Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Phase noise improvement and noise modeling of type-I ADPLL with non-linear quantization effects

This paper presents a phase noise improvement method for fine tuning of type-I ADPLL by exploiting its nonlinear quantization effects. When quantization step approaches the same orders of magnitude of standard deviation of input noise, quantization effects become nonlinear, and additive noise modeling of quantization effects is no longer applicable. By proper offsetting the input signals in this case, the feedback loop of ADPLL can be very sensitive to frequency phase deviation. It results in a larger loop bandwidth, and in turn smaller in-band phase noise than in linear quantization case. A theoretic s-domain noise model is proposed to quantify the phase noise in nonlinear case. Results are verified in Modelsim simulations. Proposed method offers possibility of achieving lower phase noise by lower quantization resolution and less circuit design efforts.
Reversed circadian rhythm of blood pressure in adult spontaneously hypertensive rats

The diurnal rhythms of blood pressure and heart rate were examined in spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) and Wistar—Kyoto rats (WKY) when they were 5–6 weeks old (young). 17–20 weeks old (adult) and 30–32 weeks old (old). Blood pressure was recorded continuously for 24 h in conscious, unrestrained rats. Hourly averages of blood pressure and heart rate were calculated by an on-line computer. The circadian variation of blood pressure and heart rate remained unchanged regardless of age in WKY, but the difference in blood pressure between the daytime average and the night-time average decreased as they grew older. A well-defined circadian variation of blood pressure and heart rate was observed in young rats of both strains, i.e. a nocturnal rise in blood pressure and heart rate. An inverted circadian variation of blood pressure, a nocturnal fall in blood pressure, was observed in adult and old SHR, whereas the ordinary circadian variation of the heart rate remained unchanged. A significant positive correlation was observed between the hourly averages of blood pressure and heart rate in WKY in all the age groups (r = 0.9, P < 0.001 in each age group) and a weak positive correlation was observed in young SHR (r = 0.6, P < 0.05, 5–6 weeks old). This positive correlation disappeared in adult and old SHR and, instead, a negative correlation was observed (r = −0.5, P < 0.02 for 17–20-week-old rats: r = −0.8, P < 0.001 for 30–32-week-old rats). These results suggest an impairment in the cardiovascular regulatory mechanism for the development and maintenance of circadian rhythm of blood pressure in SHR. The impairment may be linked with the development of hypertension in this strain.
Randomized Signature Sort: Implementation and Performance Analysis

Recently the lower bound for integer sorting has considerably improved and achieved with comparison sorting to [1] for a deterministic algorithms or to for a radix sort algorithm in space that depends only on the number of input integers. Andersson et al. [2] presented signature sort in the expected linear time and space which gives very bad performance than randomized quick sort. We earlier presented in [14] that performance of signature sort can be enhanced using hashing and bitwise operators. This paper gives the implementation of that idea and later we have compared the performance of algorithm with existing randomized signature sort and randomized quick Sort. General Terms Algorithms, Complexity.
Spiking Neural P Systems for Arithmetic Operations

Recently, Guti´errez-Naranjo and Leporati considered performing basic arithmetic operations on a new class of bioinspired computing devices -- spiking neural P systems (for short, SN P systems). However, the binary encoding mechanism used in their research looks like the encoding approach in electronic circuits, instead of the style of spiking neurons (in usual SN P systems, information are encoded as the time interval between spikes). In this work, three SN P systems are constructed as adder, subtracter and multiplier, respectively. In these devices, a number is inputted to the system as the interval of time elapsed between two spikes received by input neuron, the result of a computation is the time between the moments when the output neuron spikes.
Assessment of Activities in Patients with Hand Injury: A Review of Instruments in Use

