Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Investigation of ICP parameters for smooth tsvs and following cu plating process in 3D integration

Bosch reactive ion etching is widely used for TSV formation. The micro-masking formed during etching can be successfully removed by adjusting the internal parameters during etching. The smooth high-aspect-ratio TSVs were further developed in wafer-level fabrication. Finally, a two-step etching process was developed to achieve tapered TSVs for the following Cu plating process.
Perceived Control of Drinking and Other Predictors of Alcohol Use and Problems in a College Student Sample

Perceived efficacy in controlling drinking has occupied a central place in theories of the acquisition, treatment, and maintenance of drinking behavior. Two measures of perceived control over drinking were used in the present study to predict alcohol use and problems. The first was designed to assess perceived control over specific expectancies of alcohol effects, and the second, taken from the Impaired Control Scale (ICS), measured perceived control over alcohol use. One-hundred forty-two alcohol-using college students reported on their level of alcohol use and moderate to severe levels of problems with alcohol use. Besides the perceived control measures, they also completed a number of other known predictors of alcohol use/problems, including the Eysenck 1.7 scales of impulsivity and venturesomeness, irrational beliefs, depression, perceived alcohol use norms, reasons for drinking, and expectancies of alcohol effects. While both perceived control measures were significantly correlated with alcohol expec.
Validation of the Measure of Revised Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory Constructs

The paper presents validation of the Reinforcement Sensitivity Questionnaire (RSQ), measuring the constructs of the Revised Reinforcement Sensitivity theory (RST). The research was conducted on a sample of 565 participants, using three measures of the constructs of the Revised Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory – the Behavioral Inhibition System/Behavioral Approach System (BIS/BAS) scale, Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory Personality Questionnaire (RST-PQ), and Reinforcement Sensitivity Questionnaire. The results of confirmatory factor analysis suggest good internal validity of the RSQ, while the results of principal components analysis show that the RSQ scales are significantly related to other RST measures.
BonnTools: Mathematical Innovation for Layout and Timing Closure of Systems on a Chip

The BonnTools provide innovative solutions for layout and timing closure that are used for many of the most complex integrated circuits. During 20 years of cooperation between the University of Bonn and IBM, new mathematical foundations and algorithms have been developed for the need of new technologies and leading-edge designs. In this paper we present the main ideas for placement, routing, timing optimization, and clock tree synthesis, which are the foundation of a continuing success story
An Ancient Mediterranean Melting Pot: Investigating the Uniparental Genetic Structure and Population History of Sicily and Southern Italy

Due to their strategic geographic location between three different continents, Sicily and Southern Italy have long represented a major Mediterranean crossroad where different peoples and cultures came together over time. However, its multi-layered history of migration pathways and cultural exchanges, has made the reconstruction of its genetic history and population structure extremely controversial and widely debated. To address this debate, we surveyed the genetic variability of 326 accurately selected individuals from 8 different provinces of Sicily and Southern Italy, through a comprehensive evaluation of both Y-chromosome and mtDNA genomes. The main goal was to investigate the structuring of maternal and paternal genetic pools within Sicily and Southern Italy, and to examine their degrees of interaction with other Mediterranean populations. Our findings show high levels of within-population variability, coupled with the lack of significant genetic sub-structures both within Sicily, as well as between Sicily and Southern Italy. When Sicilian and Southern Italian populations were contextualized within the Euro-Mediterranean genetic space, we observed different historical dynamics for maternal and paternal inheritances. Y-chromosome results highlight a significant genetic differentiation between the North-Western and South-Eastern part of the Mediterranean, the Italian Peninsula occupying an intermediate position therein. In particular, Sicily and Southern Italy reveal a shared paternal genetic background with the Balkan Peninsula and the time estimates of main Y-chromosome lineages signal paternal genetic traces of Neolithic and post-Neolithic migration events. On the contrary, despite showing some correspondence with its paternal counterpart, mtDNA reveals a substantially homogeneous genetic landscape, which may reflect older population events or different demographic dynamics between males and females. Overall, both uniparental genetic structures and TMRCA estimates confirm the role of Sicily and Southern Italy as an ancient Mediterranean melting pot for genes and cultures.
Lipid-coated iron oxide nanoparticles for dual-modal imaging of hepatocellular carcinoma

