Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Inflation Targeting and Price-Level-Path Targeting in the GEM: Some Open Economy Considerations

This paper compares the performance of simple inflation targeting (IT) and price-level path targeting (PLPT) rules to stabilize the macroeconomy, in response to a series of shocks, similar to those seen in Canada and the United States over the 1983 to 2004 period. The analysis is conducted in a two-country (Canada and the United States), two-sector (tradables and nontradables) version of the International Monetary Fund’s Global Economy Model (GEM). The authors conclude that PLPT is slightly preferred to IT for delivering macroeconomic stability, as it delivers a reduction in inflation and nominal interest rate volatility, at the expense of slightly higher output gap variability. When the analysis is restricted to the shocks that have been most important for explaining movements in Canada’s terms of trade over this period, PLPT is still preferred to IT. The authors also show that their results are sensitive to the interaction between the relative importance of the different types of macroeconomic shocks that hit the economy, and the extent to which price and wage setting is forward looking. Lastly, the authors demonstrate that the choice of monetary policy framework in the United States does not affect the relative merits of PLPT versus IT in Canada.
A Study on The Importance of Motivation among The Managers in Construction Companies In Medan

Managers as the key employees have a very important role in maintaining the workforce performance which is critical to the construction companies’ success in the future. If motivated employees start with motivated managers probably it would seem plausible if the de-motivated ones start with de-motivated managers. This study aims to analyze the importance of motivated managers to their successes and construction companies’ successes. In this study, a quantitative method was used and the study area was in Medan, North Sumatera. Questionnaire survey was distributed directly to construction companies in Medan which are listed in the Construction Services Development Board. A total of 60 managers responded and the completed questionnaires were analyzed using the descriptive analysis. The results indicated that the respondents acknowledge the importance of motivation among themselves to the projects and construction companies’ success, implying that it is vital to maintain the motivation and good performance of the workforce. Keywords—construction companies, managers, motivation
Motif based identification of pathogenic patterns for filamentous fungi

Identifying the unique pathogenic patterns underlying the phytopathogenic fungi is important for plant disease control. This paper presents a novel method for identifying the specific conserved patterns for the pathogenic species. By employing a feature selection technique, the specific patterns that best discriminate the pathogenic species from non-pathogenic ones are identified, which are assumed to be the potential pathogenic patterns that cause pathogenesis. In particular, the specific patterns for Fusarium graminearum (F. graminearum) were found, which can discriminate F. graminearum from other pathogenic species. The identified patterns covered a set of pathogenic genes that have been determined experimentally, which demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Exploring public sentiments for livable places based on a crowd-calibrated sentiment analysis mechanism

With the explosion of social networks, people more often share their opinions on-line, which provides a great opportunity to detect the public sentiment of a place in an automatic and timely way comparing to the conventional approaches, e.g., surveys, workshops and interviews. Even through the application of social sentiment analysis is widely discussed in many domains, e.g., politics, e-commerce, economy, and health and environment, to the best of our knowledge, no research has ever studied the effects of public sentiments of social networks in the domain of place design. In order to fill this vacancy, a sentiment analysis service, called geo-sentiment analysis service, is required, whose cores are 1) a social sentiment analysis engine, and 2) an intuitive and interactive visualization service. Thus, this paper firstly proposes CGSA: a Crowd-calibrated Geo-Sentiment Analysis mechanism, which can 1) start the sentiment analysis process based on the design of CTS (Compound Training Samples), and SSF (Social Sentiment Features), 2) perform three analyses, namely sentiment, clustering and time series analysis on geotagged social network messages, and 3) collect crowd-labelled data based on a crowdsourced calibration service to gradually improve the classification accuracy. As proved by two detailed analyses, SSF has the best accuracy in training sentiment classifiers, and the performance of the calibrated classifier increases gradually and significantly from 74.71% to 80.05% in three calibration cycles. Moreover, as a part of a big project “Liveable Places”, “Sentiment in places” service with two visualization modes, namely 2D sentiment dashboard and 3D sentiment map, is implemented to support local authorities, urban designers and city planners better understand the effects of public sentiments regarding place (re)design in the testbed area: Jurong East, Singapore.
A Novel Dual-Rotor, Axial Field, Fault-Tolerant Flux-Switching Permanent Magnet Machine With High-Torque Performance

