Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
UvA-DARE ( Digital Academic Repository ) Molecular and mechanical functions of the intermediate filament protein GFAP

Cells in the human body interact with and respond to their mechanical environment. The cells themselves are an important contributor to the mechanical environment, both through tensile forces and remodelling of the extracellular matrix, and through the cell’s intrinsic material properties. The intrinsic material properties are mainly determined by the cytoskeleton. One of the cytoskeletal elements in astrocytes, the intermediate filament GFAP, is highly regulated throughout development and disease. To investigate the contribution of GFAP to the stiffness of the cell, we used an intermediate filament network (IFN) extraction method to study the effect of recombinantly expressed GFAP isoforms (GFAPα and GFAPδ) on the mechanical properties of the astrocytoma IFN by multiple particle tracking microrheology (MPTM). We developed a robust IFN extraction method to obtain cell-derived skeletonized networks, a useful technique to study biological influences on network mechanics. The analysis revealed that the stiffness of the IFN is on the edge of what can be reliably measured by MPTM, but by comparing the MSD(τ=10) between conditions, a reduced mobility was found when expressing GFAP isoforms GFAPα and GFAPδ in comparison to control.
Corporate performance of firms operating in Slovakia: does ownership matter?

The large number of studies have investigated the relationship between corporate performance and foreign ownership with ambiguous findings. However, despite the attractiveness of Central and Eastern European countries for allocation of foreign direct investments, there exists only limited number of studies dealing with performance – ownership relationship in these countries. The aim of this paper is to analyze the impact of foreign ownership and other explanatory variables on corporate performance of firms operating in industrial sectors of Slovakia. The authors worked with a panel data set of foreign and domestic-owned firms over the period 2004-2013 using OLS method and quantile regression analysis. As the measures of corporate performance, several indicators were used: profitability, represented by return on sales, was used as the dependent variable, and other indicators such as value added, wages, net working capital intensity, leverage, R&D personnel and gross R&D expenditures formed explanatory variables. In addition, as key explanatory variable in our model, foreign ownership as a dummy variable was used. The results show negative statistically significant impact of foreign ownership on performance. Thus, financial performance of foreign firms, measured by return on sales, is worse than in case of domestic-owned firms, what is rather in contrast with present literature in other countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
IFRS and Accounting Information Relevance: The Case of Saudi Arabia

This study aims to determine whether accounting information under IFRS is value relevance or not and which accounting information is more value relevance in Saudi Arabia. To achieve this aim the researcher conducted a quantitative study on a sample of 11 banks listed in Saudi Stock Exchange during the period from 2006 to 2015. Using panel date three regression models are performed to test research hypotheses. Model 1 includes both earning per share and book value per share as independent variables and price per share as a dependent variable. Results indicated that adjusted R-squared explains about 0.2660 of changes in share prices and earnings per share are significant but book value per share is not significant. When considering earning per share alone as independent variable in regression model 2.It is found that earnings per share is significant and explains about 0.272 of share price. By comparing results of model 1 with results of model 2. It is found that earning per share alone is more value relevance than both earnings per share and book value per share In Saudi banking industry. In addition, when considering book value per share alone as independent variable in regression model 3.It is found that book value per share is significant and explains only about 0.061 of share price. By comparing results of model 1 with results of model 3. It is found that both earning per share and book value per share are more value relevance than book value per share alone In Saudi banking industry. Correlation analysis supports these results. It can be said that earnings per share rather than book value per share is of high quality in value relevance studies under IFRS in Saudi banking industry.
Effect of Compressive Load on Shrinkage of Larch Blocks During Radio-Frequency Vacuum Heating

This study was carried out to investigate the effect of a compressive load of 0.092 MPa on the shrinkage of the larch blocks with sides of 40 mm each, when subjected to vacuum combined with radio-frequency heating. The shrinkages in the loading direction were significantly increased; for example, the tangential shrinkages of the blocks loaded compressively on their radial surfaces (loaded-RS), and the radial shrinkages of the blocks loaded compressively on their tangential surfaces (loaded-TS) were approximately one and one-half times as much as those for the load-free blocks. The shrinkages perpendicular to the loading direction were restrained, for example, the radial shrinkage for the loaded-RS, and the tangential shrinkage for the loaded-TS.
Data retention Load inputs Compute ( outputs ) Store outputs Classic Execution

A critical challenge for modern system design is meeting the overwhelming performance, storage, and communication bandwidth demand of emerging applications within a tightly bound power budget. As both the time and power, hence the energy, spent in data communication by far exceeds the energy spent in actual data generation (i.e., computation), (re)computing data can easily become cheaper than storing and retrieving (pre)computed data. Therefore, trading computation for communication can improve energy efficiency by minimizing the energy overhead incurred by data storage, retrieval, and communication. This paper hence provides a taxonomy for the computation vs. communication trade-off along with quantitative characterization.
Syzygium aromaticum L. (Clove) Essential Oil as a Reducing Agent for the Green Synthesis of Silver Nanoparticles

