Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
SeqTar: an effective method for identifying microRNA guided cleavage sites from degradome of polyadenylated transcripts in plants

In plants, microRNAs (miRNAs) regulate their mRNA targets by precisely guiding cleavages between the 10th and 11th nucleotides in the complementary regions. High-throughput sequencing-based methods, such as PARE or degradome profiling coupled with a computational analysis of the sequencing data, have recently been developed for identifying miRNA targets on a genome-wide scale. The existing algorithms limit the number of mismatches between a miRNA and its targets and strictly do not allow a mismatch or G:U Wobble pair at the position 10 or 11. However, evidences from recent studies suggest that cleavable targets with more mismatches exist indicating that a relaxed criterion can find additional miRNA targets. In order to identify targets including the ones with weak complementarities from degradome data, we developed a computational method called SeqTar that allows more mismatches and critically mismatch or G:U pair at the position 10 or 11. Precisely, two statistics were introduced in SeqTar, one to measure the alignment between miRNA and its target and the other to quantify the abundance of reads at the center of the miRNA complementary site. By applying SeqTar to publicly available degradome data sets from Arabidopsis and rice, we identified a substantial number of novel targets for conserved and non-conserved miRNAs in addition to the reported ones. Furthermore, using RLM 5′-RACE assay, we experimentally verified 12 of the novel miRNA targets (6 each in Arabidopsis and rice), of which some have more than 4 mismatches and have mismatches or G:U pairs at the position 10 or 11 in the miRNA complementary sites. Thus, SeqTar is an effective method for identifying miRNA targets in plants using degradome data sets.
Prospects of Bitcoin - An evalutation of its future

The main goal of this thesis is to investigate the properties and prospects of the new digital currency, Bitcoin. How is it structured and is there a possibility of it having a substantial impact on the financial sector or today’s monetary systems? Through macroeconomic theory, financial models and academic writing we will explain the fundamentals of money, how the Bitcoin network functions and in what ways it could be used in the future. The problems lie in the many uncertainties that follow a completely decentralized currency including price instability, lack of regulation and self-policing. Will it become an established, stable currency? We believe not, but it could very well grow into being a useful complement to today’s current financial sector and drive institutions towards becoming more efficient. As this is a completely new phenomenon, many questions remain unanswered. However, what is in store for Bitcoin, only time can tell.
Hydrogel Containing Nanoparticle-Stabilized Liposomes for Topical Antimicrobial Delivery

Adsorbing small charged nanoparticles onto the outer surfaces of liposomes has become an effective strategy to stabilize liposomes against fusion prior to “seeing” target bacteria, yet allow them to fuse with the bacteria upon arrival at the infection sites. As a result, nanoparticle-stabilized liposomes have become an emerging drug delivery platform for treatment of various bacterial infections. To facilitate the translation of this platform for clinical tests and uses, herein we integrate nanoparticle-stabilized liposomes with hydrogel technology for more effective and sustained topical drug delivery. The hydrogel formulation not only preserves the structural integrity of the nanoparticle-stabilized liposomes, but also allows for controllable viscoeleasticity and tunable liposome release rate. Using Staphylococcus aureus bacteria as a model pathogen, we demonstrate that the hydrogel formulation can effectively release nanoparticle-stabilized liposomes to the bacterial culture, which subsequently fuse with bacterial membrane in a pH-dependent manner. When topically applied onto mouse skin, the hydrogel formulation does not generate any observable skin toxicity within a 7-day treatment. Collectively, the hydrogel containing nanoparticle-stabilized liposomes hold great promise for topical applications against various microbial infections.
On a Method to Reduce Uncertainties in Bulk Property Measurements of Two-Component Composites

For two-component composites, we address the inverse problem of estimating the structural parameters and decrease measurement errors in bulk property measurements. A measurement of the effective permittivity at one frequency gives microstructural information about the composite that is used in cross-property bounds to estimate the effective permittivity at other frequencies. We use this information and inverse bounds on microstructural parameters to tighten error bars on permittivity measurements at microwave frequencies. The method can be used in the design of random and periodic composite materials for a large variety of applications. We apply the method to a composite material used in radar applications.
Valuing Air Pollution in Britain

This study explores the relationship between happiness and air pollution in Britain using data from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS). The effects of air pollution on individuals’ happiness are estimated and their monetary value is calculated. In particular, three air pollutants are examined in this paper; the sulphur dioxide (SO2), the ground-level ozone (O3) and the nitrogen dioxides (NOX). Moreover, two different approaches are followed. The first approach refers to panel fixed and random effects regressions. The second model considers fixed effects with lagged dependent variable. The results show that the SO2 presents the strongest negative effects on well-being happiness followed by O3 and NOX. However, ozone’s and nitrogen oxides’ monetary costs are very low in comparison with sulphur dioxide.The monetary values for sulphur dioxide range between £12-£18, while the respective values for ground level ozone and nitrogen oxides range between £3-£6 and £2 respectively. JEL: C23, Q51, Q53
Exchange rate regimes and financial repression.

