Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Assessing the relationship between desired experiences and support for management actions at Yellowstone National Park using multiple methods.

The nature of recreation and resource management issues related to the winter season in Yellowstone National Park requires a holistic approach in understanding visitor preferences, perceptions, and support for management actions. A dramatic increase in winter visitation over the past three decades and intense controversy related to bison management in the park have posed difficult challenges to managers. Specific questions such as what do visitors want out of their experience and how do visitors perceive management initiatives are central to these challenges. A multiple methods approach, one quantitative and one qualitative, was employed to gain more depth and breadth in understanding. The quantitative study used a mail-back questionnaire to measure the importance of certain visitor experiences and agreement with specific management initiatives. An apparent discord between respondents’ desired experiences and support for management actions sparked a qualitative investigation. In-depth interviews provided insight into why visitors believe wildlife is at the heart of the experience, but are unlikely to support management actions aimed at protecting the bison herd in the park. The complement of the two methods suggests that other factors, such as awareness of a problem, perceived role of the park, and trust in the decision-makers, influence visitors’ perceptions of management actions.
Modeling and Simulation of the Fluid-Structure Interactions in Passively-Pitching Flapping Wings of Flying Microrobots

We present a study of the dynamics of passive wing-pitching in flapping-wing hovering flight, employing an integrated simulation approach. Here, the motion of a perfectly rigid wing is described using the Euler-Lagrange equation in Kane’s formulation, in which the passive rotating mechanism (flexure hinge) is modeled as a single-axis elastic beam and the total aerodynamic moment is computed by numerically solving the three-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations for the low Reynolds number case using an overset grid method. The proposed approach leads to the formulation of a fluid-structure interaction (FSI) problem, which is solved using an alternating time-marching procedure. The presented integrated simulation approach is validated using experimental data available in the technical literature and the effect of different wing-planform shapes on the resulting aerodynamic efficiency is discussed.
β-Amyloid Immunotherapy Prevents Synaptic Degeneration in a Mouse Model of Alzheimer's Disease

Alzheimer's disease neuropathology is characterized by key features that include the deposition of the amyloid β peptide (Aβ) into plaques, the formation of neurofibrillary tangles, and the loss of neurons and synapses in specific brain regions. The loss of synapses, and particularly the associated presynaptic vesicle protein synaptophysin in the hippocampus and association cortices, has been widely reported to be one of the most robust correlates of Alzheimer's disease-associated cognitive decline. The β-amyloid hypothesis supports the idea that Aβ is the cause of these pathologies. However, the hypothesis is still controversial, in part because the direct role of Aβ in synaptic degeneration awaits confirmation. In this study, we show that Aβ reduction by active or passive Aβ immunization protects against the progressive loss of synaptophysin in the hippocampal molecular layer and frontal neocortex of a transgenic mouse model of Alzheimer's disease. These results, substantiated by quantitative electron microscopic analysis of synaptic densities, strongly support a direct causative role of Aβ in the synaptic degeneration seen in Alzheimer's disease and strengthen the potential of Aβ immunotherapy as a treatment approach for this disease.
Formation of Nuclear Foci of the Herpes Simplex Virus Type 1 Regulatory Protein ICP4 at Early Times of Infection: Localization, Dynamics, Recruitment of ICP27, and Evidence for the De Novo Induction of ND10-Like Complexes

ABSTRACT Herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) has an intricate association with cellular nuclear structures known as ND10 or promyelocytic leukemia protein (PML) nuclear bodies. Parental viral genomes initially become juxtaposed to ND10, and then viral replication compartments develop from the ND10-associated genomes. Viral immediate-early (IE) regulatory protein ICP0 colocalizes with ND10 and then induces the degradation of critical ND10 component protein PML and therefore the release and dispersal of other ND10 proteins. The IE transcriptional regulatory protein ICP4 also forms foci at early times of infection, many of which are juxtaposed to ND10 and later develop into replication compartments, indicating that at least some of the initial ICP4 foci contain parental viral genomes. Here we report that the ICP4 foci also contain ICP27 and that their formation occurs extremely rapidly at locations just inside the nuclear envelope. By examining developing plaques or thinly seeded cells infected at high multiplicity, we found evidence to suggest that at least some of the ND10-viral nucleoprotein complex association could be attributed to de novo formation of ND10-like structures in response to incoming viral genomes. The ICP4 complexes associated efficiently with ND10 in cells infected with an ICP0-null mutant virus at high but not at low multiplicity, and the degree of association was reduced by the proteasome inhibitor MG132. Therefore, the interaction between viral nucleoprotein complexes and ND10 is in part due to a dynamic response by the cell. This response is modulated by functional ICP0, and cells that are productively or nonproductively infected in the absence of functional ICP0 can be distinguished by the relative locations of ICP4 foci and ND10 proteins.
Dictyostelium discoideum strains lacking the RtoA protein are defective for maturation of the Legionella pneumophila replication vacuole

