Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Collaborative Learning in Facebook: Adverse Effects of Individual Preparation

Facebook is a social network very popular among University students for purposes of self-presentation. As social networks support the sharing of ideas, can we facilitate collaborative learning in Facebook? We designed a Facebook app that supports scripting of learners' interaction and the construction of arguments in Facebook. In an empirical study with 128 undergraduate teacher trainees, we investigated how individual preparation and argument structuring influences collaborative learning outcomes. The results show no significant effect of argument structuring and detrimental effects of individual preparation. Learners who were asked to individually construct arguments before joining a discussion in the Facebook app learned significantly less and diverged significantly more from their learning partner in learning outcomes.
Fuzzy IMC for Unstable Systems with Time Delay

Open-loop unstable systems with time delay are difficult to control using routine control methods. To solve this problem, an improved internal model control scheme, which adds a PD controller to traditional IMC structure, is proposed. Set point tracking performance and robustness can be designed independently. The tuning formula of PD controller is confirmed by a new performance index function. Fuzzy self-tuning rules of the filter time constant are built for the time-varying system. can be modified in real time in order to improved the closed-loop response performance. Simulations show that the improved IMC method is not only effective for the dynamics and the stability of control system but also effective for the process robustness. In addition, the proposed method is easy to design and regulate, and it is fit for engineering application.
Chandra X-Ray Observations of the Hydra A Cluster: An Interaction between the Radio Source and the X-Ray-emitting Gas

We present Chandra X-ray observations of the Hydra A cluster of galaxies, and we report the discovery of structure in the central 80 kpc of the cluster's X-ray-emitting gas. The most remarkable structures are depressions in the X-ray surface brightness, ~25-35 kpc in diameter, that are coincident with Hydra A's radio lobes. The depressions are nearly devoid of X-ray-emitting gas, and there is no evidence for shock-heated gas surrounding the radio lobes. We suggest that the gas within the surface brightness depressions was displaced as the radio lobes expanded subsonically, leaving cavities in the hot atmosphere. The gas temperature declines from 4 keV at 70 kpc to 3 keV in the inner 20 kpc of the brightest cluster galaxy (BCG), and the cooling time of the gas is ~600 Myr in the inner 10 kpc. These properties are consistent with the presence of an ~34 M☉ yr-1 cooling flow within a 70 kpc radius. Bright X-ray emission is present in the BCG surrounding a recently accreted disk of nebular emission and young stars. The star formation rate is commensurate with the cooling rate of the hot gas within the volume of the disk, although the sink for the material that may be cooling at larger radii remains elusive. A bright, unresolved X-ray source is present in the BCG's nucleus, coincident with the radio core. Its X-ray spectrum is consistent with a power law absorbed by a foreground NH ≃ 4 × 1022 cm-2 column of hydrogen. This column is roughly consistent with the hydrogen column seen in absorption toward the ≲24 pc diameter VLBA radio source. Apart from the point source, no evidence for excess X-ray absorption above the Galactic column is found.
Support tools for porting legacy applications to multicore

This paper presents PEMAP, an automated performance estimation tool to project performance of hand-parallelized programs from sequential programs and BEMAP, a benchmark suite to measure an auto-parallelizer or even a machine's performance. BEMAP is an open-source project, and the documentations on code explanations and experimental results are also provided. Our experiments on PEMAP shows we can estimate performance of hand-parallelized programs in an error of 0.44% of sequential program's performance on average, while using BEMAP shows that the ability of an auto-parallelizer can be measured by comparing the compiled code to the handtuned parallelized OpenCL code, and therefore assisting the development of the auto-parallelizer tool.
High-resolution time-frequency distributions for fall detection

In this paper, we examine the role of high-resolution time-frequency distributions (TFDs) of radar micro-Doppler signatures for fall detection. The work supports the recent and rising interest in using emerging radar technology for elderly care and assisted living. Spectrograms have been the de facto joint-variable signal representation, depicting the signal power in both time and frequency. Although there have been major advances in designing quadratic TFDs which are superior to spectrograms in terms of detailing the local signal behavior, the contributions of these distributions in the area of human motion classifications and their offerings in enhanced feature extractions have not yet been properly evaluated. The main purpose of this paper is to show the effect of using high-resolution TFD kernels, in lieu of spectrogram, on fall detection. We focus on the extended modified B-distribution (EMBD) and exploit the level of details it provides as compared with the coarse and smoothed time-frequency signatures offered by spectrograms.
Antenna selection in measured massive MIMO channels using convex optimization

