Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cloning of a Nitrilase Gene from the Cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. Strain PCC6803 and Heterologous Expression and Characterization of the Encoded Protein

ABSTRACT The gene encoding a putative nitrilase was identified in the genome sequence of the photosynthetic cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. strain PCC6803. The gene was amplified by PCR and cloned into an expression vector. The encoded protein was heterologously expressed in the native form and as a His-tagged protein in Escherichia coli, and the recombinant strains were shown to convert benzonitrile to benzoate. The active enzyme was purified to homogeneity and shown by gel filtration to consist probably of 10 subunits. The purified nitrilase converted various aromatic and aliphatic nitriles. The highest enzyme activity was observed with fumarodinitrile, but also some rather hydrophobic aromatic (e.g., naphthalenecarbonitrile), heterocyclic (e.g., indole-3-acetonitrile), or long-chain aliphatic (di-)nitriles (e.g., octanoic acid dinitrile) were converted with higher specific activities than benzonitrile. From aliphatic dinitriles with less than six carbon atoms only 1 mol of ammonia was released per mol of dinitrile, and thus presumably the corresponding cyanocarboxylic acids formed. The purified enzyme was active in the presence of a wide range of organic solvents and the turnover rates of dodecanoic acid nitrile and naphthalenecarbonitrile were increased in the presence of water-soluble and water-immiscible organic solvents.
Quantitative analysis of system parameters asymmetry on droop-controlled converters

In the microgrid applications, the converters come in all sizes and from different manufacturers, thus their closed-loop dynamics and AC side output filters are not going to be the same. The dispersed locations of these converters also lead to unequal power line impedances seen from the converters. These system parameters asymmetry affects the autonomous load sharing operations both in the steady state and in the transient. This paper discusses the impacts of these parameters asymmetry on the dynamics of the entire system. Based on the dynamic model analysis, this paper also provides some existing methods to address these problems.
A Novel and Simple Single-Phase Modulator for the Nested Neutral-Point Clamped (NNPC) Converter

The nested neutral-point clamped (NNPC) converter is a four-level converter topology for medium-voltage applications with interesting properties such as operating over a wide range of voltages (2.4-7.2 KV) without the need for connecting the power semiconductor in series, high quality output voltage, and less number of components in compare to other classical four-level topologies. The control and balance of the flying capacitors (FCs) of the NNPC converter can be done by different control techniques taking advantage of the large number of redundant switching states. This paper presents a simple single-phase modulator for the NNPC converter, which can be applied to each phase of a three-phase NNPC converter. The proposed simple technique can control and balance the FCs to their desired values. Performance of the proposed technique under different operating conditions is investigated in the MATLAB/Simulink environment. The feasibility of the proposed converter is evaluated experimentally.
Photoselective laser vaporization prostatectomy in men receiving anticoagulants.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Photoselective laser vaporization prostatectomy (PVP) with a high-power KTP laser is a hemostatic procedure for men with symptomatic benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). This study demonstrates the feasibility of PVP in men who are receiving anticoagulants. PATIENTS AND METHODS Men treated with PVP for symptomatic BPH between July 2002 and September 2003 who were receiving anticoagulants (N=24) were reviewed retrospectively. Their mean age was 75 years, and the mean prostate volume was 82 cc (range 34-164 cc). Nine men (38%) were in retention, eight (33%) had had a myocardial infarction, seven (29%) had had a cerebrovascular accident, and seven had peripheral vascular disease. Of these men, 8 were on warfarin, 2 on clopidogrel, and 14 on aspirin. Men on warfarin discontinued the drug 2 days prior to surgery and restarted it the day after. The other two drugs were not discontinued. The PVP was performed with an 80 W KTP side-firing laser (Laserscope Greenlight PV) through a 23F continuous-flow cystoscope with normal saline as the irrigant. RESULTS The mean operative time was 101 minutes. No transfusions were required. Most (22; 92%) of the men were discharged without a catheter. The serum hematocrit did not change significantly (40.0% to 38.3%). The International Prostate Symptom Score decreased to 13.6, 10.9, 9.7, and 9.5 at 1, 3, 6, and 12 months from a mean of 18.7 preoperatively. The Qmax increased from 9.0 mL/sec preoperatively to 15.1, 16.3, 20.9, and 20.1 mL/sec at 1, 3, 6, and 12 months. No patients had clinically significant hematuria postoperatively, and none suffered clot retention. CONCLUSIONS Photoselective laser vaporization prostatectomy is a suitable treatment option in men being treated with anticoagulants, who are at high risk for clinically significant bleeding.
Functional measure for quantum field theory in curved spacetime.