This paper proposes a novel dual-rotor, axial field, fault-tolerant flux-switching permanent magnet machine (FSPMM) with high-torque performance for direct-drive applications, in which the phase-group concentrated-coil windings and the unaligned arrangement of the two rotors are used. The adoption of the phase-group concentrated-coil windings is made to obtain a unity displacement winding factor, and to enhance the flux-focusing effects together with the use of a spoke-type PM configuration. The unaligned arrangement of the two rotors will help to achieve increased flux magnification and also to suppress the cogging torque and the torque ripple. In particular, the proposed configuration for FSPMMs exhibits the advantage of fault tolerance, benefiting from the electromagnetic isolation of phases and a dual three-phase channel of supply. The operating principle and the design criteria of the proposed FSPMM are discussed in detail. To highlight the advantages of the proposed FSPMM, two conventional FSPMMs are adopted for comparison under the same operating conditions based on a 3-D finite-element method. As a result, it is demonstrated that the proposed FSPMM exhibits significantly improved performance with not only higher torque (power) density but also lower cogging torque and torque ripple, compared with the conventional FSPMMs.
Evaluating User Requirements for a Digital Library Testbed

The development of widespread capabilities for electronic archival and dissemination of data can be coupled with advances in information systems technology to deliver large volumes of information very fast. Paradoxically, as greater volumes of information become available on electronic information networks, they become increasingly difficult to access. Nowhere is this situation more pressing than in the case of spatial information, which has been traditionally treated as a 'separate' problem by archivists, due to complexities of spatial ordering and indexing. A research project recently funded by NSF will address these problems and implement a working digital library testbed over the next four years. This paper will focus upon one aspect of the testbed, namely evaluating user requirements to inform interface design. The paper presents the evaluation plan, using hypermedia tools to collect real-time interactive logs of user activities on the testbed under design. Conventionally, interactive logging is analyzed by deterministic measures of performance such as counting keystrokes. In this project, the interactive log data will be analyzed using protocol analysis, which has been shown to provide a rich source of information to formalize understanding about semi-structured and intuitive knowledge.
Analysis of the acquisition process for keystroke dynamics

In order to evaluate authentication methods for keystroke dynamics, it is necessary to create new datasets. We present in this paper an analysis study of the factors, involved during the acquisition process, which affect the performance of keystroke-based authentication systems. More generally speaking, we are looking for the optimal keystroke data acquisition scenario which may deeply affect the performance of such systems. Results show that (1) it is better to choose passwords based on short, simple and known words; and (2) during the acquisition process of a new keystroke dynamics dataset, there is no significant preference for displaying or telling to a user the text to type.
The Construction Research of Security Computer Network System Based on the Distributed Intrusion Detection Technology

This paper aimed at the actual situation of the difficult of getting a lot of the training sample of the security computer network system in the distributed intrusion detection. In this paper, we studied how to increase the intrusion detection accuracy in the case of small samples, so that processing, maintenance and deal with the invasion of the network timely. In this paper, we proposed a new intrusion detection method based on improved SVM Co training. The specific implementation process of the algorithm is presented. Through the simulation experiments based on the actual data showed that the method is effective. Apply this method to a classified computer network system, effectively realized the detection to outside intruders and internal intruder.
FPGA acceleration of CDO pricing based on correlation expansions

Because of the significant growth in the financial market, faster and accurate pricing of widespread instruments is becoming more important. In this paper, we describe an FPGA implementation of an analytical method for collateralized debt obligation (CDO) pricing in the multifactor Normal Copula model. Our experiments show that the FPGA system is about 40 times faster than corresponding software on a single core 3 GHz Intel Core2 processor.
The Neuroelectromagnetic Inverse Problem and the Zero Dipole Localization Error

A tomography of neural sources could be constructed from EEG/MEG recordings once the neuroelectromagnetic inverse problem (NIP) is solved. Unfortunately the NIP lacks a unique solution and therefore additional constraints are needed to achieve uniqueness. Researchers are then confronted with the dilemma of choosing one solution on the basis of the advantages publicized by their authors. This study aims to help researchers to better guide their choices by clarifying what is hidden behind inverse solutions oversold by their apparently optimal properties to localize single sources. Here, we introduce an inverse solution (ANA) attaining perfect localization of single sources to illustrate how spurious sources emerge and destroy the reconstruction of simultaneously active sources. Although ANA is probably the simplest and robust alternative for data generated by a single dominant source plus noise, the main contribution of this manuscript is to show that zero localization error of single sources is a trivial and largely uninformative property unable to predict the performance of an inverse solution in presence of simultaneously active sources. We recommend as the most logical strategy for solving the NIP the incorporation of sound additional a priori information about neural generators that supplements the information contained in the data.
Multi-sensor moving target tracking using particle filter

The principle of target tracking and data fusion techniques are discussed. To resolve high uncertainty that exists in sensors of mobile robots, the cross-sensor and cross-modality (CSCM) data fusion algorithm is presented. The algorithm is based on particle filter techniques, fuses the information coming from multiple sensors and merges different state space models. So it can be used to eliminate system and measurement noise and estimate value of position and heading of mobile robot. On simulation experiments, we compare different cases such as single sensor and multi-sensor data fusion, the results demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of this algorithm and exhibits good tracking performance.
Ontobee: A linked ontology data server to support ontology term dereferencing, linkage, query and integration

