Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Performance Analysis of Connectivity Probability and Connectivity-Aware MAC Protocol Design for Platoon-Based VANETs

Vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) can provide safety and nonsafety applications to improve passenger safety and comfort. Grouping vehicles into platoons in VANETs can improve road safety and reduce fuel consumption. It is critical to design an efficient medium access control (MAC) protocol for platoon-based VANETs. Moreover, because of the space and time dynamics of moving vehicles, network connectivity is an important performance metric to indicate the quality of the network communications and the satisfaction of users. Unfortunately, network connectivity is often ignored in the design of existing MAC protocols for VANETs. In this paper, we study the connectivity characteristics and present a connectivity-aware MAC protocol for platoon-based VANETs. The connectivity probabilities are analyzed for vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication scenarios in one- and two-way VANETs, respectively. A multipriority Markov model is presented to derive the relationship between connectivity probability and system throughput. Based on variable traffic status and network connectivity, a multichannel reservation scheme is adopted to dynamically adjust the length of the control channel interval and the service channel interval for the improvement of the system throughput. Analysis and simulation results show that the throughput increases with connectivity probability. However, with a further increase in connectivity probability, the throughput will decrease due to numerous channel contentions.
Advances in Geosciences A multi-institutional and interdisciplinary approach to the assessment of vulnerability and adaptation to climate change in the Peruvian Central Andes : problems and prospects

A local integrated assessment of the vulnerability and adaptation to climate change in the Mantaro River Basin, located in Peruvian Central Andes, was developed between years 2003 to 2005. In this paper we present some lessons learned during the development of this study, emphasizing the multi-institutional and interdisciplinary efforts, briefly showing the methodological aspects, and pointing out the main problems found.
Analysis of an artificial zinc finger epigenetic modulator: widespread binding but limited regulation

Artificial transcription factors (ATFs) and genomic nucleases based on a DNA binding platform consisting of multiple zinc finger domains are currently being developed for clinical applications. However, no genome-wide investigations into their binding specificity have been performed. We have created six-finger ATFs to target two different 18 nt regions of the human SOX2 promoter; each ATF is constructed such that it contains or lacks a super KRAB domain (SKD) that interacts with a complex containing repressive histone methyltransferases. ChIP-seq analysis of the effector-free ATFs in MCF7 breast cancer cells identified thousands of binding sites, mostly in promoter regions; the addition of an SKD domain increased the number of binding sites ∼5-fold, with a majority of the new sites located outside of promoters. De novo motif analyses suggest that the lack of binding specificity is due to subsets of the finger domains being used for genomic interactions. Although the ATFs display widespread binding, few genes showed expression differences; genes repressed by the ATF-SKD have stronger binding sites and are more enriched for a 12 nt motif. Interestingly, epigenetic analyses indicate that the transcriptional repression caused by the ATF-SKD is not due to changes in active histone modifications.
Making learning visible: Developing preservice teachers' pedagogical content knowledge and teaching efficacy beliefs in environmental education

ABSTRACT Recognizing that teaching efficacy beliefs influence pedagogical content knowledge, this study assesses the impact of a general methods course on preservice teachers' efficacy beliefs and instructional planning of environmental education content. The course used explicit and visible strategies to support pedagogical and content knowledge development. Repeated measures Analysis of Variances on the Environmental Education Self-Efficacy subscales, Personal Environmental Teaching Efficacy and Environmental Teaching Outcome Expectancy, revealed statistically significant pre-post improvements. Unit analysis noted preservice teachers' varied use of components of Park and Oliver's pedagogical content knowledge framework for science teaching. The impacts communities of practice have on preservice teacher development are discussed.
Efficient monocular coarse-to-fine object pose estimation

The vision and robotics communities have developed different methods for object pose estimation, all of which have their disadvantages and advantages. A popular method saves all possible object model images from different viewpoints and their 2D-to-3D correspondences in database off-line. Then local feature matching is applied between the current view and the model images in the database. For the top matched image, the approach of a PnP algorithm followed by RANSAC is used to estimate object pose. Such a method has good accuracy, but lacks efficiency, consuming O(MN2) time where N and M are the number of features in a model and the number of models, respectively. To tackle this problem, we propose a method that improves the efficiency in two ways. First, we employ a hierarchical clustering method to find the proper number of model images to represent each object, leading to a decrease in M. Second, a coase-to-fine object pose estimation method is proposed, to decrease the time to find the best matching model image. Specifically, in the coarse step, given an image, the most similar model image is retrieved using a global image descriptor, which we compute using a pre-trained deep neural network. Then in the fine step, a local descriptor feature matching method is applied to find matching keypoints between current image and the model image found in the coarse step. Finally, with pre-registered 2D-to-3D correspondences for each model, an accurate object pose is calculated using the PnP and RANSAC approach. The performance of our method is evaluated on the Amazon Picking Challenge dataset.
PENGUKURAN PENERIMAAN APLIKASI SICYCA MENGGUNAKAN METODE UNIFIED THEORY OF ACCEPTANCE AND USE OF TECHNOLOGY (UTAUT)

