Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A `superoutburst' in XTE J1118+480

I propose that the properties of the two outbursts observed in the X-ray transient XTE J1118+480 in 2000 are akin to superoutbursts of SU UMa stars. In these systems a `normal' outburst immediately precedes a 5-10 times longer (`super')outburst. The optical light curve of the outbursts of XTE J1118+480 is remarkably similar to that seen in some SU UMa stars, such as UV Per and T Leo, where the precursor outburst is distinct from the superoutburst, but the time scales are a factor of ~15 different. The first outburst of XTE J1118+480 was relatively short (~1 month) while the second outburst was ~5 times longer. During the second outburst superhumps were seen, a feature characteristic for superoutbursts. The gap of about a month between the two outbursts is longer in X-rays with respect to the optical, a feature not previously recognized for X-ray transients. Also in SU UMa stars the precursor outburst becomes more distinct at shorter wavelengths. Finally, I show that the time of appearance of the superhumps in XTE J1118+480 is consistent with the expected superhump growth time, if the superhump mechanism was triggered during the first outburst. I conclude that the similarity in outburst behaviour in the two types of systems provides further support that a common mechanism is at work to start the long (`super')outbursts.
Community College Academic Leadership: Examining Effective Leadership Teams

In community colleges across the country, the division of academic affairs faces many challenges. Chief academic affairs officers (CAAOs) and academic-leadership teams need to effectively lead the division. Academic deans support the division of academic affairs, and the CAAO provides guidance and resources, and empower individuals in these roles to be effective. The purpose of this study was to identify factors associated with the formation of an effective academic-leadership team in selected Illinois community colleges. This qualitative study applied case-study methodology. Eight Illinois community colleges were selected using the Illinois Community College Board’s seven peer groups. Purposeful sampling, in conjunction with maximum variation criteria, was employed. Maximum variation criteria were based on different levels of administrative positions in Illinois community colleges, full-time student enrollment, and geographic disparity of Illinois community colleges. Surveys and face-to-face interviews were conducted to collect rich and meaningful data. The conceptual framework consisted of Hawkins’s team-coaching concept and Zachary’s mentorship theory. Adult-learning theory, developed by Knowles (1984), offered another lens through which the research was examined. Data analysis revealed that members of academic teams embrace concepts of mentorship. Factors identified influencing the success of an academic-leadership team included a shared vision by the team and CAAO, open and honest dialog among team members and the CAAO, and having an approachable CAAO. Team members felt the CAAO’s guidance of the team was enhanced by not only working with individual team members, but also by investing time and energy with the group as a unit or “the whole. ”
Industrial hard real-time traffic protocol based on switched Ethernet

This paper presents a simple and efficient switched Ethernet communication protocol for industrial hard real-time applications without modifications of the Ethernet hardware. The network is set up with nodes and switch, and establishes a channel within the nodes. Hard real-time communication management is handled by software added between the Ethernet protocols and the TCP/IP suites, and controls the traffic to bypass the TCP/IP stacks. This makes considerably speed up the traffic, and increase the achievable data frame rate.
Incorporating Semantic Knowledge for Sentiment Analysis

We report work on using knowledge of sentiment-bearing words in statistical approaches to automatic sentiment analysis and opinion mining (SA & OM). Our main contribution lies in constructing document feature vectors that are sentiment-sensitive and use word knowledge. This is achieved by incorporating sentiment-bearing words as features in document vectors, extracted with the help of SentiWordNet which is essentially the wordnet with sentiment scores attached to the synsets. Support Vector Machines (SVM) have been used to classify documents into positive and negative polarity (i.e., sentiment) classes. Experiments show that we achieve state of art performance in sentiment analysis of standard movie reviews dataset and locally created product review dataset.
Parametric optimal design of a parallel Schönflies-motion robot under pick-and-place trajectory constraints

