Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Development and Dynamics of Pseudomonassp. Biofilms

ABSTRACT Pseudomonas sp. strain B13 and Pseudomonas putida OUS82 were genetically tagged with the green fluorescent protein and the Discosoma sp. red fluorescent protein, and the development and dynamics occurring in flow chamber-grown two-colored monospecies or mixed-species biofilms were investigated by the use of confocal scanning laser microscopy. Separate red or green fluorescent microcolonies were formed initially, suggesting that the initial small microcolonies were formed simply by growth of substratum attached cells and not by cell aggregation. Red fluorescent microcolonies containing a few green fluorescent cells and green fluorescent microcolonies containing a few red fluorescent cells were frequently observed in both monospecies and two-species biofilms, suggesting that the bacteria moved between the microcolonies. Rapid movement of P. putida OUS82 bacteria inside microcolonies was observed before a transition from compact microcolonies to loose irregularly shaped protruding structures occurred. Experiments involving a nonflagellated P. putida OUS82 mutant suggested that the movements between and inside microcolonies were flagellum driven. The results are discussed in relation to the prevailing hypothesis that biofilm bacteria are in a physiological state different from planktonic bacteria.
Parallel simulated annealing for solving the room assignment problem on shared and distributed memory platforms

The paper is aimed at investigating the efficiency and quality of solutions of parallel simulated annealing on shared memory and distributed memory computer platforms for solving the room assignment problem. The parallel computational model for shared memory system utilizes concurrent generation and evaluation of moves by OpenMP based multithreading. Asynchronous and synchronous moves generation based on combination of functional and data parallelism are utilized for parallel computations using message passing on a distributed memory platform. Parallelism profiling and scalability analyses both in respect of the size of the parallel platform and the problem workload are presented.
Discovery of polynomial equations for regression

Both equation discovery and regression methods aim at inducing models of numerical data. While the equation discovery methods are usually evaluated in terms of comprehensibility of the induced model, the emphasis of the regression methods evaluation is on their predictive accuracy. In this paper, we present Ciper, an efficient method for discovery of polynomial equations and empirically evaluate its predictive performance on standard regression tasks. The evaluation shows that polynomials compare favorably to linear and piecewise regression models, induced by the existing state-of-the-art regression methods, in terms of degree of fit and complexity.
Measuring the Discriminative Power of Rating Systems

Assessing the discriminative power of rating systems is an important question to banks and to regulators. In this article we analyze the Cumulative Accuracy Profile (CAP) and the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) which are both commonly used in practice. We give a test-theoretic interpretation for the concavity of the CAP and the ROC curve and demonstrate how this observation can be used for more efficiently exploiting the informational contents of accounting ratios. Furthermore, we show that two popular summary statistics of these concepts, namely the Accuracy Ratio and the area under the ROC curve, contain the same information and we analyse the statistical properties of these measures. We show in detail how to identify accounting ratios with high discriminative power, how to calculate confidence intervals for the area below the ROC curve, and how to test if two rating models validated on the same data set are different. All concepts are illustrated by applications to real data.
A geometry-based path loss model for high-speed-train environments in LTE-A networks

In this paper, a recently conducted measurement campaign for High-Speed-Train (HST) channels is introduced where the down-link signals of in-service Long Time Evolution-Advanced (LTE-A) networks deployed along a HST railway between Beijing to Shanghai were acquired. The channel impulse responses (CIRs) are extracted from the received Cell-specific Reference Signals (CRSs). The results show that, most of the channels contain a delay trajectory corresponding to a line-of-sight (LoS) path. The geometry parameters such as the train speed and the minimal distance between the transmitter and the receiver are extracted from the delay trajectories. Furthermore, path loss characteristics along the trajectories are investigated and compared with the model extracted for the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS).
Efficient color space-based compression scheme for endoscopic images

A discrete-cosine-transform (DCT) based image compression scheme is presented in this paper that works on a novel and low-complexity color-space designed for wireless capsule endoscopy application. The color-space, referred as YEF, is developed by analyzing the unique features of endoscopic images. A hardware friendly quantization stage is also used here to achieve higher compression. Comparing with the existing works towards endoscopic image compression, the proposed compression scheme outperforms with the average compression ratio of 83.51% and peak-signal-to-noise-ratio of 54.86 dB.
Filter approximation problem using de algorithms

This article introduces a new approach to the filter approximation problem solution. When requirements to the filter cannot be fulfilled by an analytic approximation function, it is necessary to use non-standard methods based on numerical optimization procedures. Here the Differential Evolutionary Algorithm offers far-out solutions. It allows multi-criteria requirements and it is independent on initial condition settings. A newly developed algorithm is described here and the results obtained are demonstrated on some examples.
Strange quark stars: observations and speculations