SICYCA is the main website as media appreciation STIKOM Surabaya, the fact that not all SICYCA are used with maximum facilities by students. To know the success rate of a technology implementation, how high the student acceptance rate of SICYCA. The model used by researchers is the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology ( UTAUT ). The instrument in this study was used questioner. The writer spread the questioner to students in STIKOM Surabaya in academic year 2010-2013 in every major at STIKOM Surabaya. The writer used 200 students as the sample in this study. The research design was used Stratified Random Sampling method which was focused on separated the elements group of words in STIKOM Surabaya. Descriptive analysis, validity analysis, and reliability was used SPSS 16 software. Data analysis was used Structural Equation Model (SEM) and use AMOS 22 software to analysis the structural. From the results of the data analysis, it can be concluded as follows: 1) performance expectancy has an positive effect to intentions of using SICYCA. 2) effort expectancy has an positive effect to the intentions of using the SICYCA. 3) social influence do not positive effect significantly to the intention of using the SICYCA. 4) facilitating conditions do not have an positive effect to the SICYCA utilizing. 5) behavioral intention has an positive effect to the use of behavioral SICYCA.
Decoding dendritic cell function through module and network analysis

Dendritic cells (DCs) serve as the sentinels of the immune system by informing the system about external stimuli, based on which an adaptive response can be mounted. However, not much is known about the genes and their interactions that regulate DC function. Using a large gene expression compendium, we uncover promising regulatory networks underlying the functioning of DCs and their subsets.
Business Process Re-design with DEMO

Abstract The introduction of the idea of Business Process Re-engineering in the late 1980’s has resulted inan explosion of the literature. In practice the success rates of re-engineering projects is low sincethe majority of the approaches are founded on a functional understanding of business systems. Tobe really effective however, business system transformation needs to be founded in aconstructional perspective on business systems. The DEMO methodology provides a theoreticalfoundation and a modelling facility to reveal the construction of business systems. In the currentpaper, techniques for optimising business systems on the basis of the constructional DEMOmodels are presented and illustrated. 1 Introduction Although business system transformation initiatives have been with us since the early 1990’s, the success rateshave been low (Malhortra, 1996). There are several reasons proposed for these failures, which include the lack ofpractical methodologies (Malhortra, 1996) and consequently project management mistakes (Bashein et al, 1994). Based on interviews in more than 200 companies and 35 reengineering initiatives, Davenport and Stoddard(1994) state that the popularity is based on myths. A more fundamental critique on the current approaches tobusiness system transformation argues that traditional functional approaches lack the constructionalunderstanding to business systems. Understanding of the construction of business systems is considered to be anecessary precondition for successfully carrying out organisational transformation projects (Dietz, Mulder,1998). Business systems can be viewed from two perspectives: the black-box and the white-box perspective. Theblack-box conceptualisation of a business system exclusively deals with the external behaviour of a system, i.e.with the effects of the activity and with the mutual influences between the system and its environment. The blackbox-model of a business system is very appropriate and sufficient for dealing with management issues focusingon controlling the behaviour of the system. Flow models like the Data Flow Diagram and the ISAC A-graph, andmore recently Use-cases, are well known examples based on the black-box conceptualisation of businesssystems. In contrast, a white-box perspective on business systems deals with the system’s internal operations andworking principles. It is this type of understanding that is needed for transformation of business systems (Dietz,Mulder, 1998). In this article the application of the white-box principle to the modelling of business systems is exploredin more detail and is put into practice. In section two an overview of a business system modelling methodologyfrom a white-box perspective is provided. In section three model-based techniques for business systemoptimisation are discussed, while section four illustrates these techniques by way of an example. Finally insection five some implications are described and conclusions are drawn.
Platelet activation: assessment and quantification.

