Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Influence of cover thickness on the flexural response of fibrous RC beams

An analytical model is proposed in the present paper aimed at describing the response of simplysupported beams loaded in four-point bending. Several cases concerning normaland high-strength concrete beams, reinforced with longitudinal bars, stirrups and steel hooked fibers are considered, and their loaddeflection curves, as well as their moment-curvature curves and the ultimate deflections at the onset of failure in bending or shear, are obtained by means of the proposed, simplified approach. The satisfactory fitting of the test results confirms the potential of the proposed model, that can accurately predict beam behaviour in bending and shear, including the spalling of the cover and the contribution of the fibers.
A strategy-based ecological(?) display for time- series structural change diagnosis

Ecological Interface Design (EID) is usually associated with applying Work Domain Analysis and developing customized control tools for specific, stable systems governed by causal work domain constraints. However, for domains with weaker, intentional, less specific constraints, EID based on analysis of cognitive strategies has been proposed, and demonstrated using metaphorical iconic forms. EID methods to find invariant strategies in intentional work domains are less developed. Such methods may be a way to generalize ecological interfaces beyond specific instances of complex systems. An example developed for an energy efficiency monitoring application is presented and discussed.
Molecular Identity of Periglomerular and Short Axon Cells

Within glomeruli, the initial sites of synaptic integration in the olfactory pathway, olfactory sensory axons terminate on dendrites of projection and juxtaglomerular (JG) neurons. JG cells form at least two major circuits: the classic intraglomerular circuit consisting of external tufted (ET) and periglomerular (PG) cells and an interglomerular circuit comprised of the long-range connections of short axon (SA) cells. We examined the projections and the synaptic inputs of identified JG cell chemotypes using mice expressing green fluorescent protein (GFP) driven by the promoter for glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD) 65 kDa, 67 kDa, or tyrosine hydroxylase (TH). Virtually all (97%) TH+ cells are also GAD67+ and are thus DAergic–GABAergic neurons. Using a combination of retrograde tracing, whole-cell patch-clamp recording, and single-cell three-dimensional reconstruction, we show that different JG cell chemotypes contribute to distinct microcircuits within or between glomeruli. GAD65+ GABAergic PG cells ramify principally within one glomerulus and participate in uniglomerular circuits. DAergic–GABAergic cells have extensive interglomerular projections. DAergic–GABAergic SA cells comprise two subgroups. One subpopulation contacts 5–12 glomeruli and is referred to as “oligoglomerular. ” Approximately one-third of these oligoglomerular DAergic SA cells receive direct olfactory nerve (ON) synaptic input, and the remaining two-thirds receive input via a disynaptic ON→ET→SA circuit. The second population of DAergic–GABAergic SA cells also disynaptic ON input and connect tens to hundreds of glomeruli in an extensive “polyglomerular” network. Although DAergic JG cells have traditionally been considered PG cells, their interglomerular connections argue that they are more appropriately classified as SA cells.
EFFICIENT USE OF REINFORCEMENT LEARNING IN A COMPUTER GAME

Reinforcement learning methods are not yet widely used in computer games, at least not for demanding online learning tasks. This is in part because such methods often require excessive number of training samples before converging. This can be particularly troublesome in mobile game devices where both storage and CPU are limited and valuable resources. In this paper we describe a new AI-based game for mobile phones that we are currently developing. We address some of the main challenges of incorporating efficient on-line reinforcement learning methods into such gaming platforms. Furthermore, we introduce two simple methods for interactively incorporating user feed-back into reinforcement learning. These methods not only have the potential of increasing the entertainment value of games, but they also drastically reduce the number of training episodes needed for the learning to converge. This enhancement made it possible for us to use otherwise standard reinforcement learning as the core part of the learning AI in our game.
Le processus de croissance long terme de la Chine et ses retombes sur le Canada

