Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Understanding and measuring tourist destination images

A destination image is `the expression of all objective knowledge, impressions, prejudice, imaginations, and emotional thoughts an individual or group might have of a particular place' (Lawson and Baud Bovy, 1977). Destination images in uence a tourist's travel decision-making, cognition and behaviour at a destination as well as satisfaction levels and recollection of the experience. This paper looks at the concept of tourist destination images and how destination image research has been approached from different academic disciplines and by practitioners such as
Response of enzyme activities and microbial communities to soil amendment with sugar alcohols

Changes in microbial community structure are widely known to occur after soil amendment with low‐molecular‐weight organic compounds; however, there is little information on concurrent changes in soil microbial functional diversity and enzyme activities, especially following sorbitol and mannitol amendment. Soil microbial functional diversity and enzyme activities can be impacted by sorbitol and mannitol, which in turn can alter soil fertility and quality. The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of sorbitol and mannitol addition on microbial functional diversity and enzyme activities. The results demonstrated that sorbitol and mannitol addition altered the soil microbial community structure and improved enzyme activities. Specifically, the addition of sorbitol enhanced the community‐level physiological profile (CLPP) compared with the control, whereas the CLPP was significantly inhibited by the addition of mannitol. The results of a varimax rotated component matrix demonstrated that carbohydrates, polymers, and carboxylic acids affected the soil microbial functional structure. Additionally, we found that enzyme activities were affected by both the concentration and type of inputs. In the presence of high concentrations of sorbitol, the urease, catalase, alkaline phosphatase, β‐glucosidase, and N‐acetyl‐β‐d‐glucosaminidase activities were significantly increased, while invertase activity was decreased. Similarly, this increase in invertase, catalase, and alkaline phosphatase and N‐acetyl‐β‐d‐glucosaminidase activities was especially evident after mannitol addition, and urease activity was only slightly affected. In contrast, β‐glucosidase activity was suppressed at the highest concentration. These results indicate that microbial community diversity and enzyme activities are significantly affected by soil amendment with sorbitol and mannitol.
Spectrum sharing-based multi-hop decode-and-forward relay networks under interference constraints: Performance analysis and relay position optimization

The exact closed-form expressions for outage probability and bit error rate of spectrum sharing-based multi-hop decode-and-forward (DF) relay networks in non-identical Rayleigh fading channels are derived. We also provide the approximate closed-form expression for the system ergodic capacity. Utilizing these tractable analytical formulas, we can study the impact of key network parameters on the performance of cognitive multi-hop relay networks under interference constraints. Using a linear network model, we derive an optimum relay position scheme by numerically solving an optimization problem of balancing average signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of each hop. The numerical results show that the optimal scheme leads to SNR performance gains of more than 1 dB. AU the analytical expressions are verified by Monte-Carlo simulations confirming the advantage of multihop DF relaying networks in cognitive environments.
Homomorphisms From Mapping Class Groups

This paper concerns rigidity of the mapping class groups. It is shown that any homomorphism ϕ : Modg → Modh between mapping class groups of closed orientable surfaces with distinct genera g > h is trivial if g ⩾ 3, and has finite cyclic image for all g ⩾ 1.
Cognitive and Computational Models in Interactive Narrative

In this paper, we set out a basic approach to the modeling of narrative in interactive virtual worlds. This approach adopts a bipartite model taken from narrative theory, in which narrative is composed of story and discourse. In our approach, story elements – plot and character – are defined in terms of plans that drive the dynamics of a virtual environment. Discourse elements – the narrative’s communicative actions – are defined in terms of discourse plans whose communicative goals include conveying the story world plan’s structure. To ground the model in computational terms, we provide examples from research under way in the Liquid Narrative Group involving the design of the Mimesis system, an architecture for intelligent interactive narrative incorporating concepts from artificial intelligence, narrative theory, cognitive psychology and computational linguistics.
Reduction of Foxp3+ Cells by Depletion with the PC61 mAb Induces Mortality in Resistant BALB/c Mice Infected with Toxoplasma gondii

Regulatory T cells (Tregs) are CD4+Foxp3+ cells that modulate autoimmune responses. Tregs have been shown to be also involved during the immune response against infectious agents. The aim of this work is to study the role of Tregs during the infection with the intracellular protozoan Toxoplasma gondii. Resistant BALB/c mice were injected with 200 μg of anti-CD25 mAb (clone PC61) and 2 days later they were infected with 20 cysts of the ME49 strain of T. gondii. We observed that depleted mice showed 50–60% mortality during the acute infection. When FACS analysis was carried out, we observed that although injection of PC61 mAb eliminated 50% of Tregs, infected-depleted mice showed a similar percentage of CD25+Foxp3− (activated T cells, Tact) to those observed in infected nondepleted animals, demonstrating that in our depletion/infection system, injection of PC61 mAb did not hamper T cell activation while percentage of Tregs was reduced by 75% 10 days post infection. We concluded that Tregs are essential during protection in the acute phase of T. gondii infection.
MultiPass lasso algorithms for sparse signal recovery

