Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
TWO-DIMENSIONAL SYNTHETIC SEISMOGRAM MODELING OF WIDE-ANGLE SEISMIC DATA FROM THE WICHITA UPLIFT, OKLAHOMA.

Abstract In conjunction with the 1979 COCORP Wichita Uplift survey, wide-angle reflection-refraction data were recorded on a fixed array. The object of the present study is to model and interpret these wide-angle data to add independent constraints on the deep structure of the Wichita Uplift. Three common-receiver profiles were extracted from the data; recording apertures were 3.2 to 23.4 km to the north of the array, 4.2 to 14.9 km to the east, and 4.2 to 12.6 km to the west. These profiles are modeled by iterative fitting of high-frequency synthetic seismograms computed by asymptotic ray theory. The model derived contains low velocity (2.0 to 2.16 km/sec) surficial sediments that vary in thickness. These account for strong local travel-time variations of ±0.05 sec and for a small, but persistent “ghost” arrival that follows all the main branches with a delay of ≈0.2 sec. The basement granites, rhyolites, and gabbros are very near the surface throughout the study area; both granite and gabbro outcrops are seen. Basement P -wave velocities are therefore relatively high. Representative velocities are 4.7 km/sec at 0.8 km depth, 6.2 at 1.8, 6.4 at 2.8, and 6.5 at 4.0. Local velocities as high as 7.4 km/sec may be present. The basement is fairly transparent beneath the Wichita Uplift, with only a few local reflectors present. This is consistent with the COCORP results.
Reduced complexity content-based image retrieval using vector quantization

We present a low complexity approach for content-based image retrieval (CBIR) using vector quantization (VQ). The VQ codebooks serve as generative image models and are used to represent images while computing their similarity. The hope is that encoding an image with a codebook of a similar image will yield a better representation than when a codebook of a dissimilar image is used. Experiments performed on a color image database support this hypothesis, and retrieval based on this method compares well with previous work. Our basic method "tags" each image with a thumbnail and a small VQ codebook of only 8 entries, where each entry is a 6 element color feature vector. In addition, we consider augmenting feature vectors with x-y coordinates associated with the entry
Four Metrics to Evaluate Heterogeneous Multicores

Semiconductor device scaling has made single-ISA heterogeneous processors a reality. Heterogeneous processors contain a number of different CPU cores that all implement the same Instruction Set Architecture (ISA). This enables greater flexibility and specialization, as runtime constraints and workload characteristics can influence which core a given workload is run on. A major roadblock to the further development of heterogeneous processors is the lack of appropriate evaluation metrics. Existing metrics can be used to evaluate individual cores, but to evaluate a heterogeneous processor, the cores must be considered as a collective. Without appropriate metrics, it is impossible to establish design goals for processors, and it is difficult to accurately compare two different heterogeneous processors. We present four new metrics to evaluate user-oriented aspects of sets of heterogeneous cores: localized nonuniformity, gap overhead, set overhead, and generality. The metrics consider sets rather than individual cores. We use examples to demonstrate each metric, and show that the metrics can be used to quantify intuitions about heterogeneous cores.
Framing Moral Markets The Cultural Legacy of Social Movements in an Emerging Market Category

One challenge facing research on categories is to explain their content and the extent to which they gain meaning from cultural material that originates from moral arenas. This article suggests that categories are an outcome of strategic framing activities by which market members draw on prevalent master frames as cultural material to infuse an emerging market with meaning. It depicts the construction of a market category that emerges at the boundary between the economic sphere of a market and the moral sphere of social movements. A qualitative study of the use of movement master frames in categorizing the market for ethical fashion in the United Kingdom indicates the important role of movements’ cultural legacy for the categorization of a moral market. It shows that the master frame of the environmental movement prevails in market categorization. Furthermore, we see that market members tend to adopt movement frames in categorization to discuss solutions rather than to talk about problems. Two propositions are drawn from these findings. First, when market making happens at the boundary of several social movements, market members adopt the master frame mainly of the movement whose activism has already led to changes in the political agenda, in social beliefs and practices in society. Second, framing tactics change when movement frames leave the moral sphere of activist mobilization and enter the economic sphere. While talking about problems has been shown to be as important as the provision of solutions in the movement arena, providing solutions becomes more important when movement frames are adopted in the economic arena of a market.
Efficient Portfolio Selection

Merak believed that an efficient frontier analysis method that combined the robustness of the Monte Carlo approach with the confidence of the Markowitz approach would be a very powerful tool for any industry. However, it soon became clear that there are other ways to address the problem that do not require a Monte Carlo component. Three subgroups were formed, and each developed a different approach for solving the problem. These were the Portfolio Selection Algorithm Approach, the Statistical Inference Approach, and the Integer Programming Approach.
The Serial Engagement Model 17 Years After: From TCR Triggering to Immunotherapy

