Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Metal Oxide-Graphene-Based Quasi-D-Shaped Optical Fiber Plasmonic Biosensor

A quasi-D-Shaped photonic crystal fiber plasmonic biosensor operating in near infrared is proposed for refractive index sensing. Chemically stable graphene and indium tin oxide layers are used outside the fiber structure to realize a simple detection mechanism. The design of quasi-D-shaped fiber makes the sensor configuration more simple and easy to use. And the proposed sensor shows the wavelength interrogation sensitivity of 3908–10693 <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\text{nm/RIU}$</tex-math></inline-formula> in the dynamic index range from 1.33 to 1.38. It also shows the maximum amplitude sensitivity of 95 <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX"> $\text{RIU}^{-1}$</tex-math></inline-formula> at the wavelength of 2040 nm with the analyte refractive index (RI) of 1.37. Compared with traditional D-shaped optical fiber, the proposed quasi-D-Shaped fiber has the advantages of easier to make and the promising results makes it a potential candidate for detecting biomolecules, water quality analysis and other analytes.
Imaging the Embryonic Kidney

The structural and functional development of the permanent mammalian kidney or metanephros is a complex process involving the actions of thousands of gene products, complex cell movements and tissue patterning in three dimensions (3D). This review focuses on the recent advances made in imaging technology, processing and analysis combined with mouse genetics and the generation of protein-reporter mice which has enabled us to monitor the development and movement of defined cell populations within the developing kidney in 3D and over time (4D).
Religious identity consolidation and mobilization among Turkish Dutch Muslims

This paper investigates religious identity consolidation in terms of the endorsement of the rights of Dutch Muslims to publicly express their identity, and identity mobilization in terms of the attitude towards normative forms of political organization. Identity consolidation and mobilization were examined as a function of the content of Muslim identity. A distinction was made between an individualized and a communal interpretation of what it means to be a Muslim, in addition to orthodox belief. Personal meaning and personal certainty as two aspects of an individualized interpretation were found to be positively associated to the endorsement of Muslim expressive rights, but not to the attitude towards political organization. Behavioural involvement and Muslim group interdependence were positively associated with identity organization. Orthodoxy was related to both identity consolidation and mobilization. Theoretical implications of these results are discussed.
University Social Structure and Social Networks Among Scientists

Findings are presented that describe the pattern of research communication among faculty in the six physical science departments of an elite American university. The findings provide a basis for modifying and extending Peter Blau's analysis of the relationship between university social structure and the pattern of communication among university faculty. Blau regards the formation of integrative multidisciplinary social networks within university communities as highly problematic; he suggests that academic departments are the primary site of integrative social networks within universities. My findings suggest that academic departments are not appropriate units for describing the pattern of research communication among university faculty, at least in the physical sciences, and that university social structure can foster an integrative social network which is multidisciplinary in composition. Proposals are introduced that relate facets of university social structure to the formation of integrative multidisciplinary social networks. A perspective on the role of universities in fostering the coherence of the scientific elite is outlined.
Cause of apical thinning on attenuation-corrected myocardial perfusion SPECT

ObjectivesDecreases in apical and apex activities – namely, ‘apical thinning’ – are a well-known phenomenon in attenuation-corrected (AC) myocardial perfusion. The aim of this study was to compare actual myocardial thickness derived from a multidetector-row computed tomography with AC myocardial perfusion count from a hybrid single-photon emission computed tomography/computed tomography to investigate the cause of apical thinning. MethodsWe enrolled 21 participants with a low likelihood of coronary artery disease (mean age 65±21 years, 13 men) from 185 consecutive patients and 11 healthy volunteers, who independently underwent 99mTc-sestamibi single-photon emission computed tomography/computed tomography and 64-slice multidetector-row computed tomography scans. AC and non-AC myocardial perfusion counts and thickness were measured on the basis of a 17-segment model and averaged at the apex, apical, mid, and basal walls. ResultsMyocardial thickness at the apex was significantly thinner than that at the apical and mid walls (5.1±1.3, 7.3±1.3, and 9.9±2.4 mm, respectively; P<0.005). AC count at the apex was significantly lower than that at the apical and mid regions (76.0±5.5, 82.8±4.7, and 85.6±3.8, respectively; P<0.002). Moderate relationship was observed between myocardial thickness and AC count (y=−10.5+0.22x, r=0.54, P<0.0001. No relationship was found between thickness and non-AC count (r=0.16, P=0.263). ConclusionThe low apex and apical counts were caused by anatomical thinning of the myocardium in AC myocardial perfusion imaging. Attenuation correction provided an accurate relationship between myocardial count and thickness because of the partial volume effect.
Bernoulli filter for joint detection and tracking of target with low signal to clutter ratio

