Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Three‐dimensional analytical magnetic resonance imaging phantom in the Fourier domain

This work presents a basic framework for constructing a 3D analytical MRI phantom in the Fourier domain. In the image domain the phantom is modeled after the work of Kak and Roberts on a 3D version of the famous Shepp‐Logan head phantom. This phantom consists of several ellipsoids of different sizes, orientations, locations, and signal intensities (or gray levels). It will be shown that the k‐space signal derived from the phantom can be analytically expressed. As a consequence, it enables one to bypass the need for interpolation in the Fourier domain when testing image‐reconstruction algorithms. More importantly, the proposed framework can serve as a benchmark for contrasting and comparing different image‐reconstruction techniques in 3D MRI with a non‐Cartesian k‐space trajectory. The proposed framework can also be adapted for 3D MRI simulation studies in which the MRI parameters of interest may be introduced to the signal intensity from the ellipsoid. Magn Reson Med, 2007. Published 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
A Study on the Efficiency of the Market for Dutch Long Term Call Options

We investigate the efficiency of the market for 5 year call options which are traded on the European Options Exchange in Amsterdam.We study both delta, delta-vega, and delta-gamma neutral arbitrage portfolios.We do not detect any serious inefficiencies in the market for long term call options.This result is in line with previous studies on different kinds of call options and warrants. The results for the delta-vega and delta-gamma neutral arbitrage strategies differ from the results of the simple delta-neutral strategies in two ways: they lead to positive results more often, but the variance of these results is also larger.
AN ANT COLONY ALGORITHM FOR IMPROVING THE NET PRESENT VALUES OF RESOURCE CONSTRAINED PROJECTS

ABSTRACT An ant colony algorithm is proposed to improve the net present values of resource-constrained projects since the net present value is a critical criterion for a project with a long time span and considerable cash flows. The algorithm adaptively adjusts the allocation of scarce resources according to the pheromone generated by artificial ants in the previous iterations so as to maximize the project's net present value. The crossover operation, inverse mutation and elitist strategy are applied to accelerate the searching for better project schedules, and the backward scheduling technique is adopted to improve the net present value further. The experimental test results show that the proposed algorithm significantly improves the net present values of resource-constrained projects.
Fuzzy Range Sensor Filtering for Reactive Autonomous Robots

This paper deals with the application of fuzzy logic to one of the navigational components of an indoor autonomous system implemented by means of intelligent agents. The most well known arguments supporting fuzzy control are the ability to cope with imprecise information in heuristic rule based knowledge and sensor measurements. Autonomous navigation based on ultrasonic sensors can provide an imprecise perception of the environment due to problems like crosstalking, noise and poor reliability. We propose a sensor fusion method based on history: the fuzzy sonar filtering.
Integrating software packages for the analysis of biological pathway networks

A belt clip assembly for use with a belt comprises a clip having first and second members defining a gap for slidably engaging the belt, a latch pivotally connected to a receptacle of the second member of the clip to pivot with respect to the second member. The latch has a flap member that has first and second flaps formed at a predetermined angle. The first flap extends toward the first member at an angle with respect to the second member to prevent the belt from disengaging from the clip. The belt clip assembly also has an actuating member extended through and slidably located in the second member of the clip. The actuating member has first and second ends, wherein the second end actuates the second flap when the first end is depressed. The latch has a pivot axle disposed at a joint formed by the first and second flaps and has a spring disposed in surrounding relation to the pivot axle to bias the latch in a closed position to prevent the belt from disengaging from the clip.
Adaptive Reciprocal Cell based Sparse Representation for Satellite Image Restoration

Satellite images are unavoidably corrupted by aliasing, blur and noise, leading to the restoration problem, which is usually an ill-posed inverse problem. To address the problem, various regularization methods have been proposed in the past decades. Among them, the sparse representation methods have drawn great attention. In this paper, we utilize adaptive reciprocal cell to analyze the three degradation factors, in order to enhance the performance of sparse representation for satellite image restoration. Experimental results show that our method can produce better restored results.
Adult Users’ Engagement and Utilisation of Social Networks Sites in Nigeria

Most studies on social media use in Nigeria focus on youths and address issues such as internet accessibility; frequency and extent of social networking sites use; political attitudes and online political participation; academic uses and news consumption, and the addiction to this form of media. Whilst youths are avid users, studies indicate that popularity of social media continues to grow among older adults of 65+ years with multiple use rates. Hence this research describes the specific communication-based activities that occur on these sites among adults in Nigeria. The paper finds older Nigerians’ communication on SNS disposed to bonding social capital as interactions skew towards family members, close friends and colleagues. And although only about three in ten adults’ communication tends towards making new friends on social media, it concludes nonetheless that adult Nigerians’ social interactions on SNS may yet have positive correlation with bridging social capital and its potential resources.
AES algorithm implementation for a simple low cost portable 8-bit microcontroller