We develop the MultiPass Lasso (MPL) algorithm for sparse signal recovery. MPL applies the Lasso algorithm in a novel, sequential manner and has the following important attributes. First, MPL improves the estimation of the support of the sparse signal by combining high quality estimates of its partial supports which are sequentially recovered via the Lasso algorithm in each iteration/pass. Second, the algorithm is capable of exploiting the dynamic range in the nonzero magnitudes. Preliminary theoretic analysis shows the potential performance improvement enabled by MPL over Lasso. In addition, we propose the Reweighted MultiPass Lasso algorithm which substitutes Lasso with MPL in each iteration of Reweighted l1 Minimization. Experimental results favorably support the advantages of the proposed algorithms in both reconstruction accuracy and computational efficiency, thereby supporting the potential of the MultiPass framework for algorithmic development.
Relationship of leadership styles and employee creativity: A mediating role of creative self-efficacy and moderating role of organizational climate

The aim of the current study is to explore the relationship between leadership styles and employee creativity through a mediating role of creative self-efficacy and moderating role of organizational climate. The sample of the current study consists of 400 managers from commercial banking sector of Pakistan. To test the relationship multiple regression analysis was applied. Before applying multiple regressions all the assumptions of multiple regression were checked and found it satisfactory. Validity and reliability of the research instrument was also checked. The study found that transformational leadership style was positively and significantly related with employee creativity, while transactional leadership style was negatively related with employee creativity. Furthermore, creative self-efficacy mediates the relationship between leadership styles and employee creativity. Also, organizational climate and its dimensions namely intrinsic recognition, support & impartiality (ISI) and cohesion were positively and significantly related with employee creativity, while organizational climate dimension namely pressure was negatively associated with employee creativity.
Design and Field Experiment of the Coastal Acoustic Tomography

The Coastal Acoustic Tomography (CAT) system was developed to measure currents in the coastal water with heavy shipping traffic and fishing activities. The CAT system was designed for transmitting and receiving the sound signal at same time, and accurate measuring acoustic travel time between two separated stations by using the M-sequence sound signal and GPS clock. The operating frequency of CAT system was 3-7.5 kHz, and the accuracy of clock was 0. 5μs. A reciprocal sound transmission experiment was carried out in a shallow river, using a 5 kHz M sequence of 9 th order. The sound signals were successful received at two stations with a mean signal to noise ratio of about 83 and 71.The field experiment indicated that the CAT system operated correctly.
Multimodal Fusion for Robust Identity Authentication: Role of Liveness Checks

Most of the current biometric identity authentication systems currently deployed are based on modeling the identity of a person based on unimodal information, i.e. face, voice, or fingerprint features. Also, many current interactive civilian remote human computer interaction applications are based on speech based voice features, which achieve significantly lower performance for operating environments with low signal-to-noise ratios (SNR). For a long time, use of acoustic information alone has been a great success for several automatic speech processing applications such as automatic speech transcription or speaker authentication, while face identification systems based visual information alone from faces also proved to be of equally successful. However, in adverse operating environments, performance of either of these systems could be suboptimal. Use of both visual and audio information can lead to better robustness, as they can provide complementary secondary clues that can help in the analysis of the primary biometric signals (Potamianos et al (2004)). The joint analysis of acoustic and visual speech can improve the robustness of automatic speech recognition systems (Liu et al (2002), Gurbuz et al (2002). There have been several systems proposed on use of joint face-voice information for improving the performance of current identity authentication systems. However, most of these state-of-the-art authentication approaches are based on independently processing the voice and face information and then fusing the scores – the score fusion (Chibelushi et al (2002), Pan et al (2000), Chaudari et. al.(2003)). A major weakness of these systems is that they do not take into account fraudulent replay attack scenarios into consideration, leaving them vulnerable to spoofing by recording the voice of the target in advance and replaying it in front of the microphone, or simply placing a still picture of the target’s face in front of the camera. This problem can be addressed with liveness verification, which ensures that biometric cues are acquired from a live person who is actually present at the time of capture for authenticating the identity. With the diffusion of Internet based authentication systems for day-to-day civilian scenarios at a astronomical pace (Chetty and Wagner (2008)), it is high time to think about the vulnerability of traditional biometric authentication approaches and consider inclusion of liveness checks for next generation biometric systems. Though there is some work in finger print based liveness checking techniques (Goecke and Millar (2003), Molhom et al (2002)), there is hardly any work in liveness checks based on user-
The Decline of the Middle Class: An International Perspective

