Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A nucleotide substitution in the gag N terminus of the endogenous ecotropic DBA/2 virus prevents Pr65gag myristylation and virus replication

The endogenous ecotropic provirus Emv-3 present in DBA/2 mice is poorly expressed in the animal, as well as in cell cultures. Transfection of proviral DNA into NIH 3T3 cells localized the expression defect to the 5' region of the viral genome, spanning the untranslated region and the N-terminal part of the gag gene. Comparison of the nucleotide sequence of the Emv-3 provirus with the sequence of the highly infectious Akv murine leukemia virus revealed three nucleotide differences within the gag coding region. One of these differences was found in codon 3 of the gag polyprotein, where a Gln codon is seen in Akv and a Pro codon is differences was found in codon 3 of the gag polyprotein, where a Gln codon is seen in Akv and a Pro codon is seen in Emv-3. By site-directed mutagenesis, we showed that the defect of Emv-3 expression indeed is localized to codon 3 of the gag gene. The gag polyprotein of mammalian type C retrovirus contains myristic acid covalently linked to the N-terminal glycine. This myristylation is not seen in the Emv-3-coded gag polyprotein. We showed that the in vitro-mutagenized Emv-3 genome containing a Gln codon at position 3 of the gag gene yields a myristylated gag polyprotein. Thus, it seems most likely that the defect of expression of the Emv-3 provirus is due to the presence of a proline is position 3 of the gag polyprotein, preventing the myristylation.
The identification of mobile phones through the fingerprints of their built-in magnetometer: An analysis of the portability of the fingerprints

The identification of mobile phones through their built-in electronic sensors has been proven in literature for cameras, microphones and accelerometers demonstrating to have various applications in security, forensics or in the fight against the counterfeiting of electronic products. The identification of a sensor (and consequently of the mobile phone) is possible through the exploitation of small but significant differences in the physical components of the sensor itself. These physical differences are mainly generated during the production process of the sensor in the manufacturing plant producing small but reproducible variations in the digital output generated by the built-in sensor. In particular, in this paper, we investigate the identification of mobile phones through the built-in magnetometer sensor, which has received very limited attention by the research community so far. In particular, the specific aspects of robustness and portability of such a fingerprint have been analyzed. Different stimulation conditions, diverse kinds of features and classification procedures have been considered achieving very promising results.
What is Near and Recent in Crime for a Homeowner? The Cases of Denver and Seattle

This paper analyzes the effects of the concentration of crime on housing prices using nonparametric methods. Specifically, we use a modified local K-function in order to measure crime concentration. This technique provides us with a crime measure that is not dependent on pre-defined boundaries. Results from this analysis suggest a decrease in housing prices of two percent to seven percent for crimes in the past six months that occur within a quarter of a mile of the house.
Trehalose-Enhanced Fluidity of the Goat Sperm Membrane and Its Protection During Freezing

Abstract In an attempt to find a suitable freezing method for goat semen, two experiments were conducted to study the influence of trehalose on the cryopreservation of goat spermatozoa. In experiment 1, goat spermatozoa were frozen in trehalose extender (0.375 M) alone (100%) or at different combinations of trehalose with Tris-citric acid-glucose (TCG) extender (0%, 25%, 50%, 75%). Final concentrations of 20% (v:v) egg yolk and 4% (v:v) glycerol were employed in the extenders (osmolality = 370, pH = 7). Sperm motility was assessed using a computer-assisted sperm analysis system and acrosome integrity was assessed using fluorescein isothiocyanate-labeled peanut agglutinin (FITC-PNA). The sperm-motility parameters improved significantly by increasing the concentration of trehalose (P < 0.05) and significantly high recovery rates for the motility parameters were also achieved by a high concentration of trehalose (P < 0.05). Motility of the frozen-thawed spermatozoa after a 3-h incubation improved significantly with increasing concentrations of trehalose in the extender (P < 0.05). The 75% and 100% trehalose extenders yielded a significant increase in the percentage of spermatozoa with intact acrosome (P < 0.05). In experiment 2, merocyanine 540/Yo-Pro staining was used to study the influence of trehalose on membrane fluidity compared with that of sucrose and TCG. Percentage of cells with high merocyanine fluorescence was significantly higher in spermatozoa treated with trehalose than sucrose or TCG (P < 0.05), indicating a significantly highest membrane fluidity of sperm samples extended with trehalose solution. We thus conclude that the substitution of a Tris-citric acid diluent composition with trehalose significantly improves the freezability of goat spermatozoa. Furthermore, the cryoprotective effects of trehalose observed in this study may be due to enhanced sperm membrane fluidity before freezing.
Fusion of statistical and learnt features for SAR images classification

