Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Energy consumption and income in six Asian developing countries: a multivariate cointegration analysis

This article examines the short- and long-run causal relationship between energy consumption and GDP of six emerging economies of Asia. Based on cointegration and vector error correction modeling the empirical results show that there exists unidirectional short- and long-run causality running from energy consumption to GDP for China, uni-directional short-run causality from output to energy consumption for India, whilst bi-directional short-run causality for Thailand. Neutrality between energy consumption and income is found for Indonesia, Malaysia and Philippines. Both the generalized variance decompositions and impulse response functions confirm the direction of causality. These findings have important policy implications for the countries concerned. The results suggest that while India may directly initiate energy conservation measures, China and Thailand may opt for a balanced combination of alternative polices.
An architecture integrating stationary and mobile roadside units for providing communication on intelligent transportation systems

In this work we investigate the benefits of an hybrid architecture integrating both mobile roadside units, and stationary roadside units supporting the operation of vehicular networks. Since traffic fluctuates, an architecture employing just stationary roadside units might not be able to properly support the network operation all the time. Similarly, an architecture composed just of mobile roadside units may lack part of the robustness provided by stationary roadside units. Furthermore, the traffic fluctuations are limited by the underlying road network, and the road networks do not change so often as traffic does. Thus, it seems straight full to assume that a set of roadside units will always be left stationary, while other roadside units will need to roam along the road network. As major roads counts on a higher transportation capacity, they tend to be very popular routes, and they are natural candidates for receiving the stationary roadside units. On the other hand, we may rely on mobile roadside units for handling roads presenting a high traffic variation. In this work we use the realistic vehicular mobility trace of Cologne, Germany, and we model the allocation of the roadside units as a Maximum Coverage Problem. Our results demonstrate the hybrid deployment increases the number of covered vehicles up to 45%.
Correlation of Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor Production with Photochemical Reaction-induced Retinal Edema

Background:Retinal edema is the major complication of retinal vein occlusion and diabetic retinopathy; it can damage visual function by influencing macular region. This study was to establish a rat retinal edema model and explore the related VEGF expression and observe the responses to anti-VEGF drugs in this model. Methods:A rat retinal edema model was established by inducing photochemical reaction using a 532 nm laser after the intravenous injection of Erythrosin B. Immediately after the laser treatment, models were given intravitreal injections of Ranibizumab or Conbercept to inhibit VEGF expression, and the changes of retinal thickness were measured. Retinal edema was observed using fundus photography (FP), optical coherence tomography (OCT), and fluoresce in fundus angiography (FFA) at 0, 1, 2, 4, 7 and 14 days after intervention. The retinal VEGF expression was measured using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and western blotting at each time point. The rat retinal edema model was also used to verify the function of anti-VEGF polypeptide ZY1. Results:Both retinal edema and vascular leakage were clearly observed at 1, 2 and 4 days after photochemical induction and the retinal thickness increased notably over the same period. The retinal VEGF expression peaked at day 1 and retina became thickening simultaneously. After the interventions, the VEGF expression of the Ranibizumab and Conbercept groups decreased at each time point compared to the edema group (26.90 ± 3.57 vs. 40.29 ± 6.68, F = 31.269 on day 1 and 22.36 ± 1.12 vs. 29.92 ± 0.93 F = 163.789 on day 2, both P < 0.01); the mean RT (278 ± 4 vs. 288 ± 3, F = 134.190 on day 1 and 274 ± 7 vs. 284 ± 6, F = 64.367 on day 2, both P < 0.05) and vascular leakage in these groups also decreased. The same results were observed in the ZY1 group, particularly at day 2 (P < 0.05). Conclusions:This retinal edema model induced by a photochemical reaction is reliable and repeatable. Induced edema increases expression of VEGF. This model can be used to test new drugs.
Grammar Development for Sign Language Avatar-Based Synthesis

Research into Sign Language (SL) generation from English text at the University of East Anglia has involved SL grammar development to support SL synthesis and visual realisation by an avatar (virtual signer) (Kennaway, 2001). To that end SLs must be treated as genuine natural languages worthy of academic study in their own right. They are the native languages of the pre-lingually deaf whose familiarity with the geographically prominent oral language is that of a second language learner. Thus for the prelingually deaf written text is much less useful than is commonly thought. We illustrate the utility of SL research for SL synthesis by a preliminary consideration of plurality and placement within a grammar for British Sign Language (BSL).
Binding Estimation after Refinement, a New Automated Procedure for the Refinement and Rescoring of Docked Ligands in Virtual Screening

