Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of Hybrid Data Compression Technique on the Diagnostic Accuracy of Region of Interest (ROI) on MRI Image of a Spine Disc Prolapse

The cost of transmitting and archiving medical images are quite prohibitive due to their large sizes especially in digital radiology system such as: picture archiving and communication systems and teleradiology. In order to reduce storage requirements and improve transmission rate, there is need for compression. Usually, radiologists are only interested in the abnormal region of the image (known as the region of interest) in making diagnosis and interpretations; hence, this work investigates the effect of hybrid data compression technique on the diagnostic accuracy of region of interest (ROI) on magnetic resonance image (MRI) of a spine disc prolapsed. We extract the ROI from the original image and apply lossless Wavelet-Based Compression (WBC) on the ROI while the remainder image known as the non-region of interest is compressed using discrete cosine transform (DCT). A compression ratio of 7:1 was achieved. Finally, the diagnostic accuracy of the compressed ROI image was evaluated subjectively by a group of 30 evaluators comprising of 20 radiologists and 10 Radiographers. The results obtained show a 100% acceptance of the compressed ROI for healthy diagnosis and interpretation. General Terms Data compression technique
Isolation enhancement of anisotropic UC-PBG microstrip diplexer patch antenna

Anisotropic characteristics of a uniplanar compact photonic bandgap (UC-PBG) structure are studied and applied for the first time into the design of microstrip diplexer patch antennas to enhance the isolation between transmitting (Tx) and receiving (Rx) ports. Theoretical results indicate that the isolation is improved and measurement results are compared with simulation data and good agreement is reported.
Feature Selection Facilitates Learning Mixtures of Discrete Product Distributions

Feature selection can facilitate the learning of mixtures of discrete random variables as they arise, e.g. in crowdsourcing tasks. Intuitively, not all workers are equally reliable but, if the less reliable ones could be eliminated, then learning should be more robust. By analogy with Gaussian mixture models, we seek a low-order statistical approach, and here introduce an algorithm based on the (pairwise) mutual information. This induces an order over workers that is well structured for the `one coin' model. More generally, it is justified by a goodness-of-fit measure and is validated empirically. Improvement in real data sets can be substantial.
Relational geographies of emerging market finance: The rise of Turkey and the global financial crisis 2007

Some European emerging markets appear to be weathering the global financial crisis better than others. Countries such as Turkey continue to enjoy robust economic growth due to ‘strong’ domestic demand, a ‘solid’ financial sector and an elevated geo-political ‘significance’. All these factors contributed to the robust performance of the Istanbul Stock Exchange in 2012. The recent crisis is in this respect ‘special’, since some emerging markets are now re-imagined as ‘safe havens’ in comparison with volatile Western economies, and consequently their financial markets are seen as attractive investment opportunities. However, how can the changing attractiveness of places such as Turkey be explained? In this paper I suggest that the appeal of Turkey and its financial markets is not simply a consequence of Turkey’s domestic dynamics. Reminiscent of recent debates about the links between territorial and relational spaces, I show that Turkey’s emergence as an attractive destination for financial capital is the consequence of the territorial as well as the relational dynamics of global capitalism and the power of financial actors to shape (as well as being shaped by) economic geographies. I explain how Turkey is currently been discursively framed as an alternative destination for portfolio investments through a reassessment of its geo-political and economic assets in the light of the recent financial crisis.
IP2DM for V2G networks in Smart Grid

A Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) network raises challenges on privacy preserving, such as location privacy and secure payment. In this paper, we propose an Integrated Privacy-Preserving Data Management (IP2DM) architecture for Smart Grid V2G networks to guarantee the benefits of both sides of the users and the utility companies, and to protect data aggregation and data publication. Several techniques are designed and adopted to support this architecture. We analyze the security of this architecture facing various attacks. Experimental results show that this architecture is effective and efficient.
From Financial Crisis to Stagnation: The Destruction of Shared Prosperity and the Role of Economics

