Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Superfaults and Pseudotachylytes: Evidence of Catastrophic Earth Movements

Superfaults often exhibit an unusual rock called pseudotachylyte, and together these two features are critical to our understanding of catastrophic tectonics. Superfaults are rapid-moving, singleslip displacement surfaces involving very large offsets with the moving-block side of the fault being unconfined or unpinned during rapid gravity offset. Pseudotachylyte is the dark-colored, metamorphic silicate glass formed by frictional melting upon the superfault surface at temperature exceeding 1000 C, and often displaying distinctive isotropic or cryptocrystalline optical properties. Pseudotachylyte is understood to be evidence of high-speed rock movement during superquakes, where displacements occurred much faster than during modern magnitude 9 earthquakes. Superfaults, pseudotachylyte and superquakes are interpreted as support for global catastrophic tectonic activity. Hand specimens and field data were collected from Homestake Shear Zone in central Colorado, and from the Pasagshak Thrust, Kodiak Island, Alaska. Thinsection analysis shows the presence of glass melt and/or aphanitic black rocks containing pseudotachylyte, and the development of numerous pressure solution surfaces within cataclasite rocks. Cross-cutting relationships support repeated episodes of fault movement and subsequent melt development at both sites. Data gathered from the Homestake Shear Zone supports rapid catastrophic Earth movements during the formation of the North American continent on Day 3 of the Creation Week. Evidence from the Pasagshak Thrust supports the subduction model of catastrophic plate tectonics, with the fault being active during and after Noah’s Flood. Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Creationism. Pittsburgh, PA: Creation Science Fellowship
Mapping of Schistosomiasis and Soil-Transmitted Helminths in Namibia: The First Large-Scale Protocol to Formally Include Rapid Diagnostic Tests

Background Namibia is now ready to begin mass drug administration of praziquantel and albendazole against schistosomiasis and soil-transmitted helminths, respectively. Although historical data identifies areas of transmission of these neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), there is a need to update epidemiological data. For this reason, Namibia adopted a new protocol for mapping of schistosomiasis and geohelminths, formally integrating rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) for infections and morbidity. In this article, we explain the protocol in detail, and introduce the concept of ‘mapping resolution’, as well as present results and treatment recommendations for northern Namibia. Methods/Findings/Interpretation This new protocol allowed a large sample to be surveyed (N = 17 896 children from 299 schools) at relatively low cost (7 USD per person mapped) and very quickly (28 working days). All children were analysed by RDTs, but only a sub-sample was also diagnosed by light microscopy. Overall prevalence of schistosomiasis in the surveyed areas was 9.0%, highly associated with poorer access to potable water (OR = 1.5, P<0.001) and defective (OR = 1.2, P<0.001) or absent sanitation infrastructure (OR = 2.0, P<0.001). Overall prevalence of geohelminths, more particularly hookworm infection, was 12.2%, highly associated with presence of faecal occult blood (OR = 1.9, P<0.001). Prevalence maps were produced and hot spots identified to better guide the national programme in drug administration, as well as targeted improvements in water, sanitation and hygiene. The RDTs employed (circulating cathodic antigen and microhaematuria for Schistosoma mansoni and S. haematobium, respectively) performed well, with sensitivities above 80% and specificities above 95%. Conclusion/Significance This protocol is cost-effective and sensitive to budget limitations and the potential economic and logistical strains placed on the national Ministries of Health. Here we present a high resolution map of disease prevalence levels, and treatment regimens are recommended.
Maximum delivery time and hot spots in ServerNet/sup TM/ topologies

This paper centers on analysis of the performance characteristics of ServerNet topologies, concentrating on the prediction through simulation and statistical analysis of the maximum two-way delivery time, the identification of congested links (hot spots) and tree saturation. ServerNet/sup TM/, developed by Tandem Computers Inc., is a wormhole-routed, packet-switched, point-to-point network, with special attention paid to reducing latency and to assuring reliability. ServerNet uses multiple high-speed, low-cost routers to rapidly switch data directly between data sources and destinations. Our study is based on data generated by a simulation tool. Statistical analysis and inference methods were used to process the samples generated by the simulator and to obtain estimates for the maximum two-way packet delivery time. Link usage statistics were recorded by the simulator for the purpose of performing a detailed investigation of congestion effects and hot spots. Hot spots may cause the occurrence of tree saturation in the network i.e., where an individual tree will become congested (tree saturation) while all other trees are mostly idle, which leads to significant performance degradation.
Intensity Measures of Consumer Preference

