Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Elearning dedicated to the students of electrical engineering

With increasing speed Internet developed infrastructure, opportunity for virtual: meetings, training or teambuilding events online. The virtual environments have allowed developing virtual laboratories for study. In these virtual classrooms there experiments can be realized using hardware device or simulate some experiments using different specialized software. Also, students can study theoretical concepts of the application. Clear advantage of online training is their minimum use of resources.
Specimens inventory of Tabanidae (Diptera) of Entomological Collection of National Museum of Natural History - Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro

Abstract: A checklist of tabanids of the Entomological Collection of National Museum of Natural History - Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro is provide. A total of 5,325 specimens was examined of which 2,916 were found identified, belonging to 341 species, 42 genera e four varieties, collected from all continents since 1902. The currently taxa names were provided when possible, also currently localities of collections.
Liquidity and Conditional Heteroscedasticity in Stock Returns

This paper finds a significant positive relation between illiquidity and conditional variance of stock returns, both at the individual and aggregate levels. For each of the largest two hundred stocks on the NYSE and NASDAQ, we estimate a GARCH model in which share turnover and proportional spread enter the conditional variance equitation. We find that, for 75% of the stocks examined, proportional spread is a significant and positive determinant of conditional heteroscedasticity after orthogonalization against share turnover and return. Alternative measures of illiquidity also have a strong positive effect on the variability of aggregate market return. In support of these findings, we present a simple market microstructural model in which conditional return variance is a positive and nonlinear function of stochastic Kyle's lambda.
Differential patterns of transcript accumulation during human myogenesis

We evaluated the extent to which muscle-specific genes display identical patterns of mRNA accumulation during human myogenesis. Cloned satellite cells isolated from adult human skeletal muscle were expanded in culture, and RNA was isolated from low- and high-confluence cells and from fusing cultures over a 15-day time course. The accumulation of over 20 different transcripts was compared in these samples with that in fetal and adult human skeletal muscle. The expression of carbonic anhydrase 3, myoglobin, HSP83, and mRNAs encoding eight unknown proteins were examined in human myogenic cultures. In general, the expression of most of the mRNAs was induced after fusion to form myotubes. However, several exceptions, including carbonic anhydrase and myoglobin, showed no detectable expression in early myotubes. Comparison of all transcripts demonstrated little, if any, identity of mRNA accumulation patterns. Similar variability was also seen for mRNAs which were also expressed in nonmuscle cells. Accumulation of mRNAs encoding alpha-skeletal, alpha-cardiac, beta- and gamma-actin, total myosin heavy chain, and alpha- and beta-tubulin also displayed discordant regulation, which has important implications for sarcomere assembly. Cardiac actin was the only muscle-specific transcript that was detected in low-confluency cells and was the major alpha-actin mRNA at all times in fusing cultures. Skeletal actin was transiently induced in fusing cultures and then reduced by an order of magnitude. Total myosin heavy-chain mRNA accumulation lagged behind that of alpha-actin. Whereas beta- and gamma-actin displayed a sharp decrease after initiation of fusion and thereafter did not change, alpha- and beta-tubulin were transiently induced to a high level during the time course in culture. We conclude that each gene may have its own unique determinants of transcript accumulation and that the phenotype of a muscle may not be determined so much by which genes are active or silent but rather by the extent to which their transcript levels are modulated. Finally, we observed that patterns of transcript accumulation established within the myotube cultures were consistent with the hypothesis that myoblasts isolated from adult tissue recapitulate a myogenic developmental program. However, we also detected a transient appearance of adult skeletal muscle-specific transcripts in high-confluence myoblast cultures. This indicates that the initial differentiation of these myoblasts may reflect a more complex process than simple recapitulation of development.
Computing P(alive) Using the BG/NBD Model

One of the key results we associate with the Pareto/NBD model (Schmittlein et al. 1987) is an expression for P (alive | x, tx, T ), the probability that a customer with purchase history (x, tx, T ) is “alive” at time T . In Fader, Hardie and Lee (2005) we present the BG/NBD model as an alternative to the Pareto/NBD. The positioning of this work is that the model yields very similar results to the Pareto/NBD while being vastly easier to implement. Although we present analogous expressions for most of the quantities reported in Schmittlein et al. (1987), we do not report an expression for P (alive). This has led some to claim that this quantity cannot be computed using the BG/NBD model; as we shall see, this is not the case. (Our primary reason for not presenting this result is simply that we see the quantity as a means to an end, not an end in and of itself. However, continued interest in it leads us to write this note.) Deriving the expression for P (alive) under the BG/NBD model is a trivial exercise. Given the assumptions of the BG/NBD model, the probability that a customer with purchase history (x, tx, T ) is alive at time T is simply the probability that he did not “die” at tx. Recall the BG/NBD likelihood function:
Decomposed PRNU Library for Forensics on Photos

