Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Coupling-Complexity Metric Suite for Predicting Software Quality

Coupling Between Objects and Cyclomatic Complexity have long been used to measure software quality and predict maintainability and reliability of software systems prior to release. In particular, Coupling Between Objects has been shown to correlate with fault-proneness and maintainability of a system at the class level. We propose a new set of metrics based on a fusion of Coupling Between Objects and Cyclomatic Complexity that can be superior to Coupling Between Objects alone at predicting class quality. The new metrics use Cyclomatic Complexity to 1) augment Coupling Between Objects counting to assign a strength of a coupling between two classes and 2) determine the complexity of a method invocation chain through the transitive relation of invocations involved in a coupling. This results in a measure that identifies objects that are coupled to highly complex methods or method invocation chains. The metrics were implemented as an Eclipse Plug­ in and an analysis of two industry Java projects, ConnectorJ and Hibernate, demonstrates the correlation between the new metrics and post-release defects identified in system change logs.
The travel writer in disguise: Ali Bey and the construction of a national Hispano-Arabic discourse (1800 – present)

ABSTRACT Between 1803 and 1818, the Catalan entrepreneur Domingo Badía y Leblich (1767–1818) toured North Africa and the Middle East disguised as a certain ‘Ali Bey’, an Abbasid prince from Aleppo whose alibi for his faulty Arabic was his long-term residence in Europe. Billed as a scientific exploration, Ali Bey's journey was commissioned by Carlos IV's Prime Minister, Manuel Godoy, who viewed Badía as an agent of Spanish colonialism. The memoirs in which Badía recounts the details of his journey, plagued by elements of ambiguity and hyperbole, have sparked interest at telling historical junctures while vexing those who seek clear, unassailable meanings. The scientific merits of Badía's account notwithstanding, the lure of his text over the past 150 years, from Ramón Mesonero Romanos, Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, Joaquín Costas and Benito Pérez Galdós in the nineteenth and early twentieth century to (more recently) Juan Goytisolo, among others, derives less from the political realities of Badía's day and more from the discursive construction of Ali Bey as a tool for reflecting on Hispano-Arabic political relations and on the Hispano-Arabic foundations of Spanish national identity.
Astrocyte-Specific Genes Are Generally Demethylated in Neural Precursor Cells Prior to Astrocytic Differentiation

Epigenetic changes are thought to lead to alterations in the property of cells, such as differentiation potential. Neural precursor cells (NPCs) differentiate only into neurons in the midgestational brain, yet they become able to generate astrocytes in the late stage of development. This differentiation-potential switch could be explained by epigenetic changes, since the promoters of astrocyte-specific marker genes, glial fibrillary acidic protein (Gfap) and S100β, have been shown to become demethylated in late-stage NPCs prior to the onset of astrocyte differentiation; however, whether demethylation occurs generally in other astrocyctic genes remains unknown. Here we analyzed DNA methylation changes in mouse NPCs between the mid-(E11.5) and late (E14.5) stage of development by a genome-wide DNA methylation profiling method using microarrays and found that many astrocytic genes are demethylated in late-stage NPCs, enabling the cell to become competent to express these genes. Although these genes are already demethylated in late-stage NPCs, they are not expressed until cells differentiate into astrocytes. Thus, late-stage NPCs have epigenetic potential which can be realized in their expression after astrocyte differentiation.
Magdalena Schwager Optimizing the future : imperatives between form and function

The aim of this paper is to get rid of a nasty ambiguity between commands and permissions associated with imperatives (necessity/constraining of options vs. possibility/widening of options). I argue that a uniform semantics in terms of necessity together with certain assumptions about the context can account for the different effects on the pragmatic side. The difference is explained by employing either a speaker or a hearer centered ordering source, together with basic assumptions about speaker and hearer interests. if you like-phrases frequently found in permission imperatives are analysed as indicating a hearer centered ordering source and filtering out one of the presuppositions required for a permission usage. It is argued that any in imperatives constitutes only an apparent contradiction to a necessity semantics for imperatives. 1 The Janus face of imperatives Studies in various areas of linguistics have noticed that across the languages of the world imperatives come with a puzzling range of illocutionary potential (cf. Palmer 1986, Merin 1991, Rosengren 1992). Not only do they vary in expressing commands (the default interpretation for (1a)), warnings, wishes, requests, but they are also found to express permissions (1b) and permission-like concessives (1c):
Design of an Optimum Channel Utilisation Multiaccess Protocol for Packet Radio Networks

