Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Parallel Approach to Compression and Decompression of Triangle Meshes using the GPU

Most state‐of‐the‐art compression algorithms use complex connectivity traversal and prediction schemes, which are not efficient enough for online compression of large meshes. In this paper we propose a scalable massively parallel approach for compression and decompression of large triangle meshes using the GPU. Our method traverses the input mesh in a parallel breadth‐first manner and encodes the connectivity data similarly to the well known cut‐border machine. Geometry data is compressed using a local prediction strategy. In contrast to the original cut‐border machine, we can additionally handle triangle meshes with inconsistently oriented faces. Our approach is more than one order of magnitude faster than currently used methods and achieves competitive compression rates.
SVM-Based Approach for Predicting DNA-Binding Residues in Proteins from Amino Acid Sequences

Protein-DNA interactions are vitally important in a wide range of biological processes such as gene regulation and DNA replication and repair. We predict DNA-binding residues in proteins from amino acid sequences by support vector machine (SVM) with a novel hybrid feature which incorporates evolutionary information of amino acid sequences and four physical–chemical properties, including the side chain pKa value, hydrophobicity index, molecular mass and lone electron pairs of amino acids. The classifier achieves 79.12% total accuracy with 74.19% sensitivity and 79.20% specificity, respectively. Moreover, an alternative classifier using random forest (RF) is also constructed. Further analysis proves that the hybrid feature shows obvious contribution to our excellent prediction performance, and the evolutionary information contributes most to the prediction improvement.
The integrative structure of employee commitment

Purpose – This research primarily aims to explore the influences of the individuals' perceptional characteristics and cultural aspects of the learning organization on organizational commitment in Korean organizational settings.Design/methodology/approach – The approach takes the form of examining the integrative determinants of performance improvement, designed as a research framework, which conceptually shows the relations among the environmental variable – supportive learning culture, individuals' characteristics – interpersonal trust, collectivistic tendency and motivation to collaborate, and organizational commitment. The samples were collected from Korean profit organizations. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to assess the construct validity of the hypothesized measures, and structural equation modeling was adapted to examine the sequential effects among the variables.Findings – The results suggest that interpersonal trust and collectivistic tendency have significant impacts on the employees' mo.
Tobacco Use and Nicotine Dependence among Conflict-Affected Men in the Republic of Georgia

Background: There is very little evidence globally on tobacco use and nicotine dependence among civilian populations affected by armed conflict, despite key vulnerability factors related to elevated mental disorders and socio-economic stressors. The study aim was to describe patterns of smoking and nicotine dependence among conflict-affected civilian men in the Republic of Georgia and associations with mental disorders. Methods: A cross-sectional household survey using multistage random sampling was conducted in late 2011 among conflict-affected populations in Georgia. Respondents included in this paper were 1,248 men aged ≥18 years who were internally displaced persons (IDPs) and former IDPs who had returned in their home areas. Outcomes of current tobacco use, heavy use (≥20 cigarettes per day), and nicotine dependence (using the Fagerström Test for Nicotine Dependence) were used. PTSD, depression, anxiety and hazardous alcohol use were also measured, along with exposure to traumatic events and a range of demographic and socio-economic characteristics. Results: Of 1,248 men, 592 (47.4%) smoked and 70.9% of current smokers were heavy smokers. The mean nicotine dependence score was 5.0 and the proportion with high nicotine dependence (≥6) was 41.4%. In multivariate regression analyses, nicotine dependence was significantly associated with PTSD (β 0.74) and depression (β 0.85), along with older age (except 65+ years), and being a returnee (compared to IDPs). Conclusions: The study reveals very high levels of heavy smoking and nicotine dependence among conflict-affected persons in Georgia. The associations between nicotine dependence, PTSD and depression suggest interventions could yield synergistic benefits.
Computational Model of a Buncher Cavity for Millimetric Klystron

