Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Two Higgs doublet type III seesaw with μ-τ symmetry at LHC

We propose a two Higgs doublet Type III seesaw model with μ-τ flavor symmetry. We add an additional SU(2) Higgs doublet and three SU(2) fermion triplets in our model. The presence of two Higgs doublets allows for an explanation of small neutrino masses with triplet fermions in the 100 GeV mass range, without reducing the Yukawa couplings to extremely small values. The triplet fermions couple to the gauge bosons and can be thus produced at the LHC. We study in detail the effective cross-sections for the production and subsequent decays of these heavy exotic fermions. We show for the first time that the μ-τ flavor symmetry in the low energy neutrino mass matrix results in mixing matrices for the neutral and charged heavy fermions that are not unity and which carry the flavor symmetry pattern. This flavor structure can be observed in the decays of the heavy fermions at LHC. The large Yukawa couplings in our model result in the decay of the heavy fermions into lighter leptons and Higgs with a decay rate which is about 1011 times larger than what is expected for the one Higgs Type III seesaw model with 100 GeV triplet fermions. The smallness of neutrino masses constrains the neutral Higgs mixing angle sin α in our model in such a way that the heavy fermions decay into the lighter neutral CP even Higgs h0, CP odd Higgs A0 and the charged Higgs H±, but almost never to the heavier neutral CP even Higgs H0. The small value for sin α also results in a very long lifetime for h0. This displaced decay vertex should be visible at LHC. We provide an exhaustive list of collider signature channels for our model and identify those that have very large effective cross-sections at LHC and almost no standard model background.
Dependence Structure between World Crude Oil Prices: Evidence from NYMEX, ICE, and DME Markets

This paper examines the dependence structure between world crudeoil prices using the D-vine copula based GARCH model to analyze three randomvariables, namely, Light crude futures 1-Pos (NYMEX), Brent crude futures 1-Pos (ICE), and Oman crude futures 1-Pos (DME). We nd that NYMEX{ICE,NYMEX{DME, and ICE{DME have relatively strong dependence. In addition,we nd the evidences for asymmetric tail dependence in each pair with the valuesof upper tail and lower tail dependences of three pair-copulas as being quite closeto each other. Therefore, our ndings support the "one great pool" hypothesis.Moreover, the results from the D-vine copula model indicate that the ICE is animportant variable that governs the interactions in the dependence structure be-tween the NYMEX and the DME. In other words, the change in the oil price ofthe ICE will impact quite signicantly the prices of the NYMEX and the DME.
On the Number of Distributive Lattices

We investigate the numbers $d_k$ of all (isomorphism classes of) distributive lattices with $k$ elements, or, equivalently, of (unlabeled) posets with $k$ antichains. Closely related and useful for combinatorial identities and inequalities are the numbers $v_k$ of vertically indecomposable distributive lattices of size $k$. We present the explicit values of the numbers $d_k$ and $v_k$ for $k
Neural Computation via Neural Geometry: A Place Code for Inter-whisker Timing in the Barrel Cortex?

The place theory proposed by Jeffress (1948) is still the dominant model of how the brain represents the movement of sensory stimuli between sensory receptors. According to the place theory, delays in signalling between neurons, dependent on the distances between them, compensate for time differences in the stimulation of sensory receptors. Hence the location of neurons, activated by the coincident arrival of multiple signals, reports the stimulus movement velocity. Despite its generality, most evidence for the place theory has been provided by studies of the auditory system of auditory specialists like the barn owl, but in the study of mammalian auditory systems the evidence is inconclusive. We ask to what extent the somatosensory systems of tactile specialists like rats and mice use distance dependent delays between neurons to compute the motion of tactile stimuli between the facial whiskers (or ‘vibrissae’). We present a model in which synaptic inputs evoked by whisker deflections arrive at neurons in layer 2/3 (L2/3) somatosensory ‘barrel’ cortex at different times. The timing of synaptic inputs to each neuron depends on its location relative to sources of input in layer 4 (L4) that represent stimulation of each whisker. Constrained by the geometry and timing of projections from L4 to L2/3, the model can account for a range of experimentally measured responses to two-whisker stimuli. Consistent with that data, responses of model neurons located between the barrels to paired stimulation of two whiskers are greater than the sum of the responses to either whisker input alone. The model predicts that for neurons located closer to either barrel these supralinear responses are tuned for longer inter-whisker stimulation intervals, yielding a topographic map for the inter-whisker deflection interval across the surface of L2/3. This map constitutes a neural place code for the relative timing of sensory stimuli.
BRCA2 N372H Polymorphism and Risk of Epithelial Ovarian Cancer