Did the US middle class benefit from the 1990s economic boom? Did this halt or reverse a middle class decline from the previous decade or more? Is a shrinking middle class strictly a US phenomenon with domestic causes, or is a problem that has plagued most of the world economy? This paper will explore these issues. Section II describes previous attempts at defining the middle class. Section III then examines four possible causes of the declining middle class--changing demographic factors, structural economic changes, macroeconomic conditions, and a more Keynesian explanation which depends on the importance of government spending. Section IV describes the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), which will be used to measure the middle class and to seek the cause of middle class decline in the US and other countries. Section V provides measurements of the middle class for a number of countries using the LIS. Because of the controversy surrounding definitional matters, several different definitions of the middle class are employed. Using the LIS, section VI empirically examines the four different explanations for the shrinking middle class set forth in section III. Finally, we conclude with some policy implications.
A Distributed Measurement System for Correlating Faults to Lightning in Distribution Networks

The paper describes a distributed measurement system developed for the monitoring of lightning-originated transients in distribution networks. The data obtained by means of the proposed system are intended to be integrated with those provided by the Italian lightning location system and with those recorded by a monitoring system of relay operations. The paper briefly illustrates the philosophy of the measurement system, its develop as well as its set-up in a distribution network, located in a high keraunic area, in the northern region of Italy.
Mining Double Association Rules on Temporal Dataset

This article mainly researches mining questions of association rules in temporal data. A fundamental structure for double association rules mining is proposed, based on temporal dataset, to define the main notion used in temporal knowledge discovery in a formal way. The relevant properties of the notion are proved. A data structure, hash table based on the double linked list will be used for the storage of the temporal data. According to the notions of the time-model, a double association rules mining is developed. We also have proposed that a kind of algorithm, and analyses about the result of the algorithm.
Optimal chunking of large multidimensional arrays for data warehousing

Very large multidimensional arrays are commonly used in data intensive scientific computations as well ason-line analytical processing applications referred to as MOLAP. The storage organization of such arrays on disks is done by partitioning the large global array into fixed size sub-arrays called chunks or tiles that form the units of data transfer between disk and memory. Typical queries involve the retrieval of sub-arrays in a manner that access all chunks that overlap the query results. An important metric of the storage efficiency is the expected number of chunks retrieved over all such queries. The question that immediately arises is "what shapes of array chunks give theminimum expected number of chunks over a query workload? " The problem of optimal chunking was first introduced by Sarawagi and Stonebraker [11] who gave an approximate solution. In this paper we develop exact mathematical models of the problem and provide exact solutions using steepest descent and geometric programming methods. Experimental results, using synthetic and real life workloads, show that our solutions are consistently within than 2.0% of the true number of chunks retrieved for any number of dimensions. In contrast, the approximate solution of [11] can deviate considerably from the true result with increasing number of dimensions and also may lead suboptimal chunk shapes.
MLESAC-Based Tracking with 2 D Revolute-Prismatic Articulated Models

A model for tracking articulated objects is proposed using a novel 2D revolute-prismatic joint. An extension of the RANSAC and MLESAC algorithms incorporating feature weights is used to perform robust tracking. The models are suitable for tracking certain human body structures. Limbs are modelled as constrained planar patches. A patch can rotate about a joint point that is displaced relative to the previous patch. A scenario in which the forearm is tracked is used to illustrate the method.
Amniocytes can serve a dual function as a source of iPS cells and feeder layers

Clinical barriers to stem-cell therapy include the need for efficient derivation of histocompatible stem cells and the zoonotic risk inherent to human stem-cell xenoculture on mouse feeder cells. We describe a system for efficiently deriving induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells from human and mouse amniocytes, and for maintaining the pluripotency of these iPS cells on mitotically inactivated feeder layers prepared from the same amniocytes. Both cellular components of this system are thus autologous to a single donor. Moreover, the use of human feeder cells reduces the risk of zoonosis. Generation of iPS cells using retroviral vectors from short- or long-term cultured human and mouse amniocytes using four factors, or two factors in mouse, occurs in 5–7 days with 0.5% efficiency. This efficiency is greater than that reported for mouse and human fibroblasts using similar viral infection approaches, and does not appear to result from selective reprogramming of Oct4+ or c-Kit+ amniocyte subpopulations. Derivation of amniocyte-derived iPS (AdiPS) cell colonies, which express pluripotency markers and exhibit appropriate microarray expression and DNA methylation properties, was facilitated by live immunostaining. AdiPS cells also generate embryoid bodies in vitro and teratomas in vivo. Furthermore, mouse and human amniocytes can serve as feeder layers for iPS cells and for mouse and human embryonic stem (ES) cells. Thus, human amniocytes provide an efficient source of autologous iPS cells and, as feeder cells, can also maintain iPS and ES cell pluripotency without the safety concerns associated with xenoculture.
Automatic layout of scalable embedded field programmable gate array

