Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning for Value Co-Creation of Collaborative Transportation Management (CTM)

Collaborative﻿Transportation﻿Management﻿(CTM)﻿is﻿a﻿collaboration﻿model﻿in﻿transportation﻿area. ﻿The﻿ use﻿of﻿CTM﻿in﻿today’s﻿business﻿process﻿is﻿to﻿create﻿efficiency﻿in﻿transportation﻿planning﻿and﻿execution﻿ processes. ﻿However,﻿previous﻿research﻿paid﻿little﻿attention﻿to﻿demonstrate﻿the﻿ability﻿for﻿all﻿agents﻿ in﻿CTM﻿to﻿co-create﻿value﻿in﻿services. ﻿The﻿purpose﻿of﻿this﻿paper﻿is﻿to﻿increase﻿the﻿understanding﻿of﻿ value﻿co-creation﻿in﻿CTM﻿area﻿and﻿learning﻿processes﻿in﻿real﻿systems﻿based﻿on﻿value﻿co-creation﻿ of﻿CTM. ﻿Multiple﻿case﻿studies﻿were﻿used﻿to﻿analyze﻿the﻿value﻿that﻿was﻿perceived﻿by﻿all﻿agents﻿in﻿ CTM﻿in﻿each﻿collaboration﻿stage﻿and﻿provided﻿empirical﻿evidence﻿on﻿the﻿interactions﻿among﻿agents. ﻿ Model-free﻿reinforcement﻿learning﻿was﻿used﻿to﻿predict﻿how﻿CTM﻿could﻿reduce﻿transportation﻿cost,﻿ increase﻿visibility,﻿and﻿improve﻿agility. ﻿The﻿simulation﻿results﻿show﻿that﻿the﻿input,﻿feedback,﻿and﻿the﻿ experience﻿of﻿the﻿agents﻿are﻿used﻿to﻿structure﻿the﻿collaboration﻿processes﻿and﻿determine﻿the﻿strategies. KeywoRdS Agent Based Modeling, Collaborative Transportation Management (CTM), Multi-Agent Model, Reinforcement Learning, Value Co-Creation
Design of a voice-enabled interface for real-time access to stock exchange from a PDA through GPRS

In this paper we describe the design of a voice-enabled interface embedded in a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA). It is a component of a more complex system which allows the access to real-time information (for example, prices on stock exchange) via the General Packet Radio Service (GPRS). Specifically, we have focused on the Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) module: we have implemented a fixed-point version of the whole ASR system and recognition results showed that its performance is very similar to that achieved with its floating-point implementation. In addition, with the purpose of facilitate as much as possible the portability of the ASR system to other hand-held devices, we have dealt with the problem of adapting a set of general acoustic models to match a specific acoustic environment when few adaptation data is available.
Protective effect of chuanxiongzine-puerarin in a rat model of transient middle cerebral artery occlusion-induced focal cerebral ischemia

AimThe aim of this study was to investigate the protective effect of chuanxiongzine-puerarin on cerebral ischemia-reperfusion damage in a rat model. MethodsRats were randomized into the following three groups: control group (sham operation group), model group (cerebral ischemia-reperfusion damage group), and treatment group (puerarin group, chuanxiongzine-puerarin group, and nimodipine group). The effect of neurological deficit, infarct volume and levels of superoxide dismutase (SOD), malondialdehyde (MDA), nitric oxide (NO), synaptophysin, and interleukin-1 was assessed. The therapeutic effect was also evaluated micro-positive emission tomography with [18F]fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose. ResultsAfter cerebral ischemia-reperfusion damage, the neurologic deficit score and the infarct volume percentage in treatment group were significantly lower than in the model group (P<0.01). Micro-positive emission tomography imaging showed that glucose metabolism in the right temporal lobe and the right frontal lobe were significantly decreased in the model group in comparison with the sham operation group (P<0.01). After treatment, glucose metabolism increased significantly in the puerarin group and the chuanxiongzine-puerarin group, compared with the model group (P<0.05 and <0.01, respectively). The expression of interleukin-1&bgr;-mRNA was significantly higher in the model group than in the sham operation group (P<0.01). After treatment, however, it was significantly decreased in the puerarin group (P<0.05) and the chuanxiongzine-puerarin group (P<0.01) compared with the model group. SOD activity in the model group (P<0.01) was lower than that in the sham operation group, whereas MDA and NO content in the model group was more than that in the sham operation group (P<0.01). In the chuanxiongzine-puerarin and puerarin treatment groups, SOD activity showed higher level compared with the model group (P<0.01); however, MDA and NO content was decreased in the treatment group (P<0.01). Synaptophysin level was significantly lower in the model group compared with the sham operation group (P<0.01), whereas the chuanxiongzine-puerarin and puerarin groups showed significantly higher values than the model group (P<0.05). ConclusionThis study showed that chuanxiongzine-puerarin played an important protective role against cerebral ischemic reperfusion damage in a rat model.
Mitochondrial targeting and a novel transmembrane arrest of Alzheimer's amyloid precursor protein impairs mitochondrial function in neuronal cells

