Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mixed 
 (LL∗)−1 and 
 LL∗ least‐squares finite element methods with application to linear hyperbolic problems

In this paper, a few dual least‐squares finite element methods and their application to scalar linear hyperbolic problems are studied. The purpose is to obtain L2‐norm approximations on finite element spaces of the exact solutions to hyperbolic partial differential equations of interest. This is approached by approximating the generally infeasible quadratic minimization that defines the L2‐orthogonal projection of the exact solution, by feasible least‐squares principles using the ideas of the original LL∗ method proposed in the context of elliptic equations. All methods in this paper are founded upon and extend the LL∗ approach that is rather general and applicable beyond the setting of elliptic problems. Error bounds are shown that point to the factors affecting the convergence and provide conditions that guarantee optimal rates. Furthermore, the preconditioning of the resulting linear systems is discussed. Numerical results are provided to illustrate the behavior of the methods on common finite element spaces.
The signature of randomness in riparian plant root distributions

Known as “the hidden half”, plant roots are fundamental contributors to the riparian ecosystem functioning. Roots show an extraordinary architectural complexity that recalls their remarkable ability to adapt to environmental heterogeneity, resources availability, and climate. In fluvial environments, phreatophytes and hydrophytes cope with flow and sediment processes, and hydrotropism and aerotropism are the main drivers for root growth. In this work, we show how the vertical root density distribution in riparian plants is the result of how plants respond to the random fluctuations of river flows. A root data set from field and controlled outdoor experiments is used in combination with a physically based analytical model to demonstrate that the root vertical density distribution can be ascribed to the interplay of randomness and determinism in a simple mathematical form. The shape of the distribution reflects the profitability of plant roots to grow in different soil layers depending on the soil moisture availability. For the first time, this model helps understanding in an analytical manner the adaptation strategy of plant roots to different scenarios, paving the way for the comprehension of the effects of future changes in climate and environmental conditions.
Differences in Safety Climate between Hospital Personnel and Naval Aviators

We compared results of safety climate survey questions from health care respondents with those from naval aviation, a high-reliability organization. Separate surveys containing a subset of 23 similar questions were conducted among employees from 15 hospitals and from naval aviators from 226 squadrons. For each question a “problematic response” was defined that suggested an absence of a safety climate. Overall, the problematic response rate was 5.6% for naval aviators versus 17.5% for hospital personnel (p < .0001). The problematic response was 20.9% in highhazard hospital domains such as emergency departments and operating rooms. Problematic response among hospital workers was up to 12 times greater than that among aviators on certain questions. Although further research on safety climate in health care is warranted, hospitals may need to make substantial changes to achieve a safety climate consistent with the status of high-reliability organizations.
Isolation and partial characterization of major protein antigens in the culture fluid of Mycobacterium tuberculosis

Five actively secreted proteins (MPT32, MPT45, MPT51, MPT53, and MPT63) and the MPT46 protein were purified to homogeneity from Mycobacterium tuberculosis culture fluid and compared with proteins previously purified by ourselves and other investigators. Antisera were obtained by immunization of rabbits with all of the newly isolated proteins identified to be immunogenic. Two-dimensional electrophoresis of culture fluids obtained each week for 2 to 10 weeks of culturing of M. tuberculosis revealed characteristic changes, permitting identification of two distinct groups of proteins being actively secreted from the mycobacterial cells or appearing later in the culture fluids as a result of the release of soluble proteins from the cytosol after lysis of bacteria. The N-terminal amino acid sequences of five MPTs were shown to be identical to those of proteins previously isolated by other investigators and given different designations, and five new sequences are given. These sequences and the use of the antisera may serve to identify these proteins with mycobacterial constituents isolated by other investigators. The previously identified but not isolated MPT45 protein was shown to correspond to the C component of the antigen 85 complex. The 27-kDa MPT51 protein was demonstrated to cross-react with the three components of the antigen 85 complex, and the N-terminal amino acid sequences of MPT51 and MPT59 showed 60% homology. This finding and the extensive cross-reactivity between the components of the antigen 85 complex may indicate that there is a family of closely related secreted proteins in mycobacteria.
Dynamic performance control of modular multilevel converters in HVDC transmission systems

This paper focuses on dynamic performance control of modular multilevel converters (MMC) in high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission systems. To achieve this objective, a new mathematical model including six state variables of ac-currents and dc-link voltage of MMC, and circulating currents of converter arms are proposed for MMC in d-q reference frame. In addition, a robust control technique with three sub-control loops is designed to provide the stable operation of MMC. In the overall structure of the proposed controller, three outer, central and inner loops have the duties of 1) making the state variables error zero with changeable convergence rate, 2) adding robustness characteristic to the proposed controller, and 3) generating the appropriate reference values for MMC's currents, respectively. The effectiveness of the proposed control algorithm is investigated via MATLAB simulation. The simulation results highlight the capability of the proposed control algorithm in offering an accurate active and reactive power tracking through the control method of MMC, a stabilized dc-link voltage, capacitor voltage balancing of sub-modules, and minimization of circulating currents of converter arms during dynamic transitions and steady state operation.
Role of Protein Kinase C in the Signal Pathways That Link Na+/K+-ATPase to ERK1/2*

