Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Is comprehensive income required by IAS 1 relevant for users? A review of the literature

Professional accountants have accepted for decades net income a the key performance measure of a business. The IASB decision in 2007 to require the publication of comprehensive income as it has been the case since 1997 in the United States, has fed the long time debate regarding the concept of income. In this paper, we will go through some background about both approaches of income and their consequences in terms of financial reporting. We will then review the related literature, classified according to the relationship between the concepts of income on one hand and of relevance and consistency on the other hand. Finally, we will show that empirical research does not allow so far to demonstrate the relevance for users of the concept of comprehensive income
Monitoring production process of cisplatin‐loaded PLGA nanoparticles by FT‐IR microspectroscopy and univariate data analysis

Cisplatin-loaded PLGA nanoparticles for drug delivery have been prepared using a well-established water/oil/water double emulsion-solvent evaporation method. The production process has been monitored by using Fourier Transform Infrared (FT-IR) microspectroscopy without using KBr tablets and any preliminary sample preparation. Significant spectra have been obtained for all chemical compounds and for samples at different steps of production process. The use of a linear or univariate approach using a R2 determination coefficient has been proposed for discriminating among FT-IR spectra even when small differences are present. The obtained results confirm that new geometries of data acquisition contribute to make infrared microspectroscopy a very useful tool for a rapid and detailed monitoring of production processes of pharmacological interest. Moreover, morphological and physiological characterizations have been performed on cisplatin-loded samples showing results in good agreement with those reported in literature. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015, 132, 41305.
A framework to strengthen password authentication using mobile devices and browser extensions

Shoulder-surfing, phishing and keylogging are widely used by attackers to obtain users' sensitive credentials. In this paper, we propose a framework to strengthen password authentication using mobile devices and browser extensions. This approach provides a relatively high resilience against shoulder-surfing, phishing and keylogging attacks while requires no change on the server side. A prototype implementation of the proposed approach and its security analysis are also provided.
Improve Handwritten Character Recognition Performance by Heteroscedastic Linear Discriminant Analysis

This paper presents a novel LDA algorithm named 2DHLDA (2-dimensional heteroscedastic linear discriminant analysis). The proposed algorithms are applied on age-group classification using facial images under various lighting conditions. 2DHLDA significantly overcomes the singularity problem, so-called 'small sample size' problem (S3 problem), and the original feature space is split into useful dimensions and nuisance dimensions to reduce the influence of different lighting conditions. A two-phased dimensional reduction step, namely 2DHLDA+LDA, is used in our experiment. Our experimental results show that the new 2DHLDA-based approach improves classification accuracy more than the conventional 1D and 2D-based approaches
A 16-mW 78-dB SNDR 10-MHz BW CT  $\Delta \Sigma$ ADC Using Residue-Cancelling VCO-Based Quantizer

This paper presents a continuous-time (CT) ΔΣ modulator using a VCO-based internal quantizer. It incorporates a nonlinear VCO as the second stage in a two-stage residue canceling quantizer (RCQ) and mitigates the impact of its nonlinearity by spanning only a small region of the VCO's V-to-F nonlinear tuning curve. The order of noise shaping is increased by placing the RCQ in a continuous-time ΔΣ loop. Using only a first order loop filter, the proposed ΔΣ modulator achieves second order noise shaping. Fabricated in a 90-nm CMOS process, the prototype modulator occupies an active area of 0.36 mm2 and consumes 16 mW power. It achieves a peak SNDR of 78.3 dB in 10-MHz bandwidth and an SFDR of better than 85 dB when clocked at 600 MHz. The figure of merit of the modulator is 120 fJ/conv-step.
New methods for the analysis of repeated utterances

This paper proposes three novel and effective procedures for jointly analyzing repeated utterances. First, we propose repetition-driven system switching, where repetition triggers the use of an independent backup system for decoding. Second, we propose a cache language model for use with the second utterance. Finally, we propose a method with which the acoustics from multiple utterances not necessarily exact repetitions of each other can be combined to into a composite that increases accuracy. The combination of all methods produces a relative increase in sentence accuracy of 65.7% for repeated voice-search queries.
Risks for incident human papillomavirus infection and low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion development in young females.