Today, the digital forensic techniques for digital images are developed with the origin identification and integrity verification functions for security reasons. Methods based on photo-response-non-uniform PRNU are widely studied and proved to be effective to serve the forensic purposes. However, due to the interpolation noise, caused by the colour filtering and interpolation function the accuracy of the PRNU-based forensic method has been degraded. Meanwhile, the tremendous physical storage requirement and computation consumption limit the applications of PRNU-based method. Therefore, an innovative DPRNU-based forensic method has been proposed in order to solve the above problems. In the method, the artificial component and physical component are separated according to the colour filtering array CFA and the PRNU are only extracted from the physical component in order to remove the interference caused by the interpolation noise, which increases the accuracy of the camera identification and integrity verification. Meanwhile, due to the separation, the DPRNU are only 1/3 of the size of the traditional PRNU, which saves considerable physical storage in setting up the digital library and fasters the comparison speed between the fingerprints.
K-Coverage Persevering Routing Technique Based on Event Occurrence Patterns for Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) comprising of tiny, power-constrained nodes are gaining popularity due to their potential use in a wide range of applications, including monitoring of environmental attributes, intrusion detection, and various military and civilian environments. While the sensing objectives of these environments are unique and application dependent, a common performance criteria for wireless sensor networks is prolonging network lifetime while satisfying coverage and connectivity in the deployment region. In many real-world scenarios, reoccurring spatial patterns of occurrence could be identified in the sensed event information. This paper proposes a new routing algorithm schema based on event occurrence history to secure K-Coverage of event paths and maintain the maximum degree of coverage. In the proposed method the nodes located around event path try to save their battery power by not participating in data packet forwarding to neighbor nodes. The simulation results show that the proposed method improves network lifetime by shifting the routing responsibility from sensing nodes to communication nodes, while maximizing the degree of coverage in the main path of event occurrence. As a consequence, the lifetime of main path coverage is increased dramatically as compared to previous methods.
Production of Biomass (Algae-Bacteria) by Using a Mixture of Settled Swine and Sewage as Substrate

This paper presents the use of a mixture of settled swine and sewage as substrate for biomass production, mainly constituted by microalgae Chlorella vulgaris and aerobic bacteria, growing outdoor at different dilution rates in a continuous mode. The experiments were carried out in 16-litre volume laboratory ponds operating at hydraulic retention times (HRT) in a range of 4–14 days equivalent to dilution rates (D) in a range of 0.250–0.071 d−1. Total chemical oxygen demand (TCOD), soluble chemical oxygen demand (SCOD), total biochemical oxygen demand (TBOD5), total suspended solids (TSS), volatile suspended solids (VSS), total Chlorophyll (Σ C), total Kjeldahl nitrogen (TKN), ammonia nitrogen, total phosphorous, orthophosphate and pH were monitored. An empirical relationship between the dilution rate (D) and the removal efficiencies of TCOD, SCOD, TBOD5, TKN and total phosphorous was found. The occurrence of an inhibition process for TCOD, TBOD5, TKN and total phosphorous removals was observed. The Andrews kinetic model was successfully applied to these experimental data, while the Monod model was more suitable for studying the variation of the SCOD removal rate with the effluent SCOD concentration. The maximum microalgal biomass productivity was found to be in the range of 93–98 mg VSSA/L d (37.2–39.2 g/m2d) at dilution rates in the range of 0.167–0.250 d−1, where VSSA is the concentration of microalgae expressed in VSS. In the case of the bacteria, the productivity increased linearly with the dilution rate being maximum at a D value of 0.25 d−1. It was concluded that the mixture of pre-treated swine and sewage used as substrate, contributed to the obtention of a high biomass (microalgae-bacteria) production, providing a simple technology feasible to be applied in developing countries.
Bone Formation in Algae-Derived and Synthetic Calcium Phosphates With or Without Poloxamer

AbstractCalcium phosphate ceramics such as hydroxyapatite (HA) and biphasic calcium phosphates are used clinically to repair bone defects. These calcium phosphate ceramics can differ by composition, structure, and rate of degradation. This study compared 3 calcium phosphate ceramics, 2 of which have similar structure but different composition: 100% HA (algae derived) and HA/&bgr;-tricalcium phosphate (&bgr;-TCP) 20/80 (algae derived), and 2 with different structure but similar composition: HA/&bgr;-TCP 20/80 (algae derived) and HA/&bgr;-TCP 15/85 (synthetic). Calcium phosphate ceramics can be difficult to handle and contour during the surgeries. To improve handling, Poloxamer 407 (P407) was added to the 3 ceramics, and its effect on bone healing was also assessed. Bilateral calvarial defects created in the parietal bones of New Zealand white rabbits were left unfilled or were filled with autograft or one of the ceramics, with and without P407. Six weeks after operation, healing was evaluated qualitatively by histology and quantitatively by micro–computed tomography analysis and histomorphometry. All 3 calcium phosphate ceramics demonstrated osteoconductivity and performed similarly in supporting new bone formation, suggesting that the differences in their composition, structure, or degradation did not significantly affect their ability to promote bone healing in this application. Incorporating P407 did not impede osteoconductivity as HA and biphasic calcium phosphate combined with P407 performed similarly as when used alone for craniofacial defect repair.
Understanding the Effects of Intervention on Computer Science Student Behaviour in On-line Forums

