Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Determination of the dynamical structure of galaxies using optical spectra.

Galaxy spectra are a rich source of kinematical information since the shapes of the absorption lines reflect the movement of stars along the line-of-sight. We present a technique with which to build directly a dynamical model for a galaxy by fitting model spectra, calculated from a dynamical model, to the observed galaxy spectra. Using synthetic spectra from a known galaxy model we demonstrate that this technique indeed recovers the essential dynamical characteristics of the galaxy model. Moreover, the method allows a statistically meaningful error analysis on the resulting dynamical quantities.
A three-level MPPT capability rectifier for high power direct drive WECS

In this study, power factor correction rectifier is proposed for wind turbines with three phase permanent magnet synchronous generators to provide maximum energy conversion efficiency. Reference values for the rectifier are controlled by a fuzzy logic based algorithm to track maximum power point of the wind turbine which varies with turbine characteristics, wind speed, temperature, etc. The proposed maximum power point tracking algorithm removes the requirement of knowledge about the wind generator optimal power characteristics, or measurement of the wind speed, and provides variable speed operation of wind turbine. Therefore, wind energy conversion system with higher reliability, lower complexity and cost, and less mechanical stress are obtained. Maximum power point tracking algorithm and phase locked loop circuit determining the current reference values are determined, and PI regulators are used to control of the DC voltage and line currents of the rectifier. Three level neutral point clamped rectifier topology is used as main converter. Because this topology does not require isolated DC sources and power switch modules for a leg of the rectifier are commercially available, design and implementation of the neutral point clamped rectifier is simple. Simulation results show that proposed rectifier tracks the maximum power point of the wind turbine either in variable frequency and power levels. Also line currents of the rectifiers are in same phase and frequency with permanent magnet synchronous generator voltage. In addition, THD levels of the rectifier input currents and power factor are obtained as <;5% and 0.99, respectively.
Children, Careers, and Clergy Life: Predictors of Religious Commitment From Stressors Among Catholic Deacons

ABSTRACT We assessed the impact of clerical and life stressors on the religious commitments of employed, married with children Catholic deacons (n = 317 men: M age = 43.87 years old). Independent of social desirability, stressors during the last 6 months predicted separately intracommitment and intercommitment variables. Enthusiasm for church work and time spent on spiritual reflection predicted religious intracommitment (one’s relationship with a higher power, God); study of Scripture predicted religious intercommitment (one’s relationship in community reflecting God’s presence). Results suggest that despite current stressful life demands of marriage and family plus outside employment, Catholic deacons (“clergy dads”) maintained religious beliefs.
Generic Geometric Programming in the Computational Geometry Algorithms Library

This paper describes a number of design issues and programming paradigms that affect the development of Cgal, the computational geometry algorithms library. Genericity of the library is achieved by concepts such as templates, iterators, and traits classes. This allows the application programmer to plug in own types of containers and point types, for example. The paper gives an explanation of these concepts and examples of how they are used.
Towards an Automatic Approach for Restricting UML/OCL Invariability Clauses

The complexity of modern systems (in both, the software and hardware domain) raises the need for abstract descriptions in early stages of the design flow. Such abstract descriptions are provided in modeling languages such as the UML and are often additionally enriched by declarative languages like OCL. This allows for a profound but comprehensive description of the structure and the behavior of the system to be realized. However, declarative descriptions often cause ambiguities about which model properties are supposed to be changed when executing an operation. Invariability clauses are a proper description mean to address this issue. Unfortunately, even if some approaches offer an automatic generation, they still are not sufficiently restricting the variability of model properties regarding a proper interpretation. In this work-in-progress report, we propose an idea for an automatic generation and evaluation of the respective invariability clauses by using interpretation semantics, i. e. , restricting changes in model properties concerning the given OCL expressions.
Serial propagation of distinct strains of Aβ prions from Alzheimer’s disease patients

