Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Design of a Bio-inspired Dynamical Vertical Climbing Robot

This paper reviews a template for dynamical climbing originating in biology, explores its stability properties in a numerical model, and presents emperical data from a physical prototype as evidence of the feasibility of adapting the dynamics of the template to robot that runs vertically upward. The recently proposed pendulous climbing model abstracts remarkable similarities in dynamic wall scaling behavior exhibited by radically different animal species. The present paper’s first contribution summarizes a numerical study of this model to hypothesize that these animals’ apparently wasteful commitments to lateral oscillations may be justified by a significant gain in the dynamical stability and, hence, the robustness of their resulting climbing capability. The paper’s second contribution documents the design and offers preliminary empirical data arising from a physical instantiation of this model. Notwithstanding the substantial differences between the proposed bio-inspired template and this physical manifestation, initial data suggest the mechanical climber may be capable of reproducing both the motions and ground reaction forces characteristic of dynamical climbing animals. Even without proper tuning, the robot’s steady state trajectories manifest a substantial exchange of kinetic and potential energy, resulting in vertical speeds of 0.30 m/s (0.75 bl/s) and claiming its place as the first bio-inspired dynamical legged climbing platform.
Content dissemination in wireless networks exploiting relaying and information-centric architectures

We focus on the problem of efficiently integrating wireless users in future Information-Centric Networks (ICN), where communication is based on publish-subscribe primitives. The current host-centric Internet paradigm is abandoned in favor of information-oriented, rendezvous-based communication, where multicast data delivery is the norm. However, Wi-Fi, the predominant means of local wireless connectivity today, but also 3G and 4G technologies, are known to suffer from poor multicast performance. Data destined to a broadcast or multicast address are typically transmitted at lower rates to increase reliability for clients with poor signal conditions, causing unfavorable delays for high-rate users. One approach to this problem is to designate a subset of the clients as relays who re-broadcast packets for other clients at a higher rate. Given that different types of content have different performance requirements, we exploit content-awareness, inherent in our environment, to optimize for different criteria on a per-content basis. For this purpose, we provide a multi-objective optimization formulation for the problem of relay selection and rate assignment, which can capture the tradeoff among reliability, performance and energy cost.
Modeling Co-Movements in Trading Intensities to Distinguish Stock and Sector-Specific News

In this paper we propose a bivariate model for the trading intensities of stocks in a particular industry.The model consists of a univariate duration model for trades in either of the stocks and a probit-specification for which of the two stocks is traded.We apply the model to the trading intensities of stocks of US department store operators listed on the NYSE, using high frequency transaction data during the period August 1 until October 31, 1999.We establish significant comovements in the trading intensities of US department stocks, which we explain by distinguishing sector and stock specific news contained in the trading intensities.We provide estimates of the amounts of sector and stock specific news contained in the trading intensities and show that all stocks under consideration convey both sector and stock specific news.
HGVbase: a curated resource describing human DNA variation and phenotype relationships

The Human Genome Variation Database (HGVbase; http://hgvbase.cgb.ki.se) has provided a curated summary of human DNA variation for more than 5 years, thus facilitating research into DNA sequence variation and human phenotypes. The database has undergone many changes and improvements to accommodate increasing volumes and new types of data. The focus of HGVbase has recently shifted towards information on haplotypes and phenotypes, relationships between phenotypes and DNA variation, and collaborative efforts to provide a global resource for genome-phenome data. Open sharing and precise phenotype definitions are necessary to advance the current understanding of common diseases that are typified by complex aetiologies, small genetic effect sizes and multiple confounding factors that obscure positive study results. Association data will increasingly be collected as part of this new project thrust. This report describes the evolving features of HGVbase, and covers in detail the technological choices we have made to enable efficient storage and data mining of increasingly large and complex data sets.
Latent Capacity Region: A Case Study on Symmetric Broadcast With Common Messages

We consider the problem of broadcast with common messages, and focus on the case that the common message rate RA, i.e., the rate of the message intended for all the receivers in the set A, is the same for all the set A of the same cardinality. Instead of attempting to characterize the capacity region of general broadcast channels, we only consider the structure of the capacity region that any broadcast channel should bear. The concept of latent capacity region is useful in capturing these underlying constraints, and we provide a complete characterization of the latent capacity region for the symmetric broadcast problem. The converse proof of this tight characterization relies on a deterministic broadcast channel model. The achievability proof generalizes the familiar rate transfer argument to include more involved erasure correction coding among messages, thus revealing an inherent connection between broadcast with common message and erasure correction codes.
Structural Biology and Crystallization Communications Expression, Purification, Crystallization and Preliminary Crystallographic Analysis of Bipd, a Component of the Burkholderia Pseudomallei Type Iii Secretion System

A construct consisting of residues 10–310 of BipD, a component of the Burkholderia pseudomallei type III secretion system (T3SS), has been overexpressed as a GST fusion, cleaved from the GST tag and purified. Crystals were grown of native and selenomethionine-labelled BipD. The crystals grow in two different polymorphs from the same condition. The first polymorph belongs to space group C222, with unit-cell parameters a = 103.98, b = 122.79, c = 49.17 A ˚ , a calculated Matthews coefficient of 2.4 A ˚ 3 Da À1 (47% solvent content) and one molecule per asymmetric unit. The second polymorph belongs to space group P2 1 2 1 2, with unit-cell parameters a = 136.47, b = 89.84, c = 50.15 A ˚ , and a calculated Matthews coefficient of 2.3 A ˚ 3 Da À1 (45% solvent content) for two molecules per asymmetric unit (analysis of the self-rotation function indicates the presence of a weak twofold non-crystallographic symmetry axis in this P2 1 2 1 2 form). The native crystals of both forms give diffraction data to 2.7 A ˚ resolution, while the SeMet-labelled P2 1 2 1 2 crystals diffract to 3.3 A ˚ resolution. A K 2 PtCl 4 derivative of the P2 1 2 1 2 form was also obtained and data were collected to 2.7 A ˚ with radiation of wavelength = 0.933 A ˚. The Pt-derivative anomalous difference Patterson map revealed two self-peaks on the Harker sections.
Measuring ambiguity preferences: A new ambiguity preference survey module

Ambiguity preferences are important to explain human decision-making in many areas in economics and finance. To measure individual ambiguity preferences, the experimental economics literature advocates using incentivized laboratory experiments. Yet, laboratory experiments are costly, time-consuming and require substantial administrative effort. This study develops an experimentally validated ambiguity preference survey module that can reliably measure ambiguity preferences when carrying out laboratory experiments is impractical. This toolkit may have wide applications, including end-of-session lab questionnaires, large scale surveys and financial client assessments.
The Convex Analysis of Unitarily Invariant Matrix Functions

A fundamental result of von Neumann’s identifies unitarily invariant matrix norms as symmetric gauge functions of the singular values. Identifying the subdifferential of such a norm is important in matrix approximation algorithms, and in studying the geometry of the corresponding unit ball. We show how to reduce many convex-analytic questions of this kind to questions about the underlying gauge function, via an elegant Fenchel conjugacy formula. This approach also allows such results to be extended to more general unitarily invariant matrix functions.
The impact of atmospherics in virtual community on online impulse buying intention: The moderating effect of product types

With the rapid development of technology, Internet has changed people's lives and online community has become a comprehensive platform for exchanging ideas and shopping. This study develops and tests an environmental psychology model of online impulse purchase. The model captures the moderating effect of search and experience product type on the relationship between the online impulse buying intention and atmospherics in virtual community. 264 valid participants do online survey and the research used partial least squares (PLS) analysis to test the model. The results reveal that atmospherics (navigational characteristics, informativeness, and entertainment) in virtual community have positive effects on online impulse buying intention. In addition, product type was found to moderate the effect of atmospherics on online impulse buying intention. Last, the study provides available suggestions for online community content providers.
Monaural Sensitivity to Dispersion in Impulses and Speech.

Abstract : Little is known of the ear's phase sensitivity limits outside the well known fact that excessive dispersion in speech signals results in chirp-like sound quality. The limits of phase sensitivity may be determined in reference to the parameters of an idealized dispersion since phase shifts are nothing more than delays in the short-time spectra of a signal. A number of discrimination tests were conducted which contrasted standard stimuli with phase modified variants of the stimuli to determine the limits of phase sensitivity. The idealized dispersion was that of delaying a band of frequency components such that discriminability could be measured as functions of center frequency, bandwidth and delay. The stimuli used in the tests included an impulse, phonemes, words, and a sentence. Sensitivity to dispersion in impulses was shown to be dependent on intensity, center frequency, bandwidth, and dealy. Discrimination scores half way between chance and perfect performance were achieved for dispersed impulses with delayed bands of frequency components centered between 250 and 500 Hz and delayed between 0.0625 and 0.125 milliseconds. Sensation level of the stimulus pairs was 80 dB. The effect of bandwidth on discriminability appears to reach a plateau at 100 Hz, i.e., bandwidths of interest are less than 100 Hz.
Gain recovery dynamics of a terahertz quantum cascade laser

The gain recovery time of a bound-to-continuum terahertz quantum cascade laser is measured using a stimulated emission photocurrent technique. At low temperatures a value similar to 50 ps is found. This tends to decrease with rising temperature, and suggests that class B laser dynamics should be expected from these devices. Both the value and the trend in the gain recovery time are found to be consistent with hopping transport through the miniband. Power-dependent measurements of the photocurrent clearly show the effects of inhomogeneous broadening of the gain transition.
Identification of Spectral Modifications Occurring during Reprogramming of Somatic Cells

Recent technological advances in cell reprogramming by generation of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) offer major perspectives in disease modelling and future hopes for providing novel stem cells sources in regenerative medicine. However, research on iPSC still requires refining the criteria of the pluripotency stage of these cells and exploration of their equivalent functionality to human embryonic stem cells (ESC). We report here on the use of infrared microspectroscopy to follow the spectral modification of somatic cells during the reprogramming process. We show that induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) adopt a chemical composition leading to a spectral signature indistinguishable from that of embryonic stem cells (ESC) and entirely different from that of the original somatic cells. Similarly, this technique allows a distinction to be made between partially and fully reprogrammed cells. We conclude that infrared microspectroscopy signature is a novel methodology to evaluate induced pluripotency and can be added to the tests currently used for this purpose.
Relationship between Hippocampal Structure and Memory Function in Elderly Humans

With progressing age, the ability to recollect personal events declines, whereas familiarity-based memory remains relatively intact. It has been hypothesized that age-related hippocampal atrophy may contribute to this pattern because of its critical role for recollection in younger humans and after acute injury. Here, we show that hippocampal volume loss in healthy older persons correlates with gray matter loss (estimated with voxel-based morphometry) of the entire limbic system and shows no correlation with an electrophysiological (event-related potential [ERP]) index of recollection. Instead, it covaries with more substantial and less specific electrophysiological changes of stimulus processing. Age-related changes in another complementary structural measure, hippocampal diffusion, on the other hand, seemed to be more regionally selective and showed the expected correlation with the ERP index of recollection. Thus, hippocampal atrophy in older persons accompanies limbic atrophy, and its functional impact on memory is more fundamental than merely affecting recollection.
Biocatalytic Self-Cleaning Polymer Membranes

