Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Seismic hazard estimate from background seismicity in southern California

We analyzed the historical seismicity in southern California to develop a rational approach for calculating the seismic hazard from background seismicity of magnitude 6.5 or smaller. The basic assumption for the approach is that future earthquakes will be clustered spatially near locations of historical mainshocks of magnitudes equal to or greater than 4. We analyzed the declustered California seismicity catalog to compute the rate of earthquakes on a grid and then smoothed these rates to account for the spatial distribution of future earthquakes. To find a suitable spatial smoothing function, we studied the distance (r) correlation for southern California earthquakes and found that they follow a 1/rµ power-law relation, where µ increases with magnitude. This result suggests that larger events are more clustered in space than smaller earthquakes. Assuming the seismicity follows the Gutenberg-Richter distribution, we calculated peak ground accelerations (PGA) for 10% probability of exceedance in 50 yr. PGA estimates range between 0.25 and 0.35 g across much of southern California. These ground-motion levels are generally less than half the levels of hazard that are obtained using the entire seismic source model that also includes geologic and geodetic data. We also calculated the overall uncertainty for the hazard map using a Monte Carlo method and found that the coefficient of variation is about 0.24 ± 0.01 for much of the region.
Do Managers’ Characteristics Influence the Employment Growth of SMEs?

Abstract Considerable empirical research has been devoted to the impact of the manager’s characteristics on the growth of his/her firm. However, the majority of this work is centered on the analysis of one or of a limited number of predictors. Furthermore, no research has provided an exhaustive list of all of the variables previously studied. We have filled this gap and tested the potential influence on employment growth of 28 variables, grouped into five sub-categories: psychological characteristics, expertise and family background, motivations, demographic characteristics and the presence of a managerial team. If our results stress the importance of the manager’s expertise, or at least some aspects of it, and of demographic variables, they also prune some other branches of research on firm growth, or at least call for a more refined approach. It does not come as a surprise that traits do not exert any significant impact on growth. More surprisingly, we find an absence of impact of motivations, which calls for a more refined classification than the simple “push-pull” dichotomy. The conclusions we reach about family background show that, if coming from an entrepreneurial family can impact firm creation, it has no influence on growth. Finally, contrary to a widespread belief, the fact that the firm is started and/or led by a team of managers does not seem to offer enough advantages to stimulate employment growth.
How Do Forced-Choice Dilemmas Affect Multiracial People? The Role of Identity Autonomy and Public Regard in Depressive Symptoms

The present study reports on correlational data gathered from an Internet survey to explore why forced-choice dilemma situations relate to depressive symptoms among multiracial people (N = 317). Specifically, a model was tested that explored the role of identity autonomy (the extent to which multiracial people feel they can racially identify however they desire) and public regard (the extent to which multiracial people think others value their multiracial identity). The results of the model suggest that forced-choice dilemmas predict greater depressive symptoms because forcedchoice dilemmas may promote greater beliefs that their multiracial identity is devalued in society and more generally restrict identity autonomy. Implications are discussed in terms of multiracial health and public policies regarding assessments of racial identities. jasp_634 1657.1677 Researchers widely accept that people of multiracial heritage face unique challenges associated with their membership in multiple racial categories. These unique challenges have been proposed as precipitating factors in racial identity development, overall psychological health, and the occurrence of problem behaviors, including poor academic performance among multiracial people (Gillem, Cohn, & Throne, 2001; Logan, 1981; Rockquemore & Brunsma, 2002a, 2002b; Shih & Sanchez, 2005). In a review of work on multiracial health, Shih and Sanchez proposed that forced-choice dilemmas may contribute to multiracial people’s psychological well-being. Thus, the present study is designed to examine empirically the possible link between self-reported experiences of forced-choice dilemmas and psychological wellbeing, as well as the mechanisms that may account for the relationship. Forced-choice dilemmas refer to situations in which multiracial people are asked or pressured to choose between their multiple racial identities, rather than being allowed to identify with their multiple racial identities (Standen, 1996). Because of the difficulties multiracial people face, many theorists have erroneously predicted that multiracial people will exhibit worse
Anticipating the future by watching unlabeled video