• Au cours des 25 dernières années, la progression remarquable du produit intérieur brut (PIB) de la Chine et l’intégration de ce pays à l’économie mondiale ont eu des répercussions énormes et ont alimenté de vives discussions au sein de la communauté internationale. • Une analyse des déterminants de la croissance en Chine donne à penser que la hausse rapide de l’activité dans ce pays se poursuivra et, par conséquent, le poids de ce pays sur la scène économique mondiale devrait s’accroître. Dans un avenir prévisible, quatre grandes sources de productivité stimuleront l’essor de la Chine : la poursuite du déplacement de la main-d’œuvre du secteur agricole à celui de la fabrication, des gains d’efficience dans l’affectation du capital, les réformes institutionnelles et les nouvelles règles du commerce. • L’intégration de la Chine à l’économie internationale pose des défis aux décideurs, dans ce pays comme ailleurs, et implique des transformations structurelles. Néanmoins, pour le Canada et le reste du monde, les avantages nets devraient se révéler substantiels. Certes, la concurrence à laquelle font face certains produits canadiens à forte intensité de main-d’œuvre est susceptible de s’accentuer, mais le Canada devrait profiter de la demande grandissante de la Chine à l’égard des produits de base et des produits et services caractérisés par un coefficient élevé de compétence. e poids croissant de la Chine comme puissance économique a attiré l’attention de la communauté internationale ces dernières années et attisé les débats. Ceux-ci ont porté en particulier sur le régime de change de la Chine, les énormes réserves de change qui s’y accumulent, la probabilité que l’économie chinoise connaisse un atterrissage brutal et les conséquences qu’aurait un ralentissement notable de l’expansion dans ce pays. Les discussions font ressortir l’ampleur des retombées qu’a déjà l’intégration de la Chine sur l’économie d’autres pays, dont le Canada. On peut s’attendre à ce que les échanges de vues se multiplient au fur et à mesure que se précipitera l’accession de plus de 1,3 milliard de personnes (environ 20 % de la population du globe) à l’économie mondiale et que ce phénomène continuera de se répercuter sur le commerce international, les flux de capitaux et l’emploi, en Chine et ailleurs dans le monde.
Mathematical Approaches for Analysis of Biochemical Reaction Networks

A biochemical reaction network is the system in which biochemical species interact through various reaction channels. Many chemical or biochemical sys- tems such as signal transduction pathways, gene reg- ulatory networks and enzymatic reaction networks are modelled as biochemical reaction networks. To describe the time evolution of such systems quantitatively or qualitatively, mathematical methods and computational tools have been used. In this paper, we introduce math- ematical and computational methods for analysing bio- chemical reaction networks. We review recent advances and discuss future works in the area of biochemical reaction networks.
The Role of Pronominal Suffixes in Punjabi

Discourse Functions in LFG • One school of thought integrates discourse functions such as topic and focus with the grammatical functions at the same level of representation (e.g., Bresnan 2001). • Another school of thought seeks to represent them at an independent level (e.g., King 1997), modeling the interactions in a more complex way. This talk follows the latter position (King 1997) and furthermore assumes that discourse considerations have a profound effect on the morphosyntax of a language. Though grammatical relations are not taken to evolve over time, valency and discourse clearly interact in a manner that as yet remains to be properly understood.
How clustering can be useful to supermarkets

The uncertainty of the economic and social environment of the nowadays companies as well as the evolution of the relation with the customers have made necessary the analysis of the collected data in order to extract the knowledge that helps to take efficient decisions and to improve the profitability. In this domain, several tools and techniques have been used. In this paper, we present an incremental clustering approach to be used for the analysis of supermarkets data.
Comparative Genomics of Flowering Time Pathways Using Brachypodium distachyon as a Model for the Temperate Grasses

