Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Survey of Energy Efficient Routing Protocols and Gossiping

— Many ad hoc routing protocols are based on some variant of flooding. Despite various optimizations of flooding, many routing messages are propagated unnecessarily. We propose a gossiping-based approach, where each node forwards a message with some probability, to reduce the overhead of the routing. A probability-based approach can be applied to determine whether or not a node should transmit the received packet during broadcasting. Some protocols apply the probability-based approach to resolve the broadcast storm problem, hence saving the power consumption for redundant transmission. A probability-based approach to balance the power consumption on each node, thus improving the network lifetime. In this paper, we present a routing protocol which achieves considerable energy saving thus increasing the throughput and network lifetime. Working of proposed routing protocol is similar in nature with Ad-Hoc on Demand Distance Vector Routing Protocol (AODV). In proposed protocol, energy critical nodes do not take part in routing. One more issue that needs to be discussed while performing routing operations is energy consumption. As each node is mobile node which stores its energy in the battery provided with them. If any critical node (intermediate node having lower power) participate in the route discovery or data transmission it may lose its energy and can lead to termination of data transmission from source node to destination node. This paper suggests an approach to avoid such incidents in the network. The proposed approach can be implemented and simulated on QUALNET, a network simulator.
Deciphering Adaptation Strategies of the Epidemic Clostridium difficile 027 Strain during Infection through In Vivo Transcriptional Analysis

Clostridium difficile is responsible for a wide spectrum of infection from asymptomatic carriage to severe, relapsing colitis. Since 2003, C. difficile infections have increased with a higher morbidity and mortality due to the emergence of epidemic and hypervirulent C. difficile strains such as those of the epidemic lineage 027/BI/NAP1. To decipher the hypervirulence and epidemicity of 027 strains, we analyzed gene expression profiles of the R20291 027 strain using a monoxenic mouse model during the first 38h of infection. A total of 741 genes were differentially expressed during the course of infection. They are mainly distributed in functional categories involved in host adaptation. Several genes of PTS and ABC transporters were significantly regulated during the infection, underlying the ability of strain R20291 to adapt its metabolism according to nutrient availability in the digestive tract. In this animal model, despite the early sporulation process, sporulation efficiency seems to indicate that growth of R20291 vegetative cells versus spores were favored during infection. The bacterial mechanisms associated to adaptability and flexibility within the gut environment, in addition to the virulence factor expression and antibiotic resistance, should contribute to the epidemicity and hypervirulence of the C. difficile 027 strains.
Hyper-osmotic condition enhances protein tyrosine phosphorylation and zona pellucida binding capacity of human sperm.

BACKGROUND The aim of this study was to determine the effect of culture medium osmolality, in the range known to occur in the male and female reproductive tracts, on human sperm tyrosine phosphorylation and sperm-zona pellucida (ZP) interaction in vitro. METHODS Motile sperm (2x10(6)), selected by swim-up from semen of normozoospermic men with normal sperm-ZP binding, were incubated with or without four oocytes in 1 ml human tubal fluid (HTF) medium with different osmolalities (150, 200, 280, 350, 400 mOsm/kg) adjusted by variation of the NaCl concentration. After 2 h incubation, the number of sperm bound to the four ZP was examined, sperm motility and velocities were assessed by Hamilton-Thorn Motility Analyzer (IVOS 10) and sperm tyrosine phosphorylation was assessed by both western immunoblotting and immunofluorescence with an anti-phosphotyrosine monoclonal antibody (PY20). The effect of hyper-osmolality (400 mOsm/kg) on the ZP-induced acrosome reaction (AR) was also determined. RESULTS Incubation of human sperm in hyper-osmotic medium significantly increased tyrosine phosphorylation and the number of sperm bound to the ZP. In contrast, hypo-osmotic medium significantly decreased both tyrosine phosphorylation and sperm-ZP binding. Medium with high osmolality (400 mOsm/kg) significantly reduced the ZP-induced AR. Both hypo- and hyper-osmotic media significantly decreased average sperm percentage progressive motility and velocities. CONCLUSION Incubation of human sperm in hyper-osmotic media was associated with significantly increased tyrosine phosphorylation and ZP-binding ability but severely reduced the ZP-induced AR.
Improvement of depth position in 2-D/3-D registration of knee implants using single-plane fluoroscopy