Physical impairments are not necessarily coupled with functional limitations. For this reason, it is important to assess not only body functions and structures, but also activities and/or participation to decide which intervention is indicated and to evaluate the effect of the intervention in a valid way. The purpose of this review was to examine available instruments for assessing the limitations in activity and their application within the clinical reasoning process in patients with hand injuries. A literature search identified instruments that met four selection criteria: quality of information, target population, percentage items related to hand function, and a focus on activities. The selected instruments were categorised according to three items: the specific components, the aspects of activity that could be assessed with it and how activity was assessed (questionnaire or otherwise). Seventy two instruments were identified, of which 23 met the selection criteria. These selected instruments showed important differences in the constructs they assessed and in the manner of assessment. Instruments to assess limitations of activity as a result of hand injury should be evaluated further in terms of reliability and validity, before their use within the clinical reasoning process can be standardised.
Perception and production in child phonology: the testing of four hypotheses

ABSTRACT Perception and production data were collected from 28 children, ages 1; 8 to 3; 11, to test four specific hypotheses on the acquisition of initial fricatives and glides in English, based on the assumptions that perception precedes production and unmarked precedes marked. Perception data were collected by the Shvachkin-Garnica technique for ‘phonemic perception’. Pairs of objects are given nonsense names, CVCs differing only in the initial sound; the child is asked to perform certain actions with the named objects and if he is correct on 7 out of 10 trials he is assumed to have demonstrated phonemic perception of the opposition in question. Production data were compared to the perception data. Results only partially confirm the hypotheses and indicate that (a) children as late as age 3; 0 do not have complete phonemic perception, (b) phonemic perception develops gradually, generally in advance of production, and (c) the order of acquisition shows trends toward uniformity but is not universal.
An enlightened use of educational monitoring for Greece

Purpose – This paper aims to discuss the issues surrounding educational monitoring systems.Design/methodology/approach – This paper is a general review of the situation in Greece.Findings – This paper suggests that a superior educational monitoring system aiming to alleviate educational and social inequalities as well as discrepancies between schools and/or between classrooms would rely on both attainment and progress criteria, as these criteria operate differently and allow to bring into the fore different aspects of problems/educational inadequacies.Originality/value – The benefits and pitfalls associated with the employment of different criteria for educational monitoring are discussed, so that a new monitoring system can be suggested for the Greek setting of public primary and secondary schools.
Gray matter atrophy distinguishes between Parkinson disease motor subtypes

Objective: To assess differences in gray matter (GM) atrophy between 2 Parkinson disease (PD) subtypes: the tremor dominant (TD) subtype and the postural instability gait difficulty (PIGD) subtype. Methods: Patients were classified as belonging to the predominately PIGD (n = 30) or predominately TD (n = 29) subtype. Voxel-based morphometry was used to compare GM in these 2 subtypes and to evaluate correlations between predefined regions of interest and the degree of symptoms. In the regions where GM atrophy was associated with symptoms, the relationship between GM volumes and functional connectivity was examined. Results: GM was reduced in the predominately PIGD group, compared with the predominately TD group, in areas that involve motor, cognitive, limbic, and associative functions (p < 0.05, false discovery rate corrected). Lower GM volumes in the pre–supplementary motor area (SMA) and in the primary motor area were associated with increased severity of PIGD symptoms (r = −0.42, p < 0.001; r = −0.38, p < 0.003, respectively). Higher GM volumes within the pre-SMA were associated with stronger functional connectivity between the pre-SMA and the putamen (r = 0.415, p < 0.025) in the patients with predominately PIGD. Conclusions: In patients with PD, PIGD symptoms are apparently associated with GM atrophy in motor-related regions and decreased functional connectivity. GM degeneration and a related decrease in spontaneous coactivation between cortical and subcortical motor-planning areas may partially account for the unique clinical characteristics of a subset of patients with PD.
Design and analysis of cooperative and non cooperative stigmergy-based models for foraging