A computational model of a Buncher cavity for millimetric klystron following a Multiphysics approach is proposed in this paper. At these narrow dimensions, the device is critically exposed to multiple physics effects, due to the power dissipations and external environment, influencing the electromagnetic performances. The cavity is integrated with a carbon nanotube cold cathode in order to reduce thermal expansion and cooled by an opportune airflow that regulates the temperature distribution to compensate the resonant frequency shift. Electromagnetic fields and scattering parameters have been tested in operative conditions by concurrent computation of coupled thermodynamic, fluid dynamic, structural mechanics and electromagnetic simulations. This approach has suggested the appropriate materials and geometrical shapes.
Region-Specific Activation of oskar mRNA Translation by Inhibition of Bruno-Mediated Repression

A complex program of translational repression, mRNA localization, and translational activation ensures that Oskar (Osk) protein accumulates only at the posterior pole of the Drosophila oocyte. Inappropriate expression of Osk disrupts embryonic axial patterning, and is lethal. A key factor in translational repression is Bruno (Bru), which binds to regulatory elements in the osk mRNA 3′ UTR. After posterior localization of osk mRNA, repression by Bru must be alleviated. Here we describe an in vivo assay system to monitor the spatial pattern of Bru-dependent repression, separate from the full complexity of osk regulation. This assay reveals a form of translational activation—region-specific activation—which acts regionally in the oocyte, is not mechanistically coupled to mRNA localization, and functions by inhibiting repression by Bru. We also show that Bru dimerizes and identify mutations that disrupt this interaction to test its role in vivo. Loss of dimerization does not disrupt repression, as might have been expected from an existing model for the mechanism of repression. However, loss of dimerization does impair regional activation of translation, suggesting that dimerization may constrain, not promote, repression. Our work provides new insight into the question of how localized mRNAs become translationally active, showing that repression of osk mRNA is locally inactivated by a mechanism acting independent of mRNA localization.
Magnetoencephalography in Preoperative Epileptic Foci Localization: Enlightenment from Cognitive Studies

Over 30% epileptic patients are refractory to medication, who are amenable to neurosurgical treatment. Non-invasive brain imaging technologies including video-electroencephalogram (EEG), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and magnetoencephalography (MEG) are widely used in presurgical assessment of epileptic patients. This review mainly discussed the current development of clinical MEG imaging as a diagnose approach, and its correlations with the golden standard intracranial electroencephalogram (iEEG). More importantly, this review discussed the possible applications of functional networks in preoperative epileptic foci localization in future studies.
The thioesterase domain from a nonribosomal peptide synthetase as a cyclization catalyst for integrin binding peptides

Nonribosomal peptide synthetases responsible for the production of macrocyclic compounds often use their C-terminal thioesterase (TE) domain for enzymatic cyclization of a linear precursor. The excised TE domain from the nonribosomal peptide synthetase responsible for the production of the cyclic decapeptide tyrocidine A, TycC TE, retains autonomous ability to catalyze head-to-tail macrocyclization of a linear peptide thioester with the native sequence of tyrocidine A and can additionally cyclize peptide analogs that incorporate limited alterations in the peptide sequence. Here we show that TycC TE can catalyze macrocyclization of peptide substrates that are dramatically different from the native tyrocidine linear precursor. Several peptide thioesters that retain a limited number of elements of the native peptide sequence are shown to be substrates for TycC TE. These peptides were designed to integrate an Arg-Gly-Asp sequence that confers potential activity in the inhibition of ligand binding by integrin receptors. Although enzymatic hydrolysis of the peptide thioester substrates is preferred over cyclization, TycC TE can be used on a preparative scale to generate both linear and cyclic peptide products for functional characterization. The products are shown to be inhibitors of ligand binding by integrin receptors, with cyclization and Nα-methylation being important contributors to the nanomolar potency of the best inhibitors of fibrinogen binding to αIIbβ3 integrin. This study provides evidence for TycC TE as a versatile macrocyclization catalyst and raises the prospect of using TE catalysis for the generation of diverse macrocyclic peptide libraries that can be probed for novel biological function.
A Testbed For Experiments In Adaptive Memory Retrieval and Indexing

