Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Theory of Daylight/Interferometric Imaging - Tutorial

A-032 Abstract THEORY OF DAYLIGHT/INTERFEROMETRIC IMAGING: TUTORIAL GERARD T. SCHUSTER University of Utah Salt Lake City Utah 84112 U.S.A I present the general theory of interferometric imaging (II). Interferometric imaging is any algorithm that inverts crosscorrelated data for the reflectivity or source distribution. As examples I show that II can be used to image arbitrary reflectivity distributions by migrating ghost reflections in passive seismic data and II generalizes the receiver-function imaging method used by seismologists II can be used to migrate freesurface and peg-leg multiples in CDP data. I also show how source distributions can be imaged from passive seismic
Using the nonhomogeneous frontier two-stage DEA model to assess the efficiencies of expense utilization and operation of the Taiwanese hotel industry

In conventional multistage data envelopment analysis (DEA) studies, different hotel types are mostly assumed to be in a single technology set. However, the assumption that a single technology can have multiple operating types has been criticized by researchers in the past. To overcome this shortcoming, the main propose of this study is to establish a combination of the models of Tone and Chen and Zhu in order to assess the efficiencies of two hotel types. We first provide evidence that there is an existing defect arising from the direct combination of the two models. The nonhomogeneous two-stage model is established to evaluate the operational and expense utilization efficiencies for the Taiwanese international tourist hotels. The results verify that the defect from the direct combination of these models can be corrected by the new model. Empirical evaluation reveals that independent hotels have higher expense utilization efficiency and chain hotels have higher operational efficiency. The evaluation also indicates that tourist hotels can achieve best practices through a mutual learning strategy.
6F-3 Fabrication and Assembly of a Monolithic 3D CMUT Array for Imaging Applications

This paper describes a novel architecture for integration of polysilicon capacitive micromachined ultrasonic imager array on a 3D hexagonal silicon platform for simultaneous multi-directional viewing. Integrated with seven CMUT arrays oriented at seven different directions, this three-dimensional hexagonal imager prism is capable of viewing the front direction and 360deg side directions concurrently. The seven CMUT-array plates were monolithically fabricated on one silicon substrate using a surface micromachining process. The silicon substrate under the connection areas between the imager plates was then completely etched away using a selective backside deep silicon etching, leaving behind flexible dielectric films for inter-plate connection. In addition to providing mechanical linkage, these dielectric connecting films also support the thin-film electrical interconnects between the imagers on different plates. The seven CMUT arrays were then folded into a miniature prism and glued together using epoxy. Hexagonal imager prisms with width across corner of the hexagon, ranging from 500 mum to 4 millimeters in width, and 2 to 4 millimeters in length have been prototyped and tested. The CMUT devices behaved consistently before and after the assembly process. This architecture allows one monolithically integrated or flip-chip bonded beam-forming circuit to control all the imagers on this miniature prism and the number of bonding wires can be minimized. The multi- direction viewing capability and miniature size make this device capable of delivering more comprehensive information for internal medical imaging applications.
The parahippocampal gyrus links the default‐mode cortical network with the medial temporal lobe memory system

The default‐mode network (DMN) is a distributed functional‐anatomic network implicated in supporting memory. Current resting‐state functional connectivity studies in humans remain divided on the exact involvement of medial temporal lobe (MTL) in this network at rest. Notably, it is unclear to what extent the MTL regions involved in successful memory encoding are connected to the cortical nodes of the DMN during resting state. Our findings using functional connectivity MRI analyses of resting‐state data indicate that the parahippocampal gyrus (PHG) is the primary hub of the DMN in the MTL during resting state. Also, connectivity of the PHG is distinct from connectivity of hippocampal regions identified by an associative memory‐encoding task. We confirmed that several hippocampal encoding regions lack significant functional connectivity with cortical DMN nodes during resting state. Additionally, a mediation analysis showed that resting‐state connectivity between the hippocampus and posterior cingulate cortex—a major hub of the DMN—is indirect and mediated by the PHG. Our findings support the hypothesis that the MTL memory system represents a functional subnetwork that relates to the cortical nodes of the DMN through parahippocampal functional connections. Hum Brain Mapp 35:1061–1073, 2014. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
DNA hybridization for assessment of response of Plasmodium falciparum to chloroquine therapy

We studied the accuracy of PFR1-AP, a synthetic DNA hybridization probe conjugated to alkaline phosphatase, in monitoring Plasmodium falciparum parasitemia during in vivo drug susceptibility surveys. Duplicate blood samples were collected from six children enrolled in a 14-day in vivo chloroquine study in Rwanda. Results obtained by microscopic examination of Giemsa-stained thick blood smears and by DNA hybridization were compared. Both techniques successfully monitored an infection with chloroquine-susceptible parasites and infections exhibiting various levels of resistance to treatment. For each patient, temporal evolution of the microscopic parasite counts and the DNA hybridization signals were closely parallel, although a wide range of rapidly changing levels of parasitemia occurred through the course of the study. This suggests that DNA hybridization assay using PFR1-AP detects P. falciparum parasites sensitively and specifically and is a valuable tool for drug resistance surveys.
Peace Values in Learning Process (A descriptive study based on student experiences)

