Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Asymmetric Cointegration

By decomposing a time series into its positive and negative partial sums, a nonlinear version of cointegration is introduced. This generalization of cointegration is appealing to model asymmetric behavior. Examining the properties of this peculiar form of cointegration, we show that the stochastic structure of the relation calls for specific estimation and testing procedures. The theory is applied to historical exchange rates between the US dollar and some countries belonging to the European Monetary system.
Regulation of B Lymphocyte Development by the Truncated Immunoglobulin Heavy Chain Protein Dμ

The development of B lymphocytes from progenitor cells is dependent on the expression of a pre–B cell–specific receptor made up by a μ heavy chain associated with the surrogate light chains, immunoglobulin (Ig)α, and Igβ. A variant pre–B cell receptor can be formed in which the μ heavy chain is exchanged for a truncated μ chain denoted Dμ. To investigate the role of this receptor in the development of B cells, we have generated transgenic mice that express the Dμ protein in cells of the B lineage. Analysis of these mice reveal that Dμ expression leads to a partial block in B cell development at the early pre–B cell stage, probably by inhibiting VH to DHJH rearrangement. Furthermore, we provide evidence that Dμ induces VL to JL rearrangements.
Prevalence and antibiogram study of Staphylococcus aureus isolated from clinical and selected drinking water of Dutsin-Ma, Katsina state, Nigeria

Background Multidrug resistant Staphylococcus aureus in clinical and environmental samples is a global problem. Data comparing antibiogram of bacteria from these two sources in Nigeria is scarce. Therefore, this study compares antibiogram of isolates from both sources from Dutsin-Ma, Katsina State, Nigeria. Methodology A total of 120 and 150 clinical and aquatic samples respectively were collected for a five months period. Samples were analyzed for isolation of S. aureus using mannitol salt agar. Bacteria identification were carried out using standard biochemical characterization. Antibiogram of the isolates were determined using disc diffusion methods and comparison with Clinical Laboratory Standard Institute (CLSI)'s Standard. Result A total of 120 and 45 S. aureus were isolated from both clinical and aquatic samples respectively. Highest (100.0%) resistance to cloxacillin was observed among isolates from each source. Clinical and aquatic isolates showed least resistance of 20.0% and 48.0% respectively to gentamicin. All isolated S. aureus (165) from this studies were multidrug resistant with different antibiotic resistant pattern. Conclusion This study revealed that multidrug resistance strains of S. aureus can be isolated from both clinical and drinking water sources, hence, a public health significance that calls for urgent attention by clinicians and public health workers.
On aspect-oriented programming for enforcing software design rules

Software design rules are important in modern software development, with significance in achieving high quality in many aspects of software engineering including functional correctness, safety, performance, reusability, and so on. The current practice of software engineering tools to enforce software design rules has much to be desired. They usually either can only check a pre-defined set of design rules without allowing customization and extension, or even when customization or extension is allowed, they require programmers to encode new design rules in low level primitives such as byte-code level API, or force programmers to learn new domain specific languages or new meta-models that programmers are not familiar with. In this thesis work, we argue that the shadow model of AspectJ-like Aspect-oriented programming languages is a useful and suitable meta-model for building customizable software design rule static checkers for programs written in Java-like object-oriented languages. To support this thesis, based on AspectJ’s shadow model and pointcut language, we have built two compile time facilities, with which software design rules can be encoded and enforced. The first facility is called Statically Executable Advice, which allows programmers to implement design rule checkers in advice-like constructs, but unlike advice in AspectJ, they are advice that are defined on static shadows, instead of on dynamic join points, and that they are executed at compile time, instead of at run time. The second facility is a further improvement of the idea, by featuring a Datalog based declarative query mechanism on shadows, with a seamless integration with AspectJ’s native pointcut expression language. When designing this Datalog shadow query mechanism, we especially developed it with a focus on performance and scalability. We present a Datalog representation of the shadow model of AspectJ so that we can leverage an intelligent data structure capable of dealing with large-scale relational data with much redundancy, called Binary Decision Diagram (BDD). We make use of an advanced third party BDD-based Datalog solver called ”bddbddb” to solve design rule constraints encoded in Datalog shadow queries in our system. We have evaluated our Datalog-based approach for enforcing software design rules in terms of its effectiveness, usability, and performance. The evaluation results show that the system can describe and enforce a wide variety of industrial software design rules, it is easier to use than writing queries on an alternative meta-model, i.e., the Abstract-Syntax-Tree based model, and the system indeed can scale well to large size real world programs on diversified queries.
An In Vitro Co-culture Mouse Model Demonstrates Efficient Vaccine-Mediated Control of Francisella tularensis SCHU S4 and Identifies Nitric Oxide as a Predictor of Efficacy

