Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Las Campanas Redshift Survey galaxy—galaxy autocorrelation function

Presented are measurements of the observed redshift-space galaxy-galaxy autocorrelation function, xi(s), for the Las Campanas Redshift Survey (LCRS). For separations 2.0/h Mpc < s < 16.4/h Mpc, xi(s) can be approximated by a power law with slope of -1.52 +/- 0.03 and a correlation length of s_0 = (6.28 +\- 0.27)/h Mpc. A zero-crossing occurs on scales of roughly 30 - 40/h Mpc. On larger scales, xi(s) fluctuates closely about zero, indicating a high level of uniformity in the galaxy distribution on these scales. In addition, two aspects of the LCRS selection criteria - a variable field-to-field galaxy sampling rate and a 55 arcsec galaxy pair separation limit - are tested and found to have little impact on the measurement of xi(s). Finally, the LCRS xi(s) is compared with those from numerical simulations; it is concluded that, although the LCRS xi(s) does not discriminate sharply among modern cosmological models, redshift-space distortions in the LCRS xi(s) will likely provide a strong test of theory.
Haptic Communication to Support Biopsy Procedures Learning in Virtual Environments

In interventional radiology, physicians require high haptic sensitivity and fine motor skills development because of the limited real-time visual feedback of the surgical site. The transfer of this type of surgical skill to novices is a challenging issue. This paper presents a study on the design of a biopsy procedure learning system. Our methodology, based on a task-centered design approach, aims to bring out new design rules for virtual learning environments. A new collaborative haptic training paradigm is introduced to support human-haptic interaction in a virtual environment. The interaction paradigm supports haptic communication between two distant users to teach a surgical skill. In order to evaluate this paradigm, a user experiment was conducted. Sixty volunteer medical students participated in the study to assess the influence of the teaching method on their performance in a biopsy procedure task. The results show that to transfer the skills, the combination of haptic communication with verbal and visual communications improves the novices’ performance compared to conventional teaching methods. Furthermore, the results show that, depending on the teaching method, participants developed different needle insertion profiles. We conclude that our interaction paradigm facilitates expert-novice haptic communication and improves skills transfer; and new skills acquisition depends on the availability of different communication channels between experts and novices. Our findings indicate that the traditional fellowship methods in surgery should evolve to an off-patient collaborative environment that will continue to support visual and verbal communication, but also haptic communication, in order to achieve a better and more complete skills training.
STUDIES ON THE DISSOCIATION OF THE HOG CHOLERA BACILLUS

The experiments recorded in the present paper confirm the existence of 4 forms of the hog cholera bacillus described in a previous paper (1), namely the "normal" type strain MS and its 3 variants, MR, NS and NR. Serological evidence is also presented to show that the symbols MS, MR, NS and NR represent the similar conceptions of previous investigators who have used the letters OH, O, ØH and Ø respectively to designate variant forms of other organisms. It has been shown that the S form of the hog cholera bacillus, as the S forms of other bacteria, is more virulent for laboratory animals than the R forms. In regard to the reversibility of one form to another it was found that by transfer in broth or by passage through mice the MR form showed a tendency to revert to the original MS form. Transfer in broth and animal passage, however, failed to induce any variations in the NR or NS forms. Growth in homologous immune sera did not cause reversion to original forms but in fact provoked further dissociation of the MR to the NR form and also of the NS to the NR form. The MR form may revert to the original normal MS form or may dissociate further into the NR form and is, therefore, the most unstable of the variants. Further attempts to induce changes in the other variants were not made. The dissociation as observed may be represented thus: See PDF for Structure
Dependency-BasedSemanticInter pretation for Answer Extraction

This paper focuses on the use of two algorithms for the integration of two broad-coverage dependency-based parsing systems into ExtrAns, an answer extraction system that operates over Unix manual pages. In the process , ExtrAns uses a semantic interpreter that converts the output of the parser into flat logical forms. The semantic interpreter for the first parsing system, Link Grammar, uses a top-down algorithm, whereas the semantic interpreter for the second parsing system , Conexor FDG, uses a bottom-up algorithm. After showing the differences between the structures returned by both parsing systems, the paper compares the algorithms for semantic interpretation and comments on their adequacy for the production of flat logical forms.
CRDMAC: An Effective Circular RTR Directional MAC Protocol for Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

