Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Allosteric Control of Three B12-dependent (Class II) Ribonucleotide Reductases

Three separate classes of ribonucleotide reductases are known, each with a distinct protein structure. One common feature of all enzymes is that a single protein generates each of the four deoxyribonucleotides. Class I and III enzymes contain an allosteric substrate specificity site capable of binding effectors (ATP or various deoxyribonucleoside triphosphates) that direct enzyme specificity. Some (but not all) enzymes contain a second allosteric site that binds only ATP or dATP. Binding of dATP to this site inhibits the activity of these enzymes. X-ray crystallography has localized the two sites within the structure of the Escherichia coli class I enzyme and identified effector-binding amino acids. Here, we have studied the regulation of three class II enzymes, one from the archaebacterium Thermoplasma acidophilum and two from eubacteria (Lactobacillus leichmannii andThermotoga maritima). Each enzyme has an allosteric site that binds ATP or various deoxyribonucleoside triphosphates and that regulates its substrate specificity according to the same rules as for class I and III enzymes. dATP does not inhibit enzyme activity, suggesting the absence of a second active allosteric site. For theL. leichmannii and T. maritima enzymes, binding experiments also indicate the presence of only one allosteric site. Their primary sequences suggest that these enzymes lack the structural requirements for a second site. In contrast, the T. acidophilum enzyme binds dATP at two separate sites, and its sequence contains putative effector-binding amino acids for a second site. The presence of a second site without apparent physiological function leads to the hypothesis that a functional site was present early during the evolution of ribonucleotide reductases, but that its function was lost from the T. acidophilum enzyme. The other two B12 enzymes lost not only the function, but also the structural basis for the site. Also a large subgroup (Ib) of class I enzymes, but none of the investigated class III enzymes, has lost this site. This is further indirect evidence that class II and I enzymes may have arisen by divergent evolution from class III enzymes.
Random Latin square graphs

In this paper we introduce new models of random graphs, arising from Latin squares which include random Cayley graphs as a special case. We investigate some properties of these graphs including their clique, independence and chromatic numbers, their expansion properties as well as their connectivity and Hamiltonicity. The results obtained are compared with other models of random graphs and several similarities and differences are pointed out. For many properties our results for the general case are as strong as the known results for random Cayley graphs and sometimes improve the previously best results for the Cayley case. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg. , 2011
User Errors in the Performance of Security Critical Tasks in the Context of Adversarial Noise

User errors that occur while performing security-critical tasks can lead to undesirable or even disastrous consequences. The complexity of such tasks is one major factor influencing mistakes and failures. Prior research considered this topic extensively. However, another important issue that has not been explored is the impact of both accidental and intended distractions on users performing security-critical tasks. In particular, it is unclear whether, and to what extent, various distractions (e.g., audio or visual) can influence user behavior and/or trigger mistakes. In this paper, we report on a pilot study to assess and analyze the impact of unexpected audio distractions. Conducting a thorough and meaningful study requires recruiting a large number of participants. To reduce complexity and potential experimenter-induced bias of conducting such a study, we experimented with a novel fully automated and unattended setup. We employed this setup to administer a range of unexpected (yet naturally occurring) sound effects while study participants attempted to perform a security-critical task. We report on some surprising findings from our experiments and discuss various consequences as well as promising research directions for future work.
HulTech: A General Purpose System for Cross-Level Semantic Similarity based on Anchor Web Counts

This paper describes the HULTECH team participation in Task 3 of SemEval-2014. Four different subtasks are provided to the participants, who are asked to determine the semantic similarity of cross-level test pairs: paragraphto- sentence, sentence-to-phrase, phrase-toword and word-to-sense. Our system adopts a unified strategy (general purpose system) to calculate similarity across all subtasks based on word Web frequencies. For that purpose, we define ClueWeb InfoSimba, a cross-level similarity corpus-based metric. Results show that our strategy overcomes the proposed baselines and achieves adequate to moderate results when compared to other systems.
Food Consumption Patterns and Trends in Malaysia

