Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Lipid Dynamics in Relation to the Annual Reproductive Cycle in Yellowtail Rockfish (Sebastes flavidus)

In yellowtail rockfish (Sebastes fiavidus), lipids that accumulated in mesenteries and liver during the summer and early fall upwelling were subsequently translocated to developing ovaries during late fall and winter. Tissue and serum lipids were assessed by stage of ovary maturation from fish collected monthly over six annual reproductive cycles (1985–91) from Cordell Bank, a seamount off central California. Lipids were primarily transported to ovaries prior to fertilization. Energetic lipids (triglycerides, nonesterified fatty acids) were maximal in serum during yolk accumulation stages and declined significantly during embryonic stages. Between fertilization and parturition, lipid and protein content of ovaries declined by about 21%, a value approaching the minimum for lecithotrophy (i.e. ovoviviparity). During gestation, however, serum phospholipids and calcium (vitellogenin surrogate) were significantly elevated relative to male levels, suggesting matrotrophic contributions. A reproductive mode that .
LVP conditions at Mohamed V airport, Morocco: Local characteristics and prediction using neural networks

Low visibility and/or ceiling conditions have a strong impact on airports' traffic and their prediction is still a challenge for meteorologists. In this paper, the local characteristics of Low Visibility Procedure (LVP) conditions are investigated and the artificial neural network (ANN) based on resilient backpropagation as supervised learning algorithm is used to predict such meteorological conditions at Mohamed V international airport, Casablanca, Morocco. This article aims to assess the ANN ability to provide accurate prediction of such events using the meteorological parameters from the Automated Weather Observation Station (AWOS) over the period from January 2009 to March 2015. First, LVP conditions were classified according to their classes (fog LVP and no fog LVP) and their sources (Runway Visual Range -RVR LVP-, Ceiling -HCB LVP- or both) for both runway end points (35R and 17L). It is found that most of LVP conditions are associated with fog and are often due to decreasing of RVR below 600m. Next, Eleven ANNs were developed to produce LVP prediction for consecutive hourly valid forecast times covering the night and early morning. The Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP) architecture with one hidden layer is used in this study. Results show that ANNs are able to well predict the LVP conditions and are robust to errors in input parameters for a relative error below 10%. Furthermore, it is found that the ANN's skill is less sensitive to LVP type being predicted.
Critical issues in the inclusion of students who use augmentative and alternative communication: An educational team perspective

Focus group research methodology was used to investigate educational team members' perceptions of critical issues regarding the inclusive education of students with augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) needs. General education and inclusion support teachers, instructional assistants, parents, and speech-language pathologists participated in five focus groups that yielded a database for thematic analysis using qualitative research methods. A number of procedures were employed to verify and validate the data collection process and findings. The dominant theme across all focus groups was the participants' recognition of the fact that inclusive education of students with AAC needs is possible and desirable, with clear benefits for the focus students, their peers, parents, and the school community at large. Other themes emerged as prerequisite conditions for a successful inclusive program, including administrative support, AAC training for the entire educational team, and team collaboration. These emergent themes are described and interpreted within and across groups. The implications of the results are discussed in terms of program design and implementation.
Stochastic Constraints for Fast Image Correspondence Search with Uncertain Terrain Model

Abstract : The navigation state (position, velocity, and attitude) can be determined using optical measurements from an imaging sensor pointed toward the ground. Extracting navigation information from an image sequence depends on tracking the location of stationary objects in multiple images, which is generally termed the correspondence problem. This is an active area of research and many algorithms exist which attempt to solve this problem by identifying a unique feature in one image and then searching subsequent images for a feature match. In general, the correspondence problem is plagued by feature ambiguity, temporal feature changes, and occlusions which are difficult for a computer to address. Constraining the correspondence search to a subset of the image plane has the dual advantage of increasing robustness by limiting false matches and improving search speed. A number of ad-hoc methods to constrain the correspondence search have been proposed in the literature. In this paper, a rigorous stochastic projection method is developed which constrains the correspondence search space by incorporating a priori knowledge of the aircraft navigation state using inertial measurements and a statistical terrain model. The stochastic projection algorithm is verified using Monte Carlo simulation and flight data. The constrained correspondence search area is shown to accurately predict the pixel location of a feature with an arbitrary level of confidence, thus promising improved speed and robustness of conventional algorithms.
Why rapidly expanding the number of college-trained workers may not lower income inequality: The curious case of Taiwan, 1978-2011

Since 1990, Taiwan increased the college share of its labor force from 7% to 28% by converting junior colleges to 4-year colleges. Such a rapid surge in skill supply should suppress college wages and lower income inequality. Instead, inequality rose steadily. The surge of weaker college graduates made them weak substitutes for better trained college graduates, increasing wage inequality within skill groups. The college premium would have been 15% higher had college quality remained unchanged at its 1992 level. The Taiwan case shows that increasing college access alone will not lower income inequality unless college quality is maintained.
Effects of fatty acids on carbohydrates and lipids of canola seeds during germination

