Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Overview: Oxidant and particle photochemical processes above a south-east Asian tropical rainforest (the OP3 project): Introduction, rationale, location characteristics and tools

Abstract. In April–July 2008, intensive measurements were made of atmospheric composition and chemistry in Sabah, Malaysia, as part of the "Oxidant and particle photochemical processes above a South-East Asian tropical rainforest" (OP3) project. Fluxes and concentrations of trace gases and particles were made from and above the rainforest canopy at the Bukit Atur Global Atmosphere Watch station and at the nearby Sabahmas oil palm plantation, using both ground-based and airborne measurements. Here, the measurement and modelling strategies used, the characteristics of the sites and an overview of data obtained are described. Composition measurements show that the rainforest site was not significantly impacted by anthropogenic pollution, and this is confirmed by satellite retrievals of NO2 and HCHO. The dominant modulators of atmospheric chemistry at the rainforest site were therefore emissions of BVOCs and soil emissions of reactive nitrogen oxides. At the observed BVOC:NOx volume mixing ratio (~100 pptv/pptv), current chemical models suggest that daytime maximum OH concentrations should be ca. 105 radicals cm−3, but observed OH concentrations were an order of magnitude greater than this. We confirm, therefore, previous measurements that suggest that an unexplained source of OH must exist above tropical rainforest and we continue to interrogate the data to find explanations for this.
Effects of d-fenfluramine and metergoline on responding for conditioned reward and the response potentiating effect of nucleus accumbens d-amphetamine.

These studies investigated the effects of the 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) releaser, and re-uptake inhibitor, d-fenfluramine, and the non-selective 5-HT receptor antagonist metergoline, on responding for conditioned reward (CR), and on the potentiation of responding for CR following amphetamine injected into the nucleus accumbens. Water deprived rats were trained to associate a compound stimulus with water delivery during a conditioning phase. During a test phase, water was not delivered but the compound stimulus was delivered according to a random ratio 2 schedule following a response on one of two levers; responding on the other lever was not reinforced. Overall, rats responded at a higher rate on the lever delivering the CR. d-Amphetamine (1, 3 and 10 micrograms) injected into the nucleus accumbens dose-dependently enhanced responding on the CR lever. Treatment with d-fenfluramine (0.5 and 1 mg/kg) reduced responding for the CR, and abolished the potentiating effect of d-amphetamine. Responding on the inactive lever was also reduced by 1 mg/kg but not 0.5 mg/kg d-fenfluramine. The reduction of d-amphetamine's effect on responding for CR was prevented by prior treatment with the 5-HT receptor antagonist metergoline (1 mg/kg). Control experiments showed that changes in thirst and motor performance, as well as deficits in learning ability, cannot account for the effects of d-fenfluramine in this paradigm. In a separate experiment, 1 mg/kg metergoline failed to enhance responding for CR, and to augment the response potentiating effect of a low dose (2 micrograms) of d-amphetamine injected into the nucleus accumbens. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Relationship between timing of development, morula morphology, and cell allocation to inner cell mass and trophectoderm in in vitro‐produced bovine embryos

Noninvasive measurements of bovine embryo quality, such as timing of cleavage, morula morphology, blastocyst formation, and hatching ability, were linked with the number of inner cell mass (ICM) cells and trophectoderm (TE) cells of the resulting embryos. First, it was confirmed that fast‐cleaving embryos proved to have significantly higher chances to reach advanced developmental stages vs. intermediate and slow cleavers (P = 0.01). They also showed significantly less fragmentation at the morula stage, implying the presence of more excellent morulae among fast‐cleaving embryos (P < 0.05). Second, the quality of hatched blastocysts, resulting from morulae of different morphological grades, was examined by differential staining. The total cell and ICM cell numbers were significantly lower for hatched blastocysts developed from poor morulae compared to hatched blastocysts developed from excellent, good, or fair morulae. However, hatched blastocysts with <10 ICM cells were seen in embryos belonging to all four morphological scores. Finally, it was found that timing of first cleavage was not significantly correlated with timing of blastocyst formation or with cell number of blastocysts. Timing of blastocyst formation, however, was significantly correlated with cell number: day 8 blastocysts had significantly lower total cell and ICM cell numbers than day 6 and day 7 blastocysts (P < 0.001). These results suggest that the quality of in vitro‐produced bovine embryos is very variable and cannot be linked with a single criterion such as embryo morphology and/or hatching ability. Timing of blastocyst formation was the most valuable criterion with regard to embryonic differentiation. Mol. Reprod. Dev. 47:47–56, 1997. © 1997 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Pediatric bacteremia due to Staphylococcus warneri: microbiological, epidemiological, and clinical features

