Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of monitoring for visual events on distinct components of attention

Monitoring the environment for visual events while performing a concurrent task requires adjustment of visual processing priorities. By use of Bundesen’s (1990) Theory of Visual Attention, we investigated how monitoring for an object-based brief event affected distinct components of visual attention in a concurrent task. The perceptual salience of the event was varied. Monitoring reduced the processing speed in the concurrent task, and the reduction was stronger when the event was less salient. The monitoring task neither affected the temporal threshold of conscious perception nor the storage capacity of visual short-term memory nor the efficiency of top-down controlled attentional selection.
Leveraging Interactivity and MPI for Environmental Applications

This paper describes two different approaches to exploiting interactivity and MPI support available in the Interactive European Grid project. The first appli- cation is an air pollution simulation using Lagrangian trajectory model to simulate the spread of pollutant particles released into the atmosphere. The performance of the sequential implementation of the application was not satisfactory, therefore a parallelization was planned. The MPI programming model was used because of some previous experience with it and its support in the grid infrastructure to be used. Then the interactivity enabling the user to receive visualizations of simu- lation steps and to exercise control over the application running in the grid was added. The user interface for interacting with the application was implemented as an plug-in into the Migrating Desktop user interface client platform. The other application is an interactive workflow management system, which is a modification of a previously developed system for management of applications composed of web and grid services. It allows users to manage more complex jobs, composed of se- veral program executions, in an interactive and comfortable manner. The system uses the interactive channel of the project to forward commands from a GUI to the on-site workflow manager, and to control the job during execution. This tool is able to visualize the inner workflow of the application. User has complete in-execution control over the job, can see its partial results, and can even alter it while it is running. This allows not only to accommodate the job workflow to the data it produces, extend or shorten it, but also to interactively debug and tune the job.
Primary school principals in Ethiopia: Selection and preparation

The study is an explanatory qualitative research that seeks to investigate the processes of Ethiopian primary school principals’ selection and training for professionalising principals. The participants are seven faculty members, 11 school principals and five education officials. Data are collected through semi-structured interview, focus group discussion and document analysis that are analysed thematically. Findings of the study show that the denial of principalship to professional graduates and political affiliation lens are scenarios that inform principals’ selection for leadership positions. Selection criteria that give emphasis to university degree Grade Point Average (GPA), teaching experience and performance are deciding who is selected for postgraduate diploma in school leadership (PGDSL) training. These indicate the gap the selection processes have in selecting competent leaders for the training. The study also shows that the duration of the primary school principals’ training is short. Its curriculum lacks depth and breadth. Albeit the training helps trainees to be familiarised with school leading, it is deficient in informing principalship professionalisation. The Ministry of Education, therefore, needs to revisit the selection and training processes so that proper criteria and procedures, inform the selection and training of competent professionals needed in the area.
Variability in Wheelchair Propulsion: A New Window into an Old Problem

Manual wheelchair users are at great risk for the development of upper extremity injury and pain. Any loss of upper limb function due to pain adversely impacts the independence and mobility of manual wheelchair users. There is growing theoretical and empirical evidence that fluctuations in movement (i.e., motor variability) are related to musculoskeletal pain. This perspectives paper discusses a local review on several investigations examining the association between variability in wheelchair propulsion and shoulder pain in manual wheelchair users. The experimental data reviewed highlights that the variability of wheelchair propulsion is impacted by shoulder pain in manual wheelchair users. We maintain that inclusion of these metrics in future research on wheelchair propulsion and upper limb pain may yield novel data. Several promising avenues for future research based on this collective work are discussed.
Religion and the Therapeutic Ethos in Twentieth-Century American History

Christopher P. Loss is a graduate student in history and education at the University of Virginia. He is a past contributor to American Studies International and the History of Education Quarterly. His article, "Reading Between Enemy Lines: Armed Services Editions and World War Two," will be published by the Journal of Military History in 2003. He would like to thank his wife, Catherine Gavin Loss, for reading and commenting on earlier drafts of this essay.
Characterization of CMOS Fully Differential Ampliﬁers for Automatic Design Procedure

This paper presents the design and characterization of fully differential ampliﬁers for application in an automatic circuit sizing tool. The tool uses Simulated Annealing as main optimization heuristic and electrical simulations for circuit speciﬁcations evaluations. The methodology is based on the minimization of a cost function and a set of constraints in order to size each transistor of the circuit. A set of standard testbenches are implemented in the tool to estimate the speciﬁcations values. In these testbenches an ideal common-mode feedback (CMFB) circuit is used. As design example, this paper shows the application of the approach for the design of a single-stage fully differential ampliﬁer in 0.18 µ m technology. The results show that all required speciﬁcations are met in an acceptable execution time.
The socio-economic status of vocational education and training students in Australia

