Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Poultry Salmonella Specific Bacteriophage Isolation and Characterization

Bacteriophage named as SAL-PG ( Salmonella bacteriophage ), specific to Salmonella pullorum and Salmonella gallinarum was isolated by an enrichment method directly from waste water near to poultry farm. For the isolation of phage 4.5 ml water sample, 0.5 ml of 10X Nutrient Broth and 0.5 ml of log phage bacteria were mixed well and incubated at 37° C for overnight followed by centrifugation at 10,000 rpm for 10 minutes. The presence of bacteriophage was observed by spot test over the bacterial lawn of and plaque assay. The host range of the isolated bacteriophage was determined by spot test using 12 different bacterial isolates. The phages were found to infect Salmonella pullorum , Salmonella gallinarum and Salmonella typhimurium and produced clear plaque on these Salmonella serovars. The bacteriophage was able to survive in wide range of pH between 2 to 9 and resistant at 60° C for 1 hour. More than 50% phages were readily adsorbed to the host bacteria. The restriction enzyme analysis showed that the phage DNA possess restriction site for TaqαI, HindIII and BstYI; but no restriction site for XhoI and BstEII as these two enzymes failed to digest the phage DNA. The characterizations of the bacteriophage would be helpful in establishing a basis for adopting the application of the most effective bacteriophage treatment to control these poultry bacteria. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.3329/bjvm.v12i2. 21264 Bangl. J. Vet. Med . (2014). 12 (2): 107-114
The Allocation of Functions in Systems

A systematic approach for allocating functions to humans and machines has been an elusive goal of human factors specialists for more than 30 years. The author has fortunately been able to obtain contract support for reviewing the earlier techniques and methods in the literature and deriving “lessons learned” to guide the development of the approach reported here. The approach is believed to be systematic and embedded in the overall system design process. This paper describes the systems approach to design and how the allocation of functions is a part of it, as a five-step procedure with four principal rules for arriving at a hypothetical allocation.
Human Factors Evaluation of Submarine Escape. III. The Effects of Three Types of Charging Connectors on Disconnect Time

Abstract : Three types of connectors utilized in charging submarine escape applicances in simulated submarine escapes were evaluated with respect to speed of disconnect in a dry environment. Statistically significant differences in disconnect time were found between the various types of connectors, however, the magnitude of these differences is so small that they are of no practical significance in the submarine escape evolution. It is recommended that the study be repeated in a wet environment, more closely simulating actual submarine escape conditions.
SYSTEM SUPPORT FOR CHECKPOINT AND RESTART OF CHARM++ AND AMPI APPLICATIONS

As both modern supercomputers and new generation scientific computing applications grow in size and complexity, the probability of system failure rises commensurately. Making parallel computing fault tolerant has become an increasingly important issue. Checkpoint/restart mechanism provides for fault tolerance capability as well as other benefits for parallel programmers. This thesis describes the on-disk checkpoint/restart mechanism for Charm++ and Adaptive MPI programming framework, its motivation, design, and implementation. This mechanism has proven to be useful in practice and can also be extended to implement other fault tolerant techniques.
Press perturbation experiments and the indeterminacy of ecological interactions: effects of taxonomic resolution and experimental duration

The outcomes of press perturbation experiments on community dynamics are difficult to predict because there is a high degree of indeterminacy in the strength and direction of ecological interactions. Ecologists need to quantify uncertainties in estimates of interaction strength, by determining all the possible values a given interaction strength could take and the relative likelihood of each value. In this study, we assess the degree to which fish effects on zooplankton and phytoplankton are indeterminate in direction using a combination of experimental data and Monte Carlo simulations. Based on probability distributions of interaction strength (i.e. effect magnitude), we estimated the probability of each fish interaction being negative, positive or undetermined in direction. We then investigated how interaction strength and its predictability might vary with experimental duration and the taxonomic resolution of food web data. Results show that most effects of fish on phyto- and zooplankton were indeed indeterminate, and that the effects of fish were more predictable in direction as the taxonomic resolution of food web data decreased and the experimental duration increased. Results also show that most distributions of interaction strength were not normal, suggesting that normal based statistical procedures for testing hypothesis about interaction strength may be misleading, as well as predictions of food web models assuming normal distributions of interaction strength. By considering the probability distributions and confidence intervals of interaction parameters, ecologists would better understand the outcomes of species interactions and make more realistic predictions about our perturbations in natural food webs.
POLYNOMIAL-BASED BOUNDARY EXTRACTION OF PLAQUE IN INTRAVASCULAR ULTRASOUND IMAGE BY USING ITS LOCAL STATISTICAL INFORMATION