Massive MIMO, also known as very-large MIMO or large-scale antenna systems, is a new technique that potentially can offer large network capacities in multi-user scenarios, where the base stations are equipped with a large number of antennas simultaneously serving multiple single-antenna users on the same frequency. However, the radio-frequency (RF) chains associated with the antennas increase the system complexity and hardware cost. Antenna selection is a signal processing technique that can help reduce the number of RF chains, while preserving the system performance at a certain required level. We study the transmit antenna selection in measured massive MIMO channels from several measurement campaigns in the 2.6 GHz frequency range. Convex optimization is used to select the antenna subset that maximizes the dirty-paper coding (DPC) capacity in the downlink. With a certain number of RF chains, we increase the number of base station antennas from the same as the RF chains to a large number, from which we perform the antenna selection. The investigation shows that with more available antennas than RF chains, the antenna selection can significantly improve the system performance, especially for a compact cylindrical array, which without this antenna selection shows lower performance than a physically large linear array with the same number of elements, in the studied scenarios.
Superluminal Radio Features in the M87 Jet and the Site of Flaring TeV Gamma-Ray Emission

Superluminal motion is a common feature of radio jets in powerful γ-ray-emitting active galactic nuclei. Conventionally, the variable emission is assumed to originate near the central supermassive black hole where the jet is launched on parsec scales or smaller. Here we report the discovery of superluminal radio features within a distinct flaring X-ray-emitting region in the jet of the nearby radio galaxy M87 with the Very Long Baseline Array. This shows that these two phenomenological hallmarks—superluminal motion and high-energy variability—are associated, and we place this activity much farther (≥120 pc) from the "central engine" in M87 than previously thought in relativistic jet sources. We argue that the recent excess very high energy TeV emission from M87 reported by the H.E. S.S. experiment originates from this variable superluminal structure, thus providing crucial insight into the production region of γ-ray emission in more distant blazars.
PROBING THE LHS CATALOG. I. NEW NEARBY STARS AND THE COOLEST SUBDWARF

We present moderate resolution spectroscopy of 112 cool dwarf stars to supplement the observations we have already presented in the Palomar/MSU Nearby-Star Spectroscopic Survey. The sample consists of 72 suspected nearby stars added to the The Preliminary Third Catalog of Nearby Stars since 1991 as well as 40 faint red stars selected from the LHS catalog. LHS 1826 is more metal-poor and cooler than the coolest previously known extreme subdwarf, LHS 1742a. LHS 2195 is a very late M dwarf of type M 8 V, probably at a distance of ten parsecs. LHS 1937 is an M 7 V star at ~ 20 parsecs. Three other previously unobserved LHS stars have estimated distances that place them within 25 parsecs.
The Demographic Dividend : Evidence from the Indian States *

Large cohorts of young adults are poised to add to the working-age population of developing economies. Despite much interest in the consequent growth dividend, the size and circumstances of the potential gains remain under-explored. This study makes progress by focusing on India, which will be the largest individual contributor to the global demographic transition ahead. It exploits the variation in the age structure of the population across Indian states to identify the demographic dividend. The main finding is that there is a large and significant growth impact of both the level and growth rate of the working-age ratio. This result is robust to a variety of empirical strategies, including a correction for interstate migration. The results imply that a substantial fraction of the growth acceleration that India has experienced since the 1980s—sometimes ascribed exclusively to economic reforms—is attributable to changes in the country’s age structure. Moreover, relative to the age structure at the turn of the millennium, the demographic dividend could add about 2 percentage points per annum to India’s per-capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth over the next two decades. With the future expansion of the working-age ratio concentrated in some of India’s poorest states, income convergence may well speed up, a theme likely to recur on the global stage.
Performance of the turbo coded HomePlug AV system over power-line channels

The next generation technology of HomePlug, called HomePlug AV, aims at providing very high-quality connectivity for the in-home distribution of data and multi-stream entertainment using existing power-line wiring. To obtain very robust performance a powerful turbo convolutional code is adopted. In this paper, by means of simulations, the performance of the turbo coded HomePlug AV system is examined under a realistic power-line channel model. In particular, the effects of the interleaver's length and of the number of iterations in an improved Max-Log-MAP turbo decoder are investigated. Results show that few iterations of the turbo decoding process give a massive gain in performance under the considered environment.
Introduction of a New Suture Method in Repair of Peripheral Nerves Injured with a Sharp Mechanism.