Whilst there is increasing realization that inappropri-ate platelet activation plays a prime role in the increas-ing heart disease burden of society, there is still nogenerally accepted ideal measure of platelet activationthat would indicate a state of ‘high risk’. There is also aneed for the objective assessment of the relative eﬀec-tiveness and safety of antiplatelet agents. Furthermore,despite the great success of aspirin, it is clearly far fromperfect
"Best of Both Worlds": Opportunities for Technology in Cross-Cultural Parenting

Families are becoming more culturally heterogeneous due to a rise in intermarriage, geographic mobility, and access to a greater diversity of cultural perspectives online. Investigating the challenges of cross-cultural parenting can help us support this growing demographic, as well as better understand how families integrate and negotiate advice from diverse online and offline sources in making parenting decisions. We interviewed parents from 18 families to understand the practices they adopt to meet the challenges of cross-cultural parenting. We investigated how these families respond to conflicts while integrating diverse cultural views, as well as how they utilize the wealth of parenting resources available online in navigating these tasks. We identify five themes focused on how these families find and evaluate advice, connect with social support, resolve intra-family tensions, incorporate multicultural practices, and seek out diverse views. Based on our findings, we contribute three implications for design and translations of these implications to concrete technology ideas that aim to help families better integrate multiple cultures into everyday life.
Ancestral Logic

Many e orts have been made in recent years to construct computerized systems for mechanizing general mathematical reasoning. Most of the systems are based on logics which are stronger than rst-order logic (FOL). However, there are good reasons to avoid using full second-order logic (SOL) for this task. We investigate a logic which is intermediate between FOL and SOL, and seems to be a particularly attractive alternative to both: Ancestral Logic. This is the logic which is obtained from FOL by augmenting it with the transitive closure operator TC. The expressive power of Ancestral Logic is equivalent to that of some of the other known intermediate logics (such as weak second-order logic, ω-logic, etc), yet there are several reasons to prefer it over the others. One of them is that it seems like the easiest choice from a proof-theoretic point of view. Another important reason is simply the simplicity of the notion of transitive closure. Any person, even with no mathematical background whatsoever, can easily grasp the concept of the ancestor of a given person (or in other words, the idea of transitive closure of a certain binary relation). We argue that the concept of transitive closure is the key for understanding nitary inductive de nitions and reasoning, and we provide evidence for the thesis that logics which are based on it (in which induction is a logical rule) are the right logical framework for the formalization and mechanization of Mathematics. We show that with TC one can de ne all recursive predicates and functions from 0, the successor function and addition, yet with TC alone addition is not de nable from 0 and the successor function. However, in the presence of a pairing function, TC does su ce for having all types of nitary inductive de nitions of relations and functions.
Open, distributed coordination with finesse

Coordination languages have recently been attracting significant attention as a means of programming parallel and distributed systems. The approach of separating coordination from computation is particularly attractive in distributed systems because there are a wide range of possible interaction, quality and reliability semantics that are either hidden or ignored by traditional infrastructures based on remote procedure call. Introducing an explicit, programmable model for the distributed infrastructure makes these semantics visible and tractable, without requiring substantial changes in distributed components. This paper presents Finesse, a language for describing the interaction of components in open distributed systems, and demonstrates its power through a number of examples.
Expression of HLA class I antigen, aspirin use, and survival after a diagnosis of colon cancer.

IMPORTANCE Use of aspirin (which inhibits platelet function) after a colon cancer diagnosis is associated with improved overall survival. Identifying predictive biomarkers of this effect could individualize therapy and decrease toxic effects. OBJECTIVE To demonstrate that survival benefit associated with low-dose aspirin use after a diagnosis of colorectal cancer might depend on HLA class I antigen expression. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS A cohort study with tumor blocks from 999 patients with colon cancer (surgically resected between 2002 and 2008), analyzed for HLA class I antigen and prostaglandin endoperoxide synthase 2 (PTGS2) expression using a tissue microarray. Mutation analysis of PIK3CA was also performed. Data on aspirin use after diagnosis were obtained from a prescription database. Parametric survival models with exponential (Poisson) distribution were used to model the survival. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Overall survival. RESULTS The overall survival benefit associated with aspirin use after a diagnosis of colon cancer had an adjusted rate ratio (RR) of 0.53 (95% CI, 0.38-0.74; P < .001) when tumors expressed HLA class I antigen compared with an RR of 1.03 (0.66-1.61; P = .91) when HLA antigen expression was lost. The benefit of aspirin was similar for tumors with strong PTGS2 expression (0.68; 0.48-0.97; P = .03), weak PTGS2 expression (0.59; 0.38-0.97; P = .02), and wild-type PIK3CA tumors (0.55; 0.40-0.75; P < .001). No association was observed with mutated PIK3CA tumors (0.73; 0.33-1.63; P = .44). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE Contrary to the original hypothesis, aspirin use after colon cancer diagnosis was associated with improved survival if tumors expressed HLA class I antigen. Increased PTGS2 expression or the presence of mutated PIK3CA did not predict benefit from aspirin. HLA class I antigen might serve as a predictive biomarker for adjuvant aspirin therapy in colon cancer.
Degraded Character Recognition

