Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Motivations for academic web site interlinking: evidence for the Web as a novel source of information on informal scholarly communication

The need to understand authors’ motivations for creating links between university web sites is addressed by a survey of a random collection of 414 such links from the ac.uk domain. A classification scheme was created and applied to this collection. Obtaining inter-classifier agreement as to the single main link creation cause was very difficult because of multiple potential motivations and the fluidity of genre on the Web. Nevertheless, it was clear that, whilst the vast majority, over 90%, was created for broadly scholarly reasons, only two were equivalent to journal citations. It is concluded that academic web link metrics will be dominated by a range of informal types of scholarly communication. Since formal communication can be extensively studied through citation analysis, this provides an exciting new window through which to investigate a facet of a previously obscured type of communication activity.
YABBYs and the Transcriptional Corepressors LEUNIG and LEUNIG_HOMOLOG Maintain Leaf Polarity and Meristem Activity in Arabidopsis[W]

In Arabidopsis thaliana, FILAMENTOUS FLOWER (FIL) and YABBY3 (YAB3) encode YABBY domain proteins that regulate abaxial patterning, growth of lateral organs, and inflorescence phyllotaxy. In this study, we show that YABs physically interact with components of a transcriptional repressor complex that include LEUNIG (LUG), LEUNIG_HOMOLOG (LUH), the LUG-associated coregulator SEUSS, and related SEUSS-LIKE proteins. Consistent with the formation of a LUG-YAB complex, we find that lug mutants enhance the polarity and growth defects of fil yab3 mutant leaves and that this enhancement is due to a loss of LUG activity from the abaxial domain. We performed a more extensive genetic analysis, which included the characterization of yab triple and quadruple mutants, lug luh/+ (heterozygous only for luh) mutants, and plants expressing artificial microRNAs targeting LUG or LUH. These analyses showed that the LUG-YAB complex also promotes adaxial cell identity in leaves as well as embryonic shoot apical meristem (SAM) initiation and postembryonic SAM maintenance. Based on the likely formation of the LUG-YAB complex in the abaxial domain of cotyledons and leaves, we propose that this complex has numerous non-cell-autonomous functions during plant development.
Identification of an l-Arabinose Reductase Gene in Aspergillus niger and Its Role in l-Arabinose Catabolism*

The first enzyme in the pathway for l-arabinose catabolism in eukaryotic microorganisms is a reductase, reducing l-arabinose to l-arabitol. The enzymes catalyzing this reduction are in general nonspecific and would also reduce d-xylose to xylitol, the first step in eukaryotic d-xylose catabolism. It is not clear whether microorganisms use different enzymes depending on the carbon source. Here we show that Aspergillus niger makes use of two different enzymes. We identified, cloned, and characterized an l-arabinose reductase, larA, that is different from the d-xylose reductase, xyrA. The larA is up-regulated on l-arabinose, while the xyrA is up-regulated on d-xylose. There is however an initial up-regulation of larA also on d-xylose but that fades away after about 4 h. The deletion of the larA gene in A. niger results in a slow growth phenotype on l-arabinose, whereas the growth on d-xylose is unaffected. The l-arabinose reductase can convert l-arabinose and d-xylose to their corresponding sugar alcohols but has a higher affinity for l-arabinose. The Km for l-arabinose is 54 ± 6 mm and for d-xylose 155 ± 15 mm.
A cloud-removal method based on image fusion using local indexes

