Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Using system dynamics for short life cycle supply chains evaluation

This work is part of an Italian National Research Project embracing different aspects of a short life-cycle products supply chains: its modeling, its resiliency and its competitiveness. In fact, this particular kind of products, like fashion goods, toys or electronic devices, have different characteristics compared with long-medium life cycle products and this implies a quite different management as well as competitiveness factors to take into account. Starting from the modeling of a supply chain of this kind, utilizing the Powersim Studio Software implementing the System Dynamics methodology, with the goal of showing its behavior under specific scenarios, some vulnerability causes have been considered in order to make the supply chain more resilient. Finally, the competitiveness dynamics between two companies producing short life cycle items has been modeled and analyzed.
A Perceptual Expressivity Modeling Technique for Speech Synthesis Based on Multiple-Regression HSMM

This paper describes a technique for modeling and controlling emotional expressivity of speech in HMM-based speech synthesis. A problem of conventional emotional speech synthesis based on HMM is that the intensity of an emotional expression appearing in synthetic speech completely depends on the database used for model training. To take into account the emotional expressivity that listeners actually perceive, the perceptual expressivity scores are introduced into a style control technique based on multiple-regression hidden semi-Markov model (MRHSMM). The objective and subjective evaluation results show that the proposed technique works well when there is a large bias of emotional expressivity in the training data.
Interaction patterns for assessment of learners in tabletop based collaborative learning environment

Most of the emerging digital tabletop prototypes lack the capability to identify users and hence cannot attribute actions to users. Identity attribution is essential for logging user interactions and activity analysis. This research uses a prototype of a multi-pen digital tabletop that supports user identification. A collaborative learning application called Digital Mysteries was built, aiming mainly to examine the benefits of digital tabletops to collaborative learning. The application logged the interaction of students collaborating to solve ill-defined problems. Teachers analysed recorded videos of the application trials to inform the subsequent pattern detection step. The automated interaction logs were then analysed to discover the hidden patterns of interaction that are suitable to evaluate the achievement of each student. The analysis also looked for patterns to detect students need for inter-activity feedback, besides patterns to identify leaders and free riders.
Test suite prioritization by interaction coverage

Event-driven software (EDS) is a widely used class of software that takes sequences of events as input, changes state, and outputs new event sequences. Managing the size of tests suites for EDS is difficult as the number of event combinations and sequences grow exponentially with the number of events. We propose a new testing technique that extends software interaction testing. Traditional software interaction testing systematically examines all t-way interactions of parameters for a program. This paper extends the notion to t-way interactions over sequences of events. The technique applies to many classes of software; we focus on that of EDS. As a proof-of-concept, we prioritize existing test suites for four GUI-based programs by t-way interaction coverage. We compare the rate of fault detection with that of several other prioritization criteria. Results show that prioritization by interaction coverage has the fastest rate of fault detection in half of our experiments, making the most impact when tests have high interaction coverage.
Micro–nano behaviour of DMBI-PF6 ionic liquid nanocrystals: large and small-scale interfaces

Microelectrical mechanical systems (MEMS) devices coated with a thin film of ionic liquid showed significant improvement in wear life. These promising tribological findings led to the current study of the micro–nano behaviour of an ionic liquid, 1,2-dimethyl–3-butyl imidazolium hexafluorophosphate (DMBI-PF6), when applied as a thin film on a polished silicon surface. The films remain as microdroplets in ambient conditions but undergo drastic changes when agitated by an atomic force microscope (AFM) contact scan or touched with a biased AFM tip. The nanotribological characteristics including mobility, diffusion and scratch resistance are studied. In the case of DMBI-PF6, it was observed that the imidazolium ion is a mobile phase while PF6 is attached to the silicon surface. Crystallites are formed as a result of tip contact and depend on the tip bias and environmental conditions. Crystallization of DMBI-PF6 from the liquid phase with no tip bias showed substantial variation in crystal shape compared to those formed under the influence of an electric bias.
C-reactive protein level as a predictor of mortality in liver disease patients with bacteremia