In this paper, we discuss properties of the Knack system which is designed as a testbed for experimenting memory retrieval and organization in Case-Based Reasoning. Methods used for retrieval and indexing are based on mathematically sound techniques developed in classification, clustering and decision analysis. Retrieval is done using decision theoretic methods such as voting k nearest neighbor and Bayesian theory with weighted attributes. New indices for cases are generated by using clustering methods. Cases are then re-organized using the new indices. The Knack environment was designed so that additional techniques and metrics can easily be added.
Musical Auditory Stimulation and Cardiac Autonomic Regulation

Humans discovered the effects of the musical auditory stimulation on their own wellness at the dawn of the pre-historical age, i.e., during the Cro-Magnon and the Neanderthalian cave cultures. Charles Darwin hypothesized that musical auditory stimulation may have been a protolanguage in ancient times. Under a cultural perspective, the definition of musical auditory stimulation is subtle and not well established, since it has varied through history, in different regions, and within societies. The fifteenth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica describes that “while there are no sounds that can be described as inherently unmusical auditory stimulational, musical auditory stimulationians in each culture have tended to restrict the range of sounds they will admit”. In his 1983 book, Musical auditory stimulation as Heard: A Study in Applied Phenomenology, Thomas Clifton affirms that “musical auditory stimulation is the actualization of the possibility of any sound whatever to present to some human being a meaning which he experiences with his body—that is to say, with his mind, his feelings, his senses, his will, and his metabolism” (Clifton, 1983). On the other hand, the French musical auditory stimulationologist Jean-Jaques Nattiez has affirmed that “the border between musical auditory stimulation and noise is always culturally defined — which implies that, even within a single society, this border does not always pass through the same place; in short, there is rarely a consensus. By all accounts there is no single and intercultural universal concept defining what musical auditory stimulation might be (Clifton, 1983).
Slow release formulations of alachlor 1 Performance of slow-release formulations of alachlor

3 Alachlor [2-chloro-N-(2,6-diethylphenyl)-N-(methoxymethyl)acetamide] is a 4 widely used herbicide that has been identified as a groundwater contaminant. Several 5 slow-release formulations (SRFs) of this herbicide have been examined for their 6 capacity to reduce its leaching and enhance weed control. A field experiment was 7 performed to determine alachlor leaching and bioefficacy in: (i) a commercial 8 formulation, Alanex, (ii) SRFs based on ethylcellulose (EC) microencapsulation or 9 phosphatidylcholine (PC)-montmorillonite complexes. Alachlor distribution within the 10 top 30 cm of the soil layer was modeled with the pesticide-leaching model PEARL, 11 using release constants for the SRFs obtained from in-vitro experiments. Compared to 12 the commercial formulation, leaching to the 20to 30 -cm depth was reduced by 33% 13 for EC and 25% for PC-clay formulations, but only in the latter was herbicide 14 bioefficacy retained. The poor bioefficacy of the EC formulations can be explained by 15 their very slow release properties, which may nevertheless confer an advantage under 16 prolonged heavy rainfall. The model yielded good predictions for the residual amounts 17 of herbicide at 59 and 99 d after treatment (DAT). At 191 DAT, the amounts of alachlor 18 at 0to 20 -cm depth were overestimated by 13 to 23%, indicating limitations of the 19 model at longer times, attributed to: (i) the adaptation time of the microbial population 20 for herbicide degradation and (ii) the effect of herbicide sequestration in the soil matrix, 21 a phenomenon denoted as “aging”. 22 23 Slow release formulations of alachlor 3 Abbreviations: SRF: slow-release formulation; EC: ethylcellulose; PC: 1 phosphatidylcholine; a.i.: active ingredient; RMSE: root mean square error; DAT: days 2 after treatment; AEW: acetone/ethyl acetate/water 3
The domain specificity and generality of belief bias: Searching for a generalizable critical thinking skill.

