Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Multiserver retrial queues with after-call work

This paper considers a multiserver queueing system with finite capacity. Customers that find the service facility being fully occupied are blocked and enter a virtual waiting room (called orbit). Blocked customers stay in the orbit for an exponentially distributed time and retry to occupy an idle server again. After completing a service, the server starts an additional job that we call an after-call work. We formulate the queueing system using a continuous-time level-dependent quasi-birth-and-death process, for which a sufficient condition for the ergodicity is derived. We obtain an approximation to the stationary distribution by a direct truncation method whose truncation point is simply determined using an asymptotic analysis of a single server retrial queue. Some numerical examples are presented in order to show the influence of parameters on the performance of the system.
Optical and visual impact of tear break-up in human eyes.

PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to examine the optical and visual impact of tear break-up. METHODS Optical quality of the eye was assessed during periods of nonblinking by quantifying vessel contrast in the fundus image and by monitoring the psychophysical contrast sensitivity and the spatial distribution of tear thickness changes by retroillumination. All measures were obtained from three eyes either with or without a soft contact lens. RESULTS A noticeable decrease in retinal vessel contrast and contrast sensitivity were observed soon after a blink. Both of these measures of optical quality of the eye showed a similar pattern of image degradation both with and without a soft contact lens. Although trial-to-trial variability was considerable, sample means show that image contrast in the low spatial frequency range can drop to between 20% and 40% of initial values after 60 seconds of nonblinking. Retroillumination of the tear film showed local intensity fluctuations that progressively spread across the pupil with increasing time after the blink. CONCLUSIONS Optical aberrations created by tear break-up contribute to the decline in image quality observed objectively and psychophysically. The decline in image quality that accompanies tear break-up may be a direct cause of the blurry vision complaints commonly encountered in dry-eye patients.
IN REMEMBRANCE OF ALFRED E. KAHN: FRED KAHN'S IMPACT ON DEREGULATION AND REGULATORY REFORM*

Alfred E. “Fred” Kahn is widely remem­ bered as “The Father of Airline Dereg ulation. ” Though he consistently redistributed credit for the reform (e.g., Kahn 2008), Kahn’s candor, wit, and willingness as chairman of the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) to step outside the “regulation as usual” box established him as the face at its forefront. This legacy is enormous, as the 1978 Airline Deregulation Act may be one of the greatest microeconomic policy accom­ plishments of the past fifty years (Bailey 2010). The policy is notable for several reasons. It was the first dismantling of a substantial eco­ nomic regu latory apparatus, and one of the only instances that included abolition of the relevant regula tory agency. Deregulation dramatically transformed the air line industry. The postde­ regulation US air line industry generated lower average fares; greater numbers of flights, non­ stop destinations, and passengers; dramatically different network structures; and increased In RemembRance of alfRed e. Kahn: fRed Kahn’s Impact on deRegulatIon and RegulatoRy RefoRm ‡
RISK MEASURES ON ORLICZ HEARTS

Coherent, convex, and monetary risk measures were introduced in a setup where uncertain outcomes are modeled by bounded random variables. In this paper, we study such risk measures on Orlicz hearts. This includes coherent, convex, and monetary risk measures on Lp‐spaces for 1 ≤p < ∞ and covers a wide range of interesting examples. Moreover, it allows for an elegant duality theory. We prove that every coherent or convex monetary risk measure on an Orlicz heart which is real‐valued on a set with non‐empty algebraic interior is real‐valued on the whole space and admits a robust representation as maximal penalized expectation with respect to different probability measures. We also show that penalty functions of such risk measures have to satisfy a certain growth condition and that our risk measures are Luxemburg‐norm Lipschitz‐continuous in the coherent case and locally Luxemburg‐norm Lipschitz‐continuous in the convex monetary case. In the second part of the paper we investigate cash‐additive hulls of transformed Luxemburg‐norms and expected transformed losses. They provide two general classes of coherent and convex monetary risk measures that include many of the currently known examples as special cases. Explicit formulas for their robust representations and the maximizing probability measures are given.
On the speed requirement for optimal deadline scheduling in overloaded systems

We consider the problem of scheduling jobs with deadlines in an on-line single-processor system. It is known for long that unless the system is underloaded, any on-line algorithm is not optimal in the sense that it may fail to match the optimal offline algorithm on the total work of jobs meeting their deadlines. In this paper, we extend this fact with two new lower bound results. First, we show that even if the on-line scheduler can use a processor times faster than the offline scheduler, where is any real number less than the golden ratio (i.e. ), no online algorithm can be optimal. Furthermore, if we restrict our attention to on-line algorithms that decide at the release time of a job whether the job will be processed to meet its deadline, then the speed requirement for optimal on-line algorithms is at least . These lower bound results should be contrasted with the recent upper bound result [11] that with a two times faster processor, a simple extension of the earliest deadline first strategy (EDF) is optimal.
PERCEIVED FOREIGN ACCENT IN THREE VARIETIES OF NON-NATIVE ENGLISH *