In many computer vision applications, machines will need to reason beyond the present, and predict the future. This task is challenging because it requires leveraging extensive commonsense knowledge of the world that is difficult to write down. We believe that a promising resource for efficiently obtaining this knowledge is through the massive amounts of readily available unlabeled video. In this paper, we present a large scale framework that capitalizes on temporal structure in unlabeled video to learn to anticipate both actions and objects in the future. The key idea behind our approach is that we can train deep networks to predict the visual representation of images in the future. We experimentally validate this idea on two challenging "in the wild" video datasets, and our results suggest that learning with unlabeled videos significantly helps forecast actions and anticipate objects.
Clinical and Laboratory Evaluation of Amoxicillin (BRL 2333) in the Treatment of Urinary Tract Infections

Amoxicillin (α-amino-p-hydroxybenzyl penicillin) is a new oral semisynthetic penicillin with antibacterial activity similar to that of ampicillin; however, it is more completely absorbed and urinary concentrations are higher. Twenty-seven patients during 28 episodes of urinary tract infection were treated with oral amoxicillin given either as 250- or 500-mg doses. Clinical cure or improvement occurred in 23 of 27 infections (85%); eradication of the responsible organisms occurred in 23 of 26 infections (88%); and both clinical cure or improvement and eradication occurred in 20 of 25 infections (80%). Three infections relapsed. Failure to respond bacteriologically was associated with resistant organisms in two patients and with chronic pyelonephritis (Proteus mirabilis) is one. Concentrations of amoxicillin in serum obtained 2 h after administration were more variable than those previously reported for reasons which were obscure. In vitro studies revealed amoxicillin to be comparable to ampicillin when tested against most gram-negative bacilli; however, in this situation amoxicillin may be more effective than ampicillin against enterococci.
Day of the Week and Ischemic Stroke: Is It Monday High or Sunday Low?

Background and Purpose— The study aim was to examine the incidence of ischemic stroke (IS) by day of the week and its relationship with age, sex, and socioeconomic status (SES). Methods— A total of 12 801 IS events in men and women aged 25 to 99 years was recorded in a population-based stroke register (FINMONICA), which was functioning in Finland from 1982 to 1992. We analyzed the weekly variation in IS incidence by pooling the data and stratifying by sex and age. Taxable income and level of education were used as indicators of SES. Results— We observed a significant weekly variation in IS occurrence, but the analysis by age group demonstrated a difference by weekday only in the age group 60 to 74, both in men and women (P <0.001 and P =0.02, respectively). The increase in the number of IS events from Sunday to Monday was pronounced in men (29.2% increase from Sunday to Monday). When stratifying by age, Monday excess in IS incidence was associated with lower SES among persons >59 years of age. No Monday excess was observed in persons with high SES. Conclusions— Because the incidence of IS is much higher in persons with low SES than in those with high SES, the Monday excess in persons with low SES is of substantial public health interest. This finding may suggest reasons for the higher IS incidence in persons with low socioeconomic positions and open up some possibilities for prevention.
Adipose angiotensinogen is involved in adipose tissue growth and blood pressure regulation

White adipose tissue and liver are important angiotensinogen (AGT) production sites. Until now, plasma AGT was considered to be a reflection of hepatic production. Because plasma AGT concentration has been reported to correlate with blood pressure, and to be associated with body mass index, we investigated whether adipose AGT is released locally and into the blood stream. For this purpose, we have generated transgenic mice either in which adipose AGT is overexpressed or in which AGT expression is restricted to adipose tissue. This was achieved by the use of the aP2 adipocyte‐specific promoter driving the expression of rat agt cDNA in both wild‐type and hypotensive AGT‐deficient mice. Our results show that in both genotypes, targeted expression of AGT in adipose tissue increases fat mass. Mice whose AGT expression is restricted to adipose tissue have AGT circulating in the blood stream, are normotensive, and exhibit restored renal function compared with AGT‐deficient mice. Moreover, mice that overexpress adipose AGT have increased levels of circulating AGT, compared with wild‐type mice, and are hypertensive. These animal models demonstrate that AGT produced by adipose tissue plays a role in both local adipose tissue development and in the endocrine system, which supports a role of adipose AGT in hypertensive obese patients.
Tag Disentangled Generative Adversarial Network for Object Image Re-rendering