Between 1991 and 1995, an apparent high rate of Staphylococcus warneri bacteremias at the Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, raised the possibility of a virulent nosocomial strain. In a retrospective review of 30 S. warneri bacteremias in children, organisms were viable and verified in 22 episodes, 12 representing significant bacteremias. Of these 12 episodes, 2 pairs shared chromosomal DNA pulsed-field gel electrophoresis patterns in unconnected patients, dispelling concerns about a single virulent strain.
Evaluation of clinical safety and beneficial effects of a fish oil containing lipid emulsion (Lipoplus, MLF541): Data from a prospective, randomized, multicenter trial*

Objective:To prove safety and effectiveness of a lipid emulsion enriched with n-3 fatty acids from fish oil (Lipoplus) within the setting of parenteral nutrition of patients after major abdominal surgery and to determine whether there are effects on outcome parameters. Design:Prospective, randomized, double-blind, multicenter trial. Setting:University and surgical teaching hospitals. Patients:After obtaining informed consent, 256 patients undergoing major abdominal surgery were randomized. Parameters of safety, effectiveness, and outcome were routine laboratory parameters, complication rates, length of stay in the intensive care unit, and length of hospital stay. In addition we determined in patient subgroups of 30 patients each, the changes of the content of selected long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids, the leukotriene synthetic capacity and the antioxidant &agr;-tocopherol. Interventions:Participating patients were randomized to receive either Lipoplus (group I; n = 127 patients) or Intralipid (group II; n = 129 patients). Parenteral nutrition was initiated immediately after surgery and ended on day 5 after surgery. Measurements and Main Results:No significant differences between groups I and II were observed when comparing routine laboratory parameters during the perioperative period. Plasma levels of eicosapentaenoic acid, leukotriene B5, and antioxidant content were significantly increased in group I. Furthermore, there was a significantly shorter length of hospital stay of ≈21% (17.2 vs. 21.9 days; p = .0061) in group I. Conclusions:Our findings indicate that the administration of Lipoplus in the postoperative period after major abdominal surgery is safe and results in a significantly shorter length of hospital stay. Administration of n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids in the postoperative period can be considered a valuable choice for patients requiring parenteral nutrition after major abdominal surgery.
Do footedness and strength asymmetry relate to the dominant stance in swimming track start?

Abstract This study explored the relationship between lower limb asymmetry and stance preference in the swimming track start. Track start performances and asymmetry measures were collected from 11 male and 11 female competitive age group swimmers. The track start performance was defined as the time taken to reach the 5-m mark. Asymmetry measures included assessment of footedness using the revised version of the Waterloo Footedness Questionnaire and assessment of performance asymmetry in the one-legged countermovement jump. Participants performed five trials on each side of both the one-legged countermovement jump and the track start, and the best three trials of each were compared. Asymmetry was declared when at least two trials from one side were better than the contralateral side. While the majority of the participants produced better performances using the preferred track start stance, it was not related to footedness or the dominant limb for the one-legged countermovement jump. Further investigation is required to identify factors that predict the lateralised behaviour of the track start, and determine whether changing the stance would provide significant advantage.
Analysing the Java package/access concepts in Isabelle/HOL

