Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The AGN contribution to mid-infrared surveys. X-ray counterparts of the mid-IR sources in the Lockman Hole and HDF-N

We provide constraints on the AGN contribution to the mid-IR extragalactic background light from a correlation analysis of deep X-ray and mid-IR observations in two regions centred on the Lockman Hole and Hubble Deep Field North (HDF-N). The Lockman region, of more than 200 square arcminutes, was observed by ISOCAM and XMM-Newton to a depth of 0.3 mJy at 15 µm (resolving more than 30% of the mid-IR background). In the same area XMM-Newton reached flux limits of 1.4 × 10 −15 erg cm −2 s −1 in the 2-10 keV energy band and 2.4 × 10 −15 erg cm −2 s −1 in the 5-10 keV energy band, resolving about 80% of the 2-10 keV and 60% of the 5-10 keV backgrounds (the deepest observation in this hard band to date). Among the 76 galaxies detected by XMM-Newton, 24 show mid-IR emission, but the relative percentage of X-ray sources with mid-IR counterparts increases with the band energy: from 30% of the 0.5-2 keV sources up to 63% of the 5-10 keV sources. In contrast, only a small fraction of the mid-IR sources (around 10%) show X-ray emission within the sensitivity limits of XMM-Newton observations. The region centred on the HDF-N has been observed by ISOCAM (24 square arcminutes) to a depth of 0.05 mJy (more than 60% of the mid-IR background is resolved at this limit) and covered with a 1 Msec exposure by Chandra. In this case, 25% of the mid-IR sources are detected in the X-ray, while 30-40% of the X-ray sources show mid-IR emission. Under the assumption that all XMM sources except stars or galaxy clusters are AGN-dominated, AGNs contribute (15 ± 5)% of the total mid-IR flux in the Lockman Hole. For the HDF-N we have assumed that AGN-dominated sources are luminous X-ray sources and sources with SEDs from radio to X-ray wavelengths typical of local AGNs, in which case we find that (18 ± 7)% of the mid-IR flux are due to AGN emission. If we put together all the existing information from the deepest HDF-N data to the bright large-area sample in the ELAIS S1 region observed with BeppoSAX (for a total of 50 X-ray-mid-IR matched sources) using the median mid-IR to X-ray spectral indices as a function of the X-ray flux, we find an AGN contribution to the 15 µm background of (17 ± 2)%. Since the IR spectra of typical AGNs peak around 20 µm while starburst spectra peak at significantly longer infrared wavelengths, this figure may be considered as an upper limit to the AGN contribution to the CIRB energy density. We conclude that the population of IR luminous galaxies detected in the ISOCAM deep surveys, and the CIRB sources themselves, are mainly constituted by dust-obscured starbursts.
Adoption and Diffusion of Digital Information Goods: An Empirical Analysis of the German Paid Content Market

The rapid growth of the Internet and electronic commerce stimulates new digital innovations. Electronic markets can influence both adoption and diffusion processes of digital innovations in significant ways. The difficulties for market transactions of information goods and the change from free to paid content on websites in the last years has led to research questions about how individuals decide whether and when to adopt paid content innovations and how this innovation diffuses throughout a population. This article presents empirical evidence about the adoption and diffusion process of paid content. It focuses on the differences of the adoption and diffusion process of different paid content product types if there exists an established, non-digital counterpart. The results in this paper help media managers to design business models for paid content by forecasting the adoption and diffusion process of the offered digital content product.
Corrective feedback : novice ESL teachers' beliefs and practices

This study was designed to investigate the relationship between novice ESL teachers' beliefs about corrective feedback and their instructional practices. Ninety-nine teachers-in-training, with little or no teaching experience, completed a questionnaire seeking information about their teaching beliefs in general and their beliefs about corrective feedback, in particular. To see whether beliefs affected classroom performance, ten of these teachers watched videotape scenarios illustrating different language error types and indicated whether and how they would correct them. Later, they were videotaped teaching an authentic ESL class. The results indicate both consistency and inconsistency in the relationship. While the inconsistency was apparent in that the teachers corrected fewer errors in the classroom than they said they would, the consistency was noted in the same type of corrective techniques (regular and interrogative recasts) the teachers used with the videotaped scenarios as well as in the actual classroom. Complexities of the second language classroom and the challenge of integrating the novice teachers' technical and practical knowledge due to inexperience were suggested as possible reasons for the inconsistency. The consistency in the choice of corrective strategies is argued to be weak for it stems from the participants' limited knowledge about corrective feedback as well as the fact that they behave more as native-speaking interlocutors than as classroom teachers. Education and additional teaching experience are likely to bridge the gap of inconsistency between these teachers' stated beliefs and instructional practices.
EFFECTS OF NUMERICAL DISSIPATION AND DISPERSION ON ACOUSTIC PREDICTIONS FROM A TIME-DOMAIN FINITE DIFFERENCE TECHNIQUE FOR NON-LINEAR WAVE DYNAMICS

