Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Web based ETL component extended with loading and reporting facilitations a financial application tool

The data warehousing environment includes components that are inherently technical in nature. These cleansing components function to extract, clean, model, transform, transfer and load data from multiple operational systems into a single coherent data model hosted within the data warehouse. The analytical environment is the domain of the business users who use application to query, report, analyze and act upon data in the data warehouse. The conventional process of developing custom code or scripts for this is always a costly, error prone and time-consuming. In this paper, we propose a web based frame work model for representing extraction of data from one or more data sources and use transformation business logic, load the data within the data warehouse. The entire above mentioned have been modeled using UML because the structural and dynamic properties of an information system at the conceptual level are more natural than other classical approaches. New feature of entire loading process of data movement between source and target system is also made visible to the users. In addition a reporting capability to log all successful transformations is provided.
The Complexity of Counting in Sparse, Regular, and Planar Graphs

We show that a number of graph-theoretic counting problems remain ${\cal NP}$-hard, indeed $\#{\cal P}$-complete, in very restricted classes of graphs. In particular, we prove that the problems of counting matchings, vertex covers, independent sets, and extremal variants of these all remain hard when restricted to planar bipartite graphs of bounded degree or regular graphs of constant degree. We obtain corollaries about counting cliques in restricted classes of graphs and counting satisfying assignments to restricted classes of monotone 2-CNF formulae. To achieve these results, a new interpolation-based reduction technique which preserves properties such as constant degree is introduced.
The institutions of house tenancy markets in post-war Western Europe: an economic analysis

This study provides an economic analysis of the post-War institutions of the European tenancy markets. Two representative types of market interventions are analyzed: the introduction of compulsory terms in the tenancy contracts and rent control. First of all this study offers a description and an analysis of the recent history of those institutions. The cases of Spain (as a benchmark), Italy, Finland and UK are analyzed more in depth, as examples of "big reformers" during the 20th century, in order to extract some general conclusions about the evolution of the European institutions in the last decades. Then the effects of those interventions are theoretically explored by adapting a model of tenancy markets (Basu and Emerson, 2000). The results show that the analyzed institutions potentially entail negative effects for the European tenancy markets. Those effects are consistent with the tendences observed during the second half of the 20th century in the different european markets.
A newly virtual view generation method based on depth image

Depth image based rending is an important technology in 3DTV for synthesis virtual view. The most commom method consist of preprocessing depth image, 3D warping, image merging and holes filling. In this paper, we use a processing method only smooth the edges of objects, while omitting the pixel at high discontinuities. We also proposed a hole filling method based on depth information, Experimental results show that holes can be completely eliminated in our method, compared to previous method, the proposed method is effective and reliable in both of subjective and objective evaluations.
Contribution of TRPV1-TRPA1 Interaction to the Single Channel Properties of the TRPA1 Channel*

Several lines of evidence suggest that TRPA1 and TRPV1 mutually control the transduction of inflammation-induced noxious stimuli in sensory neurons. It was recently shown that certain TRPA1 properties are modulated by TRPV1. However, direct interaction between TRPA1 and TRPV1 as well as regulation of TRPA1 intrinsic characteristics by the TRPV1 channel have not been examined. To address these questions, we have studied a complex formation between TRPA1 and TRPV1 and characterized the influence of TRPV1 on single channel TRPA1-mediated currents. Co-immunoprecipitation analysis revealed direct interactions between TRPA1 and TRPV1 in an expression system as well as in sensory neurons. Data generated with total internal reflection fluorescence-based fluorescence resonance energy transfer indicate that a TRPA1-TRPV1 complex can be formed on the plasma membrane. The fluorescence resonance energy transfer interaction between TRPA1 and TRPV1 channels is as effective as for TRPV1 or TRPA1 homomers. Single channel analysis in a heterologous expression system and in sensory neurons of wild type and TRPV1 knock-out mice demonstrated that co-expression of TRPV1 with TRPA1 results in outward rectification of single channel mustard oil (IMO) current-voltage relationships (I-V) and substantial modulation of the open probability at negative holding potentials. TRPV1 also does not influence the characteristics of single channel IMO in Ca2+-free extracellular solution. However, association of TRPA1 with TRPV1 was not affected in Ca2+-free media. To assess a role of intracellular Ca2+ in TRPV1-dependent modulation of TRPA1 modulation, the TRPA1-mediated single channel WIN55,212-2-gated current (IWIN) was recorded in inside-out configuration. Our data indicate that single channel properties of TRPA1 are regulated by TRPV1 independently of intracellular Ca2+. In summary, our results support the hypothesis that TRPV1 and TRPA1 form a complex and that TRPV1 influences intrinsic characteristics of the TRPA1 channel.
Cultural Intelligence and Relationship Quality on Offshore IS Outsourcing Success: From The Vendors Perspective