The present work was carried out to investigate the effects of caprylic acid (C8) and oleic acid (C18) on carbohydrates and lipids during canola seed germination. The results showed that oleic acid influence carbohydrate concentration but did not influence lipid concentration. Significant results were found with caprylic acid that affected carbohydrates and lipids in cotyledons after three-day germination.
Numerical study of facade disfigurement by driving rain

A numerical method based on Computational Fluid Dynamics is applied for a preliminary study of the relationship between driving rain and building envelope pathology (facade surface disfigurement). The study is conducted for the case of the ceramic brick facade of a low-rise office building. It will be shown that the numerical method can be used to explain disfigurement patterns that are caused by direct driving rain impingement. Figure 1. Surface soiling patterns at the ceramic brick facade of a low-rise office building. Until recently, information on driving rain on buildings was gathered by employing either an experimental or a semi-empirical approach. As research efforts continued to reveal the inherent complexity of the problem, researchers realized that further achievements were to be found through numerical analyses. In the past decade, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) has made its introduction in the area. A number of researchers have employed CFD to study the trajectories of raindrops in the calculated wind flow pattern around a building and to determine the driving rain amount falling onto the building facade (Choi 1993, Wisse 1994, Sankaran & Paterson 1995, Lakehal et al. 1995, Karagiozis et al. 1997, van Mook et al. 1997, van Mook 1999, Hangan 1999, Etyemezian et al. 2000). Based on their investigations, a practical numerical simulation method for driving rain has been developed (Blocken & Carmeliet 2000a, 2000b). The method allows the calculation of both the spatial and temporal distribution of driving rain on buildings based on generally available climatic data (wind speed, wind direction, rainfall intensity). It has been verified and found to yield fairly accurate results for the case of a low-rise building and for different rain events (Blocken & Carmeliet 2000a, 2002). In this paper, the numerical model is employed to examine and explain the observed staining pattern p3. A brief review of the numerical model will first be given in section 2. In section 3, the case study will be outlined, computed and analysed.
Measurement of the immobilisation efficacy of a head fixation system

Background: In order to assign appropriate planning target volume (PTV) margins, each centre should measure the patient positioning deviations for their set-up techniques. At the Royal Marsden Hospital, UK, a conformal shell (cast) system is used when a stereotactic frame is not suitable. In this paper, we report on a series of measurements with the aim of obtaining the systematic and random components of positioning error when using the above-mentioned shell system. Materials and Methods: The verification protocol was based on orthogonal pairs of anterior-posterior and lateral electronic portal images (EPIs) used to check the isocentre position. The isocentre verification results of paediatric patients were analysed. A practical 'off-line' patient set-up correction strategy had been used with the aim of reducing systematic errors. The verification protocol involved EPI acquisition on the first three fractions and then on a weekly basis. Additional images were taken if an isocentre movement was applied based on a 3 mm tolerance for a consistent 1D discrepancy. Results: Four patients required isocentre corrections ranging between 2 mm and 4 mm. Following the offline corrections, the residual systematic errors in each direction were within 0.5 mm while the 1D random variation was about 1.0 mm. Conclusion: The head fixation system in conjunction with the correction strategy successfully kept the random and systematic positioning errors within an acceptable level well within the 3 mm tolerance. The measured components of positioning error can be used to define appropriate PTV margins. Iran. J. Radiat. Res., 2006; 4 (1): 1-6
The Influence of Inlet and Outlet Grilles on the Flow Characteristics of Axial Fans

An experimental investigation into the effect of using different inlet and outlet grille configurations, i.e. hollow disk, flaps, mesh and cross, on the axial flow fan characteristic has been studied. The flow behaviors at different conditions of the axial flow fan were also investigated. The test rig comprises an axial flow fan located at the middle of a horizontal duct incorporated by a set of sensors to facilitate analysis of the fan performance. It was found that the shape of the grille has a significant effect on the fan total pressure and on its efficiency. Also, the location of the grille has an effect on the head and overall efficiency of the flow. The optimum performance and the most economic energy consumption have been obtained by using a hollow disk type grill at the duct entry since the hollow disk matches the inflow with outflow through the fan.
BlindSense: An Accessibility-inclusive Universal User Interface for Blind People

A large number of blind people use smartphone-based assistive technology to perform their common activities. In order to provide a better user experience the existing user interface paradigm needs to be revisited. A new user interface model has been proposed in this paper. A simplified, semantically consistent, and blind-friendly adaptive user interface is provided. The proposed solution is evaluated through an empirical study on 63 blind people leveraging an improved user experience in performing common activities on a smartphone.
California riparian evaluation system: an ArcView decision support tool for environmental management

