Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Variance Risk-Premium Dynamics: The Role of Jumps

Using high-frequency stock market data and (synthetic) variance swap rates, this paper identifies and investigates the temporal variation in the market variance risk-premium. The variance risk is manifest in two salient features of financial returns: stochastic volatility and jumps. The pricing of these two components is analyzed in a general semiparametric framework. The key empirical results imply that investors' fears of future jumps are especially sensitive to recent jump activity and that their willingness to pay for protection against jumps increases significantly immediately after the occurrence of jumps. This in turn suggests that time-varying risk aversion, as previously documented in the literature, is primarily driven by large, or extreme, market moves. The dynamics of risk-neutral jump intensity extracted from deep out-of-the-money put options confirms these findings. The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Society for Financial Studies. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org, Oxford University Press.
Applying Modular Operators in Platform Development: Case of NTT DoCoMo i-Mode

Modular operators can be regarded as maneuvers of platform development. In the context where system interfaces can be standardized and system components can be developed and marketed by a group of technologically and commercially interdependent firms, direct and indirect network effects are crucial to a platform's success. In this article, we synthesize theories of modularity and network economics to provide a theoretical framework of platform development. The framework shows the applicability of modular operators in developing a platform, and helps the platform provider leverage the force of network effects by platform strategy-making.
Formulation and in-vitro evaluation of effervescent floating tablets of an antiulcer agent

Floating drug delivery systems are utilized to targ et drug release in the stomach or to the upper part s of intestine. Oral delivery of an anti-ulcer agent, famotidine wa s facilitated by preparing various floating dosage forms which can increase its absorption in the stomach by enhan cing gastric residence time. Polymers utilized were hydroxypropyl methylcellulose K15M (HPMC K15M) and hydroxypropyl methylcellulose K100M (HPMC K100M) as gel forming agents along with sodium bicarbonate and citric acid as gas generating agents. Formula ted tablets were evaluated for their physicochemical properties as well as drug release profile. Effect of efferve scent agents and polymeric substances were also investigated for flo ating properties and drug release characteristics. Drug release pattern of all formulations followed non-fickian di ffusion or anomalous diffusion.
Bile salts and alkaline pH reciprocally modulate the interaction between the periplasmic domains of Vibrio cholerae ToxR and ToxS

ToxR is a transmembrane transcription factor that is essential for virulence gene expression and human colonization by Vibrio cholerae. ToxR requires its operon partner ToxS, a periplasmic integral membrane protein, for full activity. These two proteins are thought to interact through their respective periplasmic domains, ToxRp and ToxSp. In addition, ToxR is thought to be responsive to various environmental cues, such as bile salts and alkaline pH, but how these factors influence ToxR is not yet understood. Using NMR and reciprocal pull down assays, we present the first direct evidence that ToxR and ToxS physically interact. Furthermore, using NMR and DSF, it was shown that the bile salts cholate and chenodeoxycholate interact with purified ToxRp and destabilize it. Surprisingly, bile salt destabilization of ToxRp enhanced the interaction between ToxRp and ToxSp. In contrast, alkaline pH, which is one of the factors that leads to ToxR proteolysis, decreased the interaction between ToxRp and ToxSp. Taken together, these data suggest a model whereby bile salts or other detergents destabilize ToxR, increasing its interaction with ToxS to promote full ToxR activity. Subsequently, as V. cholerae alkalinizes its environment in late stationary phase, the interaction between the two proteins decreases, allowing ToxR proteolysis to proceed.
Diagnostic accuracy and linkage analysis: how useful are schizophrenia spectrum phenotypes?

