Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A fluid–structure interaction-based numerical investigation on the evolution of stress, strength and rupture potential of an abdominal aortic aneurysm

An abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) is an irreversible dilation of the abdominal artery. Once an aneurysm is detected by doctors, clinical intervention is usually recommended. The interventions involve traditional open surgery repair and endovascular aneurysm repair with a stent graft. Both types of prophylactic procedures are expensive and not without any risk to the patient. It is very difficult to balance the risk of aneurysm repair and the chance of rupture. The reason lies in that the changing trend of characteristic physical quantities with the evolution of AAA and the mechanisms that give rise to it are still not completely clear. In this study, computational 3D patient-specific model for investigating AAA development was established based on computed tomography (CT) images. Results showed that as the aneurysm evolved, peak wall stress and time-averaged wall shear stress distribution patterns changed. The expansion of AAA wall resulted in the increment of peak stress. The AAA wall compliance not only showed different magnitudes at different cross-sections of the aneurismal body, but also changed with the development of the aneurysm. Furthermore, minimum wall strength and rupture potential index during the three stages of AAA evolution were also investigated in detail. This study might provide valuable information on how to further explore the mechanical basis and the rupture potential during AAA evolution, and that it may assist clinical diagnostic procedures and avoid the potential risk of unnecessary surgical intervention.
Modelling the Effectiveness and Profitability of Trade Promotions

Trade promotions have become an increasingly important element of the marketing mix. Yet, there is very little research describing how to measure the profitability and effectiveness of trade promotions. This paper describes how retailers behave when trade promotions are offered. Then, a model is developed to capture the two key components of the process: the consumer and the retailer. An example is given showing how to apply the model to actual manufacturer and retail sales data. Then estimates of the profitability for different items in a product category are calculated. Many research questions are raised in this paper which can serve as future directions for research. Why are trade promotions generally unprofitable? How can scanner data improve the estimates given? How do different types of trade promotions affect the retailer and ultimately the consumer? Which brands and items should be trade promoted?
EatAR tango: portion estimation on mobile devices with a depth sensor

The accurate assessment of nutrition information is a challenging task, but crucial for people with certain diseases, such as diabetes. An important part of the assessment of nutrition information is portion estimation, i.e. volume estimation. Given the volume and the food type, the nutrition information can be computed on the basis of the food type specific nutrition density. Recently mobile devices with depth sensors have been made available for the public (Google's project tango platform). In this work, an app for mobile devices with a depth sensor is presented which assists users in portion estimation. Furthermore, we present the design of a user study for the app and preliminary results.
Patterns of Restructuring in US Class I Railroads: 1984-2004

After deregulation, the most striking restructuring measure adopted by US rail- roads was dramatic labor downsizing: employment was reduced by 60%. But little is known about its actual eects. There was also widespread rail lines abandonment. Both measures form part of the defensive restructuring story: their primary goal is the immediate survival of the enterprise through reduction of costs and scaling down. They contrast with strategic restructuring, which implies the introduction of new product lines and processes, new technologies and investments. This paper analyzes the role of defensive and strategic restructuring as determinants of rail- roads …nancial performance.We …nd that when not controlling for the interaction of both restructuring types, the only signi…cant and positive eect on performance is for line abandonments. Labor downsizing per se does not yield performance ben- e…ts. However, taking into account interaction gives a much clearer picture: labor downsizing has a positive impact on performance when accompanied by particular changes in output mix. Also, the positive impact of line abandonment is larger when combined with these output mix changes. Occupational restructuring also enhanced performance. Our results support the view that defensive restructuring has a larger positive impact on performance when combined with strategic restructuring.
Newsvendor pricing and assortment under Poisson decomposition