Education should be a process of internalizing the value of peace in order to make students feel comfort in their learning process. Therefore, lecturers and students need to interact peacefully in the learning process. This study examines the value of peace in the learning process in the perspective of students at Manado State University. The method used was narrative with a qualitative approach. The participants in this study were 100 students of Manado State University who were randomly obtained. Data were analyzed qualitatively based on student stories and experiences which were supported by interviews. The results of the study indicated that the value of peace provides comfort for students in learning. The value of peace is in the form of caring, respecting others and tolerating. In addition there were behaviors that did not reflect the value of peace, such as unfair treatment, discrimination, uncooperative, not accepting differences, and violating the rules. Keywords—value; peace; learning; student
Delta-Like 1 Homologue (DLK1) Protein in Neurons of the Arcuate Nucleus That Control Weight Homeostasis and Effect of Fasting on Hypothalamic DLK1 mRNA

Delta-like 1 homologue (DLK1; also called preadipocyte factor 1) is an epidermal growth factor repeat-containing transmembrane protein that is cleaved by tumor necrosis factor-α-converting enzyme to generate a biologically active soluble form. DLK1 is involved in the differentiation of several cell types, including adipocytes. Lack of the dlk1 gene results in adiposity, and polymorphism within the gene encoding DLK1 is associated with human obesity. The dlk1 gene is expressed in restricted areas of the adult brain, with an enrichment of cell bodies expressing DLK1 mRNA in the hypothalamus. Antibodies to DLK1 were used to study the cellular localization and chemical identity of DLK1-immunoreactive neuronal cell bodies in rat hypothalamus. DLK1 immunoreactivity was demonstrated in the cell soma and dendrites of cell bodies in the suprachiasmatic, supraoptic, paraventricular, dorsomedial, arcuate nuclei and in the perifornical/lateral hypothalamic area. In the arcuate nucleus (Arc), DLK1 immunoreactivity was mainly seen in many neurons of the ventromedial and to a lesser extent in its ventrolateral division. Double labeling showed that 93.7% of orexigenic agouti-related peptide (AgRP) and 94.1% of neuropeptide Y (NPY) neurons located in the ventromedial part of the Arc were DLK1 positive, whereas 36.1% of anorexigenic pro-opiomelanocortin and 34.6% of cocaine- and amphetamine-regulated transcript neurons of the Arc contained DLK1 immunoreactivity. DLK1 mRNA was downregulated in the hypothalamus of fasted animals. Presence of DLK1 in the majority of orexigenic Arc NPY/AgRP neurons and regulation of DLK1 mRNA by nutritional challenge suggest that DLK1 has a role in hypothalamic regulation of body weight control.
The molecular structure of the Corynebacterium glutamicum threonine synthase gene

The minimal region encoding the Corynebacterium glutamicum threonine synthase structural gene and its promoter was mapped by deletion analysis and complementation of the C. glutamicum thrC allele to a 1.6kb region of the recombinant plasmid pFS80. The nucleotide sequence of this and flanking DNA was determined. The transcription and translation start points were identified by S1 mapping analysis and amino‐terminal protein sequencing, respectively. The thrC gene encodes a 54481‐Dalton polypeptide product. Translation of the thrC mRNA initiates only six nucleotides downstream from transcription. The length of the mRNA transcript is consistent with a single gene transcription unit. The C. glutamicum thrC gene is expressed independently of the other threonine‐specific genes hom and thrB.
Microbial Contamination Indoor Environment of Hospitals and Health Centers in Al-Diwaniyah Governorate, Iraq

The current scientific study was carried out to detect the air microbial contamination inside the hospital buildings and health centers in AL-Diwaniyah governorate, where included five hospitals (public and private) are Al-Diwaniyah Teaching Hospital, Al-Diwaniyah Teaching Hospital private, Women & Children Hospital, Shifa Hospital and Al Furat Hospital and five health centers were selected randomly (Center of Blood Diseases, Al-Tali'ah Health Center, Specialized Dental Center, Al Furat Health Center and Algeria Health Center). Many fungal and bacterial species that are considered to be hazardous to public health were isolated and identified. (11) pathogenic fungal species such as Aspergillus fumigatus, Aspergillus sp A.ochraceus, Alternaria alternata, Fusarium solani, F.oxysporum, Mucore sp. , Rhizopus stolanifer. , Penicillum sp. , Penicillum, Cladosporium sp and Candida albicans, whereas bacteria included Staphylococcus aureus, Streptoocoocus. E.coli did not appear all study areas of AL-Diwaniyah governorate. These results give a clear indication of the level of contamination that could lead to a pandemic.
A Collaborative Screening Program for the Discovery of Inhibitors of HCV NS2/3 cis-Cleaving Protease Activity

