Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Light-driven flipping of azobenzene assemblies - sparse crystal structures and responsive behavior to polarized light.

For creation of autonomous microrobots which are able to move under conditions of a constant environment and a constant energy supply, a mechanism for maintenance of mechanical motion with a capacity for self-control is required. This requirement, known as self-organisation, represents the ability of a system to evade equilibrium through formation of a spatio-temporal pattern. Following our previous finding of a self-oscillatory flipping motion of an azobenzene-containing co-crystal, we present here regulation of the flipping motion by a light-receiving sensor molecule in relation to the alignment and role of azobenzene molecules in crystals. In the anisotropic structure, a specific azobenzene molecule acts as a reaction centre for the conversion of light to a mechanical function process, while the other molecules act as modulators for spatio-pattern regulation. The present results demonstrate that autonomously drivable molecular materials can exhibit information-responsive, self-sustainable motion by incorporating stimulus-responsive sensors.
A Study on Power Implementation and Validation at Higher Level of Abstraction

Timing and silicon area were the prime parameters of concern in an earlier generation of IC design technologies. The rising demand for highperformance, battery-operated, system-on-chips in communication and computing has shifted the focus from traditional constraints to power consumption. During the design process, the most critical power requirements could be tested after power pins become explicit. Despite so many design strategies to reduce power consumption, it becomes crucial to make the power-aware design even if power pins are not exact or at the very abstraction level of the design flow. UPF is used to provide a consistent way to specifying power implementation intent throughout the design process. The paper explains the impact of HDL models at very high abstraction level to meet specific power constraints and their validation using an industry-accepted IEEE 1801 standard UPF low power validation.
Parameter Estimation on a Model of a Heat-Conducting Rod: Mathematical Analysis and Numerical Computations

We model the heat flow of an experiment involving a metallic rod with a heat source at one end. By fitting the mathematical model to experimental data, we were able to estimate the ratios of the rod's thermal conductivity, heat capacity, and flux of the heat source over the heat transfer coefficient. Temperature measurements were obtained via thermocouples located at seven points along the length of the rod. Both steady-state and time-dependent data were used in the parameter estimation, and for the time-dependent case, a numerical algorithm for approximating the partial differential equation was implemented. Since the model featuring realistic boundary conditions does not have an explicit solution, we showed the well-posedness of the model using mathematical analysis. The convergence of the finite-dimensional approximations of the model to the infinite-dimensional solution was also discussed. To solve the optimization problem arising from the parameter estimation problem, we used the least squares and genetic algorithms. Our numerical results indicate that these two optimization algorithms converged to the same solution.
Do Effective Corporate Audit Committees Reduce the Likelihood of Litigations Against External Auditors?

This paper investigates whether effective corporate audit committees reduce the likelihood of litigations against external auditors. Empirical results indicate that the likelihood of auditor litigation is related to corporate financial governance characteristics, even after controlling for factors associated with both corporate governance structure and the likelihood of auditor litigation. The likelihood of auditor litigation decreases (1) when client firms have more independent outside directors on their audit committees; (2) when audit committee members hold more outside directorships in other corporations; (3) when audit committee members have greater tenure on the client firm's board of directors; (4) when audit committees meet more frequently; and (5) when directors and officers have greater stock ownership in their firms. However, the likelihood of auditor litigation increases when the CEO of the client firm simultaneously serves as the chairman of the client firm's board. In addition, after controlling for audit committee characteristics and internal governance structures, certain factors which have been found in previous research to be related to the likelihood of auditor litigation, e.g., client firm financial condition and growth rate, are no longer significantly associated with auditor litigation.
Shapley value as a measurer of shareholders decision power

