Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
ESTIMATION OF GENETIC PARAMETERS FOR CARCASS TRAITS FOR SIMMENTAL CATTLE IN CROATIA

The objective of this paper was an estimation of genetic parameters for carcass weight, conformation, fatness class and net gain for Simmental cattle in Croatia. Data of young bulls slaughtered in years 2005 and 2006 with 12 to 24 months of age was taken from the central database of the Croatian Livestock Centre. Three data sets were constructed as follows: 1) data set 1 (DS1) included 80462 records of bulls with known and unknown parents ; 2) data set 2 (DS2) had 26245 records of bulls with at least one known parents ; 3) data set 3 (DS3) with 6272 records of bulls slaughtered between 12 and 14 months of age. Pedigree for DS1 included a total of 118595 animals, 70415 animals and 19319 animals in pedigree for DS2 and DS3, respectively. Variance components were estimated by REML method as implemented in the VCE-5 program package. Statistical model included region, calving season, abattoir-supervisor interaction as fixed class effects and slaughter age as quadratic regression. Direct additive genetic effect was included in the model as random effect. For carcass weight heritability estimates were 0.10 ± 0.006, 0.13 ± 0.02 and 0.11 ± 0.03 for DS1, DS2 and DS3, respectively. Heritability estimates for net gain were 0.09 ± 0.006, 0.16 ± 0.03 and 0.13 ± 0.03, and for carcass conformation were 0.05 ± 0.006, 0.03 ± 0.01 and 0.05 ± 0.006 for DS1, DS2 and DS3, respectively. Results attained indicate that DS2 can be used for genetic evaluation of the Simmental carcass traits in Croatia. However, in the future more improvement should be done, concerning the constitution of contemporary groups, and special attention should be given to data collection.
Changes in Lung Volume and Lung‐Thorax Compliance during Cardiac Surgery in Children 11 Days to 4 Years of Age

&NA; To examine the effects of cardiac surgery and cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) on the lung, functional residual capacity (FRC) and lung‐thorax compliance were measured at four stages during open heart surgery in 15 children. The patients were anesthetized with fentanyl/droperidol and N2O/O2, paralyzed, and ventilated with volume‐controlled mechanical ventilation at 20–30 breaths/min. FRC was measured by tracer gas washout. Static lung‐thorax compliance (CLT) was calculated as tidal volume divided by the airway pressure difference between the end of the postinspiratory pause and the end of the expiration, and also from the increase in FRC caused by adding 5 cmH2O of PEEP (CLT[FRC]). Before skin incision, both FRC and compliance were closely correlated with weight and length. During this stage, FRC was 21 ± 5 ml/kg, CLT 0.90 ± 0.21, and CLT(FRC) 1.28 ± 0.35 ml · cmH2O‐1 · kg‐1. PEEP5 increased FRC by 34 ± 9%. In patients with intact pleural cavities throughout the operation (n = 10), FRC increased by 4 ± 2 ml/kg when the sternum was retracted (P < 0.01). During CPB, FRC decreased by 4 ± 3 ml/ kg (P < 0.01), and FRC at the end of surgery was 5 ± 4 ml/kg less than before skin incision (P < 0.01). In these ten children, there was a 13% and 6% decrease in mean CLT and CLT(FRC), respectively, during the operation (P < 0.05) and mean CLT(FRC) was at least 40% greater than CLT during all four stages (P < 0.01). The changes in FRC and compliance were less uniform in children in whom one or both pleural cavities had been opened (n = 5). The decrease in FRC during the operation, however, was similar to that found in patients with intact pleurae. Mean FRC after sternal closure (all children) was 17 ± 5 ml/kg. In conclusion, FRC increased during sternal opening in children with intact pleural cavities. After surgery, FRC was reduced in all children. The findings indicate that PEEP is not neceassary before CPB in children with intact pleurae but should be used after CPB if it can be instituted without causing untoward circulatory effects.
An Epidemic Model with Population Dispersal and Infection Period

An epidemic model is proposed to incorporate population dispersals between patches and to include a constant infection period. A basic reproduction number of the model is established by means of a next generation matrix. It is found that a disease may spread when the population migrates in two patches, even though it dies out in each isolated patch. It is also found that the disease admits multiple exchanges between persistence and extinction for some types of migrations of individuals.
Assessment for selection for the health care professions and specialty training: Consensus statement and recommendations from the Ottawa 2010 Conference

