Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Del Pezzo surfaces and affine 7-brane backgrounds

A map between string junctions in the affine 7-brane backgrounds and vector bundles on Del Pezzo surfaces is constructed using mirror symmetry. It is shown that the lattice of string junctions with support on an affine 7-brane configuration is isomorphic to the K-theory group of the corresponding Del Pezzo surface. This isomorphism allows us to construct a map between the states of the = 2, D = 4 theories with EN global symmetry realized in two different ways in type-IIB and type-IIA string theory. A subgroup of the SL(2,) symmetry of the E9 7-brane background appears as the Fourier-Mukai transform acting on the D-brane configurations realizing vector bundles on elliptically fibered ℬ9.
Research in Nondomestic Species: Experiences in Reproductive Physiology Research for Conservation of Endangered Felids

Abstract Tremendous strides have been made in recent years to broaden our understanding of reproductive processes in nondomestic felid species and further our capacity to use this basic knowledge to control and manipulate reproduction of endangered cats. Much of that progress has culminated from detailed scientific studies conducted in nontraditional laboratory settings, frequently at collaborating zoological parks but also under more primitive conditions, including in the field. A mobile laboratory approach is described, which incorporates a diverse array of disciplines and research techniques. This approach has been extremely useful, especially for conducting gamete characterization and function studies as well as reproductive surveys, and for facilitating the development of assisted reproductive technology. With continuing advances in assisted reproduction in rare felids, more procedures are being conducted primarily as service-related activities, targeted to increase effectiveness of species propagation and population management. It can be a challenge for both investigators and institutional animal care and use committees (IACUCs) to differentiate these service-based procedures from traditional research studies (that require IACUC oversight). For research with rare cat species, multi-institutional collaboration frequently is necessary to gain access to scientifically meaningful numbers of study subjects. Similarly, for service-based efforts, the ability to perform reproductive procedures across institutions under nonstandard laboratory conditions is critical to applying reproductive sciences for managing and preserving threatened cat populations. Reproductive sciences can most effectively assist population management programs (e.g., Species Survival Plans) in addressing conservation priorities if these research and service-related procedures can be conducted "on the road" at distant national and international locales. This mobile laboratory approach has applications beyond endangered species research, notably for other scientific fields (e.g., studies of hereditary disease in domestic cat models) in which bringing the laboratory to the subject is of value.
Kinetics of a Ca(2+)-sensitive cross-bridge state transition in skeletal muscle fibers. Effects due to variations in thin filament activation by extraction of troponin C

The rate constant of tension redevelopment (ktr; 1986. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 83:3542-3546) was determined at various levels of thin filament activation in skinned single fibers from mammalian fast twitch muscles. Activation was altered by (a) varying the concentration of free Ca2+ in the activating solution, or (b) extracting various amounts of troponin C (TnC) from whole troponin complexes while keeping the concentration of Ca2+ constant. TnC was extracted by bathing the fiber in a solution containing 5 mM EDTA, 10 mM HEPES, and 0.5 mM trifluoperazine dihydrochloride. Partial extraction of TnC resulted in a decrease in the Ca2+ sensitivity of isometric tension, presumably due to disruption of near-neighbor molecular cooperativity between functional groups (i.e., seven actin monomers plus associated troponin and tropomyosin) within the thin filament. Altering the level of thin filament activation by partial extraction of TnC while keeping Ca2+ concentration constant tested whether the Ca2+ sensitivity of ktr results from a direct effect of Ca2+ on cross-bridge state transitions or, alternatively, an indirect effect of Ca2+ on these transitions due to varying extents of thin filament activation. Results showed that the ktr-pCa relation was unaffected by partial extraction of TnC, while steady-state isometric tension exhibited the expected reduction in Ca2+ sensitivity. This finding provides evidence for a direct effect of Ca2+ on an apparent rate constant that limits the formation of force-bearing cross-bridge states in muscle fibers. Further, the kinetics of this transition are unaffected by disruption of near-neighbor thin filament cooperativity subsequent to extraction of TnC. Finally, the results support the idea that the steepness of the steady-state isometric tension-calcium relationship is at least in part due to mechanisms involving molecular cooperativity among thin filament regulatory proteins.
Left, Right and Beyond: Patterns in the Political Preferences of Business and Unions