Alzheimer's amyloid precursor protein 695 (APP) is a plasma membrane protein, which is known to be the source of the toxic amyloid β (Aβ) peptide associated with the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Here we demonstrate that by virtue of its chimeric NH2-terminal signal, APP is also targeted to mitochondria of cortical neuronal cells and select regions of the brain of a transgenic mouse model for AD. The positively charged residues at 40, 44, and 51 of APP are critical components of the mitochondrial-targeting signal. Chemical cross-linking together with immunoelectron microscopy show that the mitochondrial APP exists in NH2-terminal inside transmembrane orientation and in contact with mitochondrial translocase proteins. Mutational studies show that the acidic domain, which spans sequence 220–290 of APP, causes the transmembrane arrest with the COOH-terminal 73-kD portion of the protein facing the cytoplasmic side. Accumulation of full-length APP in the mitochondrial compartment in a transmembrane-arrested form, but not lacking the acidic domain, caused mitochondrial dysfunction and impaired energy metabolism. These results show, for the first time, that APP is targeted to neuronal mitochondria under some physiological and pathological conditions.
INCIDENCE OF ENDOPHTHALMITIS RELATED TO INTRAVITREAL INJECTION OF BEVACIZUMAB AND RANIBIZUMAB

Purpose: To report the overall incidence of endophthalmitis associated with office based intravitreal injections of bevacizumab and ranibizumab. Methods: This is a retrospective, consecutive, multicenter case series involving four large clinical sites. Included were all patients receiving at least one injection of intravitreal bevacizumab or intravitreal ranibizumab. Follow-up after each injection was at least 4 weeks. Results: A total of 12,585 injections of intravitreal bevacizumab and 14,320 injections of intravitreal ranibizumab were given during the study period. Infectious endophthalmitis developed in three patients after administration of bevacizumab and in three patients after administration of ranibizumab. Four of these patients were culture positive. Rates of endophthalmitis were 0.02% and 0.02%, respectively, with an overall rate of 0.02%. Conclusion: The rate of endophthalmitis associated with intravitreal bevacizumab and ranibizumab is low, with an incidence of approximately 1 in 4,500 injections.
Arguing about Plans: Plan Representation and Reasoning for Mixed-initiative Planning

We consider the problem of representing plans for mixed-initiative planning, where several participants cooperate to develop plans. We claim that in such an environment, a crucial task is plan communication: the ability to suggest aspects of a plan, accept such suggestions from other agents, criticize plans, revise them, etc., in addition to building plans. The complexity of this interaction imposes significant new requirements on the representation of plans. We describe a formal model of plans based on defeasible argument systems that allows us to perform these types of reasoning. The arguments that are produced are explicit objects that can be used to provide a semantics for statements about plans.
Things that Blink: Computationally Augmented Name Tags

The conventional name tag automatically dispenses information at a time when it is useful and relevant. The name of the person wearing the tag is visible in a face-to-face encounter. The information presented on a name tag changes according to who is wearing the name tag, but it does not depend on who is viewing the name tag. This paper presents a computationally augmented name tag-the "Thinking Tag"-that is capable of displaying different information depending on who is viewing it. When two participants at an event face each other, their name tags change to reflect a simple measure of how much they have in common. A goal of the Thinking Tag technology design is to create an augmented name tag that does not interfere with the social mechanisms that normally operate among groups of people. Therefore, the communication and computation technology are hidden within the tag.
Assessment of the e-AR sensor for gait analysis of Parkinson;s Disease patients