Abstract Background and objective. C-reactive protein (CRP) is synthesized in the liver in response to inflammation, and CRP is a widely used marker of sepsis. In bacteremia the initial CRP level is an independent predictor of mortality. Since the CRP response in patients with chronic liver disease is lower than in patients without liver disease the objective was to assess whether CRP levels in chronic liver disease and bacteremia was associated with case fatality. Patients. The study enrolled 105 patients with chronic liver disease and bacteremia as well as 202 patients with bacteremia and no recorded liver disease from the same region and time period. Methods. Retrospective review of medical records with registration of demography, co-morbidity, bacteriological, biochemical and clinical findings, and Child–Turcotte–Pugh scores. The primary outcome was 30-day mortality. Results. Mortality was significantly higher in patients with chronic liver disease (mortality rate ratio 2.2; 95% confidence interval 1.2–3.9) and it was correlated to Child–Turcotte–Pugh scores. CRP levels were not different between the three Child–Turcotte–Pugh classes (p = 0.33), and no linear correlation with 30-day mortality was observed. Conclusion. Mortality associated with bacteremia is increased in patients with chronic liver disease and it is correlated with Child–Turcotte–Pugh score. The prognostic information of initial CRP levels in patients with chronic liver disease is weak. The clinical management of patients with chronic liver disease and suspected infection should initiate antimicrobial therapy based on clinical, radiological and microbiological findings, whereas the measurement of CRP in bacteremia is less helpful as compared with patients without liver disease.
Two-dimensional Finsler metrics of constant curvature

A Riemannian metric is of constant curvature if and only if it is locally projectively flat. There are infinitely many locally projectively flat Finsler metrics of constant curvature, that are special solutions to the Hilbert's Fourth Problem. In this paper, we use the technique in the paper titled "Finsler metrics with K=0 and S=0" (math.DG/0109060) to construct infinitely many Finsler metrics on the 2-sphere with constant curvature K=1 and infinitely many Finsler metrics on the 2-disk with constant curvature K = -1. These metrics are not projectively flat. So far, the classification of Finsler metrics of constant curvature has not been completely done yet. These examples are important to the classification problem.
Analysis of face and segment level descriptors for robust 3D co-segmentation

3D shape co-segmentation is an important topic in computer graphics. The idea of co-analysis brings new insights into understanding a collection of shapes. Rather than analysing individual shapes, an entire set is looked at, giving much more information about the class of shape in the set. Existing co-segmentation techniques use both face and segment level descriptors in order to provide enough information to give an accurate co-segmentation result. In the literature, a lot of these descriptors are proposed but there is limited empirical studies to compare which would perform well. In this paper, we have two aims: (a) propose new useful face and segment level descriptors and (b) analyse the effectiveness of them. Our experiment indicates that smoothly varying descriptors (Average Euclidean Distance) that respects geometry would improve the segmentation results.
Large vocabulary continuous speech recognition of Wall Street Journal data

We report on recent developments of the Philips large vocabulary speech recognition system and on our experiments with the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) corpus. A two-pass decoding has been devised that allows an easy integration of more complex language models. First, a word lattice is produced using a time synchronous beam search with a bigram language model. Next, a higher-order language model is applied to the lattice at the phrase level. The conditions insuring the validity of this approach are explained and practical results for trigram demonstrate its usefulness. The main system development stages on WSJ data are presented and our final recognizers are evaluated on Nov. '92 and Nov. '93 test-data for both 5 K and 20 K vocabularies. <<ETX>>
Caldora penicillata gen. nov., comb. nov. (Cyanobacteria), a pantropical marine species with biomedical relevance