This report investigates the relationship between socio-economic status and participation and achievement in the vocational education and training (VET) sector. The research examines the extent to which training opportunities provided by the public VET system are taken up by people from different socio-economic backgrounds. The focus of this project was the student population enrolled in the public VET system in Australia in 2001. The research found that there is an over-representation of students from low socio-economic areas in the Australian VET sector. This over-representation is partly driven by the relatively high participation by students in VET in regions outside the capital cities, which on average tend to be lower socio-economic areas. As well, people from low socio-economic areas tend to undertake lower-level qualifications, however VET students from lower socio-economic areas complete qualifications at a better-than-average rate.
Personalized recommendation based on WAR

Personalized recommendation is the process of customizing Web site to meet the requirement of specific user by analyzing user's browsing behavior and extracting knowledge based on Web logs. Association rules mining technology is widely adopted in this field. However, the resulting association patterns can not effectively predict user's future browsing behavior because of the low similarity degree between resulting rules and user's browsing behavior. In this paper, we assign a weight to each item in a transaction to reflect the interest degree, which extends the traditional association rule method. We also proposed weighted association rule (WAR) through associating a weight with each item in resulting association rules. Each Web page is assigned to a weight according to interest degree and three key factors, i.e. visit frequency, stay duration and operation time. A novel personalized recommendation mechanism is presented based our proposed WAR. The weighted measurement in our personalized recommendation can be used to determine the importance of Web pages for user. We try to acquire user's requirement more precisely so as to more useful Web pages are discovered and recommended for user.
A cellular model for the evolutionary development of lightweight material with an inner structure

We present a model of simulated evolutionary development on the basis of cells as building blocks for growth. In this model, cells grow and interact in a three-dimensional (3D) environment, where development is controlled by a simple genome. Using cell-cell interaction such as differential adhesion, cells sort and form complex arrangements. This developmental process is evolved using a multi-objective evolutionary algorithm to achieve lightweight and stable material with a complex inner structure.
Plugging Side-Channel Leaks with Timing Information Flow Control

The cloud model's dependence on massive parallelism and resource sharing exacerbates the security challenge of timing side-channels. Timing Information Flow Control (TIFC) is a novel adaptation of IFC techniques that may offer a way to reason about, and ultimately control, the flow of sensitive information through systems via timing channels. With TIFC, objects such as files, messages, and processes carry not just content labels describing the ownership of the object's "bits," but also timing labels describing information contained in timing events affecting the object, such as process creation/termination or message reception. With two system design tools--deterministic execution and pacing queues--TIFC enables the construction of "timing-hardened" cloud infrastructure that permits statistical multiplexing, while aggregating and rate-limiting timing information leakage between hosted computations.
UTILIZATION OF A SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM TO DEVELOP CONTINUING EDUCATION PROGRAMMING FOR PROMOTING NURSING PRACTICE IN CAMBODIA

Background: Cambodia’s nursing profession and nursing education system continue to progress 40 years after destruction by the Khmer Rouge. The author, who has a relationship with a hospital in southern Cambodia, was asked to teach physical assessment techniques to improve patient care.Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the impact of culturally congruent physical assessment media on the knowledge-base of Cambodian nurses.Methods: This article describes two years of an on-going project designed by the author who annually recruits US based BSN nursing students to use the ADDIE model to create and record segments on physical assessment which are posted on a private You Tube channel for the limited English- speaking Cambodian nursing staff. Optional post-tests are administered by the Cambodian hospital’s nursing director.Results: Test results reflect knowledge gained on cardiac, pulmonary, and gastrointestinal physical assessment skills with means ranging from 73.55% to 95.71%. Physical assessment skills until recently were not taught in Cambodia's nursing programs. Cambodia's nursing profession is advancing and a corresponding skill set including conducting physical assessments is necessary. As a majority of the project participants did not have prior exposure to the material, a pre-test was not provided and participation in post-testing was optional. The objective was to provide useful professional educational materials at a comfortable language level for the Cambodian nurses using examples which were cultural relevant.Conclusion: The BSN students successfully developed culturally relevant educational products the Cambodian nurses the nurses found useful.
An Enhanced Protocol for Bluetooth Scatternet Formation and Routing