Significance The amyloid-β (Aβ) peptide, which plays a central role in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) pathogenesis, exhibits many properties that are reminiscent of prions (self-propagating proteins that cause neurodegenerative disorders, such as mad cow disease). In the human prion diseases, distinct strains of prions can be distinguished, and therefore, we asked whether different strains of Aβ aggregates might exist in the brains of AD patients. Inoculation of transgenic mice with brain samples from patients with two different heritable forms of AD produced two distinct patterns of cerebral Aβ deposition, and these differences were maintained on serial passage. We conclude that distinct strains of Aβ can be discerned in AD patients, which may help to explain the clinical heterogeneity observed in the disease. An increasing number of studies argues that self-propagating protein conformations (i.e., prions) feature in the pathogenesis of several common neurodegenerative diseases. Mounting evidence contends that aggregates of the amyloid-β (Aβ) peptide become self-propagating in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients. An important characteristic of prions is their ability to replicate distinct strains, the biological information for which is enciphered within different conformations of protein aggregates. To investigate whether distinct strains of Aβ prions can be discerned in AD patients, we performed transmission studies in susceptible transgenic mice using brain homogenates from sporadic or heritable (Arctic and Swedish) AD cases. Mice inoculated with the Arctic AD sample exhibited a pathology that could be distinguished from mice inoculated with the Swedish or sporadic AD samples, which was judged by differential accumulation of Aβ isoforms and the morphology of cerebrovascular Aβ deposition. Unlike Swedish AD- or sporadic AD-inoculated animals, Arctic AD-inoculated mice, like Arctic AD patients, displayed a prominent Aβ38-containing cerebral amyloid angiopathy. The divergent transmission behavior of the Arctic AD sample compared with the Swedish and sporadic AD samples was maintained during second passage in mice, showing that Aβ strains are serially transmissible. We conclude that at least two distinct strains of Aβ prions can be discerned in the brains of AD patients and that strain fidelity was preserved on serial passage in mice. Our results provide a potential explanation for the clinical and pathological heterogeneity observed in AD patients.
ANN Based Internal Model Approach to Motor Learning for Humanoid Robot

In this paper, we present an approach to motor skill learning based on internal models. By pursuing the temporal and spatial scalability of internal models, we first investigate the possibility of generating similar movement patterns directly via the same internal model with the minimum changes in the internal model parameters, and avoid the reinforcement learning. Next, we consider more complex movements for which different internal models are needed. Based on the task decomposition, all movements can be classified into the sequential and parallel DMPs. The former requires a number of IMs to work sequentially so that a sophisticated motor behavior can be performed. The latter also requires a number of IMs to work in parallel to generate the needed movement patterns. To mimic the human limb behavior, a two-link robot arm is used as the first prototype to perform the motor learning process of letter writing. A FUJITSU HOAP-1 humanoid robot is used as the second prototype and the upper limb movement is conducted in real-time, which further validates the effectiveness of multiple internal model approach for motor learning.
The Interface of Cosmology with String and M-Theory

The purpose of this review is to discuss recent developments occurring at the interface of cosmology with string and M-theory. We begin with a short review of 1980s string cosmology and the Brandenberger-Vafa mechanism for explaining spacetime dimensionality. It is shown how this scenario has been modified to include the effects of p-brane gases in the early universe. We then introduce the Pre-Big-Bang scenario (PBB), Hořava-Witten heterotic M-theory and the work of Lukas, Ovrut and Waldram, and end with a discussion of large extra dimensions, the Randall-Sundrum model and Brane World cosmologies. PACS numbers: 04.50+h; 98.80. Bp; 98.80. Cq. easson@het.brown. edu
An effective algorithm for mining association rules based on imperialist competitive algorithm

