Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Design of Dual Disturbance Observers for Linear Lumped- and Distributed-Parameter Systems

Zusammenfassung Dieser Beitrag stellt den Entwurf von dualen Störbeobachtern für konzentriertund verteiltparametrische Systeme vor. Als Ergebnis des Entwurfs erhält man für beide Systemklassen einen endlich-dimensionalen Ausgangsregler. Damit kann das für duale Beobachter gültige Separationsprinzip auch zur Stabilisierung verteilt-parametrischer Systeme herangezogen werden, wofür ein auf der Vollständigen Modalen Synthese basierendes Eigenwertvorgabeverfahren vorgeschlagen wird. Die asymptotische Kompensation von Sinusstörungen für einen Wärmeleiter mittels eines endlichdimensionalen Störbeobachters veranschaulicht die Ergebnisse der Arbeit. Summary This article presents the design of dual observers for lumpedand distributed-parameter systems. The resulting compensator is of finite order for both system classes. Consequently, dual observers can be designed for distributed-parameter systems on the basis of the separation principle. For this problem a parametric approach is proposed. The presented results are illustrated by determining a finitedimensional dual disturbance observer for a heat conductor that asymptotically rejects sinusodial disturbances.
Could it happen here?

The catastrophic tsunami that struck southern Asia on December 26, 2004, underscored the extraordinary social and economic havoc that such an event can wreak. Could it happen here in the United States—in particular, off the coast of Southern California? The disturbing answer is that, yes, it could. Although the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Ocean Service has 13 continuously operating tide stations in the state of California that are capable of producing real-time data for tsunami warnings, there is no way to prevent a strike. Recent developments in the modeling of tsunami waves and the analysis of their economic consequences, combined with data from recent offshore mappings of the Santa Barbara Channel and other locations, suggest the mechanism and economic effect of an undersea landslide in the vicinity of Los Angeles that would spawn a tsunami.
Bringing context out of the shadows of leadership

Research on educational leadership and management has resulted in the accumulation of increasingly persuasive findings concerning the impact school leadership can have on school performance. Indeed, there is a growing consensus that there exists a generic set of leadership practices (e.g. goal setting, developing people) which must be adapted to meet the needs and constraints that describe different school contexts. However, to date, researchers have yet to develop a theory or report comprehensive findings on this challenge. This paper explores several types of school contexts (institutional, community, socio-cultural, political, economic, school improvement) and what we have learned about how they shape school leadership practice. The analysis leads to several conclusions and recommendations. First, it affirms, elaborates and extends the assertion made by scholars of the importance of examining leadership in context. Second, the need to contextualize leadership highlights deficiencies in modal research methods that focus on mean effects and either ignore context effects or relegate them to the shadows. Finally, the field needs to refine current research methods and explore new approaches that enable us to better study how successful leadership responds and adapts to different contexts.
In Vivo Expression of the β-Glucoside (bgl) Operon of Escherichia coli Occurs in Mouse Liver

ABSTRACT An Escherichia coli DNA fragment was identified that contained part of the β-glucoside (bgl) operon. This fragment was identified because it contained a promoter that was responsible for the expression of a reporter gene, the chloramphenicol acetyltransferase gene, in a mouse liver during bacterial infection but not when a bacterial clone was grown in vitro. This fragment contained a promoter and a rho-independent transcription terminator which were flanked by the 3′ end of bglG and the 5′ end ofbglF. Reverse transcription-PCR confirmed thatcat-specific mRNA was produced in infected mouse liver but not in vitro. mRNA encoding the positive regulator of thebgl operon, bglG, also was detected in mouse liver infected with an E. coli strain. These results demonstrated that expression of the bgl operon occurs in infected mouse liver and suggests a unique role for this operon in vivo.
TAPS: Software Defined Task-Level Deadline-Aware Preemptive Flow Scheduling in Data Centers

Many data center applications have deadline requirements, which pose a requirement of deadline-awareness in network transport. Completing within deadlines is a necessary requirement for flows to be completed. Transport protocols in current data centers try to share the network resources fairly and are deadline-agnostic. Recently several works try to address the problem by making as many flows meet deadlines as possible. However, for many data center applications, a task cannot be completed until the last flow finishes, which indicates the bandwidths consumed by completed flows are wasted if some flows in the task cannot meet deadlines. In this paper we design a task-level deadline-aware preemptive flow scheduling(TAPS), which aims to make more tasks meet deadlines. We leverage software defined networking (SDN) technology and generalize SDN from flow-level awareness to task-level awareness. The scheduling algorithm runs on the SDN controller, which decides whether a flow should be accepted or discarded, pre-allocates the transmission time slices and computes the routing paths for accepted flows. Extensive flow-level simulations demonstrate TAPS outperforms Varys, Bara at, PDQ (Preemptive Distributed Quick flow scheduling), D3 (Deadline-Driven Delivery control protocol) and Fair Sharing transport protocols in deadline sensitive data center environment. A simple implementation on real systems also proves that TAPS makes high effective utilization of the network bandwidth in data centers.
Opportunistic Synchronization for Improving IEEE 802.15.4 MAC Performance in Chain Topologies