Non-linear one-dimensional approaches are useful for modelling the unsteady flows in the breathing systems of internal combustion engines. These computational techniques have been extensively used in the automotive industry to predict the influence of intake and exhaust system geometry on engine performance parameters such as power output and volumetric efficiency [1–5]. As expected, the non-linear techniques can also be used to predict the acoustic characteristics and radiated sound for the intake and exhaust systems. The non-linear computations can include several phenomena that are not adequately treated by more traditional linear acoustic approaches such as valve flows, mean values and their gradients, convective non-linearities, wave steepening and flow losses. These factors, and particularly the highly non-linear flows through the valves and in the primary manifold runners, are important for predicting radiated sound levels. A variety of commercial, proprietary and research codes for modelling one-dimensional flow in the duct systems of automotive engines are currently in use. It is generally recognized that when used appropriately, these methods are capable of predicting cycleaveraged engine performance parameters with good accuracy [1–5]. When used to predict radiated sound levels, however, these techniques have been somewhat less successful. At lower frequencies (below roughly 500 Hz), radiated sound levels are often predicted well while at higher frequencies the results are generally viewed as unreliable. A fundamental reason that these techniques do not perform well at high frequencies is the assumption of one-dimensional fluid motion. This assumption fails when the wavelength l is comparable to the transverse dimensions of an intake or exhaust system element. Since l 1⁄4 c=f ; where c is the speed of sound and f is the frequency, the onedimensional assumption limits the frequency range for which the analysis applies. In addition, localized multi-dimensional motions may be important at sudden changes in cross-sectional area, and in complicated geometric structures. Provided that non-linear effects in the regions with multi-dimensional motions are small, non-linear and linear
Bifurcation analysis points towards the source of beta neuronal oscillations in Parkinson's disease

Parkinson disease is the second most common neurodegenerative disorder after Alzheimer, affecting 0.16% of the population in the USA1. This disease is most common in the elderly, what makes it a prominent health problem in developed countries, where the elder population is expected to importantly increase in the future. The mechanism generating the disease is the death of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta (SNc), a small brain region from the brain stem. These neurons release the neurotransmitter dopamine to the basal ganglia, a large and complex brain structure implicated in motor control and reinforcement learning. Once SNc neurons have died, the basal ganglia starts showing prominent features of malfunction, and the characteristics symptoms of Parkinson's disease began to be observed in the patient (i.e. general difficulty or inability to execute motor movements and limb tremor, among others). Modern theory of Parkinson's disease focuses on the abnormal brain activity oscillations observed in the basal ganglia, which are consistently observed in parkinsonian patients and correlate with their symptoms. This paper develops a mathematical model of the basal ganglia, which reproduces the experimentally recorded neuronal activity of this brain structure in health and disease. Studying this model numerical and analytically, we draw conclusion on how and where these oscillations are generated within the brain. If the conclusions of this mathematical model are further confirmed experimentally, we think they pave the way towards controlling such oscillations pharmacologically or through electrode stimulation in the future.
Effects of competition on performance, and the underlying psychophysiological mechanisms

This thesis investigates potential psychophysiological mechanisms to explain the effects of competition on performance. In the first experiment novice participants undertook a golf putting task under varying levels of competitive pressure. Fewer putts were holed with increased competitive pressure. Mediation analyses revealed that effort, muscle activity and lateral clubhead acceleration were responsible for the decline in performance. In the second experiment, expert golfers completed a putting task under varying levels of competitive pressure. Results indicated that increased competitive pressure improved performance, in terms of how close putts finished to the hole. Mediation analyses revealed that effort and heart rate partially mediated improved performance. In the third experiment, participants undertook a handgrip endurance task in competitive and non-competitive conditions. Results indicated that endurance performance was greater during competition. Enjoyment fully mediated whereas effort and heart rate variability partially mediated the effects of competition on performance. In the final experiment, participants undertook a handgrip endurance task in individual and team competitions. Endurance performance was better during team competitions. Mediation analyses revealed that enjoyment and effort mediated the effects of competition on performance. These findings are discussed in relation to processing efficiency, reinvestment, and enjoyment-based theories of the competition–performance relationship.
A Topology-Independent Mapping Technique for Application-Specific Networks-on-Chip

