Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Pressure-driven flow of a micro-polar fluid: Measurement of the velocity profile

The pressure-driven flow of a suspension of spinning particles in a rectangular channel is studied using an acoustic method. The suspension is made of insulating particles [poly(methyl methacrylate)] dispersed in a slightly conducting oil (Ugilec+Dielec) and is subjected to a direct current electric field. In such a case, the particles are polarized in the direction opposite to that of the electric field and begin to rotate in order to flip their dipoles in the field direction. Such a rotation of the particles is known as Quincke rotation and is responsible for an important decrease of the effective viscosity of the suspension. Indeed, due to the electric torque exerted on the particles, the stress tensor in the suspension is not symmetric anymore and a driving effect arises from the anti-symmetric part. When such a suspension flows through a rectangular channel, the velocity profile is expected to deviate from the usual Poiseuille flow. In this paper, the velocity profiles are measured using pulsed ultra.
SPIDER DRAGLINE SILK: CORRELATED AND MOSAIC EVOLUTION IN HIGH-PERFORMANCE BIOLOGICAL MATERIALS

Abstract The evolution of biological materials is a critical, yet poorly understood, component in the generation of biodiversity. For example, the diversification of spiders is correlated with evolutionary changes in the way they use silk, and the material properties of these fibers, such as strength, toughness, extensibility, and stiffness, have profound effects on ecological function. Here, we examine the evolution of the material properties of dragline silk across a phylogenetically diverse sample of species in the Araneomorphae (true spiders). The silks we studied are generally stronger than other biological materials and tougher than most biological or man-made fibers, but their material properties are highly variable; for example, strength and toughness vary more than fourfold among the 21 species we investigated. Furthermore, associations between different properties are complex. Some traits, such as strength and extensibility, seem to evolve independently and show no evidence of correlation or trade-off across species, even though trade-offs between these properties are observed within species. Material properties retain different levels of phylogenetic signal, suggesting that traits such as extensibility and toughness may be subject to different types or intensities of selection in several spider lineages. The picture that emerges is complex, with a mosaic pattern of trait evolution producing a diverse set of materials across spider species. These results show that the properties of biological materials are the target of selection, and that these changes can produce evolutionarily and ecologically important diversity.
The Share of Systematic Variation in Bilateral Exchange Rates

Sorting countries by their dollar currency betas produces a novel cross section of average currency excess returns. A slope factor (long in high beta currencies and short in low beta currencies) accounts for this cross section of currency risk premia. This slope factor is orthogonal to the highâ€ minusâ€ low carry trade factor built from portfolios of countries sorted by their interest rates. The two highâ€ minusâ€ low risk factors account for 18% to 80% of the monthly exchange rate movements. The two risk factors suggest that stochastic discount factors in complete markets' models should feature at least two global shocks to describe exchange rates.
Arabidopsis cop8 and fus4 Mutations Define the Same Gene That Encodes Subunit 4 of the COP9 Signalosome

The pleiotropic constitutive photomorphogenic/deetiolated/fusca (cop/det/fus) mutants of Arabidopsis exhibit features of light-grown seedlings when grown in the dark. Cloning and biochemical analysis of COP9 have revealed that it is a component of a multiprotein complex, the COP9 signalosome (previously known as the COP9 complex). Here, we compare the immunoaffinity and the biochemical purification of the COP9 signalosome from cauliflower and confirm its eight-subunit composition. Molecular cloning of subunit 4 of the complex revealed that it is a proteasome–COP9 complex–eIF3 domain protein encoded by a gene that maps to chromosome 5, near the chromosomal location of the cop8 and fus4 mutations. Genetic complementation tests showed that the cop8 and fus4 mutations define the same locus, now designated as COP8. Molecular analysis of the subunit 4–encoding gene in both cop8 and fus4 mutants identified specific molecular lesions, and overexpression of the subunit 4 cDNA in a cop8 mutant background resulted in complete rescue of the mutant phenotype. Thus, we conclude that COP8 encodes subunit 4 of the COP9 signalosome. Examination of possible molecular interactions by using the yeast two-hybrid assay indicated that COP8 is capable of strong self-association as well as interaction with COP9, FUS6/COP11, FUS5, and Arabidopsis JAB1 homolog 1, the latter four proteins being previously defined subunits of the Arabidopsis COP9 signalosome. A comparative sequence analysis indicated that COP8 is highly conserved among multicellular eukaryotes and is also similar to a subunit of the 19S regulatory particle of the 26S proteasome.
A preliminary analysis of collocational differences in monolingual comparable corpora

