Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Finite-time unknown input observer for linear time-delay systems

This paper investigates an unknown input observer design for a large class of linear systems with unknown inputs and commensurate delays. An impulsive finite-time observer is proposed by involving only the past and actual values of the system output. Sufficient conditions are given to guarantee the existence of such an impulsive finite-time observer.
Three-Dimensional Optoelectronic Model for Organic Bulk Heterojunction Solar Cells

This paper describes a 3-D optoelectronic device model for organic bulk heterojunction solar cells. Three-dimensional full-wave optical simulation enables us to incorporate different modern light trapping techniques, such as subwavelength nanostructures, in a typical organic bulk heterojunction solar cell, while 3-D electrical simulation allows us to handle localized enhancement or reduction of polaron/charge generation, recombination, and transport induced by modern light trapping techniques in the device. We calibrate our model with an experimental poly (3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT):phenyl-C60-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) organic bulk heterojunction solar cell by tuning only one free parameter as compared with other device models, which have multiple fitting parameters. A 3-D example of a silver nanoparticle array in a typical P3HT:PCBM organic bulk heterojunction cell is also demonstrated, and the current density-voltage relation is predicted with our model.
A distance measure for video sequence similarity matching

Contrary to current approaches which generally treat the video data as a random collection of static images, content-based video retrieval requires methods for video sequence-to-sequence matching incorporating the temporal order inherent in video data. We formulate the problem of video sequence-to-sequence matching as a pattern matching problem. New string edit operations required for the special characteristics of video sequences and the unique features of the vstring representation are introduced. Based on the edit operations, the vstring edit distance is proposed as a new similarity measure for video sequence matching.
How can China invest in Countries where others are Expropriated ? ∗

Poor rule of law is usually a binding constraint for foreign investment and lending. But recently Chinese firms disproportionally invest overseas in countries with weak institutions. How do they manage this exposure? Our model appeals to China’s buying power as importer and also to its within-country coordination to act like a single agent. These two factors allow China to credibly commit to sizable trade sanctions in case the host country expropriates. Thus, purchasing power is used to sustain other investments, analogous to trade-credit between a small firm and its main buyer. This additional “stick” becomes more important for FDI in non-traded goods, which face weaker enforcement of compensations post expropriation or devaluations. Using data on outward Chinese FDI (2003-2007) we find support for our model. First, China shows revealed comparative advantage as investor in countries with both poor institutions and a large share of exports going to China. In contrast, simply having poor institutions is not a robust predictor of the Chinese share of FDI, suggesting that the interaction with oligopsonistic power plays a role. Second, we find that the effect is concentrated in non-traded goods; giving also less traction to explanations in which multinationals prefer to own the assets producing the exported good (e.g. Antrás, 2003). Third is the intensive margin, with Chinese projects being 50% bigger in size than those of other countries in the same destination. Overall, our results suggest an additional channel in which Chinese growth would expand capital flows to developing nations. JEL classification: F21, F23, F34, F51, G32 , G33.
User determined superdirective beamforming

Superdirective beamforming is a well-known method for enhancement of reverberated speech signals. Nevertheless, it is very susceptible to errors in the sensor array characteristics, thermal noise, and white noise input, resulting in a low level of white noise gain, particularly at low frequencies. It is of great interest to develop a beamformer with superior enhancement of reverberated signals, having a high directivity factor, together with a relatively high white noise gain level. In this paper, a solution which controls both the directivity factor and the white noise gain is examined. We propose a linear weighted combination of two conventional beamformers, the regularized superdirective beamformer and the delay-and-sum beamformer. We analyze the beamformer gain responses, and consequently derive two user-determined frequency-dependent white noise gain and directivity factor beamformers, respectively. Simulation results approve our findings, and show of a robust user-controlled solution, with an effective tradeoff between the performance measures of the beamformer.
Respiratory Syncytial Virus

Respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, is a common illness of the lungs and breathing passages affecting high-risk populations, especially babies born prematurely who are less than 2 years of age. • By age 2, most children have had or been exposed to RSV. • In healthy children, RSV is like a cold. It can be more serious for those in high-risk groups, such as – children more than 4 weeks premature at birth – twins or other multiple births – children younger than 2 years born with lung or heart disease – children who weighed less than 5.5 pounds at birth – school-aged brothers and sisters – children who attend day care – children who live in a crowded home environment – children with a family history of asthma – children who are exposed to tobacco smoke and other air pollutants.
Release and Recovery of Forespores from Bacillus cereus