To identify host proteins involved in Legionella pneumophila intracellular replication, the soil amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum was analysed. The absence of the amoebal RtoA protein is demonstrated here to depress L. pneumophila intracellular growth. Uptake of L. pneumophila into a D. discoideum rtoA– strain was marginally defective, but this effect was not sufficient to account for the defective intracellular growth of L. pneumophila. The rtoA mutant was also more resistant to high‐multiplicity killing by the bacterium. A targeting assay testing the colocalization of L. pneumophila‐containing vacuole with an endoplasmic reticulum/pre‐Golgi intermediate compartment marker protein, GFP‐HDEL, was used to analyse these defects. In parental D. discoideum, the L. pneumophila vacuole showed recruitment of GFP‐HDEL within 40 min after introduction of bacteria to the amoebae. By 6 h after infection it was clear that the rtoA mutant acquired and retained the GFP‐HDEL less efficiently than the parental strain, and that the mutant was defective for promoting the physical expansion of the membranous compartment surrounding the bacteria. Depressed intracellular growth of L. pneumophila in a D. discoideum rtoA– mutant therefore appeared to result from a lowered efficiency of vesicle trafficking events that are essential for the modification and expansion of the L. pneumophila‐containing compartment.
Does the Firm's Business Geographical Distribution Affect Stock Return Intraday Volatility?

This paper studies the effect that the firm's business geographical distribution has on stock return intraday volatility. We use data on the Spanish Stock Exchange, where most of its firms' international activity is concentrated in South America. We find evidence that Spanish firms with a higher proportion of business in the Americas have a higher proportion of their intraday volatility concentrated in two periods: around the SSE opening, and during the SSE trading interval overlapped with the American business day. We interpret this evidence as the business geographical distribution affecting the intraday pattern of relevant information flow for stock pricing.
A procedure to design LCL filter for energy storage system

This paper proposes a design procedure of the LCL filter for energy storage system (ESS). The main goal is satisfied filter performance and simple calculation for high-power ESS. Filter design is derived from transfer function by inverter, inductor and capacitor. The proper value of inductor is used a filter design, ESS is applied in the experimental setup (1.5MW Class). Simulation investigation and experimental results are presented to verify the theoretical design procedure and to demonstrate to system performance.
Acoustic Source Localization by Nilu

Many technologies rely on underwater acoustics. Most of these applications are able to denoise Gaussian noise from the surrounding, but have trouble removing impulselike noises. One source of impulse-like noise is the snapping shrimps. The acoustic signals they emit from snapping their claws hinder technologies, but can also be used as a source of ambient noise illumination due to the rough uniformity in their spatial distribution. Understanding the spatial distributions of these acoustic signals can be useful in working to mitigate or amplify their effects. Our collaborators in Singapore use a multi-array sensor to take measurements of the sound pressures of the environment in the ocean. This thesis investigates in solving the signal reconstruction problem given the measurements, reconstruct the locations of the orignal signal sources. A numerical model for the system consisting of the snapping shrimp signals, the environment, and the sensor is formulated. Three methods of reconstruction Disciplined Convex Programming, Orthogonal Matching Pursuit, and Compressive Sensingare explored, and their robustness to noise, and sparsity are examined in simulation. Results show that Two-Step Iterative Shrinkage Threshold (TwIST) is the most robust to noisy and non-sparse signals. The three methods were then tested on real data set, in which OMP and TwIST showed promising consistency in their results, while CVX was unable to converge. Since there is no available information on ground truth, the consistency is a promising result. Thesis Supervisor: George Barbastathis Title: Professor
An overview of the environmental genome project.

Understanding the causes of common diseases such as cancer, asthma, diabetes, hypertension, and atherosclerosis, which have high population prevalence, is a significant priority for public health research and a major goal in biomedical studies. The influences on susceptibility to common disease are thought to arise from multiple factors, each conferring a low level of relative risk for disease. These low levels of disease risk probably reflect interactions between genotypes at multiple loci (epistasis), interactions between genotypes and environment, and more stochastic epigenetic events such as methylation (Belinsky 2004; Berwick 2000; Hayward 2003; Hegele 1997). Because the risk of any given effect is small (Lander and Schork 1994; Moffatt and Cookson 1999; Pritchard and Cox 2002; Reich and Lander 2001; Risch and Merikangas 1996), detecting these influences will require larger sample sizes, making populationbased association studies more practical for tracing the underlying genetic risks (Risch and Merikangas 1996). Association studies will also be key for exploring genetic links to environmental exposures (Bell and Taylor 1997). In 1997 Dr. Kenneth Olden, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), convened a historic conference titled “The Environmental Genome Project” held 17–18 October 1997 in Bethesda, Maryland. This symposium explored the feasibility of the Environmental Genome Project (EGP) and generated significant discussion. The EGP is designed to explore the relationship between common genetic polymorphisms and environmentally induced disease in human populations E s s a y o n The Environmental Genome Project
Evidence for late Pleistocene population expansion of the malarial mosquitoes, Anopheles arabiensis and Anopheles gambiae in Nigeria