Making decisions in joint-stock company on stockholders meeting is an example of cooperative game. Cooperative game theory focuses on the coalition players may form. Voting at the general meeting of shareholders is a special kind of cooperative game. We assume each coalition may attain some payoffs, and then we try to predict which coalitions will form. To determine the solution and measure the ability of shareholders to create victorious coalitions we can use Shapley value. Among the shareholders it assigns a unique distribution of a total surplus generated by the coalition of all players.
VALIDATED RP-HPLC METHOD FOR QUANTIFICATION OF GASTRODIN IN ETHANOLIC EXTRACT FROM THE PSEUDOBULBS OF Grammatophyllum speciosum Blume (Validasi Kaedah FT-KCPT bagi Kuantifikasi Gastrodin di dalam Ekstrak Etanolik dari Pseudobulbs Grammatophyllum speciosum Blume)

A reversed phase-high performance liquid chromatography-diode array detector (RP-HPLC-DAD) method was developed to determine the amount of gastrodin, the major active component of Grammatophyllum speciosum pseudobulbs. A previous study suggested that the ethanolic extract of G. speciosum had a potential to encourage stemness of keratinocytes. Therefore, in order to determine the quality of G. speciosum ethanolic extract, the quantitative analysis of gastrodin should be validated. The optimized RP-HPLC condition was achieved within 18 min, using a column, Inertsil ODS-3 (4.6 x 150 mm, 5 μm). The mobile phase consisted of a mixture of water: acetonitrile with a gradient from 1:99 to 100:0 in 14 minutes and keep constant at 1:99 for 4 minutes. The flow rate was 1.7 mL/min with the monitored UV wavelength of 220 nm. Gastrodin was eluted at the retention time of 6.5 minutes. The calibration curve of gastrodin at the concentration of 10 100 μg/mL showed good linearity (r = 0.999). In addition, the intraday and interday precisions of gastrodin were 1.05 and 0.38%, respectively. The percentage recovery was within 99.3 101.5%. Average gastrodin contents in 3 samples were 55.52 58.12 mg/g. The results indicate that this method can be utilized to control the quality of G. speciosum extract.
Radial Visualization of Multidimensional/Multivariate Data: A Survey

Visualizing multidimensional/multivariate data is essential but can also challenging. Among all the techniques that can be applied to visualize these high dimensional data, radial visualization turns out to be an interesting approach. By mapping data in a circular pattern, radial visualization takes advantage of the unique characteristics of a circle. We classify multidimensional/ multivariate radial visualization techniques into two major categories: axis-based and segment-based. For axis-based visualization, data attributes are assigned to the axes of the circle. For segment-based visualization, data attributes are assigned to the segments of the circle. We put techniques that are hard to fit in these two categories into the “others” category. By surveying papers related to this topic, we prove the validity and effectiveness of radial visualization as a distinct set of techniques to present multidimensional/
COPD_A_224735 2543..2551