The design of Networks-on-Chip (NoCs) involves several key issues, including the topological mapping, that is, the mapping of the processing elements or Intellectual Properties (IPs) to the network nodes. Although several proposals have been focused on topological mapping last years, this topic is still an open issue. In this paper, we propose, in an extended manner, a topology-independent mapping technique for application-specific NoCs that can be used with regular or irregular topologies, and with any routing algorithm. This technique globally matches the communication pattern generated by the IPs with the available network bandwidth in the different parts of the network. The evaluation results show that the proposed technique can provide better performance than other mapping techniques not only in terms of average latency and network throughput, but also in terms of power consumption.
Plasma membrane-association of SAUL1-type plant U-box armadillo repeat proteins is conserved in land plants

Post-translational protein modification plays a pivotal role in the regulation and specific turnover of proteins. One of these important modifications is the ubiquitination of target proteins, which can occur at distinct cellular compartments. At the plasma membrane, ubiquitination regulates the internalization and thus trafficking of membrane proteins such as receptors and channels. The Arabidopsis plant U-box (PUB) armadillo repeat (PUB-ARM) ubiquitin ligase SAUL1 (SENESCENCE-ASSOCIATED UBIQUITIN LIGASE1) is part of the ubiquitination machinery at the plasma membrane. In contrast to most other PUB-ARM proteins, SAUL1 carries additional C-terminal ARM repeats responsible for plasma membrane-association. Here, we demonstrated that the C-terminal ARM repeat domain is also essential and sufficient to mediate plasma membrane-association of the closest Arabidopis paralog AtPUB43. We investigated targeting of PUB-ARM ubiquitin ligases of different plant species to find out whether plasma membrane-association of SAUL1-type PUB-ARM proteins is conserved. Phylogenetic analysis identified orthologs of SAUL1 in these plant species. Intracellular localization of transiently expressed GFP fusion proteins revealed that indeed plasma membrane-association due to additional C-terminal ARM repeats represents a conserved feature of SAUL1-type proteins. Analyses of transgenic Arabidopsis plants overexpressing N-terminally masked or truncated proteins revealed that interfering with the function of SAUL1-type proteins resulted in severe growth defects. Our results suggest an ancient origin of ubiquitination at the plasma membrane in the evolution of land plants.
Reliability of Frequent Retrospective Behavior Ratings for Elementary School Students with EBD

This study is a preliminary examination of the reliability of frequent retrospective teacher behavior ratings. Frequent retrospective behavior ratings are an approach for creating scales that can be used to monitor individual behavioral progress. In this study, the approach is used to progress monitor behavioral individualized education plan goals for 7 students with, or at risk of, emotional and behavioral disorders. Reliability was examined for both quantitative-based and qualitative judgment-based retrospective teacher behavior ratings. Quantitative-based behavior ratings focused primarily on frequency and duration scales, whereas qualitative-based behavior ratings focused on topography and intensity scales. Findings indicated that reliability can be adequately achieved, although there is variability depending on the type of scale. Implications are discussed as they relate to progress monitoring individual behavioral goals and examining responsiveness to intervention.
Identification of 20 Common Human Enterovirus Serotypes by Use of a Reverse Transcription-PCR-Based Reverse Line Blot Hybridization Assay

ABSTRACT The more than 100 human enterovirus (HEV) serotypes can also be classified into four species, HEV-A to -D, based on phylogenetic analysis of multiple gene regions. Current molecular typing methods depend largely on reverse transcription-PCR (RT-PCR) amplification and nucleotide sequencing of the entire or 3′ half of the VP1 gene. An RT-PCR-based reverse line blot (RLB) hybridization assay was developed as a rapid and efficient approach to characterize common HEVs. Twenty HEV serotypes accounted for 87.1% of all HEVs isolated at an Australian reference virology laboratory from 1979 to 2007. VP1 sequences of all known HEV prototype strains were aligned to design one sense primer and three antisense primers for RT-PCR. After sequencing of the complete VP1 genes of 37 previously serotyped examples of the commonest 20 serotypes and alignment of these VP1 sequences with GenBank sequences, four serotype-specific probes for each serotype were designed for RLB. The RT-PCR-RLB assay was then applied to 132 HEV isolates, made up of the previously sequenced 37 isolates and another 95 serotyped clinical isolates. The RT-PCR-RLB genotypes corresponded with the serotypes for 131/132 isolates; the one exception was confirmed by VP1 sequencing, and the genotype was confirmed by repeat conventional serotyping. Genotyping by RT-PCR-RLB complements traditional serotyping methods and VP1 sequencing and has the advantages of convenience, speed, and accuracy. RT-PCR-RLB allows detection of specific enteroviral serotypes or genotypes associated with HEV outbreaks and significant disease.
A High Level Framework to Develop and Run E-science Applications on Cloud Infrastructures