For optical images, cloud and cloud shadow is always a problem during image processing and interpretation. Landsat ETM+ images, as a kind of optical images, are affected by cloud too. On the other hand, microwave images such as ALOS PALSAR images, which depend on microwave, is not affected by cloud, thus they are cloud-free. The aim of this study is to develop a semi-automatic method for removing cloud and cloud shadow in Landsat ETM+ images based on fusion of Landsat ETM+ image and ALOS PALSAR image. The key point of this method is to develop a cloud and cloud shadow mask based on which Landsat ETM+ and ALOS PALSAR images can be fused. To accurately define cloud and cloud shadow area, we first approximately draw the area of interest containing cloud and cloud shadow manually, and the resulted AOI image greatly reduce the number of ground objects and the confusion between objects as well. By analysing the spectral and the grey value of the AOI image, we then define LCI (local cloud index), LSI (local shadow index), and LGI (local ground index) to accurately identify cloud and cloud shadow area in Landsat ETM+ images. Finally, a combination mask of cloud and cloud shadow is developed. Based on this mask, Landsat ETM+ image and ALOS PALSAR image are merged. The fused image is cloud free, at the same time; it keeps the spectral feature and the integrity of Landsat ETM+ image.
Comparison of Free-Beam- and Fiber-Type CO2 Laser Delivery Systems in Stapes Surgery

Background and Objectives A free-beam-type CO2 laser, which use a micromanipulator mounted on a microscope as the delivery system, has the merit of not being affected by hand tremor at the time of shooting. However, this delivery system has several disadvantages, including a restricted operation range and a risk of incorrect focusing. A fiber-type CO2 laser uses a hand-held delivery system and has the opposite merits and demerits. We compared the results of stapes surgery with free-beam and fiber type delivery systems. Subjects and Methods The study enrolled 36 patients who underwent stapedotomy with free-beam- (n=26) or fiber- (n=10) type CO2 lasers. The air-bone (AB) gap closure, bone conduction (BC) change, and operating time were evaluated. The AB gap closure was calculated by subtracting the preoperative BC thresholds from the postoperative air conduction thresholds. The BC change was calculated by subtracting the postoperative BC thresholds from the preoperative BC thresholds. Results The mean operating time was significantly (p=0.035) shorter in the fiber-type group (72.5±8.2 min) than in the free-beam-type group (80.5±11.4 min). The mean AB gap closure did not differ significantly (p=0.297) between the free-beamand fiber-type groups (5.8±10.1 and 1.4±6.8 dB, respectively). The mean BC change did not differ significantly (p=0.873) between the free-beam- and fiber-type groups (2.4±6.9 and 2.8±5.3 dB, respectively). The hearing outcomes did not differ significantly between the two groups. Conclusions Operating times were significantly shorter using the fiber-type CO2 laser, while hearing outcomes did not differ significantly between the two groups.
An EBNA-1-dependent enhancer acts from a distance of 10 kilobase pairs to increase expression of the Epstein-Barr virus LMP gene

Upon infection of human B lymphocytes, the 172-kbp Epstein-Barr virus genome forms a covalently closed circle via its terminal repeats. This event brings all of the promoters that control expression of the latent gene products, and the viral origin of plasmid replication, oriP, within a 20-kbp stretch of contiguous DNA. We have found that the EBNA-1-dependent transcriptional enhancer FR, located in oriP, increased the expression of a tagged viral oncogene encoding the latent membrane protein (LMP) up to 200-fold in normal Epstein-Barr virus-positive cells. The effect of FR was exerted across 10 kbp of viral DNA that spans the circularized ends of the viral genome. Enhancement of the tagged LMP gene by FR/EBNA-1 did not require the EBNA-2-responsive element.
A new approach for context-independent handwritten offline diagram recognition using support vector machines

Structured diagrams are very prevalent in many document types. Most people who need to create such diagrams use structured graphics editors such as Microsoft Visio. Structured graphics editors are extremely powerful and expressive but they can be cumbersome to use. We have shown through extensive timing experiments that structured diagrams drawn by hand will take only about 10% of the time it takes to draw one using a tool like Visio. This indicates the value of automated recognition of hand-written diagrams. Recently, applications have been developed that use online systems running on pen-input PCs that allow users to create structured diagrams by drawing the diagram on the PC tablet. The progress of offline diagram recognition is still minimal. The objective of this paper is to propose a context-independent off-line diagram recognition system. Our approach utilizes support vector machines for recognition and line primitive extraction by interpretation of line continuation for segmentation.
Creating facial motions of Cybernetic Human HRP-4C

