Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mergers and Acquisitions: A Survey of Motivations

In this paper, I review the literature on the motivations for corporate mergers and acquisitions. I first introduce the main definitions and some relevant empirical studies in the field. Secondly, I study the historical evolution of the mergers and acquisition activity in the United States, explaining the environment in which they took place. I then explain the theoretical motivations for mergers and acquisitions, focusing in rational and irrational behaviors. The controversy generated around this topic is due to the differences between managements' arguments for mergers and acquisitions and the real performance of this activity for acquirers. The main motivations and the relevant theoretical arguments and empirical results are addressed. Finally, I discuss my view about this particular process that has created so much literature in the last decades.
Microstructures in Hole 1274A peridotites, ODP Leg 209, Mid‐Atlantic Ridge: Tracking the fate of melts percolating in peridotite as the lithosphere is intercepted

We report the microstructures of harzburgites and dunites from ODP Leg 209, Hole 1274A, 15°39′N on the Mid‐Atlantic Ridge. A set of features in these peridotites is so unaffected by plastic flow that it must have formed very late by magmatic processes. We believe that the microstructures record the interaction between a peridotite and a percolating melt as the thermal boundary layer was progressively intercepted. The following chronology for the microstructures is derived: Group 1, resorption of orthopyroxene (opx) associated with olivine precipitation, enhanced by a migrating melt; Group 2, conversion of opx to clinopyroxene (cpx) by a percolating melt; Group 3, precipitation of cpx and spinel as intricate intergrowth (symplectite), associated with olivine dissolution, from an interstitial melt. For these reactions the ratio of melt generated to melt consumed is progressively decreasing, as expected during progressive freezing of asthenosphere. Pristine reaction microstructures analogous to Site 1274A are also found in the Lanzo Massif (Italy) and the Little Port Complex (Canada). For all three settings we infer (1) slow spreading conditions and (2) an ancient depletion event. We thus infer that preservation of the described microstructures is favored by slow spreading and a previous depletion. Slow spreading may be required since it avoids the tectonic overprint during ductile corner flow generally inferred for fast spreading ridges. Slow spreading does not tend, however, to generate highly depleted residues because a thick lithospheric lid limits the extent of melting. Residues will thus tend to be lherzolitic, not harzburgitic. However, lherzolites have a lower permeability for mafic melts than harzburgites. In order to generate the percolation‐dominated microstructures of Site 1274A, a harzburgitic host rock appears favorable. This may now explain the need for an ancient depletion event since only then can harzburgitic residues occur at the top of the mantle column during slow spreading conditions.
The XMM-Newton view of the Crab

Aims. We discuss the current X-ray view of the Crab Nebula and Pulsar, summarising our analysis of observations of the source with the EPIC-pn camera on board the XMM-Newton observatory. Different modes of EPIC-pn were combined in order to yield a complete scenario of the spectral properties of the Crab resolved in space and time (pulse phase). In addition we give a description of the special EPIC-pn Burst mode and guidance for data reduction in that mode. Methods. We analysed spectra for the nebula and pulsar separately in the 0.6−12.0 keV energy band. All data were processed with the SAS 6.0. 0 XMM-Newton Scientific Analysis System package; models were fitted to the data with XSPEC 11. The high time resolution of EPIC-pn in its Burst mode (7 μs) was used for a phase resolved analysis of the pulsar spectrum, after determination of the period with epoch folding techniques. Data from the SmallWindow mode were processed and corrected for pile-up allowing for spectroscopy simultaneously resolved in space and time. Results. The spatial variation of the spectrum over the entire region of the Crab shows a gradual spectral softening from the inner pulsar region to the outer nebula region with a variation in photon index, Γ, from 2.0 to 2.4. Pulse phase resolved spectroscopy of the Crab Pulsar reveals a phase dependent modulation of the photon index in form of a significant hardening of the spectrum in the inter-peak phase from Γ = 1.7 during the pulse peak to Γ = 1.5.
ERAD 2006 Proceedings of A radar-model coupled approach to produce real time high resolution 3-D wind fields over Paris ’ major airports in the context of the FLYSAFE Project

The French operational radar network, named ARAMIS, has undergone several modifications over the past years (Parent-du-Châtelet and Guiméra, 2003). Main changes include the deployment of additional radars to fill the gaps within the coverage (bringing the total number of radars to 24 in 2006), and implementation of dualpolarization and Doppler processing into operations. Our objective is to take advantage of this extended coverage to derive real-time 3D wind and reflectivity fields from a combination of radar data and outputs inferred from a high resolution numerical model. In this analysis data from virtual Doppler radars will be simulated from the model forecast and combined with those of the ARAMIS network to retrieve the 3D airflow and quantitatively assess windshear, gust fronts and updrafts in the vicinity of Paris’ two major airports. The aim of this paper is to investigate the feasibility of this approach by first assessing the quality of the retrieved wind fields synthesized from the ARAMIS network using radar observations and numerical outputs of a severe storm that occurred over Paris on June 23 2005. This study is part of the atmospheric component of the FLYSAFE project, which aims at supplying commercial airliners with a better knowledge of their atmospheric environment near major airports.
Utility and Interobserver Agreement of Ultrasound Elastography in the Detection of Malignant Thyroid Nodules in Clinical Care

