on student achievement is widely recognized in educational psychology. Nevertheless, English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers’ motivation and the factors influencing its development appear an uncharted domain. The following study attempted to explore EFL teachers’ motivation in relation to intrinsic interest, goal setting, and teaching effectiveness. The sample comprised 127 Iranian EFL teachers with their students (N= 500). The teachers were asked to complete a battery of two questionnaires. To assess teacher goal-setting and intrinsic interest, the researcher utilized the 'Teacher Self-Regulation Scale (TSRS )' designed by Yesim, Sungur, and Uzuntiryaki (2009). To gauge teacher motivation, 'The Work Tasks Motivation Scale for Teachers' designed by Fernet (2009) was employed. In the present study, this questionnaire was translated to Persian and then the translated version was validated in the Iranian context to pave the way for future studies on teacher motivation in Iranian context. To measure language teachers' performance and success in language teaching, the researcher employed the 'Characteristics of Successful Iranian EFL Teachers Questionnaire ' (CSIET) designed and validated by Moafian and Pishghadam (2009). The results of structural equation modeling (SEM) indicated that there were relatively strong interrelationships among the three variables (intrinsic interest, goal-setting, and job motivation). All of them were positive and significant predictors of teacher success, and intrinsic interest exhibited the highest impact. It was also found that intrinsic interest positively influenced job motivation. The SEM analysis also indicated that go Article visualizations: al-setting was positively influenced by both intrinsic interest and job motivation.
Everyday appropriations of information technology: A study of creative uses of digital cameras

Repurposive appropriation is a creative everyday act in which a user invents a novel use for information technology (IT) and adopts it. This study is the first to address its prevalence and predictability in the consumer IT context. In all, 2,379 respondents filled in an online questionnaire on creative uses of digital cameras, such as using them as scanners, periscopes, and storage media. The data reveal that such creative uses are adopted by about half of the users, on average, across different demographic backgrounds. Discovery of a creative use on one's own is slightly more common than is learning it from others. Most users discover the creative uses either completely on their own or wholly through learning from others. Our regression model explains 34% of the variance in adoption of invented uses, with technology cognizance orientation, gender, exploration orientation, use frequency, and use tenure as the strongest predictors. These findings have implications for both design and marketing. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
A Developmental Model for the Evolution of Artificial Neural Networks

We present a model of decentralized growth and development for artificial neural networks (ANNs), inspired by developmental biology and the physiology of nervous systems. In this model, each individual artificial neuron is an autonomous unit whose behavior is determined only by the genetic information it harbors and local concentrations of substrates. The chemicals and substrates, in turn, are modeled by a simple artificial chemistry. While the system is designed to allow for the evolution of complex networks, we demonstrate the power of the artificial chemistry by analyzing engineered (handwritten) genomes that lead to the growth of simple networks with behaviors known from physiology. To evolve more complex structures, a Java-based, platform-independent, asynchronous, distributed genetic algorithm (GA) has been implemented that allows users to participate in evolutionary experiments via the World Wide Web.
Religion as a protective factor in the severity of crimes committed by juveniles with sexually offending behavior

Modest estimates would have that adolescents are involved in 20-33% of sexual assaults reported in the United States. Factors influencing recidivism have been studied, showing few patterns within socio-demographic data. Researchers have found that religious systems play an important role in encouraging social and moral norms. These findings are supported by work with incarcerated adult males who use faith-based interventions. Similarly, mere church affiliation also plays a role in the development of moral and social code. This study attempts to discover whether religion serves as a potential protective factor in the severity of crimes committed by juveniles with sexually offending behaviors. Multi-paged pencil and paper surveys were collected from 325 adjudicated juvenile sexual abusers. Of these youth, 179 (55%) reported sexual victimization as children while 146 (45%) said they had not been sexually abused. Findings showed that juvenile sexual offenders with religious affiliation were less likely to commit non-sexual crimes than their non-affiliated peers; however, propensity for sexual crime remained consistent between groups.
Inhibition of Pig Phosphoenolpyruvate Carboxykinase Isoenzymes by 3-Mercaptopicolinic Acid and Novel Inhibitors