Nowadays, Offshore Information Systems (IS) Outsourcing is developing tremendously, despite glutting with unsuccessful and disappointing projects. In order to implement offshore IS outsourcing projects successfully, it requires all the parties involved to not only attempt to cross the boundaries of different countries or organizations, but also confront the consequent challenges brought by intercultural differences. As a more proactive and initiative side in outsourcing relationships, vendors are always supposed to take more responsibility for the success of offshore IS outsourcing projects. This study explores the potential influence of cultural intelligence on offshore IS outsourcing success from a vendor’s perspective. In addition, relationship quality, a widely investigated concept in IT outsourcing research, is introduced as a mediator to further test the relationship between cultural intelligence and offshore IS outsourcing success. A survey study based on 92 projects collected from 20 vendors in Mainland China is then performed. The results indicate that cultural intelligence is positively related to relationship quality as well as offshore IS outsourcing success. The mediation test further reveals that relationship quality partially mediates the relationship between cultural intelligence and offshore IS outsourcing success.
Efficient fault tolerance in multi-media applications through selective instruction replication

As voltages decrease, soft errors are expected to become an increasing problem in maintaining program correctness. Unfortunately, previous mechanisms to improve processor reliability protect all processor instructions equally, causing such approaches to suffer from significant performance degradation and/or substantial hardware overhead. However, recent research has shown that in multimedia applications such as photography, video, and audio, not all instructions are created equal: many operations prove to be far more tolerant to faults than others [1]. This observation can be leveraged to limit the cost of reliable computing by protecting only those instructions that are critical to correct execution. We propose a mechanism to protect against soft errors through selective instruction replication. We begin with a dynamic instruction replication framework that replicates every instruction and checks them upon commit, rolling back for any inconsistent results. Instead of replicating the entire program, instructions that the compiler identifies as tolerant to error would remain unprotected. While full replication requires 40% to 100% overhead, our mechanism requires only 30% to 75% overhead, reducing the overhead by 15-33% with minimal hardware overhead. We suffer only 0.5 - 1% fidelity degradation with this approach.
EU Cross-Border Securities Offerings: An Overview

This Essay gives a general overview of the EC securities regulations and their influence on the offerings of securities involving several EU markets, with a particular focus on the disclosure requirements and the registration of prospectuses. This Essay will also discuss some regulatory concerns regarding the use of licensed intermediaries and their role in organizing a multi-jurisdictional securities offering. Lastly, this Essay will examine the debate on the reconciliation of various accounting principles and disclosure standards, an issue that is presently regarded as a priority on regulators’ agenda, and one which will certainly affect the accounting practices adopted by global issuers of securities. EU CROSS-BORDER SECURITIES OFFERINGS: AN OVERVIEW Giovanni Nardulli Antonio Segni*
Strategic Behavior in Public Good Games: When Partners Really Become Strangers

We use a new design to (re)examine the occurrence of strategic behavior in voluntary contributions mechanism experiments. Subjects are in groups that remain constant for a number of periods before they change. The change is public knowledge and always consists of one member switching to another group. Moreover, everyone knows that this individual will not be grouped with any of the members again. In this sense 'partners' really become 'strangers'. We find considerable evidence of strategic behavior in these relatively simple games. Subjects who leave their group contribute less than in the previous period and less than in the next period in their new group. Contribution levels decline with the number of periods remaining for the group. The results can be explained by the occurrence of conditional cooperators, who are willing to contribute if and only if enough others do the same. The presence of these subjects elicits strategic (forward looking) behavior from others.
Residual noise control using a parametric multichannel Wiener filter

Multichannel noise reduction techniques are commonly used in speech communication applications. In these applications, it is often desired to maintain a residual amount of background noise to avoid perceptually unpleasant artifacts, such as musical tones or time periods of complete silence. Noise reduction can be achieved by the parametric multichannel Wiener filter (PMWF), which provides a trade-off between speech distortion and noise reduction. To additionally control the maximum noise reduction, the PMWF can be decomposed into a spatial filter and a spectral gain, which is limited to a desired minimum value. Such decomposition is however only possible if the desired source power spectral density matrix is rank-one, which in general does not even hold for a single source in reverberant environments. In the proposed approach, we define the desired signal as a sum of the speech signal plus the desired residual noise, and derive an optimum filter in the minimum mean-square error sense. The resulting filter has the advantage that it enables direct control of the maximum noise reduction without the need for a gain limiting step and is furthermore applicable to desired signals of higher rank. We analyze the derived filter thoroughly and show its relation to the standard PMWF that results as a special case. Furthermore, we propose a solution for keeping the residual noise level constant in slowly time-varying noise fields.
ON NEURAL NETWORK CLASSIFIERS WITH SUPERVISED TRAINING