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Malignancy correlates with hardness of tissues and US elastography can potentially analyze the stiffness of lesions. Our aim was to evaluate the utility of US elastography in the detection of malignant nodules and to investigate interobserver agreement with this technique. MATERIALS AND METHODS: One-hundred three consecutive patients with 106 thyroid nodules were examined prospectively with conventional B-mode sonography and real-time US elastography. All patients were referred for FNAB. Conventional B-mode sonography and US elastographic examinations were performed, and images were separated and independently interpreted by 2 radiologists blinded to pathologic results. US elastogram evaluation was based on a simplified classification of stiffness based on gray-scale patterns, tumor size compared with B-mode, and margins. Interobserver agreement was studied. FNAB was used as the reference standard for the diagnosis of benign nodules, but histopathologic evaluations were performed when results suspicious for malignancy or malignant results were obtained on FNAB as well as in indeterminate lesions. RESULTS: In our study, pattern of stiffness based on gray-scale and classification proposed were statistically significant and predicted malignancy with 100% sensitivity and 40.6% specificity. Tumor size when compared with B-mode images or margins was not statistically significant in our study. No false-negatives were found, and an NPV of 100% was seen. Interobserver agreement for US elastography was excellent in our study, with a κ index of 0.82 (95% CI). CONCLUSIONS: We believe that US elastography is a promising technique that can assist in the evaluation of thyroid nodules and can potentially diminish the number of FNAB procedures needed. We believe that it may be useful to introduce US elastography into routine clinical practice.
Book Reviews: Prosody and Speech Recognition

chart parsing is reduced into a set of matrix operations dealing with sparse matrices. Appendices list sample grammars and lexicons, which brings substance to the claims. "Speech" in this book refers to English only, which is never made explicit. This seems to be the normal case in American literature, however. Of course, most of the contribution is relevant to other languages as well. The book also provides an interesting contribution in the area of finite-state properties of language, because the phrase structure grammars used are essentially finite-state. Other finite-state accounts (such as the two-level model by Koskenniemi [1984] and cascaded transducers by Kaplan and Kay [Kay 1983] seem to have been less successful in combining structural information with segmental processes. Both other models are purely segmental, although syllables are sometimes referred to as contexts. An interesting problem concerning rule interaction in the proposed formalism is dealt with on page 113. There would be an obvious need for subtraction (for defining negative contexts) and intersection (combining effects). Subtraction, however, turns out to exclude too much, whereas intersection is too permissive. The book is well written and the argumentation proceeds logically. Both strong and weak points of the theories proposed are clearly presented. It gives a fair overall picture of the field of speech recognition, and much of the book could be suitable as a textbook. Nevertheless, some passages address mostly readers with a considerable background. The main topic covers, of course, a specific slice of the whole field, namely the treatment of allophonic variation. One minor inconvenience is the use of a reference format that cites a number only, not the author and the year. This results in a small savings in space but a larger burden for the reader. The book appears to be Church's (previously unpublished) doctoral dissertation from MIT, though this is not clearly indicated in the volume. Although not particularly new, it still is very valuable.
Myeloid heme oxygenase-1 promotes metastatic tumor colonization in mice

Heme oxygenase‐1 (HO‐1) is a heme degradation enzyme with antioxidant and immune‐modulatory functions. HO‐1 promotes tumorigenesis by enhancing tumor cell proliferation and invasion. Whether HO‐1 has an effect on cancer progression through stromal compartments is less clear. Here we show that the growth of tumor engrafted subcutaneously in syngeneic mice was not affected by host HO‐1 expression. However, lung metastasis arisen from subcutaneous tumor or circulating tumor cells was significantly reduced in HO‐1+/− mice comparing to wild type (WT) mice. The reduced lung metastasis was also observed in B6 mice bearing HO‐1+/− bone marrow as comparing to WT chimeras, indicating that HO‐1 expression in hematopoietic cells impacts tumor colonization at the metastatic site. Further experiments demonstrated that the numbers of myeloid cells recruited to pulmonary premetastatic niches and metastatic loci were significantly lower in HO‐1+/− mice than in WT mice. Likewise, the extents of tumor cell extravasation and colonization at the metastatic loci in the early phase of metastasis were significantly lower in HO‐1+/− mice. Mechanistic studies revealed that HO‐1 impacted chemoattractant‐induced myeloid cell migration by modulating p38 kinase signaling. Moreover, myeloid HO‐1‐induced expressions of vascular endothelial growth factor and interleukin‐10 promoted tumor cell transendothelial migration and STAT3 activation in vitro. These data support a pathological role of myeloid HO‐1 in metastasis and suggest a possibility of targeting myeloid HO‐1 for cancer treatment.
Remarks on Elliptic Curve Discrete Logarithm Problems