The development of noninvasive imaging techniques for the accurate diagnosis of progressive hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is of great clinical significance and has always been desired. Herein, a hepatocellular carcinoma cell-targeting fluorescent magnetic nanoparticle (NP) was obtained by conjugating near-infrared fluorescence to the surface of Fe3O4 (NIRF-Fe3O4) NPs, followed by coating the lipids consisting of tumoral hepatocytes-targeting polymer (Gal-P123). This magnetic NP (GPC@NIRF-Fe3O4) with superparamagnetic behavior showed high stability and safety in physiological conditions. In addition, GPC@NIRF-Fe3O4 achieved more specific uptake of human liver cancer cells than free Fe3O4 NPs. Importantly, with superpara-magnetic iron oxide and strong NIR absorbance, GPC@NIRF-Fe3O4 NPs demonstrate prominent tumor-contrasted imaging performance both on fluorescent and T2-weighted magnetic resonance (MR) imaging modalities in a living body. The relative MR signal enhancement of GPC@NIRF-Fe3O4 NPs achieved 5.4-fold improvement compared with NIR-Fe3O4 NPs. Therefore, GPC@ NIRF-Fe3O4 NPs may be potentially used as a candidate for dual-modal imaging of tumors with information covalidated and directly compared by combining fluorescence and MR imaging.
Generalized Self-Efficacy, Coping, and Self-Esteem as Predictors of Psychological Adjustment Among Children With Disabilities or Chronic Illnesses

This study tested the hypothesis that more use of acceptance coping and less use of avoidance, emotional reaction, and wishful thinking coping would predict higher generalized self-efficacy (GSE) and self-esteem, and that higher GSE and self-esteem would, in turn, predict better psychological adjustment, operationalized as lower anxiety and higher life satisfaction. The alternative hypothesis that GSE and self-esteem would serve as psychological resources that predict coping, and that coping would, in turn, directly predict psychological adjustment, also was tested. Children (n = 42) enrolled at a camp for children with disabilities were administered instruments that assessed coping styles, GSE, self-esteem, anxiety, and life satisfaction. Hierarchical multiple regression and bootstrapping tested the mediational hypotheses. Emotion-oriented coping and self-esteem predicted life satisfaction; distance coping, self-efficacy, and self-esteem predicted anxiety; and self-esteem mediated the relation between self-efficacy and anxiety.
Alternatives to the least preferred co-worker construct.

Summary To test the validity of the most frequently cited interpretation of the least preferred co-worker (LPC) construct (i.e., task orientation versus supportive-interpersonal orientation), situational conditions specified by Fiedler's Contingency Model were created for 48, four-man groups (total N = 192 U.S. enlisted men). Group performance was measured on 108 dependent variables. Results of binomial analyses suggested that leader self-described supportiveness is an acceptable (indeed, preferable) alternative to the LPC construct for the purpose of predicting group performance.
Visualisation of the vocal tract based on estimation of vocal area functions and formant frequencies

A system for visualisation of the vocal-tract shapes during vowel articulation has been designed and developed. The system generates the vocal tract configuration using a new approach based on extracting both the area functions and the formant frequencies form the acoustic speech signal. Using a linear prediction analysis, the vocal tract area functions and the first three formants are first estimated. The estimated area functions are then mapped to corresponding mid-sagittal distances and displayed as 2D vocal tract lateral graphics. The mapping process is based on a simple numerical algorithm and an accurate reference grid derived from x-rays for the pronunciation of a number English vowels uttered by different speakers. To compensate for possible errors in the estimated area functions due to variations in vocal tract length, the first two section distances are determined by the three formants. The formants are also used to adjust the rounding of the lips and the height of the jawbone. Results show high correlation with x-ray data and the PARAFAC analysis. The system could be useful as a visual sensory aid for speech training of the hearing–impaired.
Why Is This So Hard?: Ideologies of Endangerment, Passive Language Learning Approaches, and Ojibwe in the United States

This paper describes 3 language learning approaches common in many urban and rural Ojibwe communities, as well as the ideologies of endangerment that drive and sustain them. Drawing from collaborative language revitalization work with teachers, learners, and community leaders, we analyze some of the teaching and learning practices that lead to the common mismatch between language learner goals and expectations, on the one hand, and the outcomes of language learning, on the other. We outline how these 3 approaches to language learning relate to cultural identities and place-based notions of authenticity as well as to current findings in the field of second language acquisition. We then profile 2 speakers who have learned Ojibwe successfully as adults to illustrate how their success was possible largely because they were able to engage with the Ojibwe language in interactive ways that run counter to common language learning approaches. We suggest that for language revitalization efforts, and individual learners, to experience higher levels of success, greater attention needs to be paid to how ideologies of endangerment impact language learning approaches.
Rationales for Employee Theft in Hospitality: Excuses, Excuses

This study aims to identify the prevalence of employee theft and rationalisations for taking company property, to help practitioners reduce workplace theft. The characteristics of workplaces where theft is common are identified, the items most likely to be stolen, the characteristics of the likely culprits, and their justifications for stealing. The study uses a questionnaire to collect quantitative and qualitative data from hospitality workers, whose responses are analysed to determine the severity of employee theft and rationalisations for taking company property. Employee theft is shown to be common, and strongly associated with workplaces where under-staffing and inadequate training are also common. Casual workers, young people, and those paid least, are found to be those most tolerant of theft. By addressing the relationship between social consensus, moral reasoning, and petty theft, the discussion identifies causes of petty theft from an ethics perspective.
Characterizing problems for realizing policies in self-adaptive and self-managing systems