HRP-4C is our novel biped humanoid robot whose body shape and face appearance are quite similar to those of female humans. It can make not only various whole body motions including biped locomotion but also various facial motions using eleven axes joints inside the head. This paper focuses on the face of HRP-4C, the mechanical structure of it and the software system for creating its facial motions. To make creation process of the facial motions easy and efficient is one of the important technologies for the practical use of the robot. Our system allows controlling the face of actual robot from the graphical user interface running on a client PC with the high responsiveness. This feature enables a creator to efficiently edit detailed facial motions with powerful functions including overdub loop edit, key pose sequence edit with the lip-sync mode, and automatic blinking. By using this system, we were able to rapidly make facial motions for the demonstrations of HRP-4C.
CEO DealMaking Activity , CEO Compensation and Firm Value * October 18 , 2008

CEOs often engage in deal-making activities. We explore whether the motivation for these activities is related more to compensation increases or to signals of CEO quality. To investigate this question, we analyze firms executing joint ventures, strategic alliances, seasoned equity offerings, and spinoffs. We find that total CEO compensation increases when any of these transactions are completed even when the deals are not expected to improve firm value. A further way to distinguish between our hypotheses is to determine the role of board monitoring. We find that pay increases received by CEOs executing deals that do not increase firm value are dispensed when monitoring appears to be weak, as proxied by busy and/or hand-picked boards. Our results also indicate that deal-making CEOs are less likely to be fired for poor performance. Overall the results support the CEO activity hypothesis over the CEO quality signaling hypothesis. JEL classification: G30, G34, K22
A Support Vector Regression-Based Prediction of Students' School Performance

The relationship between a person's personality and performance has long been studied by psychologists. Research suggests that a person's performance and behavior are related to personality characteristics and background data to a certain degree. In this paper, the Big Five personality model is adopted for measuring profiles of students, whose undergraduate performance and behavior are then analyzed. A machine learning approach, support vector regression (SVR), is employed to find correlations from the given sample data. The performance and behavior of a person are predicted from the obtained regression values. Personality, biological, performance, and behavior data of 120 undergraduates in Taiwan were collected through questionnaires. Ninety valid data samples are used for training in SVR and the others are used for evaluating the regression predictions. Most of the predicted performance yielded near 80% accuracy. It is shown that there are correlations between a person's performance and personality characteristics. SVR is shown to be a suitable method for exploring personality correlations.
A New Efficient Distributed Load Balancing Algorithm for OTIS-Star Networks

Abstract The OTIS-Star interconnection network is one of the promising interconnection networks for future high speed distributed computing, The OTIS-Star topology consists of both edge and vertex symmetry, it has many attractive topological proprieties based on it is own hierarchical structure nature. Many research efforts have been devoted on this attractive network in literature, but these efforts did not address the problem of load balancing which is an important issue that must be addressed in any new topology. In this paper, we are investigating and proposing a new efficient algorithm for load balancing problem for the OTIS-Star network. The investigated algorithm is called OTIS-Star Electronic-Optical-Electronic Exchange Method; OSEOEM for short; to be implemented on the OTIS-Star network. The proposed algorithm is based on the FOFEM method presented for OTIS-Cube networks. The OSEOEM algorithm has shown to be an efficient in redistributing the load balancing for OTIS-Star networks, the outcome resulted an equal distribution of loads among all nodes within the network.
Factorization of Force and Timing in Sensorimotor Performance: Long-Range Correlation Properties of Two Different Task Goals