Abstract The BRCA2 N372H is the only common polymorphism that leads to the amino acid change based on the reports up to date. Previous studies explored the relationship between the single nucleotide polymorphism and ovarian cancer risk, but the results were inconsistent or inconclusive. To investigate the association between N372H in BRCA2 gene and ovarian cancer susceptibility, a systematic literature search was performed for related publications in the databases of PubMed, Gene, and Google Scholar. Total 2344 cases and 9672 controls in eligible studies were included in this meta-analysis. &khgr;2 -based Q test and an I2 index were used to identify the heterogeneous records. Potential publication biases were assessed by Begg and Egger tests. In the overall analysis, the results showed a significant association between BRCA2 codon 372 polymorphism and increased risk of ovarian cancer (HH versus NN: odds ratio (OR) = 1.22, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.01–1.48, P = 0.037). In the Australia subgroup analysis, significant association was also detected (HH versus NN: OR = 1.40, 95% CI 1.04–1.87, P = 0.026). The subgroup analysis for serous cancer subgroup showed that the significant association could be detected under recessive model (OR = 1.38, 95% CI, 1.01–1.89, P = 0.04) and under homozygote comparison (OR = 1.46, 95% CI, 1.06–2.01, P = 0.022). Our meta-analysis suggests that the N372H polymorphism is associated with susceptibility of ovarian cancer. The allele H might increase the risk of ovarian cancer, especially, for ovarian cancers of the serous subtype.
Organising black and minority ethnic workers : trade union strategies for recruitment and inclusion

___________________________________ _ Abstract This research explores the challenges that trade unions face in organising workers in south-This research explores the challenges that trade unions face in organising workers in southeast England in the context of union decline and labour market change. It focuses particularly on what trade unions are doing to organise black and minority ethnic (BME) workers and assesses strategies that are being developed for increased recruitment and inclusion of these workers. While the issue of women's involvement in trade unions has received attention from a variety of researchers with a few exceptions, there is a relative paucit) of recent work relating to BME workers and their relationship with trade unions. The research addresses the issue of disadvantage faced by BME workers: both in the labour market and in trade unions and the impact this has on trade union density. It explores whether the particular nature of uneven development in London provides clues as to the specific nature of trade unionism in this region, where union density is the lowest in the UK. The nature of this uneven development is characterised. primarily, in terms of unequal wealth and class relations, but at the same time it is also acutely racialised. This manifests itself not only in an unequal spatial distribution of labour but also in an ethnic spatial distribution of labour which has an impact on the involvement of BME workers in trade unions in the region. In contrast to much of the research carried out on trade unions, this work takes a geographical perspective on labour organisation by looking at how organisational scale impacts on trade union campaigns. It is believed that de\eloping new forms of trade union organisation, which extend beyond the workplace, could be a key factor the successful recruitment of BME workers. Acknowledgements ______________________________ _ Acknowledgements There are many people and organisations that I would like to thank for the support and assistance they have provided to me while I have been writing this thesis. Firstly. I would like to acknowledge the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) for the financial support needed to under take thi s research (CA SE studentshi p S4220
MATTHEW EFFECTS AND R&D SUBSIDIES: KNOWLEDGE CUMULABILITY IN HIGH-TECH AND LOW-TECH INDUSTRIES

The paper explores the causes and effects of persistence in the discretionary allocation of public subsidies to R&D activities performed by private firms in high-tech and low-tech industries. It applies the distinction between vicious Matthew-effect and virtuous Matthew-effect. The former qualifies the persistence in the discretionary allocation of public subsidies in terms of sheer reputation based upon previous awards. The latter is identified by the role of the accumulation of competence stemming from past grants in current R&D activities. Virtuous Matthew effects are found in high-tech industries where knowledge cumulability is higher. In traditional industries, vicious Matthew effects prevail for the lower levels of knowledge cumulability. Here reputation-Matthew-effects can lead to substitution of private funds with public ones.
Probabilistic Face Recognition using Bayesian Analysis

The project aims at implementing a face recognition system based on Bayesian analysis of difference images. It converts the problem of face recognition into a two-class clustering problem, which then can be conveniently solved using Bayesian decision theory. The advantages of this approach are better performance than conventional approaches and increased computational efficiency especially when dealing with very large databases.
Number Plate Recognition for use in different countries using an improved segmentation

Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) is a real time embedded system which identifies the characters directly from the image of the license plate. It is an active area of research. ANPR systems are very useful to the law enforcement agencies as the need for Radio Frequency Identification tags and similar equipments are minimized. Since number plate guidelines are not strictly practiced everywhere, it often becomes difficult to correctly identify the non-standard number plate characters. In this paper we try to address this problem of ANPR by using a pixel based segmentation algorithm of the alphanumeric characters in the license plate. The non-adherence of the system to any particular country-specific standard & fonts effectively means that this system can be used in many different countries — a feature which can be especially useful for trans-border traffic e.g. use in country borders etc. Additionally, there is an option available to the end-user for retraining the Artificial Neural Network (ANN) by building a new sample font database. This can improve the system performance and make the system more efficient by taking relevant samples. The system was tested on 150 different number plates from various countries and an accuracy of 91.59% has been reached.
BDNF-Deficient Mice Show Reduced Psychosis-Related Behaviors Following Chronic Methamphetamine

