Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
DISCUSSION PAPER SERIES MONETARY POLICY IN A CURRENCY UNION WITH HETEROGENEOUS LIMITED ASSET MARKETS PARTICIPATION

This paper examines monetary policy in a currency union whose member countries exhibit heterogeneous rates of limited asset markets participation (LAMP). As a result risk sharing among member countries is imperfect and the monetary transmission mechanism can differ across countries. In the limit the elasticity of output to the union-wide nominal interest rate can be of opposite sign in different countries. I develop a tractable model in which the dispersion of asset markets participation (AMP) becomes a key parameter. While monetary policy can guarantee determinacy by following an active or passive rule depending on the sign of the interest-elasticity of output, ignoring dispersion can lead to incorrect computation of the sign and the size of the latter. Taking the heterogeneity into account is thus central for sound policy Furthermore, due to the failure of risk sharing, determinacy for union-aggregates does not guarantee determinacy in every member country. However, the more open a country is in trade terms, the greater the rate of LAMP for which the country still displays equilibrium determinacy. For complete openness, determinacy is guaranteed. This underlines the importance of risk sharing and trade integration for the functioning of a currency union. Considering the optimal union-wide targeting rule, a higher mean and dispersion of LAMP increase the desired inflation volatility and decrease the desired output volatility. The implied optimal Taylor rule shows that subject to the Taylor principle, the higher are mean and dispersion of LAMP, the softer should be the response of the nominal interest rate to expected inflation.
Novel Forward–Flyback Hybrid Bidirectional DC–DC Converter

This paper presents a novel topology named forward-flyback bidirectional DC-DC converter (BDC), which is a hybrid of forward and flyback converters. The windings of forward and flyback transformers are connected in series on the primary side and in parallel on the secondary side. The proposed converter has no startup problem and no high voltage spikes on the switches, which otherwise are inherent for current- and voltage-fed-type bidirectional converters. It is easy to achieve soft switching by proper control and design. The built-in flyback transformer acts as a filter inductor, so the current ripple is smaller than flyback BDCs. In this paper, the operation principles and characteristics of the proposed topology are analyzed in detail. The advantages aforementioned are verified with experimental results of a 300-W prototype.
Corticomotor Responses to Attentionally Demanding Motor Performance: A Mini-Review

Increased attentional demand has been shown to reduce motor performance, leading to increases in accidents, particularly in elderly populations. While these deficits have been well documented behaviorally, their cortical correlates are less well known. Increased attention has been shown to affect activity in prefrontal regions of the cortex. However there have been varying results within past research investigating corticomotor regions, mediating motor performance. This mini-review initially discusses past behavioral research, before moving to studies investigating corticomotor areas in response to changes in attention. Recent dual task studies have revealed a possible decline in the ability of older, but not younger, adults to activate inhibitory processes within the motor cortex, which may be correlated with poor motor performance, and thus accidents. A reduction in cortical inhibition may be caused by neurodegeneration within prefrontal regions of the cortex with age, rendering older adults less able to allocate attention to corticomotor regions.
The role of HPV RNA transcription, immune response‐related gene expression and disruptive TP53 mutations in diagnostic and prognostic profiling of head and neck cancer

Stratification of head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCC) based on HPV16 DNA and RNA status, gene expression patterns, and mutated candidate genes may facilitate patient treatment decision. We characterize head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCC) with different HPV16 DNA and RNA (E6*I) status from 290 consecutively recruited patients by gene expression profiling and targeted sequencing of 50 genes. We show that tumors with transcriptionally inactive HPV16 (DNA+ RNA‐) are similar to HPV‐negative (DNA‐) tumors regarding gene expression and frequency of TP53 mutations (47%, 8/17 and 43%, 72/167, respectively). We also find that an immune response‐related gene expression cluster is associated with lymph node metastasis, independent of HPV16 status and that disruptive TP53 mutations are associated with lymph node metastasis in HPV16 DNA‐ tumors. We validate each of these associations in another large data set. Four gene expression clusters which we identify differ moderately but significantly in overall survival. Our findings underscore the importance of measuring the HPV16 RNA (E6*I) and TP53‐mutation status for patient stratification and identify associations of an immune response‐related gene expression cluster and TP53 mutations with lymph node metastasis in HNSCC.
Oceanic nitrogen cycling and N2O flux perturbations in the Anthropocene

