Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
High energy X-ray imaging technology for the detection of dangerous materials in air freight containers

In the context of the German aviation security research and development project SILUFRA (secure air freight transport chains), BAM has developed a high-resolution and high-energy X-ray imaging technology for the reliable detection of dangerous and illicit materials in densely packed air freight containers. In the developed technology, a novel combination of high-energy (2-7.5 MeV) X-ray betatron as the radiation source and a high-resolution digital detector array (DDA) for the X-ray imaging was utilized to improve the probability of detecting contraband and explosive materials by enhancing the spatial and contrast resolution in the digital X-ray image. In addition, flexible rotations of the high-energy X-ray source and the digital detector array can lead to clarify the suspicious region of interest (ROI) in air freight containers efficiently. Thus, reduces the false alarm rates and the need for expensive manual inspections of the whole container load. In order to evaluate the detection efficiency, we carried out the experimental investigations on a real air freight container loaded with typical cargo materials such as heavy automobile components and electronic products as well as mock-up dangerous and contraband materials. Furthermore, the material discrimination in the radiographic images was evaluated based on the dual high-energy X-ray imaging method. Finally, important applications of the proposed imaging technology to the air cargo security are discussed.
Social Capital and Corruption

A number of years ago, one of Robert Putnam’s critics made the catchy observation that Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols bowled together. In so doing, they created the network upon which McVeigh was later able to capitalize for help in making the bomb he set off in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Putnam incorporated the point into Bowling Alone, writing that “Networks and associated norms of reciprocity are generally good for those inside the network, but the external effects of social capital are by no means always positive. ” As Putnam noted, “urban gangs, nimby (“not in my backyard”) movements, and power elites often exploit social capital to achieve ends that are antisocial from a wider perspective. ” Although it is now widely acknowledged that social capital can produce social bads, research has focused almost exclusively on the social goods. These goods are considerable and important, including democracy, education, prosperity, safety, health, and even happiness. But the social bads sometimes facilitated by social capital can also be considerable, including terrorism, organized crime, clientelism, certain economic inefficiencies, rigid communities that stifle innovation and are dysfunctional within broader societies, ethnic rivalries, and unjust distributions of resources. Here I focus on just one of these social bads: political corruption, by which I shall simply mean those actions that deviate from public norms of decision-making for the sake of private gain, whether these norms are embedded in public offices, political procedures, or political culture. In the broader scheme of things, corruption is not the worst pathology of politics. It is better than extortion, violence, or war, for example. But it is the pathology that has a particular relevance to democracy, the social good of social capital that most interests me here. On the one hand, corruption is profoundly subversive of democracy, undermining the democratic principles that individuals should have equal chances to influence public judgment, and equal power to affect public decision-making. On the other hand, corruption often increases as democratic institutions develop. This is less paradoxical than it may seem. Corruption in a democracy is often an indication that those with resources can no longer use cruder means to get their way. As James Scott pointed out some time ago, the rise of machine politics a century ago in U.S. cities indicated the increasing power of the electorate, and the reduction in the effectiveness of outright force and fraud. New York’s Tammany Hall, for example, was relatively inclusive as compared to the Philadelphia machine of the time. The New York system was one of “democratic corruption” because “the public’s voting power was not diluted by fraud or coercion,” as it was in Philadelphia. In New York, votes functioned as a relatively egalitarian political resource that people could trade for access to economic resources—jobs, a bit of welfare, and the like. In A Publication of the Center for Democracy and the Third Sector
A First-Year Seminar Course that Supports the Transition of International Students to Higher Education and Fosters the Development of Intercultural Communication Competence

