Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Stability First: Reflections Inspired by Otmar Issing&Apos;S Success as the Ecb&Apos;S Chief Economist

In this paper, we review Otmar Issing's career as the ECB's inaugural chief economist and we document many notable successes. We try to infer some general principles that contributed to these successes and draw some lessons. In doing so, we review the evidence using Woodford%u2019s (2003) recent revival of the Wicksellian approach to monetary policy making. Suitably interpreted the baseline model can rationalize Issing%u2019s three guiding principles for successful policymaking. This baseline model, however, fails to account for the important role that monetary and financial analysis played in the conduct of policy during Issing%u2019s tenure. We propose an extension of the model to account for financial developments and show that this extended model substantially improves our understanding of ECB practice. We conclude by listing six open questions, relevant for the future of central banking in Europe that Issing may want to consider in case leisure allows.
A New Method for Tracking of Motor Skill Learning Through Practical Application of Fitts' Law

ABSTRACT A novel upper limb motor skill measure, task productivity rate (TPR) was developed integrating speed and spatial error, delivered by a practical motor skill rehabilitation task (MSRT). This prototype task involved placement of 5 short pegs horizontally on a spatially configured rail array. The stability of TPR was tested on 18 healthy right-handed adults (10 women, 8 men, median age 29 years) in a prospective single-session quantitative within-subjects study design. Manipulations of movement rate 10% faster and slower relative to normative states did not significantly affect TPR, F(1.387, 25.009) = 2.465, p = . 121. A significant linear association between completion time and error was highest during the normative state condition (Pearson's r = .455, p < .05). Findings provided evidence that improvements in TPR over time reflected motor learning with possible changes in coregulation behavior underlying practice under different conditions. These findings extend Fitts’ law theory to tracking of practical motor skill using a dexterity task, which could have potential clinical applications in rehabilitation.
Eurographics/ Ieee-vgtc Symposium on Visualization 2010 Visual Support for Interactive Post-interventional Assessment of Radiofrequency Ablation Therapy

Teaser Figure: A volume rendering with the corresponding tumor map, a pseudo-cylindrical mapping of the tumor surface. Percutaneous radiofrequency (RF) ablation is a minimally invasive, image-guided therapy for the treatment of liver tumors. The assessment of the ablation area (coagulation) is performed to verify the treatment success as an essential part of the therapy. Traditionally, pre-and post-interventional CT images are used to visually compare the shape, size, and position of tumor and coagulation. In this work, we present a novel visualization as well as a navigation tool, the so-called tumor map. The tumor map is a pseudo-cylindrical mapping of the tumor surface onto a 2D image. It is used for a combined visualization of all ablation zones of the tumor to allow a reliable therapy assessment. Additionally, the tumor map serves as an interactive tool for intuitive navigation within the 3D volume rendering of the tumor vicinity as well as with familiar 2D viewers.
A Framework for Big Data Analytics

Big Data may reside on multiple and dispersed sources and adhere to a variety of formats. Their analysis may include a range of tasks to be executed on a range of query engines. The tasks, as a whole, represent the rationale of a specific process. The users that create such a process may have various roles, like, business analysts, engineers, end-users etc. Each role may need or care for a different level of abstraction with respect to the execution of the individual tasks and overall process. Therefore, it is necessary to enable the expression of analytics tasks in an abstract manner, adaptable to the user role, interest and expertise. We propose a framework for the expression and preparation for execution of complex processes that perform analytics on Big Data. The framework enables the expression of such processes in the form of workflows and prepares such workflows for execution by determining and clarifying execution semantics of individual tasks, and by manipulating the workflow in order to create an equivalent workflow that will be optimally executed alone or together with other workflows.
Prenatal environmental effects match offspring begging to parental provisioning

The solicitation behaviours performed by dependent young are under selection from the environment created by their parents, as well as wider ecological conditions. Here we show how mechanisms acting before hatching enable canary offspring to adapt their begging behaviour to a variable post-hatching world. Cross-fostering experiments revealed that canary nestling begging intensity is positively correlated with the provisioning level of their own parents (to foster chicks). When we experimentally increased food quality before and during egg laying, mothers showed higher faecal androgen levels and so did their nestlings, even when they were cross-fostered before hatching to be reared by foster mothers that had been exposed to a standard regime of food quality. Higher parental androgen levels were correlated with greater levels of post-hatching parental provisioning and (we have previously shown) increased faecal androgens in chicks were associated with greater begging intensity. We conclude that androgens mediate environmentally induced plasticity in the expression of both parental and offspring traits, which remain correlated as a result of prenatal effects, probably acting within the egg. Offspring can thus adapt their begging intensity to variable family and ecological environments.
Real-parameter optimization with OptBees

