Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Special Topic: Haunted with and Hunting for Viruses Duck Egg Drop Syndrome Virus: an Emerging Tembusu-related Flavivirus in China

Duck egg drop syndrome virus (DEDSV) is a newly emerging pathogenic flavivirus isolated from ducks in China. DEDSV infection mainly results in severe egg drop syndrome in domestic poultry, which leads to huge economic losses. Thus, the discovery of ways and means to combat DEDSV is urgent. Since 2010, a remarkable amount of progress concerning DEDSV research has been achieved. Here, we review current knowledge on the epidemiology, symptomatology, and pathology of DEDSV. A detailed dissection of the viral genome and polyprotein sequences, comparative analysis of viral antigenicity and the corresponding potential immunity against the virus are also summarized. Current findings indicate that DEDSV should be a distinct species from Tembusu virus. Moreover, the adaption of DEDSV in wildlife and its high homology to pathogenic fla-viviruses (e.g., West Nile virus, Japanese encephalitis virus, and dengue virus), illustrate its reemergence and potential to become a zoonotic pathogen that should not be overlooked. Detailed insight into the antigenicity and corresponding immunity against the virus is of clear significance for the development of vaccines and antiviral drugs specific for DEDSV. Flaviviruses are positive-sense, single-stranded RNA viruses distributed throughout the world. Over 70 different members in genus Flavivirus of Family Flaviviridae have been discovered to date, and more than 50% of the known fla-viviruses are associated with human disease. The most important human pathogens are yellow fever virus (YFV), Dengue virus (DENV), Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV), West Nile virus (WNV), and tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBEV), which are arthropod-borne and transmitted to vertebrates by infected mosquitoes or ticks, producing diseases in human beings and animals. Taking into consideration of the vector, vertebrate hosts, antigenic, phylogenetic, and biogeographical characteristics, flaviviruses are divided into three groups: mosquito-borne viruses, tick-borne viruses, and viruses with no known arthropod vector [1]. Many flaviviruses have been isolated from avian species
Tree Axis Structure Simplification Correspondent to Botanical Properties

In order to describe the tree topology more efficiently for modeling and biological calculation, a ternary tree data structure is introduced in this paper. The data structure of a ternary tree and the topological structure of a real tree constitute a mapping, which presents the biological properties of plant axes and the relationships among plant axes of different tiers. The simplification of tree axes has explicit botanical significance. Biological properties are considered, and the fidelity is kept as high as possible between the simplified tree axes and biological features such as canopy envelope’s shape, volume and the biomass distribution inside. This paper applies the ternary tree data structure and the tree axis simplification method to simplify tree modeling and therefore generates Levels of Detail (LOD) models. Fast display of the LOD models is achieved with graphics hardware acceleration. Experimental results indicate that the introduced structural simplification is highly correspondent to a real tree’s botanical properties, keeps visual equivalence in a satisfactory degree, and is smooth in the transition between levels of detail of models. Furthermore, the approach is advantageous for graphics hardware acceleration.
How to Draw a Heart: Teaching Art to Incarcerated Youth

This article traces the progress of a social theory-based university art education program in which undergraduate majors teach art to incarcerated youth. It addresses and goes beyond the editor's question, "What imagery lies 'outside' art educators' accepted sphere? " Not only is the imagery of these populations out of sight, but so are the sites of incarceration themselvesa=they exist not only outside the purview of the art education field, but of nearly every sector of society except the police. Even their families are often "out of sight. " The readable, conversational format is a political choicea=I offer an alternative to the jargon-heavy, "objective" voice of traditional scholarship. My target audience is not only university faculty, but also students and classroom teachers who will read this article because they want to rather than simply because it was assigned. Perhaps these conversations will remove stereotypes in some readers' minds or even pave the way for them to become involved with incarcerated populations.
The energy balance in solar prominences