Assessment for selection in medicine and the health professions should follow the same quality assurance processes as in-course assessment. The literature on selection is limited and is not strongly theoretical or conceptual. For written testing, there is evidence of the predictive validity of Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) for medical school and licensing examination performance. There is also evidence for the predictive validity of grade point average, particularly in combination with MCAT for graduate entry but little evidence about the predictive validity of school leaver scores. Interviews have not been shown to be robust selection measures. Studies of multiple mini-interviews have indicated good predictive validity and reliability. Of other measures used in selection, only the growing interest in personality testing appears to warrant future work. Widening access to medical and health professional programmes is an increasing priority and relates to the social accountability mandate of medical and health professional schools. While traditional selection measures do discriminate against various population groups, there is little evidence on the effect of non-traditional measures in widening access. Preparation and outreach programmes show most promise. In summary, the areas of consensus for assessment for selection are small in number. Recommendations for future action focus on the adoption of principles of good assessment and curriculum alignment, use of multi-method programmatic approaches, development of interdisciplinary frameworks and utilisation of sophisticated measurement models. The social accountability mandate of medical and health professional schools demands that social inclusion, workforce issues and widening of access are embedded in the principles of good assessment for selection.
Automatic protocol translation and template based interface synthesis for IP reuse in SoC

Reuse of intellectual property (IP) is crucial in SoC design. The discrepancies in interface logic and communication/bus protocols among IPs, however, remain as the main obstacle in system integration. We examine the interface logic generation problem and propose a novel scheme to automate the process. The scheme consists of an automatic communication/bus protocol translation and a template based interface logic/bus wrapper generation. Real case test bench, e.g. AHB in AMBA v.s. BVCI in VCI was applied to verify the correctness and the efficiency of the generated interface. The design is also implemented in FPGA and incurred interface circuitry overhead is small.
Accurate motion parameter estimation for colonoscopy tracking using a regression method

Co-located optical and virtual colonoscopy images have the potential to provide important clinical information during routine colonoscopy procedures. In our earlier work, we presented an optical flow based algorithm to compute egomotion from live colonoscopy video, permitting navigation and visualization of the corresponding patient anatomy. In the original algorithm, motion parameters were estimated using the traditional Least Sum of squares(LS) procedure which can be unstable in the context of optical flow vectors with large errors. In the improved algorithm, we use the Least Median of Squares (LMS) method, a robust regression method for motion parameter estimation. Using the LMS method, we iteratively analyze and converge toward the main distribution of the flow vectors, while disregarding outliers. We show through three experiments the improvement in tracking results obtained using the LMS method, in comparison to the LS estimator. The first experiment demonstrates better spatial accuracy in positioning the virtual camera in the sigmoid colon. The second and third experiments demonstrate the robustness of this estimator, resulting in longer tracked sequences: from 300 to 1310 in the ascending colon, and 410 to 1316 in the transverse colon.
Dual-polarized omnidirectional planar slot antenna for WLAN applications

A novel planar slot antenna is presented in this paper. The antenna provides dual-polarization and omnidirectional radiation patterns. Hence, it is suitable for hand-held equipments of wireless systems. The proposed antenna is optimized for operation at 5.2 GHz. The antenna, without ground plane extension, occupies an area of 2.17/spl times/2.17 cm/sup 2/. An impedance bandwidth of 10.6% is obtained, with a very good isolation between the two excitation ports. Appealing omnidirectional radiation patterns are maintained over the entire impedance bandwidth. The gains of the two polarizations are 2.59 and 3.52 dB, while the radiation efficiencies are 93% and 99.8%.
Error backpropagation using least absolute criterion

The least squares error or L2 criterion approach has been commonly used in functional approximation and generalization in the error backpropagation algorithm. The purpose of this study is to present an absolute error criterion rather than the usual least squares error criterion for the sigmoidal backpropagation algorithm. We present the structure of the error function to be minimized and its derivatives with respect to the weights to be updated. The focus of the study is on the single hidden layer multilayer perceptron but the implementation may be extended to include two or more hidden layers. Our research makes use of the fact that the sigmoidal backpropagation function is differentiable and uses this property to implement a two-stage algorithm for non-linear L1 optimization by Madsen et al. [1991, Robust c subroutines for non-linear optimization, Institute for Numerical Analysis, Technical University of Denmark, Report N1-91-03. ] to obtain the optimum result. This is a combination of a first-order method that approximates the solution by successive linear programming and a quasi-Newton method using approximate second-order information to solve the problem. The main reason for using the least absolute error criterion rather than the least squares error criterion is that the former is more robust and less easily affected by noise compared with the latter. To validate the performance and efficiency of the two-stage L1 algorithm, a comparison is made on the error made in both the two-stage L1 algorithm and the least squares error algorithm.
Trading on Talent: Human Capital and Firm Performance

How is technically-skilled human capital reflected in firm performance? We leverage a uniquely detailed employer-employee matched dataset to measure U.S. firms’ technical human capital in IT, Software Engineering, Mobile Networks, Data Analysis, and Web Development. All five technical skillsets are associated with higher firm valuations. However, they negatively forecast both financial and operational performance in the future. For example, a one-standard-deviation increase in employees with IT skills corresponds to 2.2% higher Tobin’s q but predictable future returns of –10 basis points per month. Our results are stronger in tighter labor markets, in firms with more cash, and during time periods when each technical skillset is especially popular. These patterns suggest that the market expects too much from popular technologies, leading to overvaluation. Overall, our results highlight how corporate over-investment can extend to intangible capital such as skilled employees.
RETINEX FORMULATIONS

