Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Catalog of Felt Intensity Data for 570 Earthquakes in India from 1636 to 2009

Eight thousand three hundred thirty-nine intensity observations have been evaluated for earthquakes that occurred on the Indian subcontinent and surround- ing plate boundaries from the seventeenth century to the present. They characterize 570 earthquakes, more than 90% of which occurred in the past two centuries. The electronic supplement to this article lists these data using European Macroseismic Scale (EMS-98) intensities with their geographic coordinates. We summarize these data graphically in the form of a spatially averaged intensity map for the subcontinent, a map that emphasizes the features of many previously published earthquake hazard maps for the Indian plate, but which more faithfully depicts regional amplification and attenuation. We also estimate the probable return time for future damaging shaking in five of India's largest cities.
World Record in TCSPC Time Resolution: Combination of bh SPC-150NX with SCONTEL NbN Detector yields 17.8 ps FWHM

We present an ultrafast TCSPC setup consisting of a bh SPC-150NX TCSPC module and a SCONTEL superconducting NbN detector. The combination delivers an instrument response function (IRF) with a full width at half maximum of 17.8 ps. The RMS value of the overall single-photon timing jitter is about 7.9 ps.
Social Capital and Immigrants' Labour Market Performance

This paper analyses the role of social capital on immigrants' labour market outcomes. We use the "principal component analysis" (PCA) to build an index of social networks and explore its impact on the probability of getting a job and on wage levels using the Households Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) longitudinal survey data. We find a positive effect of social capital on migrants' employment outcomes and wages, especially for women. Distinguishing employment into blue and white-collar jobs, we find that social capital only affects the probability of getting a white-collar job. These results suggest that promoting opportunities to create social capital has a beneficial effect on migrants' integration in the host country.
Hypermutation of hepatitis B virus genomes by APOBEC 3 G , APOBEC 3 C and APOBEC 3 H

Received 9 October 2007 Accepted 22 January 2008 Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is a DNA virus that causes liver disease and replicates by reverse transcription of an RNA template. Previous studies have reported that HBV genomes bearing GAA hypermutation are present at low frequency in human serum. These mutations are most likely due to the activity of apolipoprotein B mRNA-editing enzyme-catalytic polypeptide-like (APOBEC) cytosine deaminases, cellular proteins known to confer innate immunity against retroviruses by generating lethal hypermutations in viral genomes. This study assessed APOBEC3G, APOBEC3C and APOBEC3H, three members of this protein family present in human liver, for their ability to edit HBV genomes. Transfection of human HepG2 hepatoma cells with a plasmid encoding the APOBEC3C protein resulted in abundant GAA mutations in the majority of newly formed HBV genomes. By contrast, transfection of APOBEC3Gand APOBEC3H-encoding plasmids only marginally increased hypermutation rates above the level caused by the cytosine deaminases naturally present in HepG2 cells. APOBEC3Gand APOBEC3H-mediated hypermutation, however, was clearly revealed by transfection of chicken LMH hepatoma cells, which lack endogenous cytosine deaminases. These results indicate that APOBEC3G, APOBEC3C and APOBEC3H have the ability to edit HBV DNA and that each protein is likely to contribute to various degrees to the generation of modified genomes in human liver cells.
SPECTRO-INTERFEROMETRY OF THE Be STAR δ Sco: NEAR-INFRARED CONTINUUM AND GAS EMISSION REGION SIZES IN 2007

