Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cost Implications of Software Commonality and Reuse

Commonality of requirements and reuse of code are two properties of software systems which can potentially reduce development and maintenance costs. This paper provides a possible definition for commonality and reuse and analyzes their impact on maintenance and replacement cost estimations based on the software engineering literature. Eventually, research questions are formulated to guide the empirical analysis through software evolution trees, a tool which is proposed to formalize the different vertical and horizontal changes that a software system can undergo
A "pennurth of arsenic for rat poison": the Arsenic Act, 1851 and the prevention of secret poisoning.

In this country any chemist or druggist can furnish the means of self-destruction or murder for a few pence, and in too many instances have done so with the utmost indifference. The sale of a poison is regarded as a mere act of commercial intercourse; tant pis for the unfortunate victim of error or passion; he has the benefit of a coroner's inquest; the vendor of the poison receives a reprimand, and things resume their natural course--that is, arsenic and oxalic acid are retailed without compunction, and men are hurried from time to time into eternity. Imagesp56-a
Markus Reisinger : Two-Sided Markets with Negative Externalities

This paper analyses a two-sided market in which two platforms compete against each other. One side, the advertisers, exerts a negative externality on the other side, the users. It is shown that if platforms can charge advertisers only, a higher degree of competition for users can lead to higher profits because competition on the advertisers’ side is reduced. If platforms can charge users as well, profits might increase or decrease, the latter because of increased competition through the additional instrument of the user fee. Nevertheless the equilibrium with user fee is more efficient. Two-Sided Markets with Negative Externalities 2
Querying Large Collections of Semistructured Data

An increasing amount of data is published as semistructured documents formatted with presentational markup. Examples include data objects such as mathematical expressions encoded with MathML or web pages encoded with XHTML. Our intention is to improve the state of the art in retrieving, manipulating, or mining such data. We focus first on mathematics retrieval, which is appealing in various domains, such as education, digital libraries, engineering, patent documents, and medical sciences. Capturing the similarity of mathematical expressions also greatly enhances document classification in such domains. Unlike text retrieval, where keywords carry enough semantics to distinguish text documents and rank them, math symbols do not contain much semantic information on their own. Unfortunately, considering the structure of mathematical expressions to calculate relevance scores of documents results in ranking algorithms that are computationally more expensive than the typical ranking algorithms employed for text documents. As a result, current math retrieval systems either limit themselves to exact matches, or they ignore the structure completely; they sacrifice either recall or precision for efficiency. We propose instead an efficient end-to-end math retrieval system based on a structural similarity ranking algorithm. We describe novel optimization techniques to reduce the index size and the query processing time. Thus, with the proposed optimizations, mathematical contents can be fully exploited to rank documents in response to mathematical queries. We demonstrate the effectiveness and the efficiency of our solution experimentally, using a special-purpose testbed that we developed for evaluating math retrieval systems. We finally extend our retrieval system to accommodate rich queries that consist of combinations of math expressions and textual keywords. As a second focal point, we address the problem of recognizing structural repetitions in typical web documents. Most web pages use presentational markup standards, in which the tags control the formatting of documents rather than semantically describing their contents. Hence, their structures typically contain more irregularities than descriptive (data-oriented) markup languages. Even though applications would greatly benefit from a grammar inference algorithm that captures structure to make it explicit, the existing algorithms for XML schema inference, which target data-oriented markup, are ineffective in inferring grammars for web documents with presentational markup. There is currently no general-purpose grammar inference framework that can handle irregularities commonly found in web documents and that can operate with only a few examples. Although inferring grammars for individual web pages has been partially addressed
Whispering Gallery Mode Resonances from Ge Micro-Disks on Suspended Beams

Ge is considered to be one of the most promising materials for realizing full monolithic integration of a light source on a silicon (Si) photonic chip. Tensile-strain is required to convert Ge into an optical gain material and to reduce the pumping required for population inversion. Several methods of strain application to Ge are proposed in literature, of which the use of free-standing beams fabricated by micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) processes are capable of delivering very high strain values. However, it is challenging to make an optical cavity within free-standing Ge beams, and here, we demonstrate the fabrication of a simple cavity while imposing tensile strain by suspension using Ge-On-Insulator (GOI) wafers. Ge micro-disks are made on top of suspended SiO$_{2}$ beams by partially removing the supporting Si substrate. According to Raman spectroscopy, a slight tensile strain was applied to the Ge disks through the bending of the SiO2 beams. Whispering-Gallery-Mode (WGM) resonances were observed from a disk with a diameter of 3um, consistent with the finite-domain time-difference simulations. The quality (Q) factor was 192, and upon increasing the pumping power, the Q-factor was degraded due to the red-shift of Ge direct-gap absorption edge caused by heating.
Spectral-Energy Efficiency Tradeoff in Relay-Aided Massive MIMO Cellular Networks With Pilot Contamination