BACKGROUND The standard method for repair of an injured peripheal nerve is epineural repair with separate sutures. Herein we describe a method in which the nerve is sutured with continous sutures. In fact this method has not been utilized for nerve repair previously and our purpose was to compare it to the standard method. If it proved to be successful it would replace the standard method in certain circumstances. METHODS The proposal of the clinical trial was given a reference number form the ethics comitee. 25 dogs in which the scaitic nerve was cut by a sharp blade under genaeral anesthesia were divided randomly into three groups: control (5 dogs), repair of sciatic nerve with simple sutures (10) and repair with continous sutures (10). In the control group the nerve was not repaired at all. After 6 weeks the dogs were killed and the nerve was studied by light and electronic microscopes. The amount of consumed suture material, time of repair, myelin thickness and axon diiameter were examined. Ultrastructural studies were performed to assess degeneration and regeneration findings. RESULTS Time of repair and the amount of consumed suture material were significantly lower in the continous group (P<0.001). No difference was found with regard to light microscopy findings and regeneration was confirmed by electron microscopy in the continous group. CONCLUSION The method described in the present study, provided a result similar to the standard method. Though undobtfully it has some limitations, can replace the standard method in many circumstances.
Stymied by a wealth of health information: How viewing conflicting information online diminishes efficacy

ABSTRACT Background: Confusing information about cancer screening proliferates even within credible sources online, particularly around mammography and prostate antigen testing. One story may emphasize the benefits of screening while another focuses on its risks. How does this contradiction affect readers of these stories? Method: Survey participants were recruited online via social media. Across two experiments, one focusing on breast cancer risk perception and the other on prostate cancer, we randomized participants into four groups to see social media posts that contained conflicting information with or without the element of potential harm. The control group saw messages supporting preventive screening tests without conflict between posts. Results: In both experiments, conflict was shown to reduce both self-efficacy and response efficacy. Men and women responded differently to messages that included the potential of harm from screening tests. Conclusions: We found support for the notion that exposure to conflicting information decreases self-efficacy and response efficacy, potentially discouraging the likelihood of behavior change that could prevent cancer. The additional finding that women’s self-efficacy was reduced by uncertainty but not by the potential for harm – while men’s self-efficacy was conversely reduced by harm potential but not uncertainty – may be an important consideration in communication efforts to encourage screening.
Detection of Epstein-Barr virus in synovial fluid of rheumatoid arthritis patients

Introduction Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is one of the most common chronic inflammatory disorders. Genes and environmental factors contribute to RA. Epstein–Barr Virus (EBV) has been considered as one the RA pathogeneses. The aim of this study was to detect of the EBV genome in patients with RA. Methods In this cross-sectional study, 50 samples of synovial fluid were obtained from patients with RA from 2010–2012. Using a standard of the EBV genome and EBNA-1-specific primers, the method of PCR was set up. Then, all of the samples of synovial fluids separately were subjected to DNA extraction and Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) amplification. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 18.0. The statistical analysis was performed by the t-test. Results The demographic and laboratory characteristic assay revealed that the mean age of patients was 49, and the patients were 60% males and 40% females. In addition, in all cases, the mean rheumatoid factor (RF) levels of the patients were below the normal level. The results of this study showed that the PCR was able to detect EBV DNA in > 60% of the cases. Conclusion The results of this study indicated that EBV was frequently detected in the synovial fluid of RA patients. Thus, EBV may be a strong candidate that can act at several levels of the pathophysiology of RA. However, these findings also indicated that EBV may play a role in the pathogenesis of RA. However, the possible relationship between RA and EBV must be determined by further research.
ADART: An Adaptive Algebraic Reconstruction Algorithm for Discrete Tomography

In this paper we suggest an algorithm based on the Discrete Algebraic Reconstruction Technique (DART) which is capable of computing high quality reconstructions from substantially fewer projections than required for conventional continuous tomography. Adaptive DART (ADART) goes a step further than DART on the reduction of the number of unknowns of the associated linear system achieving a significant reduction in the pixel error rate of reconstructed objects. The proposed methodology automatically adapts the border definition criterion at each iteration, resulting in a reduction of the number of pixels belonging to the border, and consequently of the number of unknowns in the general algebraic reconstruction linear system to be solved, being this reduction specially important at the final stage of the iterative process. Experimental results show that reconstruction errors are considerably reduced using ADART when compared to original DART, both in clean and noisy environments.
The Value Relevance of Brand Assets Recognized by UK Firms