This paper presents a layout technique for scalable embedded Field Programmable Gate Array architecture (eFPGA). It describes the total ? ow to generate a variety of eFPGA architectures using parameterized generators and Alliance CAD developed in the university of Paris6 We will show one example of realization using a symbolic library of cells. Our test eFPGA have a symmetric mesh architecture (Island-style) composed of ? ve main tiles. The scalability of this tiles can be varied to obtain the best design ? t on the System on Chip device.
Intrinsic Histological Abnormalities of Aortic Root and Ascending Aorta in Tetralogy of Fallot: Evidence of Causative Mechanism for Aortic Dilatation and Aortopathy

Background—Dilatation of the aortic root is a known feature in tetralogy of Fallot (TOF) patients with pulmonary stenosis (PS) or pulmonary atresia (PA). We hypothesized that intrinsic histological abnormalities of the aortic wall present since infancy are an important causative factor leading to aortic root dilatation. Methods and Results—We examined the aortic histology of 17 cases with TOF and PS/PA from our cardiac morphology archive and compared them with a control group of normal aortas. Measured circumference of the aortic root at the sinotubular junction and at the ascending aorta was indexed to the left ventricle. Aortic walls were studied by light microscopy with the use of various stains. Seventeen TOF cases (7 with PS, 10 with PA) including 7 infants, 2 children, and 8 adults were compared with 11 hearts with normal aorta. Aortic root circumference to left ventricular index and ascending aortic circumference to left ventricular index were 1.24±0.25 and 1.37±0.24, respectively, in the TOF group versus 0.89±0.10 and 0.88±0.11, respectively, in the control group (P<0.001). Histological changes of grade 2 or 3 were present in 29% (medionecrosis), 82% (fibrosis), 35% (cystic medial necrosis), and 59% (elastic fragmentation) in the ascending aorta of the TOF group. Histology grading scores were significantly higher in the TOF group (median score, 7; range, 1 to 12) compared with normal controls (median score, 2; range, 0 to 6) and correlated with the ascending aortic circumference to left ventricular index (r=0.525, P=0.03). Conclusions—There are marked histological abnormalities in the aortic root and ascending aortic wall of patients with TOF present from infancy, suggesting a causative mechanism for subsequent aortic root dilatation.
Effect of estrogen and progestin treatments on endometria from postmenopausal women.

This report describes experiments designed to answer several important questions about the biochemistry of estrogen-stimulated postmenopausal endometrium; in particular; how much estrogen enters the endometrium and the biological effectiveness of that estrogen in women receiving different forms of postmenopausal estrogenic therapy. To this end, nuclear and cytoplasmic estradiol receptor (ER) and cytoplasmic progesterone receptor (PR) were measured in curettage samples of endometria from women receiving, either sequentially or cyclically, Premarin, Harmogen, Progynova, or mestranol at either low or high doses. Cyclical treatment with estrogen alone was compared with sequential therapy with 3 weeks of estrogen plus 1 week of estrogen plus 1 week of estrogen plus northisterone. No difference in any of the receptor levels was found in samples obtained during the 3rd week of any of the 4-week treatment cycles. For 2-3 weeks of a treatment cycle, the receptor levels were similar to those seen in premenopausal, proliferative-phase endometrium, suggesting that postmenopausal endometrial cells are subjected to a very potent estrogenic stimulus for a considerable period. Norethisterone ingestion for 1 week decreased both the amount of nuclear ER and the percentage of total cellular ER that were in the nuclear fraction. Estradiol dehydrogenase was also induced by the progestin. The presence of this enzyme could result in lowered nuclear ER levels which were seen during the progestogenic phase of the treatment schedule. Nuclear ER was lower during Week 3 than Week 2 of estrogen treatment. In addition, PR was negatively correlated with nuclear ER in postmenopausal tissues obtained in Week 3 in contrast to positive correlations seen in premenopausal samples. Possibly a 3-week treatment with estrogen leads to a refractory condition. When receptor levels of normal, cystic hyperplastic, typical hyperplastic, and atypical hyperplastic tissues were compared, the endometria that had been returned to normal histology suggested that cells in atypical hyperplastic endometrial cells may be more estrogen sensitive than other types of endometrial tissues.