Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Optimal load distribution for multi-state systems under selective maintenance strategy

Many engineering systems are exposed to run in load-varying environment. Load has a significant impact on the deteriorating process of components and system. Distributing the loads optimally among components of a system can reduce the failure probability and prolong the system life. In this paper, an approach to load distribution for multi-state systems under selective maintenance strategy is developed. In addition to optimally allocating the limited maintenance budget among components, the proposed method also provides a feasible way to distribute loads imposed on components so as to maximize the probability of system successfully completing the next mission. The resulting optimization problem is solved by the genetic algorithm (GA). As observed from our comparative study, the proposed method always yields a better result that the existing method which doesn't take load distribution into account.
Consumer Criteria for an Arm Orthosis

For people with muscular dystrophy and spinal muscular atrophy conditions characterized by degenerating muscle strength there is a need for an exoskeletal mechanism that allows the person to move their arms about freely. This paper presents a consumer-based design approach in order to construct such an assistive manipulation device and details the initial stages that have been addressed in an orthosis design project within the Applied Science and Engineering Laboratories. Two consumer meetings were held during the initial stages of the design. The results from these meetings are presented. A design principle has been established and an initial set of prototypes evaluated. These will be used to modify subsequent design iterations. Introduction Disabilities such as muscular dystrophy affect the strength of a person’s muscles, yet leave sensation and residual muscular control intact. It is hypothesized that augmenting residual arm function, rather than replacing it with a remotely controlled device such as a robot, is a more effective solution. An ongoing project within the robotics laboratory of the Applied Science and Engineering Laboratories (ASEL) explores methods of augmenting function via a powered orthosis that can support a person’s arms against gravity and provide full range of arm movement. Control of such an orthosis is achieved either by amplifying the person’s residual strength or by using signals obtained from other body sites. Individuals with either total paralysis or absence of sufficient muscle tone for performance of desired arm function, are the focus of this study. The aim for the final system is to have an orthosis that can be mounted to a wheelchair. This decision both suits the needs of the target population and makes the engineering a more tractable proposition.
Draft Genome Sequence of the Nicotinate-Metabolizing Soil Bacterium Bacillus niacini DSM 2923

ABSTRACT Bacillus niacini is a member of a small yet diverse group of bacteria able to catabolize nicotinic acid. We report here the availability of a draft genome for B. niacini, which we will use to understand the evolution of its namesake phenotype, which appears to be unique among the species in its phylogenetic neighborhood.
Extensive Sequence Divergence among Bovine Respiratory Syncytial Viruses Isolated during Recurrent Outbreaks in Closed Herds

ABSTRACT The nucleotides coding for the extracellular part of the G glycoprotein and the full SH protein of bovine respiratory syncytial virus (BRSV) were sequenced from viruses isolated from numerous outbreaks of BRSV infection. The isolates included viruses isolated from the same herd (closed dairy farms and veal calf production units) in different years and from all confirmed outbreaks in Denmark within a short period. The results showed that identical viruses were isolated within a herd during outbreaks and that viruses from recurrent infections varied by up to 11% in sequence even in closed herds. It is possible that a quasispecies variant swarm of BRSV persisted in some of the calves in each herd and that a new and different highly fit virus type (master and consensus sequence) became dominant and spread from a single animal in connection with each new outbreak. Based on the high level of diversity, however, the most likely explanation was that BRSV was (re)introduced into the herd prior to each new outbreak. These findings are highly relevant for the understanding of the transmission patterns of BRSV among calves and human respiratory syncytial virus among humans.
Android privacy