More than 15 years ago the serial engagement model was proposed as an attempt to solve the low affinity/high sensitivity paradox of TCR antigen recognition. Since then, the model has undergone ups and downs marked by the technical and conceptual advancements made in the field of T lymphocyte activation. Here, I describe the development of the model and survey recent literature providing evidence either for or against the idea that serial TCR/pMHC engagement might contribute to T lymphocyte activation. I also discuss how the concept of serial TCR engagement might be useful in the design of immunotherapeutic approaches aimed at potentiating T lymphocyte responses in vivo.
Secure and efficient protocol for position-based routing in VANETs

Since VANETs have great potential in improving the traffic condition and position-based protocol is popular in VANETs, a scheme is proposed to enhance the security performances of position-based routing protocols. Like other security solutions, this scheme employs digital signature to guarantee the identity authentication, data integrity and non-repudiation. The difference to most of other existed solutions is that an evaluation mechanism is proposed, which can detect malicious nodes that drop or tamper routing data. This mechanism has been proved efficiency and has better security and network performance by comparing with the hybrid signature routing scheme via NS2 simulation.
COMPARING STRENGTHS OF DIRECTIONAL SELECTION: HOW STRONG IS STRONG?

Abstract The fundamental equation in evolutionary quantitative genetics, the Lande equation, describes the response to directional selection as a product of the additive genetic variance and the selection gradient of trait value on relative fitness. Comparisons of both genetic variances and selection gradients across traits or populations require standardization, as both are scale dependent. The Lande equation can be standardized in two ways. Standardizing by the variance of the selected trait yields the response in units of standard deviation as the product of the heritability and the variance-standardized selection gradient. This standardization conflates selection and variation because the phenotypic variance is a function of the genetic variance. Alternatively, one can standardize the Lande equation using the trait mean, yielding the proportional response to selection as the product of the squared coefficient of additive genetic variance and the mean-standardized selection gradient. Mean-standardized selection gradients are particularly useful for summarizing the strength of selection because the mean-standardized gradient for fitness itself is one, a convenient benchmark for strong selection. We review published estimates of directional selection in natural populations using mean-standardized selection gradients. Only 38 published studies provided all the necessary information for calculation of mean-standardized gradients. The median absolute value of multivariate mean-standardized gradients shows that selection is on average 54% as strong as selection on fitness. Correcting for the upward bias introduced by taking absolute values lowers the median to 31%, still very strong selection. Such large estimates clearly cannot be representative of selection on all traits. Some possible sources of overestimation of the strength of selection include confounding environmental and genotypic effects on fitness, the use of fitness components as proxies for fitness, and biases in publication or choice of traits to study.
A Single Nucleotide Polymorphism Associated with Hepatitis C Virus Infections Located in the Distal Region of the IL28B Promoter Influences NF-κB-Mediated Gene Transcription

Persistence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is observed only in a subset of infected individuals and among them only some respond to treatment. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) carried out around the world identified single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the IL28B locus that are strongly associated with both HCV clearance and treatment response. The functional significance of these associations however, is not clear. In this report we show that an SNP rs28416813 in the distal promoter region of IL28B that is in close proximity to a non-consensus NF-κB-binding site affects downstream reporter gene expression. The effect is likely due to differential binding of NF-κB at the non-consensus site. The non-protective allele showed a reduction in luciferase reporter gene expression compared to the protective allele in HEK293T cells under different experimental conditions including treatment with tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) and 5′ triphosphorylated dsRNA. Furthermore, the HCV RNA polymerase was able to induce transcription from the IL28B promoter in a RIG-I-dependent manner. This induction was influenced by the alleles present at rs28416813. We also demonstrate strong linkage disequilibrium between rs28416813 and another important SNP rs12979860 in two ethnic populations. These results suggest possible mechanisms by which SNPs at the IL28B locus influence spontaneous clearance and treatment response in chronic HCV infections.
PopGenome: An Efficient Swiss Army Knife for Population Genomic Analyses in R