Two kinds of difficulties have challenged the physics community for many years: (1) knowing nature's building blocks (particle physics) and (2) understanding interacting many-body systems (many-body physics). Both of them exist in the research of quark matter and compact stars. This paper addresses the possibility that quark clustering, rather than a color super-conducting state, could occur in cold quark matter at realistic baryon densities of compact stars, since a weakly coupling treatment of the interaction between quarks might not be reliable. Cold quark matter is conjectured to be in a solid state if thermal kinematic energy is much lower than the interaction energy of quark clusters. Different manifestations of pulsar-like compact stars are discussed, as well as modeled in a regime of solid quark stars.
A new approach of unconstrained sleep monitoring and pulse arrival time extraction using PPG pillow and CC-ECG electrode system

In this paper, an unconstrained and noninvasive system to detect heart rate (HR), respiratory rate and extract pulse arrival time (PAT) during sleep is proposed. The system consists of PPG sensor module embedded in a pillow and CC-ECG (capacitor coupled-ECG) sensor module. From the PPG sensor, we acquired heart rate and respiratory rate during sleep with simple peak detection algorithm. Besides, by employing extraction algorithms, PAT can be extracted from signal acquired with a CC-ECG electrode placed on a mattress. The result shows that HR and respiratory rate detection and PAT extraction have been successfully completed regardless of sleep position. This study suggests that the proposed system is promising to be used for continuous and unconstrained estimation of blood pressure during sleep.
Effect of Permissive Dehydration on Induction and Decay of Heat Acclimation, and Temperate Exercise Performance

Purpose: It has been suggested that dehydration is an independent stimulus for heat acclimation (HA), possibly through influencing fluid-regulation mechanisms and increasing plasma volume (PV) expansion. There is also some evidence that HA may be ergogenic in temperate conditions and that this may be linked to PV expansion. We investigated: (i) the influence of dehydration on the time-course of acquisition and decay of HA; (ii) whether dehydration augmented any ergogenic benefits in temperate conditions, particularly those related to PV expansion. Methods: Eight males [VO2max: 56.9(7.2) mL·kg−1·min−1] undertook two HA programmes (balanced cross-over design), once drinking to maintain euhydration (HAEu) and once with restricted fluid-intake (HADe). Days 1, 6, 11, and 18 were 60 min exercise-heat stress tests [HST (40°C; 50% RH)], days 2–5 and 7–10 were 90 min, isothermal-strain (Tre ~ 38.5°C), exercise-heat sessions. Performance parameters [VO2max, lactate threshold, efficiency, peak power output (PPO)] were determined pre and post HA by graded exercise test (22°C; 55%RH). Results: During isothermal-strain sessions hypohydration was achieved in HADe and euhydration maintained in HAEu [average body mass loss −2.71(0.82)% vs. −0.56(0.73)%, P < 0.001], but aldosterone concentration, power output, and cardiovascular strain were unaffected by dehydration. HA was evident on day 6 {reduced end-exercise Tre [−0.30(0.27)°C] and exercise heart rate [−12(15) beats.min−1], increased PV [+7.2(6.4)%] and sweat-loss [+0.25(0.22) L.h−1], P < 0.05} with some further adaptations on day 11 {further reduced end-exercise Tre [−0.25(0.19)°C] and exercise heart rate [−3(9) beats.min−1], P < 0.05}. These adaptations were not notably affected by dehydration and were generally maintained 7-days post HA. Performance parameters were unchanged, apart from increased PPO (+16(20) W, irrespective of condition). Conclusions: When thermal-strain is matched, permissive dehydration which induces a mild, transient, hypohydration does not affect the acquisition and decay of HA, or endurance performance parameters. Irrespective of hydration, trained individuals require >5 days to optimize HA.
LBP-based biometric hashing scheme for human authentication

Biometric hash finds extensive applications in multimedia security systems. Biometric hashing schemes combine biometric features with random numbers for robust and secure human authentication or recognition. A novel biometric hashing scheme which is secure and robust to lighting changes is proposed in this paper. First, the local binary pattern (LBP) based histogram sequence or vector is employed to represent a normalized face image. Secondly, the pseudorandom sequence is generated by using the user specific secret seed (hash key) and it is orthonormalized by using Gram-Schmidt algorithm. Third, the inner product between the histogram vector and pseudorandom sequence is computed. The biometric hash is obtained by thresholding the inner product with the threshold calculated by using Otsu method. Our scheme is tested on the face image data. Hamming distance is used to measure the performance of the scheme. Experimental results show that our scheme is secure and robust to lighting changes.
Identification of Controlled-Complexity Thermal Therapy Models Derived from Magnetic Resonance Thermometry Images