This article studies the structure of and the interdependence among the critical decisions on pricing, inventory, and assortment of a retailer’s product line. It considers substitutable retail products that are horizontally differentiated variants under a logit consumer choice model, within a newsvendor-type supply setting and homogeneous pricing. The focus of this article is on analyzing joint pricing and inventory decisions for a given assortment, within a natural Poisson decomposition setting, under a “multiplicative–additive” demand model, where both variance and coefficient of variation of the demand depend on the price. For this problem, a Taylor series-based approximation is developed for the inventory cost and its accuracy is subsequently demonstrated. It is then shown that, under this approximation, the expected profit is unimodal in the price, and sufficient conditions are provided for the “risky” price, at optimal inventory, to be above (or below) the “riskless” price, pertaining to a make-to-order system. It is also shown that inventory considerations alter the behavior of the risky price in demand and cost parameters. Furthermore, joint assortment and inventory decisions under exogenous pricing are considered, and the unimodularity of the expected profit in the assortment size is proven. Also, a comparative statics analysis is performed and insights are presented.
Modeling Low Climate Stabilization with E3MG:1 Towards a ‘New Economics’ Approach to Simulating Energy-Environment-Economy System Dynamics

The literature on climate stabilization modeling largely refers to either energy-system or inter-temporal computable general equilibrium/optimal growth models. We contribute with a different perspective by deploying a large-scale macro-econometric hybrid simulation model of the global energy-environment-economy (E3MG) adopting a “New Economics” approach. We use E3MG to assess the implications of a low-stabilization target of 400ppm CO2 equivalent by 2100, assuming both fiscal instruments and regulation. We assert that if governments adopt more stringent climate targets for rapid and early decarbonization, such actions are likely to induce more investment and increased technological change in favor of low-carbon alternatives. Contrary to the conventional view on the economics of climate change, a transition towards a low-carbon society as modeled with E3MG leads to macroeconomic benefits, especially in conditions of unemployment, with GDP slightly above a reference scenario, depending on use of tax or auction revenues. In addition, more stringent action can lead to higher benefits.
Media, Policy and Interaction

Situated within the field of discourse-oriented approaches to policy and media, this collection explores the interface between government, media and the public, highlighting the increasing importance placed on media channelled 'public opinion' as part of a democratic process. It will appeal to a broad audience in social and public policy, political communication, journalism and politics.
Antibacterial properties of a silver chloride-coated nylon wound dressing.

OBJECTIVE A silver chloride-coated nylon wound dressing (Ag-WD) was evaluated in vitro for antimicrobial activity against five common equine wound pathogens. STUDY DESIGN Bacterial susceptibility study. SAMPLE POPULATION Equine wound pathogens: Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Streptococcus equi subspecies zooepidemicus, and Staphylococcus aureus. METHODS An inoculum of each pathogen was incubated directly with Ag-WD and quantitated after 24 to 48 hours of incubation. To determine if bactericidal activity of Ag-WD was contact dependent, an inoculum of E. coli and Staphylococcus aureus was incubated separately from Ag-WD by a filter and quantitated after 18 hours of incubation. Inductively coupled plasma emission spectrometry (ICP) determined the silver concentration of Mueller-Hinton broth containing Ag-WD after 24 hours of incubation. To establish if the rate of bacterial killing by Ag-WD differed from a constant silver concentration, pathogens were exposed to a silver concentration of 6.45 microg/mL and quantitated after 18 hours. RESULTS Direct exposure to Ag-WD significantly reduced bacterial numbers after 15 minutes for K. pneumoniae, 30 minutes for E. coli, 1 hour for P. aeruginosa, and 2 hours for S. equi subspecies zooepidemicus and Staphylococcus aureus. Indirect exposure to Ag-WD resulted in > or =99.9% and > or =90% kill of the inoculum doses of E. coli at 2 hours and Staphylococcus aureus at 18 hours, respectively. Incubation of the pathogens at the constant silver concentration resulted in bacterial killing rates similar to those obtained by incubation with Ag-WD. CONCLUSIONS In vitro, equine pathogens are effectively killed when exposed to Ag-WD, and the rate of bacterial killing by Ag-WD is similar to a constant silver concentration of 6.45 microg/mL. CLINICAL RELEVANCE The in vitro antimicrobial properties of this silver-coated nylon wound dressing are promising for future prevention of equine wound infections.
Advertising as Information: Further Evidence

