Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
EuroMInd-D: A Density Estimate of Monthly Gross Domestic Product for the Euro Area

EuroMInd-D is a density estimate of monthly gross domestic product (GDP) constructed according to a bottom–up approach, pooling the density estimates of eleven GDP components, by output and expenditure type. The components density estimates are obtained from a medium-size dynamic factor model of a set of coincident time series handling mixed frequencies of observation and ragged–edged data structures. They reflect both parameter and filtering uncertainty and are obtained by implementing a bootstrap algorithm for simulating from the distribution of the maximum likelihood estimators of the model parameters, and conditional simulation filters for simulating from the predictive distribution of GDP. Both algorithms process sequentially the data as they become available in real time. The GDP density estimates for the output and expenditure approach are combined using alternative weighting schemes and evaluated with different tests based on the probability integral transform and by applying scoring rules.
Emerging vaccines for influenza

Background: Influenza remains one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide. The available vaccines are least effective in the populations at greatest risk – children, the elderly, and the immunocompromised. Furthermore, avian influenza and other novel strains have the potential to cause the next influenza pandemic. Research efforts have accelerated worldwide to develop new vaccines to provide better immunity against annual epidemics and a potential pandemic. Objective: To summarize the global research efforts at developing new influenza vaccines, adjuvants, and delivery devices. Method: MEDLINE and Pharmaprojects databases were searched for publications and continuing research on new influenza vaccine technologies. Results/conclusions: Technologies such as DNA vaccines, live recombinant viral vector vaccines, and virus-like particles have shown significant promise for immunogenicity and protection from experimental challenge to influenza. New modalities for vaccine delivery and methods for rapid vaccine production are also being investigated. With the possibility of an influenza pandemic increasing the need to develop new vaccines, the global research community has made large strides to meet this challenge.
A Paralleling Broadcast Authentication Protocol for Sparse RSUs in Internet of Vehicles

Since the era of Internet of Vehicles (IoVs) is coming in next few years, real-time data transmission between vehicles and road-side sensor nodes has many application scenarios. However, due to different characteristics of IoVs and WSNs (Wireless Sensor Networks), real-time traffic data transmission is too complicated and slow when emergencies occurred in many RSUs-sparse (Road Side Units) areas. We build a simple integrated network model and propose a broadcast authentication protocol, namely Paralleling Broadcast Authentication Protocol (PBAP), aiming at enhance energy efficiency and providing network security in the direct communication between vehicles and WSNs. The simulation results demonstrate that the protocol can effectively extend lifetime of WSNs by improving the utilization rate of the keys and show nice properties in different channel loss ratio and different degrees of DoS attacks.
Diversity and Evolution of CYCLOIDEA-Like TCP Genes in Relation to Flower Development in Papaveraceae[C][W][OA]

Monosymmetry evolved several times independently during flower evolution. In snapdragon (Antirrhinum majus), a key gene for monosymmetry is CYCLOIDEA (CYC), which belongs to the class II TCP gene family encoding transcriptional activators. We address the questions of the evolutionary history of this gene family and of possible recruitment of genes homologous to CYC in floral development and symmetry in the Papaveraceae. Two to three members of the class II TCP family were found in each species analyzed, two of which were CYC-like genes, on the basis of the presence of both the TCP and R conserved domains. The duplication that gave rise to these two paralogous lineages (named PAPACYL1 and PAPACYL2) probably predates the divergence of the two main clades within the Papaveraceae. Phylogenetic relationships among angiosperm class II TCP genes indicated that (1) PAPACYL genes were closest to Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) AtTCP18, and a duplication at the base of the core eudicot would have given rise to two supplementary CYC-like lineages; and (2) at least three class II TCP genes were present in the ancestor of monocots and eudicots. Semiquantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction and in situ hybridization approaches in three species with different floral symmetry indicated that both PAPACYL paralogs were expressed during floral development. A pattern common to all three species was observed at organ junctions in inflorescences and flowers. Expression in the outer petals was specifically observed in the two species with nonactinomorphic flowers. Hypotheses concerning the ancestral pattern of expression and function of CYC-like genes and their possible role in floral development of Papaveraceae species leading to bisymmetric buds are discussed.
Improving multiprocessor performance with coarse-grain coherence tracking

