Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
When Federalism Works

Twenty years ago cooperative federalism, in the form of federal grant-in-aid programs administered by state and local governments, was applauded almost without reservation as the best means of helping the handicapped, the educationally disadvantaged, the poor, and other groups with special needs. More recently these same programs have been criticized for excessive regulations and red tape, bureaucratic ineptitude, and high cost. The criticisms have been used to justify efforts to curb federal domestic spending and terminate many grants-in-aid.In "When Federalism Works," Paul E. Peterson, Barry G. Rabe, and Kenneth K. Wong examine the new conventional wisdom about federal grants. Through documentary research and hundreds of interviews with local, state, and federal administrators and elected officials, they consider the implementation and operation of federal programs for education, health care, and housing in four urban areas to learn which programs worked, when, and why. Why did rent subsidy programs encounter seemingly endless difficulties, while special education was a notable success? Why did compensatory education fare better in Milwaukee than in Baltimore? Among the factors the authors find significant are the extent to which a program is directed toward groups in need, the political and economic circumstances of the area in which it is implemented, and the degree of professionalism among those who administer it at all levels of government. "When Federalism Works" provides a solid introduction to the most important grant-in-aid programs of the past twenty years and a thoughtful assessment of where they might be going.
O Pós-estruturalismo e os Estudos Críticos de Gestã o: da Busca pela Emancipação à Constituição do Sujeito Post-structuralism and Critical Management Studies: the Desire for Emancipation and the Constitution of the Subject

Abstract Critical Management Studies have distinct epistemological bases. However, is there something in common that could the study field status? Some authors suggest that the quest for emancipation is be a common feature in currents of thought that are part of the Critical Management Studies. Thus, this article questions whether emancipation is really a characteristic feature of the poststructuralist movement, focusing mainly on the possible differences between post-structuralism and Critical Theory as regards this topic, as well as analyzing possible distinctions between poststructuralist authors related to subjectivity and emancipation. Therefore, we performed a bibliographical research of studies that discuss the main characteristics of Critical Management Studies. Post-structuralism clearly attempts to break with the subject’s agency vs. structure dichotomy; where a completely autonomous subject (individual subject) is at one pole, and another socially determined subject determined (collective subject) is at the other. Emancipation seems to be not merely a common feature in Critical Studies, but also a nodal point. In this sense, emancipations only exist in the plural, because there are conceptual differences between and within the approaches to Critical Management Studies which have direct implications on the concepts of universality, subjectivity and emancipation, as well as on their forms of political action. Key words : emancipation; post-structuralism; subject; critical management studies.
Real-time task scheduling for multi-agent control system of UAV's group based on network-centric technology

The multi-agent approach and technology for distributed scheduling, coordination and control of several UAV in group in order to perform joint tasks in real time was considered. The network-centric multi-agent system for real-time task scheduling for UAV's group was proposed. Two part of sheduling initial scheduling and dynamic rescheduling (task redistributed) were considered. For real-time task redistributed the randomized local voting protocol was used. The architecture of system consists of three basic subsystem. The approach to the organization of subsystems and agents within each subsystem interaction was described).
Stochastic firefly for image optimization

With the rapid growth of technology the machines has to realize the information by adapting to the internal information. Due to potential growth of multimedia hardware and applications, the information retrieval has been analyzed by content based image retrieval (CBIR). Feature extraction has been done with the Euclidean distance estimation between the pixels; relevance feedback (RF) based approach but all concerns with the extraction of image accuracy. This research work has a focused approach to increase the performance by optimizing image feature by adopting with the firefly algorithm (FA). The experimental results compared with the other optimization algorithms like particle swarm optimization and genetic algorithm to identify the difference with respect to the model in terms of precision and recall.
Compromised concentrations of ascorbate in fluid lining the respiratory tract in human subjects after exposure to ozone.