This paper deals with the parametric optimum design of a parallel Schönflies-motion robot, named “Ragnar”, designed for fast and flexible pick-and-place applications. The robot architecture admits a rectangular workspace, which can utilize the shop-floor space efficiently. In this work, the parametric models of the transmission quality, elasto-statics and dynamics are established. By taking into consideration of design requirements and pick-and-place trajectory, a comprehensive multi-objective optimization problem is formulated to optimize both kinematic and dynamic performances. The Pareto-front is obtained, which provides optimal solutions to the robot design. Robot prototyping work based on the optimal results is described.
Regional currency areas and use of foreign currencies: the experience of West Africa

In order to foster close economic interaction among the countries of West Africa, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) was established in 1975. ECOWAS pursued the objective of economic integration in the subregion vigorously but intraregional trade could not be stimulated. As a result, the West African Clearing House (WACH) was established to provide a multilateral clearing mechanism for trade within the subregion. Under this arrangement the use of foreign exchange was to be curtailed through the application of an artificial currency unit, the West African Unit of Account (WAUA).
CELLULAR DEGENERATION IN WING DEVELOPMENT OF THE MUTANT VESTIGIAL OF DROSOPHILA MELANOGASTER

The mutant vestigial (vg), in which only the basal part of the wing is present, is one of the most familiar and intensively studied mutants in Drosophila melanogaster. Goldschmidt (1935) and Waddington (1940) made observations on the development of the vg wing but arrived at different conclusions as to the way in which the vg phenotype was produced. Goldschmidt proposed that the reduction of the wing was a consequence of degradation of specific parts of the wing during development. Waddington, alternately, concluded that the missing regions of the wing simply failed to develop. Both of these studies, however, were done with the light microscope, and neither author detected any histological evidence of degeneration. An electron microscope study was undertaken to establish unequivocally whether degeneration occurs in the developing vg wing. M A T E R I A L S A N D M E T H O D S
Better IEPs: How To Develop Legally Correct and Educationally Useful Programs. Third Edition.

There are 2 main laws protecting students with disabilities—including those with ADHD: 1) the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 1997 (IDEA) and 2) Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. IDEA is special education law. Section 504 is a civil rights statute. Both laws guarantee to qualified students a free and appropriate public education (FAPE) and instruction in the least restrictive environment (LRE), which means with their peers who are not disabled and to the maximum extent appropriate to their needs.
Performance evaluation of EAACK IDS using AODV and DSR routing protocols in MANET

From past few years, wireless networks are mostly preferred because of its mobility and scalability characteristics. Mobile Ad hoc network (MANET) is one of such important wireless communication network. The open medium and wide distribution of node makes MANET vulnerable to malicious attacks. It demands for more secure intrusion detection system. The EAACK intrusion detection system solves the limitations of receiver collision, limited transmission power and false misbehavior report in earlier system. EAACK makes use of DSR routing protocol for network of small scale. However, as the network size increases and due to dynamic environment, performance of DSR protocol affects. Hence the evaluation of EAACK using DSR and AODV routing protocols in MANET is proposed. Results show that AODV performs better for the performance metrics Packet Delivery Ratio, Packet Loss Ratio and Throughput.
Solubility and Bioavailability Enhancement of Poorly Aqueous Soluble Atorvastatin: In Vitro, Ex Vivo, and In Vivo Studies

The objective of this investigation was to improve the solubility of the poorly water soluble drug atorvastatin (ATR), using solid dispersion (SD) techniques, with Neem Gum (NG) as a hydrophilic carrier. The effects of the polymer concentration and method of preparation on the solubility and dissolution rate were studied. The results showed that the solubility of ATR increases with increasing NG concentration. However, dissolution rate of ATR from its SD was dependent on the method used to prepare SD. An in vitro drug release study revealed that the solvent evaporation technique is a more convenient and effective method of preparing SD than kneading method. The SD was characterized using DSC, SEM, and XRD study. An in vivo study was performed in which the 3-hydroxy-3-methyl-glutaryl-coenzyme A (HMG CoA) reductase inhibition activity was measured. A significant reduction in HMG CoA reductase activity was observed with SD of ATR compared with the plain drug. An ex vivo absorption study was carried out using modified apparatus developed in our laboratory. The in vitro drug release and in vivo and ex vivo studies clearly demonstrated the potential of hydrophilic NG in enhancing the solubility, dissolution rate, and bioavailability of ATR.
Impaired surfactant protein B synthesis in infants with congenital diaphragmatic hernia

