Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Influence of weaning age and nursery diet complexity on growth performance and carcass characteristics and composition of high-health status pigs from weaning to 109 kilograms.

We examined the influence of weaning age (9 or 19 +/- 1 d) and nursery diet complexity on growth performance and carcass composition of 192 high-health status barrows from weaning to 109 kg. Pigs were fed diets of different complexity (high, medium, or low) in various regimens from weaning to 18.7 kg. They then were fed common corn-soybean meal-based diets from 18.7 to 109 kg. Increasing diet complexity improved ADG from weaning to 7.0 kg (P < .10) but had no effect (P > .10) from 7.0 to 18.7 kg. Thus, increasing diet complexity seems to improve ADG only in the early period after weaning. Age at 109 kg was similar (P > .10) for the pigs weaned at 9 and 19 d. However, pigs fed the medium-complexity regimens were the youngest (P < .01) at 109 kg. Interactions (P < .06) were observed for carcass lipid and lipid:protein accretion from 18.7 to 109 kg. These were the result of pigs weaned at 9 d of age having higher carcass lipid and lipid:CP accretion rates when fed the low-complexity regimens than when fed the medium- or high-complexity regimens. However, pigs weaned at 19 d of age had similar carcass lipid and lipid:protein accretion ratios regardless of diet complexity. When health status was similar, growth performance was similar between weaning ages but was influenced by diet complexity. Carcass lipid and lipid:protein deposition ratios increased when simple regimens were fed to pigs weaned at 9 d of age in the subsequent growing-finishing period.
Chemical Vapor Deposition of Perovskites for Photovoltaic Application

In recent years, high‐efficient and low‐cost perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have triggered a strong interest in the photovoltaic (PV) field. However, it is still challenging to develop cost‐effective perovskite fabrication technologies for meeting the demands of mass production. The latest developed tubular chemical vapor deposition (CVD) with high level of controllability, versatility, and scalability has emerged as a promising preparation method for perovskites. Thus here we summarize the recent progress of perovskites grown by CVD approaches, and give emphasis not only to the preparation methods and reaction mechanisms but also to the related structures and specific properties, and also highlight their prospective PV application.
A supervised no-reference QOE assessment model on IPTV services

This paper presents a supervised no-reference model for QoE assessment on IPTV services. MOS_V (Mean Opinion Score for Video) which has five levels is recommended as subjective assessment indicator, while MDI (media delivery index), PCR (program clock reference) as well as MR (media rate) are recommended as objective assessment indicators. Collecting and using both of them to build the prediction model is remarkable. The basic decision classification trees in C4.5 algorithm and Random Forests are chosen to build the model. Based on them, two innovative measures are proposed to improve model accuracy. Considering uneven rating levels of people, an adaptive rating modification algorithm is put forward for MOS_V to adjust all rating levels to the same value coordinate system. Besides, owing to coarse granularity of traditional MOS_V, we adjust classification width and fault tolerance rate correspondingly. The experimental results show that the model outperforms traditional methods which only apply machine learning methods in prediction accuracy.
Tiny but mighty: Size effects on the strength of metals

Size effects on metals and alloys that have external dimensions on the micron scale and smaller have been questioning the scientific community for several years. We have shown that these effects can be rationalized in terms of defects structure that is both sampled or altered during the fabrication processes and hindered by internal or surface effects when plastic flow has to develop.
The current understanding of Ded1p/DDX3 homologs from yeast to human

DExD/H-box RNA helicases are involved in almost all steps of the eukaryotic mRNA biogenesis. The DEAD-box protein Ded1p/DDX3 is conserved from yeast to human. Various lines of genetic and biochemical evidence have indicated a role of the yeast Ded1p in translation and, most likely, in precursor mRNA splicing as well. In contrast, although recent studies have begun to reveal the function of the mammalian DDX3 in translation control, its exact role remains vague and even controversial. Here, we review these findings and particularly discuss the functional aspects of Ded1p/DDX3 in translation control.
Controller Cluster-Based Interconnecting for Multi-domain SDN Networks

In order to exchange information and have a coordinated control for software defined network (SDN), this paper proposes a controller cluster-based interconnecting framework based on load balancing, which can be implemented through two levels of controller coordination, i.e., inter-cluster and intra-cluster interconnection. Specifically, inter-cluster interconnection is implemented by migrating the controller of a cluster with the lightest load to another cluster with plenty of cross-domain flow tables. When a switch receives the most amount of flow tables, intra-cluster interconnection can switch its primary and secondary controller within a cluster. This framework alleviates the load pressure of controller while being able to exchange control information between different SDN controller domains, and it improves quality of service of SDN controllers as well.
New families of carbon nanotubes based on graphyne motifs