The present investigation details a green synthesis of silver nanoparticles (AgNP) using the essential oil of Syzygium aromaticum L. (clove) as reducing agent, which is a matrix with a high content of eugenol, an important compound for the reducing action of silver nitrate. The synthesis of AgNP was performed at different pH conditions (pH 7, 8, 9 and 10), and was monitored by UV-Vis Spectroscopy, Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS) and Transmission Electron Microscopy. The synthesized nanoparticles presented characteristic Surface Plasmon Resonance bands with maximum absorbance between 405 and 460 nm. The DLS analysis revealed particle sizes from 31 to 72 nm and zeta potential between -30.1 and -50.8 mV indicating good stability against the agglomeration of the particles in solution. The micrographs obtained by TEM showed different particle shapes and a predominance of spherical-shaped nanoparticles, and average size ranging from 27 to 94 nm. The clove-based silver nanoparticles were efficient in controlling the growth of Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus bacteria, and the minimum inhibitory concentration ranged from 60 to 100 μL/mL. This study highlights the feasibility of clove essential oil as an alternative for the synthesis of silver nanoparticles by a simple, inexpensive and eco-friendly method.
Causal Relationship between Domestic Saving and Economic Growth: Evidence from Cambodia

The present study attempts to determine the direction of causality between domestic saving and economic growth in Cambodia, using data for the period 1989–2012. The empirical analysis was based on Granger Causality Test. The study found that domestic saving does not Granger cause economic growth. This finding is contrary to the conventional wisdom that causality runs from saving to economic growth. Economic growth itself is also not found to Granger cause saving. So it can be concluded that domestic saving and economic growth are independent of each other in Cambodia.
Electoral systems and pork barrel politics: Evidence from Honduras

Can electoral systems determine how particularistic spending is distributed in developing countries? The ways in which legislators seek benefits for their constituencies, have been the subject of longstanding debate in political science. While the discussion has broadly focused on the theoretical consequences of electoral systems on legislators’ behaviour, little evidence has accounted for these alleged effects, especially in developing country settings. This paper focuses on particularistic spending in Honduras, providing a natural experiment to test different relevant hypotheses found in the literature. Since the early 1980s Honduras used a closed-list ballot with single-member and plurinominal districts electoral system. In 2004 the country moved to an open ballot structure keeping the same range of district magnitude. On the basis of original data from the Honduran Social Investment Fund, a battery of statistical tests is conducted. It is expected that under a closed-list system social spending per capita will increase as district magnitude shrinks, and the opposite will happen when an open-list system is in use. The evidence suggests that the change from a closed-list to an open-list system causes an increase in spending per capita. However, the interaction of type of ballot with district magnitude does not produce the results predicted by influential theories.
Managing Safety‐Related Disruptions: Evidence from the U.S. Nuclear Power Industry

Low‐probability, high‐impact events are difficult to manage. Firms may underinvest in risk assessments for low‐probability, high‐impact events because it is not easy to link the direct and indirect benefits of doing so. Scholarly research on the effectiveness of programs aimed at reducing such events faces the same challenge. In this article, we draw on comprehensive industry‐wide data from the U.S. nuclear power industry to explore the impact of conducting probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) on preventing safety‐related disruptions. We examine this using data from over 25,000 monthly event reports across 101 U.S. nuclear reactors from 1985 to 1998. Using Poisson fixed effects models with time trends, we find that the number of safety‐related disruptions reduced between 8% and 27% per month in periods after operators submitted their PRA in response to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Generic Letter 88‐20, which required all operators to conduct a PRA. One possible mechanism for this is that the adoption of PRA may have increased learning rates, lowering the rate of recurring events by 42%. We find that operators that completed their PRA before Generic Letter 88‐20 continued to experience safety improvements during 1990–1995. This suggests that revisiting PRA or conducting it again can be beneficial. Our results suggest that even in a highly safety‐conscious industry as nuclear utilities, a more formal approach to quantifying risk has its benefits.
A Quantitative Approach for Estimating Coseismic Displacements in the Near Field from Strong-Motion Accelerographs

