Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Relationship Between Thyroid-Stimulating Hormone Level and Aggressive Pathological Features of Papillary Thyroid Cancer

Objectives: Thyroid-stimulating hormones (TSHs) are associated with the risk of differentiated thyroid cancer. The relationship between pre-operative TSH levels and aggressive features is unclear. We aimed to evaluate the relationship between pathological features of papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) and high TSH levels. Methods: Patients who were operated between 2012 and 2017 and who were found to have PTC in their pathology were included in the study. The relationship between TSH and the features of tumor aggressiveness was evaluated in the patients. Results: Of the 132 patients, TSH level was significantly higher in those with lymphovascular invasion than those without (p=0.048), in those with central metastases than in those without (p=0.014), and in those with extrathyroidal spread than in those without (p=0.003). When patients were categorized into four 25% quartiles according to TSH (mUI/mL) level; the rate of extrathyroidal invasion increased as the TSH level increased, and the level was significantly higher in quartile 1 than the others, with significant difference (p=0.030). Conclusion: Pre-operative increase in TSH level is associated with an increased risk of extrathyroidal spread and central lymph node metastasis. TSH level may be a pre-operative valuable predictive factor for patients’ risk of central metastasis.
The Inclusive Working Life Program: An Inductive Qualitative Study

The Inclusive Working Life (IWL) program is a tripartite cooperation between the Norwegian government, labour organisations and employers’ associations. IWL aims to prevent and reduce sick leave levels, increase employment of employees with disabilities and increase average retirement age. The IWL program has been evaluated on several occasions. Few measurable effects have been discovered in quantitative studies so far, still the program has been reinstated, last for the period 2014-2018. Qualitative studies can contribute to understand the IWL limitations to meet own targets. As a contribution to enhance knowledge of the IWL implementation process – the present study accessed practical experiences with the IWL program. A total of twenty-four informants with first-hand experience of IWL were interviewed, more specific employers with personnel responsibility and support staff. Through inductive analysis it was discovered that the informants experienced the external IWL program as representing something different than the internal, general work environment (GWE). The internal GWE was broadly characterized by strengths. These strengths were thematically connected to (1) resources, (2) proactivity and (3) Quality of Working Life (QWL) principles for public administration. The IWL program was mainly characterized by weaknesses. These shortcomings concluded that the IWL program was understood as (1) reactive, (2) deviated from success criteria for effective work environment interventions, (3) associated with demands, (4) held a stress perspective on the work environment and (5) was in line with New Public Management (NPM) principles for public administration. This concludes that the IWL program contrasts today’s knowledge-based work environment perspectives. GWE indicates to buffer the recommendations the external IWL program imposes.
A Model Study of Mobile Applications Stickiness

The purpose of this paper is to study the possible forming reason of stickiness about mobile application from the users' perspective and find the sticky influence factors. Research methods of this study include literature research, normative research, empirical research and evaluation research. This study constructed the user experience model which based on sticky factors form the basic dimensions and the core dimensions. Basic dimension is a basement of mobile applications' producing stickiness, and the core dimension is the driving factor of stickiness. This study also constituted evaluation system of stickiness, and provided a theoretical foundation for developing mobile applications with stickiness characteristics. The outcomes of this study can be exploited to drive further research in the field.
Theoretical Lower Bounds on the Performance of the First-Order Differential Microphone Arrays With Sensor Imperfections

The first-order differential microphone arrays (DMAs) offer the appealing properties such as compact size, and frequency-invariant response, and thus have found a wide range of applications. However, they are known to be sensitive to sensor imperfections, i.e., microphone gain errors, phase errors and self-noise. In this paper, we study the analysis and design of the first-order DMAs in the presence of sensor imperfections. Particularly, the theoretical lower bounds on the performance of the first-order DMAs with sensor imperfections are derived in closed form by using the theory of interval analysis, including the lower bounds on directivity factor (DF) and front-to-back ratio (FBR), which are two essential performance measures in DMAs design. Unlike the existing related works, we have considered a more general and realistic scenario when all the above-mentioned three kinds of sensor imperfections coexist. Based on the derived performance lower bounds, a method is presented to design the first-order DMA with its performance exceeding the worst-case optimum performance. Moreover, an analysis is presented, which takes into account the sensor imperfections in the design of the first-order DMAs so the optimum worst-case performance is guaranteed. Extensive simulation results are also shown to demonstrate the effectiveness of our theoretical findings.
Enterprise Computer Security: A Literature Review