Low-visibility conditions for navigation of vehicles are a frequent occurrence. Driving at night, in blizzards, in sand storms, or in fog form an obvious set of challenging conditions. Remote operation of unmanned vehicles through a camera image provides a similar difficulty. Gathering intelligence from satellite imagery can similarly benefit from improved visibility. Advanced image processing techniques (e.g., contrast enhancement or tone mapping) purport to improve the perceptual quality of images that lack the contrast or color depth perceived by the human visual system (HVS). Applying such an algorithm intelligently to these low-visibility conditions gives us the ability to provide a perceptually usable assisted-vision system. One premiere method for perceptual enhancement emerged from Retinex theory (Land, 1977; McCann, 2004). The key observation was that perceived color and intensity of a region in an image depend on not only inherent color and intensity, but also color and intensity of surrounding regions and on lighting. This property of the HVS serves as the basis for Retinex theory and numerous applications of it that process digital images to adjust color and intensity for the perceptual advantage of a human observer. Original Retinex-based algorithms assumed that an image was underexposed; extensions have enabled contrast enhancement in overexposed images to be darkened for human perception. We contribute flexibility to Retinex processing by automatically determining multiple intensity levels from which brightening and darkening of imagery may be performed. We identify spatial areas in each color channel with similar intensity and therefore low local contrast. Pixels close to these intensity levels are treated with extra emphasis to reveal detail that may have previously been hidden to the eye. Each identified level is weighted against the others based on the prevalence. We show that our adaptation improves local contrast in a varied set of test cases which would benefit from perceptual enhancement. Figure 1: A low-visibility image and our enhanced version
Magnetosomes: The Bionanomagnets and Its Potential Use in Biomedical Applications

Magnetotactic Bacteria (MTB), a Gram negative, polyphyletic group of the domain Bacteria has gathered all the attention for its unique synthesis of bionanomagnets, ‘the magnetosomes’. Though discovered by Blakemore over forty years, it has still been a challenge to isolate and culture MTB due to its vast morphological, metabolic and phylogenetic diversity. The potential applications of magnetosomes are innumerable, the most focused being in the biomedical field. Advanced research is carried out in the treatment of cancer using animal models and scientists are now looking at MTB as the promising biosolution. The only limitation to its commercial use is the availability of magnetosomes. Till date, only a few MTB strains have been isolated and cultivated axenically. However, the magnetosome yield obtained from these strains is not sufficient for commercialization. Isolation of new wild type MTB strains with endogenously higher magnetosome yield is desirable. Therefore, it is required to explore diverse econiches in search of MTB, study their versatile metabolism and biomineralization process. Biosynthesis of large quantities of magnetosomes is currently the need for biomedical applications. The aim of this review is to highlight the immense potential of these bionanomagnets in the field of cancer treatment.
Does the Balassa-Samuelson Theory Explain the Link Between Relative Population Growth and Purchasing Power Parity?

Relative population growth affects relative prices through the so-called Balassa–Samuelson (BS) mechanism and that in turn impacts PPP. This paper empirically investigates the relationship between the PPP exchange rate and relative population growth in a panel of 80 selected countries. Following the BS hypothesis, this paper argues that relative population growth affects nominal wages that impact price levels and thereby impacts PPP. Using panel cointegration and fully modified ordinary least square (FMOLS), the empirical results show that there is a stable relationship between PPP exchange rate and relative population growth in the long run. These empirical findings suggest that population growth have an important role in exchange rate determination through PPP.
Epiregulin induces human SK-N-BE cell differentiation through ERK1/2 signaling pathway

Abstract Epidermal growth factor (EGF) and other EGF-related growth factors, such as transforming growth factor-α, are able to stimulate neuroblastoma (NB) cell proliferation. Epiregulin (Epi) is a growth factor belonging to the EGF family known to be more potent than EGF in mediating mitogenic signals. In this study, we tested the ability of Epi to stimulate a human NB cell line (SK-N-BE) proliferation. Surprisingly, Epi (50–1000 ng/ml) induced a reduction in SK-N-BE proliferation along with a morphological differentiation, associated with an increase in MMP-9 expression. Moreover, Epi-induced differentiation was inhibited by ERK1/2 phosphorilation inhibition. In conclusion, Epi could represent a novel and useful tool to oppose NB cell proliferation.
Two-order low-power sigma-delta modulator with SC techniques

