Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Breast EIT using a new projected image reconstruction method with multi-frequency measurements

We propose a new method to produce admittivity images of the breast for the diagnosis of breast cancer using electrical impedance tomography (EIT). Considering the anatomical structure of the breast, we designed an electrode configuration where current-injection and voltage-sensing electrodes are separated in such a way that internal current pathways are approximately along the tangential direction of an array of voltage-sensing electrodes. Unlike conventional EIT imaging methods where the number of injected currents is maximized to increase the total amount of measured data, current is injected only twice between two pairs of current-injection electrodes attached along the circumferential side of the breast. For each current injection, the induced voltages are measured from the front surface of the breast using as many voltage-sensing electrodes as possible. Although this electrode configuration allows us to measure induced voltages only on the front surface of the breast, they are more sensitive to an anomaly inside the breast since such an injected current tends to produce a more uniform internal current density distribution. Furthermore, the sensitivity of a measured boundary voltage between two equipotential lines on the front surface of the breast is improved since those equipotential lines are perpendicular to the primary direction of internal current streamlines. One should note that this novel data collection method is different from those of other frontal plane techniques such as the x-ray projection and T-scan imaging methods because we do not get any data on the plane that is perpendicular to the current flow. To reconstruct admittivity images using two measured voltage data sets, a new projected image reconstruction algorithm is developed. Numerical simulations demonstrate the frequency-difference EIT imaging of the breast. The results show that the new method is promising to accurately detect and localize small anomalies inside the breast.
Spc 98 p and Spc 97 p of the yeast γ-tubulin complex mediate binding to the spindle pole body via their interaction with Spc 110 p

Previously, we have shown that the yeast γ-tubulin, Tub4p, forms a 6S complex with the spindle pole body components Spc98p and Spc97p. In this paper we report the purification of the Tub4p complex. It contained one molecule of Spc98p and Spc97p, and two or more molecules of Tub4p, but no other protein. We addressed how the Tub4p complex binds to the yeast microtubule organizing center, the spindle pole body (SPB). Genetic and biochemical data indicate that Spc98p and Spc97p of the Tub4p complex bind to the N-terminal domain of the SPB component Spc110p. Finally, we isolated a complex containing Spc110p, Spc42p, calmodulin and a 35 kDa protein, suggesting that these four proteins interact in the SPB. We discuss in a model, how the N-terminus of Spc110p anchors the Tub4p complex to the SPB and how Spc110p itself is embedded in the SPB.
The Impact of Media Sentiment on Firm Risk, Corporate Investment and Financial Policies

This study investigates the association between media sentiment and a comprehensive set of corporate decision making measures that capture firm, corporate investment, and financial policy risk. This study predicts that CEOs who achieve greater media coverage are more risk-seeking. We find a positive association between media sentiment and the volatility of future firm stock returns, research and development expenditures and cash holdings. CEOs are more overconfident when estimating returns and risk when media sentiment is strong and positive. CEOs are more risk-seeking when sentiment is negative in an attempt to salvage firm reputation and increase personal wealth. Liquidity is used to hedge risk when firms and CEOs face increased media coverage. Our findings support the role of media sentiment as an external mechanism monitoring firm risk and policies.
An Assessment of Change in Asthma Control among Adolescents and Adults with Persistent Asthma In Mometasone Furoate/Formoterol Fumarate Clinical Trials

Objective. This article provides evidence on the psychometric properties of the Asthma Control Questionnaire (ACQ) in adolescent and adult patients with persistent asthma treated with a combination of inhaled glucocorticoid and long-acting beta2-agonist (LABAs), and explores the factors associated with important improvements in asthma control. Methods. Data from patients in two large (n = 737 and 772) Phase III, randomized, double-blind, parallel-group, multi-center, placebo-controlled studies of mometasone furoate/formoterol fumarate (MF/F) combination formulation compared with monotherapies in subjects with persistent asthma previously treated with either low- or medium-dose inhaled glucocorticoids were used to evaluate the ACQ psychometric properties and predictors of important ACQ improvement, defined as an ACQ score decline from baseline of 0.5 or more at the end of treatment. Results. With 15% and 8% participation from adolescents in the low- and medium-dose studies, the ACQ yielded acceptable reliability (intraclass correlation coefficient ≥ 0.75), and baseline and change scores demonstrated moderate to strong correlations with other baseline measures and change scores in other measures of asthma-related health, including the Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire (AQLQ12+) domains and total scores. More MF/F treatment group patients (48%) achieved an important ACQ change at 26 weeks compared with MF (32%), F (26%), and placebo (18%) treatment groups (p < .001). Use of rescue medications before randomization was a significant predictor of important ACQ improvement in both studies. Conclusions. These findings support the psychometric properties of the ACQ to measure asthma control among persistent asthma patients and provide confidence in the significant improvements in asthma control demonstrated by the MF/F treatment group.
Factors That Influence An Academic Institution's Intention To Accept CloudIOT: A Proposed Framework

