Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The queueing network analysis tool (QNAT)

In this paper we describe QNAT, a software tool developed at Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India, for the analysis and simulation of queueing networks. Arbitrary configurations of open or closed networks of multi-server queues with infinite or finite capacity, fork-join queues with or without synchronization queues can be analyzed or simulated using QNAT. Queueing Networks with multiple classes of customers mall be specified with each class being a closed or an open class independently if there are finite capacity queues in the system, the type of blocking mechanism-transfer, repetitive service or rejection, can also be specified. For the applications where the accuracy of the results is important, an option to simulate the network is also provided. QNAT has proved to be a useful tool for the design of telecommunication systems, computer networks, modeling of industrial systems, design of banking systems, teaching courses and research on queueing theory etc. QNAT is a user-friendly analysis tool, developed with a Windows based Graphical User Interface (GUI). Mathematica forms the computing platform for QNAT due to its ability to perform symbolic computation.
Small and Medium-sized Enterprise Trade Credit Distribution Study

Trade credit is a form of credit, which can be an alternate credit funds support the business. In china, due to the underdevelopment of the financial market, SMEs unable to obtain sufficient funds from bank. There is a large demand about trade credit for SMEs. This article studied SMEs' trade credit distribution through building regression model with GDP. The results find that SMEs' trade credit distribution is uneven in China, however, not only have correlation with GDP, but also affected by industry and other factors.
Allergy in severe asthma

It is well recognized that atopic sensitization is an important risk factor for asthma, both in adults and in children. However, the role of allergy in severe asthma is still under debate. The term ‘Severe Asthma’ encompasses a highly heterogeneous group of patients who require treatment on steps 4–5 of GINA guidelines to prevent their asthma from becoming ‘uncontrolled’, or whose disease remains ‘uncontrolled’ despite this therapy. Epidemiological studies on emergency room visits and hospital admissions for asthma suggest the important role of allergy in asthma exacerbations. In addition, allergic asthma in childhood is often associated with severe asthma in adulthood. A strong association exists between asthma exacerbations and respiratory viral infections, and interaction between viruses and allergy further increases the risk of asthma exacerbations. Furthermore, fungal allergy has been shown to play an important role in severe asthma. Other contributing factors include smoking, pollution and work‐related exposures. The ‘Allergy and Asthma Severity’ EAACI Task Force examined the current evidence and produced this position document on the role of allergy in severe asthma.
Authorial intention and global coherence in fictional text comprehension: A cognitive approach

Abstract In today's literary theory there is a consensus regarding the concept of authorial intention, namely, that it is obsolete and useless for the interpretation of literary texts and has relevance only in such discourses as legal discourse or literary history. The aim of my paper is to reinterpret the concept of authorial intent from the aspect of Darwinian and cognitive theory. I will argue that the authorial intention is not a fallacy that necessarily results in misinterpretations of the text, but a way of reading narrative according to its fictional status. I will demonstrate on some examples that the strongest stimuli for making assumptions about the authorial intention are passages that do not allow the reader to follow any intradiegetic perspective but force a global view on the fictional work.
An Energy-Efficient Clustering Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks

In recent years, wireless sensor networks become a new way to obtain information from an interesting area. There are many extensive applications of wireless sensor networks such as environment monitoring, surveillance, enemy tracking, etc. Since the available energy of sensor nodes are limited and hard to renew, energy supervision is critical for nodes and network lifetime in wireless sensor networks. In this paper, we propose a new method to improve ACPM and solve the problem of isolated nodes and to prolong their lifetime. After cluster construction, the isolated nodes gradually enhance their transmission range till finding an adjacent cluster to link. Furthermore, after collecting all data within a cluster, a cluster-head node will assign the most powerful member node in the cluster to forward the data to the base station. Simulation results show that our approach effectively conserves energy for isolated nodes.
Determination of Optimized Parameters for the Flexible Operation of a Biomass-Fueled, Microscale Externally Fired Gas Turbine (EFGT)

Biomass as a source of renewable energy is a promising solution for current problems in energy supply. Olive waste is considered as an interesting option, especially for Mediterranean countries. Within this paper, a microscale externally fired gas turbine (EFGT) technology is presented as a decentralized power plant, within the range of 15 kW th , based on olive residues. It was modeled by Aspen Plus 8.6 software to provide a sufficient technical study for such a plant. Optimized parameters for pressure ratio and turbine air-mass flow have been mapped for several loads to provide information for process control. For all cases, mechanical output, efficiency curves, and back-work ratio have been calculated. Using this information, typical plant sizes and an example of power production are discussed. Additionally, achievable energy production from olive waste is estimated on the basis of this data. The results of this study show that such a plant has an electrical efficiency of 5%–17%. This variation is due to the examination being performed under several combustion temperatures, actual load, heat exchanger temperatures, and heat transfer efficiency. A cost estimation of the discussed system showed an estimated capital cost of 33,800 to 65,300 € for a 15 kW th system.
Kawa - Compiling Dynamic Languages to Java VM