Pulmonary hypoplasia and hypertension account for significant morbidity and mortality in neonates with congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH). Whether CDH is associated with surfactant dysfunction remains controversial. Therefore, we measured disaturated phosphatidylcholine (DSPC) and surfactant protein (SP)-B concentration in tracheal aspirates and their synthesis rate in infants with CDH compared to infants without lung disease. 2H2O as a precursor of DSPC and 1-13C-leucine as a precursor of SP-B were administered to 13 infants with CDH and eight controls matched for gestational age. DSPC and SP-B were isolated from tracheal aspirates, and their fractional synthesis rate was derived from 2H and 13C enrichment curves obtained by mass spectrometry. DSPC and SP-B amounts in tracheal aspirates were also measured. In infants with CDH, SP-B fractional synthesis rate and amount were 62±27% and 57±22% lower, respectively, than the value found in infants without lung disease (p<0.01 and p<0.05, respectively). There were no significant group differences in DSPC fractional synthesis rate and amount. Infants with CDH have a lower rate of synthesis of SP-B and less SP-B in tracheal aspirates. In these infants, partial SP-B deficiency could contribute to the severity of respiratory failure and its correction might represent a therapeutic goal.
Cengage Learning at the TREC 2010 Session Track

This paper details Cengage Leaning’s TREC 2010 Session track submission and our efforts to improve retrieval performance over a user’s session. We use a number of different techniques to achieve this goal including query term weighting, query expansion and re-ranking. In this paper we detail these techniques and the results of our submission. Using our query term weighting technique combined with our corpus term collocation query expansion we were able to achieve 0.2375 for the nsDCG@10.RL13 metric.
Context-aware lane marking detection on urban roads

Automatic lane marking detection plays an important role in intelligent transportation systems. We present an effective lane marking detection technique that utilizes the context-aware information of lane marking on the urban roads. The proposed technique consists of two innovations. First, the context-aware color, texture and shape features which characterise both lane markings and their road context are designed to represent the lane markings on the road surface. Second, a hard negative mining technique is developed based on the Maximum Stable Extreme Region (MSER) detector and adaboost training. Experiments on a real world dataset demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed approach.
Binding site for p120/δ-catenin is not required for Drosophila E-cadherin function in vivo

Homophilic cell adhesion mediated by classical cadherins is important for many developmental processes. Proteins that interact with the cytoplasmic domain of cadherin, in particular the catenins, are thought to regulate the strength and possibly the dynamics of adhesion. beta-catenin links cadherin to the actin cytoskeleton via alpha-catenin. The role of p120/delta-catenin proteins in regulating cadherin function is less clear. Both beta-catenin and p120/delta-catenin are conserved in Drosophila. Here, we address the importance of cadherin-catenin interactions in vivo, using mutant variants of Drosophila epithelial cadherin (DE-cadherin) that are selectively defective in p120ctn (DE-cadherin-AAA) or beta-catenin-armadillo (DE-cadherin-Delta beta) interactions. We have analyzed the ability of these proteins to substitute for endogenous DE-cadherin activity in multiple cadherin-dependent processes during Drosophila development and oogenesis; epithelial integrity, follicle cell sorting, oocyte positioning, as well as the dynamic adhesion required for border cell migration. As expected, DE-cadherin-Delta beta did not substitute for DE-cadherin in these processes, although it retained some residual activity. Surprisingly, DE-cadherin-AAA was able to substitute for the wild-type protein in all contexts with no detectable perturbations. Thus, interaction with p120/delta-catenin does not appear to be required for DE-cadherin function in vivo.
A parallel algorithm for outline capturing system for object recognition