An examination of the functional measure for quantum field theory defined on a general curved background spacetime is presented. It is shown how to define the measure in field space to be invariant under general coordinate transformations based upon the simpler problem of defining an invariant inner product. The weight chosen for the variables of integration is seen not to matter in contrast with the claim of Fujikawa that they are uniquely specified. It is shown how the weight -1/2 variables advocated by Fujikawa are equivalent to working in a local orthonormal frame. In view of this, the interpretation of conformal anomalies as arising from the measure is reexamined. It is also shown how to define the invariant measure in phase space for a scalar field, which turns out not to be the naive generalization of the finite-dimensional result. The extension to complex and anticommuting fields is discussed. It is also shown how the choice of field variables does not alter the effective field equations.
Information acquisition and transparency in committees

We study an intertemporal model of committee decision-making where members differ in their levels of efficiency. They may acquire costly information that enhances their ability to make a correct decision. We focus on the impact of transparency. We show that the principal’s initial utility is higher under transparency, because members exert more effort, which makes correct decisions more likely. The principal also benefits from transparency later, unless transparency leads to an alignment of the signal qualities of highly efficient and less efficient committee members. In general, committee members are harmed by transparency. Together with the insights from the literature, our results may help to decide when transparency in committees is desirable.
Automatic Speaker Recognition for Mobile Forensic Applications

Presently, lawyers, law enforcement agencies, and judges in courts use speech and other biometric features to recognize suspects. In general, speaker recognition is used for discriminating people based on their voices. The process of determining, if a suspected speaker is the source of trace, is called forensic speaker recognition. In such applications, the voice samples are most probably noisy, the recording sessions might mismatch each other, the sessions might not contain sufficient recording for recognition purposes, and the suspect voices are recorded through mobile channel. The identification of a person through his voice within a forensic quality context is challenging. In this paper, we propose a method for forensic speaker recognition for the Arabic language; the King Saud University Arabic Speech Database is used for obtaining experimental results. The advantage of this database is that each speaker’s voice is recorded in both clean and noisy environments, through a microphone and a mobile channel. This diversity facilitates its usage in forensic experimentations. Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients are used for feature extraction and the Gaussian mixture model-universal background model is used for speaker modeling. Our approach has shown low equal error rates (EER), within noisy environments and with very short test samples.
EILENBERG-ZILBER VIA ACYCLIC MODELS, AND PRODUCTS IN HOMOLOGY AND COHOMOLOGY

and extended to all of C∗ ⊗ D∗ by bilinearity. Note that the sign convention (or something similar to it) is required in order for ∂ ⊗ ≡ 0 to hold, i.e. in order for C∗ ⊗D∗ to be a complex. Recall that if X and Y are CW-complexes, then X × Y has a natural CWcomplex structure, with cells given by the products of cells on X and cells on Y. As an exercise in cellular homology computations, you may wish to verify for yourself that C ∗ (X)⊗ C ∗ (Y ) ∼= C ∗ (X × Y ). This involves checking that the cellular boundary map satisfies an equation like (1) on products a× b of cellular chains. We would like something similar for general spaces, using singular chains. Of course, the product ∆p × ∆q of simplices is not a p + q simplex, though it can be subdivided into such simplices. There are two ways to do this: one way is direct, involving the combinatorics of so-called “shuffle maps,” and is somewhat tedious. The other method goes by the name of “acyclic models” and is a very slick (though nonconstructive) way of producing chain maps between C∗(X) ⊗ C∗(Y ) and C∗(X × Y ), and is the method we shall follow, following [Bre97]. The theorem we shall obtain is
Room Temperature Radiation Products in Trehalose Single Crystals: EMR and DFT Analysis

Radicals generated in trehalose single crystals by X radiation at room temperature were investigated by electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR), electron nuclear double resonance (ENDOR) and ENDOR-induced EPR measurements, together with periodic density functional theory calculations. In the first days after irradiation, three radical species (I1, I2 and I3) were detected, two of which (I1 and I2) dominate the EPR spectrum and could be identified as H-abstracted species centered at C3′ (I1) and C2 (I2), the latter with additional formation of a carbonyl group at C3. Annealing the sample at 40°C for 3 days or storing it in ambient conditions for three months resulted in another, more stable EPR spectrum. Two major species could be characterized in this stage (S1 and S2), only one of which was tentatively identified as an H-abstracted, C2-centered species (S1). Our findings disagree with a previous EPR study [Gräslund and Löfroth (23)] on several accounts. This work stresses the need for caution when interpreting composite EPR spectra and thermally induced spectral changes of radiation-induced species, even in these relatively simple carbohydrates. It also provides further evidence that the pathways for radiation damage critically depend on the specific conformation of a molecule and its environment, but also that carbonyl group formation is a common process in the radiation chemistry of sugars and related compounds.
Towards a Cloud Computing Selection and Evaluation Environment for Very Large Business Applications