Linked Data (LD) aims to achieve interconnected data by representing entities using Unified Resource Identifiers (URIs), and sharing information using Resource Description Frameworks (RDFs) and HTTP. Ontologies, which logically represent entities and relations in specific domains, are the basis of LD. Ontobee (http://www.ontobee.org/) is a linked ontology data server that stores ontology information using RDF triple store technology and supports query, visualization and linkage of ontology terms. Ontobee is also the default linked data server for publishing and browsing biomedical ontologies in the Open Biological Ontology (OBO) Foundry (http://obofoundry.org) library. Ontobee currently hosts more than 180 ontologies (including 131 OBO Foundry Library ontologies) with over four million terms. Ontobee provides a user-friendly web interface for querying and visualizing the details and hierarchy of a specific ontology term. Using the eXtensible Stylesheet Language Transformation (XSLT) technology, Ontobee is able to dereference a single ontology term URI, and then output RDF/eXtensible Markup Language (XML) for computer processing or display the HTML information on a web browser for human users. Statistics and detailed information are generated and displayed for each ontology listed in Ontobee. In addition, a SPARQL web interface is provided for custom advanced SPARQL queries of one or multiple ontologies.
Separable and Error-Free Reversible Data Hiding in Encrypted Image with High Payload

This paper proposes a separable reversible data-hiding scheme in encrypted image which offers high payload and error-free data extraction. The cover image is partitioned into nonoverlapping blocks and multigranularity encryption is applied to obtain the encrypted image. The data hider preprocesses the encrypted image and randomly selects two basic pixels in each block to estimate the block smoothness and indicate peak points. Additional data are embedded into blocks in the sorted order of block smoothness by using local histogram shifting under the guidance of the peak points. At the receiver side, image decryption and data extraction are separable and can be free to choose. Compared to previous approaches, the proposed method is simpler in calculation while offering better performance: larger payload, better embedding quality, and error-free data extraction, as well as image recovery.
Parallel Bandreduction and Tridiagonalization

This paper presents a parallel implementation of a blocked band reduction algorithm for symmetric matrices suggested by Bischof and Sun. The reduction to tridiagonal or block tridiagonal form is a special case of this algorithm. A blocked double torus wrap mapping is used as the underlying data distribution and the so-called WY representation is employed to represent block orthogonal transformations. Preliminary performance results on the Intel Delta indicate that the algorithm is well-suited to a MIMD computing environment and that the use of a block approach significantly improves performance.
Privacy-Preserving Data Mining (PPDM) Method for Horizontally Partitioned Data

Due to the increase in sharing sensitive data through networks among businesses, governments and other parties, privacy preserving has become an important issue in data mining and knowledge discovery. Privacy concerns may prevent the parties from directly sharing the data and some types of information about the data. This paper proposes a solution for privately computing data mining classification algorithm for horizontally partitioned data without disclosing any information about the sources or the data. The proposed method (PPDM) combines the advantages of RSA public key cryptosystem and homomorphic encryption scheme. Experimental results show that the PPDM method is robust in terms of privacy, accuracy, and efficiency.
Who needs chest physiotherapy? Moving from anecdote to evidence

“One case which I had was that of a newborn child with acquired atelectasis, which required my presence, or that of my assistant, for 24 hours. In such cases there is nothing, I believe, as efficacious as flagellation. I usually tell the attendant to take a rubber band and flip the soles of the feet whenever the child begins to tire of breathing. ” Dr Sanders. In: Disturbances of respiration in the newborn. Transactions of the American Pediatric Society 1903; 15 :47. At the beginning of this century, paediatrics was an art. Skills were learnt from a mentor, picking up tips and anecdotes while standing at your master’s side. Now, as practitioners of child health in the final years of this same century, life has changed. Anecdote and word of mouth have lost credibility and are replaced by scientific scrutiny and the rigour of evidence from carefully controlled and sufficiently powerful trials. We do our best to find the truth, but in many areas of care there remains a dearth of sufficient evidence. Often in the closets of our own practices, we continue to do what our teachers taught us and what, over time, we believe works. The central function of chest physiotherapy in paediatric respiratory disease is to assist in the removal of tracheobronchial secretions. The intention is to remove airway obstruction, reduce airway resistance, enhance gas exchange, and reduce the work of breathing. In the acute situation, recovery should be hastened and in the child with a chronic respiratory disorder, the progression of the lung disease is hopefully delayed. Chest physiotherapy can improve a patient’s respiratory status and expedite recovery. But in certain situations it may be a useless intervention or even harmful—perhaps by increasing bronchospasm, inducing pulmonary hypertension, repositioning a foreign body, or destabilising a sick infant. What …
Ant colony optimization inspired saliency detection using compressed video information