Self-adaptive and self-managing systems optimize their own behaviour according to high-level objectives and constraints. One way for administrators to specify goals for such optimization problems effectively is using policies. Over the past decade, researchers produced various approaches, models and techniques for policy specification in different areas including distributed systems, communications networks, web services, autonomic computing, and cloud computing. Research challenges range from characterizing policies for ease of specification in particular application domains to categorizing policies for achieving solution qualities for particular algorithmic techniques. The contributions of this paper are threefold. Firstly, we give a mathematical formulation for each of the three policy types, action, goal and utility function policies, introduced in the policy framework by Kephart and Walsh. In particular, we introduce a first precise characterization of goal policies for optimization problems. Secondly, this paper introduces a mathematical framework that adds structure to the underlying optimization problem for different types of policies. Structure is added either to the objective function or the constraints of the optimization problem. These mathematical structures, imposed on the underlying problem, progressively increase the quality of the solutions obtained when using the greedy optimization technique. Thirdly, we show the applicability of our framework by analyzing several optimization problems encountered in self-adaptive and selfmanaging systems, such as resource allocation, quality of service management, and SLA profit optimization to provide quality guarantees for their solutions. Our approach is based on the algorithmic frameworks by Edmonds, Fisher et al., and Mestre, and the policy framework of Kephart and Walsh. Our characterization and approach will help designers of self-adaptive and self-managing systems formulate optimization problems, decide on algorithmic strategies based on policy requirements, and reason about solution qualities.
Educational leadership and management: blending Greek philosophy, myth and current thinking

In this conceptual paper, an exploration of the leadership gap between theory and praxis, which manifests itself in three different kinds of fissure in current thinking and research in the field of educational leadership, management and administration, will be undertaken. It is argued that there is a public image/communication gap, which current research and thinking in educational leadership needs to fulfill. This leads to the second issue, which is the gap between what is said (the rhetoric) and what is done (the praxis). Leaders must strive to reduce the gap between rhetoric and reality. This leads us to the third gap, which is the values gap. The world is indeed full of antithetical and oftentimes conflicting and dilemmatic situations in which morality and ethical behaviour play an important role. Thus, the main aim of this paper is to provide an in‐depth exploration of the three gaps and in doing so to provide answers as to how to narrow these gaps in order for school leaders to improve their practice, drawing heavily on ‘lessons learnt’ from three great ancient philosophers, namely Aristotle, Plato and Socrates. Some implications for practice will be referred to in the final section of this paper.
Outage capacity of bidirectional relaying in cognitive relay networks

This article studies the outage capacity of bidirectional relaying using Decode and Forward (DF) in cognitive relay networks. We consider a communication system where two sources attempt to exchange their messages through a set of cognitive relay nodes. Only relays with successful decoding and spectrum acquisition are allowed to participate in the broadcast phase (BC). We consider two schemes for selecting the relays in the BC phase. In the first scheme, successfully decoding at least one of the two signals allows a relay to participate, while the second scheme requires successful decoding of both signals for a relay to participate. Simulation results illustrate the performance advantage of the first scheme for low SNR values. Furthermore, we use high SNR approximations in deriving closed from expressions for the outage capacity.
A 10-bit, 550-fs step Digital-to-Time Converter in 28nm CMOS

This paper presents a 10-bit, 550-fs step Digital-to-Time Converter (DTC) used in the phase comparison path of a fractional-N, TDC-less and divider-less PLL. The DTC is devised as a single-ended architecture which uses a tunable RC network for delay control. The circuit is optimized for low phase noise not to limit the in-band phase noise performance of the fabricated PLL. Measured INL and DNL are below 1.8 LSB and 0.8 LSB, respectively. The DTC phase noise floor is below -154 dBc/Hz at 0.5 mW power consumption from a 0.9 V supply. At 10 GHz output, the in-band phase noise of the PLL with the DTC embedded is -105 dBc/Hz. The PLL achieves 270 fs RMS jitter, consuming 26 mW.
Automated segmentation of a motion mask to preserve sliding motion in deformable registration of thoracic CT.