CONTEXT Low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (LSILs) have been described as a benign cytological consequence of active human papillomavirus (HPV) replication. Several studies have reported that certain behavioral and biological risks exist for LSIL, suggesting that HPV alone is not sufficient for the development of LSIL. However, because most of these studies have been cross-sectional, it is not known whether behavioral and biological risks are simply risks for HPV infection itself. OBJECTIVE To prospectively examine risks of incident HPV infection in HPV-negative females and of incident LSIL development in females with HPV infection. DESIGN Prospective cohort study conducted between 1990-2000, with a median follow-up of 50 months. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS Females aged 13 to 21 years who attended 2 family planning clinics in the San Francisco bay area; 496 had prevalent HPV infection and 105 were HPV-negative. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE Incident development of HPV infection and LSIL, analyzed by various demographic, behavioral, and clinical risk factors. RESULTS Fifty-four incident HPV infections occurred in the 105 females who were HPV-negative at study entry (median duration of follow-up for those who remained HPV-negative was 26 months). Multivariable analysis showed that risks of HPV included sexual behavior (relative hazard [RH], 10.10; 95% confidence interval [CI], 3.24-31.50 per new partner per month), history of herpes simplex virus (RH, 3.54; 95% CI, 1.37-9.10), and history of vulvar warts (RH, 2.73; 95% CI, 1.27-5.87). Current use of oral contraceptives had a significantly protective effect (RH, 0.49; 95% CI, 0.28-0.86). Among the 496 individuals who were HPV-positive at baseline or in follow-up, there were 109 incident cases of LSIL during the follow-up interval, with a median follow-up time of 60 months for those who never developed LSIL. Human papillomavirus infection was the most significant risk factor for development of LSIL. The multivariable model showed the following risks for LSIL: HPV infection for less than 1 year (RH, 7.40; 95% CI, 4.74-11.57); HPV infection for 1 to 2 years (RH, 10.27; 95% CI, 5.64-18.69); HPV infection for 2 to 3 years (RH, 6.11; 95% CI, 1.86-20.06); and daily cigarette smoking (RH, 1.67; 95% CI, 1.12-2.48). CONCLUSION Our results indicate distinct risks for HPV and LSIL. In addition, most women with HPV infection in our study did not develop LSIL within a median follow-up period of 60 months. These findings underscore the hypothesis that certain biological risks thought to be associated with LSIL are, in fact, risks for acquisition of HPV. Cigarette smoking was a risk specific to LSIL, supporting the role of tobacco in neoplastic development.
Fractal feature-based color image segmentation for a healthcare application in dermatology

We propose a computer-based e-health system in dermatology, particularly adapted for psoriasis management, in order to assist the dermatologist to objectively evaluate the severity of skin lesions and to choose the adequate treatment. The system comprises a digital color camera, a personal computer and an image processing software application. In order to assess the severity of psoriatic lesions we use the unanimously-accepted PASI score, which is a subjective score computed by the dermatologist based on the following characteristics of the affected skin regions: area, erythema, induration and scaliness. Therefore, the precise and objective measurement of the lesion area is extremely important. However, this step has to be preceded by a segmentation operation, therefore we propose a color image segmentation approach using fractal features for the local characterization of the color texture. We show our results, then we conclude this paper.
VISTA : visualizing global DNA sequence alignments of arbitrary length

SUMMARY VISTA is a program for visualizing global DNA sequence alignments of arbitrary length. It has a clean output, allowing for easy identification of similarity, and is easily configurable, enabling the visualization of alignments of various lengths at different levels of resolution. It is currently available on the web, thus allowing for easy access by all researchers. AVAILABILITY VISTA server is available on the web at http://www-gsd.lbl.gov/vista. The source code is available upon request. CONTACT vista@lbl.gov
Self-consistent constitutive modeling of particle dispersed composite materials with micro-crack type damage

The treatment of perfectly bonded interface between the particles and matrix of composite is sometimes considered to be inappropriate in describing the physical nature. The effect of imperfect interface on the overall behavior of particle-reinforced composites is studied. In order to investigate the detrimental effects of the slightly weakened interface on the overall material properties, a rigorous constitutive model was schemed, which uses a self-consistency scheme based on the Eshebly’s equivalent inclusion method, and is capable to reflect the meso-local damage effects even in the range where the volume fraction of particles is high. Both the tangential and normal discontinuities at the interface are independently modeled, and these relative displacements are directly proportional to the corresponding components of tractions at the interface. The numerical results are also shown. It is found that the imperfect interface conditions of debonding and/or sliding give detrimental effects on the overall properties of composites. Thus, the establishment of the most appropriate model describing properly the meso-local phenomena.
Exogenous Restoration of TUSC2 Expression Induces Responsiveness to Erlotinib in Wildtype Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR) Lung Cancer Cells through Context Specific Pathways Resulting in Enhanced Therapeutic Efficacy