This paper concerns with a relay-aided massive multiple input multiple output (MIMO) cellular network. The exact closed-form expressions of both spectral efficiency (SE) and energy efficiency (EE) are obtained for downlink single-cell multi-user multi-relay massive MIMO transmission in the pilot-contaminated regime, where the number of users is larger than the pilot sequence length. Based on the theoretical results of SE and EE, we investigate the effects of some system parameters [such as number of antennas at the base station (BS), transmit power at the BS, and transmit power of each relay station (RS)] on system performance, and achieve the tradeoff between SE and EE by power control. Specifically, the tradeoff problem is solved by joint optimization over transmit power P of the BS and transmit power pr of each RS, so as to maximize EE while satisfying the SE requirement. With the proposition that EE function is strictly quasi-concave with either P or pr, we propose two optimization methods: 1-D searching and alternate optimization. Comparatively, the former achieves a better performance, while the latter has a lower complexity. Simulation results validate the effectiveness of the two methods.
Evaluability Assessments: Reflections on a review of the literature

In 2012 the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID) funded a review of the literature on Evaluability Assessments, which was undertaken by Rick Davies. Although the review focused on practical guidance Evaluability Assessments are not unproblematic. Evaluability Assessments involve an additional layer of cost and procedure. The diversity of evaluation approaches is a challenge to any categorical judgement about evaluability. The reach of an evaluability assessment can become over-extended. Evaluability questions asked of individual projects may not be so easily applied to larger portfolios of projects. The purpose of this article is to give more attention to the problematic aspects of Evaluability Assessments. In doing so it does not seek to revise the broad conclusions of the Working Paper, which unambiguously encouraged the wider use of Evaluability Assessments.
Evaluating the efficacy of an automated procedure for EEG artifact removal

Electroencephalography (EEG) signals are often contaminated with artifacts arising from many sources such as those with ocular and muscular origins. Artifact removal techniques often rely on the experience of the EEG technician to detect these artifact components for removal. This paper presents the results comparing an automated procedure (AT) against visually (VT) choosing artifactual components for removal, using second order blind identification (SOBI) and canonical correlation analyses. The results show that the resulting EEG signal after artifact removal for the AT and VT were comparable using a technique that measures the variance amongst electrodes and spectral energy. The AT technique is objective, faster and easier to use, and shown here to be comparable to the standard technique of visually detecting artifact components.
Custom Modeling of Generalized Speed Governor Applied to Long-Term Power System Dynamic Simulation

Thermal power plant dynamic response with big delay has an impact for long-term power system dynamic process. Former governor in transient simulation can not meet the needs of long-term dynamic simulation. In order to study the long-term dynamic characteristic of generator in power system, it is presented a generalized speed governor model used in long-term dynamic simulation and established the mutual combined mathematic model of three regions. The simulation test of generalized speed governor has proved the accuracy and speed in dynamic process, and can meet the need of long-term dynamic simulation in power system. Generalized speed governor has more accurately reflected long-term dynamic characteristic than former governor. It is an important guiding significance to set up conditioning systems of generating units and maintain power grid stability.
Atypical Effect of Salts on the Thermodynamic Stability of Human Prion Protein*

Prion diseases are associated with the conversion of cellular prion protein, PrPC, into a misfolded oligomeric form, PrPSc. Previous studies indicate that salts promote conformational conversion of the recombinant prion protein into a PrPSc-like form. To gain insight into the mechanism of this effect, here we have studied the influence of a number of salts (sodium sulfate, sodium fluoride, sodium acetate, and sodium chloride) on the thermodynamic stability of the recombinant human prion protein. Chemical unfolding studies in urea show that at low concentrations (below ∼50 mm), all salts tested significantly reduced the thermodynamic stability of the protein. This highly unusual response to salts was observed for both the full-length prion protein as well as the N-truncated fragments huPrP90–231 and huPrP122–231. At higher salt concentrations, the destabilizing effect was gradually reversed, and salts behaved according to their ranking in the Hofmeister series. The present data indicate that electrostatic interactions play an unusually important role in the stability of the prion protein. The abnormal effect of salts is likely because of the ion-induced destabilization of salt bridges (Asp144–Arg148 and/or Asp147–Arg151) in the extremely hydrophilic helix 1. Contrary to previous suggestions, this effect is not due to the interaction of ions with the glycine-rich flexible N-terminal region of the prion protein. The results of this study suggest that ionic species present in the cellular environment may control the PrPC to PrPSc conversion by modulating the thermodynamic stability of the native PrPC isoform.
Knowing What We Don’t Know: A Meta-Analysis of Children Raised by Gay or Lesbian Parents