In this paper, we propose a principled Tag Disentangled Generative Adversarial Networks (TD-GAN) for re-rendering new images for the object of interest from a single image of it by specifying multiple scene properties (such as viewpoint, illumination, expression, etc.). The whole framework consists of a disentangling network, a generative network, a tag mapping net, and a discriminative network, which are trained jointly based on a given set of images that are completely/partially tagged (i.e., supervised/semi-supervised setting). Given an input image, the disentangling network extracts disentangled and interpretable representations, which are then used to generate images by the generative network. In order to boost the quality of disentangled representations, the tag mapping net is integrated to explore the consistency between the image and its tags. Furthermore, the discriminative network is introduced to implement the adversarial training strategy for generating more realistic images. Experiments on two challenging datasets demonstrate the state-of-the-art performance of the proposed framework in the problem of interest.
Effects of insulation paper ageing on the vibration characteristics of a transformer winding disk

The application of vibration-based condition monitoring methods to power transformers has shown the potential for detecting mechanical transformer failures. The ageing of winding insulation paper, which is a common problem in long-serving power transformers, affects both the electrical and mechanical strength of the windings. This paper is concerned with the vibration features of winding disks with aged insulation paper. The vibration characteristics of single-layer winding disks wrapped with insulation paper are investigated. By examining the vibration frequency responses of winding disks with different degrees of ageing of insulation paper, the effects of aged paper on the vibration behaviors of winding disks are demonstrated. The experimental results show that changes in the vibration responses of winding disks can be related to the ageing of insulation paper, and thus it is possible to detect this failure mode in a power transformer using a vibration-based method. A qualitative explanation for these changes is presented, using the degradation of the mechanical strength of the insulation paper.
Environmental Stress Causes Oxidative Damage to Plant Mitochondria Leading to Inhibition of Glycine Decarboxylase*

A cytotoxic product of lipid peroxidation, 4-hydroxy-2-nonenal (HNE), rapidly inhibited glycine, malate/pyruvate, and 2-oxoglutarate-dependent O2 consumption by pea leaf mitochondria. Dose- and time-dependence of inhibition showed that glycine oxidation was the most severely affected with aK 0.5 of 30 μm. Several mitochondrial proteins containing lipoic acid moieties differentially lost their reactivity to a lipoic acid antibody following HNE treatment. The most dramatic loss of antigenicity was seen with the 17-kDa glycine decarboxylase complex (GDC) H-protein, which was correlated with the loss of glycine-dependent O2 consumption. Paraquat treatment of pea seedlings induced lipid peroxidation, which resulted in the rapid loss of glycine-dependent respiration and loss of H-protein reactivity with lipoic acid antibodies. Pea plants exposed to chilling and water deficit responded similarly. In contrast, the damage to other lipoic acid-containing mitochondrial enzymes was minor under these conditions. The implication of the acute sensitivity of glycine decarboxylase complex H-protein to lipid peroxidation products is discussed in the context of photorespiration and potential repair mechanisms in plant mitochondria.
Identifying Aspects for Web-Search Queries