What aspects of the speech signal cause listeners to perceive a foreign accent? While many studies have explored this question for a single variety of non-native speech, few have simultaneously considered non-native speech from multiple native language backgrounds. In this perception study, American Englishspeaking listeners rated stop-vowel sequences extracted from English words produced by L1 American English, L1 Hindi, L1 Korean, and L1 Mandarin talkers on a continuous scale of degree of foreign accent. Stepwise linear regression models revealed that VOT, vowel quality, f0, and vowel duration contributed significantly to the ratings. Additionally, listeners rated productions by all varieties of non-native talkers as sounding foreign-accented to some degree, with those by L1 Hindi talkers as most foreign-accented, and those by L1 Mandarin talkers as more foreign-accented than those by L1 Korean talkers. The results suggest that several acoustic properties contribute substantially to the perception of foreign accent, at least for stop-vowel sequences, and that some varieties of non-native English sound more accented than others.
On the achievability of cut-set bound for a class of erasure relay channels

We consider an erasure relay network sender send an information flow that can be received by a receiver and a relay. The relay forward some part of the information and we assume that relay and sender transmission do not interfere with each other, however the receiver is able to receive in parallel information that are sent from sender and relay on different channels. The interferences between sender and relay transmission might be suppressed by using different sender to receiver and relay to receiver physical channels. This model is realistic for many practical scenarios in the context of wireless networks. As an example, we can give wireless mesh router networks where the relay nodes are IEEE 802.11 access points that acts as routers that route packets between different WIFI channels. The scenario is also applicable to many ad-hoc wireless networks. It is noteworthy that wireless networks appear from the viewpoint of higher layer as erasure channels; packets arrive at destination without errors or they are erased by link layer error-detection mechanisms. This important property is sometime overlooked in the information theoretical literature and it enables a lot of simplification in the analysis. We derive here a capacity region for the described channel where relay and sender activities do not interfere with each other's and the involved channels are erasure channels. The capacity is derived by defining a cut-set type bound and showing it is achievable. This bound does not make any assumption about the relay channel being degraded and use in place the entropy characterization problem solution. Moreover, a practical coding scheme is presented that could be easily implemented in real networks.
SPREADING DEPRESSION OF ACTIVITY IN THE CEREBRAL CORTEX

THIS STUDY originated in an attempt to secure more data for the understanding of the cortical electrogram which occurs in “experimental epilepsy,” and of the conditions in which it is brought forth by electrical stimulation. Early in the development of the study an interesting response, elicited by electrical stimulation, was noticed in the cortex of rabbits. The distinctive feature of this response was a marked, enduring reduction of the “spontaneous” electrical activity of the cortex. We have endeavored to define experimentally some of the characteristics of this response.
Rectangular Microstrip Patch Antenna Loaded With Double Orthogonal Crossed Slits In Ground Plane

This paper propose a new generation of antenna that applies Metamaterial properties at ground Plane. Paper also analyzed the performance of Microstrip Patch Antenna with and without using the Metamaterial structure. The works mainly include Metamaterial as Defected ground plane. All antenna parameters such as Return Loss, Gain, VSWR and Band width were measured. The main focus of this paper was to improve Band width so that Patch antenna used for wide band applications. The additional features were its compact size and used in multiband operation. KeywordsPatchAntenna, Metamaterial, Orthogonal crossed slits, Band width
Summarization of Noisy Documents: A Pilot Study

We investigate the problem of summarizing text documents that contain errors as a result of optical character recognition. Each stage in the process is tested, the error effects analyzed, and possible solutions suggested. Our experimental results show that current approaches, which are developed to deal with clean text, suffer significant degradation even with slight increases in the noise level of a document. We conclude by proposing possible ways of improving the performance of noisy document summarization.
Tyrosine phosphorylation of PYK2 mediates heregulin‐induced glioma invasion: Novel heregulin/HER3‐stimulated signaling pathway in glioma