The domain specificity and generality of belief-biased reasoning was examined across a height judgment task and a syllogistic reasoning task that differed greatly in cognitive requirements. Moderate correlations between belief-bias indices on these 2 tasks falsified an extreme form of the domain specificity view of critical thinking skills. Two measures of cognitive ability and 2 measures of cognitive decontextualization skill were positively correlated with belief bias in a height judgment task where prior knowledge accurately reflected an aspect of the environment and negatively correlated with belief bias in a height judgment task where prior knowledge was incongruent with the environment. Likewise, cognitive ability was associated with skill at resisting the influence of prior knowledge in the syllogistic reasoning task. Participants high in cognitive ability were able to flexibly use prior knowledge, depending upon its efficacy in a particular environment. They were more likely to project a relationship when it reflected a useful cue, but they were also less likely to project a prior belief when the belief was inefficacious.
Traffic Management Performance: Development of a Traffic Frustration Index

This report examines whether a Traffic Frustration Index, which quantifies the events which contribute to driver frustration, would be a useful supplement to measures such as traffic speed and flow in identifying priorities for traffic management interventions and assessing the outcomes of such interventions. The report, covering the four stages of the project, documents the results of a literature review, a laboratory experiment to quantify situations which drivers regard as frustrating, the development of a Traffic Frustration Index model of different types of frustrating events and an evaluation of the model through its application to a number of traffic routes. The project determined that there was a very close correlation between the Traffic Frustration Index and travel speed and good correlation between user ratings on how well certain roads performed and the Traffic Frustration Index. Although it was demonstrated that different types of traffic events have different impacts on driver frustration, the aggregate of these events correlates closely with traffic speed and adds little to the prediction of overall driver satisfaction. (a)
Interactive Distributed Source Coding in Asymmetric Communication Scenarios

We provide a new unified framework, called "multiple correlated informants - single recipient" communication, to address the variations of the traditional Distributed Source Coding (DSC) problem. Different combinations of the assumptions about the communication scenarios and the objectives of communication result in different variations of the DSC problem. For each of these variations, the complexities of communication and computation of the optimal solution is determined by the combination of the underlying assumptions. In the proposed framework, we address the asymmetric, interactive, and lossless variant of the DSC problem, with various objectives of communication and provide optimal solutions for those. Also, we consider both, the worst-case and average-case scenarios.
Influence maximization through identifying seed nodes from implicit social networks

In this paper, we introduce a new type of influence maximization problem, i.e., choosing a smallest subset of members from implicit social networks for maximizing the spread of influence. These kinds of networks differ from some well studied explicit social networks in that the nodes are not directly connected. We propose a reverse k-nearest neighbor approach to measure a user's social network potential (SNP). Further we sequentially select seed nodes with the largest SNP value from the user set. Experimental results on real web data demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed solution.
Co-expression of tonoplast Cation/H(+) antiporter and H(+)-pyrophosphatase from xerophyte Zygophyllum xanthoxylum improves alfalfa plant growth under salinity, drought and field conditions.

Salinity and drought are major environmental factors limiting the growth and productivity of alfalfa worldwide as this economically important legume forage is sensitive to these kinds of abiotic stress. In this study, transgenic alfalfa lines expressing both tonoplast NXH and H(+)-PPase genes, ZxNHX and ZxVP1-1 from the xerophyte Zygophyllum xanthoxylum L. , were produced via Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformation. Compared with wild-type (WT) plants, transgenic alfalfa plants co-expressing ZxNHX and ZxVP1-1 grew better with greater plant height and dry mass under normal or stress conditions (NaCl or water-deficit) in the greenhouse. The growth performance of transgenic alfalfa plants was associated with more Na(+), K(+) and Ca(2+) accumulation in leaves and roots, as a result of co-expression of ZxNHX and ZxVP1-1. Cation accumulation contributed to maintaining intracellular ions homoeostasis and osmoregulation of plants and thus conferred higher leaf relative water content and greater photosynthesis capacity in transgenic plants compared to WT when subjected to NaCl or water-deficit stress. Furthermore, the transgenic alfalfa co-expressing ZxNHX and ZxVP1-1 also grew faster than WT plants under field conditions, and most importantly, exhibited enhanced photosynthesis capacity by maintaining higher net photosynthetic rate, stomatal conductance, and water-use efficiency than WT plants. Our results indicate that co-expression of tonoplast NHX and H(+)-PPase genes from a xerophyte significantly improved the growth of alfalfa, and enhanced its tolerance to high salinity and drought. This study laid a solid basis for reclaiming and restoring saline and arid marginal lands as well as improving forage yield in northern China.
Planning with Goal Utility Dependencies