Due to technological progress, today's mobile phones have evolved into technically and functionally sophisticated smartphones which have more in common with computers than with the conventional phones. As a result of their popularity and functionality, smartphones are a burgeoning target for malicious activities In Android privacy; we undertake two aspects such as user and developer. For users, a known fact in Android mobile, any app can be downloaded from Android Market without accessing a significant quantity of personal data which is different in App Store. For app developers, the App Store's method acquires developed app need to be signed using a private encryption key. Furthermore, several privacy related data such as personal information, IMEI, and location which are leaks already existing in Android Smartphone for a while. In this paper, we explain what kind of data is at risk and how to acquire them programmatically without the user's permission. We will focus on how to obtain the data illicitly which are of Android privacy concerns and the categorization of these Android privacy issues. For example, mobile number, email accounts, keyboard cache entries, browser searches and the most recent location are sensitive data attractive to the attackers. This paper also shows how we use the Android API to perform our Spyware to obtain the sensitive information. Some attack scenarios and recommendations are also presented.
A new brachial plexus block technique in dogs.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the feasibility and efficacy of a new technique of brachial plexus anesthesia in dogs. STUDY DESIGN Prospective, experimental study. ANIMALS Twelve adult mongrel dogs, six males and six females weighing 14.8 ± 1.75 kg. METHODS The animals were sedated with acepromazine 0.05 mg kg-1 and anesthetized with propofol (6 mg kg-1, IV bolus) followed by an infusion of 212 μg kg-1 minute-1. The brachial plexus block technique was performed utilizing the brachial artery as an anatomic landmark, the needle was inserted from the axilla and a nerve stimulator was used to ensure the accuracy of needle placement. Bupivacaine (0.375% with 5 μg mL-1 epinephrine) was used at a dose rate of 4 mg kg-1. Dogs underwent mid-diaphyseal osteotomies of the humerus followed by intramedullary pin fixation. RESULTS Onset time to motor and sensory block were 9.70 ± 5.52 and 26.20 ± 8.86 minutes, respectively. Analgesia lasted for 11.11 ± 0.47 hours. The block was effective in 91.6% of the animals, being verified by anesthesia of the whole front limb distal to the shoulder. One animal became hypotensive after the block and did not undergo the surgery at that time. In the remaining 10 animals the heart and respiratory rates, blood pressure, blood gas parameters and plasma bicarbonate concentration did not show any statistically significant alterations during the surgical procedure. CONCLUSIONS This brachial plexus block technique is effective in most cases to provide surgical analgesia for the front limb distal to the shoulder. CLINICAL RELEVANCE Various surgical procedures in the front limb can be performed with a regional anesthetic technique without the use and concomitant risks of general anesthesia in dogs. Long-lasting analgesia associated with this technique may also provide a valuable tool for the management of pain in the forelimb.
Demo Abstract: DisCord - Discovering and Coordinating Data Exchange Protocol in Opportunistic Wireless Sensor Networks

We propose DisCord, an opportunistic protocol for neighbor discovery and data exchange coordination in sensor networks. DisCord allows multiple low-end nodes within radio range to discover each other, self-organize into a network, and exchange data in an autonomous fashion. DisCord can successfully cope with node mobility and unstable network dynamics.
Prediction of milk yields from serum beta-lactoglobulin concentrations in pregnant heifers.

The serum concentration of beta-LG at wk 26 of pregnancy was determined in Holstein heifers of known genetic merit to evaluate use of a single blood sample as an index to predict their subsequent milk yield. Concentrations of beta-LG varied widely (16 to 1200 ng/ml) in the serum of the heifers at this stage of pregnancy. Subsequent measures of lactation performance showed that heifers with high beta-LG concentrations in pregnancy produced more milk than those with low beta-LG in serum. Previous studies have shown that the concentration of beta-LG in serum shows a log-linear increase during pregnancy, which is consistent with correlation to the growth of the mammary parenchyma. Therefore, the logarithm beta-LG concentration was used as the index in this study. The correlations of this index were . 46, . 54, and . 48 for first lactation 305-d yields of milk, fat, and protein, respectively. The results suggest that serum concentrations of beta-LG estimated from a single blood sample at this stage of pregnancy can be used to predict milk yield. Analysis showed that an explanation of future milk yield was significantly improved by use of serum beta-LG and parent average. Serum beta-LG can be used as a physiological marker to prescreen heifers for lactation potential.
Bayesian inference for high‐dimensional linear regression under mnet priors

