Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Diminazene aceturate: an antibacterial agent for Shiga-toxin-producing Escherichia coli O157:H7

The aim of this study was to investigate the bacteriostatic and bactericidal effects of diminazene aceturate (DA) against five strains of pathogenic bacteria and two strains of nonpathogenic bacteria. The results showed that 5 μg/mL of DA suppressed the growth of pathogenic Escherichia coli by as much as 77% compared with the controls. Enterohemorrhagic E. coli EDL933 (an E. coli O157:H7 strain) was the most sensitive to DA with a minimum inhibitory concentration of 20 μg/mL. Additional investigations showed that DA induced the highest level of intracellular reactive oxygen species in EDL933. A positive correlation between the reactive oxygen species levels and DA concentration was demonstrated. DA (5 μg/mL) was also a potent uncoupler, inducing a stationary phase collapse (70%–75%) in both strains of E. coli O157:H7. Further investigation showed that the collapse was due to the NaCl:DA ratio in the broth and was potassium ion dependent. A protease screening assay was conducted to elucidate the underlying mechanism. It was found that at neutral pH, the hydrolysis of H-Asp-pNA increased by a factor of 2–3 in the presence of DA, implying that DA causes dysregulation of the proton motive force and a decrease in cellular pH. Finally, a commercial verotoxin test showed that DA did not significantly increase toxin production in EDL933 and was a suitable antibacterial agent for Shiga-toxin-producing E. coli.
Intelligent Intrusion Detection System using SVM and Genetic Algorithm ( SVM-GA )

Nowadays, much attention has been paid to intrusion detection system (IDS) which is closely linked to the safe use of network services. Intrusion detection system (IDS) is one of the emerging techniques for information security. Security mechanisms for an information system should be designed to prevent unauthorized access of system resources and data. Many intelligent learning techniques of machine learning are applied to the large volumes of data for the construction of an efficient intrusion detection system (IDS). Several machine-learning paradigms including neural networks, linear genetic programming (LGP), support vector machines (SVM), Bayesian networks, multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS) fuzzy inference systems (FISs), etc. have been investigated for the design of IDS. This paper presents an overview of intrusion detection system and a hybrid technique for intrusion detection based on SVM algorithm and Genetic algorithm. SVM algorithm classifies the dataset into various categories to identify the normal/ attacked packets where as genetic algorithm is used to generate a new data by applying mutation operation on the existing dataset to produce a new dataset. Thus this algorithm classifies KDD99 benchmark intrusion detection dataset to identify different types of attacks with high detection accuracy. The experimental result also shows that the accuracy of detecting attacks is fairly good.
Mobility in Old Age: Capacity Is Not Performance

Background. Outcomes of laboratory-based tests for mobility are often used to infer about older adults' performance in real life; however, it is unclear whether such association exists. We hypothesized that mobility capacity, as measured in the laboratory, and mobility performance, as measured in real life, would be poorly linked. Methods. The sample consisted of 84 older adults (72.5 ± 5.9 years). Capacity was assessed via the iTUG and standard gait parameters (stride length, stride velocity, and cadence). Performance was assessed in real life over a period of 6.95 ± 1.99 days using smartphone technology to calculate following parameters: active and gait time, number of steps, life-space, mean action-range, and maximum action-range. Correlation analyses and stepwise multiple regression analyses were applied. Results. All laboratory measures demonstrated significant associations with the real-life measures (between r = .229 and r = .461). The multiple regression analyses indicated that the laboratory measures accounted for a significant but very low proportion of variance (between 5% and 21%) in real-life measures. Conclusion. In older adults without mobility impairments, capacity-related measures of mobility bear little significance for predicting real-life performance. Hence, other factors play a role in how older people manage their daily-life mobility. This should be considered for diagnosis and treatment of mobility deficits in older people.
Design of an Adaptive Depth Controller for an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle

The paper presents an adaptive controller for diving control of an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV). An application is made to the control of an AUV in the vertical plane. The methodology adopted for controller design is a fuzzy PID method. Certain numerical studies are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of proposed control scheme. From the simulation results, we can see that the proposed scheme has improved the performance of dynamic precision of depth control system.
Screening newborn blood spots for 22q11.2 deletion syndrome using multiplex droplet digital PCR.