In this paper, we propose a novel boundary extraction method for a plaque in an intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) image. In the present method, a plaque boundary is approximated by a polynomial series. The coefficients of the series are determined not only by the information of the seed points but also by the local statistical information of the IVUS image. The present method achieves a quick, precise and noise-robust extrac- tion of a plaque boundary using a very small number of seed points. The validity and the effectiveness of the present method are confirmed by applying it to the practical boundary extraction problem of a plaque. Keywords: Acute coronary syndromes (ACS), Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS), Bound- ary extraction, Local statistics, Polynomial interpolation
A Robust Approach for R-Peak Detection

Electrocardiogram (ECG) is very crucial and important tool to detect the cardiac problems. For ECG analysis, it is essential to measure ECG parameter accurately. It is very critical in all types of ECG application. The accurate R Peaks detection is starting step in extracting ECG features which is necessary for the other ECG performance stages. It is very essential to detect these R-peaks accurately and efficiently to detect heart diseases or anomalies which create primary source of death in the universe. Hence automatic R-peaks detection in a lengthy duration ECG signal is very meaningful to diagnose the cardiac disorders. Here a latest R-peak exposure algorithm depended on Shannon energy envelope estimator and logic to find peaks has been proposed which uses the simple threshold of Shannon energy.
Computer-aided graph-network path-motion recognition in robotized MIMO FMS structures

A computer-assisted methodology that permits convenient and simple CAD procedures for FMS-like systems has been developed. It is aimed at modeling, simulation and analysis of FMS (flexible manufacturing system) functional models with respect to the design of scheduling coordination controls. The methodology is based on the digraph or Petri network formalisms and situation or event-status recognition techniques using adjoined sets of knowledge for the system studied. <<ETX>>
On The Determination Of Soot And Droplet Concentration And Velocity Fields During The Addition Of A Water Mist On A Liquid Pool Fire At Laboratory Scale

Detailed mappings are presented of extinction coefficient and flow fields at the base region of a heptane medium-scale pool fire during the addition of a water mist. These mappings were obtained by using, on the one hand, an original methodology coupling extinction measurements at two wavelengths and permitting the separation of the respective contribution of soot particles and water droplets and, on the other hand, PIV measurements and processing permitting the determination of their flow velocity patterns. This work results in information about the interaction between mist and liquid pool fires and about the resulting structure at the base of the flame. The customarily described well defined structure of the fire flame does not exist any longer. It is observed that the size and shape vary randomly and continuously and that frequent clearances of the liquid surface, due to sudden and short vaporization periods, occur followed by extinguishment or flashback. This behavior suggests that extinguishment is achieved by total clearance of this surface rather than from the reduction of the burning rate. The results obtained could also be used, in future work, as a data base for the prediction of the change of the radiation heat flux to the fuel surface, problem still not well known and studied. However, it is important to realize that the measurements are not instantaneous and that they provide only averaged values when the measured properties are affected by the flame disruption.
A Chinese Word Clustering Method Using Latent Dirichlet Allocation and K-means

Word clustering is a popular research issue in the field of natural language processing. In this paper, Latent Dirichlet Allocation algorithm is used to extract the topics from nouns in the text, and the highest probability noun of each topic is selected as the centroids of the k-means algorithm. Experimental results show that this method can get better effects than the graph-based word clustering algorithms using a web search engine. Keywords-word clustering; latent dirichlet allocation; k- means; word similarity
Strength gain of fine tailings/slimes resulting from secondary compression

The offset upstream construction method consists of constructing tailings impoundment dams on top of previously deposited fine tailings/slimes. The undrained shear strength of iron ore fine tailings/slimes underlying offset dams has been observed to increase over time, which is referred to as strength gain. The strength gain consists of two components: (1) increase in undrained shear strength due to increasing confining stress from fill placement and (2) increase in undrained shear strength under constant effective stress, which occurs after the end of primary consolidation (EOP). The second component of strength gain can be explained using the secondary compression concept. This paper presents field and laboratory testing used to characterize the strength gain of fine tailings/slimes due to secondary compression. Results of cone penetration test (CPT) soundings in addition to laboratory vane shear and consolidation tests are presented. Findings based on this testing are described, and recommendations for implementing strength gain due to secondary compression in tailings dam design are included.
Genetic Algorithm for Single Machine Scheduling Problem with Setup Times

This paper describes a genetic algorithm to solve the single machine scheduling problem with setup times, which uses the fixed two point crossover operator (F2PX) to produce new offspring chromosomes and uses the roulette wheel method in the selection of the chromosome population. In order to avoid the premature convergence we use a neighborhood based mutation operator to conduct disturbance in our genetic algorithm. Through the application of this genetic algorithm in practical scheduling problems, the effect of the genetic algorithm proposed in this paper is remarkable.
Modelling phonetic context using head-body-tail models for connected digit recognition

