Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Designing a robust network based on network degree information

Study on the design of a robust network against malicious attacks has gained increased interest in various areas such as wireless communications networks. One of the main obstacles towards finding the optimum robust network is the large number of possible network configurations. In this paper, we propose a novel method to design robust networks against malicious attacks based on the network degree information.
Title Genome-wide cloning and sequence analysis of leucine-rich repeat receptor-like protein kinase genes in Arabidopsis thaliana Permalink

Background: Transmembrane receptor kinases play critical roles in both animal and plant signaling pathways regulating growth, development, differentiation, cell death, and pathogenic defense responses. In Arabidopsis thaliana, there are at least 223 Leucine-rich repeat receptor-like kinases (LRR-RLKs), representing one of the largest protein families. Although functional roles for a handful of LRR-RLKs have been revealed, the functions of the majority of members in this protein family have not been elucidated. Results: As a resource for the in-depth analysis of this important protein family, the complementary DNA sequences (cDNAs) of 194 LRR-RLKs were cloned into the Gateway donor vector pDONR/Zeo and analyzed by DNA sequencing. Among them, 157 clones showed sequences identical to the predictions in the Arabidopsis sequence resource, TAIR8. The other 37 cDNAs showed gene structures distinct from the predictions of TAIR8, which was mainly caused by alternative splicing of pre-mRNA. Most of the genes have been further cloned into Gateway destination vectors with GFP or FLAG epitope tags and have been transformed into Arabidopsis for in planta functional analysis. All clones from this study have been submitted to the Arabidopsis Biological Resource Center (ABRC) at Ohio State University for full accessibility by the Arabidopsis research community. Conclusions: Most of the Arabidopsis LRR-RLK genes have been isolated and the sequence analysis showed a number of alternatively spliced variants. The generated resources, including cDNA entry clones, expression constructs and transgenic plants, will facilitate further functional analysis of the members of this important gene family.
Low thyroid function is not associated with an accelerated deterioration in renal function.

BACKGROUND Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is frequently accompanied by thyroid hormone dysfunction. It is currently unclear whether these alterations are the cause or consequence of CKD. This study aimed at studying the effect of thyroid hormone alterations on renal function in cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses in individuals from all adult age groups. METHODS Individual participant data (IPD) from 16 independent cohorts having measured thyroid stimulating hormone, free thyroxine levels and creatinine levels were included. Thyroid hormone status was defined using clinical cut-off values. Estimated glomerular filtration rates (eGFR) were calculated by means of the four-variable Modification of Diet in Renal Disease (MDRD) formula. For this IPD meta-analysis, eGFR at baseline and eGFR change during follow-up were computed by fitting linear regression models and linear mixed models in each cohort separately. Effect estimates were pooled using random effects models. RESULTS A total of 72 856 individuals from 16 different cohorts were included. At baseline, individuals with overt hypothyroidism (n = 704) and subclinical hypothyroidism (n = 3356) had a average (95% confidence interval) -4.07 (-6.37 to -1.78) and -2.40 (-3.78 to -1.02) mL/min/1.73 m2 lower eGFR as compared with euthyroid subjects (n = 66 542). In (subclinical) hyperthyroid subjects (n = 2254), average eGFR was 3.01 (1.50-4.52) mL/min/1.73 m2 higher. During 329 713 patient years of follow-up, eGFR did not decline more rapidly in individuals with low thyroid function compared with individuals with normal thyroid function. CONCLUSIONS Low thyroid function is not associated with a deterioration of renal function. The cross-sectional association may be explained by renal dysfunction causing thyroid hormone alterations.
Gene-Based Tests for Screening, Detection, and/or Management of Prostate Cancer

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Dissecting Vertebral Artery Aneurysm Presenting Regrowth After Stent-Assisted Coil Embolization in Acute Stage

For a case of dissecting vertebral artery aneurysm (DVAA) in a dominant vertebral artery (VA) or posterior inferior cerebellar artery (PICA)-involving lesion, stent-assisted coil embolization (SACE) is an effective technique to preserve blood flow of the VA. A 41-year-old man presented with subarachnoid hemorrhage. Angiography demonstrated DVAA on the left VA just distal to the PICA, and the right VA was thinner than the left. For this case, SACE was performed to preserve the left VA and PICA. On the 10th day, angiography showed recurrence of the dissection. The dissected portion had thickened and extended to both distal and proximal sides involving the PICA origin and proximal portion to the PICA. A second endovascular embolization was performed and the recurrent dissecting aneurysm was embolized including the main VA cavity. In cases of DVAA, there is a possibility of recurrence after SACE, if a dissecting cavity remains unembolized. Therefore, total embolization is necessary under close observation from multiple angles, including the down-the-barrel view.
Switching Voltage and Time Statistics of Filamentary Conductive Paths in HfO2-Based ReRAM Devices