Deep-learning-based methods often suffer from insufficient training samples when they are directly used in the task of Synthetical Aperture Radar (SAR) images classification, which in turn leads to poor performance. To alleviate this problem, this paper presents a feature-fused approach, in which several statistical features of SAR images are extracted and integrated into the first layer of a typical Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs). Since SAR images exhibit evidently statistical properties, those statistical features, which are characterized by non-linearity and cannot be adaptively learnt by CNNs in the first layer, can be thought of as prior knowledge to facilitate performance enhancement. Experiments conducted on real TerraSAR-X dataset demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method, and the classification accuracy is improved by about 2%.
Transmitarray Antenna Design Using Cross-Slot Elements With No Dielectric Substrate

The transmitarray antenna has received considerable attention in recent years as it combines the favorable features of the lens antenna and the array techniques. The goal of this letter is to present detailed design analysis of a multiple-conductor-layers transmitarray antenna using slot-type element with no dielectric substrate. A transmitarray antenna using quad-layer cross-slot elements has been designed, fabricated, and tested for 11.3 GHz operating frequency. The measured gain of the prototype transmitarray is 23.76 dB at 11.3 GHz. It is observed that the oblique incidence and the wave polarization have strong effect on the transmission coefficient of the slot-type element. Thus, a detailed analysis of the transmitarray considering the oblique incidence angles and the feed polarization conditions is performed with good agreement between the simulation and measured results.
Ionospheric Anomalies Related to the (M = 7.3), August 27, 2012, Puerto Earthquake, (M = 6.8), August 30, 2012 Jan Mayen Island Earthquake, and (M = 7.6), August 31, 2012, Philippines Earthquake: Two-Dimensional Principal Component Analysis

Two-dimensional principal component analysis (2DPCA) and principal component analysis (PCA) are used to examine the ionospheric total electron content (TEC) data during the time period from 00:00 on August 21 to 12: 45 on August 31 (UT), which are 10 days before the M = 7.6 Philippines earthquake at 12:47:34 on August 31, 2012 (UT) with the depth at 34.9 km. From the results by using 2DPCA, a TEC precursor of Philippines earthquake is found during the time period from 4:25 to 4:40 on August 28, 2012 (UT) with the duration time of at least 15 minutes. Another earthquake-related TEC anomaly is detectable for the time period from 04:35 to 04:40 on August 27, 2012 (UT) with the duration time of at least 5 minutes during the Puerto earthquake at 04: 37:20 on August 27, 2012 (UT) (M w = 7.3) with the depth at 20.3 km. The precursor of the Puerto earthquake is not detectable. TEC anomaly is not to be found related to the Jan Mayen Island earthquake (M w = 6.8) at 13:43:24 on August 30, 2012 (UT). These earthquake-related TEC anomalies are detectable by using 2DPCA rather than PCA. They are localized nearby the epicenters of the Philippines and Puerto earthquakes.
The Political Role and Influence of Business Organizations: A Communication Perspective

Relationships between economic power and political influence have long been of interest to scholars in several disciplines. Despite an extensive literature and rich theorizing on the topic, however, we still know little about how economic producers attempt public policy influence and the extent to which they may be successful. In this chapter, the authors argue that a communication perspective on the public policy process sheds new light on relationships between business organizations and political influence. Drawing from the political science, agenda-setting, framing, and issues management literatures, three interrelated communication processes that bear heavily on public policy formation are elaborated—issue selection, issue framing, and issue management. The literatures are critically reviewed and then integrated in a series of 36 propositions regarding what we think we know about the communication strategies and tactics business actors employ in the policy process and the conditions in which such approaches may yield favorable outcomes. A framework for future communication research studies is presented in the form of a business model of political influence. The model highlights complex communicative aspects of policy making and a multifaceted concept of influence in public policy formation.
An automated algorithm for blood vessel count and area measurement in 2-D choroidal scan images

We present an automated algorithm for the detection of blood vessels in 2-D choroidal scan images followed by a measurement of the area of the vessels. The objective is to identify vessel parameters in the choroidal stroma that are affected by various abnormalities. The algorithm is divided into five stages. In the first stage, the image is denoised to remove sensor noise and facilitate further processing. In the second stage, the image is segmented in order to find the region of interest. In the third stage, three different contour detection methods are applied to address different challenges in vessel contour. In the fourth stage, the outputs of the three contour detection methods are combined to achieve refined vessel contour detection. In the fifth and final stage, the area of these contours are measured. The results have been evaluated by a practicing opthalmologist and performance of the algorithm relative to expert detection is reported.
Energy management system for an isolated microgrid with photovoltaic generation

