Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
TAK-676: A Novel Stimulator of Interferon Genes (STING) Agonist Promoting Durable IFN-dependent Antitumor Immunity in Preclinical Studies

Oncology therapies targeting the immune system have improved patient outcomes across a wide range of tumor types, but resistance due to an inadequate T-cell response in a suppressive tumor microenvironment (TME) remains a significant problem. New therapies that activate an innate immune response and relieve this suppression may be beneficial to overcome this hurdle. TAK-676 is a synthetic novel stimulator of interferon genes (STING) agonist designed for intravenous administration. Here we demonstrate that TAK-676 dose-dependently triggers activation of the STING signaling pathway and activation of type I interferons. Furthermore, we show that TAK-676 is a highly potent modulator of both the innate and adaptive immune system and that it promotes the activation of dendritic cells, natural killer cells, and T cells in preclinical models. In syngeneic murine tumor models in vivo, TAK-676 induces dose-dependent cytokine responses and increases the activation and proliferation of immune cells within the TME and tumor-associated lymphoid tissue. We also demonstrate that TAK-676 dosing results in significant STING-dependent antitumor activity, including complete regressions and durable memory T-cell immunity. We show that TAK-676 is well tolerated, exhibits dose-proportional pharmacokinetics in plasma, and exhibits higher exposure in tumor. The intravenous administration of TAK-676 provides potential treatment benefit in a broad range of tumor types. Further study of TAK-676 in first-in-human phase I trials is ongoing. Significance: TAK-676 is a novel systemic STING agonist demonstrating robust activation of innate and adaptive immune activity resulting in durable antitumor responses within multiple syngeneic tumor models. Clinical investigation of TAK-676 is ongoing.
Operational Factors Affecting Service Delivery in Margaret Ekpo International Airport, Calabar, Cross River State, Nigeria

The study examined operational factors affecting service delivery of Margaret Ekpo International Airport in Cross River State, Nigeria. The research was motivated by the scantiness of studies on the factors which shape the observed airport service quality from the managerial perspective. A total of 240 respondents were surveyed out of the 600 staff working at various units of the airport. Data were collected using a six-point Likert scale closed-ended questionnaire. Airport operational factors were represented by three variables (Personnel management, the level of adherence to Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) service policy and funding availability), while the dependent variable was represented by employees’ evaluation of service quality. The instrument was content-validated, while the Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient gave a reliability range of 0.54- 0.744. The data generated was analyzed using simple linear regression analysis computed electronically with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Science version 21. The findings revealed that the level of adherence to FAAN service policy and funding of airport operations significantly affects staff response to customers’ needs at Margaret Ekpo International Airport; and the ambience of Margaret Ekpo International Airport. Personnel management did not show a significant effect on staff ability to provide information at Margaret Ekpo International Airport. The authors, therefore, recommend that airport management should ensure the availability and utilization of the airport’s service charter and improve on the funding streams of the airport through strategies such as private–public partnership funding model. Aus. Aca. Busi & Eco. Rev Vol 3(3), July 2017, P 156-165
Probing the Predictors of Fraud Using the Fraud Diamond Theory: An Empirical Evidence from Local Governments in Ghana

ABSTRACT Fraud remains a challenge for corporate and local governments in Ghana. Therefore, this study probes behavior predictors using the fraud diamond theory. The study used questionnaires to draw data. Results of data (n = 624) analysis based on the structural equation modeling confirmed the positive relationship between pressure, opportunity, rationalization and capability, and behavior intention. Opposed to erstwhile for-profit studies, rationalization was dominant, emphasizing nuanced behavior outcomes across domains. Situating the theory within the local government context, the investigation backs up the theory's suitability for behavior prediction whilst inter alia forefronting anti-fraud success as contingent on decoupling public administration from partisan politics.
HOME: A Holistic GPU Memory Management Framework for Deep Learning

We propose HOlistic MEmory management (HOME), a new framework for performing tensor placements in large DNN training when GPU memory space is not enough. HOME combines tensor swapping with tensor recomputation to reduce GPU memory footprint. Different from existing work that only considers partial DNN model information, HOME takes the holistic DNN model information into account in tensor placement decisions. More specifically, HOME uses a custom-designed particle swarm optimization algorithm to achieve the globally optimized placement for each tensor of the DNN model with a greatly reduced searching space. This holistic awareness of the whole model information enables HOME to obtain high performance under the given GPU memory constraint. We implement HOME in PyTorch and conduct our experiments using six popular DNN models. Experimental results show that HOME can outperform vDNN and Capuchin by up to 5.7× and 1.3× in throughput. Furthermore, HOME can improve the maximum batch size by up to 2.8× than the original PyTorch and up to 1.3× than Capuchin.
International Trade in Services: Structural Determinants of Balance of Services