The combination of Cloud Computing (CC) and Internet of things (IOT) which is known as CloudIOT are two different kinds of technologies that are already part of our lives. The growing usage of CloudIOT in the education sector is changing the Teaching and Learning processes. There is very limited study related to the factors which effect students’ acceptance of CloudIOT innovations in an academic institution. The aim of this paper is to illustrate different aspects of CloudIOT and to understand the beneficial impacts of using these technologies in the education sector. Besides, it also examines the factors which influence students’ acceptance of CloudIOT in the academic institutions in Libya. This study will develop a conceptual framework (CloudIOT adoption model) based on extending UTAUT2 model. Keywords— internet of things; Cloud Computing; CloudIOT; UTAUT2; Education; acceptance
Parameters variability effects on microstrip interconnects via Hermite polynomial Chaos

This paper focuses on the derivation of an enhanced transmission-line model allowing to describe a realistic high-speed interconnect with the inclusion of external uncertainties, like tolerances or process variations. The proposed method, that is based on the expansion of the well-known telegraph equations in terms of Hermite polynomials, turns out to be accurate and more efficient than alternative solutions like Monte Carlo in determining the transmission-line response sensitivity to parameters variability. Two application examples involving the frequency-domain analysis of realistic PCB microstrip structures conclude the paper.
PERCEIVED ENVIRONMENTAL UNCERTAINTY AND INNOVATION ADOPTION: EXPLORING THE TURKISH CONTEXT

Because innovation and environmental uncertainty are highly crucial concepts for organizations’ survival, and managers are key decision makers in organizational operations, investigating the relationship between innovation and environmental uncertainty from managers’ lenses is important. This study aims to explore how managers’ adoption of radical and incremental innovation is affected by perceived environmental uncertainty (PEU). Data collected from 230 managers that work for companies that operate in various industries has been analyzed by using Multinomial logistic regression analysis. Results of the study indicate that government and policies factor is the effective factor on managers’ decisions on innovation adoption, and in uncertain environments in terms of governmental and policy factor, managers choose to adopt both types of innovation since they want avoid to take risks of adopting solely one type of innovation.
A memory controller that reduces latency of cached SDRAM

The proposed controller has two main control schemes, address-alignment control and dummy-cache control. These two schemes cooperatively control cached SDRAM to reduce its latency. Testing of the controller using benchmark programs demonstrated that latency was reduced 25% and execution time was reduced 13% compared to those of a sense-amplifier cache controller for standard SDRAM. The proposed controller requires 9.2 Kgates at a supply voltage of 1.8 V and an operating frequency of 133 MHz.
The “New” Faculty Development? Exploring the Relationship Between Human Performance Improvement (HPI) and Current Best Practices in Faculty Development

From their beginnings with the first center for teaching and learning (CTL) at the University of Michigan in 1962, CTLs have grown to become respected organizations on their campuses. However, there is an unexplored nexus between the literature on human performance improvement (HPI) and faculty development. As professionals working in support of the academic enterprise, faculty developers must become aware of all possible opportunities to demonstrate their value in an increasingly difficult environment; HPI is just such an opportunity. By using a keyword search of books and articles written by recognized HPI authorities, the author identified and defined 22 words and phrases commonly used to describe the field. A review of the faculty development literature between 2001 and 2010 determined that references to HPI using these key words and phrases occurred in only 26% of the articles reviewed. In addition, over 44% of 303 CTL websites on a comprehensive list maintained by Hofstra University failed to link their services to any aspect of human performance improvement. Several options to begin implementing HPI are described.
Shear stress regulates endothelial cell function through SRB1-eNOS signaling pathway.

