Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
How to Structure a Company-wide Adoption of Big Data Analytics

Driven by increasing amounts of data and by emerging technologies to store and analyze them, companies adopt Big Data Analytics (BDA) to improve their innovativeness and decision-making. However, adopting BDA across the company in the sense of an insight-driven organization (IDO) is challenging, since it influences the entire company and requires an organizational change. Despite mature knowledge, approaches that provide concrete methods for structuring the company-wide adoption of BDA to fully exploit the benefits of BDA and to reduce the risk of its failure are still missing. Following action design research, we developed and evaluated a method for structuring the company-wide adoption of BDA in a concerted research effort at a German bank. Based on knowledge of BDA and the roadmapping approach, the method structures the adoption along the BDA capabilities. We illustrate how companies can define a target state, identify gaps, and derive a BDA roadmap.
Title FANCI-FANCD 2 stabilizes the RAD 51-DNA complex bybinding RAD 51 and protects the 5 ′-DNA end

The FANCI-FANCD2 (I-D) complex is considered to work with RAD51 to protect the damaged DNA in the stalled replication fork. However, the means by which this DNA protection is accomplished have remained elusive. In the present study, we found that the I-D complex directly binds to RAD51, and stabilizes the RAD51-DNA filament. Unexpectedly, the DNA binding activity of FANCI, but not FANCD2, is explicitly required for the I-D complex-mediated RAD51-DNA filament stabilization. The RAD51 filament stabilized by the I-D complex actually protects the DNA end from nucleolytic degradation by an FA-associated nuclease, FAN1. This DNA end protection is not observed with the RAD51 mutant from FANCR patient cells. These results clearly answer the currently enigmatic question of how RAD51 functions with the I-D complex to prevent genomic instability at the stalled
Examining the efficiency of mechanic/enzymatic pretreatments in micro/nanofibrillated cellulose production

There is still a need to improve the production sequences of micro fibrillated and nano fibrillated celluloses to obtain more economic and better quality products. The aim of this study was to improve the production efficiency and quality of micro fibrillated and nano fibrillated celluloses by examining the enzyme (xylanase endo-1,4-) employed in pretreatment sequences. Fairly homogeneous nano fibrillated cellulose with a width of 35 ± 12 nm was produced in this study. Sequences employed to produce micro fibrillated and nano fibrillated celluloses decreased the cellulose crystallinity of bleached kraft pulp and lower total crystalline index and lateral order index values were observed for micro fibrillated and nano fibrillated celluloses in FTIR examinations. Lower crystallinities were also defined by 13C-NMR (46.2 ppm), which was substantiated with C6 peaks in the amorphous domain. Sequences to produce micro fibrillated and nano fibrillated celluloses resulted in shorter fiber dimensions with less ordered cellulose structure leading lower thermal degradation that reveal main polymer chain source from cellulose units. Dynamic mechanical thermal analysis results showed that the initial and maximum storage modulus of the nano fibrillated and micro fibrillated celluloses films were improved by 114% and 101%, respectively. The storage modulus of micro fibrillated and nano fibrillated celluloses films were 4.96 GPa and 2.66 GPa at temperature of 235°C, respectively.
Hexagonal plaquette spin–spin interactions and quantum magnetism in a two-dimensional ion crystal