Switching voltage and time statistics of HfO2-based one transistor-one resistor structures are investigated with the aim of clarifying the underlying physical mechanism that governs the formation and rupture of filamentary paths in the insulating layer. From the oxide reliability viewpoint, constant and ramped voltage stress experiments provide strong support to the so-called E-model, which is shown to be in line with current theories relating the reversibility of the conduction states in resistive random access memory devices to ionic drift and ultimately to Kramers’ escape rate theory. It is shown how the switching statistics can be used to estimate the width and formation energy of the insulating gap along the filament as well as its temperature.
Towards the Enhancement of Electronic Democracy: The Adoption of Reinventing Government and Electronic Government at the Municipal Level

Electronic government (e-government) encompasses a wide range of services: dissemination of information, commerce with the private sector services to individual citizens and businesses and participatory democracy. The motivation by local and central governments to reduce administrative and operational costs, as well as enhancing the services they offer to businesses, citizens and the general community at large, has been a driving force for the development and implementation of an egovernment infrastructure in Pakistan. In particular, whether public sector organizations might benefit from the use of established ex-ante evaluation techniques, when applied to analyze the impact of e-government information systems. The first part of the model shows how adoption of municipal e-government is determined by managerial innovativeness orientation, government capacity and institutional characteristics such as city size and government type. The second part suggests how egovernment outcomes are associated with the adoption of e-government, government capacity and institutional characteristics. Analyzing two different survey data sets of American municipal reinvention and e-government, this study finds that managerial innovativeness orientation and city size are the most compelling determinants of municipal e-government adoption. Different levels of e-government adoption may yield different outcomes.
Improving the Performance Environment of a Soccer Team During a Competitive Season: An Exploratory Action Research Study

The aim of the current study was to facilitate systematic reflection and action to improve the performance environment of a soccer team during a competitive season. Using the Performance Environment Survey (PES; Pain & Harwood, 2007) as a diagnostic instrument, the researcher worked with the coach to collaboratively identify areas in which team preparation and functioning could be improved. Completed by the players and coach after each match, the PES captured feedback around team preparation and performance in the physical, psychological, coaching, social, planning/organizational and environmental domains. Analysis of this feedback provided the stimulus for weekly discussions with the coach. Results suggested that coach and player reflection increased during the study, and the coach reported that the PES data and his reflections on that data were beneficial to managing the performance environment. In areas where change was targeted—in particular the social and the phaysical domains—improvements in team functioning were reported. Team feedback meetings were also perceived as helpful to improving player ownership and cohesiveness. Recent studies have revealed the performance environment in elite sport to be multifaceted, with performance contingent upon a broad range of factors (Douglas & Carless, 2006; Pain & Harwood, 2007; 2008). Research into sources of stress in sport (Fletcher & Hanton, 2003; Fletcher & Wagstaff, 2009), has also revealed how the organizational environment has a strong effect upon sport performers. The trend to consider these broader influences on athletes can be traced to the Olympic Games studies of Gould and colleagues (Gould, Guinan, Greenleaf, Medbery, & Peterson,
SOLAR CELLS: Efficient and stable solution‐processed planar perovskite solar cells via contact passivation

&NA; Planar perovskite solar cells (PSCs) made entirely via solution processing at low temperatures (<150°C) offer promise for simple manufacturing, compatibility with flexible substrates, and perovskite‐based tandem devices. However, these PSCs require an electron‐selective layer that performs well with similar processing. We report a contact‐passivation strategy using chlorine‐capped TiO2 colloidal nanocrystal film that mitigates interfacial recombination and improves interface binding in low‐temperature planar solar cells. We fabricated solar cells with certified efficiencies of 20.1 and 19.5% for active areas of 0.049 and 1.1 square centimeters, respectively, achieved via low‐temperature solution processing. Solar cells with efficiency greater than 20% retained 90% (97% after dark recovery) of their initial performance after 500 hours of continuous room‐temperature operation at their maximum power point under 1‐sun illumination (where 1 sun is defined as the standard illumination at AM1.5, or 1 kilowatt/square meter).
Relationship Between Sport Website Quality and Consumption Intentions