OBJECTIVES: Ozone (O3) imposes an oxidative burden on the lung in two ways. Firstly, directly as a consequence of its oxidising character during exposure, and secondly, indirectly by engendering inflammation. In this study the second pathway was considered by ascertaining the impact of O3 on the redox state of the fluid lining the respiratory tract 6 hours after challenge. METHODS: Nine subjects were exposed in a double blind crossover control trial to air and 200 ppb O3 for 2 hours with an intermittent exercise and rest protocol. Blood samples were obtained and lung function (forced vital capacity (FVC), forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1)) assessed before, immediately after, and 6 hours after exposure. Bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) was performed 6 hours after challenge. Inflammation was assessed in BAL fluid (total and differential cell counts, plus myeloperoxidase concentrations), and plasma and BAL fluid redox state were determined by measuring concentrations of antioxidants and markers of oxidative damage. RESULTS: Neutrophil numbers in BAL fluid increased 2.2-fold (p = 0.07) 6 hours after exposure and this was accompanied by increased myeloperoxidase concentrations in BAL fluid (p = 0.08). On the other hand, BAL fluid macrophage and lymphocyte numbers decreased 2.5-fold (p = 0.08) and 3.1-fold (p = 0.08), respectively at this time. Of the antioxidants examined, only ascorbate in BAL fluid was affected by O3, falling in all subjects relative to air values (0.1 (0.0-0.3) v 0.3 (0.2-1.2) mumol/l (p = 0.008)). A marginal decrease in plasma ascorbate was also detected at this time (p < 0.05). Although the decrease in macrophage numbers seemed to be causally related to the increase in neutrophils (R = -0.79), myeloperoxidase concentrations (R = -0.93) and ascorbate concentrations (R = 0.6), no clear associations were apparent between ascorbate changes and neutrophils or myeloperoxidase concentration after O3. CONCLUSIONS: Ascorbate in the fluid lining the respiratory tract is depleted as a consequence of O3 exposure at 6 hours after exposure. This was contemporaneous with, although not quantitatively related to the increase in neutrophil numbers and myeloperoxidase concentrations. Decreased macrophage numbers 6 hours after O3 related to the degree of neutrophilic inflammation with populations conserved where ascorbate concentration in the fluid lining the respiratory tract were high after exposure. These results imply that ascorbate has a critical protective role against inflammatory oxidative stress induced by O3.
Inter-country knowledge flows in virtualization technologies: Patent citation network

Recently, virtualization has come into the spotlight as a fundamental enabler of cloud computing. This paper examines characteristics of knowledge diffusion among countries in the virtualization technology to understand the exploration and extension of the virtualization technology. In this paper, patents and their citations are utilized as proxies to measure the transfer of knowledge.
Impact of Valve Prosthesis-Patient Mismatch on Short-Term Mortality After Aortic Valve Replacement

Background—The prosthesis used for aortic valve replacement (AVR) can be too small in relation to body size, thus causing valve prosthesis-patient mismatch (PPM) and abnormally high transvalvular pressure gradients. This study examined if there is a relation between PPM and short-term mortality after operation. Methods and Results—The indexed valve effective orifice area (EOA) was estimated for each type and size of prosthesis being implanted in 1266 consecutive patients and used to define PPM as not clinically significant if >0.85 cm2/m2, as moderate if >0.65 cm2/m2 and ≤0.85 cm2/m2, and as severe if ≤0.65 cm2/m2; it was correlated with 30-day mortality and compared with other relevant variables. Moderate or severe PPM was present in 38% of patients. Thirty-day mortality was 4.6% (58/1266 patients) and the strongest independent predictors in multivariate analysis were left ventricular ejection fraction <40% (P =0.007), infectious endocarditis (P =0.002), emergent/salvage operation (P =0.002), cardiopulmonary bypass time >120 minutes (P =0.001), and PPM (P =0.003). Relative risk of mortality was increased 2.1-fold (95% confidence interval, 1.2 to 3.7) in patients with moderate PPM and 11.4-fold (4.4 to 29.5) in those with severe PPM. Moreover, risk of mortality for every category of PPM was higher in patients with a left ventricular ejection fraction <40% as compared with ≥40% (nonsignificant PPM, 2.7 versus 1.0; moderate PPM, 7.1 versus 1.8; severe PPM, 77.1 versus 11.3). Conclusion—PPM is a strong and independent predictor of short-term mortality among patients undergoing AVR, and its impact is related both to its degree of severity and the status of left ventricular function. In contrast to other risk factors, moderate-severe PPM can be largely avoided with the use of a prospective strategy at the time of operation.
On the Robustness of a New Boundary-Based Corner Detection Algorithm

Corners play an important role in computer vision, such as curve fitting, optical inspection, image segmentation, object recognition, etc. In our previous work, we proposed a new boundary-based corner detection algorithm. In this paper, we will compare it with other methods by conducting a rigorous experiment to evaluate the performances of both the curvature measurement and the optimization procedure. The experimental results are rather promising, they show that our new algorithm outperforms other algorithms.
Acetylcholine-induced current in perfused rat myoballs

Spherical "myoballs" were grown under tissue culture conditions from striated muscle of neonatal rat thighs. The myoballs were examined electrophysiologically with a suction pipette which was used to pass current and perfuse internally. A microelectrode was used to record membrane potential. Experiments were performed with approximately symmetrical (intracellular and extracellular) sodium aspartate solutions. The resting potential, acetylcholine (ACh) reversal potential, and sodium channel reversal potential were all approximately 0 mV. ACh-induced currents were examined by use of both voltage jumps and voltage ramps in the presence of iontophoretically applied agonist. The voltage-jump relaxations had a single exponential time-course. The time constant, tau, was exponentially related to membrane potential, increasing e-fold for 81 mV hyperpolarization. The equilibrium current- voltage relationship was also approximately exponential, from -120 to +81 mV, increasing e-fold for 104 mV hyperpolarization. The data are consistent with a first-order gating process in which the channel opening rate constant is slightly voltage dependent. The instantaneous current-voltage relationship was sublinear in the hyperpolarizing direction. Several models are discussed which can account for the nonlinearity. Evidence is presented that the "selectivity filter" for the ACh channel is located near the intracellular membrane surface.
Implementing touchme paradigm with a mobile phone