The main purpose of this study is to explore the role of financial repression for optimal exchange rate regimes. This issue is investigated within two different frameworks. In the first part, a short run stabilization target is the main concern. In this part, a NewStructuralist approach is taken and the idea is developed within a simple IS/LM stochasticsticky price macro model. It is shown how the direct linkage between the financial sector and the supply side of the economy may overturn some standard perceptions regarding the price and output (supply) stabilization properties of exchange rate (fixed-float) regimes. We explore the conditions under which the fixed rates would entail a full insulation for domestic prices against foreign price and foreign interest rate shocks, and circumstances involving the fixed rates would not be able to isolate fully the domestic prices against domestic monetary shock. We also demonstrate the conditions under which the floating rates would provide a full isolation for the domestic prices against the domestic monetary shock and the occasions where they are not able to insulate fully the domestic prices against foreign price and foreign interest rate shocks. In part two, a longer-run perspective with a (micro based) welfare criterion is chosen and the analysis turns mainly towards the McKinnon-Shaw School. In this part, within a stochastic general equilibrium model, it is shown for a semi-small open economy how the optimality of the exchange rate flexibility is affected by the degree of financial repression among many other structural and policy variables. Conventional policy implications for optimal exchange rate regimes, resulting from applying partial equilibrium models, seems to be less convincing when government is maximising the welfare of a representative agent and there are imperfections in the economy. The role of financial repression as a shock absorber in the context of growth and inflation stabilization is explored. Liberalization of financial markets is not always the best policy and under well defined circumstances when the economy is exposed to various shocks, financial repression policy may improve welfare (growth). It is shown how the optimality of the exchange rate regime may be affected by the type of monetary authorities (ultra-conservative, opportunist) who govern the central bank. The welfare implications of the type of central banker in a financially repressed economy is examined. The implications of financial repression, exchange rate and taxation on foreign assets policies for the real business cycles are also analysed. Different consequences of financial repression policies through the marginal productivity of (domestic) capital (Goldsmith channel) and via savings-investment incentives (McKinnon-Shaw channel) for the expected and the variance of growth are explored.
Preamble-based channel estimation techniques for OFDM/OQAM over the powerline

OFDM/OQAM is a special type of multi-carrier modulation that can be considered as an alternative to conventional OFDM with cyclic prefix (CP) for transmission over multi-path fading channels. Indeed, as it requires no guard interval, it has the advantage of a theoretical higher spectral efficiency. Furthermore, if the pulse shape is well-localized in frequency, the resulting OFDM/OQAM signal satisfies stringent spectrum requirements. However, the classical channel estimation methods used for OFDM cannot be directly applied to OFDM/OQAM. In this paper we present an analysis of this problem and we describe a method for perfect channel estimation in OFDM/OQAM. Then we introduce two new realistic preamble-based channel estimation methods. The performance results are obtained by considering the transmission of an OFDM/OQAM signal over a multi-path power line communication (PLC) channel model. The proposed channel estimation methods are compared to the ones obtained with CP-OFDM.
Arabic Phonetic Dictionaries for Speech Recognition

Phonetic dictionaries are essential components of large-vocabulary speaker-independent speech recognition systems. This paper presents a rule-based technique to generate phonetic dictionaries for a large vocabulary Arabic speech recognition system. The system used conventional Arabic pronunciation rules, common pronunciation rules of Modern Standard Arabic, as well as some common dialectal cases. The paper gives in detail an explanation of these rules as well as their formal mathematical presentation. The rules were used to generate a dictionary for a 5.4 hour corpus of broadcast news. The rules and the phone set were tested and evaluated on an Arabic speech recognition system. The system was trained on 4.3 hours of the 5.4 hours of Arabic broadcast news corpus and tested on the remaining 1.1 hours. The phonetic dictionary contains 23,841 definitions corresponding to about 14232 words. The language model contains both bi-grams and tri-grams. The Word Error Rate (WER) came to 9.0%.
Optical Network Components Based on Microring Resonators