A method is described which makes possible the release of immature forespores from sporulating cells at specific stages of development, from the completion of stage III through to mature spore formation. With the aid of zonal density gradient centrifugation, the method makes possible the recovery of quantities of forespores ample for biochemical and physical studies. With the capability to examine forespores and some mother cell components independently, we have established that several enzymes associated with the sporulation process are localized in the newly developed forespores. Studies showed that aspartate aminotransferase and alanine aminotransferase are associated with the forespores, whereas l-alanine dehydrogenase is found only in the mother cell cytoplasm.
Concurrent use of generic types in MODULA-2

As presented in [1], the technique requires the use of a var iable in a module, thereby making that module incapable of concurrent use. In [I], the module Gener icTree def ines the generic b inary tree type, and module Tree makes use of the exports of module Gener icTree to def ine a b inary tree with a par t icular element type. Module Tree cannot be used by more than one process at a time because it contains a var iable (Param). The presence of this var iable creates a need for mutual exclusion. When one process, in the course of execut ing a Tree procedure, gives the variable a value, no other process may execute a Tree procedure which changes that value before the f irs t process completes its procedure.
Modeling organizations based on value streams

This paper seeks to present a methodology to assess performance and to provide management decision support. A "management by value streams" model was developed to assess company performance. It was implemented to support decision-making at an industrial company. The idea behind the model is that products or services should continually flow in the organization, as values streams. The model includes a set of metrics to measure the level of achievements versus previous established organization strategic objectives. The approach aims to promote the spirit of continuous improvement and collaboration, breaking the individual and segmented logic of the traditional distribution of work. The model leads to the definition of two integrated performance indicators: the process sustainability index and the organization performance index. These indicators provide an analysis on the level of performance of existing value streams, as well as on the organization, as a whole. This analysis will contribute to identify new improvement opportunities. The paper concludes that the model helps the implementation process of the organization strategy deployment: it works as an invaluable tool to act and to promote communication at the several organization levels.
Lifetime evaluation of high energy density capacitor based experimental investigations

The high energy density capacitors (HEDC) made of metallized polypropylene film possess characteristics of high reliability and is widely used in the pulsed power systems. In order to achieve a long life characteristic, the HEDC should be designed to age gracefully with a predictable lifetime. Thus there is an urgent demand in evaluating and predicting the lifetime of the HEDC. Lifetime evaluation of HEDC prototype in design is carried out by lifetime test of the HEDC element under relatively high electric field to reduce costs and shorten time. But experimental data show that the lifetime of HED prototype is far shorter than that of the element even under the same conditions. This paper firstly analyzes the different operational factors influencing lifetime performance based on Weibull distribution, such as the voltage, temperatures and so on. Empirically derived functions of lifetime scaling about operational factors are presented. Then lifetime relationship between the HEDC element and prototype is investigated by reliability analysis. At last, the lifetime prediction model is established with the consideration of operational factors and reliability.
Interactions between price and price deal

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to examine the interactive effect of price and price deal. Specifically, it desires to measure how consumers' behavioral intentions toward the brand are affected for a high‐priced brand and a low‐priced brand when a price deal is offered.Design/methodology/approach – A two (price level: high versus low; between) by two (price deal: absent versus 40 percent off; between) experimental design was used. Study 1 tested the hypotheses for two existing brands, whereas Study 2 did so for a fictitious brand.Findings – The analysis confirmed a strong interactive effect between price and price deal: price deals do not have a uniform effect across brands but a different effect depending on the price level of the brand. Specifically, for a high‐priced brand, a negative effect of price deals on behavioral intentions (brand equity, brand loyalty, and purchase intention) was found. On the contrary, for a low‐priced brand, a positive effect of price deals on each of the same behavior.
Efficient Neighbor-Finding on Space-Filling Curves