1. Introduction The notion of collocation has enjoyed mixed fortunes in the 50 odd years of its existence. Claimed to be obscure (Lyons, 1977: 612), counterproductive (Langendoen 1968: 63ff) and generally useless (Lehrer 1974) 1 by its detractors, the idea that part of the meaning of a word is somehow related to its " word accompaniment, the other word material in which [it is] most commonly or most characteristically embedded " has also had its supporters. These have suggested that words have no meaning out of context, and meaning itself is not contained anywhere, but rather dispersed as the " light of mixed wavelengths into a spectrum " (Firth 1957(1951): 192). The intuitive appeal of this view is evident if one thinks of the difficulty a compositional approach to meaning has (even allowing for subcategorisation frames) in explaining the patterned quality of language performance, as found in a corpus, and ultimately the speaker's or writer's effortless routine handling of co(n)textual restrictions. The hypothesis that " everything we say may be in some degree idiomatic – that […] there are affinities among words that continue to reflect the attachments the words had when we learned them, within larger groups " (Bolinger, 1976:102) provides a powerful argument in favour of the empirical study of collocations, with implications for theoretical, descriptive and applied branches of linguistics. In recent years, notwithstanding the vagueness of the notion and consequent methodological problems in investigating it empirically, the study of collocations has indeed defied difficulties and criticism and sparked renewed interest in a number of areas ranging from computational and corpus linguistics to lexicography, language pedagogy, and crucially for our purposes, translation studies. The hypotheses that " everything we say may be in some degree idiomatic " (Bolinger, above), and that " actual usage plays a very minor role in one's consciousness of language " (Sinclair 1991:39) raise a number of interesting questions for translation research. Is there any evidence that translators be aware of collocational restrictions in the source and target languages? Do they show sensitivity to phraseological (a)typicality and restrictedness? These are very complex issues, that can hardly be resolved in one fell swoop. For a start, theoretical as well as methodological problems remain as to what collocations are in the first place, 2 and how best they can be retrieved from corpora and compared (see e.g. Krenn 2000a). Secondly, different types of corpora for …
Helping Reasoners Succeed in the Wason Selection Task: When Executive Learning Discourages Heuristic Response but Does Not Necessarily Encourage Logic

Reasoners make systematic logical errors by giving heuristic responses that reflect deviations from the logical norm. Influential studies have suggested first that our reasoning is often biased because we minimize cognitive effort to surpass a cognitive conflict between heuristic response from system 1 and analytic response from system 2 thinking. Additionally, cognitive control processes might be necessary to inhibit system 1 responses to activate a system 2 response. Previous studies have shown a significant effect of executive learning (EL) on adults who have transferred knowledge acquired on the Wason selection task (WST) to another isomorphic task, the rule falsification task (RFT). The original paradigm consisted of teaching participants to inhibit a classical matching heuristic that sufficed the first problem and led to significant EL transfer on the second problem. Interestingly, the reasoning tasks differed in inhibiting-heuristic metacognitive cost. Success on the WST requires half-suppression of the matching elements. In contrast, the RFT necessitates a global rejection of the matching elements for a correct answer. Therefore, metacognitive learning difficulty most likely differs depending on whether one uses the first or second task during the learning phase. We aimed to investigate this difficulty and various matching-bias inhibition effects in a new (reversed) paradigm. In this case, the transfer effect from the RFT to the WST could be more difficult because the reasoner learns to reject all matching elements in the first task. We observed that the EL leads to a significant reduction in matching selections on the WST without increasing logical performances. Interestingly, the acquired metacognitive knowledge was too “strictly” transferred and discouraged matching rather than encouraging logic. This finding underlines the complexity of learning transfer and adds new evidence to the pedagogy of reasoning.
Examining the relationship between English language learners’ online self-regulation and their self-efficacy