A study on classification capability of neural networks is presented, considering two types of architectures with supervised training, namely Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) and Radial-Basis Function (RBF). To illustrate the classifiers’ construction, we have chosen a problem that occurs in real-life experiments, when one needs to distinguish between overlapping and Gaussian distributed classes. An amply commented comparative study is elaborated between MLPand RBF-type classifiers, in order to reveal advantages and disadvantages encountered when the two types of neural network architectures are used.
MicroRNAs in human cancer: from research to therapy

Numerous miRNAs are deregulated in human cancers, and experimental evidence indicates that they can play roles as oncogenes or tumor suppressor genes. Similarly to cancer genes that encode proteins, deregulation of miRNA-encoding genes is associated with genetic or epigenetic alterations, such as deletions, amplifications, point mutations and aberrant DNA methylation. The discovery that miRNAs interact with known oncogenes has established further links with molecular pathways implicated in malignant transformation. Finally, miRNAs can be used as diagnostic markers, and their potential as therapeutic molecules has moved miRNAs from the area of basic research to the field of cancer biotechnology.
Terrain adaptive odometry for mobile skid-steer robots

This paper proposes a novel approach to improving precision and reliability of odometry of skid-steer mobile robots by means inspired by robotic terrain classification (RTC). In contrary to standard RTC approaches we do not provide human labeled discrete terrain categories but we classify the terrain directly by the values of coefficients correcting the robot's odometry. Hence these coefficients make the odometry model adaptable to the terrain type due to inherent slip compensation. Estimation of these correction coefficients is based on feature extraction from the vibration data measured by an inertial measurement unit and regression function trained offline. Statistical features from the time domain, frequency domain, and wavelet features were explored and the best were automatically selected. To provide ground truth trajectory for the purpose of offline training a portable overhead camera tracking system was developed. Experimental evaluation on rough outdoor terrain proved 67.9±7.5% improvement in RMSE in position with respect to a state of the art odometry model. Moreover, our proposed approach is straightforward, easy for online implementation, and low on computational demands.
Examining the Effect of Reverse Worded Items on the Factor Structure of the Need for Cognition Scale

Reverse worded (RW) items are often used to reduce or eliminate acquiescence bias, but there is a rising concern about their harmful effects on the covariance structure of the scale. Therefore, results obtained via traditional covariance analyses may be distorted. This study examined the effect of the RW items on the factor structure of the abbreviated 18-item Need for Cognition (NFC) scale using confirmatory factor analysis. We modified the scale to create three revised versions, varying from no RW items to all RW items. We also manipulated the type of the RW items (polar opposite vs. negated). To each of the four scales, we fit four previously developed models. The four models included a 1-factor model, a 2-factor model distinguishing between positively worded (PW) items and RW items, and two 2-factor models, each with one substantive factor and one method factor. Results showed that the number and type of the RW items affected the factor structure of the NFC scale. Consistent with previous research findings, for the original NFC scale, which contains both PW and RW items, the 1-factor model did not have good fit. In contrast, for the revised scales that had no RW items or all RW items, the 1-factor model had reasonably good fit. In addition, for the scale with polar opposite and negated RW items, the factor model with a method factor among the polar opposite items had considerably better fit than the 1-factor model.
Broader Autism Phenotype in Siblings of Children with ASD—A Review

Although less pronounced, social, cognitive, and personality characteristics associated with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) may be present in people who do not meet ASD diagnostic criteria, especially in first-degree relatives of individuals with ASD. Research on these characteristics, referred to as broader autism phenotype (BAP), provides valuable data on potential expressions of autism-specific deficits in the context of family relations. This paper offers a review of research on BAP in siblings of individuals with ASD, focusing on reports regarding social, communication, and cognitive deficits, published from 1993 to 2014. The studies are divided into two groups based on participants’ age: papers on preschool and older siblings of individuals with ASD; and publications on infants at risk for ASD. On the basis of this review, suggestions are offered for further research and its significance for our understanding of the genetic determinants of autism.
Hop stunt viroid: molecular cloning and nucleotide sequence of the complete cDNA copy.

