Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Review of the taxonomy of the genus Arthrobacter, emendation of the genus Arthrobacter sensu lato, proposal to reclassify selected species of the genus Arthrobacter in the novel genera Glutamicibacter gen. nov., Paeniglutamicibacter gen. nov., Pseudoglutamicibacter gen. nov., Paenarthrobacter gen. n

In this paper, the taxonomy of the genus Arthrobacter is discussed, from its first description in 1947 to the present state. Emphasis is given to intrageneric phylogeny and chemotaxonomic characteristics, concentrating on quinone systems, peptidoglycan compositions and polar lipid profiles. Internal groups within the genus Arthrobacter indicated from homogeneous chemotaxonomic traits and corresponding to phylogenetic grouping and/or high 16S rRNA gene sequence similarities are highlighted. Furthermore, polar lipid profiles and quinone systems of selected species are shown, filling some gaps concerning these chemotaxonomic traits. Based on phylogenetic groupings, 16S rRNA gene sequence similarities and homogeneity in peptidoglycan types, quinone systems and polar lipid profiles, a description of the genus Arthrobacter sensu lato and an emended description of Arthrobacter roseus are provided. Furthermore, reclassifications of selected species of the genus Arthrobacter into novel genera are proposed, namely Glutamicibacter gen. nov. (nine species), Paeniglutamicibacter gen. nov. (six species), Pseudoglutamicibacter gen. nov. (two species), Paenarthrobacter gen. nov. (six species) and Pseudarthrobacter gen. nov. (ten species).
NURBS representation for sets of spectral signatures

In this study we demonstrate the representation of sets of spectral signatures such that the representation is optimal in the user-defined sense. The basis functions for the sets are defined by minimizing the reconstruction error using the user-defined metric. In our proposal the basis functions are non-uniform rational B-splines (NURBS). NURBS representation is compared to the respective representation from the principal component analysis (PCA). The optimization setting is defined such that the proposed NURBS representation is capable to provide parallel reconstruction quality as PCA representation. The experiments indicate that for a low number of basis functions, i.e. for one or two basis functions, NURBS representation gives mainly better results than PCA. When the number of basis functions gets larger, i.e. to three of four or more basis functions, then PCA representation is always better independent of the metric used. The drawback of the proposed procedure is the time consuming optimization in defining the control points for NURBS basis functions.
Adaptive Hypermedia in Learning on the Web

Today, e-learning demonstrates great opportunities and the variety of existing web- based learning systems and applications underlines this observation. Advanced e-learning applications provide high quality content, efficient structuring, as well as full support for the varied tasks of all the user profiles participating in a typical distance learning scenario. Moreover, such applications have drastically evolved and incorporated methods and techniques from different scientific domains and application areas, such as data mining, web mining, user modelling and profiling, artificial intelligence, agent technologies and knowledge discovery. This paper is about deploying adaptive hypermedia methods and techniques in the domain of web-based educational applications and presents the successive phases of the adaptation process, from constructing learner profiles to producing and delivering adapted output, with emphasis on the close connection of this process to web mining and more especially web usage mining.
The effects of resident and nursing home characteristics on activities of daily living.

BACKGROUND Existing studies on the relationships between impairments and activities of daily living (ADLs) in nursing home residents have serious limitations. This study examines the relationships among admission impairments, including pain, depression, incontinence, balance, and falls, and follow-up ADLs, as well as the effect of the nursing home on follow-up ADLs of extended-stay nursing home residents. METHODS This longitudinal cohort study consisted of 4,942 extended-stay residents who were admitted into 377 Minnesota nursing homes during 2004. General linear mixed models were used for all analyses, with 14 resident-level and 8 facility-level control variables. RESULTS Incontinence and balance function at admission were significantly associated with increases in ADL dependence at follow-up. Individual nursing homes had independent effects on all three ADL models. Similar findings were found after facility-level control variables were added. CONCLUSIONS Incontinence predicts subsequent ADL functional levels. The relationship between balance dysfunction and subsequent ADL dependence could be causal. Future studies of the causal relationships between impairments and ADL should examine the effectiveness of impairment interventions on ADL as well as these relationships in different subgroups of nursing home residents.
Learning control for robot tasks under geometric endpoint constraints

A theory of training-based learning control is developed for a class of robotic tasks under geometric endpoint constraints. An algorithm for updating the control input which makes the next input consist of the previous input plus modified terms of previous velocity and force errors at the robot endpoint constrained on a surface is proposed. Simulation results are presented to demonstrate the convergence of position and force tracking to a desired path with force specified on the surface. It is shown that the robot dynamics satisfies the passivity condition regarding the joint torque input vector versus the joint velocity vector, even in the case of geometric constraints. A theoretical proof of the convergence of position and force errors is given. In the proof, a relaxed concept of passivity of error dynamics of robot arms plays a crucial role. <<ETX>>
Does Bonding Really Bond? Cross-Listing Location, Corporate Governance and Value of Chinese Firms