This quantitative study investigated the relationship between learners’ online self-regulation and their self-efficacy in the context of learning English as a foreign language (EFL). We collected data from two surveys, the online self-regulated English learning (OSEL) and the English language self-efficacy (ELSE), among 424 university students in China. Principal component analyses showed that the OSEL included six sub-scales, namely, goal setting, environment structuring, task strategies, time management, help seeking and self-evaluation, while the ELSE consisted of four factors targeting self-efficacy in listening, speaking, reading, and writing. The correlation analysis confirmed the associations between all scales of the OSEL and those of the ELSE. Furthermore, regression analysis revealed that self-evaluation was the most powerful predictor for explaining participants’ variance of self-efficacy in English listening, speaking, and reading. Moreover, learners’ environment structuring could significantly explain their self-efficacy in both speaking and writing, whereas goal setting could only predict students’ self-efficacy in writing. These findings reveal the intricate relationship between online self-regulation and self-efficacy among the EFL learners, and further highlights the positive role of learners’ self-evaluation, environment structuring and goal setting for explaining their English language self-efficacy. Pedagogical implications and future research are discussed at the end of this paper.
Latitudinal variation in the prevalence of multiple sclerosis in Ireland, an effect of genetic diversity

Background: Northern Ireland has a high and rising prevalence rate of multiple sclerosis (MS). The most recent survey in 1996 found a rate of 168.7/100 000. Recorded prevalence rates for the south of Ireland, including County Wexford, have been markedly lower and seemed to suggest the existence of a prevalence gradient within the island. Objectives: To compare the prevalence of multiple sclerosis in Co. Wexford in the south east of Ireland and Co. Donegal in the north west, and to establish whether a variation in prevalence of MS exists within Ireland. Methods: Patients were referred from multiple sources. Review of clinical case records and/or patient examination confirmed the diagnosis. Results: In Co. Wexford, 126 patients were found to have clinically definite or probable multiple sclerosis with a prevalence rate of 120.7/100 000 (95% confidence intervals (CI) 100.6 to 143.8), which is similar to other areas of similar latitude within the British Isles. In Co. Donegal, 240 people had clinically definite or probable MS with a prevalence rate of 184.6/100 000 (95% CI 162.0 to 209.5). The difference in prevalence rates is statistically significant (Z = 3.94, p = <0.001). Conclusion: There is a latitudinal variation in the prevalence rate of MS between the north and the south of Ireland. The increased prevalence of MS seen in Co. Wexford is likely to represent better case ascertainment and improved diagnostic accuracy rather than an actual increase in prevalence. The north/south variation in prevalence may represent a variation in the genetic predisposition to MS between the background populations of the two counties.
Detection, classification, and tracking of targets - IEEE Signal Processing Magazine