The California Riparian Evaluation System (CARES) is a habitat evaluation tool designed to be used by decision makers who are not experienced with GIS. The current version was designed for the Wildlife Conservation Board of the California Department of Fish and Game to support their analysis of how riparian habitat restoration funds should be allocated. CARES, developed by the California Rivers Assessment (CARA) staff at the University of California, Davis, allows for the identification of riparian areas of high quality and diversity which are at risk or which have a high potential for conservation or restoration. The system is comprised of a state-of-the-art ArcView 3.0 graphical user interface through which users may alter evaluation criteria priorities to match conservation goals. The application operates by allowing users to specify a mapping of the domain of a coverage onto a [-1,1] score. The users may then specify relative weightings for each variable and construct a map of the normalized sum of the weighted scores. Results are displayed as ArcView shapefiles which highlight potential sites for conservation based on criteria chosen. Currently five data layers are available for inclusion in the user-defined criteria selection: Land Use/Land Cover, Land Management Status, Flow Regime (Natural or Altered), Potential Plant Species Richness, and Potential Vertebrate Species Richness. It is straightforward to add more layers to CARES as requested by users. The CARES system has recently been ported to Spatial Analyst which dramatically reduces processing time.
Rigid Object Tracking Algorithms for Low-Cost AR Devices

Augmented reality (AR) applications rely on robust and efficient methods for tracking. Tracking methods use a computer-internal representation of the object to track, which can be either sparse or dense representations. Sparse representations use only a limited set of feature points to represent an object to track, whereas dense representations almost mimic the shape of an object. While algorithms performed on sparse representations are faster, dense representations can distinguish multiple objects. The research presented in this paper investigates the feasibility of a dense tracking method for rigid object tracking, which incorporates the both object identification and object tracking steps. We adopted a tracking method that has been developed for the Microsoft Kinect to support single object tracking. The paper describes this method and presents the results. We also compared two different methods for mesh reconstruction in this algorithm. Since meshes are more informative when identifying a rigid object, this comparison indicates which algorithm shows the best performance for this task and guides our future research efforts.Copyright © 2014 by ASME
DESIGN OPTIMIZATION OF 100 KV DC GUN WEHNELT ELECTRODE FOR FEL LINAC AT LEBRA

The electron gun wehnelt employed in the FEL linac at Nihon University was originally designed for extraction of the long duration macropulse beam with a peak current of 200 mA. Since 2011, the electron gun system has equipped with the high-speed gridpulser, which has made it possible to extract the burst beam with a higher peak current. A computer simulation of the burst beam extraction with the present gun wehnelt design showed a large divergence of the beam at the first magnetic lens in the injector line. Calculation with an improved wehnelt design adjusted for the burst mode beam extraction has suggested a possibility of achieving smaller divergence and approximately 20% reduction of the beam emittance.
Genome sequence and description of the heavy metal tolerant bacterium Lysinibacillus sphaericus strain OT 4 b . 31

Lysinibacillus sphaericus strain OT4b.31 is a native Colombian strain having no larvicidal activity against Culex quinquefasciatus and is widely applied in the bioremediation of heavy-metal polluted environments. Strain OT4b.31 was placed between DNA homology groups III and IV. By gap-filling and alignment steps, we propose a 4,096,672 bp chromosomal scaffold. The whole genome (consisting of 4,856,302 bp long, 94 contigs and 4,846 predicted proteincoding sequences) revealed differences in comparison to the L. sphaericus C3-41 genome, such as syntenial relationships, prophages and putative mosquitocidal toxins. Sphaericolysin B354, the coleopteran toxin Sip1A and heavy metal resistance clusters from nik, ars, czc, cop, chr, czr and cad operons were identified. Lysinibacillus sphaericus OT4b.31 has applications not only in bioremediation efforts, but also in the biological control of agricultural pests.
FPGA CAN BE IMPLEMENTED BY USING ADVANCED ENCRYPTION STANDARD ALGORITHM

This paper mainly focused in implementation of AES encryption and decryption standard AES-128. All the transformations of both Encryption and Decryption are simulated using an iterative design approach in order to minimize the hardware consumption. This method can make it a very low-complex architecture, especially in saving the hardware resource in implementing the AES InverseSub Bytes module and Inverse Mix columns module. As the S - box is implemented by look-up-table in this design, the chip area and power can still be optimized. The new Mix Column transformation improves the performance of the inverse cipher and also reduces the complexity of the system that supports the inverse cipher. As a result this transformation has relatively low relevant diffusion power . This allows for scaling of the architecture towards vulnerable portable and cost-sensitive communications devices in consumer and military applications.
Information asymmetry and risk factors for stock returns in a post-communist transition economy: Empirical proof of the inefficiency of the Romanian stock market