Abstract Anopheles gambiae Giles s.s. and Anopheles arabiensis Patton (Diptera: Culicidae) are major vectors of malaria in Nigeria. We used 1115 bp of the mitochondrial COI gene to assess their population genetic structures based on samples from across Nigeria (n = 199). The mtDNA neighbour‐joining tree, based on FST estimates, separated An. gambiae M and S forms, except that samples of An. gambiae M from Calabar clustered with all the An. gambiae S form. Anopheles arabiensis and An. gambiae could be combined into a single star‐shaped, parsimonious haplotype network, and shared three haplotypes. Haplotype diversity values were high in An. arabiensis and An. gambiae S, and intermediate in An. gambiae M; all nucleotide diversities were relatively low. Taken together, patterns of haplotype diversity, the star‐like genealogy of haplotypes, five of seven significant neutrality tests, and the violation of the isolation‐by‐distance model indicate population expansion in An. arabiensis and An. gambiae S, but the signal was weak in An. gambiae M. Selection is supported as an important factor shaping genetic structure in An. gambiae in Nigeria. There were two geographical subdivisions in An. arabiensis: one included all southern localities and all but two central localities; the other included all northern and two central localities. Re‐analysing an earlier microsatellite dataset of An. arabiensis using a Bayesian method determined that there were two distinctive clusters, northern and southern, that were fairly congruent with the mtDNA subdivisions. There was a trend towards decreasing genetic diversity in An. arabiensis from the northern savannah to the southern rainforest that corroborated previous data from microsatellites and polytene chromosomes.
The Q motif of a viral packaging motor governs its force generation and communicates ATP recognition to DNA interaction

A key step in the assembly of many viruses is the packaging of DNA into preformed procapsids by an ATP-powered molecular motor. To shed light on the motor mechanism we used single-molecule optical tweezers measurements to study the effect of mutations in the large terminase subunit in bacteriophage λ on packaging motor dynamics. A mutation, K84A, in the putative ATPase domain driving DNA translocation was found to decrease motor velocity by ≈40% but did not change the force dependence or decrease processivity substantially. These findings support the hypothesis that a deviant “Walker A-like” phosphate-binding motif lies adjacent to residue 84. Another mutation, Y46F, was also found to decrease motor velocity by ≈40% but also increase slipping during DNA translocation by >10-fold. These findings support the hypothesis that viral DNA packaging motors contain an adenine-binding motif that regulates ATP hydrolysis and substrate affinity analogous to the “Q motif” recently identified in DEAD-box RNA helicases. We also find impaired force generation for the Y46F mutant, which shows that the Q motif plays an important role in determining the power and efficiency of the packaging motor.
Active Snubber Energy Recovery Circuit for Series-Connected IGBTs

This paper presents a novel active snubber recovery circuit for series-connected insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs). The proposed technique allows turnon and turnoff switching of the series IGBTs to be controlled and balanced through conventional snubber effects, but the configuration includes active circuitry to recover into the dc supply, the stored snubber energy. Detailed waveform analysis and associated mathematical equations are presented, supported by PSpice simulations. The proposed technique is practically demonstrated, at a scaled power level, on a single IGBT to illustrate the control concept and on three series-connected IGBTs to demonstrate dynamic voltage sharing.
Big Fish in a small pond? : A quantitative study about independence and the social networks among corporate boards in Denmark, Finland and Sweden