A key challenge for educators using online discussion forums is how to provide effective feedback and support to students, to ensure they are engaged with discussions on the forums, and do not disengage from the course. In addition, there is a significant problem of scale to address. Even relatively low population forums of less than a hundred students can generate thousands of posts, so it is infeasible for the lecturer to monitor every discussion to identify disengaging students. There is a need to understand the act of intervention, in order to provide automated tools to better assist teaching staff with this task. Measuring the impact of intervention can be challenging and requires us to, first, understand what ``standard'' behaviour looks like across different student groups and identify topics where intervention would be most effective. In this paper, we identify the impact of intervention on different groups of students, characterising their behaviour in terms of response time and activity, compare the different responses to programming-related questions and other questions, and identify the useful aspects of this study for computer science educators. We conduct an initial examination of the impact of the nature of the question on intervention effectiveness and propose an analysis method that can be applied to any computer science forum. we showcase the application of the method to three courses. Our results indicate that associating student activity with the number of forum posts is misleading, as students who are only reading the forums respond also to intervention.
Characterizations of Decomposable Dependency Models (Research Note)

Decomposable dependency models possess a number of interesting and useful properties. This paper presents new characterizations of decomposable models in terms of independence relationships, which are obtained by adding a single axiom to the well-known set characterizing dependency models that are isomorphic to undirected graphs. We also briefly discuss a potential application of our results to the problem of learning graphical models from data.
EECCR: An Energy-Efficient $m$-Coverage and $n$-Connectivity Routing Algorithm Under Border Effects in Heterogeneous Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) can be used to monitor the interested region using multihop communication. Coverage is a primary metric to evaluate the capacity of monitoring. Connectivity also needs to be guaranteed so that the sink node receives all sensed data for future processing. In this paper, we study the m-coverage and n -connectivity problem under border effects. We consider the scenario where the heterogeneous sensor nodes are randomly distributed in a circular region. We first exactly derive the network m-coverage ratio that is provided by N sensor nodes by the mathematical formulas. Then, the lower bound of the network n-connectivity probability is also derived. Since sensor nodes are equipped with energy-limited batteries, energy conservation in such networks is of paramount importance to prolong the lifetime of the network. Accordingly, we propose a location-independent, energy-efficient routing algorithm EECCR, which simultaneously preserves the network m-coverage ratio and the sensor n-connectivity probability. Extensive simulation results are provided to demonstrate that our algorithm is correct and effective.
Internal Social Media's Impact on Socialization and Commitment.

Internal Social Media’s Impact on Socialization and Commitment Ester S. Gonzalez, Ph.D. Mentor: Dorothy E. Leidner, Ph.D. Social media technologies present an opportunity for organizations to create value by acclimating new employees and increasing organizational commitment. Past research has indicated that many organizations have leveraged social media in innovative ways. The purpose of this study is to investigate an internal social media tool that was designed and implemented as part of a new hire program with the objective of socializing new hires in hopes of increasing employee commitment. A survey was admistered to approximately 458 IT employees of a large, financial institution and 198 employees responded. This dissertation suggests that work related social media use is associated with role clarity and normative commitment. It also suggests that social related social media use is associated with knowledge of organizational culture, social acceptance, and affective commitment. In this dissertation, two types of social media use, four indicators of socialization and three indicators of commitment were analyzed. This dissertation concludes with a discussion of the findings and recommendations for future research on social media.
Brain‐derived neurotrophic factor enhances depolarization‐evoked glutamate release in cultured cortical neurons