The present study aims to develop our understanding of the relationship between corporate governance and firm value in the context of Chinese firms cross-listed on major international exchanges. For the purpose, we use a unique dataset, not used hitherto, and examine Chinese firms cross-listed on the NASDAQ, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the Hong Kong Main Board (HKMB), the Hong Kong Growth Enterprise Market (HKGEM), the Singapore Stock Exchange (SGX), and the London Alternative Investment Market (LAIM). We test two major competing hypotheses: boding theory and liability of foreignness using panel data for the period from 2001-2012.The study is grounded in the bonding theory which asserts that stringent corporate governance requirements that underpin overseas stock exchanges help enhance value of cross-listed firms. Contrary to this theory, we find that firms that are listed only on the domestic stock exchanges of Mainland China command significantly higher value than those that are cross-listed on overseas stock exchanges. The results suggest that the liability of foreignness that the cross-listed Chinese firms face when operating in the foreign capital markets may outweigh the envisaged benefits leading to outcomes contrary to those expected as per the bonding theory.We conclude that the general bonding theory cannot adequately explain, in the Chinese context, how cross-listing affects firm valuation and a refined theory is required. We develop such a theory. The refinements proposed capture the liability of foreignness and related multinational enterprise theories so as to improve our understanding of the applications of the bonding theory.
On-chip mass sensing at the physical limits of nanoelectromechanical systems

A tunable and self-regulating on-chip carbon nano-tube based mass balance is presented for small-size and low-cost environmental and healthcare applications. Tube stretching and a phase-locked loop topology make the system widely universal and invariant to nanotube characteristics. Operational for tube eigenfrequencies up to 385MHz, the circuit integration in a 180nm technology achieves instantaneous zeptogram resolution, while yoctogram precision is obtained within the tenth of a second. These figures of merit range at the physical limits of carbon nanotube resonators.
The Impact of EuroVis Publications

EuroVis has been a symposium held in Europe annually from 1999 to 2011, and from 2012 on it is a conference organized by the Eurographics Working Group on Data Visualization and supported by the IEEE Visualization and Graphics Technical Committee (IEEE VGTC). As EuroVis counts as one of the major events in the scientiﬁc landscape of the visualization domain, the works published in the past 21 years have had and continue having a signiﬁcant impact on current research endeavors. This work provides a pictorial overview of the temporal development of visualization techniques presented at EuroVis as full papers that gained most importance, and it sheds a light onto the most cited works.
Vitamin D supplementation enhances the beneficial effects of weight loss on cardiovascular disease risk markers 1 – 4

Background: High blood concentrations of parathyroid hormone and low concentrations of the vitamin D metabolites 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] and calcitriol are considered new cardiovascular disease risk markers. However, there is also evidence that calcitriol increases lipogenesis and decreases lipolysis. Objective: We investigated the effect of vitamin D on weight loss and traditional and nontraditional cardiovascular disease risk markers in overweight subjects. Design: Healthy overweight subjects (n 1⁄4 200) with mean 25(OH)D concentrations of 30 nmol/L (12 ng/mL) received vitamin D (83 lg/d) or placebo in a double-blind manner for 12 mo while participating in a weight-reduction program. Results: Weight loss was not affected significantly by vitamin D supplementation (25.7 6 5.8 kg) or placebo (26.4 6 5.6 kg). However, mean 25(OH)D and calcitriol concentrations increased by 55.5 nmol/L and 40.0 pmol/L, respectively, in the vitamin D group but by only 11.8 nmol/L and 9.3 pmol/L, respectively, in the placebo group (P , 0.001), whereas a more pronounced decrease occurred in the vitamin D group than in the placebo group in blood concentrations of parathyroid hormone (226.5% compared with 218.7%; P 1⁄4 0.014), triglycerides (213.5% compared with 13.0%; P , 0.001), and the inflammation marker tumor necrosis factor-a (210.2% compared with 23.2%; P 1⁄4 0.049). The beneficial biochemical effects were independent of the loss in body weight, fat mass, and sex. However, compared with placebo, vitamin D supplementation also increased LDL-cholesterol concentrations (15.4% compared with 22.5%; P , 0.001). Conclusions: The results indicate that a vitamin D supplement of 83 lg/d does not adversely affect weight loss and is able to significantly improve several cardiovascular disease risk markers in overweight subjects with inadequate vitamin D status participating in a weight-reduction program. This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT00493012. Am J Clin Nutr 2009;89:1321–7.
Review: The Net Benefits of Depression Management in Primary Care

