Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Textbook Example of a Bow Shock in the Merging Galaxy Cluster 1E 0657–56

The Chandra image of the merging, hot galaxy cluster 1E 0657-56 reveals a bow shock propagating in front of a bullet-like gas cloud just exiting the disrupted cluster core. This is the first clear example of a shock front in a cluster. From the jumps in the gas density and temperature at the shock, the Mach number of the bullet-like cloud is 2-3. This corresponds to a velocity of 3000-4000 km s-1 relative to the main cluster, which means that the cloud traversed the core just 0.1-0.2 Gyr ago. The 6-7 keV "bullet" appears to be a remnant of a dense cooling flow region once located at the center of a merging subcluster whose outer gas has been stripped by ram pressure. The bullet's shape indicates that it is near the final stage of being destroyed by ram pressure and gasdynamic instabilities, as the subcluster galaxies move well ahead of the cool gas. The unique simplicity of the shock front and bullet geometry in 1E 0657-56 may allow a number of interesting future measurements. The cluster's average temperature is 14-15 keV but shows large spatial variations. The hottest gas (T > 20 keV) lies in the region of the radio halo enhancement and extensive merging activity involving subclusters other than the bullet.
Mindfulness-based stress reduction for stress management in healthy people: a review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) is a clinically standardized meditation that has shown consistent efficacy for many mental and physical disorders. Less attention has been given to the possible benefits that it may have in healthy subjects. The aim of the present review and meta-analysis is to better investigate current evidence about the efficacy of MBSR in healthy subjects, with a particular focus on its benefits for stress reduction. MATERIALS AND METHODS A literature search was conducted using MEDLINE (PubMed), the ISI Web of Knowledge, the Cochrane database, and the references of retrieved articles. The search included articles written in English published prior to September 2008, and identified ten, mainly low-quality, studies. Cohen's d effect size between meditators and controls on stress reduction and spirituality enhancement values were calculated. RESULTS MBSR showed a nonspecific effect on stress reduction in comparison to an inactive control, both in reducing stress and in enhancing spirituality values, and a possible specific effect compared to an intervention designed to be structurally equivalent to the meditation program. A direct comparison study between MBSR and standard relaxation training found that both treatments were equally able to reduce stress. Furthermore, MBSR was able to reduce ruminative thinking and trait anxiety, as well as to increase empathy and self-compassion. CONCLUSIONS MBSR is able to reduce stress levels in healthy people. However, important limitations of the included studies as well as the paucity of evidence about possible specific effects of MBSR in comparison to other nonspecific treatments underline the necessity of further research.
Persistent Homology for the Evaluation of Dimensionality Reduction Schemes

High‐dimensional data sets are a prevalent occurrence in many application domains. This data is commonly visualized using dimensionality reduction (DR) methods. DR methods provide e.g. a two‐dimensional embedding of the abstract data that retains relevant high‐dimensional characteristics such as local distances between data points. Since the amount of DR algorithms from which users may choose is steadily increasing, assessing their quality becomes more and more important. We present a novel technique to quantify and compare the quality of DR algorithms that is based on persistent homology. An inherent beneficial property of persistent homology is its robustness against noise which makes it well suited for real world data. Our pipeline informs about the best DR technique for a given data set and chosen metric (e.g. preservation of local distances) and provides knowledge about the local quality of an embedding, thereby helping users understand the shortcomings of the selected DR method. The utility of our method is demonstrated using application data from multiple domains and a variety of commonly used DR methods.
Insignificant Change in Antarctic Snowfall Since the International Geophysical Year

Antarctic snowfall exhibits substantial variability over a range of time scales, with consequent impacts on global sea level and the mass balance of the ice sheets. To assess how snowfall has affected the thickness of the ice sheets in Antarctica and to provide an extended perspective, we derived a 50-year time series of snowfall accumulation over the continent by combining model simulations and observations primarily from ice cores. There has been no statistically significant change in snowfall since the 1950s, indicating that Antarctic precipitation is not mitigating global sea level rise as expected, despite recent winter warming of the overlying atmosphere.
Molecular Modeling Study on the Allosteric Inhibition Mechanism of HIV-1 Integrase by LEDGF/p75 Binding Site Inhibitors