Both whole word modelling and context modelling have proven to improve recognition performance for connected digit strings. In this paper we will show that word boundary variation can be effectively modelled by applying the Head-Body-Tail (HBT) method as proposed by Chou et al in [1] and also applied by Gandhi in [2]. Each digit is split into three parts, representing the beginning, middle and end of a word. The middle part - the body - is assumed to be context-independent, whereas the first part - the head - and the last part - the tail - incorporate information about the preceding or subsequent digit. The results we obtained with HBT-modelling are compared with results obtained with whole-word models (WWM’s) [3] and with the results obtained with HBT-models reported in [2]. It is shown that using HBT models a relative improvement over context-independent WWM’s of 28% on string level can be reached.
Windspeed and Flow Angle Measurement by Tracking of a Laser-Induced Breakdown Spark

by optical tracking of the light emitted by a laser-induced breakdown (LIB) spark is described. The measurements were performed in a blowdown wind tunnel at a nominal flow Mach number of 4.38. The tests showed that flow velocity could be accurately measured using the technique, with a demonstrated flow-angle uncertainty of less than ± 0.2 o at the Mach 4.38 test condition. Wavefront measurements through the shock of a 20 o wedge were also performed, and indicated that the measurements could also be performed through a shock with negligible effect on spark formation due to the much smaller aperture of the LIB laser beam in relation to the wavelength of the shock aero-optical effect.
Biometric identification system based on keyboard filtering

We have revised several authentication systems based on biometric technology to resume advantages and disadvantages. Because pure hardware biometric systems of user authentication have low rate on results over computational and economic cost, alternate biometric methods of low computational cost based on software development, are also being evaluated. We have developed a first prototype of a software system to elicitate sets of 20 password stroke samples, named attacks, with a population of 10 different users totalling 200 attacks. The results obtained demonstrate that users follow generally certain patterns when they are writing their password, and is possible to reinforce the user's password authentication method by means of the analysis of user stroking patterns. In addition it is necessary to increase the population size and number of samples to establish standard and reliable rules. Finally, it is very difficult to find a general user pattern applied to every password.
Transformative Education for Pension Fund Trustees

Pension funds represent the primary investment pool for the Canadian economy with about $600 billion of assets, yet scant attention is paid to the education of trustees. This study is based on a survey of managers of the top 100 funds in Canada. It indicates that the average fund has one day of training per year for trustees and most of the courses deal with conventional matters such as fiduciary responsibility. Only 13% of the funds have training in social investment for trustees. This paper outlines the field of social investment in pension funds and discusses some current initiatives being undertaken by unions to become more involved in socially useful investment strategies through transformative education programs for worker trustees. Resume Avec des avoirs d'environ 600 milliards de dollars, les caisses de retraite representent la plus importante mise en commun de capitaux de l'economic canadienne. Malgre cela, on porte bien peu d'attention a la formation de leurs administrateurs. Cette etude a ete realisee a partir d'une enquete menee aupres de qestionnaires des 100 caisses les plus grandes du Canada. Elle montre que la caisse moyenne offre a ses administrateurs une journee de formation par annee, dont les cours portent surtout sur des questions conventionnelles, telle la responsabilite fiduciaire. Seulement 13% des caisses offrent des cours de formation en placement ethique pour administrateurs. Cet article donne un apercu de la question du placement ethique dans les caisses de retraite et discute de nouvelles initiatives mises de l'avant par les syndicats en matiere de strategies de placement responsable. Les syndicats veulent s'engager davantage par l'intermediate de programmes d'education transformative destines aux travailleurs-administrateurs.
Metadata management for CDP in object-based file system

Object-based storage system integrates advantage of both NAS and SAN, can be applied in large-capacity, low-cost and large-scale storage systems which are built from commodity devices. Continuous data protection (CDP) is a methodology that continuously captures or tracks data modifications and stores changes independent of the primary data, enabling recovery points from any point in the past. An efficient file system optimized for CDP is needed to provide CDP feature in object-based storage system. In this thesis, a new metadata management method is present. All necessary meta data information are recorded when changes happened to file system. We have a journal-like data placement algorithm to store these metadata. Secondly, this metadata management method provides both CDP feature and Object-based feature. Two type write operations are analyzed to reduce storage space consumption. Object-based data allocation algorithm can take the advantage of distributed file system to concurrently process CDP operations over storage nodes. Thirdly, history revisions and recovery operations are discussed. Finally, the experiment test result is present and analyzed.
A slitless spectroscopic survey for Hα emission-line objects in SMC clusters