In this paper Swedish data on the preferences for 16 proposed economic policy reforms expressed by 58 organizations representing both exposed and sheltered sector wage earners and businesses are analyzed. The objective is to assess what distributional cleavages mark the structure of conflict among these organizations. Two competing hypotheses are derived from writers in the tradition of economic pluralism and social democratic corporatism. The former expects divisions between the exposed and sheltered sector to thrive. The latter expects divisions between business and wage-earners to dominate sectoral divisions. A spatial model of economic policy preferences is adopted and the relative locations of policy reforms and ideal points of organizations are estimated from the data. The results indicate that sectoral divisions mark issues of monetary, exchange rate and environmental policy while the cleavage between business and wage-earners marks issues of union power, unemployment insurance, employment protection, active labor market policy, general issues of taxation and privatization.
PROMETHEE based component evaluation and selection for Component Based Software Engineering

Component Based Software Engineering aims at integrating pre-existing software components which leads to the development of a software system. The major challenge is the selection of the component that best fits the specific requirements of the software to be developed. In order to successfully integrate the components in a software system, the software components need to be evaluated and ranked according to their quality attributes. Multiple criteria decision making methods help the system developer to select the best fit component to be used in a system. This paper proposes a methodology for component selection based on Preference Ranking Organization Method for Enrichment Evaluation (PROMETHEE). The results have shown that the methodology quantifying the qualitative selection and evaluation of software components and helps to build trust on the selected components during the component based development.
Animation system for Indian Sign Language communication using LOTS notation

This paper presents an application aiding the social integration of the deaf community in India into the mainstream of society. This is achieved by feeding text in English and generating an animated gesture sequence representative of its content. This application consists of three main portions: an interface that allows the user to enter words, a language processing system that converts English text to ISL format and a virtual avatar that acts as an interpreter conveying the information at the interface. These gestures are dynamically animated based on a novel method devised by us in order to map the kinematic data for the corresponding word. The word after translation into ISL will be queried in the database where in lies the notation format for each word. This notation called as LOTS Notation will represent parameters enabling the system to identify features like hand location(L), Hand Orientation (O) in the 3D space, Hand Trajectory movement (T), hand shapes (S) and non-manual components like facial expression. The animation of a sentence fed is thus produced from the sequence of notations which are queued in order of appearance. We are also inserting the movement -epenthesis which is the inter sign transition gesture inorder to avoid jitters in gesturing. More than a million deaf adults and around half a million deaf children in India use the Indian Sign Language (ISL) as a mode of communication. However, this system would serve as an initiative in propelling the Sign Language Communication in the Banking Domain. The low audio dependency in the working domain supports the cause.
A role of the Japanese yen in a multi-step process toward a common currency in east Asia

Movements of regional financial cooperation have been promoted in East Asia under the Chiang Mai Initiative (CMI). At the same time, the share of intra-regional trade has been increasing while active free trade talks among the region have been developed since 2000. Under these circumstances, a regional monetary integration is expected to be an important topic in policy dialogue among East Asian countries. This paper suggests that it is necessary to make a regional coordination in exchange rate policy by using two kinds of currency basket as the first step to go toward the regional monetary integration in the very long-run. At first, the monetary authority of East Asian countries should adopt a managed floating system with reference to a currency basket composed of the US dollar, the euro and the Japanese yen individually while they should use a common currency basket composed of the intra-regional currencies to survey misalignments among the East Asian currencies. The Japanese yen would play an important role as the sole hard currency in East Asia in the process. * This paper was prepared for the conference of the European Association for Japanese Studies at Lecce, Italy on September 21, 2008. Ogawa received financial support from Fukino Project of Hitotsubashi University. a Professor of Graduate School of Commerce and Management, Hitotsubashi University. E-mail: ogawa.eiji@srv.cc. hit-u.ac. jp b Associate Professor of School of Commerce, Senshu University, E-mail: jsimizu@isc.senshu-u.ac. jp
Directional Sensitive Modulation Signal Transmitted by Monopulse Cassegrain Antenna for Physical Layer Secure Communication

The broadcast nature of the wireless medium makes the communication over this medium vulnerable to eavesdropping. In this paper, we propose a directional sensitive modulation signal transmitted by Monopulse Cassegrain antenna for physical (PHY) layer security transmission. The main idea is that the sum beam transmit communication signal, simultaneously, and two difierence beams transmit artiflcial noise to guarantee secure transmission of the sum beam. The eavesdropper's channel is degraded by artiflcial noise, but the desired receiver's channel does not afiect because of the spatial orthogonality between the sum beam and two difierence beams. In this way, the desired receiver can demodulate the communication signal while the eavesdroppers learn almost nothing about the information from its observations. A closed-form expression of the secrecy capacity is also derived for this practical transmit scheme from the viewpoint of information theoretic. Finally, simulation results show that the proposed signal can signiflcantly improve the performance of secure wireless communications.
Multifault Diagnosis for Rolling Element Bearings Based on Intrinsic Mode Permutation Entropy and Ensemble Optimal Extreme Learning Machine