Encryption has become a critical need for almost every data communication systems. A huge value of sensitive data is transferred daily via different computer networks such as electronic banking, email applications and file exchange. Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) algorithm has become the optimum choice for various security services in numerous applications like Ad hoc networks and wireless sensor networks, which does not require high computing capacity, memory requirements, less power consumption. Therefore, many researches focus on this type of algorithm in order to improve its efficiency and performance. This paper deals with the challenge of implementing the AES algorithm on 8-bit microcontrollers that provides a low cost, fast and portable hardware key that guarantees the confidentiality, integrity and avoiding key exchange via unsecured channel that imposes a real thread on any symmetric algorithm.
Software defect prediction using Two level data pre-processing

Defect prediction can be useful to streamline testing efforts and reduce the development cost of software. Predicting defects is usually done by using certain data mining and machine learning techniques. A prediction model is said to be effective if it is able to classify defective and non defective modules accurately. In this paper we investigate the result of data pre-processing on the performance of four different K-NN classifiers and compare the results with random forest classifier. The method used for pre-processing includes attribute selection and instance filtering. We observed that Two-level data pre-processing enhances defect prediction results. We also report how these two filters influence the performance independently. The observed performance improvement can be attributed to the removal of irrelevant attributes by dimension (attribute) reduction and of class imbalance problem by Resampling, together leading to the improved performance capabilities of the classifiers.
Honest Signaling and Oxidative Stress: The Special Case of Avian Acoustic Communication

Much research on animal communication has addressed how costs or constraints determined by the oxidative status of an individual can assure the honesty of visual signals, such as sexually selected color ornaments. However, acoustic communication has been largely overlooked in this respect. Here, we describe the few available studies that have considered the role of oxidative status in mediating vocal behavior in adult and nestling birds. Further, we discuss the theoretical principles of how the honesty of avian acoustic signals may be maintained by an organism’s oxidative status. We here distinguish between studies that considered songs and begging calls as indicators of oxidative status and studies where vocalizations were assumed to be the source of oxidative costs. We outline experimental and methodological issues related to the study of bird vocalizations and oxidative stress and describe opportunities for future work in this field of research. Investigating the interactions between acoustic signals and redox state may help address some unresolved questions in avian vocalization, thereby increasing our understanding of the evolutionary pressures shaping animal communication. Finally, we argue that it will be important to extend this line of research beyond birds and include other taxa as well.
Effect of Sanitary-Environmental Conditions of Diabetic Hypertension Incidence in Displaced Persons

BACKGROUND: The abnormal conditions of life and genetic factors often play a major role in the incidence of “diabetes - diabetes”, heart disease and vascular disease, jaundice and posttraumatic stress. AIM: Trauma and posttraumatic stress are most common in the displaced persons, and the focus of this paper is to focus on this issue regarding cases in former Yugoslavia, and now in our country. These diseases are caused by increased beta-cell sensitivity to viruses, the development of autoimmune antibodies attacking their pancreas cells, degenerative changes in cells that result in the change of structure and of insulin production. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In this paper, we have taken into account the traumatic events and long-term psychosocial consequences for internally displaced persons, several years after displacement, and found a high level of PTSD symptoms. RESULTS: This stress is present in almost 1/3 of internally displaced persons, and every sixth person has suffered from PTSD in the past. Respondents suffer from symptoms of intrusion, but there was a large number of symptoms, such as avoidance and increased arousal. We also found that gender, age and education are related to the symptoms. CONCLUSION: Females, and older respondents and internally displaced persons with lower levels of education show a higher level of PTSD symptoms.
Forests, carbon, and biomass electricity generation: Two essays in natural resource economics

ii Acknowledgments. v List of Tables . x List of Figures . xiii Chapter 1: Maximizing the Net Present Value of Forests Under A Carbon Credit Regime with Timber Products and Biomass Electricity Generation . 1 Section I – Introduction . 1 Section II – The Faustmann Model and Its Uses . 5 Section III – Forests’ Role in Carbon Sequestration and Electricity Production . 8 Forest Carbon Sequestration . 8 Biomass in Energy Production . 10 Section IV – Application and Modifications of the Faustmann Model . 12 Section V – The Ohio Oak-Hickory Model . 16 Parameter Estimates and Assumptions . 22 Parameter Estimates . 22 Limitations of the Faustmann Model . 25
Genotoxic Damage to Glioblastoma Cells Treated with 6 MV X-Radiation in The Presence or Absence of Methoxy Estradiol, IUDR or Topotecan

