Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mapping Mars Geochemically

Introduction: The Mars Odyssey Gamma Ray Spectrometer (GRS) has mapped the distribution of six elements (Cl, Fe, H, K, Si, and Th) on the Martian surface. Maps of individual elements or element ratios (e.g., K/Th), and x-y graphs of chemical data are useful for understanding Martian crustal evolution, planetary bulk compostion, and early differentiation. In an attempt to enhance our understanding of the geo-chemical and geological evolution of the crust, we have used multivariate classification techniques to define mappable geochemical units on Mars. We report our preliminary results here. Methods: GRS data acquisition and data reduction techniques are given by [1]. Data for Cl, Fe, Si, and H are restricted to regions where H is not rapidly increasing towards polar ice-rich regions. This was done by use of the H-masking technique described by Boynton et al. [1]. We have used 5 x 5 degree data smoothed with a 10 degree radius filter. The 10-degree smoothing is appropriate as this is about the inherent spatial resolution of the GRS instrument from the Mars Odyssey orbit. This procedure smooths out noise in the data. We used multivariate analysis on the six-element mapped data, using the image processing and analysis program, ENVI (Environment for Visualizing Images). We first normalized the data to ensure that the clustering procedure gives equal weight to each element (Th is as valuable as Si). Otherwise, the element with the largest concentration will dominate. We used K-means clustering [2], which assigns each point to the data cluster whose center is nearest, and let the process repeat until less than 1% of the pixels changed classes and we achieved optimal separation of class clusters. This took less than 25 iterations. The number of classes the program defines is selected by the user. We increased the number of classes until the addition of a class did not add sufficient information to warrant its inclusion; in other words, adding additional classes explained only marginally more of the total variance. Our approach differs in detail from that taken by [3], who also includes principal component analysis. Results: We examined two cases. In one we used all six elements (Fig. 1). In the other (Fig. 2) we did not use the clearly mobile elements Cl and H. Both are affected by aqueous processes and Cl can be added through volcanic emissions. Thus, using only the rock-forming elements Fe, K, Si, and Th may give …
Firms and Aggregate Dynamics

We investigate the role of permanent and transitory shocks for firms and aggregate dynamics. We find that permanent shocks to productivity and permanent shifts in the composition of output explain at least four-fifths of firms' dynamics. However, these permanent shocks are almost uncorrelated across firms and are therefore less relevant for aggregate dynamics. Transitory shocks, on the other hand, are not very important at the firm level, but they account for most of the volatility of aggregate hours and output, because they are significantly correlated across firms. Finally, we try to make some progress on the interpretation of the shocks.
NB-IoT Uplink Receiver Design and Performance Study

Long-term evolution (LTE) narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT) is a Third Generation Partnership Project 3GPP defined cellular technology that is designed to enable connectivity to many low-cost and low-power/throughput IoT devices running delay-tolerant applications. NB-IoT can coexist within the LTE spectrum either in a standalone mode, in-band with LTE or in guard-band of LTE. With NB-IoT designed to operate in very low signal-to-noise power ratios, the uplink receiver design presents several challenges. In this article, the design and performance of an NB-IoT uplink receiver are studied in detail. First, receiver design for NB-IoT uplink channels, with corresponding mathematical analysis, is presented. Specifically, it is shown how the time/frequency structure of signals can be exploited to enhance the receiver performance. Second, the performance of each channel is characterized with both link-level simulations and implementation on a commercially deployed Qualcomm FSM platform. Comparisons against the 3GPP defined radio performance and protocol aspect requirements are also provided. Finally, the implementation details are addressed and discussions on proposed enhancements to NB-IoT in 3GPP Release 15 are provided. It is shown how the proposed receiver algorithms can be adopted to Release 15 enhancements with minor or no modifications. The work in this article is of significance to system designers looking to implement efficient NB-IoT uplink receiver to coexist with legacy LTE systems.
Awareness, Knowledge, and Vaccine Acceptability of Herpes Zoster in Korea: A Multicenter Survey of 607 Patients