Depression is often diagnosed and treated in primary care settings. Organizational and systems interventions that restructure primary care practices and train staff have been shown to be cost-effective strategies for treating depression. Funders are increasingly calling for a cost—benefit assessment of such programs. In this study, the authors review existing cost-effectiveness studies of primary care depression treatments, classify them into categories, translate the results into net benefit terms, and assess whether more costly programs generate greater net benefit. The authors find that interventions that provide training to primary care teams in how to manage depression most consistently produce net benefits, with more costly interventions of this type generating larger net benefits than less costly interventions. Collaborative care interventions, which add specialized staff to primary care practices, and therapy interventions, in which clinicians are trained to provide therapy, also generate net social benefits at conventional valuations of quality-adjusted life years.
On the energetic stability of solitary water waves†

We study solutions of the water–wave problem for a fluid layer of finite depth in the presence of gravity and surface tension. We use the canonical Hamiltonian formulation by Zakharov in terms of the surface elevation and the trace of the velocity potential on the surface. With a new continuity result for the Dirichlet–Neumann operator in terms of the surface as a function in H1(ℝ), we show conditional energetic stability of the trivial solution in certain regions of the parameter space. In the same region we obtain stability of solitary waves under the additional assumption that the second variation of the energy has only one negative eigenvalue. The latter assumption is shown to be fulfilled for the small–amplitude solitary waves first constructed by Amick & Kirchgässner.
PMPA for Nephroprotection in PSMA-Targeted Radionuclide Therapy of Prostate Cancer

Radioactive ligands for the prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) are under development for therapy of metastasized prostate cancer. Since PSMA expression is also found in the kidneys, renal tracer uptake can be dose-limiting. Because kidney kinetics differ from tumor kinetics, serial application of PSMA inhibitors such as 2-(phosphonomethyl)pentanedioic acid (PMPA) may improve the kidney-to-tumor ratio. In this study, we evaluated the effect of PMPA on the biodistribution of 2 promising PSMA ligands. Methods: Human prostate cancer xenografts (LNCaP) were transplanted subcutaneously into mice. After injection of 125I-MIP1095, a 16-h latency period was allowed for tracer clearance from the blood and renal calices. After baseline scintigraphy, PMPA was injected in doses of 0.2–50 mg/kg (n = 3 per dose, 5 controls), followed by scans at 2, 4, 6, and 24 h after PMPA injection. Kidney and tumor displacement was determined as a percentage of baseline. A shortened but similar design was used to evaluate the PSMA ligand MIP1404, which contains a chelate for 99mTc/rhenium. Results: PMPA injection 16 h after MIP1095 translated into a rapid and quantitative relevant displacement of renal activity. Tumor uptake was reduced to a significantly lesser extent in a dose-dependent manner. PMPA doses of 0.2–1 mg/kg appear optimal for sustaining nearly complete tumor uptake while simultaneously achieving near-total blocking of specific renal PSMA binding. The effect was successfully validated with the PSMA ligand MIP1404. Conclusion: PSMA-targeted radionuclide therapy can benefit from serial PMPA comedication by reducing off-target radiation to the kidneys. These data will be used for a first approximation in clinical translation, although in patients an optimization of the dose and time schedule may be necessary.
Development of all-organic antenna printed for passive UHF RFID application

The purpose of this paper is to present a flexible conductive polymer antenna for passive UHF RFID using the inkjet printing technology. This all-organic antenna was used to assembly a RFID tag using the Alien Technology IC for UHF application in a strap package. Simulations were performed using the simulation software CST and their results were compared with the measurements, which were performed using an UHF TEM Cell and an UHF RFID reader. This article shows that the all-organic antenna can be functional and can be read by a UHF RFID Reader available on the market. These conductive polymer antennas are compared to antennas with the same design manufactured using a FR-4 and Copper.
A Kohn-Vogelius formulation to detect an obstacle immersed in a fluid

The aim of our work is to reconstruct an inclusion $\omega$ immersed in a fluid flowing in a larger bounded domain $\Omega$ via a boundary measurement on $\partial\Omega$. Here the fluid motion is assumed to be governed by the Stokes equations. We study the inverse problem of reconstructing $\omega$ thanks to the tools of shape optimization by minimizing a Kohn-Vogelius type cost functional. We first characterize the gradient of this cost functional in order to make a numerical resolution. Then, in order to study the stability of this problem, we give the expression of the shape Hessian. We show the compactness of the Riesz operator corresponding to this shape Hessian at a critical point which explains why the inverse problem is ill-posed. Therefore we need some regularization methods to solve numerically this problem. We illustrate those general results by some explicit calculus of the shape Hessian in some particular geometries. In particular, we solve explicitly the Stokes equations in a concentric annulus. Finally, we present some numerical simulations using a parametric method.
How do staff psychological factors influence outcomes for people with developmental and intellectual disability in residential services?

