Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
De Novo Transcriptome Sequencing in Passiflora edulis Sims to Identify Genes and Signaling Pathways Involved in Cold Tolerance

The passion fruit (Passiflora edulis Sims), also known as the purple granadilla, is widely cultivated as the new darling of the fruit market throughout southern China. This exotic and perennial climber is adapted to warm and humid climates, and thus is generally intolerant of cold. There is limited information about gene regulation and signaling pathways related to the cold stress response in this species. In this study, two transcriptome libraries (KEDU_AP vs. GX_AP) were constructed from the aerial parts of cold-tolerant and cold-susceptible varieties of P. edulis, respectively. Overall, 126,284,018 clean reads were obtained, and 86,880 unigenes with a mean size of 1449 bp were assembled. Of these, there were 64,067 (73.74%) unigenes with significant similarity to publicly available plant protein sequences. Expression profiles were generated, and 3045 genes were found to be significantly differentially expressed between the KEDU_AP and GX_AP libraries, including 1075 (35.3%) up-regulated and 1970 (64.7%) down-regulated. These included 36 genes in enriched pathways of plant hormone signal transduction, and 56 genes encoding putative transcription factors. Six genes involved in the ICE1–CBF–COR pathway were induced in the cold-tolerant variety, and their expression levels were further verified using quantitative real-time PCR. This report is the first to identify genes and signaling pathways involved in cold tolerance using high-throughput transcriptome sequencing in P. edulis. These findings may provide useful insights into the molecular mechanisms regulating cold tolerance and genetic breeding in Passiflora spp.
Study in Pursuing Differentiated Market

The main purpose of this paper is to study the equilibriums in pursuing differentiated market. At first, the concept of pursuing differentiated market is proposed, and the equilibriums are discussed in same type of products with or without fixed costs. Then the equilibriums are analyzed in different types of products with same or different alternative coefficients. Finally, characters of the equilibrium of pure strategy are shown in general form matrix game.
Validation of cleaning procedures and sanitization of equipment in the fish industry by microbiological analysis

Data by the Pan-American Health Organization show that the death of about two million people a year and over 200 types of diseases are associated with increasing food contamination. Several types of technology and extensive legislation have been developed and targeted to this issue to reduce food microbiological load to safer levels and meet the expectations of increasingly demanding consumers. Current research investigates the process of sanitization of equipment and utensils in the fish industry by microbiological analyses. The study was conducted in a fish industry, installed in São Roque, State of São Paulo, Brazil. Swab technique was employed prior to cleaning and after sanitizing. Microbiological analysis comprised total counts of coliforms, fecal coliforms, psychrotrophic bacteria, mesophylls and Pseudomonas. In present study, microbiological analysis available in compendium of methods for the microbiological examinations of foods were useful for establish possible contamination by microorganisms. Correct sanitization throughout the manufacturing process has been targeted to maintain the quality and safety of the final product. Satisfactory results of present study may contribute to the discussion about standardization of sanitary procedures for fishing industry. Further research on the fishery industry should be undertaken to establish reliable standards to be employed nationwide.
Fluctuation bounds for continuous time branching processes and nonparametric change point detection in growing networks.

Motivated by applications, both for modeling real world systems as well as in the study of probabilistic systems such as recursive trees, the last few years have seen an explosion in models for dynamically evolving networks. The aim of this paper is two fold: (a) develop mathematical techniques based on continuous time branching processes (CTBP) to derive quantitative error bounds for functionals of a major class of these models about their large network limits; (b) develop general theory to understand the role of abrupt changes in the evolution dynamics of these models using which one can develop non-parametric change point detection estimators. In the context of the second aim, for fixed final network size $n$ and a change point $\tau(n) < n$, we consider models of growing networks which evolve via new vertices attaching to the pre-existing network according to one attachment function $f$ till the system grows to size $\tau(n)$ when new vertices switch their behavior to a different function $g$ till the system reaches size $n$. With general non-explosivity assumptions on the attachment functions $f,g$, we consider both the standard model where $\tau(n) = \Theta(n)$ as well as the \emph{quick big bang model} when $\tau(n) = n^\gamma$ for some $0<\gamma <1$. Proofs rely on a careful analysis of an associated \emph{inhomogeneous} continuous time branching process. Techniques developed in the paper are robust enough to understand the behavior of these models for any sequence of change points $\tau(n)\to\infty$. This paper derives rates of convergence for functionals such as the degree distribution; the same proof techniques should enable one to analyze more complicated functionals such as the associated fringe distributions.
The Price of Personalization: An Application of Contextual Bandits to Mobile Health