Francisella tularensis is a highly virulent intracellular bacterium and cell-mediated immunity is critical for protection, but mechanisms of protection against highly virulent variants, such as the prototypic strain F. tularensis strain SCHU S4, are poorly understood. To this end, we established a co-culture system, based on splenocytes from naïve, or immunized mice and in vitro infected bone marrow-derived macrophages that allowed assessment of mechanisms controlling infection with F. tularensis. We utilized the system to understand why the clpB gene deletion mutant, ΔclpB, of SCHU S4 shows superior efficacy as a vaccine in the mouse model as compared to the existing human vaccine, the live vaccine strain (LVS). Compared to naïve splenocytes, ΔclpB-, or LVS-immune splenocytes conferred very significant control of a SCHU S4 infection and the ΔclpB-immune splenocytes were superior to the LVS-immune splenocytes. Cultures with the ΔclpB-immune splenocytes also contained higher levels of IFN-γ, IL-17, and GM-CSF and nitric oxide, and T cells expressing combinations of IFN-γ, TNF-α, and IL-17, than did cultures with LVS-immune splenocytes. There was strong inverse correlation between bacterial replication and levels of nitrite, an end product of nitric oxide, and essentially no control was observed when BMDM from iNOS−/− mice were infected. Collectively, the co-culture model identified a critical role of nitric oxide for protection against a highly virulent strain of F. tularensis.
A new benchmark for stereo-based pedestrian detection

Pedestrian detection is a rapidly evolving area in the intelligent vehicles domain. Stereo vision is an attractive sensor for this purpose. But unlike for monocular vision, there are no realistic, large scale benchmarks available for stereo-based pedestrian detection, to provide a common point of reference for evaluation. This paper introduces the Daimler Stereo-Vision Pedestrian Detection benchmark, which consists of several thousands of pedestrians in the training set, and a 27-min test drive through urban environment and associated vehicle data. The data, including ground truth, is made publicly available for non-commercial purposes. The paper furthermore quantifies the benefit of stereo vision for ROI generation and localization; at equal detection rates, false positives are reduced by a factor of 4–5 with stereo over mono, using the same HOG/linSVM classification component.
Distinct developmental origins and regulatory mechanisms for GABAergic neurons associated with dopaminergic nuclei in the ventral mesodiencephalic region

GABAergic neurons in the ventral mesodiencephalic region are highly important for the function of dopaminergic pathways that regulate multiple aspects of behavior. However, development of these neurons is poorly understood. We recently showed that molecular regulation of differentiation of the GABAergic neurons associated with the dopaminergic nuclei in the ventral midbrain (VTA and SNpr) is distinct from the rest of midbrain, but the reason for this difference remained elusive. Here, we have analyzed the developmental origin of the VTA and SNpr GABAergic neurons by genetic fate mapping. We demonstrate that the majority of these GABAergic neurons originate outside the midbrain, from rhombomere 1, and move into the ventral midbrain only as postmitotic neuronal precursors. We further show that Gata2, Gata3 and Tal1 define a subpopulation of GABAergic precursors in ventral rhombomere 1. A failure in GABAergic neuron differentiation in this region correlates with loss of VTA and SNpr GABAergic neurons in Tal1 mutant mice. In contrast to midbrain, GABAergic neurons of the anterior SNpr in the diencephalon are not derived from the rhombomere 1. These results suggest unique migratory pathways for the precursors of important GABAergic neuron subpopulations, and provide the basis for understanding diversity within midbrain GABAergic neurons.
Cross-regional Ties within Firms : Promoting Knowledge Flow or Discouraging Knowledge Spillover ?