Many tropical marine cyanobacteria are prolific producers of bioactive secondary metabolites with ecological relevance and promising pharmaceutical applications. One species of chemically rich, tropical marine cyanobacteria that was previously identified as Symploca hydnoides or Symploca sp. corresponds to the traditional taxonomic definition of Phormidium penicillatum. In this study, we clarified the taxonomy of this biomedically and ecologically important cyanobacterium by comparing recently collected specimens with the original type material and the taxonomic description of P. penicillatum. Molecular phylogenetic analyses of the 16S rRNA gene and the 16S‐23S internal transcribed spacer regions showed that P. penicillatum formed an independent clade sister to the genus Symploca, and distantly related to Phormidium and Lyngbya. We propose the new genus Caldora for this clade, with Caldora penicillata comb. nov. as the type species and designate as the epitype the recently collected strain FK13‐1. Furthermore, the production of bioactive secondary metabolites among various geographically dispersed collections of C. penicillata showed that this species consistently produced the metabolite dolastatin 10 and/or the related compound symplostatin 1, which appear to be robust autapomorphic characters and chemotaxonomic markers for this taxon.
Description and evaluation of a generic design to integrate CLP and tabled execution

Logic programming systems with tabling and constraints (TCLP, tabled constraint logic programming) have been shown to be more expressive and in some cases more efficient than those featuring only either tabling or constraints. Previous implementations of TCLP systems which use entailment to determine call / answer subsumption did not provide a simple, uniform, and well-documented interface to facilitate the integration of additional constraint solvers in existing tabling systems, which would increase the application range of TCLP. We present the design and an experimental evaluation of Mod TCLP, a framework which eases this integration. Mod TCLP views the constraints solver as a client of the tabling system. The tabling system is generic w.r. t. the constraint solver and only requires a clear, small interface from the latter. We validate our design by integrating four constraint solvers: a re-engineered version of a previously existing constraint solver for difference constraints, written in C; the standard versions of Holzbauer's CLP(Q) and CLP(R), written in Prolog; and a new constraint solver for equations over finite lattices. We evaluate the performance of our framework in several benchmarks using the aforementioned constraint solvers. All the development work and evaluation was done in Ciao Prolog.
Finite element modelling of wave propagation in highly scattering materials

Ultrasonic inspection of highly scattering materials presents challenges for industry. This article describes a Finite Element modelling methodology to simulate wave propagation within polycrystalline materials. Concerns are answered regarding its required mesh sampling and ability to capture the complex scattering physics. It is shown that grain scattering phenomena are closely reproduced across a range of scattering regimes. The procedure is subsequently applied to investigate the optimal configuration of an array inspecting such a material. It is found that in certain situations, separating emitter and receiver can be advantageous as this reduces the received backscatter.
Private information retrieval schemes for codec data with arbitrary collusion patterns

In Private Information Retrieval (PIR), one wants to download a file from a database without revealing to the database which file is being downloaded. Much attention has been paid to the case of the database being encoded across several servers, subsets of which can collude to attempt to deduce the requested file. With the goal of studying the achievable PIR rates in realistic scenarios, we generalize results for coded data from the case of all subsets of servers of size t colluding, to arbitrary subsets of the servers. We investigate the effectiveness of previous strategies in this new scenario, and present new results in the case where the servers are partitioned into disjoint colluding groups.
Efficient Mutagenesis by Cas9 Protein-Mediated Oligonucleotide Insertion and Large-Scale Assessment of Single-Guide RNAs