A central goal in healthcare is to accurately personalize treatments, including the ability to maintaining overall efficacy in treatment while minimizing the harm and quantity of mistreated patients. With the recent prevalence of mobile devices, rapid collection of data was made possible, leverageable in personalized treatment of long-term diseases. One such application is in the HeartSteps study, an adaptive mHealth (mobile health) intervention application for cardiovascular maintenance. We frame the HeartSteps study as a contextual multi-armed bandit (MAB) problem, a reinforcement learning setting in which the agent must choose the optimal treatment action among several based on contextual information. We investigate and test the use of several different variants of the Thompson Sampling heuristic, a lightweight but effective reinforcement learning algorithm, to solve the Multi-armed Bandit problem as applied to HeartSteps. Experimental bootstrapping results are interpreted and then used to corroborate theoretically backed modifications to Thompson Sampling, guiding the future design of HeartSteps to maximize overall treatment performance while minimizing variance of per-patient performance. Through these evaluations, we examine the price of personalization, or the trade-off between optimizing the overall treatment efficacy versus optimizing the fairness of individual treatment efficacies.
Landslide Monitoring based on Terrestrial Laser Scanning : A Novel Semi-automatic Workflow

In this paper, we propose a workflow that uses Terrestrial Laser Scanning(TLS) to semi-automatically monitor landslide and then test it in practice. Firstly, several groups of TLS stations are set on different time to collect the raw point cloud of the object mountain. Next, Hierarchical Merging Based Multi-view (HMMR) registration algorithm is adapted to accomplish single-phase multi-view registration.In order to analyze deformation between multiple periods, Iterative Global Similarity Point (IGSP) algorithm is applied to accomplish multiple-phase registration, which outperforms ICP in experiments. Then the cloth simulation filtering (CSF) algorithm was used together with manual post-processing to remove vegetation on the slope. After that, the mountain slope’s digital terrain model (DTM) is generated for each period, and the distance between adjacent DTMs are calculated as the landslide deformation mass. Furthermore, average deformation rate of the landslide surface is calculated and analyzed.To validate the effectiveness of proposed workflow, we uses the TLS data of five periods of the landslide in the Shanhou village of northern Changshan Island from 2013 to 2015. The results indicate that the method can obtain centimeter-level deformation monitoring accuracy which can effectively monitor and analyze long-term landslide morphology and trend as well as position the significant deformation area and determine the type of landslide. In addition, the process can be automated to provide end-to-end TLS based long-term landslide monitoring applications, providing reference for monitoring and early warning of potential landslides.
On singular value distribution of large dimensional data matrices whose columns have different correlations.

Suppose $\mathbf Y_n=(\mathbf y_1,\cdots,\mathbf y_n)$ is a $p\times n$ data matrix whose columns $\mathbf y_j, 1\leq j\leq n$ have different correlations. The asymptotic spectral property of $\mathbf S_n=\frac1n\mathbf Y_n\mathbf Y^*_n$ when $p$ increase with $n$ has been considered by some authors recently. This model has known an increasing popularity due to its widely applications in multi-user multiple-input single-output (MISO) systems and robust signal processing. In this paper, for more convenient applications in practice, we will investigate the spectral distribution of $\mathbf S_n$ under milder moment conditions than existing work. We also discuss a potential application in sample classification.
Trade Sales Promotion Strategies and Marketing Performance in the Soft Drink Industries in Nigeria

Rapid changes in technology, over production, shortened product life cycles, increased competition owing to reduced barriers to domestic and international trade, mass communication and globalization have all contributed to the need for a firm to have distinctive capabilities; which create a competitive advantage over others. We are inclined to believe that fully utilized, competent and well-articulated trade sales promotion strategies constitute a competitive advantage. With the notion that trade sales promotion strategies positively correlates with marketing performance, firms view trade sales promotion strategy incompetence with grave concern. The effect of poor trade promotion strategy performance is not limited to firms alone since organizations can and do experience sub-optimal or out-right poor performance; but also to the economy as a whole. The aggregate business performance of a country’s economic unit shapes its economy, since a nation’s wealth is measured mostly in terms of its GDP. Among the factors critical to business profitability; fresh concerns about the efficacy of trade promotion strategies is sparsely researched. This informs the research interest in this regard, recognizing the unique role of trade sales promotion strategies that distinguishes it from other marketing communication methods, and its critical roles in pushing and creating traffic for the manufacturer’s product. With a survey research design, a regression model was formulated to incorporate eleven hypotheses of interests. Quantitative data were collected through a 5-point Likert-type scale questionnaire. A total of 234 copies of questionnaire were completed by senior promotion and sales executives of two major soft drink manufacturing firms and their accredited distributors in Nigeria. We adopted Pearson’s ‘r’ and stepwise regression with its constituents-ANOVA and T-test to determine the trade sales promotion activities that actually influence marketing performance activities in these firms. Two of the hypothesized trade sales promotion strategies were retained and adjudged relevant in determining marketing performance levels. Our findings reveal that Trade promotion strategies affect marketing performance through the use of trade allowances and trade contests. Notwithstanding this fact, the study notes that the firms are not at their optimal levels in both their trade promotion strategies and marketing performance. We therefore recommend that for optimal levels to be achieved, they should adopt trade promotion strategies that emphasize trade allowances and trade contests.
DEM Working Paper Series Monetary transmission models for bank interest rates