Directional antennas in wireless ad hoc networks (WANETs) offer great potential to reduce the radio interference, and improve the communication throughput. Using directional antennas, however, introduces a new problem in the wireless media access control (MAC), deafness, which may cause severe performance degradation. To solve the deafness problem, in this paper, we propose a novel CRDMAC protocol by using a sub-transmission channel and RTR (Ready To Receive) packets, which modifies the IEEE 802.11 distributed coordinated function. The sub-channel avoids collisions to other ongoing transmission and the RTR packets notify the neighbors that the mutual transmission has finished. The proposed MAC protocol decreases the binary exponential back off time of the waiting nodes. We evaluate our protocol through simulations. Simulation results show that the proposed protocol outperforms the existing DMAC (directional MAC) protocol and the CRCM (Circular RTS and CTS MAC) protocol in terms of throughput and packet drop rate.
Hydraulic conductivity, velocity, and the order of the fractional dispersion derivative in a highly heterogeneous system

A one‐dimensional, fractional order, advection‐dispersion equation accurately models the movement of the core of the tritium plume at the highly heterogeneous MADE site. An a priori estimate of the parameters in that equation, including the order of the fractional dispersion derivative, was based on the assumption that the observed power law (heavy) tail of the hydraulic conductivity (K) field would create a similarly distributed velocity field. Monte Carlo simulations were performed to test this hypothesis. Results from the Monte Carlo analysis show that heavy tailed K fields do give rise to heavy tailed velocity fields; however, the exponent of the power law (the tail parameter) describing these two distributions is not necessarily the same. The tail parameter that characterizes a velocity distribution is not solely dependent on the tail parameter that characterizes the K distribution. The K field must also have long‐range dependence so that water may flow through relatively continuous high‐K channels.
Clustering analysis of Dow Jones 30 based on extreme points

In this paper, Dow Jones 30 (DJ30) are clustered by emerging clustering method based on the differences of stocks' synchronic extreme points' emerging time and their implied range. This method can be applied to classify numerous and disordered data. During the clustering processes, Entropy Method is used to establish stock-distance by principal component. By linear programming method, we clustered DJ30, the results show that this method can cluster stocks with similar trend together: within clusters the curves of stocks are homogeneous and among clusters the curves of stocks are inhomogeneous.
Exploring Internet Security Perceptions and Practices in Urban Ghana

Security is predicated, in part, upon the clear understanding of threats and the use of strategies to mitigate these threats. Internet landscapes and the use of the Internet in developing countries are vastly different compared to those in rich countries where technology is more pervasive. In this work, we explore the use of Internet technology throughout urban and peri-urban Ghana and examine attitudes toward security to gauge the extent to which this new population of technology users may be vulnerable to attacks. We find that, like in North America and Europe, the prevalent mental threat model indicates a lack of understanding of how Internet technologies operate. As a result, people rely heavily upon passwords for security online and those who augment their security do so with a variety of ad hoc practices learned by word of mouth. We relate and contrast our findings to previous works and make several recommendations for improving security in these contexts.
Parallelizing Machine Learning- Functionally: A Framework and Abstractions for Parallel Graph Processing

Implementing machine learning algorithms for large data, such as the Web graph and social networks, is challenging. Even though much research has focused on making sequential algorithms more scalable, their running times continue to be prohibitively long. Meanwhile, parallelization remains a formidable challenge for this class of problems, despite frameworks like MapReduce which hide much of the associated complexity. We present a framework for implementing parallel and distributed machine learning algorithms on large graphs, flexibly, through the use of functional programming abstractions. Our aim is a system that allows researchers and practitioners to quickly and easily implement (and experiment with) their algorithms in a parallel or distributed setting. We introduce functional combinators for the flexible composition of parallel, aggregation, and sequential steps. To the best of our knowledge, our system is the first to avoid inversion of control in a (bulk) synchronous parallel model.
For Personal Use. Only Reproduce with Permission from the Lancet. Genome-based Design of a Cell-free Culture Medium for Tropheryma Whipplei

Empirical approaches have guided the development of bacterial cultures. The availability of sequenced genomes now provides opportunities to define culture media for growth of fastidious pathogens with computer modelling of metabolic networks. A key issue is the possibility of growing host-dependent bacteria in cell-free conditions. The sequenced Tropheryma whipplei genome was analysed to identify specific metabolic deficiencies. We used this information to design a comprehensive medium that allowed three established T whipplei strains from culture with human cells and one new strain from a clinical sample to grow axenically. Genomic information can, therefore, provide sufficient clues for designing axenic media for fastidious and uncultured pathogens. Tropheryma whipplei, the agent of Whipple's disease, has proved particularly recalcitrant to cultivation and has been grown only in association with eukaryotic cells. Nearly a century elapsed between the first description of the disease in 1907 and the reproducible propagation of this microorganism within a fibroblast cell line (HEL) in 2000, despite numerous efforts. The bacterium has, therefore, been thus far poorly characterised. Although the obligate intracellular nature of T whipplei has been questioned, 1 all attempts to subculture T whipplei in axenic medium have remained unsuccessful. Independent studies by Bentley and colleagues 2 and by Raoult and colleagues 3 have reported the small 0·9 megabase genomes of two T whipplei strains. The analysis of the genomic sequence revealed specific deficiencies in the predicted metabolism of T whipplei (figure 1). This information was successfully used to design a comprehensive axenic medium. Computer modelled functional analysis of T whipplei genome revealed that the bacterium is well equipped for energy metabolism, nucleotide biosynthesis, and regulatory processes compared with other microbes of similar genome size. 3 However, many deficiencies were predicted in the biosynthesis of aminoacids. The synthetic enzyme pathways were entirely missing (absence of genes) for nine aminoacids (histidine, tryptophan, leucine, arginine, proline, lysine, methionine, cysteine, and asparagine). In addition, de novo synthesis of glutamate and glutamine is impossible because of the absence of the tricarboxylic-acid cycle. As a consequence the glutamate-dependent biosynthesis of aspartate, threonine, valine, and isoleucine become impossible. Finally, prephenate dehydratase, an enzyme for phenyalanine synthesis, is also missing. These metabolic deficiencies suggest that T whipplei acquires aminoacids or precursors from its host through membrane transport systems. This conclusion guided our rational design of an axenic medium for culturing T whipplei. As a basis, we chose a cell-culture medium that provided missing aminoacids (DMEM/F12 …
Iterative and adaptive slack allocation for performance-driven layout and FPGA routing

The authors gives a generalization, called the limit-bumping algorithm (LBA), of a procedure of H. Youssef et al. (1990) that transforms initial connection delays into upper limits on delay suitable for performance-driven layout. LBA is a simple way to distribute slacks using arbitrary allocation functions. It is shown that lower and upper bounds on connection delays can be used in the computation of upper limits for initial layout and for layout improvement. The methods have been integrated into a delay-sensitive router for field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). In 22 standard benchmark designs, feasible system clock periods were reduced in every case by an average of 14% and as much as 32%. <<ETX>>
Journal of Experimental Botany Advance Access published August 7, 2006 Journal of Experimental Botany, Page 1 of 11

The presence of jasmonate-inducible lectin genes in some but not all Nicotiana species explains a marked intragenus difference in plant responses to hormone treatment Abstract Tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum L. cv Samsun NN) leaves accumulate a cytoplasmic/nuclear lectin, called Nictaba, in response to methyl jasmonate. To check whether, and if so to what extent, the specific induction of this lectin applies to related species, a collection of 19 Nicotiana species—covering 12 Nicotiana sections and eight Nicotiana tabacum cultivars—was screened for their capability to synthesize the jasmonate-inducible lectin. Protein analyses by agglutination assays and western blot confirmed that only nine out of the 19 species examined synthesize lectin after jasmonate treatment. Remarkably, all allotetraploid cultivars of the N. tabacum L. species tested express the lectin after jasmonate treatment. PCR analyses demonstrated that all responsive species possess one or more lectin genes, whereas no lectin gene(s) could be traced in the non-responding species. The number of introns present in the lectin genes varies between zero and two. Four tobacco species/cultivars contain both intronless Nictaba genes as well as lectin genes with introns. These findings provide the first firm evidence for a striking intragenus difference with respect to the activation of a well-defined jasmonate-inducible gene that can be correlated with the presence/absence of orthologous genes in the genomes of closely related species from a single plant genus. In addition, the differential response of closely related tobacco species illustrates that in the field of plant hormone research, care must be taken when extrapolating results obtained with a particular model system to other—even taxonomically closely related—species.
Agile Practices in Regulated Railway Software Development