Work in partial satisfaction planning (PSP) has hitherto assumed that goals are independent thus implying that they have additive utility values. In many real-world problems, we cannot make this assumption. In this paper, we motivate the need for handling various types of goal utility dependence in PSP. We provide a framework for representing them using the General Additive Independence model and investigate two different approaches to handle this problem: (1) compiling PSP with utility dependencies to Integer Programming; (2) extending forward heuristic search planning to handle PSP goal dependencies. To guide the forward planning search, we introduce a novel heuristic framework that combines costpropagation and Integer Programming to select beneficial goals to find an informative heuristic estimate. The two implemented planners, iPUD and SPUDS, using the approaches discussed above, are compared empirically on several benchmark domains. While iPUD is more readily amendable to handle goal utility dependencies and can provide bounded optimality guarantees, SPUDS scales much better.
Interstellar 12 C/ 13 C ratios through CH + λλ3957,4232 absorption in local clouds: incomplete mixing in the ISM ,,

The 12 C/ 13 C isotope ratio is a tracer of stellar yields and the efficiency of mixing in the ISM. 12 CH + / 13 CH + is not affected by interstellar chemistry, and is the most secure way of measuring 12 C/ 13 C in the diffuse ISM. R = 12 C/ 13 Ci s 90 in the solar system. Previous measurements of 12 CH + λλ3957. 7,4232.3 and 13 CH + λλ3958. 2,4232.0 absorption toward nearby stars indicate some variations in 12 C/ 13 C, with values ranging from 40 to 90 suggesting inefficient mixing. Except for the cloud toward ζOph, these R values are strongly affected by noise. With UVES on the VLT we have improved on the previous interstellar 12 C/ 13 C measurements. The weighted 12 C/ 13 C ratio in the local ISM is 78.27 ± 1.83, while the weighted dispersion of our measurements is 12.7, giving a 6. 9σ scatter. Thus we report on a 6. 9σ detection of 16.2% root-mean-square variations in the carbon isotopic ratio on scales of ∼100 pc: R = 74.7 ± 2. 3i n theζOph cloud, while R = 88.6 ± 3.0 toward HD 152235 in the Lupus clouds, R = 62.2 ± 5.3 towards HD 110432 in the Coalsack, and R = 98.9 ± 10.1 toward HD 170740. The observed variations in 13 C/ 12 C are the first significant detection of chemical heterogeneity in the local ISM.
Self-Organized, Scalable GPS-Free Localization of Wireless Sensors

Wireless sensors are expected to be widely deployed in the near future for a vast variety of applications. Sensing data is not useful unless the location where the data is collected is also known to the end users. Although much work has been done on the positioning of sensor nodes, proposed algorithms often are not applicable in certain environments. Furthermore, there is always a need to reduce their complexity and cost, and to improve accuracy for these algorithms. This work is primarily motivated by a new research project called WINES to deploy wireless sensors to monitor the conditions of London underground and water systems. Global Positioning System (GPS) based positioning methods are not applicable in the underground environments. In addition, the tunnels and water pipes are not located at the same horizontal level, so existing algorithms proposed for two-dimensional deployment areas become inadequate. To overcome the challenge, we propose and study here a new localization algorithm by extending one proposed for two-dimensional service areas by Capkun et al. Our new scheme is a distributed, self-organized, infrastructure-free positioning algorithm that enables easy and flexible sensor deployment in the harsh environments. Furthermore, our computer simulation reveals that the new scheme achieves a satisfactory, relative average position error of less than 5% when the errors for distance estimations among sensors have a standard deviation of no more than 5%.