In this paper, Bernoulli filter is directly applied to filter the detection results from the range Doppler plots and showed the ability to track targets at the condition with low signal to clutter ratio (SCR). Using Weibull distribution to simulate clutter and adding the target with different power, we obtain the range Doppler plots with different SCR. And then, the test results of the range Doppler plots are treated as the input of Bernoulli filter. Simulation results show that the Bernoulli filter can track targets properly even in the condition of SCR=10dB, in which the visual cannot distinguish target. Therefore, Bernoulli filter can play an important part in actual target detection and track, especially in small target track.
FAMIX and XMI

Exchange formats have gained lots of attention. Multiple tools need to interact and/or work on the some software system. Especially there is a need to reuse parser technology. Within the FAMOOS project we have developed a model for representing object-oriented software systems at the program entity level. The model has been designed for language independence, extensibility and information exchange. For the actual exchange of data we are currently moving to use XMI, a standard for model-based information exchange.
Real-time mixed-reality telepresence via 3D reconstruction with HoloLens and commodity depth sensors

We present a demo of low-cost mixed reality telepresence system that performs real-time 3D reconstruction of a person or an object and wirelessly transmits the reconstructions to Microsoft's HoloLens head mounted display at frame rates perceived as smooth. A reconstructed frame is represented as a polygonal mesh with polygons textured with high definition data obtained from RGB cameras. Each frame is compressed and sent to HoloLens, so that it can be locally rendered by its GPU, minimizing latency of reacting to head movement. Owing to HoloLens half-translucent displays, the system creates an appearance of remote object being part of user's physical environment. The system can run on a relatively low-cost commodity hardware, such as Kinect sensors and in the most basic scenario can produce smooth frame rates of a single multicore laptop.
Discriminative deep recurrent neural networks for monaural speech separation

Deep neural network is now a new trend towards solving different problems in speech processing. In this paper, we propose a discriminative deep recurrent neural network (DRNN) model for monaural speech separation. Our idea is to construct DRNN as a regression model to discover the deep structure and regularity for signal reconstruction from a mixture of two source spectra. To reinforce the discrimination capability between two separated spectra, we estimate DRNN separation parameters by minimizing an integrated objective function which consists of two measurements. One is the within-source reconstruction errors due to the individual source spectra while the other conveys the discrimination information which preserves the mutual difference between two source spectra during the supervised training procedure. This discrimination information acts as a kind of regularization so as to maintain between-source separation in monaural source separation. In the experiments, we demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method for speech separation compared with the other methods.
Illustration of the Difficulty of Identifying Streptococcus equi Strains at the Subspecies Level through a Case of Endocarditis in an Immunocompetent Man

ABSTRACT We report a case of endocarditis caused by Streptococcus equi in an immunocompetent patient who was subsequently cured after appropriate antibiotherapy and cardiac surgery. However, it was challenging to identify the strain to the subspecies level, which highlights the necessity of developing reliable molecular tools to discriminate between the subspecies.
Dance as a tourism activity: demographics, demand characteristics, motivation, and segmentation.

With the increased popularity of ballroom dance as a recreational activity in the US, there is aneed to explore the different aspects associated with the participation in social and competitivedance events. This preliminary study examined the demographics, dance community involvement,travel-related activities, and the most important demand characteristics of the ballroom dance eventmarket. By employing factor-cluster analysis, six motivation dimensions for social dance participa-tion were identified: Escape & Relaxation, Socialization, Novelty, Dance Learning, (Dance) EventEnjoyment, and Excitement. Three cluster groups were identified based on the dance event motiva-tion dimensions: Multipurpose Dancers, Dance Learning and Enjoyment Seekers, and Socializationand Relaxation Seekers. It is hoped that the results of the study will contribute to the better under-standing of the dance event market and be helpful to those who organize and host dance events.Key words: Event tourism; Dance event motivation; Factor-cluster analysis
Morphological component analysis

The Morphological Component Analysis (MCA) is a a new method which allows us to separate features contained in an image when these features present different morphological aspects. We show that MCA can be very useful for decomposing images into texture and piecewise smooth (cartoon) parts or for inpainting applications. We extend MCA to a multichannel MCA (MMCA) for analyzing multispectral data and present a range of examples which illustrates the results.
Dynamic tactile guidance for visual search tasks