What is provided is an apparatus designated as a thermo-roto mixer which would provide a blood specimen mixer portion, comprising a plurality of test tube cradles for housing the test tubes containing blood, so that in the closed position, the test tubes are housed within the cradles within the mixing portion at a desired temperature. The mixing portion is fastened to a shaft supporting the test tube holder assembly, the shafts maintaining the assembly in an overall main frame. The assembly is rotated by the use of a motor pulley assembly, to impart general rotation on the test tube holder assembly.
Robust adaptive beamforming algorithm under nonlinear constraint

When the array steering vector is precisely known, adaptive beamforming is known to have resolution and interference rejection capability. However, the performance of adaptive beamforming techniques may degrade severely in the presence of mismatches between the assumed array response and the true array response. Similar types of degradation can occur when the signal array response is known exactly, but the training sample size is small. In this paper, we propose a novel robust adaptive beamforming algorithm, which is based on explicit modeling of uncertainties in the desired signal array response and data covariance matrix. The proposed algorithm belongs to the class of diagonal loading approaches, but the diagonal loading term can be precisely calculated, which is incorporated at each step. To decrease computation complexity, the weight vector based on the variable diagonal loading is obtained by Taylor series. The proposed algorithm has nearly optimal performance under good conditions, provides the robustness against the signal steering vector mismatches and the small training sample size, and makes the mean output array SINR consistently close to the optimal one. Simulation results validate substantial performance improvements relative to other adaptive beamforming methods.
Statistical Language Modeling Using Grammatical Information

We propose to investigate the use of grammatical information to build improved statistical language models. Until recently, language models were primarily innuenced by local lexical constraints. Today, language models often utilize longer range lexical information to aid in their predictions. All of these language models ignore grammatical considerations other than those induced by the statistics of lexical constraints. We believe that properly incorporating additional grammatical structure will achieve improved language models. We will use link grammar as our grammatical base. Being highly lexical in nature, the link grammar formalism will allow us to integrate more traditional modeling schemes with grammatical ones. An eecient robust link grammar parser will assist in this undertaking. We will initially build nite state-based language models that will utilize relatively simple grammatical information, such as part-of-speech data, along with information sources used by other language models. Our models feature a new framework for probabilistic automata that makes use of hidden data to construct context-sensitive probabilities. The maximum entropy principle employed by these Gibbs-Markov models facilitates the easy integration of multiple information sources. We will also build language models that take greater advantage of link grammar by including more sophisticated grammatical considerations. These models will include both probabilistic automata as well as models more closely related to the link grammar formalism. Expected contributions of this work will be to demonstrate that grammatical information can be used to construct language models with low perplexity, and that such models can be used to reduce the error rates of speech recognition systems.
Enacted Software Development Process based on Cross Platform Unified Framework in the Context of Investment Banking

The demand for the rich web based solution changed the way the application were developed in the investment banking industry specifically for sales and trading (front office activities). Traditionally, simple web application were considered to be enough powerful to provide the user with all the capabilities. Later on developer started implementing mashup technology in order to cater to IBs ever increasing demands, which actually is a technique for building applications that combine data from multiple sources to create an integrated experience. This paper extends the concept of enterprise mashups to provide a new framework called cross platform unified framework (CPUF ) which is a cross-technology and delivery platform framework, services, patterns and practices aimed at changing the way IB industry projects are design and delivered to business users. This paper not only explains the various core components of the framework it also highlights the important benefits of the CPUF. It aimed at understanding the user needs from their technical interface(s), identify the systems that can provide these features, provide a technology agnostic framework that can stitch this information together without moving data or processes out of the existing system.
Qualitative Spatial Reasoning for Navigating Agents - Behavior Formalization with Qualitative Representations

In this chapter we show how qualitative representations can be applied for the formalization of agent behavior. First, we give an introduction to several aspects of space relevant for agent motion and agent control, especially orientation, location, and distance. Based on these preliminaries we explain which characteristics a qualitative spatial representation and its operations, called qualitative calculus, should have so that the knowledge can be manipulated in an adequate manner. Afterwards, we present the two main categories of reasoning with qualitative calculi: constraint-based reasoning and neighborhood-based reasoning, actionaugmented neighborhood respectively. Exemplary, we sketch how this structure can be utilized for representing agent behavior. Additionally, we apply the approaches to agent control in the context of right-of-way rules in sea navigation.
Density expansion for the mobility in a quantum Lorentz model.