In this paper we study the energy balance in quies- cent solar prominences. For this investigation we use a simple 1D slab model in magneto-hydrostatic equilibrium. We divide the studied region into two parts: The inner region consisting of the prominence itself and the cool part of the transition region (up to 30000 K). In this region the plasma is optically thick in several atomic transitions and therefore we have to solve the non-LTE radiative transfer prob- lem in this part. This allows us to derive self-consistently the gas density, the ionization degree of hydrogen and the hydrogenic radiation losses. The energy transport by thermal conduction can be neglected in this region. In the outer part of the transition region, the thermal con- duction becomes very important but the treatment of radiation is simplified by the fact that the plasma is optically thin. We find that energy balance in prominences can only be obtained for special forms of the heating function. This require- ment is very stringent for the inner parts, while in the outer region thermal conduction can transport large amounts of the heat energy and therefore a wider class of heating functions will be allowed.
Interval arithmetic in power flow analysis

Power flow analysis is the fundamental tool for the study of power systems. The data for this problem are subject to uncertainty. Interval arithmetic is used to solve the power flow problem. Interval arithmetic takes into consideration the uncertainty of the nodal information, and is able to provide strict bounds for the solutions to the problem: all possible solutions are included within the bounds given by interval arithmetic. Results are compared with those obtainable by Monte Carlo simulations and by the use of stochastic power flows. Object-oriented programming techniques makes it possible to use interval arithmetic with minimal modifications to existing software. However, to reduce the conservatism inherent in all interval arithmetic computations, an iterative method is used to obtain the hull of the solution set. <<ETX>>
Galactic Edge Clouds. I. Molecular Line Observations and Chemical Modeling of Edge Cloud 2

Edge Cloud 2 (EC2) is a molecular cloud, about 35 pc in size, with one of the largest galactocentric distances known to exist in the Milky Way. We present observations of a peak CO emission region in the cloud and use these to determine its physical characteristics. We calculate a gas temperature of 20 K and a density of n(H2) ∼ 104 cm−3. Based on our CO maps, we estimate the mass of EC2 at around 104 M☉ and continuum observations suggest a dust-to-gas mass ratio as low as 0.001. Chemical models have been developed to reproduce the abundances in EC2, and they indicate that heavy element abundances may be reduced by a factor of 5 relative to the solar neighborhood (similar to dwarf irregular galaxies and damped Lyα systems), very low extinction (AV < 4 mag) due to a very low dust-to-gas mass ratio, an enhanced cosmic-ray ionization rate, and a higher UV field compared to local interstellar values. The reduced abundances may be attributed to the low level of star formation in this region and are probably also related to the continuing infall of primordial (or low-metallicity) halo gas since the Milky Way formed. Finally, we note that shocks from the old supernova remnant GSH 138-01-94 may have determined the morphology and dynamics of EC2.
Phylogenetic Inference on Cell Processors Master ’ s

Phylogenetics is a problem in bioinformatics, which requires high performance hardware and fast algorithms to process a constantly increasing amount of data. This thesis addresses both issues by presenting a new search heuristic, called RapidNJ, for the famous NeighbourJoining method, and by evaluating the Playstation 3 Cell processors applicability in distance based phylogenetic inference. RapidNJ significantly reduces the execution time of the NeighbourJoining method and makes construction of large phylogenetic trees feasible. Experiments are presented, which show that RapidNJ outperforms both state of the art heuristics and approximation algorithms. The Cell processor has attracted much attention because of its high performance compared to mainstream processors and has proved useful for efficiently solving some problems in bioinformatics. This thesis evaluates the applicability of the Cell processor in Phylogenetics and other computational intensive problems. The evaluation is based on a survey of the novel Cell architecture, an investigation of how the Cell architecture affects software development, and a series of experiments. The experiments compare the performance of a Cell processor to that of a contemporary mainstream processor when executing the NeighbourJoining method.
Sections of fiber bundles over surfaces