ABSTRACT Colleges and universities in the United States and in other countries are admitting and educating an increasing number of international students. This trend creates both challenges and opportunities for modern higher education. While much of the early scholarship focused on understanding the various academic and social challenges faced by international students, both researchers and practitioners have recently shifted their focus to program development and assessment. This paper, then, examines a specialized first-year seminar course, which includes an out-of-class engagement component that allows international students to interact directly with host country peers. The course and the engagement component were designed to address the transitional academic and social needs of international students. More specifically, this is a report on a three-year study of cohorts of first-semester international students (N = 58) which examined the effectiveness of the specialized first-year seminar within a framework of intercultural communication. The results show that the program was not only a way to support students’ transition to the university, but also facilitated their development of intercultural communication competence.
Evaluating Complex Mixtures in the Zebrafish Embryo by Reconstituting Field Water Samples: A Metal Pollution Case Study

Accurately assessing the toxicity of complex, environmentally relevant mixtures remains an important challenge in ecotoxicology. The goal was to identify biological effects after exposure to environmental water samples and to determine whether the observed effects could be explained by the waterborne metal mixture found in the samples. Zebrafish embryos were exposed to water samples of five different sites originating from two Flemish (Mol and Olen, Belgium) metal contaminated streams: “Scheppelijke Nete” (SN) and “Kneutersloop” (K), and a ditch (D), which is the contamination source of SN. Trace metal concentrations, and Na, K, Mg and Ca concentrations were measured using ICP-MS and were used to reconstitute site-specific water samples. We assessed whether the effects that were observed after exposure to environmental samples could be explained by metal mixture toxicity under standardized laboratory conditions. Exposure to “D” or “reconstituted D” water caused 100% mortality. SN and reconstituted SN water caused similar effects on hatching, swim bladder inflation, growth and swimming activity. A canonical discriminant analysis confirmed a high similarity between both exposure scenarios, indicating that the observed toxicity was indeed primarily caused by metals. The applied workflow could be a valuable approach to evaluate mixture toxicity that limits time and costs while maintaining biological relevance.
Do Central Banks React to the Stock Market? The Case of the Bundesbank

In this paper, we investigate the relationship between stock returns and short-term interest rates. Identification of the stock return-interest rate relation is solved by using a new technique that relies on the heteroskedasticity of shocks to stock market returns. We suggest some improvements to the identification technique and its justification, as well as providing some new findings. In particular, we ask whether the Bundesbank, prior to the European Central Bank taking responsibility for monetary policy in 1999, reacted systematically to stock price movements. In contrast to the results for the US, our empirical findings for the 1985-1998 period show a positive, but statistically insignificant, parameter for the relationship between German stock returns and short-term interest rates at the daily frequency. The same result is found at the monthly frequency. Nevertheless, the confidence bands are wide enough that we cannot entirely exclude the possibility of a reaction at lower frequencies. The results are extremely robust to alternative methods used to identify changes in heteroskedasticity. The evidence is, therefore, inconsistent with the hypothesis of a systematic reaction of the Bundesbank to every wiggle in German stock prices. Both the historical and institutional evidence are supportive of this conclusion.
On the energy efficiency of proxy-based traffic shaping for mobile audio streaming