Formation of scatternet using Bluetooth devices increases device tractability thereby inviting new networking applications to be designed on it. In this paper we propose Bluetooth Scatternet Formation and Routing Protocol (BSFRP). It is a distributed protocol that handles node mobility and enables multi-hop communication. BSFRP defines rules for topology discovery, scatternet formation and routing. The scatternet phase of the protocol works on the principle of leader election. For routing, AODV is modified to address the constraints of scatternets. It improves the AODV route discovery phase by considering hop count, residual node's power, and route lifetime for best route selection. Simulation results show that the scatternet formed by BSFRP has the following properties: the number of piconets formed is close to the universal lower bound, each device on an average does not assume more than 1.15 roles, and the scatternet does not contain any master-slave bridge.
A wavelet domain filter for correlated speckle

In this paper we assume that both the radar cross section and the speckle noise in SAR images are spatially correlated. We develop a wavelet domain linear minimum mean square error filter to remove the speckle noise. The autocorrelation functions in the wavelet domain are estimated from the single look complex SAR image. Preliminary studies show that proposed filter introduces less bias compared to performed the filtering in the image domain, but does not achieve the same level of smoothing. The proposed filter does not depend on sliding windows to avoid boundary effects.
Value positions for financial institutions in electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP)

Business to consumer (B2C) electronic commerce has led to new relationships connecting various supply chain partners via the Internet, significantly increasing the quantity and quality of inter-organizational information flows. Banks are traditionally partners in the information and financial flow elements in the supply chain, but other nonbank parties are also getting involved in these activities. Electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP) may be defined as technology solutions that allow billers to present their bills electronically to companies and enable companies to initiate electronic payments (Au and Kauffmann, 2001). EBPP may be seen, therefore, to have two main components: presentation of the bill and payment of the bill. The strength of the traditional role of banks will be seen in the second component, as billers and consolidators still do not have fiduciary powers of banks to actually pay the bill. Banks are providers of trust, play a role in insuring against credit risk and provide an infrastructure of network relations to businesses, governments, and individuals (Eriksson and Fjelstad, 2001). The paper advances a structural frame to explore the possible B2C value positions that banks may undertake in the area of EBPP. Banks will need to assess where the value proposition is for them in the various business models used in EBPP, and how best to leverage their position as a neutral trusted third party (TTP), so to modulate and reduce the risk for buyer, seller and the overall marketplace. Some case studies are described with the proposed frame.
Recognizing extended surrounding contexts via class incremental learning

Benefit from widely used Bluetooth sensor, user surrounding contexts can be availably recognized leveraging Bluetooth data. Most existing studies seldom deal with newly extended surrounding contexts which results in degrading the recognition performance, in that the built classifier just basically recognizes limited classes learned in training phase. This paper proposes a fuzzy class incremental learning method based on OSELM, named FCI-ELM, for continuously recognizing extended classes of contexts. The encouraging results of our experiments show that FCI-ELM can automatically and continuously recognize newly discovered classes of contexts in the real-world, and the model can keep the same recognition ability by class incremental learning approach.
Single mode lasing in MMI coupled square semiconductor ring resonators

This work reports the spectral characteristics of coupled-square ring semiconductor resonators. A simple square cavity showed complex peak lasing patterns with a broad envelope. For a single mode operation, the square ring cavities coupled with multimode interferometers are proposed and fabricated using the epitaxial layers of 1.55 µm center wavelength InGaAsP-InP multiple quantum wells. A stable single spectral lasing mode was obtained in the proposed multimode interferometer square cavities and the lasing characteristics with power and temperature were also presented.
Ultraviolet, Optical, and X-Ray Observations of the Type Ia Supernova 2005am with Swift

We present ultraviolet and optical light curves in six broadband filters and grism spectra obtained by Swift's Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope for the Type Ia supernova SN 2005am. The data were collected beginning about 4 days before the B-band maximum, with excellent coverage of the rapid decline phase and later observations extending out to 69 days after the peak. The optical and near-UV light curve match well those of SN 1992A. The other UV observations constitute the first set of light curves shorter than 2500 Å and allow us to compare the light curve evolution in three UV bands. One interesting feature is that the decay in the intermediate UVM2 band is shallower than in the filters on either side and may result from the bump in the interstellar extinction curve. The UV behavior of this and other low-redshift supernovae can be used to constrain theories of progenitor evolution or to interpret optical light curves of high-redshift supernovae. Using Swift's X-Ray Telescope, we also report the upper limit to SN 2005am's X-ray luminosity to be 6 × 1039 ergs s-1 in the 0.3-10 keV. This result is derived from 58 ks of exposure time spread out over 7 weeks beginning 4 days before the B-band maximum.
Policy paradigms, social learning, and the state: the case of economic policymaking in Britain