PURPOSE Deformable registration generally relies on the assumption that the sought spatial transformation is smooth. Yet, breathing motion involves sliding of the lung with respect to the chest wall, causing a discontinuity in the motion field, and the smoothness assumption can lead to poor matching accuracy. In response, alternative registration methods have been proposed, several of which rely on prior segmentations. We propose an original method for automatically extracting a particular segmentation, called a motion mask, from a CT image of the thorax. METHODS The motion mask separates moving from less-moving regions, conveniently allowing simultaneous estimation of their motion, while providing an interface where sliding occurs. The sought segmentation is subanatomical and based on physiological considerations, rather than organ boundaries. We therefore first extract clear anatomical features from the image, with respect to which the mask is defined. Level sets are then used to obtain smooth surfaces interpolating these features. The resulting procedure comes down to a monitored level set segmentation of binary label images. The method was applied to sixteen inhale-exhale image pairs. To illustrate the suitability of the motion masks, they were used during deformable registration of the thorax. RESULTS For all patients, the obtained motion masks complied with the physiological requirements and were consistent with respect to patient anatomy between inhale and exhale. Registration using the motion mask resulted in higher matching accuracy for all patients, and the improvement was statistically significant. Registration performance was comparable to that obtained using lung masks when considering the entire lung region, but the use of motion masks led to significantly better matching near the diaphragm and mediastinum, for the bony anatomy and for the trachea. The use of the masks was shown to facilitate the registration, allowing to reduce the complexity of the spatial transformation considerably, while maintaining matching accuracy. CONCLUSIONS We proposed an automated segmentation method for obtaining motion masks, capable of facilitating deformable registration of the thorax. The use of motion masks during registration leads to matching accuracies comparable to the use of lung masks for the lung region but motion masks are more suitable when registering the entire thorax.
The acceleration sensitivity of quartz crystal oscillators: a review

A tutorial on navigation, radar, and identification systems is presented. The topics discussed are the consequences of acceleration sensitivity in crystal oscillators on the Allan variance, including the effects of sinusoidal and random vibration, phase noise and integrated phase jitter; the vector nature of quartz resonator sensitivity; the theoretical description of the cause of the acceleration sensitivity of quartz resonators; techniques for the measurement of acceleration sensitivity; and the effect of frequency multiplication on acceleration effect. Various techniques currently being used or developed for reducing the effective acceleration sensitivity are considered. The techniques fall into three general categories: reduction of the acceleration sensitivity of the resonator; passive techniques that use compensating elements in the oscillator feedback loop, e.g. a second resonator or an acceleration sensitivity capacitor; and active acceleration compensation schemes that sense the acceleration and feedback a compensating signal to a tuning network. <<ETX>>
Can Mentoring Help Female Assistant Professors? Interim Results from a Randomized Trial

While much has been written about the potential benefits of mentoring in academia, very little research documents its effectiveness. We present data from a randomized controlled trial of a mentoring program for female economists organized by the Committee for the Status of Women in the Economics Profession and sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the American Economics Association. To our knowledge, this is the first randomized trial of a mentoring program in academia. We evaluate the performance of three cohorts of participants and randomly-assigned controls from 2004, 2006, and 2008. This paper presents an interim assessment of the program's effects. Our results suggest that mentoring works. After five years the 2004 treatment group averaged . 4 more NSF or NIH grants and 3 additional publications, and were 25 percentage points more likely to have a top-tier publication. There are significant but smaller effects at three years post-treatment for the 2004 and 2006 cohorts combined. While it is too early to assess the ultimate effects of mentoring on the academic careers of program participants, the results suggest that this type of mentoring may be one way to help women advance in the Economics profession and, by extension, in other male-dominated academic fields.
Humor ability, unwillingness to communicate, loneliness, and perceived stress: Testing a security theory

The purpose of this study was to develop and test a theory of the laughter‐humor link in interpersonal communication. The basic premise of the theory is that a sense of security underlies the ability to encode humor in everyday conversation. It was hypothesized that communication‐related security (i.e., willingness to communicate) predicts humor ability, which in turn negatively predicts loneliness and perceived stress. Undergraduates completed a survey including the following scales: Unwillingness‐ to‐Communicate, Humor Orientation, Coping Humor, revised UCLA Loneliness, and Perceived Stress. Regression analyses confirm that willingness to communicate predicted humor orientation, while humor orientation mediated the relationship between willingness to communicate and coping humor. Humor orientation negatively predicted loneliness and perceived stress, although in both cases willingness to communicate mediated the relationships. The discussion highlights methodological limitations (e.g., use of self‐report) and reiterates the need for interaction‐ and context‐based studies of the laughter‐humor relationship.
Scheduling with Genetic

This paper provides a survey of the application of genetic algorithms (GAs) to scheduling. Although it focuses on manufacturing scheduling, particularly job-shop problems, it does outline work in other areas such as transport scheduling and network routing. GA research in closely related problems, such as bin packing and the TSP, are also covered. Finally, it is shown how distributed parallel GAs may allow practically beneecial rechar-acterisations of highly complex general scheduling problems.