Since the economic crisis in 1997, there has been notable success in Malaysian economic, where Malaysians are getting wealthier and food consumption is undergoing transitional changes. Thus, it is motivational to gain a better understanding of food consumption patterns and trends in Malaysia. This study intends to investigate food consumption patterns in Malaysia. This is followed by the analyses on the effects of socio-economic factors on food consumption and is further used to do projection for the future food consumption in Malaysia until This study used data from the Household Expenditure Survey (HES) 200412005. Data from the HES was obtained from 14,084 samples in Malaysia. In order to investigate food consumption patterns in Malaysia, this study utilized the methodology of a multi-stage demand system, incorporating demographic variables to estimate income and price elasticities. In order to analyze the effects of socioeconomic factors on food consumption, 36 single equations of Tobit model were estimated. With quantity of food consumed as the dependent variable, the equations were also used to project future consumption of the 36 food items. The estimated positive and inelastic income elasticities show that all the food items are normal goods, except for other meat. Special attention was paid to demand for rice, with positive income elasticity of 0.1325 concerning the question whether rice is an inferior good in Malaysia. While mutton (0.3196), prawn (0.3745), and processed h i t s (0.3088) recorded the highest income elasticity over other food items in the food group respectively. On the other hand, own-price elasticity of each food item shows negative signs, complying with law of demand. Compensated and uncompensated own-price elasticities of rice (-0.5756 and -0.5791) were the lowest in its food group. These results indicate that rice is a necessity and still playing its role as staple food to Malaysians in 200412005. The determinant. of consumption of food items are found to be generally attributed to household income, urbanization, age of household's head, household size, and race. Most of the equations witnessed that gender and employment status of household's head were not significantly related to quantity of food consumed. By taking into account of socio-economic effects, overall projection results show increasing trends for future consumption of the food items, except for rice and other meats.
On Subversive Miner Strategies and Block Withholding Attack in Bitcoin Digital Currency

Bitcoin is a "crypto currency", a decentralized electronic payment scheme based on cryptography. Bitcoin economy grows at an incredibly fast rate and is now worth some 10 billions of dollars. Bitcoin mining is an activity which consists of creating (minting) the new coins which are later put into circulation. Miners spend electricity on solving cryptographic puzzles and they are also gatekeepers which validate bitcoin transactions of other people. Miners are expected to be honest and have some incentives to behave well. However. In this paper we look at the miner strategies with particular attention paid to subversive and dishonest strategies or those which could put bitcoin and its reputation in danger. We study in details several recent attacks in which dishonest miners obtain a higher reward than their relative contribution to the network. In particular we revisit the concept of block withholding attacks and propose a new concrete and practical block withholding attack which we show to maximize the advantage gained by rogue miners. RECENT EVENTS: it seems that the attack was recently executed, see Section XI-A.
Deep Learning Advances in Computer Vision with 3D Data

Deep learning has recently gained popularity achieving state-of-the-art performance in tasks involving text, sound, or image processing. Due to its outstanding performance, there have been efforts to apply it in more challenging scenarios, for example, 3D data processing. This article surveys methods applying deep learning on 3D data and provides a classification based on how they exploit them. From the results of the examined works, we conclude that systems employing 2D views of 3D data typically surpass voxel-based (3D) deep models, which however, can perform better with more layers and severe data augmentation. Therefore, larger-scale datasets and increased resolutions are required.
On the origins of land use regulations : The ‘ influential landowner ’ hypothesis

We model residential land use constraints as the ou tcome of a political economy game between owners of developed and owners of undeveloped land. Land use constraints are interpreted as shadow taxe s hat increase the land rent of already developed plots and increase the cost of de veloping new housing units. At equilibrium, locations with nicer amenities (or low er development costs) are more developed and, as a consequence, more regulated. We test our model predictions by geographically matching amenity, land use, and h istorical Census data to metropolitan area level survey data on regulatory r estrictiveness. Following the predictions of the model, we use access to the coas t as an instrumental variable and we control for a number of alternative explanat ions in order to demonstrate that metropolitan areas with better access are more dev loped and more tightly regulated. Consistent with theory, more regulated m etropolitan areas also grow more slowly. JEL classification: H7, Q15, R52.
Civic Education and the Rise of Populist Nationalism

ABSTRACT Belief in the fundamental importance of civic education for democracy has been long-standing. But if educators can agree that schools have an essential role to play in preparing students for informed engagement in civic and political life, they cannot seem to agree on what that means. The very same efforts that are applauded by some are viewed as misguided by others. The result for schoolchildren has been a mostly watered-down notion of civics that emphasizes good character and patriotism over critical thinking and engaging with multiple perspectives. At the same time, the number of young people worldwide now willing to entertain nondemocratic forms of government is on the rise. For example, nearly a quarter of U.S. youth aged 16 to 24 believe that democracy is a “bad” or “very bad” way of governing. About 70% of millennials do not think it is essential to live in a country governed by democratic rule of law. This article examines the ideological tensions that underlie civic education policies and practice in a time of rising populist support for anti-democratic forms of governance.
Dynamic Inverse Problem Solution Using a Kalman Filter Smoother for Neuronal Activity Estimation