While the European Union is striving towards harmonization among the member countries, interlocks (connections) are a social phenomenon that has an implication on the Corporate Code but it is more implicitly pointed out with words like “other relevant information” or ”other significant board positions” that might affect the individual board member’s independence and ability to fully commit to the company. Although the board often is referred to as one single entity, it consists of many board members that individually can have an agenda that might deviate from all stakeholders’ goal. Every single director has a business network of social contacts, especially if they are elected to more than one company’s board. These individual directors create interlocks (links) between the firms they work for, and form a social network on company level, while the Code only recommends the companies to provide independence information and other significant assignments one by one as if they operate in solitude. This exploratory study captures the corporate governance perspective about independence and the social networks of directors on supervisory corporate boards in Denmark, Finland and Sweden by investigating the interconnectedness of the directors and companies, and combines this data with the independence disclosure by companies. We employed deductive approach and a quantitative archival research strategy based on secondary data from annual reports and corporate governance documents in a total of 150 companies to gather a sufficient database about the independence disclosure and the corporate networks. We identified the most central companies and individuals in corporate framework, and found concentration of power to be evident. Identifying the director networks enabled us to focus on the structural aspects of the networks and what implications this has on the independence of the boards. Furthermore, this research analysed the disclosure independence by the companies and assessed, whether the current requirements on disclosure are adequate for their purpose. We also found, contrary to our expectations, that the independence disclosure is not harmonized between the studied countries and therefore we assessed the disclosure by using insider-outsider theory. This showed that the current corporate codes do not capture the independence very accurately, and that harmonization of the codes in addition to insider-outsider theory would help the relevant stakeholders to get a “truer and fairer view” of the directors’ independence. This study has been written especially the legislators in mind and suggests the use of insider-outsider -theory approach to the legislators for providing a more comprehensive and accurate view of the independence.
Service decision-making: The interrelationship of service quality, satisfaction, quality of life and behavioural intent.

This study extends previous research on service decision making by examining the relationship between service quality, process satisfaction, outcome satisfaction, quality of life and behavioural intent. The model was tested in a high involvement, high-contact, on-going health service environment. The impact of service quality, process satisfaction and outcome satisfaction and quality of life on the behavioural intentions of customers was specifically examined. A number of notable findings are reported including empirical results indicating that service quality has a direct impact on satisfaction as well as behavioural intentions. In turn, process and outcome satisfaction were found to play an important role in generating favourable behavioural intentions. Quality of life was found to be an outcome of the service decision-making process rather than an input into this process. The results obtained from this study have important implications for service providers as well as for future research in this area.
What do Chinese passengers expect from domestic airlines

It is well understood that apart from low fares, passengers today also value convenience and other service aspects such as departure and arrival times and check-in queue time. This paper seeks to investigate the passenger expectations of services in China’s domestic air market and how they evaluate some important airline service attributes in the stated choice experiments. Using the Likert scale data and the stated preference data, this paper first identifies the order of importance of the service items from the point of ticket purchase to the point of arrival baggage claim and then elicits the values that Chinese passengers place on schedule delay, punctuality and the size of network. Not surprisingly, safety was rated as the most important out of the 16 items. Chinese passengers have very low tolerance on flight delays and mishandling of their baggage. Interestingly, the size of fleet and the Frequent Flyer Programs are not considered as very important issues. This research also shows that Chinese airlines have failed to establish a strong brand reputation among passengers, and that consumers are willing to pay a high amount of money to avoid schedule delay and to fly with airlines with improved punctuality, especially when the travel is for business purpose. This research has significant implications for both large and small carriers in the design of non-price competition strategies.
Multi-species larval fish growth model based on temperature and fluorometrically derived RNA/DNA ratios: results from a meta-analysis

Weight-specific growth rate (G) and growth performance (the fraction of maximum growth realized, G pf) are key demographic characteristics. The ratio of RNA/DNA (RD) can provide information on both G and G pf. Estimating G from RD in larval fish requires an adjustment for the activity of RNA at different temperatures. Based on a meta-analysis of published data, we present a general model for the relationship between G in marine fish larvae and fluorometrically derived RD and temperature (T), and suggest that this model can be used to estimate G in marine fish larvae. Several options for estimating G pf are also considered, including the use of a reference growth rate (Gref). RDs of well-fed larvae appeared to be independent of water temperatures between 4 and 28°C, suggesting that any increase in growth rate with temperature was accomplished by increased activity rather than increased concentrations of RNA. However, for the best-fit meta-analysis RD–T–G model, the relationship between RD and G pf was temperature dependent for fish less than fully fed.
Do Higher Corporate Taxes Reduce Wages? Micro Evidence from Germany

This paper estimates the incidence of corporate taxes on wages using a 20-year panel of German municipalities exploiting 6,800 tax changes for identification. Using event study designs and difference-in-differences models, we find that workers bear about one-half of the total tax burden. Administrative linked employer-employee data allow us to estimate heterogeneous firm and worker effects. Our findings highlight the importance of labor market institutions and profit-shifting opportunities for the incidence of corporate taxes on wages. Moreover, we show that low-skilled, young, and female employees bear a larger share of the tax burden. This has important distributive implications.