A novel visual saliency detection algorithm using ant colony optimization and spatiotemporal information in compressed videos is proposed in this paper. Firstly, a graph is constructed for each frame in the video by dividing it into blocks and taking the block as nodes. We extract spatial and temporal features of each node directly from the compressed bitstreams to form the heuristic matrixes. Each heuristic matrix is used to steer the ants and the ants deposit pheromone on the graph. Then the pheromone is updated through attenuation and evaporation thus forming a spatial/temporal saliency map. Finally, an adaptive fusion method is used to merge the spatial and temporal saliency maps together. The proposed method has been extensively tested on several video databases with sequences in various scenes and experiment results show that it outperforms various state-of-the-art models in both quantitative evaluation scores and intuitive visual effects.
hnRNP H and hnRNP F Complex with Fox2 To Silence Fibroblast Growth Factor Receptor 2 Exon IIIc

ABSTRACT The heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein H (hnRNP) family of proteins has been shown to activate exon inclusion by binding intronic G triplets. Much less is known, however, about how hnRNP H and hnRNP F silence exons. In this study, we identify hnRNP H and hnRNP F proteins as being novel silencers of fibroblast growth factor receptor 2 exon IIIc. In cells that normally include this exon, we show that the overexpression of either hnRNP H1 or hnRNP F resulted in the dramatic silencing of exon IIIc. In cells that normally skip exon IIIc, skipping was disrupted when RNA interference was used to knock down both hnRNP H and hnRNP F. We show that an exonic GGG motif overlapped a critical exonic splicing enhancer, which was predicted to bind the SR protein ASF/SF2. Furthermore, the expression of ASF/SF2 reversed the silencing of exon IIIc caused by the expression of hnRNP H1. We show that hnRNP H and hnRNP F proteins are present in a complex with Fox2 and that the presence of Fox allows hnRNP H1 to better compete with ASF/SF2 for binding to exon IIIc. These results establish hnRNP H and hnRNP F as being repressors of exon inclusion and suggest that Fox proteins enhance their ability to antagonize ASF/SF2.
Fruit and vegetable access differs by community racial composition and socioeconomic position in Detroit, Michigan.

OBJECTIVE To compare the availability, selection, quality, and price of fresh fruit and vegetables at food stores in four Detroit-area communities: 1) predominately African-American, low socioeconomic position (SEP); 2) racially heterogeneous, low SEP; 3) predominately African-American, middle SEP; and 4) racially heterogeneous, middle SEP. DESIGN Cross-sectional observational survey, conducted fall 2002. SETTING Detroit, Michigan SAMPLE Overall, 304 food stores located in the four communities were evaluated: chain grocery, large independent grocery, "mom-and-pop" grocery, specialty (meat, fruit and vegetable markets), convenience without gasoline, and liquor stores. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Availability was indicated by whether a store carried fresh fruit or vegetables, selection was based on a count of 80 fruit and vegetables, quality was evaluated according to USDA guidelines for a subset of 20 fruit and vegetables, and price was assessed for 20 fruit and vegetables by using the lowest-cost method. RESULTS Mean quality of fresh produce was significantly lower in the predominately African-American, low-SEP community than in the racially heterogeneous, middle-SEP community. Differences in the types of stores present only partially explained this quality differential. The predominately African-American, low-SEP community had more than four times more liquor stores and fewer grocery stores per 100,000 residents than the racially heterogeneous, middle-SEP community. Mean overall selection and price of fresh produce at stores did not differ among communities. CONCLUSIONS Increasing access to high-quality fresh produce in low-income communities of color is a critical first step toward improving health through better dietary practices in this population.
Genotoxicity testing of Persicariae Rhizoma (Persicaria tinctoria H. Gross) aqueous extracts

Persicariae Rhizoma (PR) has been used as an anti-inflammatory and detoxification agent in Korea, and contains the biologically active dyes purple indirubin and blue indigo. Despite synthetic indigo showing genotoxic potential, thorough studies have not been carried out on the genotoxicity of PR. The potential genotoxicity of an aqueous extract of PR containing indigo (0.043%) and indirubin (0.009%) was evaluated using a standard battery of tests for safety assessment. The PR extract did not induce any genotoxic effects under the conditions of this study. The results of a reverse mutation assay in four Salmonella typhimurium strains and one Escherichia coli strain indicated that PR extract did not increase the frequency of revertant colonies in any strain, regardless of whether S9 mix was present or not. The PR extract also did not increase chromosomal aberrations in the presence or absence of S9 mix. Although slight signs of diarrhea were restrictedly detected in the mice treated with 2,000 mg/kg PR extract, no noteworthy changes in the frequency of micronucleated polychromatic erythrocytes were observed at doses ≤2,000 mg/kg in a bone marrow micronucleus test. These results indicate the potential safety of the PR extract, particularly if it is consumed in small amounts compared with the quantities used in the genotoxicity tests.