OBJECTIVE Numerous studies suggest that the nonschizophrenic relatives of schizophrenic patients exhibit psychiatric and other features that discriminate them from normal comparison subjects. These features have been put forth as "spectrum" phenotypes that may be variant manifestations of the schizophrenia genotype. However, most of these studies do not address a key measurement question: does the diagnostic accuracy of these spectrum classifications warrant their use in genetic linkage studies of schizophrenia? METHOD The authors reviewed 30 studies of putative indicators of the schizophrenic genotype: schizotypal personality disorder, eye tracking dysfunction, attentional impairment, auditory evoked potentials, neurological signs, neuropsychological impairment, and allusive thinking. RESULTS Although each of 42 measures of these indicators discriminated the relatives of schizophrenic patients from the normal comparison subjects, a diagnostic accuracy analysis suggested that only six of these would improve the informativeness of genetic linkage data. CONCLUSIONS Many proposed spectrum phenotypes for schizophrenia may not be useful for linkage analysis because of high false positive rates (poor specificity). Future work aimed at describing and developing phenotypes for linkage analysis should assess the diagnostic accuracy of proposed measures.
Corporate Transparency Differences in the Asian Region: the Feasibility of Global Standardization in Practice?

Using a unique hand-collected dataset covering 434 companies from 12 Asian countries in 2002, we examine whether countries matter more than firms in explaining variance in financial transparency. IFRS-based checklists of 228 and 441 items are used to measure transparency. Our data cover more companies per country, in much greater depth, than CLSA, CIFAR or Standard & Poor’s datasets. Both our transparency measures differ significantly across countries. Country-level variables matter more than firm-level variables in explaining variance in most model specifications. Legal system, bank-oriented economy and enforcement of standards matter most at the country-level. Firm complexity, debt raising, auditor-type, firms’ international focus and foreign stock exchange listings are consistently associated with transparency at the firm level across model specifications. Our findings suggest that converging accounting practices in the region short-term will not be easy, although there are strong firm-level market-based forces driving transparency which may assist the convergence process long-term.
Extrachromosomal transposition of the transposable element Minos in embryos of the cricket Gryllus bimaculatus

Effective germline transformation of insects has been shown to depend on the right choice of transposon system and selection marker. In this study the promoter region of a Gryllus cytoplasmic actin (GbA3/4) gene was isolated and characterized, and was used to drive the expression of Minos transposase in embryos of the cricket Gryllus bimaculatus. Active Minos transposase was produced in these embryos as monitored through established transposon excision and interplasmid transposition assays. In contrast, Drosophila melanogaster hsp70 promoter, previously used to express Minos transposase in a number of insect species and insect cell lines, failed to produce any detectable Minos transposase activity, as recorded by using the very sensitive transposon excision assay. In addition, the GbA3/4 promoter was found to drive expression of enhanced green fluorescent protein (eGFP) predominantly in vitellophages of the developing Gryllus eggs when a plasmid carrying a GbA3/4 promoter‐eGFP fusion gene was transiently injected into embryos. These results strongly support the use of Minos transposons marked with the GbA3/4 promoter‐eGFP for the genetic transformation of this emerging model insect species.
ANALYSIS OF THE INFORMATION CONTENT OF TERRESTRIAL LASERSCANNER POINT CLOUDS FOR THE AUTOMATIC DETERMINATION OF FOREST INVENTORY PARAMETERS

Terrestrial laserscanners find rapidly growing interest in photogrammetry as efficient tools for fast and reliable 3D point cloud data acquisition. They have opened a wide range of application fields within a rather short period of time. Beyond interactive measurement in 3D point clouds, techniques for the automatic detection of objects and the determination of geometric parameters form a high priority research issue. The quality of 3D point clouds generated by laserscanners and the automation potential make terrestrial laserscanning also an interesting tool for forest inventory. The paper will first review current laserscanner systems from a technological point of view and discuss different scanner technologies and system parameters regarding their suitability for forestry applications. In the second part of the paper, results of a pilot study on the applicability of terrestrial laserscanners in forest inventory tasks will be presented. The study concentrates on the automatic detection of trees and the subsequent determination of tree height and breast height diameter. Reliability and precision of techniques for automatic point cloud processing were analysed based on scans of a test region in a Saxonian mixed forest. In the pilot study, which represents an early stage of software development, more than 95% of the trees in a test region could be detected correctly. Tree heights could be determined with a precision of 80 cm, and breast height diameters could be determined with a precision of less than 1.5 cm.
Mediators in Exhaled Breath Condensate after Hypertonic Saline Challenge