BACKGROUND The diagnosis of 22q11 deletion syndrome (22q11DS) is often delayed or missed due to the wide spectrum of clinical involvement ranging from mild to severe, often life-threatening conditions. A delayed diagnosis can lead to life-long health issues that could be ameliorated with early intervention and treatment. Owing to the high impact of 22q11DS on public health, propositions have been made to include 22q11DS in newborn screening panels; however, the method of choice for detecting 22q11DS, fluorescent in situ hybridization, requires specialized equipment and is cumbersome for most laboratories to implement as part of their routine screening. We sought to develop a new genetic screen for 22q11DS that is rapid, cost-effective, and easily used by laboratories currently performing newborn screening. METHODS We evaluated the accuracy of multiplex droplet digital PCR (ddPCR) in the detection of copy number of 22q11DS by screening samples from 26 patients with 22q11DS blindly intermixed with 1096 blood spot cards from the general population (total n = 1122). RESULTS Multiplex ddPCR correctly identified all 22q11DS samples and distinguished between 1.5- and 3-Mb deletions, suggesting the approach is sensitive and specific for the detection of 22q11DS. CONCLUSIONS These data demonstrate the utility of multiplex ddPCR for large-scale population-based studies that screen for 22q11DS. The use of samples from blood spot cards suggests that this approach has promise for newborn screening of 22q11DS, and potentially for other microdeletion syndromes, for which early detection can positively impact clinical outcome for those affected.
Channel Estimation and Interference Cancellation for MIMO-OFDM Systems

This paper proposes a new channel estimation method and a new interference cancellation scheme for multiple-input multiple-output orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (MIMO-OFDM) systems in the presence of intersymbol interference (IS1). The proposed channel estimation method uses special training sequences (TSs) to have a desirable crest-factor of the transmitted training signal, and to prevent the influence of ISI on the channel estimation performance. By using the recommended training sequences, the ill-conditioned problem of the least square (LS) filter integrated in the proposed channel estimator can be avoided. The proposed interference cancellation scheme uses the estimated channel coefficients and the channel state information (CSI) to reproduce the interference components, which are then iteratively cancelled from the received signals. To reduced the error-floor of the demodulated symbols using for the calculations of the interference components, the so-called remodulation technique is also included in the proposed interference cancellation scheme. Simulation results show that the proposed channel estimation method outperforms conventional channel estimation methods, especially in the presence of ISI and if the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is larger than 15 dB. The combination of the proposed method with a space-time block code (STBC) to combat the interference influences results in an excellent system performance in terms of symbol error ratio (SER). In comparison with a STBC MIMO-OFDM system with sufficient guard interval (GI), this combination gains 1.52 dB of SNR at the same SER of 1.1 10 -6 even after performing only one iteration of interference cancellation.
Flux Agents a New Psychographic Categorization of Contemporary Businesspeople

Modern business media follows the changing face of business due to technology and globalization, community, and technology. The workforce is evolving, and polymathic-minded employees are setting the pace. A different employee psychographic, the Flux Agent, has emerged. They are a coterie of those who adapt easily to the changing business landscape and thrive. However, supporting those observations in academic literature is difficult due to the compartmentalized characteristics of scholastic conceptions. In this combined empirical and theoretical study, both strong ties and weak ties and social media were used to acquire diverse people (n=504, ages 18-81, 86% US nationals/14% non-US, all incomes, 56% female/44% male) to answer Likert-scale survey questions in areas measuring multiple academic theories and concepts. Results showed that there is justification for a categorization of Flux Agents based on a typology of statistically significant attributes of Boundaryless Career Attitudes, Intrinsic Motivation, and Growth Mindset. Additionally, when personality traits are tested without other attributes, Extraversion and Openness to New Experiences are significant components. These results supported the proposal that Flux Agents can be psychographically identified by their composite career attitudes towards their life’s work.
An Implementation of the Contract Net Protocol Based on Marginal Cost Calculations

This paper presents a formalization of the bidding and awarding decision process that was left undefined in the original contract net task allocation protocol. This formalization is based on marginal cost calculations based on local agent criteria. In this way, agents having very different local criteria (based on their selfinterest) can interact to distribute tasks so that the network as a whole functions more effectively. In this model, both competitive and cooperative agents can interact. In addition, the contract net protocol is extended to allow for clustering of tasks, to deal with the possibility of a large number of announcement and bid messages and to effectively handle situations, in which new bidding and awarding is being done during the period when the results of previous bids are unknown. The protocol is verified by the TRACONET (TRAnsportation Cooperation' NET) system, where dispatch centers of different companies cooperate automatically in vehicle routing. The implementation is asynchronous and truly distributed, and it provides the agents extensive autonomy. The protocol is discussed in detail and test results with real data are presented.
Effect Of Process Variables On The Mechanical Properties Of Surface Hardened Mild Steel Quenched In Different Media

The effect of process variables on the mechanical properties of surface hardened mild steel quenched in water and brine was investigated. The process variables are treatment temperature and soaking time and the mechanical properties studied are impact strength, Rockwell hardness, ductility and micro-hardness. Pack carburization method of surface hardening was used. Standard tests and analytical methods were used for the research and results obtained showed that impact strength decreased by 82.14% and 96.43% when quenched in water and brine respectively, as compared to the control specimen, the impact strength of which was 84J. Rockwell hardness increased by 15.09% and 23.27% when quenched in water and brine respectively. Micro-hardness also increased by 120.55% and 45%. 5%when quenched in water and brine respectively while ductility decreased significantly from 12.73% to 3%. The process variables investigated affected the mechanical properties as increase in treatment temperature and soaking time increased the surface hardness and decreased the impact strength and ductility of mild steel while micro-hardness and Rockwell hardness increased. Mild steel quenched in water was found to be harder than that quenched in brine.
Labor mismatch in the Great Recession: a review of indexes using recent U.S. data