Background: One of the most devastating consequences of methamphetamine abuse is increased risk of psychosis. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor has been implicated in both psychosis and neuronal responses to methamphetamine. We therefore examined persistent psychosis-like behavioral effects of methamphetamine in brain-derived neurotrophic factor heterozygous mice. Methods: Mice were chronically treated with methamphetamine from 6 to 9 weeks of age, and locomotor hyperactivity to an acute D-amphetamine challenge was tested in photocell cages after a 2-week withdrawal period. Results: Methamphetamine-treated wild-type mice, but not brain-derived neurotrophic factor heterozygous mice, showed locomotor sensitization to acute 3mg/kg D-amphetamine. Qualitative analysis of exploration revealed tolerance to D-amphetamine effects on entropy in methamphetamine-treated brain-derived neurotrophic factor heterozygous mice, but not wild-type mice. Conclusions: Chronic methamphetamine exposure induces contrasting profiles of behavioral changes in wild-type and brain-derived neurotrophic factor heterozygous mice, with attenuation of behaviors relevant to psychosis in methamphetamine-treated brain-derived neurotrophic factor heterozygous mice. This suggests that brain-derived neurotrophic factor signalling changes may contribute to development of psychosis in methamphetamine users.
A Simulated Annealing Algorithm for Ground Station Scheduling Problem

Among different versions of Satellite Scheduling, there is the Ground Station Scheduling, whose aim is mission allocation of ground stations to spacecrafts. This scheduling problem belongs to the family of scheduling with time windows, and besides complexities of classical scheduling problems, it has additional requirements that make it over-constrained and challenging to solve to optimality. In fact, in some cases it is even hard to find a feasible solution that satisfies all user requirements and resource constraints. As with other computationally hard combinatorial optimization problems, heuristic solutions are employed to find high quality solutions in reasonable amount of computation time. In this paper we present a Simulated Annealing (SA) algorithm for the problem, which is a local search based algorithm that simulates the cooling process by gradually lowering the temperature of the system until it converges to a stable state. The Satellite Toolkit is used for the experimental study and performance evaluation of the algorithm through a family of instances of small, medium and large sizes.
A Toxicogenomic Comparison of Primary and Photochemically Altered Air Pollutant Mixtures

Background: Air pollution contributes significantly to global increases in mortality, particularly within urban environments. Limited knowledge exists on the mechanisms underlying health effects resulting from exposure to pollutant mixtures similar to those occurring in ambient air. In order to clarify the mechanisms underlying exposure effects, toxicogenomic analyses are used to evaluate genomewide transcript responses and map these responses to molecular networks. Objectives: We compared responses induced by exposure to primary pollutants and photochemically altered (PCA) pollutant mixtures representing urban atmospheres to test our hypothesis that exposures to PCA pollutants would show increased modulation of inflammation-associated genes and pathways relative to primary air pollutants. Methods: We used an outdoor environmental irradiation chamber to expose human lung epithelial cells to mixtures representing either primary or PCA pollutants for 4 hr. Transcriptional changes were assessed using microarrays and confirmed using quantitative real-time reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) on a subset of genes. Results: We found a large difference in the cellular responses to the two pollutant exposures: Primary air pollutants altered the expression levels of 19 genes, whereas PCA pollutants altered 709 genes. Functional and molecular analyses of the altered genes revealed novel pathways, such as hepatocyte nuclear factor 4α, potentially regulating the pollutant responses. Chemical component analysis characterized and confirmed the photochemical transformation of primary air pollutants into PCA air pollutants. Conclusions: Our study shows that the photochemical transformation of primary air pollutants produces altered mixtures that cause significantly greater biological effects than the primary pollutants themselves. These findings suggest that studying individual air pollutants or primary pollutant mixtures may greatly underestimate the adverse health effects caused by air pollution.
RB-Seeker: Auto-detection of Redirection Botnets