Information technology (IT) is a global phenomenon that provides organizations of all types the ability to achieve enterprise objectives. One IT component is computer security, sometimes referred to as cybersecurity, the detection and prevention of a rapidly evolving collection of threats and vulnerabilities capable of introducing significant IT risk to an organization. Seminal events such as the creation of U.S. Cyber Command in 2009 acknowledging cyberspace as the fifth domain of war, and the 2015 recall by Fiat Chrysler of 1.4 million vehicles to mitigate an Internet enabled threat, serve as bookends framing the rapid evolution of cybersecurity threats and the need for organizations to better understand the collective vulnerabilities that enable computer security risk. However, a recent literature review of a major information systems (IS) research journal suggests publication of academic research associated with management of computer security from an enterprise perspective is limited. Given the relevance of computer security in today’s IT environment, this finding suggests that enterprise computer security is an under studied research topic. This article addresses this finding and the research gaps with the intent of encouraging new research in this domain.
Lessons from self-organising shelter communities: 'We were already a community and you put a roof over us'

This paper illustrates the work of a community of shelter folk and shelter workers to create safe-enough and dignified communal living conditions in housing shelters. The aim of this writing is to make clear the intentions and practices of promoting self-organising communities, by embracing a messy and imperfect practice, and working collaboratively with shelter folk to resist professional imperatives to tell people how to live.
Generalized Terzaghi’s Effective Stress Equation for Unsaturated Soil: An Independent Phase Balance Approach That Considers a Pore Water Content Gradient

The effective stress equation for unsaturated soil is the most important equation in unsaturated soil mechanics. It has been derived by many scholars using different methods. However, none of them considered the gradient of the pore water content, which results in unreasonable force balance equations for different constituent phases in unsaturated soil. To introduce the gradient, we propose an extended three-phase physical model that includes capillary water, air, and generalized soil skeletons. Based on this model, three balance equations for these three constituent phases are separately formulated by considering the gradient of the pore water content. Comparing the result of the superposition of these three balance equations with the total balance equation, we derive a generalized Terzaghi’s effective stress equation. This equation states that the effective stress is equal to the total stress minus the neutral stress. In comparison with the classical Bishop’s equation, the generalized Terzaghi’s equation ensures a smooth and continuous transition from unsaturated to saturated conditions not only in mathematical expression but also in physical meaning. Furthermore, the different pressure effects of capillary water and adsorbed water, their volumetric (or areal) effects, and the transformation between them can be considered by adopting the effective saturation of the capillary water as the effective stress parameter. Therefore, the generalized Terzaghi’s equation can provide a better choice for estimating the effective stress in unsaturated soils.
Zur Definition des dynamischen Regelfaktors in mehrschleifigen Regelsystemen / Defining the dynamic control factor in multi-loop control systems

Es ist bekannt, daß man mehrschleifigen Regelsystemen mit je einer Einund Ausgangsgröße nicht so problemlos offene Systeme zuordnen kann, wie es bei einschleifigen Regelsystemen möglich ist. Denn eine Verschiebung der Schnittstelle, die das offene System definiert, kann bei mehrschleifigen Systemen dieses offene System verändern oder neu definieren. Eine Untersuchung dieses Problems führt auf den Begriff des ,,dominanten Signalpfads". Die Ergebnisse dieser Untersuchung lassen sich an einer Zustandsregelung mit Beobachter demonstrieren undführen zu einer Klärung von Begriffen, die beim Beobachter-Entwurf verwendet werden, wie zum Beispiel der des dynamischen Regelfaktors.
A Comparative Study for the Impact of IFRS Convergence on Accounting Quality between Malaysian PLC and Chinese PLC

The purpose of this research is to examines whether Malaysian PLC (fully converge to IFRS) could achieve better accounting quality as compare with Chinese PLC (non-fully converge to IFRS) or otherwise. And then further study on the relationship between the PLCs’ characteristics with accounting quality. Full samples of both groups consist of 2510 PLC and 17570 observations. Group FC (Malaysian PLC) consist of 420 PLC with 2946 observations and Group NFC (Chinese PLC) consist of 2090 PLC with 14204 observations. This research used the Modified Jones model to estimate the absolute value of discretionary accruals (ABSDACC); a proxy for earnings management practice. Accounting quality decrease as earnings management practices in a PLC increase and vice versa. This research used OLS to test the hypotheses. Which includes earnings management (ABSDACC) as the dependent variable, and IFRS Convergence (CONVERGE) and some other variables (PLC’s characteristics) as the independent variables. The result clearly stated that the nexus between CONVERGE (IFRS Convergence) and accounting quality is negative and statistically significant. Hence, Malaysian PLC with full convergence to IFRS practising a lower accounting quality as compare to Chinese PLC. Furthermore, there is a statistical significant negative correlation between the accounting quality with leverage (LEV), profitability (ROA), earnings growth (GROWTH), and prior-year loss (LAGLOSS). Variable firm’s size (SIZE) is significantly positively associated with accounting quality. Percentage change in company shares (EISSUE) is significant but has no relation with accounting quality; while percentage change in company debts (DISSUE) also reported no relationship with accounting quality but insignificant. This study contributes to the literature by examining IFRS convergence in China and Malaysia are useful in evaluating whether fully converged to IFRS achieves its stated objective of fulfilling the financial reporting needs of emerging economies. And add to the literature by identifying the potential PLCs’ specific characteristics that are associated with accounting quality.
Dense Video Captioning With Early Linguistic Information Fusion