The translational accelerations recorded by strong-motion seismometers are often contaminated by baseline offsets that prevent recovering theground displace- ments by double integration. Detailed analysis of the K-NET95 strong-motion seis- mometer, and the improvement of the visual display of the recorded accelerations' Fourier transform by addition of long zero pads to the acceleration records, made it possible to distinguish the origins of the long-period noise that contaminate the translational accelerations recorded in the near field of two studied earthquakes, the 2004 Niigata-ken Chuetsu earthquake and the 2007 Niigata-ken Chuetsu-Oki earthquake, Japan. They are the residual rotation of the instrument (residual tilt) or the 1=f digital semiconductor noise. The quantification of these two terms allows us to discuss the low-frequency content of the records and to describe when it is possible to obtain realistic displacement time histories. It happens when the residual tilt is removed in the time-domain or when the 1=f semiconductor noise overshadows the translational acceleration records up to sufficiently small frequencies. As a check of the method, displacement time histories obtained from acceleration records are compared with nearby 1-Hz GPS data. Good similitudes are obtained in the near field for collocated instruments. Online Material: Figures showing acceleration, velocity, and displacement time series, and acceleration spectra for 18 records.
Title Convergence Analysis of the Variance in Gaussian BeliefPropagation

It is known that Gaussian belief propagation (BP) is a low-complexity algorithm for (approximately) computing the marginal distribution of a high dimensional Gaussian distribution. However, in loopy factor graph, it is important to determine whether Gaussian BP converges. In general, the convergence conditions for Gaussian BP variances and means are not necessarily the same, and this paper focuses on the convergence condition of Gaussian BP variances. In particular, by describing the message-passing process of Gaussian BP as a set of updating functions, the necessary and sufficient convergence conditions of Gaussian BP variances are derived under both synchronous and asynchronous schedulings, with the converged variances proved to be independent of the initialization as long as it is chosen from the proposed set. The necessary and sufficient convergence condition is further expressed in the form of a semi-definite programming (SDP) optimization problem, thus can be verified more efficiently compared to the existing convergence condition based on computation tree. The relationship between the proposed convergence condition and the existing one based on computation tree is also established analytically. Numerical examples are presented to corroborate the established theories.
MACHINE LEARNING FOR DEFECT DETECTION FOR PBFAM USING HIGH RESOLUTION LAYERWISE IMAGING COUPLED WITH POST-BUILD CT SCANS

This paper develops a methodology based on machine learning to detect defects during Powder Bed Fusion Additive Manufacturing (PBFAM) processes using data from high resolution images. The methodology is validated experimentally using both a support vector machine (SVM) and a neural network (NN) for binary classification. High resolution images are collected each layer of the build, and the ground truth labels necessary for supervised machine learning are obtained from a 3D computed tomography (CT) scan. CT data is processed using image processing tools—extended to 3D—in order to extract xyz position of voids within the component. Anomaly locations are subsequently transferred from the CT domain into the image domain using an affine transformation. Multi-dimensional features are extracted from the images using data surrounding both anomaly and nominal locations. Using cross-validation strategies for machine learning and testing, accuracies of close to 90% could be achieved when using a neural network for in-situ anomaly detection.
Linux Scheduling and a Simulation Tool for Wireless Control Ohlin

Computing systems are becoming more and more complex and powerful. It is nowadays not uncommon to run several server applications on the same physical platform. This gives rise to a need for resource reservation techniques, so that administrators may prioritize some tasks, or customers, over others. This thesis gives an introduction to the Linux kernel 2.6 task scheduler, and scheduling related operating system concepts such as priority, nice value, interactivity and task states. The thesis also presents an implementation of a scheduling mechanism, that in a non-intrusive way introduces per task CPU bandwidth reservations in the Linux operating system. The MATLAB/Simulink-based simulator TrueTime is given a short introduction, and the wireless capabilities of the tool are described in more detail. TrueTime is a tool for co-simulation of real-time tasks, network communication, and continuous-time plant dynamics. The modeling of the common medium access control (MAC) layers of IEEE 802.11 and IEEE 802.15. 4 is described, along with the radio model used. TrueTime’s capabilities to simulate local clocks with drift, Dynamic Voltage Scaling, and battery powered devices are also presented.
Predictive Analysis for Trauma Patient Readmission Database Thesis

ii Dedication . iii Acknowledgement . iv Vita . v List of Tables . vii List of Figures . viii Chapter 1: Introduction . 1 Chapter 2: Introduction of models . 4 2.1 Logistic Regression Model . 4 2.2 Random Forest Method . 9 2.3 Support Vector Machine . 14 2.4 Implementation in R . 21 Chapter 3: Data Analysis and Results . 22 3.1 Data Description . 22 3.2 Method . 27 3.3 Model comparison . 28 Chapter 4. Discussion . 38 Reference . 41
The Analysis of Regulatory Strategy about Government-Invested Projects Based on the Imperfect Credibility Threats