Purpose of review A broad range of organizational issues can have an impact on client outcomes in residential services for people with intellectual disabilities, and staff psychological factors are increasingly being recognized as important. This review explores some of the recent literature on staff attitudes, attributions, well being and other factors that may impact on outcomes for residents. Recent findings Staff beliefs are associated with the relationship between challenging behaviour and burnout experienced by staff; resident outcomes such as placement breakdown may also be influenced by staff attributions. There is also a body of evidence emerging that suggests staff psychological factors may influence the quality of physical healthcare received by people with intellectual disabilities. Summary Sufficient evidence exists to suggest that clinicians should routinely consider assessing and evaluating staff psychological factors in clinical interventions in order to assess their potential impact on client care. Further research is required, particularly, to evaluate the specific impact of staff psychological factors on resident outcome.
Protein–protein interactions leave evolutionary footprints: High molecular coevolution at the core of interfaces

Protein–protein interactions are essential to all aspects of life. Specific interactions result from evolutionary pressure at the interacting interfaces of partner proteins. However, evolutionary pressure is not homogeneous within the interface: for instance, each residue does not contribute equally to the binding energy of the complex. To understand functional differences between residues within the interface, we analyzed their properties in the core and rim regions. Here, we characterized protein interfaces with two evolutionary measures, conservation and coevolution, using a comprehensive dataset of 896 protein complexes. These scores can detect different selection pressures at a given position in a multiple sequence alignment. We also analyzed how the number of interactions in which a residue is involved influences those evolutionary signals. We found that the coevolutionary signal is higher in the interface core than in the interface rim region. Additionally, the difference in coevolution between core and rim regions is comparable to the known difference in conservation between those regions. Considering proteins with multiple interactions, we found that conservation and coevolution increase with the number of different interfaces in which a residue is involved, suggesting that more constraints (i.e., a residue that must satisfy a greater number of interactions) allow fewer sequence changes at those positions, resulting in higher conservation and coevolution values. These findings shed light on the evolution of protein interfaces and provide information useful for identifying protein interfaces and predicting protein–protein interactions.
Brain-to-Brain Interfaces: When Reality Meets Science Fiction

Editor’s Note: Every memory that we have, act that we perform, and feeling that we experience creates brainstorms—interactions of millions of cells that produce electrical signals. Neuroscientists are now able to record those signals, extract the kind of motor commands that the brain is about to produce, and communicate the commands to machines that can understand them and facilitate movement in the human body. Research in this area has the potential to help paraplegics and others suffering from spinal-cord injuries to control machines with their thoughts and to bolster their ability to get around.
A Novel Subspace Channel Estimation with Fast Convergence for ZP-OFDM Systems

Novel subspace channel estimation with fast convergence is proposed for single-input multiple-output (SIMO) zero-padded orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (ZP-OFDM) systems. Stacking all the received OFDM symbols turns the channel matrix to be block Toeplitz. The block matrix scheme is then presented so a group of sub-vectors is formed from the stacked OFDM signal and the number of samples is increased. With the sub-vector samples, the perturbations of the sample correlation matrix and the noise subspace are reduced considerably and therefore, the channel estimation error is lowered. Computer simulations demonstrate that the proposed channel estimation is effective and robust compared with existing methods.
Use of Evaluation Criteria and Innovation Performance in the Front End of Innovation

Selecting the right ideas and concepts for product development projects is among the major decisions that product development directors must make. Companies have adopted evaluation criteria at decision gates to offer the decision makers sufficient knowledge of the alternative ideas and concepts, and to promote choices that would result in the best possible business benefit. The actual benefits of using the different criteria in the front end of innovation have rarely been studied. The purpose of this paper is to explain how the use of evaluation criteria is associated with innovation performance in the front end of innovation. Also, we investigate the moderating impact of product complexity. We developed a set of hypotheses and constructs and a questionnaire instrument to measure the use of evaluation criteria and front end performance in idea and concept development in industrial firms. The results show that assessment formality is negatively but nonsignificantly associated with innovation performance, whereas the use of evaluation criteria has a significant role in promoting competitive and business potential in the front end of innovation. None of the moderating effects of product complexity are significant, but the use of evaluation systems and criteria mediate the link between product complexity and strategic opportunity. The study contributes to research regarding the use of different evaluation criteria particularly during idea and concept evaluation. As the use of different evaluation criteria is differently associated with the different strategic opportunity measures, the findings confirm the need to develop holistic but informal assessment systems and adapt the evaluation criteria in line with the development objectives of the firm. In order to fully benefit from radical strategic opportunities, firms need to focus on demanding product concepts that require a stretch in both technical and market competences, as well as managerial work that proactively reduces risks associated with complexity.