Background Herpes zoster (HZ) infection can significantly impair the quality of life of the affected individuals, and its treatment imposes a considerable cost burden on the health-care system and on society at large. However, there is little information on the perception of this disease and the acceptability of vaccines in Korea. Objective The aim of this study is to determine the awareness of HZ and its vaccine, and to identify factors associated with the acceptability of the HZ vaccine among outpatients of dermatology clinics. Methods A questionnaire-based survey was conducted on 607 outpatients who visited the dermatologic clinics. Results The responses of the patients revealed a high awareness of HZ (85.4%) but a relatively low knowledge about HZ and its vaccine (42.3%). The HZ vaccination rate among patients aged ≥50 years was 9%. A history of HZ infection, being older, and greater knowledge about HZ and its vaccine were associated with a higher HZ vaccine acceptability. Of those who had not been vaccinated, 58.3% were interested in receiving the vaccine. The most frequent reason for this interest was "severe sequelae," followed by "knowing someone who has HZ" and "recommendation from a doctor. " High cost was the most common reason for unwillingness to receive the vaccination. Conclusion Despite a high awareness of HZ, vaccine acceptability was extremely low among this study cohort. Vaccination acceptability would be improved by encouraging doctors to educate elderly patients about the disease and the availability of vaccination, and by the provision of insurance coverage for HZ vaccination.
Low power wallace tree multiplier using modified full adder

Achieving high speed integrated circuits with low power consumption is a major concern for the VLSI circuit designers. Most arithmetic operations are done using multiplier, which is the major power consuming element in the digital circuits. Basically the process of multiplication is realized in hardware in terms of shift and add operation. The optimization of adder has led to the improvement in performance of multiplier. In this paper, a modified full adder using multiplexer is proposed to achieve low power consumption of multiplier. To analyze the efficiency of proposed design, the conventional Wallace tree multiplier structure is used. The designs are developed using Verilog HDL and the functionalities are verified through simulation using Quartus II. The designs are synthesized in Synopsys Design Compiler using SAED90nm CMOS technology. The ASIC synthesis results of the proposed multiplier shows an average reduction of 37.45% in power consumption, 45.75% in area, and 17.65% in delay compared to the existing approaches.
Corrections for "Occupation and local times for skew Brownian motion with applications to dispersion across an interface"

We are making corrections and acknowledging colleagues that pointed out mistakes in our recent paper titled "Occupation and local times for skew Brownian motion with applications to dispersion across an interface" which was published in Annals of Applied Probability (2011) 21(1) 183-214. Specifically the corrections are: 1. The restriction of $\gamma$ to non negative values in Theorem 1.3 is not needed. But one has probabilistic interpretation only when $\gamma$ is non negative. 2. State the correct formulas in Corollary 3.3 as their were computational errors in the original formulas. We thank Pierre Etoir\'e and Miguel Martinez for pointing out these errors.
Residual dipolar coupling investigation of a heparin tetrasaccharide confirms the limited effect of flexibility of the iduronic acid on the molecular shape of heparin

The solution conformation of a fully sulfated heparin-derived tetrasaccharide, I, was studied in the presence of a 4-fold excess of Ca2+. Proton–proton and proton–carbon residual dipolar couplings (RDCs) were measured in a neutral aligning medium. The order parameters of two rigid hexosamine rings of I were determined separately using singular value decomposition and ab initio structures of disaccharide fragments of I. The order parameters were very similar implying that a common order tensor can be used to analyze the structure of I. Using one order tensor, RDCs of both hexosamine rings were used as restraints in molecular dynamics simulations. RDCs of the inner iduronic acid were calculated for every point of the molecular dynamics trajectory. The fitting of the calculated RDCs of the two forms of the iduronic acid to the experimental values yielded a population of 1C4 and 2So conformers of iduronic acid that agreed well with the analysis based on proton–proton scalar coupling constants. The glycosidic linkage torsion angles in RDC-restrained molecular dynamics (MD) structures of I are consistent with the interglycosidic three-bond proton–carbon coupling constants. These structures also show that the shape of heparin is not affected dramatically by the conformational flexibility of the iduronic acid ring. This is in line with conclusions of previous studies based on MD simulations and the analysis of 1H-1H NOEs. Our work therefore demonstrates the effectiveness of RDCs in the conformational analysis of glycosaminoglycans.
Artificial Intelligence for Artificial Artificial Intelligence

Crowdsourcing platforms such as Amazon Mechanical Turk have become popular for a wide variety of human intelligence tasks; however, quality control continues to be a significant challenge. Recently, we propose TurKontrol, a theoretical model based on POMDPs to optimize iterative, crowd-sourced workflows. However, they neither describe how to learn the model parameters, nor show its effectiveness in a real crowd-sourced setting. Learning is challenging due to the scale of the model and noisy data: there are hundreds of thousands of workers with high-variance abilities. This paper presents an end-to-end system that first learns TurKontrol's POMDP parameters from real Mechanical Turk data, and then applies the model to dynamically optimize live tasks. We validate the model and use it to control a successive-improvement process on Mechanical Turk. By modeling worker accuracy and voting patterns, our system produces significantly superior artifacts compared to those generated through nonadaptive workflows using the same amount of money.
A reassessment of risk associated with dietary intake of ochratoxin A based on a lifetime exposure model