Visual search in large real-world scenes is both time consuming and frustrating, because the search becomes serial when items are visually similar. Tactile guidance techniques can facilitate search by allowing visual attention to focus on a subregion of the scene. We present a technique for dynamic tactile cueing that couples hand position with a scene position and uses tactile feedback to guide the hand actively toward the target. We demonstrate substantial improvements in task performance over a baseline of visual search only, when the scene's complexity increases. Analyzing task performance, we demonstrate that the effect of visual complexity can be practically eliminated through improved spatial precision of the guidance.
Leading sustainable schools: exploring the role of primary school principals

The purpose of the paper is to identify the kinds of leadership that are likely to support implementing and sustaining education for sustainable development (ESD) effectively in a primary school. The paper identifies links between ESD and principal leadership literature and constructs a conceptual model of the leadership practices needed for reorienting a school to ESD/education for sustainability. Aspects of the model are explored through Cypriot principals' views on leadership and reported leadership practices. Data were obtained by a nationally administered questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. Outcomes indicated some enabling factors for ESD implementation such as encouraging teachers to engage in ESD programmes, collaborate with others and other ways of support which nevertheless reflect what is generally expected of school administrators without seeking deep change. Constraining factors included principals' reported lack of confidence in administrative skills for sustainable schools, limited willingness to challenge the status quo, limited engagement in actions important for supporting ESD activities and features of the national educational policy. Constraining factors pointed towards principals' limited commitment to ESD. The practical significance of the findings is that they identify specific areas of needed professional development for principals such as empowering staff, encouraging critique of current approaches and exploring alternative possibilities for curriculum, pedagogy and policy.
Exploring Ensemble of Models in Taxonomy-based Cross-Domain Sentiment Classification

Most cross-domain sentiment classification techniques consider a domain as a whole set of opinionated instances for training. However, many online shopping websites organize their data in terms of taxonomy. With multiple domains (or, nodes) organized in a tree-structured representation, we propose a general ensemble algorithm which takes into account: 1) the model application, 2) the model weight and 3) the strategies for selecting the most related models with respect to a target node. The traditional sentiment classification technique SVM and the transfer learning algorithm Spectral Features Alignment (SFA) were applied as our model applications. In addition, the model weight takes the tree information and the similarity between domains into account. Finally, two strategies, cosine function and taxonomy-based regression model (TBRM) are proposed to select the most related models with respect to a target node. Experimental results showed both (cosine function and TBRM) proposed strategies outperform two baselines on an Amazon dataset. Three tasks of the proposed methods surpass the gold standard generated by the in-domain classifiers trained on the labeled data from the target nodes. Good results from the three tasks enable this algorithm to shed some new light on eliminating the major difficulties in transfer learning research: the distribution gap.
Dimensions of Secularity (DoS): An Open Inventory to Measure Facets of Secular Identities

Beliefs about the world affect experiences and behavior. Although much is known about beliefs pertaining to religion, or the supernatural, secular identifies have, to date, remained largely neglected. To allow for dimensional assessment of different aspects of secular identities, the Dimensions of Secularity (DoS) inventory has been developed. It measures degrees of atheism, agnosticism and several philosophic orientations (scientism, personal responsibility, humanism). As an “open” inventory, these constructs are not seen as comprehensive, and researchers are encouraged to add further scales. The DoS shows good reliabilities and a clear factor structure. Confirmatory factor analysis confirms the theoretically proposed model. Correlation patterns with discriminant measures (religious belonging, belief, spirituality, numinous experiences) support the instrument's discriminant validity. Associations with sources of meaning contribute to construct validity. Demographic relationships are reported and discussed.
Requirement of the N‐terminus for dimer formation of phenylalanine‐sensitive 3‐deoxy‐D‐arabino‐heptulosonate synthase AroG of Escherichia coli

The first regulatory step in the synthesis of aromatic amino acids is catalyzed by 3‐deoxy‐D‐arabino‐heptulosonate 7‐phosphate synthase (DAHPS). In Escherichia coli, the allosteric DAHPS exists as three isozymes, AroG, AroF and AroH, each independently feedback‐inhibited by corresponding end product amino acids, phenylalanine, tyrosine and typtophan. Structural biological evidences have suggested that the N‐terminus of AroG is involved in the formation of a putative inhibitor‐binding site and feedback inhibition signal transmission. Our previous work showed that a single amino acid residue replacement Ile10Ala or deletion of 15 N‐terminal amino acids could lead to a dramatic loss of AroG enzymatic activity (Hu et al. 2003). Here we demonstrate that the deletion of N‐terminus prevents the enzyme from forming a dimeric structure, indicating that the N‐terminus of AroG plays a critical role in the formation of the essential tight dimeric structure. (© 2004 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)
Fusion of Semliki forest virus with the plasma membrane can be induced by low pH

