Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Phosphoenolpyruvate:sugar phosphotransferase system-mediated regulation of carbohydrate metabolism in Salmonella typhimurium

The crr mutation was shown to affect the phosphoenolpyruvate:sugar phosphotransferase system-mediated transient repression of the lac operon, intracellular cAMP levels, and sensitivity to inducer exclusion. Our results indicate that the presumed crr gene product, factor IIIGlc, plays a direct role in the regulation of inducer exclusion. We propose a mechanism in which inducer exclusion depends on both the level and state of phosphorylation of factor IIIGlc and the level of an inducer exclusion-sensitive transport system. The results of studies on the sensitivity to inducer exclusion of glycerol and maltose in cultures induced for short periods of time on these substrates (resulting in varying degrees of activity of the respective transport systems) support this model of inducer exclusion. Previously, the crp*-771 mutation has been shown to result in an altered cAMP receptor protein, which has a changed affinity for cAMP, and to affect the sensitivity for inducer exclusion of glycerol. Changes in other functions of the altered cAMP receptor protein were indicated by our results; these changes were in the roles of this protein in (i) the cAMP-dependent initiation of transcription of the lac operon and (ii) the regulation of intracellular cAMP levels and the export of cAMP. We propose that the crp*-771 mutation has an indirect effect in relieving inducer exclusion in repressed or hypersensitive strains, in which the crp*-771 mutation allows the synthesis of inducer exclusion-sensitive transport systems to higher levels than the levels found in strains containing wild-type cAMP receptor protein.
A New Predictor of U.S. Real Economic Activity: The S&P 500 Option Implied Risk Aversion

We propose a new predictor of real economic activity (REA), namely the representative investor's implied relative risk aversion (IRRA) extracted from S&P 500 option prices. IRRA exploits the forward-looking information in option prices. It increases as risk averse investors enter the market, leading to a decrease in market risk premium thus predicting a REA improvement. In line with our hypothesis, IRRA predicts U.S. REA even when we control for well-known REA predictors. Results hold over both short and long horizons and regardless of the way we conduct inference. Moreover, IRRA forecasts REA out-of-sample over the 2008-2009 great economic recession peak.
Application Specific Behavioral Synthesis Design Space Exploration: Artificial Neural Networks. A Case Study

C-based VLSI design some distinct advantages over traditional RT-Level VLSI design. One key advantage is the ability to automatically generate different types of icroarchitectures from the original behavioral description. This allows to explore the design space obtaining micro-architectures with unique characteristics. The main problem with previous work on High-Level Synthesis (HLS) Design Space Exploration (DSE) is that the given behavioral description is assumed to be stable and thus, that it has been fully refined a priori. For many application e.g. Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) it is not easy to refine the input description as numerous parameters like the number of neurons and layers combined with the duration of the training phase is nontrivial and any changes in these parameters significantly affects the resultant hardware circuit. Thus, this work proposes a tightly integrated two-tier application specific HLS DSE method which explores input parameters of the behavioral description and performs a detailed HLS exploration for the best configurations which meet a set of specified input constraints and then maps the optimal design to a configurable SoC FPGA. A case study using different types of ANNs is presented. The design flow has been fully automated and the experimental results show that our proposed flow is extremely effective.
Finite element mesh optimization in three dimensions

We discuss an optimization procedure for improving three-dimensional finite element meshes. Our method can be effectively coupled with any automatic mesh generator in order to obtain a triangulation without badly distorted elements. In this way, we are able to weaken the requirements on the generator, allowing it to produce singular elements, and post-process the result to get a valid mesh. Even though several other methods to improve finite element meshes already exist, the proposed one is the first to incorporate what finite element practitioners have for long known: One bad element renders the mesh useless. We report some very encouraging results with a quite crude algorithm. Our conclusion is that building meshes combining an initial generation step followed by an optimization step makes the meshing of arbitrary domains much more reliable, as compared to the usual approach of precluding distorted elements during the initial generation stage.
A broker-based framework for multi-cloud workflows

Computational science workflows have been successfully run on traditional HPC systems like clusters and Grids for many years. Today, users are interested to execute their workflow applications in the Cloud to exploit the economic and technical benefits of this new emerging technology. The deployment and management of workflows over the current existing heterogeneous and not yet interoperable Cloud providers, however, is still a challenging task for the workflow developers. In this paper, we present a broker-based framework for running workflows in a multi-Cloud environment. The framework allows an automatic selection of the target Clouds, a uniform access to the Clouds, and workflow data management with respect to user Service Level Agreement (SLA) requirements. Following a simulation approach, we evaluated the framework with a real scientific workflow application in different deployment scenarios. The results show that our framework offers benefits to users by executing workflows with the expected performance and service quality at lowest cost.
Mobile geotagged data gathering for disaster remediation

