Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prediction of mosquito species and population age structure using mid-infrared spectroscopy and supervised machine learning

Despite the global efforts made in the fight against malaria, the disease is resurging. One of the main causes is the resistance that Anopheles mosquitoes, vectors of the disease, have developed to insecticides. Anopheles must survive for at least 10 days to possibly transmit malaria. Therefore, to evaluate and improve malaria vector control interventions, it is imperative to monitor and accurately estimate the age distribution of mosquito populations as well as their population sizes. Here, we demonstrate a machine-learning based approach that uses mid-infrared spectra of mosquitoes to characterise simultaneously both age and species identity of females of the African malaria vector species Anopheles gambiae and An. arabiensis, using laboratory colonies. Mid-infrared spectroscopy-based prediction of mosquito age structures was statistically indistinguishable from true modelled distributions. The accuracy of classifying mosquitoes by species was 82.6%. The method has a negligible cost per mosquito, does not require highly trained personnel, is rapid, and so can be easily applied in both laboratory and field settings. Our results indicate this method is a promising alternative to current mosquito species and age-grading approaches, with further improvements to accuracy and expansion for use with wild mosquito vectors possible through collection of larger mid-infrared spectroscopy data sets.
Selective logging: does the imprint remain on tree structure and composition after 45 years?

We investigated the extent to which a selective logging event continues to leave its imprint on different components of an East African forest 45 years later. Selectively logged forests had higher light, fewer stems, less biomass, and different species abundance, but did not differ from unlogged forest in species traits (maximum height and diameter, and wood density). The persistent effects of selective logging in this forest were exerted via influences on number and size of stems rather than species traits.
An Enshrouded Active Galactic Nucleus in the Merging Starburst System Arp 299 Revealed by BeppoSAX

Using a long (≃150 ks) broadband (0.1-40 keV) BeppoSAX observation of the merging starburst system Arp 299 (=IC 694 + NGC 3690), we found the first unambiguous evidence of the presence of a deeply buried (NH ≃ 2.5 × 1024 cm-2) active galactic nucleus (AGN) having an intrinsic luminosity of L0.5-100 keV ≃ 1.9 × 1043 ergs s-1. The X-ray spectral properties of this AGN are discussed in detail, as well as the thermal component detected at soft X-ray energies, which, most likely, is associated with the starburst.
↵ ects of Porous Media Insert on the E � ciency and Power Density of a High Pressure ( 210 bar ) Liquid Piston Air Compressor / Expander-An Experimental Study I Revision # 1

A high pressure, e cient and power dense air compressor/expander is a critical element in an isothermal compressed air energy storage (ICAES) system. Heat transfer is often the limiting factor in realizing e cient and power dense compression and expansion processes. Liquid piston compressor/expanders with porous media inserts have been proposed, in which the porous media serves as heat exchangers. While this concept has been studied through modeling and simulation, it has only been validated experimentally at low pressures (10bar). This paper studies experimentally the e↵ect of porous media in a high pressure (7 to 210bar) liquid piston air compressor/expander, which is the proposed pressure for the ICAES system. Cases with the porous media uniformly distributed and non-uniformly distributed in the chamber are studied with various compression and expansion rates. Results show that at 93% e ciency, the uniformly distributed 2.5mm interrupted plate porous medium increases power density by 10 times in compression and 20 times in expansion; or at the same power, e ciency is increased by 13% in compression and 23% in expansion. Moreover, the porous medium, if deployed at the top of the chamber, is shown to be more e↵ective than if deployed at the bottom. The results indicate that the added surface area provides the dominant benefits but the porous media also increase the heat transfer coe cient at the same e ciency regime. These results are consistent with and extend the findings from previous low pressure experiments.
What caused the great inflation moderation in the US? A post-Keynesian view