Networks of small, densely distributed wireless sensor nodes are being envisioned and developed for a variety of applications involving monitoring and manipulation of the physical world in a tetherless fashion [1], [16], [17], [22], [23]. Typically, each individual node can sense in multiple modalities but has limited communication and computation capabilities. Many challenges must be overcome before the concept of sensor networks becomes a reality. In particular, there are two critical problems underlying successful operation of sensor networks: 1) efficient methods for exchanging information between the nodes and 2) collaborative signal processing (CSP) between the nodes to gather useful information about the physical world. This article describes the key ideas behind the CSP algorithms for distributed sensor networks being developed at the University of Wisconsin (UW). We also describe the basic ideas on how the CSP algorithms interface with the networking/routing algorithms being developed at Wisconsin (UW-API) [2]. We motivate the framework via the problem of detecting and tracking a single maneuvering target. This example illustrates the essential ideas behind the integration between UW-API and UW-CSP algorithms and also highlights the key aspects of detection and localization algorithms. We then build on these ideas to present our approach to tracking multiple targets that necessarily requires classification techniques. Tracking multiple targets via a wireless sensor network is a very challenging, multifaceted problem and several research groups have tackled various aspects of it [3]-[8], [12], [13], [15], [18], [19], [21], [23], [25]. We consider the signal processing aspects of this problem under the constraints imposed by limited capabilities of the nodes as well as those associated with networking and routing.
Integration of contingency information in judgments of cause, covariation, and probability.

condition claimed to have mapped the abstract events onto other events. Mean causal judgments (shown in Table 1) both across and within stimuli did not differ reliably as a function of any of these three variables, or of gender, smallest p = . 12. 5 Nor did mean causal judgments differ as a function of stimulus set size, p > . 15. Thus, subsequent analyses were collapsed across these groupings. The grand mean of participants ' judgments is . 0 1 (SD = 0.42). This statistic indicates that participants, on average, were not biased toward perceiving facilitative relations more readily than inhibitory relations. Rather, the grand mean accurately reflects the fact that the four mean cell frequencies were equal. This finding is consistent with Wasserman and Shaklee (1984) who found no evidence that positive relations were perceived more readily than negative relations when contingency information was presented in summary format (however, these authors did find that positive relations were perceived more readily when contingency informarion was presented along a discrete time-line; see also Erlick & Mills, 1967). The cell weight inequality. To assess the CWI, we correlated each of the four cell frequencies with each participant 's judgments. 6 Next, we Fisher-transformed this 4 × 120 matrix of values from rij to z U, which is our measure of rule viability. The viabilities for B and C were multiplied by 1 so that they would be in the same direction as A and D. We then analyzed the viabilities for the four frequencies using a 3 × 4 (Event Type × Cell) mixed analysis of variance (ANOVA). There were reliable main effects of event type, F(2, 117) = 3 . 66,p < . 03, MSE = 0.05, and cell, F(3, 351) = 195.47, p < . 001, MSE = 0.03. The interaction 5 The ratings in Experiments 1 and 2 were divided by 3 to provide a possible range of 1 to + 1. 6 In this research area, it has been assumed that participants' representations of frequencies reflect the objective values presented to them. In other domains, however, it has been found that people represent numeric magnitude as a nonlinear function of the arithmetic scale (Rule, 1969). This function has been approximated by a logarithmic transformation (Banks & Hill, 1974; Moyer & Landaner, 1967) or by a power transformation with an exponent of about . 67 (Banks & Hill, 1974). If participants do transform frequency data as such, then the transformed frequencies should correlate more strongly than the actual frequencies with their ratings. We examined log and power (exponent of .67) transformations of the four cell frequencies and found that the actual frequencies correlated either the same or better than either transformarion. Thus, we used the actual frequencies to calculate rule output. Note also that we used the cell frequencies, not the relative frequencies (i.e., cell frequency divided by total frequency), to calculate rule output. INTEGRATION OF CONTINGENCY INFORMATION 275 Table 2 Mean Viabilities of Cell Frequencies by Event Type in Experiment I
Multigrade efficient congruencing and Vinogradov's mean value theorem

We develop a substantial enhancement of the efficient congruencing method to estimate Vinogradov's integral of degree k for moments of order 2s , thereby obtaining for the first time near‐optimal estimates for s>58k2 . There are numerous applications. In particular, when k is large, the anticipated asymptotic formula in Waring's problem is established for sums of s k th powers of natural numbers whenever s⩾1.543k2 .
Do Specialization Benefits Outweigh Concentration Risks in Credit Portfolios of German Banks?