Background. Airway narrowing after hypertonic saline challenge (HSC) is postulated to be mediated by bronchoconstrictors and inflammatory mediators. Objective. To study the mechanism of this challenge by using exhaled breath condensate (EBC). Methods. Fifty-six subjects (9 to 72 years of age) performed an HSC, with EBC collection and exhaled nitric oxide (FENO) measurements before and after the challenge. Bronchial hyper-reactivity (BHR) was defined if forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1) decreased by 10% compared with baseline (PD10). EBC volume was recorded and was analyzed for mucin, histamine, nitrite/nitrate, and pH. Results. Those with BHR had a significant rise in EBC volume/5-minute collection period after challenge (286.3 ± 25.6 μl vs 402.2 ± 31.3 μl, p = 0.0002), while BHR(−) subjects did not show this change (387.6 ± 29.7 μl vs 364.1 ± 30.1 μl, p = 0.55). FENO showed a significant decrease in both BHR(+) and BHR(−) groups after challenge (p = < 0.0001). In BHR(+) subjects histamine increased significantly (1.3 ± 0.1 μM vs 1.5 ± 0.1 μM, p = 0.006) compared with baseline, while EBC pH and mucin increased significantly after HSC in both groups. EBC nitrite did not change in either group. Conclusion. EBC analysis suggests that HSC causes an increase in pH and mucin in both groups, but EBC volume and histamine only increased in the BHR(+) group. This suggests that mast cells are activated and fluid flux is associated with the positive response, while mucin release is independent of BHR in HSC.
Antidepressant-like effects of an apolar extract and chow enriched with Nepeta cataria (catnip) in mice

Nepeta cataria (catnip) is a plant used in pet toys and to treat human diseases. Catnip has also been used in the treatment of some depressive disorders. In this paper, we studied the antidepressant, anxiogenic, and motor activity effects of acute and repeated feeding of chow enriched with 10% N. cataria leaves and the acute and repeated administration of apolar and polar extracts of N. cataria leaves in male mice. The results showed that repeated feeding and acute and repeated administration with the apolar extract reduced immobility in the behavioral despair test but did not alter elevated plus maze and open-field parameters. Acute feeding and the acute and repeated administration of the polar extracts of N. cataria leaves did not alter the behavior of mice. These data suggest that N. cataria has antidepressant properties. Moreover, this antidepressant activity was present in the apolar extract.
Conformational Disorder of the Most Immature Cu, Zn-Superoxide Dismutase Leading to Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis*

Misfolding of Cu,Zn-superoxide dismutase (SOD1) is a pathological change in the familial form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis caused by mutations in the SOD1 gene. SOD1 is an enzyme that matures through the binding of copper and zinc ions and the formation of an intramolecular disulfide bond. Pathogenic mutations are proposed to retard the post-translational maturation, decrease the structural stability, and hence trigger the misfolding of SOD1 proteins. Despite this, a misfolded and potentially pathogenic conformation of immature SOD1 remains obscure. Here, we show significant and distinct conformational changes of apoSOD1 that occur only upon reduction of the intramolecular disulfide bond in solution. In particular, loop regions in SOD1 lose their restraint and become significantly disordered upon dissociation of metal ions and reduction of the disulfide bond. Such drastic changes in the solution structure of SOD1 may trigger misfolding and fibrillar aggregation observed as pathological changes in the familial form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
A high-throughput interpolator for fractional motion estimation in high efficient video coding (HEVC) systems