Brachypodium distachyon (Brachypodium) is a model for the temperate grasses which include important cereals such as barley, wheat and oats. Comparison of the Brachypodium genome (accession Bd21) with those of the model dicot Arabidopsis thaliana and the tropical cereal rice (Oryza sativa) provides an opportunity to compare and contrast genetic pathways controlling important traits. We analysed the homologies of genes controlling the induction of flowering using pathways curated in Arabidopsis Reactome as a starting point. Pathways include those detecting and responding to the environmental cues of day length (photoperiod) and extended periods of low temperature (vernalization). Variation in these responses has been selected during cereal domestication, providing an interesting comparison with the wild genome of Brachypodium. Brachypodium Bd21 has well conserved homologues of circadian clock, photoperiod pathway and autonomous pathway genes defined in Arabidopsis and homologues of vernalization pathway genes defined in cereals with the exception of VRN2 which was absent. Bd21 also lacked a member of the CO family (CO3). In both cases flanking genes were conserved showing that these genes are deleted in at least this accession. Segmental duplication explains the presence of two CO-like genes in temperate cereals, of which one (Hd1) is retained in rice, and explains many differences in gene family structure between grasses and Arabidopsis. The conserved fine structure of duplications shows that they largely evolved to their present structure before the divergence of the rice and Brachypodium. Of four flowering-time genes found in rice but absent in Arabidopsis, two were found in Bd21 (Id1, OsMADS51) and two were absent (Ghd7, Ehd1). Overall, results suggest that an ancient core photoperiod pathway promoting flowering via the induction of FT has been modified by the recruitment of additional lineage specific pathways that promote or repress FT expression.
Influence of series and shunt resistances in the ideality factor of photovoltaic modules

The ideality factor is a parameter that greatly influences the current / voltage curve of a photovoltaic (PV) module. Although some authors consider it constant during the analysis of the module operation, the ideality factor tends to be lowered with time, deteriorating the power output of the PV module. The ideality factor is modified by the increase of the shunt resistance and, particularly, with the series resistance variation. It is affected by several climate factors, which cause the corrosion of the PV module cells, manufacturing errors and defects known as “hot spots”. In this paper, the analysis of the ideality factor and the effects of series and shunt resistances in its value will be evaluated, as well as the influence in the I×V curve of the PV module.
An alternative to derive the instantaneous frequency of the chest compressions to suppress the CPR Artifact

The activity due to chest compressions during cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) corrupts the ECG, and adversely affects the diagnosis of Automated External Defibrillators (AED). Filtering methods based on reference signals have been proposed to suppress the CPR artifact, however the acquisition of additional reference signals involves hardware modifications in current AEDs. In this study the transthoracic impedance (TTI) was used as a reference signal. Current AEDs acquire TTI via de defibrillation pads. The improvement in sensitivity and specificity was similar to that obtained using the compression depth estimated via additional accelerometers. The results suggest that TTI can be used as a reference signal to suppress the CPR artifact, which would only involve software modifications in current AEDs.
The Drosophila Actin Regulator ENABLED Regulates Cell Shape and Orientation during Gonad Morphogenesis

Organs develop distinctive morphologies to fulfill their unique functions. We used Drosophila embryonic gonads as a model to study how two different cell lineages, primordial germ cells (PGCs) and somatic gonadal precursors (SGPs), combine to form one organ. We developed a membrane GFP marker to image SGP behaviors live. These studies show that a combination of SGP cell shape changes and inward movement of anterior and posterior SGPs leads to the compaction of the spherical gonad. This process is disrupted in mutants of the actin regulator, enabled (ena). We show that Ena coordinates these cell shape changes and the inward movement of the SGPs, and Ena affects the intracellular localization of DE-cadherin (DE-cad). Mathematical simulation based on these observations suggests that changes in DE-cad localization can generate the forces needed to compact an elongated structure into a sphere. We propose that Ena regulates force balance in the SGPs by sequestering DE-cad, leading to the morphogenetic movement required for gonad compaction.
A Clustering Approach to the Discovery of Points of Interest from Geo-Tagged Microblog Posts

Points of interest (PoI) data serves an important role as a foundation for a wide variety of location-based services. Such data is typically obtained from an authoritative source or from users through crowd sourcing. It can be costly to maintain an up-to-date authoritative source, and data obtained from users can vary greatly in coverage and quality. We are also witnessing a proliferation of both GPS-enabled mobile devices and geotagged content generated by users of such devices. This state of affairs motivates the paper's proposal of techniques for the automatic discovery of PoI data from geo-tagged microblog posts. Specifically, the paper proposes a new clustering technique that takes into account both the spatial and textual attributes of microblog posts to obtain clusters that represent PoIs. The technique expands clusters based on a proposed quality function that enables clusters of arbitrary shape and density. An empirical study with a large database of real geo-tagged microblog posts offers insight into the properties of the proposed techniques and suggests that they are effective at discovering real-world points of interest.
Visual Object Perception and Long-term Memory