For regression problems that involve many potential predictors, the Bayesian variable selection (BVS) method is a powerful tool. This method associates each model with its posterior probability and achieves excellent prediction performance through Bayesian model averaging. The main challenges of using such models include specifying a suitable prior and computing posterior quantities for inference. We contribute to the literature of BVS modelling in the following aspects. We first propose a new family of priors, called the mnet prior, which is indexed by a few hyperparameters that allow great flexibility in the prior density. The hyperparameters can also be treated as random, so that their values need not be tuned manually, but will instead adapt to the data. Simulation studies are used to demonstrate good prediction and variable selection performances of these models. Secondly, the analytical expression of the posterior distribution is unavailable for the BVS model under the mnet prior in general, as is the case for most BVS models. We develop an adaptive Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm that facilitates the computation in high‐dimensional regression problems. We finally showcase various ways to do inference with BVS models, highlighting a new way to visualize the importance of each predictor along with estimation of the coefficients and their uncertainties. These are demonstrated through the analysis of a breast cancer gene expression dataset. The Canadian Journal of Statistics 44: 180–197; 2016 © 2016 Statistical Society of Canada
Sequence Graph Transform (SGT): A Feature Extraction Function for Sequence Data Mining

Sequence feature embedding is a challenging task due to un-structuredness of sequences -- arbitrary strings of arbitrary length. Existing methods are efficient in extracting short-term dependencies but typically suffer from computation issues for the long-term. Sequence Graph Transform (SGT), a feature embedding function, that can extract any amount of short- to long- term dependencies without increasing the computation -- proved theoretically -- is proposed. SGT features yield significantly superior results in sequence clustering and classification with higher accuracy and lower computation as compared to the existing methods, including the state-of-the-art sequence/string Kernels and LSTM.
Searchable Data Vault: Encrypted Queries in Secure Distributed Cloud Storage

Cloud storage services allow users to efficiently outsource their documents anytime and anywhere. Such convenience, however, leads to privacy concerns. While storage providers may not read users’ documents, attackers may possibly gain access by exploiting vulnerabilities in the storage system. Documents may also be leaked by curious administrators. A simple solution is for the user to encrypt all documents before submitting them. This method, however, makes it impossible to efficiently search for documents as they are all encrypted. To resolve this problem, we propose a multi-server searchable symmetric encryption (SSE) scheme and construct a system called the searchable data vault (SDV). A unique feature of the scheme is that it allows an encrypted document to be divided into blocks and distributed to different storage servers so that no single storage provider has a complete document. By incorporating the scheme, the SDV protects the privacy of documents while allowing for efficient private queries. It utilizes a web interface and a controller that manages user credentials, query indexes and submission of encrypted documents to cloud storage services. It is also the first system that enables a user to simultaneously outsource and privately query documents from a few cloud storage services. Our preliminary performance evaluation shows that this feature introduces acceptable computation overheads when compared to submitting documents directly to a cloud storage service.
Diagnostic delay in sternocostoclavicular hyperostosis: Impact on various aspects of quality of life

Sternocostoclavicular hyperostosis (SCCH) is a rare, debilitating, chronic inflammatory disorder of the anterior chest wall due to a chronic sterile osteomyelitis of unknown origin, often associated with characteristic skin lesions of palms and soles: pustulosis palmoplantaris. SCCH goes often unrecognized for years before the diagnosis is established and treatment instituted. The objective of this study was to trace the diagnostic paths of patients with SCCH and to investigate the consequences associated with diagnostic delay.
Students' Interlanguage Process in Writing Daily Activities