Labor mismatch, also known as structural imbalance, can be defined as a poor match between the characteristics of unemployed workers and those required for vacant jobs. In the wake of the jobless recovery from the Great Recession, economists have sought to explain the coexistence of a high unemployment rate and increasing job openings as a mismatch phenomenon. This article reviews five studies that have contributed to the development of mismatch indexes and computes the corresponding indexes over the period May 2005–May 2012 using job vacancy data from the Conference Board Help Wanted OnLine® (HWOL) Data Series. For most of the indexes, mismatch increased during the Great Recession, although the indexes exhibit a range of behaviors. According to an index developed in Jackman and Roper (1987), mismatch can account for at most 2.72 percentage points of the 5.30-percentage-point increase in the unemployment rate from the beginning of the recession to the unemployment rate peak.
Working Paper No . 2011 / 44 Aid Effectiveness Opening the Black Box Channing Arndt

Controversy over the aggregate impact of foreign aid has focused on reduced form estimates of the aid-growth link. The causal chain, through which aid affects developmental outcomes including growth, has received much less attention. We address this gap by: (i) specifying a structural model of the main relationships; (ii) estimating the impact of aid on a range of final and intermediate outcomes; and (iii) quantifying a simplied representation of the full structural form, where aid impacts on growth through key intermediate outcomes. A coherent picture emerges: aid stimulates growth and reduces poverty through physical capital investment and improvements in health.
Determining the Existence of Objects in an Image and Its Application to Image Thumbnailing

In recent years, computer vision applications dealing with foreground objects are becoming more important with an increasing demand of advanced intelligent systems. Most of these applications assume that an image contains one or more objects, which often produce undesired results when noticeable objects do not appear in the image. In this letter, we address the problem of ascertaining the existence of objects in an image. In the first step, the input image is partitioned into nonoverlapping local patches, then the patches are categorized into three classes, namely natural, man-made, and object to estimate object candidates. Then a Bayesian methodology is employed to produce more reliable results by eliminating false positives. To boost the object patch detection performance, we exploit the difference between coarse and fine segmentation results. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method, extensive experiments have been conducted on several benchmark image databases. Furthermore, we have shown the usefulness of our approach by applying it to a real application (i.e., image thumbnailing).
BUILDING ROOF RECONSTRUCTION BY FUSING LASER RANGE DATA AND AERIAL IMAGES

The objective of this study is to present an efficient and robust method of building roof reconstruction by fusing laser range data and aerial images through CSR (Construct-Shape-Refine) procedures. The algorithm starts by extracting 3D line features from laser range data by using the semi-automatic 3D line feature extraction engine. After 3D line features are extracted and regarded as input data for the CSR algorithm, then the procedures of building roof reconstruction are performed in the following algorithms of geometric inferences: (1) constructing the topological relationship of 3D line features that belong to the same building roof by using the special intersecting property of 3D line features projected onto plane; (2) shaping the initial building roof by means of adjusting the 3D line features, and compensating missing parts, if any, by the shortest path algorithm and reporting whether or not the investigated building roof is completed; (3) as a final stage, refining the building roof automatically or semi-automatically by integrating 2D line features observed from the images through geometric inference processes. The experiments show that the proposed CSR algorithm provides a workable platform for building roof reconstruction by fusing laser range data and aerial images. * Corresponding author.
Outdoor beam tracing over undulating terrain

Constructing noise maps for large areas is a tedious and CPU intensive task, even if engineering approximations to outdoor sound propagation models are introduced. This paper reports on an effort to optimize beam tracing in order to reduce the number of generated paths between source and observer, while still guaranteeing the required accuracy. Beam tracing is a ray based technique that groups rays into spatial coherent beams. These beams are restricted to the geometry at hand. Due to its nature it is very efficient in highly occluded areas. However, the proposed modifications allow the algorithm to be used efficiently in sparse outdoor scenes with complex undulating terrain as well. The beam tracing algorithm gradually turns into a Monte Carlo ray tracing algorithm while it propagates through the scene. Beams are assigned a chance of survival depending on the distance traveled. To conserve energy the remaining beams are assigned a weight that grows with propagation distance. Statistically the algorithm redistributes energy perfectly but Monte Carlo noise is still visible if no counter measures are taken. Therefore super-sampling is used which suits the beam tracing algorithm well. Another technique that reduces the variance on the noise significantly is to distribute the energy of highly weighted beams to receivers in the neighborhood. Efficient data structures are needed to support these operations. The improved beam tracing algorithm has been implemented and tested in the mountainous region of the Brennerpass (Austria) with good results. The calculation time of the simulation can easily be traded with the variance and resolution of the results. Noise mapping and ray tracing algorithms
Exact Effective Superpotential for SO(N_c) Gauge Theory with $N_f$ Flavors