We have shown before that Na+/K+-ATPase acts as a signal transducer, through protein-protein interactions, in addition to being an ion pump. Interaction of ouabain with the enzyme of the intact cells causes activation of Src, transactivation of EGFR, and activation of the Ras/ERK1/2 cascade. To determine the role of protein kinase C (PKC) in this pathway, neonatal rat cardiac myocytes were exposed to ouabain and assayed for translocation/activation of PKC from cytosolic to particulate fractions. Ouabain caused rapid and sustained stimulation of this translocation, evidenced by the assay of Ca2+-dependent and Ca2+-independent PKC activities and by the immunoblot analysis of the α, δ, and ε isoforms of PKC. Dose-dependent stimulation of PKC translocation by ouabain (1–100 μm) was accompanied by no more than 50% inhibition of Na+/K+-ATPase and doubling of [Ca2+] i , changes that do not affect myocyte viability and are known to be associated with positive inotropic, but not toxic, effects of ouabain in rat cardiac ventricles. Ouabain-induced activation of ERK1/2 was blocked by PKC inhibitors calphostin C and chelerythrine. An inhibitor of phosphoinositide turnover in myocytes also antagonized ouabain-induced PKC translocation and ERK1/2 activation. These and previous findings indicate that ouabain-induced activation of PKC and Ras, each linked to Na+/K+-ATPase through Src/EGFR, are both required for the activation of ERK1/2. Ouabain-induced PKC translocation and ERK1/2 activation were dependent on the presence of Ca2+ in the medium, suggesting that the signal-transducing and ion-pumping functions of Na+/K+-ATPase cooperate in activation of these protein kinases and the resulting regulation of contractility and growth of the cardiac myocyte.
Nitrogen-Fixing Nodules with Ensifer adhaerens Harboring Rhizobium tropici Symbiotic Plasmids

ABSTRACT Ensifer adhaerens is a soil bacterium that attaches to other bacteria and may cause lysis of these other bacteria. Based on the sequence of its small-subunit rRNA gene, E. adhaerensis related to Sinorhizobium spp. E. adhaerensATCC 33499 did not nodulate Phaseolus vulgaris (bean) orLeucaena leucocephala, but with symbiotic plasmids fromRhizobium tropici CFN299 it formed nitrogen-fixing nodules on both hosts. The nodule isolates were identified as E. adhaerens isolates by growth on selective media.
Metagenome Sequences of Sediment from a Recovering Industrialized Appalachian River in West Virginia

ABSTRACT We sequenced two metagenomes from upper sediment layers (0 to 5 and 6 to 10 cm) from the Kanawha River, West Virginia. The watershed includes inputs from the forested Appalachian Mountains, surface coal mining, municipal residues, and extensive chemical manufacturing. The dominant bacterial phyla were Proteobacteria, Bacteriodetes, Firmicutes, Actinobacteria, and Chloroflexi. Xenobiotic degradation pathways were present.
Mobile based data retrieval using RDF and NLP in an efficient approach

Nowadays Youngsters like IT people and various sectors are showing massive interest and moving towards agriculture farming for self sustainable energy for our generation. People are in metro environment with family owned lands they are in need of proper guidance from farmers having huge experience But there is a gap in medium in approaching the farmers by staying with them for months together to get Knowledge Transfer for facing issues and clarifications. The farmers and ancestors traditional methods and subject knowledge need to be transferred to upcoming generations. In Digital world, farmers are using smart phones so to document the knowledge from farmers the Subject Matter Expertise of agriculture (SME) under database and to provide solution by queries in efficient approach through RDF (Resource Description Framework) and Natural Language Processing Technique (NLP) in the form of mobile application internally using SPARQL queries. In this paper, WordNet text mining processing method is used.
Factorized Convolutional Networks: Unsupervised Fine-Tuning for Image Clustering