We present near-infrared H- and K-band spectro-interferometric observations of the gaseous disk around the primary Be star in the δ Sco binary system, obtained in 2007 (between periastron passages in 2000 and 2011). Observations using the CHARA/MIRC instrument at H band resolve an elongated disk with a Gaussian FWHM 1.18 × 0.91 mas. Using the Keck Interferometer (KI), the source of the K-band continuum emission is only marginally spatially resolved, and consequently we estimate a relatively uncertain K-band continuum disk FWHM of 0.7 ± 0.3 mas. Line emission on the other hand, He i λ2. 0583 μm and Brγ λ2. 1657 μm, is clearly detected, with ∼10% lower visibilities than those of the continuum. When taking into account the continuum/line flux ratio this translates into much larger sizes for the line emission regions: 2.2 ± 0.4 mas and 1.9 ± 0.3 mas for He i and Brγ, respectively. Our KI data also reveal a relatively flat spectral differential phase response, ruling out significant off-center emission. We expect that these new measurements will help constrain dynamical models being actively developed in order to explain the disk formation process in the δ Sco system and Be stars in general.
Reconstruction of the phonetic composition the recognized word using lexical ontology

It is possible to improve the quality of speech recognition in noisy environments adapting the reconstruction algorithm for the recognized word to the certain peculiarities of usage and application. The article describes an approach to reconstruct the phonetic composition of a recognized word using lexical ontology. The lexical ontology contains lexical links among the words of the subject domain and their phonetic composition in terms of the SAMPA+ for the Russian language.
Fit Among Business Strategy, Strategy Formality and Dynamic Capability Development in New Product Development

Taking new product development (NPD) as the unit of analysis, this study, based on strategic fit approach, investigates the effects of NPD strategy formality and dynamic capabilities (sensing, seizing, and reconfiguring) on NPD performance for different business strategy types (prospectors, analyzers, defenders). The sample of the study includes 203 companies from nine countries: Australia, Denmark, Finland, Norway, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Portugal, Spain, and Turkey. The study finds that a formal NPD strategy is an important driver of NPD performance for all companies regardless of the strategy pursued. Of the dynamic capabilities, sensing capabilities have significant performance effects for all strategy types. Seizing capabilities have stronger effect on NPD performance for prospectors and analyzers, than for defenders while reconfiguring capabilities is a driver of performance only for defenders. Furthermore, dynamic capabilities explain NPD performance above and beyond strategizing, irrespective of the strategy pursued.
The imprint of the crustal magnetic field on the thermal spectra and pulse profiles of isolated neutron stars

This research was supported by NSF grant No. AST 1009396 and NASA grants AR1-12003X, DD1-12053X, GO2-13068X, GO2-13076X (RP), grants AYA 2010-21097-C03-02 (DV, JAP), AYA2009-07391, AYA2012-39303, SGR2009-811, and iLINK 2011-0303 (NR). DV is supported by a fellowship from the Prometeo program for research groups of excellence of the Generalitat Valenciana (Prometeo/2009/103) and NR is supported by a Ramon y Cajal Fellowship.
Freeplay-induced limit cycle oscillation mitigation using linear and nonlinear tuned vibration absorbers

Abstract: Structural nonlinearities such as freeplay in control surface bearings and actuators or in connections between wings and external payloads sometimes lead to aeroelastic limit cycle oscillations at airspeeds lower than the linear flutter speed of the aircraft. In parallel, numerous studies demonstrated the potential of linear and nonlinear tuned vibration absorbers to increase the flutter speed of linear and continuously hardening aeroelastic systems such as two-degreeof-freedom wings or long span bridges. In this work, the effect of linear and nonlinear tuned vibration absorbers is studied on a wing with pitch plunge and control surface deflection degrees of freedom and with freeplay in pitch. Depending on the tuning of the linear absorber, the linear flutter speed of the system can be increased by 10% or the onset of limit cycle oscillations due to the freeplay can be delayed by 7.7% and their amplitude can be significantly decreased. The addition of cubic hardening forces on the absorber can further decrease the limit cycle amplitude in a limited airspeed range at the cost of an increase in limit cycle amplitude in another airspeed range. Conversely, the addition of a freeplay hardening force on the absorber can decrease the limit cycle amplitude without any detrimental effect.
Title Extending faceted navigation for RDF data