In the last years much effort has been made to arrive at optical integrated circuits with high complexity and advanced functionality for application in optical networks. For this aim high index contrast structures, like optical microresonators, are employed that allow for a large number of functional elements within a given chip area: VLSI photonics. Experimental results of work performed at MESA+ will be reported including a microresonator-based, ultra-compact reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer operating at 40 Gbit/s and fabricated in SiON technology. In addition a discussion will be given of new challenges and possible solutions
Effective Data Aggregation Supported by Dynamic Routing in Wireless Sensor Networks

Data aggregation is an main method to conserve energy in wireless sensor network (WSN). Prior work on data aggregation protocols are generally based on static routing schemes, such as tree-based, cluster-based or chain-based routing schemes. Although they can save energy to some extent, in dynamic scenarios where the source nodes are changing frequently, they will not only incur high overhead to continuously reconstruct the routing but also can not reduce the communication overhead effectively. Our work aims to design an effective data aggregation mechanism supported by dynamic routing (DASDR) which can adapt to different scenarios without incurring much overhead. Enlightened by the concept of potential field in the discipline of physics, the dynamic routing in DASDR is designed based on two potential fields: depth potential field which guarantees packets reaching the sink at last and queue potential field which makes packets more spatially convergent and thus data aggregation will be more efficient. Simulation results show that DASDR is more effective in energy savings as well as scales well with regard to the network size.
Adenosine A2 receptors regulate the gene expression of striatopallidal and striatonigral neurons

Adenosine acts as a neuromodulator through A1 and A2 receptors. The adenosine analogs have been recognized, among other effects, as strong depressors of the locomotor activity by acting on striatal A2 receptors. Moreover, the A2a receptor subtype is exclusively expressed in the striatum. To elucidate at the cellular level the roles of adenosine in the basal ganglia, the anatomical and functional relationships of the A2 receptors with the dopamine D1 and D2 receptors were studied in the rat striatum. In situ hybridization histochemistry was used either in combination with retrograde labeling of striatonigral neurons to determine the projection site of A2a receptor expressing neurons, or on consecutive thin sections to address the putative coexpression of the A2a receptor with the D1 or D2 receptors in individual neurons. The A2a receptor is mainly expressed by neurons projecting to the globus pallidus and expressing also the dopamine D2 receptor and enkephalin, but very sparsely by neurons projecting to the substantia nigra that express the dopamine D1 receptor and substance P. We have further examined the regulatory effect of the A2 receptors on striatal gene expression using in situ hybridization histochemistry and quantitative autoradiography. Rats unilaterally depleted in dopamine by an unilateral 6-hydroxydopamine-induced lesion of the nigrostriatal pathway used as a model of Parkinson's disease subsequently received chronic injections of saline or the adenosine receptor antagonist caffeine. Intact rats were chronically treated with either saline, caffeine alone, caffeine with N-ethyl-carboxamidoadenosine (an equipotent A1 and A2 agonist), or caffeine with cyclohexyladenosine (a more selective A1 agonist). (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Consumers' preferences towards biodiesel in the Spanish transport sector: A case study in Catalonia

In this paper, we analyse the opinions, attitudes and willingness of consumers to pay for biodiesel as an alternative to diesel in Barcelona province. Data were gathered from face-toface structured questionnaires from 300 diesel car owners/users that regularly purchase fuel. A variation of the traditional choice experiments (CE) was used by excluding the price attribute from the design. In a subsequent contingent valuation (CV) exercise, respondents were asked to state their maximum willingness to pay (WTP) for their preferred choice sets using the “payment card” format. The relative importance of the attributes and levels were calculated by estimating a random parameter logit model. The results demonstrated, contrary to the literature in Spain, that consumers were not willing to pay for biodiesel, especially when its production may negatively affect food prices. The main limitation was that car manufacturers do not recommend its use. The public authorities are asked to work jointly with the automotive industry to address this drawback.
Narcissistic Injury and Its Relationship to Early Trauma, Early Resources, and Adjustment to College