Swarm robotics is focused on implementation of systems which are composed of multiple simple robots rather than one single complex robot The challenge is to develop a group of robots with simple perception and communication capabilities in order to complete a task in a collective and distributed manner without central leader. In this paper, we present cooperative and non cooperative models for foraging that exploit stigmergy in the context of the classical Army Ant Raid model. Such models use the Stigmergic Multi-Ant Search Area (S-MASA) algorithm that produces a gradual search around the nest which provides less time for locating closest food and provides close-to-optimal paths using only the pheromone concentration. The proposed models have been evaluated under simulation with respect to models based on the reference c-marking algorithm. The obtained results show that the proposed models, specifically the cooperative one outperforms the c-marking based models both in obstacle-free and obstacle environments.
Potential drivers of virulence evolution in aquaculture

Infectious diseases are economically detrimental to aquaculture, and with continued expansion and intensification of aquaculture, the importance of managing infectious diseases will likely increase in the future. Here, we use evolution of virulence theory, along with examples, to identify aquaculture practices that might lead to the evolution of increased pathogen virulence. We identify eight practices common in aquaculture that theory predicts may favor evolution toward higher pathogen virulence. Four are related to intensive aquaculture operations, and four others are related specifically to infectious disease control. Our intention is to make aquaculture managers aware of these risks, such that with increased vigilance, they might be able to detect and prevent the emergence and spread of increasingly troublesome pathogen strains in the future.
The Village in a Game Park: Local Response to the Demise of Coal Mining in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Abstract Changing economic circumstances as a result of deindustrialization and market forces dramatically affect local areas and lead to a variety of local-level responses. Economic change and the reaction to this process have received much attention in the context of the decline of old heavy industrial regions in Western Europe and North America. But deindustrialization is also occurring elsewhere, for example, in countries such as South Africa, where the decline of mining and related industries is having a severe impact on the livelihoods of individuals, households, and communities. Considerations of institutional thickness, resourcefulness, and capacities inherent within host communities contribute to an understanding of the likely potential of the development response undertaken. This article considers the situation in a once important coal-mining region in northern KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, focusing particularly on the community of Utrecht. In the postapartheid period, unemployment in the area has escalated, at a time when greater empowerment of the historically disadvantaged black population is urgently needed. Through cooperation within the community, together with the injection of external funding and collaboration in a series of joint ventures, Utrecht is progressively rebranding itself as a center for tourism. A number of community-initiated projects are discussed, and the dynamics of the formulation and implementation of the projects are evaluated in the context of the capabilities of individuals and institutions.
The Arabidopsis F-Box Protein SLEEPY1 Targets Gibberellin Signaling Repressors for Gibberellin-Induced Degradation

The nuclear DELLA proteins are highly conserved repressors of hormone gibberellin (GA) signaling in plants. In Arabidopsis thaliana, GA derepresses its signaling pathway by inducing proteolysis of the DELLA protein REPRESSOR OF ga1-3 (RGA). SLEEPY1 (SLY1) encodes an F-box–containing protein, and the loss-of-function sly1 mutant has a GA-insensitive dwarf phenotype and accumulates a high level of RGA. These findings suggested that SLY1 recruits RGA to the SCFSLY1 E3 ligase complex for ubiquitination and subsequent degradation by the 26S proteasome. In this report, we provide new insight into the molecular mechanism of how SLY1 interacts with the DELLA proteins for controlling GA response. By yeast two-hybrid and in vitro pull-down assays, we demonstrated that SLY1 interacts directly with RGA and GA INSENSITIVE (GAI, a closely related DELLA protein) via their C-terminal GRAS domain. The rga and gai null mutations additively suppressed the recessive sly1 mutant phenotype, further supporting the model that SCFSLY1 targets both RGA and GAI for degradation. The N-terminal DELLA domain of RGA previously was shown to be essential for GA-induced degradation. However, we found that this DELLA domain is not required for protein–protein interaction with SLY1 in yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae), suggesting that its role is in a GA-triggered conformational change of the DELLA proteins. We also identified a novel gain-of-function sly1-d mutation that increased GA signaling by reducing the levels of the DELLA protein in plants. This effect of sly1-d appears to be caused by an enhanced interaction between sly1-d and the DELLA proteins.
Separate cerebellar areas for motor control