R&D activities are increasingly carried out by collaborators from different geographic locations. Such collaborations are expected to promote knowledge flow across distance and generate positive spillover to the local community. However, little attention has been paid to the role of firm organization surrounding these collaborations. While crossregional collaborations in entrepreneurial firms usually involves extensive interpersonal interactions, those in large, established organizations are often highly structured and routinized, which may even increase internal interdependence and raise barriers to crossorganizational learning. Examining the pharmaceutical industry from 1975 to 2001, we find that collaborations play an important role in bridging the locally clustered R&D activities. Nevertheless, cross-regional ties in the big pharma companies contribute significantly less – sometimes even reduce knowledge spillover – to local innovation, and the pattern persists over time. Interviews conducted in several R&D clusters corroborated the empirical findings.
2 5 Ja n 20 08 Topological change and impedance responses in proteins : How do they run together ?

In recent experiments, the conformational change of proteins has been monitored by means of electrical measurements. In this paper we propose a model able to reproduce the variation of some conductive features of a protein resulting by its morphological transformations. To this purpose we map each protein into a network of interacting elementary impedances. The biological root (the kind of aminoacids and their mutual distance) determines the value of each elementary impedance. Accordingly, a global impedance is determined for each protein configuration. Thus, the value of the impedance is put in correspondence with the native or activated state of the protein. With this method we are also able to asses the size of the conformational change. The model is applied to the study of two quite different proteins, the light trans-membrane receptor, bovine rhodopsin, and the enzyme acetylcholinesterase (AChE). The results obtained for these proteins support the scenario in which conformational change is large in size and widespread in rhodopsin, while it is localized and small in AChE. PACS numbers: 87.15. A-,87.14. E-, 87.15. hp,87.80. Nj
Economical Speed and Energetically Optimal Transition Speed Evaluated by Gross and Net Oxygen Cost of Transport at Different Gradients

The oxygen cost of transport per unit distance (CoT; mL·kg-1·km-1) shows a U-shaped curve as a function of walking speed (v), which includes a particular walking speed minimizing the CoT, so called economical speed (ES). The CoT-v relationship in running is approximately linear. These distinctive walking and running CoT-v relationships give an intersection between U-shaped and linear CoT relationships, termed the energetically optimal transition speed (EOTS). This study investigated the effects of subtracting the standing oxygen cost for calculating the CoT and its relevant effects on the ES and EOTS at the level and gradient slopes (±5%) in eleven male trained athletes. The percent effects of subtracting the standing oxygen cost (4.8 ± 0.4 mL·kg-1·min-1) on the CoT were significantly greater as the walking speed was slower, but it was not significant at faster running speeds over 9.4 km·h-1. The percent effect was significantly dependent on the gradient (downhill > level > uphill, P < 0.001). The net ES (level 4.09 ± 0.31, uphill 4.22 ± 0.37, and downhill 4.16 ± 0.44 km·h-1) was approximately 20% slower than the gross ES (level 5.15 ± 0.18, uphill 5.27 ± 0.20, and downhill 5.37 ± 0.22 km·h-1, P < 0.001). Both net and gross ES were not significantly dependent on the gradient. In contrast, the gross EOTS was slower than the net EOTS at the level (7.49 ± 0.32 vs. 7.63 ± 0.36 km·h-1, P = 0.003) and downhill gradients (7.78 ± 0.33 vs. 8.01 ± 0.41 km·h-1, P < 0.001), but not at the uphill gradient (7.55 ± 0.37 vs. 7.63 ± 0.51 km·h-1, P = 0.080). Note that those percent differences were less than 2.9%. Given these results, a subtraction of the standing oxygen cost should be carefully considered depending on the purpose of each study.
Information Technology and Process Performance: An Empirical Investigation of the Interaction Between IT and Non-IT Resources