This paper analyses gait patterns of patients with Parkinson's Disease (PD) based on the acceleration data given by an e-AR sensor. Ten PD patients wearing the e-AR sensor walked along a 7m walkway and each session contained 16 repeated trials. An iterative algorithm has been proposed to produce robust estimations in the case of measurement noise and short-duration of gait signals. Step-frequency as a gait parameter derived from the estimated heel-contacts is calculated and validated using the CODA motion-capture system. Intersession variability of step-frequency for each patient and the overall variability across patients demonstrate a good agreement between estimations from the e-AR and CODA systems.
Health and safety implications of recruitment payments in migrant construction workers

Background The Middle East construction sector is heavily reliant on a migrant workforce that predominantly originates from South Asia. It is common practice for migrant construction workers to pay a local labour recruiter the equivalent of one or more years’ prospective overseas salary to secure employment, work and travel permits and transportation. The occupational health and safety implications of these financial arrangements remain unexplored. Aims To examine associations between payment to a labour recruiter, perceived general health and worksite accidents among migrant construction workers in the Middle East. Methods A questionnaire was completed by a convenience sample of predominantly Indian migrant construction workers drawn from a large construction project. The relationship between payment and risk of poor health and workplace accidents was assessed using multivariate logistic regression models (crude and adjusted for socio-demographic and occupational factors). Results There were 651 participants. The majority (58%) of migrant construction workers had paid a labour recruiter and ~40% had experienced a worksite accident. Between 3% (labourers) and 9% (foremen) perceived their health to be poor. Labourers and skilled workers who had paid a labour recruiter were significantly more likely to have experienced a worksite accident in the previous 12 months. Skilled workers, but not labourers and foremen, who had paid a labour recruiter were at increased risk of poor health. Conclusions The mechanisms linking labour recruiter payments to adverse safety and health outcomes warrant investigation with a view to developing interventions to erode these links.
Comparison between CT Colonography and Double-Contrast Barium Enema for Colonic Evaluation in Patients with Renal Insufficiency

Objective To compare the CT colonography (CTC) and double-contrast barium enema (DCBE) for colonic evaluation in patients with renal insufficiency. Materials and Methods Two sequential groups of consecutive patients with renal insufficiency who had a similar risk for colorectal cancer, were examined by DCBE (n = 182; mean ± SD in age, 51 ± 6.4 years) and CTC (n = 176; 50 ± 6.7 years), respectively. CTC was performed after colon cleansing with 250-mL magnesium citrate (n = 87) or 4-L polyethylene glycol (n = 89) and fecal tagging. DCBE was performed after preparation with 250-mL magnesium citrate. Patients with colonic polyps/masses of ≥ 6 mm were subsequently recommended to undergo a colonoscopy. Diagnostic yield and positive predictive value (PPV) for colonic polyps/masses, examination quality, and examination-related serum electrolyte change were retrospectively compared between the two groups. Results Both the CTC and DCBE were positive for colonic polyps/masses in 28 (16%) of 176 and 11 (6%) of 182 patients, respectively (p = 0.004). Among patients with positive findings, 17 CTC and six DCBE patients subsequently underwent a colonoscopy and yielded a PPV of 88% (15 of 17 patients) and 50% (3 of 6 patients), respectively (p = 0.089). Thirteen patients with adenomatous lesions were detected in the CTC group (adenocarcinoma [n = 1], advanced adenoma [n = 6], and non-advanced adenoma [n = 6]), as compared with two patients (each with adenocarcinoma and advanced adenoma) in the DCBE group (p = 0.003). Six (3%) of 176 CTC and 16 (9%) of 182 DCBE examinations deemed to be inadequate (p = 0.046). Electrolyte changes were similar in the two groups. Conclusion In patients with renal insufficiency, CTC has a higher diagnostic yield and a marginally higher PPV for detecting colorectal neoplasia, despite a similar diagnostic yield for adenocarcinoma, and a lower rate of inadequate examinations as compared with DCBE.
Stanford Center for International Development Does Intellectual Property Rights Reform Spur Industrial Development? Does Intellectual Property Rights Reform Spur Industrial Development? Does Intellectual Property Right Reform Spur Industrial Development?