Several explanations of the â€˜great inflation moderationâ€™ (1982â€“2006) have been put forth, the most popular being that inflation was tamed due to good monetary policy, good luck (exogenous shocks such as oil prices), or structural changes such as inventory management techniques. Drawing from post-Keynesian and structuralist theories of inflation, this paper uses a vector autoregression with a post-Keynesian identification strategy to show that the decline in the inflation rate and inflation volatility was due primarily to (i) wage declines and (ii) falling import prices caused by international competition and exchange-rate effects. The paper uses a graphical analysis, impulse response functions, and variance decompositions to support the argument that the decline in inflation has in fact been a wage and import price moderation. A Taylor rule differential variable was also used to test the â€˜good policyâ€™ hypothesis. The results show that the Taylor rule differential has a smaller effect on inflation, controlling for other factors.
Testing for Group-Wise Convergence with an Application to Euro Area Inflation

We propose a new procedure to increase the power of panel unit root tests when used to study group-wise convergence. When testing for stationarity of the differential between a group of series and their cross-sectional means, although each differential has non-zero mean, the group of differentials has a cross-sectional average of zero for each time period by construction. We incorporate this constraint for estimation and generating finite sample critical values. Applying this new procedure to Euro Area inflation, we find strong evidence of convergence among the inflation rates soon after the implementation of the Maastricht treaty and a dramatic decrease in the persistence of the differential after the occurrence of the single currency.
Granulocyte-Macrophage Colony-Stimulating Factor Induces an Expression Program in Neonatal Microglia That Primes Them for Antigen Presentation1

Neonatal microglial cells respond to GM-CSF and M-CSF by acquiring different morphologies and phenotypes. To investigate the extent and consequences of this process, a global gene expression analysis was performed, with significant changes in transcript levels confirmed by biochemical analyses. Primary murine microglial cells underwent substantial expression reprogramming after treatment with GM-CSF or M-CSF with many differentially expressed transcripts important in innate and adaptive immunity. In particular, many gene products involved in Ag presentation were induced by GM-CSF, but not M-CSF, thus potentially priming relatively quiescent microglia cells for Ag presentation. This function of GM-CSF is distinct from its primary function in cell proliferation and survival.
Plasma Phospholipid Saturated Fatty Acids and Incident Atrial Fibrillation: The Cardiovascular Health Study

Background Prior studies suggest that circulating fatty acids may influence the risk of atrial fibrillation (AF), but little is known about the associations of circulating saturated fatty acids with risk of AF. Methods and Results The study population included 2899 participants from the Cardiovascular Health Study, a community‐based longitudinal cohort of adults aged 65 years or older in the United States who were free of prevalent coronary heart disease and AF in 1992. Cox regression was used to assess the association of all the long‐chain saturated fatty acids—palmitic acid (16:0), stearic acid (18:0), arachidic acid (20:0), behenic acid (22:0), and lignoceric acid (24:0)—with incident AF. During a median of 11.2 years of follow‐up, 707 cases of incident AF occurred. After adjustment for other AF risk factors, higher levels of circulating 16:0 were associated with a higher risk of AF (hazard ratio comparing highest and lowest quartiles: 1.48; 95% CI: 1.18, 1.86). In contrast, higher levels of circulating 18:0, 20:0, 22:0, and 24:0 were each associated with a lower risk of AF. The hazard ratios (95% CI) for AF in the top and bottom quartiles were 0.76 (95% CI: 0.61, 0.95) for 18:0; 0.78 (95% CI: 0.63, 0.97) for 20:0; 0.62 (95% CI: 0.50, 0.78) for 22:0; and 0.68 (95% CI: 0.55, 0.85) for 24:0. Conclusions Results from this prospective cohort study of older adults demonstrate divergent associations of circulating 16:0 versus longer‐chain saturated fatty acids with incident AF, highlighting the need to investigate both determinants of these levels and potential pathways of the observed differential risk.
Resource augmentation for fault-tolerance feasibility of real-time tasks under error bursts