We consider the mobility of electrons in an environment of static hard-sphere scatterers, which provides a realistic description of electrons in helium gas. A systematic expansion in the scatterer density is carried to second order relative to the Boltzmann result, and the analytic contribution at this order is derived, together with the known logarithmic term in the density expansion. It is shown that existing experimental data are consistent with the existence of the logarithmic term in the density expansion, but more precise experiments are needed in order to unambiguously detect it. We show that our calculations provide the necessary theoretical information for such an experiment, and give a detailed discussion of a suitable parameter range.
Journal of Information Technology Management Management of Requirement Volatility -a Study of Organizational Competency and How It Is Influenced by the Project Environment

Requirement volatility during software project development is known to be the most critical risk, and managing this is paramount to success in software project. The research described in this paper is based on a combination of interviews and a survey in two phases and aims to investigate the organizational practices in dealing with this risk, and how it is influenced by the adopted project execution strategy with regard to process model selection decisions. The results indicate study participants' heightened perception of the risk of requirement volatility. Thirteen different approaches to managing projects under volatility could be identified, of which the practice of involving the business side was the most frequent. Differences could be observed in the usage of these approaches depending upon the project and process characteristics. The current scenario regarding adoption of different frameworks and tools for managing changing requirements has also been pointed out. The study results are expected to assist project managers in their choices related to project administration under requirement volatility.
Multiuser MIMO transceiver strategy for TDD Uplink and downlink in time-varying channel

Block diagonalization (BD) is a downlink multiuser multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) strategy that utilizes transmitter channel state information (CSI). This paper proposes a practical uplink MIMO scheme for time division duplex (TDD) systems to co-exist with BD, so that the CSI of the BD channels is used also in the uplink transmission. It is shown that the precoded pilot symbols are sufficient in both uplink and downlink to satisfy the needs of both transmission and reception. The capacity of the system is analyzed in conjunction with linear receivers in a time-varying fading channel. According to the results the proposed uplink strategy provides capacity gain over non-precoded transmission, without being sensitive to Doppler.
Analysing the nature of relationships between organisations and their stakeholders: a stakeholder and organisational enablers relationships (SOER) framework

Little is known about how employees in New Zealand companies view their organisation’s involvement in community-based initiatives that attempt to address areas of social needs. Understanding what people and organisations think from their frame of reference (Taylor & Bodgan, 1998) on ways of contributing to enhance community wellbeing is of high importance within a nation growing in diversity, and where everyone needs to fully participate in building a harmonious society (Ministry of Social Development, 2005; Swanson, 2002). Despite abundant extant research and many models already developed, frameworks in this area are fragmented. A case study approach has been adopted using one New Zealand Company to test a preliminary framework, Stakeholders and Organisational Enablers Relationship (SOER) Model, that analyses “the nature of relationships in terms of processes and outcomes for the business and its stakeholders” (Jones & Wicks, 1999, p. 207). From investigating the company’s community involvement from the employees’ perspective, results indicate that this particular company is engaging with the community, supporting and empowering employees to participate in the company’s community programme and thereby making a difference in the community by giving to the community. However, in general terms, solving recurring social, economic, political and psychological issues that influence social wellbeing requires cooperation between public, private, and voluntary sectors of the community (New Zealand Ministry of Economic Development, New Zealand Ministry of Social Development, New Zealand Dept of Labour, & New Zealand Dept of Statistics, 2003; Roberts & King, 1989; Steane, 1999). While the results from the case company reported in this study demonstrate that community engagement is being taken seriously by exemplary private sector companies, generalisation of these findings would require further cross-sectional research across industries and organisations from all sectors: private, public and voluntary.
Using a Line of Code Metric to Understand Software Rework

A simple method measuring new effective lines of code showed that between 19 and 40 percent of code written on three projects wasn't in the final release. Generally, productivity is a function of input effort and output size. A strong understanding of software productivity, coupled with a good estimate of software size, is key to predicting project effort and, ultimately, producing reliable project duration estimates, schedules, and resource needs. Project managers and engineers often measure or predict the size of released software-the volume of software in the marketed product. However, the final release doesn't include reworked code-code that was changed or deleted during development.
Potential External Contamination with Bisphenol A and Other Ubiquitous Organic Environmental Chemicals during Biomonitoring Analysis: An Elusive Laboratory Challenge

