Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mobile Space‐Time Envelopes for Location‐Based Services

The convergence and miniaturisation of a range of information and communication technologies, together with increasing bandwidth availability and near ubiquity of mobile phones, are giving rise to a technological environment in which location‐based services (LBS) can realistically develop. In this paper we review the nature of location‐based services and the implications for data and spatial queries. In doing so, we put forward a research agenda that arises for geographical information science and engineering. Central to LBS are problems of response time and the information utility of responses to queries and any pushed alerts, where information utility refers to content, timeliness and geographical footprint. Within a publish/subscribe model of LBS provision, we propose mobile space‐time envelopes as a novel approach to event brokerage. These envelopes simultaneously provide ‘soft clip’ pruning of candidate data sets in anticipation of queries, and provide the trigger that subscribers are pertinently in‐range for alerts. We present the geometrical, algebraic and algorithmic concepts of mobile space‐time envelopes and provide an example of these mobile envelopes in action. We conclude with a discussion of how this initial implementation could be further developed to incorporate added spatio‐temporal intelligence.
Tick-Borne Encephalitis Virus Replication, Intracellular Trafficking, and Pathogenicity in Human Intestinal Caco-2 Cell Monolayers

Tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBEV) is one of the most important vector-borne viruses in Europe and Asia. Its transmission mainly occurs by the bite of an infected tick. However, consuming milk products from infected livestock animals caused TBEV cases. To better understand TBEV transmission via the alimentary route, we studied viral infection of human intestinal epithelial cells. Caco-2 cells were used to investigate pathological effects of TBEV infection. TBEV-infected Caco-2 monolayers showed morphological changes including cytoskeleton rearrangements and cytoplasmic vacuolization. Ultrastructural analysis revealed dilatation of the rough endoplasmic reticulum and further enlargement to TBEV containing caverns. Caco-2 monolayers maintained an intact epithelial barrier with stable transepithelial electrical resistance (TER) during early stage of infection. Concomitantly, viruses were detected in the basolateral medium, implying a transcytosis pathway. When Caco-2 cells were pre-treated with inhibitors of cellular pathways of endocytosis TBEV cell entry was efficiently blocked, suggesting that actin filaments (Cytochalasin) and microtubules (Nocodazole) are important for PI3K-dependent (LY294002) virus endocytosis. Moreover, experimental fluid uptake assay showed increased intracellular accumulation of FITC-dextran containing vesicles. Immunofluorescence microscopy revealed co-localization of TBEV with early endosome antigen-1 (EEA1) as well as with sorting nexin-5 (SNX5), pointing to macropinocytosis as trafficking mechanism. In the late phase of infection, further evidence was found for translocation of virus via the paracellular pathway. Five days after infection TER was slightly decreased. Epithelial barrier integrity was impaired due to increased epithelial apoptosis, leading to passive viral translocation. These findings illuminate pathomechanisms in TBEV infection of human intestinal epithelial cells and viral transmission via the alimentary route.
Roles and limitations of two widely publicized equations in predicting phase shift impulse response of a simple 2-D oscillator

This paper analyses a simple but analytically solvable 2-dimensional oscillator's phase shift impulse response to an external impulse noise. From the analysis, it is found that the initial state of the response is determined by the orthogonal projection-based formula by Hajimiri and Lee, and the final state is decided by the stochastic differential equation by Demir and co-workers. This work, however, shows that neither of the two equations can account for the transient behavior of the response.
SchistoDB: a Schistosoma mansoni genome resource

SchistoDB (http://schistoDB.net/) is a genomic database for the parasitic organism Schistosoma mansoni, one of the major causative agents of schistosomiasis worldwide. It currently incorporates sequences and annotation for S. mansoni in a single user-friendly database. Several genomic scale analyses are available as well as ESTs, oligonucleotides, metabolic pathways and drugs. In this article, we describe the data sets and its analyses, how to query the database and tools available in the website.
Electrothermal modelling of through silicon via (TSV) interconnects