Although many computer programs can perform population genetics calculations, they are typically limited in the analyses and data input formats they offer; few applications can process the large data sets produced by whole-genome resequencing projects. Furthermore, there is no coherent framework for the easy integration of new statistics into existing pipelines, hindering the development and application of new population genetics and genomics approaches. Here, we present PopGenome, a population genomics package for the R software environment (a de facto standard for statistical analyses). PopGenome can efficiently process genome-scale data as well as large sets of individual loci. It reads DNA alignments and single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data sets in most common formats, including those used by the HapMap, 1000 human genomes, and 1001 Arabidopsis genomes projects. PopGenome also reads associated annotation files in GFF format, enabling users to easily define regions or classify SNPs based on their annotation; all analyses can also be applied to sliding windows. PopGenome offers a wide range of diverse population genetics analyses, including neutrality tests as well as statistics for population differentiation, linkage disequilibrium, and recombination. PopGenome is linked to Hudson’s MS and Ewing’s MSMS programs to assess statistical significance based on coalescent simulations. PopGenome’s integration in R facilitates effortless and reproducible downstream analyses as well as the production of publication-quality graphics. Developers can easily incorporate new analyses methods into the PopGenome framework. PopGenome and R are freely available from CRAN (http://cran.r-project.org/) for all major operating systems under the GNU General Public License.
A Robust and Topological Correct Marching Cube Algorithm Without Look-Up Table

In this paper, we proposed an improved version of the Marching Cube algorithm which gives a topologically correct triangular approximation of the isosurface for any cube configuration. First, a classification and characterization of critical points on the isosurface of trilinear functions is studied in detail. Then, unlike the past work on Marching Cube algorithm, a robust triangulation strategy without using the conventional look-up table and complementary and rotation operations is presented. Our algorithm is adaptive to the small the changes data or the small changes of the threshold, and obtains more reasonable result of triangulation of isosurface than those produced by standard MC algorithm.
Experimental Validation of Capacity Preserving Design for MIMO Arrays

MIMO radio communications presents a paradigm shift for antenna array design. This is because system performance depends on how a pair of antenna arrays jointly affect the eigenvalue distributions of MIMO channels. Very little experimental work has been done to confirm what characteristics MIMO arrays must have so that channel capacity is preserved. This work presents field experiments with a MIMO testbed that test two alternative MIMO array design approaches. The first approach is to construct arrays whose elements each have omnidirectional radiation patterns. The second approach is to construct arrays whose elements each cover a spatial sector. Results show conclusively what some of the necessary characteristics are for capacity preserving MIMO arrays.
Sustained Axon–Glial Signaling Induces Schwann Cell Hyperproliferation, Remak Bundle Myelination, and Tumorigenesis

Type III neuregulins exposed on axon surfaces control myelination of the peripheral nervous system. It has been shown, for example, that threshold levels of type III β1a neuregulin dictate not only the myelination fate of axons but also myelin thickness. Here we show that another neuregulin isoform, type III-β3, plays a distinct role in myelination. Neuronal overexpression of this isoform in mice stimulates Schwann cell proliferation and dramatically enlarges peripheral nerves and ganglia—which come to resemble plexiform neurofibromas—but have no effect on myelin thickness. The nerves display other neurofibroma-like properties, such as abundant collagen fibrils and abundant dissociated Schwann cells that in some cases produce big tumors. Moreover, the organization of Remak bundles is dramatically altered; the small-caliber axons of each bundle are no longer segregated from one another within the cytoplasm of a nonmyelinating Schwann cell but instead are close packed and the whole bundle wrapped as a single unit, frequently by a compact myelin sheath. Because Schwann cell hyperproliferation and Remak bundle degeneration are early hallmarks of type I neurofibromatosis, we suggest that sustained activation of the neuregulin pathway in Remak bundles can contribute to neurofibroma development.
Functional Organization of Presynaptic Metabotropic Glutamate Receptors in Vagal Brainstem Circuits

We demonstrated previously that, by suppressing cAMP levels, metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluRs) play a crucial role in opioid receptor trafficking on GABAergic nerve terminals within gastric brainstem vagal circuits. Using whole-cell patch-clamp recordings, we aimed to correlate the influence of sensory vagal afferent fibers with the functional organization of mGluRs on the synaptic connections between the nucleus tractus solitarius and dorsal motor nucleus of the vagus. Group II mGluRs were identified on both excitatory and inhibitory synapses; the receptor-selective agonist APDC [(2R,4R)-4-aminopyrrolidine-2,4-dicarboxylate] induced a concentration-dependent decrease in glutamatergic and GABAergic synaptic transmission (EC50, ∼20 μm for both). The group II mGluRs were activated tonically on GABAergic, but not glutamatergic synapses, as the receptor-selective antagonist (2S)-α-ethylglutamic acid (EGLU; 200 μm) modulated GABA currents only. After selective vagal deafferentation, EGLU was without effect, suggesting that vagal afferent (sensory) fibers are the source of this tonic input. Conversely, group III mGluRs, although not activated tonically, were present on excitatory, but not inhibitory, synapses; in fact, the receptor-selective agonist l-AP-4 [l-(+)-2-amino-4-phosphonbutyric acid] induced a concentration-dependent decrease in glutamatergic synaptic transmission (EC50, ∼2 μm) but had no effect on GABAergic synaptic transmission. Together with our previous results on receptor trafficking, these data suggest that visceral information plays a fundamental role in shaping the response of homeostatic brainstem circuits that receive inputs from higher integrative neuronal centers.
Efficient K-anonymization for privacy preservation

