Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An optimal algorithm for solving partial target coverage problem in wireless sensor networks

This paper deals with the partial target coverage problem in wireless sensor networks under a novel coverage model. The most commonly used method in previous literature on the target coverage problem is to divide continuous time into discrete slots of different lengths, each of which is dominated by a subset of sensors while setting all the other sensors into the sleep state to save energy. This method, however, suffers from shortcomings such as high computational complexity and no performance bound. We showed that the partial target coverage problem can be optimally solved in polynomial time. First, we built a linear programming formulation, which considers the total time that a sensor spends on covering targets, in order to obtain a lifetime upper bound. Based on the information derived in previous formulation, we developed a sensor assignment algorithm to seek an optimal schedule meeting the lifetime upper bound. A formal proof of optimality was provided. We compared the proposed algorithm with the well-known column generation algorithm and showed that the proposed algorithm significantly improves performance in terms of computational time. Experiments were conducted to study the impact of different network parameters on the network lifetime, and their results led us to several interesting insights. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Equalization of Sparse Intersymbol-Interference Channels Revisited

Sparse intersymbol-interference (ISI) channels are encountered in a variety of communication systems, especially in high-data-rate systems. These channels have a large memory length, but only a small number of significant channel coefficients. In this paper, equalization of sparse ISI channels is revisited with focus on trellis-based techniques. Due to the large channel memory length, the complexity of maximum-likelihood sequence estimation by means of the Viterbi algorithm is normally prohibitive. In the first part of the paper, a unified framework based on factor graphs is presented for complexity reduction without loss of optimality. In this new context, two known reduced-complexity trellis-based techniques are recapitulated. In the second part of the paper a simple alternative approach is investigated to tackle general sparse ISI channels. It is shown that the use of a linear filter at the receiver renders the application of standard reduced-state trellis-based equalization techniques feasible without significant loss of optimality.
Ocular Vestibular Evoked Myogenic Potential Using Different Test Stimuli

Aim. Ocular Evoked Myogenic Potential (oVEMP) are short latency potentials evoked by higher acoustic stimulation. In this study, we aimed at comparing the click, 500 Hz mixed modulated, and 500 Hz short duration tone burst stimuli using oVEMP. Material. Click, 500 Hz mixed modulated and 500 Hz short duration tone burst stimuli were used for the study. Method. Conventional sampling and conveneint study design were used. Sixty healthy subjects underwent contralateral oVEMP testing maintaining 30 degrees upward gaze. Single channel electrode montage was applied to record oVEMP response. Results. On statistical analysis the three stimuli evoked equal response rates (100%), and when latency of n1 and p1 and peak-peak amplitude were compared, the click evoked showed significantly early latency and lower peak-peak amplitude than the 500 Hz stimuli. Five hundred Hz stimuli did not show significant difference in latency and peak-peak amplitude of n1-p1. Discussion. Thus, 500 Hz stimuli can evoke better latency and peak-peak amplitude. oVEMP has good clinical significance in diagnosing subjects with vestibular dysfunction. To add to the sensitivity of the oVEMP test, 500 Hz stimuli may also be used as it can evoke better oVEMP responses in clinical population with good morphology.
Teaching Emergent Literacy Skills Using Cultural Contextual Story-Based Lessons

Recent statistics suggest that the number of English-language learners has been growing at a rapid rate in the United States. The growth of this population will inevitably lead to a larger number of culturally and linguistically diverse students with significant cognitive disabilities. Currently, there is little research on effective literacy practices, specifically for English-language learners with a moderate or severe intellectual disability. The participants in this study were one Latina paraprofessional and an English-language learner with a moderate intellectual disability. A multiple probe design across skill sets was used to evaluate number of items correct throughout three skill sets derived from a cultural contextual story-based lesson protocol. Results suggest that the cultural contextual story-based lessons did increase emergent literacy skills for this student. Future research and implications are discussed.
A feasibility study of psychological strengths and well-being assessment in individuals living with recurrent depression

Current conceptualizations of mental illness focus on assessing psychopathology. A balanced approach would assess strengths that individuals bring to coping with illness. This study measures psychological strengths in individuals with recurrent depression, their coping strategies, and their perceptions of the usefulness of strengths assessment as a component of psychological assessment. Individuals (N = 112) with recurrent depression completed an online questionnaire measuring several psychological strengths, including gratitude, forgiveness, spirituality, and hope. Participants also described their use of coping strategies and their reaction to the utility of the two-continua model of mental health. A subset (n = 10) completed a follow-up telephone interview. Higher levels of gratitude, self-forgiveness, hope, and spirituality and lower levels of optimism were indicative of higher life satisfaction. Self-forgiveness, spirituality, and gratitude were predictors of happiness. Higher levels of hope and self-forgiveness predicted positive affect whereas lower levels of self-forgiveness predicted negative affect. Participants reported using a range of coping resources and indicated that they valued strengths assessment, perceiving the two-continua model of mental health as empowering. The researcher discusses implications for clinical practice.
Anti-inflammatory properties of histone deacetylase inhibitors: A mechanistic study