This report describes the development of a cell-based assay for high-throughput screening and detection of small-molecule inhibitors for hepatitis C virus (HCV) NS2/3 protease. The HCV NS2/3 protease is essential for the normal infectious cycle of HCV. Generation of a cell-based assay for this cis-acting viral protease involved reporter constructs in which the NS2/3 protease sequence was inserted between the β-lactamase (BLA) reporter and a ubiquitin-based destabilization domain. In stable cell lines, NS2/3 cis cleavage of the NS2/3-BLA fusion protein resulted in differential stability of the cleaved versus uncleaved BLA reporter, providing a robust readout for protease activity. BLA reporter activity was shown to be a function of NS2/3-specific protease activity, by using genetic mutants of the NS2/3 sequence. In addition, the cell-based assay was validated and screened in a 384-well format on a fully automated robotic platform where small-molecule inhibitors of NS2/3 protease activity were identified.
Effects of insulin on ADPN and AdipoR1 in diabetic rats

In this study, we have investigated insulin resistance (IR), plasma adiponection (ADPN) and ADPN receptors (AdipoR) expression in high-fat (HF) diet fed (8 weeks) rats with or without streptozotocin (STZ) treatment (30 mg/kg i.p.). Our results show that HF diet either alone or in combination with STZ treatment decreased plasma levels of ADPN and expression of muscle AdipoR. These disorders were improved with insu- lin (INS) treatment (1 IU/kg i.p.). In conclusion, our results suggest that ADPN might play an important role in amelioration of IR in these experimental model of type 2 diabetes.
Structural estimation and policy analysis applications in housing and education

The first chapter studies the role of mortgage constraints in life-cycle housing decisions. I argue that observed Loan-to-Value (LTV) ratios contradict the view that large down-payments limit home ownership among young households. I estimate a model of life-cycle housing decisions that includes high LTV mortgages using a method of simulated moments. The model closely replicates home ownership rates over the life-cycle, but restricted models with maximum-LTV constraints cannot. Differences in estimated parameters lead to differences in the importance of credit-frictions, family composition and income risk in shaping ownership decisions. The second chapter studies the relationships among housing consumption inequality, credit market frictions and the price of housing in the context of the recent U.S. housing boom. Loosening lending standards, falling interest rates and speculation have all been cited as potential causes of the increase in the average price of housing. I identify the relative importance of each of these causes through a structural model that is estimated using housing consumption micro data. The price of housing is an endogenous feature of the model, which explains 61.8% of actual house price growth, of which 24.8% is due to the falling real interest rate, 20.1% is due to investor speculation and the remainder is due to a loosening debt-to-income ratio constraint. The estimated model replicates the increase in housing consumption inequality observed over the time period. The third chapter compares partial and general equilibrium effects of alternative financial aid policies intended to promote college participation. We build an overlapping generations life-cycle, heterogeneous-agent, incomplete-markets model with education, labor supply, and consumption/saving decisions. Altruistic parents make inter vivos transfers. Student labor supply and government grants and loans complement parental transfers as sources of college funding. We find that the current U.S. financial aid system improves welfare, and removing it would reduce GDP by two percentage points. Relaxation of government-sponsored loan limits would have no salient effects. The short-run partial equilibrium effects of expanding tuition grants are sizeable. However, long-run general equilibrium effects are 3-4 times smaller. Every additional dollar of government grants crowds out 20-30 cents of parental transfers.
Health advice in Australian travel brochures.

[Extract] The question of who is to give travel health advice has received increased treatment over the last years. Sources of travel health advice and the quality of its content have been examined in many studies.1–5 Although health education is a domain of the health professions, the importance of at least acknowledging health as an issue in tourism and travel has been recognized by the tourism industry. There still seems to be a reluctance in the industry to deal with health threats arising from travel. One reason for this caution is the assumption that mentioning health issues may be counterproductive to business. However, the tourism industry has also recognized that it makes sense to ensure healthy travel. Healthy customers will book again. If that is not incentive enough, the potential for lawsuits is ever present if negligence,on the part of the operator, is found due to withholding crucial information or not pointing out the need for a professional pretravel health consultation.
An improved support vector model in car-rental revenue forecast