Dependability is a vital system requirement, particularly in safety critical and mission critical real-time systems, due to the potentially catastrophic consequences of failures. In most critical applications different fault tolerance mechanisms using redundancy are employed to prevent possible failures. In the case of real-time systems the system designer must ensure that the task set is feasible even under faults, which we refer to as 'fault tolerance feasibility'. Due to cost considerations, often temporal redundancy has been prevalently used to meet this objective. In this paper we focus on guaranteeing fault-tolerance feasibility under error bursts on uni-processor systems by the usage of resource augmentation, specifically through processor speed-up. Firstly, we derive a processor demand bound based sufficient condition for a set of real-time tasks to be fault tolerance feasible under an assumption that no more than one error burst occurs during the hyper-period of the task set. Subsequently, we derive the necessary resource augmentation bounds (i.e., the processor speed-up), that guarantees the fault tolerance feasibility, if the sufficient test fails. Finally, we prove that, if the error burst length is no more than half the shortest relative deadline of the task set, the minimum processor speed-up required to guarantee fault tolerance feasibility is upper-bounded by 6.
Nutrient Metabolism Acetate and Butyrate Are the Major Substrates for De Novo Lipogenesis in Rat Colonic Epithelial Cells 1 , 2

The objective of these experiments was to investigate the source of substrates used for lipid synthesis and the pathways of substrate incorporation into lipids by epithelial cells of the colon. Within replicates, cells were exposed to all treatments evaluated in that experiment. By comparing the relative incorporation rates of several C-labeled substrates into lipids, acetate made a significantly larger carbon contribution to lipids than propionate, butyrate, glucose or glutamine under the in vitro conditions utilized in this study. Other major carbon contributors were butyrate and 3-hydroxybutyrate. Glucose, glutamine and propionate made only minor contributions. (-)-Hydroxycitrate did not affect the incorporation of acetate or butyrate carbon into lipids, even though it inhibited colonic ATP-citrate lyase. These data suggest that SCFA carbon used in the synthesis of lipids by colonocytes is not likely transported to the cytosol as citrate. Competition experiments suggest that ketone bodies and butyrate contribute to a single precursor pool for lipogenesis. Ketone bodies did not significantly suppress acetate incorporation into lipid, however. Incorporation of H2O and C-acetate was significantly greater into phospholipids than into free fatty acids and triacylglycerides, suggesting that the major role of lipogenesis is for membrane synthesis. In conclusion, colonocytes appear to synthesize lipids using a pathway distinct from the liver by incorporating mainly SCFA and ketone bodies into lipids, and by using citrate to a limited extent, if at all, to transport acetyl units from the mitochondria to the cytosol. J. Nutr. 133: 3509–3515, 2003.
Endothelial CD81 is a marker of early human atherosclerotic plaques and facilitates monocyte adhesion.

AIMS In a recent report, we established at the genome-wide level those genes that are specifically upregulated in the endothelium of atherosclerotic plaques in human arteries. As the transcriptome data revealed that mRNA for the tetraspanin family member CD81 is significantly and specifically upregulated in the endothelium overlying early atheroma, we set out to validate these results on the protein level, and investigate the functional consequences of CD81 upregulation. METHODS AND RESULTS Immunohistochemical analysis in an independent set of donor arteries verified in the endothelium of early human atherosclerotic lesions the enhanced expression of CD81, which appears oxidative stress-dependent. Using lentiviral overexpression and silencing in human umbilical endothelial cells, we established in an in vitro flow adhesion assay that elevated endothelial CD81 is associated with increased monocyte adhesion to non-activated CD81-transduced endothelial cells, approaching the levels normally only attained after tumour necrosis factor alpha stimulation. The CD81 effect was dependent on both intracellular adhesion molecule 1 (ICAM-1) and vascular cell adhesion molecule 1 (VCAM-1), as it was abolished in the presence of a mixture of anti-ICAM-1 and anti-VCAM-1 antibodies. Flow cytometry revealed that increased CD81 levels did not increase total ICAM-1 and VCAM-1 surface expression. Instead, it concentrated the available adhesion molecules into membrane clusters, as indicated by confocal and electron microscopy. CD81 also colocalized with ICAM-1 and VCAM-1 in the adhesion rings around bound monocytes. CONCLUSION Endothelial CD81 upregulated in early human atheroma has the potential to play a crucial role in the initial stages of atherosclerotic plaque formation by increasing monocyte adhesion prior to the full-blown inflammatory response.
Predicting the rate effects on hooked-end fiber pullout performance from Ultra-High Performance Concrete ( UHPC )