This article examines the model of social learning often believed to confirm the autonomy of the state from social pressures, tests it against recent cases of change in British economic policies, and offers a fuller analysis of the role of ideas in policymaking, based on the concept of policy paradigms. A conventional model of social learning is found to fit some types of changes in policy well but not the movement from Keynesian to monetarist modes of policymaking. In cases of paradigm shift, policy respond to a wider social debate bound up with electoral competition that demands a reformulation of traditional conceptions of state-society relations.
Biomarkers of Susceptibility to Lung Cancer Products of Oxidative DNA Damage and Repair as Possible Updated

The broad spectrum of oxidative DNA damage biomarkers [urinary excretion of 8-hydroxy-2 -deoxyguanosine (8-OH-dGuo) and 8-hydroxyguanine (8-OH-Gua)] and the level of oxidative DNA damage and repair in leukocytes DNA were analyzed in three groups of subjects: (a) lung cancer patients [all smokers (n 51)]; (b) healthy smokers with comparable smoking status (n 26); and (c) healthy nonsmokers (n 38). The mean level of 8-OH-Gua in urine samples of 38 healthy nonsmokers reached a value of 1.783 0.785 nmol/day/kg. This level was significantly lower than that in the urine of the two smoker groups (cancer patients and healthy smokers), in whom the levels reached values of 2.319 1.271 and 2.824 0.892 nmol/day/kg, respectively. Urinary excretion of 8-OH-dGuo was similar in all groups of subjects. The level of 8-OH-dGuo in DNA isolated from leukocytes of cancer patients was significantly higher than that in DNA isolated from the group of healthy smokers and nonsmokers (9.44 4.77 versus 7.20 2.83 and 5.88 2.47 molecules/10 deoxyguanosine, respectively). Repair activity of 8-OH-Gua, as estimated by the nicking assay, was significantly higher in blood leukocytes of healthy volunteers (44.6 20.21 and 37.54 13.43 pmol/h/mg protein for smokers and nonsmokers, respectively) than in the leukocytes of lung cancer patients (24.56 11.28 pmol/h/mg protein). Because oxidative DNA insult represented by urinary excretion of oxidative DNA lesions was similar in both groups of subjects with similar smoking status, it appears likely that a higher rate of generation of oxidative damage in cellular DNA of lung cancer patients is a result of deficiency of the repair mechanism(s) in this group.
Cramér–Rao Bounds for Broadband Dispersion Extraction of Borehole Acoustic Modes

The estimation of slowness (the reciprocal of velocity) and attenuation dispersion of borehole acoustic and surface seismic data is key to a variety of applications. The emerging broadband approach for dispersion extraction of multiple modes has shown significant advantages over traditional narrowband approaches. In this letter, Cramér-Rao bounds (CRBs) are established to characterize the best achievable performance of any unbiased broadband estimator of the dispersion. One noteworthy observation from the derived CRBs is that the same estimation accuracy can be achieved between the angular wavenumber and the attenuation and, between the group slowness and the attenuation rate. The broadband CRB is also shown to include the narrowband CRB as a special case and it quantifies the performance benefit of the broadband approach.
Guest editorial : special issue on public sector reform and accounting change : guest editorial note

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to introduce and review the papers contained in the special issue on accounting and organizational change in the public sector and reflects on their key themes and findings - design, methodology and approach. The paper draws on general desk research and the papers in this special edition. Findings: This paper finds that there is a variety of valid research approaches that can usefully be employed to investigate accounting change in the public sector. Practical Implications: This paper concludes that accounting change is more likely to achieve the objectives set for it if there is a high degree of local involvement in its implementation. Originality value: Drawing together a collection of papers that investigate the important topic of the involvement of accounting in organizational change.
Cluster Dynamics: New Evidence and Projections for Computing Services in Great Britain

This paper tests some of the main hypotheses about the importance of horizontal clusters for the growth of employment in small firms using data from Computing Services in Great Britain. In the main section of the paper, spatial econometric models are estimated controlling for supply- and demand-side conditions to isolate the effect of initial cluster intensity. The paper then projects cluster development using the fitted model, showing how clusters are likely to emerge and intensify. One aspect of the paper is the existence of a de-clustering mechanism due to congestion effects.
Path delay ATPG for standard scan design

Path delay fault test generation for standard scan design is topic of this work. A twenty-valued and a nine-valued logic are presented that are best-suited for the generation of robust and nonrobust tests. The scan design is used in two different ways: functional justification and scan shifting. Excellent experimental results considering all functional paths of benchmark circuits demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach.