Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
How Much Energy Is Transferred from the Winds to the Thermocline on ENSO Time Scales

Abstract The dynamics of El Nino–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) are studied in terms of the balance between energy input from the winds (via wind power) and changes in the storage of available potential energy in the tropical ocean. Presently, there are broad differences in the way global general circulation models simulate the dynamics, magnitude, and phase of ENSO events; hence, there is a need for simple, physically based metrics to allow for model evaluation. This energy description is a basinwide, integral, quantitative approach, ideal for intermodel comparison, that assesses model behavior in the subsurface ocean. Here it is applied to a range of ocean models and data assimilations within ENSO spatial and temporal scales. The onset of an El Nino is characterized by a decrease in wind power that leads to a decrease in available potential energy, and hence a flatter thermocline. In contrast, La Nina events are preceded by an increase in wind power that leads to an increase in the available potential ener.
Factors influencing quality of experience of commonly used mobile applications

Increasingly, we use mobile applications and services in our daily life activities, to support our needs for information, communication or leisure. However, user acceptance of a mobile application depends on at least two conditions: the application's perceived experience, and the appropriateness of the application to the user's context and needs. However, we have a weak understanding of a mobile user's quality of experience (QoE) and the factors influencing it. This article presents a 4-week-long 29-Androidphone- user study, where we collected both QoE and the underlying network's quality of service measurements through a combination of user, application, and network data on the user's phones. We aimed to derive and improve the understanding of users' QoE for a set of widely used mobile applications in users' natural environments and different daily contexts. We present data acquired in the study and discuss implications for mobile applications design.
A Hybrid System-Econometric Model for Electricity Spot Prices: Considering Spike Sensitivity to Forced Outage Distributions

With the current trend in deregulation, all electricity markets have been subject to volatile electricity prices, typically in peak season. As markets mature, new financial and operational risk management instruments are becoming available. In order to price such instruments, a model for the underlying price process is required. In this paper a hybrid model is described that contains aspects of the power system, as well as the historical time-series of spot prices observed in the market. By including both aspects of the problem, a model with both economic and system-based aspects is created. Its modular design allows easy adaptation to different markets based on generating system reliability, load patterns, and price histories. The spot price histories are manifest in two probability distributions for these prices, whereas the system specifics are included via load and generation models which are calibrated to the climate and system of interest.
A 2‐year follow‐up of 233 very mild (CDR 0.5) Alzheimer's disease patients (REAL.FR cohort)

Making an early diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease (AD) is becoming increasingly important. The Clinical Dementia Rating scale (CDR), a semi‐structured interview with patient and caregiver, is a global rating scale designed for use in staging dementia. The primary objective of our study was to examine the evolution of AD in individuals with very mild AD (CDR 0.5) across a 2‐year follow up.
Epidemiology of Subclinical Salmonellosis in Wild Birds from an Area of High Prevalence of Pig Salmonellosis: Phenotypic and Genetic Profiles of Salmonella Isolates

The epidemiology of subclinical salmonellosis in wild birds in a region of high Salmonella prevalence in pigs was studied. Three hundred and seventy‐nine faecal samples from 921 birds trapped in 31 locations nearby pig premises, and 431 samples from 581 birds of 10 natural settings far from pig farms were analysed for the presence of Salmonella spp. Positive samples were serotyped and analysed for antimicrobial resistance (AR). Phage typing and pulsed‐field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) on Salmonella Typhimurium isolates were also carried out. The overall proportion of Salmonella‐positive samples was 1.85% (95% CI = 0.93, 2.77). Salmonella isolation was positively associated with samples collected from birds in the proximity of a pig operation (OR = 16.5; 95% CI = 5.17, 52.65), and from non‐migratory (or short‐distance migration) birds (OR = 7.6; 95% CI = 1.20, 48.04) and negatively related to mostly granivorous birds (OR = 0.4; 95% CI = 0.15, 1.13). Salmonella Typhimurium was the most prevalent serotype and four different XbaI PFGE patterns were observed that matched the four phage types identified (U310, U311, DT164 and DT56). Only 20% of the strains showed multi‐AR. In three farms, a high degree of homogeneity among isolates from different birds was observed. These findings suggested that pig farms may act as amplifiers of this infection among wild birds, and the degree of bird density may have much to do on this transmission. Some of the Salmonella serotypes isolated from bird faeces were of potential zoonotic transmission and associated with AR. Monitoring salmonellosis in wild bird is advised.
Pharmacological characteristics of diazepam receptors in neurons and astrocytes in primary cultures