The late cognitive psychologist and memory theorist, Robert G. Crowder (MJT’s colleague for 6 years), was fond of saying “memory is perception. ” What he meant was that memory is not a box in which things—objects, meanings, etc.—are stored. To Bob, memory was intrinsic to and a consequence of information processing, whether it be perceptual, linguistic, or cognitive in nature. In this context, it seems natural that our chapter discusses both object perception and object memory. At the same time, we acknowledge that in classic information processing fl owcharts, as well as in the organization of most introductory textbooks, object perception precedes sensory or iconic memory (Chapter 2), which precedes short-term or working memory (Chapter 3), which precedes long-term memory (e.g., Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968). By such accounts, visual perception is a modular, encapsulated input system, whereas memory is a cognitive box in which you put information (c.f., Fodor, 1983). But, as we shall see, contemporary research has demonstrated far closer links between object perception and object memory than anticipated by classic approaches to perception and cognition (Palmeri & Gauthier, 2004). Indeed, we are of the same mind as Bob: Drawing a clear demarcation between perception and memory is misguided. Chapter 6
Data Reduction Methods for Pattern Recognition

In this paper we present a series of data-reduction methods for classifying an unknown object as one member of a large set of possible patterns. The first reduction method is a learning algorithm that reduces a gigantic set of training samples into a condensed set of templates, each represented in vector form. When used in a testing process, these templates hold target patterns within the nearest K templates for almost all unknown objects, where K is a small number. The second reduction method exploits the nature of templates and classification trees to form a fast tree-retrieval mechanism. Experiment results show that this retrieval mechanism is a lot more effective than the K-means clustering method in meeting the same objective. The third method is a disambiguation method that supplies a condensed set of confusing pairs. This method exploits an effective binary classification technique to re-evaluate all the confusing pairs that appear in the nearest K templates for each unknown object, and thus improves the accuracy rate of the final classification decision.
A circuit technique for leakage power reduction in CMOS VLSI circuits

Scaling of CMOS technology improved the speed nevertheless the leakage currents are leftover as an adverse effect. The problem has taken a serious turn as the scaling extends into ultra-deep-submicron (UDSM) region. These unsolicited leakage currents should be minimized for the smooth functioning of the circuit. Designing of such leakage free nanoscale CMOS circuits turns to be a challenging task. In this work, we address the issue of leakage power that arises with the device channel length scaling to sub-100nm. We present a circuit technique to mitigate the leakage currents of MOSFET through controlling the voltage at the source terminal of the MOSFET. CMOS inverter designed using the proposed technique results in 98% and 30% improvement in static and total power dissipation respectively compared with its conventional design. The simulation results of NAND and NOR gates designed using the same technique indicates 15.89% and 18.83% improvement in the total power compared with their corresponding conventional designs. 11-stage CMOS ring oscillator designed using the proposed technique is analyzed, and corresponding simulation results are reported. Comparison of the proposed circuits in terms of power dissipation and delay with two existing techniques is presented. The circuits designed using the proposed technique results in good Power-Delay Product (PDP).
Aerosol Administration of Phospho-Sulindac Inhibits Lung Tumorigenesis