Chih-Wei Wu Po-Chun Hsieh 3,4 Mei-Chen Yang 1,2 I-Shiang Tzeng 5 Yao-Kuang Wu 1,2 Chou-Chin Lan 1,2 1Division of Pulmonary Medicine, Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital, Buddhist Tzu Chi Medical Foundation, New Taipei City, Taiwan; 2Faculty of Medicine, School of Medicine, Tzu Chi University, Hualien, Taiwan; 3Department of Chinese Medicine, Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital, Buddhist Tzu Chi Medical Foundation, New Taipei City, Taiwan; 4Department of Post-Baccalaureate Chinese Medicine, School of Post-Baccalaureate Chinese Medicine, Tzu Chi University, Hualien, Taiwan; 5Department of Research, Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital, Buddhist Tzu Chi Medical Foundation, New Taipei City, Taiwan Introduction: Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are at an increased risk of cardiovascular comorbidities such as pulmonary hypertension or heart failure. Impaired cardiovascular function often has a significant impact on patients with COPD. Oxygen pulse (O2P) is a surrogate for stroke volume. However, studies regarding O2 P, health-related quality of life (HRQL), and exercise capacity in patients with COPD are lacking. We aimed to confirm the association between O2P, HRQL, exercise capacity, severe exacerbation of COPD, and other parameters in exercise testing. Materials and methods: This study included 79 patients with COPD who underwent lung function testing, a cardiopulmonary exercise test (CPET), Borg Dyspnea Scale evaluation, completion of the St. George’s Respiratory Questionnaire, and echocardiography. Cardiovascular comorbidities, COPD-related hospitalizations, and emergency room visits were recorded. We compared these parameters between two groups of patients: those with normal peak O2P and those with impaired peak O2P. The relationships of peak O2P with CPET and lung function were analyzed using simple linear regression. Results: Patients with normal peak O2P had higher exercise capacity (peak oxygen uptake and work rate), better HRQL, lower dyspnea score, lower COPD-related hospitalizations, and higher circulatory and ventilator parameters than patients with impaired peak O2 P. According to a simple linear regression analysis, the anaerobic threshold (AT) and forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1) showed a significant association with peak O2P, and the Pearson correlation coefficients (Pearson’s r) were 0.756 and 0.461, respectively. Conclusion: Peak O2P has a significant impact on exercise capacity, HRQL, dyspnea, COPD-related hospitalization, and circulatory and ventilatory functions in patients with COPD. The AT and FEV1 have strong and moderate associations with peak O2P, respectively. Therefore, peak O2P is an important indicator of disease severity for patients with COPD.
EFFECT OF CORDIA MILLENII EXTRACT ON REPRODUCTIVE HORMONE IN CISPLATIN INDUCED INFERTILITY IN FEMALE ALBINO RATS

Cordia millenii is a plant that belongs to the family Boraginaceae family, commonly known as African Cordia. In Nigeria, its Igbo name is okwe, omo in Yoruba and waawankurmii in Hausa. Various parts of Cordia millenii has been used as a restorative medicine for treatment of fever, general body weakness and stomachache. The present study was carried out to determine the effect of graded doses of ethanol leaf extract of Cordia millenii on fertility hormone in cisplatin induced infertility of female albino rats. Twenty four (24) healthy female rats weighing between 95 kg – 140 kg were divided into five groups. Group 1 served as the control, the animals in group 2 received an intraperitoneal dose of cisplatin (5mgkg body weight). Animals in groups three and four received combination of oral dose of Cordia millenii ethanol extract 100 mgkg, 200 mg kg body weight and cisplatin in 5 mg kg , while animals in group five received an oral dose of Cordia millenii extract only (100 mgkg) for 14days. At the end of the study two rats were randomly selected from the cisplatin group for the mating study and blood samples were taken from the other rats in various groups for hormonal analysis. The result from the mating study revealed that cisplatin caused an irreversible infertility in the rats as no conception was achieved after 8 weeks. The estrogen level reduced in the cisplatin, low and high dose of Cordia millenii plus cisplatin and Cordia millenii extract only groups. Results from this study have shown the antifertility effect of Cordia millenii ethanol extract. Therefore, awareness should be created to avoid using Cordia millenii leaves in the treatment of infertility as currently; traditional health practitioners believe that this plant enhances fertility.
Effects of the Vibrio alginolyticus Probiotic, -1,3/1,6-Glucans and Temperature on Shrimp Production

The main task of this research was to test certain health management strategies for cultured shrimp in order to improve overall production variables (yield, survival rate, weight and feed conversion ratio FCR). To do so, four thorough studies were conducted with an emphasis on the use of three factors: the probiotic Vibrio alginolyticus (Ili strain), -1,3/1,6-glucans and controlled water temperature. In the first experiment 45-day old postlarvae (PL45) were fed (or not) -1,3/1,6-glucans, and the water temperature was kept at 24 or 31°C. As a consequence, less shrimp with white spot disease (WSD) injuries were detected when they were fed -1,3/1,6-glucans and kept at 31°C. In the second experiment, the effect of administrating -1,3/1,6-glucans from a nursery phase was tested. Larvae (Nauplius 5 PL4) were reared with the probiotic. At the nursery and grow-out phases shrimp were separated into two groups: the first received -1,3/1,6-glucans while the other did not. In the ponds where animals received immunostimulants, yield increased while the feed conversion ratio became lower. A third experiment was designed to determine the effect of applying the probiotic at an early stage of larviculture. Shrimp received (or not) the probiotic at early stages and were fed (or not) -1,3/1,6-glucans in the grow-out phase. Shrimp yield and FCR increased and decreased significantly, respectively, if the larvae received only the probiotic. A fourth trial was designed based on the results of the first three experiments. Two management protocols were compared. In the first, shrimp received the probiotic in the early larviculture phase. In the second protocol, shrimp received the probiotic at the early larviculture stage and then were fed -1,3/1,6-glucans during the nursery and grow-out stages. The resulting output was significantly improved using the second protocol. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Personal+Context navigation: combining AR and shared displays in network path-following