We study how much energy can be saved by reshaping audio streaming traffic before receiving at the mobile devices. The rationale is the following: Mobile network interfaces (WLAN and 3G) are in active mode when they transmit or receive data, otherwise they are in idle/sleep mode. To save energy, minimum possible time should be spent in active mode and maximum in idle/sleep mode. It is well known that by reshaping the usually constant bit rate multimedia traffic into bursts, it is possible to spend more time in idle/sleep mode leading to impressive energy savings. We propose a proxy-based solution that shapes an audio stream into bursts before relaying the traffic to the mobile device. The novelty of our work is an evaluation of the energy savings using such a proxy with different configurations for both WLAN access with standard 802.11 Power Saving Mode and 3G access. We conclude that for WLAN access, proxy causes power savings of 30%-65% depending on the audio stream rate, location of the proxy and amount of cross traffic. In the case of 3G, the effectiveness of our proxy seems to vary depending on the phone model and operator. In some cases, the energy savings are encouraging, while in other cases the proxy turns out to be ineffective due to abnormal delay variation and TCP flow control behavior.
Rice alcohol dehydrogenase 1 promotes survival and has a major impact on carbohydrate metabolism in the embryo and endosperm when seeds are germinated in partially oxygenated water.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Rice (Oryza sativa) has the rare ability to germinate and elongate a coleoptile under oxygen-deficient conditions, which include both hypoxia and anoxia. It has previously been shown that ALCOHOL DEHYDROGENASE 1 (ADH1) is required for cell division and cell elongation in the coleoptile of submerged rice seedlings by means of studies using a rice ADH1-deficient mutant, reduced adh activity (rad). The aim of this study was to understand how low ADH1 in rice affects carbohydrate metabolism in the embryo and endosperm, and lactate and alanine synthesis in the embryo during germination and subsequent coleoptile growth in submerged seedlings. METHODS Wild-type and rad mutant rice seeds were germinated and grown under complete submergence. At 1, 3, 5 and 7 d after imbibition, the embryo and endosperm were separated and several of their metabolites were measured and compared. KEY RESULTS In the rad embryo, the rate of ethanol fermentation was halved, while lactate and alanine concentrations were 2·4- and 5·7- fold higher in the mutant than in the wild type. Glucose and fructose concentrations in the embryos increased with time in the wild type, but not in the rad mutant. The rad mutant endosperm had lower amounts of the α-amylases RAMY1A and RAMY3D, resulting in less starch degradation and lower glucose concentrations. CONCLUSIONS These results suggest that ADH1 is essential for sugar metabolism via glycolysis to ethanol fermentation in both the embryo and endosperm. In the endosperm, energy is presumably needed for synthesis of the amylases and for sucrose synthesis in the endosperm, as well as for sugar transport to the embryo.
Distinct Epigenetic Domains Separated by a CTCF Bound Insulator between the Tandem Genes, BLU and RASSF1A

Background Tumor suppressor gene (TSG) RASSF1A and candidate TSG BLU are two tandem head-to-tail genes located at 3p21.3. We hypothesized that there may be a concordance on their gene expression and promoter methylation status. If not, then there may be an insulator located between RASSF1A and BLU genes that provides a barrier activity. Methodology/Principal Findings We first identified potential transcriptionally important CpG sites using the methylation-specific oligonucleotide array in relation to mRNA expression of RASSF1A and BLU genes in primary lung tumors. We demonstrated that E2F1 bound to the potential transcriptionally important CpG sites in RASSF1A gene of a normal lung cell line expressing RASSF1A transcripts, whereas loss of E2F1 binding to RASSF1A in A549 cancer cell line was the result of DNA methylation. Both RASSF1A and BLU genes had their own potential transcriptionally important CpG regions. However, there was no correlation of methylation status between RASSF1A and BLU. Using gel shift assay and chromatin immunoprecipitation-PCR (ChIP-PCR), we found that CCCTC-binding factor (CTCF) bound to insulator sequences located between these two genes. Bisulfite sequencing and ChIP-PCR revealed distinct methylation and chromatin boundaries separated by the CTCF binding domains in normal cells, whereas such distinct epigenetic domains were not observed in cancer cells. Note that demethylation reagent and histone deacetylase inhibitor treatments led to CTCF binding and recovery of barrier effect for RASSF1A and BLU genes in cancer cells. Conclusions/Significance Our study dissects the potential transcriptionally important CpG sites for RASSF1A and BLU genes at the sequence level and demonstrates that CTCF binding to the insulator of BLU gene provides a barrier activity within separate epigenetic domains of the juxtaposed BLU and RASSF1A loci in the 3p21.3 gene cluster region.
Arcuate Glucagon-Like Peptide 1 Receptors Regulate Glucose Homeostasis but Not Food Intake