Design and throughput performance of an Optimum Channel Utilisation Multiaccess (OCUM) protocol applicable to Packet Radio Networks (PRN) is presented in this paper. The OCUM protocol utilizes a slotted message channel for data transmission and a busytone channel for sensing and acknowledgement functions. The messages constitute multiple data packets where each packet length is equal to one slot size. The OCUM protocol design results in effective utilisation of the message channel by achieving minimum channel idle rate and collision rate. The throughput performance of the protocol has been analyzed for a finite population model with Bernoulli arrivals at cach node, geometric distribution of message lengths (measured in number of packets) and with no buffer assumption. Both the analytical and simulation results show that the protocol enjoys better throughput characteristics at high values of average message lengths making it ideally suited for file transfer type applications.
Genes and Social Behavior

What genes and regulatory sequences contribute to the organization and functioning of neural circuits and molecular pathways in the brain that support social behavior? How does social experience interact with information in the genome to modulate brain activity? Here, we address these questions by highlighting progress that has been made in identifying and understanding two key “vectors of influence” that link genes, the brain, and social behavior: (i) Social information alters gene expression in the brain to influence behavior, and (ii) genetic variation influences brain function and social behavior. We also discuss how evolutionary changes in genomic elements influence social behavior and outline prospects for a systems biology of social behavior.
Node-Link and Containment Methods in Ontology Visualization

A method and apparatus for correcting ghost artifacts that are related to orthogonal perturbation magnetic fields is disclosed. The technique includes acquiring MR data and an MR reference scan, each in the presence of orthogonal perturbation magnetic fields. However, the region of interest for the MR reference scan is limited to a relatively narrow band within the imaging subject. Preferably, the narrow band is selected in the vicinity of the magnet iso-center and parallel to the readout direction. Alternatively, the narrow band can also be selected in the limited region where the orthogonal perturbation fields are either minimal or constant along the phase encoding direction, and parallel to the readout direction. The selection of the relatively narrow band is accomplished by either spatially saturating surrounding regions, or using a two-dimensional spatially selective RF pulse. Phase correction values can then be calculated from a more accurately defined slope and intercept of the phase of the MR reference scan and used to correct the MR data. A reconstructed MR image using this technique has reduced ghost artifacts otherwise caused by the adverse effects of the orthogonal perturbation fields in the phase correction process.
The Relationship Between Levels of Stress and Academic Performance Among University of Nairobi Students

The study investigated the relationship between stress and academic performance among government-sponsored undergraduate students from the University of Nairobi in Kenya. The mediating roles of the students’ age, gender, locus of control, level and course of study in the relationship between stress and academic performance were also examined. The sample consisted of 319 male and 265 female students selected using stratified random sampling techniques, from all the six colleges of the university. The study was carried using a cross-sectional survey design involving levels one to five of the academic programs. Data was collected using questionnaires that measured stress and locus of control. Academic performance was assessed from the students’ academic transcripts. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used for data analyses. Two-way and three-way chi- square statistics were used to test the statistical significance of the hypothesis. The analyses were done using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) computer program. Regression analysis was conducted to find out how the confounding variables contributed to the relationship between stress and academic performance. Results showed that most of the students (64.4%) reported that they experienced between moderate to high levels of stress while just over a third (35.6%) reported low stress levels. The relationship between stress and academic performance was statistically significant (χ2=9.49, N=584, df=4, p=0.048). The relationship between stress level and academic performance was significant within 19 to 22 years, 23 to 26 years, males, females, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, College of Agriculture and Veterinary Sciences, levels one and four of study, internal locus of control, and external locus of control. Regression analysis showed that the higher the stress level, the poorer is the academic performance. However, only course/college appears to have statistically significant effect on the relationship between stress and academic performance. The cofounding effect on the stress and academic performance is complex and needs further investigation. The findings indicate the need for relevant authorities to institute programs that will lower the experience and effects of stress among university students. Further research is recommended to investigate the areas where the results were not significant.
Load balancing and stability issues in algorithms for service composition

Service composition enables flexible creation of new services by assembling independent service components. We are focused on the scenario where such composition takes place across the wide-area Internet. We envision independent providers deploying and managing service instances and portal providers composing them to quickly enable new applications in next-generation networks. One of the important goals in such service composition is load balancing across service instances. While load balancing has been studied extensively for web-server selection, the presence of composition presents new challenges. First, each client session involving composition requires a set of service instances and not just one server. Second, unlike web-mirror selection, we also concern ourselves with load balancing in the presence of failure recovery during a client session. We introduce (a) a metric to choose the set of service instances for composed client sessions: the least-inverse-available-capacity (LIAC) metric, as well as (b) a piggybacking mechanism to give quick feedback about server load. We then introduce an additional factor in the load balancing metric to avoid choosing far away service instances. Our experiments, based on an emulation testbed, show that our load balancing mechanism works well under a variety of scenarios including network path failures.
Qualitative study on the experiences of married couples