Polymer membrane surfaces have been equipped with the digestive enzyme trypsin. Enzyme immobilization was performed by electron beam irradiation in aqueous media within a one-step method. Using this method, trypsin was covalently and side-unspecific attached to the membrane surface. Thus, the use of preceding polymer functionalization and the use of toxic solvents or reagents can be avoided. The resulting membranes showed significantly improved antifouling properties as demonstrated by repeated filtration of protein solutions. Furthermore, the biocatalytic membrane can be simply “switched on” to actively degrade a fouling layer on the membrane surface and regain the initial permeability. The membrane pore structure (pore size and porosity) was neither damaged by the electron beam treatment nor blocked by the enzyme loading, ensuring a stable membrane performance.
Multi-Task Feature Learning for Low-Resource Query-by-Example Spoken Term Detection

We propose a novel technique that learns a lowdimensional feature representation from unlabeled data of a target language, and labeled data from a non-target language. The technique is studied as a solution to query-by-example spoken term detection for a low-resource language. We extract low-dimensional features from a bottle-neck layer of a multi-task deep neural network, which is jointly trained with speech data from the low-resource target language and resource-rich nontarget language. The proposed feature learning technique aims to extract acoustic features that offer phonetic discriminability. It explores a new way of leveraging cross-lingual speech data to overcome the resource limitation in the target language. We conduct query-by-example spoken term detection (QbE-STD) experiments using the dynamic time warping distance of the multi-task bottle-neck features between the query and the search database. The QbE-STD process does not rely on an automatic speech recognition pipeline of the target language. We validate the effectiveness of multi-task feature learning through a series of comparative experiments.
One-step hot formamide extraction of RNA from Saccharomyces cerevisiae

ABSTRACT Current methods for isolating RNA from budding yeast require lengthy and laborious steps such as freezing and heating with phenol, homogenization with glass beads, or enzymatic digestion of the cell wall. Here, extraction with a solution of formamide and EDTA was adapted to isolate RNA from whole yeast cells through a rapid and easily scalable procedure that does not require mechanical cell lysis, phenol, or enzymes. RNA extracted with formamide-EDTA can be directly loaded on gels for electrophoretic analysis without alcohol precipitation. A simplified protocol for downstream DNase treatment and reverse transcription reaction is also included. The formamide-EDTA extraction of yeast RNA is faster, safer, and more economical than conventional methods, outperforms them in terms of total yield, and greatly increases throughput.
P-drive: assessment of driving performance after stroke.

OBJECTIVE To investigate aspects of validity and stability of Performance Analysis of Driving Ability (P-Drive), for people with stroke when used in a driving simulator. DESIGN A cross-sectional observational study. SUBJECTS The study included a consecutive series of 101 participants with stroke referred for evaluation or selected from a stroke registry. METHODS P-Drive was used to observe driving performance in order to assess driving ability. P-Drive comprises 20 items assessing the quality of the participant's driving performance. Aspects of validity and reliability in P-Drive were evaluated using Rasch statistics. RESULTS The items (95%) and participants (97%) demonstrated acceptable goodness-of-fit and met statistical expectations according to the Rasch model. The results support internal scale validity and person response validity. P-Drive could separate the participants with different driving abilities and the standard errors were within reasonable criteria for drivers with a moderate-to-low ability to drive. CONCLUSION The findings from this study indicated that P-Drive is an assessment tool with properties of internal scale validity, person response validity, and which also contains aspects of reliability in relation to precision of the estimates and separation. P-Drive seems to be a valid and stable assessment tool for assessing the driving ability in a simulator of people with stroke.
Are parents doing better when they are together? A study on the association between parental sensitivity and family-level processes

The aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of one parent's presence on the quality of the interaction between the other parent and their three-month-old infant. Family interactions were observed in a sample of 69 two-parent families. Parental sensitivity was assessed during two sessions, first in a ‘dyadic’ context (D) and then in a ‘dyad within the triad’ context (DT). Subsequently, we compared maternal and paternal sensitivity in the D and DT contexts according to the quality of family functioning (‘high coordination’ versus ‘low coordination’). The results showed that parents were significantly more sensitive in the DT context than in the D context. This effect appeared to vary according to the quality of family alliance. Moreover, family alliance was globally associated with sensitive parenting. This study helps clarify the role of the triad as a protective factor for early infant–parent dyads.
The Mrp Na+/H+ Antiporter Increases the Activity of the Malate:Quinone Oxidoreductase of an Escherichia coli Respiratory Mutant