Association rule mining is one of the most applicable techniques in data mining, which includes two stages. The first is to find the frequent itemsets; the second is to use them to generate association rules. A lot of algorithms have been introduced for discovering these rules. Most of the previous algorithms mine occurrence rules, which are not interesting and readable for the users. In this paper, we propose a new efficient algorithm for exploring high-quality association rules by improving the imperialist competitive algorithm. The proposed method mine interesting and understandable association rules without relying upon the minimum support and the minimum confidence thresholds in only single run. The algorithm is evaluated with several experiments, and the results indicate the efficiency of our method.
Subgroup Discovery in Ranked Data, with an Application to Gene Set Enrichment

We investigate a class of problems that deal with ranked data. Such data can be found in a variety of domains, ranging from inherently competitive ﬁelds such as sports and business, to more surprising applications such as relevance ranking and temporal data (where more recent events rank higher). In this paper, we deal with ranked data in a Subgroup Discovery setting, where we are looking to ﬁnd subgroups that occur predominantly at the top of the ranking. The analysis of ranked data can be posed as either a regression or an ordinal discovery problem, and we introduce and review a number of quality measures for both settings. As an additional challenge, the possibilities of ties in the ranking (a so-called partial ranking) is accounted for. The techniques for ranked Subgroup Discovery are tested on an important application in cancer research, where a given ranking of 12k genes (based on their individual involvement in a tumour called neuroblastoma) is analysed for common functional themes among the top-ranking genes.
Sparse Boolean Matrix Factorizations

Matrix factorizations are commonly used methods in data mining. When the input data is Boolean, replacing the standard matrix multiplication with Boolean matrix multiplication can yield more intuitive results. Unfortunately, finding a good Boolean decomposition is known to be computationally hard, with even many sub-problems being hard to approximate. Many real-world data sets are sparse, and it is often required that also the factor matrices are sparse. This requirement has motivated many new matrix decomposition methods and many modifications of the existing methods. This paper studies how Boolean matrix factorizations behave with sparse data: can we assume some sparsity on the factor matrices, and does the sparsity help with the computationally hard problems. The answer to these problems is shown to be positive.
Analysis of the factors and the roles of HRD in organizational learning styles as identified by key informants at selected corporations in the Republic of Korea

Analysis of the Factors and the Roles of HRD in Organizational Learning Styles as Identified by Key Informants at Selected Corporations in the Republic of Korea. (May 2004) Jinchul Jeong, B.S., Seoul National University; M.Ed., Seoul National University Chair of Advisory Committee: Dr. Kenneth E. Paprock The core competency of the most effective organizations will be their capacity to learn in an increasingly complex and unpredictable business environment and HRD should expand its role to become a partner in the transformation of the entire organization. Organizational learning style, therefore, is an important research topic for the field of HRD (human resource development). This study had four primary purposes, which were germane to the corporations in the Republic of Korea: 1) to identify what organizational learning styles exist; 2) to identify the factors that differentiate the organizations with different organizational learning styles; 3) to identify the roles of HRD to facilitate organizational learning within the organizations in each organizational learning style; and 4) to identify the differences in the roles of HRD to facilitate organizational learning among the organizations with different organizational learning styles. The population for this study was the key informants at the corporations in the three industry areas: wholesale and retail trade; manufacturing; and hotels and
Functional Coupling of Ryanodine Receptors to KCa Channels in Smooth Muscle Cells from Rat Cerebral Arteries