We study the existence problem and the enumeration problem for sections of Serre fibrations over compact orientable surfaces. When the fundamental group of the fiber is finite, a complete solution is given in terms of 2-dimensional cohomology classes associated with certain irreducible representations of this group. The proofs are based on Topological Quantum Field Theory.
VC dimension of ellipsoids

We will establish that the VC dimension of the class of d-dimensional ellipsoids is (d^2+3d)/2, and that maximum likelihood estimate with N-component d-dimensional Gaussian mixture models induces a geometric class having VC dimension at least N(d^2+3d)/2. Keywords: VC dimension; finite dimensional ellipsoid; Gaussian mixture model
Is Analyst Optimism Intentional? Additional Evidence on the Existence of Reporting and Selection Bias in Analyst Earnings Forecasts

The paper examines whether the documented bias in analyst earnings forecasts is intentional by investigating whether analysts account for the market's ability to adjust for the bias when forming their forecasts. The procedure follows three steps. First, I estimate on a firm-specific basis the forecast error for each firm decomposed in its two parts, bias and underreaction. I then employ an ERC model for each firm modified to include the expected bias and underreaction from step 1. The coefficient on the expected bias variable serves as the proxy for the market's ability to adjust for the bias. Finally I include this proxy in a cross-sectional regression explaining analyst forecast error. Finding a relationship between bias and the proxy for the market's ability to adjust for the bias will provide evidence on the joint hypothesis that (a) analysts know what the ability of the market to undo the bias for a firm is and (b) they form or issue their forecasts accordingly. A positive relationship is consistent with the existence of both reporting and selection bias. A negative relationship is consistent with the existence of reporting bias. I find that analysts reduce the bias in their announced forecasts as the market's ability to adjust for the bias increases. This result provides direct evidence that analysts knowingly bias their forecasts. The negative relationship between the market's ability to adjust for the bias and the level of bias in the forecasts provides support for the existence of reporting bias in particular. Controlling for the sign of bias (optimistic vs. pessimistic) shows that optimistic bias is intentional. Even though I do not find evidence that pessimistic bias is intentional this may be due to the structural design of the tests. Finally, even though I find that the market seems to adjust for analyst underreaction, I do not find evidence that analyst underreaction is intentional.
Reduced Complexity Decoding of Coded Pulse-Position Modulation Using Partial Statistics

We show the storage requirements for soft-in soft-out (SISO) decoding of pulseposition modulation may be reduced by discarding a substantial subset of the slot likelihoods while suffering neglibible loss in performance in a serially concatenated, iteratively decoded scheme. We illustrate optimum processing of the remaining subset under a choose the maximum rule and show that a simplified trellis may be used for SISO decoding.
The Unusual Optical Afterglow of the Gamma-Ray Burst GRB 021004: Color Changes and Short-Timescale Variability

We report UBVRI observations of the optical afterglow of the gamma-ray burst GRB 021004. We observed significant (~10%-20%) deviations from a power-law decay on several timescales, ranging from a few hours down to 20-30 minutes. We also observed a significant color change starting ~1.5 days after the burst, confirming the spectroscopic results already reported by Matheson et al. We discuss these results in the context of several models that have recently been proposed to account for the anomalous photometric behavior of this event.
Polymerization behavior and thermal characteristics of two new composites at five temperatures: refrigeration to preheating