Java access modifiers and packages provide a mechanism to restrict access to members and types, as an additional means of information hiding beyond the purely object‐oriented concept of classes. In this paper we clarify the semantics of access modifiers and packages by adding them to our formal model of Java in the theorem prover Isabelle/HOL. We analyse which properties we can rely on at runtime, provided that the program has passed the static accessibility tests. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Circularly polarized textile antenna with bending analysis

A slotted circular polarization (CP) textile antenna is designed for radio frequency (RF) energy harvesting system. The antenna composed a circular patch with cross slot at the centre of the patch. a good bandwidth (2.22 GHz-2.59 GHz), axial ratio (2.38 GHz-2.45 GHz) with directivity gain of 7.34 dBi is presented. This paper also presents the performance of the antenna in bending condition to suits with application of rectenna for energy harvesting system and antenna for monitoring system.
Do traditional banks need a Chief AI Officer?: An explorative research project that aims to evaluate the appointment of a Chief AI Officer to overcome challenges that arise when traditional banks adopt AI technologies

Artificial intelligence is a technology trend that potentially far exceeds the possibilities of all current state technologies, in a sense that these technologies have self-learning abilities. Organizations that manage to adopt and diffuse these technologies may effectively reach a competitive edge over their competitors faster. However, for large organizations such as traditional banks the question arises how to facilitate this transformation to effectively adopt AI technologies. Despite the fact that AI technologies are still in a relatively premature stage of development, traditional banks in the Netherlands are currently exploring its potential. In this exploratory study we interviewed 19 experts in the field of AI and Banking to identify all relevant challenges that arise when traditional banks adopt AI technologies. Additionally, we explored the importance of top management tech-executive roles as a possible solution to address certain challenges. As a result we have found that traditional banks have no common view or approach on how to adopt AI technologies enterprise-wide effectively. Therefore, the appointment of a new Chief AI Officer role may prove to be a valuable solution to address some of these challenges. However, there is still a mixed view on what this roles’ position, responsibilities and other managerial characteristics should be.
Attempts to convert the cellular prion protein into the scrapie isoform in cell-free systems

The scrapie prion protein (PrPSc) is derived from a cellular isoform (PrPC) that acquires protease resistance posttranslationally. We have used several different experimental approaches in attempts to reconstitute in vitro the processes leading to protease-resistant PrPSc molecules. In the first study, we performed mixing experiments by adding mouse PrP 27-30 (MoPrP27-30), the protease-resistant core of PrPSc, to PrPC and then incubating the mixture to investigate the possibility of heterodimer formation as a first step in prion replication. We used epitopically tagged PrP molecules, synthesized in murine neuroblastoma (N2a) cells transfected with the chimeric mouse/Syrian hamster MHM2 PrP construct, which are recognized by the Syrian hamster-specific monoclonal antibody 3F4. After as long as 24 h of incubation, the reaction mixture was assayed for heterodimeric intermediates of MHM2 PrPC and MoPrPSc and for protease-resistant 3F4-reactive PrP. We were unable to identify any aggregates of MHM2 PrPC and MoPrPSc on immunoblots; furthermore, we did not observe de novo formation of protease-resistant MHM2 PrP. In a second study, MoPrPC was metabolically radiolabeled in scrapie prion-infected N2a cultured cells, and then the cell extract was homogenized and incubated under various conditions to allow for the formation of protease-resistant MoPrPSc. We observed no radiolabeled MoPrPSc by immunoprecipitation after as long as 24 h of in vitro incubation. In a third approach, Syrian hamster PrP (SHaPrP) was synthesized in a cell-free translation system supplemented with microsomal membranes derived from either normal or scrapie prion-infected cultured cells. We found that all SHaPrP species translocated across microsomal membranes from scrapie prion-infected cells were protease sensitive in the presence of detergents and displayed the same topology as those generated by microsomes from normal cells or from dog pancreas. We also studied PrP molecules that encode the codon 102 mutation that causes the rare human prion disease Gerstmann-Sträussler-Scheinker (GSS) syndrome. On the basis of our data, GSSPrP appears to yield topological forms similar to those of the wild-type PrP when processed by either normal or scrapie prion-derived microsomes.
Direct Product Testing With Nearly Identical Sets