The paper aims to highlight the importance of services as an integral component of international trade and, in particular, to identify structural determinants affecting their balance. The analysis is made using panel regression for 1980 – 2016 and includes all the world countries. The text is based on approaches of international trade theory concerning specific features associated with services. Significant factors affecting the balance of services include the presence of foreign direct investment, financial sector development level, geographic factors, human capital stock and interaction between the balance of services and balance
Influence of reduced winter land-sea contrast on the mid-latitude atmospheric circulation

Even though winter land-sea thermal contrast (LSC) is expected to undergo a strong weakening in the future warmer climate, its effects have been poorly investigated. Here we run a set of idealised winter simulations featuring reduced LSC in the Northern Hemisphere (NH) extratropics, or in individual extratropical sectors of the NH (Atlantic and Pacific), using an intermediate-complexity atmospheric general circulation model. Reduced LSC is obtained by imposing a warming of surface land temperatures in East Asia and North America. For similar warming intensities over the two regions, the response of the model to East Asia forcing is significantly stronger and dominates the response to the sum of the two forcing patterns. We find that the LSC reduction causes a weakening and poleward shift of the mid-latitude jet streams, and a strong interference with zonal wavenumbers 1 and 2. In particular, East-Asia warming reduces the amplitude of wave 1 and 2 producing a strengthening of the stratospheric vortex, while a weaker vortex due to a moderate amplification of wave 1 is detected when warming North America. Eventually, stratospheric signals propagate downward in the troposphere affecting the midlatitude winter NH even remotely from the forcing. In this work we pinpoint some mechanisms by which weakened winter LSC influences the NH extratropical circulation: the results may become useful to interpret the response to long-term projections displaying reduced LSC along with other climate-change forcing patterns.
Reliable Indoor Power Line Communication Systems: Via application of advanced relaying processing

Recently, in order to provide indoor high speed information services, much effort of research has been made to improve the performance of the communication technologies used within buildings and houses. Among many wired and/or wireless solutions, indoor power line communication (PLC) is a very attractive technology for its unique advantage—power cables are preexisting around the house and can be used at any time without deploying any new wires. In addition to electricity delivery, the indoor power cables are used as medium, at the meantime, to support local area networks (LAN). However, as power cables are not manufactured for high frequency (HF) signal transmission purpose, indoor PLC channels demonstrate hostile characteristics for broadband communications. As a solution to this problem, a series of relay schemes are suggested in this thesis to improve the transmission performance. As existing point-to-point (P2P) indoor PLC channel models cannot be directly used for the scenario where relay devices have been plugged into the indoor power grid, based on transmission line theory, we first propose a general method of modeling the relay-involved PLC channel. With this method, different signaling paths existing in the relay-involved channel can be transformed into a group of correlated P2P channels, while the latter one can be easily generated with some published P2P channel models. Then, the proposed relay schemes are examined under realistic channel environments generated from the relayinvolved channel model. In this thesis, we consider relay devices work in the amplify-and-forward (AF) mode for its lower complexity, shorter processing delay and lower implementation cost. Different relay schemes are addressed for various situations, where one or more relay devices are used for one-way transmission or two-way information exchange applications. Instead of considering the capacity performance of these schemes under given system power budget, we examine the power allocation problems from another angle of view, i.e. given certain quality-of-service (QoS) requirements, how to distribute power to the different nodes of the
Singing for their supper’: Trove, Australian newspapers, and the crowd

Building on 20 years of national cooperation under the Australian Newspapers Plan (ANPlan), the National Library of Australia has delivered digitised newspapers to the Australian public since 2007, and incorporated newspaper delivery into Trove (www.trove.nla.gov.au) in 2009. Trove has won a number of awards for its user engagement features, most notably the ability for users to correct the computer-generated text imperfectly generated by Optical Character Recognition software. By July 2013, use of Trove dwarfed use of the Library’s other online services, the Trove Newspapers zone dominated use of Trove, and Australians had corrected more than 100 million lines of text - the equivalent of 270 standard work years of crowd-sourced effort. With five years’ experience, this form of user engagement is a mature part of the Library’s service offering, and evaluation of its impacts and future is timely. The paper will summarise what we know about the motivations of those who engage in this activity, their patterns of engagement, how ‘deep’ the penetration of this form of engagement with the Library extends, and what current statistics suggest about where we are in the user engagement growth curve. The paper also considers the significant impact the success of crowd-sourcing has on the Library’s rationale for offering this service (are we offering the service to address a huge task, or to build and maintain a broader community of Library supporters? ), the opportunities and risks in having dramatically increased the number of Australians passionately engaged with the Library, and the ways in which success is changing the Library’s thinking about service delivery and engagement with the public. For those considering or in the early days of offering a digitised newspaper service, the paper provides a view ‘from the trenches’ about the ways in which success can fundamentally reshape the questions libraries must ask themselves.
Are analysts effective speaking tubes? Evidence from site visits