The relationship between Ca2+ release (“Ca2+ sparks”) through ryanodine-sensitive Ca2+ release channels in the sarcoplasmic reticulum and KCa channels was examined in smooth muscle cells from rat cerebral arteries. Whole cell potassium currents at physiological membrane potentials (−40 mV) and intracellular Ca2+ were measured simultaneously, using the perforated patch clamp technique and a laser two-dimensional (x–y) scanning confocal microscope and the fluorescent Ca2+ indicator, fluo-3. Virtually all (96%) detectable Ca2+ sparks were associated with the activation of a spontaneous transient outward current (STOC) through KCa channels. A small number of sparks (5 of 128) were associated with currents smaller than 6 pA (mean amplitude, 4.7 pA, at −40 mV). Approximately 41% of STOCs occurred without a detectable Ca2+ spark. The amplitudes of the Ca2+ sparks correlated with the amplitudes of the STOCs (regression coefficient 0.8; P < 0.05). The half time of decay of Ca2+ sparks (56 ms) was longer than the associated STOCs (9 ms). The mean amplitude of the STOCs, which were associated with Ca2+ sparks, was 33 pA at −40 mV. The mean amplitude of the “sparkless” STOCs was smaller, 16 pA. The very significant increase in KCa channel open probability (>104-fold) during a Ca2+ spark is consistent with local Ca2+ during a spark being in the order of 1–100 μM. Therefore, the increase in fractional fluorescence (F/Fo) measured during a Ca2+ spark (mean 2.04 F/Fo or ∼310 nM Ca2+) appears to significantly underestimate the local Ca2+ that activates KCa channels. These results indicate that the majority of ryanodine receptors that cause Ca2+ sparks are functionally coupled to KCa channels in the surface membrane, providing direct support for the idea that Ca2+ sparks cause STOCs.
Visualizing the Neural Bases of a Disconnection Syndrome with Diffusion Tensor Imaging

Disconnection syndromes are often conceptualized exclusively within cognitive box-and-arrow diagrams unrelated to brain anatomy. In a patient with alexia in his left visual field resulting from a posterior callosal lesion, we illustrate how diffusion tensor imaging can reveal the anatomical bases of a disconnection syndrome by tracking the degeneration of neural pathways and relating it to impaired fMRI activations and behavior. Compared to controls, an abnormal pattern of brain activity was observed in the patient during word reading, with a lack of activation of the left visual word form area (VWFA) by left-hemifield words. Statistical analyses of diffusion images revealed a damaged fiber tract linking the left ventral occipito-temporal region to its right homolog across the lesioned area of corpus callosum and stopping close to the areas found active in fMRI. The behavioral disconnection syndrome could, thus, be related functionally to abnormal fMRI activations and anatomically to the absence of a connection between those activations. The present approach, based on the negative tracking of degenerated bundles, provides new perspectives on the understanding of human brain connections and disconnections.
Query splitting techniques and search service recommendation for multi-domain natural language queries

Current general purpose search engines are not able to address multi-domain queries, i.e., queries that span over several domains of interest. In this paper we address the general problem of natural language multi-domain search queries, seen as the first step of the information exploration process. We propose an approach that splits the queries into domain-specific subqueries, and suggests a vertical search engine API to be invoked. The user may be asked for the missing details needed to invoke the API and a first resultset can be retrieved (and then explored).
Signal Processing Requirements for WiMAX ( 802 . 16 e ) Base Station ( Master thesis )

802.16e provides specifications for non line of sight, mobile wireless communications in the frequency range of 2-6 GHz. It is well implemented by using OFDMA as its physical layer scheme. The OFDM symbol time ( s T ) is to be selected depending on the channel conditions, available bandwidth and, simulations provide a means of selecting right values of s T in different channel conditions. Additionally it has been shown that certain values of s T outperform others in all conditions, thus invalidating their use. Moreover, a solution proposed by INTEL is also analyzed. One of the major requirements of OFDM is high synchronization. Detecting the timing offset of a new mobile user, entering the network, which is not time aligned using cross-correlation and ‘auto-correlation’ in time domain and cross-correlation in frequency domain at the base station has been simulated. Results point that the processing load can be significantly reduced by using frequency domain correlation of the received data or by using ‘auto-correlation’ followed by cross-correlation on localized data. The use of adaptive antenna system in 802.16e improves the system performance, where beamforming is implemented in the direction of desired user. Capon’s method and MUSIC method have been simulated to compute the direction of arrival for OFDMA uplink. A new user, while in the ranging process, transmits data with unknown time offset and unknown direction. The thesis describes the procedure to find the two unknown one after another.
Extracting and organizing acronyms based on ranking