Shared displays are well suited to public viewing and collaboration, however they lack personal space to view private information and act without disturbing others. Combining them with Augmented Reality (AR) headsets allows interaction without altering the context on the shared display. We study a set of such interaction techniques in the context of network navigation, in particular path following, an important network analysis task. Applications abound, for example planning private trips on a network map shown on a public display.The proposed techniques allow for hands-free interaction, rendering visual aids inside the headset, in order to help the viewer maintain a connection between the AR cursor and the network that is only shown on the shared display. In two experiments on path following, we found that adding persistent connections between the AR cursor and the network on the shared display works well for high precision tasks, but more transient connections work best for lower precision tasks. More broadly, we show that combining personal AR interaction with shared displays is feasible for network navigation.
A Novel Approach for Attention Points Extraction from Saliency Maps based on T-Junctions

Object detection is of a vital importance in many computer vision and robotic tasks. Saliency maps can be used to extract attention points, that potentially indicate objects in the scene and therefore, can be further explored. For instance, attention points can serve as seed-points for object segmentation. However, it is important to guarantee the uniqueness and the quality of attention points. Therefore, the extraction of attention points is a challenging problem. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to extract attention points from saliency maps. Compared to several existing attention points extraction strategies, we show that the proposed strategy performs better in terms of the uniqueness of attention points and their proximity to the center of detected objects.
Training Pre-Service English Language Teachers with 3-D Machinima.

Training foreign language teachers for 21 century requires the consideration of digital skills as well as the change of focus from more structural foreign language instruction to more discourse oriented foreign language instruction. In this context, pre-service language teachers need to learn language teaching methodology and instructional technologies likewise. Thus, when those pre-service language teachers start their careers in classrooms, they could function effectively and could bring diversity for their learners. In this study, the aim is to introduce pre-service language teachers with 3D Virtual Learning Environments where they can produce their 3D digital narratives that could also be labeled as Machinima. Some 89 prospective teachers attended the activities around this study, who were later evaluated by triangulated data collection methods of both quantitative and qualitative nature, such as reflective essays, questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. Those teachers mainly reported positive experience views with the end-product machinima like having learnt another perspective for language instruction, gaining self confidence for their prospective job, learning about a useful tool which they can utilize as a compensation in their teaching. However, they also reported some problems like technical issues that hindered the production of their group machinima.
Estimate of Genetic Parameters in Beef Cattle Using Restricted Maximun Likelihood and Method R

The objective of this paper was to compare the estimates of genetic parameters obtained by REML and method R. Animal model single-trait analyses were performed using a data set of Nellore cattle. Statistical models included fixed effects of contemporary group (herd, year, sex and management groups at weaning and 550 days) and age of animal (covariable-linear effect), and additive genetic and residual random effects. Heritability estimates were 0.36 and 0.39 for weight at 550 days (W550); 0.27 and 0.29 for weight gain from weaning to 550 days (WG345); 0.22 and 0.21 for conformation (CONF); 0.21 and 0.21 for precocity (PREC) and 0.22 and 0.22 for muscling (MUSC), respectively, by REML and method R. For all heritability estimates, standard errors were lower than or equal to 0.02. The differences in the estimates of genetic trend obtained from the two methods were low for all traits. Spearman rank correlation between breeding values obtained in the analyses using the variance components obtained by REML and method R were equal to 1 for all traits. The results suggest that REML and method R provide similar results and that method R can be used as an alternative to REML in single-trait analyses, mainly due to lower computational requirements.
A Technique for Improving Performance of Moderately Sparse Matrix Algorithms