This paper presents a sigma-delta modulator of two-order with switched-capacitors (SC) techniques for low power in 0.18um CMOS process. Without continues current transmission SC techniques present a discrete low power system. And a low power op amplifier with discrete common-mode feedback and a dynamic comparator is also designed. This new amp works under the supply of 1.8v and with the direct current of 200uA. The tool Matlab is used to simulate the behavior system, while Cadence is used to design the circuit and the layout in 0.18 um CMOS (1.8v model) process. The modulator achieves 81dB dynamic range in 24-kHz signal bandwidth with OSR=128. And it consumes 0.8mW under 1.8v supply voltage.
On the Anonymity of Identity-Based Encryption

Anonymity of identity-based encryption (IBE) means that given a ciphertext, one cannot distinguish the target identity from a random identity. In this paper, we thoroughly discuss the anonymity of IBE systems. We found that the current definition of anonymity is obscure to describe some IBE systems, such as Gentry IBE system. Furthermore, current definition cannot express the degree of anonymity. So we divide the degree of anonymity into weak anonymity and strong anonymity based on indistinguishability between different games. For weakly anonymous IBE systems, the target identity in a ciphertext cannot be distinguished from a random identity. For strongly anonymous IBE systems, the whole ciphertext cannot be distinguished from a random tuple. We also discuss the type of anonymity and divide it into two types. Type 1 means that a random tuple can be seen as a valid ciphertext, while type 2 cannot. Based on our new definitions, we show that three famous IBE systems, Gentry IBE system, Boyen-Waters IBE system, and Lewko IBE system, have strong but different types of anonymity.
Compact approach for high dynamic range imaging in mobile digital camera

This paper describes about compact approach for high dynamic range imaging in the mobile camera. The dynamic range of real world is much larger than that of the mobile sensor. So it's almost impossible to make high dynamic image with just one shot. This paper focuses on the small number of frames for high dynamic range imaging synthesis and the complexity of algorithm. With only one short and long exposure frames we calculate radiance map in the Bayer domain, process tone mapping with multi-layer decomposition method and compensate for motion artifacts for moving objects.
A Determining Method of Frame Rate and Resolution to Boost the Video Live QoE

With the development of intelligent terminal and network technology, video live is more popular nowadays. The most important of video live is quality of user experience (QoE) and the video clarity and video fluency is main factor to improve the QoE. So, in this paper, the QOE of video application is discussed, the conception, relationship of video frame rate and video resolution are researched, a determining ways of frame rate and resolution is proposed, and several experiments are done to verify the way.
Evaluating non-native species and wetland indicator status as components of wetlands floristic assessment

We evaluated a potential index for quantifying wetland floristic quality, based on the Floristic Quality Assessment Index (FQAI) developed and tested in other regions of the United States. Principal reasons for this study were 1) FQAI is based on plant species’ coefficients of conservatism, which are unavailable for most of the world and 2) FQAI value calculation mathematically neglects exotic (non-native) species. The index that we evaluated, termed the Floristic Assessment Quotient for Wetlands (FAQWet), incorporated components of total species richness, wetland affinity of species present, and the contribution of native versus exotic species to wetland vegetation quality. Thus, this index incorporated factors demonstrated to be influenced by the degree of human activity on the landscape while including both native and non-native plant species, and it used information that is readily available for most plant species encountered in wetlands of the United States. Adequacy of this index at representing perceived human influence on wetlands was evaluated by sampling vascular plant assemblages in 53 wetlands across northern Mississippi, USA. Correlation of FAQWet scores with semi-quantitative disturbance indicators suggested that FAQWet Index calculations weighted by proportion and frequency of native species performed best overall and were comparable with the currently used FQAI, although all indices displayed low correlation with indices of human activity. Analyses of individual components of the disturbance index, along with information on hydrogeomorphology and hydrologic alteration, helped account for some unexplained variation in the relationship between floristic quality and disturbance. For example, there were more exotic species and a lower overall degree of wetland affinity in vegetation of depressional wetlands than in lake fringe and riverine wetlands. The most important benefits of the FAQWet index in these studies were a lack of correlation with total plant species richness (unlike the FQAI), a stronger correlation with non-native species richness than was the case with the FQAI, and the ease of obtaining wetland indicator status and nativity status for FAQWet calculations. Results also highlighted the potential danger of ignoring exotic species in floristic assessments because of the relatively strong correlations of non-native species richness with human activity, hydrologic impairment, and floristic index scores.
Effects of the traction network voltage fluctuation on the permanent magnet synchronous traction drive system

In this paper, the mathematical model of the PMSM (permanent magnet synchronous motor) traction drive system is established. After the linearization of the model, the equation of state which takes the fluctuations of the DC traction voltage as input is deduced. Then the effects of the distance between the substation and the motor, the speed of the motor and the dc-link inductor on the PMSM traction drive system are analyzed by using the zero-pole map when the voltage of the DC traction network waved. At last, the simulation results proves the validity of the analysis.