This study investigated the cognitive structure of sport website quality constructs by comparing a bifactor model (a.k.a., a general-specific model) to a second-order model. The models are two alternative approaches for representing general constructs consisting of several highly related but distinct domains. In addition, the link between sport website quality and the revisitation and media consumption intentions was empirically tested. Data (N = 272) were collected through an online survey, and the majority of respondents were men (66.3%) between 21 and 30 years old (63.0%). The bifactor and second-order models of sport website quality were also assessed and compared, and a simultaneous equation modeling analysis was used. The bifactor model fit the data significantly better than the second-order model, indicating that the five sub-constructs revealed both the specific dimensions of sport website quality and the holistic nature of sport website quality. Results from the simultaneous equation model indicated that sport website quality explained 70.2% of the variance in revisitation and 58.7% of intention to consume sports media.
Dimensionality reduction by random mapping: fast similarity computation for clustering

When the data vectors are high-dimensional it is computationally infeasible to use data analysis or pattern recognition algorithms which repeatedly compute similarities or distances in the original data space. It is therefore necessary to reduce the dimensionality before, for example, clustering the data. If the dimensionality is very high, like in the WEBSOM method which organizes textual document collections on a self-organizing map, then even the commonly used dimensionality reduction methods like the principal component analysis may be too costly. It is demonstrated that the document classification accuracy obtained after the dimensionality has been reduced using a random mapping method will be almost as good as the original accuracy if the final dimensionality is sufficiently large (about 100 out of 6000). In fact, it can be shown that the inner product (similarity) between the mapped vectors follows closely the inner product of the original vectors.
Palladium Nanoparticles Stabilized by Glycodendrimers and Their Application in Catalysis

Palladium nanoparticles stabilized by glycodendrimers (PdDSNs) in water were prepared by coordination of Pd-II to intradendritic triazole ligands upon reaction of K2PdCl4 with the dendrimer in water followed by aqueous NaBH4 reduction to Pd-0. TEM images show that the PdDSNs are small (average diameter: 2.3 nm) and relatively monodisperse owing to a low concentration of metal precursor. The catalytic activity of these PdDSNs was evaluated for the reduction of 4-nitrophenol (4-NP) to 4-aminophenol (4-AP) by NaBH4 (only 0.2 mol-% of Pd per mol substrate is used) and for the Miyaura-Suzuki C-C coupling with various substituted aryl bromides (only 0.01 mol-% of Pd per mol substrate is used). Comparisons of the catalytic activities of these PdDSNs with those of larger PdDSNs (diameter: 14 nm) reveal that smaller NPs catalyze faster 4-NP reduction than their larger counterparts but lack any notable surface dependency for Suzuki-Miyaura catalysis.
Fiducial migration following small peripheral lung tumor image-guided CyberKnife stereotactic radiosurgery

To track respiratory motion during CyberKnife stereotactic radiosurgery in the lung, several (three to five) cylindrical gold fiducials are implanted near the planned target volume (PTV). Since these fiducials remain in the human body after treatment, we hypothesize that tracking fiducial movement over time may correlate with the tumor response to treatment and pulmonary fibrosis, thereby serving as an indicator of treatment success. In this paper, we investigate fiducial migration in 24 patients through examination of computed tomography (CT) volume images at four time points: pre-treatment, three, six, and twelve month post-treatment. We developed a MATLAB based GUI environment to display the images, identify the fiducials, and compute our performance measure. After we semi-automatically segmented and detected fiducial locations in CT images of the same patient over time, we identified them according to their configuration and introduced a relative performance measure (ACD: average center distance) to detect their migration. We found that the migration tended to result in a movement towards the fiducial center of the radiated tissue area (indicating tumor regression) and may potentially be linked to the patient prognosis.
Rapid development and screening of microsatellite loci for Artibeus lituratus and their utility for six related species within Phyllostomidae

Microsatellites are often the marker of choice for population genetic studies at intermediate spatial and temporal scales. Developing large numbers of markers has traditionally been technically difficult, and this has limited our ability to investigate evolutionary phenomena that emerge across short temporal scales. Moreover, few markers tend to successfully amplify across species boundaries. As rapid advancements in high‐throughput sequencing make microsatellite development cost‐ and time‐effective, new avenues for evolutionary, population genetic and chromosome linkage mapping research are emerging. We used a published PERL script and second‐generation sequencing to rapidly and affordably develop microsatellite loci for a widespread phyllostomid bat, Artibeus lituratus, for which no markers were previously available. We used Roche FLX (Titanium) Genome Sequencing to randomly sequence ∼101 Mb (255 065 unique reads) of genomic DNA for A. lituratus, within which we discovered 30 100 microsatellite loci. We designed primers for 19 395 loci that contained suitable flanking regions. We ordered primers for 96 loci, 90 of which produced a single PCR product in A. lituratus. We genotyped 52 loci, and 45 were polymorphic in A. lituratus. We tested cross‐species amplification for 96 loci in six additional phyllostomid species: A. planirostris, A. fimbriatus, A. phaeotis, Enchisthenes hartii, Sturnira lilium, and Carollia perspicillata. Cross‐species amplification was successful for at least one species for 87 loci (A. fimbriatus), and in all species, at least 66 loci were amplified. These markers will not only facilitate future work on these seven species, but also illustrate the utility of this high‐throughput method for development of primers across many species simultaneously.
Software Reliability Prediction Using Wavelet Neural Networks