Drawing on the resource-based view, we propose a configurational perspective of how IT assets and capabilities affect firm performance. Our premise is that IT assets and IT managerial capabilities are components in organizational design, and, as such, their impact can only be understood by taking into consideration the interactions between those IT assets and capabilities and other non-IT components. We develop and test a model that assesses the impact of explicit and tacit IT resources by examining their interactions with two non-IT resources (open communication and business work practices). Our analysis of data collected from a sample of firms in the third party logistics (3PL) industry supports the proposed configurational perspective, showing that IT resources can either enhance (complement) or suppress (by substituting for) the effects of non-IT resources on process performance. More specifically, we find evidence of complementarities between shared business-IT knowledge and business work practice, and between the scope of IT applications and an open communication culture in affecting the performance of the customer-service process; but there is evidence of substitutability between shared knowledge and open communications. For decision making, our results reinforce the need to account for all dimensions of possible interaction between IT and non-IT resources when evaluating IT investments.
The Nigerian Business Environment and Growth Constraints of Micro and Small Scale Manufacturing Industries

Micro and small scale businesses play significant role in socio- economic development of any nation with Nigeria inclusive. But despite the significant role they play in national development, they are usually faced with some challenges that constraint their growth. Hence, this study examines growth constraints of Micro and Small Scale Manufacturing Industries (MSMI) in Akwa Ibom State. The study adopts a descriptive survey design. The study population comprised operators of manufacturing micro and small scale businesses in Akwa Ibom State and sample of 234 operators of manufacturing micro and small scale businesses were selected through stratified random sampling and “Nigerian Business Environment and Growth Constraints Questionnaire “developed by the researcher was used in data collection. This instrument was duly validated and tested to be reliable. Of the 234 copies of the questionnaire administered, 225 useable copies were retrieved. Frequencies and simple percentage as well as factor analysis were used to analyze data. Data analysis was facilitated with the use of the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS version 20.0) Results showed that the dimensionality of the MSMI’s constraints can be explained by 7 factors. These include problem of infrastructure particularly-power (factor 1), strict rules on credit (factor2), high interest rates on loan (factor3), multiple taxation (factor 4), absence of tax holiday (factor 5), trade liberalization (factor 6) and poor patronage of made in Nigeria goods (factor 7). It was identified that problem of infrastructure (power), inaccessibility of credit, high interest rate on loans, multiple taxation respectively were the major constraints that affected the growth of micro and small scale manufacturing businesses in Akwa Ibom State. Hence, to stabilize power, the Akwa Ibom State government should geared efforts toward generating electricity through Ibom IPP; the use of immovable assets as criterion to access business funding by banks should be reviewed; tax regimes should be harmonized. Also, ensuring product quality by SON, and promoting awareness of made in Nigeria products through trade fairs and exhibitions by MAN and NACCIMA will address trade liberalization and poor patronage factors.
Inflation targeting and financial stability *

Price stability is not enough to achieve financial stability. Interest-rate policy is not enough to achieve financial stability. A separate financial-stability policy is needed. It is important to distinguish between monetary policy and financial-stability policy. They are distinct and different. They have different objectives, and different suitable instruments. The responsibility for monetary policy and the control of the monetary-policy instruments rests with the central bank, but the responsibility for financial-stability policy and the control of the financialstability instruments rests with different authorities in different countries. Importantly, it was financial-stability policy that failed and caused the crisis, not monetary policy.
Depression As a Strong Prediction of Suicide Risk