Background: We have demonstrated that postshock administration of suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid (SAHA), a histone deacetylase inhibitor, can significantly improve early survival in a highly lethal model of hemorrhagic shock. As the primary insult in hemorrhagic shock is cellular hypoxia, and transcription factor hypoxia-inducible factor-1&agr; (HIF-1&agr;) controls proinflammatory gene expression in macrophages, we hypothesized that SAHA would attenuate the HIF-1&agr; associated proinflammatory pathway in a hypoxic macrophage model. Methods: Mouse macrophages were exposed to hypoxic conditions (0.5% O2, 10% CO2, and 89.5% N2) at 37°C in the presence or absence of SAHA (10 &mgr;mol/L). The cells and culture medium were harvested at 1 hour, 4 hours, and 8 hours. Sham (no hypoxia, no SAHA) served as a control. Western blots were performed to assess protein levels of prolyl hydroxylase 2 (PHD2), HIF-1&agr;, and inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) in the cells. Colorimetric biochemical assay and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay were used to analyze the release of nitric oxide (NO) and secretion of tumor necrosis factor &agr; (TNF-&agr;), respectively, in the cell culture medium. Results: Hypoxia significantly increased cellular level of HIF-1&agr; (1 hour and 4 hours), gene transcription of iNOS (4 hours and 8 hours), iNOS protein (8 hours), NO production (8 hours), and TNF-&agr; secretion (4 hours and 8 hours). SAHA treatment attenuated all of the above hypoxia-induced alterations in the macrophages. In addition, SAHA treatment significantly increased cellular level of PHD2, one of the upstream negative regulators of HIF-1&agr;, at 1 hour. Conclusions: Treatment with SAHA attenuates hypoxia-HIF-1&agr;-inflammatory pathway in macrophages and suppresses hypoxia-induced release of proinflammatory NO and TNF-&agr;. SAHA also causes an early increase in cellular PHD2, which provides, at least in part, a new explanation for the decrease in the HIF-1&agr; protein levels.
Gender in family business ownership and management: a six‐country analysis

Purpose – While family firms constitute a highly important component of most countries' economies, and in many countries a sizable portion of these family businesses are owned and managed by women, there has been minimal study of gender issues in family business ownership and management. The purpose of this paper is to fill this gap.Design/methodology/approach – The research design was self‐reported survey research, which is the most commonly used methodology in family business research and for small business and entrepreneurship quantitative research.Findings – In contrast to early (pre‐1980) gender comparisons in management and entrepreneurship, and in support of the majority of more recent studies, this investigation found no significant relationships between the gender of family business owner‐managers and ten management characteristic variables in a sample of 593 family businesses in six countries.Originality/value – These findings add to the limited and currently inconclusive body of knowledge regar.
Pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of intravenous daptomycin during continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES This study sought to (1) characterize the pharmacokinetic (PK) profile of intravenous (i.v.) daptomycin among patients receiving continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD); (2) identify optimal i.v. CAPD dosing schemes; and (3) determine extent of daptomycin penetration into the peritoneal space after i.v. administration. DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS, & MEASUREMENTS A PK study was conducted among eight CAPD patients. Population PK modeling and Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) were used to identify CAPD dosing schemes providing efficacy and toxicity plasma profiles comparable with those obtained from MCS using the daptomycin population PK model derived from patients in the Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia-infective endocarditis (SAB-IE) study. The primary efficacy exposure target was the area under the curve (AUC). For toxicity, the goal was to identify CAPD dosing schemes that minimized plasma trough concentrations in excess of 24.3 mg/L. Finally, peritoneal cavity penetration was determined. RESULTS Administration of i.v. daptomycin 4 or 6 mg/kg, depending on indication, every 48 h was identified as the optimal CAPD dosing scheme. This regimen provided cumulative (AUC(0-48)) and daily partitioned (AUC(0-24 h) and AUC(24-48 h)) plasma AUC values similar to the SAB-IE or "typical patient" simulations. In addition, the proportion of patients likely to experience an elevated trough concentration in excess of 24.3 mg/L was similar between every 48 h CAPD dosing and the referent group. Penetration into the peritoneal cavity was 6% of plasma. CONCLUSIONS Daptomycin 4 or 6 mg/kg, on the basis of indication, i.v. every 48 h was found to be the optimal i.v. CAPD dosing scheme.
LPV embedding of nonlinear compartmental systems with endogenous control