This paper presented a novel procedure based on the ensemble empirical mode decomposition and extreme learning machine. Firstly, EEMD was utilized to decompose the vibration signals into a number of IMFs adaptively and the permutation entropy of each IMF was calculated to generate the fault feature matrix. Secondly, a new extreme learning machine was proposed by combining ensemble extreme learning machine and the evolutionary extreme learning machine which used an artificial bee colony algorithm to optimize the input weights and hidden bias. The proposed diagnosis algorithm was applied on the three rolling bearing fault diagnosis experiments. The numerical experimental results demonstrated that the proposed method had an improved generalization performance than traditional extreme and other variants.
Optimists have more fun, but do they learn better? On the influence of emotional and social factors on learning introductory computer science

In order to better understand predictors of success and, when possible, improve the design of the first year computer science courses at university to increase the likelihood of success, we study a number of factors that may potentially indicate students' computer science aptitude. Based on findings in general education, we have studied the influence of emotional and social factors on students' learning outcomes in introductory computer science courses. Emotional health and social well-being have been measured in terms of five variables: perfectionism, self-esteem, coping tactics, affective states and optimism. Surprisingly, we found no correlation between emotional health and social well-being on the one hand and success in computer science as indicated by course grades on the other. However, in most of the courses, the students who pass have a statistically significant higher self-esteem than those who do not. Our hypothesis was that there would be a positive correlation between emotional and social factors and success in computer science as indicated by the course grade, since others have found the variables perfectionism, self-esteem and affective states to be predictors of success. We identify potential explanations for this seeming contradiction.
Diagnostic Accuracy of 2D-Shear Wave Elastography for Liver Fibrosis Severity: A Meta-Analysis

Purpose To evaluate the accuracy of shear wave elastography (SWE) in the quantitative diagnosis of liver fibrosis severity. Methods The published literatures were systematically retrieved from PubMed, Embase, Web of science and Scopus up to May 13th, 2016. Included studies reported the pooled sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values, as well as the diagnostic odds ratio of SWE in populations with liver fibrosis. A bivariate mixed-effects regression model was used, which was estimated by the I2 statistics. The quality of articles was evaluated by quality assessment of diagnostic accuracy studies (QUADAS). Results Thirteen articles including 2303 patients were qualified for the study. The pooled sensitivity and specificity of SWE for the diagnosis of liver fibrosis are as follows: ≥F1 0.76 (p<0.001, 95% CI, 0.71–0.81, I2 = 75.33%), 0.92 (p<0.001, 95% CI, 0.80–0.97, I2 = 79.36%); ≥F2 0.84 (p = 0.35, 95% CI, 0.81–0.86, I2 = 9.55%), 0.83 (p<0.001, 95% CI, 0.77–0.88, I2 = 86.56%); ≥F3 0.89 (p = 0.56, 95% CI, 0.86–0.92, I2 = 0%), 0.86 (p<0.001, 95% CI, 0.82–0.90, I2 = 75.73%); F4 0.89 (p = 0.24, 95% CI, 0.84–0.92, I2 = 20.56%), 0.88 (p<0.001, 95% CI, 0.84–0.92, I2 = 82.75%), respectively. Sensitivity analysis showed no significant changes if any one of the studies was excluded. Publication bias was not detected in this meta-analysis. Conclusions Our study suggests that SWE is a helpful method to appraise liver fibrosis severity. Future studies that validate these findings would be appropriate.
StakeSource: harnessing the power of crowdsourcing and social networks in stakeholder analysis

Projects often fail because they overlook stakeholders. Unfortunately, existing stakeholder analysis tools only capture stakeholders' information, relying on experts to manually identify them. StakeSource is a web-based tool that automates stakeholder analysis. It "crowdsources" the stakeholders themselves for recommendations about other stakeholders and aggregates their answers using social network analysis.
Improving Electricity Consumption Estimation for Electric Vehicles Based on Sparse GPS Observations

Improving the estimation accuracy for the energy consumption of electric vehicles (EVs) would greatly contribute to alleviating the range anxiety of drivers and serve as a critical basis for the planning, operation, and management of charging infrastructures. To address the challenges in energy consumption estimation encountered due to sparse Global Positioning System (GPS) observations, an estimation model is proposed that considers both the kinetic characteristics from sparse GPS observations and the unique attributes of EVs: (1) work opposing the rolling resistance; (2) aerodynamic friction losses; (3) energy consumption/generation depending on the grade of the route; (4) auxiliary load consumption; and (5) additional energy losses arising from the unstable power output of the electric motor. Two quantities, the average energy consumption per kilometer and the energy consumption for an entire trip, were focused on and compared for model fitness, parameter, and effectiveness, and the latter showed a higher fitness. Based on sparse GPS observations of 68 EVs in Aichi Prefecture, Japan, the traditional linear regression approach and a multilevel mixed-effects linear regression approach were used for model calibration. The proposed model showed a high accuracy and demonstrated a great potential for application in using sparse GPS observations to predict the energy consumption of EVs.
Sentence recognition through hybrid neuro-Markovian modeling