There is currently no consensus on how humans are affecting the marine nitrogen (N) cycle, which limits marine biological production and CO2 uptake. Anthropogenic changes in ocean warming, deoxygenation, and atmospheric N deposition can all individually affect the marine N cycle and the oceanic production of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N2O). However, the combined effect of these perturbations on marine N cycling, ocean productivity, and marine N2O production is poorly understood. Here we use an Earth system model of intermediate complexity to investigate the combined effects of estimated 21st century CO2 atmospheric forcing and atmospheric N deposition. Our simulations suggest that anthropogenic perturbations cause only a small imbalance to the N cycle relative to preindustrial conditions (∼+5 Tg N y−1 in 2100). More N loss from water column denitrification in expanded oxygen minimum zones (OMZs) is counteracted by less benthic denitrification, due to the stratification‐induced reduction in organic matter export. The larger atmospheric N load is offset by reduced N inputs by marine N2 fixation. Our model predicts a decline in oceanic N2O emissions by 2100. This is induced by the decrease in organic matter export and associated N2O production and by the anthropogenically driven changes in ocean circulation and atmospheric N2O concentrations. After comprehensively accounting for a series of complex physical‐biogeochemical interactions, this study suggests that N flux imbalances are limited by biogeochemical feedbacks that help stabilize the marine N inventory against anthropogenic changes. These findings support the hypothesis that strong negative feedbacks regulate the marine N inventory on centennial time scales.
Identification of “Candidatus Thioturbo danicus,” a Microaerophilic Bacterium That Builds Conspicuous Veils on Sulfidic Sediments

ABSTRACT Molecular analysis of bacteria enriched under in situ-like conditions and mechanically isolated by micromanipulation showed that a hitherto-uncultivated microaerophilic bacterium thriving in oxygen-sulfide counter-gradients (R. Thar and M. Kühl, Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 68:6310-6320, 2000) is affiliated with the ε-subdivision of the Proteobacteria. The affiliation was confirmed by the use of whole-cell hybridization with newly designed specific oligonucleotide probes. The bacterium belongs to a new genus and received the provisional name “Candidatus Thioturbo danicus. ”
Experimental service of 3DTV cable broadcasting using dual HD streams

An experimental service of 3DTV cable broadcasting was made by delivering stereoscopic 3D video to the users in dual HD stream format. Also, an experimental attempt was made to provide backward compatibility for conventional 2D Set-top Boxes (STB) receiving and displaying only one stream of stereoscopic 3D video signal called reference video. For the experimental service, stereoscopic 3D video signals are encoded with 35 Mbps and transmitted over single broadcasting channel by using the existing cable headend and transmission systems. Prototypes of the software-based 3D encoder and 3D STB were also used for the experimental service. Through the experimental broadcasting service, it was possible to provide HD 3DTV broadcasting service under legacy cable environment and to support backward compatibility for the conventional 2D STBs to receive HD broadcasting by using the reference video. A survey revealed that about 60% of the viewers answered the image quality of stereoscopic 3D video in dual HD stream format was better than that in single HD stream format.
Specifying and compiling applications for RaPiD

Efficient, deeply pipelined implementations exist for a wide variety of important computation-intensive applications, and many special-purpose hardware machines have been built that take advantage of these pipelined computation structures. While these implementations achieve high performance, this comes at the expense of flexibility. On the other hand, flexible architectures proposed thus far have not been very efficient. RaPiD is a reconfigurable pipelined datapath architecture designed to provide a combination of performance and flexibility for a variety of applications. It uses a combination of static and dynamic control to efficiently implement pipelined computations. This control, however, is very complicated; specifying a computation's control circuitry directly would be prohibitively difficult. This paper describes how specifications of a pipelined computation in a suitably high-level language are compiled into the control required to implement that computation in the RaPiD architecture. The compiler extracts a statically configured datapath from this description, identifies the dynamic control signals required to execute the computation, and then produces the control program and decoding structure that generates these dynamic control signals.
European Conference on Information Systems ( ECIS ) 2007 Explaining Data Warehouse Data to Business Users-A Model-Based Approach to Business Metadata

Data Warehouse systems today represent a single source of information for analyzing the development and results of an enterprise organization in a changing environment. The data in the data warehouse describes events and statuses of business processes, products and services, goals and organizational units, and generally mirrors every aspect of the structure and behavior of the organization. Business users are accustomed to their own vocabularies and concepts, and data interpretation is greatly improved by knowledge about context. Surprisingly, information about the relationship between the data warehouse data and the organization is not made available to the data warehouse users or even recorded in a suitable way. In this paper, we present an approach that uses enterprise models and modeling techniques to record the at present mainly implicit knowledge about this relationship. We use models to derive Business Metadata, which forms an additional level of abstraction on top of the data-oriented data warehouse structure. Business metadata makes context knowledge easily accessible and improves the data interpretation for the business users.
Designing an Approach for Network Traffic Anomaly Detection

traffic for anomaly detection. The accurate and rapid detection of network traffic anomaly is crucial to enhance the effective operation of a network. It is often difficult to detect the time when the faults occur in a network. In this paper, a new algorithm is presented to monitor the aggregate network traffic to rapidly detect the time anomaly occurs in a network. This is accomplished by monitoring the statistical characteristics of the time series representing the network behavior. The technique analyzes the network behavior using fractal dimension and discrete stationary wavelet transform. In the proposed method, after applying discrete stationary wavelet transform on the signal representing the network traffic, the fractal dimension of the decomposed signal is calculated in a sliding window. Then, variations of signal fractal dimension are considered for anomaly detection. Performance of the proposed method is compared with that of three other existing methods using both synthetic signal and real data. The results indicate superiority of the proposed technique in terms of accuracy compared to existing methods.
A Parent-Student Perspective View in Selecting the College in Suburban Area