HIV-1 integrase (IN) is essential for the integration of viral DNA into the host genome and an attractive therapeutic target for developing antiretroviral inhibitors. LEDGINs are a class of allosteric inhibitors targeting LEDGF/p75 binding site of HIV-1 IN. Yet, the detailed binding mode and allosteric inhibition mechanism of LEDGINs to HIV-1 IN is only partially understood, which hinders the structure-based design of more potent anti-HIV agents. A molecular modeling study combining molecular docking, molecular dynamics simulation, and binding free energy calculation were performed to investigate the interaction details of HIV-1 IN catalytic core domain (CCD) with two recently discovered LEDGINs BI-1001 and CX14442, as well as the LEDGF/p75 protein. Simulation results demonstrated the hydrophobic domain of BI-1001 and CX14442 engages one subunit of HIV-1 IN CCD dimer through hydrophobic interactions, and the hydrophilic group forms hydrogen bonds with HIV-1 IN CCD residues from other subunit. CX14442 has a larger tert-butyl group than the methyl of BI-1001, and forms better interactions with the highly hydrophobic binding pocket of HIV-1 IN CCD dimer interface, which can explain the stronger affinity of CX14442 than BI-1001. Analysis of the binding mode of LEDGF/p75 with HIV-1 IN CCD reveals that the LEDGF/p75 integrase binding domain residues Ile365, Asp366, Phe406 and Val408 have significant contributions to the binding of the LEDGF/p75 to HIV1-IN. Remarkably, we found that binding of BI-1001 and CX14442 to HIV-1 IN CCD induced the structural rearrangements of the 140 s loop and oration displacements of the side chains of the three conserved catalytic residues Asp64, Asp116, and Glu152 located at the active site. These results we obtained will be valuable not only for understanding the allosteric inhibition mechanism of LEDGINs but also for the rational design of allosteric inhibitors of HIV-1 IN targeting LEDGF/p75 binding site.
Trust, power, dependence, and economics: can SCM research borrow paradigms?

With the inaugural issue of this new journal, researchers have an opportunity to publish in a journal that is entirely devoted to the new paradigm of supply chain management. With this development as a new field, some researchers argue that it is an extension, or in some cases, a subset of operations management. We contend that neither of these is the case. In fact, the field of SCM spans multiple interdisciplinary areas, and thus must draw from a vast field or prior research in business, industrial psychology, economics, operations research, and organisational science. Researchers in this field are encouraged to broaden the span of their epistemological base to allow the field to grow in a manner that can best advance our knowledge in how to manage supply chains.
Measuring Quality in Emergency Medical Services: A Review of Clinical Performance Indicators

Measuring quality in Emergency Medical Services (EMSs) systems is challenging. This paper reviews the current approaches to measuring quality in health care and EMS with a focus on currently used clinical performance indicators in EMS systems (US and international systems). The different types of performance indicators, the advantages and limitations of each type, and the evidence-based prehospital clinical bundles are discussed. This paper aims at introducing emergency physicians and health care providers to quality initiatives in EMS and serves as a reference for tools that EMS medical directors can use to launch new or modify existing quality control programs in their systems.
Estimating Willingness to Pay for the Development of a Peace Park Using CVM: The Case of the Korean Demilitarized Zone

ABSTRACT Conflicts remain an integral part in shaping the world. Tensions on the Korean Peninsula are no exceptions. The Korean DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) World Peace Park has been proposed to help obtain peace by erasing the memories of war and creating new beginnings of trust, cooperation, and unity on the Korean Peninsula. With their ties to geographical space and conflict, peace park research provides an excellent platform for both activism and research in positive peace. Little, however, is known about peoples’ willingness to pay (WTP) for the creation of peace parks, in general, and specifically for the development of the Korean DMZ World Peace Park. Using contingent valuation methods, the weighted average WTP for development of the Peace Park is $49.03 per household per year. It appears South Koreans are willing to pay not only for the conservation of the DMZ, but also for the peace and unification of the Korean Peninsula the Peace Park may bring to the area.
Automated Bitcoin Trading via Machine Learning Algorithms

In this project, we attempt to apply machine-learning algorithms to predict Bitcoin price. For the ﬁrst phase of our investigation, we aimed to understand and better identify daily trends in the Bitcoin market while gaining insight into optimal features surrounding Bitcoin price. Our data set consists of over 25 features relating to the Bitcoin price and payment network over the course of ﬁve years, recorded daily. Using this information we were able to predict the sign of the daily price change with an accuracy of 98.7%. For the second phase of our investigation, we focused on the Bitcoin price data alone and leveraged data at 10-minute and 10-second interval timepoints, as we saw an opportunity to evaluate price predictions at varying levels of granularity and noisiness. By predicting the sign of the future change in price, we are modeling the price prediction problem as a binomial classiﬁcation task, experimenting with a custom algorithm that leverages both random forests and generalized linear models. These results had 50-55% accuracy in predicting the sign of future price change using 10 minute time intervals.
ASSEMBLY BIAS AND THE DYNAMICAL STRUCTURE OF DARK MATTER HALOS

Based on the Millennium Simulation we examine assembly bias for the halo properties: shape, triaxiality, concentration, spin, shape of the velocity ellipsoid, and velocity anisotropy. For consistency, we determine all these properties using the same set of particles, namely all gravitationally self-bound particles belonging to the most massive substructure of a given friends-of-friends halo. We confirm that near-spherical and high-spin halos show enhanced clustering. The opposite is true for strongly aspherical and low-spin halos. Further, below the typical collapse mass, M*, more concentrated halos show stronger clustering, whereas less concentrated halos are less clustered which is reversed for masses above M*. Going beyond earlier work we show that: (1) oblate halos are more strongly clustered than prolate ones; (2) the dependence of clustering on the shape of the velocity ellipsoid coincides with that of the real-space shape, although the signal is stronger; (3) halos with weak velocity anisotropy are more clustered, whereas radially anisotropic halos are more weakly clustered; (4) for all highly clustered subsets we find systematically less radially biased velocity anisotropy profiles. These findings indicate that the velocity structure of halos is tightly correlated with environment.
Bayesian Methods for Mixtures of Experts

We present a Bayesian framework for inferring the parameters of a mixture of experts model based on ensemble learning by variational free energy minimisation. The Bayesian approach avoids the over-fitting and noise level under-estimation problems of traditional maximum likelihood inference. We demonstrate these methods on artificial problems and sunspot time series prediction.
Association of the Common Genetic Polymorphisms and Haplotypes of the Chymase Gene with Left Ventricular Mass in Male Patients with Symptomatic Aortic Stenosis

We investigated the association between polymorphisms and haplotypes of the chymase 1 gene (CMA1) and the left ventricular mass index (LVM/BSA) in a large cohort of patients with aortic stenosis (AS). Additionally, the gender differences in cardiac remodeling and hypertrophy were analyzed. The genetic background may affect the myocardial response to pressure overload. In human cardiac tissue, CMA1 is involved in angiotensin II production and TGF-β activation, which are two major players in the pathogenesis of hypertrophy and fibrosis. Preoperative echocardiographic data from 648 patients with significant symptomatic AS were used. The LVM/BSA was significantly lower (p<0.0001), but relative wall thickness (RWT) was significantly higher (p = 0.0009) in the women compared with the men. The haplotypes were reconstructed using six genotyped polymorphisms: rs5248, rs4519248, rs1956932, rs17184822, rs1956923, and rs1800875. The haplotype h1.ACAGGA was associated with higher LVM/BSA (p = 9.84×10−5), and the haplotype h2.ATAGAG was associated with lower LVM/BSA (p = 0.0061) in men, and no significant differences were found in women. Two polymorphisms within the promoter region of the CMA1 gene, namely rs1800875 (p = 0.0067) and rs1956923 (p = 0.0015), influenced the value of the LVM/BSA in males. The polymorphisms and haplotypes of the CMA1 locus are associated with cardiac hypertrophy in male patients with symptomatic AS. Appropriate methods for the indexation of heart dimensions revealed substantial sex-related differences in the myocardial response to pressure overload.
Conceptual and Visual Features Contribute to Visual Memory for Natural Images

We examined the role of conceptual and visual similarity in a memory task for natural images. The important novelty of our approach was that visual similarity was determined using an algorithm [1] instead of being judged subjectively. This similarity index takes colours and spatial frequencies into account. For each target, four distractors were selected that were (1) conceptually and visually similar, (2) only conceptually similar, (3) only visually similar, or (4) neither conceptually nor visually similar to the target image. Participants viewed 219 images with the instruction to memorize them. Memory for a subset of these images was tested subsequently. In Experiment 1, participants performed a two-alternative forced choice recognition task and in Experiment 2, a yes/no-recognition task. In Experiment 3, testing occurred after a delay of one week. We analyzed the distribution of errors depending on distractor type. Performance was lowest when the distractor image was conceptually and visually similar to the target image, indicating that both factors matter in such a memory task. After delayed testing, these differences disappeared. Overall performance was high, indicating a large-capacity, detailed visual long-term memory.
A Multicenter, Open-Label Phase II Clinical Trial of Combined MEK plus EGFR Inhibition for Chemotherapy-Refractory Advanced Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma

Purpose: On the basis of preclinical evidence of synergistic activity between MEK and EGFR inhibitors in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), we evaluated the safety and efficacy of selumetinib, a MEK1/2 inhibitor, plus erlotinib in patients with previously treated advanced PDAC. Experimental Design: In this single-arm phase II trial, eligible patients received the combination of erlotinib 100 mg plus selumetinib 100 mg daily in 3-week cycles. Study assessments included measurement of clinical outcomes, with a primary endpoint of overall survival, and exploration of potential molecular predictors of treatment benefit. Results: Forty-six patients were enrolled and received a median of two cycles (range, 1–7). Although no objective responses were observed, 19 patients (41%) showed evidence of stable disease for ≥6 weeks, and 13 of 34 patients (38%) had a CA19-9 decline ≥50%. Median progression-free survival was 1.9 months [95% confidence interval (CI), 1.4–3.3 months], with a median overall survival of 7.3 months (95% CI, 5.2–8.0 months). Common adverse events included rash, diarrhea, and nausea/vomiting. Patients with tumors exhibiting an epithelial phenotype (demonstrated by a high level of E-cadherin expression) were more likely to be sensitive to study treatment. Tumor-derived DNA was detectable in plasma from the majority of patients using next-generation digital DNA sequencing, and its relative abundance correlated with tumor burden. Conclusions: A therapeutic strategy of dual targeted inhibition of the MEK and EGFR pathways shows modest antitumor activity in pancreatic cancer. Specific molecular subtypes may derive greatest benefit from this combination. Further exploration, both with more potent MEK inhibitors and in molecularly enriched patient subsets, is warranted. Clin Cancer Res; 22(1); 61–68. ©2015 AACR.
A survey on software estimation in the Norwegian industry