In this paper, we propose the use of wavelet neural networks (WNN) to predict software reliability. In WNN, we employed two kinds of wavelets - Morlet wavelet and Gaussian wavelet as transfer functions resulting in two variants of WNN. The effectiveness of WNN is demonstrated on a data set taken from literature. Its performance is compared with that of multiple linear regression (MLR), multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS), backpropagation trained neural network (BPNN), threshold accepting trained neural network (TANN), pi-sigma network (PSN), general regression neural network (GRNN), dynamic evolving neuro-fuzzy inference system (DENFIS) and TreeNet in terms of normalized root mean square error (NRMSE) obtained on test data. Based on the experiments performed, it is observed that the WNN outperformed all the other techniques.
Stereo‐Consistent Contours in Object Space

Notebook scribbles, art or technical illustrations—line drawings are a simplistic method to visually communicate information. Automated line drawings often originate from virtual 3D models, but one cannot trivially experience their three‐dimensionality. This paper introduces a novel concept to produce stereo‐consistent line drawings of virtual 3D objects. Some contour lines do not only depend on an objects geometry, but also on the position of the observer. To accomplish consistency between multiple view positions, our approach exploits geometrical characteristics of 3D surfaces in object space. Established techniques for stereo‐consistent line drawings operate on rendered pixel images. In contrast, our pipeline operates in object space using vector geometry, which yields many advantages: The position of the final viewpoint(s) is flexible within a certain window even after the contour generation, e.g. a stereoscopic image pair is only one possible application. Such windows can be concatenated to simulate contours observed from an arbitrary camera path. Various types of popular contour generators can be handled equivalently, occlusions are natively supported and stylization based on geometry characteristics is also easily possible.
Water and sanitation hygiene knowledge, attitude, and practices among household members living in rural setting of India

Background: Rural population in developing countries face water, sanitation, and hygiene-related health issues. To objectively highlight these issues, we studied the knowledge, attitude, and practices-related to drinking water and sanitation facilities among the rural population of Chennai, India. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was designed involving individuals over 18 years of age living in Thandalam village, Chennai, India. Basic information about sociodemographic profile and existing drinking water and sanitation related knowledge, attitude, and practices was collected using a modified version of previously validated questionnaire and analyzed. Results: Forty-five percent of the participants were not following any methods of water treatment and among them half of the participants felt that water available to them was clean and did not require any additional treatment. Twenty-five percent of the participants surveyed did not have access to toilets inside their household. Conclusion: There is a need for intervention to educate individuals about drinking water treatment methods, sanitation, and hand washing practices.
Inequality and Education Subsidies in General Equilibrium Growth Model for a Small Open Economy

The paper is concerned with dynamic interactions between physical capital, human capital, income and wealth inequalities between different households with government subsidy to education. The model is developed on the basis of Solow-Uzawa? s neoclassical growth theory, Uzawa-Lucas model, Arrow? s learning by doing, Zhang? s creative leisure, and Walrasian general equilibrium theory. The capital accumulation and economic structure are based on the neoclassical growth theory. The human capital accumulation is due to Uzawa? s education, Arrow? s learning by doing, and Zhang? s creative leisure. The model explains income and wealth inequality between groups with government education subsidy policy in a small-open economy. The model reveals a complicated nonlinear dynamic interdependence between wealth accumulation, human capital accumulation, economic structural change, division of labor, and time distribution under perfect competition and government education subsidy policy. We simulate the economy composed of three groups of households. We carry out comparative dynamic analysis and demonstrated how a change in a parameter affects the path of economic growth.
Functional Hazard Assessment in Product-Lines – A Model-Based Approach

A product-line can offer the reuse of complete lifecycle assets, comprising planning, development and assessment artefacts. In safety-critical systems engineering, safety assessment artefacts are indispensable assets which are expensive to generate. For safety-critical product-lines, it would be costeffective to encapsulate these assessment artefacts as reusable assets, i.e. to provide the capability of reusing a product-line function or component in addition to its safety assessment artefacts. In this paper, we focus on Functional Hazard Assessment of a product-line’s functions. We propose a product-line functional hazard model which is integrated with the product-line context and domain models. We also show how this proposed product-line functional hazard model fits within the product-line processes.