Compartmental models are widely used in in many fields of science including pharmacokinetics, epidemiology, bioengineering, complexity theory, and even economics and the social sciences. The reason of such a success lies in their ability to describe the way materials or energies are transmitted among the compartments. Often, it is assumed that these exchanges depend linearly on the compartments. However, when a compartment exerts an inhibitory or stimulative action on the exchange rate between two other compartments, the related mass transfer is usually a nonlinear function of both the source and controlling compartment. This paper shows how, in many cases, the resulting nonlinear compartmental model can be embedded into a linear parameter varying (LPV) model, which allows us to exploit some recent results on LPV control. In particular, it is possible to design controllers that ensure stability under arbitrary parameter variations as well as point-wise optimal performance.
THE EFFECT OF SPATIAL FREQUENCY ON STEADY‐STATE ACCOMMODATION

Abstract— Accommodation responses to sinusoidally modulated vertical gratings, at a vergence of ‐5.0 D, were measured over a 10 min period. Three spatial frequencies were employed: 1.67, 5.0 and 15 cycles degree‐1. The results show that 1.67 and 5.0 cycles degree‐1 elicit good accommodation responses which are temporally stable. All five subjects employed were unable to maintain an accurate accommodation response to a 15 cycles degree‐1 grating. Consideration of the changes occurring in the retinal modulation with accommodative error indicates that spatial frequencies around 5.0 cycles degree‐1 are the most useful for accommodation.
On pitfalls of current security assessment practice in multi-area power systems

After the recent blackouts and incidents in Europe and USA, e.g. in 2003 and 2006, an increasing interest in security issues of multi-area power systems has arisen. The challenge is coordination of transmission systems operators that are responsible for their own control area but not for the whole system. Coordination is needed because often the transmission system operators have limited information on the neighboring control areas. Therefore, contingencies occurring inside one control area may not be noticed in other areas without appropriate coordination among transmission system operators even though they may have severe consequences. In this paper, we show that lack of coordination among transmission system operators may lead to insecure operation of the multi-area power system even though transmission system operators find their own control areas secure and show that security of single control areas may not imply security of the whole multi-area system. The results indicate that in order to ensure a secure operation of a multi-area power system, coordination and data exchange among transmission system operators should be improved in the future compared with the situation at the moment.
Robust H∞ observer-based control of uncertain T-S fuzzy systems with control constraints

This paper addresses the problem of H∞ fuzzy observer-based non-PDC controller design for uncertain T-S fuzzy systems with external disturbances. The synthesis of the observer-based controller is based on a fuzzy Lyapunov function and the descriptor redundancy approach. Moreover, the design is extended for the problem with control constraint. The observer and controller gains are obtained by solving some strict linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). The validity of the proposed method is shown via a numerical example.
Sound and Efficient Non-monotonic Inference

We analyze conditions that allow for sound and efficient non-monotonic inference For that we consider theories comprised of rules and observations and a semantic framework developed elsewhere that allows us to view such theories as dynamic systems systems with a transition function f that maps states to sets of possible successor states and a plausibility function that determines the relative likelihood of those transitions In this framework the transition function f is determined by the rules and the plausibility function is provided independently In this work we aim to identify plausibility functions that have good semantical and computational properties We do so by identifying a vet of tore predictions to be accounted for that can be computed in polynomial time, can be justified in simple terms and are not tied to either Horn theories or closed world assumptions. The resulting functions allow us to handle an interesting class of theories in a justifiable and efficient manner.
Measuring user reaction to reduce Internet anxiety

The Internet has recently emerged with new kind of services, applications and countless contents. User reaction plays essential role in interacting with the Internet. The theoretical concepts on feelings are extracted from psychology, phenomenology and computer science. It is understood that feelings are subjective experience of users aroused from different emotions. As feelings changes based on time, circumstance, people and environment, it is extremely difficult to assess feelings objectively. User's interaction on the Internet is based on contents (text, audio and video materials) and context (past experience, surroundings, circumstances, environment, background, or settings). Thus, the potential of understanding feelings and its measure is very important. In this paper, a systematic measure of feelcalc module is introduced to measure user's reaction in order to reduce human anxiety on the Internet.
The nature and nurture of intelligence and motivation in the origins of sex differences in elementary school achievement