Dense captioning methods generally detect events in videos first and then generate captions for the individual events. Events are localized solely based on the visual cues while ignoring the associated linguistic information and context. Whereas end-to-end learning may implicitly take guidance from language, these methods still fall short of the power of explicit modeling. In this paper, we propose a Visual-Semantic Embedding (ViSE) Framework that models the word(s)-context distributional properties over the entire semantic space and computes weights for all the n-grams such that higher weights are assigned to the more informative n-grams. The weights are accounted for in learning distributed representations of all the captions to construct a semantic space. To perform the contextualization of visual information and the constructed semantic space in a supervised manner, we design Visual-Semantic Joint Modeling Network (VSJM-Net). The learned ViSE embeddings are then temporally encoded with a Hierarchical Descriptor Transformer (HDT). For caption generation, we exploit a transformer architecture to decode the input embeddings into natural language descriptions. Experiments on the large-scale ActivityNet Captions dataset and YouCook-II dataset demonstrate the efficacy of our method.
A Wideband Endfire Double Dipole Antenna Fed From Double-Ridge Gap Waveguides for Multibeam Array Application

In this letter, an endfire double dipole antenna fed from double-ridge gap waveguides (DRGWG) is proposed and designed for multibeam array application. Two dipoles with different lengths are connected to the extension of the ridges of DRGWG in series. Different resonances can be generated by these two dipoles, which contributes to a wide impedance bandwidth, high gain, and stable radiation patterns across the working band. The double dipole antenna is vertically polarized and has a wide H-plane beamwidth suitable for beam scanning application. To verify the performance of the double dipole antenna, a Butler matrix is designed based on ridge gap waveguides to feed a 1 × 4 double dipole array arranging in H-plane. The maximum gains achieved for Ports 1 and 2 are 13.94 and 12.68 dBi, respectively. Besides, the simulated radiation efficiencies for Ports 1 and 2 are both above 83%.
The quest for ongoing support by parents of learners with intellectual disabilities

In this article we explore the need for ongoing support for those parents/guardians raising children with intellectual disabilities. The aims of the study on which this article builds were: (i) to explore the experiences of support offered to parents of learners with intellectual disabilities in Soweto; and (ii) to evaluate how support services affect parents' perceptions and expectations of their children's future. Thirty-five parents of learners from four schools diagnosed with an intellectual disability were purposefully selected to participate in this qualitative research, with one focus group discussion conducted at each school. Findings highlight parents' concern about their children's future when exiting the school system. Furthermore, our findings emphasise the need for ongoing support in many aspects throughout the various developmental stages of the child's life. We propose a framework for coordinated support that may serve to guide parents to support their disabled children.
Tuned geometries of hippocampal representations meet the demands of social memory

Social recognition consists of multiple memory processes, including the detection of familiarity – the ability to rapidly distinguish familiar from novel individuals – and recollection – the effortful recall of where a social episode occurred and who was present. At present, the neural mechanisms for these different social memory processes remain unknown. Here, we investigate the population code for novel and familiar individuals in mice using calcium imaging of neural activity in a region crucial for social memory, the dorsal CA2 area of the hippocampus. We report that familiarity changes CA2 representations of social encounters to meet the different demands of social memory. While novel individuals are represented in a low-dimensional geometry that allows for rapid generalization, familiar individuals are represented in a higher-dimensional geometry that supports high-capacity memory storage. The magnitude of the change in dimensionality of CA2 representations for a given individual predicts the performance of that individual in a social recognition memory test, suggesting a direct relationship between the representational geometry and memory-guided behavior. Finally, we show that familiarity is encoded as an abstract variable with neural responses generalizing across different identities and spatial locations. Thus, through the tuning of the geometry of structured neural activity, CA2 is able to meet the complex demands of multiple social memory processes.
Tactile Displays of Pulse Oximetry