The purpose of this study is to investigate various forms of market efficiency on Bucharest stock exchange. Using monthly data for a six years period (2002 to 2008) for 60 companies listed on the Romanian stock market, the study investigated the empirical validity of Fama’s (1970) efficient market hypothesis (EMH) in two directions: first, the relationship between stock returns and company-specific financial ratios is investigated; secondly, the subject of information asymmetry is empirically tested and an answer to the following question is provided: Are foreign investors better informed than the domestic ones and continually achieve higher rates of return on the Romanian stock market? To serve our purpose, a battery of econometric tests is employed. Results document that there are some risk factors that drive Romanian stock returns and also that information seems not to reach all investors equally as stated by EMH. Similar to other small emerging markets, the Romanian capital market seems to be primarily driven by foreign investors, which consistently manage to outperform the overall market. In addition, the time effect is significant on the Romanian market, and the two-way fixed effects model (TWFM) that allows for the intercept to vary both across companies and in time provides the optimum specification for explaining future stock returns on the Bucharest stock exchange. Key words: Market efficiency, information asymmetry, firm-specific factors, panel regressions, Romanian stock market.
Genetic algorithm in code coverage guided fuzz testing

The security of computers is a growing concern when the amount of devices increases. New and more comprehensive testing methods need to be done to avoid damages to the users and their computers. Fuzzing is a testing method that inserts semi-valid input to the tested system and has before been considered as a good method for the security testing. However, it usually either does not get high code coverage or it requires a long set-up process or a source code analysis to achieve better code coverage. This work presents a genetic algorithm that automatically balances the probabilities of multiple mutators in a fuzzing program. This balancing aims to maximize the code coverage fuzz testing. After fuzzing two different open source libraries it was found that the grey-box approach in fuzzing gives better results than pure black-box fuzzing.
Small Body GN&C Research Report: A Guidance and Control Technique for Small-Body Proximity Operations with Guaranteed Guidance Resolvability and Required Thruster Silent Time

The guidance and control (G&C) algorithms for enabling small-body proximity operations are developed by using a model predictive control approach along with a convexification of the governing dynamics, control constraints, and trajectory/state constraints. The open-loop guidance is solved ahead of time or in a resolvable, real-time manner through the use of PWG (Pseudo Way-point Generation), a technique developed in this research. The PWG scheme ensures required thruster silent times during trajectory maneuvers. The feedback control is implemented to track the PWG trajectories in a manner that guarantees the resolvability for the open-loop problem, enabling the ability to update the G&C in a model-predictive manner. The schemes incorporate gravity models and thruster ring times into discrete dynamics that are solved as a optimal control problem to minimize fuel consumption or thruster energy expenditure. The optimal control problem is cast as an LMI (Linear Matrix Inequality) and then solved through Semi-Definite Programming techniques in a computationally efficient manner that provides convergence and constraint guarantees.
A Musculoskeletal Driven Forward Dynamics Simulation of Swing Phase of Transfemoral Amputee Gait

5 Abstract: A forward dynamics computer simulation was carried out to investigate the hip and knee joint kinematics in the swing phase of a transfemoral amputee normal walking. W ith a Hill- based musculotendon model, the lower extremity was simulated as a two-degree of freedom linkage with the hip and knee as its joints. Kinematic data of hip and knee joints were recorded by a motion analysis system. The calculated hip and knee angles correspond to measured angles. The simulation results are in accord with experimental records of electromyography that show the hip flexors of a transfemoral amputee are overactivated in comparison to a normal subject. The results suggest that this muscle overativation is necessary to achieve a normal hip flexion. In addition, the amputee may use the residual limb muscles to compensate the abnormalities that other components such as shank may produce.
Ion Acceleration by High Intensity Short Pulse Lasers

Lasers can now deliver short and very intense pulses capable of producing hot and dense plasmas. The diffusion of such lasers has allowed studying the behaviour of ionized media in novel ways. Ion acceleration through laser plasma interaction is a recent research subject and its fast-paced progresses highlight the mastering of high power laser systems and the better understanding of the physics of high intensity laser plasma interaction. Short and intense laser pulses have also permitted the development of areas of research like harmonic generation, hard X-ray radiation sources, energetic particles sources and inertial confinement fusion. These researches have lead to numerous applications in transdisciplinary domains: material science, development of X-UV lasers, surface treatments, chemistry and biology are just a few examples. Large national programs are focused on these topics like the National Ignition Facility in California, the Laser Megajoule and the Apollon laser in France.