Medical imaging provides information valuable in diagnosis, planning, and control of therapies. In this paper, we develop a method that uses a specific type of imaging—the magnetic resonance thermometry—to identify accurate and computationally efficient site and patient-specific computer models for thermal therapies, such as focused ultrasound surgery, hyperthermia, and thermally triggered targeted drug delivery. The developed method uses a sequence of acquired MR thermometry images to identify a treatment model describing the deposition and dissipation of thermal energy in tissues. The proper orthogonal decomposition of thermal images is first used to identify a set of empirical eigenfunctions, which captures spatial correlations in the thermal response of tissues. Using the reduced subset of eigenfunction as a functional basis, low-dimensional thermal response and the ultrasound specific absorption rate models are then identified. Once identified, the treatment models can be used to plan, optimize, and control the treatment. The developed approach is validated experimentally using the results of MR thermal imaging of a tissue phantom during focused ultrasound sonication. The validation demonstrates that our approach produces accurate low-dimensional treatment models and provides a convenient tool for balancing the accuracy of model predictions and the computational complexity of the treatment models.
A study on automatic recognition of positive and negative emotions in speech

The paper is focused on an experimental study on positive and negative emotion vocal recognition. After some considerations about the positive and negative emotions, the paper gives a short description of the three corpuses used in the work we have accomplished. The paper describes three sets of coefficients used, the statistic features used to generate the three sets of feature vectors and the two classification methods used in this study. The recognition results obtained for every corpus are shown and some conclusions and directions of development are presented.
The pace of East African monsoon evolution during the Holocene

African monsoon precipitation experienced a dramatic change in the course of the Holocene. The pace with which the African monsoon shifted from a strong early to middle to a weak late Holocene is critical for our understanding of climate dynamics, hydroclimate‐vegetation interaction, and shifts of prehistoric human settlements, yet it is controversially debated. On the basis of planktonic foraminiferal Ba/Ca time series from the eastern Mediterranean Sea, here we present a proxy record of Nile River runoff that provides a spatially integrated measure of changes in East African monsoon (EAM) precipitation. The runoff record indicates a markedly gradual middle to late Holocene EAM transition that lasted over 3500 years. The timing and pace of runoff change parallels those of insolation and vegetation changes over the Nile basin, indicating orbitally forced variation of insolation as the main EAM forcing and the absence of a nonlinear precipitation‐vegetation feedback. A tight correspondence between a threshold level of Nile River runoff and the timing of occupation/abandonment of settlements suggests that along with climate changes in the eastern Sahara, the level of Nile River and intensity of summer floods were likely critical for the habitability of the Nile Valley (Egypt).
Africa’ s Comparative advantage In Travel Service Exports

Abstract While trade in African merchandise has lagged behind that of other developing countries, services exports – notably travel and tourism – have shown remarkable growth over the past decade. This paper calculates revealed comparative advantage for 147 countries using a new measure of the Balassa index. The results indicate that 29 of the 50 African countries in the dataset reveal a comparative advantage in travel service exports. The source of this comparative advantage lies in the natural and cultural resources of African countries, and the relative advantages of air versus sea transport – validating an augmented Heckscher-Ohlin hypothesis. If African countries are to benefit from the growth in world service exports, researchers and policymakers should note the (relative) potential for African travel service exports, especially in the smaller, landlocked destinations.
Context-Aware Presentation of Linked Data on Mobile

In this paper the authors focus on context-aware adaptation for linked data on mobile. They split up the problem in two sub-questions: how to declaratively describe context at RDF presentation level, and how to overcome context imprecisions and incompleteness when selecting the proper context description at runtime. The authors answer their two-fold research question with PRISSMA, a context-aware presentation layer for Linked Data. PRISSMA extends the Fresnel vocabulary with the notion of mobile context. Besides, it includes an algorithm that determines whether the sensed context is compatible with some context declarations. The algorithm finds optimal error-tolerant subgraph isomorphisms between RDF graphs using the notion of graph edit distance and is sublinear in the number of context declarations in the system.
Power fluctuations in an isolated wind plant

In this paper, a wind energy converter (WEC) model for the analysis of power fluctuations at an isolated wind plant is presented. The model includes the drive train dynamics, a first-order model for the asynchronous generator, and the power controller. The influence of each element is studied, and the conditions that can provoke oscillations in the power delivered by the WEC are considered. A set of measurements carried out during the setting of an isolated wind plant in the Canary Islands (Spain) is the basis for this study. In these measurements, an oscillatory behavior has been observed when wind speed was high.
Uncovering Social Network Structures through Penetration Data