The aim of this study was to provide analysis on the grammatical errors occurred to the Seventh grade students of SMPN 01 Embaloh Hulu and their interlanguage causes in the students’ writing. This research was conducted through the procedure of error analysis. Surface strategy taxonomy, as one of the error types of error analysis was used for further analysis in order to describe the students’ errors. The subjects of this research were the seventh grade students of SMPN 01 Embaloh Hulu in the academic year of 2020/2021. The collected samples were taken by sorting out the samples from the students’ writing tasks. The samples were analyzed by the criteria of errors called Omission, Addition, Misordering, and Misformation. The result showed that the students produced 92% of non-English-like sentences in their writing. The most frequent error type made by the students was omission type. The result revealed 48% errors appearing on the students’ writing. The indicated result discovered that the students’ interlanguage process covered both the central process of interlanguage called overgeneralization of TL rules and strategy in language learning.Keywords: Interlanguage, Interlanguage Process, Surface Strategy Taxonomy
Socialization or Rewards? Predicting U.S. Scientist-Media Interactions

This study investigates scientists as public communicators, with a particular focus on factors that influence scientists' interactions with the mass media. Based on a U.S. survey of scientists, the results show that some of the patterns characterizing these interactions have remained remarkably stable over the course of at least three decades. Scientists continue to interact with journalists more frequently than commonly assumed, and status, socialization, and positive intrinsic rewards are all positively associated with higher frequencies of media contact.
Guidance and Belief

There is a difference between those things one does that manifest agency and those things that merely happen to one or that are the effects of one's agency. My typing these words manifests my agencyis an action of mine -whereas growing older is merely happening to me and making sounds as I type is but an effect of my action. Actions are sometimes but not always done for reasons and are characteristically but perhaps not invariably known by the agent without observation or inference. I'm typing in order to get my paper done on time, and I don't need to look to know that this is what I am doing, though I wouldn't know without hearing it that I am making noises as I type. In this paper I will offer an account of these facts about action. The account starts from the idea that an agent performing an action guides what she is doing. The account I will develop is meant to contrast with what is now the dominant view, which aims to understand action and acting for a reason in causal terms. This dominant view has three parts. One is a causal theory of action. It holds that whether what a person is doing manifests agency depends on what caused her to do it, on the events that brought the action about. A second part is a causal theory of acting for a reason. It holds that when a person is doing something for a reason, those reasons caused her to be doing it. On one version of the dominant view, all actions are done for reasons, so that a person is performing an action only if her reasons made her do it. The third part of the dominant view is a causal conception of beliefs, desires, and intentions. It holds that these are internal bodily states fit to cause actions, and so fit to be reasons for action. My typing these words is an action, on this picture, because my doing it was caused by the internal psychological states that are the reasons for my
Phytochrome Signaling Is Mediated by PHYTOCHROME INTERACTING FACTOR in the Liverwort Marchantia polymorpha

A light-dependent transcriptional regulatory mechanism involving phytochrome and the transcription factor PIF was already established in liverwort and perhaps in the common ancestor of land plants. Phytochromes are red light (R) and far-red light (FR) receptors that play important roles in many aspects of plant growth and development. Phytochromes mainly function in the nucleus and regulate sets of genes by inhibiting negatively acting basic helix-loop-helix transcription factors named PHYTOCHROME INTERACTING FACTORs (PIFs) in Arabidopsis thaliana. Although R/FR photoreversible responses and phytochrome genes are well documented in diverse lineages of plants, the extent to which phytochrome signaling is mediated by gene regulation beyond angiosperms remains largely unclear. Here, we show that the liverwort Marchantia polymorpha, an emerging model basal land plant, has only one phytochrome gene, Mp-PHY, and only one PIF gene, Mp-PIF. These genes mediate typical low fluence responses, which are reversibly elicited by R and FR, and regulate gene expression. Mp-phy is light-stable and translocates into the nucleus upon irradiation with either R or FR, demonstrating that the single phytochrome Mp-phy exhibits combined biochemical and cell-biological characteristics of type I and type II phytochromes. Mp-phy photoreversibly regulates gemma germination and downstream gene expression by interacting with Mp-PIF and targeting it for degradation in an R-dependent manner. Our findings suggest that the molecular mechanisms for light-dependent transcriptional regulation mediated by PIF transcription factors were established early in land plant evolution.
Looking good and sounding right: Aesthetic labour