In this work we analyze a direct product test in which each of two provers receives a subset of size n of a ground set U , |U | = Θ(n), and the two subsets intersect in about (1 − δ)n elements. We show that if each of the provers provides labels to the n elements it received, and the labels of the two provers agree in the intersection between the subsets with non-negligible probability, then the answers of the provers must correspond to a certain global assignment to the elements of U . While previous results only worked for intersection of size at most n/2, in our model the questions and expected answers of the two provers are nearly identical. This is related to a recent construction of a unique games instance (ECCC TR14-142) where this setup arises at the “outer verifier” level. Our main tool is a hypercontractive bound on the Bernoulli-Laplace model (aka a slice of the Boolean hypercube), from which we can deduce a “small set expansion”-type lemma. We then use ideas from a recent work of the author about “fortification” to reduce the case of large intersection to the already studied case of smaller intersection. 1 Direct Product Testing Let U and R be finite sets, let n ≥ 1 be a natural number, and let 0 ≤ α ≤ 1. We define the following two prover game. The provers are asked to agree on an assignment f : U → R ahead of time. Then a verifier picks at random two subsets S, S′ ⊆ U that intersect in αn elements on average. The verifier sends one subset to each prover. The prover is supposed to report what f(x) is for every x in the subset it got, but is not necessarily truthful. The verifier checks that the assignments reported by the provers agree on the intersection between the two sets. Let S be the family of sized-n subsets of U . Direct Product Test(α): 1. The verifier picks uniformly at random a set S ∈ S. 2. The verifier picks a correlated set S′ ∈ S as follows: for1 k ∼ Poisson((1 − α)n) times, switch an element from S with a uniform element outside of S. ∗dmoshkov@csail.mit. edu. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, MIT. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Number 1218547. Several other choices of a correlated S′ have been used in other works. The one we use follows a convention from probability literature.
On Compact Cauchy Matrices for Substitution-Permutation Networks

Maximum distance separable (MDS) matrices are widely used in the design of block ciphers. However, it is highly nontrival to find MDS matrices which could be used in practice. This paper focuses on the design of efficient MDS matrices for substitution-permutation networks (SPNs). We provide a new method to construct and count these MDS matrices. Moreover, we identified an interesting class of Cauchy matrices (named compact Cauchy matrices) which has the fewest different entries and is thus more favorable for implementation. Finally, we prove that all compact Cauchy matrices could be modified into an involution compact Cauchy matrix, and show how to maximize the occurrences of entry “1” in a compact Cauchy matrix.
Characterization of the Escherichia coli membrane domain responsible for binding oriC DNA

It has previously been shown that hemimethylated DNA from the Escherichia coli replication origin (oriC) binds with high specificity to membrane fractions isolated from disrupted cells. In this article, the membrane localization of oriC-binding activity was studied by subjecting crude membrane preparations to successive cycles of sedimentation and flotation gradient analysis. This revealed that approximately two-thirds of the membrane-associated oriC-binding activity of the cell was not associated with the outer membrane fraction as previously suggested but was recovered instead in a unique membrane fraction (OCB1) whose buoyant density and protein profile differed from those of both inner and outer membranes. The specific activity of oriC binding in OCB1 was approximately fivefold higher than the activity of the isolated outer membrane peak. It is likely that membrane fraction OCB1 includes the membrane domain responsible for the binding of hemimethylated oriC to the cell envelope in intact cells.
Design and analysis of PLLs for line-connected converters in three phase systems