Two-dimensional (2-D)/three-dimensional (3-D) registration techniques using single-plane fluoroscopy are highly important for analyzing 3-D kinematics in applications such as total knee arthroplasty (TKA) implants. The accuracy of single-plane fluoroscopy-based techniques in the determination of translation perpendicular to the image plane (depth position), however, is relatively poor because a change in the depth position causes only small changes in the 2-D silhouette. Accuracies achieved in depth position using conventional 2-D/3-D registration techniques are insufficient for clinical applications. Therefore, we propose a technique for improving the accuracy of depth position determination in order to develop a system for analyzing knee kinematics over the full six degrees of freedom (6 DOF) using single-plane fluoroscopy. In preliminary experiments, the behaviors of errors for each free variable were quantified as evaluation curves by examining changes in cost function with variations in the free variable. The evaluation curve for depth position was more jagged, and the curve peak less pointy, compared to the evaluation curves of the other five variables, and the curve was found to behave differently. Depth position is therefore optimized independently of the other variables, using an approximate evaluation curve of depth position prepared after initial registration. Accuracy of the proposed technique was evaluated by computer simulation and in vitro tests, with validation of absolute position and orientation performed for each knee component. In computer simulation tests, root-mean-square error (RMSE) in depth position was improved from 2.6 mm (conventional) to 0.9 mm (proposed), whereas for in vitro tests, RMSE improved from 3.2 mm to 1.4 mm. Accuracy of the estimation of the remaining two translational and three rotational variables was found to be almost the same as that obtained by conventional techniques. Results of in vivo tests are also described in which the possibility of full 6 DOF kinematic analysis of TKA implants is shown.
Multi-Group Moderation Analysis for Relationship between Knowledge Sharing Orientation and Business Performance

This paper examines the moderating effect of firm age on relationship between knowledge sharing orientation and business performance. Convenience sample of 274 firms from manufacturing and service sector was taken as sample for the study from National Capital Region NCR and Punjab State of India. The survey questionnaire was administered to the managerial level employees C.E. O's, top level and middle level managers who were key decision makers in the organizations. The findings show that the knowledge sharing orientation exhibits a positive impact on business performance; firm age does not moderate the relationship between knowledge sharing orientation and business performance. The findings of the research will help knowledge management researchers as well as practitioners develop a better understanding of the role of knowledge sharing in successful implementation of knowledge management programs.
Ballot permutations in prêt à voter

Handling full permutations of the candidate list along with re-encryption mixes is rather difficult in Pret a Voter but handling cyclic shifts is straightforward. One of the versions of Pret a Voter that uses Paillier encryption allows general permutations of candidates on the ballot, rather than just cyclic shifts. This improves the robustness of the system against an adversary who tries to alter checkmarks on ballots before they are posted to the bulletin board. Even if the adversary could predict which voters would fail to check their vote on the bulletin board, the best they could do would be to choose another random candidate. By contrast, when using only cyclic shifts the adversary can systematically shift a biased distribution from one candidate to another. We show in this note that the Paillier version of Pret a Voter with full permutations of the candidates is not receipt-free when the number of possible permutations is much larger than the number of voters, and we propose a construction that addresses this issue while retaining the defence against an adversary who can shift checkmarks.
Impact of ‘greening’ the Common Agricultural Policy: Evidence from selected countries based on CAPRI model

This paper examines the potential impacts of the post 2013 EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reform, which aims to improve the environmental performance of agriculture, called “greening” the CAP. Using the well-established CAPRI model, the economic and environmental consequences of the reform on agriculture are estimated for selected EU countries. The results indicate that ‘greening’ causes a decline in the area of the main crops, increase crop prices and slightly intensify production on the remaining areas. Farm income would increase, but due to the low intensity of agriculture - like in the Baltic countries - this increase would be rather limited.
Exercise behaviour as a predictor of stress and psychological well-being in adults

This study examines the effect of exercise in reducing stress and improving well-being in Irish adults. A total of 160 participants completed a questionnaire which evaluated each of these variables. The sample was divided into 3 groups; high, moderate or low exercise group according to their reported levels of physical activity. The study was cross-sectional, correlational and quantitative in nature, using a between-participants design. The results of a one-way analysis of variance showed that those participants who exercised at a high level reported significantly less stress and higher psychological well-being than those who exercised at a low level. No significant difference was found with the moderate exercise group. In conclusion, results obtained suggest that higher levels of exercise reduce stress and improve psychological well-being in adults.
Abstract social and political systems simulation The concept of the space of ideas and object-oriented simulation

We present an abstract, discrete event model of interactions between organizational structures, using the agent-base modeling. The parameters of agents, like ability, corruption level, resources and lust for power are taken into account, among others. The aim of the simulation is to visualize the evolution of the organizations and the stability of the whole system. It is pointed out that the "steady state" of the model can hardly be reached. Instead, for most parameter configurations, the model enters in oscillations.
Reproductive ecology of the basal angiosperm Trithuria submersa (Hydatellaceae).