Electrothermal effects in through silicon via (TSV) interconnects are investigated in this paper. The temperature-dependent TSV capacitance is calculated with MOS effect in silicon substrate considered. The per-unit-length resistance and inductance of TSV arrays made of different filling materials are extracted numerically with the partial-element equivalent-circuit (PEEC) method, and insertion losses of some TSV pairs are examined for different silicon substrate resistivities. The electrothermal responses of some TSV arrays made of different materials are also investigated using the modified time-domain finite-element method (TD-FEM).
ANGER IN PTSD: GENERAL PSYCHIATRIC AND GENDER DIFFERENCES ON THE BDHI

Anger was examined through the use of the Buss Durkee Hostility Inventory (BDHI) in male veterans with combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD),male veterans with other psychiatric disorders, and women with sexual-trauma-related PTSD. Male veterans with PTSD scored higher on the BDHI Assault, Irritability, Negativism, and Verbal Hostility scales than male veterans with other psychiatric diagnoses, which supports past research. In addition, male veterans with combat-related PTSD scored higher than women with sexual-trauma-related PTSD on the Assault, Indirect Hostility, Irritability, and Verbal Hostility scales of the BDHI. Scale differences are attributed to diagnosis and gender, while some nonsignificant differences are discussed as characteristic of PTSD.
On joint source-channel decoding and interference cancellation in CDMA-based large-scale wireless sensor networks

Motivated by potential applications in wireless sensor networks, we consider the problem of communicating a large number of correlated analog sources over a Gaussian multiple-access channel using non-orthogonal code-division multiple-access (CDMA). We present a joint source-channel decoder which exploits the inter-source correlation for interference reduction in the CDMA channel. This decoder uses a linear minimum mean square error (MMSE) multi-user detector (MUD) in tandem with a MMSE joint source decoder for multiple sources to achieve a computational complexity that scales with the number of sources. However, iterative exchange of extrinsic information between the MUD and the joint source decoder leads to improved interference cancellation. Experimental results obtained with decoding observations from Gaussian random fields show that the proposed iterative decoder can achieve a considerable performance gain compared to a non-iterative decoder. The results also show that the iterative decoder is robust against the performance degradation due to correlated interference in a non-orthogonal CDMA channel.
Your Participation Is greatly/highly Appreciated: Amplifier Collocations in L2 English

The current study sets out to investigate collocational knowledge for a set of 13 English amplifiers among native and nonnative speakers of English, by providing a partial replication of one of the projects reported on in Granger (1998). The project combines both phraseological and distributional approaches to research into formulaic language to examine whether natives and normatives demonstrate similar patterns of saliency and agreement in their judgments of adverb-adjective collocations. A total of 55 English native speakers and 120 Francophone learners of English (first-year university students, third-year university students, and Master's students) completed two tasks targeting such collocations. Our quantitative analysis reveals that Master's students and native speakers performed similarly on the different tasks, and that both groups differed significantly from the first- and third-year university learners. This pattern holds for all analyses of salience and for all but one analysis of agreement. We interpret these findings as evidence of development toward nativelike patterns with respect to the collocations under study.La présente étude a pour objectif d'examiner les connaissances de collocations associées à 13 intensificateurs anglais pour un groupe de locuteurs natifs ainsi qu'un groupe de locuteurs non-natifs d'anglais, à l'aide d'une étude qui prend pour modèle Tune des expérimentations présentées par Granger dans son article de 1998. Pour ce faire, nous avons recours à deux types d'approche de l'étude des séquences formulaïques (approches phraséologiques et distributionnelles) afin de déterminer si des locuteurs natifs et non-natifs jugent des collocations adverbe-adjectif de manière semblable selon des critères de saillance et d'accord. Nous avons sollicité la participation de 55 anglophones et de 120 apprenants francophones de l'anglais à trois niveaux: des étudiants en première année d'université, des étudiants en troisième année d'université et des étudiants en Master. Deux expérimentations ont été menées et l'analyse quantitative des résultats révèle que les anglophones et les étudiants en Master se sont comportés de manière semblable. Les différences entre les natifs et les étudiants en Master d'un côté, et les étudiants en première et en troisième année de l'autre, se sont avérées significatives. Ces résultats semblent indiquer un développement dans les connaissances collocationnelles chez les non-natifs qui mène vers une maîtrise proche de celle des natifs.
Multiple pathways for toluene degradation in Burkholderia sp. strain JS150