Abstract Monthly revenue per unit (RPU), measured by the total monthly revenue divided by the total monthly number of cars in the fleet, is one of the most popular profitability assessments in the car-rental industry. Because pricing decision is influenced by profit a lot, accurate forecast of RPU is thus useful for pricing in car-rental industry. Support vector regression (SVR) is an emerging forecast technique and successfully applied in many domains. The aim of this study is to investigate the feasibility of SVR in RPU forecast. Because SVR model contains three parameters influencing the forecasting accuracy, this work treats the forecasting error as an objective and employs tabu search (TS) algorithms to minimize the forecasting error. Actual RPU data are used to depict the forecasting performance of the improved SVR model. Two forecasting model, namely the general regression neural network (GRNN) model and the autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model, are used to forecast the same RPU data. Simulation results indicate that the improved SVR model is superior to the other models in terms of forecasting accuracy.
Extracellular Potential Recordings by Means of a Field Effect Transistor Without Gate Metal, Called OSFET

The design and operation of a new semiconductor element, based upon the field effect principle is discussed. The device, which is called an OSFET, can be used as a measuring electrode for bioelectric activity. The OSFET consists of an MOS-transistor configuration, where the gate metal has been omitted and can be used directly in the extracellular fluid as an active probe. The operation of the OSFET is described by a physical-mathematical model, by means of which it is possible to explain the results of electrophysiological measurements. These results are compared with the results of a computer simulation, in which the Rosenfalck equation for extracellular potential distributions serves as an input for the OSFET model stated. A special electronic circuit is used to perform low impedance measurements in a simple way with the OSFET electrode. It appears that extracellular potentials measured with an OSFET-electrode have an extended frequency range, with respect to conventional potential measurements (0 ¿< f ¿< 45 K c/s).
Crepidotus thermophilus comb. nov., a reassessment of Melanomphalia thermophila, a rarely collected tropical agaric

Melanomphalia thermophila (Sing.) Sing. is a rarely collected agaric previously known only from Florida and Brazil. This taxon was originally described as a species of Tubaria and much of Singer's rationale for placing Tubaria within the Crepidotaceae (Imai) Sing. was based on anatomical similarities between T. thermophila and Crepidotus (Fr.) Staude. In later works, T. thermophila was transferred to Melanomphalia M.P. Christ. , again forming the basis upon which Singer placed Melanomphalia within the Crepidotaceae. Based on examination of newly collected specimens from Puerto Rico and Panama, type studies, and nuclear large subunit rDNA analysis, we conclude that this taxon is, in fact, a centrally stipitate Crepidotus. Melanomphalia thermophila is transferred to Crepidotus, fully described and illustrated.
An evaluation of software multithreading in a conventional distributed memory multiprocessor

Multithreading is often seen as a solution to the problem of large memory latencies that occur when remote data is needed for local computation. This paper quantifies the costs and benefits of software multithreading on a distributed memory multiprocessor. We describe the design of a machine-independent software multithreading system as part of a runtime system for a high-level parallel programming language, and present a quantitative analysis of the costs of our multithreading system, as well as its performance on the nCUBE/2 multiprocessor. We show that, in the presence of a sufficient number of remote references to cover the initial costs, or multithreading system provides speedup factors of between 1.27 and 1.65. <<ETX>>
An autoclavable wireless palpation instrument for minimally invasive surgery

Minimally invasive surgery prevents surgeons from manually palpating organs to locate subsurface tumors and other structures. One solution is to use ultrasound; however, it is not always reliable. Various minimally invasive surgery instruments that provide tactile feedback have been proposed to augment ultrasound sensing for tumor localization; however, current designs have limitations such as cumbersome wiring, difficulty in manipulation, lack of sterilizability and high cost. This paper presents a novel, autoclavable, wireless, hand-held palpation instrument that uses a custom, low-cost, disposable tactile sensor to provide tactile and kinesthetic force feedback. The use of a replaceable, disposable tactile sensor avoids deterioration in sensor performance due to repeated autoclaving. The instrument features a passive joint in the end effector that allows the sensor to self-align to the palpation surface in a wide range of orientations. All of the electronics are packaged in a removable module that allows the rest of the instrument to be easily cleaned and autoclaved. Two versions of the tactile sensor, using piezoresistive sensing and capacitive sensing respectively, have been designed for use with this instrument. The instrument is shown to be able to detect 6 mm diameter spherical tumors at a depth of 9-10 mm in ex vivo tissue samples.
Classification based on Neighborhood from Datasets with Low Quality Data

Currently there are not many data mining method available to solve the classification task in datasets with low quality values. In this paper we propose a method of imputation/classification based on neighborhood that can work with nominal and numerical attributes which can contain low quality values. Performing a series of experiments we observe that the method not only is competitive to other similar method when working with datasets without low quality values, but it also obtains robust results when working with datasets with low quality values.