This paper presents design and implementation of a high throughput interpolator for the fractional motion estimation in HEVC systems. Novel data reusing scheme and highly parallel architecture are proposed such that timing efficiency and thus processing throughput of the system are enhanced. The detailed circuit architecture and timing analysis for the proposed interpolator will be given. Moreover, the proposed design is implemented based on FPGA platform as well as synthesized through the cell-based flow using TSMC 90nm process. The synthesized results show that, compared to the prior arts, the presented interpolator can achieve a 2.4x improvement in terms of generated fractional pixels per cycle. Moreover, when targeting 60 frame-per-seconds with Ultra High Definition resolution, the proposed design requires much lower operating frequency.
FtsK is a bifunctional protein involved in cell division and chromosome localization in Escherichia coli

The behaviour of Escherichia coli cells in which all or part of the ftsK gene is under inducible control shows that FtsK protein has two functional domains: an N‐terminal part that is required for cell division, and a C‐terminal part that is involved in chromosome localization within the cell.
Modelling of a Multi-Track Railway Level Crossing System Using Timed Petri Net

— Petri Net being one of the most useful graphical tools for modelling complex asynchronous systems, we have used Petri Net to model multi-track railway level crossing system. The road-way has been augmented with four half-size barriers. For better control, a three stage control mechanism has been introduced to ensure that no road-vehicle is trapped on the level crossing. Timed Petri Net is used to include the temporal nature of the signalling system. Safeness analysis has also been included in the discussion section.
Impact of Short-Circuit Ratio and Phase-Locked-Loop Parameters on the Small-Signal Behavior of a VSC-HVDC Converter

The impact of phase-locked loop (PLL) parameters on the dynamic and steady-state behavior of a voltage-source converter (VSC) in an HVDC transmission system is determined as a function of the system strength [parameterized by the short-circuit ratio (SCR)]. This is achieved by using a linearized small-signal model of the converter system and its controls. The model is validated via electromagnetic transients simulation of the fully detailed large signal model. An interesting result from this study is that the maximum power transfer capability of the VSC-HVDC converter is affected by the PLL gains, and that the theoretical limit (obtained from static voltage stability analysis) is approachable as the PLL gains become very small. This paper shows that gains of the PLL, particularly at low SCRs, greatly affect the operation of the VSC-HVDC converter and that operation at low SCRs approaching 1.3 is very difficult.
The YDp plasmids: A uniform set of vectors bearing versatile gene disruption cassettes for Saccharomyces cerevisiae

The YDp plasmids (Yeast Disruption plasmids) are pUC9 vectors bearing a set of yeast gene disruption cassettes, all uniform in structure and differing only in the selectable marker used (HIS3, LEU2, LYS2, TRP1 or URA3). The markers, surrounded by translational termination codons, are embedded in the slightly modified sequence of the pUC9 multiple cloning sites.
Regulation of Drosophila heat shock factor trimerization: global sequence requirements and independence of nuclear localization

Heat shock transcription factor (HSF) is a multidomain protein that exists as a monomer under normal conditions and is reversibly induced upon heat shock to a trimeric state that binds to DNA with high affinity. The maintenance of the monomeric state is dependent on hydrophobic heptad repeats located at the amino- and carboxy-terminal regions which have been proposed to form an intramolecular coiled-coil structure. In a systematic deletion analysis to identify other regions of HSF that may be required to regulate its oligomeric state, we have found that local sequences encompassing the carboxy-terminal end of the DNA binding domain and a broad region of HSF between the heptad repeats also contribute to this regulation. Immunocytochemical analysis of mutant HSF proteins revealed a canonical motif required for nuclear localization. HSF proteins lacking the nuclear localization signal remain in the cytoplasm, but these HSFs nonetheless exhibit reversible heat stress-inducible trimerization. The results indicate that the signals that regulate HSF trimerization operate in both the nuclear and cytoplasmic compartments of the cell.
Contextual convolutional neural network filtering improves EM image segmentation