Due to their maturity Cloud Computing Services can be used for creating efficient and modern Very Large Business Applications (VLBAs). These kinds of systems address the need for more agility in the whole supply chain with a loosely coupled system of separate cloud computing services combined to a highly integrated, complex Information System. But due to the fast growth of Cloud Computing the market has become non-transparent containing many offers which only partially meet customers‟ requirements. That makes it even more difficult for customers to implement Cloud based VLBA-Systems. A detailed knowledge of universal Cloud requirements enables all types of customers to adopt Cloud solutions efficiently. Therefore this paper aims to contribute a framework addressing the adoption and selection of Cloud services for VLBASystems. To develop this framework we followed a design science approach and conducted a systematic literature review, extensive market analysis and an evaluation based on expert interviews.
A Multiple Layer Efficent and Scalable Location Aware Recommender System

This paper proposes LARS*, a location-aware recommender system that uses location-based ratings to producerecommendations. Traditional recommender systems do not consider spatial properties of users nor items; LARS*, on the other hand,supports a taxonomy of three novel classes of locationbased ratings, namely, spatial ratings for non-spatial items, non-spatial ratingsfor spatial items, and spatial ratings for spatial items. LARS* exploits user rating locations through user partitioning, a technique thatinfluences recommendations with ratings spatially close to querying users in a manner that maximizes system scalability while notsacrificing recommendation quality. LARS* exploits item locations using travel penalty, a technique that favors recommendationcandidates closer in travel distance to querying users in a way that avoids exhaustive access to all spatial items. LARS* can applythese techniques separately, or together, depending on the type of location-based rating available. Experimental evidence usinglarge-scale real-world data from both the Foursquare location-based social network and the MovieLens movie recommendationsystem reveals that LARS* is efficient, scalable, and capable of producing recommendations twice as accurate compared to existingrecommendation approaches
A new approach for optimization of small-scale RO membrane using artificial groundwater

The present study aims at evaluating a small-scale brackish water reverse osmosis (RO) process using parameter optimization. Experiments were carried out using formulated artificial groundwater, and a predictive model was developed by using response surface methodology (RSM) for the optimization of input process parameters of brackish water RO process to simultaneously maximize water recovery and salt rejection while minimizing energy demand. The result of multiple response optimization along with analysis of variance for RSM predictions showed that the optimal water recovery (19.18%), total dissolved solids rejection (89.21%) and specific energy consumption (17.60 kWh/m3) occurred at 31.94 °C feed water temperature, 0.78 MPa feed pressure, 1500 mg/L feed salt concentration and 6.53 pH. Furthermore, confirmation of RSM predictions was carried out by an artificial neural network (ANN) model trained by RSM experimental data. Predicted values by both RSM and ANN modelling methodologies were compared and found within the acceptable range. Finally, a membrane validation experiment was carried out successfully at proposed optimal conditions, which proves the accuracy of employed RSM and ANN models. Present methodology can be used as a generalized way for the optimization of different RO membranes available in the market in terms of increased water recovery and salt rejection with least energy consumption to make it commercially competent.
El componente decorativo en las producciones cerámicas

Se presenta el metodo desarrollado para la descripcion y clasificacion de las decoraciones ceramicas, fruto del proyecto de investigacion que da pie al presente volumen. Junto a la descripcion de los diversos componentes y herramientas desarradas dentro de la metodologia, se muestra un ejemplo de aplicacion de la misma, con la descripcion de los diferentes Grupos Compositivos que se han individualizado en el conjunto de las colecciones ceramicas del Neolitico antiguo de las comarcas centrales valencianas
Architecture synthesis for adaptive multiprocessor systems on chip

This thesis presents methods for automated synthesis of flexible chip multiprocessor systems from parallel programs targeted at FPGAs to exploit both task-level parallelism and architecture customization. Automated synthesis is necessitated by the complexity of the design space. A detailed description of the design space is provided in order to determine which parameters should be modeled to facilitate automated synthesis by optimizing a cost function, the emphasis being placed on inclusive modeling of parameters from application, architectural and physical subspaces, as well as their joint coverage in order to avoid pre-constraining the design space. Given a parallel program and a set of an IP library, the automated synthesis problem is to simultaneously (i) select processors (ii) map and schedule tasks to them, and (iii) select one or several networks for inter-task communications such that design constraints and optimization objectives are met. The research objective in this thesis is to find a suitable model for automated synthesis, and to evaluate methods of using the model for architectural optimizations. Our contributions are a holistic approach for the design of such systems, corresponding models to facilitate automated synthesis, evaluation of optimization methods using state of the art integer linear and answer set programming, as well as the development of synthesis heuristics to solve runtime challenges.
Stability of Word-Retrieval Errors With the AphasiaBank Stimuli.