This paper presents a generic framework used todevelop and deploy high performance applications (HPC) oncloud infrastrcutures. We particularly target iterative e-scienceapplications where (i) convergence conditions and number of jobsare not known in advance, (ii) jobs are created on the fly and(iii) jobs could be persistent. We propose a framework which provides intuitive statementsenabling an easy writing of HPC e-science applications. Non-expert developers (scientific researchers) can use them toguarantee fast development and efficient deployment of their applications.
Mapping Cortical Responses to Somatosensory Stimuli in Human Infants with Simultaneous Near-Infrared Spectroscopy and Event-Related Potential Recording123

Abstract Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) and electroencephalography (EEG) have recently provided fundamental new information about how the newborn brain processes innocuous and noxious somatosensory information. However, results derived independently from these two techniques are not entirely consistent, raising questions about the relationship between hemodynamic and electrophysiological responses in the study of touch and pain processing in the newborn. To address this, we have recorded NIRS and EEG responses simultaneously for the first time in the human infant following noxious (time-locked clinically required heel lances) and innocuous tactile cutaneous stimulation in 30 newborn infants. The results show that both techniques can be used to record quantifiable and distinct innocuous and noxious evoked activity at a group level in the newborn cortex. Noxious stimulation elicits a peak hemodynamic response that is 10-fold larger than that elicited by an innocuous stimulus (HbO2: 2.0 vs 0.3 µm) and a distinct nociceptive-specific N3P3 waveform in electrophysiological recordings. However, a novel single-trial analysis revealed that hemodynamic and electrophysiological responses do not always co-occur at an individual level, although when they do (64% of noxious test occasions), they are significantly correlated in magnitude. These data show that, while hemodynamic and electrophysiological touch and pain brain activity in newborn infants are comparable in group analyses, important individual differences remain. These data indicate that integrated and multimodal brain monitoring is required to understand central touch and pain processing in the newborn.
Wireless HART TDMA Protocol Performance Evaluation Using Response Surface Methodology

Wireless HART is a state-of-the-art solution for a time-division multiple-access (TDMA) based wireless private area network. It combines slow frequency-hopping and a TDMA scheme that utilizes a centralized a-priori slot allocation mechanism. In this paper we conduct a performance evaluation of the Wireless HART TDMA protocol and provide insights into the major factors impacting energy consumption. These insights provide valuable guidance on where to start with any effort geared towards saving energy. The main contributions of this paper are two folds: (i) We conduct a sensitivity analysis of the Wireless HART TDMA energy consumption parameters using the response surface methodology. Based on these results we determine the most influential parameters for the total energy consumption. (ii) We evaluate and discuss the impact of time synchronization and types of link scheduling algorithms on the performance of Wireless HART TDMA protocol.
Efficient Globally Optimal Point Cloud Alignment using Bayesian Nonparametric Mixtures

Point cloud alignment is a common problem in computer vision and robotics, with applications ranging from object recognition to reconstruction. We propose a novel approach to the alignment problem that utilizes Bayesian nonparametrics to describe the point cloud and surface normal densities, and the branch and bound (BB) paradigm to recover the optimal relative transformation. BB relies on a novel, refinable, approximately-uniform tessellation of the rotation space using 4D tetrahedra which leads to more efficient BB operation in comparison to the common axis-angle tessellation. For this novel tessellation, we provide upper and lower objective function bounds, and prove convergence and optimality of the BB approach under mild assumptions. Finally, we empirically demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed approach as well as its robustness to suboptimal real-world conditions such as missing data and partial overlap.
Test-retest reliability of the Örebro Musculoskeletal Pain Screening Questionnaire and the Situational Pain Scale in patients with chronic low back pain.

OBJECTIVE To determine the test-retest reliability of the Örebro Musculoskeletal Pain Screening Questionnaire (OMPSQ) and of the Situational Pain Scale (SPS) in patients with chronic low back pain (CLBP). METHODS CLBP patients (n = 30) who were capable of reading French completed the OMPSQ and the SPS twice with a 1-week interval in one rehabilitation centre in French-speaking Switzerland. To study the test-retest reliability, we calculated intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) for the reliability of the overall scores of the two questionnaires. RESULTS The ICC for the OMPSQ overall score was 0.89 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.79‒0.95). For the overall scores of the SPS, the ICC was 0.87 (95% CI 0.74‒0.93). The standard error of the mean, expressed as percentage of the mean, was 6.6% for the SPS and 10% for the OMPSQ. CONCLUSIONS The reproducibility of these two questionnaires in a sample of patients with CLBP is considered good at the overall score level. The French translation of the OMPSQ could be considered as a tool to examine the evolution of psychosocial factors.