The rate-dependent pullout performances of hooked-end fibers embedded in a UHPC matrix are investigated. Pullout load-slip relations corresponding to loading rates from 5 mm/min to 1000 mm/min and dynamic pullout responses are analyzed. The results show pullout energy is more rate sensitive than peak pullout load, e.g. with an embedded length of 15 mm, the dynamic increase factors (DIFs) under 1000 mm/min are 1.46 and 1.22, respectively. The rate effects on the pullout load are more prominent with a smaller embedded length due to the smaller concrete confinement, therefore the higher cracking potential. Further, a new analytical model to predict the dynamic peak pullout loads covering the loading rates from quasi-static to intermediate levels is proposed and validated. The present findings reveal that the inertial effects related to the crack initiation and propagation in the fiber-matrix interface have significant influences on the rate dependent pullout behaviors, which contribute to the potential utilization of UHPFRC composite in resisting dynamic loadings.
Chapters ILR Collection 2004 Conceptualizing Labour Union Revitalization

Excerpt] Unions have engaged in revitalization efforts in all five country cases that form the basis of comparison of this book, though they differ in the strategies they have pursued and the level of success they have had. Some of the strategies have been promising or even successful in terms of their immediate outcomes; others are still waiting to be fully implemented; and still others have failed to live up to the original expectations. While in many countries union activists are eagerly developing strategies to turn their fate, they are also facing some doubt or even resistance by politicians and academics alike who question the need for a strong and unified representation of labour. Here, we set out to provide a conceptual framework to understand better these various efforts at revival of national union movements. The following section discusses existing analyses of union revitalization and argues that a comparative perspective is well suited to shed light on unions’ revitalization efforts. We then introduce different analytical perspectives on the role of labour in the economy, politics, and society to help identify the significance of unions in an ever more global economy. The next section outlines the parameters of crisis for unions by tracing indicators of union strength over time. We then suggest a framework for conceptualizing union revitalization as a multidimensional process and argue that revitalization has different meanings depending on the specific national context.
Aetiology of Diarrhoea and Virulence Properties of Diarrhoeagenic Escherichia coli among Patients and Healthy Subjects in Southeast Nigeria

Diarrhoeal diseases are one of the most important causes of illness and death all over the world. In Nigeria, the aetiology of diarrhoeagenic bacteria and the virulence of various Escherichia coli pathotypes have not been well-studied because most currently-published data were from the southwestern axis of the country. In total, 520 stool samples were collected from infants, young children, and other age-groups with acute diarrhoeal diseases in Enugu and Onitsha, southeastern Nigeria. Stool samples were collected from 250 apparently-healthy individuals, with similar age distribution and locality, who were considered control subjects. The stool samples were screened for diarrhea-causing bacterial agents. E. coli strains were isolated from both the groups and were examined by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for 16 virulence genes. Of the 520 stool samples in the diarrhoea group, 119 (44.74%) were E. coli. Fifty (49.02%) were enteropathogenic E. coli (EPEC), 22 (21.57%) were enterotoxigenic E. coli (ETEC) while 7.84% was enteroaggregative E. coli (EAEC). Sex had no effect on the distribution of diarrhoeagenic bacteria, except for EIEC. The E. coli strains isolated from the diarrhoea and healthy asymptomatic age-matched control groups examined by PCR for 16 virulence genes indicate that the detection of EAEC, ETEC, EPEC, and EIEC was significantly associated with diarrhoea (p=0.0002). The study confirmed that several bacterial pathogens, such as E. coli, play an important role in the aetiology of acute diarrhoea in southeastern Nigeria. A routine surveillance, especially for diarrhoeagenic E. coli, would be useful in identifying outbreaks and help identify the potential reservoirs and transmission routes.
The Role of Policies in Supporting the Diffusion of Solar Photovoltaic Systems: Experiences with Ontario, Canada’s Renewable Energy Standard Offer Program