Expression of the tumor suppressor gene TUSC2 is reduced or absent in most lung cancers and is associated with worse overall survival. In this study, we restored TUSC2 gene expression in several wild type EGFR non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cell lines resistant to the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) tyrosine kinase inhibitor erlotinib and analyzed their sensitivity to erlotinib in vitro and in vivo. A significant inhibition of cell growth and colony formation was observed with TUSC2 transient and stable expression. TUSC2-erlotinib cooperativity in vitro could be reproduced in vivo in subcutaneous tumor growth and lung metastasis formation lung cancer xenograft mouse models. Combination treatment with intravenous TUSC2 nanovesicles and erlotinib synergistically inhibited tumor growth and metastasis, and increased apoptotic activity. High-throughput qRT-PCR array analysis enabling multi-parallel expression profile analysis of eighty six receptor and non-receptor tyrosine kinase genes revealed a significant decrease of FGFR2 expression level, suggesting a potential role of FGFR2 in TUSC2-enhanced sensitivity to erlotinib. Western blots showed inhibition of FGFR2 by TUSC2 transient transfection, and marked increase of PARP, an apoptotic marker, cleavage level after TUSC2-erlotinb combined treatment. Suppression of FGFR2 by AZD4547 or gene knockdown enhanced sensitivity to erlotinib in some but not all tested cell lines. TUSC2 inhibits mTOR activation and the latter cell lines were responsive to the mTOR inhibitor rapamycin combined with erlotinib. These results suggest that TUSC2 restoration in wild type EGFR NSCLC may overcome erlotinib resistance, and identify FGFR2 and mTOR as critical regulators of this activity in varying cellular contexts. The therapeutic activity of TUSC2 could extend the use of erlotinib to lung cancer patients with wildtype EGFR.
Is there a speed limit for thermalization ?

The purpose of this note is to describe how a model [1] of interacting spins is related to recent ideas in quantum gravity and the foundations of quantum statistical mechanics. These surprising connections underscore how ideas in seemingly disparate areas of physics can influence and inform one another. Our intention is not to motivate the spin model through the experimentally-accessible systems it is intended to describe – e.g., see the excellent discussion in [2] of its possible relevance to heavy-fermion superconductors – rather, we will concentrate on the line of thought that connects a few underlying theoretical concepts. The basic tenet of quantum statistical mechanics states that, at long times, a (sub)system will equilibrate with its environment, i.e., thermalize. More precisely, a quantum state | i of the total system is thermalized if for any su ciently small subsystem S, the reduced density matrix ⇢S = trE| ih | is approximately thermal. The trace is taken over the complementary degrees of freedom describing the environment E. Thus, at su ciently long times t, expectation values of any operator O in S will have equilibrated,
Key Results of Interaction Models with Centering

We consider the effect on estimation of simultaneous variable centering and interaction effects in linear regression. We technically define, review, and amplify many of the statistical issues for interaction models with centering in order to create a useful and compact reference for teachers, students, and applied researchers. In addition, we investigate a sequence of models that have an interaction effect and/or variable centering and derive expressions for the change in the regression coefficients between models from both an intuitive and mathematical perspective. We demonstrate how these topics may be employed to motivate discussion of other important areas, e.g., misspecification bias, multicollinearity, design of experiments, and regression surfaces. This paper presents a number of results also given elsewhere but in a form that gives a unified view of the topic. The examples cited are from the area of medical statistics.
Climate change: potential impacts on frost–thaw conditions and seasonal load restriction timing for low-volume roadways

Low-volume roads constitute a major percentage of roadways around the world. Many of these are located in seasonal frost areas where agencies increase and decrease the allowable weight limits based on seasonal fluctuations in the load carrying capacity of the roadway due to freeze–thaw conditions. As temperatures shift due to changing climate, the timing and duration of winter freeze and spring thaw periods are likely to change, potentially causing significant impacts to local industry and economies. In this study, an ensemble of 19 climate models were used to project future temperature changes and the impact of these changes on the frost depth and timing of seasonal load changes across five instrumented pavement sites in New England. The study shows that shifts of up to 2 weeks are projected at the end of the century and that moderate variability was observed across the study region, indicating that local conditions are important for future assessments depending on the desired level of accuracy. From 1970 to 1999, the average freezing season lasted between 9 and 13 weeks in the study region. By 2000–2029, the frozen period shortens by approximately 10 days over baseline duration (10–20% reduction). By the end of the century under RCP 4.5, frozen periods are typically shorter by 4 weeks or a 30–40% reduction. However, RCP 8.5 results indicate that four out of the five sites would have no frozen period during at least six winters from 2060 to 2089.
Effect of Volume-Oriented Versus Flow-Oriented Incentive Spirometry on Chest Wall Volumes, Inspiratory Muscle Activity, and Thoracoabdominal Synchrony in the Elderly