Burkholderia (Pseudomonas) sp. strain JS150 uses multiple pathways for the metabolism of catechols that result from degradation of aromatic compounds. This suggests that the strain also uses multiple upstream pathways for the initial hydroxylation of aromatic substrates. Two distinct DNA fragments that allowed Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1c to grow with benzene as a sole carbon source were cloned from strain JS150. One of the recombinant plasmids containing the initial steps for the degradative pathway contained a 14-kb DNA insert and was designated pRO2016. We have previously shown that the DNA insert originated from a plasmid carried by strain JS150 and contained genes encoding a multicomponent toluene-2-monooxygenase (tbmABCDEF) as well as the cognate regulatory protein (tbmR) that controls expression of the 2-monooxygenase (G. R. Johnson and R. H. Olsen, Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 61:3336-3346, 1995). Subsequently, we have identified an additional region on this DNA fragment that encodes toluene-4-monooxygenase activity. The toluene-4-monooxygenase activity was also regulated by the tbmR gene product. A second DNA fragment that allowed P. aeruginosa to grow with benzene was obtained as a 20-kb insert on a recombinant plasmid designated pRO2015. The DNA insert contained genes encoding toluene-4-monooxygenase activity but no toluene-2-monooxygenase activity. The pRO2015 insert originated from the chromosome of strain JS150, unlike the region cloned in pRO2016. Southern blots and restriction map comparisons showed that the genes for the individual 4-monooxygenases were distinct from one another. Thus, strain JS150 has been shown to have at least three toluene/benzene monooxygenases to initiate toluene metabolism in addition to the toluene dioxygenase reported previously by others.
Action Perception in Individuals with Congenital Blindness or Deafness: How Does the Loss of a Sensory Modality from Birth Affect Perception-induced Motor Facilitation?

Seeing or hearing manual actions activates the mirror neuron system, that is, specialized neurons within motor areas which fire when an action is performed but also when it is passively perceived. Using TMS, it was shown that motor cortex of typically developed subjects becomes facilitated not only from seeing others' actions, but also from merely hearing action-related sounds. In the present study, TMS was used for the first time to explore the “auditory” and “visual” responsiveness of motor cortex in individuals with congenital blindness or deafness. TMS was applied over left primary motor cortex (M1) to measure cortico-motor facilitation while subjects passively perceived manual actions (either visually or aurally). Although largely unexpected, congenitally blind or deaf subjects displayed substantially lower resonant motor facilitation upon action perception compared to seeing/hearing control subjects. Moreover, muscle-specific changes in cortico-motor excitability within M1 appeared to be absent in individuals with profound blindness or deafness. Overall, these findings strongly argue against the hypothesis that an increased reliance on the remaining sensory modality in blind or deaf subjects is accompanied by an increased responsiveness of the “auditory” or “visual” perceptual–motor “mirror” system, respectively. Moreover, the apparent lack of resonant motor facilitation for the blind and deaf subjects may challenge the hypothesis of a unitary mirror system underlying human action recognition and may suggest that action perception in blind and deaf subjects engages a mode of action processing that is different from the human action recognition system recruited in typically developed subjects.
Load and Attentional Bayes