The CRISPR/Cas9 system has been implemented in a variety of model organisms to mediate site-directed mutagenesis. A wide range of mutation rates has been reported, but at a limited number of genomic target sites. To uncover the rules that govern effective Cas9-mediated mutagenesis in zebrafish, we targeted over a hundred genomic loci for mutagenesis using a streamlined and cloning-free method. We generated mutations in 85% of target genes with mutation rates varying across several orders of magnitude, and identified sequence composition rules that influence mutagenesis. We increased rates of mutagenesis by implementing several novel approaches. The activities of poor or unsuccessful single-guide RNAs (sgRNAs) initiating with a 5′ adenine were improved by rescuing 5′ end homogeneity of the sgRNA. In some cases, direct injection of Cas9 protein/sgRNA complex further increased mutagenic activity. We also observed that low diversity of mutant alleles led to repeated failure to obtain frame-shift mutations. This limitation was overcome by knock-in of a stop codon cassette that ensured coding frame truncation. Our improved methods and detailed protocols make Cas9-mediated mutagenesis an attractive approach for labs of all sizes.
Comparison of protein active site structures for functional annotation of proteins and drug design

Rapid and accurate functional assignment of novel proteins is increasing in importance, given the completion of numerous genome sequencing projects and the vastly expanding list of unannotated proteins. Traditionally, global primary‐sequence and structure comparisons have been used to determine putative function. These approaches, however, do not emphasize similarities in active site configurations that are fundamental to a protein's activity and highly conserved relative to the global and more variable structural features. The Comparison of Protein Active Site Structures (CPASS) database and software enable the comparison of experimentally identified ligand‐binding sites to infer biological function and aid in drug discovery. The CPASS database comprises the ligand‐defined active sites identified in the protein data bank, where the CPASS program compares these ligand‐defined active sites to determine sequence and structural similarity without maintaining sequence connectivity. CPASS will compare any set of ligand‐defined protein active sites, irrespective of the identity of the bound ligand. Proteins 2006. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Texture Analysis of Hot Rolled Ni-Mn-Ga Alloys

The studies were carried out on three Ni-Mn-Ga polycrystalline alloys with the 10M martensite and the L21 parent phase. The specimens were cut along the [001] and [110] directions of the columnar grains from the ingots of either round or flat shape. The samples were heated up to 10000C and rolled in one direction in several steps. The final reduction of the samples thickness was: 28%, 36%, 57% and 69%. The texture of the initial [001] orientation rolled with the highest deformation 60% shows the following orientation components: {111}<112>, {112}<011>, {111}<011> which are typical for deformed and recrystallized metals of the A2 structure. The texture of the specimen with the initial [110] orientation rolled with 69% can be described as a fibre texture scattered around the <110> direction.
Self-study assisted cognitive therapy for PTSD: a case study

Background: Research has demonstrated that Cognitive Therapy for PTSD (CT-PTSD), a version of trauma-focused cognitive-behavioural therapy developed by Ehlers and Clark's group (2000), is effective and feasible when offered in weekly and intensive daily formats. It is unknown whether patients with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) could engage in and benefit from self-study assisted cognitive therapy, which would reduce therapist contact time. Objectives: This case report aims to illustrate this possibility. Design: A patient with PTSD and comorbid major depression, who developed these problems following a road traffic accident, was treated in six sessions of cognitive therapy with six self-study modules completed in-between sessions. The patient made a complete recovery on measures of PTSD, anxiety, and depression as assessed by self-report and independent assessment. Conclusion: Self-study assisted cognitive CT-PTSD reduced the therapist contact time to half of that normally required in standard CT-PTSD. This highlights the potential feasibility and therapeutic benefits of self-study modules in the brief treatment of PTSD. Further research is required to systematically evaluate the acceptability and efficacy of brief self-study assisted CT-PTSD. For the abstract or full text in other languages, please see Supplementary files under Reading Tools online
VLSI Design of Approximate Message Passing for Signal Restoration and Compressive Sensing

Sparse signal recovery finds use in a variety of practical applications, such as signal and image restoration and the recovery of signals acquired by compressive sensing. In this paper, we present two generic very-large-scale integration (VLSI) architectures that implement the approximate message passing (AMP) algorithm for sparse signal recovery. The first architecture, referred to as AMP-M, employs parallel multiply-accumulate units and is suitable for recovery problems based on unstructured (e.g., random) matrices. The second architecture, referred to as AMP-T, takes advantage of fast linear transforms, which arise in many real-world applications. To demonstrate the effectiveness of both architectures, we present corresponding VLSI and field-programmable gate array implementation results for an audio restoration application. We show that AMP-T is superior to AMP-M with respect to silicon area, throughput, and power consumption, whereas AMP-M offers more flexibility.
Pipe wall thickness inspection with current driven thermal method