The most effective solution for energy saving in lo w-rate wireless sensor networks is maintaining each node in a doze state as long as possible. In order to guarantee network connectivity, the intervals at which the network sensors are turned on and off have to be co ordinated. Therefore, synchronization is a very cri ti al function for sensor networks. In this paper, we analyze the IEEE 802.15. 4 MAC per formance in sensor networks deployed in a chain top ology. For this topology, critical inefficiencies can aris e in case of multi-hop packet deliveries. We evalua te the impact of different synchronization schemes on the network pe formance, both in terms of network throughput a nd in terms of energy consumption. We also show how the s ynchronization function can be opportunistically configured in order to emulate a token-like access mechanism, able to significantly improve the networ k
Missing the Point: Substituting Exenatide for Nonoptimized Insulin

The recent American Diabetes Association/European Association for the Study of Diabetes consensus treatment algorithm for type 2 diabetes has advanced basal insulin treatment as a much earlier therapeutic option following a structured target-driven strategy (1). However, the misconception by both providers and patients that insulin should be regarded as the therapy of last resort still prevails and is perhaps the main barrier to insulin treatment, even at the price of many years of poor glycemic control. Insulin is the most effective diabetes agent, only limited by hypoglycemia; however, when used inappropriately in nonphysiological and nonoptimized regimens, many patients treated with insulin remain poorly controlled (2). In the last decade, several new treatments have been developed for treating type 2 diabetes. It is conceivable that the initial American Diabetes Association/European Association for the Study of Diabetes consensus algorithm may eventually be revised to include additional therapeutic options for early use in combination with metformin once evidence regarding sustained efficacy and safety accumulates (3). New agents have been tested in combination with insulin with the main purpose of establishing a “proof of concept” of an independent effect by keeping insulin therapy unchanged or not optimized. However, this “regulatory approval approach” often resulted in relatively small A1C reductions, and at the end of the trials the mean levels often remained far above the desired A1C targets (4,5,6). Although some of these combinations may provide benefits such as reduced insulin resistance, less weight gain, lower insulin requirements, and possibly less hypoglycemia (4,5,6,7), none of these secondary gains can substitute for the primary objective of reaching the recommended glycemic targets. The concept of adding a new therapy to insulin was the initial strategy employed with troglitazone to get fast regulatory approval in 1997. The …
SCARA robot control using neural networks

A SCARA industrial robot model is identified based on a 4-axis structure using Lagrangian mechanics, also the dynamic model for the electromechanical actuator and motion transmission systems is identified. A conventional PD controller is implemented and compared to neural networks control system to achieve precise position control of SCARA manipulator. The performance of the modeled system is simulated using several desired tracking motion for each joint. Neural networks control method has shown a remarkable improvement of tracking capabilities for the SCARA robot over conventional PD controller. The proposed neural network controller has the potential to accurately control real-time manipulator applications.
A study of effective social cues within ubiquitous robotics

Ubiquitous computing is the execution of computational tasks through everyday objects. Ubiquitous robotics augments the capabilities of one or more robots by leveraging ubiquitous computational and/or sensorial resources. Augmentation complements and/or enhances the capabilities of one or more robots while such robots can simultaneously serve as intermediaries or social interfaces to ubiquitous services. This paper posits the importance of conducting user studies to validate related HRI results within ubiquitous robotics. Specifically, the paper presents a pilot study designed to test the effectiveness of acknowledging human presence via non-verbal social cues and its impact on the user's acceptance and engagement with a ubiquitous robotic system.
Skin microvascular morphology and hemodynamics during treatment with veno-arterial extra-corporeal membrane oxygenation.

OBJECTIVES To explore the potentials of microcirculatory assessments for predicting outcome of patients treated with extra corporeal membrane oxygenation for cardiogenic shock. METHODS Eight patients with acute cardiogenic shock treated with ECMO and eight healthy controls were examined with skin vital microscopy and laser Doppler perfusion measurements. RESULTS Three patients died on ECMO (group 1). Five patients were successfully weaned off ECMO (group 2). Four patients were discharged from hospital and one died after successful weaning from bleeding complications. Patients surviving ECMO (group 2) had microcirculatory findings comparable with healthy controls. Patients in group 1 showed major skin microvascular pathology: pericapillary bleedings (n = 1), pericapillary dark haloes (n = 2) and capillary micro thrombi (n = 1). As compared with survivors they had lower functional capillary density (FCD) (n = 3), higher heterogeneity of functional capillary density (n = 3) and significantly reduced capillary mean flow-categorical velocity (n = 2). Laser Doppler measurements in group 1 had non-significant lower laser Doppler flux values as compared with survivors and controls. CONCLUSION Skin microvascular pathology as detected with video microscopy (pericapillary bleedings or haloes, micro-thrombi/capillaries with "no flow", low FCD with high spatial distribution heterogeneity or low mean flow-categorial velocity) seems to be associated with poor prognosis.
Risk and Uncertainty in Investment Decisions : An Overview