A comparison of two energy management systems for an isolated microgrid based on photovoltaic generation is presented in this paper. One energy management system is presented as an optimization problem solved by means of a mixed integer linear programming which aims to minimize the operating cost of the microgrid. The algorithm determines the optimal power dispatch of all distributed generation units using reduced linear models and operating constraints for each unit, together with a cost function, and historical information of meteorological and demand conditions. The simulation of the microgrid is carried out in Matlab. Results from the mixed integer linear programming are compared with results obtained from a proposed weighted algorithm, showing a reduction in the operating cost of the microgrid when the mixed integer linear programming algorithm is used; however, this algorithm spent more processing time than the weighted algorithm.
Power density and efficiency optimization of resonant and phase-shift telecom DC-DC converters

Power density and efficiency are one of the major driving forces in the development of new power supplies for telecommunication and information industry. The phase-shift PWM and the series-parallel resonant DC-DC converter are promising topologies that can meet these demands at high power rates. Based on conventional criteria such as the number of semiconductors/passive components or voltage/current stress it is not possible to identify the topology that offers a higher power density or efficiency. Therefore, an optimization procedure has been developed, which calculates the optimal converter parameters (e.g. switching frequency or transformer design) with respect to the maximal power density and/or efficiency. This procedure is based on detailed analytical models for the converter, semiconductor losses, HF losses in the magnetic components as well thermal and geometrical models of the transformer. With the procedure a 5 kW series-parallel resonant converter and a phase shift converter with capacitive output and with current doubler have been optimized. With the calculated parameters a resonant converter prototype has been constructed and experimental results are presented.
Generating Adversarial Examples with Adversarial Networks

Deep neural networks (DNNs) have been found to be vulnerable to adversarial examples resulting from adding small-magnitude perturbations to inputs. Such adversarial examples can mislead DNNs to produce adversary-selected results. Different attack strategies have been proposed to generate adversarial examples, but how to produce them with high perceptual quality and more efficiently requires more research efforts. In this paper, we propose AdvGAN to generate adversarial exam- ples with generative adversarial networks (GANs), which can learn and approximate the distribution of original instances. For AdvGAN, once the generator is trained, it can generate perturbations efficiently for any instance, so as to potentially accelerate adversarial training as defenses. We apply Adv- GAN in both semi-whitebox and black-box attack settings. In semi-whitebox attacks, there is no need to access the original target model after the generator is trained, in contrast to traditional white-box attacks. In black-box attacks, we dynamically train a distilled model for the black-box model and optimize the generator accordingly. Adversarial examples generated by AdvGAN on different target models have high attack success rate under state-of-the-art defenses compared to other attacks. Our attack has placed the first with 92.76% accuracy on a public MNIST black-box attack challenge.
Erratum: The Stable Allocation (or Ordinal Transportation) Problem

An incorrect version of this paper was printed in Mathematics of Operations Research, Vol. 27, No. 3, August 2002, pp. 485–503. The paper is reprinted correctly below. The stable allocation problem generalizes the 0,1 stable matching problems (one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many) to the allocation of real valued hours or quantities. A strongly polynomial algorithm proves the existence of “stable allocations. ” The set of stable allocations is shown to be a distributive lattice in general, but in the “nondegenerate” case it is a complete linear order. Indeed, in the generic case, when a problem is “strongly nondegenerate,” there exists a single stable allocation. A simple algorithm finds “row-optimal” and ”column-optimal” stable allocations, given any stable allocation. When a problem is nondegenerate it finds all stable allocations.
A Competitive-Cooperative Coevolutionary Paradigm for Dynamic Multiobjective Optimization

In addition to the need for satisfying several competing objectives, many real-world applications are also dynamic and require the optimization algorithm to track the changing optimum over time. This paper proposes a new coevolutionary paradigm that hybridizes competitive and cooperative mechanisms observed in nature to solve multiobjective optimization problems and to track the Pareto front in a dynamic environment. The main idea of competitive-cooperative coevolution is to allow the decomposition process of the optimization problem to adapt and emerge rather than being hand designed and fixed at the start of the evolutionary optimization process. In particular, each species subpopulation will compete to represent a particular subcomponent of the multiobjective problem, while the eventual winners will cooperate to evolve for better solutions. Through such an iterative process of competition and cooperation, the various subcomponents are optimized by different species subpopulations based on the optimization requirements of that particular time instant, enabling the coevolutionary algorithm to handle both the static and dynamic multiobjective problems. The effectiveness of the competitive-cooperation coevolutionary algorithm (COEA) in static environments is validated against various multiobjective evolutionary algorithms upon different benchmark problems characterized by various difficulties in local optimality, discontinuity, nonconvexity, and high-dimensionality. In addition, extensive studies are also conducted to examine the capability of dynamic COEA (dCOEA) in tracking the Pareto front as it changes with time in dynamic environments.
Dexamethasone Facilitates Discharge After Outpatient Anorectal Surgery