In the past 30 years, the economics of information has become an important feature of the revolution in modern microeconomic theory. The seminal literature includes theoretical advances by Stigler [10], Nelson [7; 8], Spence [9], and Darby and Karni [1]. In an original approach, Laband [3] tests the proposition that the supply of product quality signals increases with a rise in the expected marginal return to consumers utilizing Yellow Pages advertisements in various urban settings. In later expositions, Laband [4; 5] provides further evidence of the "durability" of the informational content and the differences in information provision of television and commercial advertisements for different types of goods. The present paper extends and provides alternatives to Laband's tests of the impact of time costs (faced by consumers) on the informational content of advertising. This study employs a supplementary category (to Laband's) of credence goods developed in the literature [2; 6], and analyzes the impact of income as a proxy for time and information costs with a unique, intra-city data set from New York City and Los Angeles.
Requirements of the Engineered Leader Peptide of Nisin for Inducing Modification, Export, and Cleavage

ABSTRACT Nisin A is a pentacyclic peptide antibiotic produced by Lactococcus lactis. The leader peptide of prenisin keeps nisin inactive and has a role in inducing NisB- and NisC-catalyzed modifications of the propeptide and NisT-mediated export. The highly specific NisP cleaves off the leader peptide from fully modified and exported prenisin. We present here a detailed mutagenesis analysis of the nisin leader peptide. For alternative cleavage, we successfully introduced a putative NisP autocleavage site and sites for thrombin, enterokinase, Glu-C, and factor Xa in the C-terminal part of the leader peptide. Replacing residue F-18 with Trp or Thr strongly reduced production. On the other hand, D-19A, F-18H, F-18M, L-16D, L-16K, and L-16A enhanced production. Substitutions within and outside the FNLD box enhanced or reduced the transport efficiency. None of the above substitutions nor even an internal 6His tag from positions −13 to −8 had any effect on the capacity of the leader peptide to induce NisB and NisC modifications. Therefore, these data demonstrate a large mutational freedom. However, simultaneous replacement of the FNLD amino acids by four alanines strongly reduced export and even led to a complete loss of the capacity to induce modifications. Reducing the leader peptide to MSTKDFNLDLR led to 3- or 4-fold dehydration. Taken together, the FNLD box is crucial for inducing posttranslational modifications.
Results of AML in OAEI 2017

AgreementMakerLight (AML) is an automated ontology matching system that was developed with both extensibility and efficiency in mind. This paper describes its configuration for the OAEI 2017 competition and discusses its results. For this OAEI edition, we built upon the instance matching foundations we laid last year, and tackled the new Hobbit track and its new evaluation platform. AML was the only system to participate in all OAEI tracks this year, and was the top performing system or among the top performing ones in nearly all tracks, including the new Hobbit track and the new datasets in the Process Model and Disease and Phenotype tracks. 1 Presentation of the System 1.1 State, Purpose, General Statement AgreementMakerLight (AML) is an ontology matching system inspired by AgreementMaker [2, 3] but more concerned with efficiency, in order to tackle large-scale matching problems [7]. While it originally focused primarily on the biomedical domain, it has since been expanded to address a broad range of ontology and instance matching problems. AML relies heavily on lexical matching techniques [10], with an emphasis on the use of background knowledge [6], but also includes structural components for both matching and filtering – namely it features a logical repair algorithm [11] This year, our development of AML centered on the instance matching tasks from the new Hobbit track, and to a lesser degree on the new tasks in the Process Model Matching and Instance Matching tracks. We maintained the solution of using configuration files we adopted last year, but only for the instance matching tasks, as only for these is the goal of the matching tasks not always inferable from the datasets (e.g., it is generally not possible to infer when the goal is to match only instances of a given type). 1.2 Specific Techniques Used For the sake of brevity, this section focuses mainly on the features of AML that are new for this edition of the OAEI. For a complete description of AML’s matching strategy, please refer to the results papers of the last two OAEI editions [4, 5].
Neurula rotation determines left-right asymmetry in ascidian tadpole larvae