The decision making process in business is prone to risk because uncertainty is inherent in the expected outcomes of investments decisions which may lead to losses and business liquidation. The study being a desk research is a descriptive one that applied the Target MOTAD model. It examined the effect of investment decisions, identify inherent risks and suggest proactive measures of handling risk challenges using secondary data such as relevant journals, textbooks and statistical reports. The paper found that a major challenge of investors is recognizing and managing risk due to unstable investment climate. Also the apparent failure of regulatory bodies encouraged greed and dishonesty which informed sharp business practices. This paper thus, concludes that the effects of risk could be minimized, it recommends that regulatory bodies must take proactive measures that could minimize policy summersault and that managements must also be sincere and convinced in their investment decisions in order to minimize their investment portfolio risk.
Algorithm for Information Retrieval optimization

When using Information Retrieval (IR) systems, users often present search queries made of ad-hoc keywords. It is then up to the information retrieval systems (IRS) to obtain a precise representation of the user's information need and the context (preferences) of the information. To address this problem, we investigate optimization of IRS to individual information needs in order of relevance. The goal of this article is to develop algorithms that optimize the ranking of documents retrieved from IRS according to user search context. In particular, the ranking task that led the user to engage in information-seeking behaviour during search tasks. This article discusses and describes a Document Ranking Optimization (DROPT) algorithm for IR in an Internet-based or designated databases environment. Conversely, as the volume of information available online and in designated databases is growing continuously, ranking algorithms can play a major role in the context of search results. In this article, a DROPT technique for documents retrieved from a corpus is developed with respect to document index keywords and the query vectors. This is based on calculating the weight (wij) of keywords in the document index vector, calculated as a function of the frequency of a keyword kj across a document. The purpose of the DROPT technique is to reflect how human users can judge the context changes in IR result rankings according to information relevance. This article shows that it is possible for the DROPT technique to overcome some of the limitations of existing traditional (tf × idf) algorithms via adaptation. The empirical evaluation using metrics measures on the DROPT technique carried out through human user interaction shows improvement over the traditional relevance feedback technique to demonstrate improving IR effectiveness.
Two-stage thermal-aware scheduling of task graphs on 3D multi-cores exploiting application and architecture characteristics

In this paper, we propose a two-stage thermal-aware task scheduling policy which exploits the application and system architecture characteristics to decouple the mapping of task-graphs for the performance and peak temperature optimization into two stages. At the first stage, the algorithm collects the best mapping of task-graphs exploiting the application and architecture characteristics to minimize the makespan of the task-graphs. At the second stage, a light-weight online algorithm comprised of efficient thermal rank and combined power models is performed to map the task nodes to the real cores for temperature minimization while maintaining the best possible performance achieved in the first stage. Compared to the previous approaches which perform the performance and temperature optimization together, our method can reduce the online mapping algorithm complexity and improve its efficiency. Experiments on real benchmarks show that an average of 6.3°C peak temperature reduction and 6.8% performance improvement can be achieved compared to other existing methods.
Prospective analysis of vitamin D and endometrial cancer risk.

BACKGROUND This is the first prospective cohort analysis on the association between vitamin D and endometrial cancer incorporating time-varying predicted plasma 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D]. METHODS The prospective cohort analysis of predicted 25(OH)D and total dietary vitamin D intake used the Cox proportional hazards model, and involved 644 incident endometrial cancer events from 1986 to 2006 in the Nurses' Health Study. Genotyping and unconditional logistic regression were carried out on 572 endometrial cancer cases and their matched controls on 12 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in vitamin D-related genes. RESULTS There was no significant association between predicted 25(OH)D and endometrial cancer incidence, with the hazard ratio for the highest (versus the lowest) quintile of predicted 25(OH)D as 1.00 (95% CI 0.73-1.36) (p-trend = 0.33). There was also no significant association involving total dietary vitamin D. No significant associations between any of the vitamin D-related SNPs and endometrial cancer were observed. CONCLUSION Both predicted 25(OH)D and total dietary vitamin D intake were not associated with endometrial cancer incidence. These results suggest that vitamin D may not protect against the development of endometrial cancer. However, the low and narrow vitamin D exposure range in the cohort may limit generalizability of the results.
High-Speed 2 2 Switch for Multiwavelength Silicon-Photonic Networks – On-Chip