Objective To explore the cumulative genotoxic damage to glioblastoma (GBM) cells, grown as multicellular spheroids, following exposure to 6 MV X-rays (2 Gy, 22 Gy) with or without, 2- methoxy estradiol (2ME2), iododeoxyuridine (IUDR) or topotecan (TPT), using the Picogreen assay. Materials and Methods The U87MG cells cultured as spheroids were treated with 6 MV X-ray using linear accelerator. Specimens were divided into five groups and irradiated using X-ray giving the dose of 2 Gy after sequentially incubated with one of the following three drug combinations: TPT, 2-ME2/TPT, IUDR/TPT or 2ME2/IUDR/ TPT. One specimen was used as the irradiated only sample (R). The last group was also irradiated with total dose of 22 Gy (each time 2 Gy) of 6 MV X-ray in 11 fractions and treated for three times. DNA damage was evaluated using the Picogreen method in the experimental study. Results R/TPT treated group had more DNA damage [double strand break (DSB)/single strand break (SSB)] compared with the untreated group (P<0.05). Moreover the R/ TPT group treated with 2ME2 followed by IUDR had maximum DNA damage in spheroid GBM indicating an augmented genotoxicity in the cells. The DNA damage was induced after seven fractionated irradiation and two sequential treatments with 2ME2/IUDR/TPT. To ensure accuracy of the slope of dose response curve the fractionated radiation was calculated as 7.36 Gy with respect to α/β ratio based on biologically effective dose (BED) formulae. Conclusion Cells treated with 2ME2/IUDR showed more sensitivity to radiation and accumulative DNA damage. DNA damage was significantly increased when GBM cells treated with TPT ceased at S phase due to the inhibition of topoisomerase enzyme and phosphorylation of Chk1 enzyme. These results suggest that R/TPT- treated cells increase sensitivity to 2ME2 and IUDR especially when they are used together. Therefore, due to an increase in the level of DNA damage (SSB vs. DSB) and impairment of DNA repair machinery, more cell death will occur. This in turn may improve the treatment of GBM.
The study of the American school superintendency 2000 : a look at the superintendent of education in the new millennium

Chapter 1: The Superintendency Chapter 2: The 2000 Study Chapter 3: Personal Characteristics Chapter 4: Professional Experience Chapter 5: Superintendent/School Board Relations Chapter 6: Female Superintendents Chapter 7: Ethnic Minority Superintendents Chapter 8: Professional Preparation and Training
Exploiting Object Relationships for Deterministic Web Object Management

This paper presents a novel Web object management mechanism called MONARCH. The primary goal of our mechanism is to provide strong cache consistency without requiring servers to maintain per-client state. MONARCH also seeks to reduce overhead incurred by heuristic-based cache consistency mechanisms. Servers first classify objects at a site based on object change characteristics. Then the servers analyze relationships between the objects composing a page in conjunction with object change characteristics and compile that information into concise and explicit object management instructions. Client caches follow these instructions and deterministically manage objects, including those objects that are currently managed heuristically. The mechanism utilizes request-driven server invalidation, where servers invalidate only those objects that reside on the currently retrieved page. The approach works well when pages contain objects with a mix of change characteristics, which is often the case for content from popular sites. We have implemented the proposed mechanism in a prototype system and present its design and implementation. We also present results ∗This work is partially supported by the National Science Foundation Grant CCR-9988250. of a simulation-driven performance evaluation of our approach. Simulation results show that strong cache consistency without any per-client server state can be achieved and that for many categories of Web pages the performance of our approach is better than that of heuristic policies in terms of generated traffic. We also show that although exposing constituent page components to clients tends to generate more requests that reach the server, the amount of cacheable content increases by 30%–50%.
Replication and Inhibitors of Enteroviruses and Parechoviruses

The Enterovirus (EV) and Parechovirus genera of the picornavirus family include many important human pathogens, including poliovirus, rhinovirus, EV-A71, EV-D68, and human parechoviruses (HPeV). They cause a wide variety of diseases, ranging from a simple common cold to life-threatening diseases such as encephalitis and myocarditis. At the moment, no antiviral therapy is available against these viruses and it is not feasible to develop vaccines against all EVs and HPeVs due to the great number of serotypes. Therefore, a lot of effort is being invested in the development of antiviral drugs. Both viral proteins and host proteins essential for virus replication can be used as targets for virus inhibitors. As such, a good understanding of the complex process of virus replication is pivotal in the design of antiviral strategies goes hand in hand with a good understanding of the complex process of virus replication. In this review, we will give an overview of the current state of knowledge of EV and HPeV replication and how this can be inhibited by small-molecule inhibitors.
Meaning , Evolution and the Structure of Society January