Background: Biomonitoring studies are conducted to assess internal dose (i.e., body burden) to environmental chemicals. However, because of the ubiquitous presence in the environment of some of these chemicals, such as bisphenol A (BPA), external contamination during handling and analysis of the biospecimens collected for biomonitoring evaluations could compromise the reported concentrations of such chemicals. Objectives: We examined the contamination with the target analytes during analysis of biological specimens in biomonitoring laboratories equipped with state-of-the-art analytical instrumentation. Discussions: We present several case studies using the quantitative determination of BPA and other organic chemicals (i.e., benzophenone-3, triclosan, parabens) in human urine, milk, and serum to identify potential contamination sources when the biomarkers measured are ubiquitous environmental contaminants. Conclusions: Contamination with target analytes during biomonitoring analysis could result from solvents and reagents, the experimental apparatus used, the laboratory environment, and/or even the analyst. For biomonotoring data to be valid—even when obtained from high-quality analytical methods and good laboratory practices—the following practices must be followed to identify and track unintended contamination with the target analytes during analysis of the biological specimens: strict quality control measures including use of laboratory blanks; replicate analyses; engineering controls (e.g., clean rooms, biosafety cabinets) as needed; and homogeneous matrix-based quality control materials within the expected concentration ranges of the study samples.
Automated NMR Fragment Based Screening Identified a Novel Interface Blocker to the LARG/RhoA Complex

The small GTPase cycles between the inactive GDP form and the activated GTP form, catalyzed by the upstream guanine exchange factors. The modulation of such process by small molecules has been proven to be a fruitful route for therapeutic intervention to prevent the over-activation of the small GTPase. The fragment based approach emerging in the past decade has demonstrated its paramount potential in the discovery of inhibitors targeting such novel and challenging protein-protein interactions. The details regarding the procedure of NMR fragment screening from scratch have been rarely disclosed comprehensively, thus restricts its wider applications. To achieve a consistent screening applicable to a number of targets, we developed a highly automated protocol to cover every aspect of NMR fragment screening as possible, including the construction of small but diverse libray, determination of the aqueous solubility by NMR, grouping compounds with mutual dispersity to a cocktail, and the automated processing and visualization of the ligand based screening spectra. We exemplified our streamlined screening in RhoA alone and the complex of the small GTPase RhoA and its upstream guanine exchange factor LARG. Two hits were confirmed from the primary screening in cocktail and secondary screening over individual hits for LARG/RhoA complex, while one of them was also identified from the screening for RhoA alone. HSQC titration of the two hits over RhoA and LARG alone, respectively, identified one compound binding to RhoA.GDP at a 0.11 mM affinity, and perturbed the residues at the switch II region of RhoA. This hit blocked the formation of the LARG/RhoA complex, validated by the native gel electrophoresis, and the titration of RhoA to 15N labeled LARG in the absence and presence the compound, respectively. It therefore provides us a starting point toward a more potent inhibitor to RhoA activation catalyzed by LARG.
Kangaroos, cities and space: a first approach to the Australian urban system

Australia shapes a unique urban system. This paper examines the Australian urban system using data for urban centers and localities in 1996 and 2001. A summary and a basic descriptive analysis of the database are provided, followed by an examination of whether the system follows Zipf’s and Gibrat’s laws. None of them are found to hold. An Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis (ESDA) as well as a confirmatory analysis are carried out by using some of the most recent developments in spatial econometrics (Heteroskedastic Consistent GM Estimation) to analyze the spatial dimension of city size and growth, finding no influence for the former but a significant one for the latter.
Electromyography as a Recording System for Eyeblink Conditioning with Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging

This study was designed to develop a suitable method of recording eyeblink responses while conducting functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Given the complexity of this behavioral setup outside of the magnet, this study sought to adapt and further optimize an approach to eyeblink conditioning that would be suitable for conducting event-related fMRI experiments. This method involved the acquisition of electromyographic (EMG) signals from the orbicularis oculi of the right eye, which were subsequently amplified and converted into an optical signal outside of the head coil. This optical signal was converted back into an electrical signal once outside the magnet room. Electromyography (EMG)-detected eyeblinks were used to measure responses in a delay eyeblink conditioning paradigm. Our results indicate that: (1) electromyography is a sensitive method for the detection of eyeblinks during fMRI; (2) minimal interactions or artifacts of the EMG signal were created from the magnetic resonance pulse sequence; and (3) no electromyography-related artifacts were detected in the magnetic resonance images. Furthermore, an analysis of the functional data showed areas of activation that have previously been shown in positron emission tomography studies of human eyeblink conditioning. Our results support the strength of this behavioral setup as a suitable method to be used in association with fMRI.
Wavelet speech enhancement based on voiced/unvoiced decision

A wavelet-based speech enhancement algorithm for removing additive background noise from a single channel of noisy speech is proposed. In the algorithm, the enhancement is performed on a frame-by-frame basis, and each frame is classified into either voiced or unvoiced frame to deterimine the appropriate threshold in removing noise. The performance of the proposed algorithm is evaluated on Aurora 2 database, which consists of noisy English connected digits, and it was deterimined to be better than that of traditional wavelet based methods.