The paper addresses the problem of automatically extracting and organizing acronyms and expansions (e.g., dasiaROMpsila and dasiaRead Only Memorypsila) in text. To deal with the problem, we propose a two-step approach based on ranking. In the first step, for each occurrence of acronyms in text, we rank the expansion candidates around the acronym and extract the top ranked ones. In the second step, expansion candidates collected in the first step are organized before presented to end users. dasiaOrganizepsila here means grouping expansions and then ranking them according to their correctness and popularity. In this way, the numbers of expansions in the results which users need to examine will be drastically reduced. Experimental results based on real-world dataset show that our approach can always rank correct and popular expansions to the top. Experimental results also show that the trained ranking models are generic and perform well on different domains.
Gene Expression of ANP, BNP and ET-1 in the Heart of Rats during Pulmonary Embolism

Aims Atrial natriuretic petide (ANP), brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) and endothelin-1 (ET-1) may reflect the severity of right ventricular dysfunction (RVD) in patients with pulmonary embolism (PE). The exact nature and source of BNP, ANP and ET-1 expression and secretion following PE has not previously been studied. Methods and Results Polystyrene microparticles were injected to induce PE in rats. Gene expression of BNP, ANP and ET-1 were determined in the 4 cardiac chambers by quantitative real time polymerase chain reaction (QPCR). Plasma levels of ANP, BNP, ET-1 and cardiac troponin I (TNI) were measured in plasma. PE dose-dependently increased gene expression of ANP and BNP in the right ventricle (RV) and increased gene expression of ANP in the right atrium (RA). In contrast PE dose-dependently decreased BNP gene expression in both the left ventricle (LV) and the left atrium (LA). Plasma levels of BNP, TNI and ET-1 levels dose-dependently increased with the degree of PE. Conclusion We found a close correlation between PE degree and gene-expression of ANP, and BNP in the cardiac chambers with a selective increase in the right chambers of the heart. The present data supports the idea of natriuretic peptides as valuable biomarkers of RVD in PE.
Yukawa couplings in intersecting D-brane models

We compute the Yukawa couplings among chiral fields in toroidal Type II compactifications with wrapping D6-branes intersecting at angles. Those models can yield realistic standard model spectrum living at the intersections. The Yukawa couplings depend both on the Kahler and open string moduli but not on the complex structure. They arise from worldsheet instanton corrections and are found to be given by products of complex Jacobi theta functions with characteristics. The Yukawa couplings for a particular intersecting brane configuration yielding the chiral spectrum of the MSSM are computed as an example. We also show how our methods can be extended to compute Yukawa couplings on certain classes of elliptically fibered CY manifolds which are mirror to complex cones over del Pezzo surfaces. We find that the Yukawa couplings in intersecting D6-brane models have a mathematical interpretation in the context of homological mirror symmetry. In particular, the computation of such Yukawa couplings is related to the construction of Fukaya's category in a generic symplectic manifold.
Joint scheduling & jamming for data secrecy in wireless networks

The broadcast nature of the wireless medium jeopardizes secure transmissions. Cryptographic measures fail to ensure security when eavesdroppers have superior computational capability; however, it can be assured from information theoretic security approaches. We use physical layer security to guarantee non-zero secrecy rate in single source, single destination multi-hop networks with eavesdroppers for two cases: when eavesdropper locations and channel gains are known and when their positions are unknown. We propose a two-phase solution which consists of finding activation sets and then obtaining transmit powers subject to SINR constraints for the case when eavesdropper locations are known. We introduce methods to find activation sets and compare their performance. Necessary but reasonable approximations are made in power minimization formulations for tractability reasons. For scenarios with no eavesdropper location information, we suggest vulnerability region (the area having zero secrecy rate) minimization over the network. Our results show that in the absence of location information average number of eavesdroppers who have access to data is reduced.