In earlier papers, the concept of Physical Browsing has been suggested as a natural way to improve the usability of mobile devices and to enable interaction with digital services associated with real world objects in the environment. Since mobile phones are very widely used, it offers a good platform for pervasive applications. In this paper, we realize the Physical Browsing concept using an RFID-reader. With the reader attached to the mobile phone, we invoke digital services embedded in the environment. The implementation of the software needed for ubiquitous use of physical browsing is presented and the feasibility is demonstrated with four concrete examples.
Imperfect Credibility and Inflation Persistence

In this paper, we formulate a dynamic general equilibrium model with staggered nominal contracts, in which households and firms use optimal filtering to disentangle persistent and transitory shifts in the monetary policy rule. The calibrated model accounts quite well for the dynamics of output and inflation during the Volcker disinflation, and implies a sacrifice ratio very close to the estimated value. Our approach indicates that inflation persistence and substantial costs of disinflation can be generated in an optimizing-agent framework, without relaxing the assumption of rational expectations or relying on arbitrary modifications to the aggregate supply relation.
Performance of Distributed Estimation Over Unknown Parallel Fading Channels

We consider distributed estimation of a source in additive Gaussian noise, observed by sensors that are connected to a fusion center with unknown orthogonal (parallel) flat Rayleigh fading channels. We adopt a two-phase approach of i) channel estimation with training and ii) source estimation given the channel estimates and transmitted sensor observations, where the total power is fixed. In the second phase we consider both an equal power scheduling among sensors and an optimized choice of powers. We also optimize the percentage of total power that should be allotted for training. We prove that 50% training is optimal for equal power scheduling and at least 50% is needed for optimized power scheduling. For both equal and optimized cases, a power penalty of at least 6 dB is incurred compared to the perfect channel case to get the same mean squared error performance for the source estimator. However, the diversity order is shown to be unchanged in the presence of channel estimation error. In addition, we show that, unlike the perfect channel case, increasing the number of sensors will lead to an eventual degradation in performance. We approximate the optimum number of sensors as a function of the total power and noise statistics. Simulations corroborate our analytical findings.
A stable, robust and high order accurate numerical method for Eulerian simulation of spray and particle transport on unstructured meshes

The general framework of the present contribution is the numerical simulation of physical phenomena where a discrete cloud of dense inclusions, liquid or solid, also called the dispersed phase, is transported within a continuous fluid phase. The large range of applications includes domains of multiphase combustion and alumina particles in rocket engines, as well as pollutant particle dispersion or cosmology. This paper addresses the dynamics of the discrete particle phase. A common and widespread way of modeling this phase is to describe it at the level of each inclusion, considered as a point particle: the microscopic level. Each particle interacts with its local surrounding, and its state is then simply governed by a set of ordinary differential equations. This method, referred to as Lagrangian Discrete Particle Simulation, has quickly gained in popularity for its relative simplicity. It is however no longer suitable when a large number of particles has to be tracked to reach statistical convergence, as needed in most realistic applications. Furthermore, as the particle phase can become highly inho-mogeneous, overcoming this issue by means of parallelization is complicated because of load balancing (Garcia 2009). These drawbacks of the Lagrangian method explain why we are interested here in a mesoscopic approach, referred to as Eulerian. The particle distribution is represented by a Number Density Function (NDF), whose values depend on different parameters: space-time position, droplet size, velocity and temperature. The NDF variations are then governed by an evolutionary PDE in the parameter space, also called the phase space, which is known as the Williams-Boltzmann equation (Williams 1958). Because the phase space is high-dimensional, the direct resolution of the Williams-Boltzmann is hardly considered, and Eulerian methods instead solve for a finite set of moments, which are integrated quantities over the phase space. Because some information is lost during this last process, a closure model has to be given in order to compensate for the unknown information about higher order moments. To deal with the complex dynamics of particles in turbulent flows, several closures have been proposed in the literature (see Vié et al. 2012 and references therein). The main point is that, if the Stokes number based on the Kolmogorov time scale is close to one, high segregation effects occur, leading to the formation of depletion zones and stiff accumulations regions. Such effects can be reproduced using a monokinetic closure (Laurent & Massot 2001; de Chaisemartin 2009; Fréret et al. …
Rapid Visualization of Geological Concepts