We propose a trapped ion scheme en route to realize spin Hamiltonians on a Kagome lattice which, at low energies, are described by emergent Z 2 ? > gauge fields, and support a topological quantum spin liquid ground state. The enabling element in our scheme is the hexagonal plaquette spin–spin interactions in a two-dimensional ion crystal. For this, the phonon-mode spectrum of the crystal is engineered by standing-wave optical potentials or by using Rydberg excited ions, thus generating localized phonon-modes around a hexagon of ions selected out of the entire two-dimensional crystal. These tailored modes can mediate spin–spin interactions between ion-qubits on a hexagonal plaquette when subject to state-dependent optical dipole forces. We discuss how these interactions can be employed to emulate a generalized Balents–Fisher–Girvin model in minimal instances of one and two plaquettes. This model is an archetypical Hamiltonian in which gauge fields are the emergent degrees of freedom on top of the classical ground state manifold. Under realistic situations, we show the emergence of a discrete Gauss’s law as well as the dynamics of a deconfined charge excitation on a gauge-invariant background using the two-plaquettes trapped ions spin-system. The proposed scheme in principle allows further scaling in a future trapped ion quantum simulator, and we conclude that our work will pave the way towards the simulation of emergent gauge theories and quantum spin liquids in trapped ion systems.
ENHANCEMENT BASED ON PROBABILISTIC INTEGRATION OF VARIATIONAL AUTOENCODER AND NON-NEGATIVE MATRIX FACTORIZATION

This paper presents a statistical method of single-channel speech enhancement that uses a variational autoencoder (VAE) as a prior distribution on clean speech. A standard approach to speech enhancement is to train a deep neural network (DNN) to take noisy speech as input and output clean speech. Although this supervised approach requires a very large amount of pair data for training, it is not robust against unknown environments. Another approach is to use nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF) based on basis spectra trained on clean speech in advance and those adapted to noise on the fly. This semi-supervised approach, however, causes considerable signal distortion in enhanced speech due to the unrealistic assumption that speech spectrograms are linear combinations of the basis spectra. Replacing the poor linear generative model of clean speech in NMF with a VAE—a powerful nonlinear deep generative model— trained on clean speech, we formulate a unified probabilistic generative model of noisy speech. Given noisy speech as observed data, we can sample clean speech from its posterior distribution. The proposed method outperformed the conventional DNN-based method in unseen noisy environments.
Sequence analysis Prediction of neuropeptide cleavage sites in insects

Motivation: The production of neuropeptides from their precursor proteins is the result of a complex series of enzymatic processing steps. Often, the annotation of new neuropeptide genes from sequence information outstrips biochemical assays and so bioinformatics tools can provide rapid information on the most likely peptides produced by a gene. Predicting the final bioactive neuropeptides from precursor proteins requires accurate algorithms to determine which locations in the protein are cleaved. Results: Predictive models were trained on Apis mellifera and Drosophila melanogaster precursors using binary logistic regression, multi-layer perceptron and k-nearest neighbor models. The final predictive models included specific amino acids at locations relative to the cleavage sites. Correct classification rates ranged from 78 to 100% indicating that the models adequately predicted cleaved and non-cleaved positions across a wide range of neuropeptide families and insect species. The model trained on D.melanogaster data had better generalization properties than the model trained on A. mellifera for the data sets considered. The reliable and consistent performance of the models in the test data sets suggests that the bioinformatics strategies proposed here can accurately predict neuropeptides in insects with sequence information based on neuropeptides with biochemical and sequence information in well-
Comparing Energy Efficiency of CPU, GPU and FPGA Implementations for Vision Kernels

Developing high performance embedded vision applications requires balancing run-time performance with energy constraints. Given the mix of hardware accelerators that exist for embedded computer vision (e.g. multi-core CPUs, GPUs, and FPGAs), and their associated vendor optimized vision libraries, it becomes a challenge for developers to navigate this fragmented solution space. To aid with determining which embedded platform is most suitable for their application, we conduct a comprehensive benchmark of the run-time performance and energy efficiency of a wide range of vision kernels. We discuss rationales for why a given underlying hardware architecture innately performs well or poorly based on the characteristics of a range of vision kernel categories. Specifically, our study is performed for three commonly used HW accelerators for embedded vision applications: ARM57 CPU, Jetson TX2 GPU and ZCU102 FPGA, using their vendor optimized vision libraries: OpenCV, VisionWorks and xfOpenCV. Our results show that the GPU achieves an energy/frame reduction ratio of 1.1–3.2× compared to the others for simple kernels. While for more complicated kernels and complete vision pipelines, the FPGA outperforms the others with energy/frame reduction ratios of 1.2–22.3×. It is also observed that the FPGA performs increasingly better as a vision application's pipeline complexity grows.
Hepatitis C Virus Genetic Variability, Human Immune Response, and Genome Polymorphisms: Which Is the Interplay?