PURPOSE Heat of composite polymerization (HP) indicates setting efficacy and temperature increase of composite in clinical procedures. The purpose of this in vitro experimental study was to evaluate the effects of 5 temperatures on HP of two new composites. MATERIALS AND METHODS From each material (Core Max II [CM] and King Dental [KD]), 5 groups of 5 specimens each were prepared and their total HPs (J/gr) were measured and recorded, at one of the constant temperatures 0℃, 15℃, 23℃, 37℃ and 60℃ (2 × 5 × 5 specimens) using a differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analyzer. The data were analyzed using a two-way ANOVA, a Tukey's test, an independent-samples t-test, and a linear regression analysis (α=0.05). RESULTS No polymerization reactions occurred at 0℃; then this temperature was excluded from statistical analyses. The mean HP of the remaining 20 KD specimens was 20.5 ± 14.9 J/gr, while it was 40.7 ± 12.9 J/gr for CM. The independent-samples t-test showed that there were significant differences between the HP of the two materials at the temperatures 15℃ (P=.0001), 23℃ (P=.0163), 37℃ (P=.0039), and 60℃ (P=.0106). Linear regression analysis showed statistically significant correlations between environment temperatures and HP of CM (R2=0.777). CONCLUSION Using CM is advantageous over conventional composite because of its better polymerization capacity. However due to its high HP, further studies should assess its temperature increase in vivo. Preheating KD is recommended. Refrigerating composites can negatively affect their polymerization potential.
R&D Activities in Affiliates of Swedish Multinational Enterprises

The fact that multinational enterprises (MNEs) do not undertake all their research and development (R & D) activities at home has become a matter of recent concern, both in the home and host countries of these companies. Some empirical work has been done on the question of why MNEs decentralize their RD see Mansfield et al. (1979), Lall (1979), H~akansson (1980) and Hirschey and Caves (1981). ' To the best of my knowledge, the study by HWkansson (1980) is the only one that deals with the determinants of the R& D intensity of MNE affiliates, but it is confined to subsidiaries that carry out R& D, while foreign affiliates that do not are excluded.2 Furthermore, the analysis does not take into account the characteristics of the MNE to which the affiliates belong. Our study investigates the factors that explain the R & D intensity of foreign subsidiaries of Swedish MNEs, using data for 1978. Following Haikansson (1980), we concentrate on the technological capabilities developed at the subsidiary level, but in contrast to him, we take into account both affiliate, host country, and parent company characteristics. Furthermore, our sample includes those foreign affiliates that do not perform R & D, which leads us to use a Tobit model. The study proceeds as follows. Section II focuses on some factors of importance in determining the amount of research activity carried out by foreign affiliates. In Section III we present the data and describe the model and method of estimation used. The empirical results are presented in Section IV. We draw the main conclusions in Section V.
Weak ferromagnetism and spiral spin structures in honeycomb Hubbard planes

Within the Hartree Fock RPA analysis, we derive the spin wave spectrum for the weak ferromagnetic phase of the Hubbard model on a honeycomb lattice. Assuming a uniform magnetization, the polar (optical) and acoustic branches of the spin wave excitations are determined. The bipartite lattice geometry produces a q-dependent phase difference between the spin wave amplitudes on the two sub-lattices. We also find an instability of the uniform weakly magnetized configuration towards a weak antiferromagnetic spiraling spin structure, in the lattice plane, with wavevector Q along the Γ–K direction, for electron densities n>0.6. We discuss the effect of diagonal disorder on both the creation of electron bound states and the enhancement of the density of states, and the possible relevance of these effects to disorder-induced ferromagnetism, as observed in proton-irradiated graphite.
The Role of RPGR and Its Interacting Proteins in Ciliopathies

Ciliopathies encompass a group of genetic disorders characterized by defects in the formation, maintenance, or function of cilia. Retinitis pigmentosa (RP) is frequently one of the clinical features presented in diverse ciliopathies. RP is a heterogeneous group of inherited retinal disorders, characterized by the death of photoreceptors and affecting more than one million individuals worldwide. The retinitis pigmentosa GTPase regulator (RPGR) gene is mutated in up to 20% of all RP patients. RPGR protein has different interacting partners to function in ciliary protein trafficking. In this review, we specifically focus on RPGR and its two interacting proteins: RPGRIP1 and RPGRIP1L. We summarize the function of the three proteins and highlight recent studies that provide insight into the cellular function of those proteins.
Business processes , Information Systems and Change-proposal for further research