Electronic properties of proposed new families of carbon single walled nanotubes are investigated. These nanotubes, called graphynes, result from the elongation of covalent interconnections of graphite-based nanotubes by the introduction of yne groups. Analogous to ordinary nanotubes, armchair, zigzag and chiral graphyne nanotubes are possible. Tight-binding and ab initio density functional methods were used to predict the electronic properties of these unusual nanotubes. Of the three graphyne nanotube families analysed here, two provide metallic behaviour for armchair tubes and either metallic or semiconducting behaviour for zigzag nanotubes. For the other graphyne nanotube family investigated a diameter and chirality independent bandgap is predicted and a bandgap modulation study by structural distortions has been carried out for small longitudinal tube deformations. Interestingly, while the bandgap is insensitive to structure, the stress-induced bandgap changes can strongly depend both on the nanotube type and whether the strain is tensile or compressive.
Why, when, and what: Analyzing Stack Overflow questions by topic, type, and code

Questions from Stack Overflow provide a unique opportunity to gain insight into what programming concepts are the most confusing. We present a topic modeling analysis that combines question concepts, types, and code. Using topic modeling, we are able to associate programming concepts and identifiers (like the String class) with particular types of questions, such as, “how to perform encoding”.
Innovative Shielded High $Q$ Dielectric Resonator Made of Alumina by Layer-by-Layer Stereolithography

This letter presents a compact design of a shielded high unloaded Q dielectric resonator. The main interest of this work is the use of the three-dimensional stereolithography process to manufacture innovative ceramic radio frequency devices. Thus, a resonator, its support, and the surrounding cavity is manufactured in one part out of alumina by that process. The measured structure exhibits an unloaded Q of 3900 at 11.88GHz and is free of spurious modes over a 3-GHz range
Observing the Seyfert 2 nucleus of NGC 1068 with the VLT interferometer

Dusty tori have been suggested to play a crucial role in determining the physical characteristics of active galactic nuclei (AGN), but investigation of their properties has stalled for lack of high resolution mid-IR imaging. Recently, a long-awaited breakthrough in this field was achieved: NGC 1068, a nearby AGN, was the first extragalactic object to be observed with a mid-IR interferometer, thereby obtaining the needed angular resolution to study the alleged torus. The instrument used was MIDI mounted on the ESO's VLT interferometer. The resulting 8-13 micron interferometric spectra indicated the presence of a thick (3 x 4 parsec) configuration of warm dust surrounding a hot ~1 pc component, marginally elongated in the direction perpendicular to the main orientation of the warm component. The structure of the 10 micron "silicate" absorption feature hinted at the presence of non-typical dust. In this proceeding, first the field of AGN research is briefly reviewed, with an emphasis on models of dusty tori. Second, the general properties of the key object NGC 1068 are discussed. Third, the MIDI data set is presented together with a first attempt to interpret this data in the context of tori models. Fourth, preliminary MIDI interferometric spectra of the nucleus of the nearby starbursting galaxy Circinus are presented. The apparent observed absence of both a hot component as well as a sharp absorption feature suggest that we view the torus more edge-on than is the case for NGC 1068. Finally, we briefly discuss the prospects of ESA's Darwin mission for observing nearby and distant AGN. The required capabilities for Darwin's first goal -- the search for and subsequent characterization of earth-like planets orbiting nearby stars -- are such that for its second goal -- high resolution astrophysical imaging -- the sensitivity will be similar to JWST and the angular resolution 1-2 orders better. This will allow detailed mapping of tori of low luminosity AGN such as NGC 1068 up to redshifts of 1 - 2 and more luminous AGN up to redshift of 10 and beyond.
A Nonparametric Mixture Model for Topic Modeling over Time

A single, stationary topic model such as latent Dirichlet allocation is inappropriate for modeling corpora that span long time periods, as the popularity of topics is likely to change over time. A number of models that incorporate time have been proposed, but in general they either exhibit limited forms of temporal variation, or require computationally expensive inference methods. In this paper we propose nonparametric Topics over Time (npTOT), a model for time-varying topics that allows an unbounded number of topics and flexible distribution over the temporal variations in those topics’ popularity. We develop a collapsed Gibbs sampler for the proposed model and compare against existing models on synthetic and real document sets.
Pharmacokinetic evaluation of olopatadine for the treatment of allergic rhinitis and conjunctivitis