When BHK-21 cells with Semliki Forest virus (SFV) bound at the plasma membrane are briefly treated with low pH medium (pH 5-6), fusion between the viral membrane and the plasma membrane occurs, releasing the viral nucleocapsid into the cytoplasm. The fusion reaction resembles that described previously for Sendai virus but with one fundamental difference; it is strictly dependent on low pH. The fusion reaction is highly efficient. Up to 86% of bound viruses fuse, and 6 X 10(6) virus spike proteins can be inserted into the plasma membrane of each cell. The process is very rapid (full activity is observed after 5 s) and it occurs over a wide temperature range and equally well with all five cell lines tested (BHK-21, HeLa B, HeLa suspension, Raji, and 3T3). Low pH-induced fusion of the virus at the plasma membrane can lead to infection of susceptible cells. The artificial nature of this infection pathway is, however, demonstrated by the facts that infection through the plasma membrane occurs only at subphysiological pH and that it is insensitive to inhibitors of the normal entry route. Nevertheless, these results indicate that low pH membrane fusion introduces the viral genome into the cytoplasm in a form suitable for replication.
A coding theorem for isols

In [1] it is shown that for every sequence x = 〈xn : n ∈ ω〉 ∈ Xω Λ there is an isol xω (essentially an immunized product) such that Here we have used the notation: Λ = the isols, ω = the nonnegative integers, pn is the nth prime rational integer starting with p0 = 2, ∣ denotes divisibility and ∤ its negation. If p is an arbitrary prime, py ∣ x, pz ∣ x, and y < z then py+1 ∣ x. In particular since y ∈ ω is comparable with every element of Λ, the conditions py ∣ x and py+1 ∤ x uniquely determine y. Thus every sequence x ∈ Xωω is uniquely determined by an xω satisfying (1) and consequently may be used as a “code” for that sequence. In Theorem 1 it is shown that (1) does not uniquely determine the values of an arbitrary sequence x ∈ XωΛ, however in Theorem 3 we find a different scheme which does. At the very end of the paper we give some reasons why coding theorems are useful. It should also be mentioned that for a coding theorem to be meaningful it is necessary to restrict the operations by which a sequence can be recaptured from its code. Otherwise a triviality results. Our coding theorem will allow all operations which are first order definable in Λ with respect to addition, multiplication, and exponentiation. We conjecture that the latter operation is really necessary.
Targeted sequencing with enrichment PCR: a novel diagnostic method for the detection of EGFR mutations

Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) is an important mediator of tumor cell survival and proliferation. The detection of EGFR mutations can predict prognoses and indicate when treatment with EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors should be used. As such, the development of highly sensitive methods for detecting EGFR mutations is important. Targeted next-generation sequencing is an effective method for diagnosing mutations. We compared the abilities of enrichment PCR followed by ultra-deep pyrosequencing (UDP), UDP alone, and PNA-mediated RT-PCR clamping to detect low-frequency EGFR mutations in tumor cell lines and tissue samples. Using enrichment PCR-UDP, we were able to detect the E19del and L858R mutations at minimum frequencies of 0.01% and 0.05%, respectively, in the PC-9 and H197 tumor cell lines. We also confirmed the sensitivity of detecting the E19del mutation by performing a titration analysis in FFPE tumor samples. The lowest mutation frequency detected was 0.0692% in tissue samples. EGFR mutations with frequencies as low as 0.01% were detected using enrichment PCR-UDP, suggesting that this method is a valuable tool for detecting rare mutations, especially in scarce tissue samples or those with small quantities of DNA.
Prostatic Stones: Evidence of a Specific Chemistry Related to Infection and Presence of Bacterial Imprints

Prostatic stones are a common condition in older men in industrialized countries. However, aging appears not to be the unique pathogenesis of these calcifications. Our morpho-constitutional investigation of 23 stone samples suggested that infection has a significant role in the lithogenic process of prostate calcifications, even without detection of infection by clinical investigation. Most stones (83%) showed bacterial imprints and/or chemical composition, suggestive of a long-term infection process. Chronic infection may induce persistent inflammation of the tissue and secondarily, a cancerization process within a few years. Thus, the discovery of prostate calcifications by computerized tomodensitometry, for example, might warrant further investigation and management to search for chronic infection of the prostate gland.
Desmosterol as the Major Sterol in L-Cell Mouse Fibroblasts Grown in Sterol-Free Culture Medium

The principal sterol synthesized by L-cell mouse fibroblasts is desmosterol. Cholesterol was not detected in these cells when they were grown in a sterol-free culture medium. These findings indicate that, in cells, cholesterol can be replaced by desmosterol. Sterol analyses of six other tissue culture cell lines revealed cholesterol synthesis.