The MOV and FR algorithms, which are representative attacks on elliptic curve cryptosystems, reduce the elliptic curve discrete logarithm problem (ECDLP) to the discrete logarithm problem in a finite field. This paper studies these algorithms and introduces the following three results. First, we show an explicit condition under which the MOV algorithm can be applied to non-supersingular elliptic curves. Next, by comparing the effectiveness of the MOV algorithm to that of the FR algorithm, it is explicitly shown that the condition needed for the MOV algorithm to be subexponential is the same as that for the FR algorithm except for elliptic curves of trace two. Finally, a new explicit reduction algorithm is proposed for the ECDLP over elliptic curves of trace two. This algorithm differs from a simple realization of the FR algorithm. Furthermore, we show, by experimental results, that the running time of the proposed algorithm is shorter than that of the original FR algorithm. key words: elliptic curve discrete logarithm problem, MOV algorithm, FR algorithm
Rotation and scale invariant posture recognition using Microsoft Kinect skeletal tracking feature

Human posture identification for motion controlling applications is becoming more of a challenge. We present a posture classification system using skeletal-tracking feature of Microsoft Kinect sensor. Posture recovery is carried out by detecting the human body joints, its position, and orientation at the same time. Angular representation of the skeleton data makes the system very robust and avoids problems related to human body occlusions and motion ambiguities. The implemented system is tested on a class of relatively common postures comprising hundreds of human pose instances by different people, where our classifier shows an average accuracy of 94.9%, 96.7% and 96.9% for linear, exponential and priority based matching systems respectively.
Neighbourhood Environment Correlates of Physical Activity: A Study of Eight Czech Regional Towns

An adequate amount of physical activity (PA) is a key factor that is associated with good health. This study assessed socio-environmental factors associated with meeting the health recommendations for PA (achieving 10,000 steps per day). In total, 1,653 respondents randomly selected from across eight regional towns (each >90,000 inhabitants) in the Czech Republic participated in the study. The ANEWS questionnaire assessed the environment in neighbourhoods, and participants’ weekly PA was objectively monitored (Yamax Digiwalker SW-700 pedometer). About 24% of participants were sufficiently active, 27% were highly active; 28% participants were overweight and 5% were obese. Although BMI was significantly inversely associated with the daily step counts achieved only in females, for both genders, BMI was generally not significantly associated with the criterion of achieving 10,000 steps per day during the week. Increased BMI in both genders was accompanied with a decline in participation in organized PA and with increasing age. As regards to the demographic/lifestyle factors, for females, more participation in organized PA was significantly positively correlated with the achieved daily step counts. In contrast, older age and higher BMI (for females) and smoking (for males) were significantly negatively correlated with the achieved daily step counts. In terms of the environmental aspects, pleasant environments were significantly positively correlated to daily step counts for both genders. Additionally, for males, better residencies (more family homes rather than apartment blocks) in the neighbourhood were significantly positively correlated with their daily step counts. For females, less accessibility of shops and non-sport facilities (depending on walking distance in minutes) were significantly negatively correlated to the achieved daily step counts. Individuals who lived in pleasant neighbourhoods, with better access to shops and who participated in organized PA (≥2 times a week) tended to meet the recommendations for health-enhancing PA levels. The creation of physical activity-friendly environments could be associated with enhancing people’s achieved daily step counts and meeting the health criteria for PA.
Trigger-Based Language Model Construction by Combining Different Corpora (第6回音声言語シンポジウム)

In this paper we study the trigger-based language model, which can model dependencies between words longer than those modeled by the n-gram language model. Generally in language modeling, when the training corpus matches the target task, its size is typically small, and therefore insufficient for providing reliable probability estimates. On the other hand, large corpora are often too general to capture task dependency. The proposed approach tries to overcome this generality-sparseness trade-off problem by constructing a trigger-based language model in which task-dependent trigger pairs are first extracted from the corpus that matches the task, and then the occurrence probabilities of the pairs are estimated from both the task corpus and a large text corpus to avoid the data sparseness problem. We report evaluation results in the Corpus of Spontaneous Japanese (CSJ).
Aspartate Aminotransferase (AST/GOT) and Alanine Aminotransferase (ALT/GPT) Detection Techniques