Introduction: Olopatadine hydrochloride is an antihistamine and mast cell stabilizer available in three forms, including oral, intranasal and ocular preparations. Most of the practical applications focus on the use of olopatadine for the treatment of allergic rhinitis and conjunctivitis via intranasal and ocular routes. Areas covered: This article was formed from a comprehensive literature search with information taken from meta-analyses, systematic reviews, treatment guidelines and clinical studies on children and adults. Articles that have been selected evaluate the use of intranasal and ocular antihistamines and their role in allergic rhinitis and conjunctivitis. Expert opinion: Olopatadine is significantly more effective than placebos in alleviating the symptoms of allergic rhinitis and conjunctivitis. Olopatadine is a viable alternative and addition to the mainstay therapy of these conditions with intranasal steroids and oral antihistamines. The compliance of the patients would be improved if a once-per-day formulation of olopatadine was developed for intranasal application. The future treatments of allergic rhinitis will probably involve a combination of intranasal antihistamine and steroid because clinical trials have demonstrated an improved efficacy without a significant increase in adverse effects.
Exponential Mapping Controller Applied to an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle

Abstract A novel modified exponential function to achieve tracking and regulatory direct and indirect model-free feedback control of a class of nonlinear dynamical systems is presented. Its simplicity was a requisite to have it run on equipment and devices with memory and processor constraints. The control algorithm needs only two parameters and can be applied to systems based on knowledge about its free response and expected disturbances. Its main advantages are a relative ease of implementation and intuitive tuning. The controller is applied to the simulation of an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) under currents, with promising results. In particular, its intuitive form of parameterization allowed in some cases for immediate good results or at least for good initial estimates for later tuning.
Fiscal Policy with Heterogeneous Agents and Incomplete Markets

I undertake a quantitative investigation into the short run effects of changes in the timing of taxes for a model economy in which heterogeneous households trade only one asset and face a borrowing constraint. This asset market structure implies that the consumption of low wealth households is sensitive to tax changes. The main finding of the paper is that when the wealth distribution in the model resembles that in the United States, market incompleteness accounts for large immediate aggregate consumption increases following tax cuts, and large consumption falls following tax increases. When taxes are lump-sum, for example, a dollar change in tax revenue is associated with a 15 cent change in aggregate consumption, compared to a response of roughly one third this size when markets are complete but households are finitely-lived. I find the response to tax changes to be larger if the interest rate is constant rather than determined endogenously, and smaller if taxes are proportional rather than lump-sum.
Test Methods for Composites A Status Report. Volume 3: Shear Test Methods

Abstract : This document provides an evaluation of current test methods for shear properties of composite materials consisting of high modules, high strength fibers in organic matrix materials. Mechanical testing is an important step in the 'building block' approach to design of composite aircraft structures. The document provides a source of information by which the current shear test methods can be evaluated and from which test methods which appear to give good-quality test data can be selected. Problems with the available shear test methods are also addressed as a means of providing recommendations for future research.
Targeting Autophagy in ALK-Associated Cancers

Autophagy is an evolutionarily conserved catabolic process, which is used by the cells for cytoplasmic quality control. This process is induced following different kinds of stresses e.g., metabolic, environmental, or therapeutic, and acts, in this framework, as a cell survival mechanism. However, under certain circumstances, autophagy has been associated with cell death. This duality has been extensively reported in solid and hematological cancers, and has been observed during both tumor development and cancer therapy. As autophagy plays a critical role at the crossroads between cell survival and cell death, its involvement and therapeutic modulation (either activation or inhibition) are currently intensively studied in cancer biology, to improve treatments and patient outcomes. Over the last few years, studies have demonstrated the occurrence of autophagy in different Anaplastic Lymphoma Kinase (ALK)-associated cancers, notably ALK-positive anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL), non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC), Neuroblastoma (NB), and Rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS). In this review, we will first briefly describe the autophagic process and how it can lead to opposite outcomes in anti-cancer therapies, and we will then focus on what is currently known regarding autophagy in ALK-associated cancers.
Hair style retrieval by semantic mapping on informative patches

Hair is an important aspect of human appearance. Hair color has been employed to facilitate face retrieval in literature, but hair style is still dismissed because of the challenges of its segmentation. In this paper, we propose a novel hair style retrieval algorithm in unconstrained environments. In contrary to defining similarity based on features, we base our measurement directly on hair shapes. To bridge the “semantic gap” between low-level features and high-level hairstyle, we incorporate mapping function which integrates local and pairwise evidences in MRF framework. Additionally, we propose a RankBoost learning algorithm to select the most informative patches integrating the heuristic information of mapping function accuracy. Our method is applied to the “Labeled Faces in the Wild” dataset and yields promising results.
A Naive Algorithm for Feedback Vertex Set

Given a graph on $n$ vertices and an integer $k$, the feedback vertex set problem asks for the deletion of at most $k$ vertices to make the graph acyclic. We show that a greedy branching algorithm, which always branches on an undecided vertex with the largest degree, runs in single-exponential time, i.e., $O(c^k\cdot n^2)$ for some constant $c$.
Cosmic ray modulation of infra-red radiation in the atmosphere

