Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Two different coercivity lattices in Co/Pd multilayers generated by single-pulse direct laser interference lithography

We report on magnetic structuring of Co/Pd multilayer films with strong perpendicular magnetic anisotropy by single-pulse direct laser interference lithography technique. Multibeam laser interference generates patterns of various types. The intense laser irradiation at interference maxima causes chemical intermixing at Co/Pd interfaces, leading to local changes in magnetic properties such as the creation of pinning centers and the reduction in the strength of magnetic anisotropy. We use magnetic force microscopy and Kerr microscopy to study the magnetization reversal processes in the patterned samples and find that the structures show three distinctly different behaviors depending on the intensity of the laser used for irradiation.
Structured and Distributed Cooperative Editing in a Large Scale Network

In this chapter we discuss the advantages of a structured model of documents in a cooperative editor. The discussion is based on the experience gained in developing and using Alliance, a groupware application that allows several users distributed on a network to cooperate for producing documents in a structured way. In addition to the local editing functions made available on each site by a structured editor, the application provides such basic functionalities as management of document storage and remote access to distributed documents. It offers services for managing user interaction and cooperation, for dynamically distributing roles to users, for showing documents through multiple views, for controlling the consistency of modifications, for updating automatically all copies of shared documents, etc.
Design, development and testing of a high-speed axial-flux permanent-magnet machine

This paper gives an overview of the design, manufacturing and testing of a high speed (16000 rpm and 30 kW) AFPM synchronous machine, which is mounted inside, and as an integral part of, a flywheel; this system will subsequently be used for transient energy storage and ICE operating point optimization in an HEV. The paper focuses on the major design issues, particularly with regard to the high rotational speed, and investigates the loss mechanisms which are apparent therein, e.g. iron losses, rotor losses, and friction losses. The paper describes the high-speed testing facility and includes measured results; these are compared to calculated values.
High Performance CNFET-based Ternary Full Adders

ABSTRACT This paper investigates the use of carbon nanotube field effect transistors (CNFETs) for the design of ternary full adder cells. The proposed circuits have been designed based on the unique properties of CNFETs such as having desired threshold voltages by adjusting diameter of the CNFETs gate nanotubes. The proposed circuits are examined using HSPICE simulator with the standard 32 nm CNFET technology. The proposed methods are simulated at different conditions such as different supply voltages, different temperature, and operational frequencies. Simulation results show that the proposed designs are faster than the state of the art CNFET-based ternary full adders.
The interaction of Apolipoprotein A5 gene promoter region T-1131C polymorphism (rs12286037) and lifestyle modification on plasma triglyceride levels in Japanese

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVE Apolipoprotein A5 gene promoter region T-1131C polymorphism (APOA5 T-1131C) is known to be associated with elevated plasma TG levels, although little is known of the influence of the interaction between APOA5 T-1131C and lifestyle modification on TG levels. To investigate this matter, we studied APOA5 T-1131C and plasma TG levels of subjects participating in a three-month lifestyle modification program. SUBJECTS/METHODS A three-month lifestyle modification program was conducted with 297 participants (Age: 57 ± 8 years) in Izumo City, Japan, from 2001-2007. Changes in energy balance (the difference between energy intake and energy expenditure) and BMI were used to evaluate the participants' responses to the lifestyle modification. RESULTS Even after adjusting for confounding factors, plasma TG levels were significantly different at baseline among three genotype subgroups: TT, 126 ± 68 mg/dl; TC, 134 ± 74 mg/dl; and CC, 172 ± 101 mg/dl. Lifestyle modification resulted in significant reductions in plasma TG levels in the TT, TC, and CC genotype subgroups: -21.9 ± 61.0 mg/dl, -20.9 ± 51.0 mg/dl, and -42.6 ± 78.5 mg/dl, respectively, with no significant differences between them. In a stepwise regression analysis, age, APOA5 T-1131C, body mass index (BMI), homeostasis model assessment-insulin resistance (HOMA-IR), and the 18:1/18:0 ratio showed independent association with plasma TG levels at baseline. In a general linear model analysis, APOA5 T-1131C C-allele carriers showed significantly greater TG reduction with decreased energy balance than wild type carriers after adjustment for age, gender, and baseline plasma TG levels. CONCLUSIONS The genetic effects of APOA5 T-1131C independently affected plasma TG levels. However, lifestyle modification was effective in significantly reducing plasma TG levels despite the APOA5 T-1131C genotype background.
Cell phone controlled rocker-bogie suspension type rover with a scooping arm