Space-filling curves (SFC, also known as FASS-curves) are a useful tool in scientific computing and other areas of computer science to sequentialize multidimensional grids in a cache-efficient and parallelization-friendly way for storage in an array. Many algorithms, for example grid-based numerical PDE solvers, have to access all neighbor cells of each grid cell during a grid traversal. While the array indices of neighbors can be stored in a cell, they still have to be computed for initialization or when the grid is adaptively refined. A fast neighbor-finding algorithm can thus significantly improve the runtime of computations on multidimensional grids. In this thesis, we show how neighbors on many regular grids ordered by space-filling curves can be found in an average-case time complexity of $O(1)$. In general, this assumes that the local orientation (i.e. a variable of a describing grammar) of the SFC inside the grid cell is known in advance, which can be efficiently realized during traversals. Supported SFCs include Hilbert, Peano and Sierpinski curves in arbitrary dimensions. We assume that integer arithmetic operations can be performed in $O(1)$, i.e. independent of the size of the integer. We do not deal with the case of adaptively refined grids here. However, it appears that a generalization of the algorithm to suitable adaptive grids is possible. To formulate the neighbor-finding algorithm and prove its correctness and runtime properties, a modeling framework is introduced. This framework extends the idea of vertex-labeling to a description using grammars and matrices. With the sfcpp library, we provide a C++ implementation to render SFCs generated by such models and automatically compute all lookup tables needed for the neighbor-finding algorithm. Furthermore, optimized neighbor-finding implementations for various SFCs are included for which we provide runtime measurements.
Age-Related Differences in the Accuracy of Web Query-Based Predictions of Influenza-Like Illness

Background Web queries are now widely used for modeling, nowcasting and forecasting influenza-like illness (ILI). However, given that ILI attack rates vary significantly across ages, in terms of both magnitude and timing, little is known about whether the association between ILI morbidity and ILI-related queries is comparable across different age-groups. The present study aimed to investigate features of the association between ILI morbidity and ILI-related query volume from the perspective of age. Methods Since Google Flu Trends is unavailable in Italy, Google Trends was used to identify entry terms that correlated highly with official ILI surveillance data. All-age and age-class-specific modeling was performed by means of linear models with generalized least-square estimation. Hold-out validation was used to quantify prediction accuracy. For purposes of comparison, predictions generated by exponential smoothing were computed. Results Five search terms showed high correlation coefficients of > . 6. In comparison with exponential smoothing, the all-age query-based model correctly predicted the peak time and yielded a higher correlation coefficient with observed ILI morbidity (.978 vs. .929). However, query-based prediction of ILI morbidity was associated with a greater error. Age-class-specific query-based models varied significantly in terms of prediction accuracy. In the 0–4 and 25–44-year age-groups, these did well and outperformed exponential smoothing predictions; in the 15–24 and ≥ 65-year age-classes, however, the query-based models were inaccurate and highly overestimated peak height. In all but one age-class, peak timing predicted by the query-based models coincided with observed timing. Conclusions The accuracy of web query-based models in predicting ILI morbidity rates could differ among ages. Greater age-specific detail may be useful in flu query-based studies in order to account for age-specific features of the epidemiology of ILI.
Novel magnetic cross-linked lipase aggregates for improving the resolution of (R, S)-2-octanol.

Novel magnetic cross-linked lipase aggregates were fabricated by immobilizing the cross-linked lipase aggregates onto magnetic particles with a high number of -NH2 terminal groups using p-benzoquinone as the cross-linking agent. At the optimal fabrication conditions, 100% of immobilization efficiency and 139% of activity recovery of the magnetic cross-linked lipase aggregates were achieved. The magnetic cross-linked lipase aggregates were able to efficiently resolve (R, S)-2-octanol, and retained 100% activity and 100% enantioselectivity after 10 cycles of reuse, whereas the cross-linked lipase aggregates only retained about 50% activity and 70% enantioselectivity due to insufficient cross-linking. These results provide a great potential for industrial applications of the magnetic cross-linked lipase aggregates.
Clustering Directions Based on the Estimation of a Mixture of Von Mises-Fisher Distributions

Background : In the statistical analysis of directional data, the von Mises-Fisher distribution plays an important role to model unit vectors. The estimation of the parameters of a mixture of von Mises-Fisher distributions can be done through the Estimation-Maximization algorithm. Objective : In this paper we propose a dynamic clusters type algorithm based on the estimation of the parameters of a mixture of von Mises-Fisher distributions for clustering directions, and we compare this algorithm with the Estimation-Maximization algorithm. We also define the between-groups and within-groups variability measures to compare the solutions obtained with the algorithms through these measures. Results : The comparison of the clusters obtained with both algorithms is provided for a simulation study based on samples generated from a mixture of two Fisher distributions and for an illustrative example with spherical data.
COLONIZATION, DISPERSAL, AND HYBRIDIZATION INFLUENCE PHYLOGEOGRAPHY O NORTH ATLANTIC SEA URCHINS (STRONGYLOCHNTROTUS DROEBACHIENSIS)