Receptor tyrosine kinases of the EGFR family transmit extracellular signals that control diverse cellular functions such as proliferation, differentiation and survival. Signaling function of a member of this family, HER3, is believed to be impaired due to deviations in its kinase consensus motifs. Here we address the functional role and signaling mechanisms of HER3. HER3 preferentially forms heterodimers with HER2 inducing the most potent mitogenic signal among EGFR family members. Our data show that in a glioma‐derived cell line the cytoplasmic tyrosine kinase PYK2 is constitutively associated with HER3 and that stimulation with Heregulin results in PYK2 tyrosine phosphorylation. HER3, but not HER2, mediates the phosphorylation of the C‐terminal region of PYK2 to promote a mitogenic response through activation of the MAPK pathway. A central role of PYK2 in signaling downstream of HER3 is substantiated by the demonstration that expression of a dominant‐negative PYK2‐KM construct abrogates the Heregulin‐induced MAPK activity and inhibits the invasive potential of glioma cells. These results suggest a novel Heregulin/HER3‐stimulated signaling pathway in glioblastoma‐derived cell lines that involves phosphorylation of PYK2 and mediates invasiveness of glioma cells. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
A Simple Near-Optimal Subdivision Algorithm for Complex Root Isolation based on the Pellet Test and Newton Iteration

We describe a subdivision algorithm for isolating the complex roots of a polynomial F ∈ C[x]. Our model assumes that each coefficient of F has an oracle to return an approximation to any absolute error bound. Given any box B in the complex plane containing only simple roots of F , our algorithm returns disjoint isolating disks for the roots in B. Our complexity analysis bounds the absolute error to which the coefficients of F have to be provided, the total number of iterations, and the overall bit complexity. This analysis shows that the complexity of our algorithm is controlled by the geometry of the roots in a near neighborhood of the input box B, namely, the number of roots and their pairwise distances. The number of subdivision steps is near-optimal. For the benchmark problem, namely, to isolate all the roots of an integer polynomial of degree n with coefficients of bitsize less than τ , our algorithm needs Õ(n + nτ) bit operations, which is comparable to the record bound of Pan (2002). It is the first time that such a bound has been achieved using subdivision methods, and independent of divide-and-conquer techniques such as Schönhage’s splitting circle technique. Our algorithm uses the quadtree construction of Weyl (1924) with two key ingredients: using Pellet’s Theorem (1881) combined with Graeffe iteration, we derive a soft test to count the number of roots in a disk. Using Newton iteration combined with bisection, in a form inspired by the quadratic interval method from Abbot (2006), we achieve quadratic convergence towards root clusters. Relative to the divide-conquer algorithms, our algorithm is simple with the potential of being practical. This paper is self-contained: we provide pseudo-code for all subroutines used by our algorithm.
Power efficiency optimization of fully integrated dickson charge pumps

This paper describes how the power efficiency of fully integrated Dickson charge pumps in advanced smart power technologies can be improved considerably by implementing charge recycling techniques and the replacement of normal PN junction diodes by pulse-driven active diodes. These 2 methods are first analyzed and compared on a purely theoretical basis and are verified with experimental data afterwards. Measurements reveal that the combination of the 2 methods can boost the power efficiency by a factor of 2 compared to traditional Dickson charge pump designs.
Some Notes on the Integration of Planning and Reactivity in Autonomous Mobile Robots

In its essence, the problem of planning and controlling the motion of a mobile robot may appear pretty innocuous: you are given an environment, a robot with certain motor capabilities, a starting location, and a goal location, and you must find a way to have the robot move to the goal location. Fine: you compute a sensible path, grab the robot’s controls, and guide it through this path to its goal. Voil& But consider what happens when the robot itself, expected to behave autonomously, must solve this problem. According to the above scenario, it should use its knowledge of the environment, and of the location of the target and of itself in this environment, to plan a path to the goal. It should also use its knowledge of its own motion capabilities -the actions it can perform, their preconditions, and their expected effects. Finally, it should know what its goals are. (In this case, simply going to that single location). We can make a number of assumptions on the accuracy of each of these types of knowledge. Depending on the assumptions made, the problem’s statement and the problem’s challenges vary enormously. Unfortunately, in any non-idealized case involving a real robot in a real-world environment none of the above types of knowledge is accurate. More to the point, most of the inaccuracy is inherent to the problem, and cannot be overcome by building a more sophisticated machine. The accuracy of the agent’s knowledge about its environment is bounded by the noise and limited range of its sensors, and by the precision and granularity of the prior information. This is true, in particular, of agent’s knowledge about its own location, and about the location of the target position. The complexity of the environment and the presence of other agents may cause unpredictable changes, and knowledge of the current state cannot be safely projected, whatever its quality. The effect of each action is muddled by errors in the
Association of Sleep Duration with Chronic Diseases in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC)-Potsdam Study