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Trithuria, the sole genus in the family Hydatellaceae, is an important group for understanding early angiosperm evolution because of its sister relationship to the ancient lineage, Nymphaeales (water lilies). Although also aquatic, Trithuria differs from water lilies in that all species are extremely small, and most have an annual life form and grow in seasonal wetlands. Very little is known about their reproductive ecology. This paper reports on reproductive timing, mode of pollination and characteristics of the breeding system of Trithuria submersa in Western Australia. METHODS Mass collections of open-pollinated plants from different ecological settings were used to characterize the reproductive developmental sequence and natural pollen reception. Hand-pollination, caging and emasculation experiments were used to measure outcross + geitonogamous pollen reception versus autonomous self-pollination in two populations over two field seasons. KEY RESULTS Natural outcross or geitonogamous pollination was by wind, not by water or insects, but pollen reception was extremely low. Pollen production was very low and pollen release was non-synchronous within populations. The pollen to ovule (P/O) ratio was 23·9, compared with 1569·1 in dioecious Trithuria austinensis. Stigmas became receptive before male phase and remained so until anthers dehisced and autonomous self-pollination occurred. Natural pollen loads are composed primarily of self pollen. Self- and open-pollinated plants had equivalent seed set (both >70 %). Self-pollinated plants produced seed within 17 d. CONCLUSIONS Autonomous self-pollination and self-fertilization are predominant in T. submersa. The low P/O ratio is not an artefact of small plant size and is inconsistent with long-term pollination by wind. It indicates that T. submersa has evolved a primarily autogamous breeding system. Selfing, along with the effect of small plant size on the speed of reproduction, has enabled T. submersa to colonize marginal ephemeral wetlands in the face of unpredictable pollination.
Does Marriage Really Matter ? Investments in Prenatal Care and Birth Outcomes ⊗

Nonmarital childbearing has increased dramatically in the United States in recent decades. A great deal of attention has been paid by both academics and policy makers to this increase, in part because of concerns that having a single mother negatively affects child outcomes. We use the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (ECLS-B) to investigate whether marriage is associated with greater investments in prenatal care and better birth outcomes, and the extent to which this “marriage effect” is heterogeneous. Our results suggest that marriage is significantly and positively correlated with investments in prenatal care and birth outcomes. However, we find a great deal of heterogeneity in these relationships. Unmarried motherhood among educated mothers (those with a college degree or higher) is not associated with lower levels of investment in prenatal care nor with negative birth outcomes. There is also heterogeneity across racial and ethnic groups in the marital status effect that differs by which outcome is being examined. We also find that including observable characteristics and addressing unobserved characteristics reduces but does not eliminate the positive correlation between marital status and prenatal care investments, but that these remaining differentials in investments do not appear to translate into significant differences in infant health outcomes. This variation in marital status effects suggests that the benefits of marriage may be overstated, and that policy efforts to improve children’s well-being through promoting marriage might be reexamined to take this into account.
Indexing and retrieval of a Greek corpus

Greek is one of the most difficult languages to handle in Web Information Retrieval (IR) related tasks. Its difficulty stems from the fact that it is grammatically, morphologically and orthographically more complex than the lingua franca of IR, English. In this paper, we address a significant number of issues that originate from the Greek language. We use a number of techniques to determine the correct encoding that is used by web pages written in Greek. We test the effect of using a Greek stopword list in a realistic and controlled Web environment. We employ a character mapping scheme, in order to overcome the problem of the diversity of diacritics used in the language, such as accents and diaeresis. We utilize word distance and fuzzy similarity metrics in order to make up for the different forms that nouns, verbs and articles appear because of conjugations and inflections and additionally handle greeklish queries, a transliterated form of Greek. The conducted experiments present some effective ways to increase the accuracy in Greek IR tasks.
The Relationships between Music Type Preference, Gender Role Identity, and Loneliness in Homosexual Men

This study aims to investigate the relationship between music type preference, gender role identity, and loneliness in homosexual male students in senior high school. Two theoretical hypotheses were proposed. A set of questionnaires was administered to 136 homosexual male students from randomly selected senior high schools in Taiwan. Based on the results, homosexual male students of both gender role identities experienced loneliness, but those with a feminine gender role identity experienced greater loneliness than those with a hyper-masculine gender role identity. In addition, both proposed music types were negatively related to loneliness. Moreover, the ‘Vitality and Fashion’ music type was positively related to a hyper-masculine gender role identity, whereas the ‘Elegance and Sentiment’ music type was positively related to a feminine gender role identity. At the end of this article, theoretical and practical recommendations and suggestions for future research are provided. Keywords : Music preference; Loneliness; Emotion; Homosexuality; Gender role identity
Meta-analysis of the diagnostic performance of [18F]FDG-PET and PET/CT in renal cell carcinoma