Electric potential difference(EPD) method is widely used for diagnosing and monitoring flow conduits. Theoretical analysis and the exact solution of the electrical potential field in pipe wall have been proposed, and 2D approximation is effective for small pipe wall thickness. This study proposes to use temperature distribution driven by Joule heat with the electric current other than electrical potential difference. Under thin wall approximation, 2D electric and thermal problems are analysed and exact solutions are given.
Experimental evaluation of the optical absorption coefficient of a sandwich panel for insulated vehicles

ATP is an intergovernmental agreement concerning transport of perishable foodstuffs and special equipments to be used for such transport. The purpose of the ATP is to improve the conditions of preservation of the safety and quality of foodstuffs during their carriage, especially regarding quick-frozen and frozen food, in order to keep safe the coldchain. The aim of this work is to evaluate the absorption coefficient of the sandwich panel that is the basis of the standard insulated vehicle used in refrigerated transport. The evaluation of this coefficient is useful in the complex study of thermal balance of the vehicle.
FERM domain containing protein 7 (FRMD7) upregulates the expression of neuronal cytoskeletal proteins and promotes neurite outgrowth in Neuro-2a cells

Purpose Mutations of the FERM domain containing protein 7 gene (FRMD7) are associated with X-linked idiopathic congenital nystagmus. Previous studies have shown that FRMD7 plays an important role in neuronal development and is involved in the regulation of F-actin. However, its specific mechanism of action remains undetermined. Methods Our study used quantitative real-time PCR to assess the levels of neuron-specific genes in a mouse neuroblastoma cell line (Neuro-2a) after transfection with a full-length coding transcript of FRMD7 or a blank control vector. F-actin was detected by rhodamine-phalloidin staining. Neurite number and length were assessed by a confocal laser scanning microscope. Results We demonstrated that FRMD7 can promote neurite outgrowth following retinoic acid–induced differentiation in Neuro-2a cells. Neurites were significantly longer in cells transfected with FRMD7, but there was no difference in cell numbers. The mRNA expression of neuron cytoskeletal-related genes (microtubule-associated protein 2 [Mtap2], neurofilament-L and M [NF-L and NF-M] and the microtubule-associated protein tau [MAPT]) were significantly increased compared to controls. Other genes (NF-H, MAPT, neuron-specific class III beta-tubulin (Tuj-1), nestin, and growth-associated protein-43 [GAP-43]) were not obviously altered by FRMD7 overexpression. Conclusions Taken together, our data suggest that FRMD7 promotes the extension of neurites and may be involved in regulating the movement of cytoskeletal proteins, which influences not only F-actin, but also NF and microtubule dynamics.
Contour Segment Matching by Integrating Intra and Inter Shape Cues of Objects

In this paper we propose an algorithm for contour-based object detection in cluttered images. Contour of an object shape is approximated as a set of line segments and object detection is framed as matching contour segments of an image (i.e.,an edge image) to a boundary model of an object (i.e., a line drawing). Local shape is abstracted as a group of k-adjacent segments. We use a multi-level shape description (with different k’s) to capture complexity variations in local shape. Between images, shape descriptors are matched to give inter-shape correspondences and within images the underlying segment grouping enforces intra-shape contextual constraints. We use an efficient relaxation labeling approach that integrates these shape cues to qualify a contour match. To this end, we propose a novel framework that solves the problem of object detection as a contour segments correspondence problem. We then demonstrate the efficacy of the method for detecting various objects in cluttered images by comparing them to simple line drawings.