PURPOSE This study examined the test-retest reliability of select measures of word-retrieval errors in narrative discourses of individuals with aphasia assessed with the AphasiaBank stimuli. METHOD Ten participants with aphasia were video recorded during 2 sessions producing narratives elicited with pictures. Discourses were transcribed and coded using AphasiaBank procedures, then analyzed for the stability of rates of phonological errors, semantic errors, false starts, time fillers, and repetitions per minute. Values for correlation coefficients and the minimal detectable change score were used to assess stability for research and clinical decision making. RESULTS There was poor test-retest reliability when the discourses were analyzed by each narrative subgenre. When the narrative discourses were combined for analysis, several measures appeared to be sufficiently stable across sessions for use in group studies, and 1 could be adequately stable for making clinical decisions about an individual. CONCLUSIONS Because the short speech samples yielded by the subgenre narrative analyses demonstrated poor test-retest reliability, it is recommended that all of the picture-based narrative discourse tasks be combined for analysis of word-retrieval impairments when the AphasiaBank stimuli are used. However, the confidence intervals associated with the reliability coefficients obtained in this study suggest caution in using the measures if they are based on performance in a single session. More investigations of the test-retest reliability of measures used to study language impairment in discourse contexts are essential.
Évolution et dégradation du barachois de Paspébiac

Le cordon est du barachois de Paspebiac en Gaspesie, qui est un systeme de barres sableuses en croissant, a subi un recul de 300 metres depuis 1870, reduisant la superficie de la lagune qu'il protege et menacant les bâtiments construits sur le cordon ouest. L'objectif principal de l'etude consiste a determiner l'evolution dans l'espace et dans le temps (geometriedeplacement) du barachois de Paspebiac en fonction des conditions de mise en place du systeme et des conditions actuelles qui modifient le milieu. Afin de poursuivre cet objectif, des mesures de profils sismiques, de profils de plage, de courants et des carottages ont ete effectues autour et a l'interieur de la lagune. Les resultats montrent que la source des sediments qui est a l'origine et qui alimente le barachois postglaciaire en erosion, est un delta forme dans un contexte de regression forcee. La source des sediments est en voie d'epuisement, ce qui explique l'erosion et le recul du cordon est depuis 1870. Le barachois est actuellement situe a la limite des depots deltaiques et ces derniers alimentent de moins en moins le systeme. Les interventions anthropiques ne causent pas directement le recul du cordon mais par contre, accelerent le processus. Aujourd'hui, plusieurs indices d'erosion, tels que des debordements de tempete ou de l'ensablement de la lagune par un grau situe dans le cordon est, montrent que le barachois continue son recul. Etant donne que ce recul est le resultat d'un processus naturel, une intervention humaine serait necessaire pour le sauvegarder.
Daytime Intermittent Bright Light Effects on Processing of Laterally Exposed Stimuli, Mood, and Light Perception

Little is known about intermittent bright light (IBL) exposure during the daytime on oscillations in human performance and mood. The aims of this study were to determine whether the applied regime of IBL can differentially influence the daily oscillations of processing of laterally exposed stimuli, as well as the daily course of alertness and affective state, and the participants' perception of light conditions. A counter‐balanced, within‐subject study design was applied. Performance and mood of 20 student volunteers were measured every 30 min starting at 08:00 h and ending at 20:30 h in IBL and ordinary room light (ORL) conditions. Near to statistical significance, effects of the IBL regime on performance (i.e., main effect on speed of verbal logical task, and interactive effect of light conditions and measurement time on daily oscillations in speed of processing of spatial tasks) and mood (i.e., interactive effect of bright light and measurement time on global vigor assessment) were found. An assessment of IBL conditions as significantly less comfortable and natural and more glaring when compared to ORL conditions draws attention to the importance of participants' perception of the light, which may affect the application of bright light in real life situations.
Global Optimization for Generalized Geometric Programs with Mixed Free-Sign Variables

Many optimization problems are formulated as generalized geometric programming (GGP) containing signomial terms f(X)·g(Y), where X and Y are continuous and discrete free-sign vectors, respectively. By effectively convexifying f(X) and linearizing g(Y), this study globally solves a GGP with a lower number of binary variables than are used in current GGP methods. Numerical experiments demonstrate the computational efficiency of the proposed method.