In the construction market, it is very difficult to obtain the private information of project management units which have uneven aptitude for the government. In order to reduce the government’s risk caused by adverse selection in bidding, cut the loss because of the violations of the agent in the process of project construction, and prevent the decision failure because of the malfeasance of supervision department in government regulation, this paper carries on the game analysis through establishing an including uncertainty complete and imperfect information dynamic model, and analyzes the critical factors which have an great effect on the agent market. The result shows that the government should regulate the supervision policy of agent construction system from the aspects of developing the credibility of threat, decreasing the implementation cost of advanced technology and management experience, reducing the expect to agent construction project about unqualified project management units, and government self-improvement.
Imitation Learning from Observation

Humans and other animals have a natural ability to learn skills from observation, often simply from seeing the effects of these skills: without direct knowledge of the underlying actions being taken. For example, after observing an actor doing a jumping jack, a child can copy it despite not knowing anything about what's going on inside the actor's brain and nervous system. The main focus of this thesis is extending this ability to artificial autonomous agents, an endeavor recently referred to as "imitation learning from observation. " Imitation learning from observation is especially relevant today due to the accessibility of many online videos that can be used as demonstrations for robots. Meanwhile, advances in deep learning have enabled us to solve increasingly complex control tasks mapping visual input to motor commands. This thesis contributes algorithms that learn control policies from state-only demonstration trajectories. Two types of algorithms are considered. The first type begins by recovering the missing action information from demonstrations and then leverages existing imitation learning algorithms on the full state-action trajectories. Our preliminary work has shown that learning an inverse dynamics model of the agent in a self-supervised fashion and then inferring the actions performed by the demonstrator enables sufficient action recovery for this purpose. The second type of algorithm uses model-free end-to-end learning. Our preliminary results indicate that iteratively optimizing a policy based on the closeness of the imitator's and expert's state transitions leads to a policy that closely mimics the demonstrator's trajectories.
Improved Chandrayaan-1 M 3 data : A northwest portion of the Aristarchus Plateau and contiguous

We provide and test a method to obtain significant improvement of available Chandrayaan-1 M data. The advance is achieved using the Gaussian λ-convolution of spectra and Fourier filtration of images. The main result is imagery of the reflectance across different wavelengths as well as parameters of 1 μm and 2 μm absorption bands with unprecedented quality. This approach can be particularly useful for further investigations using M data, since it produces improved imagery of various lunar surface characteristics. We studied a region comprising a portion of the Aristarchus Plateau, Montes Agricola, and a small part of the mare surface in Ocean Procellarum to the north of Montes Agricola. We found that the lava flows in the area between the Aristarchus Plateau and Montes Agricola have a chemical/mineral composition different in comparison with mare areas to the northwest of the ridge Montes Agricola. We also identified distinct spectral properties of morphologically young craters located on the plateau and mare surface. A correlation diagram for positions of the minima of the 1 μm and 2 μm bands allows a cluster analysis of the region, and we map areas associated with a cluster corresponding to pyroclastic glasses. Relationships between geologic and spectral parameter maps were estab-
Effectively Using Affective Gestures: What percussionists need to know about movement and perception

We are all too familiar with the experience of dashing madly from instrument to instrument during a few beats of “rest” while our non-percussionist colleagues remain comfortably seated around us. Clearly, body movement plays an important role in our performances—both in terms of positioning as well as actually creating sounds. For even when limited to a single instrument such as the marimba the demands of shifting, reaching, and striking require signi! cant motion—often to the visual delight of recital-going audiences. "erefore, as much as we may (rightly) focus our attention on creating the highest quality of sound at precisely the right time and with the best possible phrasing, evaluations of this sound by audiences, jury panels, and even unscreened audition committees are a#ected by seeing the movements required for this sound’s production. As Steven Schick observed in ! e Percussionist’s Art, “Physicality and gesture in percussion music are powerful tools of communication. Anyone who has ever attended a percussion concert can tell you that the experience of percussion music involves the eyes as well as the ears. ” Although we can debate whether such information “should” play a role, what is now beyond debate is the fact that these movements signi! cantly a#ect musical evaluations. For reviews illustrating examples on various instruments see Schutz (2008) and/or "ompson, Graham and Russo (2005); or for a meta-analysis of vision’s in$uence see Platz and Kopiez (2012). Consequently, it is in our interest as performers and educators to understand the musical role (and musical limits) of musical movements. Whether we are striving to perfect our own performances or coaching those of our students, understanding the relationship between body movement and music perception represents an endeavor both fascinating and useful. Ongoing research in the MAPLE (Music, Acoustics, Perception & LEarning) Lab at McMaster University investigates this issue through several projects exploring the perception and reception of percussion performances. Here we will summarize some of the practical applications of this work.