Data on the Semantic Web is semi-structured and does not follow one fixed schema. Faceted browsing [23] is a natural technique for navigating such data, partitioning the information space into orthogonal conceptual dimensions. Current faceted interfaces are manually constructed and have limited query expressiveness. We develop an expressive faceted interface for semi-structured data and formally show the improvement over existing interfaces. Secondly, we develop metrics for automatic ranking of facet quality, bypassing the need for manual construction of the interface. We develop a prototype for faceted navigation of arbitrary RDF data. Experimental evaluation shows improved usability over current interfaces.
Quality Assessment of Self-Calibration with Distortion Estimation for Grid Point Images

Recently, a camera self-calibration algorithm was reported which solves for pose, focal length and radial distortion using a minimal set of four 2D-to-3D point correspondences. In this paper, we present an empirical analysis of the algorithm’s accuracy using highfidelity point correspondences. In particular, we use images of circular markers arranged in a regular planar grid, obtain the centroids of the marker images, and pass those as input point correspondences to the algorithm. We compare the resulting reprojection errors against those obtained from a benchmark calibration based on the same data. Our experiments show that for low-noise point images the self-calibration technique performs at least as good as the benchmark with a simplified distortion model.
Development of a vertical slow positron beamline at AIST

A new slow positron beamline with two measurement ports has been installed at AIST. Positrons are generated using the 70 MeV AIST LINAC and are guided to the measurement ports using a solenoid magnetic field. Both beam ports are arranged vertically with the positron beam incident on the sample from above and samples loaded horizontally. Port No. 1 is designed for positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy (PALS) and Doppler broadening of annihilation radiation (DBAR) measurements with a ∼10 mm diameter positron beam. The beamline on port No. 2 contains a transmission type remoderator for a brightness enhanced positron microbeam, similar to the existing positron probe microanalyzer (PPMA) at AIST.
Generation of the non-periodic and delay-signature-free chaotic light

External cavity semiconductor laser (ECSL) is becoming the most common chaotic light source due to its simple and integratable configuration. However, the round trip in feedback cavity with fixed delay makes the chaotic light periodic and reduces complexity. In this paper, we propose and demonstrate experimentally a novel optical feedback scheme to generate non-periodic chaotic light. Unlike the fixed time-delay feedback in ECSL, the proposed method utilizes the backscattering light from a fiber as feedback into semiconductor laser. Such a feedback is a kind of randomly distributed feedback along the fiber, and therefore its 'time-delay' is no longer a fixed value. Our results show that the proposed feedback method can obtain delay-signature-free chaotic light, which is very useful for the security of chaos encryption system and the generation of fast truly random numbers.
Coh-Metrix

Computer analyses of text characteristics are often used by reading teachers, researchers, and policy makers when selecting texts for students. The authors of this article identify components of language, discourse, and cognition that underlie traditional automated metrics of text difficulty and their new Coh-Metrix system. Coh-Metrix analyzes texts on multiple measures of language and discourse that are aligned with multilevel theoretical frameworks of comprehension. The authors discuss five major factors that account for most of the variance in texts across grade levels and text categories: word concreteness, syntactic simplicity, referential cohesion, causal cohesion, and narrativity. They consider the importance of both quantitative and qualitative characteristics of texts for assigning the right text to the right student at the right time.
MULTI-OBJECTIVE BASED OPTIMIZATION USING TAP SETTING TRANSFORMER, DG AND CAPACITOR PLACEMENT IN DISTRIBUTION NETWORKS

In this article, a multi-objective function for placement of Distributed Generation (DG) and capacitors with the tap setting of Under Load Tap Changer (ULTC) Transformer is introduced. Most of the recent articles have paid less attention to DG, capacitor placement and ULTC effects in the distribution network simultaneously. In simulations, a comparison between different modes was carried out with, and without tap setting of ULTC. Simultaneous DG, capacitor placement, and ULTC transformer tap setting improve the voltage profile of load buses globally. In addition, they can also reduce loss and increase Available Transfer Capability (ATC). The IEEE 41-bus radial distribution network is used to illustrate the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed approach.
Speech recognition with quaternion neural networks