We report the fabrication and experimental verification of a multiwavelength high-speed 2 2 silicon photonic switch for ultrahigh-bandwidth message routing in optical on-chip networks. The structure employs only two microring resonators in order to implement the bar and cross states of the switch. These states are toggled using an optical pump at 1.5m wavelengths inplane with the waveguide devices, though electronic, rather than optical, control schemes are envisioned for more complex systems built from these devices. Experiments characterize bit-error-rate performance in the bar and cross states during static and dynamic operation. The all-optical demonstration exhibits the ability of the switch to implement ultra-short transition times ( 2 ns), high extinction ratios ( 10 dB), and low power penalties ( dB) at a data rate of 10 Gb/s. Further performance improvements are expected by using electronic carrier injection via p-i-n diodes surrounding the ring waveguides. The 2 2 switching functionality facilitates the design of more complex routing structures, allowing the implementation of high-functionality integrated optical networks.
Replication and heterogeneity in gene x environment interaction studies.

There has been considerable interest in gene×environment (G×E) interactions in psychiatric genetics since studies by Caspi and colleagues (Caspi et al. 2002, 2003) suggested that these may illuminate the aetiology and genetic architecture of behavioural phenotypes. However, as with earlier candidate gene studies (Ioannidis et al. 2001), initial promise was subsequently followed by failures to replicate and increasing inconsistency in the rapidly growing G×E literature (Munafo et al. 2009 a ). One reason for this is that the greater number of potential statistical tests that are possible when interaction effects are included in any analysis (e.g. by investigating multiple markers of environmental exposures) greatly increases the risk of false positives in studies of this kind (Munafo et al. 2009 a ). However, another possibility is that there is genuine heterogeneity between studies, which reflects the sampling of different populations across which the genetic effects of interest may vary in strength or direction. Laucht and colleagues (Laucht et al. 2009) report evidence that individuals homozygous for the L allele of the 5-HTTLPR displayed higher rates of depressive or anxiety disorders when exposed to environmental adversity, contrary to the original report by Caspi and colleagues in which possession of the S allele increased susceptibility to depression under stressful conditions (Caspi et al. 2003). Laucht and colleagues argue that a ‘possible source for the conflicting findings might be attributed to heterogeneity in depression phenotypes and environmental adversity’. An alternative and perhaps more parsimonious explanation is that their result is further evidence that the literature to date is compatible with chance findings, perhaps …
Specifying the Effect of Social Welfare Expenditures on Homicide and Suicide: A Cross-National, Longitudinal Examination of the Stream Analogy of Lethal Violence

This study is an extension and cross-national test of the Stream Analogy of Lethal Violence (SALV). The SALV is an integrated theory of homicide and suicide that hypothesizes a relationship between “socially patterned” sources of frustration and lethal violence. By drawing on the insights of General Strain Theory and Institutional Anomie Theory, this study extends the SALV by assessing the impact of “decommodification” on the lethal violence rate. Partial support is found for this modified version of the SALV, as lagged measures of social expenditures are negatively associated with total lethal violence. The findings of this study suggest that social welfare expenditures in OECD nations protect citizens from lethal violence while austerity measures may contribute to greater rates of violent death.
Cognitive Change during the Life Course and Leukocyte Telomere Length in Late Middle-Aged Men

Importance: Cognitive skills are known to decline through the lifespan with large individual differences. The molecular mechanisms for this decline are incompletely understood. Although leukocyte telomere length provides an index of cellular age that predicts the incidence of age-related diseases, it is unclear whether there is an association between cognitive decline and leukocyte telomere length. Objective: To examine the association between changes in cognitive function during adult life and leukocyte telomere length after adjusting for confounding factors such as education, mental health and life style. Design, Setting, and Participants: Two groups of men with negative (n = 97) and positive (n = 93) change in cognitive performance were selected from a birth cohort of 1985 Danish men born in 1953. Cognitive performance of each individual was assessed at age ~20 and 56 years. Leukocyte telomere length at age ~58 was measured using qPCR. Linear regression models were used to investigate the association between cognitive function and leukocyte telomere length. Results: Men with negative change in cognitive performance during adult life had significantly shorter mean leukocyte telomere length than men with positive change in cognitive performance (unadjusted difference β = −0.09, 95% CI −0.16 to −0.02, p = 0.02). This association remained significant after adjusting for smoking, alcohol consumption, leisure time activity, body mass index (BMI) and cholesterol (adjusted difference β = −0.09, 95% CI −0.17 to −0.01, p = 0.02) but was non-significant after adjusting for smoking, alcohol consumption, leisure time activity, BMI, cholesterol, current cognitive function, depression and education (adjusted difference β = −0.07, 95% CI −0.16 to −0.01, p = 0.08). Conclusion and Relevance: Preclinical cognitive changes may be associated with leukocyte telomere length.