Complex software is becoming an important component of modern safety-critical systems. To assure the correct function of such software, the development processes are heavily regulated by international standards, often making the process very rigid, unable to accommodate changes, causing late integration and increasing the cost of development. Agile methods have been introduced to address these issues in several software domains, but their use in safety-critical applications remains to be investigated. This paper provides an initial analysis of agile practices in the context of software development for the European railway sector, regulated by the EN 50128 standard. The study complements previous studies on the use of agile methods in other regulated domains. A systematic mapping between EN 50128 requirements and agile practices showed that all practices support some objectives of the standard. Important supporting features recognized were focus on simple design, test automation, coding standards, continuous integration and validation. However, several problematic areas were also identified, including vague requirement analysis and change management. Most agile practices must be adapted to suit regulated software development and this analysis outlines a subset of the required changes.
Comparative Study of MFCC in Categorized Speech Samples Related Depression

acoustical properties in speech as emotional indicator based on spectral characteristics of speech signal have formerly been studied and reported for its quantitative information in association with the emotional states in persons suffering depression. This symptom affects speech production system of speaker, which modulates in spoken sound. MFCC has been reported for its characteristic change corresponding to severity of depression. The sixteenth MFCCS from remitted, depressed and suicidal patient groups were extracted, statistically tested and classified in pairwise fashion by using ML, LS and LMS classifiers. The best score of classification can be obtained at 0.2487 in error based on ML classifier with 80% of MFCC samples in testing phase. Results suggest the dominant property of MFCC in separation between suicidal and recovering speakers from depression.
Apto: A MDD-Based Generic Framework for Context-Aware Deeply Adaptive Service-Based Processes

Context-awareness and adaptability are important and desirable properties of service-based processes designed to provide personalized services. Most of the existing approaches focus on the adaptation at the process instance level [1] which involves extending the standard Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) and its engine or creating their own process languages (e.g. [2]). However, the approach proposed here aims to apply an adaptation to processes modeled or developed without any adaptation possibility in mind and independently of specific usage contexts. In addition, most of the existing approaches tackle the adaptation on the process instance or definition levels by explicitly specifying some form of variation points. This, however, leads to a contradiction between how the architect logically views and interprets differences in the process family and the actual modeling constructs through which the logical differences must be expressed. We introduce the notion of an evolution fragment and evolution primitive to capture the variability in a more logical and independent way. Finally, the proposed approach intends to support the viewpoint of context-aware adaptation as a crosscutting concern with respect to the core “business logic” of the process. In this way, the design of the process core can be decoupled from the design of the adaptation logic. To this end, we leverage ideas from the domain of model-driven development (MDD) and generative programming.
The Role of Plans and Planning in Task-Related Discourse

Knowledge representation schemes for the automatic generation faction-related natural anguage must account for the relationships commonly described in naturally occurring text. Previous work representing action in task-related discourse (Pollack 1986; DiEugenio 1993b; Balkanski 1994) has used a representation based on Goldman’s (Goldman 1970) work in the philosophy of action. These approaches have been successful inaccounting for text describing the relationships between two steps, but when viewed in the context of the plan in which those steps are embedded, their epresentation can be seen to lack specificity. Furthermore, its limited scope cannot account for a wide range of relationships typically expressed in task-related discourse.
Gait Analysis of the Inferior Articulations of Healthy People and with Locomotion Problems

Gait analysis is the study of the animal locomotion, more precisely for this paper, the human locomotion. Several studies have been made by many researchers, however, there is limited information about the unique characteristics of the direction change in the gait. In this paper we present a different approach to get the information we need to do this analysis, by being non invasive, because most of the ways researchers do have complicated procedures and often require the patience to be static for long periods of time. The objective of this work is to give an alternative non invasive help to medics and physiotherapists when evaluating a patience state.
Automated identification of occupant interactions in renovations of occupied buildings

Identification of interactions when tenants and/or crews share the same space is a critical task to ensure the timely execution of renovation work while maintaining the operational requirements of building tenants. Current methods to identify these occupant interactions are manual, inefficient, and inaccurate, leading to loss in productivity for tenants and crews, and cost and schedule overruns for the renovation project. This paper presents a formal representation of renovation planning information (i.e., occupant profiles, renovation schedule, and occupant interaction types) and reasoning methods that utilize this formal representation to identify occupant interactions (IOI) automatically. The IOI method builds on existing concepts and methods in product, organization, and process modeling to generate detailed occupant location and space sharing data more efficiently than existing methods. To validate the IOI method, we implemented and tested a prototype system during the planning stages of three on-going renovation projects. The results indicate that the renovation planning ontology and reasoning methods enable planners to represent renovation planning information more thoroughly, and with increased detail, leading them to identify occupant interactions more accurately than with traditional planning methods, and to adjust their plans for improved cost and schedule predictions.
A Theoretical Framework for Local Search Techniques

In the paper we describe a theoretical framework to model local search as the computation of a fixed point of functions. There are only few studies of theoretical frameworks for local search, this work allows one to simulate standard strategies used for local search and to easily design new strategies in a uniform framework. The use of this framework is illustrated through the description of Tabu search and random walk methods for solving different instances of Sudoku problem.