To maintain coherence in conventional shared-memory multiprocessor systems, processors first check other processors' caches before obtaining data from memory. This coherence checking adds latency to memory requests and leads to large amounts of interconnect traffic in broadcast-based systems. Our results for a set of commercial, scientific and multiprogrammed workloads show that on average 67% (and up to 94%) of broadcasts are unnecessary. Coarse-grain coherence tracking is a new technique that supplements a conventional coherence mechanism and optimizes the performance of coherence enforcement. The coarse-grain coherence mechanism monitors the coherence status of large regions of memory, and uses that information to avoid unnecessary broadcasts. Coarse-grain coherence tracking is shown to eliminate 55-97% of the unnecessary broadcasts, and improve performance by 8.8% on average (and up to 21.7%).
Using Super Learner Prediction Modeling to Improve High-dimensional Propensity Score Estimation

The high-dimensional propensity score is a semiautomated variable selection algorithm that can supplement expert knowledge to improve confounding control in nonexperimental medical studies utilizing electronic healthcare databases. Although the algorithm can be used to generate hundreds of patient-level variables and rank them by their potential confounding impact, it remains unclear how to select the optimal number of variables for adjustment. We used plasmode simulations based on empirical data to discuss and evaluate data-adaptive approaches for variable selection and prediction modeling that can be combined with the high-dimensional propensity score to improve confounding control in large healthcare databases. We considered approaches that combine the high-dimensional propensity score with Super Learner prediction modeling, a scalable version of collaborative targeted maximum-likelihood estimation, and penalized regression. We evaluated performance using bias and mean squared error (MSE) in effect estimates. Results showed that the high-dimensional propensity score can be sensitive to the number of variables included for adjustment and that severe overfitting of the propensity score model can negatively impact the properties of effect estimates. Combining the high-dimensional propensity score with Super Learner was the most consistent strategy, in terms of reducing bias and MSE in the effect estimates, and may be promising for semiautomated data-adaptive propensity score estimation in high-dimensional covariate datasets.
Sister Chromatids Are Often Incompletely Aligned in Meristematic and Endopolyploid Interphase Nuclei of Arabidopsis thaliana

We analyzed whether sister chromatids are continuously aligned in meristematic and endopolyploid Arabidopsis interphase nuclei by studying sister-chromatid alignment at various chromosomal positions. FISH with individual BACs to flow-sorted 4C root and leaf nuclei frequently yielded more than two hybridization signals, indicating incomplete or absent sister-chromatid alignment. Up to 100% of 8C, 16C, and 32C nuclei showed no sister-chromatid alignment at defined positions. Simultaneous FISH with BACs from different chromosomal positions revealed more frequent sister-chromatid alignment in terminal than in midarm positions. Centromeric positions were mainly aligned up to a ploidy level of 16C but became separated or dispersed in 32C nuclei. DNA hypomethylation (of the whole genome) and transcriptional activity (at FWA gene position) did not impair sister-chromatid alignment. Only 6.1% of 4C leaf nuclei showed sister-chromatid separation of the entire chromosome 1 top arm territories. Homozygous transgenic tandem repeat (lac operator) arrays showing somatic homologous pairing more often than average euchromatic loci did not promote an increased frequency of sister-chromatid alignment. The high frequency of separated sister-chromatid arm positions in ≥4C nuclei suggests that sister-chromatid cohesion is variable, dynamic, and not obligatory along the entire chromosome arm in meristematic and differentiated Arabidopsis nuclei.
Nanostructured surfaces for surface plasmon resonance spectroscopy and imaging

Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) has achieved widespread recognition as a sensitive, label-free, and versatile optical method for monitoring changes in refractive index at a metal-dielectric interface. Refractive index deviations of 10 -6 RIU are resolvable using SPR, and the method can be used in real-time or ex-situ. Instruments based on carboxymethyl dextran coated SPR chips have achieved commercial success in biological detection, while SPR sensors can also be found in other fields as varied as food safety and gas sensing. Chapter 1 provides a physical background of SPR sensing. A brief history of the technology is presented, and publication data are included that demonstrate the large and growing interest in surface plasmons. Numerous applications of SPR sensors are listed to illustrate the broad appeal of the method. Surface plasmons (SPs) and surface plasmon polaritions (SPPs) are formally defined, and important parameters governing their spatial behavior are derived from Maxwell’s equations and appropriate boundary conditions. Physical requirements for exciting SPs with incident light are discussed, and SPR imaging is used to illustrate the operating principle of SPR-based detection. Angle-tunable surface enhanced infrared absorption (SEIRA) of polymer vibrational modes via grating-coupled SPR is demonstrated in Chapter 2. Over 10-fold enhancement of C-H stretching modes was found relative to the absorbance of the same film in the absence of
Stream Processing in Community Network Clouds