Selective attention is a most intensively studied psychological phenomenon, rife with theoretical suggestions and schisms. A critical idea is that of limited capacity, the allocation of which has produced continual conflict about such phenomena as early and late selection. An influential resolution of this debate is based on the notion of perceptual load (Lavie, 2005), which suggests that low-load, easy tasks, because they underuse the total capacity of attention, mandatorily lead to the processing of stimuli that are irrelevant to the current attentional set; whereas high-load, difficult tasks grab all resources for themselves, leaving distractors high and dry. We argue that this theory presents a challenge to Bayesian theories of attention, and suggest an alternative, statistical, account of key supporting data.
Novel Carbapenem-Hydrolyzing β-Lactamase, KPC-1, from a Carbapenem-Resistant Strain of Klebsiella pneumoniae

ABSTRACT A Klebsiella pneumoniae isolate showing moderate to high-level imipenem and meropenem resistance was investigated. The MICs of both drugs were 16 μg/ml. The β-lactamase activity against imipenem and meropenem was inhibited in the presence of clavulanic acid. The strain was also resistant to extended-spectrum cephalosporins and aztreonam. Isoelectric focusing studies demonstrated three β-lactamases, with pIs of 7.2 (SHV-29), 6.7 (KPC-1), and 5.4 (TEM-1). The presence of blaSHV andblaTEM genes was confirmed by specific PCRs and DNA sequence analysis. Transformation and conjugation studies withEscherichia coli showed that the β-lactamase with a pI of 6.7, KPC-1 (K. pneumoniae carbapenemase-1), was encoded on an approximately 50-kb nonconjugative plasmid. The gene,blaKPC-1, was cloned in E. coli and shown to confer resistance to imipenem, meropenem, extended-spectrum cephalosporins, and aztreonam. The amino acid sequence of the novel carbapenem-hydrolyzing β-lactamase, KPC-1, showed 45% identity to the pI 9.7 carbapenem-hydrolyzing β-lactamase, Sme-1, fromSerratia marcescens S6. Hydrolysis studies showed that purified KPC-1 hydrolyzed not only carbapenems but also penicillins, cephalosporins, and monobactams. KPC-1 had the highest affinity for meropenem. The kinetic studies also revealed that clavulanic acid and tazobactam inhibited KPC-1. An examination of the outer membrane proteins of the parent K. pneumoniae strain demonstrated that the strain does not express detectable levels of OmpK35 and OmpK37, although OmpK36 is present. We concluded that carbapenem resistance in K. pneumoniae strain 1534 is mainly due to production of a novel Bush group 2f, class A, carbapenem-hydrolyzing β-lactamase, KPC-1, although alterations in porin expression may also play a role.
A NICE Way to Test OpenFlow Applications

The emergence of OpenFlow-capable switches enables exciting new network functionality, at the risk of programming errors that make communication less reliable. The centralized programming model, where a single controller program manages the network, seems to reduce the likelihood of bugs. However, the system is inherently distributed and asynchronous, with events happening at different switches and end hosts, and inevitable delays affecting communication with the controller. In this paper, we present efficient, systematic techniques for testing unmodified controller programs. Our NICE tool applies model checking to explore the state space of the entire system--the controller, the switches, and the hosts. Scalability is the main challenge, given the diversity of data packets, the large system state, and the many possible event orderings. To address this, we propose a novel way to augment model checking with symbolic execution of event handlers (to identify representative packets that exercise code paths on the controller). We also present a simplified OpenFlow switch model (to reduce the state space), and effective strategies for generating event interleavings likely to uncover bugs. Our prototype tests Python applications on the popular NOX platform. In testing three real applications--a MAC-learning switch, in-network server load balancing, and energy-efficient traffic engineering--we uncover eleven bugs.
Block modulus precoding for blind multiuser detection of DS-CDMA signals

We propose a blind multiuser detector based on a new data precoding technique for direct-sequence code-division multiple-access signals. The modulus of all users' data is block encoded, using a sequence that is unique for each user. This precoding method, together with the analytical constant modulus algorithm for detection, enables a closed-form, one-shot detection of the desired user's signal in a multipath channel using one or more antennas. The detection process does not involve or require a channel estimation step. The proposed detector is shown to be extremely near-far resistant, and can operate properly in the presence of severe carrier frequency offset.
Transcriptomic Analysis Identifies Differentially Expressed Genes (DEGs) Associated with Bolting and Flowering in Radish (Raphanus sativus L.)