Benzodiazepine binding sites in mouse astrocytes and neurons in primary cultures were labeled with [3H]diazepam (1.8nM), and 3 benzodiazekpine antagonists was studied. RO 5‐4864, RO 7‐3351, and, especially, the antagonist PK 11195 were much more potent in astrocytes than in neurons, whereas the opposite was true for the agonists alprazolam, clonazepam, flurazepam, RO 11‐3128, and chlordiazepoxide, and, especially, the antagonists CGS‐8216 and RO 15‐1788. Flunitrazepam, diazepam, midazolam, RO 11‐6893, and RO 5‐2181 were about equipotent in the two cell types. The neuronal, but not the astrocytic, binding site showed stereospecificity. In astrocytes most of the drugs had pseudo‐Hill coefficients close to one, whereas thepseudo‐Hill coefficients in neurons, except for RO 5‐4864 and PK 11195, were distintly lower than one. Thus, the benzodiazepine binding sites had profoundly different pharmacological characteristics in neurons and in astrocytes.
Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 gp120 envelope glycoprotein regions important for association with the gp41 transmembrane glycoprotein

Insertion of four amino acids into various locations within the amino-terminal halves of the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 gp120 or gp41 envelope glycoprotein disrupts the noncovalent association of these two envelope subunits (M. Kowalski, J. Potz, L. Basiripour, T. Dorfman, W. C. Goh, E. Terwilliger, A. Dayton, C. Rosen, W. A. Haseltine, and J. Sodroski, Science 237:1351-1355, 1987). To localize the determinants on the gp120 envelope glycoprotein important for subunit association, amino acids conserved among primate immunodeficiency viruses were changed. Substitution mutations affecting either of two highly conserved regions located at the amino (residues 36 to 45) and carboxyl (residues 491 to 501) ends of the mature gp120 molecule resulted in nearly complete dissociation of the envelope glycoprotein subunits. Partial dissociation phenotypes were observed for some changes affecting residues in the third and fourth conserved gp120 regions. These results suggest that hydrophobic regions at both ends of the gp120 glycoprotein contribute to noncovalent association with the gp41 transmembrane glycoprotein.
Approximation algorithms for combinatorial problems

Simple, polynomial-time, heuristic algorithms for finding approximate solutions to various polynomial complete optimization problems are analyzed with respect to their worst case behavior, measured by the ratio of the worst solution value that can be chosen by the algorithm to the optimal value. For certain problems, such as a simple form of the knapsack problem and an optimization problem based on satisfiability testing, there are algorithms for which this ratio is bounded by a constant, independent of the problem size. For a number of set covering problems, simple algorithms yield worst case ratios which can grow with the log of the problem size. And for the problem of finding the maximum clique in a graph, no algorithm has been found for which the ratio does not grow at least as fast as 0(nε), where n is the problem size and ε> 0 depends on the algorithm.
Effect of ground plane bending on mobile terminal antenna performance

The performance of mobile terminal antennas in the case of a non-planar ground plane is studied. The effects of bending are analysed using computer simulations and a resonator-based equivalent circuit model for improving the understanding of the phenomenon. Results show that bending the ground plane can have a considerable effect on the operation and performance of the antenna. Resistive and reactive changes caused by the bending are accurately modelled with the equivalent circuit, and they can also be used to interpret changes in the quality factor.
Labeling pattern of major penicillin-binding proteins of Escherichia coli during the division cycle

Escherichia coli cells were synchronized by the elutriation technique. The pattern of penicillin-binding proteins (PBPs) in synchronously growing cells was determined with an iodinated derivative of ampicillin in intact cells as well as in isolated membranes. This was done under nonsaturating conditions as well as under conditions in which the PBPs were saturated with [125I]ampicillin. No evidence was found for fluctuations in the PBP pattern: the PBPs seem to be present in a constant ratio throughout the division cycle. The E. coli cells exert their control on shape maintenance and cell wall growth apparently not on the level of concentration of PBPs in the cell but rather on activation of existing components.
Different vascular risk factor profiles in ischemic stroke subtypes: a study fromthe “Sagrat Cor Hospital of Barcelona Stroke Registry”

Objectives– To characterize the vascular risk factor profiles in different subtypes of ischemic stroke. Material and methods– The study population consisted of 1473 consecutive ischemic stroke patients collected in a prospective stroke registry. The prevalence of vascular risk factors in each stroke subtype was analyzed independently and in comparison with other subtypes of stroke pooled together by means of univariate analysis and logistic regression models. Results– Hypertension was present in 52% of patients followed by atrial fibrillation in 27% and diabetes in 20%. The pattern of risk factors associated with atherothrombotic stroke included chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) (odds ratio [OR]=2.63), hypertension (OR=2.55), diabetes (OR=2.26), transient ischemic attack (OR=1.61), and age (OR=1.03). Previous cerebral hemorrhage (OR=4.72), hypertension (OR=4.29), obesity (OR=2.45), and diabetes (OR=1.73) were strong predictors of lacunar stroke. In the case of cardioembolic stroke, atrial fibrillation (OR=22.24), valvular heart disease (OR=10.97), and female gender (OR=1.66) occurred more frequently among patients with this stroke subtype than among the other stroke subtypes combined. Conclusion– Different potentially modifiable vascular risk factor profiles were identified for each subtype of ischemic stroke, particularly COPD in the case of atherothrombotic stroke and previous cerebral hemorrhage and hypertension in the case of lacunar infarction.
Learning to tell tales : automatic story generation from corpora

Automatic story generation has a long-standing tradition in the field of Artificial Intelligence. The ability to create stories on demand holds great potential for entertainment and education. For example, modern computer games are becoming more immersive, containing multiple story lines and hundreds of characters. This has substantially increased the amount of work required to produce each game. However, by allowing the game to write its own story line, it can remain engaging to the player whilst shifting the burden of writing away from the game’s developers. In education, intelligent tutoring systems can potentially provide students with instant feedback and suggestions of how to write their own stories. Although several approaches have been introduced in the past (e.g., story grammars, story schema and autonomous agents), they all rely heavily on handwritten resources. Which places severe limitations on its scalability and usage. In this thesis we will motivate a new approach to story generation which takes its inspiration from recent research in Natural Language Generation. Whose result is an interactive data-driven system for the generation of children’s stories. One of the key features of this system is that it is end-to-end, realising the various components of the generation pipeline stochastically. Knowledge relating to the generation and planning of stories is leveraged automatically from corpora and reformulated into new stories to be presented to the user. We will also show that story generation can be viewed as a search task, operating over a large number of stories that can be generated from knowledge inherent in a corpus. Using trainable scoring functions, our system can search the story space using different document level criteria. In this thesis we focus on two of these, namely, coherence and interest. We will also present two major paradigms for generation through search, (a) generate and rank, and (b) genetic algorithms. We show the effects on perceived story interest, fluency and coherence that result from these approaches. In addition, we show how the explicit use of plots induced from the corpus can be used to guide the generation process, providing a heuristically motivated starting point for story search. We motivate extensions to the system and show that additional modules can be used to improve the quality of the generated stories and overall scalability. Finally we highlight the current strengths and limitations of our approach and discuss possible future approaches to this field of research.
A comprehensive dictionary of protein accession codes for complete protein accession identifier alias resolving