Tadpole larvae of the ascidian Halocynthia roretzi show morphological left-right asymmetry. The tail invariably bends towards the left side within the vitelline membrane. The structure of the larval brain is remarkably asymmetric. nodal, a conserved gene that shows left-sided expression, is also expressed on the left side in H. roretzi but in the epidermis unlike in vertebrates. We show that nodal signaling at the late neurula stage is required for stereotypic morphological left-right asymmetry at later stages. We uncover a novel mechanism to break embryonic symmetry, in which rotation of whole embryos provides the initial cue for left-sided expression of nodal. Two hours prior to the onset of nodal expression, the neurula embryo rotates along the anterior-posterior axis in a counterclockwise direction when seen in posterior view, and then this rotation stops when the left side of the embryo is oriented downwards. It is likely that epidermis monocilia, which appear at the neurula rotation stage, generate the driving force for the rotation. When the embryo lies on the left side, protrusion of the neural fold physically prevents it from rotating further. Experiments in which neurula rotation is perturbed by various means, including centrifugation and sandwiching between glass, indicate that contact of the left epidermis with the vitelline membrane as a consequence of neurula rotation promotes nodal expression in the left epidermis. We suggest that chemical, and not mechanical, signals from the vitelline membrane promote nodal expression. Neurula rotation is also conserved in other ascidian species.
The Determinants of Demand for Life Insurance in an Emerging Economy—India

Social security is virtually non-existent in India. While governments play a role providing some security to poor households (through the public distribution system targeted at households below the poverty line), in general financial security remains the responsibility of individuals. Life insurance is one of the most important social security measures undertaken in the country. Based on primary data generated through the National Council of Applied Economic Research’s (NCAER) National Survey of Household Income and Expenditure (NSHIE), this article attempts to identify determinants of life insurance ownership in the country. An analysis using logistic regression has corroborated that insured households tend to be more prosperous, more educated and more optimistic about future security than non-insured households. Both the level of education and occupation of the chief earner of a household are major determinants of life insurance participation, apart from asset-ownership. Further, households that are more optimistic about the adequacy of future income and savings show higher levels of participation. No rural–urban divide has been noticed with respect to these influencing factors.
A Methodology for Relating Software Structure with Energy Consumption

With the widespread use of mobile devices relying on limited battery power, the burden of optimizing applications for energy has shifted towards the application developers. In their quest to develop energy efficient applications, developers face the hurdle of measuring the effect of software change on energy consumption. A naive solution to this problem would be to have an exhaustive suite of test cases that are executed upon every change to measure their effect on energy consumption. This method is inefficient and also suffers from environment dependent inconsistencies. A more generalized method would be to relate software structural metrics with its energy consumption behavior. Previous attempts to relate change in objectoriented metrics to their effects on energy consumption have been inconclusive. We observe that structural information is global and executed tests are rarely comprehensive in their coverage, this approach is prone to errors. In this paper, we present a methodology to relate software energy consumption with software structural metrics considering the test case execution traces. Furthermore, we demonstrate that software structural metrics can be reliably related to energy consumption behavior of programs using several versions of three open-source iteratively developed android applications. We discover that by using our approach we are able to identify strong correlations between several software metrics and energy consumption behavior.
How to Abolish Public Housing: Implications and Lessons from Public Management Reform