There exist two isoforms of cytosolic phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase (PEPCK-C) in pig populations that differ in a single amino acid (Met139Leu). The isoenzymes have different kinetic properties, affecting more strongly the Km and Vmax of nucleotides. They are associated to different phenotypes modifying traits of considerable economic interest. In this work we use inhibitors of phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase activity to search for further differences between these isoenzymes. On the one hand we have used the well-known inhibitor 3-mercaptopicolinic acid. Its inhibition patterns were the same for both isoenzymes: a three-fold decrease of the Ki values for GTP in 139Met and 139Leu (273 and 873 μM, respectively). On the other hand, through screening of a chemical library we have found two novel compounds with inhibitory effects of a similar magnitude to that of 3-mercaptopicolinic acid but with less solubility and specificity. One of these novel compounds, (N'1-({5-[1-methyl-5-(trifluoromethyl)-1H-pyrazol-3-yl]-2-thienyl}methylidene)-2,4-dichlorobenzene-1-carbohydrazide), exhibited significantly different inhibitory effects on either isoenzyme: it enhanced threefold the apparent Km value for GTP in 139Met, whereas in 139Leu, it reduced it from 99 to 69 μM. The finding of those significant differences in the binding of GTP reinforces the hypothesis that the Met139Leu substitution affects strongly the nucleotide binding site of PEPCK-C.
Developing a Virtual Environment for Safety Training

Desktop virtual environments offers the possibility to design a manageable space for safety training, in which trainees can experience situations in context, interact with the virtual environment and practice emergency procedures. This paper presents the design process of a desktop virtual reality prototype for safety training for people who works on offshore oil platforms. A safety training approach is suggested based on educational theories and cognitive science that support the use of virtual environments as training tools. A description of the software tool for implementation is included along with a explanation of the applications that were implemented in the prototype.
On the Peaking Phenomenon of the Lasso in Model Selection

I briey report on some unexpected results that I obtained when optimizing the model parameters of the Lasso. In simulations with varying observations-to-variables ratio n=p, I typically observe a strong peak in the test error curve at the transition point n=p = 1. This peaking phenomenon is well-documented in scenarios that involve the inversion of the sample covariance matrix, and as I illustrate in this note, it is also the source of the peak for the Lasso. The key problem is the parametrization of the Lasso penalty { as e.g. in the current R package lars { and I present a solution in terms of a normalized Lasso parameter.
Fully Automated Lipid Pool Detection Using Near Infrared Spectroscopy

Background. Detecting and identifying vulnerable plaque, which is prone to rupture, is still a challenge for cardiologist. Such lipid core-containing plaque is still not identifiable by everyday angiography, thus triggering the need to develop a new tool where NIRS-IVUS can visualize plaque characterization in terms of its chemical and morphologic characteristic. The new tool can lead to the development of new methods of interpreting the newly obtained data. In this study, the algorithm to fully automated lipid pool detection on NIRS images is proposed. Method. Designed algorithm is divided into four stages: preprocessing (image enhancement), segmentation of artifacts, detection of lipid areas, and calculation of Lipid Core Burden Index. Results. A total of 31 NIRS chemograms were analyzed by two methods. The metrics, total LCBI, maximal LCBI in 4 mm blocks, and maximal LCBI in 2 mm blocks, were calculated to compare presented algorithm with commercial available system. Both intraclass correlation (ICC) and Bland-Altman plots showed good agreement and correlation between used methods. Conclusions. Proposed algorithm is fully automated lipid pool detection on near infrared spectroscopy images. It is a tool developed for offline data analysis, which could be easily augmented for newer functions and projects.
Algebraic multigrid for k‐form Laplacians

In this paper we describe an aggregation‐based algebraic multigrid method for the solution of discrete k‐form Laplacians. Our work generalizes Reitzinger and Schöberl's algorithm to higher‐dimensional discrete forms. We provide conditions on the tentative prolongators under which the commutativity of the coarse and fine de Rham complexes is maintained. Further, a practical algorithm that satisfies these conditions is outlined, and smoothed prolongation operators and the associated finite element spaces are highlighted. Numerical evidence of the efficiency and generality of the proposed method is presented in the context of discrete Hodge decompositions. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Corneal transplantation for keratoconus

This review discusses current techniques of corneal transplantation for moderate to advanced keratoconus. The aim of this article is to provide primary eye care practitioners with an overview of two current corneal transplantation modalities, namely penetrating and deep anterior lamellar keratoplasty. The main surgical techniques, the outcome of the procedures, common complications and the prognosis will be reviewed. Results from ongoing studies at a corneal transplant centre in Glasgow, Scotland will be discussed.
Relationships between voltage and tension in sheep cardiac Purkinje fibers