Neural network architectures are at the core of powerful automatic speech recognition systems (ASR). However, while recent researches focus on novel model architectures, the acoustic input features remain almost unchanged. Traditional ASR systems rely on multidimensional acoustic features such as the Mel filter bank energies alongside with the first, and second order derivatives to characterize time-frames that compose the signal sequence. Considering that these components describe three different views of the same element, neural networks have to learn both the internal relations that exist within these features, and external or global dependencies that exist between the time-frames. Quaternion-valued neural networks (QNN), recently received an important interest from researchers to process and learn such relations in multidimensional spaces. Indeed, quaternion numbers and QNNs have shown their efficiency to process multidimensional inputs as entities, to encode internal dependencies, and to solve many tasks with up to four times less learning parameters than real-valued models. We propose to investigate modern quaternion-valued models such as convolutional and recurrent quaternion neural networks in the context of speech recognition with the TIMIT dataset. The experiments show that QNNs always outperform real-valued equivalent models with way less free parameters, leading to a more efficient, compact, and expressive representation of the relevant information.
Competition and Price Dispersion in the U.S. Airline Industry

We study dispersion in the prices an airline charges to different passengers on the same route. This variation in fares is substantial: the expected absolute difference in fares between two passengers on a route is 36 percent of the airline's average ticket price. The pattern of observed price dispersion cannot easily be explained by cost differences alone. Dispersion increases on routes with more competition or lower flight density, consistent with discrimination based on customers' willingness to switch to alternative airlines or flights. We argue that the data support models of price discrimination in monopolistically competitive markets.
ATINER ' s Conference Paper Series SOC 2016-1926

The aim of this paper is to define a typology of individual and collective reactions to the Great Recession, which is affecting southern European societies from 2010. Building on A. O. Hirschman’s attempt to frame individual and collective behaviors in response to a condition of decline, the paper maintains that they can be understood mostly in terms of a number of pathways based on different attitudes – exit, voice, loyalty, and neglect. In addition, R. K. Merton’s social strain theory is used to clarify some aspects of the complex relationships between societal and cultural macrodynamics and micro reactions.
A Road Topology Aware Protocol for Vehicular Networks

Resumen— Nowadays our vehicles have several sensors that collect information not only about velocity or fuel consumption, but also about weather (rain sensors) or other external factors. A distributed traffic monitoring system that combines all this information gathered by different cars is a challenging task. We consider that vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANETs) are particularly suitable for this endeavor. VANETs present some characteristics such as a high mobility, a variable node density or frequent radio obstacles that are prone to generate network partitions. Under these conditions, a complete multi-hop path between the source and the destination of a packet seldom exists. Other authors have proposed using DTN protocols to address these problems. In this paper we present a collecting sensor data routing protocol, called Map-based Sensor-data Delivery Protocol (MSDP), which combines information about the road map and the nodes’ future routes to improve data delivery. Through simulations based on accurate mobility and propagation models, we show that our protocol is able to significantly reduce channel congestion, while maintaining or even improving the packet delivery ratio.
Cytotoxicity study of reaction products between isatin and furan

Isatin, 5-chloroisatin, 7-bromoisatin and 7-ethylisatin on treatment with furan in presence of diethylamine yield furan moiety inclusion products bis-diisatin [3,3´] furan, bis-[5,5´] dichlorodiisatin [3,3´] furan, bis-[7,7´] dibromodiisatin [3,3´] furan and bis-[7,7´] diethyldiisatin [3,3´] furan respectively in moderate yields. The cytotoxicity of these compounds was studied by the brine shrimp lethality bioassay and the Structure Activity Relationships (SAR) of these compounds has been discussed. The present study shows that the compound bis-[7,7´] dibromodiisatin [3,3´] furan had pronounced cytotoxicity whereas compounds bis-[5,5´] dichlorodiisatin [3,3´] furan and bis-[7,7´] diethyldiisatin [3,3´] furan were moderately active. It is remarkable that the constituent, Y = -Br at seven position in the benzene ring has greater activity than ethyl and chlorine atom.
A physically insightful approach to the design and accuracy assessment of flux observers for field oriented induction machine drives