Many are interested in Java for its portable bytecodes and extensive libraries, but prefer a different language, especially for scripting. People have implemented other languages using an interpreter (which is slow), or by translating into Java source (with poor responsiveness for eval). Kawa uses an interpreter only for "simple" expressions; all non-trivial expressions (such as function definitions) are compiled into Java bytecodes, which are emitted into an in-memory byte array. This can be saved for later, or quickly loaded using the Java ClassLoader. Kawa is intended to be a framework that supports multiple source languages. Currently, it only supports Scheme, which is a lexically-scoped language in the Lisp family. The Kawa dialect of Scheme implements almost all of the current Scheme standard (R5RS), with a number of extensions, and is written in a efficient object-oriented style. It includes the full "numeric tower", with complex numbers, exact infinite-precision rational arithmetic, and units. A number of extensions provide access to Java primitives, and some Java methods provide convenient access to Scheme. Since all Java objects are Scheme values and vice versa, this makes for a very powerful hybrid Java/Scheme environment. An implementation of ECMAScript (the standardized "core" of JavaScript) is under construction. Other languages, including Emacs Lisp, are also being considered. Kawa home page: http://www.cygnus. com/ ~bothner/kawa.html.
Learning Visual-Spatial Saliency for Multiple-Shot Person Re-Identification

Recognizing persons across non-overlapping camera views, known as person re-identification, has received increasing attentions for its importance in many surveillance applications. However, most of existing methods rely on pre-training steps to ensure their performance and ignore the body prior knowledge of pedestrians. In this letter, we propose a novel non-training method for person re-identification which learns visual-spatial saliency from voter images and the given query image. First we segment pedestrian images into small regions and use two hypergraphs to represent the visual and spatial relationship among regions. Then we formulate the visual-spatial saliency learning as a joint hypergraph ranking problem by simultaneously considering the human body prior and the appearance similarity among pedestrians. Finally, the visual-spatial saliency is incorporated in region-based matching to improve the performance of person re-identification. Experimental evaluation on three publicly available datasets demonstrates the effectiveness of our approach.
Comparing Offshore Outsourcing and the Internal Offshoring of Software Development: A Qualitative Study

Distributed Software Development involves a number of different business models. Most of the companies, when searching for external solutions in other countries (offshoring), usually have two main options: offshore outsourcing (contracting services with an external organization) and internal offshoring (contracting with a wholly owned subsidiary). Both models have been studied for a long time, and indicate the need for a great collaboration among the stakeholders to succeed in distributed development. For this reason, in this paper we compare offshore outsourcing and internal offshoring from the viewpoint of three management levels: strategic, tactical and operational. We present findings from a case study conducted in five multinational companies. The findings are presented in terms of aspects identified to improve the performance in offshore software development, and were analyzed based on two dimensions – challenges and patterns of evolution.
Bacterial blight of blueberry

Several blueberry plantings in southern Tasmania (latitude 43°S) were affected by a disease which killed blossoms, shoot tips and irregular patches of epidermal tissue on the previous season's growth. (Fig 1). This disease was associated with Pseudomonas syringae, which was Isolated from the affected tissue. This identification was made on the basis of production of a green, diffusible fluorescent pigment on Medium B of King, Ward and Raney, the development of colonies at 4 days but not at 2 days, and a negative Kovac's oxidase test. The disease was noticed during early spring (October) after undamaged buds had developed, and the lack of growth from killed shoot tips and lateral buds was then very obvious. Blueberry under Tasmanian grOWing conditions has not previously been affected, and is not normally subject to winter frost injury. The advanced stage of new shoot growth that had developed by early spring indicated that the damage did not occur following a late winter frost. However, weather records for the nearest meteorological station to the affected area showed unusually low minimum temperatures during the previous autumn on 16 March (1.4°C) and 19 May (-1.9°C). Whilst on site temperature records are not available, it IS probable that a ground frost occurred on both occasions. Leaf fall at the site does not normally occur until the end of May, and the leaves, shoots and buds could be expected to be frost tender, especially at the first date. Although no frost injury was noted at the time, sufficient superficial damage to allow Pseudomonas infection could have occurred. Active growth would have been occurring in March, but not in May. Although the etiology of the blueberry blight has not been formally established, the inference is made that an early frost, in the previous autumn, was the predisposition for infection by P. syringae.
Received (day Month Year) Revised (day Month Year)