ABSTRACT This phenomenological study explored the subjective marital experiences of Trinidadian couples married for more than twenty years. The purpose of this study is to understand the phenomenon of satisfying, enduring marriages. The data was collected using semi-structured, conversational interviews that were digitally recorded and later transcribed verbatim. The couples were interviewed together by the researcher within their respective homes. The factors they highlighted that contributed to their satisfying, enduring marriages included friendship, commitment, religion, forgiveness, communication, children, role sharing, acceptance, and contentment. The data were analyzed using a phenomenological approach. Five major themes emerged from the couples’ descriptions of their marriages: “Attitude”, “Action”, “Children”, “Approach to Challenges” and “Religion”. Religion emerged as a factor/theme woven throughout their experiences. This study has implications for Policy Research Analysts at the Ministry of Gender and Child Affairs, the implementers of marriage programs and seminars, premarital education providers and counselors working with married couples.
Segmentation and Estimation of Surface from Statistical Probability of Object Features

This paper presents an approach to segment an image into areas of surfaces, and to compute the surface properties from a gray-scale image in order to describe the surfaces for reconstruction of the 3-D shape of the objects. At first edges are extracted from a gray-level image as many as possible. Next, the other characters of a surface (color, coordinates and image intensity) are extracted. These features of a surface on a pixel of an image plane are mapped to a point of the feature space, and segmented to several groups by cluster analysis on this space. Finally, the states of object surface in 3-D space are computed from distributional probability of local and overall statistical features of a surface.
Moving object detection under free-moving camera

The detection of moving objects in complex environments with various types of motion is a difficult problem because the camera motion and the object motion are mixed. This paper proposes a moving object detection algorithm that uses motion clustering and classification from only two consecutive image frames captured by a free-moving camera. The proposed moving object detection has no assumption about the camera motion and the environmental conditions. The experimental results show that the proposed moving object detection is accurate within an accuracy of 7 pixels on the average.
Appendicitis during Pregnancy: The Clinical Experience of a Secondary Hospital

Purpose Appendicitis is the most common condition leading to an intra-abdominal operation for a non-obstetric problem in pregnancy. The aim of this study was to examine our experience and to analyze the clinical characteristics and the pregnancy outcomes for appendicitis during pregnancy that was reported in Korea. Methods We reported 25 cases of appendicitis during pregnancy that were treated at Good Moonhwa Hospital from January 2004 to March 2010. We also analyzed appendicitis during pregnancy reported in Korea between 1970 and 2008 by a review of journals. Results The incidence of acute appendicitis during pregnancy was one per 568 deliveries. The mean age was 27.92 years old, the gestational stage at the onset of symptoms was the first trimester in 10 patients (40%), the second trimester in 14 patients (56%), and the third trimester in 1 patient (4%). Among the 25 cases, 21 were treated with an open appendectomy and 4 with laparoscopic appendectomies. The postoperative complications were 2 wound infections and 1 spontaneous abortion. Conclusion Our experience demonstrated that appendectomies on pregnant patients can be successfully performed at secondary hospitals.
Carbon Nanotube Electron Emitter for X-ray Imaging

The carbon nanotube field emitter array was grown on silicon substrate through a resist-assisted patterning (RAP) process. The shape of the carbon nanotube array is elliptical with 2.0 × 0.5 mm2 for an isotropic focal spot size at anode target. The field emission properties with triode electrodes show a gate turn-on field of 3 V/µm at an anode emission current of 0.1 mA. The author demonstrated the X-ray source with triode electrode structure utilizing the carbon nanotube emitter, and the transmitted X-ray image was of high resolution.
Exploiting Network Proximity in Distributed Hash Tables

Self-organizing peer-to-peer (p2p) overlay networks like CAN, Chord, Pastry and Tapestry (also called distributed hash tables or DHTs) offer a novel platform for a variety of scalable and decentralized distributed applications. These systems provide efficient and fault-tolerant routing, object location, and load balancing within a self-organizing overlay network. One important aspect of these systems is how they exploit network proximity in the underlying Internet. Three basic approaches have been proposed to exploit network proximity in DHTs, geographic layout, proximity routing and proximity neighbour selection. In this position paper, we briefly discuss the three approaches, contrast their strengths and shortcomings, and consider their applicability in the different DHT routing protocols. We conclude that proximity neighbor selection, when used in DHTs with prefixbased routing like Pastry and Tapestry, is highly effective and appears to dominate the other approaches.
Bounded rationality in a dynamic alternate game

From the standpoint of game theory, dominoes is a game that has not received much attention (specially the variety known as draw). It is usually thought that this game is already solved, given general results in game theory. However, the determination of equilibria is not feasible for the general case because of the well known problem of node explosion in the tree expressing the game. We propose a new model based in limited forecast as a kind of bounded rationality for dynamic alternate games.
Information shortening for joint source-channel coding schemes based on low-density parity-check codes