This study investigates the roles of intelligence and school‐related motivation in sex differences in school achievement and whether there are sex differences in the genetic and environmental influences on these variables. In a sample of 4464 9‐year‐old twins, intelligence, ablility self‐perceptions, intrinsic values and achievement scores were assessed. Girls outperformed boys in English and had better corresponding ability self‐perceptions, whereas in Math boys showed better attainment and ability self‐perceptions. For both sexes and all three domains, intelligence was the strongest predictor of achievement and ability self‐perceptions added incrementally to the prediction. Evidence of genetic influences was found for all measures but shared environmental influences were not important. These findings challenge some widely held assumptions about the development of children's motivation. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Models of reproductive skew: A review and synthesis (Invited Article)

Animal societies vary markedly in reproductive skew, the extent to which breeding is monopolised by dominant individuals. In the last few years, a large number of different models have been developed to explain this variation. Here, I review existing models of reproductive skew, distinguishing between two basic types. Transactional models focus on group stability and the constraints this places on the division of reproduction. Compromise models, by contrast, ignore issues of group stability and view the division of reproduction as the outcome of a conflict in which each group member has a limited or partial ability to enforce its own optimum. I go on to show, however, that the division between transactional and compromise models is somewhat artificial, and that both approaches may be combined in a single, synthetic treatment. Different models of reproductive skew are thus better seen as special cases of a general underlying theory, rather than alternative paradigms. I conclude with a brief discussion of the possibilities and problems of empirically testing this unified theory of skew, and the prospects for future theoretical advances.
Semantic Similarity between Concepts Based on OWL Ontologies

With the widespread application of ontology in the fields of information retrieval, artificial intelligence etc, the concept similarity computation of different ontologies has been a research hot spot. At present, most research on concept similarity computation is based on “is a” relation between concepts, however, it does not utilize the concept semantic information completely, and the accuracy of calculating results is very poor. To solve this problem, a novel semantic similarity algorithm based on OWL ontologies is presented: Firstly, the method parses OWL ontologies, and then translates OWL ontologies into RDF triples, finally, utilizes an improved dynamic adjustment of the semantic weight of OWL constructors to calculate the semantic similarity. The experiment shows that the algorithm can obtain more accurate result.
Probabilistic noninterference through weak probabilistic bisimulation

To be practical, systems for ensuring secure information flow must be as permissive as possible. To this end, the author recently proposed a type system for multi-threaded programs running under a uniform probabilistic scheduler; it allows the running times of threads to depend on the values of H variables, provided that these timing variations cannot affect the values of L variables. But these timing variations preclude a proof of the soundness of the type system using the framework of probabilistic bisimulation, because probabilistic bisimulation is too strict regarding time. To address this difficulty, this paper proposes a notion of weak probabilistic bisimulation for Markov chains, allowing two Markov chains to be regarded as equivalent even when one "runs" more slowly that the other. The paper applies weak probabilistic bisimulation to prove that the type system guarantees the probabilistic noninterference property. Finally, the paper shows that the language can safely be extended with a fork command that allows new threads to be spawned.
Discovery and evaluation of student's profiles with machine learning

Higher education institutions are overwhelmed with huge amounts of information regarding student's enrollment, number of courses completed, achievement in each course, performance indicators and other data. This has led to an increasingly complex analysis process of the growing volume of data and to the incapability to take decisions regarding curricula reform and restructuring. On the other side, educational data mining is a growing field aiming at discovering knowledge from student's data in order to thoroughly understand the learning process and take appropriate actions to improve the student's performance and the quality of the courses delivery. This paper presents a thorough analysis process performed on student's data through machine learning techniques. Experiments performed on a very large real-world dataset of students performance on all courses of a university, reveal interesting and important students profiles with clustering and surprising relationships among the courses performance with association rule mining.
Contemporary Public Leadership in China: A Research Review and Consideration

China garners great international attention due to its large population and rapid economic development. Contemporary public leadership in China is a major force for its growth. This article reviews the academic literature on that leadership, providing an overview of interest to scholars, teachers, and practitioners whose work deals with cross-cultural studies of leadership development. The review focuses primarily on materials published between January 1999 and June 2004 that explicitly address public leadership in China. The review identifies six areas of research to date: (1) leadership transition, (2) democratization, (3) prominent political figures, (4) local leadership, (5) cultural and historical traditions, and (6) other identified forms of public leadership (military vs. Party leadership, women as public leaders, religion and public leadership, and student leadership). The article concludes with discussions of characteristics of the literature and directions for future theoretical and empirical work.