This paper presents a way to build a cell phone controlled rocker-bogie suspension type rover with a scooping arm. This rover can swap between autonomous and manual control states. It has a wireless camera onboard which transmits videos to a nearby laptop with a range of 100 feet. As well as an ultra-sonic sensor which is mounted on a B0 motor to help the sonar rotate in place to detect and avoid obstacles on all 3 sides. It also houses a samsung 3200 mobile phone along with the Atmega32 board with 6 onboard drivers so that it can be controlled by a cell phone by the human operator through the DTMF technique. The scooping arm is attached to the rear portion of the rover and a B0 motor controls the scooping operations. Here the rover continues moving straight until an obstacle has been detected by the sonar. The sonar then turns left to see if there are any obstacles to the left, if there are no obstacles then the rover turns left. If there is an obstacle then it sees right, if there no obstacles then the rover turns right. However if there are obstacles then the scooping arm scoops some rock samples onto the body of the rover and the rover turns 180 degrees backwards and the process repeats. If at all at any point the human operator watching what the rover is seeing wishes to control it, he can call the cell phone stationed on the rover and control all actions of the rover and swap back when done.
Automatic Placement to Improve Capacitance Matching Using a Generalized Common-Centroid Layout and Spatial Correlation Optimization

In analog designs, the most widely adopted layout practice to improve matching is the symmetrical common-centroid placement. However, this arrangement cannot be obtained in general. In this paper, it is shown that there are asymmetrical placements with a common centroid which are also immune to process gradients and suitable for designs where a symmetrical layout is not possible. In addition, this paper proposes an automated method, based on a standard simulated annealing framework, to arrange fully-integrated capacitors in a layout to improve their matching.
Phenotypic Variability Within the Inclusion Body Spectrum of Basophilic Inclusion Body Disease and Neuronal Intermediate Filament Inclusion Disease in Frontotemporal Lobar Degenerations With FUS-Positive Inclusions

Abstract Basophilic inclusion body disease and neuronal intermediate filament inclusion disease (NIFID) are rare diseases included among frontotemporal lobar degenerations with FUS-positive inclusions (FTLD-FUS). We report clinical and pathologic features of 2 new patients and reevaluate neuropathologic characteristics of 2 previouslydescribed cases, including an early-onset case of basophilic inclusion body disease (aged 38 years) with a 5-year disease course and abundant FUS-positive inclusion bodies and 3 NIFID cases. One NIFID case (aged 37 years) presented with early-onset psychiatric disturbances and rapidly progressive cognitive decline. Two NIFID cases had later onset (aged 64 years and 70 years) and complex neurologic deficits. Postmortem neuropathologic studies in late-onset NIFID cases disclosed &agr;-internexin–positive “hyaline conglomerate”–type inclusions that were positive with 1 commercial anti-FUS antibody directed to residues 200 and 250, but these were negative to amino acids 90 and220 of human FUS. Early-onset NIFID had similar inclusions that werepositive with both commercial anti-FUS antibodies. Genetic testing performed on all cases revealed no FUS gene mutations. These findings indicate that phenotypic variability in NIFID, including clinical manifestations and particular neuropathologic findings, may be related to the age at onset and individual differences in the evolution of lesions.
LQ control design of cooperative teleoperation systems

In this paper, two control architectures for cooperative teleoperation systems based on wave variables and optimal control are presented and discussed. The cooperative control schemes consider two pairs of wave based teleoperation systems collaborating to carry out operations in a shared remote environment. The information exchange occurs only between the corresponding pair, and the slave robots may physically interact between themselves either through a common tool or the manipulated object. Simulation results show the good performance of the proposed framework.
Hinokitiol, a Natural Tropolone Derivative, Offers Neuroprotection from Thromboembolic Stroke In Vivo

Hinokitiol (β-thujaplicin), a tropolone-related compound found in the heartwood cupressaceous plants, is widely used in hair tonics, tooth pastes, cosmetics, and food as an antimicrobial agent. Increasing evidence has confirmed that hinokitiol exhibits anticancer activity in a variety of cancers through inhibition of cell proliferation. In the present study, we have investigated the neuroprotective effect and mechanisms of hinokitiol in rats against middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO)-induced thromboembolic stroke. Treatment with hinokitiol (0.2 and 0.5 mg/kg; intraperitoneally) 30 min before MCAO dose dependently attenuated cerebral ischemia and improved neurobehavioral deficits in cerebral ischemic rats. Intraperitoneal administration of hinokitiol significantly reduced infarct size compared to that in control rats. MCAO-induced focal cerebral ischemia was associated with increased expressions of hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF)-1α, inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α, and active caspase-3 in ischemic regions. However, these expressions were obviously inhibited by hinokitiol (0.2 and 0.5 mg/kg) treatment. This study demonstrates for the first time that in addition to being originally considered as an agent against microbes and variety of cancers, hinokitiol possesses potent neuroprotective activity. This activity is mediated, at least in part, by inhibition of inflammatory responses (i.e., HIF-1α, iNOS expression) and apoptosis (i.e., TNF-α, active caspase-3), resulting in a reduction of infarct volume and improvement in neurobehavior in rats with cerebral ischemia. Therefore, the therapeutic potential of hinokitiol may lead to novel role for treatment or prevention of ischemia/reperfusion injury-related disorders.
Deployment of wireless sensor networks (WSN) in automated irrigation management and scheduling systems: a review

