Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evolution of the electronic and ionic structure of Mg clusters with increase in cluster size

The optimized structure and electronic properties of neutral and singly charged magnesium clusters have been investigated using ab initio theoretical methods based on density-functional theory and systematic post-Hartree-Fock many-body perturbation theory accounting for all electrons in the system. We have systematically calculated the optimized geometries of neutral and singly charged magnesium clusters consisting of up to 21 atoms, electronic shell closures, binding energies per atom, ionization potentials, and the gap between the highest occupied and the lowest unoccupied molecular orbitals. We have investigated the appearance of the elements of the hcp structure and metallic evolution of the magnesium clusters, as well as the stability of linear chains and rings of magnesium atoms. The results obtained are compared with the available experimental data and the results of other theoretical works.
5-HT2A Receptor Binding in the Frontal Cortex of Parkinson's Disease Patients and Alpha-Synuclein Overexpressing Mice: A Postmortem Study

The 5-HT2A receptor is highly involved in aspects of cognition and executive function and seen to be affected in neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's disease and related to the disease pathology. Even though Parkinson's disease (PD) is primarily a motor disorder, reports of impaired executive function are also steadily being associated with this disease. Not much is known about the pathophysiology behind this. The aim of this study was thereby twofold: (1) to investigate 5-HT2A receptor binding levels in Parkinson's brains and (2) to investigate whether PD associated pathology, alpha-synuclein (AS) overexpression, could be associated with 5-HT2A alterations. Binding density for the 5-HT2A-specific radioligand [3H]-MDL 100.907 was measured in membrane suspensions of frontal cortex tissue from PD patients. Protein levels of AS were further measured using western blotting. Results showed higher AS levels accompanied by increased 5-HT2A receptor binding in PD brains. In a separate study, we looked for changes in 5-HT2A receptors in the prefrontal cortex in 52-week-old transgenic mice overexpressing human AS. We performed region-specific 5-HT2A receptor binding measurements followed by gene expression analysis. The transgenic mice showed lower 5-HT2A binding in the frontal association cortex that was not accompanied by changes in gene expression levels. This study is one of the first to look at differences in serotonin receptor levels in PD and in relation to AS overexpression.
MANTEMA: a software maintenance methodology based on the ISO/IEC 12207 standard

The maintenance of information systems is one of the greatest problems in the software life cycle. It is the most conflictive, costly, less planificable; and the process requiring the most resources. In spite of this reality, most organizations do not possess methodologies for software maintenance. These facts, key to the imperative need of controlling the maintenance process, have carried us to propose a maintenance methodology. In this paper an adjustment of the ISO/IEC 12207 standard for the processes of life cycle maintenance is presented. This methodology is being used by Atos ODS, one of the most important European consultants on software outsourcing and maintenance.
Awareness and Need for Knowledge of Health and Safety among Dairy Farmers Interviewed in Uganda

Introduction Safe working conditions are essential for healthy living and for ensuring food security among farmers and farm communities in developing countries. There is limited research on this topic, and documentation is essential to understand and change patterns of human health and safety. Methods In May 2014, six male and female farmers on four dairy farms in Uganda and a female veterinarian were interviewed about their awareness and attitudes to agricultural risk factors, health, and safety. In addition, transect walks were conducted on the four dairy farms. Results The dairy farmers reported health and safety concerns, e.g., diarrhea, coughs, fever, cuts while using machetes in plantations, bruises when handling animals, and dizziness and poisoning symptoms from using different agrochemicals, and considered these an occupational hazard. The most important topic mentioned was the use of agrochemicals and drugs on livestock. The farmers spray their animals with insecticides to prevent ticks, lice, tsetse flies, and other biting nuisance flies, using a backpack or hand sprayer. Spraying is conducted without personal protection equipment, which is considered too expensive and difficult to obtain. The farmers reported that they usually feel dizzy, vomit, and have pain and a burning feeling in their face and eyes after spraying. The symptoms are sometimes so severe that they require treatment. In such cases, the farmers buy medication without a prescription at the local drugstore, where the storekeeper often has limited or no knowledge of agrochemicals or drugs except for dosage. Agricultural health and safety training in the region is non-existent, and the farmers expressed a need and desire for improvements in this area. Conclusion The level of knowledge and awareness of agricultural health and safety risks, disease, and injury prevention among the Ugandan dairy farmers interviewed was low. The farmers mentioned few agriculture-related complaints, injuries, or diseases except poisoning from using agrochemicals. Training on health and safety in Ugandan agriculture is urgently needed.
Experimental Results of Photovoltaic Powered Induction Motor Drive for Pumping