Background In view of the reduced number of hours devoted to sleep in modern western societies the question arises what effects might result from sleep duration on occurrence of chronic diseases. Methods Data from 23 620 middle-aged participants of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC)-Potsdam study, that were recruited between 1994–1998, were analyzed by using Cox proportional hazard regression to examine the association between self-reported sleep duration at baseline and incidence of chronic diseases, such as diabetes, myocardial infarction, stroke, and cancer. Results During a mean follow-up period of 7.8 years 841 incident cases of type 2 diabetes, 197 cases of myocardial infarction, 169 incident strokes, and 846 tumor cases were observed. Compared to persons sleeping 7-<8 h/day, participants with sleep duration of <6 h had a significantly increased risk of stroke (Hazard Ratio (HR) = 2.06, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.18–3.59), cancer (HR = 1.43, 95% CI: 1.09–1.87), and overall chronic diseases (HR = 1.31, 95% CI: 1.10–1.55) in multivariable adjusted models. Self-reported daytime sleep at baseline was not associated with incident chronic diseases in the overall study sample. However, there had been an effect modification of daytime sleep by hypertension showing that daytime sleep was inversely related to chronic disease risk among non-hypertensive participants but directly related to chronic diseases among hypertensives. Conclusion Sleep duration of less than 6 h is a risky behavior for the development of chronic diseases, particularly stroke and cancer, and should be therefore addressed in public health campaigns.
Low Doses of Bisphenol A and Diethylstilbestrol Impair Ca2+ Signals in Pancreatic α-Cells through a Nonclassical Membrane Estrogen Receptor within Intact Islets of Langerhans

Glucagon, secreted from pancreatic α-cells integrated within the islets of Langerhans, is involved in the regulation of glucose metabolism by enhancing the synthesis and mobilization of glucose in the liver. In addition, it has other extrahepatic effects ranging from lipolysis in adipose tissue to the control of satiety in the central nervous system. In this article, we show that the endocrine disruptors bisphenol A (BPA) and diethylstilbestrol (DES), at a concentration of 10−9 M, suppressed low-glucose–induced intracellular calcium ion ([Ca2+]i) oscillations in α-cells, the signal that triggers glucagon secretion. This action has a rapid onset, and it is reproduced by the impermeable molecule estradiol (E2) conjugated to horseradish peroxidase (E-HRP). Competition studies using E-HRP binding in immunocytochemically identified α-cells indicate that 17β-E2, BPA, and DES share a common membrane-binding site whose pharmacologic profile differs from the classical ER. The effects triggered by BPA, DES, and E2 are blocked by the Gαi- and Gαo-protein inhibitor pertussis toxin, by the guanylate cyclase–specific inhibitor 1H-[1,2,4] oxadiazolo[4,3-a] quinoxalin-1-one, and by the nitric oxide synthase inhibitor N-nitro-l-arginine methyl ester. The effects are reproduced by 8-bromo-guanosine 3′,5′-cyclic monophosphate and suppressed in the presence of the cGMP-dependent protein kinase inhibitor KT-5823. The action of E2, BPA, and DES in pancreatic α-cells may explain some of the effects elicited by endocrine disruptors in the metabolism of glucose and lipid.
Adaptive Triangulation Of Objects Reconstructed From Multiple Range Images

When reconstructing objects from multiple range images one has to deal with the problem of large data sets. In our approach, the surface itself is implicitly defined by a signed distance function. The distance function is derived from the range images which are assumed to be already registered. A triangulated model is generated from a rough approximation of the object using the marching-cubes algorithm. Subsequently, the triangles representing the surface are adaptively subdivided until a pre-defined degree of accuracy is reached. Newly inserted vertices are back-projected to the original range images. Even in case of very large data sets, our approach presents an efficient method of surface reconstruction due to the adaptive improvement of an initially rough mesh to the desired degree of accuracy.
What Do We Know about Theproduct Replacement Algorithm

The product replacement algorithm is a commonly used heuristic to generate random group elements in a finite group G, by running a random walk on generating k-tuples of G. While experiments showed outstanding performance, until recently there was little theoretical explanation. We give an extensive review of both positive and negative theoretical results in the analysis of the algorithm.
The process of change and development of technology in a country depends on the external and internal factors. In fact, the entire chain of values within a nation with high levels of living

The process of change and development of technology in a country depends on the external and internal factors. In fact, the entire chain of values within a nation with high levels of living standards and industrialisation cannot be the same as those of a developing nation struggling for its basic needs. This means that innovation theories and related approaches which are more suitable to industrialised nations, are not appropriate for the conditions of developing countries. Therefore, there is a need to concentrate on the realm of technology transfer. The use of technology transfer as a convenient term for the dynamic process of technical/technological change in less developed countries should be set down in a specific conceptual framework in order to establish a relevant approach for technology management and development in the Third World. In this paper after a consideration of the fundamental concepts of technological change and innovation in advanced countries, an attempt has been made to understand the process of technological change within the socio-economic systems of developing countries. The main objective of this paper is providing suitable conceptual basis enabling us to establish an appropriate approach for technological change through technology transfer.