Binding estimation after refinement (BEAR) is a novel automated computational procedure suitable for correcting and overcoming limitations of docking procedures such as poor scoring function and the generation of unreasonable ligand conformations. BEAR makes use of molecular dynamics simulation followed by MM‐PBSA and MM‐GBSA binding free energy estimates as tools to refine and rescore the structures obtained from docking virtual screenings. As binding estimation after refinement relies on molecular dynamics, the entire procedure can be tailored to the needs of the end‐user in terms of computational time and the desired accuracy of the results. In a validation test, binding estimation after refinement and rescoring resulted in a significant enrichment of known ligands among top scoring compounds compared with the original docking results. Binding estimation after refinement has direct and straightforward application in virtual screening for correcting both false‐positive and false‐negative hits, and should facilitate more reliable selection of biologically active molecules from compound databases.
Predicting flight arrival times with a multistage model

Airlines are constantly looking for ways to cut flight delays, in order to enhance service quality and reduce operational costs. The goal of the data science contest, GE Flight Quest (https://www.gequest.com/c/flight), was to make flights more efficient by improving the accuracy of arrival time estimates. The data set of the contest was 128 GB in size and contained 252 data columns arranged in 34 tables. This paper presents my solution that won third prize under team name Taki. The solution employs a 6-stage model consisting of successive ridge regressions and gradient boosting machines, built on 56 features constructed from the raw data. The hardware environment used for training and running the model was a 64 core machine with 1 terabyte of memory.
Missile trajectory shaping using sampling-based path planning

This paper presents missile guidance as a complex robotic problem: a hybrid non-linear system moving in a heterogeneous environment. The proposed solution to this problem combines a sampling-based path planner, Dubins' curves and a locally-optimal guidance law. This algorithm aims to find feasible trajectories that anticipate future flight conditions, especially the loss of manoeuverability at high altitude. Simulated results demonstrate the substantial performance improvements over classical midcourse guidance laws and the benefits of using such methods, well-known in robotics, in the missile guidance field of research.
Line x Tester Analysis for Resistance to Cassava Anthracnose Disease

Thirteen cassava (Manihot esculenta) varieties which includes four IITA Improved used as lines and seven Landraces used as testers with various level of resistance to Colletotrichum gloeosporioides f. sp. manihotis, were crossed in a Line X tester design to determine the general (GCA) and specific (SCA) combining abilities relative to the inheritance. The Parents and the 36 F1 hybrids were evaluated in year 2003 and 2004 on an infected field. The variances due to SCA and GCA showed that both additive and non-additive, possibly epistatic gene actions are important. Majority of the crosses between the resistance sources and the susceptible lines showed intermediate reactions and various degrees of partial dominance for canker development in cassava plants. The most resistance IITA improved variety I63397, had the highest negative GCA effect for resistance among the lines. The moderately resistance TME-8 had largest significant negative GCA among the landraces. Most the crosses involving I63397 and TME-8 had significantly high negative SCA effects. The contribution of these parents to heterosis of their hybrids will be towards reduction of disease symptoms. This suggests the importance of both the additive and non-additive in the development of resistance to cassava anthracnose disease. Therefore recurrent selection with progeny evaluation is advocated for breeding for resistance to the disease.
Row/column redundancy to reduce SRAM leakage in presence of random within-die delay variation

Traditionally, spare rows/columns have been used in two ways: either to replace too leaky cells to reduce leakage, or to substitute faulty cells to improve yield. In contrast, we first choose a higher threshold voltage (Vth) and/or gate-oxide thickness (Tox) for SRAM transistors at design time to reduce leakage, and then substitute the resulting too slow cells by spare rows/columns. We show that due to within-die delay variation of SRAM cells only a few cells violate target timing at higher Vth or Tox; we carefully choose the Vth and Tox values such that the original memory timing-yield remains intact for a negligible extra delay. On a commercial 90 nm process assuming 3% variation in SRAM cell delay, we obtained 47% leakage reduction by adding only 5 redundant columns at negligible area, dynamic power and delay costs.
Migration of giant planets in a time‐dependent planetesimal accretion disc

In this paper we develop further the model for the migration of planets introduced in Del Popolo et al. We first model the protoplanetary nebula as a time-dependent accretion disc, and find self-similar solutions to the equations of the accretion disc that give us explicit formulae for the spatial structure and the temporal evolution of the nebula. These equations are then used to obtain the migration rate of the planet in the planetesimal disc, and to study how the migration rate depends on the disc mass, on its time evolution and on some values of the dimensionless viscosity parameter α. We find that planets that are embedded in planetesimal discs, having total mass of 10-4-0.1 M⊙, can migrate inward a large distance for low values of α (e.g., α≃10-3-10-2) and/or large disc mass, and can survive only if the inner disc is truncated or because of tidal interaction with the star. Orbits with larger a are obtained for smaller values of the disc mass and/or for larger values of α. This model may explain several orbital features of the recently discovered giant planets orbiting nearby stars.
Employability: a contemporary review for higher education stakeholders