* The statistical analysis of firm-level data on U.S. multinational enterprises was conducted at the Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. Department of Commerce, under arrangements that maintain legal confidentiality arrangements. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not reflect the official positions of the Abstract An extensive theoretical literature generates ambiguous predictions concerning the effects of intellectual property right (IPR) reform on industrial development. The impact depends on whether multinational enterprises (MNEs) expand production in reforming countries and the extent of decline in imitative activity. We examine the responses of U.S.-based MNEs and domestic industrial production to a set of intellectual property rights (IPR) reforms in the 1980s and 1990s. Following reform, MNEs expand the scale of their activities. MNEs that make extensive use of intellectual property disproportionately increase their use of inputs. There is an overall expansion of industrial activity after reform, and highly disaggregated trade data indicate higher exports of new goods. These results suggest that the expansion of multinational activity more than offsets any decline in imitative activity.
Flow-induced deformation of unidirectional carbon fiber preform during the mold filling stage in liquid composite molding process

Liquid composite molding has been developed as a high-speed process for manufacturing automotive lightweight parts using new equipment that applies a high pressure for mixing and injection. One of the technical issues is the deformation of fiber preform during the process, which causes defects in the size, mechanical properties and appearance of the final products. In this study, two types of deformation in unidirectional fiber preform during the mold filling process are investigated, which are rigid body deformation and local deformation. Three important forces, namely friction, in-mold stiffness of fiber preform and resin flow, are measured to investigate the mechanism of the fiber deformation. The magnitude of the forces was compared at an instant, which influenced the types of fiber deformation. The effects of the orientation angle and the volume fraction of fiber preform and flow rate were investigated to identify controllable factors to prevent undesired deformation during the process.
A Y2 Receptor Mimetic Aptamer Directed against Neuropeptide Y*

Neuropeptide Y (NPY) is a 36-amino acid neuropeptide that exerts its activity by at least five different receptor subtypes that belong to the family of G-protein-coupled receptors. We isolated an aptamer directed against NPY from a nuclease-resistant RNA library. Mapping experiments with N-terminally, C-terminally, and centrally truncated analogues of NPY revealed that the aptamer recognizes the C terminus of NPY. Individual replacement of the four arginine residues at positions 19, 25, 33, and 35 byl-alanine showed that arginine 33 is essential for binding. The aptamer does not recognize pancreatic polypeptide, a highly homologous Y4 receptor-specific peptide of the gut. Furthermore, the affinity of the aptamer to the Y5 receptor-selective agonist [Ala31,Aib32]NPY and the Y1/Y5 receptor-binding peptide [Leu31,Pro34]NPY was considerably reduced, whereas Y2 receptor-specific NPY mutants were bound well by the aptamer. Accordingly, the NPY epitope was recognized by the Y2 receptor, and the aptamer was highly similar. This Y2 receptor mimicking effect was further confirmed by competition binding studies. Whereas the aptamer competed with the Y2 receptor for binding of [3H]NPY with high affinity, a low affinity displacement of [3H]NPY was observed at the Y1 and the Y5 receptors. Consequently, competition at the Y2 receptor occurred with a considerably lower K i value compared with the Y1 and Y5 receptors. These results indicate that the aptamer mimics the binding of NPY to the Y2 receptor more closely than to the Y1 and Y5 receptors.
Robotic load balancing for mobility-on-demand systems

In this paper we develop methods for maximizing the throughput of a mobility-on-demand urban transportation system. We consider a finite group of shared vehicles, located at a set of stations. Users arrive at the stations, pickup vehicles, and drive (or are driven) to their destination station where they drop-off the vehicle. When some origins and destinations are more popular than others, the system will inevitably become out of balance: vehicles will build up at some stations, and become depleted at others. We propose a robotic solution to this rebalancing problem that involves empty robotic vehicles autonomously driving between stations. Specifically, we utilize a fluid model for the customers and vehicles in the system. Then, we develop a rebalancing policy that lets every station reach an equilibrium in which there are excess vehicles and no waiting customers and that minimizes the number of robotic vehicles performing rebalancing trips. We show that the optimal rebalancing policy can be found as the solution to a linear program. We use this solution to develop a real-time rebalancing policy which can operate in highly variable environments. Finally, we verify policy performance in a simulated mobility-on-demand environment and in hardware experiments.
An experimental study of a business domain independent application level and Internet access authentication and authorization concept