Suicide happens throughout one’s life and is a serious health problem. World Health Organization (WHO) placed suicidal problem as society health priority. Many things is related to suicide, among others mental disorders like depression, anxiety, alcohol consumption behavior, life pressure experienced, financial problem, personal relation, or so is chronic illness experienced, conflict occurred, disaster, harassment, alienation social demography characteristic. Objective research to identify the risk factor of suicidal thought in several regions in Indonesia. The study design was Cross sectional research conducted in 3 (three) districts/cities in Indonesia. Proportional illustration Sample taken conducted using stratified random sampling. Fixed variables analyzed such as the suicidal thoughts with the independent variable are gender, age, marital status, education, employment, ownership statistic, depression, anxiety. Univariate, bivariate and multivariate using the SPSS software. The result of the research showed that suicidal behavior happened more often to depressed individual, lived in the cities, anxious, productive age group, has low education level. Respondent suffered through depression 11 times more likely to have suicidal thoughts. The risk of suicidal behavior also increased 5 times to respondent in the cities. Respondent living anxiety 2 times riskier to have suicidal intent. Blue collar respondent also 2 times more risk in comparison to civil servants to have suicidal intent. Therefore it can be concluded that The influence of psychological factors is more substantial to inflict suicidal behavior, even though there is also effect of the social economy factor.
A Synthesizable IP Core for WIMAX 802.16E LDPC Code Decoding

The upcoming IEEE WiMax 802.16e standard, also referred to as WirelessMAN (2005), is the next step toward very high throughput wireless backbone architectures, supporting up to 500 Mbps. It features as an advanced channel coding scheme low-density parity-check codes. The decoding of LDPC codes is an iterative process, hence many data have to be exchanged between processing units within each iteration. The variety of the specified codes and the envision of different decoding schedules for different codes pose significant challenges to an LDPC decoder hardware realization. In this paper, we present to the best of our knowledge the first published LDPC decoder architecture capable to process all specified WiMax LDPC codes. Detailed synthesis and communications performance results are shown in addition
1 Predictive Scheduling for Distributed Computing

– Scheduling parallel jobs across distributed, possibly heterogeneous, computing resources is an increasingly important capability because of the increase of available distributed resources and of parallel programs and algorithms. A wide variety of systems, methods, and strategies have been proposed and tested to address the scheduling problem. These systems typically lack self–adaptation to new architectures and algorithms, guarantees of services, and/or any degree of proactivity in dealing with environmental changes. This paper outlines a strategy for predictive scheduling, in which the parallel scheduler combines several techniques in order to schedule and manage tasks intelligently, adaptively, and proactively and in order to address performance–related issues before they become significant bottlenecks. Implementations of several key components are presented, along with some test results, and an architecture for a complete predictive scheduling system is outlined.
DPB: A Benchmark for Design Pattern Detection Tools

Many activities can be done to support software evolution and reverse engineering of a system. Design pattern detection is one of these activities. It is useful to gain knowledge on the design issues of an existing system, on its architecture and design quality, improving the comprehension of the system and hence its maintainability and evolution. Several tools for design pattern detection have been developed in the literature, but they usually provide different results when analyzing the same systems. Some works have been proposed in the literature to compare these results, but a standard and widely-accepted benchmark is not yet available. In this work we propose our benchmark web application for design pattern detection, based on a community driven evaluation.
Degree Contribution Algorithm for Approximation of MVC

Approximation methods are best way to deal NP optimization problems and MVC is one of these. In this research paper we have presented a new extra fast approximation algorithm for solving MVC generally in all graphs. The proposed algorithm is named degree contribution algorithm (DCA), a new data structure proposed and employed in this algorithm, name degree contribution. It is first time in literature that such a sophisticated data structure for graphs is proposed which take account of whole graph for each node contribution value. All decisions regarding vertices are made on the basis of the proposed data structure. Effectiveness of DCA is shown by applying it to best available benchmarks and after large number of experiments worst approximation ratio recorded was 1.041 and an average approximation ratio was 1.005. These results show that algorithm can perform well in solving graphs faster as compared to other algorithms present.