Welcome to this Special Section on the theory of aesthetic labour – a theory which was first developed by a group of researchers, Chris Warhurst, Dennis Nickson and Anne Witz, in Glasgow and who subsequently became known as the ‘Strathclyde group’. This theory has since been applied and developed by many social scientists, and the Special Section contributes to ongoing debates about the nature of aesthetic labour. The theory of aesthetic labour originated from empirical observations of ‘a number of job adverts in the UK press for the hospitality and retail sectors asking for potential employees who were “stylish”, “outgoing”, “attractive” or “trendy”, and “well spoken and of smart appearance” ’ (Warhurst and Nickson, 2001: 17). This was not a novelty – dress codes were, for example, in place in department stores as early on as the 1910s, although salespeople at Macy’s in New York were reported to prefer training in merchandise, sales techniques and display to training in ‘personal grooming’ (Benson, 1978: 46–47). The theory that was developed on the basis of these observations and subsequent empirical studies, however, was new. There is a wave of aesthetics going through social science analyses of working life: aesthetic aspects of occupations, aesthetic perspectives on organisations, aesthetic sides of leadership and aesthetic approaches to labour markets. There are many definitions of ‘aesthetic’, but in general, aesthetic questions involve knowledge originating from our senses – sight, hearing, smell, taste or touch – and the meanings of this knowledge. A sociological formulation of the concept might be that ‘an aesthetic object (or act) is defined as an object (or act) that is intended to produce a sensory response in an audience’ (Fine, 1992: 1269). These meanings contain judgements – not only of beauty but also of ugliness, not only of good but also of bad: an enjoyable or a repulsive view, a beautiful or a hideous sound, a pleasant or a nasty aroma, a goodor a bad-tasting dish, something that is soothing or abhorrent to come into physical contact with. In spite of this connection with our senses, those aspects are also relational in that they are learnt during interactions with others and developed during informal negotiations (Fine, 1996: 178–179; Taylor and Hansen, 2005: 1212).
Explicit Representations of Problem-solving Strategies to Support Knowledge Acquisition Abstract Schema 2.1 Solving Conguration Design Tasks with Propose-and-revise 2.2 Knowledge Acquisition for Propose-and-revise in a Role- Limiting Tool

USC/Information Sciences Institute 4676 Admiralty Way Marina del Rey, CA 90292 gil@isi.edu, melz@isi.edu email: A shorter version of this paper will appear in the Proceedings of the Thirteen National Conference on Arti cial Intelligence (AAAI-96), Portland, OR, August 4-8, 1996. Role-limiting approaches support knowledge acquisition (KA) by centering knowledge base construction on common types of tasks or domain-independent problem-solving strategies. Within a particular problem-solving strategy, domain-dependent knowledge plays speci c roles. A KA tool then helps a user to ll these roles. Although role-limiting approaches are useful for guiding KA, they are limited because they only support users in lling knowledge roles that have been built in by the designers of the KA system. EXPECT takes a di erent approach to KA by representing problem-solving knowledge explicitly, and deriving from the current knowledge base the knowledge gaps that must be resolved by the user during KA. This paper contrasts role-limiting approaches and EXPECT's approach, using the propose-and-revise strategy as an example. EXPECT not only supports users in lling knowledge roles, but also provides support in 1) adapting the problemsolving strategy, 2) changing the types of information to be acquired about a knowledge role, 3) adding new knowledge roles, and 4) acquiring additional background information about the domain needed by the knowledge-based system. EXPECT's guidance changes as the knowledge base changes, providing a more exible approach to knowledge acquisition. This work provides evidence supporting the need for explicit representations in building knowledge-based systems. et al. et al.