The paper examines how public or municipal housing in England and Wales is being abolished and transferred into the housing association sector. A new public management (NPM) analytical framework is adopted which provides seven dimensions, disaggregation, competition, private sector management, economy, hands-on top management, standards of performance and measurement of outputs. Overlying these dimensions it is argued that there are two NPM meta-themes - externalisation (which relates to the first two characteristics) and managerialisation (the latter five). Hypotheses are developed to explain the differential impact of NPM reforms on the municipal housing and housing association sectors. These suggest that housing associations are externalised and highly managerialised organisations whereas local authorities display lower levels of externalisation and limited managerialisation. Analysis of the transfer process indicates that externalisation is driven by political and ideological approaches to public housing in addition to NPM dimensions, but that as local authorities transfer their stock into the housing association sector they are also likely to develop into similarly managerialised organisations. In conclusion the NPM framework is demonstrated to need further development whilst systematic research is required on management reform in social housing provision. The lesson to emerge on how to abolish public housing suggests the following policy formula: starve it of resources, create a hostile environment and wait, in the goodness of time it will abolish itself!
Brain stem origins of spinal projections in the lizard Tupinambis nigropunctatus

In order to study brainstem origins of spinal projections, ten Tegu lizards (Tupinambis nigropunctatus) received complete or partial hemisections of the spinal cord at the first or second cervical segment. Their brains were processed for conventional Nissl staining. The sections were surveyed for the presence or absence of retrograde chromatolysis. Based on analysis and comparison of results from lesions in the various spinal cord funiculi, the following conclusions were reached:
Millimeter-Wave Horn-Type Antenna-in-Package Solution Fabricated in a Teflon-Based Multilayer PCB Technology

An antenna-in-package solution is introduced for millimeter-wave applications. The solution is implemented in an asymmetric PCB technology incorporating 4 laminates of a Teflon-based and one laminate of a Ceramic-based material. A Horn-like element embedded in the PCB technology is designed and manufactured. The simulated and measured return losses are better than 10 dB in the frequency band 55–68 GHz, which makes the element suitable to be used for 60 GHz multi-Gb/Sec applications. The antenna element also provides 6 dB of gain with a ripple less that 0.5 dB from 53 GHz to 60 GHz. Moreover, 3 different arrays have been designed using the same Horn-like antenna as the radiating element. The simulated and measured radiation characteristics of all the antennas are investigated at different frequencies. It is shown that the antenna element is capable of being arrayed for applications where non-line-of-sight communication is needed or multi-path spatial diversity techniques are to be implemented.
Reliability and validity of the Borg and OMNI rating of perceived exertion scales in adolescent girls.

PURPOSE To examine the reliability and validity of the Borg and OMNI rating of perceived exertion (RPE) scales in adolescent girls during treadmill exercise. METHODS Adolescent girls (N = 57, age = 15.3+/-1.5 yr) were randomly assigned to use an RPE scale (Borg or OMNI) during one of three treadmill submaximal exercise conditions (walking, walking uphill, or jogging). After RPE assessment, exercise intensity was increased until participants achieved volitional exhaustion (O2max). Expired respiratory gases and heart rate (HR) were measured continuously during exercise. Reliability of the RPE scales was assessed using ANOVA (intraclass) and Spearman-Brown prophecy formula (single trial) measures. Validity estimates were calculated using Pearson Product Moment correlations, with % HRmax and % O2max as criterion measures. RESULTS Intraclass and single-trial reliability estimates were higher for the OMNI (r(xx) = 0.95 and r(kk) = 0.91, respectively) compared with the Borg (r(xx) = 0.78 and r(kk) = 0.64, respectively) RPE scale. Validity estimates were also higher for the OMNI scale compared with the Borg scale. Validity coefficients (r(xy)) for %HRmax and %O2max comparisons were 0.86 and 0.89, respectively, for the OMNI, compared with 0.66 and 0.70, respectively, for the Borg. CONCLUSION The OMNI cycle pictorial scale was found to be reliable and valid for use with adolescent girls. It also appears to be more reliable and valid than the Borg scale for use in this population during treadmill exercise.