Cosmic rays produce molecular cluster ions as they pass through the lower atmosphere. Neutral molecular clusters such as dimers and complexes are expected to make a small contribution to the radiative balance, but atmospheric absorption by charged clusters has not hitherto been observed. In an atmospheric experiment, a narrowband thermopile filter radiometer centred on 9.15 μm, an absorption band previously associated with infra-red absorption of molecular cluster ions, was used to monitor changes following events identified by a cosmic ray telescope sensitive to high-energy (>400 MeV) particles, principally muons. The average change in longwave radiation in this absorption band due to molecular cluster ions is 7 mWm−2. The integrated atmospheric energy density for each event is 2 Jm−2, representing an amplification factor of 1012 compared to the estimated energy density of a typical air shower. This absorption is expected to occur continuously and globally, but calculations suggest that it has only a small effect on climate.
A further investigation on speech features for speaker characterization

In this article, we investigate on alternative speech features for speaker characterization. We study Line Spectrum Pairs features, Time-Frequency Principal Components and Discriminant Components of the Spectrum. These alternative features are tested and compared on a task of speaker veriﬁcation. This task consists in verifying a claimed identity from a speech segment. Systems are evaluated on a subset of the evaluation data of the NIST 1999 speaker recognition campaign. The new speech features are also compared to the classical cepstral coefﬁcients, which remain, in our experiments, the best performing features.
Novel approach to unsupervised mobility assessment tests: Field trial for aTUG

A novel approach to performing unsupervised mobility assessment tests in domestic environments is presented. As a part of the aTUG concept the approach is based on the idea to segment assessment tests into components made up of recurring movement patterns which are measured independently by use of ambient sensor technologies. Quality criteria are defined which compute a score of eligibility for usage of sensor data to assess a certain test component. Valid component measurements are recombined to complete assessment tests according to a technical assessment test description defining the flow of segments and their constraints. An experiment has been conducted within a field trial with five elderly people aged 64-84 years over five weeks. The flats of all people were equipped with home automation (HA) sensors. A laser range scanner (LRS) was placed in one flat. Results from the fully-equipped flat show that the presented quality criteria are suitable to select LRS measurements according to their eligibility to assess a certain component. HA sensors and the LRS were used to compute a self-selected gait velocity of 0.71m/s unsupervised at home. TUG using the aTUG apparatus and a stopwatch was used as clinical reference data yielding a mean gait velocity of 1.18m/s. For the described setting a difference of 0.47m/s between capacity and performance in gait velocity was found.
SoniXplorer: Combining Visualization and Auralization for Content-Based Exploration of Music Collections

Music can be described best by music. However, current research in the design of user interfaces for the exploration of music collections has mainly focused on visualization aspects ignoring possible benefits from spatialized music playback. We describe our first development steps towards two novel user-interface designs: The Sonic Radar arranges a fixed number of prototypes resulting from a content-based clustering process in a circle around the user’s standpoint. To derive an auralization of the scene, we introduce the concept of an aural focus of perception that adapts well-known principles from the visual domain. The Sonic SOM is based on Kohonen’s SelfOrganizing Map. It helps the user in understanding the structure of his music collection by positioning titles on a two-dimensional grid according to their high-dimensional similarity. We show how our auralization concept can be adapted to extend this visualization technique and thereby support multimodal navigation.
Investigating the capability of multi-temporal Landsat images for crop identification in high farmland fragmentation regions

Crop identification is a critical component for grain production prediction. Identifying crop type using remote sensing techniques has been investigated for many decades. A number of different supervised methods have been developed to discriminate different crops. However, most of these methods were applied to areas with relatively large cultivated fields. In China, the cultivation policy leads to extreme complexity in the agricultural landscape, especially in summer and autumn seasons. The objective of this study was to investigate the capability of multi-temporal Landsat images for crop identification in a region with high farmland fragmentation. The study area is located in Taigu, Shanxi province, where the crop planting structure is very complicated. A total of 7 Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) images were acquired from 14 October 2003 to 26 June 2004 for classification. Two most favorable classifiers, support vector machine (SVM) and maximum likelihood classifier (MLC) were selected for classification with training samples using different combinations of multi-temporal Landsat images. The overall classification accuracy and Kappa statistics estimated from the confusion matrix using validation samples were selected for evaluating all classification results. Accuracy assessment results indicated that multi-temporal ETM+ data achieved satisfactory classification accuracy (best overall accuracy 89.61%) in the study area. SVM classifier performed better than MLC when three or less Landsat images were used. The addition of the temporal dimension further increased the overall classification accuracy for both SVM and MLC, but the accuracy increased slightly for SVM classifier. The time of data acquisitions are of great importance for crop classification. Results in this paper indicated that multitemporal Landsat ETM+ data are capable for crop discrimination in regions with high farmland fragmentation. In the future, the use of China Environment Satellite HJ-1A/B data for this application should be investigated in the future for the higher temporal resolution and greater spatial coverage.