Traditionally, high initial capital costs and lengthy payback periods have been identified as the most significant barriers that limit the diffusion of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems. In November, 2006, the Ontario Power Authority (OPA) introduced the Renewable Energy Standard Offer Program (RESOP), offering owners of solar PV systems with a generation capacity under 10 MW a 20 year contract to sell electricity back to the grid at a guaranteed rate of CAD $0.42/kWh. While it is the intent of incentive programs such as the RESOP to begin to lower financial barriers in order to increase the uptake of solar PV systems, there is no guarantee that the level of participation will in fact rise. The "on-the-ground" manner in which consumers interact with such an incentive program ultimately determines its effectiveness. This paper analyzes the relationship between the RESOP and solar PV system consumers. Experiences of current RESOP participants are presented, wherein the factors that are either hindering or promoting utilization of the RESOP and the adoption of solar PV systems are identified.
LNA: Fast Protein Structural Comparison Using a Laplacian Characterization of Tertiary Structure

In the last two decades, a lot of protein 3D shapes have been discovered, characterized, and made available thanks to the Protein Data Bank (PDB), that is nevertheless growing very quickly. New scalable methods are thus urgently required to search through the PDB efficiently. This paper presents an approach entitled LNA (Laplacian Norm Alignment) that performs a structural comparison of two proteins with dynamic programming algorithms. This is achieved by characterizing each residue in the protein with scalar features. The feature values are calculated using a Laplacian operator applied on the graph corresponding to the adjacency matrix of the residues. The weighted Laplacian operator we use estimates, at various scales, local deformations of the topology where each residue is located. On some benchmarks, which are widely shared by the community, we obtain qualitatively similar results compared to other competing approaches, but with an algorithm one or two order of magnitudes faster. 180,000 protein comparisons can be done within 1 second with a single recent Graphical Processing Unit (GPU), which makes our algorithm very scalable and suitable for real-time database querying across the web.
TIME SERIES ANALYSES FOR LOCATING DAMAGE SOURCES IN VIBRATION SYSTEMS

A novel time series analysis procedure is presented to localize damage sources in a mechanical system. An attempt is made to pinpoint the sources of nonlinear damage by solely analysing the vibration signatures recorded from a structure of interests. First, a linear prediction model, combining Auto-Regressive (AR) and Auto-Regressive with eXogenous inputs (ARX) techniques, is estimated using a time series recorded under an undamaged stage of the structure. Then, the residual error, which is the difference between the actual time measurement and the prediction from the previously estimated AR-ARX combined model, is defined as our damage-sensitive feature. This study is based on the premise that if there were damage in the structure, the prediction model previously identified using the undamaged time history data would not be able to reproduce the newly obtained time series data measured under a damaged state of the structure. Furthermore, the increase of the residual errors would be maximised at the sensors instrumented near the actual damage locations. The applicability of this approach is demonstrated using the vibration test data obtained from an eight degrees-of-freedom (DOF) mass-spring system. 1 505-667-6135 (Voice), 505-665-7836 (Fax), sohn@lanl.gov (E-mail). 2 505-667-4551 (Voice), 505-665-2137 (Fax), farrar@lanl.gov (E-mail).
Human Echol ocation Waveform Analysis

All humans have the ability to exploit acoustic echoes for cognitive sensing of the environment. There are blind people who use active versions of the technique as an augmentation to the long stick and can even perform remarkable tasks such as riding a bicycle. Those who are expert in this practise can evaluate range, location, size, shape and texture of objects. This provides a very powerful basis for perception and cognition and is somewhat beyond that which is routinely achieved by radar systems. This example of “sight by sound” makes an ideal candidate to study in order to understand and articulate the cognitive methods used. Subsequently artificial forms of cognition can be synthesised and applied to radar and sonar sensing. In this paper we report on an initial examination of human echolocation by presenting and analysing transmitted and received waveforms generated via “tongue-clicking”.