In mass spectrometry‐based proteomics, protein identification results usually consist of peptide sequences and database‐dependent accession identifiers of the matching proteins. Often certain annotations are only available in particular databases that in turn must be queried by a certain identifier. In order to simplify and unify the tracing of identified proteins back to their original annotation information, a system capable of set‐oriented mapping the different accession identifiers of proteins derived from multiple sequence database sources has been developed. This allows unification of the access to protein information and tracing to other online resources providing additional information as well as resolving cross‐references of protein identifications. The interface of seqDB is available via http://www.protein‐ms.de following the link to seqDB.
Development of Chromium-Free Welding Consumables for Stainless Steels

Abstract : Stainless steel components are often joined by welding when fabricated into structures. Fusion welding of these steels results in the formation of carcinogenic Cr(VI) in the weld fumes as a result of the Cr content of the commonly used filler metals. This is a significant health hazard for the welders and necessitates protective gear or expensive ventilation systems to meet the stringent Permissible Exposure Limit for chromate set by OSHA. This project developed a Cr-free consumable for welding 304 austenitic stainless steel that provides mechanical properties and corrosion resistance comparable to the commonly used Cr-bearing consumables. A weld wire of composition Ni-7.5Cu-1Ru-0.5Ti worked well in gas metal arc and gas tungsten arc welding operations. For shielded metal arc welding, coated electrodes with cores wires of composition Ni-7.5Cu-4Ti-1Ru performed well. The performance characteristics of these welds were excellent, including mechanical properties and corrosion resistance. Essentially no Cr was detected in the weld fume.
THE UPTAKE OF THALLIUM BY RABBIT ERYTHROCYTES.

The time course of thallium uptake by washed rabbit erythrocytes was studied using a basic medium consisting of TIN0 3 (0.0938 mmol/l), glucose (0.025 mol/l), and NaNO 3 as the suporting electrolyte. The ratio of the concentration of the thallium in the erythrocytes to that in the suspending solution varied from 8.5 to 14.8 at the end of 2 hours. The rate of thallium uptake was characterized by an initial fast component and a distinctly slower one. Both slopes of disapearance from the external medium followed first order kinetics. Fluoride, but not cyanide, reduced the ability of erythrocytes to concentrate thallium. Potassium and ouabain in the external medium and incubation at 4°C greatly reduced the ability of erythrocytes to concentrate thallium. The fast component was completely eliminated by the presence of ouabain and by incubation in the cold. This component also was considerably depressed by the presence of potassium. All three of these conditions reduced the rate of uptake by the slow component, but did not abolish it. It is concluded that a thallium-potassium interrelationship exists with regard to the uptake of thallium by rabbit erythrocytes.
Screening for Poststroke Depression Using the Patient Health Questionnaire

Background:Although poststroke depression has a significant impact on a patient’s ability to recover after stroke, it is generally not recognized. Structured screening can help nurses identify symptoms of depression in stroke patients. In clinical practice, the utility of an instrument is as importantas its validity and reliability. Objective:To investigate the reliability, validity, and clinical utility of the nine-item and two-item patient health questionnaires (PHQ-9 and PHQ-2, respectively) in stroke patients in a clinical nursing setting. The results of these questionnaires will be compared against those from the Geriatric Depression Scale. Methods:The PHQ-9 was administered by 43 ward nurses in 55 patients with an intracerebral hemorrhage or ischemic infarction who were able to communicate adequately. The interrater reliability, test–retest reliability and internal consistency, concurrent validity, diagnostic accuracy, and clinical utility were evaluated. Results:The interrater reliability (intraclass correlation [ICC] = 0.98, 95% CI [0.96, 0.99]), test–retest reliability (&rgr;Sp = 0.75, p < .001), and internal consistency (Cronbach’s &agr; = 0.79) of the PHQ-9 were good. The concurrent validity was moderate for the PHQ-9, with a Pearson’s correlation of . 7 (p < .001) and acceptable for the PHQ-2 with a Pearson’s correlation of . 8 (p < .01). The optimum cutoff point of the PHQ-9 for major depression was 10 (sensitivity, 100%; specificity,86%; positive predicted value, 50%; and negative predicted value, 100%). For the PHQ-2, the optimum cutoff point was 2 (sensitivity, 100%; specificity, 77%; positive predicted value, 38%; and negative predicted value, 100%). Discussion:The PHQ is a brief and easy-to-use instrument for nursing practice. It shows good reliability, validity, and clinical utility when used in stroke patients who are able to communicate adequately.
Loading Geometry into NetLogo 3 D