Deep convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have recognized promise as universal representations for various image recognition tasks. One of their properties is the ability to transfer knowledge from a large annotated source dataset (e.g., ImageNet) to a (typically smaller) target dataset. This is usually accomplished through supervised fine-tuning on labeled new target data. In this work, we address "unsupervised fine-tuning" that transfers a pre-trained network to target tasks with unlabeled data such as image clustering tasks. To this end, we introduce group-sparse non-negative matrix factorization (GSNMF), a variant of NMF, to identify a rich set of high-level latent variables that are informative on the target task. The resulting "factorized convolutional network" (FCN) can itself be seen as a feed-forward model that combines CNN and two-layer structured NMF. We empirically validate our approach and demonstrate state-of-the-art image clustering performance on challenging scene (MIT-67) and fine-grained (Birds-200, Flowers-102) benchmarks. We further show that, when used as unsupervised initialization, our approach improves image classification performance as well.
Sequence-to-Sequence Learning via Shared Latent Representation

Sequence-to-sequence learning is a popular research area in deep learning, such as video captioning and speech recognition. Existing methods model this learning as a mapping process by first encoding the input sequence to a fixed-sized vector, followed by decoding the target sequence from the vector. Although simple and intuitive, such mapping model is task-specific, unable to be directly used for different tasks. In this paper, we propose a star-like framework for general and flexible sequence-to-sequence learning, where different types of media contents (the peripheral nodes) could be encoded to and decoded from a shared latent representation (SLR) (the central node). This is inspired by the fact that human brain could learn and express an abstract concept in different ways. The media-invariant property of SLR could be seen as a high-level regularization on the intermediate vector, enforcing it to not only capture the latent representation intra each individual media like the auto-encoders, but also their transitions like the mapping models. Moreover, the SLR model is content-specific, which means it only needs to be trained once for a dataset, while used for different tasks. We show how to train a SLR model via dropout and use it for different sequence-to-sequence tasks. Our SLR model is validated on the Youtube2Text and MSR-VTT datasets, achieving superior performance on video-to-sentence task, and the first sentence-to-video results.
Corporate Frugality: Theory, Measurement and Practice

This paper uses a mix of field research and survey methods to provide evidence on the existence of 'frugality' as a company characteristic. Drawing upon established scales of frugality in the literature on consumer psychology, we develop and validate a multi-item measure of corporate frugality. A key part of scale development is establishing discriminant validity, the uniqueness from and relatedness to extant constructs. We demonstrate that frugality differs from budgetary control, and is not associated with organizational culture types in the Competing Values framework (Quinn and Rohrbaugh, 1981). Further, we investigate the association between frugality and business strategy using Porter's (1980) typology of low cost and product differentiation strategies and find that frugality is equally present in companies with both strategies. Having established frugality as a distinct construct, we examine its nomological validity, the consequences of frugality for cost management practice. We find that frugal companies control cost differently and make greater use of a broad range of cost management practices. In sum, we develop and validate a theory-consistent measure of corporate frugality; a construct that has been present in descriptions and anecdotes of business practices of cost management for decades, but which has gained new currency in modern economic times.
Competition Law and Transnational Private Regulatory Regimes: Marking the Cartel Boundary

Cartels today are prohibited under competition regimes around the world, although seen historically (in Europe at least) as a public good to be tolerated or even encouraged by governments. Despite the prohibition, illegal cartels are still prevalent, and there are circumstances where cartel-like conduct is allowed under competition rules. This article explores the extent to which such conduct can be both subject to one regulatory regime (competition law) while also carrying out regulatory functions, and hence can be construed as transnational private regulatory regimes (TPRERs). There are three categories of cartel-like arrangements: private contractual arrangements that fall outside the realm of competition law; self-regulatory arrangements designed to exclusively advance the interests of regulatees; and hybrid regimes where private arrangements have been co-opted as a form of regulation which operate in the shadow of competition law and are often seen as advancing competition objectives.
A literature review on biomaterials in sinus augmentation procedures.

BACKGROUND Sinus augmentation is a common procedure to increase bone volume and allow for proper implant placement in the atrophic posterior maxilla. Although the patient's own bone is considered the best grafting material, various synthetic or bovine-derived alternatives are used to simplify the grafting procedure. PURPOSE The overall objective of this review was to assess the efficacy of different graft materials used in sinus augmentation procedures as demonstrated in animal studies. MATERIALS AND METHODS A specific and sensitive database was initially created via PUBMED, focusing on studies published in English peer-reviewed journals between 1995 and 2004 and kept updated until 2006. RESULTS Twenty-six articles were available for comparison and discussion; none concerned the use of alloplastic materials; 24 were comparative histomorphometric; and two were biomechanical studies. Because of a great variability in study designs, different implant types, great range in follow-up, and lack of specific integration or loading period, a comparison of the studies and the biomaterials used was difficult. CONCLUSIONS In general, autogenous bone is the most predictable material of choice for augmentation procedures, despite a 40% resorption, because it is highly osteoconductive and less dependent on sinus floor endosteal bone migration. The addition of bovine bone mineral to autogenous bone can be beneficial for graft success because it acts as a slowly resorbing space maintainer. Porous hydroxyapatite is suitable when mixed with autogenous bone because it enhances bone formation and bone-to-implant contact in augmented sinuses. Histological evaluation showed that demineralized freeze-dried bone is inferior to other materials. Within the limitation of the animal studies examined in this review and only based on histological examination, the initial osseointegration of implants seems independent of the biomaterial used in grafting procedures.
Electrical and Mechanical Characteristics of DNA Bundles Revealed by Silicon Nanotweezers