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is the main cause of chronic hepatitis, affecting an estimated 150 million people worldwide. Initial exposure to HCV is most often followed by chronic hepatitis, with only a minority of individuals spontaneously clearing the virus. The induction of sustained and broadly directed HCV-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T cell responses, together with neutralizing antibodies (nAb), and specific genetic polymorphism have been associated with spontaneous resolution of the infection. However, due to its high variability, HCV is able to overwhelm the host immune response through the rapid acquisition of mutations in the epitopes targeted by T cells and neutralizing antibodies. In this context, immune-mediated pressure represents the main force in driving HCV evolution. This review summarizes the data on HCV diversity and the current state of knowledge about the contributions of antibodies, T cells, and host genetic polymorphism in driving HCV evolution in vivo.
NMR survey of reflected brownian motion

Restricted diffusion is a common feature of many physicochemical, biological, and industrial processes. Nuclear magnetic resonance techniques are often used to survey the atomic or molecular motion in confining media by applying inhomogeneous magnetic fields to encode the trajectories of spin-bearing particles. The diversity and complexity of diffusive NMR phenomena, observed in experiments, result from the specific properties of reflected Brownian motion. Here the focus is on the mathematical aspects of this stochastic process, their physical interpretations, and their practical applications. The main achievements in this field, from Hahn’s discovery of spin echoes to present-day research, are presented in a unified mathematical language. A long-standing problem of restricted diffusion under arbitrary magnetic field is reformulated in terms of multiple correlation functions of the reflected Brownian motion. Many classical results are retrieved, extended, and critically discussed.
The combustion process of ADN-based liquid propellant in attitude control engine

The green propellant or non-toxic propellant is an important research area in propulsion technology. Ammonium dinitramide (ADN,NH4[N(NO2)2]) is such a promising green propellant. It is a high-energy inorganic salt that can be used as an oxidizer in both solid and liquid propellant rockets, and has potential to replace ammonium perchlorate because of its high burning rate and chlorine-free combustion. A lot of research on thermal decomposition and combustion of ADN has been reported and reviewed comprehensively by Yang et al in 2005 [1]. These works promoted the development of the ADN solid propellant. The research on ADN-based liquid propellant is much less than that on solid propellant and attracts more attention in recent years. The purpose of developing ADN-based liquid propellant is to replace the toxic hydrazine and a promising way is to dissolve the ADN in a fuel/water mixture. The FOI has developed and tested the FLP series of ADN-based liquid propellants to meet the requirement when stored and used in the a spacecraft. One typical composition is 63.4% ADN , 25.4% water, 11.2% methanol(FLP-103) [2].
biànliǎn : Remote Tamper-Resistance with Continuous Replacement ∗

In this paper we describe biànliǎn, a system for producing tamper-resistant client programs running over the Internet. The basic idea is to use continuous replacement of program blocks running on the client site to make it difficult for an adversary to analyze and modify the program. There are many potential applications, for example protecting client programs in networked computer games from being tampered with. We show the basic design of a continuous replacement system for Java, including a number of obfuscating and tamperproofing transformations. In achieving tamper-resistance biànliǎn incorporates two novel ideas. First, it maintains an incorrect pool of code on the client such that no snapshot that an adversary takes contains the complete correct program. In addition, the type of incorrect code introduced ensures that on different input, executing the same trace of instructions will produce incorrect results. Secondly, biànliǎn achieves scalability through a distributed protection scheme which allows the server to offload the tamper-detection of one client to another client.
Rheological Characterization of Micro-Fibrillated Cellulose Fibre Suspensions Using Multi Scale Velocity Profile Measurements