A Redirection Botnet (RBnet) is a vast collection of compromised computers (called bots) used as a redirection/proxy infrastructure and under the control of a botmaster. We present the design, implementation and evaluation of a system called Redirection Botnet Seeker (RB-Seeker) for automatic detection of RBnets by utilizing three cooperating subsystems. Two of the subsystems are used to generate a database of domains participating in redirection: one detects redirection bots by following links embedded in spam emails, and the other detects redirection behavior based on network traces at a large university edge router using sequential hypothesis testing. The database of redirection domains generated by these two subsystems is fed into the final subsystem, which then performs DNS query probing on the domains over time. Based on certain behavioral attributes extracted from the DNS queries, the final subsystem makes use of a 2-tier detection strategy utilizing hyperplane decision functions. This allows it to quickly identify aggressive RBnets with a low false-positive rate (< 0.008%), while also accurately detecting stealthy RBnets (i.e., those mimicking valid DNS behavior, such as CDNs) by monitoring their behavior over time. Using DNS behavior as a means of detecting RBnets, RB-Seeker is impervious to the botmaster’s choice of Command-and-Control (C&C) channel (i.e., how the botmaster communicates and controls the bots) or use of encryption.
Joint Rate Control and Scheduling for TDMA Multihop Wireless Networks

We solve the joint rate control and scheduling problem in TDMA wireless networks. We use the Lagrangian dual approach to devise an iterative subgradient algorithm that solves the problem. The iterative algorithm decomposes the problem into the distributed rate control problem and centralized TDMA scheduling. The distributed rate control can be determined independently by wireless nodes in the network. The scheduling part of the algorithm takes advantage of a new class of TDMA scheduling algorithms, which allow us to find practical TDMA schedules with linear programming. The iterative algorithm fits perfectly into 802.16 mesh networks, which use centralized TDMA scheduling. We use simulations to show the performance of the proposed algorithm in 802.16 mesh networks.
Rates of Return of the German Pay-As-You-Go Pension System

Due to population aging, contribution rates of the mandatory German pay-as-you-go pension system are expected to increase dramatically during the next decades. This paper estimates the impact on the expected returns of contributions for different cohorts. I show that rates of return for younger cohorts will be between zero and one percent, depending on the demographic and economic scenarios; for some demographic groups they become negative. The implicit tax rates reach levels of around two-thirds of contributions for the youngest cohorts. If decreasing returns reduce incentives for labor supply and system participation, the whole system may become unsustainable. Indeed, I find empirical evidence for a recent decline of voluntary contributions and for a substitution away from taxable employment.
Variation of Bergman kernels of adjoint line bundles

Generalizing the recent result of Berndtsson, we prove the Nakano semipositivity of the direct image of relative pluricanonical systems and the direct image of relative adjoint (singular) hermitian line bundle with semipositive curvature. This gives a new proof of Kawamata's theorem on the semipositivity of the direct image of relative pluricanonical systems.
Synergistic interaction between leptin and cholecystokinin to reduce short-term food intake in lean mice.

Leptin is a circulating protein involved in the long-term regulation of food intake and body weight. Cholecystokinin (CCK) is released postprandially and elicits satiety signals. We investigated the interaction between leptin and CCK-8 in the short-term regulation of food intake induced by 24-hr fasting in lean mice. Leptin, injected intraperitoneally (i.p.) at low doses (4-120 microg/kg), which did not influence feeding behavior for the first 3 hr postinjection, decreased food intake dose dependently by 47-83% during the first hour when coinjected with a subthreshold dose of CCK. Such an interaction was not observed between leptin and bombesin. The food-reducing effect of leptin injected with CCK was not associated with alterations in gastric emptying or locomotor behavior. Leptin-CCK action was blocked by systemic capsaicin at a dose inducing functional ablation of sensory afferent fibers and by devazepide, a CCK-A receptor antagonist but not by the CCK-B receptor antagonist, L-365,260. The decrease in food intake which occurs 5 hr after i.p. injection of leptin alone was also blunted by devazepide. Coinjection of leptin and CCK enhanced the number of Fos-positive cells in the hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus by 60%, whereas leptin or CCK alone did not modify Fos expression. These results indicate the existence of a functional synergistic interaction between leptin and CCK leading to early suppression of food intake which involves CCK-A receptors and capsaicin-sensitive afferent fibers.
Improving the Economic Situation of Young People in France

The economic situation of young people is unsatisfactory. Educational inequalities have been widening for over a decade, due to a sharp decline in the results of the most highly disadvantaged students. The unemployment rate for the 20-24 age bracket has not dropped below 16% for nearly 30 years. French youth are highly pessimistic about the future and express great distrust of institutions. The social safety net sits uneasily between autonomy and family solidarity and is unfair because young people who are unemployed and have no solid financial backing from their families find themselves in precarious situations. Positive discrimination in education policies should be given a real priority and education spending rationalised to draw more resources to primary schooling. The autonomy of universities should be increased, as should the financial independence of young people. The workings of the labour market, some features of which penalise new entrants, need to be reformed and youth employment services enhanced. This Working Paper relates to the 2013 OECD Economic Review of France (www.oecd.org/eco/surveys/France).