Context. A fair fraction of all single early-type stars display emission lines well before their supergiant phase. Very rapid rotation is necessary for these stars to form rotationally supported decretion disks. However, it is unknown whether and which other parameters may be important. Aims. We assess the roles of metallicity and evolutionary age in the appearance of the so-called Be phenomenon. Methods. Slitless CCD spectra were obtained covering the bulk (about 3 square degrees) of the Small Magellanic Cloud. For Hα line-emission twice as strong as the ambient continuum, the survey is complete to spectral type B2/B3 on the main sequence. About 8120 spectra of 4437 stars were searched for emission lines in 84 open clusters, and 370 emission-line stars were found, among them at least 231 close to the main sequence. For 176 of them, photometry is available from the OGLE database. For comparison with a higher-metallicity environment, the Galactic sample of the photometric Hα survey by McSwain & Gies (2005, ApJS, 161, 118) was used. Results. Among early spectral sub-types, Be stars are more frequent by a factor ∼3–5 in the SMC than in the Galaxy. The distribution with spectral type is similar in both galaxies, i.e., not strongly dependent on metallicity. The fraction of Be stars does not seem to vary with local star density. The Be phenomenon mainly sets in towards the end of the main-sequence evolution (this trend may be more pronounced in the SMC); but some Be stars already form with Be-star characteristics. In small subsamples (such as single clusters), even if they appear identical, the fraction of emission-line stars can deviate drastically from the mean. Conclusions. In all probability, the fractional critical angular rotation rate, Ω/Ωc, is one of the main parameters governing the occurrence of the Be phenomenon. If the Be character is only acquired during the course of evolution, the key circumstance is the evolution of Ω/Ωc, which is not only dependent on metallicity but differently so for different mass ranges. As a result, even if the Be phenomenon is driven basically by a single parameter (namely Ω/Ωc), it can assume a complex multi-parametric appearance. The large cluster-to-cluster differences, which seem stronger than all other variations, serve as a caveat that this big picture may undergo significant second-order modulations (e.g., pulsations, initial angular momentum, etc.).
Giving predictive abilities to OLAP systems’ caches

It is not new that on-line analytical processing systems arose to companies to stay. They have the ability to change the most common application scenarios that decisionmakers use on their everyday tasks. The large flexibility in data exploration and high performance response levels to queries these systems have make them very useful tools for exploring multidimensional data accordingly to the most diverse analysis perspectives of decision-makers. However, despite all the computational resources and techniques we have today, sometimes, it is very hard to maintain such levels of performance for all application scenarios, analytical systems, or user demands. When context conditions and application requirements change, performance losses may occur. There are a lot of strategies, techniques and mechanism that were designed and developed to avoid (or at least to attenuate) such undesirable low performance situations with the purpose to reduce especially data servers load. On-line analytical processing systems caching is one of them, designed for maintaining previous queries and serving them upon subsequent requests without having to ask the server repeatedly. In this paper, we present an on-line analytical processing systems caching technique with the ability to identify the exploration patterns of its users, i.e., what queries a user will submit during a working session, their frequency and resources involved, and to predict what data they will request in a near future, as well as the sequence of those requests. To do that in an efficient manner, we need to maintain a positive ratio between the time spent to predict and materialize the most relevant views to users, and the time that would be spent if no prediction had been done. Using association rules and Markov chains techniques, we designed a flexible manner to provide an effective caching system for online analytical processing systems.
Physical-layer Identification of Wireless Sensor Nodes; ; Technical Report;

Identification of wireless sensor nodes based on the physical characteristics of their radio transmissions can potentially provide additional layer of security in all-wireless multi-hop sensor networks. Reliable identification can be means for detection and/or prevention of wormhole, Sybil and replication attacks, and for complementing cryptographic message authentication protocols. In this paper, we propose an improved method for capturing and analysis of sensor node radio signals for reliable and accurate recognition. We investigate the performance accuracy of our approach in terms of parameters such as distance, antenna polarization, voltage and show that it achieves recognition with EER=0.24%. We also propose and perform practical attacks on the recognition to further evaluate the robustness of the proposed method under security threats.
Bringing Export Performance Metrics into Annual Reports: The APEV Scale and the PERFEX Scorecard

Annual company reports rarely distinguish between domestic and export market performance and even more rarely provide information about annual indicators of a specific export venture's performance. In this study, the authors develop and test a new measure for assessing the annual performance of an export venture (the APEV scale). The new measure comprises five dimensions: (1) annual export venture financial performance, (2) annual export venture strategic performance, (3) annual export venture achievement, (4) contribution of the export venture to annual exporting operations, and (5) satisfaction with annual export venture overall performance. The authors use the APEV scale to generate a scorecard of performance in exporting (the PERFEX scorecard) to assess export performance at the corporate level while comparatively evaluating all export ventures of the firm. Both the scale and the scorecard could help disclose export venture performance and could be useful instruments for annual planning, management, monitoring, and improvement of exporting programs.