Mycotoxins, such as ochratoxin A (OTA), can occur from fungal growth on foods. OTA is considered a possible risk factor for adverse renal effects in humans based on renal tumors in male rats. For risk mitigation, Health Canada proposed maximum limits (MLs) for OTA based largely on a comparative risk assessment conducted by Health Canada (), in which analytical data of OTA in foods were used to determine the possible impact adopting MLs may have on OTA risks. The EU MLs were used for comparison and resultant risk was determined based on age–sex strata groups. These data were reevaluated here to determine comparative risk on a lifetime basis instead of age strata. Also, as there is scientific disagreement over the mechanism of OTA-induced renal tumors, mechanistic data were revisited. On a lifetime basis, risks associated with dietary exposure were found to be negligible, even without MLs, with dietary exposures to OTA three to four orders of magnitude below the pivotal animal LOAEL and the TD05. Our review of the mechanistic data supported a threshold-based mechanism as the most plausible. In particular, OTA was negative in genotoxicity assays with the highest specificity and levels of DNA adducts were very low and not typical of genotoxic carcinogens. In conclusion, OTA exposures from Canadian foods do not present a significant cancer risk.
The Fate of Spiral Galaxies in Clusters: The Star Formation History of the Anemic Virgo Cluster Galaxy NGC 4569

We present a new method for studying the star formation history of late-type cluster galaxies undergoing gas starvation or a ram pressure stripping event by combining bidimensional multifrequency observations with multizone models of galactic chemical and spectrophotometric evolution. This method is applied to the Virgo Cluster anemic galaxy NGC 4569. We extract radial profiles from recently obtained UV GALEX images at 1530 and 2310 Å, from visible and near-IR narrow (Hα) and broadband images at different wavelengths (u, B, g, V, r, i, z, J, H, and K), from Spitzer IRAC and MIPS images, and from atomic and molecular gas maps. The model in the absence of interaction (characterized by its rotation velocity and spin parameter) is constrained by the unperturbed H-band light profile and by the Hα rotation curve. We can reconstruct the observed total gas radial density profile and the light surface brightness profiles at all wavelengths in a ram pressure stripping scenario by making simple assumptions about the gas removal process and the orbit of NGC 4569 inside the cluster. The observed profiles cannot be reproduced by simply stopping gas infall, thus mimicking starvation. Gas removal is required, which is more efficient in the outer disk, inducing radial quenching in the star formation activity, as observed and reproduced by the model. This observational result, consistent with theoretical predictions that a galaxy cluster-IGM interaction is able to modify structural disk parameters without gravitational perturbations, is discussed in the framework of the origin of lenticular galaxies in clusters.
Oral nanoparticle-based antituberculosis drug delivery to the brain in an experimental model.

OBJECTIVES To evaluate the potential of orally administered poly-lactide-co-glycolide (PLG, a synthetic polymer) nanoparticle encapsulated antituberculosis drugs (ATDs) (rifampicin + isoniazid + pyrazinamide + ethambutol) for cerebral drug delivery in a murine model. METHODS The formulation was prepared using the multiple emulsion technique and administered orally to mice for biodistribution, pharmacokinetic and chemotherapeutic studies. RESULTS A single oral dose of the formulation to mice could maintain sustained drug levels for 5-8 days in the plasma and for 9 days in the brain. There was a significant improvement in the pharmacokinetic parameters such as mean residence time and relative bioavailability as compared with free drugs. The pharmacodynamic parameters such as the ratio of area under the curve to minimum inhibitory concentration (AUC/MIC) and the time up to which MIC levels were maintained in plasma (T(MIC)) were also improved. In Mycobacterium tuberculosis H(37)Rv infected mice, five oral doses of the nanoparticle formulation administered every 10th day resulted in undetectable bacilli in the meninges, as assessed on the basis of cfu and histopathology. CONCLUSIONS Polymeric nanoparticles bear significant potential for ATD delivery to the brain.
Vendor Assistance and ERP Information Quality: An Organizational Learning Approach

This research analyzed the role of vendor assistance in the information quality of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system through organizational learning model (OLM) in Taiwan’s companies. OLM points out a concise and effective way for ERP practice success. Evidence is found that the gap between existing business process and ERP system process, vendor assistance, and training have significantly influences on companies’ implementation performance of ERP system as the prediction of OLM, but for the dependent variable of information quality, only vendor assistance factor has strong effect. Therefore, it is insufficient to produce high quality of information by the power of client companies themselves. Specifically, after carefully studying various information quality measures, we found that “Information understandability” is the measure most sensitive to vendor assistance. The findings suggest that ERP information quality is strongly dependent on vendor assistance, especially in terms of information understandability.
Collective Action and Common Knowledge : A Facebook Model