We seek answers to the following: (i) at what sparsity levels is it worth eliminating compressed representation of matrices and use dense representation of data that include both zeros and non-zero values and (ii) even if we use compressed data representation, will it be useful to expand the matrices internally to achieve high degree of parallelism. In this paper we explore the second question using a specialized load/store unit (LSU). Our LSU expands sparse matrices into dense matrices by filling rows (or columns) with zeros as needed, allowing for high degrees of parallelism (such as SIMD). The computational elements use dense matrix algorithms and perform no index computations. We explore the solution within the context of Processing-in-Memory (PIM) where several simple processing elements are included within the logic layer of a 3D-stacked memory. Our studies shows more than 30 percent speedup in performance and 80 percent power savings for sparse matrix multiplication over a baseline consisting of conventional multicore CPUs using sparse matrix programs and these gains are possible when the number of non-zero elements is greater than 30 percent (or sparsity less than 70 percent).
Multikeyword Rank Search Scheme for Unindexed Encrypted Cloud Data

: Due to the increasing popularity of cloud computing, more and more data owners are motivated to outsource their data to cloud servers for great convenience and reduced cost in data management. However, sensitive data should be encrypted before outsourcing for privacy requirements, which no longer support data utilization like keyword-based document retrieval. In this project, we present a secure multi keyword ranked search scheme over encrypted cloud data, which simultaneously supports dynamic update operations insertion and updating of documents. Specifically, We construct a special tree-based index structure and propose a “Greedy Depth-first Search” algorithm to provide efficient multi-keyword ranked search. The secure kNN algorithm is utilized to encrypt the index and query vectors, and meanwhile ensure accurate relevance score i.e keyword weitage calculation between encrypted index and query vectors. In order to calculate the TF value of the search keyword we use a pattern matching algorithm which indicates the occurrence of that particular keyword in a file. Due to the use of our special tree-based index structure, the proposed scheme can achieve sub-linear search time and deal with the insertion and updating of documents flexibly.
Direction of arrival estimation for fewer snapshots signal in the impulsive noise environment

The bootstrap is a great technique for assessing the accuracy of parameters estimator, that have been widely applied on statistical and signal processing problems. A novel algorithm based on block bootstrap for DOA estimation in small size of snapshots is proposed in impulsive noise background. We filtered the received array signals to reduced the impact of the impulsive firstly. Then resampled the data for 1000 times to create a new matrix, therefore an arrival angle is estimated by the root-music algorithm in the conditions of confidence interval. Simulation results show that higher estimation probability and smaller mean square error can be achieved in the situation of fewer snapshots received by passive radar system than that of traditional algorithm.
Cyclic hydraulic stimulation design to develop Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS)

Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) are required to extract economic amounts of heat from low permeable geothermal reservoirs. We present hydraulic stimulation scenarios applying various cyclic water injection designs. The general aim is to reduce the risks of unwanted seismic events beyond a certain threshold depending on the vulnerability and exposure of people, buildings and infrastructure. The presented case studies include hydraulic stimulation designs from experiments at different scales of investigation from laboratory scale to field scale applications. Cyclic hydraulic fracturing tests on cubic granite samples were conducted in the laboratory using a true tri-axial test equipment combined with acoustic emission (AE) monitoring. A new advanced protocol of progressively increased cyclic injection and a pulsed injection design for hydraulic fracturing experiments were applied at the Hard Rock Laboratory in Äspö, Sweden. On field scale, a cyclic stimulation treatment was carried out in granodiorites at the EGS site in Pohang, Republic of Korea in well PX-1.