The transition of vegetative growth to bolting and flowering is an important process in the life cycle of plants, which is determined by numerous genes forming an intricate network of bolting and flowering. However, no comprehensive identification and profiling of bolting and flowering-related genes have been carried out in radish. In this study, RNA-Seq technology was applied to analyze the differential gene expressions during the transition from vegetative stage to reproductive stage in radish. A total of 5922 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) including 779 up-regulated and 5143 down-regulated genes were isolated. Functional enrichment analysis suggested that some DEGs were involved in hormone signaling pathways and the transcriptional regulation of bolting and flowering. KEGG-based analysis identified 37 DEGs being involved in phytohormone signaling pathways. Moreover, 95 DEGs related to bolting and flowering were identified and integrated into various flowering pathways. Several critical genes including FT, CO, SOC1, FLC, and LFY were characterized and profiled by RT-qPCR analysis. Correlation analysis indicated that 24 miRNA-DEG pairs were involved in radish bolting and flowering. Finally, a miRNA-DEG-based schematic model of bolting and flowering regulatory network was proposed in radish. These outcomes provided significant insights into genetic control of radish bolting and flowering, and would facilitate unraveling molecular regulatory mechanism underlying bolting and flowering in root vegetable crops.
Performance measurement in industrial R&D

Currently, the need for RD indeed, the rising cost of R&D, greater emphasis on value management and a trend towards decentralization are escalating the need for ways of evaluating the contribution of R&D to corporate performance. However, although recent research and writing on the subject shows that the challenge of developing such sound measurements has been taken up by many academics and organizations, it is also clear that there is no generally applicable approach. In this review, we consider various approaches for measuring the performance in industrial R&D and identify their key characteristics. We also include a brief summary of the ‘history’ of performance measurement in R&D, which shows that although there are some new ways of looking at the issue there are many examples from the past that can contribute to our current thinking. The approaches found in the literature and practice are very varied in their application, some being more suitable for the project level, others for the R&D department, and some for the development process or for the organization as a whole. Furthermore, the uses of the approaches tend to be different. For example, some approaches are intended to justify the continuation of investment in R&D to upper management, whilst others are more suited to support learning and self-correction by empowered R&D teams. In this paper these uses, or ‘functions’, of performance measurement and a taxonomy of typical subjects of measurement in R&D environments are explored. Finally, we conclude the review with a discussion of some limitations of the growing literature on R&D performance measurement.
Optimisation of Polish Tagger Parameters ?

The large tagset of the IPI PAN Corpus of Polish enforced a modular architecture of the Polish tagger called TaKIPI. The architecture introduce several parameters, for learning and tagging, that are difficult to be properly adjusted manually. In this paper a method of optimisation of the parameters values based on Genetic Algorithm is presented. A chromosome is a set of values, a specimen is a tagger together with the learning process, and the fitness function is a test of the tagger’s accuracy. The optimisation process is presented and the achieved improvement of +1.15% in the accuracy of the tagger (12.92% or error reduction) are discussed.
Frequency sensitivity for video compression

Abstract. We investigate the frequency sensitivity of the human visual system, which reacts differently at different frequencies in video coding. Based on this observation, we used different quantization steps for different frequency components in order to explore the possibility of improving coding efficiency while maintaining perceptual video quality. In other words, small quantization steps were used for sensitive frequency components while large quantization steps were used for less sensitive frequency components. We performed subjective testing to examine the perceptual video quality of video sequences encoded by the proposed method. The experimental results showed that a reduction in bitrate is possible without causing a decrease in perceptual video quality.