Long-range correlations are often manifested in the form of 1/fβ noise in a series of repeated measurements of the same neural or behavioral variable. Recent work has demonstrated that the magnitude and nature of these long-range correlations reliably capture individual differences and variation in task performance. In sensorimotor timing experiments, task characteristics such as tapping or circle drawing affect these long-range correlations during the production of isochronous time intervals. Such correlations are highly reproducible across multiple trials for the same task but do not correlate between tasks. In the present experiment, we investigate whether two behavioral variables that are simultaneously controlled by the same participant in a given experimental condition can show such differentially organized fluctuations. In order to answer this question, 13 participants were asked to produce repetitive movements with their right index finger at a specified time interval (500 ms) and a specified force (8N) in the absence of an auditory metronome and visual feedback of force levels following a synchronization-continuation paradigm. Although participants showed high levels of consistency in the long-range correlations for each task component separately over multiple trials/observations, the long-range fluctuations for force and timing were found to show no correlations with each other for each participant. Cross recurrence quantification analyses (CRQA) revealed that there was limited shared structure between the timing and force time series data. Taken together, these results suggest that complex systems can organize multiple processes in a relatively independent manner while maintaining a high degree of reliability within one task parameter.
Polymorphisms in Genes Involved in Fatty Acid β-Oxidation Interact with Dietary Fat Intakes to Modulate the Plasma TG Response to a Fish Oil Supplementation

A large inter-individual variability in the plasma triglyceride (TG) response to an omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid (n-3 PUFA) supplementation has been observed. The objective was to examine gene-diet interaction effects on the plasma TG response after a fish oil supplementation, between single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) within genes involved in fatty acid β-oxidation and dietary fat intakes. Two hundred and eight (208) participants were recruited in the greater Quebec City area. The participants completed a six-week fish oil supplementation (5 g fish oil/day: 1.9–2.2 g EPA and 1.1 g DHA). Dietary fat intakes were measured using three-day food records. SNPs within RXRA, CPT1A, ACADVL, ACAA2, ABCD2, ACOX1 and ACAA1 genes were genotyped using TAQMAN methodology. Gene-diet interaction effects on the plasma TG response were observed for SNPs within RXRA (rs11185660, rs10881576 and rs12339187) and ACOX1 (rs17583163) genes. For rs11185660, fold changes in RXRA gene expression levels were different depending on SFA intakes for homozygotes T/T. Gene-diet interaction effects of SNPs within genes involved in fatty acid β-oxidation and dietary fat intakes may be important in understanding the inter-individual variability in plasma TG levels and in the plasma TG response to a fish oil supplementation.
High speed 15 ns 4 Mbits SRAM for space application

A high speed 15 ns 4 Mbits asynchronous SRAM, 500 /spl mu/A stand-by current, 300 krads total dose tolerant, has been developed for space applications, using a hardened 0.25 micron 4 layers metal full CMOS process. A hierarchical organisation per IO bits has been used to achieve high speed as well as low dynamic consumption, also suited for simple SEU (single event upset) induced error corrections, allowing mitigation with the classical EDAC corrector. The product operates within 3 to 3.6 V, and ambient temperature from -55 to +125/spl deg/C. A high density die size of 68.3 mm/sup 2/ allows the use of a specific 36-pins dual in line flat pack package with a 500 mils width, making this product very competitive against SEU hardened chips. Successful silicon results are presented as well as radiation tests up to 300 krads.
Patient values and preferences for end-of-life treatments: are values better predictors than a living will?

BACKGROUND Advance care planning is widely considered important for good treatment decision making. Patient values have been proposed as superior to standard living wills as guides to end-of-life (EOL) care decisions on behalf of decisionally incapacitated patients. Little research has examined whether values outperform living wills as predictors of treatment preferences. OBJECTIVE The study aimed to test whether patient values are associated with treatment preferences, compare values and preferences to responses from a standard living will, and determine whether some values are better predictors than others. DESIGN Community-dwelling elderly men and women (n=304) were interviewed in their homes by telephone. The interview consisted of an eight-item EOL values scale, a standard living will question, preferences for four life-prolonging treatments in each of six scenarios, and sociodemographic questions. RESULTS Principal components analysis of the EOL values revealed two factors: (1) dignity, pain management, and reluctance to burden others; and (2) religiosity and desire for longevity and following family wishes. In regression analyses, stronger preferences for life-prolonging treatments were correlated with higher scores on factor 1 and lower scores on factor 2. But when living will responses were also entered into the regression model, only religiosity, longevity, and following family wishes predicted treatment preferences independently of the living will responses. CONCLUSIONS Providing better guidance than a living will in determining a patient's EOL treatment preferences are (1) knowledge about a patient's religiosity, (2) patient's wishes for longevity, and (3) patient's wishes for following family preferences. Wishes for dignity and pain management and reluctance to burden others do not offer better guidance than a living will.
Ordered, Disordered and Partially Synchronized Schools of Fish