Brain‐derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) has been reported to play an important role in neuronal plasticity. In this study, we examined the effect of BDNF on an activity‐dependent synaptic function in an acute phase. First, we found that short‐term treatment (10 min) with BDNF enhanced depolarization‐evoked glutamate release in cultured cortical neurons. The enhancement diminished gradually according to the length of BDNF treatment. The BDNF‐enhanced release did not require the synthesis of protein and mRNA. Both tetanus toxin and bafilomycin abolished the depolarization‐evoked glutamate release with or without BDNF, indicating that BDNF acted via an exocytotic pathway. Next, we investigated the effect of BDNF on intracellular Ca2+. BDNF potentiated the increase in intracellular Ca2+ induced by depolarization. The Ca2+ was derived from intracellular stores, because thapsigargin completely inhibited the potentiation. Furthermore, both thapsigargin and xestospongin C inhibited the effect of BDNF. These results suggested that the release of Ca2+ from intracellular stores mediated by the IP3 receptor was involved in the BDNF‐enhanced glutamate release. Last, it was revealed that the enhancement of glutamate release by BDNF was dependent on the TrkB‐PLC‐γ pathway. These results clearly demonstrate that short‐term treatment with BDNF enhances an exocytotic pathway by potentiating the accumulation of intracellular Ca2+ through intracellular stores.
Identical user tracking with behavior pattern analysis in online community

The proliferation of mobile technology promotes social activities without time and space limitation. Users share information about their interests and preferences through a social network service, blog, or community. However, sensitive personal information may be exposed with the use of social activities. For example, a specific person can be identified according to exposure of personal information on the web. In this paper, we shows that a nickname that is used in an online community can be tracked by analysis of a user's behavior even though the nickname is changed to avoid identification. Unlike existing studies about user identification in a social network service, we focus on online community, which has not been extensively studied. We analyze characteristics of the online community and propose a method to track a user's nickname change to identify the user. We validate the proposed method using data collected from the online community. Results show that the proposed method can track the user's nickname change and link the old nickname with the new one.
AHS Model: Efficient Topological Operators for a Sensor Web Publish/Subscribe System

The Worldwide Sensor Web has been applied for monitoring the physical world with spatial and temporal scales that were impossible in the past. With the development of sensor technologies and interoperable open standards, sensor webs generate tremendous volumes of priceless data, enabling scientists to observe previously unobservable phenomena. With its powerful monitoring capability, the sensor web is able to capture time-critical events and provide up-to-date information to support decision-making. In order to harvest the full potential of the sensor web, efficiently processing sensor web data and providing timely notifications are necessary. Therefore, we aim to design a software component applying the publish/subscribe communication model for the sensor web. However, as sensor web data are geospatial in nature, existing topological operators are inefficient when processing a large number of geometries. This paper presents the Aggregated Hierarchical Spatial Model (AHS model) to efficiently determine topological relationships between sensor data and predefined query objects. By using a predefined hierarchical spatial framework to index geometries, the AHS model can match new sensor data with all subscriptions in a single process to improve the query performance. Based on our evaluation results, the query latency of the AHS model increases 2.5 times more slowly than that of PostGIS. As a result, we believe that the AHS model is able to more efficiently process topological operators in a sensor web publish/subscribe system.
Enzymatic production of single-molecule FISH and RNA capture probes

Arrays of singly-labelled short oligonucleotides that hybridize to a specific target revolutionized RNA biology, enabling quantitative, single molecule microscopy analysis and high efficiency RNA/RNP capture. Here, we describe a simple and efficient method that allows flexible functionalization of inexpensive DNA oligonucleotides by different fluorescent dyes or biotin using terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase and custom-made functional group conjugated dideoxy-UTP. We show that 1) all steps of the oligonucleotide labelling – including conjugation, enzymatic synthesis and product purification – can be performed in a standard biology laboratory, 2) the process yields >90 %, often >95 % labeled product with minimal carry-over of impurities and 3) the oligonucleotides can be labeled with different dyes or biotin, allowing single molecule FISH or RNA affinity purification to be performed. Graphical abstract
Hemopexin down‐regulates LPS‐induced proinflammatory cytokines from macrophages

Detection of LPS in tissues is an integral component of innate immunity that acts to protect against invasion by Gram‐negative bacteria. Plasma down‐regulates LPS‐induced cytokine production from macrophages, thereby limiting systemic inflammation in blood and distant tissues. To identify the protein(s) involved in this process, we used classical biochemical chromatographic techniques to identify fractions of mouse sera that suppress LPS‐induced TNF from bone marrow‐derived macrophages (BMDMs). Fractionation yielded microgram quantities of a protein that was identified by MS to be hemopexin (Hx). Mouse Hx purified on hemin‐agarose beads and rhHx decreased the production of cytokines from BMDMs and peritoneal macrophages induced by LPS. Preincubation of LPS with Hx did not affect the activity of LPS on LAL, whereas preincubation of Hx with macrophages followed by washing resulted in decreased activity of these cells in response to LPS, suggesting that Hx acts on macrophages rather than LPS. Heme‐free Hx did not stimulate HO‐1 in the macrophages. Purified Hx also decreased TNF and IL‐6 from macrophages induced by the synthetic TLR2 agonist Pam3Cys. Our data suggest that Hx, which is an acute‐phase protein that increases during inflammation, limits TLR4 and TLR2 agonist‐induced macrophage cytokine production directly through a mechanism distinct from HO‐1.