Objective. This meta-analysis integrates the available empirical evidence of the past 35 years and critically discusses the current state of knowledge on children raised by gay or lesbian parents. Design. Data from 81 studies on children living with gay or lesbian parents and opposite sex couples was included in the analyses. Results. There were negative associations between living with gay or lesbian parents and several outcomes. Most outcomes showed significant variation across studies and were treated as random effects. There appeared to be evidence consistent with publication bias. Significant moderators included child age, environmental stability, adequacy of heterosexual comparison sample, sampling technique, sample location, researcher allegiance, citation rate, and publication status. Conclusions. Future research on this topic is needed, consisting of adequately-powered probability-based samples, with detailed measurement and safeguards against researcher bias.
Packet classification using a bloom filter in a leaf-pushing area-based quad-trie

Packet classification is one of the most essential functions that Internet routers should perform at wire-speed for every incoming packet. An area-based quad-trie (AQT) for packet classification has an issue in search performance since many rule nodes can be encountered in a search procedure. A leaf-pushing AQT improves the search performance of the AQT by making a single rule node exist in each search path. This paper proposes a new algorithm to improve the search performance of the leaf-pushing AQT further. The proposed algorithm builds a leaf-pushing AQT using a Bloom filter and a hash table stored in on-chip memories. The level of a rule node and a pointer to a rule database are identified by sequentially querying the Bloom filter and by accessing the hash table, respectively.
Flash memory cells-an overview

The aim of this paper is to give a thorough overview of flash memory cells. Basic operations and charge-injection mechanisms that are most commonly used in actual flash memory cells are reviewed to provide an understanding of the underlying physics and principles in order to appreciate the large number of device structures, processing technologies, and circuit designs presented in the literature. New cell structures and architectural solutions have been surveyed to highlight the evolution of the flash memory technology, oriented to both reducing cell size and upgrading product functions. The subject is of extreme interest: new concepts involving new materials, structures, principles, or applications are being continuously introduced. The worldwide semiconductor memory market seems ready to accept many new applications in fields that are not specific to traditional nonvolatile memories.
The Medium Subunits of Adaptor Complexes Recognize Distinct but Overlapping Sets of Tyrosine-based Sorting Signals*

Tyrosine-based sorting signals conforming to the motif YXXØ (Y is tyrosine, X is any amino acid, and Ø is an amino acid with a bulky hydrophobic side chain (leucine, isoleucine, phenylalanine, methionine, valine)) interact with the medium (μ) subunits of clathrin adaptor (AP) complexes. We have analyzed the selectivity of interaction between YXXØ signals and the μ1, μ2, and μ3 (A or B) subunits of the AP-1, AP-2, and AP-3 complexes, respectively, by screening a combinatorial XXXYXXØ library using the yeast two-hybrid system. All the medium subunits were found to prefer proline at position Y+2, suggesting that YXXØ signals are stabilized by a bend in the polypeptide backbone. Other than for this common preference, each medium subunit favored specific sets of residues at the X and Ø positions; these preferences were consistent with the proposed roles of the different adaptor complexes in rapid endocytosis and lysosomal targeting. A considerable specificity overlap was also revealed by these analyses, suggesting that additional factors, such as the context of the signals, must be important determinants of recognition.
Area Efficient and Fast Combined Binary/Decimal Floating Point Fused Multiply Add Unit

In this work we present a new 64-bit floating point Fused Multiply Add (FMA) unit that can perform both binary and decimal addition, multiplication, and fused-multiply-add operations. The presented FMA has 6 percent less delay than the fastest stand-alone decimal unit and 23 percent less area than both binary and decimal units together. These results were achieved by the use of: 1) column by column reduction to reduce the partial products in the multiplier tree, 2) a new leading zeros detector that produces its output in base-3 to simplify the normalization shifting in the binary datapath, 3) the use of a redundant adder to perform the final addition, 4) using a new rounding-while-redundant technique to hide the rounding delay and remove it from the critical path, and 5) using a new simple conversion technique from redundant to binary/decimal.
Towards contextualizing stressors in technostress research

The literature on “technostress” posits that information and communication technology (ICT) contributes to feelings of strain by increasing the speed of work, having to adapt to technological change, and/or the poor usability features of the ICT. Most technostress research builds on surveys distributed across organizations. Thus, stressor-related questions cannot differentiate between how strain might be experienced in different roles assumed in the workplace. This paper aims to investigate, by means of an experiment, how different roles in a work arrangement affect the perception of strain. Our results show that the mere quantity of tasks does not serve as a good predictor of strain. We posit that the perception of strain and stressors is influenced by the context in which the tasks are embedded. These findings underline the need to investigate the ways in which ICT alters the organization of work instead of focusing on how ICT may support specific tasks.
Functional Differences between the Human ATP-dependent Nucleosome Remodeling Proteins BRG1 and SNF2H*