Abstract We used frequency‐based and coalescent‐based phylogeographic analysis of sea urchin (Strongylocentrotus droebachiensis) mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequences and previously published microsatellite data to understand the relative influence of colonization and gene flow from older (north Pacific) and younger (northeast Atlantic) sea urchin populations on genetic variation in the northwest Atlantic. We found strong evidence of survival of northwestern Atlantic populations in local Pleistocene glacial refugia: most haplotypes were the same as or closely related to Pacific haplotypes, with deep gene genealogies that reflect divergence times within the northwestern Atlantic that are much older than the last glacial maximum. We detected gene flow across the North Atlantic in the form of haplotypes shared with or recently descended from European populations. We also found evidence of significant introgression of haplotypes from a closely related species (S. pallidus). The relative magnitude of gene flow estimated by coalescent methods (and the effective population size differences among oceanic regions) depended on the genetic marker used. In general, we found very small effective population size in the northeastern Atlantic and high trans‐Arctic gene flow between the Pacific and northwestern Atlantic. Both analyses suggested significant back‐migration to the Pacific. However, microsatellites more strongly reflected older Pacific migration (with similar effective population sizes across the Arctic), whereas mtDNA sequences appeared to be more sensitive to recent trans‐ Atlantic dispersal (with larger differences in effective population size). These differences across marker types might have several biological or methodological causes, and they suggest caution in interpretation of the results from a single locus or class of markers.
SelexGLM differentiates androgen and glucocorticoid receptor DNA-binding preference over an extended binding site

The DNA-binding interfaces of the androgen (AR) and glucocorticoid (GR) receptors are virtually identical, yet these transcription factors share only about a third of their genomic binding sites and regulate similarly distinct sets of target genes. To address this paradox, we determined the intrinsic specificities of the AR and GR DNA binding domains using a refined version of SELEX-seq. We developed an algorithm, SelexGLM, that quantifies binding specificity over a large (31 bp) binding-site by iteratively fitting a feature-based generalized linear model to SELEX probe counts. This analysis revealed that the DNA binding preferences of AR and GR homodimers differ significantly, both within and outside the 15bp core binding site. The relative preference between the two factors can be tuned over a wide range by changing the DNA sequence, with AR more sensitive to sequence changes than GR. The specificity of AR extends to the regions flanking the core 15bp site, where isothermal calorimetry measurements reveal that affinity is augmented by enthalpy-driven readout of poly-A sequences associated with narrowed minor groove width. We conclude that the increased specificity of AR is correlated with more enthalpy-driven binding than GR. The binding models help explain differences in AR and GR genomic binding, and provide a biophysical rationale for how promiscuous binding by GR allows functional substitution for AR in some castration-resistant prostate cancers.
A Single Regulatory Module of the Carbamoylphosphate Synthetase I Gene Executes Its Hepatic Program of Expression*

A 469-base pair (bp) upstream regulatory fragment (URF) and the proximal promoter of the carbamoylphosphate synthetase I (CPS) gene were analyzed for their role in the regulation of spatial, developmental, and hormone-induced expression in vivo. The URF is essential and sufficient for hepatocyte-specific expression, periportal localization, perinatal activation and induction by glucocorticoids, and cAMP in transgenic mice. Before birth, the transgene is silent but can be induced by cAMP and glucocorticoids, indicating that these compounds are responsible for the activation of expression at birth. A 102-bp glucocorticoid response unit within the URF, containing binding sites for HNF3, C/EBP, and the glucocorticoid receptor, is the main determinant of the hepatocyte-specific and hormone-controlled activity. Additional sequences are required for a productive interaction between this minimal response unit and the core CPS promoter. These results show that the 469-bp URF, and probably only the 102-bp glucocorticoid response unit, functions as a regulatory module, in that it autonomously executes a correct spatial, developmental and hormonal program of CPS expression in the liver.
Model-Free Robust Adaptive Control of Humanoid Robots With Flexible Joints

A model-free robust adaptive controller is proposed for control of humanoid robots with flexible joints. The proposed controller uses a time-delay estimation technique to estimate and cancel nonlinear terms in robot dynamics including disturbance torques due to the joint flexibility, and assigns desired dynamics specified by a sliding variable. A gain-adaptation law is developed to dynamically update the gain of the proposed controller using the magnitude of the sliding variable and the gain itself. The gain-adaptation law uses a leakage term to prevent overestimation of the gain value, and offers stable and chattering-free control action. The effectiveness of the proposed adaptive controller is experimentally verified on a humanoid robot equipped with flexible joints. Tracking performances of the autotuned adaptive gain are better than those of the manually tuned constant gains. The proposed control algorithm is model-free, adaptive, robust, and highly accurate.