Many web-search queries serve as the beginning of an exploration of an unknown space of information, rather than looking for a specific web page. To answer such queries effectively, the search engine should attempt to organize the space of relevant information in a way that facilitates exploration. We describe the ASPECTOR system that computes aspects for a given query. Each aspect is a set of search queries that together represent a distinct information need relevant to the original search query. To serve as an effective means to explore the space, ASPECTOR computes aspects that are orthogonal to each other and to have high combined coverage. ASPECTOR combines two sources of information to compute aspects. We discover candidate aspects by analyzing query logs, and cluster them to eliminate redundancies. We then use a mass-collaboration knowledge base (e.g., Wikipedia) to compute candidate aspects for queries that occur less frequently and to group together aspects that are likely to be "semantically" related. We present a user study that indicates that the aspects we compute are rated favorably against three competing alternatives - related searches proposed by Google, cluster labels assigned by the Clusty search engine, and navigational searches proposed by Bing.
Preparing Students for Software Engineering

This position paper describes our work with a new course at Sussex University, designed to bridge the gap between computer science and software engineering. We argue that the way in which software engineering is introduced in most computer science degrees makes it hard for students to internalise the lessons of good engineering practice. In particular, programming is seen to be divorced from software engineering. We describe a new course taught to rst year undergraduates, once they have learned to program. The course exposes students to the di culties of large scale software development, including integrating and modifying other people's code. The course uses a trading game in which student buy and sell software modules, making their own evaluations of cost and quality. An important innovation is to force the students to be explicit about lessons learned, as an introduction to process improvement. Early results are promising: the rst cohort of students are signi cantly more motivated in their subsequent software engineering course.
Virtual Life Satisfaction

We study life satisfaction data from the 2005 World Values Survey and a 2009 survey of users of the virtual world Second Life. Second Life users do not have the same demographic profile as the general population, but the differences are not as large as we expected. The mechanisms and causes of life satisfaction seem to be similar in the two samples. Among Second Life users, satisfaction with their virtual life is higher than satisfaction with their real life. Regression analysis indicates that people in certain life situations, such as unemployment, gain more life satisfaction from ‘switching’ to the virtual world than from changing their real‐life circumstances. In other words, an unemployed person can become happier by visiting Second Life rather than finding a job. Correspondingly, problems in real life are positive predictors of intense use of virtual life.
Light Regulation and Daytime Dependency of Inducible Plant Defenses in Arabidopsis : Phytochrome Signaling Controls Systemic Acquired Resistance Rather Than Local Defense 1

We have examined molecular and physiological principles underlying the light dependency of defense activation in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) plants challenged with the bacterial pathogen Pseudomonas syringae. Within a fixed light/dark cycle, plant defense responses and disease resistance significantly depend on the time of day when pathogen contact takes place. Morning and midday inoculations result in higher salicylic acid accumulation, faster expression of pathogenesis-related genes, and a more pronounced hypersensitive response than inoculations in the evening or at night. Rather than to the plants’ circadian rhythm, this increased plant defense capability upon day inoculations is attributable to the availability of a prolonged light period during the early plant-pathogen interaction. Moreover, pathogen responses of Arabidopsis double mutants affected in light perception, i.e. cryptochrome1cryptochrome2 (cry1cry2), phototropin1phototropin2 (phot1phot2), and phytochromeAphytochromeB (phyAphyB) were assessed. Induction of defense responses by either avirulent or virulent P. syringae at inoculation sites is relatively robust in leaves of photoreceptor mutants, indicating little cross talk between local defense and light signaling. In addition, the blue-light receptor mutants cry1cry2 and phot1phot2 are both capable of establishing a full systemic acquired resistance (SAR) response. Induction of SAR and salicylic-acid-dependent systemic defense reactions, however, are compromised in phyAphyB mutants. Phytochrome regulation of SAR involves the essential SAR component FLAVINDEPENDENT MONOOXYGENASE1. Our findings highlight the importance of phytochrome photoperception during systemic rather than local resistance induction. The phytochrome system seems to accommodate the supply of light energy to the energetically costly increase in whole plant resistance.
Comparative analysis of repeatability and reproducibility of compaction testing