We develop a dynamic game-theoretic model of information (contagion) propagation using a Facebook-type of communication. The model accounts for information posted on a member’s wall or timeline by her friends, which can be read by all friends. This communication facilitates coordination by creating common knowledge among users. We illustrate subtle features of the model, which generalize a host of influence-based contagion mechanisms, and prove characteristics of its dynamics. We show that a complete bipartite graph within a certain group of agents is a necessary and sufficient condition for common knowledge of relevant information to arise among that group’s members. Finally, we illustrate the behavior of our model through simulation, and compare it to the classic diffusion model and Chwe’s model of common knowledge, using a real Facebook network, a high school social network and a friendship network.
On the Measurement of Procrastination: Comparing Two Scales in Six European Countries

Procrastination is a common problem, but defining and measuring it has been subject to some debate. This paper summarizes results from students and employees (N = 2893) in Finland, Germany, Italy, Norway, Poland, and Sweden using the Pure Procrastination Scale (PPS) and the Irrational Procrastination Scale (IPS; Steel, 2010), both assumed to measure unidimensional and closely related constructs. Confirmatory factor analyses indicated inadequate configural fit for the suggested one-factor model for PPS; however, acceptable fit was observed for a three-factor model corresponding to the three different scales the PPS is based on. Testing measurement invariance over countries and students–employees revealed configural but not strong or strict invariance, indicating that both instruments are somewhat sensitive to cultural differences. We conclude that the PPS and IPS are valid measures of procrastination, and that the PPS may be particularly useful in assessing cultural differences in unnecessary delay.
Delamanid improves outcomes and reduces mortality in multidrug-resistant tuberculosis

Multidrug-resistant and extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) are associated with worse treatment outcomes for patients, including higher mortality, than for drug-sensitive tuberculosis. Delamanid (OPC-67683) is a novel anti-TB medication with demonstrated activity against multidrug-resistant disease. Patients who participated in the previously reported randomised, placebo-controlled trial of delamanid and the subsequent open-label extension trial were eligible to participate in a 24-month observational study designed to capture treatment outcomes. Treatment outcomes, as assessed by clinicians and defined by the World Health Organization, were categorised as favourable and unfavourable. Delamanid treatment groups were combined for analysis, based on their duration of treatment. In total, for 421 (87.5%) out of 481 patients from the original randomised controlled trial, consent was granted for follow-up assessments. Favourable outcomes were observed in 143 (74.5%) out of 192 patients who received delamanid for ≥6 months, compared to 126 (55%) out of 229 patients who received delamanid for ≤2 months. Mortality was reduced to 1.0% among those receiving long-term delamanid versus short-term/no delamanid (8.3%; p<0.001). Treatment benefit was also seen among patients with extensively drug-resistant TB. This analysis suggests that treatment with delamanid for 6 months in combination with an optimised background regimen can improve outcomes and reduce mortality among patients with both multidrug-resistant and extensively drug-resistant TB.
Ocular vestibular evoked myogenic potentials in response to air conducted stimuli: clinical application in healthy adults.

OBJECTIVES This study aims to determine the normal values for ocular vestibular evoked myogenic potentials in response to air conducted stimuli in healthy adults. PATIENTS AND METHODS Thirty-six healthy adult participants with no ear complaints were enrolled. Ocular vestibular evoked myogenic potential tests were performed to all participants. Latency and amplitude values of the waves were recorded. RESULTS The mean N1 latency was 9.62±2.02 (4.30-16.00) msec and the mean P1 latency was 14.90±2.33 (9.0-21.00) msec. The mean amplitude was 3.36±1.36 (1.06-8.48) µV. There was a positive correlation between N1 and P1 latencies and age (r=242, p=0.0359 for N1; r=250, p=0.030 for P1). CONCLUSION Ocular vestibular evoked myogenic potentials can be obtained easily and can be used in the evaluation of vestibular disorders. However, the effect of age should be considered when interpreting results.
Graphene and Other Nanomaterial-Based Electrochemical Aptasensors

Electrochemical aptasensors, which are based on the specificity of aptamer-target recognition, with electrochemical transduction for analytical purposes have received particular attention due to their high sensitivity and selectivity, simple instrumentation, as well as low production cost. Aptamers are functional nucleic acids with specific and high affinity to their targets, similar to antibodies. However, they are completely selected in vitro in contrast to antibodies. Due to their stability, easy chemical modifications and proneness to nanostructured device construction, aptamer-based sensors have been incorporated in a variety of applications including electrochemical sensing devices. In recent years, the performance of aptasensors has been augmented by incorporating novel nanomaterials in the preparation of better electrochemical sensors. In this review, we summarize the recent trends in the use of nanomaterials for developing electrochemical aptasensors.