Preface Part I. Origins of the Great Recession: 1. Goodbye financial crash, hello stagnation 2. The tragedy of bad ideas 3. Overview: three perspectives on the crisis 4. America's exhausted paradigm: macroeconomic causes of the crisis 5. The role of finance 6. Myths and fallacies about the crisis: stories about the domestic economy 7. Myths and fallacies about the crisis: stories about the international economy Part II. Avoiding a Great Stagnation: 8. The coming Great Stagnation 9. Avoiding a Great Stagnation: rethinking the paradigm 10. The challenge of corporate globalization 11. Economists and the crisis: bad ideas revisited 12. Markets and the common good: time for a great rebalancing.
Toward a scalable SDN control mechanism via switch migration

Dynamic Controller Provisioning Problem (DCPP) is a key problem for scalable SDN. Previously, the solution to this problem focused on adapting the number of controllers and their locations with changing network conditions, but ignored balancing control loads via switch migration. In this paper, we study a scalable control mechanism to decide which switch and where it should be migrated for more balanced control plane, and we define it as Switch Migration Problem (SMP). The main contributions of this paper are as follows. First, we define a SDN model to describe the relation between controllers and switches from the view of loads. Based on this model, we form SMP as a Network Utility Maximization (NUM) problem with the objective of serving more requests under available control resources. Second, we design a synthesizing distributed algorithm for SMP — Distributed Hopping Algorithm (DHA), by approximating our optimal objective via Log-Sum-Exp function. In DHA, individual controller performs algorithmic procedure independently. With the solution space f, we prove that the optimal gap caused by approximation is at most 1/β log |F|, and DHA procedure is equal to implementation of a time-reversible Markov Chain process. Finally, the results are corroborated by several numerical simulations.
Recreational Activities and Nonmarket Valuation: The Conceptualization Issue

Recreational pursuits have been discussed by economists and others involved in the planning of public sector investment since early in the 1930s. This discussion developed from a peripheral concern to an intense interest as legislative legitimacy was gained for the use of recreational benefit measures to justify public sector investment in multiple purpose river developments. The history of recreation benefit assessment has been adequately discussed elsewhere. In this paper, the justification for inclusion of recreation benefits in economic analyses is not addressed. However, it is worth noting that emphasis has shifted over time from an almost exclusive concern with recreation opportunities provided by development activities to an emphasis upon the recreation opportunities lost in that process as well.
Continuous synthesis of tert-butyl peroxypivalate using a single-channel microreactor equipped with orifices as emulsification units.

The two-step synthesis of tert-butyl peroxypivalate is performed in a single-channel microreactor. The first step, the deprotonation of tert-butyl hydroperoxide, is done in a simple mixer tube setup. The residence time section for the second reaction step is equipped with orifices for interfacial area renewal, needed for ensuring mass transfer between the two immiscible phases. The strong dependence of the reaction performance on the size of the interfacial area is demonstrated by using a setup with 4 orifices (distance of 52 cm), giving a HPLC yield of 71% at a residence time of 8 s and a reaction temperature of 23 °C. A further shortening of orifice distances helped to shorten the residence time down to 1.5 s and 0.5 s (using 9 orifices and 3 orifices with a distance of 5 cm). When using these setups, the produced heat could not be removed from the system sufficiently quickly (ΔT=38 K). The achieved yields (ca. 70% by HPLC) are close to the state of the art (cascaded batch processing) and provide an indication that the tert-butyl peroxypivalate synthesis can be performed at higher temperatures or at least, a more flexible process control can be allowed compared to high-volume batch reactors. Processing at higher reaction temperatures up to 70 °C shows a slight optimum at reaction temperatures between 40 °C to 50 °C, depending on the setup used. Knowing this novel process window as well as the optimum orifice geometry and distance will allow for tailored design of the microreactor. For the processing in the single-channel microreactor setup using 9 orifices (distance of 5 cm) and a reaction temperature of 40 °C a space-time-yield of 420,000 g L(-1) h(-1) was reached which is higher than the space-time-yield for the industrial 3 cascaded batch reactor process (190 g L(-1) h(-1)).
Bactericidal Activity of Increasing Daily and Weekly Doses of Moxifloxacin in Murine Tuberculosis