Phospho-sulindac is a sulindac derivative with promising anticancer activity in lung cancer, but its limited metabolic stability presents a major challenge for systemic therapy. We reasoned that inhalation delivery of phospho-sulindac might overcome first-pass metabolism and produce high levels of intact drug in lung tumors. Here, we developed a system for aerosolization of phospho-sulindac and evaluated the antitumor efficacy of inhaled phospho-sulindac in an orthotopic model of human non–small cell lung cancer (A549 cells). We found that administration by inhalation delivered high levels of phospho-sulindac to the lungs and minimized its hydrolysis to less active metabolites. Consequently, inhaled phospho-sulindac (6.5 mg/kg) was highly effective in inhibiting lung tumorigenesis (75%; P < 0.01) and significantly improved the survival of mice bearing orthotopic A549 xenografts. Mechanistically, phospho-sulindac suppressed lung tumorigenesis by (i) inhibiting EGF receptor (EGFR) activation, leading to profound inhibition of Raf/MEK/ERK and PI3K/AKT/mTOR survival cascades; (ii) inducing oxidative stress, which provokes the collapse of mitochondrial membrane potential and mitochondria-dependent cell death; and (iii) inducing autophagic cell death. Our data establish that inhalation delivery of phospho-sulindac is an efficacious approach to the control of lung cancer, which merits further evaluation. Mol Cancer Ther; 12(8); 1417–28. ©2013 AACR.
Effect of Ion Concentration Changes in the Limited Extracellular Spaces on Sarcolemmal Ion Transport and Ca2+ Turnover in a Model of Human Ventricular Cardiomyocyte

We have developed a computer model of human cardiac ventricular myocyte (CVM), including t-tubular and cleft spaces with the aim of evaluating the impact of accumulation-depletion of ions in restricted extracellular spaces on transmembrane ion transport and ionic homeostasis in human CVM. The model was based on available data from human CVMs. Under steady state, the effect of ion concentration changes in extracellular spaces on [Ca2+]i-transient was explored as a function of critical fractions of ion transporters in t-tubular membrane (not documented for human CVM). Depletion of Ca2+ and accumulation of K+ occurring in extracellular spaces slightly affected the transmembrane Ca2+ flux, but not the action potential duration (APD90). The [Ca2+]i-transient was reduced (by 2%–9%), depending on the stimulation frequency, the rate of ion exchange between t-tubules and clefts and fractions of ion-transfer proteins in the t-tubular membrane. Under non-steady state, the responses of the model to changes of stimulation frequency were analyzed. A sudden increase of frequency (1–2.5 Hz) caused a temporal decrease of [Ca2+] in both extracellular spaces, a reduction of [Ca2+]i-transient (by 15%) and APD90 (by 13 ms). The results reveal different effects of activity-related ion concentration changes in human cardiac t-tubules (steady-state effects) and intercellular clefts (transient effects) in the modulation of membrane ion transport and Ca2+ turnover.
Study of nonlinear optical properties of Er3+ - and Yb3+ -doped oxyfluoride glasses

We present linear (n) and nonlinear (n<inf>2</inf>) refractive indices, linear absorption coefficient (a), optical conductivity (σ) and 3<sup>r</sup> order nonlinear optical susceptibility (x<sup><3></sup>) of glasses: 32(SiO<inf>2</inf>):9(AlO<inf>1.5</inf>):31.5(CdF<inf>2</inf>):18.5(PbF<inf>2</inf>): 5.5(ZnF<inf>2</inf>):3.5(RE-F<inf>3</inf>)mol% (RE: Er<sup>3+</sup> or Yb<sup>3+</sup>). Measurement techniques used are spectroscopic ellipsometry, nonlinear transmission and degenerate four wave mixing. It is found that the x<sup><3></sup>, α, σ and n<inf>2</inf> values of Er<sup>3+</sup>-doped glass are higher than that for Yb<sup>3+</sup>-doped glass at 532 nm.
Identifying error proneness in path strata with genetic algorithms

In earlier work we have demonstrated that GA can successfully identify error prone paths that have been weighted according to our weighting scheme. In this paper we investigate whether the depth of strata in the software affects the performance of the GA. Our experiments show that the GA performance changes throughout the paths. It performs better in the upper, less in the middle and best in the lower layer of the paths. Although various methods have been applied for detecting and reducing errors in software, little research has been done into partitioning a system into smaller, error prone domains for software quality assurance. To identify error proneness in software paths is important because by identifying them, they can be given priority in code inspections or testing. Our experiments observe to what extent the GA identifies errors seeded into paths using several error seeding strategies. We have compared our GA performance with random path selection.