The levels of aspartate aminotransferase (AST/GOT) and alanine aminotransferase (ALT/GPT) in serum can help people diagnose body tissues especially the heart and the liver are injured or not. This article provides a comprehensive review of research activities that concentrate on AST/GOT and ALT/GPT detection techniques due to their clinical importance. The detection techniques include colorimetric, spectrophotometric, chemiluminescence, chromatography, fluorescence and UV absorbance, radiochemical, and electrochemical techniques. We devote the most attention on experimental principle. In some methods a few representative devices and important conclusions are presented.
Separation and transition to turbulence in a compressor passage

A direct numerical simulation (DNS) of flow through a linear compressor cascade with incoming free-stream turbulence was performed prior to the summer program (Zaki et al. 2006). The data from the simulation, both time averaged and instantaneous fields, are analyzed. Due to the incident turbulence and the moderate Reynolds number, laminarto-turbulence transition takes place on both sides of the airfoil. The pressure surface boundary layer undergoes laminar separation in absence of freestream disturbances. When exposed to free-stream forcing, the boundary layer remains attached due to bypass transition to turbulence upstream of the laminar separation point. Examination of the instantaneous fields demonstrates the transition mechanism is consistent with previous DNS of flat plate boundary layers. Unlike the pressure side, the suction surface boundary layer separates independent of the free-stream condition. Upstream of separation, the amplification of Klebanoff distortions is significantly suppressed in the favorable pressure gradient (FPG) region. This suppression is in agreement with simulations of constant pressure gradient boundary layers. This effect is normally stabilizing with respect to bypass transition to turbulence, but is unfavorable with respect to separation: downstream of the FPG section, a strong adverse pressure gradient (APG) on the suction surface of the blade causes the laminar boundary layer to separate. The separation surface is modulated in the instantaneous fields by the perturbation jets inside the shear layer. Separation is followed by breakdown to turbulence and reattachment.
Vision-based Human Action Recognition: A Sparse Representation Perspective

The objective of vision-based human action recognition is to label the video sequence with its corresponding action category. In this thesis, the human action recognition problem is solved from a novel sparse representation perspective. First, spatial-temporal interest points are extracted in the video sequences. Then, a cuboid is extracted centered at each spatial-temporal interest point. The histogram of oriented gradients (HOG) and histogram of flow (HOF) descriptors for each cuboid are computed and concatenated into a one-dimensional vector. The K-Means clustering algorithm is used to cluster these cuboid feature vectors into a few visual codewords. Finally, each action instance is represented as a histogram of the visual codewords. We apply sparse representation based classification in the human action recognition problem. Each action instance in the test set is represented approximately as a linear weighted sum of all the action instances in the training set. The 1-minimization technique is utilized to derive the sparse result. The residual between the test instance and its corresponding representation using the action instances in each class is calculated. The test action instance falls into the action class with the smallest residual. Our proposed human action recognition system is evaluated on the KTH human action dataset. The experimental results obtained using our method are compared with the results derived using conventional machine learning techniques such as K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN) and Support Vector Machines (SVM) and show that the proposed framework yields considerable performance improvement in many aspects. 1-regularized least squares. iv COPYRIGHT c 2012, Zhe Zhang v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First, I would like to thank my adviser, Professor Senem Velipasalar for her encouragement and guidance throughout my graduate program. I also thank her for always being patient and cheering me up no matter how stuck I got or even failed after months of efforts. Although the professors are very busy with their teaching and research work, my adviser can always find time for our meetings in which many valuable discussions are produced. I highly appreciate the environment she fosters in the whole lab, which I believe is very healthy and helpful for creative research. I would like to thank Professor Sina Balkir for serving as my local advisor for the last year of my graduate study, I really appreciate his kind support and help. for serving on my Master thesis committee and providing many valuable comments and suggestions. I learned a lot from Professor Hoffman's classes and …
Shape matching based real-coded genetic algorithm for grasping construction

Data glove is widely used in the area of human computer interaction (HCI). Resulting from the complicated architecture of human hand and limited precision of peripheral equipment, the errors for sensorpsilas output must be calibrated. A tempting solution to overcome this issue would be to use external sensors or construct manually to provide the ground-truth data to handle the calibration. The drawbacks of these approaches are tedious calibration procedures and lack of automation. The work described in this paper provides a method for grasping construction, which is based on real-coded generic algorithm and shape matching theory. This approach has the advantage that it does not require any special outer device and can be implemented automatically.
Blender for biology The making of Protein Expressions – Study N 2

We presented in 2008 the initial steps of our project, to use Blender for scientific representation and molecular animation of life at the cellular level. This report will focus on some developments in two major aspects: the use of Blender Game Engine in conjunction with other scientific programs to elaborate the movement of proteins and the development of a visual code based on texturing and particles special effects to represent the physical and chemical properties that confer to molecules an appearance that reveal useful information. We also describe some details of the construction of specific scenes.