CEREBELLAR activation was measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging, while seven normal subjects tapped their fingers paced by tone sequences with or without tone omission. The cerebellar anterior lobe (Larsell's H IV-V) ipsilateral to the movement was activated to a similar degree irrespective of the presence or absence of the tone omission. In contrast, the lateral part of the bilateral posterior lobe (H VIIa) was significantly highly activated for the tone sequence with random omission, compared with either that without omission or that with regular omission. The result suggests that the H IV-V is involved in motor execution, while the lateral part of H VIIa is involved in online motor adjustment to unpredictable sensory stimuli.
Changes in density of calcium‐binding‐protein‐immunoreactive GABAergic neurons in prefrontal cortex in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder

There is evidence that GABAergic neurotransmission is altered in mental disorders such as schizophrenia (SCZ) and bipolar disorder (BPD). The calcium‐binding proteins (CBPs) calbindin (CB), calretinin (CR), and parvalbumin (PV) are used as markers of specific subpopulations of cortical GABAergic interneurons. We examined the postmortem prefrontal cortical region (Brodmann's area 9) of patients with SCZ and BPD, and of age‐matched control subjects, excluding suicide cases. The laminar density of neurons immunoreactive (IR) for three CBPs, namely CB, CR, and PV, was quantified. The densities of CB‐IR neurons in layer 2 and PV‐IR neurons in layer 4 in the SCZ subjects decreased compared with those in the control subjects. When CBP‐IR neurons were classified according to their size, a reduction in the density of medium CB‐IR neurons in layer 2 in SCZ subjects and an increase in the density of large CR‐IR neurons in layer 2 in BPD subjects were observed. These results suggest that alterations in specific GABAergic neurons are present in mental disorders, and that such alterations may reflect the vulnerability toward the disorders.
Risk‐taking abilities for everyone? Finnish entrepreneurship education and the enterprising selves imagined by pupils

This article examines the spread of the neo‐liberal educational policy in Finnish schools by considering entrepreneurship education. We examined the kinds of gendered and classed enterprising selves that were narrated in the Finnish writing competition Good Enterprise! written by pupils in the 9th grade of comprehensive school. In their narratives of enterprising selves, the pupils constructed the middle‐class version of the self, where the person was not contingent upon external effects but an autonomous self‐governing individual. Moreover, the possible selves of boys matched the culturally valued representations of the autonomous, risk‐taking entrepreneurial individual more closely than the self‐representations of girls did. However, it was especially the boys’ narratives of modest entrepreneurship with the traditional virtues of the respectable citizen that were successful in the competition. This finding is in conflict with the educational policies of the European Union, which call for risk‐taking abilities and competition as pre‐conditions for achieving progress.
Human Pose Estimation from Depth Images via Inference Embedded Multi-task Learning

Human pose estimation (i.e., locating the body parts / joints of a person) is a fundamental problem in human-computer interaction and multimedia applications. Significant progress has been made based on the development of depth sensors, i.e., accessible human pose prediction from still depth images~\cite{rf12pami}. However, most of the existing approaches to this problem involve several components/models that are independently designed and optimized, leading to suboptimal performances. In this paper, we propose a novel inference-embedded multi-task learning framework for predicting human pose from still depth images, which is implemented with a deep architecture of neural networks. Specifically, we handle two cascaded tasks: i) generating the heat (confidence) maps of body parts via a fully convolutional network (FCN); ii) seeking the optimal configuration of body parts based on the detected body part proposals via an inference built-in MatchNet~\cite{mn15cvpr}, which measures the appearance and geometric kinematic compatibility of body parts and embodies the dynamic programming inference as an extra network layer. These two tasks are jointly optimized. Our extensive experiments show that the proposed deep model significantly improves the accuracy of human pose estimation over other several state-of-the-art methods or SDKs. We also release a large-scale dataset for comparison, which includes 100K depth images under challenging scenarios.
Deciding the Nature of the Coarse Equation through Microscopic Simulations: The Baby-Bathwater Scheme