Motivated by the duality conjecture of Dijkgraaf and Vafa between supersymmetric gauge theories and matrix models, we derive the effective superpotential of N=1 supersymmetric gauge theory with gauge group SO(N_c) and arbitrary tree-level polynomial superpotential of one chiral superfield in the adjoint representation and $N_f$ fundamental matter multiplets.
Zn, Cu, pyruvate kinase and myosin in white muscle of gilthead seabream (Sparus aurata) fed enriched diet

Two groups of young gilthead sea bream were fed two different diets: a control diet containing Zn at 120 mg/kg feed and a supplemented diet containing Zn at 240 mg/kg feed. White portions of lateral muscle were analyzed for Zn and Cu concentrations, myofibrillar composition and pyruvate kinase (PK) activity in order to determine the influence of Zn on these biochemical parameters during the growing period and a subsequent starvation phase. Levels of Zn in liver and muscle were ten times higher than those of Cu. No significant variations in metal concentrations were observed between the two diets. Myofibrillar proteins extracted from the white portion of lateral muscle were mostly constituted by myosin heavy (HC) and light (LC) chains that, as for other fish, had the following order of electrophoretic mobility: LC1F<LC3F<LC2F. Changes in LC2F and LC3F amounts were found during the experimental period. PK activity showed a significant increase at the end of the experiment, when maximal growth rate occurred. The starvation period resulted in a decrease of metal concentration and PK activity. In conclusion, Zn supplementation did not influence significantly metal concentration, protein composition and PK activity of white lateral muscle. It remains therefore a crucial target to determine the amount of Zn to be added to the diet of gilthead sea bream, to obtain both a rapid growth and a good quality of flesh.
Optimal Geographic Routing for Wireless Networks with Near-Arbitrary Holes and Traffic

We consider the problem of throughput-optimal routing over large-scale wireless ad-hoc networks. Gupta and Kumar (2000) showed that a throughput capacity (a uniform rate over all source-destination pairs) of thetas( 1/radicn log n ) is achievable in random planar networks, and the capacity is achieved by straight-line routes. In reality, both the network model and the traffic demands are likely to be highly non-uniform. In this paper, we first propose a randomized forwarding strategy based on geographic routing that achieves near-optimal throughput over random planar networks with an arbitrary number of routing holes (regions devoid of nodes) of varying sizes. Next, we study a random planar network with arbitrary source-destination pairs with arbitrary traffic demands. For such networks, we demonstrate a randomized local load-balancing algorithm that supports any traffic load that is within a poly-logarithmic factor of the throughput region. Our algorithms are based on geographic routing and hence inherit their advantageous properties of low- complexity, robustness and stability.
Simulation of the dynamics of virtual characters' emotions and social relations

One of the main challenges is to give life to believable virtual characters. Research shows that emotions and social relations, closely related, play a key role in determining the behavior of individuals. In order to improve the believ-ability of virtual characters' behavior, we propose in this article a method to compute virtual characters emotions based on attitudes and a model of their influence on the dynamics of social relations. Based on this work, a tool aiming at the simulation of the evolution of emotions and social relations of virtual characters have been implemented.
Energy-efficient M2M routing protocol based on Tiny-SDCWN with 6LoWPAN

In this paper Tiny-SDCWN, a Tiny Software Defined Clustering Wireless Networking solution for wireless networking is proposed. The concept of Tiny-SDCWN proposed has structured and hierarchical management, which provides a solution to some inherent problems in WSN management and in particular, prolongs the network lifetime. The sensor field is divided into quarters with different levels of cluster heads (CHs), these being chosen in a purposeful manner along with two beneficially located Tiny-SDCWN controllers. In addition, the hierarchical structure is a Machine-to-Machine (M2M) energy efficient routing protocol of Multi-Level Clustering with Multiple Sinks (MLCMS), which are hosts to the controllers using IPv6 over Low Power Wireless Personal Area Networks (6LoWPAN). The MLCMS is used to enhance the lifetime of the network through a special network structure, which involves injecting a routing protocol into the controller. The performance of the MLCMS protocol is evaluated with and without using the Tiny-SDCWN controller. This modification performs 27% better than the traditional network in relation to energy usages all the decision are made by the controller and eliminate the broadcasting between the sensor nodes‥ It is contended that the proposed solution, whilst most importantly being effective in terms of energy usage, also introduces flexibility into the management of the network.