Computer vision involves image edge detection which is crucial in outline capturing systems for decomposing and describing an object. This paper presents a scalable parallel algorithm skeleton for outline capturing and object recognition based on first order difference chain encoding. UNIX based Intel Xeon 2-Quadra-Core system is used for the implementation of the parallel algorithm. The algorithm complexity of the averaging process is independent of the size of image and, the speedup of the proposed parallel algorithm is observed to be near linear. The parallel processing approach presented here can be extended to solve similar problems such as, image representation, restoration, compression, matching etc.
Sub-band Information Fusion Based on Wavelet Thresholding for Robust Speech Recognition

In recent years, sub-band speech recognition has been found useful in addressing the need for robustness in speech recognition, especially for the speech contaminated by band-limited noise. In sub-band speech recognition, the full band speech is divided into several frequency sub-bands, with the result of the recognition task given by the combination of the sub-band feature vectors or their likelihoods as generated by the corresponding sub-band recognizers. In this paper, we draw on the notion of discrete wavelet transform to divide the speech signal into sub-bands. We also make use of the robust features in sub-bands in order to obtain a higher sub-band speech recognition rate. In addition, we propose a likelihood weighting and fusion method based on the wavelet thresholding technique. The experimental results indicate that the proposed weighting methods for likelihood combination and classifiers fusion improve the sub-band speech recognition rate in noisy conditions.
ASSESSMENT OF PORK QUALITY LEVELS BY HYPERSPECTRAL IMAGING TECHNOLOGY

Objective assessment of pork quality is important for meat industry application. Previous studies focused on using color and water content features to classify pork quality levels without considering the texture feature which is one of three factors in the definition of pork quality standards. In this study, a hyperspectral imaging technology which can utilize texture features was presented to develop a high accuracy system for pork quality classification. Texture features were obtained by filtering hyperspectral images with a Gabor filter. Spectral features were extracted from Gabor-filtered images as well as from hyperspectral images directly. The principal component analysis (PCA) was used to compress spectral features over the entire wavelengths (400-1000 nm) into 5 and 10 principal components (PCs). Both K-means clustering and linear discriminant analysis (LDA) were applied to classify pork samples. Results showed that, the accuracy of K-means clustering reached 83% for both 5 combined PCs and 10 combined PCs, which were 15% and 18% higher, respectively, compared to that without using texture features. In order to remove the bias of training set selection in LDA, a total of 210 combinations of training sets were used to obtain the statistical classification results. The average accuracy of LDA reached to 89% for combined 5 PCs, which had a statistically significant improvement comparing to the average accuracy of 73% without using texture features.
A structured approach for conducting a series of controlled experiments in software visualization

In the field of software visualization controlled experiments are an important instrument to investigate the specific reasons, why some software visualizations excel the expectations on providing insights and ease task solving while others fail doing so. Despite this, controlled experiments in software visualization are rare. A reason for this is the fact that performing such evaluations in general, and particularly performing them in a way that minimizes the threats to validity, is hard to accomplish. In this paper, we present a structured approach on how to conduct a series of controlled experiments in order to give empirical evidence for advantages and disadvantages of software visualizations in general and of 2D vs. 3D software visualizations in particular.
Adding Semantics to Formal Data Specifications to Automatically Generate Corresponding Voice Data-Input Applications

This paper introduces a new method for the automatic translation of formal data specifications to voice data-input applications. The objective is to automatically generate voice XML applications that correspond to the structure of XML DTD specifications. A new formalization called Grammar-DTD (G-DTD) is introduced as an extended version of DTD. G-DTD is obtained by adding semantics to specify valid values of the DTD elements and attributes. The additional semantics are necessary to carry out the automatic translation. This work facilitates the rapid creation of voice applications.
Sec16 Defines Endoplasmic Reticulum Exit Sites and is Required for Secretory Cargo Export in Mammalian Cells