A pumping system powered from Photovoltaic array is modeled and simulated using Matlab Simulink. Detailed evaluation of energy processing in Photovoltaic pumping system is presented. A low voltage DC is stepped by using DC to DC Push -Pull converter. DC output from the PV Cell is converted into high frequency AC using a Push Pull Inverter. This is stepped up to 200v using a high frequency steps up transformer. The output of step up transformer rectified using an uncontrolled rectifier. The DC is converted into three phase AC using inverter. Variable voltage variable frequency AC is applied to the Induction motor. This drive has advantageous like utilization of nonconventional energy and improved efficiency. The experimental results are compared with simulation results.
ARROW@TU Dublin ARROW@TU Dublin Analysis of Financial Data Using Non-Negative Matrix Analysis of Financial Data Using Non-Negative Matrix Factorization Factorization

We apply Non-negative Matrix Factorization (NMF) to the problem of identifying underlying trends in stock market data. NMF is a recent and very successful tool for data analysis including image and audio processing; we use it here to decompose a mixture a data, the daily closing prices of the 30 stocks which make up the Dow Jones Industrial Average, into its constitute parts, the underlying trends which govern the ﬁnancial marketplace. We demonstrate how to impose ap-propriate sparsity and smoothness constraints on the components of the decomposition. Also, we describe how the method clusters stocks together in performance-based groupings which can be used for portfolio diversiﬁcation.
Design of non-separable transforms for directional 2-D sources

Traditionally, a 2-D block-based transform is always implemented through two separate 1-D transforms along each block's vertical and horizontal dimensions. Such a framework is however not highly suitable for a directional 2-D source in which the dominant directional information is neither horizontal nor vertical. On the other hand, the R-D performance upper bound for all block-based transform coding schemes applied on such 2-D directional sources can be obtained by the non-separable Karhunen-Loève transform (KLT) — which is unfortunately very expensive computationally. In this paper, we present a new framework for designing some non-separable transforms that offer an R-D performance closer to that of the KLT, but can be implemented with nearly the same complexity as that of the discrete cosine transform (DCT).
D-TIFIS: a decision support system for options trading

Some analysts have claimed that the volatility of an asset is caused solely by the random arrival of new information about the future returns from the asset. Others have claimed that volatility is mainly caused by trading. In any case it is a common belief that volatility is of great importance in finance and it is the factor that plays the most important role in determining option prices. This paper discusses the development of a decision support system (D‐TIFIS) for options trading based on volatility forecasting. In order to evaluate the system, data were used from the Greek FTSE/ASE 20 stock index as well as at the money call and put prices on the specific index.
Modeling and Control of a Compressed Natural Gas Injection System

The application of new technologies in the automotive field has highly improved the performances of internal combustion engines. In particular, applying electronic control to the fuel injection system has improved dynamic performances and reduced noxious emissions, noise and fuel consumption. To achieve this goal it is necessary to exactly meter the injected fuel by controlling both the injection pressure and the injectors opening time. On the other hand, to develop a suitable control strategy for the injection system, it is necessary a mathematical representation, describing the dynamics of most significant variables. In this paper we propose a fast and simple model of a Compressed Natural Gas injection system to predict the system dynamics with a good accuracy for different operating conditions. We also present a comparison between simulation and experimental data to validate the results. Then we use this model to design a fuzzy logic controller of the injection pressure. Simulation experiments show that the fuzzy logic controller can cope with system nonlinearities, guaranteeing better performances than classical PI controllers. Key-Words: Internal combustion engines, CNG, Injection systems, Fuzzy control.
D MODELING OF SMALL ANTIQUE BASED ON THE PROJECTOR-CAMERA SYSTEM

The paper proposes a flexible and practical method to 3D model the antique based on the projector-camera system. The projectorcamera system is composed of a slide projector, a digital camera, a control ground and a computer. The computer controls other three equipments working together automatically and efficiently. The control ground is a planar grid on the centre of a rotating platform. According to the size of the planar grid, the target antique is relatively small. The planar grid is functioned as the calibration of the slide projector and the digital camera. After calibrated respectively in advance, the projector-camera system is similar with the binocular vision system in the principle of 3D reconstruction. The digital camera takes two images of small antique with the projected texture characteristic and without it at one time. The two sequential images are taken from the different orientations. 3D coordinates of the space feature point can be computed by the space forward intersection. Using the whole adjustment, 3D coordinates of all space points projected on the whole surface of the target small antique from the different orientations can be worked out accurately. 3D model of the target small antique is acquired by connecting all neighbor space feature points and the real texture is rendered from relative images without the projected texture characteristic. 3D modeling of small antique is achieved entirely and finally. 3D modeling of small antique proposed in the paper is confirmed to be correct and effective completely by the results of the modeling experiments. * Corresponding author, E_mail: martintao@etang.com, martintao@tom.com; Tel: +86-27-87664509, 87654319.
Erosion of Conserved Binding Sites in Personal Genomes Points to Medical Histories