Community Network Cloud is an emerging distributed cloud infrastructure that is built on top of a community network. The infrastructure consists of a number of geographically distributed compute and storage resources, contributed by community members, that are linked together through the community network. Stream processing is an important enabling technology that, if provided in a Community Network Cloud, would enable a new class of applications, such as social analysis, anomaly detection, and smart home power management. However, modern stream processing engines are designed to be used inside a data center, where servers communicate over a fast and reliable network. In this work, we evaluate the Apache Storm stream processing framework in an emulated Community Network Cloud in order to identify the challenges and bottlenecks that exist in the current implementation. The community network emulation was performed using data collected from the Guifi.net community network, Spain. Our evaluation results show that, with proper configuration of the heartbeats, it is possible to run Apache Storm in a Community Network Cloud. The performance is sensitive to the placement of the Storm components in the network. The deployment of management components on well-connected nodes improves the Storm topology scheduling time, fault tolerance, and recovery time. Our evaluation also indicates that the Storm scheduler and the stream groupings need to be aware of the network topology and location of stream sources in order to optimally place Storm spouts and bolts to improve performance.
A direct solver with reutilization of previously-computed LU factorizations for h-adaptive finite element grids with point singularities

This paper describes a direct solver algorithm for a sequence of finite element meshes that are h-refined towards one or several point singularities. For such a sequence of grids, the solver delivers linear computational cost O(N) in terms of CPU time and memory with respect to the number of unknowns N. The linear computational cost is achieved by utilizing the recursive structure provided by the sequence of h-adaptive grids with a special construction of the elimination tree that allows for reutilization of previously computed partial LU factorizations over the entire unrefined part of the computational mesh. The reutilization technique reduces the computational cost of the entire sequence of h-refined grids from O(N^2) down to O(N). Theoretical estimates are illustrated with numerical results on two- and three-dimensional model problems exhibiting one or several point singularities.
What Do Independent Directors Know? Evidence from Their Trading

We compare the trading performance of independent directors and other officers of the firm. We find that independent directors earn positive and substantial abnormal returns when they purchase their company stock, and that the difference with the same firm's officers is relatively small at most horizons. The results are robust to controlling for firm fixed effects and to using a variety of alternative specifications. Executive officers and independent directors make higher returns in firms with weaker governance and the gap between these two groups widens in such firms. Independent directors who sit in audit committees earn higher return than other independent directors at the same firm. Finally, independent directors earn significantly higher returns than the market when they sell the company stock in a window before bad news and around a restatement announcement.
Escherichia coli in bacteremia: O-acetylated K1 strains appear to be more virulent than non-O-acetylated K1 strains

A total of 174 blood isolates of Escherichia coli, collected during a 5-year period at the University Hospital Utrecht, were serotyped with rabbit sera against 171 O antigens and 73 capsule (K) antigens. The four most prevalent O-antigen serotypes were O6 (n = 22), O18 (n = 19), O1 (n = 19), and O2 (n = 15). Thirty-one strains were not typeable with any of the O-antigen-typing sera. Of the 148 strains that were subjected to K-antigen serotyping, 34 strains lacked a K antigen and 41 were not typeable with the K-antigen-specific antisera used in the study. K1 was by far the most frequently found K-antigen serotype; this was followed by K2, K53, K5, K13, K7, K(A)28, and K15. Strains possessing a K1 antigen were further classified as either O-acetyl-positive (n = 12) or O-acetyl-negative (n = 21) strains. Retrospective analysis of patients infected with different E. coli isolates--nonencapsulated (n = 23), O-acetylated K1 (n = 12), and non-O-acetylated K1 (n = 21)--revealed clinical differences. More patients suffered from sepsis (94% versus 74%), and a higher rate of mortality was found in the group infected with K1 isolates (18 versus 9%) than in the group infected with nonencapsulated isolates. More patients with severe sepsis (25 versus 10%) and a higher mortality (33 versus 10%) were found in the group infected with O-acetylated K1 isolates than in the group infected with non-O-acetylated isolated. Also, the hospitalization of these patients was prolonged. Thus, O-acetylated E. coli K1 strains seem to be more virulent than non-O-acetylated K1 strains.
An agent oriented ontology of social reality