In this paper we give a historical overview of the transition from classical game theory to epistemic game theory. To that purpose we will discuss how important notions such as reasoning about the opponents, belief hierarchies, common belief, and the concept of common belief in rationality arose, and gradually entered the game theoretic picture, thereby giving birth to the field of epistemic game theory. We will also address the question why it took game theory so long before it finally incorporated the natural aspect of " reasoning " into its analysis. To answer the latter question we will have a close look at the earliest results in game theory, and see how they shaped our approach to game theory for many years to come.
Energy-efficient adaptive interface activation for Delay/Disruption Tolerant Networks

In sparse mobile networks, opportunistic access can be used to forward data in a so-called ¿store-carry-forward¿ manner using Delay/Disruption Tolerant Networking (DTN) techniques. In such environments, it is not always the case that a mobile terminal is within the communication range of other mobile terminals. Therefore, the terminal must first perform the energy-consuming process of ¿terminal discovery¿ before sending or receiving actual data. Since a mobile terminal is normally battery powered, it is a mandatory requirement to cut power consumption. Therefore, the discovery process must be executed efficiently. In other words, it is imperative to activate a network interface at the right time. In this paper, we analyze the performance issues with simple periodical interface activation and propose a new activation mechanism called DWARF (DTN-oriented wireless interface activation mechanism based on radio fluctuations) for efficiently discovering other terminals with less expenditure of energy. In the proposed mechanism, the interface activation interval is adjusted based on the surroundings. DWARF is a distributed mechanism and does not require prior knowledge such as patterns of human behavior. Computer simulation results show that DWARF discovers other terminals about 3.5 times more efficiently than a fixed-interval scheme without missing opportunities for connection.
How L2-learners’ brains react to code-switches: An ERP study with Russian learners of German

This Event Related Potentials (ERP) study investigates auditory processing of sentences with so-called code-switches in Russian learners of German. It has often been argued that switching between two languages results in extra processing cost, although it is not completely clear yet what exactly causes these costs. ERP presents a good method to (start to) answer this question, since different ERP effects provide insight in the underlying processes that take place. We presented three groups of speakers (German first-language speakers, Russian speakers with intermediate and Russian speakers with very good knowledge of German as a second language) with German sentences that either ended ‘normally’ i.e. with a word that fitted the meaning of the sentence, or with a semantically unexpected word, or with the Russian translation of the semantically normal German word. Comparing the two groups of Russian speakers allows for examining the influence of proficiency on the processing of code-switches. The results showed that the semantically unexpected word elicited an N400 in both the first language (L1) and the more proficient second language (L2) group, but not in the less proficient L2 group. Code-switches resulted in an N400-like pattern in all three groups, and also in a Late Positive Component (LPC), which was most pronounced in the less proficient L2 group. This positivity is, although somewhat later, quite similar to the well-known P300 effect that is found with stimuli with unexpected external properties.
The prevalence of homelessness among adolescents in the United States.

OBJECTIVES Homeless adolescents represent one of the nation's most vulnerable populations. This study reports the 12-month prevalence of homeless episodes among US adolescents. METHODS Personal, audiotaped interviews were conducted in 1992 and 1993 with a representative household sample of 6496 adolescents aged 12 to 17 as part of the Youth Risk behavior Survey sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Respondents reported whether they had spent the night in any of a variety of locations other than home during the previous 12 months. RESULTS Altogether, 7.6% of the youths questioned reported that they had spent at least 1 night in youth or adult shelter (3.3%), public place (2.2%), an abandoned building (1.0%), outside 2.2%), underground (0.4%), or with a stranger (1.1%). Boys were much more likely than girls to report having experienced a homeless episode. CONCLUSIONS This study suggests that homelessness among adolescents is not simply an urban problem and that prevention programs targeting homeless youths should be implemented nationwide. Additional research is needed to assess the frequency and duration of homeless experiences. Future studies of homelessness in the general population should include questions pertinent to adolescents.
An Automated Acoustic System to Monitor and Classify Birds

This paper presents a novel bird monitoring and recognition system in noisy environments. The project objective is to avoid bird strikes to aircraft. First, a cost-effective microphone dish concept (microphone array with many concentric rings) is presented that can provide directional and accurate acquisition of bird sounds and can simultaneously pick up bird sounds from different directions. Second, direction-of-arrival (DOA) and beamforming algorithms have been developed for the circular array. Third, an efficient recognition algorithm is proposed which uses Gaussian mixture models (GMMs). The overall system is suitable for monitoring and recognition for a large number of birds. Fourth, a hardware prototype has been built and initial experiments demonstrated that the array can acquire and classify birds accurately.
How Health Conditions Translate into Self-Ratings