Devastating floods in Thailand during the final quarter of 2011 caused almost 600 deaths as well as severe damage to the country's infrastructure and economy. The crisis prompted us to very quickly develop a system using mobile devices to survey the status of industrial facilities in disaster-affected areas. Our objective was to create a system that would allow an untrained user equipped with a modern mobile telephone to acquire and transmit location-tagged information, in multiple modalities, about the conditions at a disaster site. The system needed to be robust in the face of abnormal conditions in the disaster area, should permit the users to use their own language, and should make the resulting data available immediately both to supervisors coordinating the disaster remediation effort and to experts elsewhere. In this paper we describe the motivation and methodology for this project, the functional architecture of the resulting software, its present status and its future prospects. The project serves a case study for rapid application development of geospatial software. The resulting application has potential utility in other disaster situations.
Asynchronous programming with futures in C on a safety-critical platform in the railway-control domain

Programming parallel applications on replicated architectures in the safety-critical field is challenging due to the inherent non-determinism of the derived applications. This paper describes the concept of asynchronous programming with futures in C under a safety-critical platform used in the transport automation industry. A C language extension named Fresera and a Fresera-like runtime library implemented in C are presented. Our goal is to simplify the development of parallel applications with replica-deterministic guarantees. An overview of a transport automation platform in the railway control domain is given which relies on Triple Modular Redundancy (TMR) for fault tolerance. An example application written in a Fresera-like runtime library in C is used as a demonstration of the presented programming model. Early benchmarks of the runtime library exhibit an improved performance when using a lightweight tasks and a Work Stealing scheduler compared with a plain pthreads implementation.
A First Course In The Numerical Analysis Of Differential Equations [Book News & Reviews]

is very well-written textbook in-fix differential equations, both ordinary and partial. It consists of three parts. Part I contains six chapters and is devoted to initial-value problems for ODEs. Parts I1 and I11 deal with PDEs, particularly Part 11, which consists of six chapters, with boundary-value problems for the Poisson equation. Part 111, which has two chapters, presents initial value and initial-and boundary-value problems for evolution equations. In Chapter 1 , Arieh Iserles analyzes some simple methods for ODE'S, specifically the Euler method, and some easy generalizations. Chapters 2 and 3 deal with the most widely used methods for ODEs: the multistep and Runge-Ehtta methods. Chapter 4 concems stiff equations and A-stability. More practical questions, such as the error control and the solution of (nonlinear) systems that arise when implementing implicit methods for ODE'S, are considered in Chapters 5 and 6. While Part I presents a very well-organized introduction to numerical methods for initial-value problems for ODEs, Chapters 2 and 3 are somehow too short. Iserles could have easily improved the presentation by including a proof of the equivalence of the root condition and the stability of multistep method$ in Chapter 2, and of the stability of Runge-Kutta methods in Chapter 3. There's also a minor problem with the consistency of Runge-monly used Runge-Kutta methods (see pages 39 and 41). However, in my opinion , the necessary and sufficient condition for consistency is bl +. + 6, = 1. In Chapter 7, Iserles discusses finite-difference schemes for the Poisson equation. He proves the consistency of the schemes and, for rectangular domains, derives error estimates. Chapter 8 provides a short introduction to the finite-element method, and error estimates in the energy norm are derived. The energy method is underemphasized in Chapters 7 and 8. The next four chapters deal with computational aspects of h t e-difference and finite-element methods: direct and iterative methods for linear systems (Chapters 9 and lo), the multi-grid method (Chapter 1 l), and fast Pois-son solvers (Chapter 12). Chapter 13 introduces finite-difference methods for the diffusion equation, with eigenvalue and Fourier techniques used for the stability analysis. Finally, in Chapter 14, Iserles analyzes finite-difference methods for the advection equation , the wave equation, and the Burgers equation. Iserles has successfully presented, in a mathematically honest way, all essential topics on numerical methods for differential equations, suitable for advanced undergraduate-level mathematics students. As the author notes, however, …
Measurement of Permeability and the Correlation between Permeability and Strength of Pervious Concrete

Pervious concrete has been widely used in the fields of roads, buildings, water facilities as the material of drainage structure due to the excellent permeability. However, pervious concrete have relatively lower compressive and flexural strengths as compared to conventional concrete. Strength and permeability are two important design factors for pervious concrete, but limited research is conducted on their interactional relationship. This study focuses on the balance between permeability and strength properties of pervious concrete. A series of laboratory tests are conducted to demonstrate the effects of water-cement ratio, aggregate-cement ratio and porosity on the properties of pervious concrete including strength and permeability.
Picture Collage with Genetic Algorithm and Stereo vision