BACKGROUND: Aging causes physiological and functional changes that impair pulmonary function. Incentive spirometry is widely used for lung expansion, but the effects of volume-oriented incentive spirometry (VIS) versus flow-oriented incentive spirometry (FIS) on chest wall volumes, inspiratory muscle activity, and thoracoabdominal synchrony in the elderly are poorly understood. We compared VIS and FIS in elderly subjects and healthy adult subjects. METHODS: Sixteen elderly subjects (9 women, mean ± SD age 70.6 ± 3.9 y, mean ± SD body mass index 23.8 ± 2.5 kg/m2) and 16 healthy adults (8 women, mean ± age 25.9 ± 4.3 y, mean ± body mass index 23.6 ± 2.4 kg/m2) performed quiet breathing, VIS, and FIS in randomized sequence. Chest wall kinematics (via optoelectronic plethysmography) and inspiratory muscle activity (via surface electromyography) were assessed simultaneously. Synchrony between the superior thorax and abdominal motion was calculated (phase angle). RESULTS: In the elderly subjects both types of incentive spirometry increased chest wall volumes similarly, whereas in the healthy adult subjects VIS increased the chest wall volume more than did FIS. FIS and VIS triggered similar lower thoracoabdominal synchrony in the elderly subjects, whereas in the healthy adults FIS induced lower synchrony than did VIS. FIS required more muscle activity in the elderly subjects to create an increase in chest wall volume. CONCLUSIONS: Incentive spirometry performance is influenced by age, and the differences between elderly and healthy adults response should be considered in clinical practice.
SECRET: Selective error correction for refresh energy reduction in DRAMs

DRAMs are used as the main memory in most computing systems today. Studies show that DRAMs contribute to a significant part of overall system power consumption. Therefore, one of the main challenges in low-power DRAM design is the inevitable refresh process. Due to process variation, memory cells exhibit retention time variations. Current DRAMs use a single worst-case refresh period. Prolonging refresh intervals introduces retention errors. Previous works adopt conventional ECC (Error Correcting Code) to correct retention errors. These approaches introduce significant area and energy overheads. In this paper, we propose a novel error correction framework for retention errors in DRAMs, called SECRET (Selective Error Correction for Refresh Energy reducTion). The key observation we make is that retention errors can be treated as hard errors rather than soft errors, and only few DRAM cells have large leakage. Therefore, instead of equipping error correction capability in all memory cells as existing ECC schemes, we only allocate error correction information to leaky cells under a refresh interval. Our SECRET framework contains two parts, an off-line phase to identify memory cells with retention errors given a target error rate, and a low-overhead error correction mechanism. The experimental results show that the proposed SECRET framework can reduce refresh power by 87.2%, and overall DRAM power by 18.57% with negligible area and performance overheads.
Améliorer la classification de documents par combinaison de descripteurs visuels et textuels

The main contribution of this paper is a new method for classifying document images by combining textual and visual features repectively extracted with the Bag of Words (BoW) and the Bag of Visual Words (BoVW) techniques. While previous attempts have been showing disappointing results by combining visual and textual features with the Borda-count technique, we're proposing here a combination through learning approach. The other contribution of this paper are the experiments conducted on a 1925 document image industrial database revealing that this fusion scheme significantly improves the classification performances. Our concluding contribution deals with the choosing and tuning BoW/BoVW techniques in an industrial context.
Prebiotics Promote Good Health: The Basis, the Potential, and the Emerging Evidence

Background: The prebiotics concept, which was launched in 1995, concerns nondigested and selectively fermented carbohydrate food ingredients. It was thought that their effect in the colon could reduce risk for disease. The prebiotic concept is revisited and possible mechanisms are proposed. The physiologic consequences of prebiotic consumption are evaluated in terms of potential to reduce risk for disease. This is a compilation of several research papers, each of which complied with the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki. Methods: For human dietary intervention trials, the aim was to perform double-blind, placebo-controlled, cross-over studies. A parallel design was used only for long-term studies. Most research has been done with β(2-1) fructans, so they are used as an example of prebiotics here. Results: The results are relevant to the fields of gut function, lipid metabolism, mineral absorption, bone formation, immunology, and cancer. Conclusion: It is observed that modification of intestinal flora by inherently selectively fermented prebiotics is central in determining their nutritional properties. They interact positively through the large intestinal surface with various physiologic processes and are thought to improve health status by reducing risk for disease (markers).
Graphical RNN Models

Many time series are generated by a set of entities that interact with one another over time. This paper introduces a broad, flexible framework to learn from multiple inter-dependent time series generated by such entities. Our framework explicitly models the entities and their interactions through time. It achieves this by building on the capabilities of Recurrent Neural Networks, while also offering several ways to incorporate domain knowledge/constraints into the model architecture. The capabilities of our approach are showcased through an application to weather prediction, which shows gains over strong baselines.
Quotation Authentication: A New Approach and Efficient Solutions by Cascaded Hashing Techniques

A new approach to efficient authentication of quotations from trusted sources but embedded in messages created by unknown authors is proposed. Two different techniques for efficient generation of authenticable quotations using cascaded hashing are proposed for conventional quotations, and an efficient two-dimensional signature generation technique is proposed for two-dimensional quotations from spreadsheets. A technique for associating the signature with the quotation in the Microsoft Word document is also proposed for generation of integrated authenticable quotations that survive copy-and-paste operations.