The two-microelectrode technique of voltage clamping sheep cardiac Purkinje fibers was used to examine the changes in contraction which occur during trains of voltage clamps. (A "train" is defined as a series of voltage clamps delivered at a particular rate, beginning after a rest long enough that the effects of previous stimulation have died away.) Contractions showed striking staircases, or progressive changes in peak isometric tension, during trains. Short clamps, clamps to voltages more negative than --20 or --30 mV, or holding potentials less negative than the resting potential favored negative staircases, while long clamps, clamps to positive voltages, and holding potentials near the resting potential each favored positive staircases. The staircase behavior appeared to be due to changes in the initial rate of recovery of the ability to contract. The changes in staircase behavior as a function of clamp voltage suggested that the relationship between peak tension and clamp voltage should depend on the experimental design. When the steady-state contraction was plotted as a function of clamp voltage, voltage-tension relations like those recently reported for working ventricle were obtained, with a threshold between --30 and - -40 mV and a steep relation between tension and voltage. When the first contraction after a rest was plotted, the threshold voltage was more negative, the curve was flatter, and the peak tensions at inside positive voltages were reduced.
Evaluation for Corrosion Resistance of Nano-Cluster Layer and Biofilm Formation

Biofilm is an inhomogeneous film-like matter which attached bacteria produce on materials surfaces. Recently, the knowledge and information about the i nt raction between biofilm and metallic materials h ave been revealed gradually and it has been clarified that b iofilm would be involved in many interfacial phenom ena on metallic materials, such as corrosion, taint in var ious ways, antibacterial effects etc. The control f or biofilm formation on materials surface would be a key facto r for various industrial problems from the viewpoin t. In this paper, we focused on nano-particles cluster stacked films or single one of chromium and/or nickel prod uced by helicon sputtering process. The specimens having th ose films on their surfaces were immersed by a spec ially devised biofilm formation apparatus. Then the biofi lm formation behaviors for the specimens were obser ved and evaluated by a 3D visualized microscopy, a low pres sure SEM-EDX etc. And the possibility of biofilm co ntrol for those nano-particles cluster films and the relation between biofilm and corrosion were discussed.
Parallel-SQRD for Low Complexity Successive Interference Cancellation in Per-Antenna-Coded MIMO-OFDM Schemes

In recent years, communication systems with multiple anten nas at the transmitter and at the receiver have gained considerable interest. Layered architectures like the V-B LAST scheme are a strong candidate to exploit the capacity advantages of multiple antenna systems leading to practica l w reless communication schemes with very high data rates. The combination with orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), called MIMO-OFDM, with per-antenna-coding is one of the most likely implementatio ns f multilayer architectures in frequency selective environments. In this paper, we present a novel, computatio n l efficient implementation of successive interference cancellation (SIC) for coded MIMO-OFDM. It utilizes a paral lelized version of the Sorted QR Decomposition (SQRD) to achieve the same optimized detection order for all subcarriers in order to exploit the error correction capability of the code within the SIC. In comparison to other schemes known from literature our approach requires only a fraction of computational complexity with almost the same performance.
Is intra-articular magnesium effective for postoperative analgesia in arthroscopic shoulder surgery?

As an N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor antagonist, magnesium has been hypothesized to have analgesic effects; in fact, several studies have demonstrated its efficacy for analgesia following intra-articular injection during knee surgery. In this study, intra-articular magnesium was administered during arthroscopic shoulder surgery and its analgesic efficacy was assessed according to pain intensity after surgery as well as postoperative consumption of pain medications.
Global Epidemiology of Dementia: Alzheimer's and Vascular Types

The prevalence of dementia varies substantially worldwide. This is partially attributed to the lack of methodological uniformity among studies, including diagnostic criteria and different mean population ages. However, even after considering these potential sources of bias, differences in age-adjusted dementia prevalence still exist among regions of the world. In Latin America, the prevalence of dementia is higher than expected for its level of population aging. This phenomenon occurs due to the combination of low average educational attainment and high vascular risk profile. Among developed countries, Japan seems to have the lowest prevalence of dementia. Studies that evaluated the immigration effect of the Japanese and blacks to USA evidenced that acculturation increases the relative proportion of AD cases compared to VaD. In the Middle East and Africa, the number of dementia cases will be expressive by 2040. In general, low educational background and other socioeconomic factors have been associated with high risk of obesity, sedentarism, diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia, and metabolic syndrome, all of which also raise the risk of VaD and AD. Regulating these factors is critical to generate the commitment to make dementia a public health priority.