This study examines whether managers discretionary valuations of intangible assets are relevant despite contracting incentives to over-state them. We do so by examining the value relevance of brand assets recognized by 30 UK firms beginning in 1985. Our study adds to the literature on the value-relevance of intangible assets by examining valuations of managers who could be subject to contracting incentives, rather than of outside parties. We add to the evidence on managers? discretionary (re)valuations by explicitly partitioning the sample on measures of contracting incentives, and by examining a situation where contracting incentives are likely strong. Our results suggest that brand values recognized in financial statements are associated with values capitalized in stock prices, and with future net income, even for firms with the greatest contracting incentives firms affected by the London Stock Exchange (LSE) rule requiring shareholder approval for acquisitions/disposals, and high-leverage firms. These findings are robust to several sensitivity checks. We also find modest evidence that contracting incentives have an effect on value-relevance the coefficient relating brand assets to market values are higher for firms without any transactions that avoided the LSE rule.
A Faster Tableau for CTL

There have been several recent suggestions for tableau systems for deciding satisfiability in the practically important branching time temporal logic known as CTL*. In this paper we present a streamlined and more traditional tableau approach built upon the author's earlier theoretical work. Soundness and completeness results are proved. A prototype implementation demonstrates the significantly improved performance of the new approach on a range of test formulas. We also see that it compares favourably to state of the art, game and automata based decision procedures.
Approximate Bayesian inference for complex ecosystems

Mathematical models have been central to ecology for nearly a century. Simple models of population dynamics have allowed us to understand fundamental aspects underlying the dynamics and stability of ecological systems. What has remained a challenge, however, is to meaningfully interpret experimental or observational data in light of mathematical models. Here, we review recent developments, notably in the growing field of approximate Bayesian computation (ABC), that allow us to calibrate mathematical models against available data. Estimating the population demographic parameters from data remains a formidable statistical challenge. Here, we attempt to give a flavor and overview of ABC and its applications in population biology and ecology and eschew a detailed technical discussion in favor of a general discussion of the advantages and potential pitfalls this framework offers to population biologists.
Resizing Based on Gradient Vector Flow Analysis

Content-aware image resizing is an effective technique that allows to take into account the visual content of images during the resizing process. The basic idea beyond these algorithms is the resizing of an image by considering vertical and/or horizontal paths of pixels (i.e., seams) which contain low salient information. In this paper we exploit the Gradient Vector Flow (GVF) of the image to establish the paths to be considered during the resizing. The relevance of each path is derived from a saliency map obtained by considering the magnitude of the GVF associated to the image under consideration. The proposed technique has been tested, both qualitatively and quantitatively, by considering a representative set of images labeled with corresponding salient objects (i.e., ground-truth maps). Experimental results demonstrate that our method preserves crucial salient regions better than other state-of-the-art algorithms.
Rituximab-Induced Inhibition of YY1 and Bcl-xL Expression in Ramos Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma Cell Line via Inhibition of NF-κB Activity: Role of YY1 and Bcl-xL in Fas Resistance and Chemoresistance, Respectively1

Rituximab treatment of B non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) cell lines inhibits the constitutive NF-κB activity and results in the sensitization of tumor cells to both chemotherapy and Fas-induced apoptosis. Cells expressing dominant active IκB or treated with NF-κB-specific inhibitors were sensitive to both drugs and Fas agonist mAb (CH-11)-induced apoptosis. Down-regulation of Bcl-xL expression via inhibition of NF-κB activity correlated with chemosensitivity. The direct role of Bcl-xL in chemoresistance was demonstrated by the use of Bcl-xL-overexpressing Ramos cells, Ramos hemagglutinin (HA)-Bcl-x, which were not sensitized by rituximab to drug-induced apoptosis. However, inhibition of Bcl-xL in Ramos HA-Bcl-x resulted in sensitization to drug-induced apoptosis. The role of Bcl-xL expression in the regulation of Fas resistance was not apparent; Ramos HA-Bcl-x cells were as sensitive as the wild type to CH-11-induced apoptosis. Several lines of evidence support the direct role of the transcription repressor yin-yang 1 (YY1) in the regulation of resistance to CH-11-induced apoptosis. Inhibition of YY1 activity by either rituximab or the NO donor DETANONOate or after transfection with YY1 small interfering RNA resulted in up-regulation of Fas expression and sensitization to CH-11-induced apoptosis. These findings suggest two mechanisms underlying the chemosensitization and immunosensitization of B-NHL cells by rituximab via inhibition of NF-κB. The regulation of chemoresistance by NF-κB is mediated via Bcl-xL expression, whereas the regulation of Fas resistance by NF-κB is mediated via YY1 expression and activity. The potential clinical significance of these findings is discussed.