The movement of many business domains towards offering services via the Internet demands for convergent and extensible AAA (authentication, authorization and accounting) concepts. This paper introduces a convergent access and application level AAA framework that ports the concepts of IEEE 802.1x and EAP to the application layer and utilizes SOAP as the transport medium for EAP messages. The requirements for the mobile network operator domain have been analyzed and as a proof of concept, an Internet shop application has also been implemented. It supports secure payment via EAP-SIM by utilizing the developed AAA framework. In addition, the integration into an IEEE 802.11i reference environment is described and EAP-SIM AAA characteristics on the WLAN access level have been investigated.
Homeless and Home-based Lazy Release Consistency Protocols on Distributed Shared Memory

This paper describes the comparison between homeless and home-based Lazy Release Consistency (LRC) protocols which are used to implement Distributed Shared Memory (DSM) in cluster computing. We present a performance evaluation of parallel applications running on homeless and home-based LRC protocols. We compared the performance between Tread-Marks, which uses homeless LRC protocol, and our home-based DSM system. We found that the home-based DSM system has shown better scalability than TreadMarks in parallel applications we tested. This poor scalability in the homeless protocol is caused by a hot spot and garbage collection, but we have shown that these factors do not affect the scalability of the home-based protocol.
Recombinant two-iron rubredoxin of Pseudomonas oleovorans: overexpression, purification and characterization by optical, CD and 113Cd NMR spectroscopies.

The gene (alk G) encoding the two-iron rubredoxin of Pseudomonas oleovorans was amplified from genomic DNA by PCR and subcloned into the expression vector pKK223-3. The vector directed the high-level production of rubredoxin in Escherichia coli. A simple three-step procedure was used to purify recombinant rubredoxin in the 1Fe form. 1Fe-rubredoxin was readily converted to the 2Fe, apoprotein and cadmium forms after precipitation with trichloroacetic acid and resolubilization in the presence or absence of ferrous ammonium sulphate or CdCl2 respectively. Recombinant 1Fe and 2Fe rubredoxins are redox-active and able to transfer electrons from reduced spinach ferredoxin reductase to cytochrome c. The absorption spectrum and dichroic features of the CD spectrum for the cadmium-substituted protein are similar to those reported for cadmium-substituted Desulfovibrio gigas rubredoxin [Henehan, Poutney, Zerbe and Vasak (1993) Protein Sci. 2, 1756-1764]. Difference absorption spectroscopy of cadmium-substituted rubredoxin revealed the presence of four Gaussian-resolved maxima at 207, 228, 241 and 280 nm; the 241 nm band is attributable, from Jorgensen's electronegativity theory, to a CysS-CdII charge-transfer excitation. The 113Cd NMR spectrum of the 113Cd-substituted rubredoxin contains two 113Cd resonances with chemical shifts located at 732.3 and 730 p.p.m. The broader linewidth and high frequency shift of the resonance at 730 p. p.m. indicates that the Cd2+ ion is undergoing chemical exchange and, consistent with the difference absorption spectra, is bound less tightly than the Cd2+ ion, giving rise to the chemical shift at 732.3 p.p.m.
A Novel Approach to Design Low-Cost Two-Stage Frequency-Response Masking Filters

The multistage frequency-response masking (FRM) technique is widely used to reduce the complexity of a filter when the transition bandwidth is extremely small. In this brief, a real generalized two-stage FRM filter without any constraint on the subfilters or the interpolation factors was proposed. New principles and equations were deduced to determine the design parameters. The subfilters were then jointly optimized using nonlinear optimization. Experiential results show that when the proposed algorithm obtains different solutions with the conventional algorithm, the solution of the proposed approach is better with less number of filter coefficients and sometimes with lower delay as well than the conventional two-stage FRM, which can lead to a reduced hardware cost in applications.