A rheometric method based on velocity pro ling simultaneously by optical coherence tomography and the ultrasound velocity profilometry was introduced and used in a preliminary study of the rheological and boundary layer ow properties of micro fibrillated cellulose. The two velocity pro ling methods appear adequate and complementary for rheological characterization of opaque complex fluids. The ultrasound method is useful in measuring the velocity profile in the interior parts of the tube, while the optical technique is capable of high-resolution measurement of the boundary layer ow close to the tube wall. The preliminary results obtained for a 0.4% micro-fibrillated cellulose suspension show typical shear thinning behaviour in the interior part of the tube while the near wall behaviour shows existence of a slip layer of thickness ~200 m. Both the velocity profile measurement and the imaging mode data obtained by the optical coherence tomographic method indicate that the slip layer is related to a concentration gradient appearing near the tube wall. In a sublayer of thickness ~100 m, the fluid appears nearly Newtonian, and the viscosity value approaches that of pure water with decreasing distance from the wall.
Effects of a polar stratospheric cloud parameterization on ozone depletion due to stratospheric aircraft in a two‐dimensional model

A parameterization of Type 1 and 2 polar stratospheric cloud (PSC) formation is presented which is appropriate for use in two-dimensional (2-D) photochemical models of the stratosphere. The calculation of PSC frequency of occurrence and surface area density uses climatological temperature probability distributions obtained from National Meteorological Center data to avoid using zonal mean temperatures, which are not good predictors of PSC behavior. The parameterization does not attempt to model the microphysics of PSCs. The parameterization predicts changes in PSC formation and heterogeneous processing due to perturbations of stratospheric trace constituents. It is therefore useful in assessing the potential effects of a fleet of stratospheric aircraft (high speed civil transports, or HSCTs) on stratospheric composition. The model calculated frequency of PSC occurrence agrees well with a climatology based on stratospheric aerosol measurement (SAM) II observations. PSCs are predicted to occur in the tropics. Their vertical range is narrow, however, and their impact on model O{sub 3} fields is small. When PSC and sulfate aerosol heterogeneous processes are included in the model calculations, the O{sub 3} change for 1980-1990 is in substantially better agreement with the total ozone mapping spectrometer (TOMS) - derived O{sub 3} trend than otherwise. However, significant discrepanciesmore » in the northern midlatitudes remain. The overall changes in model O{sub 3} response to standard HSCT perturbation scenarios produced by the parameterization are small and tend to decrease the model sensitivity to the HSCT perturbation. However, in the southern hemisphere spring a significant increase in O{sub 3} sensitivity to HSCT perturbations is found. At this location and time, increased PSC formation leads to increased levels of active chlorine, which produce the O{sub 3} decrease. 38 refs., 13 figs., 3 tabs. « less
Why should syntactic islands exist?

Sentences that are ungrammatical and yet intelligible are instances of what I call perfectly thinkable thoughts. I argue that the existence of perfectly thinkable thoughts is revealing in regard to the question of why syntactic islands should exist. If language is an instrument of thought as understood in the biolinguistics tradition, then a uniquely human subset of thoughts is generated in narrow syntax, which suggests that island constraints and the ungrammatical sentences they cause cannot be rooted in narrow syntax alone. This is because speakers must be able to mentally represent thoughts whose expression via sound/sign nevertheless violates island constraints. If islands were due to constraints on structure generation alone then that would leave unexplained perfectly thinkable thoughts. That is, it would leave unexplained why certain structures that have been generated are ungrammatical due to island constraints and yet their meaning is perfectly understandable. If we take interpretable sentences to be generated by narrow syntax and then explain their grammaticality or unacceptability in terms of interface relations, then this explains why we are able to interpret sentences with island violations. In other words, the existence of perfectly thinkable thoughts provides independent support for the claim that syntactic islands reflect interface conditions imposed on the output of the computational system and its mapping to external systems.
Substrate Preparation for Manufacturing of Aluminum Nitride Layers