The DCR application for Degraded Character Recognition was developed for the DEA (Diplome d’Etudes Approfondies)’s thesis. The main objective is to recognize characters, degraded by an acquisition from a lowresolution camera. Several steps are needed and are detailed in this thesis from the thresholding step, which converts a gray-level picture in a black and white one, to the post-correction step, which adds linguistic information to improve recognition results. Several sophisticated methods are used, such as wavelet decomposition or neural networks for different purposes. A different view is given here to understand how steps before the recognition part can induce changes on results.
The GCN2 eIF2α Kinase Is Required for Adaptation to Amino Acid Deprivation in Mice

ABSTRACT The GCN2 eIF2α kinase is essential for activation of the general amino acid control pathway in yeast when one or more amino acids become limiting for growth. GCN2's function in mammals is unknown, but must differ, since mammals, unlike yeast, can synthesize only half of the standard 20 amino acids. To investigate the function of mammalian GCN2, we have generated a Gcn2 −/− knockout strain of mice. Gcn2 −/− mice are viable, fertile, and exhibit no phenotypic abnormalities under standard growth conditions. However, prenatal and neonatal mortalities are significantly increased in Gcn2 −/− mice whose mothers were reared on leucine-, tryptophan-, or glycine-deficient diets during gestation. Leucine deprivation produced the most pronounced effect, with a 63% reduction in the expected number of viable neonatal mice. Cultured embryonic stem cells derived from Gcn2 −/− mice failed to show the normal induction of eIF2α phosphorylation in cells deprived of leucine. To assess the biochemical effects of the loss of GCN2 in the whole animal, liver perfusion experiments were conducted. Histidine limitation in the presence of histidinol induced a twofold increase in the phosphorylation of eIF2α and a concomitant reduction in eIF2B activity in perfused livers from wild-type mice, but no changes in livers from Gcn2 −/− mice.
Verb Second in Advanced L2 English: ALearner Corpus Study

The present study examines the interface between syntax and discourse-pragmatics in the production of verb second (V2) structures in a corpus of English texts by advanced L1 German and Dutch speakers. The evidence shows that the residual V2 produced by the learner groups studied is the result of a deficit at the interface rather than the transfer of narrow V2 syntax per se. The analysis offered suggests that the nature of V2 in the learners’ L1 combined with evidence in the English input make it difficult for learners to definitively lose the V2 constraint, which remains a persistent option after the fronting of certain constituents. This builds on the study of V2 transfer by Robertson & Sorace (1999). Their study looked only at patterns of inversion in the learner corpus and expanded this by eliciting judgements on various different inversion structures. In order to test the hypothesis that V2 transfer is connected to a deficit at the interface between syntax and discourse-pragmatics, the present study investigates various diagnostics for V2, i.e. verb movement past adverbs and negation and lexical verb movement in questions in the L1 German and Dutch components of the International Corpus of Learner English (ICLE) (Granger et al 2002).
Principles of alternative gerontology

Surveys of taxonomic groups of animals have shown that contrary to the opinion of most gerontologists aging is not a genuine trait. The process of aging is not universal and its mechanisms have not been widely conserved among species. All life forms are subject to extrinsic and intrinsic destructive forces. Destructive effects of stochastic events are visible only when allowed by the specific life program of an organism. Effective life programs of immortality and high longevity eliminate the impact of unavoidable damage. Organisms that are capable of agametic reproduction are biologically immortal. Mortality of an organism is clearly associated with terminal specialisation in sexual reproduction. The longevity phenotype that is not accompanied by symptoms of senescence has been observed in those groups of animals that continue to increase their body size after reaching sexual maturity. This is the result of enormous regeneration abilities of both of the above-mentioned groups. Senescence is observed when: (i) an organism by principle switches off the expression of existing growth and regeneration programs, as in the case of imago formation in insect development; (ii) particular programs of growth and regeneration of progenitors are irreversibly lost, either partially or in their entirety, in mammals and birds. “We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. ” (Ascribed to Albert Einstein)
Measuring Adaptation Between Dialogs

The paper proposes two new approaches for measuring adaptation between dialogs. These approaches permit measurement of adaptation both to conversational partner (partner adaptation) and to the local dialog context (recency adaptation), and can be used with different types of feature. We used these measures to study adaptation in the Maptask corpus of spoken dialogs. We show that for syntactic features, recency adaptation is stronger than partner adaptation; however, we find no significant differences for lexical adaptation using these measures.