Prior investigations of vibrotactile displays suggest they have promise for use in the healthcare domain. This exploratory study forms part of a series exploring the use of an upper arm, continuously informing, vibrotactile display of pulse oximetry for clinicians. The study focused on the effect of vigilance on participants’ accuracy and latency for detecting and identifying changes in vital sign levels. Twenty-one participants were tested in a within-subjects design in four blocks of approximately 18 minutes duration each. Two blocks were a low workload condition and the other two blocks a high workload condition. Data were analysed against thresholds of 90% for accuracy and 10 seconds for response latency and workload conditions were also compared for accuracy and latency. Participants’ accuracy was not better than 90% and response latency was not shorter than 10 seconds, even in the low workload conditions. Participants were slower to detect changes in the high workload condition, and detection time worsened as the experiment progressed. Taken together, the results suggest that detecting rare events places a high strain on cognition and negatively affects performance. These findings have implications for the use of vibrotactile displays and will guide further investigations into the use of vibrotactile technology in healthcare.
An Approach to Evolutionary Aircraft Design for Growth Potential

One of the fundamental objectives of aircraft design is the identification of an optimal vehicular solution that satisfies all imposed requirements. Design, as a time-phased process, is thus essentially initiated and driven by such top-level requirements, whose origins can often be traced back to the customer. The operational environment in which these customer requirements are formulated, however, evolves constantly, creating a gap between the desired and designed-in capabilities. Technological advancements also render many subsystem components obsolete on a continual basis, leading to sub-optimal vehicle performance. The conventional approach to overcoming this capability mismatch problem is through upgrading and retrofitting the existing vehicle. This paper introduces a proposed method that would enable contemporary design engineers to incorporate a conceived vehicle’s growth potential to its development cycle from the beginning. The end-goal is to be able to systematically and efficiently incorporate not only current, but also future requirements and technologies into the aircraft sizing and synthesis process.
Passivity based speed control of induction motors

To maximally simplify the speed control for induction motor, this paper applied the torque control strategy, passivity based control. In essance, passivity based control is a undecoupling nonlinear feedback method. Using energy concept, it analyzes the motor system and finds out the “workless force”, which is unnecessary to be canceled. Therefore, the control is simplified. In this paper, the same torque controller is designed firstly. Then the feedback from speed error to torque reference is established to realize speed control, handling speed as a constant owing to its slowly changing property. As passivity based control, the designed speed controller has a simplicity and robustness. In addition, the simulation shows that the control system has good static and dynamic performance, through adjusting control parameter.
Technology and American Economic Growth

In 1982, Vaclav Smil turned upside down traditional perceptions of China as a green paradise in "The Bad Earth", a disturbing book. This new volume, drawn on a much broader canvas, updates and expands on the basic arguments and perceptions of "The Bad Earth". This book is not a systematic litany of what went wrong and how much - but rather an inquiry into the fundamental factors, needs, prospects, and limits of modern Chinese society, all seen through the critical environmental constraints and impacts.
Compressible direct numerical simulation of low-pressure turbines: part I - methodology

Modern low pressure turbines (LPT) feature high pressure ratios and moderate Mach and Reynolds numbers, increasing the possibility of laminar boundary-layer separation on the blades. Upstream disturbances including background turbulence and incoming wakes have a profound effect on the behavior of separation bubbles and the type/location of laminar-turbulent transition and therefore need to be considered in LPT design. URANS are often found inadequate to resolve the complex wake dynamics and impact of these environmental parameters on the boundary layers and may not drive the design to the best aerodynamic efficiency. LES can partly improve the accuracy, but has difficulties in predicting boundary layer transition and capturing the delay of laminar separation with varying inlet turbulence levels. Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) is able to overcome these limitations but has to date been considered too computationally expensive. Here a novel compressible DNS code is presented and validated, promising to make DNS practical for LPT studies. Also, the sensitivity of wake loss coefficient with respect to freestream turbulence levels below 1% is discussed.
Learning-Based Trajectory Tracking and Balance Control for Bicycle Robots With a Pendulum: A Gaussian Process Approach

This article presents a learning-based control framework for a class of underactuated bicycle robots with an active pendulum attached to the rear body as a balancer. In contrast with the extent methods that require the exact dynamic modeling, the proposed solution deals with the uncertainties, including the impacts of changing road environment, unmodeled dynamics, and external disturbances by virtue of Gaussian process and disturbance cancellation on control device. The tracking controller using traction and steering is presented based on Lyapunov redesign. The self-balancing control of the roll-pendulum underactuated subsystem is considered. This subsystem is first converted into a pure-feedback form, and a novel backstepping controller based on dynamic inversion technique is developed to maintain the roll and pendulum angles in the balance equilibrium manifold. By using an event-triggered update in the learning process, efficient prediction can be achieved, and the tracking error and the roll angle are limited to smaller bounds that are explicitly given. The simulation verifies that adjustable performance can be offered for tracking by tuning the control gains and the hyperparameters of the Gaussian process predictor. Finally, experiments are conducted on a real bicycle platform to illustrate the effectiveness of the control framework.