Abstract Higher education institutions are under pressure to produce employable graduates who are required to contribute to the sustainability of strong economic growth and development. As such, the onus is on the higher education sector to present graduates to the labour market who are both work ready and have attained employability. This article contributes to the discussion surrounding the employability of graduates by: enhancing understanding and discussing contemporary evidence and debate around employability; showing the genesis, influence and synthesis of the major models associated with employability; summarising the boundaries and barriers to graduate employment; and exploring the determinants of employability from the employer’s perspective. Importantly, the article summarises the contemporary theoretical bases of employability in the one place. Recommendations are made regarding further research and the need for further theoretical contributions.
Tensor Representation for Image Annotation with Collective Groups

Image annotation based on visual features has been a difficult problem due to the semantic gap between visual features and human concepts. In this paper, we present a novel image annotation framework with the purpose of learning semantics from collective image groups which are loosely distributed in the whole visual world. Assuming that the contents of each image group are structurally restricted, we adopt tensor representation with a group of tensor structures which are used to describe the interactions of multiple factors inherent to image formation and encode the higher order statistics of these factors. Based on tensor representation, we propose a new method, group-based latent structural topic model (GLSTM), for automatic image annotation. Extensive experiments well validate the effectiveness of our proposed solution to the automatic image annotation problem.
A Performance Evaluation of WS-MDS in the Globus Toolkit

The Globus Toolkit® (GT) is the “de facto standard” for grid computing. Measuring the performance of various components of the GT in a wide area network (WAN) as well as a local area network (LAN) is essential in understanding the performance that is to be expected from the GT in a realistic deployment in a distributed and heterogeneous environment where there might be complex interactions between network connectivity and service performance. The focus of this paper is the performance of Monitoring and Discovery System (MDS), an essential GT component that is very likely to be used in a mixed; LAN and WAN environment. We specifically tested the scalability, performance, and fairness of the WS-MDS Index bundled with GT 3.9. 5. To drive our empirical evaluation of WS-MDS, we used DiPerF, a DIstributed PERformance testing Framework, whose design was aimed at simplifying and automating service performance evaluation.
The Effect of Ambient Temperature Changes on Micturition in Infants ‒ A Study of 800 Infants Aged up to 12 Months

Background: Cold may aggravate urge symptoms in patients with frequency/urgency syndromes. Objectives: This paper attempts to establish the correlation between the changes in three variables, namely the changes of ambient temperature, age and weight of conscious infants and their micturition rate. Materials and Methods: The time interval between the napkin removal and micturition was recorded, in order to establish the relationship between environmental temperature changes and urination. Results: Micturition occurred in response to decreased skin temperature of the lower trunk, during the first minute interval of napkin removal, in 287 of the infants (35.9%). Totally, 428 infants (53.5%) voided in a 5 minute interval. The younger infants urinated more frequently and also faster, in relation to ambient temperature changes. Conclusions: We concluded that the occurrence of urination, as a response to cooling stimulation of the lower trunk, is correlated with infants’ age and amount of environmental temperature degree.
In silico metabolic pathway modeling and analysis of Mycoplasma pneumoniae

Completion of genome projects gives us a lot of information to deal with and analyze. From the genomic sequence data, cellular information can be obtained. The complexity of cellular processes can be analyzed not only by the individual components but also by the systematic approaches. However in general, these approaches are limited by the lack of kinetic information on the metabolism. The ultimate goals of the systematic approaches are the establishment of dynamic model that behaves similar to the cell or microorganism. This method can be accomplished by step-by-step approach to resolve and verify the uncertainties of the metabolic model [2, 5]. Mycoplasma pneumoniae is a pathogen causing atypical pneumonia in human beings, and pathogenicity related studies have been extensively carried out [3]. Basic studies of M. pneumoniaewere hampered by the difficulties in cell culture and genetic manipulation. Therefore, in silico metabolic modeling can give clues to the metabolism and physiology of this strain. In this study, we analyzed the genome sequence of M. pneumoniae and developed a static metabolic model. The concept of edges, vertexes and connectors was applied to the construction as a graph.
Sequence specific detection of bacterial 23S ribosomal RNA by TLR13