Monetary policies, either actual or perceived, cause changes in monetary interest rates. These changes impact the economy through financial institutions, which react to changes in the monetary rates with changes in their administered rates, on both deposits and lendings. The dynamics of administered bank interest rates in response to changes in money market rates is essential to examine the impact of monetary policies on the economy. Chong et al. (2006) proposed an error correction model to study such impact, using data previous to the recent financial crisis. In this paper we examine the validity of the model in the recent time period, characterised by very low monetary rates. The current state of close-to-zero interest rates is of particular relevance, as it has never been studied before. Our main contribution is a novel, more parsimonious, model and a predictive performance assessment methodology, which allows to compare it with the error correction model. We also contribute to the literature on interest rate risk modelling propos1 ing a forward looking method to allocate on-demand deposits to non-zero time maturity bands, according to the predicted bank rates.
Factors Affecting Mobile Phone Purchase in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana: A Binary Logit Model Approach

This paper investigated the factors affecting mobile phone purchase decision in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana, using a binary logit regression model approach. Through a multiple-stage random sampling technique, structured questionnaire was used to collect primary data from 200 mobile phone users in four districts in the study area. Results of the descriptive statistic show that Nokia and Samsung phones were the two main brands of phones used by majority of the respondents interviewed. In addition, of the 54 percent of respondents who expressed their intention to acquire new phones majority were male, between the ages of 21-30 years and has tertiary level of education. The result of the binary logit regression model revealed that advanced technology features such as internet browsing and durability or quality of mobile phone handsets are the two main factors that are likely to positively and significantly affect mobile phone purchase decision. It is therefore recommended that manufacturers and marketers of mobile phone handsets should produce and market more durable and high quality mobile phone handsets with modern technology features that are targeted at the educated youth.
Private Ordering Through Negotiation: Dispute-Settlement and Rulemaking

Negotiation is a vital instrument in the private ordering of affairs among disputants and among those who seek to work out rules to guide their future conduct in relation to one another. In this Article, Professor Eisenberg analyzes the way principles, rules, and precedents operate in private negotiation, both in the context of resolving present disputes and in the context of rulemaking to govern future conduct. Professor Eisenberg rejects the widely perceived dichotomy between norm-free negotiation and norm-bound adjudication, and suggests that norms play an integral role in the negotiation process, especially in the resolution of disputes. While granting that rulemaking depends in large part on the relative bargaining strength of the parties, Professor Eisenberg contends that even in. rulemaking situations the invocation of norms will have a significant impact on negotiation, especially where the relationship between the parties is characterized by dependence.
A Novel Low-Communication Energy-Efficient Reconfigurable CNN Acceleration Architecture

Di Wu State Key Laboratory of ASIC and System, Fudan University 15110720011@fudan.edu. cn Jin Chen State Key Laboratory of ASIC and System,Fudan University 15307130125@fudan.edu. cn Wei Cao* State Key Laboratory of ASIC and System,Fudan University caow@fudan.edu. cn Lingli Wang State Key Laboratory of ASIC and System,Fudan University llwang@fudan.edu. cn Abstract—Winograd algorithm is an efficient approach to alleviate the computation burden of deep CNNs. Firstly, we introduce a fast matrix algorithm to combine with Winograd algorithm to further reduce the computation complexity and adapt the Winograd algorithm to large-stride convolution with a kernelpartitioning method. Secondly, computation efficiency improvement due to the fast algorithms aggravates the off-chip communication. DRAM access of different data-flows varies significantly with different CNN patterns. Dynamic configurations of both data-flows and on-chip shared memory can reduce the DRAM access effectively. A quantitative analysis is established on the design space to guide the configurations. Finally, a reconfigurable architecture that supports three categories of dataflows is presented. For evaluation, VGGNet16, AlexNet and ResNet50 are implemented respectively which can achieve the state-of-art DSP efficiency. Overall performance of 685.6GOP/s, 1250GOP/s and 507GOP/s for AlexNet, VGGNet16 and ResNet50 respectively on ZC706 platform and better energy efficiency are achieved compared with representative prior works.
Performance analysis of MIMO over MIMO-LTE for MQAM considering Rayleigh fading distribution