OBJECTIVE—Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) promotes glucose homeostasis through regulation of islet hormone secretion, as well as hepatic and gastric function. Because GLP-1 is also synthesized in the brain, where it regulates food intake, we hypothesized that the central GLP-1 system regulates glucose tolerance as well. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS—We used glucose tolerance tests and hyperinsulinemic-euglycemic clamps to assess the role of the central GLP-1 system on glucose tolerance, insulin secretion, and hepatic and peripheral insulin sensitivity. Finally, in situ hybridization was used to examine colocalization of GLP-1 receptors with neuropeptide tyrosine and pro-opiomelanocortin neurons. RESULTS—We found that central, but not peripheral, administration of low doses of a GLP-1 receptor antagonist caused relative hyperglycemia during a glucose tolerance test, suggesting that activation of central GLP-1 receptors regulates key processes involved in the maintenance of glucose homeostasis. Central administration of GLP-1 augmented glucose-stimulated insulin secretion, and direct administration of GLP-1 into the arcuate, but not the paraventricular, nucleus of the hypothalamus reduced hepatic glucose production. Consistent with a role for GLP-1 receptors in the arcuate, GLP-1 receptor mRNA was found to be expressed in 68.1% of arcuate neurons that expressed pro-opiomelanocortin mRNA but was not significantly coexpressed with neuropeptide tyrosine. CONCLUSIONS—These data suggest that the arcuate GLP-1 receptors are a key component of the GLP-1 system for improving glucose homeostasis by regulating both insulin secretion and glucose production.
A generate and sense approach to automated music composition

Nobody would deny that music may evoke deep and profound emotions. In this paper, we present a perceptual music composition system that aims at the controlled manipulation of a user's emotional state. In contrast to traditional composing techniques, the single components of a composition, such as melody, harmony, rhythm and instrumentation, are selected and combined in a user-specific manner without requiring the user to continuously provide comments on the music employing input devices, such as keyboard or mouse.
Evaluation of Union bounds for Space-Time codes based on a common function

Error-rate evaluation of Space-Time codes using Union bounds sometimes requires very heavy computational loads and so is impractical to use. In this paper, a Common function shared by different Union bounds is derived and used to develop a modified Union bound (MUB) for error-rate evaluation. Results of numerical evaluations and Monte-Carlo simulation on two 2×2 rotation-based S-T codes show that the MUB provides a good compromise between the required computational load and the accuracy for error-rate evaluation.
Initial synchronization of W-CDMA systems using a power-scaled detector with antenna diversity in frequency-selective Rayleigh fading channels

An analytical evaluation of the performance in terms of detection probability and mean detection time of a noncoherent detector at the base station is presented for a wideband CDMA system, where the mobile terminal transmits a pilot signal in the form of bursts of modulated chips, which are transmitted periodically and separated by long silent intervals. The performance analysis is carried out for a power-scaled detector employing temporal and spatial noncoherent averaging in frequency-selective fading channels taking channel dynamics and initial frequency offsets into account. With the presented analysis, which is verified by means of simulations, it is possible, and convenient, to trade off temporal noncoherent versus coherent averaging, depending on the length of the pilot bursts and channel dynamics and to examine the improvement of using multiple diversity antennas at the base station.
Some Insights on Development from the Economics of Happiness* Forthcoming in the World Bank Research Observer

The literature on the economics of happiness in the developed economies finds discrepancies between reported measures of well-being and income measures. One is the so-called “Easterlin paradox”: average happiness levels do not increase as countries grow wealthier. This article explores how that paradox – and survey research on reported well-being more generally – can provide insights into gaps between standard measures of economic development and individual assessments of welfare. The author’s research on reported well-being in Latin America and Russia finds notable discrepancies between respondents’ assessments of their own well-being and income or expenditure based measures. Accepting that there is a wide margin for error in both types of measures, the article posits that taking such discrepancies into account may help us better understand development outcomes by providing a broader view on well being than comes from income-based measures alone. It suggests particular areas where research on reported wellbeing has the most potential to contribute. Yet the paper also notes that some interpretations of happiness research – in particular psychologists’ set point theory – may be quite limited in their application to development questions, and issues a note of caution about the direct translation of results from happiness surveys into policy recommendations. * The author is Senior Fellow in the Economic Studies Program and Co-Director of the Center on Social and Economic Dynamics at the Brookings Institution. She would like to thank Nancy Birdsall, Gary Burtless, Angus Deaton, Andrew Eggers, Michael Kremer, Margaret MacLeod,and three anonymous reviewers for helpful comments. A companion paper, with a special emphasis on globalization, was presented at a WIDER conference on globalization and inequality in October 2004, benefited greatly from comments from participants there, and will be published as part of the conference proceedings.
Camera Calibration by Vanishing Lines for 3-D Computer Vision