NetLogo3D is an Agent-Based Simulation which uses a three-dimensional raster as environment its agents. It has three different ways to represent geometry, (1.) as wireframe made out of vertices and edges, (2.) as solid faces or (3.) as voxel grid. Sadly, loading geometry is only supported for the second option, through a proprietary text format for which no converter exists. The other two options are completely left to the programmer. I find that this is a pity, and have therefore worked on loading geometry from a standard format (Wavefront .obj) and representing it as one of the three mentioned options. The description of the resulting model, available at [1], is the aim of this technical report.
Hazard analysis of Unified Modelling Language sequence and state charts using software fault tree analysis

Software fault tree analysis (SFTA) is a well known software safety analysis technique for identifying those software related erroneous events which can force the system into a hazardous state. Over the years, the effective strengths of SFTA approach have been demonstrated by applying it practically at every phase of software development such as coding, design and requirement analysis. The focus of SFTA application research efforts at the software design phase is the automatic or semi-automatic construction of a software fault tree for the selected hazardous state of the system directly from the given Unified Modelling Language (UML) models such as sequence and state charts. But programmed application of SFTA has been successfully carried out so far only in the coding phase whereas at other phases especially at design and requirement analysis its application remains a manual process so far. This paper presents a semi-automated approach to construct a software fault tree from the UML sequence and state charts drawn for a particular functional scenario. The effective strength(s) of the proposed approach have been demonstrated by applying it on two use-case scenarios selected from an elevator controller application.
Convergence of discrete-time Kalman filter estimate to continuous-time estimate for systems with unbounded observation

In this article, we complement recent results on the convergence of the state estimate obtained by applying the discrete-time Kalman filter on a time-sampled continuous-time system. As the temporal discretization is refined, the estimate converges to the continuous-time estimate given by the Kalman–Bucy filter. We shall give bounds for the convergence rates for the variance of the discrepancy between these two estimates. The contribution of this article is to generalize the convergence results to systems with unbounded observation operators under different sets of assumptions, including systems with diagonalizable generators, systems with admissible observation operators, and systems with analytic semigroups. The proofs are based on applying the discrete-time Kalman filter on a dense, numerable subset on the time interval [0, T] and bounding the increments obtained. These bounds are obtained by studying the regularity of the underlying semigroup and the noise-free output.
A secure authorization system in PHR based on CP-ABE

In this paper, we proposed a method based on the Ciphertext-Policy Attribute-Based Encryption (CP-ABE) to dynamically authorize the user according to their private keys. The key feature of our model is the users do not have to involve in key revocation process. Our model utilizes an additional Key Management Server (KMS) which uses the lazy revocation technique and additional attribute keys to perform effective user revocation. It enables the cloud to differentiate user authentication sessions to protect their keys from different session attackers and this approach could perform direct user revocations from a group without user interventions. The operation does not require re-encryption of existing ciphertext. Our method supports backward and perfect forward secrecy and is escrow-free. Lastly, we present that our method is secure under the chosen identity key attack.
Recurrent glioblastoma: Volumetric assessment and stratification of patient survival with early posttreatment magnetic resonance imaging in patients treated with bevacizumab

Despite a high radiographic response rate in patients with recurrent glioblastoma following bevacizumab therapy, survival benefit has been relatively modest. We assess whether tumor volume measurements based on baseline and early posttreatment MRI can stratify patients in terms of progression‐free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS).