Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Finite Temperature Schwinger Model with Chirality Breaking Boundary Conditions

Abstract TheNf-Flavour Schwinger Model on a finite space 0⩽x1⩽Land subject to bag-type boundary-conditions atx1=0 andx1=Lis solved at finite temperatureT=1/β. The boundary conditions depend on a real parameterθand break the axial flavour symmetry. We argue that this approach is more appropriate to study the broken phases than introducing small quark masses, since all calculations can be performed analytically. In the imaginary time formalism we determine the thermal correlators for the fermion-fields and the determinant of the Dirac-operator in arbitrary background gauge-fields. We show that the boundary conditions induce aCP-oddθ-term in the effective action. The chiral condensate, and in particular itsT- andL-dependence, is calculated forNffermions. It is seen to depend on the order in which the two lengthsβ=1/TandLare sent to infinity.
Standardized high‐sensitivity flow cytometry testing for paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria in children with acquired bone marrow failure disorders: A single center US study

Paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH) is a rare, acquired hematopoietic stem cell disorder that has not been well‐documented in children, particularly those with acquired bone marrow failure disorders (ABMFD)—acquired aplastic anemia (AAA) and myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS). Therefore, we sought to determine the prevalence of PNH populations in children with ABMFD.
Document image retrieval based on texture features and similarity fusion

In this paper we investigate the usefulness of two different texture features along with classification fusion for document image retrieval. A local binary texture method, as a statistical approach, and a wavelet analysis technique, as a transform-based approach, are used for feature extraction and two feature vectors are obtained for every document image. The similarity distances between each of the two feature vectors extracted for a given query and the feature vectors extracted from the document images in the training step are computed separately. In order to use the properties of both features, a classifier fusion technique is then employed using a weighted average fusion of distance measures obtained in relation to each feature vector. The document images are finally ranked based on the greatest visual similarity to the query obtained from the fusion similarity measures. The Media Team Document Database, which provides a great variety of page layouts and contents, is considered for evaluating the proposed method. The results obtained from the experiments demonstrate a correct document retrieval of 65.4% and 91.8% in the Top-1 and Top-10 ranked document list, respectively.
Automated Extraction of Mixins in Cascading Style Sheets

Cascading style sheets (CSS) is a language that describes the presentation of web documents. CSS is widely adopted in web development and it is now common for web projects to have several thousands of CSS lines of code. Because the language lacks advanced features to allow code reuse, several languages such as Sass and Less have emerged as extensions to CSS. They provide mechanisms such as mixins to enable reuse. However, when a developer wants to migrate her web project from CSS to one of these extension languages, identifying mixins is a challenging task. In this paper, we describe an automated approach to extract mixins from CSS code. We have developed a tool that identifies mixins in CSS files and automatically generates Sass code. Our technique enables a fine-grained control on the generated code tailored to developer needs. We evaluate our approach on more than a hundred CSS files and conduct several case studies to assess its real-world relevance.
FOSSIL CALIBRATIONS AND MOLECULAR DIVERGENCE TIME ESTIMATES IN CENTRARCHID FISHES (TELEOSTEI: CENTRARCHIDAE)

Abstract Molecular clock methods allow biologists to estimate divergence times, which in turn play an important role in comparative studies of many evolutionary processes. It is well known that molecular age estimates can be biased by heterogeneity in rates of molecular evolution, but less attention has been paid to the issue of potentially erroneous fossil calibrations. In this study we estimate the timing of diversification in Centrarchidae, an endemic major lineage of the diverse North American freshwater fish fauna, through a new approach to fossil calibration and molecular evolutionary model selection. Given a completely resolved multi-gene molecular phylogeny and a set of multiple fossil-inferred age estimates, we tested for potentially erroneous fossil calibrations using a recently developed fossil cross-validation. We also used fossil information to guide the selection of the optimal molecular evolutionary model with a new fossil jackknife method in a fossil-based model cross-validation. The centrarchid phylogeny resulted from a mixed-model Bayesian strategy that included 14 separate data partitions sampled from three mtDNA and four nuclear genes. Ten of the 31 interspecific nodes in the centrarchid phylogeny were assigned a minimal age estimate from the centrarchid fossil record. Our analyses identified four fossil dates that were inconsistent with the other fossils, and we removed them from the molecular dating analysis. Using fossil-based model cross-validation to determine the optimal smoothing value in penalized likelihood analysis, and six mutually consistent fossil calibrations, the age of the most recent common ancestor of Centrarchidae was 33.59 million years ago (mya). Penalized likelihood analyses of individual data partitions all converged on a very similar age estimate for this node, indicating that rate heterogeneity among data partitions is not confounding our analyses. These results place the origin of the centrarchid radiation at a time of major faunal turnover as the fossil record indicates that the most diverse lineages of the North American freshwater fish fauna originated at the Eocene-Oligocene boundary, approximately 34 mya. This time coincided with major global climate change from warm to cool temperatures and a signature of elevated lineage extinction and origination in the fossil record across the tree of life. Our analyses demonstrate the utility of fossil cross-validation to critically assess individual fossil calibration points, providing the ability to discriminate between consistent and inconsistent fossil age estimates that are used for calibrating molecular phylogenies.
The role of complexity in music uses

This study explores complexity, musical dimensions, and the use of music for cognitive, emotional, or background purposes. In the pilot study, participants rated the complexity of 70 song excerpts representing the Reflective and Complex, Upbeat and Conventional, Intense and Rebellious, and Energetic and Rhythmic dimensions. In the main study, participants listened to 30 songs that were rated as high, moderate, or low complexity in the pilot study. They rated their use of each song on a modified version of the Uses of Music Inventory. The results indicated that highly complex music is used more for cognitive purposes and low complexity music is used more for emotional purposes. Ultimately, these findings confirmed that use of music is influenced by complexity.
Compared growth mechanisms of Zn-polar ZnO nanowires on O-polar ZnO and on sapphire

Controlling the growth of zinc oxide nanowires is necessary to optimize the performance of nanowire-based devices such as photovoltaic solar cells, nano-generators, or light-emitting diodes. With this in mind, we investigate the nucleation and growth mechanisms of ZnO nanowires grown by metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy either on O-polar ZnO or on sapphire substrates. Whatever the substrate, ZnO nanowires are Zn-polar, as demonstrated by convergent beam electron diffraction. For growth on O-polar ZnO substrate, the nanowires are found to sit on O-polar pyramids. As growth proceeds, the inversion domain boundary moves up in order to remain at the top of the O-polar pyramids. For growth on sapphire substrates, the nanowires may also originate from the sapphire/ZnO interface. The presence of atomic steps and the non-polar character of sapphire could be the cause of the Zn-polar crystal nucleation on sapphire, whereas it is proposed that the segregation of aluminum impurities could account for the nucleation of inverted domains for growth on O-polar ZnO.
Cardiovascular risk factors in a french canadian population: Resolution of genetic and familial environmental effects on blood pressure using twins, adoptees, and extensive information on environmental correlates

Genetic and environmental influences on systolic (SBP), diastolic (DBP), and mean arterial (MBP) blood pressure were examined using an expanded version of a path model in which parents and their singleton, twin, and adopted offspring were incorporated, and which also included an environmental index as an estimate of the underlying familial environmental component. Estimates of genetic heritability are lower in parents (10–15%) than in offspring (40–50%). Cultural heritability was significant for SBP (0.31) and MBP (0.40), and an intergenerational effect was found for DBP, with higher estimates in parents (0.42) than in offspring (0.21). Marital resemblance was significant, and no support was found for differential maternal and paternal cultural transmission. Two novel results arising from this study are 1) gender‐specific sibling effects, with greater female than male resemblance for SBP and MBP and the opposite pattern for DBP, and 2) the suggestion of extra twin resemblance arising on account of additional shared environments and resulting in greater like‐sex than opposite‐sex twin resemblance. The major conclusions drawn from this study are that 1) parameter estimates are stable with or without the use of extensive environmental indices, and 2) the addition of twins and adoptees did not significantly impact the results, with the exception of a possible influence of the adoptees in estimates of cultural heritability for DBP. Combining both these features (i.e., extended relatives and environmental indices) enables testing for additional sources of familial aggregation, which is not possible using the traditional nuclear family approach and results in a more accurate assessment of the relative roles of heredity and environment on blood pressure than has been previously possible.
A multi-grid reinforcement learning method for energy conservation and comfort of HVAC in buildings

Online reinforcement learning often suffers from slow convergence and faults on early stages. In this paper, we propose a multi-grid method of Q-learning to handle these problems. It adopts a coarse model to fast converge to a good policy on early stages and then adopts a fine model to further improve the optimization result. This approach is applied to an optimal control problem of energy conservation and comfort of HVAC in buildings. The optimization algorithm is implemented in simulation using Matlab and EnergyPlus. The results show an improvement of our approach both in the convergence and the performance on early stages, comparing with the traditional Q-learning method for HVAC in the literature. By defining some modified Pareto domination indices, we demonstrate the superiority of multiple performances comprising the competing energy conservation and the comfort.
Study on Properties of Directional Filter Banks in the Dual Tree Scheme

The dual tree is an efficient scheme to improve shift invariance and achieve phase information of a signal, and the directional filter banks (DFBs) is a widespread used tool to achieve greater directional selectivity for two dimension (2D) images. However, the dual tree based on separable filter banks can only discriminate six-direction information in 2D and the DFBs can not provide shift in-variance and phase information. The dual tree scheme based on the nonseparable DFBs may easily improve shift invariance, directional selectivity and provide phase information. This paper presents new properties of the DFBs employed in the dual tree scheme and deduces three new classes of nonseparable filters. The computation requirements of the scheme can be reduced by arranging the filters according to these properties. Besides, an appropriate definition of 2D analytic signal is employed to simplify the process of designing these new filters derived from nonseparable prototype filters.
A Concise Representation of Range Queries

With the advance of wireless communication technology, it is quite common for people to view maps or get related services from the handheld devices, such as mobile phones and PDAs. Range queries, as one of the most commonly used tools, are often posed by the users to retrieve needful information from a spatial database. However, due to the limits of communication bandwidth and hardware power of handheld devices, displaying all the results of a range query on a handheld device is neither communication efficient nor informative to the users. This is simply because that there are often too many results returned from a range query. In view of this problem, we present a novel idea that a concise representation of a specified size for the range query results, while incurring minimal information loss, shall be computed and returned to the user. Such a concise range query not only reduces communication costs, but also offers better usability to the users, providing an opportunity for interactive exploration. The usefulness of the concise range queries is confirmed by comparing it with other possible alternatives, such as sampling and clustering. Then we propose algorithms to find a good concise representation.
Machine Translation Approach for Vietnamese Diacritic Restoration

The diacritic marks exist in many languages such as French, German, Slovak, Vietnamese, etc. However for some reasons, sometime they are omitted in writing. This phenomenon may lead to the ambiguity for reader when reading a non-diacritic text. The automatic diacritic restoration problem has been proposed and resolved in several languages using the character-based approach, word-based approach, point-wise approach, etc. However, these approaches lean heavily on the linguistics information, size of training corpus and sometime they are language dependent. In this paper, a simple and effective restoration method will be presented. The machine translation approach will be used as a new solution for this problem. The restoration method has been applied for Vietnamese language, and integrated in an Android application named VIVA (Vietnamese Voice Assistant) that reads out the content of incoming text messages on mobile phone. Our experiments show that the proposed restoration method can recover diacritic marks with a 99.0% accuracy rate.
Enhancing Security Of Publish / Subscribe System Using Identity Based Encryption Model

In a content based publish subscribe system providing security related to the events or messages and subscriptions is very difficult. This paper presents approach to provide security in a Broker -less Publish/Subscribe system by using identity based encryption (IBE) model. The main concept of such systems is to share the secured data on any distributed systems. Identification is very important mechanism in content based publish/subscribe system. Here we provide 1) idea of identity base encryption (IBE) 2) Provision of security in the content based publish/subscribe system . 3) Creation of public and private keys for the users of the systems that is for the publishers and subscribers.
Microfinance risk analysis using the business intelligence

This paper discusses the use of analytical software solutions in microfinance institutions and how it can improve the operations of the organization. The study has been conducted through a survey from MFIs located in various countries of Africa, Europe and Asia. The survey questions have been based on the kind of software solutions MFIs use and if they are able to benefit from it. Moreover, with this survey we have tried to find out if the MFIs are willing to adopt the new technologies in their system by using software solutions. The survey has been conducted with MFIs in located in different countries. Besides MFIs, the respondents included banks as well.
The potential for translocation of marine species via small-scale disruptions to antifouling surfaces

Vessel hull fouling is a major vector for the translocation of nonindigenous species (NIS). Antifouling (AF) paints are the primary method for preventing the establishment and translocation of fouling species. However, factors such as paint age, condition and method of application can all reduce the effectiveness of these coatings. Areas of hull that escape AF treatment (through limited application or damage) constitute key areas that may be expected to receive high levels of fouling. The investigation focused on whether small-scale (mm2 to cm2) areas of unprotected surface or experimental ‘scrapes’ provided sufficient area for the formation of fouling assemblages within otherwise undamaged AF surfaces. Recruitment of fouling taxa such as algae, spirorbids and hydroids was recorded on scrapes as narrow as 0.5 cm wide. The abundance and species richness of fouling assemblages developing on scrapes ≥1 cm often equalled or surpassed levels observed in reference assemblages totally unprotected by AF coatings. Experiments were conducted at three sites within the highly protected and isolated marine park surrounding Lady Elliott Island at the southernmost tip of the Great Barrier Reef, Australia. Several NIS were recorded on scrapes of AF coated surfaces at this location, with 1-cm scrapes showing the greatest species richness and abundance of NIS relative to all other treatments (including controls) at two of the three sites investigated. Slight disruptions to newly antifouled surfaces may be all that is necessary for the establishment of fouling organisms and the translocation of a wide range of invasive taxa to otherwise highly protected marine areas.
Cross-Country Variation in Adult Skills Inequality