Nowadays, the choice of colleges for higher studies plays an important role in decision making for parents and students. The views of parents and students differ because of updated technology and societal interferences amongst them. Also the choice differs based on the social life led by them. This study analyses the factors that influence the admissions in colleges in suburban areas. The study projects the view of the parents and students in selecting the college in suburban areas. A real time data is surveyed separately from parents and students. Separate statistical inferences from the responses are tabulated. A comparative study is made between the responses received from parents and students using the statistical descriptive frequencies. A decision tree is drawn which helps to identify the factors that commonly influence both parents and students by using data mining tool.
Radiation Exposure to the Pediatric Patient During Cardiac Catheterization and Angiocardiography: Emphasis on the Thyroid Gland

Thermoluminescent dosimetry was used to measure the radiation exposure to the skin, thyroid and gonads in 50 consecutive pediatric patients undergoing cardiac catheterization and angiocardiography using cine photofluorography. Average exposures were 17.1 R to the skin, 2.3 R to the thyroid and 0.1 R to the gonads. Fluoroscopy accounted for approximately 80% of the skin and thyroid exposure and cine photofluorography for 20-25%. Occasional primary-beam irradiation was the major contributor to gonad exposure. Internal scatter of the incident x-ray beam was primarily responsible for thyroid exposure, so that infants received relatively high exposures; one receiving 7.3 R. The thyroid was not frequently in the primary beam. The significance of high radiation exposure to the thyroid, and in particular its relationship to thyroid carcinoma, are discussed. The results are compared with other series in the literature and relative exposures of cine photofluorography and serial filming are contrasted.
Associating microbiome composition with environmental covariates using generalized UniFrac distances

Motivation: The human microbiome plays an important role in human disease and health. Identification of factors that affect the microbiome composition can provide insights into disease mechanism as well as suggest ways to modulate the microbiome composition for therapeutical purposes. Distance-based statistical tests have been applied to test the association of microbiome composition with environmental or biological covariates. The unweighted and weighted UniFrac distances are the most widely used distance measures. However, these two measures assign too much weight either to rare lineages or to most abundant lineages, which can lead to loss of power when the important composition change occurs in moderately abundant lineages. Results: We develop generalized UniFrac distances that extend the weighted and unweighted UniFrac distances for detecting a much wider range of biologically relevant changes. We evaluate the use of generalized UniFrac distances in associating microbiome composition with environmental covariates using extensive Monte Carlo simulations. Our results show that tests using the unweighted and weighted UniFrac distances are less powerful in detecting abundance change in moderately abundant lineages. In contrast, the generalized UniFrac distance is most powerful in detecting such changes, yet it retains nearly all its power for detecting rare and highly abundant lineages. The generalized UniFrac distance also has an overall better power than the joint use of unweighted/weighted UniFrac distances. Application to two real microbiome datasets has demonstrated gains in power in testing the associations between human microbiome and diet intakes and habitual smoking. Availability: http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/GUniFrac Contact: hongzhe@upenn.edu Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Lijun Mei The University of Hong Kong Pokfulam Hong Kong ljmei @ cs . hku . hk Zhenyu Zhang The University of Hong Kong Pokfulam Hong Kong zyzhang

Regression testing assures the quality of modified service-oriented business applications against unintended changes. However, a typical regression test suite is large in size. Earlier execution of those test cases that may detect failures is attractive. Many existing prioritization techniques order test cases according to their respective coverage of program statements in a previous version of the application. On the other hand, industrial service-oriented business applications are typically written in orchestration languages such as WS-BPEL and integrated with workflow steps and web services via XPath and WSDL. Faults in these artifacts may cause the application to extract wrong data from messages, leading to failures in service compositions. Surprisingly, current regression testing research hardly considers these artifacts. We propose a multilevel coverage model to capture the business process, XPath, and WSDL from the perspective of regression testing. We develop a family of test case prioritization techniques atop the model. Empirical results show that our techniques can achieve significantly higher rates of fault detection than existing techniques.
Toward total quality of experience: A QoE model in a communication ecosystem