Recent developments in multiscale computation allow the solution of coarse equations for the expected macroscopic behavior of microscopically evolving particles without ever obtaining these coarse equations in closed form. The closure is obtained on demand through appropriately initialized bursts of microscopic simulation. The effective coupling of microscopic simulators with macroscopic behavior requires certain decisions about the nature of the unavailable coarse equation. Such decisions include (a) the highest spatial derivative active in the coarse equation, (b) whether the equation satisfies certain conservation laws, or (c) whether the coarse dynamics is Hamiltonian or dissipative. These decisions affect the number and type of boundary conditions as well as the algorithms employed. In the absence of an explicit formula for the temporal derivative, we propose, implement, and validate a simple scheme for deciding these and other similar questions about the coarse equation using only the microscopic simulator. Simulations under periodic boundary conditions are carried out for appropriately chosen families of random initial conditions; evaluating the sample variance of certain statistics over the simulation ensemble allows us to infer the highest order of spatial derivatives active in the coarse equation. In the same spirit we show how to determine whether a certain coarse conservation law exists or not, and we discuss plausibility tests for the existence of a coarse Hamiltonian or integrability. We believe that such schemes constitute an important part of the equation-free approach to multiscale computation.
PSYCHOMETRIC PROPERTIES OF THE DSM SCALE FOR DEPRESSION (DSD) WITH KOREAN-AMERICAN YOUTHS

As a first step in developing a reliable and culturally sensitive instrument to assess depression in Korean-American youths, this community-based methodological study was designed to evaluate the characteristics of the DSM Scale for Depression (DSD). A total of 104 Korean Americans, 11 to 13 years, participated in this study, and the response patterns of this group were compared with Korean- ( n = 20) and Anglo- ( n = 557) American youths assessed by the Teen Life Changes Survey (TLCS). Overall, Korean-American youths showed significantly higher mental distress scores than Anglos. The DSD was found to be a culturally appropriate instrument for Korean Americans with good reliability ( f =. 92) and validity demonstrated by correlating with related constructs (loneliness, self-esteem, coping, social support, mastery, and somatic symptoms). The highest correlation coefficient was observed between depression and somatic symptoms ( r =. 61). These findings are informative for the design of further studies of mental health of Korean-American youths.
An experimental analysis of acquisition, generalisation, and maintenance of naming behaviour in a patient with anomia

This paper examines the effects of a cueing hierarchy on naming in a patient with anomic aphasia. Using a single‐subject multiple baseline design across behaviors, the patient was trained to produce single inanimate nouns while generalization was tested to semantically related nouns matched for frequency of occurrence. Results showed successful acquisition and maintenance of trained words, but no generalization to untrained words. These data indicate that generalization does not occur as a natural by‐product of successful treatment and suggest, as pointed out by Baer, Wolf, and Risley (1968), that “generalization should be programmed rather than expected or lamented”. Original paper published as: Thompson, C. K. , & Kearns, K. P. (1981). An experimental analysis of acquisition, generalization, and maintenance of naming behavior in a patient with anomia. In R. Brookshire (Ed.), Clinical Aphasiology Conference Proceedings (pp. 35–45). Minneapolis: BRK.
Renormalizable Lagrangians for Massive Yang-mills Fields

Renormalizable models are constructed in which local gauge invariance is broken spontaneously. Feynman rules and Ward identities can be found by means of a path integral method, and they can be checked by algebra. In one of these models, which is Studied in more detail, local SU(2) is broken in such a way that local U(1) remains as a symmetry. A renormalizable and unitary theory results, with photons, charged massive vector particles, and additional neutral scalar particles. It has three independent parameters. Another model has local SU(2) (~U(1) as a symmetry and may serve as a renormali-zable theory for p-mesons and photons. In such models electromagnetic mass-differences are finite and can be calculated in perturbation theory.