This paper deals with the first simultaneous electrical and mechanical characterization of DNA bundles by a MEMS tool. The silicon-based device has an integrated actuator and a differential capacitive position sensor. Our experiments show that under constant humidity conditions, a rope of DNA has a nearly Ohmic conductivity and behaves as a viscoelastic material.
The strategic partnership role of senior Human Resource managers in South African organisations

Strategic Human Resource management plays an increasingly important role in strategic business management and organisational effectiveness. The goal of this study was to analyse the strategic partnership role of senior Human Resource managers in South African organisations. A theoretical model of the strategic partnership process was also developed and partially validated. The results indicate that professional competencies could explain significant variance in strategic partnership. A positive relationship was found between business-related competencies and strategic partnership. A positive relationship was also found between strategic role motivation as well as strategic role opportunities and strategic partnership.
Developing the model of human resource management bundles and firm performance in the Pacific Island countries

As the field of research on human resource management and strategic human resource management is developing, new theories on human resource management and strategic human resource management are emerging. Studies have used four theories on human resource management and strategic human resource management to explore the relationship between best HRM practices and firm performance. These four theories are the 1) universalistic perspective; 2) contingency perspective; 3) configurational perspective; 4) contextual paradigm. Based on the criticisms of the universalistic perspective, contingency perspective, configurational perspective and contextual paradigm, this paper proposes the model of human resource management bundles and firm performance in the Pacific Island countries.
Weighing Elephants with Kitchen Scales. The relevance of traditional performance measurement tools for social enterprises

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze whether the use of current performance tools is consistent with the specific features of social enterprises. Design/methodology/approach – In a first phase, the main performance tools are divided into strategic planning tools, reporting tools and economic optimization techniques. In a second phase, 15 criteria emerge from a literature review to characterize the specific features of social enterprises. These criteria are brought together into an analytical framework, which makes it possible to analyze the relevance of each performance tool in relation to the specific features of social enterprises. Findings – What comes out of the analysis is that the tools globally fail to account for the specific features of social enterprises. That none of them met more than half of the criteria suggests the need for new performance tools based on strong theoretical bases. Research limitations/implications – Only the main performance tools are taken into account in this .
Reference right ventricular systolic and diastolic function normalized to age, gender and body surface area from steady-state free precession cardiovascular magnetic resonance.

AIMS Recent advances in cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) include improved image quality with steady-state free precession (SSFP) sequences and advanced post-processing of high temporal resolution ventricular function. We used these techniques to establish the reference values for right ventricular (RV) volumes and function. METHODS AND RESULTS We studied 120 healthy subjects (60 men, 60 women; from 20 to 80 years) after exclusion of cardiovascular abnormality. Data were generated from SSFP cines, with three-dimensional modelling. Gender, body surface area (BSA), and age were independent predictors of several RV parameters. Normalized RV mass (RVM) and absolute and normalized RV volumes decreased significantly with age, whereas ejection fraction increased. For diastolic variables, absolute and normalized early peak filling rate (PFR(E)) decreased and absolute and normalized active peak filling rate (PFR(A)) in males increased, with decreased PFR(E)/PFR(A). Increasing BSA was associated with increased RVM, volumes, and PFR(E). Gender significantly influenced absolute and normalized mass and volumes, and absolute and normalized PFR(A). CONCLUSION These data using state-of-the-art CMR show that normal values of RV systolic and diastolic parameters vary significantly by gender, BSA, and age. Appropriate reference ranges normalized to all three variables should be used in the determination of normality or severity of abnormality of RV dimensions and function.
Immobilized laccase-based biosensor for the detection of disubstituted methyl and methoxy phenols – application of Box–Behnken design with response surface methodology for modeling and optimization of performance parameters

Abstract An amperometric principle-based biosensor, employing immobilized laccase enzyme from Trametes versicolor, was developed for the detection of disubstituted methyl and methoxy phenols. Three immobilization methods such as entrapment, cross-linking, and co-cross-linking, with bovine serum albumin (BSA) on nylon membrane have been compared. Among tested methods of immobilization, co-cross-linking method with BSA was superior to the other methods in terms of; sensitivity, limit of detection, response time, and operating stability. The increased sensitivity of the probe optimization of concentrations of laccase, BSA and glutaraldehyde can be achieved by, employing the Box–Behnken design of experiment.