Using data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, we examine how respondents translate morbidity and disability into self-rated health (SRH), how national populations differ in SRH, and how normative and person-specific reporting styles shape SRH. We construct proxy variables that allow us to specify cultural differences in reporting styles and individual differences in relative rating behavior. Using generalized logistic regression, we find that both of these dimensions of subjectivity are related to SRH; however, their inclusion does not significantly alter the connection between SRH and the set of disease and disability indicators. Further, country differences in SRH persist after controlling for all these factors. Our findings suggest that observed country differences in SRH reflect compositional differences, cultural differences in reporting styles, and perceptions of how health restricts typical activities. SRH also seems to capture underlying but unmeasured health differences across populations.
Stability of the Controlled Synchronization Manifold in a Ring of Mutually Coupled Chaotic Systems

The active control of the unstable synchronization manifold in a shift-invariant ring of N mutually coupled chaotic oscillators is investigated. After deriving the bifurcation structures and chaotic states in the single oscillator, we find the regime of coupling parameters leading to stable and unstable synchronization phenomena in the ring, using the Master stability function approach with the transverse Lyapunov exponents. The active control technique is applied on the mutually coupled chaotic systems to suppress unstable synchronization states. We derive the range of control gain parameters which leads to a successful control and the stability of the control design. The effects of the amplitude of the parametric perturbations on the stability boundaries of the controlled unstable synchronization process are also studied.
Detection of genomic imbalances by array based comparative genomic hybridisation in fetuses with multiple malformations

Background: Malformations are a major cause of morbidity and mortality in full term infants and genomic imbalances are a significant component of their aetiology. However, the causes of defects in many patients with multiple congenital malformations remain unexplained despite thorough clinical examination and laboratory investigations. Methods: We used a commercially available array based comparative genomic hybridisation method (array CGH), able to screen all subtelomeric regions, main microdeletion syndromes, and 201 other regions covering the genome, to detect submicroscopic chromosomal imbalances in 49 fetuses with three or more significant anomalies and normal karyotype. Results: Array CGH identified eight genomic rearrangements (16.3%), all confirmed by quantitative multiplex PCR of short fluorescent fragments. Subtelomeric and interstitial deletions, submicroscopic duplications, and a complex genomic imbalance were identified. In four de novo cases (15qtel deletion, 16q23.1–q23.3 deletion, 22q11.2 deletion, and mosaicism for a rearranged chromosome 18), the genomic imbalance identified clearly underlay the pathological phenotype. In one case, the relationship between the genotype and phenotype was unclear, since a subtelomeric 6q deletion was detected in a mother and her two fetuses bearing multiple malformations. In three cases, a subtelomeric 10q duplication, probably a genomic polymorphism, was identified. Conclusions: The detection of 5/49 causative chromosomal imbalances (or 4/49 if the 6qtel deletion is not considered as causative) suggests wide genome screening when standard chromosome analysis is normal and confirms that array CGH will have a major impact on pre and postnatal diagnosis as well as providing information for more accurate genetic counselling.
Using virtualization and live migration in a scalable mobile wireless testbed

Laboratory-based mobile wireless testbeds such as MeshTest and the CMU Wireless Emulator are powerful platforms that allow users to perform controlled, repeatable, mobile wireless experiments in the lab. Unfortunately such systems can only accommodate 10-20 nodes in an experiment. We have designed and built a prototype of a system that uses software virtualization and live migration to facilitate experiments involving intermittently connected networks with many multiples of the number of physical nodes available on such a testbed. Building a system like this presents many technical and research challenges. In this paper, we will describe the physical construction and software architecture of the system while providing a discussion on the research issues that we are currently addressing.
Multi-agent consensus with noisy communication via time averaging

A stochastic approximation with averaging is applied to a consensus algorithm for multi-agent systems and the convergence of the algorithm is analyzed. The consensus is considered with respect to the time average of the states of agents. For the fixed network structure and time-varying structure, the relation between the number of iterations of the algorithm and consensus accuracy is explicitly clarified. Finally a numerical example is shown and a presented theorem is demonstrated.
CNS PATHWAYS MEDIATING CARDIOVASCULAR REGULATION OF VASOPRESSIN

1. The release of vasopressin from the neurohypophysial terminals of hypothalamic magnocellular neurosecretory neurons is subject to regulation by peripheral baroreceptors, cardiopulmonary volume receptors and circulating angiotensin II. Information from these sources is transmitted through different pathways to achieve different influences on the excitability of the vasopressin‐secreting cells.