Although many human diseases have a genetic component involving many loci, the majority of studies are statistically underpowered to isolate the many contributing variants, raising the question of the existence of alternate processes to identify disease mutations. To address this question, we collect ancestral transcription factor binding sites disrupted by an individual’s variants and then look for their most significant congregation next to a group of functionally related genes. Strikingly, when the method is applied to five different full human genomes, the top enriched function for each is invariably reflective of their very different medical histories. For example, our method implicates “abnormal cardiac output” for a patient with a longstanding family history of heart disease, “decreased circulating sodium level” for an individual with hypertension, and other biologically appealing links for medical histories spanning narcolepsy to axonal neuropathy. Our results suggest that erosion of gene regulation by mutation load significantly contributes to observed heritable phenotypes that manifest in the medical history. The test we developed exposes a hitherto hidden layer of personal variants that promise to shed new light on human disease penetrance, expressivity and the sensitivity with which we can detect them.
Coprivacy: an introduction to the theory and applications of co-operative privacy

We introduce the novel concept of coprivacy or co-operative privacy to make privacy preservation attractive. A protocol is coprivate if the best option for a player to preserve her privacy is to help another player in preserving his privacy. Coprivacy makes an individual’s privacy preservation a goal that rationally interests other individuals: it is a matter of helping oneself by helping someone else. We formally define coprivacy in terms of Nash equilibria. We then extend the concept to: i) general coprivacy, where a helping player’s utility (i.e. interest) may include earning functionality and security in addition to privacy; ii) mixed coprivacy, where mixed strategies and mixed Nash equilibria are allowed with some restrictions; iii) correlated coprivacy, in which Nash equilibria are replaced by correlated equilibria. Coprivacy can be applied to any peer-to-peer (P2P) protocol. We illustrate coprivacy in P2P anonymous keyword search, in content privacy in social networks, in vehicular network communications and in controlled content distribution and digital oblivion enforcement
Modeling fashion

We propose a method to try to model fashionable dresses in this paper. We first discover common visual patterns that appear in dress images using a human-in-the-loop, active clustering approach. A fashionable dress is expected to contain certain visual patterns which make it fashionable. An approach is proposed to jointly identify fashionable visual patterns and learn a discriminative fashion classifier. The results show that interesting fashionable patterns can be discovered on a newly collected dress dataset. Furthermore, our model can also achieve high accuracy on distinguishing fashionable and unfashionable dresses.
Alternating Projections for Learning with Expectation Constraints

We present an objective function for learning with unlabeled data that utilizes auxiliary expectation constraints. We optimize this objective function using a procedure that alternates between information and moment projections. Our method provides an alternate interpretation of the posterior regularization framework (Graca et al., 2008), maintains uncertainty during optimization unlike constraint-driven learning (Chang et al., 2007), and is more efficient than generalized expectation criteria (Mann & McCallum, 2008). Applications of this framework include minimally supervised learning, semi-supervised learning, and learning with constraints that are more expressive than the underlying model. In experiments, we demonstrate comparable accuracy to generalized expectation criteria for minimally supervised learning, and use expressive structural constraints to guide semi-supervised learning, providing a 3%-6% improvement over state-of-the-art constraint-driven learning.
SynchSPEM: A synchronization metamodel between activities and products within a SPEM-based Software Development Process

The Software Process Engineering Metamodel (SPEM) is used to define and describe software development processes and their components. This metamodel contains three main entities: roles, activities and products. Our goal is to ensure synchronization between activities and products of a software development process in order that one of the two entities will be notified and adapted in accordance with the changes of the other. This paper presents an overview of SPEM, and reviews its implementations. A metamodel based on SPEM 2.0 is then proposed to synchronize activities and products within a software development process.
Marketing in the social enterprise context : is it entrepreneurial ?

This paper presents some of the findings to emerge from a qualitative study of social enterprise in the UK. The findings discussed in this paper refer to the marketing activities of social enterprises and consider the extent to which these can be described as “entrepreneurial”. This discussion suggests that while social enterprises do engage in entrepreneurial marketing, the local embeddedness of their activities, their not-for-profit orientation and challenges posed by social exclusion impact on their marketing activities.
Angiotensin II Regulation of Collagen Type I Expression in Cardiac Fibroblasts: Modulation by PPAR-&ggr; Ligand Pioglitazone