In this paper we introduce an ontology based on the notion of agent to represent and reason about social reality. We model social constructions as agents, for example, groups, organizations, normative systems, and roles, and we attribute mental attitudes to them. Roughly, we define obligations or regulative norms as goals of the normative system, constitutive norms as beliefs of the normative system, joint, shared, mutual and social beliefs, desires and goal as beliefs, desires and goals of group, responsibilities of an agent as goals of the role he plays, and the required expertise of an agent as beliefs and actions of the role he plays. In this way, we achieve a uniform framework for a large variety of concepts using a small vocabulary, and, in particular, basing it on notions, like mental attitudes, which are commonly used in agent theories. The proposed ontology is modelled using a description logic.
Fabrication of High-Verticality Grating Nanostructures Using Twice-Deposited Etching Mask Layers

To study the influence of twice-deposited mask layers on the verticality of side wall and the aspect ratios of silicon-based nanostructures, the performance of focused ion beam (FIB) and CF4-based inductive coupled plasma reactive ion etching (ICP-RIE) processes was realized. The first etching mask of chromium (Cr) was deposited by radiofrequency (RF) magnetron sputtering as the conductive and etching barrier layers. Next, the Cr layer was directly patterned by a dual-beam FIB system to form nanograting patterns. Thereafter, a secondary mask layer of oxide (SiO2) with a thickness of 50 nm was deposited by sputtering. In order to study the influence of various deep etching parameters on verticality and aspect ratios, we examined argon flow rates, coil powers, platen powers, and chamber pressures. The SiO2 barrier layer on the side wall could be retained to maintain a high verticality contour and reduce the line-width shrinking ratio to surmount over etching during the use of fluorine-based gas. The residual Cr and SiO2 layers were dissolved and removed using a wet etching process consisting of a Cr-etching solution (CR-7). Measurements show that the verticality and aspect ratios of the grating nanostructures were 92.1° and 5.63, respectively.
From complete to incomplete information and back

Incomplete information arises naturally in numerous data management applications. Recently, several researchers have studied query processing in the context of incomplete information. Most work has combined the syntax of a traditional query language like relational algebra with a nonstandard semantics such as certain or ranked possible answers. There are now also languages with special features to deal with uncertainty. However, to the standards of the data management community, to date no language proposal has been made that can be considered a natural analog to SQL or relational algebra for the case of incomplete information. In this paper we propose such a language, World-set Algebra, which satisfies the robustness criteria and analogies to relational algebra that we expect. The language supports the contemplation on alternatives and can thus map from a complete database to an incomplete one comprising several possible worlds. We show that World-set Algebra is conservative over relational algebra in the sense that any query that maps from a complete database to a complete database (a complete-to-complete query) is equivalent to a relational algebra query. Moreover, we give an efficient algorithm for effecting this translation. We then study algebraic query optimization of such queries. We argue that query languages with explicit constructs for handling uncertainty allow for the more natural and simple expression of many real-world decision support queries. The results of this paper not only suggest a language for specifying queries in this way, but also allow for their efficient evaluation in any relational database management system.
Vehicle Classification Based on the Radar Measurement of Height Profiles

The problem of classifying road vehicles according to vehicle type is considered. The proposed solution is based on using vehicle height and length and height profiles obtained by a microwave (MW) radar sensor. We show that if the radar sensor satisfies certain requirements, then a precise feature vector can be extracted, and simple deterministic algorithms can be applied to determine the vehicle class. Field trials using a spread-spectrum MW radar sensor system operating on these principles have been carried out. They confirm that accurate classification of a large number of vehicle classes can be reached
Error probability in synchronous digital circuits due to power supply noise

This paper presents a probabilistic approach to model the problem of power supply voltage fluctuations. Error probability calculations are shown for some 90-nm technology digital circuits. The analysis here considered gives the timing violation error probability as a new design quality factor in front of conventional techniques that assume the full perfection of the circuit. The evaluation of the error bound can be useful for new design paradigms where retry and self-recovering techniques are being applied to the design of high performance processors. The method here described allows to evaluate the performance of these techniques by means of calculating the expected error probability in terms of power supply distribution quality.
Fault Side-Effects in Fault Tolerant Multistage Interconnection Networks

Many fault tolerant (FT) multistage interconnection networks have been devised that tolerate one or more faults. It is shown that the effects of some realistic faults can propagate through multiple stages and cause non-faulty components to behave erroneously; such faults with side effects can cause "FT" networks to lose their fault tolerance capabilities even due to a single fault. The PASM prototype interconnection network is examined as a case study of realistic faults with side effects. A fault model that includes side effects is introduced. An enhanced Extra Stage Cube network is proposed that tolerates faults with or without side effects.