ABSTRACT Moxifloxacin (MXF) is a new 8-methoxyquinolone with potent activity against Mycobacterium tuberculosis and a half-life of 9 to 12 h in humans. Previous in vivo studies using daily doses of 100 mg/kg of body weight have demonstrated bactericidal activity comparable to that of isoniazid (INH) in a murine model of tuberculosis (TB). Recent pharmacokinetic data suggest that MXF may have been underadministered in these studies and that a 400-mg/kg dose in mice better approximates the area under the concentration-time curve obtained in humans after a 400-mg oral dose. Therefore, the bactericidal activity of MXF in doses up to 400 mg/kg given daily or weekly for 28 days was assessed in mice infected intravenously with 5 × 106 CFU of M. tuberculosis. INH was used as a positive control. After 3 days of daily therapy, the CFU counts from splenic homogenates for mice treated with MXF in doses of 100 to 400 mg/kg/day were lower than those from pretreatment controls. No significant differences in CFU counts were seen when mice receiving INH or MXF at 50 mg/kg/day were compared to pretreatment controls. After 28 days of therapy, dose-dependent reductions in CFU counts in splenic homogenates were seen for daily MXF therapy. The maximum bactericidal effect was seen with daily doses of 400 mg/kg, which resulted in a reduction in CFU counts of 1 log10 greater than that with INH treatment, although the difference was not statistically significant. CFU counts from lung homogenates after 28 days of therapy were significantly lower in all treatment groups than in untreated controls. The weekly administration of MXF in doses ranging from 50 to 400 mg/kg resulted in no significant bactericidal activity. Mice receiving daily MXF doses of 200 and 400 mg/kg/day failed to gain weight and appeared ill after 28 days of therapy, findings suggestive of drug toxicity. In conclusion, MXF has dose-dependent bactericidal activity against M. tuberculosis in the mouse when given in doses up to 400 mg/kg, where its pharmacokinetic profile better approximates that of standard human dosages. Combination regimens which take advantage of the enhanced pharmacodynamic profile of MXF at these doses have the potential to shorten the course of antituberculous therapy or allow more intermittent (i.e., once-weekly) therapy and should be evaluated in the mouse model of TB.
Rolling bearing fault diagnosis based on Deep Boltzmann machines

Rolling bearing is one of the most commonly used components in rotating machinery. It is easy to be damaged which can cause mechanical fault. Thus, it is significance to study fault diagnosis technology on rolling bearing. This paper presents a Deep Boltzmann Machines (DBM) model to identify the fault condition of rolling bearing. A data set with seven fault patterns is collected to evaluate the performance of DBM for rolling bearing fault diagnosis, which is based on the health condition of a rotating mechanical system. The features of time domain, frequency domain and time-frequency domain are extracted as input parameters for the DBM model. The results showed that the accuracy presented by the DBM model is highly reliable and applicable in fault diagnosis of rolling bearing.
Regional industrial structure, productivity, wealth and income distribution in German regions