ABSTRACT This study examines the association between analysts’ site visits and stock price crash risk using a dataset of Chinese firms listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange (SZSE) from 2012 to 2019. We find that analysts’ site visit frequency is positively associated with future stock price crash risk, and the positive association is primarily driven by the firms that analysts keep silent on. Furthermore, we confirm that analysts’ silence is associated with negative news about firms’ fundamentals. We also show that the effect of analysts’ silence on crash risk is more pronounced when analysts face conflicts of interest, when firms have poorer information transparency, and when firms have fewer alternative information channels. Overall, our findings shed light on the dark side of analysts’ site visits.
Strategy of Maintainable Renewal of Assembled Residential Buildings Based on PSO-ELM

Based on the PSO-ELM model, we analyze the key elements of safety input to respond to accidents and construct and evaluate its resource input optimization scheme. Based on the PSO-ELM cost prediction model, we analyze the key safety inputs for accident response and construct and evaluate the optimal allocation of resources. The results show that improving the technical level of component lifting is the key point of safety management in the construction of assembled buildings; increasing the strength of safety inspection before delivery of components, enhancing the technical performance of component safety status identification, and reasonably planning the frequency of using special transportation vehicles for components are effective ways to achieve the balance of safety, schedule, and cost of the project.
A Dual-Source Self-Balanced Switched-Capacitor Reduced Switch Multilevel Inverter with Extending Ability

Multilevel inverters (MLIs) with switched-capacitor (SC) combinations are widely recognized to improve the power quality and efficiency of the renewable energy and high-frequency power distribution systems. Self-balancing of SCs and voltage boosting ability are the salient features of the recently developed SC MLIs. This work presents a new SC MLI structure using a reduced number of switches and two dc sources. For increasing the voltage levels, the basic units of the proposed MLI can be extended without increasing the number of dc sources. By suitable charging-discharging patterns, the SCs are self-balanced and voltage boosting is achieved. Comparative analysis with prior-art MLIs demonstrates the merit of topological advancement. Further, extensive simulation and experimental results confirm the feasibility of the proposed MLI under different loading and dynamic operating conditions.
Dealing with wicked problems, in messy contexts, through prototyping

Abstract This paper explores how designers’ core competencies relate to the emerging paradigmatic shift in design practice, and provides suggestions for design education. The shift is due to the increased interest from design in engaging with social and political contexts and issues the last fifteen years. Designers have several core competencies and in this paper prototyping and thereby the capacity to work with wicked problems are explored. More explicitly, we suggest that designers can design relevant propositions with the help of successive prototyping. Tightly integrating designing propositions with problem setting is necessary when dealing with wicked problems. This works well when designers deal with signs and things. However, in order to deal with increasingly complex contexts, we suggest that design students should get more relevant experience of prototyping in complex contexts and improved reflection by making use of theories from STS in order to deal with these complex contexts.
Feature-scML: an open-source Python package for the feature importance visualization of single-cell omics with machine learning

Inferring feature importance is both a promise and challenge in bioinformatics and computational biology. While multiple biological computation methods exist to identify decisive factors of single cell subpopulation, there is a need for a comprehensive toolkit that presents an intuitive and custom view of the feature importance. We developed a Feature-scML, a scalable and friendly toolkit that allows the users to visualize and reveal decisive factors for single cell omics analysis. Feature-scML incorporates the following main three functions: (i) There are seven feature selection algorithms to comprehensively score and rank every feature. (ii) Four machine learning approaches and increment feature selection (IFS) strategy jointly determine the number of selected features. (iii) The Feature-scML supports the visualized feature importance, model performance evaluation, and model interpretation. The source code is available at https://github.com/liameihao/Feature-scML. We systematically compared the performance of seven feature selection algorithms from Feature-scML on two single cell transcriptome datasets. It demonstrates the effectiveness and power of the Feature-scML. Feature-scML is effective for analyzing single-cell RNA omics datasets to automate the machine learning process and customize the visual analysis from the results.
The impact of different energy balancing methods on Net Zero Energy Buildings