Wireless sensor networks (WSN) is an important and exciting technology with great potential for application in various fields including medicine, transportation, agriculture, industrial process control, global-scale environmental monitoring and precision agriculture. This paper reviews the application of WSN in automating irrigation management and rescheduling. Irrigation management and rescheduling based on WSN are potential solutions for optimum water management via automatic access to in-field soil moisture conditions and control of irrigation systems.
DECOMPOSING THE GINI COEFFICIENT TO REVEAL THE VERTICAL, HORIZONTAL, AND RERANKING EFFECTS OF INCOME TAXATION

Taxes may treat equals unequally, they may treat unequals unequally, and they may cause the ranking of people from poor to rich to be different posttax than it was pretax. This paper offers geometric and mathematical techniques for measuring and computing the above three effects. They are referred to as the vertical, horizontal, and reranking effects. Several scholars currently equate the reranking effect with horizontal inequity. We show, however, that the reranking effect is separate and distinct from the traditional concept of horizontal equity. Our measures are derived by comparing the pretax and posttax Gini coefficients and decomposing the total redistributive effect of the tax. We compare our method to others and provide some preliminary empirical estimates for the income taxes used in the United Kingdom and Italy. For the United Kingdom and Italy, vertical effects dominate horizontal and reranking effects. However, we suspect that for the United States income tax the horizontal and reranking effects will have greater relative importance.
On real time active contours

Active contours represent a widely used segmentation technique. Classical developments often involve great algorithmic complexity, inconveniences with local minima and low convergence to boundary concavities. This paper describes an approach based on a Coarse-to-Fine Normal Neighborhoods strategy (CoFiN2) which leads to lower computational costs, being robust to local minima, and encourages convergence to boundary concavities. This approach is compared with classical methods and is applied on Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) in a real time application.
Free Space Detection from Catadioptric Omnidirectional Images for Visual Navigation using Optical Flow

In this paper, we develop a free space detection algorithm for the visual navigation of the autonomous robot mounting a catadioptiric omnidirectional imaging system. The algorithm detects the dominant plane as the free space from a sequence of omnidirectional images captured by a camera mounted on the autonomous robot. The dominant plane, which can be detected from the optical-flow field, is the largest planar area in the image. For the detection of the dominant plane from the optical-flow field, we adopt the motion separation property, that is, the optical-flow vector is decomposed into infinitesimal rotation, translation, and divergent motions on the images. The algorithm matches the measured translation optical-flow field with the template translation optical-flow field to separate the dominant-plane as the free space for the navigation and the obstacle area. The template optical-flow field is generated from a preobserved image sequence without any calibration of the internal parameters of both the robot and camera.
The Results of a Management Redesign

Abstract This paper reports on the restructuring of a large, private nonprofit, child welfare agency, and includes a description of the change objectives, the process of planning and implementing the changes, and the impact of the changes. The findings discussed here focus on changes in staff turnover and performance as well as staff perceptions of the continuation or reduction of identified organizational problems. The overall goal of the management redesign was to devolve decision-making closer to the point of service delivery. A survey with a response rate of 60.3% was the main source of information for the study. Almost 90% of the respondents reported that the redesign generated benefits, and approximately 74% identified negative consequences. The redesign was perceived by staff to reduce organizational problems related to communication, decision-making, leadership, and agency mission. Staff turnover increased during the redesign, but staff performance remained at a relatively high level.
Extracting and Evaluating Knowledge from e-Health Documents : A Contribution to Information Retrieval and Indexing

The Internet is a major source of biomedical information. This chapter presents a simple yet efficient approach for extraction of information from biomedical documents available on the Internet. The main objective here is to re-use the information extracted during document retrieval and document indexing. In this work, healthinformation seekers are categorized into three main profiles according to their needs for health information: health professionals, students in medicine and the general public. The information-extraction approach of information extraction is based upon a data-mining process, called association rules, which can infer relations between medical concepts. A data-mining system may generate several thousands and even several millions frequent association rules, and only some of these will be interesting. In this chapter we will show how only the most relevant association rules are mined using Formal Concept Analysis and Galois closure. We consider a relevant association rule as being non-redundant with a minimal antecedent and a maximal consequent. This chapter also presents methods to evaluate the extracted information automatically and manually. The automatic evaluation of association rules relies upon the domain background knowledge i.e. the existing relations between medical terms in terminologies or thesauri and medical concepts in ontologies. Background knowledge is combined with conventional statistical measures such as ―support‖ and ―confidence‖. The manual evaluation is realized by experts of the medical domain (physicians and medical librarians). For that, a set of criteria have been modeled to single out the best relation when several are produced. This chapter also shows how to re-use extracted information in the form of association rules as an input in information-retrieval processes using query expansion (or query refinement), and in document indexing and classification.
Self-dual codes and quadratic residue codes over the ring $\mathbb{Z}_9+u\mathbb{Z}_9$

In this paper, we introduce a new definitions of the Gray weight and the Gray map for linear codes over $\mathbb{Z}_9+u\mathbb{Z}_9$ with $u^2=u$. Some results on self-dual codes over this ring are investigated. Further, the structural properties of quadratic residue codes are also considered. Two self-dual codes with parameters $[22,11,5]$ and $[24,12,9]$ over $\mathbb{Z}_9$ are obtained.
An embedded vision system for an unmanned four-rotor helicopter

In this paper an embedded vision system and control module is introduced that is capable of controlling an unmanned four-rotor helicopter and processing live video for various law enforcement, security, military, and civilian applications. The vision system is implemented on a newly designed compact FPGA board (Helios). The Helios board contains a Xilinx Virtex-4 FPGA chip and memory making it capable of implementing real time vision algorithms. A Smooth Automated Intelligent Leveling daughter board (SAIL), attached to the Helios board, collects attitude and heading information to be processed in order to control the unmanned helicopter. The SAIL board uses an electrolytic tilt sensor, compass, voltage level converters, and analog to digital converters to perform its operations. While level flight can be maintained, problems stemming from the characteristics of the tilt sensor limits maneuverability of the helicopter. The embedded vision system has proven to give very good results in its performance of a number of real-time robotic vision algorithms.
A ‘nano-battering ram’ for measuring surface forces: obtaining force–distance curves and sidewall stiction data with a MEMS device

MEMS (micro-electromechanical systems) devices often suffer from stiction induced reliability problems. Although a theoretical framework to describe stiction in MEMS is under development in the scientific community, experimental data are still scarce. We have developed a MEMS device that can be used to electronically measure sidewall surface forces in situ, i.e. on chip. To be able to use it, we have developed a sensitive electronic readout system that detects comb drive capacitance variations with 10 aF resolution. In addition, we use a model to correct the measured capacitance changes for the ground-plane-induced levitation effect of the comb drive. Our first results for the interaction between oxidized polycrystalline silicon sidewall surfaces show that at a relative humidity (RH) of 45% and a temperature of 27 °C the stiction force amounts to 6.7 ± 1.6 kPa, which we assume to be mainly caused by capillary condensation. This stiction force was found to be independent of both the normal force with which the surfaces were pressed against each other prior to the stiction measurement and the age of the contact, showing that the contact is fully elastic, and capillary condensation is instantaneous on the time scale of the measurement (milliseconds to seconds). We also use the device to measure complete force–distance curves, so that these results can be compared with AFM (atomic force microscope) measurements.
GARCH Models for Forecasting Volatility and Determining Arbitrage in Options

Derivatives have become widely accepted as tools for hedging and risk-management, and also to some extent for speculation. A more recent trend has been gaining some ground, that of arbitrage in derivatives. The critical parameter in derivatives pricing is the volatility of the underlying asset. Exchanges often overestimate volatility in order to cover for any sudden changes in market behavior, leading to systematic overpricing of derivatives. Accurate forecasting of volatility would expose this systematic overpricing. Unfortunately, volatility is not an easy phenomenon to predict or forecast. One class of models which have proved successful in forecasting volatility in many situations is the GARCH family of models. The objective of the present study is to analyze systematic mispricing of options derivatives. In order to perform the analysis, data was collected for a sample of NSE-traded stock options and for their underlying stocks for the period of one year prior to the contract. The study uses GARCH models to forecast underlying stock volatility, and uses this forecasted volatility in the Black-Scholes model in order to determine whether the corresponding options are fairly priced. The motivation behind the research was to find systematic mispricing that would provide evidence for arbitrage opportunities.
Darfur : the responsibility to protect

BOOk ReVIeWS | 155 “It has taken a desperately long time for the idea to take hold that mass atrocities are the world’s business: that they cannot be universally ignored and that sovereignty is not a license to kill” (p. 11). Gareth Evans opens his book with this condemnation of the international community’s decades of practical indifference to gross and systematic human rights abuses in its wide range of manifestations. Evans, a former Australian state minister, had more than 20 years in government service behind him and was just starting nearly a decade of public interest service as president and chief executive officer of the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based nongovernmental organization, when he was appointed to co-chair the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS). The commission produced a report that outlines the responsibility to protect (R2P) concept. By Gareth Evans Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2008 349 pp. $24.95 ISBN –13: 978–0–815–72504–6 The Responsibility to Protect: Ending Mass Atrocity Crimes Once and for All Book Reviews