Recently I presented my doctoral thesis about process determination for business analysis. I am now a post-doc researcher aiming for the next step in my research career. In this paper I am elaborating on two research areas for further research based upon research performed during my research education and interests of today. These areas concerns an integrative view on business processes and information systems in organisations and the effects of performing change analysis as a part of changing organisations.
Applying Adjustable Quota in Lazy Replication

The objective for database replication is the development of scalable, high performance and high available systems. However, replication introduces the issue of consistency among replicas: higher availability and performance results in lower consistency levels. In this paper, we present a technique for managing replicated database involving numerical data such as quantity of items in stock control or reservation system. We classify such numerical data into two classes, indistinguishable and distinguishable object quantity. The main idea of our approach is to apply concept of quota assignment on replica usage to improve availability and performance while still maintaining acceptable consistency. With the concept of quota calculated by statistical analysis of replica usage and transactions in the system, our experiment shown that we can tradeoff between performance, availability and consistency. Key-Words: Lazy Replication, Database Quota, Consistency, Availability, Distributed Database
Protective effect of carboxymethylated chitosan on hydrogen peroxide-induced apoptosis in nucleus pulposus cells

Although the etiology of intervertebral disc degeneration is poorly understood, one approach to prevent this process may be to inhibit apoptosis. In the current study, the anti-apoptotic effects of carboxymethylated chitosan (CMCS) in nucleus pulposus (NP) cells were investigated with the aim to enhance disc cell survival. Rat NP cells were isolated and cultured in vitro, and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) was used to build the NP cell apoptosis model. Cell viability was assessed with a cell counting kit-8 assay. The ratio of apoptotic cells was surveyed by annexin V-fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC) and propidium iodide (PI) double staining analysis, and the morphology was observed by Hoechst 33342 staining. The mitochondrial membrane potential of NP cells was evaluated by rhodamine 123 fluorescence staining. Reverse transcription (RT)-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) was performed to measure mRNA levels of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), caspase-3, B-cell lymphoma (Bcl)-2, type II collagen and aggrecan. Western blot analysis was performed to detect protein levels of iNOS and Bcl-2. The annexin V-FITC/PI and Hoechst 33342 staining results indicated that CMCS was able to prevent NP cells from apoptosis in a dose-dependent manner. Rhodamine 123 staining clarified that CMCS reduced the impairment of the mitochondrial membrane potential in H2O2-treated NP cells. Reduced caspase-3 and increased Bcl-2 activity were detected in CMCS-treated NP cells by RT-qPCR and western blot analysis. CMCS also promoted the proliferation and secretion of type II collagen and aggrecan in H2O2-treated NP cells. CMCS was indicated to be effective in preventing apoptotic cell death in vitro, demonstrating the potential advantages of this therapeutic approach in regulating disc degeneration.
Novel bidirectional DC–DC converters based on the three-state switching cell

ABSTRACT It is well known that there is an increasing demand for bidirectional DC–DC converters for applications that range from renewable energy sources to electric vehicles. Within this context, this work proposes novel DC–DC converter topologies that use the three-state switching cell (3SSC), whose well-known advantages over conventional existing structures are ability to operate at high current levels, while current sharing is maintained by a high frequency transformer; reduction of cost and dimensions of magnetics; improved distribution of losses, with consequent increase of global efficiency and reduction of cost associated to the need of semiconductors with lower current ratings. Three distinct topologies can be derived from the 3SSC: one DC–DC converter with reversible current characteristic able to operate in the first and second quadrants; one DC–DC converter with reversible voltage characteristic able to operate in the first and third quadrants and one DC–DC converter with reversible current and voltage characteristics able to operate in four quadrants. Only the topology with bidirectional current characteristic is analysed in detail in terms of the operating stages in both nonoverlapping and overlapping modes, while the design procedure of the power stage elements is obtained. In order to validate the theoretical assumptions, an experimental prototype is also implemented, so that relevant issues can be properly discussed.