This paper reports how OptBees, an algorithm inspired by the collective decision-making of bee colonies, performed in the test bed developed for the Special Session & Competition on Real-Parameter Single Objective Optimization at CEC-2014. The test bed includes 30 scalable functions, many of which are both non-separable and highly multi-modal. Results include OptBees' performance on the 10, 30, 50 and 100-dimensional versions of each function.
Lateral water flux in the unsaturated zone: A mechanism for the formation of spatial soil heterogeneity in a headwater catchment

Measurements of soil water potential and water table fluctuations suggest that morphologically distinct soils in a headwater catchment at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in New Hampshire formed as a result of variations in saturated and unsaturated hydrologic fluxes in the mineral soil. Previous work showed that each group of these soils had distinct water table fluctuations in response to precipitation; however, observed variations in soil morphology also occurred above the maximum height of observed saturation. Variations in unsaturated fluxes have been hypothesized to explain differences in soil horizon thickness and presence/absence of specific horizons but have not been explicitly investigated. We examined tensiometer and shallow groundwater well records to identify differences in unsaturated water fluxes among podzols that show distinct morphological and chemical differences. The lack of vertical hydraulic gradients at the study sites suggests that lateral unsaturated flow occurs in several of the soil units. We propose that the variations in soil horizon thickness and presence/absence observed at the site are due in part to slope‐parallel water flux in the unsaturated portion of the solum. In addition, unsaturated flow may be involved in the translocation of spodic material that primes those areas to contribute water with distinct chemistry to the stream network and represents a potential source/sink of organometallic compounds in the landscape.
Neurofibromatosis type 1 and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: a case study and literature review

Background The cognitive profile of children with neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has been well characterized, but few studies have evaluated the cognitive abilities of adults with NF1 and ADHD. Objectives We investigated 1) the cognitive profile of an adult patient with NF1 and inattention problems, 2) changes in his cognition after 14 months of follow-up, and 3) whether the patient exhibited comorbid NF1 and ADHD or secondary ADHD-like symptoms. Methods We administered neuropsychological tests of executive function, attention, verbal and visual memory, visuospatial function, and language during two evaluations separated by 14 months. Results We found no changes in sustained attention, language, or verbal memory. Visual memory, verbal learning, selective attention inhibitory control, and problem solving declined over time, whereas visual search, psychomotor speed, visuospatial function, and mental flexibility improved. Conclusion Our patient exhibited a cognitive profile characteristic of both NF1 and ADHD, leading to the hypothesis that the patient had comorbid ADHD instead of secondary ADHD-like symptoms. More studies are necessary to characterize the cognition of patients with NF1 and ADHD.
Langerhans' cells, veiled cells, and interdigitating cells in the mouse recognized by a monoclonal antibody

An mAb, NLDC-145, is described that specifically reacts with a group of nonlymphoid dendritic cells including Langerhans cells (LC), veiled cells (VC), and interdigitating cells (IDC). The antibody does not react with precursor cells in bone marrow and blood. Macrophages are not stained by the antibody, but a subpopulation of Ia+ peritoneal exudate cells is recognized. Possible relationships of the various nonlymphoid dendritic cell (NLDC) types are discussed.
A Java-based Wrapper for Wireless Communications

The increasing number of new applications for mobile devices in pervasive environments, do not cope with changes in the wireless communications. Developers of such applications have to deal with problems arising from the available wireless connections in the given environment. A middleware is a solution that allows to overcome some of these problems. It provides to the applications a set of functions that facilitate their development. In this paper we present a Java-based communication wrapper, called SmartTraffic, which allows programmers to seamlessly use TCP or UDP protocols over Bluetooth or any IP-based wireless network. Developers can use SmartTraffic within their Java applications, thus focusing on the application goals, and leaving out details about how it should interact with the available wireless connection.
Preliminary Evaluation of using Augmented Reality as a Dynamic Simulation Learning Tool for Linkage Mechanisms

Augmented reality (AR) is a technology that enables the users to visualize and interact with 3D virtual object, which is digitally processed and augmented in real time and environments. The use of AR in education has a wide potential of providing learners with a new type of learning material, and it has the capability to enrich the learning experience; especially in learning the kinesthetic and dynamics subjects in Engineering Mechanisms Courses. In order to support various teacher-student interaction scenarios by improving the understanding/visualization process, we implement a dynamic simulation tool using augmented reality for the four-bar linkage mechanisms (4BL) engineering problem. The study evaluated by a group of students from Yanbu Industrial College, instructors and expert in the same field, The results of the study show that most of the participants never been experienced with AR applications before, but the ideas of implementing AR as a simulation tool for learning the kinesthetic and dynamic subjects is well accepted with a very beneficial feedback. Based on the findings also we found that there is a positive changing in terms of the visualizing and imagining of the four-bar linkage mechanisms (4BL) which lead to a good understanding of this subject. Further development of AR applications in the learning environment is being discussed.
The role of PET/CT in diagnosing generalized lymphadenopathy in asymptomatic secondary syphilis.