For the impartial observer of German regions, differences in regional industrial structures and prosperity are quite obvious. On the one hand, there are regions characterised by different industries, firm structures and labour qualification profiles. On the other hand, some of these regions are prosperous, dynamic and growing in terms of inhabitants, labor force and income while others suffer from high unemployment, low tax base and an unsatisfactory income situation. The link between the two observations is mainly acknowledged by theories of a Schumpeterian origin as it has frequently been observed that different industries differ in their propensity for innovation. Once the rigid assumptions of standard economic theory are consequentially dropped, it becomes evident that the regional industry mix might have significant implications for the local income distribution as well. Depending on the mobility of different kinds of labour it will thereby also affect regional development in terms of population dynamics. The present study asks, whether these postulated differentiated relationships between industrial structure and socio‐economic fundamentals can be identified statistically and whether they depend on agglomeration effects. Therefore, a cross‐sectional estimation with observations on district level (NUTS 3) is carried out in a mediated moderation approach. This approach allows for the differentiation between direct and indirect effects and for the identification of conditional effects, depending, for example, on regions' remoteness. The analysis starts with the creation of eight factors that efficiently describe districts' industrial structures. The factors are consistent with the industrial innovation type taxonomy created by Pavitt. In the final model the regional industrial structure, as described by these factors, explains socio‐economic fundamentals that indicate the regions' productivity, its income distribution and its population dynamics.
Quantum process tomography of two-qubit controlled-Z and controlled-NOT gates using superconducting phase qubits

We experimentally demonstrate quantum process tomography of controlled-Z and controlled-NOT gates using capacitively-coupled superconducting phase qubits. These gates are realized by using the j2i state of the phase qubit. We obtain a process fidelity of 0.70 for the controlled-phase and 0.56 for the controlled-NOT gate, with the loss of fidelity mostly due to single-qubit decoherence. The controlled-Z gate is also used to demonstrate a two-qubit Deutsch-Jozsa algorithm with a single function query. Quantum computation and quantum communication rely on excellent control of the underlying quantum system [1]. Reasonable control has been achieved with a variety of quantum systems, with superconducting qubits emerging as one of the most promising candidates [2]. Recent experiments using superconducting architectures include demonstrations of quantum algorithms using two qubits [3] and the entanglement of three qubits [4, 5]. A key element in these experiments is a two-qubit entangling gate, such as the p iSWAP [4] and the controlledZ (CZ) gates [3, 5]. Because the CZ gate is simple to implement, has high fidelity, and can readily generate controlled-NOT (CNOT) logic [6], it likely will be an important component in more complex algorithms such as quantum error correction. At present, however, the CZ gate functionality has only been directly tested for a subset of the possible input states. In this Letter, we demonstrate the operation of a CZ gate in a superconducting phase qubit, and fully characterize this gate as well as a CNOT gate using quantum process tomography (QPT). We additionally use the CZ gate to perform the Deutsch-Jozsa algorithm [3], here with a single-shot evaluation of the function. The use of QPT provides a more complete gate evaluation than, for example, measuring the truth table for the corresponding CNOT gate [7, 8], as it verifies that the gate will properly transform any possible input state. QPT for two- or three-qubit gates has been reported in NMR [9], optics [10–12], and in ion traps [13, 14]. In solid state systems, QPT has been implemented for the p iSWAP gate with the phase qubit [15].
Gibrat's Law and the Impact of Ownership: A Case Study of Croatia's Hotel Industry

This paper tests the hypothesis that in conditions of economic transition Gibrat's Law of proportionate growth holds, regardless of the type of firm ownership. The hypothesis is tested on a population of Croatian hotel companies, divided into three ownership type groups, operating continuously from 1998 to 2008. The developed dynamic multiple linear regression model of Croatian hotel firms evaluated by the two step Arellano–Bond estimator is used as a basis for analysis. Estimation of model parameters suggests that the dynamics of firms in transition conditions are not just a reflection of random effects, but are also affected by size and ownership factors. The results show that smaller companies grow more rapidly than larger ones and that growth varies depending on firm ownership, with slower growth in state-owned firms.
Interleukin‐17A‐producing T lymphocytes in chronic active Epstein–Barr virus infection