Aluminum nitrides layers prepared on sapphire subst rates are examined. The substrate surface was treat ed by dry plasma etching. The morphology of aluminum nitride thin films was studied by atomic force microscopy. Lateral force atomic force microscopy was used to study the morphology heterogeneity. The dependence of films morphology on the formation conditions has been def ined. The objective of the study contributes to the improvement of technological process of dry etching a d film deposition.
Relationship between environmental pressure and environmental disclosure in the sustainability reports of banks

This research evaluates the role of environmental pressure on the extend of environmental disclosure of South African banks. Although much research on corporate sustainability disclosure exists, this research is unique since little of the previous research in South Africa has given a closer examination of environmental pressure implication on the banking sector environmental disclosure. Research data were collected from secondary source, which are available from the sustainability reports of the sample of banks. Data were arranged and analyzed by means of the panel data multiple regression. Findings from the analysis showed that none of the seven environmental pressure variables had a significant relationship with banks’ environmental disclosure, which confirms assertion in the literature that banks are not much concerned with environmental issues. In conclusion, the research made some recommendations, which include that future researchers should expand the number of banks by including other financial institutions. Additionally, more research should be conducted to ascertain why external pressure is not very effective in motivating banks’ environmental disclosure as found in this study. Hence, the suggested question for further research is “what motivates bank’s environmental disclosure” and “do banks internalize or externalize their environmental costs”.
More on Classes of Strongly Indexable Graphs

Given any positive integer $k$, a $(p,q)$-graph $G = (V, E)$ is \emph{strongly $k$-indexable} if there exists a bijection $f:V \rightarrow \{0, 1, 2, \dots, p-1\}$ such that $f^+(E(G)) = \{k, k+1, k+2, \dots, k+q-1,\}$ where $f^+(uv) = f(u) + f(v)$ for any edge $uv \in E$; in particular, $G$ is said to be \emph{strongly indexable} when $k = 1$. For any strongly $k$-indexable $(p,q)$-graph $G, \ q \le 2p-3$ and if, in particular, $q = 2p-3$ then $G$ is called a \emph{maximal strongly indexable graph}. In this paper, our main focus is to construct more classes of $k$-strongly indexable graphs.
European Stroke Organization guideline for the diagnosis and treatment of cerebral venous thrombosis – Endorsed by the European Academy of Neurology

The current proposal for cerebral venous thrombosis guideline followed the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation system, formulating relevant diagnostic and treatment questions, performing systematic reviews of all available evidence and writing recommendations and deciding on their strength on an explicit and transparent manner, based on the quality of available scientific evidence. The guideline addresses both diagnostic and therapeutic topics. We suggest using magnetic resonance or computed tomography angiography for confirming the diagnosis of cerebral venous thrombosis and not screening patients with cerebral venous thrombosis routinely for thrombophilia or cancer. We recommend parenteral anticoagulation in acute cerebral venous thrombosis and decompressive surgery to prevent death due to brain herniation. We suggest to use preferentially low-molecular weight heparin in the acute phase and not using direct oral anticoagulants. We suggest not using steroids and acetazolamide to reduce death or dependency. We suggest using antiepileptics in patients with an early seizure and supratentorial lesions to prevent further early seizures. We could not make recommendations due to very poor quality of evidence concerning duration of anticoagulation after the acute phase, thrombolysis and/or thrombectomy, therapeutic lumbar puncture, and prevention of remote seizures with antiepileptic drugs. We suggest that in women who suffered a previous cerebral venous thrombosis, contraceptives containing oestrogens should be avoided. We suggest that subsequent pregnancies are safe, but use of prophylactic low-molecular weight heparin should be considered throughout pregnancy and puerperium. Multicentre observational and experimental studies are needed to increase the level of evidence supporting recommendations on the diagnosis and management of cerebral venous thrombosis.