This article examines cross-country variations in adult skills inequality and asks why skills in Anglophone countries are so unequal. Drawing on the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s recent Survey of Adult Skills and other surveys, it investigates the differences across countries and country groups in inequality in both skills opportunities and outcomes and uses pseudo-cohort analysis to establish trends over time and during the life course. The analysis shows that adults’ skills in Anglophone countries, and particularly in the United States and England, tend to be more unequal than in other countries on a wide range of measures. This cannot be explained by intercohort differences, skills distributions among adult migrants, or levels and distributions of adult learning, but inequality in education levels provides a strong predictor of skills inequality among adults. Whereas research suggests that early selection drives skills inequality in compulsory schooling, certain forms of tracking, such as bifurcation into academic or apprenticeship/vocational education in upper secondary education, can have a mitigating effect.
Mutation Spectrum of the ABCA4 Gene in 335 Stargardt Disease Patients From a Multicenter German Cohort—Impact of Selected Deep Intronic Variants and Common SNPs

Purpose Stargardt disease (STGD1) is an autosomal recessive retinopathy, caused by mutations in the retina-specific ATP-binding cassette transporter (ABCA4) gene. To establish the mutational spectrum and to assess effects of selected deep intronic and common genetic variants on disease, we performed a comprehensive sequence analysis in a large cohort of German STGD1 patients. Methods DNA samples of 335 STGD1 patients were analyzed for ABCA4 mutations in its 50 coding exons and adjacent intronic sequences by resequencing array technology or next generation sequencing (NGS). Parts of intron 30 and 36 were screened by Sanger chain-terminating dideoxynucleotide sequencing. An in vitro splicing assay was used to test selected variants for their splicing behavior. By logistic regression analysis we assessed the association of common ABCA4 alleles while a multivariate logistic regression model calculated a genetic risk score (GRS). Results Our analysis identified 148 pathogenic or likely pathogenic mutations, of which 48 constitute so far unpublished ABCA4-associated disease alleles. Four rare deep intronic variants were found once in 472 alleles analyzed. In addition, we identified six risk-modulating common variants. Genetic risk score estimates suggest that defined common ABCA4 variants influence disease risk in carriers of a single pathogenic ABCA4 allele. Conclusions Our study adds to the mutational spectrum of the ABCA4 gene. Moreover, in our cohort, deep intronic variants in intron 30 and 36 likely play no or only a minor role in disease pathology. Of note, our findings demonstrate a possible modifying effect of common sequence variants on ABCA4-associated disease.
Incorporation of Vpr into human immunodeficiency virus type 1 virions: requirement for the p6 region of gag and mutational analysis

The product of the vpr open reading frame of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) is a 15-kDa, arginine-rich protein that is present in virions in molar quantities equivalent to that of Gag. We report here the results of our investigations into the mechanism by which Vpr is incorporated into virions during assembly in infected cells. For these studies we used an expression vector encoding a Vpr molecule fused at its amino terminus to a nine-amino-acid peptide from influenza virus hemagglutinin. The tagged Vpr expression vector and a vpr mutant HIV-1 provirus were used to cotransfect COS cells, and the resulting virions were tested for the presence of the tagged protein on immunoblots probed with monoclonal antibody against the hemagglutinin peptide. The COS-produced virions were found to contain readily detectable amounts of tagged Vpr and smaller amounts of a putative tagged Vpr dimer. Infectivity of the particles was not altered by incorporation of tagged Vpr. Our results using this system in combination with mutant HIV-1 proviruses suggested that incorporation of Vpr into virions requires the carboxy-terminal Gag protein of HIV-1 (p6) but not gp160, Pol, or genomic viral RNA. In addition, analysis of mutated, tagged Vpr molecules suggested that amino acids near the carboxy terminus (amino acids 84 to 94) are required for incorporation of Vpr into HIV-1 virions. The single cysteine residue near the carboxy terminus was required for production of a stable protein. Arginine residues tested were not important for incorporation or stability of tagged Vpr. These results suggested a novel strategy for blocking HIV-1 replication.
Comparison of Model Predictive Control Performance Using Grey-Box and White-Box Controller Models of a Multi-zone Office Building

Model Predictive Control (MPC) is a promising control method to reduce the energy use of buildings. Its commercialization is, however, hampered by the difficulty of obtaining a reliable controller model. This paper compares two approaches to obtain such controller model: (1) a white-box model approach for which a detailed first-principles building model is linearized, and (2) a system identification method using a grey-box model approach. The MPC performance using both model approaches is evaluated on a validated 12 zones model of an existing office building. The results indicate that the MPC performance is very sensitive to the prediction accuracy of the controller model. This paper shows that both approaches can lead to an efficient MPC as long as very accurate identification data sets are available. For the considered simulation case, the white-box MPC resulted in a better thermal comfort and used only 50% of the energy used by the best grey-box MPC.