To date, the building energy balance is typically based on annual values. If the annual PV-yield equals the overall annual energy demand, the building is called a Net Zero Energy Building (NZEB). Of course, this balancing approach does not take into account that PV-yield and electricity energy demand do not necessarily occur at the same time. However, Swiss standards and the building label Minergie have begun to address this issue. The Swiss standard SIA 380:2015, and the Minergie recast 2017 include selfconsumption/grid-interaction in the energy balance. Currently, for the energy balance PV-yield and electricity demand are usually weighted with the same primary energy factor. Minergie 2017 retains this, but SIA 380:2015 features different (asymmetrical) primary energy factors for import from and export to the grid. This necessarily has a large impact on the resulting energy balance. The primary energy factor for import from the grid depends on the chosen type of the power mix in the grid. If this factor is higher than the primary energy factor of the PV-system, a larger PV system than when using symmetrical factors is required in order to fulfil the NZEB balance. The impact of balancing method of SIA 380:2015 and Minergie-A on a Net Zero Energy Building are discussed. It is found that the newly introduced definitions for the building energy balance have a large impact on the grid interaction.
A comprehensive review on fish-inspired robots

Recently, the increasing interest in underwater exploration motivates the development of aquatic unmanned vehicles. To execute hazardous tasks in an unknown or even hostile environment, researchers have directed on developing biomimetic robots inspired by the extraordinary maneuverability, cruising speed, and propulsion efficiency of fish. Nevertheless, the performance of current prototypes still has gaps compared with that of real fishes. In this review, recent approaches in structure designs, actuators, and sensors are presented. In addition, the theoretical methods for modeling the robotic fishes are consolidated, and the control strategies are offered. Finally, the current challenges are summarized, and possible future directions are deeply discussed. It is expected that the emergence of new engineering and biological technologies will enhance the field of robotic fish for further advancement.
General Form of the Power Spectral Density of Multicarrier Signals

Multicarrier modulation has been adopted in many modern communication systems because of its many appealing properties. Its relatively high out-of-band radiation has spurred many techniques to shape the power spectral density (PSD) of multicarrier signals, including spectral precoding and pulse shaping. We derive a general expression for the PSD which is valid for subcarrier-specific pulses and for spectral precoders operating over multiple blocks. The only statistical assumptions on the vector-valued sequence modulating the active subcarriers are wide-sense cyclostationarity and properness. The applicability of the result to a number of popular multicarrier formats is discussed.
Design of dielectric to plasmonic waveguide power transfer couplers

Efficient directional couplers composed by parallel dielectric and metallic waveguides have been analyzed in details. The results show that an efficient power conversion of optical dielectric modes to long range plasmonic ones is possible in such devices. Low insertion losses in conjunction with short coupling length as well as a broadband operation can be obtained under certain conditions. This kind of couplers has potential applications for the design of photonic integrated circuits and for signal routing between dielectric and plasmonic waveguides.
Comparison of radial peripapillary capillary density results of individuals with and without Helicobacter pylori infection.

PURPOSE To evaluate the radial peripapillary capillary density using optical coherence tomography angiography in patients with and without Helicobacter pylori infection. METHODS This prospective, cross-sectional study comprised 52 patients (52 eyes: Group 1) and 38 patients (38 eyes: Group 2) with and without H. pylori infections, respectively. The radial peripapillary capillary density and retinal nerve fiber layer thickness in 4 equal quadrants and 2 equal hemispheres in the peripapillary region were calculated using optical coherence tomography angiography. The optic nerve head parameters of the patients were also assessed. RESULTS The groups were similar in terms of age, gender, and the optic nerve head parameters. The radial peripapillary capillary densities in the superior hemisphere and quadrant were significantly lower in Group 1 than in Group 2 (p=0.039 and p=0.028, respectively) and were positively correlated with the superior hemisphere's retinal nerve fiber layer thickness (p<0.001 and p<0.001, respectively). Similarly, the radial peripapillary capillary densities in the inferior hemisphere and quadrant were also significantly lower in Group 1 compared to Group 2 (p=0.03 and p=0.017, respectively) and were positively correlated with the inferior hemisphere's retinal nerve fiber layer thickness (p<0.001 and p<0.001, respectively). The retinal nerve fiber layer thickness in the nasal and temporal quadrants were significantly decreased in Group 1 when compared to Group 2 (p=0.013 and p=0.022) and were positively correlated with the corresponding radial peripapillary capillary densities of the 2 quadrants (p=0.002 and p=0.022). CONCLUSION The decreased radial peripapillary capillary density in the H. pylori-positive patients suggests that H. pylori may play a role in the etiopathogenesis of glaucoma.