This article presents an estimation method of neuronal activity into the brain using a Kalman smoother approach that takes into account in the solution of the inverse problem the dynamic variability of the time series. This method is applied over a realistic head model calculated with the boundary element method. A comparative analysis for the dynamic estimation methods is made up from simulated EEG signals for several noise conditions. The solution of the inverse problem is achieved by using high performance computing techniques and an evaluation of the computational cost is performed for each method. As a result, the Kalman smoother approach presents better performance in the estimation task than the regularized static solution, and the direct Kalman filter.
Using a Context-Inclusive Approach to Process Statistical Queries in Raster Data : An Extended Abstract

Many statistical queries such as maximum likelihood estimation involve finding the best candidate model given a set of candidate models and a quality estimation function. This problem is common in important applications like land-use classification at multiple spatial resolutions from remote sensing raster data. Such a problem is computationally challenging due to the significant computation cost to evaluate the quality estimation function for each candidate model. A recently proposed method of multiscale, multigranular classification has high computational overhead to evaluate the quality estimation functions for various candidate models independently before comparison. In contrast, we propose a context-inclusive approach that controls the computational overhead based on the context, i.e. the value of the quality estimation function for the best candidate model so far. Experimental evaluation in the application of land-use classification at multiple spatial resolutions from satellite imagery show that the proposed approach reduces the computational cost significantly while providing comparable classification accuracy.
ejop . org Effects of manipulating optimal challenge in a music intervention program on situational intrinsic motivation among people with intellectual disability

Optimal challenge refers to the balance between the challenge level of an activity and the skill level of an individual involved in the activity. A number of intrinsic motivation theories assume that optimal challenge is an influential facilitator of intrinsic motivation. Some researchers attempted to prove this assumption among people without any disability, using problem solving strategies or computer game playing activities. This study was aimed at determining its effectiveness among people with mild or moderate intellectual disability, using a music intervention program with three conditions. The results of one way repeated measure ANOVA and subsequent comparisons in pairs revealed that the high level of situational intrinsic motivation in the first condition of the intervention program where optimal challenges were provided for the first time significantly decreased to a low level in the second condition, where no optimal challenges were provided. It significantly increased again to a high level in the third condition, where optimal challenges were provided for the second time. The findings confirmed the importance of optimal challenge in promoting situational intrinsic motivation, as mentioned by intrinsic motivation theories, among people with intellectual Manipulating optimal challenge in a music intervention program 488 disability in a music intervention program. For implementing guidelines, some practical implications are mentioned.
Integrated Information System (IIS) and Management Accounting: Evidence from the Danish Practice

The present study examines the relationship between integrated information systems (IIS) and management accounting practices. Integrated information systems are divided into enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and strategic enterprise management (SEM) systems. 349 responses to a questionnaire have been analysed, and the results show that while ERP systems have a positive impact on transactional management accounting such as data collection, SEM systems have a positive impact on reporting, analysis, budgeting and modern management accounting practices. Changes in management accounting practices are thus found not to be driven by ERP systems but rather by SEM systems.
Traversal fields for ray tracing dynamic scenes

This paper presents a novel scheme for accelerating ray traversal computation in ray tracing. By the scheme, a pre-computed stage is applied to constructing what is called a traversal field for each rigid object that records the destinations for all possible incoming rays. The field data, which could be efficiently compressed offline, is stored in a small number of big rectangles called ray-relays that enclose each approximate convex segment of an object. In the ray-tracing stage, the records on relays are retrieved in a constant time, so that a ray traversal is implemented as a simple texture lookup on GPU. Thus, the performance of our approach is only related to the number of relays rather than scene size, while the number of relays is quite small. In addition, because the traversal fields only depend on the internal construction of each convex segment, they can be used to ray trace objects undergoing rigid motions at a negligible extra cost. Experimental results show that interactive rates could be achieved for dynamic scenes with the effects of specular reflections and refractions on an ordinary desk PC with GPU.
Don’t let me down: The effect of age and chosen music on mood is moderated by focus on emotions

ABSTRACT This study examined the effect of age and listening to one’s chosen emotional tone of music on mood. Old age was hypothesized to be associated with more choices of happy music. This association was expected to be moderated by the tendency to focus on emotions. 120 Adults (22 to 87 years), following a sad mood induction, chose and listened to happy and sad music excerpts, and completed questionnaires which measured their mood, the tendency to focus on emotions and depressive symptoms. An interaction effect was observed whereby older participants who focused less on emotions were more likely to choose happy music. Additional interactions demonstrated that older participants who tend to focus more on emotions and older participants who tend to focus less on emotions were associated with less negative mood after listening to happy music and to sad music respectively. The findings are discussed in light of the `positivity effect` and the `strength and vulnerability integration model`.
A trust model for wireless sensor networks based on multi-factors

In WSN, in order to ensure security, establishing trust in a clustered environment can provide numerous advantages. While trust value depending on multi-factors, we propose a trust model which considers communication quality, data similarity and energy to measure trust between two nodes. With comparing our model with TMS, we conclude that our model is more accurate and sensitive with detailed parameters.
Free Riding in Procurement Design

Low-powered contracts do not provide proper incentives to reduce cost; still empirical studies show that they are quite pervasive in public and private procurement. This paper argues that low-powered contracts arise due to a free-riding problem when the contractor enjoys economies of scale/scope working for different buyers. A buyer, offering a procurement contract to the contractor, does not fully internalize that higher-powered incentives provide cost reduction in the contractor's activities, benefiting other buyers. As a result, buyers offer lower-powered contracts than what would be designed by cooperative buyers. Strikingly, the higher the contractor's benefits from economies of scope/scale are, the lower the power of the procurement contracts will be. In addition, laws which force buyers to award fixed-price contracts can be welfare-enhancing.
DSP based stator flux oriented control of doubly-fed induction generator for wind power generation system

This paper presents the control of doubly-fed induction generator (DFIG) for wind energy conversion system by employing stator flux oriented control in the rotor-side converter. The control algorithm is implemented in digital environment using DSP TMS320F2812 processor. A decoupling term has been developed for the cross coupling of d-q stator flux components, and computer simulations as well as laboratory experiments, show that the effectiveness of proposed work.
Poisson-Dirichlet branching random walks

We determine, to within O(1), the expected minimal position at level n in certain branching random walks. The walks under consideration have displacement vector (v_1,v_2,.), where each v_j is the sum of j independent Exponential(1) random variables and the different v_i need not be independent. In particular, our analysis applies to the Poisson-Dirichlet branching random walk and to the Poisson-weighted infinite tree. As a corollary, we also determine the expected height of a random recursive tree to within O(1).
A Rosemary Extract Rich in Carnosic Acid Selectively Modulates Caecum Microbiota and Inhibits β-Glucosidase Activity, Altering Fiber and Short Chain Fatty Acids Fecal Excretion in Lean and Obese Female Rats

Background Carnosic acid (CA) and rosemary extracts (RE) show body-weight, energy metabolism and inflammation regulatory properties in animal models but the mechanisms are not yet understood. Gut microbiota plays an important role in the host metabolism and inflammatory status and is modulated by the diet. The aim of this research was to investigate whether a RE enriched in CA affected caecum microbiota composition and activity in a rat model of genetic obesity. Methods and Principal Findings A RE (40% CA) was administered with the diet (0.5% w/w) to lean (fa/+) and obese (fa/fa) female Zucker rats for 64 days. Changes in the microbiota composition and β-glucosidase activity in the caecum and in the levels of macronutrients and short chain fatty acids (SCFA) in feces were examined. The RE increased the Blautia coccoides and Bacteroides/Prevotella groups and reduced the Lactobacillus/Leuconostoc/Pediococccus group in both types of animals. Clostridium leptum was significantly decreased and Bifidobacterium increased only in the lean rats. β-Glucosidase activity was significantly reduced and fecal fiber excretion increased in the two genotypes. The RE also increased the main SCFA excreted in the feces of the obese rats but decreased them in the lean rats reflecting important differences in the uptake and metabolism of these molecules between the two genotypes. Conclusions Our results indicate that the consumption of a RE enriched in CA modifies microbiota composition and decreases β-glucosidase activity in the caecum of female Zucker rats while it increases fiber fecal elimination. These results may contribute to explain the body weight gain reducing effects of the RE. The mutated leptin receptor of the obese animals significantly affects the microbiota composition, the SCFA fecal excretion and the host response to the RE intake.