OBJECTIVE Syphilis is a well-known sexually transmitted disease, and has multiple stages and various symptoms. However, it is difficult to diagnose syphilis in patients who may have no clinical symptoms. Because of these reasons, there have been several case reports on misdiagnosis of syphilis. Generalized lymphadenopathy could be an indication of various diseases including malignancies or infections. CONCLUSION We report a case of a secondary syphilis in a patient with generalized lymphadenopathy detected by fluorine-18-fluorodeoxy glucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography ((18)F-FDG PET/CT) images without any clinical symptom. Clinical examination found an ulcer on his penis and serologic tests set the diagnosis of an early stage of secondary syphilis.
An overview of Ciao and its design philosophy

Abstract We provide an overall description of the Ciao multiparadigm programming system emphasizing some of the novel aspects and motivations behind its design and implementation. An important aspect of Ciao is that, in addition to supporting logic programming (and, in particular, Prolog), it provides the programmer with a large number of useful features from different programming paradigms and styles and that the use of each of these features (including those of Prolog) can be turned on and off at will for each program module. Thus, a given module may be using, e.g., higher order functions and constraints, while another module may be using assignment, predicates, Prolog meta-programming, and concurrency. Furthermore, the language is designed to be extensible in a simple and modular way. Another important aspect of Ciao is its programming environment, which provides a powerful preprocessor (with an associated assertion language) capable of statically finding non-trivial bugs, verifying that programs comply with specifications, and performing many types of optimizations (including automatic parallelization). Such optimizations produce code that is highly competitive with other dynamic languages or, with the (experimental) optimizing compiler, even that of static languages, all while retaining the flexibility and interactive development of a dynamic language. This compilation architecture supports modularity and separate compilation throughout. The environment also includes a powerful autodocumenter and a unit testing framework, both closely integrated with the assertion system. The paper provides an informal overview of the language and program development environment. It aims at illustrating the design philosophy rather than at being exhaustive, which would be impossible in a single journal paper, pointing instead to previous Ciao literature.
Accurate Computation of Zernike Moments in Polar Coordinates

An algorithm for high-precision numerical computation of Zernike moments is presented. The algorithm, based on the introduced polar pixel tiling scheme, does not exhibit the geometric error and numerical integration error which are inherent in conventional methods based on Cartesian coordinates. This yields a dramatic improvement of the Zernike moments accuracy in terms of their reconstruction and invariance properties. The introduced image tiling requires an interpolation algorithm which turns out to be of the second order importance compared to the discretization error. Various comparisons are made between the accuracy of the proposed method and that of commonly used techniques. The results reveal the great advantage of our approach
PLANT PRODUCTS AS ANTIMICROBIAL AGENTS

Plants produce a diverse array of secondary metabolites, many of which have antimicrobial activity. Some of this compounds are constitutive, existing in healthy plants in their biologically active forms. Others such as cyanogenic glycosides and glucosinolates, occur as inactive precursors and are activated in response to tissue damage or pathogen attack.
On Local Optima in Learning Bayesian Networks

This paper proposes and evaluates the k-greedy equivalence search algorithm (KES) for learning Bayesian networks (BNs) from complete data. The main characteristic of KES is that it allows a trade-off between greediness and randomness, thus exploring different good local optima when run repeatedly. When greediness is set at maximum, KES corresponds to the greedy equivalence search algorithm (GES). When greediness is kept at minimum, we prove that under mild conditions KES asymptotically returns any inclusion optimal BN with nonzero probability. Experimental results for both synthetic and real data are reported showing that KES finds a better local optimum than GES considerably often. Additionally, these results illustrate that the number of different local optima is usually huge.
Pseudogene INTS6P1 regulates its cognate gene INTS6 through competitive binding of miR-17-5p in hepatocellular carcinoma

The complex regulation of tumor suppressive gene and its pseudogenes play key roles in the pathogenesis of hepatocellular cancer (HCC). However, the roles played by pseudogenes in the pathogenesis of HCC are still incompletely elucidated. This study identifies the putative tumor suppressor INTS6 and its pseudogene INTS6P1 in HCC through the whole genome microarray expression. Furthermore, the functional studies – include growth curves, cell death, migration assays and in vivo studies – verify the tumor suppressive roles of INTS6 and INTS6P1 in HCC. Finally, the mechanistic experiments indicate that INTS6 and INTS6P1 are reciprocally regulated through competition for oncomiR-17-5p. Taken together, these findings demonstrate INTS6P1 and INTS6 exert the tumor suppressive roles through competing for oncomiR-17-5p. Our investigation of this regulatory circuit reveals novel insights into the underlying mechanisms of hepatocarcinogenesis.
LOX-DB - a database on lipoxygenases