AIM The aim of this study was to explore whether transmembrane flow shear stress could regulate eNOS expression and mediate endothelial cell function via SR-B1 signaling transduction. METHODS Parallel-plate flow chamber was used to impose laminar shear stress and evaluate the effect of shear stress upon human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs). The expression of SR-B1 and eNOS at both RNA and protein levels was detected under different dynamic conditions. RNA interference and gene transfection were performed to overexpress and knock down the SRB1 to confirm the role of SR-B1-eNOS signaling pathway. RESULTS The expression levels of SR-B1 and eNOS were downregulated when HUVECs were treated with 4.2 dyne/cm(2) shear stress compared with those of the control group. However, the expression of SR-B1 and eNOS was upregulated as HUVECs exposed to 8.4 and 15 dyne/cm(2) shear stress. When exposed to 8.4 dyne/cm(2) , SR-B1 and eNOS expression was significantly higher compared with those of the other groups. When SR-B1 was knocked down through RNAi technique, the expression of eNOS was significantly downregulated than those of the other groups. While overexpression of SR-B1 could upregulate eNOS significantly. CONCLUSION Shear stress regulates endothelial cell function through SR-B1-eNOS signaling pathway. SR-B1 may play a pivotal role in the process of anti-atherosclerosis.
A DIVERGENCE-BASED MODEL SEPARATION

In this paper, a divergence-based training algorithm is proposed for model separation, where the relative divergence between models is derived from KullbackLeibler (KL) information. We attempt to improve the discriminative power of existing model while the environment-matched training data is not available. It could be applied to improve the model discrimination after model-based compensation technique is performed for robust speech recognition. Traditionally, the model training is based on data driven such as maximum likelihood (ML) estimation or discriminative training. Compared to ML training, the minimum classification error (MCE) objective in discriminative training leads significant gain in accuracy. We attempt to improve model discrimination based on an approximate classification error analysis, relative divergence. We found that the smaller the relative divergence is, the more discriminative powers of the two models are. In the proposed algorithm, we try to directly obtain the discriminant function for model training from the relative divergence. Thus, the model parameters can be adjusted based on minimum relative divergence. Experimental results demonstrate that the divergence-based model separation method can achieve better recognition performance.
Simultaneous Tracking and Activity Recognition (STAR) using Advanced Agent-Based Behavioral Simulations

Tracking and understanding moving pedestrian behaviors is of major concern for a growing number of applications. Classical approaches either consider both problems separately or treat them simultaneously on the basis of limited contextual graphical models. In this paper, we consider tackling both problems jointly based on richer contextual information issued from agent-based behavioral simulators designed for realistically reproducing human behaviors within complex environments. We focus on the single target case and experimentally show that the proposed approach keeps good performances even in case of long periods of occlusion.
3D cosmic shear: cosmology from CFHTLenS

This paper presents the first application of 3D cosmic shear to a wide-field weak lensing survey. 3D cosmic shear is a technique that analyses weak lensing in three dimensions using a spherical harmonic approach, and does not bin data in the redshift direction. This is applied to CFHTLenS, a 154 square degree imaging survey with a median redshift of 0.7 and an effective number density of 11 galaxies per square arcminute usable for weak lensing. To account for survey masks we apply a 3D pseudo-Cl approach on weak lensing data, and to avoid uncertainties in the highly non-linear regime, we separately analyse radial wave numbers k<=1.5h/Mpc and k<=5.0h/Mpc, and angular wavenumbers l~400-5000. We show how one can recover 2D and tomographic power spectra from the full 3D cosmic shear power spectra and present a measurement of the 2D cosmic shear power spectrum, and measurements of a set of 2-bin and 6-bin cosmic shear tomographic power spectra; in doing so we find that using the 3D power in the calculation of such 2D and tomographic power spectra from data naturally accounts for a minimum scale in the matter power spectrum. We use 3D cosmic shear to constrain cosmologies with parameters OmegaM, OmegaB, sigma8, h, ns, w0, wa. For a non-evolving dark energy equation of state, and assuming a flat cosmology, lensing combined with WMAP7 results in h=0.78+/-0.12, OmegaM=0.252+/-0.079, sigma8=0.88+/-0.23 and w=-1.16+/-0.38 using only scales k<=1.5h/Mpc. We also present results of lensing combined with first year Planck results, where we find no tension with the results from this analysis, but we also find no significant improvement over the Planck results alone. We find evidence of a suppression of power compared to LCDM on small scales 1.5 < k < 5.0 h/Mpc in the lensing data, which is consistent with predictions of the effect of baryonic feedback on the matter power spectrum.
In situ biodegradation: microbiological patterns in a contaminated aquifer

Conventional approaches for proving in situ biodegradation of organic pollutants in aquifers have severe limitations. In the approach described here, patterns in a comprehensive set of microbiological activity and distribution data were analyzed. Measurements were performed on sediment samples gathered at consistent depths in aquifer boreholes spanning a gradient of contaminant concentrations at a buried coal tar site. Microbial adaptation to polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) was demonstrated by mineralization of naphthalene and phenanthrene in samples from PAH-contaminated, but not adjacent pristine, zones. Furthermore, contaminant-stimulated in situ bacterial growth was indicated because enhanced numbers of protozoa and their bacterial prey were found exclusively in contaminated subsurface samples. The data suggest that many convergent lines of logically linked indirect evidence can effectively document in situ biodegradation of aquifer contaminants.
Algorithmes d'optimisation sous contraintes étudiés dans un cadre temps réel