ATP-dependent nucleosome remodeling complexes can be grouped into several classes that may differ in their biochemical remodeling activities and biological roles. Although there are a number of biochemical studies of each class of remodeler, there are very little data directly comparing the biochemical activities of remodelers from different classes. We have purified two ATP-hydrolyzing proteins, SNF2H and BRG1, which are members of complexes from two different classes of remodelers. Consistent with previous reports, these two homogeneous proteins can perform remodeling functions. We show significant functional differences between SNF2H and BRG1 in vitro; although both SNF2H and BRG1 hydrolyze ATP and remodel linear arrays of nucleosomes, only BRG1 can remodel mononucleosomes. Also, only BRG1 can alter the topology of nucleosomal plasmids. We propose that these functional differences reflect significant mechanistic differences between the two remodeler classes that will impact their biological roles.
An Alyawara Day: Flour, Spinifex Gum, and Shifting Perspectives

The events of a day among the Alyawara Australian Aborigines are described as they reflect on the problem of understanding what one witnesses in an alien sociocultural setting. Some of these events are then treated comparatively, as a way of recognizing the variables that conditioned the witnessed events. These discussions are then used, in a shift of perspective, in an evaluation of suggestions made by archaeologists as to the proper contexts for understanding the formation of the archaeological record and hence the proper interpretative postures to assume in seeking to infer a past.
Immunogenicity of Eight Dormancy Regulon-Encoded Proteins of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in DNA-Vaccinated and Tuberculosis-Infected Mice

ABSTRACT Hypoxia and low concentrations of nitric oxide have been reported to upregulate in vitro gene expression of 48 proteins of the dormancy (DosR) regulon of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. These proteins are thought to be essential for the survival of bacteria during persistence in vivo and are targeted by the immune system during latent infection in humans. Here we have analyzed the immunogenicity of eight DosR regulon-encoded antigens by plasmid DNA vaccination of BALB/c and C57BL/6 mice, i.e., Rv1733c, Rv1738, Rv2029c (pfkB), Rv2031c/hspX (acr), Rv2032 (acg), Rv2626c, Rv2627c, and Rv2628. Strong humoral and/or cellular Th1-type (interleukin-2 and gamma interferon) immune responses could be induced against all but one (Rv1738) of these antigens. The strongest Th1 responses were measured following vaccination with DNA encoding Rv2031c and Rv2626c. Using synthetic 20-mer overlapping peptides, 11 immunodominant, predicted major histocompatibility complex class II-restricted epitopes and one Kd-restricted T-cell epitope could be identified. BALB/c and (B6D2)F1 mice persistently infected with M. tuberculosis developed immune responses against Rv1733c, Rv2031c, and Rv2626c. These findings have implications for proof-of-concept studies in mice mimicking tuberculosis (TB) latency models and their extrapolation to humans for potential new vaccination strategies against TB.
Comparison of two different extinction laws with hipparcos observations

Interstellar absorption in the galactic plane is highly variable from one direction to another. In this paper colour ex- cesses and distances from a new open cluster sample are used to investigate the spatial distribution of the interstellar extinction. An inverse method (Tarantola & Valette, 1982) is used to con- struct the extinction map in the galactic plane below jbj < 10 o . The Av(r; l) diagrams are compared with those derived from individual stars (Arenou et al. 1992, Neckel & Klare 1980). An analytic expression for the interstellar extinction as a function of galactic longitude and distance in the solar neighborhood is given. The comparison of the model predictions with Hippar- cos observations in the 4-dimensional space of (V , B V , Hv, r) shows that our extinction model provides a better fit to the data. However, a new and more detailed extinction model is still lacking.
Combinational Soluble N-Ethylmaleimide-sensitive Factor Attachment Protein Receptor Proteins VAMP8 and Vti1b Mediate Fusion of Antimicrobial and Canonical Autophagosomes with Lysosomes

Autophagy (xenophagy) degrades intracellular bacteria. The cargoes are degraded after the fusion of xenophagosomes with lysosomes. However, the molecular mechanism underlying the fusion remains unclear. Here we show that combinational SNARE proteins VAMP8 and Vti1b mediate fusion of antimicrobial and canonical autophagosomes with lysosomes.
Organization of genes responsible for the production of mannose-resistant fimbriae of a uropathogenic Escherichia coli isolate

A group of insertion mutants was used to define the genes of plasmid pDC5 required for the expression of mannose-resistant fimbriae. Minicell experiments identified four polypeptides (71,000, 45,000, 27,000, and 17,000 daltons) concerned with fimbrial production, the smallest of these being the fimbrial subunit. The approximate location of the structural genes encoding these polypeptides and one possible additional polypeptide not identified in minicell experiments has been established. Complementation experiments in vivo showed that these genes are arranged in more than one operon. The direction of transcription of the fimbrial genes was established by creating beta-galactosidase fusions by using the mini-Mu d1681 kanamycin resistance transposon.