We show how networks modify the diffusion curve by affecting its symmetry. We demonstrate that a network's degree distribution has significant impact on the contagion properties of the subsequent adoption process, and propose a method for uncovering the degree distribution of the adopter network underlying the dissemination process, based exclusively on limited early-stage penetration data. In this paper we propose and empirically validate a unified network-based growth model that links network structure and penetration patterns. Specifically, using external sources of information, we confirm that each network degree distribution identified by the model matches the actual social network that is underlying the dissemination process. We also show empirically that the same method can be used to forecast adoption using an estimation of the degree distribution and the diffusion parameters, at an early stage (15%) of the penetration process. We confirm that these forecasts are significantly superior to those of three benchmark models of diffusion. Our empirical analysis indicates that under heavily right-skewed degree distribution conditions (such as scale-free networks), the majority of adopters (in some cases, up to 75%) join the process after the sales peak. This strong asymmetry is a result of the unique interaction between the dissemination process and the degree distribution of its underlying network.
An API deobfuscation method combining dynamic and static techniques

API calls analysis is usually used for malicious behavior detection, but malware authors adopt encryption techniques to hide API information where calling them dynamically. Consequently, the decryption of internal ciphertext data in malware is now critical for malware analysis. In this paper, we proposed a novel approach to automatically resolve the encryption strings from malware. By analyzing the inherent dependencies between functions, we automatically identified decryption routine and extracted its context. To reveal the encryption API names, the proposed approach loads the malware and constructs context of decryption routine, and then forces the program calling decryption routines. The feasibility of our approach is demonstrated by implementing a prototype framework called ADSD(API Deobfuscation based on Static and Dynamic techniques).
Bone tumors in pre-modern skulls from human skeletal series of Joseon Dynasty

To date, there are still very few reports on benign-tumor cases based on East Asian skeletal series, even though other regions and continents have been well represented. In our study on the Joseon Human Skeletal Series, we identified benign bone tumors in two skeletons (cases Nos. 75 and 96). Our radiological analyses showed both cases to be homogeneous sclerotic bone masses aligned with the cranial vault suture. In a subsequent series of differential diagnoses, we determined both cases to be osteoma, the most common bone-tumor type reported for archaeological samples. Our study is the osteoarchaeological basis for this, the first-ever report on benign bone neoplasm in a pre-modern East Asian population.
Effective capacity optimization based on overlay cognitive radio network in gamma fading environment

Traditionally, the frequency spectrum is licensed to users who have the exclusive right to access the allocated band. However, an unlicensed (cognitive) user may share a frequency band with a licensed (primary) owner as long as the interference is below a certain threshold. This makes capacity analysis a critical important issue in these networks. Lots of research on cognitive radio (CR) networking have now focused on the satisfaction of quality-of-service (QoS) demands for cognitive users (CU). In this paper, we study how the delay QoS requirements affect the dynamic spectrum access (DSA) strategy on network performance. We treat the delay-QoS in interference constrained cognitive radio network by applying the effective capacity concept, focusing on one of the dominant DSA schemes: overlay. Optimal power allocation scheme is obtained. This scheme considers the transmit-power/interference-power constraints and the primary user activity. Performance analysis and numerical evaluations demonstrate the proposed effective capacity optimization on the DSA overlay scheme. The impact of delay QoS requirements and other related parameters are evaluated as well.
Artificial Intelligence in Accounting and Auditing : Towards New Paradigms

This is the fourth volume of the AI & ES in Accounting and Auditing series. It encompasses fifteen articles, including this introduction, all original manuscripts, unlike the previous volumes which had a few reprints. The first volume was published in 1989, when AI/ES in Accounting was a new paradigm, and detractors claimed in not to be applicable to accounting and finance. Volumes 2 and 3 were published in 1994, and there was concern for the applicability of the paradigm in practice, and on the usage of the tools on a day to day basis. Three years are passed and the field has matured to acceptability and selfevaluations. A series of new technologies, akin or integral to AI/ES started to be used and are being progressively incorporated into the state-of-the-art. Soul searching and evaluation is progressing in the academic field to assess the emerging tools and where is the optimum domain of their applicability.
Retrieved Vertical Profiles of Latent Heat Release Using TRMM Rainfall Products for February 1998

Abstract This paper represents the first attempt to use Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) rainfall information to estimate the four-dimensional latent heating structure over the global Tropics for one month (February 1998). The mean latent heating profiles over six oceanic regions [Tropical Ocean and Global Atmosphere (TOGA) Coupled Ocean–Atmosphere Response Experiment (COARE) Intensive Flux Array (IFA), central Pacific, South Pacific Convergence Zone (SPCZ), east Pacific, Indian Ocean, and Atlantic Ocean] and three continental regions (South America, central Africa, and Australia) are estimated and studied. The heating profiles obtained from the results of diagnostic budget studies over a broad range of geographic locations are used to provide comparisons and indirect validation for the heating algorithm–estimated heating profiles. Three different latent heating algorithms, the Goddard Space Flight Center convective–stratiform heating (CSH), the Goddard profiling (GPROF) heating, and the hydrome.