We designed a contextual filtering algorithm for improving the quality of image segmentation. The algorithm was applied on the task of building the Membrane Detection Probability Maps (MDPM) for segmenting electron microscopy (EM) images of brain tissues. To achieve this, we executed supervised training of a convolutional neural network to recover the ground-truth label of the masked-out center pixel from patches sampled from an un-refined MDPM. Through this training process the model learns the distribution of the segmentation ground-truth map . By applying this trained network over MDPMs we are able to integrate contextual information to obtain with better spatial consistency in the high-level representation space. By iteratively applying this network over the MDPMs for multiple rounds, we were able to significantly improve the EM image segmentation results.
Inverse optimal control of hyperchaotic finance system

This paper aims to control a new 4D hyperchaotic finance system by means of inverse optimal control scheme. For this purpose, the inverse optimal controller is designed and added to the new hyperchaotic finance system. Based on Lyapunov stability theory, the stability of the hyperchaotic finance system at its zero equilibrium point is guaranteed by applying appropriate inverse optimal control signal. Numerical simulations are demonstrated to verify the effectiveness of the proposed inverse optimal control method.
Innate IFN‐γ promotes development of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis: A role for NK cells and M1 macrophages

The role of IFN‐γ in the pathogenesis of autoimmune diseases is controversial. Although Th1 cells can induce experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), IFN‐γ can suppress Th17 cells that are pathogenic in EAE. Here we show that NK cells provide an early source of IFN‐γ during development of EAE. Depletion of NK cells or neutralization of IFN‐γ delayed the onset of EAE and was associated with reduced infiltration of IL‐17+ and GM‐CSF+ T cells into the CNS. In the passive transfer model, immune cells from myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein (MOG)‐immunized IFN‐γ−/− mice failed to induce EAE, despite producing IL‐17 and GM‐CSF. The macrophages expressed markers of M2 activation and the T cells had low very late antigen‐4 (VLA‐4) expression and failed to infiltrate the CNS. Addition of recombinant IFN‐γ to immune cells from the IFN‐γ−/− mice activated M1 macrophages and restored VLA‐4 expression, migratory, and encephalitogenic activity of T cells. Furthermore, treatment of recipient mice with anti‐VLA‐4 neutralizing antibody abrogated EAE induced by transfer of T cells from WT mice. Our findings demonstrate IFN‐γ‐producing T cells are not required for development of EAE, but NK cell‐derived IFN‐γ has a key role in promoting M1 macrophage expansion and VLA‐4‐mediated migration of encephalitogenic T cells into the CNS.
Detecting DDOS Attack Based on One-Way Connection Density

How to find essential features between normal stream and attack stream and identify the distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack online with simple algorithm are two critical issues in detecting DDoS attack which will contribute to identifying DDoS attack with low false positive and low false negative. According to the features of DDoS attack, a conception of one-way connection density (OWCD) and time serial analysis on OWCD are proposed in this paper. Then a DDoS detecting algorithm based on the mechanism of distance measure of OWCD is also presented. In terms of the experimental results, our detection scheme overcoming the shortage of two-classification detecting methods can efficiently identify the DDoS attack with various attacking intensity
Comparative study of Gradient based image denoising methods

Images are playing very key role in various applications like medical imaging, remote sensing, and scientificresearch and in all these applications image clarity plays a major role. Any image that is captured has to be processed for noise removal because noise in image is unavoidable and mixes with image either during capturing or during transmission. Various image denoising methods are developed earlier and are also working for better one. Among various methods developed Sparsity based Non local means methods are giving better denoising results. Main drawbacks of image denoising methods are they smoothens the fine details of the denoised image. This drawback can be overcome by using gradient histogram as reference while restoring the image. This paper discuss about some of gradient based image denoising methods and their comparative results.
Acceleration feedforward control against rotational disturbance in hard disk drives

We have developed a hard disk drive (HDD) free of rotational disturbance using dual piezoelectric accelerometers. The dual accelerometers detect angular acceleration in the HDD and compensate for its negative effects. For optimum compensation we introduced the use of an optimal phase compensation filter (PCF). Using this controller, HDD performance does not decrease even under the severest conditions: for example, in a disk array system that has the severest mechanical interaction between HDDs.