This paper focuses on designing a handwriting recognition system dealing with on-line signal, i.e. temporal handwriting signal captured through an electronic pen or a digitalized tablet. We present here some new results concerning a hybrid on-line handwriting recognition system based on Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) and Neural Networks (NNs), which has already been presented in several contributions. In our approach, a letter-model is a Left-Right HMM, whose emission probability densities are approximated with mixtures of predictive multilayer perceptrons. The basic letter models are cascaded in order to build models for words and sentences. At the word level, recognition is performed thanks to a dictionary organized with a tree-structure. At the sentence level, a word-predecessor conditioned frame synchronous beam search algorithm allows to perform simultaneously segmentation into words and word recognition. It processes through the building of a word graph from which a set of candidate sentences may be extracted. Word and sentence recognition performances are evaluated on parts of the UNIPEN international database.
Parental communication and children's food choices : understanding the theoretical processes and conditions of effect

x Introduction . 1 Chapter I: Sugar-sweetened beverages and fruits & vegetables: Gamechangers in childhood obesity and obesity-related diseases 1.1 Childhood Overweight and Obesity: A Preventable Problem . 7 1.2 Sugar-sweetened Beverage Consumption . 8 1.3 Fruits and Vegetables Consumption . 10 1.4 Chapter Summary . 12 Chapter II: Literature Review 2.1 Socialization Theory . 14 2.2 Parents as Socialization Agents in Child Food Consumption . 16 2.3 Parenting Practices as Communication Process: Shaping Beliefs About Food . 19 2.4 Parenting Style as Overall Emotional Climate . 25 2.5 Chapter Summary . 30 Chapter III: Study One – The Influence of Parental Practices on Child Promotive and Preventive Food Consumption Behaviors: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis 3.1 Background . 32 3.2 Method . 36 3.3 Results . 41 3.4 Discussion . 58 Chapter IV: Study Two – The Development and Validation of the Parental Active and Restrictive Food Guidance Questionnaire (PARQ) 4.1 Background . 66 4.2 Method . 72 4.3 Results . 82 4.4 Discussion . 90
Supporting communities of practice A survey of community-oriented technologies

ce rapport est un guide pour la sélection et l’intégration d’une plateforme technologique pour supporter les communautés de pratique au sein d’une organisation. il aborde quatre questions : _ comment distinguer une communauté de pratique des autres formes de communautés? _ Quelles sont les catégories d’outils informatiques pouvant supporter les communautés de pratique? et que permet de faire chaque catégorie d’outils? _ Quelles sont les caractéristiques des communautés de pratique, qui les rendent propices à être supportées par les technologies? _ comment utiliser les réponses aux trois questions précédentes pour développer une stratégie de construction d’une plateforme technologique pour supporter les communautés de pratique?
Performance evaluation of a utility function for routing in cognitive wireless ad-hoc networks

In Cognitive Radio Ad-Hoc Networks the design of suitable routing solutions is a focal issue to fully unleashthe potentials of this networking paradigm. The main challengeis exploiting spectrum holes to build up network paths that remain stable and that achieve specific network performance in terms of delay and percentage of delivered data, even if an opportuni stic spectrum access is implemented. In this paper we propose a utility function based on the path connectivity, re-elaborated in a cognitive radio scenario, and we compare it with other util ity functions that can be used for routing data in cognitive radi o. We show that by using our utility function we select paths for the secondary users transmissions leading to better perfor mance when compared with a utility function that selects paths with the minimum activities of the primary users and a utility functi on that minimizes the number of hops. These results are derived in great number of topologies and with different primary users activities.
MVC Design Pattern Based-Development of Groupware

This paper proposes an MVC Design Pattern for developing groupware. This MVC is customized to take into account both individuals and group aspects, as well as, its evolution to offer users the suitable flexibility and responsiveness at all times. This is achieved through the set of items that configure it, which result from the analysis of various models, methodologies, and tools used in the groupware domain. These items are allocated on templates that serve as guidelines to analyze, design, and implement groupware. Furthermore, this MVC is supported by an ontology that models the group organizational structure, allowing the evolution, reuse and adaptation of groupware, since, the ontology can be adjusted by adding instances, concepts, and/or relations, and a workflow that specifies the task precedence, considering its order and execution through stages. Finally, a case study is presented to attest the viability of the proposal.