We describe a sketch-based system for constructing an illustrative visualization of the subsurface. An intuitive and rapid modelling tool is defined, which takes as input user's strokes and creates a 3D layer-cake model of the earth. Our tool enables users to quickly express and communicate their ideas directly using a 3D model. For sketching, we have created geometric operators that capture the domain specific modelling requirements. We have devised sketching operators for expressing folding and faulting processes. This makes it possible to produce a large span of scenarios. Moreover, for communicating layer properties such as rock type and grain size, our system allows for associating user defined texture to each layer which can be deformed with a few sketch strokes.
Non-minimal WuYang monopole

We discuss new exact spherically symmetric static solutions to non-minimally extended Einstein-Yang-Mills equations. The obtained solution to the Yang-Mills subsystem is interpreted as a non-minimal Wu-Yang monopole solution. We focus on the analysis of two classes of the exact solutions to the gravitational field equations. Solutions of the first class belong to the Reissner-Nordström type, i.e., they are characterized by horizons and by the singularity at the point of origin. The solutions of the second class are regular ones. The horizons and singularities of a new type, the non-minimal ones, are indicated.
An Efficient Modified Fuzzy Possibilistic C-Means Algorithm for MRI Brain Image Segmentation

1106 | P a g e Abstract--Image processing plays an important role in medical field because of its capability. Particularly, image segmentation offer several guides in medical field for analyzing the captured image. Usually, the medical images are captured via different medical image acquisition techniques. The captured image may be affected by noise because of some faults in the capturing devise; this will leads to false diagnosis. This paper focuses on enhancing the captured brain image by using image segmentation technique. Usually, brain image is captured using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) technique. The captured brain image will have high amount of noise or distortion, this noise must be removed before it is used for diagnosis purpose. Brain segmentation is widely applied for removing those noises to produce the clear image. The segmentation can be achieved with the help of clustering techniques. The widely used clustering technique for brain image segmentation technique is Fuzzy C-Means (FCM) clustering. But FCM will result in poor segmentation when more edge regions are involved. To overcome this problem, Fuzzy Possibilistic C-Means Algorithm (FPCM) is introduces. Even FPCM will result in poor segmentation when more noise are involved. To overcome all these problems, a Modified Fuzzy Possibilistic C-Means Algorithm (MFPCM) is proposed in this paper. The experimental result show that the segmentation resulted for the proposed technique is better when compared to the existing methods. Keywords--Brain Image Segmentation, Fuzzy C-Means, Fuzzy Possibilistic C-Means, Modified Fuzzy Possibilistic CMeans
The Rift between Science and Humanism

The greatest division in our field between a more scientific anthropology and a humanistic one lies largely along theoretical lines. However, the debate over the use and value of etic data, observer-oriented objective data measured from the outside for explanation, and emic data, actor-oriented subjective data from the inside for interpretation, has also been vehement. Here, a case study comparing violence among the Ju/’hoansi (! Kung) Bushmen of the Kalahari and Enga of Papua New Guinea is used to show (1) how cultural institutions structure aggression and violence, for better or for worse, and (2) how the complementary use of data from the inside and outside is essential for understanding cultural institutions and their effect on cognition, motives, emotions, and corresponding actions and social selection pressures. A challenge for anthropology will be to work out how to collect and apply data from the inside so that it can be used systematically to help interpret and contextualize data collected by external observers. Such efforts will require understanding of how knowledge is generated, distributed, exchanged, and controlled.
Augmentation of Voluntary Locomotor Activity by Transcutaneous Spinal Cord Stimulation in Motor-Incomplete Spinal Cord-Injured Individuals.

The level of sustainable excitability within lumbar spinal cord circuitries is one of the factors determining the functional outcome of locomotor therapy after motor-incomplete spinal cord injury. Here, we present initial data using noninvasive transcutaneous lumbar spinal cord stimulation (tSCS) to modulate this central state of excitability during voluntary treadmill stepping in three motor-incomplete spinal cord-injured individuals. Stimulation was applied at 30 Hz with an intensity that generated tingling sensations in the lower limb dermatomes, yet without producing muscle reflex activity. This stimulation changed muscle activation, gait kinematics, and the amount of manual assistance required from the therapists to maintain stepping with some interindividual differences. The effect on motor outputs during treadmill-stepping was essentially augmentative and step-phase dependent despite the invariant tonic stimulation. The most consistent modification was found in the gait kinematics, with the hip flexion during swing increased by 11.3° ± 5.6° across all subjects. This preliminary work suggests that tSCS provides for a background increase in activation of the lumbar spinal locomotor circuitry that has partially lost its descending drive. Voluntary inputs and step-related feedback build upon the stimulation-induced increased state of excitability in the generation of locomotor activity. Thus, tSCS essentially works as an electrical neuroprosthesis augmenting remaining motor control.