Angiotensin II (Ang II)–mediated stimulation of fibroblast growth and collagen type I synthesis is believed to be an important component of the cardiac remodeling process in hypertension and chronic ischemia. Ang II–mediated oxidative stress could be important in enhanced fibroblast growth and collagen formation. Accordingly, we postulated that the PPAR-&ggr; ligand, pioglitazone, which is known to modulate oxidative stress, would alter Ang II–induced formation of collagen type I in cardiac fibroblasts. Cardiac fibroblasts were treated with different concentrations (10−8 to 10−6 M) of Ang II for different times (6 hours, 12 hours, and 24 hours). Ang II increased the expression of collagen type I in a concentration- and time-dependent fashion (P<0.01 versus control). Ang II also decreased the expression and activity of matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-1 (MMP-1, P<0.05 versus control). These effects of Ang II were attenuated by pretreatment of cells with pioglitazone (10 &mgr;mol/L). Ang II stimulated the intracellular generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), and this effect was also attenuated by pioglitazone. Ang II treatment activated the redox-sensitive transcription factor NF-&kgr;B, and pioglitazone pretreatment blocked this effect of Ang II. Ang II also activated another transcription factor, AP-1, but this effect of Ang II was not modulated by pioglitazone. In other experiments, we observed that trolox, the water soluble analog of vitamin E, attenuated the effects of Ang II on the expression of collagen type I and MMP-1, in a manner similar to pioglitazone. Thus, pioglitazone attenuates Ang II-mediated collagen type I synthesis in cardiac fibroblasts. The effects of pioglitazone are mediated by the modulation of ROS release and redox-sensitive transcription factor NF-&kgr;B.
Ownership and Control of German Corporations

In a study of the ownership of German corporations, we find a strong relation between board turnover and corporate performance, little association of concentrations of ownership with managerial disciplining and only limited evidence that pyramid structures can be used for control purposes. The static relation of ownership to control in Germany is therefore similar to the UK and US. However, there are marked differences in dynamic relations involving transfers of ownership. There is an active market in share blocks giving rise to changes in control but the gains are limited and accrue solely to the holders of large blocks, not to minority investors. We provide evidence of low overall benefits to control changes and the exploitation of private benefits of control.
Secure Multiparty Interactive Communication with Unknown Noise Rate

A group of n users want to run an asynchronous protocol π, whose length L is unknown a priori. An oblivious bit-flipping adversary, who does not have access to the private random bits of the users, enters the scene with unbounded budget T . This paper presents an algorithm that compiles the noise-free protocol π into a robust protocol π′ that can deal with this adversary and achieve successful communication with probability 1 − O (1/n), sending O ((L+ T ) logn(L+ T )) bits in expectation. It does so without any a priori knowledge of L or T . Our result is, hence, within logarithmic factors of the optimal.
Analysis of mammographic microcalcifications using a computationally efficient filter bank

We present a new method for classification of malignant and benign clusters of microcalcifications in digital mammograms. A computationally efficient infinite impulse response (IIR) quadrature mirror filter (QMF) bank is used as a tool for extracting texture and shape features. The filter bank splits the input image into four subbands: low-low band, low-high band, high-low band and high-high band. Texture and shape features based on cooccurrence matrices are computed from the subsampled subbands. The low-low band extracts the information of spatial dependence and the higher frequency bands extract the shape information. The results of an experimental study demonstrate that our approach drastically improves the overall performance compared to a manual system.
A study of touchless versus touch-based interactions with bacterial biofilm images

Bacteria reproduce simply and rapidly by doubling their contents and then splitting in two. The majority of bacteria in the human body are countered by the human immune system, however some pathogenic bacteria survive and cause disease. Enabling of remote control and visualization of pathogenic species can reduce direct exposure of researchers. The visualization of augmented biological data can also speed up the extraction of useful information. This can be achieved using contactless interactions with viewed scenes, by the use of camera based gesture recognition technologies. Utilising an immersive environment such as a 3-D hemispherical dome for visualization can also enhance user experience when exploring complex interior structures and morphology of bacteria during the course of biofilm formation. Our aim is to uncover limitations of current technology for the design of a real-time natural contactless interactive system. In this work, Human Computer Interaction (HCI) experiments are carried out with Creative Interactive Gesture Camera as a touchless input device to track a user's hand gestures and translate them into the natural field of view or point of focus. In experiments, the touchless interface is compared with a touch-based system using an iPad device during a task-oriented user study. Conclusions are drawn based on statistical analysis of user experience in interaction experiments with microscopy images of bacteria in bacterial biofilm formation. Future investigations will use an the dome immersive environment where 3D bacterium shapes will be visualized from their 2D images.
Exploratory Data Analysis as a Means of Structuring Legal Knowledge about Concepts and Documents

The information crisis in law demands proper instruments of information filtering. Traditional information retrieval systems do not satisfy these demands because they present only the syntactic form of documents. Exploratory data analysis is a good tool for the representation of legal knowledge within the syntactic structure of the documents. It could also solve the bottleneck of the time-consuming knowledge acquisition for the creation of conceptual information retrieval systems. In our prototype CONCAT we represent legal knowledge and document structure by a knowledge base which is structured by statistical and connectionist methods.