Lending specialization on certain industry sectors can have opposing effects on monitoring (including screening) abilities and on the sectoral concentration risk of a credit portfolio. In this paper, we examine in the first part if monitoring abilities of German cooperative banks and savings banks increase with their specialization on certain industry sectors. We observe that sectoral specialization generally entails better monitoring quality, particularly in the case of the cooperative banks. In the second part we measure the overall effect of better monitoring and the associated higher sectoral credit concentrations on the credit risk of the portfolio. Our empirical results suggest that specialization benefits overcompensate the impact of higher credit concentrations in the case of the cooperative banks. For savings banks, the results on the net effect depend on how specialization is measured. If specialization is gauged by Hirschman Herfindahl indices, the net effect is an increase of portfolio risk due to the higher sectoral concentration. If specialization is instead measured by distance measures, portfolio risk decreases as the impact of better monitoring abilities prevails.
Spiking neural network training using evolutionary algorithms

Networks of spiking neurons can perform complex non-linear computations in fast temporal coding just as well as rate coded networks. These networks differ from previous models in that spiking neurons communicate information by the timing, rather than the rate, of spikes. To apply spiking neural networks on particular tasks, a learning process is required. Most existing training algorithms are based on unsupervised Hebbian learning. In this paper, we investigate the performance of the parallel differential evolution algorithm, as a supervised training algorithm for spiking neural networks. The approach was successfully tested on well-known and widely used classification problems.
The Role of Visibility in Pursuit / Evasion Games

The cops-and-robber (CR) game has been used in mobile robotics as a discretized model (played on a graph G) of pursuit/evasion problems. The “classic” CR version is a perfect information game: the cops’ (pursuer’s) location is always known to the robber (evader) and vice versa. Many variants of the classic game can be defined: the robber can be invisible and also the robber can be either adversarial (tries to avoid capture) or drunk (performs a random walk). Furthermore, the cops and robber can reside in either nodes or edges of G. Several of these variants are relevant as models or robotic pursuit/evasion. In this paper, we first define carefully several of the variants mentioned above and related quantities such as the cop number and the capture time. Then we introduce and study the cost of visibility (COV), a quantitative measure of the increase in difficulty (from the cops’ point of view) when the robber is invisible. In addition to our theoretical results, we present algorithms which can be used to compute capture times and COV of graphs which are analytically intractable. Finally, we present the results of applying these algorithms to the numerical computation of COV.
Monitoring the progress of BK virus associated nephropathy in renal transplant recipients.

BACKGROUND Nephropathy associated with BK virus (BKVAN) has recently emerged as an important cause of allograft failure following renal transplantation. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of laboratory markers in the follow-up of patients with BKVAN. METHODS Serial samples from seven renal transplant recipients with biopsy proven BKVAN were studied. The median follow-up time from diagnosis was 76 weeks. Intervention after the diagnosis of BKVAN included immunosuppression dose reduction, alternative immunosuppressive agents and/or antiviral therapy with cidofovir. Serial urine samples (n = 127) were collected for electron microscopy (EM), decoy cell detection and quantitative urine BK viral load using real-time polymerase chain reaction. Serum BK viral load was also measured serially (n = 72). RESULTS All patients showed a reduction in serum and urine viral load during the period of follow-up co-incident with the loss of decoy cells and negative urine EM. Urine samples that were negative for decoy cells or polyomavirus by EM had a urine viral load <10(6) copies/ml and a corresponding serum viral load <10(3) copies/ml. In paired serum/urine samples, there was a proportional relationship between serum and urine viral load with each urine viral load approximately 1000-fold higher than the corresponding serum level. Serum and urine viral loads that decreased to <200 and < 10(6) copies/ml, respectively, correlated with histological improvement. CONCLUSION Negative EM and absence of decoy cells could be used as broad indicators of a response to intervention. However, measurement of BK virus DNA level provided a wider dynamic range and could be a better choice for determining the extent of viral control.