In this paper, a salient region extraction method for creating picture collage based on stereo vision is proposed. Picture collage is a kind of visual image summary to arrange all input images on a given canvas, allowing overlay, to maximize visible visual information. The salient regions of each image are firstly extracted and represented as a depth map. The output picture collage shows as many visible salient regions (without being overlaid by others) from all images as possible. A very efficient Genetic algorithm is used here for the optimization. The experimental results showed the superior performance of the proposed method.
Spamcraft: An Inside Look At Spam Campaign Orchestration

Over the last decade, unsolicited bulk email—spam— has evolved dramatically in its volume, its delivery infrastructure and its content. Multiple reports indicate that more than 90% of all email traversing the Internet today is considered spam. This growth is partially driven by a multi-billion dollar anti-spam industry whose dedication to filtering spam in turn requires spammers to recruit botnets to send ever greater volumes to maintain profits. While we all bear witness to this evolution via the contents of our inboxes, far less is understood about the spammer’s viewpoint. In particular, for each spam campaign, spammers must gather and target a particular set of recipients, construct enticing message content, ensure sufficient IP address diversity to evade blacklists, and maintain sufficient content diversity to evade spam filters.
Tracking the Impact of Fact Deletions on Knowledge Graph Queries using Provenance Polynomials

Critical business applications in domains ranging from technical support to healthcare increasingly rely on large-scale, automatically constructed knowledge graphs. These applications use the results of complex queries over knowledge graphs in order to help users in taking crucial decisions such as which drug to administer, or whether certain actions are compliant with all the regulatory requirements and so on. However, these knowledge graphs constantly evolve, and the newer versions may adversely impact the results of queries that the previously taken business decisions were based on. We propose a framework based on provenance polynomials to track the impact of knowledge graph changes on arbitrary SPARQL query results. Focusing on the deletion of facts, we show how to efficiently determine the queries impacted by the change, develop ways to incrementally maintain these polynomials, and present an efficient implementation on top of RDF graph databases. Our experimental evaluation over large-scale RDF/SPARQL benchmarks show the effectiveness of our proposal.
Male and female murderers in newspapers: Are they portrayed differently?

This research aims to identify any similarities and differences in the reporting of male and female murderers in broadsheet and tabloid newspapers. In order to gain a stronger insight into the issue, two case studies have been selected, one male and one female. Through the method of thematic analysis, this article examines how the female serial murderer Joanna Dennehy was represented compared with the male serial murderer Stephen Griffiths in a selection of articles from national newspapers. During this process, reoccurring themes were discovered that are discussed in the analysis. These themes are ‘labelling’ and ‘blaming others’. ‘Labelling’ is divided into sub-themes of ‘mental illness’ and ‘sexualisation and de-humanisation’. The aforementioned themes are discussed in the analysis. It was found that the gender of a serial murderer does dictate how they are portrayed in tabloid newspapers. This is also true for broadsheet newspapers to a lesser extent. For example, this research shows that Joanna Dennehy is represented as mentally ill, whereas this is not as prominent for Stephen Griffiths, despite him committing similar acts. Furthermore, Dennehy is de-humanised in both types of newspaper, although to a greater degree in tabloid newspapers. It was discovered that Griffiths was not subjected to the same de-humanisation. These findings concur with previous research outlined in the literature review, though the themes mentioned in the discussion do not occur as blatantly as some researchers suggest they do for other female murderers in the media.
α-Actinin links extracellular matrix rigidity-sensing contractile units with periodic cell-edge retractions

During cell migration, the cell edge undergoes periodic protrusion–retraction cycles. Quantitative analyses of the forces at the cell edge that drive these cycles are provided. We show that α-actinin links local contractile units and the global actin flow forces at the cell edge and present a novel model based on these results.
Comparing the resource-based and relational views: Knowledge transfer and spillover in vertical alliances

We compare resource-based and relational perspectives to examine competitive advantages within the context of vertical learning alliances. Previous research has shown that through such alliances suppliers acquire knowledge to forge new capabilities and attain performance improvements. We ask whether such improvements are exclusive to the learning partnership, or are available in other average partnerships of this supplier. We posit that the extent to which such performance improvements are partnership exclusive depends on whether the newly forged capabilities lie entirely within the supplier firm's boundaries, or at the learning dyad level. As such, we untie two forms of performance improvements arising from learning dyads. While the resource-based view helps explain the performance gains learning suppliers deploy across average partners, the relational view reveals the additional performance edge that remains exclusive to the learning partnership. Based on empirical evidence from a survey of 253 suppliers to the equipment industry, we find that partnership exclusive performance (i.e., ‘relational performance’), the true source of learning dyads' competitive advantage, is a function of suppliers acquiring know-how within the dyad, developing dyad-specific assets and capabilities, and structuring buyer-supplier relational governance mechanisms. We discuss implications for research and practice. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Fair boundary scheduler for LTE system