ABSTRACT Mrp catalyzes secondary Na+/H+ antiport and was hypothesized to have an additional primary energization mode. Mrp-dependent complementation of nonfermentative growth of an Escherichia coli respiratory mutant supported this hypothesis but is shown here to be related to increased expression of host malate:quinone oxidoreductase, not to catalytic activity of Mrp.
Comprehensive analysis of inflammatory markers in chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension patients

Chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH) is associated with chronic inflammation but the pathological mechanisms are largely unknown. Our study aimed to simultaneously profile a broad range of cytokines in the supernatant of pulmonary endarterectomy (PEA) surgical material, as well as prospectively in patients with CTEPH to investigate whether circulating cytokines are associated with haemodynamic and physical characteristics of CTEPH patients. Herein, we show that PEA specimens revealed a significant upregulation of interleukin (IL)-6, monocyte chemoattractant protein-1, interferon-&ggr;-induced protein-10 (IP)-10, macrophage inflammatory protein (MIP)1α and RANTES compared to lung tissue from healthy controls. In prospectively collected serum, levels of IL-6, IL-8, IP-10, monokine induced by interferon-&ggr; (MIG) and MIP1α were significantly elevated in CTEPH patients compared to age- and sex-matched healthy controls. In serum of idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension (IPAH) patients, only IP-10 and MIG were significantly increased. In CTEPH but not in IPAH, IP-10 was negatively correlated with cardiac index, 6-min walking distance and carbon monoxide diffusion capacity. In vitro, IP-10 significantly increased migration of freshly isolated adventitial fibroblasts. Our study is the first to show that IP-10 secretion is associated with poor pulmonary haemodynamics and physical capacity in CTEPH and might be involved in the pathological mechanism of PEA tissue formation. Increased circulating IP-10 associated with poor pulmonary haemodynamics and physical capacity in CTEPH patients http://ow.ly/yDX7U
Predicting cognitive impairment in Parkinson's disease using neurophysiology and biochemical parameters as biomarkers

XI Acknowledgements . XII Statement of work undertaken . XIII Abbreviations . XIV Chapter 1 Parkinson’s disease in context . 1 1.1 Epidemiology . 1 1.2 Aetiology of PD . 2 1.3 Pathological correlates of PD . 6 1.4 Diagnosis of PD . 7 1.5 Clinical features of PD . 10 1.5. 1 Motor features . 10 1.5. 2 Non-motor symptoms . 10 1.5. 3 Subtypes of PD . 15 1.6 Parkinson’s disease dementia . 17 1.6. 1 Epidemiology of PDD . 17 1.6. 2 Risk factors for PDD . 18 1.6. 3 Profile of cognitive impairment in PDD . 22 1.6. 4 Clinical features of PDD . 23 1.6. 5 Pathogenesis . 24 1.6. 6 Biomarkers in PDD . 27
Finance and Growth in a Bank-Based Economy: Is it Quantity or Quality that Matters?

With this paper we seek to contribute to the literature on the relation between finance and growth. We argue that most studies in the field fail to measure the quality of financial intermediation but rather resort to using proxies on the size of financial systems. Moreover, cross-country comparisons suffer from the disadvantage that systematic differences between markedly different economies may drive the result that finance matters. To circumvent these two problems we examine the importance of the quality of banks' financial intermediation in the regions of one economy only : Germany. To approximate the quality of financial intermediation we use cost effciency estimates derived with stochastic frontier analysis. We find that the quantity of supplied credit is indeed insignificant when a measure of intermediation quality is included. In turn, the efficiency of intermediation is robust, also after excluding banks likely to operate in multiple regions and distinguishing between different banking pillars active in Germany.