Leading models of language evolution seek to explain key properties of language as emerging from repeated interactions of language-using agents. When we come to think of it, it is not too surprising that constraints on the patterns of interaction between agents may have effects on the predicted outcomes of evolutionary processes. This paper will explore some of the consequences that integrating a more realistic social interaction structure into established models of evolutionary game theory has and reflects on where this rather novel combination of formal network theory and evolutionary modeling might be helpful in future linguistic applications.
Understanding speech utterances in mandarin dialogue system

In this paper, we present a mandarin spoken dialogue system--STRQS (Shanghai Traffic Route Querying System), which is used for querying best traffic route between any two locations in Shanghai. A series of language processing strategies is used to understand speech utterances. The understanding processing is done in three steps: First, word segmentation and part-of-speech tagging module splits the utterance into words and labels them with semantic categories. The second step is a robust partial parsing process. Parsing is based on Unification Grammar (UG). An augmented chart algorithm with feature computing is implemented. Finally, the parsed utterance is associated with a semantic interpreter by a frame module. Semantic based analysis method we developed can directly extract information from the output of a speech recognizer, which contains errors and ill-formed components. The testing results demonstrate the robustness of our approach.
HP Labs' Complex Adaptive Systems Group Research Overview †

virus(es), throttle, throttling, markets, market-based control, markets, trader(s), trading, agent(s), evolution, complex adaptive system(s), self-organization, self-managing The Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) group at HP Labs, Bristol, was formed in November 2001 to tudy the science and engineering ofs complex, dynamic, parallel, distributed, adaptive systems, so far as they are relevant to HP's present and future business strategy. Such systems can exhibit highly desirable characteristics of resilient self-organisation, self-regulation, self-healing, and adaptation over multiple spatial and temporal scales, and can also be used for complex optimisation and automated-design tasks. CAS aims to grow world-class expertise for HP in the theory and practice of artificial systems that exhibit these desirable characteristics. This paper is an overview of CAS research projects relevant to self-configuring, self-organizing, self-managing and self-repairing IT systems.
Immune Sensing of Aspergillus fumigatus Proteins, Glycolipids, and Polysaccharides and the Impact on Th Immunity and Vaccination1

The ability of the fungus Aspergillus fumigatus to activate, suppress, or subvert host immune response during life cycle in vivo through dynamic changing of cell wall structure and secretion implicates discriminative immune sensing of distinct fungal components. In this study, we have comparatively assessed secreted- and membrane-anchored proteins, glycolipids, and polysaccharides for the ability to induce vaccine-dependent protection in transplanted mice and Th cytokine production by human-specific CD4+ T cell clones. The results show that the different fungal components are endowed with the distinct capacity to activate Th cell responses in mice and humans, with secreted proteins inducing Th2 cell activation, membrane proteins Th1/Treg, glycolipids Th17, and polysaccharides mostly IL-10 production. Of interest, the side-by-side comparison revealed that at least three fungal components (a protease and two glycosylphosphatidylinositol-anchored proteins) retained their immunodominant Th1/Treg activating potential from mice to humans. This suggests that the broadness and specificity of human T cell repertoire against the fungus could be selectively exploited with defined immunoactive Aspergillus Ags.
Iterative symbol decoding of variable-length codes with convolutional codes

In this paper, we present a symbol-level iterative source-channel decoding (ISCD) algorithm for reliable transmission of variable-length codes (VLCs). Firstly, an improved source a posteriori probability (APP) decoding approach is proposed for pack-etized variable-length encoded Markov sources. Also proposed is a recursive implementation based on a three-dimensional joint trellis for symbol decoding of binary convolutional codes. APP channel decoding on this joint trellis is realized by modification of the Bahl-Cocke-Jelinek-Raviv algorithm and adaptation to the non-stationary VLC trellis. Simulation results indicate that the proposed ISCD scheme allows to exchange between its constituent decoders the symbol-level extrinsic information and achieves high robustness against channel noises.
Diffraction in left-handed materials and theory of Veselago lens

A theory of diffraction in the system consisting of the left-handed and the right-handed materials is proposed. The theory is based upon the Huygens's principle and the Kirchhoff's integral and it is valid if the wavelength is smaller than any relevant length of the system. The theory is applied to the calculation of the smearing of the foci of the Veselago lens due to the finite wavelength. We show that the Veselago lens is a unique optical instrument for the 3D imaging, but it is not a ``superlens'' as it has been claimed recently.