Abstract Objectives: Positron emission tomography (PET) using fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) is useful for restaging renal cell carcinoma (RCC) and detecting metastatic diseases but is less satisfactory for detecting primary disease. We evaluated whether the integration of computed tomography (CT) scans with the PET system could increase the applicability of FDG-PET for RCC. Methods: The MEDLINE databases were searched for relevant studies published since 2001. Two reviewers independently assessed the methodological quality of each study identified. We then performed a meta-analysis of the sensitivity and specificity of FDG-PET findings as reported in all the selected studies. Results: Fourteen studies were eligible for inclusion. The pooled sensitivity and specificity of FDG-PET were 62% and 88% respectively, for renal lesions. For detecting extra-renal lesions, the pooled sensitivity and specificity of FDG-PET were 79% and 90%, respectively, based on the scans, and 84% and 91% based on the lesions. The use of a hybrid FDG-PET/CT to detect extra-renal lesions increased the pooled sensitivity and specificity to 91% and 88%, respectively, with good consistency. Conclusions: For RCC, combining the FDG-PET and CT systems is helpful for detecting extra-renal metastasis rather than renal lesions. The hybrid PET/CT system has comparable sensitivity and specificity with PET in detecting extra-renal lesions of RCC. Advances in knowledge: The FDG-PET and PET/CT systems are both useful for detecting extra-renal metastasis in renal cell carcinoma.
Reciprocal Modulation of Cognitive and Emotional Aspects in Pianistic Performances

Background High level piano performance requires complex integration of perceptual, motor, cognitive and emotive skills. Observations in psychology and neuroscience studies have suggested reciprocal inhibitory modulation of the cognition by emotion and emotion by cognition. However, it is still unclear how cognitive states may influence the pianistic performance. The aim of the present study is to verify the influence of cognitive and affective attention in the piano performances. Methods and Findings Nine pianists were instructed to play the same piece of music, firstly focusing only on cognitive aspects of musical structure (cognitive performances), and secondly, paying attention solely on affective aspects (affective performances). Audio files from pianistic performances were examined using a computational model that retrieves nine specific musical features (descriptors) – loudness, articulation, brightness, harmonic complexity, event detection, key clarity, mode detection, pulse clarity and repetition. In addition, the number of volunteers' errors in the recording sessions was counted. Comments from pianists about their thoughts during performances were also evaluated. The analyses of audio files throughout musical descriptors indicated that the affective performances have more: agogics, legatos, pianos phrasing, and less perception of event density when compared to the cognitive ones. Error analysis demonstrated that volunteers misplayed more left hand notes in the cognitive performances than in the affective ones. Volunteers also played more wrong notes in affective than in cognitive performances. These results correspond to the volunteers' comments that in the affective performances, the cognitive aspects of piano execution are inhibited, whereas in the cognitive performances, the expressiveness is inhibited. Conclusions Therefore, the present results indicate that attention to the emotional aspects of performance enhances expressiveness, but constrains cognitive and motor skills in the piano execution. In contrast, attention to the cognitive aspects may constrain the expressivity and automatism of piano performances.
Identification of Reusable Software Modules in Function Oriented Software Systems using Neural Network Based Technique

The cost of developing the software from scratch can be saved by identifying and extracting the reusable components from already developed and existing software systems or legacy systems [6]. But the issue of how to identify reusable components from existing systems has remained relatively unexplored. We have used metric based approach for characterizing a software module. In this present work, the metrics McCabe’s Cyclometric Complexity Measure for Complexity measurement, Regularity Metric, Halstead Software Science Indicator for Volume indication, Reuse Frequency metric and Coupling Metric values of the software component are used as input attributes to the different types of Neural Network system and reusability of the software component is calculated. The results are recorded in terms of Accuracy, Mean Absolute Error (MAE) and Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE). Keywords—Software reusability, Neural Networks, MAE, RMSE, Accuracy.
The Ability of Analysts' Recommendations to Predict Optimistic and Pessimistic Forecasts

Previous researches show that buy (growth) companies conduct income increasing earnings management in order to meet forecasts and generate positive forecast Errors (FEs). This behavior however, is not inherent in sell (non-growth) companies. Using the aforementioned background, this research hypothesizes that since sell companies are pressured to avoid income increasing earnings management, they are capable, and in fact more inclined, to pursue income decreasing Forecast Management (FM) with the purpose of generating positive FEs. Using a sample of 6553 firm-years of companies that are listed in the NYSE between the years 2005–2010, the study determines that sell companies conduct income decreasing FM to generate positive FEs. However, the frequency of positive FEs of sell companies does not exceed that of buy companies. Using the efficiency perspective, the study suggests that even though buy and sell companies have immense motivation in avoiding negative FEs, they exploit different but efficient strategies, respectively, in order to meet forecasts. Furthermore, the findings illuminated the complexities behind informative and opportunistic forecasts that falls under the efficiency versus opportunistic theories in literature.