Corticosteroids can decrease pain and postoperative nausea and vomiting after ambulatory surgery. Therefore, we designed a study to evaluate if the routine use of dexamethasone would facilitate the early recovery process after anorectal surgery. A secondary aim of the study was to determine if dexamethasone would increase the incidence of postoperative wound complications. Eighty adult outpatients undergoing anorectal surgery with a standardized monitored anesthesia care technique were randomly assigned to receive either dexamethasone 4 mg IV or an equal volume of saline before the start of surgery. All patients were premedicated with midazolam 2 mg IV and received ketorolac 30 mg IV as a preemptive analgesic. A propofol infusion, 50 &mgr;g · kg−1 · min−1 IV, was initiated and subsequently titrated to maintain an observer’s assessment of alertness/sedation score of 2 or 3 (with 5 = awake/alert to 1 = asleep). Fentanyl 25 &mgr;g IV was administered 3–5 min before infiltrating the surgical field with a 30-mL local anesthetic mixture containing 15 mL of lidocaine 1% and 15 mL of bupivacaine 0.25% (with epinephrine 1:200,000 and sodium bicarbonate 3 mL). All patients were fast-tracked directly from the operating room to the step-down recovery area. Even though the incidences of postoperative pain and postoperative nausea and vomiting were small in both treatment groups, the time to “home readiness” was significantly shorter in the dexamethasone group. Importantly, there was no increase in the incidence of wound infections (8% vs 12%) or hematoma formation (3% vs 5%) in the dexamethasone (versus saline) group. We conclude that the administration of dexamethasone, 4 mg IV, shortened the time to home readiness without increasing the incidence of postoperative wound infections in a high-risk outpatient population undergoing anorectal surgery. IMPLICATIONS A single dose of dexamethasone (4 mg IV) decreased the time to “home readiness” without increasing the incidence of postoperative wound complications in an outpatient population undergoing anorectal surgery.
IL-2 Is Essential for TGF-β to Convert Naive CD4+CD25− Cells to CD25+Foxp3+ Regulatory T Cells and for Expansion of These Cells1

IL-2 and TGF-β both have important roles in the induction and maintenance of immunologic tolerance, but whether these cytokines act separately or together to achieve this effect is poorly understood. Although others have reported that IL-2 can directly enhance forkhead box protein P3 (Foxp3) transcription factor expression by natural CD4+CD25+ regulatory T cells, in this study, we report that the role of IL-2 on the generation of peripheral regulatory CD4+ cells is indirect. Ab neutralization studies and experiments with IL-2-deficient mice have revealed that IL-2 is required for TGF-β to induce naive CD4+CD25− cells to become CD25+ and express Foxp3, and develop the characteristic properties of CD4+CD25+ regulatory cells. This effect of IL-2 on the generation and expansion of these adaptive Foxp3+ regulatory cells is nonredundant, but IL-4, IL-7, and IL-15, other common γ-chain cytokines, could sustain Foxp3 expression. Because subjects with autoimmune diseases often have defects in the production of IL-2 and/or TGF-β, the generation of autologous T regulatory cells ex vivo with these cytokines for transfer in vivo may have considerable therapeutic potential.
The Determinants of Non-Farm Income Diversification in Rural Ethiopia

Diversification has long been viewed as a risk minimization strategy in the face of increasing climatic and economic risks in developing countries. This paper examines the determinants of non-farm income diversification in rural Ethiopia for a four-wave panel of 1240 households from the Ethiopian Rural Household Survey over the period 1994-2009. The paper makes a conceptual distinction between non-farm and off-farm income and uses fixed and random-effects models to control for unobserved characteristics. The results suggest that the variables that determine non-farm diversification—consumption per capita and livestock holdings—belong to pull factors and reflect a strategy by wealthier households. Coupled with instrumental variable estimations to ascertain the direction of causality, these findings lend support to the argument that the main motivation for increasing non-farm diversification is likely to be accumulation.
The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More

What happens when the bottlenecks that stand between supply and demand in our culture go away and everything becomes available to everyone? The Long Tail is a powerful new force i n our economy: the rise of the niche. As the cost of reaching consumers drops dramatically, our markets are shifting from a one-size-fits-all model of mass appeal to one of unlimited variety for unique tastes. From supermarket shelves to advertising agencies, the ability to offer vast choice is changing everything, and causing us to rethink where our markets lie and how to get to them. Unlimited selection is revealing truths about what consumers want and how they want to get it, from DVDs at Netflix to songs on iTunes to advertising on Google. However, this is not just a virtue of online marketplaces; it is an example of an entirely new economic model for business, one that is just beginning to show its power. After a century of obsessing over the few products at the head of the demand curve, the new economics of distribution allow us to turn our focus to the many more products in the tail, which collectively can create a new market as big as the one we already know. The Long Tail is really about the economics of abundance. New efficiencies in distribution, manufacturing, and marketing are essentially resetting the definition of what’s commercially viable across the board. If the 20th century was about hits, the 21st will be equally about niches.