In recent years, the quality of experience notion has become a major research theme within the telecommunications community. QoE is an assessment of the human experience when interacting with technology and business entities in a particular context. A communication ecosystem encompasses various domains such as technical aspects, business models, human behavior, and context. For each aspect of a communication ecosystem, various models have been developed. However, few models have been designed to integrate all aspects of a communication ecosystem to understand human behavioral needs in a detailed and structured way. While existing models have produced the basic sketch of QoE modeling, more concepts and interdomain mapping are to be incorporated in order to have a clear picture of QoE in communication ecosystems. The aim of the current work is to build on the existing research being conducted in disparate disciplines about human behavior in order to provide a high-level model that can be adapted to many specific contexts and to encourage future research which examines these crossdomain relationships.
Sample Adaptive Offset Optimization in HEVC

As the next generation of video coding standard, High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) adopted many useful tools to improve coding efficiency. Sample Adaptive Offset (SAO), is a technique to reduce sample distortion by providing offsets to pixels in in-loop filter. In SAO, pixels in LCU are classified into several categories, then categories and offsets are given based on Rate-Distortion Optimization (RDO) of reconstructed pixels in a Largest Coding Unit (LCU). Pixels in a LCU are operated by the same SAO process, however, transform and inverse transform makes the distortion of pixels in Transform Unit (TU) edge larger than the distortion inside TU even after deblocking filtering (DF) and SAO. And the categories of SAO can also be refined, since it is not proper for many cases. This paper proposed a TU edge offset mode and a category refinement for SAO in HEVC. Experimental results shows that those two kinds of optimization gets -0.13 and -0.2 gain respectively compared with the SAO in HEVC. The proposed algorithm which using the two kinds of optimization gets -0.23 gain on BD-rate compared with the SAO in HEVC which is a 47 % increase with nearly no increase on coding time. Copyright © 2014 IFSA Publishing, S. L.
Working Memory Training in Children with Mild Intellectual Disability, Through Designed Computerized Program

Results: The results showed significant differnces between working memory capacity in the intellectually disabled children and normal ones (p-value <0.00001). After using the computerized working memory training, Visual-spatial WM, auditory WM, and speaking were improved in the trained group. The mentioned four tests showed significant differences between pre-test and post-test. The trained group showed more improvements in forward tasks. The trained participant’s processing speed increased with training. Discussion: According to the results, comprehensive human-computer interfaces and the aplication of computer in children training, especially in traing of intellectual disabled children with impairements in visual and auditory perceptions, could be more effective and vaulable.
Vehicle navigator using a mixture particle filter for inertial sensors/odometer/map data/GPS integration

The market for vehicular navigators boomed over the last few years. These navigators rely mainly on satellite based navigation systems such as the Global Positioning System (GPS) to assist drivers. Due to interruption or degradation in such systems in dense urban scenarios, they have to be augmented with other systems to achieve continuous and accurate vehicular navigation. GPS is integrated with low-cost micro-electro mechanical system (MEMS)-based inertial sensors. However, these sensors provide inadequate performance in degraded GPS environments because of their complex error characteristics that often lead to large position drift errors. This paper proposes a continuous and accurate solution integrating low-cost MEMS-based inertial sensors, the vehicle odometer, GPS, and map data from road networks. Despite the traditional inadequate performance of MEMS-based sensors in this problem, the performance is enhanced through: (i) a special combination of inertial sensors and odometer that has better performance for land vehicles than traditional solutions; (ii) The use of map information from road networks to constrain the positioning solution; (iii) The use of an advanced particle filtering (PF) technique to perform the integration, which work with nonlinear models and better modeling of inertial sensor errors, in addition to better integration with the map data. The performance of the proposed positioning system has been verified extensively on real road tests in downtown trajectories with degraded or totally denied GPS for long durations.
A Low Dose of Dietary Resveratrol Partially Mimics Caloric Restriction and Retards Aging Parameters in Mice

Resveratrol in high doses has been shown to extend lifespan in some studies in invertebrates and to prevent early mortality in mice fed a high-fat diet. We fed mice from middle age (14-months) to old age (30-months) either a control diet, a low dose of resveratrol (4.9 mg kg−1 day−1), or a calorie restricted (CR) diet and examined genome-wide transcriptional profiles. We report a striking transcriptional overlap of CR and resveratrol in heart, skeletal muscle and brain. Both dietary interventions inhibit gene expression profiles associated with cardiac and skeletal muscle aging, and prevent age-related cardiac dysfunction. Dietary resveratrol also mimics the effects of CR in insulin mediated glucose uptake in muscle. Gene expression profiling suggests that both CR and resveratrol may retard some aspects of aging through alterations in chromatin structure and transcription. Resveratrol, at doses that can be readily achieved in humans, fulfills the definition of a dietary compound that mimics some aspects of CR.