T helper (Th) 17 cells are reportedly effector T cells that produce interleukin (IL)‐17A and play a significant role in the development of autoimmune diseases and immune responses for antimicrobial host defense. Production of IL‐17A in chronic active Epstein–Barr virus infection (CAEBV) was studied to investigate its contribution to pathogenesis of this disease. Significantly more IL‐17A‐producing cells were detected in the peripheral blood of CAEBV patients than in that of healthy controls, although a significant difference in serum IL‐17A production was not confirmed. Of the IL‐17A‐producing cells, 91.8% were cluster of differentiation (CD)4‐positive Th17 cells. Moreover, there were significantly more IL‐17A‐producing cells among CD4+ cells in peripheral blood of CAEBV patients than in that of controls (1.97 ± 0.69% vs. 1.09 ± 0.53%, P = 0.0073). These data suggest that IL‐17A‐producing cells may influence the pathophysiology of CAEBV.
Exploring the motivation of Chinese immigrants for homeland tourism

This study explored the travel motives of the Chinese immigrants who visit their homeland for vacation. A combination of qualitative interview and quantitative survey was undertaken to collect data. Five-hundred valid Chinese immigrants in Macao were surveyed. Three core travel motivation factors are revealed: attractiveness of the tourist resources, connection to the past, and socialising with family and friends. The travel motives reflect the emotional needs of the Chinese immigrants who visit their homeland for vacation and suggest that homeland tourism is likely to provide the Chinese immigrants with a chance to recollect their past memories and experiences with their homeland and lead them to some nostalgic feelings and thoughts about their personal life, which contribute to a memorable tourist experience. Moreover, the travel patterns of the Chinese immigrants were significantly correlated with their travel motives, suggesting that homeland tourists have their unique travel needs and behaviour and thus should be treated as a separate tourist segment. For future research, it is worthwhile to undertake a further investigation in the travel motives and behaviour of immigrants with different cultural and ethnical backgrounds in order to better understand homeland tourists.
All-inkjet-printed flexible ZnO micro photodetector for a wearable UV monitoring device

Fabrication of small-sized patterns of inorganic semiconductor onto flexible substrates is a major concern when manufacturing wearable devices for measuring either biometric or environmental parameters. In this study, micro-sized flexible ZnO UV photodetectors have been thoroughly prepared by a facile inkjet printing technology and followed with heat treatments. A simple ink recipe of zinc acetate precursor solution was investigated. It is found that the substrate temperature during zinc precursor ink depositing has significant effects on ZnO pattern shape, film morphology, and crystallization. The device fabricated from the additive manufacturing approach has good bendability, Ohmic contact, short response time as low as 0.3 s, and high on/off ratio of 3525. We observed the sensor’s dependence of response/decay time by the illuminating UV light intensity. The whole process is based on additive manufacturing which has many benefits such as rapid prototyping, saving material, being environmentally friendly, and being capable of creating high-resolution patterns. In addition, this method can be applied to flexible substrates, which makes the device more applicable for applications requiring flexibility such as wearable devices. The proposed all-inkjet-printing approach for a micro-sized ZnO UV photodetector would significantly simplify the fabrication process of micro-sized inorganic semiconductor-based devices. A potential application is real-time monitoring of UV light exposure to warn users about unsafe direct sunlight to implement suitable avoidance solutions.
Sector Imprinting

Social phenomena often involve long-term changes, but most organizational studies focusing on sector comparison have not illuminated the decisive role that time plays. I tested “sector imprinting,” the effect that occurs when an individual who has adapted to the norms of one sector, moves to another sector, by using a sample comprised of respondents from both public and nonprofit organizations. I found that in the public sector, individuals switching from business enterprises and nonprofit organizations perceive more formalized personnel rules and red tape than individuals who have not switched sectors. In the nonprofit sector, individuals switching from the government perceive lower levels of formalized rules and red tape as compared to nonswitchers and switchers from the private sector. Although unpleasant rules are critical sources of one’s turnover intention, individuals who switch into the public sector have longer current job tenure than nonswitchers. I argue that the theories of contrast effect, self-persuasion, extrinsic motivation, and public service motivation (PSM) help explain these findings.