This study used structural equation modeling to test the hypothesized model that the effects of early trauma are buffered by early resources and that these variables, in turn, affect psychological damage and subsequent adjustment. In addition, the utility of the Narcissistic Injury Scale (NIS; S. L. Slyter, 1991), an operationalization of A. Miller's (1981) construct of narcissistic injury, was assessed. Students (n = 250) completed questionnaires measuring past trauma, early resources, psychological damage, and adaptation to college. Results supported the reliability and validity of the NIS. Structural equation analyses resulted in a final model with a very good overall fit. The path linking early trauma to psychological damage and then subsequent adjustment accounted for the most variance. The hypothesized buffering effects of early resources were not supported. Counseling and research applications are discussed. There has been growing attention in the theoretical and applied counseling literature to psychoanalytic concepts and ideas related to "self" and "self-disturbance. " The concept of self as the fundamental building block of identitypersonality and the theoretical notion that healthy selfdevelopment follows from adequate parental-environmental responses to a child's needs for respect and understanding emanate from the object relations (Fairbairn, 1952) and selfpsychology (Kohut, 1971) perspectives, which differ from orthodox psychoanalytic models that focus on instinctual drives to explain personality and development. The appeal of these alternative psychoanalytic models for counseling psychology scholars and practitioners is easily understood. First, as Gelso and Fassinger (1992) have suggested, these approaches focus on healthy development and emphasize familiar and salient constructs such as self-esteem and empathy. Second, they provide for practical, theory-based treatment to clients in emotional pain (Cashdan, 1988; Patton & Meara, 1992). Given the appeal of these constructs and their relevance to counseling psychology, attempts to define and operationalize them and to study their interrelationships seem useful and important. One construct to emerge from the just-described perspectives that has conceptual appeal and clinical utility is narcissistic injury, a term used to refer to the psychological damage that results when a child's narcissistic (i.e., self) needs for respect, understanding, and mirroring are denied (Miller, 1981). In The Drama of the Gifted Child, Miller (1981) drew heavily from object relations and self theorists
A Comparative Study of Three Paradigms for Object Recognition -bayesian Statistics, Neural Networks and Expert Systems

Object recognition, which involves the classiication of objects into one of many a pri-ori known object types, and determining object characteristics such as pose, is a diicult problem. A wide range of approaches have been proposed and applied to this problem with limited success. This paper presents a brief comparative study of methods from three different paradigms for object recognition: Bayesian, Neural Network and Expert Systems.
Utilization of tax allowances and corporate borrowing

This thesis consists of three self-contained essays on corporate taxation.Essay I is a descriptive analysis of the utilization of tax allowances by Swedish tax-paying firms. We conclude that firms have systematically failed to take full advantage of the allowances granted by the government. The average utilization level varied between 62 and 86 percent in the years 1979-1993. The Swedish tax-cut cum base-broadening tax reform in 1991 meant that the opportunities for deferring taxes through contributions to untaxed reserves were much reduced. Our results show that the proportion of firms that fully utilize the allowances has increased since `the reform. One interpretation of this is that the importance of the tax system for the incentive to invest has increased, since the user cost of capital is unaffected by the corporate tax if firms have unutilized tax allowances.Essay II explores various explanations as to why firms in a tax-paying position abstain from tax allowances and hence pay more taxes than necessary. The underutilization of tax allowances is specified in terms of a censored regression model. Evidence from panel data is provided which suggests that underutilization of tax allowances is largely due to insufficient profitability. The results also confirm earlier casual observations that underutilization is due to the adherence to uniform reporting. All in all our results suggest that firms' failure to take advantage of tax allowances can to a large extent be explained by institutional constraints.Essay III introduces a new approach to calculate a firm's expected marginal tax rate. When a firm has an excess amount of tax allowances its current marginal tax rate is zero, while the marginal tax rate equals the statutory corporate tax rate when it uses all existing tax allowances. Using firm-level data we estimate the probability of a firm entering a state in which it uses all tax allowances. On the basis these estimates we calculate the firm's expected marginal corporate tax rate. Our results imply that the expected marginal tax rate typically is significantly below the statutory corporate tax rate. We proceed by studying the effect of the expected marginal tax rate on the firm's leverage decision. The expected marginal tax rate is shown to have a significant positive effect on the debt ratio. We conclude that the rivalry between interest-bearing debt and tax allowances makes the firm less prone to issue debt.
Online discourse in a primary school setting

The government has laid down the expectation that by 2010 all schools should have some form of virtual learning environment. Although the use of online learning is now common place within many higher education establishments, the uptake of such technology within schools is arguably poor, more so in the primary sector. Much research has been done in relation to the effects of online collaboration and discourse with adult student learners and this case study aims to explore whether such effects are evident when online discussion technologies are used within a primary school setting. Using a range of research methods, both qualitative and quantitative, this study explores the emergent issues surrounding the use on an online forum with upper key stage two pupils. It is a small-scale study based on 52 pupil participants and two classes: Year 5 and Year 6. It explores the effect an online forum can have when imbedded into the teaching and learning of two National Curriculum foundation subjects (History and Geography), whilst shedding some light onto the generic benefits and pitfalls of such technology use. This study found that children evidenced a higher level of involvement within curriculum based discussion and interaction, with a notable increase in social constructivist learning taking place. Student attainment, linked to National Curriculum levels of attainment, was seen to make some slight gains. Pupil motivation and attitude towards their studies was also found to be positively affected.