We provide an overview of the estimation methods that software companies apply to estimate their projects, why those methods are chosen, and how accurate they are. In order to improve estimation accuracy, such knowledge is essential. We conducted an in-depth survey, where information was collected through structured interviews with senior managers from 18 different companies and project managers of 52 different projects. We analyzed information about estimation approach, effort estimation accuracy and bias, schedule estimation accuracy and bias, delivered functionality and other estimation related information. Our results suggest, for example, that average effort overruns are 41%, that the estimation performance has not changed much the last 10-20 years, that expert estimation is the dominating estimation method, that estimation accuracy is not much impacted by use of formal estimation models, and that software managers tend to believe that the estimation accuracy of their company is better than it actually is.
Analysis of a dynamically wavelength-routed optical burst switched network architecture

The concept of optical burst switching (OBS) aims to allow access to optical bandwidth in dense wavelength division multiplexed (DWDM) networks at fractions of the optical line rate to improve bandwidth utilization efficiency. This paper studies an alternative network architecture combining OBS with dynamic wavelength allocation under fast circuit switching to provide a scalable optical architecture with a guaranteed QoS in the presence of dynamic and bursty traffic loads. In the proposed architecture, all processing and buffering are concentrated at the network edge and bursts are routed over an optical transport core using dynamic wavelength assignment. It is assumed that there are no buffers or wavelength conversion in core nodes and that fast tuneable laser sources are used in the edge routers. This eliminates the forwarding bottleneck of electronic routers in DWDM networks for terabit-per-second throughput and guarantees forwarding with predefined delay at the edge and latency due only to propagation time in the core. The edge burst aggregation mechanisms are evaluated for a range of traffic statistics to identify their impact on the allowable burst lengths, required buffer size and achievable edge delays. Bandwidth utilization and wavelength reuse are introduced as new parameters characterizing the network performance in the case of dynamic wavelength allocation. Based on an analytical model, upper bounds for these parameters are derived to quantify the advantages of wavelength channel reuse, including the influence of the signaling round-trip time required for lightpath reservation. The results allow to quantify the operational gain achievable with fast wavelength switching compared to quasistatic wavelength-routed optical networks and can be applied to the design of future optical network architectures.
Entropic projections and dominating points

Entropic projections and dominating points are solutions to convex minimization problems related to conditional laws of large numbers. They appear in many areas of applied mathematics such as statistical physics, information theory, mathematical statistics, ill-posed inverse problems or large deviation theory. By means of convex conjugate duality and functional analysis, criteria are derived for the existence of entropic projections, generalized entropic projections and dominating points. Representations of the generalized entropic projections are obtained. It is shown that they are the “measure component" of the solutions to some extended entropy minimization problem. This approach leads to new results and offers a unifying point of view. It also permits to extend previous results on the subject by removing unnecessary topological restrictions. As a by-product, new proofs of already known results are provided.
Lagrangian torus fibration of quintic Calabi-Yau hypersurfaces I

The present invention provides a working fluid composition for a refrigerating machine obtained by mixing an ammonia refrigerant with a lubricating oil which is extremely excellent in solubility with the ammonia refrigerant. The working fluid composition comprises a mixture of ammonia and one or more kinds of polyether compounds; the refrigerating machine is characterized by constituting a refrigerating cycle or a heat pump cycle through which the working fluid composition is circulated.
Addressing Measurement Issues Related to Bullying Involvement

Abstract. In this article, we address measurement issues related to select aspects of bullying involvement with the goal of moving psychometrically sound measurement practices toward applied bullying research. We first provide a nontechnical introduction to psychometric considerations in measuring bullying involvement, highlighting the importance of establishing measurement equivalence across contexts and intervention conditions. We then discuss different forms of data collection for antibullying-intervention evaluation, interinformant agreement, and benefits of using information from multiple reporters. In the third section, we address the importance of using valid and reliable measures of the different forms of bullying, particularly when measuring bullying involvement across development. Finally, we advocate for studying the larger peer ecology by capturing the different ways in which youth actively or passively participate in bullying incidents. We conclude with a brief consideration of how psychometrically sound measurement of bullying involvement can inform the development of appropriate, effective, evidence-based bullying interventions.