Privacy preservation during cooperation has become an interesting issue in the last few years. This problem attracted much research work. k-anonymization is an efficient approach to protect data privacy. However, k-anonymization problem was proven NP-hard though the idea of k-anonymizafion is not complex. In this paper, we propose two simple but very efficient algorithms, which work for numeric and categorical data respectively, can minimize information loss as low as possible. We show that these algorithms can produce better performance comparing to other known algorithms.
Mediterranean diet and cognitive function in older adults

Purpose of reviewThe effectiveness of the Mediterranean diet in reducing the prevalence of cardiovascular and chronic diseases has been largely evidenced. Although nutrition constitutes an interesting approach in preventing age-related brain disorders, the association between the Mediterranean-style diet and cognitive functions has been very occasionally explored. Recent findingsResults are provided from only two recent prospective cohorts of older Americans and French individuals (≥65 years) on the relationship of Mediterranean diet to cognitive functions. A high adherence to the Mediterranean diet has been associated with slower cognitive decline, with reduced risk of mild cognitive impairment conversion to Alzheimer's disease and with reduced risk of Alzheimer's disease. SummaryThe possibility that the Mediterranean diet may affect not only the risk for Alzheimer's disease, but also the evolution of cognitive performances a long time before the clinical diagnosis of dementia and subsequent disease course constitutes major promising results. Replication of these results in other populations seems necessary to allow their generalization and to propose the Mediterranean diet as a potential preventive approach against cognitive decline or dementia in addition to its expected benefits against many other unfavorable outcomes in a public health perspective.
Partial agenesis of the corpus callosum in spina bifida meningomyelocele and potential compensatory mechanisms

After a review of Arthur Benton's conceptual and methodological contributions to the understanding of normal and pathological development, we discuss agenesis of the corpus callosum (CC), criteria for potential neuroanatomical compensatory mechanisms in CC agenesis, and the results of an examination of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data of the CC in 193 children with spina bifida meningomyelocele (SBM). There were 26 CC regional patterns. Although complete agenesis did not occur, partial agenesis was observed in 102 children and within 15 CC regional patterns. Only 4.1% had a normal CC. Quantitative assessment of the area of the CC in 26 NC children and 68 children with SBM revealed that all subgroups with CC anomalies had smaller areas than did a subgroup with a normal CC. Areas were especially small in rostral/splenial agenesis and splenial agenesis but larger with rostral agenesis. Subgroups with normal/hypoplastic regions or complete hypoplasia also had CC areas that were smaller than normal but larger than the areas for the splenial agenesis groups. The relative rarity of anterior commissure enlargement (3.1%) and longitudinal bundles of Probst (0.1%) suggest that these particular fiber tract anomalies are unlikely candidates for structural compensatory mechanisms. The hippocampal commissure, enlarged in 13%, may be a more promising candidate. Overall, however, the functionality of anomalous fiber tracts and commissures in SBM is yet to be determined.
Influence of particle size on the ice nucleating ability of mineral dusts

Abstract. The recently developed Zurich Ice Nucleation Chamber (ZINC) was used to explore ice nucleation of size-selected mineral dust particles at temperatures between −20°C and −55°C. Four different mineral dust species have been tested: montmorillonite, kaolinite, illite and Arizona test dust (ATD). The selected particle diameters are 100 nm, 200 nm, 400 nm and 800 nm. Relative humidities with respect to ice (RHi) required to activate 1% of the dust particles as ice nuclei (IN) are reported as a function of temperature. An explicit size dependence of the ice formation efficiency has been observed for all dust types. 800 nm particles required the lowest RHi to activate. Deposition nucleation below water saturation was found only below −30°C or −35°C dependent on particle size. Minimum RHi for 1% activation were 105% for illite, kaolinite and montmorillonite at −40°C, respectively 110% for ATD at −45°C. In addition, a possible parameterisation for the measured activation spectra is proposed, which could be used in modeling studies.
An efficient delay test generation system for combinational logic circuits

An efficient delay test generation system for combinational logic circuits is presented. Delay testing problems are divided into gross-delay fault testing and small-delay fault testing in order to explore the trade-off between the levels of delay testing effort and the confidence levels of proper system operation. Complete automatic test pattern generation algorithms are proposed for both gross-delay and small-delay faults. A novel timing analysis method via functionality check is presented for delay test generation. Complete test results are demonstrated for both gross-delay and small-delay faults on several benchmark circuits. <<ETX>>