Abstract We study the properties of an ODE description of schools of fish (B. Birnir, An ODE model of the motion of pelagic fish, J. Stat. Phys. 128(1/2) (2007), 535–568. ) and how they change in the presence of a random acceleration. The model can be reduced to one ODE for the direction of the velocity of a generic fish and another ODE for its speed. These equations contain the mean speed vˉ $\bar{v}$ and a Kuramoto order parameter r $r$ for the phases of the fish velocities. In this paper, we give a complete qualitative analysis of the system for large number of particles. We show that the stationary solutions of the ODEs consist of an incoherent unstable solution with r=vˉ=0 $r\! \! =\! \! \bar{v}\! \! =\! \! 0$ and a globally stable solution with r=1 $r\! =\! 1$ and a constant vˉ>0 $\bar{v}\! >\! 0$. In the latter solution, all the fish move uniformly in the same direction with vˉ $\bar{v}$ and the direction of motion determined by the initial configuration of the school. This is called the “migratory solution”. In the second part of the paper, the directional headings of the particles are perturbed, in two distinct ways, and the speeds accelerated in order to obtain two distinct classes of non-stationary, complex solutions. We show that the perturbed systems have similar behavior as the unperturbed one, and derive the resulting constant value of the average speed, verifying the numerical observations. Finally, we show that the system exhibits a similar bifurcation to that in Vicsek and Czirok (T. Vicsek, A. Czirók, E. Ben-Jacob, I. Cohen and O. Shochet, Novel type of phase transition in a system of self-driven particles, Phys. Rev. Lett. 75(6) (Aug 1995), 1226–1229. ) between phases of synchronization and disorder. Either increasing the variance of the Brownian angular noise, or decreasing the turning rate, or coupling between the particles, cause a similar phase transition. These perturbed models represent a more realistic view of schools of fish found in nature. We apply the theory to compute the order parameter for a simulation of the Chile-Peru anchovy fishery.
Method for identification of perlite-class steel microstructure parameters using metallographic images

A method for finding the microstructural parameters of low-carbon steel using its metallographic images is proposed. It allows to determine the following parameters: the ratio of perlite to ferrite phases, the parameters of grains of crystallites and their mutual arrangement; the degree of granularity of the pearlite phases. The method is aimed at predicting the strength characteristics of steel samples and consists of several stages. The preprocessing step involves color reduction, refinement of the area of interest, noise filtering, illumination refinement and histogram equalization. The segmentation of the image is associated with the search for the size, area and convex shell of grains. The stage of finding the microstructural parameters is based on the stochastic gradient-based estimation of the parameters of the segmented objects. Examples of analysis of steel oil pipeline samples with a forecast of their strength characteristics are given.
DWT based Low Power Image Compressor for Wireless Capsule Endoscopy

In WCE literature so far, the stress is on having an image compressor with low power consumption and silicon area. However one needs to consider the image compressor along with the serialiser, the interface between image compressor and transmitter as a single unit. In this paper, we propose the design of a hardware efficient, low power image compression system along with the serialiser for wireless capsule endoscopy. It is based on integer version of discrete wavelet transform and uses low complexity encoders like adaptive Golomb-Rice encoder. An alternative architecture for serialiser is proposed specific to the algorithm which runs at only 8 times instead of 32 times the frequency required at the existing compressors in the literature. The proposed algorithm gives a compression of 91.88 percent at a PSNR of 38.17. The implementation of the compressor plus serialiser in 130nm HS (high speed) standard CMOS process technology consumes 16.9uW of power at 2 frames per second for 256×256 image. Compared to the existing designs at similar power consumption, the proposed scheme reduces the serialiser’s frequency by a factor of four besides giving at least 1.5 % higher