Scheduling technique plays a significant role in distributions of Resource Blocks (RBs) in LTE system. In order to ensure the LTE system operates efficiently, the scheduler needs a good trade-off between the overall cell throughput and the fairness to all the users' equipment (UEs) in its respective cell. Improving the overall cell throughput while maintaining its fairness level is very crucial in order to ensure all UEs have been served fairly and efficiently. The proposed scheduler technique, which is referred to as Fair Boundary (FB) Scheduler is shown to improve the overall cell throughput while maintaining a high level of fairness among UEs. Our simulation showed that the Fair Boundary Scheduler achieved up to 13 percent improvement in term of the overall cell throughput. Furthermore, our simulation results also showed that the proposed scheduler exhibited better fairness compared to the widely used Proportional Fair (PF) and Round Robin (RR) schedulers.
Localization via ultra-wideband radios: a look at positioning aspects for future sensor networks

UWB technology provides an excellent means for wireless positioning due to its high resolution capability in the time domain. Its ability to resolve multipath components makes it possible to obtain accurate location estimates without the need for complex estimation algorithms. In this article, theoretical limits for TOA estimation and TOA-based location estimation for UWB systems have been considered. Due to the complexity of the optimal schemes, suboptimal but practical alternatives have been emphasized. Performance limits for hybrid TOA/SS and TDOA/SS schemes have also been considered. Although the fundamental mechanisms for localization, including AOA-, TOA-, TDOA-, and SS-based methods, apply to all radio air interface, some positioning techniques are favored by UWB-based systems using ultrawide bandwidths.
Effects of Fly Ash on NO Removal by Pulsed Streamers

NO removal methods using plasma chemical reactions in nonthermal plasmas have been widely studied. In this paper, the effects of the addition of fly ash on NO removal using short-pulsed discharge plasmas are described. Fly ash which had been collected from a coal-burning thermal electrical power plant was used. Experiments were performed using four different mixtures of gases which included NO. These were (N 2 + NO), (N2+NO+O2), (N2+NO+H2O), and (N2+NO+O2+H2O). These gas mixtures were used either with or without the addition of fly ash. The initial concentration of NO was fixed at 200 ppm (NO parts per million of the gas mixture). The study of the NO (NO + NO2) removal was performed with the fly ash, as it is relevant to real situations in coal power plants. The results show that the presence of fly ash decreased the NOremoval rate slightly in the case of dry gas mixtures while it increased the NO removal rate substantially in the case of wet gas mixtures. These results suggest that the presence of fly ash in the flue gases, which also contain a few percentages of moisture, would be advantageous to the treatment of flue gases emitted from thermal power plants for the removal of nitrogen oxides.
[The 'clock drawing test' in healthy elderly people].

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVE In this paper we aim to determine the normal values of the clock drawing test in a sample group of 58 healthy elderly persons as a neuropsychological parameter for the evaluation of certain cognitive functions. MATERIAL AND METHODS For this we have used our own adaptation of the quantitative parameters of the clock drawing test in the evaluation 'on command' and 'on copying'. We have also evaluated the possible interaction of the test with the following sample parameters: sex, age, and educational level and we have calculated the inter-examiner reliability of the test. RESULTS The average scores obtained were: 8.04 'on-command' (SD 1.60) and 9.20 (SD 0.93) 'on-copying'. CONCLUSIONS On analysis of our results we have not observed interaction of the parameters used (age, sex and educational level) with the scores obtained in the test, while there was a high level of inter-examiner reliability.
Verifying safety policies with size properties and alias controls

Many software properties can be analysed through a relational size analysis on each function's inputs and outputs. Such relational analysis (through a form of dependent typing) has been successfully applied to declarative programs, and to restricted imperative programs; but it has been elusive for object-based programs. The main challenge is that objects may mutate and they may be aliased. In this paper, we show how safety policies of programs can be analysed by tracking size properties of objects and be enforced by objects' invariants and the preconditions of methods. We propose several new ideas to allow both mutability and sharing of objects, whilst aiming for precision in our analysis. We introduce the concept of size-immutability to facilitate sharing, and also a set of alias controls to track unaliased objects whose size properties may change. We formalise our results through a set of advanced type checking rules for an object-based imperative language. We re-affirm the utility of the proposed type system by showing how a variety of software properties can be automatically verified according to size-inspired safety policies.