Les systemes temps reels intelligents, c'est-a-dire capables de prendre des decisions en temps contraint, constituent un nouveau defi. La nouveaute provient de la nature des tâches a ordonnancer sur le processeur : une prise de decision n'est pas vue comme un resultat complet, optimum, obtenu en temps borne ; elle correspond plutot a un resultat approche, de qualite croissante en fonction du temps alloue. Le systeme ne vise plus seulement a garantir les echeances temporelles d'un ensemble de tâches ; il essaie aussi de maximiser la qualite en sortie du systeme. Nous avons choisi comme problemes de decision la classe des problemes de minimisation de la violation de contraintes. Un formalisme novateur, appele problemes de satisfaction de contraintes valuees, permet de modeliser ces problemes d'optimisation. Pour un probleme donne, il est difficile de predire l'evolution de la qualite, afin de l'ordonnancer au mieux vis-a-vis des autres tâches gerees par le systeme. Notre approche pragmatique consiste a encadrer progressivement l'optimum lors de la resolution d'un probleme. Cet encadrement est une information exacte de l'etat d'avancement d'une tâche et un critere important pour repartir les efforts de calcul pour un ensemble de tâches d'optimisation. Concretement, pour des problemes de minimisation, l'encadrement est obtenu par cooperation de methodes incompletes permettant de produire des majorants et de methodes completes permettant de produire des minorants. Nos travaux portent sur la production de minorants. Nous decrivons plusieurs methodes originales et generiques pour simplifier soit la structure d'un probleme, soit l'objectif, soit la procedure de recherche. Ces techniques sont experimentees sur des problemes generes aleatoirement, ainsi que sur des problemes reels : planification des prises de vue du satellite Spot5, allocation de frequences a des liens radio (CELAR).
Vocational Education and Training for Farmers and Other Actors in the Agri-Food Value Chain in Africa

The study analyzes the current state of Agricultural Technical and Vocational Education and Training (ATVET) in Africa and presents its challenges and opportunities. A review of the ATVET in selected Sub- Saharan Africa countries shows that there are far too few training opportunities for young people and that often, the training offered does not match the needs of the private sector and of local administrations. ATVET trainings focus primarily on production skills and on producers themselves with too little practical training. ATVET needs to be adapted to the context of increasingly commercial and technical 21st century agricultural systems. We use the German dual ATVET system as a case study for best practices. The study concludes that an effective reform of ATVET in Africa would require policies and initiatives that tackle the general challenges as well as taking advantage of country-specific opportunities.
The Effect of Perceived Socially Motivated Gamification on Purchase Intention: Does It Really Work?

Companies try to be innovative in their relationships with customers. As organizations seek new ways to differentiate themselves and to have more market share, gamification has emerged as a new concept in their marketing efforts. Many third-party organizations now utilize gamified services which grasp the attention and interest of many potential customers with its game-like features. These services form the basis of our research in understanding how people react to such gamified experience. In order to gather data, survey method was implemented to people who reside in Istanbul, use gamified websites, applications and mostly under 25 years old. Results implicate that there is strong correlation between users’ attitude towards gamification and their purchase intention regarding the product which advertised in these gamified services. This paper contributes to literature in a unique way in which a connection between purchase intention and attitude towards gamification is proposed. Additionally, it is the first empirical gamification research made in Turkey.
Specialist Competitor Referrals: How Salespeople can Use Competitor Referrals for Nonfocal Products to Increase Focal Product Sales

Intuition suggests that a salesperson should not refer consumers to a competitor for products that they both sell. However, myriad examples reveal salespeople doing just that. The authors study specialist competitor referrals, a sales strategy by which one increases consumers’ purchase likelihood of a focal product (e.g., a painting at an art gallery) by (1) referring consumers to a competitor (e.g., a frame warehouse store) that offers a nonfocal product (e.g., a frame) at a lower price, while (2) stating that the stores differ in their specializations (i.e., the stores concentrate their efforts on different goods). Using a study and survey with salespeople, experimental studies, an incentivized negotiation experiment, and a field study, the authors show that specialist competitor referrals can indeed benefit sellers. Specifically, they build on equity theory to show that specialist competitor referrals increase focal product sales by reducing consumers’ perceived overpayment risk for the focal product via increasing perceived equity in the exchange. The authors also show that competitor referrals for nonfocal products that do not justify the price difference on the nonfocal product are ineffective.