Rotor flux observers can provide an attractive means for achieving direct field oriented control of induction machines. The authors present a physics-based design methodology and use it to evaluate open loop observers and to develop a novel closed loop flux observer. It is shown that the new flux observer is a straightforward structure with properties that combine the best features of known methods. A distinction is made between observers which use only integration and feedback summation operations, and those estimation methods requiring approximate differentiation which are, in essence, cancellation methods. Furthermore, a clear distinction is made between accuracy and dynamic robustness of the observer. This distinction is important because the accuracy of flux observers for induction machines is inherently parameter sensitive. A distinctive form of frequency response function analysis similar to that used in classical control engineering is demonstrated to be a useful and insightful tool even though flux observers are multiple-input, multiple-output systems. <<ETX>>
High-resolution imaging of elastic properties using harmonic cantilevers

We present a micromachined scanning probe cantilever, in which a specific higher-order flexural mode is designed to be resonant at an exact integer multiple of the fundamental resonance frequency. We have fabricated such cantilevers by reducing the stiffness of the third order flexural mode relative to the fundamental mode, and we have demonstrated that these cantilevers enable sensing of non-linear mechanical interactions between the atomically sharp tip at the free end of the cantilever and a surface with unknown mechanical properties in tapping-mode atomic force microscopy. Images of surfaces with large topographical variations show that for such samples harmonic imaging has better resolution than standard tapping-mode imaging. © 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Mesoscopic Modeling of Multiphysicochemical Transport Phenomena in Porous Media

We present our recent progress on mesoscopic modeling of multiphysicochemical transport phenomena in porous media based on the lattice Boltzmann method. Simulation examples include injection of CO2-saturated brine into a limestone rock, two-phase behavior and flooding phenomena in polymer electrolyte fuel cells, and electroosmosis in homogeneously charged porous media. It is shown that the lattice Boltzmann method can account for multiple, coupled physicochemical processes in these systems and can shed some light on the underlying physics occurring at the fundamental scale. Therefore, it can be a potential powerful numerical tool to analyze multiphysicochemical processes in various energy, earth, and environmental systems.
A Location-Tracking Interface for Ethnomusicological Collections

Abstract Annotations of ethnomusicological collections are often incomplete or inconsistent, and searches involving artist’s or composer’s name often do not apply. We outline the current situation in ethnomusicological archives as well as the specificity of the use of ethnomusicological collections, in order to highlight the relevance of the development of appropriate access tools. We propose a novel system for intuitive exploration of ethnomusicological recordings which combines a geographical visual interface with ethnomusicological annotation and audio similarity matching, with the novel addition of dynamic location tracking. The starting point for designing the interface was a subset of the Cantometrics Training Tapes dataset, which was assembled by the ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax. For representing music tracks we use our manual musical and geographic annotation along with Lomax’s tags and comments. The novelty of the approach lies in the design of the interface allowing for a comprehensive representation of many layers of information specific to the needs of the users of ethnomusicological archives. This system allows integration of MIR tools, including low level and high level similarity search, and the visualization of their results. It displays a unique location tracking feature, where a dynamic highlighting device helps the user experience geographic distances between similar tracks and the cultures they originate from. A proof-of-concept implementation is presented, and evaluated according to three interrelated levels: a basic level of functionality (identifying and using components of the interface), a middle level concerned with the benefits and use of the software, and a reference to high level concerned with the social and cultural value of a system. Further research plans and suggestions are outlined.