A novel approach to camera calibration by vanishing lines is proposed. Calibrated parameters include the orientation, position, and focal length of a camera. A hexagon is used as the calibration target to generate a vanishing line of the ground plane from its projected image. It is shown that the vanishing line includes useful geometric hints about the camera orientation parameters and the focal length, from which the orientation parameters can be solved easily and analytically. And the camera position parameters can be calibrated by the use of related geometric projective relationships. The simplicity of the target eliminates the complexity of the environment setup and simplifies the feature extraction in relevant image processing. The calibration formulas are also simple to compute. Experimental results show the feasibility of the proposed approach. >
An analysis of institutional engagement: perceptions of faculty, staff and administration in the College of Agriculture at Iowa State University

iv CHAPTER 1 : INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 A Call for Institutional Engagement I 1.2 Context of the Study 3 1.3 The Engagement Agenda 5 1.4 Conceptual Framework 7 1.5 Institution Explored 11 1.6 Institutional Engagement and a College of Agriculture 12 1.7 Benefits of Descriptions 14 1.8 Goals of Study 15 1.9 Research Questions 17 1.10 Method of the Study 18 1.11 Delimiters and Assumptions 18 1.11.1 Delimiters 19 1.11.1.1 College of Agriculture as the Unit of Analysis 19 1.11.1.2 Literature and Previous Research Used 20 1.11.1.3 Sample Used for the Study 20 1.11.1.4 Methods Used to Elicit Information 21 1.11.2 Assumptions 21 1.11.2.1 Higher Education will continue to be Complex and Dynamic 21 1.11.2.2 Understanding Stakeholders 22 1.11.2.3 Descriptions of Stakeholders Will Be Transferable 22 1.12. Structure of Dissertation 23 1.13 Summary 24 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 25 2.1 Chapter Preview 25 2.2 Framework for Institutional Engagement 26 2.3 Institutional Engagement: The Terminology 27 2.3. 1 National Engagement Areas of Focus 31 2.3. 2 Engagement Initiative Audiences 33 2.3. 3 Leadership for Institutional Engagement 35 2.3. 4 Gaps in Institutional Engagement 37 2.4 Dynamics of Academic Adaptation 40 2.5 Why is Adaptation for Engagement Important? 42 2.6 Longitudinal Studies 42 2.6. 1 Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate 42 2.6. 2 What Matters in College 44 2.6. 3 How College Affects Students 44
A Simple Fabrication Process Based on Micro-masonry for the Realization of Nanoplate Resonators with Integrated Actuation and Detection Schemes

In this work, we use the micro-masonry technique to fabricate nanoplate resonators with integrated electrostatic actuation and capacitive detection in a few steps. Our approach is an alternative solution to the current fabrication methods used to create membranes and plates that usually rely on the selective etching of a sacrificial layer. Highly doped silicon plates were transfer-printed using microtip elastomeric stamps onto insulated bases displaying cavities in order to form suspended structures with airtight gaps. By post-processing adequate interconnections, the fabricated resonators were actuated and their resonant frequency measured in a fully integrated manner. The tested nanoplate devices behave as predicted by theory and offer quality factors of more than 30 in air. Because the cavities used for electrostatic actuation/sensing of the devices are tight sealed, nanoplates fabricated via micro-masonry are suitable for liquid environment operation and are thus a promising solution for biosensing applications.