LTE (Long Term Evolution) is a 3GPP (Third Generation Partnership Project) wireless standards which uses the standard OFDMA (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access) modulation, MU-MIMO (Multiuser Multiple Input Multiple Output) technology and different multipath fading models. LTE allows the operator to use spectrum more efficiently to deliver high speed data. This paper characterizes the downlink performance of LTE. The requirement for high data rate applications demanded a system to provide users with the MIMO technology which constitutes a breakthrough in wireless communication and is defined in the LTE standard. There are many metric to characterize the performance, but one of the most convenient and informative metric is the BER (Bit Error Rate). So the performance is characterized in terms of BER. In this paper the LTE system is modeled and simulated using MATLAB and the BER for 2×2 and 4×4 MIMO-LTE using 16QAM and 64QAM modulation schemes for Rayleigh fading environment are obtained against different SNR values.
Quality Assurance and Foreign Languages - Reflecting on oral assessment practices in two University Spanish Language Programs in Australia

In the era of quality assurance (QA), close scrutiny of assessment practices has been intensified worldwide across the board. However, in the Australian context, trends in QA efforts have not reached the field of modern/foreign languages. This has largely resulted in leaving the establishment of language proficiency benchmarking up to individual institutions and programs of study. This paper discusses the findings of a cross-institutional collaborative research project focused on the comparative analysis and review of assessment practices in the Spanish language majors at the University of Queensland (UQ) and Griffith University (GU), both members of the Brisbane Universities Languages Alliance (BULA). The project had a two-pronged focus; on the one hand, establishing comparable student academic achievement standards, specifically for oral assessment in intermediate level courses; and, on the other hand, providing tools and resources to train teachers (continuing and sessional staff) in consensus moderation (CM) practices through an online platform. The results presented here offer practical pedagogical suggestions to support planning and review of oral assessment, thus contributing to QA management in languages other than English.
Combining sustainable agricultural practices pays off: evidence on welfare effects from Northern Ghana

Sustainable agricultural practices are being promoted across Africa. While literature provides robust evidence on their welfare impacts in isolation, there is limited evidence on how combinations of sustainable agricultural practices contribute to households’ welfare. Due to complementary and substitution effects and cost involved in adopting SAPs, combinations may have impacts that are higher or lower than individual effects. To shed light on this question we employ cross-sectional data from northern Ghana, which was collected from 421 households and 1229 plots. We investigate the adoption and impacts of sustainable agricultural practices (SAPs) on net crop income per acre and consumption expenditure per capita. We employed a maximum simulated likelihood estimation of a Multinomial Endogenous Treatment Effect Model (METEM) to account for observable and unobservable heterogeneity that influences SAP adoption decisions and the outcome variables. Our results reveal that adoption decisions are affected by household and plot level characteristics. We find that adoption of SAPs significantly increase net crop income and consumption expenditure except when soil & water conservation is adopted in isolation. Contrary to some previous studies elsewhere in Africa on this area, we find that SAPs have a stronger effect on income and expenditure when adopted as a package (all together) rather than in isolation or in sub groups.
What Are the Issues Confronting Infertile Women? A Qualitative and Quantitative Approach

Infertility is a stressful experience, yet little is known about the specific issues confronting infertile women. In the present study, researchers sought to identify themes important to infertile women and examine possible associations with mental health levels. Using qualitative content analysis, researchers analyzed the email messages of 57 infertile women participating in a German-language Internet-based treatment for infertility. The themes most important to infertile women were emotions surrounding their wish for a child, coping with this unfulfilled wish, and medical aspects. Clinically anxious women reported substantially and significantly more negative and positive emotions than non-anxious women did (Mann-Whitney U(1)=178; p=0.034). Participants who were both clinically anxious and depressed reported more negative emotions and substantially fewer positive emotions when compared to participants who were solely anxious. The themes identified, considered important by infertile women, could be helpful to health professionals working in fertility treatment. Key Words: Counselling, Distress, Emotions, Infertility, Internet, Pregnancy, Psychosocial Issues, Reproductive Medicine, and Women’s Health
Perceived out-group (Dis)continuity and attribution of responsibility for the Lebanese Civil War mediate effects of national and religious subgroup identification on intergroup attitudes

Successful reconciliation between groups following a violent conflict requires psychological change. We test a model predicting intergroup attitudes towards Muslims in Lebanon among Maronite (Christian) Lebanese youths. Identification with both their religious subgroup and with the superordinate national group predicted attitudes towards Muslims, in opposite directions. These effects of levels of identification on intergroup attitudes were mediated by attributions of responsibility for the war (Muslim responsibility) and perception that the current generation of out-group members is different from the war generation (perceived out-group discontinuity). Identification with Lebanon fosters positive attitudes towards Muslims by lowering Muslim responsibility for the war, and by increasing perceptions of foreign responsibility and perceived out-group discontinuity. In contrast, increased identification with their own religious subgroup undermines attitude change by increasing Muslim responsibility for the war and lessening perception of out-group discontinuity. Representations of the past have implications for attitudes towards former enemies and reconciliation in the present.