SUMMARY Lipoxygenases are a family of enzymes involved in a variety of human diseases like inflammation, asthma, artherosclerosis and cancer. The lipoxygenases database (LOX-DB) aims to be a web accessible compendium of information in particular on the mammalian members of this multigene family. This resource includes molecular structures, reference data, tools for structural and computational analysis as well as links to related information maintained by others. The data can be retrieved by the use of various search options and analyzed applying publicly available visualization tools. AVAILABILITY LOX-DB is available at http://www.dkfz-heidelberg.de/spec/lox-db/
Performance of Multi-Level and Multi-Component Compressed Bitmap Indexes

Bitmap indexes are known as the most effective indexing methods for range queries on append-only data, especially for low cardinality attributes. Recently, bitmap indexes were also shown to be just as effective for high cardinality attributes when certain compression methods are applied. There are many different bitmap indexes in the literature but no deﬁnite comparison among them has been made, largely because there is no accurate prediction of their index sizes and search time. This paper presents a sys-tematic evaluation of two large subsets of compressed bitmap indexes that use multi-component and multi-level encodings. We combine extensive analyses with ample experimental results to conﬁrm them, whereas earlier studies of these indexes are either empirical or for uncompressed indexes only. Our analyses provide highly accurate predictions that agree with test measurements. These analyses not only identify the best methods in terms of index size and query processing cost, but also reveal new ways of using multi-level methods that signiﬁcantly improve their performance. Using the best parameters obtained through analyses, we produce three two-level indexes with the optimal computational complexity. Furthermore, the fastest two-level indexes are predicted and observed to be 5 to 10 times faster than other well-known indexes.
Phenylphosphate Carboxylase: a New C-C Lyase Involved in Anaerobic Phenol Metabolism in Thauera aromatica

ABSTRACT The anaerobic metabolism of phenol in the beta-proteobacterium Thauera aromatica proceeds via carboxylation to 4-hydroxybenzoate and is initiated by the ATP-dependent conversion of phenol to phenylphosphate. The subsequent para carboxylation of phenylphosphate to 4-hydroxybenzoate is catalyzed by phenylphosphate carboxylase, which was purified and studied. This enzyme consists of four proteins with molecular masses of 54, 53, 18, and 10 kDa, whose genes are located adjacent to each other in the phenol gene cluster which codes for phenol-induced proteins. Three of the subunits (54, 53, and 10 kDa) were sufficient to catalyze the exchange of 14CO2 and the carboxyl group of 4-hydroxybenzoate but not phenylphosphate carboxylation. Phenylphosphate carboxylation was restored when the 18-kDa subunit was added. The following reaction model is proposed. The 14CO2 exchange reaction catalyzed by the three subunits of the core enzyme requires the fully reversible release of CO2 from 4-hydroxybenzoate with formation of a tightly enzyme-bound phenolate intermediate. Carboxylation of phenylphosphate requires in addition the 18-kDa subunit, which is thought to form the same enzyme-bound energized phenolate intermediate from phenylphosphate with virtually irreversible release of phosphate. The 54- and 53-kDa subunits show similarity to UbiD of Escherichia coli, which catalyzes the decarboxylation of a 4-hydroxybenzoate derivative in ubiquinone (ubi) biosynthesis. They also show similarity to components of various decarboxylases acting on aromatic carboxylic acids, such as 4-hydroxybenzoate or vanillate, whereas the 10-kDa subunit is unique. The 18-kDa subunit belongs to a hydratase/phosphatase protein family. Phenylphosphate carboxylase is a member of a new family of carboxylases/decarboxylases that act on phenolic compounds, use CO2 as a substrate, do not contain biotin or thiamine diphosphate, require K+ and a divalent metal cation (Mg2+or Mn2+) for activity, and are strongly inhibited by oxygen.
Adaptation of front end parameters in a speech recognizer

In this paper we consider the problem of adapting parameters of the algorithm used for extraction of features. Typical speech recognition systems use a sequence of modules to extract features which are then used for recognition. We present a method to adapt the parameters in these modules under a variety of criteria, e.g maximum likelihood, maximum mutual information. This method works under the assumption that the functions that the modules implement are differentiable with respect to their inputs and parameters. We use this framework to optimize a linear transform preceding the linear discriminant analysis (LDA) matrix and show that it gives signiﬁcantly better performance than a linear transform after the LDA matrix with small amounts of data. We show that linear transforms can be estimated by directly optimizing likelihood or the MMI objective without us-ing auxiliary functions. We also apply the method to optimize the Mel bins, and the compression power in a system that uses power law compression.