This paper is concerned with phase locked loop (PLL) structures for use in the control of line connected power electronic converters in three phase systems. Such converters have to operate under conditions in which the power system phase voltages are often unbalanced. The unbalanced and distorted line voltage vector as observed in the stationary reference frame generally has instantaneous rates of change components in the radial as well as in the angular directions. The essential task of a PLL in this context is usually to track an appropriately filtered behavior of the angular rate of change. This paper presents and analyzes methods to achieve this filtering and tracking. The positive sequence vector component in the input phase voltages is extracted using geometrical properties of the unbalanced vector trajectory.
Effect of Daytime Alpha Rhythm Maintenance on Subsequent Sleep

&NA; The sleep of five subjects was studied electroencephalographically to investigate whether the prolonged daytime maintenance of EEG alpha rhythm under feedback conditions affects sleep on the following night. Each of the subjects slept in the laboratory during two separate five‐night periods, Monday through Friday, at least a week apart. During Thursday of each study, the subject spent twelve hours producing money‐reinforced alpha or nonalpha depending on the experimental paradigm. Mean percentages of the various sleep stages and total sleep times were compared between postfeedback nights and control nights. The sleep stages did not appear to be differentially affected, but a significant decrement of total sleep time was noted between the post‐alpha‐conditioning night and the controls. Thus, production of high amounts of alpha rhythm during the day may be associated with a slightly decreased sleep need.
In the Wake of TICAD V: Japan-Africa Relations Today

Abstract The paper looks at how Japan, one of the major donors of African countries, has been redefining its positions on the African continent in terms of bilateral aid and business opportunities, triangular collaboration and multilateral development projects in an increasingly ‘interpolar’ world of international relations. The discussion includes China's expanding presence all over Africa as an important ‘reference point’ for the Japanese public at large and how that may influence Japanese pragmatic foreign policy towards the continent and Japan's involvement in African development. What are Japan's priorities in the wake of hosting the fifth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD V) early in June 2013 in Yokohama? How does Japan go along with its confident manner of inclusive development and ownership in African societies when at the same time it is challenged by China and other emerging actors? What are the items on Japan's agenda for a re-intensified Africa policy?
Sequence Analysis of Toxin Gene–Bearing Corynebacterium diphtheriae Strains, Australia

By conducting a molecular characterization of Corynebacterium diphtheriae strains in Australia, we identified novel sequences, nonfunctional toxin genes, and 5 recent cases of toxigenic cutaneous diphtheria. These findings highlight the importance of extrapharyngeal infections for toxin gene–bearing (functional or not) and non–toxin gene–bearing C. diphtheriae strains. Continued surveillance is recommended.
Nighttime Vehicle Detection at Close Range Using Vehicle Lamps Information

Vehicle detection is an important function for any advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). Due to the restrictions in data collection, most of the detection methods presented in the past few years were based on the assumption of well-lit environments. In this paper, we propose a novel algorithm to detect vehicle in the night time by the location of vehicle lamps. The proposed algorithm calculates the intensity of diffuse light, and then uses the information to capture the locations of car lamps. The experimental results show that using our algorithm can properly detect vehicles in the night time.
Predictive Control of Synchronous Reluctance Motor Drive

A predictive digital control algorithm, suitable for synchronous reluctance motor drives, is presented in the paper. The proposed algorithm, which is a direct digital control one, is implemented in rotor coordinates. It is a recursive algorithm which allows the imposition of the reference values of d and q current components. The digital control system directly synthesizes an output vector which imposes the timing control of the inverter by means of on/off state of the switches, thus avoiding the implementation of the traditional PI controllers and PWM technique. Due to the time required for the execution of the algorithm, the vector control has to be imposed with a delay of one sampling time. This drawback can be overcome by using very fast processors like FPGAs or by introducing the observed quantities instead of the measured ones in the recursive algorithm. Both the delayed control and the latter solution are considered in the paper. A computer simulation study, using the Matlab Simulink tool, is conducted on the drive. The simulation results are compared also with those obtained by simulating the traditional drive. The simulation study and the results comparison show the good performance of the proposed control algorithm.