Toll-like receptors (TLRs) detect microbial infections and trigger innate immune responses. Among vertebrate TLRs, the role of TLR13 and its ligand are unknown. Here we show that TLR13 detects the 23S ribosomal RNA of both gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria. A sequence containing 13 nucleotides near the active site of 23S rRNA ribozyme, which catalyzes peptide bond synthesis, was both necessary and sufficient to trigger TLR13-dependent interleukin-1β production. Single point mutations within this sequence destroyed the ability of the 23S rRNA to stimulate the TLR13 pathway. Knockout of TLR13 in mice abolished the induction of interleukin-1β and other cytokines by the 23S rRNA sequence. Thus, TLR13 detects bacterial RNA with exquisite sequence specificity. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.7554/eLife.00102. 001
AN OVERVIEW OF ACADEMICIAN MIHAI DRĂGĂNESCU ’ S CONCEPTUAL CONTRIBUTIONS TO INFORMATION SCIENCE

Science, as well as other domains of the human culture and civilization, benefits in its becoming from two important categories of personalities, which I would generically call " creators " and " catalysts " , respectively. Creators, be they discoverers or innovators, bigger or lesser, are those who, by the power of thought, widen or deepen the knowledge, open new ways for investigation, produce or improve technologies; in short, they generate knowledge. Development of knowledge is not discontinuous, it builds on the common scientific creation and, even when the memorable findings seem to be cognitive breakthroughs, one can find their elements of continuity, their sources of inspiration, analogies in the works of other contemporary or preceding creators. Most often, the important creators manage to generate schools of thinking, in that more and more new researchers walk the ways they have opened. Usually, history records only the pioneers, being somehow unfair with the other creators. Catalysts are decision makers at a social group level and who, by their initiatives, insure the premises of the creators' activities, most often with no clear expectations or even with no clear finality of the creation activity. Catalysts are visionaries in the most proper sense of the word and, furthermore, they are people of an exemplary morality, altruist beyond the usual limit. When a scientific creation activity is supported by economic or military reasons and the expected results and benefits are predictable, it is more difficult to call the involved decision makers " catalysts " , in the sense considered here. Undoubtedly, they are valuable decision agents, intelligent managers of the immediate needs of the society they represent, and their contribution to the science development is important. Still, history rarely mentions them in its gallery of " contributors ". Without being a rule, in many cases, catalysts are or have been, in their turn, creators and school shapers in the same domain. Many creators have remained anonymous or insufficiently acknowledged and their creations were lost only because they did not meet the proper catalysts at the proper moment. Academician Mihai Drăgănescu, outstanding personality of the contemporary science and culture, is an exceptional creator and an authentic catalyst. His work and activity, seen from the two perspectives mentioned above, are extremely vast, partially reflected in his more than 30 monographs, more than 300 scientific papers published in national and international journals, in hundreds of appearances in the …
Design an Algorithm for Data Compression using Pentaoctagesimal SNS

Compression is the science and art of representing the information in a compact form rather than its original or uncompressed form in data storage or transmission. Data compression is storing data in a format that requires less space than usual. Nowadays, data compression is a common requirement in telecommunication industry. Since last few decades, the research is continuing in the field of compression and various data compression techniques are already developed to compress different data formats. But, a data compression program using strange number system (specially using pentaoctagesimal SNS) tries to compact the data in some special format, such that the data occupies less disk space or that it can be transmitted in less time. A decompression program restores the information again. This paper mainly describes a simple compression and decompression process which is free from time complexity.
UTX and UTY Demonstrate Histone Demethylase-Independent Function in Mouse Embryonic Development

UTX (KDM6A) and UTY are homologous X and Y chromosome members of the Histone H3 Lysine 27 (H3K27) demethylase gene family. UTX can demethylate H3K27; however, in vitro assays suggest that human UTY has lost enzymatic activity due to sequence divergence. We produced mouse mutations in both Utx and Uty. Homozygous Utx mutant female embryos are mid-gestational lethal with defects in neural tube, yolk sac, and cardiac development. We demonstrate that mouse UTY is devoid of in vivo demethylase activity, so hemizygous XUtx− Y+ mutant male embryos should phenocopy homozygous XUtx− XUtx− females. However, XUtx− Y+ mutant male embryos develop to term; although runted, approximately 25% survive postnatally reaching adulthood. Hemizygous X+ YUty− mutant males are viable. In contrast, compound hemizygous XUtx− YUty− males phenocopy homozygous XUtx− XUtx− females. Therefore, despite divergence of UTX and UTY in catalyzing H3K27 demethylation, they maintain functional redundancy during embryonic development. Our data suggest that UTX and UTY are able to regulate gene activity through demethylase independent mechanisms. We conclude that UTX H3K27 demethylation is non-essential for embryonic viability.