The complete cDNA of hop stunt viroid (HSV) has been cloned by the method of Okayama and Berg (Mol.Cell. Biol.2,161-170. (1982] and the complete nucleotide sequence has been established. The covalently closed circular single-stranded HSV RNA consists of 297 nucleotides. The secondary structure predicted for HSV contains 67% of its residues base-paired. The native HSV can possess an extended rod-like structure characteristic of viroids previously established. The central region of the native HSV has a similar structure to the conserved region found in all viroids sequenced so far except for avocado sunblotch viroid. The sequence homologous to the 5'-end of U1a RNA is also found in the sequence of HSV but not in the central conserved region.
The Transcription Factor Mrr1p Controls Expression of the MDR1 Efflux Pump and Mediates Multidrug Resistance in Candida albicans

Constitutive overexpression of the MDR1 (multidrug resistance) gene, which encodes a multidrug efflux pump of the major facilitator superfamily, is a frequent cause of resistance to fluconazole and other toxic compounds in clinical Candida albicans strains, but the mechanism of MDR1 upregulation has not been resolved. By genome-wide gene expression analysis we have identified a zinc cluster transcription factor, designated as MRR1 (multidrug resistance regulator), that was coordinately upregulated with MDR1 in drug-resistant, clinical C. albicans isolates. Inactivation of MRR1 in two such drug-resistant isolates abolished both MDR1 expression and multidrug resistance. Sequence analysis of the MRR1 alleles of two matched drug-sensitive and drug-resistant C. albicans isolate pairs showed that the resistant isolates had become homozygous for MRR1 alleles that contained single nucleotide substitutions, resulting in a P683S exchange in one isolate and a G997V substitution in the other isolate. Introduction of these mutated alleles into a drug-susceptible C. albicans strain resulted in constitutive MDR1 overexpression and multidrug resistance. By comparing the transcriptional profiles of drug-resistant C. albicans isolates and mrr1Δ mutants derived from them and of C. albicans strains carrying wild-type and mutated MRR1 alleles, we defined the target genes that are controlled by Mrr1p. Many of the Mrr1p target genes encode oxidoreductases, whose upregulation in fluconazole-resistant isolates may help to prevent cell damage resulting from the generation of toxic molecules in the presence of fluconazole and thereby contribute to drug resistance. The identification of MRR1 as the central regulator of the MDR1 efflux pump and the elucidation of the mutations that have occurred in fluconazole-resistant, clinical C. albicans isolates and result in constitutive activity of this trancription factor provide detailed insights into the molecular basis of multidrug resistance in this important human fungal pathogen.
The Code Mangler: Evaluating Coding Ability Without Writing any Code

Marking coding exam questions for introductory computer science courses is notoriously resource intensive and difficult to perform consistently. Students can be easily led astray by minor misunderstandings in the wording of questions, and graders often find it difficult to decide whether mistakes are attributable to simple misinterpretations, minor memory errors, or major lack of ability/understanding of the core concepts being evaluated. In this paper we detail and evaluate "Code Mangler" questions. The "Code Mangler" is a fictitious character who manipulates code; removing commenting, changing the order of lines, adding bugs, and otherwise breaking perfectly good code. The role of the student on the exam is then to use the mangled results to reverse engineer the original code. We discuss the benefits of this style of question, and perform an evaluation on a large (475 student) CS1 course, demonstrating that these questions are less resource intensive to mark than traditional coding questions, improve the confidence of the graders, and correlate strongly with student ability as assessed in traditional question styles.
Toward the Physical Basis of Complex Systems: Dielectric Analysis of Porous Silicon Nanochannels in the Electrical Double Layer Length Range

Dielectric analysis (DEA) shows changes in the properties of a materials as a response to the application on it of a time dependent electric field. Dielectric measurements are extremely sensitive to small changes in materials properties, that molecular relaxation, dipole changes, local motions that involve the reorientation of dipoles, and so can be observed by DEA. Electrical double layer (EDL), consists in a shielding layer that is naturally created within the liquid near a charged surface. The thickness of the EDL is given by the characteristic Debye length what grows less with the ionic strength defined by half summ products of concentration with square of charge for all solvent ions (co-ions, counterions, charged molecules). The typical length scale for the Debye length is on the order of 1 nm, depending on the ionic contents in the solvent; thus, the EDL becomes significant for nano-capillaries that nanochannels. The electrokinetic e®ects in the nanochannels depend essentialy on the distribution of charged species in EDL, described by the Poisson-Boltzmann equation those solutions require the solvent dielectric permittivity. In this work we propose a model for solvent low-frequency permittivity and a DEA profile taking into account both the porous silicon electrode and aqueous solvent properties in the Debye length range.