Abstract This article investigates alternatives for soil compaction testing to potentially replace the standard nuclear density gauge by examining alternate testing devices and methods. Gauge reproducibility and repeatability is used to compare various devices including the Light Weight Deflectometer and the Dynamic Cone Penetrometer. The objective of this study is to find the appropriate means for measuring repeatability and reproducibility in the field for the testing devices. This article considers both measurement system analysis in the form of gauge repeatability and reproducibility and statistical data assessments including: (1) coefficient of variation; (2) statistical error compared to the mean; (3) one-way ANOVA; and (4) hypothesis test for paired samples.
Consensus-based algorithms for distributed filtering

The paper addresses Distributed State Estimation (DSE) over sensor networks. Two existing consensus approaches for DSE of linear systems, named consensus on information (CI) and consensus on measurements (CM), are extended to nonlinear systems. Further, a novel hybrid consensus approach exploiting both CM and CI (named HCMCI=Hybrid CM + CI) is introduced in order to combine their complementary benefits. Novel theoretical results, limitedly to linear systems, on the guaranteed stability of the HCMCI filter under minimal requirements (i.e. collective observability and network connectivity) are proved. Finally, a simulation case-study is presented in order to comparatively show the effectiveness of the proposed consensus-based state estimators.
Influence of inhaled nitric oxide on gas exchange during normoxic and hypoxic exercise in highly trained cyclists.

This study tested the effects of inhaled nitric oxide [NO; 20 parts per million (ppm)] during normoxic and hypoxic (fraction of inspired O(2) = 14%) exercise on gas exchange in athletes with exercise-induced hypoxemia. Trained male cyclists (n = 7) performed two cycle tests to exhaustion to determine maximal O(2) consumption (VO(2 max)) and arterial oxyhemoglobin saturation (Sa(O(2)), Ohmeda Biox ear oximeter) under normoxic (VO(2 max) = 4.88 +/- 0.43 l/min and Sa(O(2)) = 90.2 +/- 0.9, means +/- SD) and hypoxic (VO(2 max) = 4.24 +/- 0.49 l/min and Sa(O(2)) = 75.5 +/- 4.5) conditions. On a third occasion, subjects performed four 5-min cycle tests, each separated by 1 h at their respective VO(2 max), under randomly assigned conditions: normoxia (N), normoxia + NO (N/NO), hypoxia (H), and hypoxia + NO (H/NO). Gas exchange, heart rate, and metabolic parameters were determined during each condition. Arterial blood was drawn at rest and at each minute of the 5-min test. Arterial PO(2) (Pa(O(2))), arterial PCO(2), and Sa(O(2)) were determined, and the alveolar-arterial difference for PO(2) (A-aDO(2)) was calculated. Measurements of Pa(O(2)) and Sa(O(2)) were significantly lower and A-aDO(2) was widened during exercise compared with rest for all conditions (P < 0.05). No significant differences were detected between N and N/NO or between H and H/NO for Pa(O(2)), Sa(O(2)) and A-aDO(2) (P > 0.05). We conclude that inhalation of 20 ppm NO during normoxic and hypoxic exercise has no effect on gas exchange in highly trained cyclists.
Experimental and simulated analysis of p a-Si:H defects on silicon heterojunction solar cells: trade-offs between VOC and FF

We investigate the effects of p a-Si:H emitter layer defects on n-type silicon heterojunction solar cells (SHJ) by experimental and simulated device analysis. Simulation of interdigitated back contact heterojunction (IBC-SHJ) solar cells shows that reducing the p-layer dangling bond density (Ddb) > 5×1018 cm-3eV-1 is an effective way to simultaneously increase VOC and FF. We use front and rear heterojunction test structures to diagnose the trade-offs between VOC and FF. Analysis of the dark current-voltage (JV) characteristics and suns-VOC curves of IBC-SHJ cells with different emitter p-layers shows the benefits of a low-high doping stack emitter structure where the lowly doped layer has less defects, providing low surface recombination, while the high doped layer enhances carrier transport and contacting. By utilizing the stack emitter structure we achieved IBC-SHJ solar cell with 20.2% efficiency.