We propose a simple shortening algorithm for joint source-channel coding schemes based on low-density parity-check codes. Due to finite-length effects, such systems present high error floors when optimised for low-entropy binary symmetric sources and transmission over an AWGN channel. To mitigate such effects, we propose the reduction of the compression rate by inserting infinite reliability variable nodes which form cycles with length equal to the girth of the code used as source compressor. Simulation results show that such a strategy is able to efficiently trade a slight reduction of the compression rate for a significant performance enhancement.
Correlation of handgrip strength with quality of life in elderly patients

The quality of life of elderly people decreases with age and is adversely affected by sarcopenia (decreased muscle mass, muscle strength, and physical activity) and chronic degenerative diseases. Assessment of handgrip strength is used for screening for sarcopenia. Handgrip strength is expected to predict the quality of life of elderly people. In this study, we aimed to assess the correlation of handgrip strength (measured using Jamar dynamometer) with the quality of life (measured using the EQ-5D and EQ-5D VAS questionnaires) of elderly patients. This cross-sectional study was conducted on 123 elderly patients at the Geriatric Outpatient Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital. Findings of the Spearman test showed a significant correlation of handgrip strength with quality of life as measured using the EQ-5D questionnaire (r = 0.219; p = 0.015) and EQ-5D VAS questionnaire (r = 0.266; p = 0.003). In conclusion, a significant correlation was observed between handgrip strength and the quality of life of elderly patients.
Phospholipase A2 Mediates Apolipoprotein-Independent Uptake of Chylomicron Remnant-Like Particles by Human Macrophages

Apolipoprotein E-receptor-mediated pathways are the main routes by which macrophages take up chylomicron remnants, but uptake may also be mediated by receptor-independent routes. To investigate these mechanisms, triacylglycerol (TG) accumulation induced by apolipoprotein-free chylomicron remnant-like particles (CRLPw/o) in human monocyte-derived macrophages was evaluated. Macrophage TG content increased about 5-fold after incubation with CRLPw/o, and this effect was not reduced by the inhibition of phagocytosis, macropinocytosis, apolipoprotein E function, or proteoglycan bridging. The role of lipases, including lipoprotein lipase, cholesteryl ester hydrolase, and secretory (sPLA2) and cytosolic phospholipase A2, was studied using [3H]TG-labelled CRLPw/o. Total cell radioactivity after incubation with [3H]TG CRLPw/o was reduced by 15–30% by inhibitors of lipoprotein lipase and cholesteryl ester hydrolase and by about 45% by inhibitors of sPLA2 and cytosolic PLA2 . These results suggest that macrophage lipolytic enzymes mediate the internalization of postprandial TG-rich lipoproteins and that sPLA2 and cytosolic PLA2, play a more important role than extracellular lipoprotein lipase-mediated TG hydrolysis.
2‐cm GPS altimetry over Crater Lake

Differences in electromagnetic path delay, between direct Global Positioning System (GPS) signals and those reflected from the surface of Crater Lake, have led to lake surface height estimates with 2‐cm precision in 1 second. This is the first high‐precision altimetric demonstration with GPS from sufficient altitude (≈ 480 m) to probe fundamental experimental errors, which bear on future air‐and spaceborne passive GPS altimetry. It also serves as the first demonstration of a new approach to altimetric remote sensing in the coastal region, an area that is poorly measured by conventional radar altimetry. Time‐series analyses suggest that tropospheric and thermal noise fluctuations dominate the altimetric error in this experiment. Estimating the differential delay from several simultaneously visible satellites may enable tropospheric error estimation and correction. Thermal noise on the reflected signal will be reduced with fully polarimetric observations and larger antenna apertures.
A Process Calculus for Expressing Finite Place/Transition Petri Nets

We introduce the process calculus Multi-CCS, which extends conservatively CCS with an operator of strong prefixing able to model atomic sequences of actions as well as multiparty synchronization. Multi-CCS is equipped with a labeled transition system semantics, which makes use of a minimal structural congruence. Multi-CCS is also equipped with an unsafe P/T Petri net semantics by means of a novel technique. This is the first rich process calculus, including CCS as a subcalculus, which receives a semantics in terms of unsafe, labeled P/T nets. The main result of the paper is that a class of Multi-CCS processes, called finite-net processes, is able to represent all finite (reduced) P/T nets.
An Update on Global Tuberculosis (TB)

Tuberculosis globally results in almost 2 million human deaths annually, with 1 in 4 deaths from tuberculosis being human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS)-related. Primarily a pathogen of the respiratory system, aerobic Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC) infects the lungs via the inhalation of infected aerosol droplets generated by people with pulmonary disease through coughing. This review focuses on M. tuberculosis transmission, epidemiology, detection methods and technologies.