The selective export of proteins and lipids from the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is mediated by the coat protein complex II (COPII) that assembles onto the ER membrane. In higher eukaryotes, COPII proteins assemble at discrete sites on the membrane known as ER exit sites (ERES). Here, we identify Sec16 as the protein that defines ERES in mammalian cells. Sec16 localizes to ERES independent of Sec23/24 and Sec13/31. Overexpression, and to a lesser extent, small interfering RNA depletion of Sec16, both inhibit ER‐to‐Golgi transport suggesting that Sec16 is required in stoichiometric amounts. Sar1 activity is required to maintain the localization of Sec16 at discrete locations on the ER membrane, probably through preventing its dissociation. Our data suggest that Sar1‐GTP‐dependent assembly of Sec16 on the ER membrane forms an organized scaffold defining an ERES.
Resource-Constrained Sensor Routing for Parameter Estimation of Distributed Systems

Abstract We consider a setting where mobile nodes with sensing capacity form a network whose mission is to collect measurements for parameter estimation of a distributed parameter system (DPS). Two techniques to optimize node motions are presented which constitute a trade-off between the achievable accuracy of parameter estimates and limited motion resources of sensor network nodes. The framework is based on the use of the D-optimality criterion defined on the Fisher information matrix associated with the estimated parameters as a measure of the information content in the measurements. Restrictions on maximal distances traveled by sensor nodes are imposed so as to guarantee realizable solutions. The approach is to convert the problem to a canonical optimal control one in Mayer form, in which both the control forces of the sensors and the initial sensor positions are optimized. Numerical solutions are then obtained using the M atlab PDE toolbox and the RIOTS_95 optimal control toolbox which handles various constraints imposed on the node motions. Illustrative numerical experiments with the proposed techniques are presented.
Author ' s personal copy Some global convergence properties of the Wei – Yao – Liu conjugate gradient method with inexact line search q

In [Z.Wei, S. Yao, L. Liu, The convergence properties of some new conjugate gradient methods, Applied Mathematics and Computation 183 (2006) 1341–1350], Wei et al. proposed a new conjugate gradient method called WYL method which has good numerical experiments and some excellent properties such as b k P 0. In this paper, we prove that while tk 6 1 c 2L kgkk kdkk , the sufficient descent condition can be satisfied at each iteration of the WYL method. Based on this, the global convergence of the WYL method with the standard Armijo line search and the generalized Wolfe–Powell line search is established. 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
BBS: An Energy Efficient Localized Routing Scheme for Query Processing in Wireless Sensor Networks

A wireless sensor network (WSNET) can support various types of queries. The energy resource of sensors constrains the total number of query responses, called query capacity, received by the sink. There are four problems in the existing approaches for energy-efficient query processing in WSNETs: the fact that sensors near the sink drain their energy much faster than distant sensors has been overlooked, routing trees (RT) are rooted at the sink, and therefore, aggregative queries are less energy-efficient, data reception cost has been ignored, and flooding is used in query distribution or RT construction. In this paper, we propose a Broadcasting-Based query Scheme (BBS) to address the above problems. BBS reduces the energy depletion rate of sensors near the sink, builds different localized RTs for different query types, and eliminates the flooding cost of query distribution. Compared to the existing approaches, simulation studies show that BBS produces significant improvement in the query capacity for non-holistic queries (10%—100% capacity improvement) and holistic queries (up to an order of magnitude of capacity improvement).
Enabling sub-blocks erase management to boost the performance of 3D NAND flash memory

3D NAND has been proposed to provide a large capacity storage with low-cost consideration due to its high density memory architecture. However, 3D NAND needs to consume enormous time for garbage collection because of live-page copying overhead and long block erase time. To alleviate the impact of live-page copying on the performance of 3D NAND, a sub-block erase design has been designed. With sub-block erase design, this paper proposes a performance booster strategy to extremely boost the performance of garbage collection. As experimental results shows, the proposed strategy has a significant improvement on the average response time.