Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Middle East User Navigation in Online Social Networks and Interactions in E-Commerce, an Analogy

User navigation Understanding gives both the researchers and firms the opportunity to design better interfaces, gain more active users and richer studies of online social interactions. This study is based on the clickstream data, collected over 15 days period, summarizing HTTP session of over 25000 valid requests of Middle east users from popular social networks like Facebook, Instagram, twitter, and LinkedIn. The data were gathered from a social network aggregator website, which enables users to connect their profile of multiple social networks into one site. This analysis retrieves the key factors of the social network workloads in Middle East countries, for example, how frequently people connect to social networks and for how long they stay connected, and what type of activity they do and from which sequences of activity they often use the OSN services. Additionally this process is studied from geographic perspective and the results discussed on a distance basis probability.
DNA repair factor XPC is modified by SUMO-1 and ubiquitin following UV irradiation

Nucleotide excision repair (NER) is the major DNA repair process that removes diverse DNA lesions including UV-induced photoproducts. There are more than 20 proteins involved in NER. Among them, XPC is thought to be one of the first proteins to recognize DNA damage during global genomic repair (GGR), a sub-pathway of NER. In order to study the mechanism through which XPC participates in GGR, we investigated the possible modifications of XPC protein upon UV irradiation in mammalian cells. Western blot analysis of cell lysates from UV-irradiated normal human fibroblast, prepared by direct boiling in an SDS lysis buffer, showed several anti-XPC antibody-reactive bands with molecular weight higher than the original XPC protein. The reciprocal immunoprecipitation and siRNA transfection analysis demonstrated that XPC protein is modified by SUMO-1 and ubiquitin. By using several NER-deficient cell lines, we found that DDB2 and XPA are required for UV-induced XPC modifications. Interestingly, both the inactivation of ubiquitylation and the treatment of proteasome inhibitors quantitatively inhibited the UV-induced XPC modifications. Furthermore, XPC protein is degraded significantly following UV irradiation in XP-A cells in which sumoylation of XPC does not occur. Taken together, we conclude that XPC protein is modified by SUMO-1 and ubiquitin following UV irradiation and these modifications require the functions of DDB2 and XPA, as well as the ubiquitin–proteasome system. Our results also suggest that at least one function of UV-induced XPC sumoylation is related to the stabilization of XPC protein.
Nuts, nut cracking, and pitted stones at Gesher Benot Ya‘aqov, Israel

The Acheulian site of Gesher Benot Ya‘aqov (Israel) has revealed a unique association of edible nuts with pitted hammers and anvils. Located in the Dead Sea rift, on the boundary between the Arabian and African plates, the site dates to the Early-Middle Pleistocene, oxygen isotope stage 19. In a series of strata, seven species of nuts, most of which can be cracked open only by a hard hammer, were uncovered. Five of the species are extant terrestrial nuts, and two are aquatic nuts now extinct in the Levant. In addition, the site yielded an assemblage of pitted hammers and anvils similar in pit morphology to those used by chimpanzees and contemporary hunter–gatherers. This is the first time, to our knowledge, that a site has offered both paleobotanical and lithic evidence of plant foods eaten by early hominins and technologies used for processing these foods. The evidence also sheds light on the structure of the community: ethnographic analogies suggest that mixedgender groups may have been active on the shores of paleoLake Hula.
People Tracking Using a Robot in Motion with Laser Range Finder

To monitor multiple moving objects from a robot in motion is an essential technology in robotic application areas including service and security for human daily life. For this, a method to track multiple walking humans using a mobile robot "in motion" with laser range finder (LRF) is investigated in this paper. Geometric characteristics of human legs are considered to detect their position from the LRF data. Frequency and phase of walking motion are extracted using a pendulum model of the angle between two legs and extended Kalman filter. The algorithm with human walking model anticipates the position of moving humans. The effectiveness of the proposed method is also evaluated with some experiments to track multiple walking humans in indoor environment. An experimental testbed which consists of a mobile robot "Yamabico" and a LRF is employed to track people. Resultant experiments and analysis showed that multiple walking people are tracked well from a mobile robot with the proposed method
The incidence of hepatitis E virus infection in the general population of the USA

SUMMARY Hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection is as an emerging disease of global importance because it is one of the major causes of acute hepatitis worldwide. There are few reports on the incidence of HEV in the USA. For better assessing the burden of primary HEV infection as well as understanding the epidemiology of HEV in the US population this analysis was conducted to estimate the force of infection of HEV in the USA. HEV force of infection in the general US population was calculated using catalytic models as cumulative markers of past infection from HEV seroprevalence data from the NHANES Survey. In the US population the force of infection was seven infections per 1000 susceptible persons per year. This study shows that in the USA HEV can be acquired locally and from developing countries. HEV is circulating more frequently in the non-Hispanic White racial/ethnic group and those who consume fish more frequently.
Statistical Analysis and Decoding of Neural Activity in the Rodent Geniculate Ganglion Using a Metric-Based Inference System

We analyzed the spike discharge patterns of two types of neurons in the rodent peripheral gustatory system, Na specialists (NS) and acid generalists (AG) to lingual stimulation with NaCl, acetic acid, and mixtures of the two stimuli. Previous computational investigations found that both spike rate and spike timing contribute to taste quality coding. These studies used commonly accepted computational methods, but they do not provide a consistent statistical evaluation of spike trains. In this paper, we adopted a new computational framework that treated each spike train as an individual data point for computing summary statistics such as mean and variance in the spike train space. We found that these statistical summaries properly characterized the firing patterns (e. g. template and variability) and quantified the differences between NS and AG neurons. The same framework was also used to assess the discrimination performance of NS and AG neurons and to remove spontaneous background activity or “noise” from the spike train responses. The results indicated that the new metric system provided the desired decoding performance and noise-removal improved stimulus classification accuracy, especially of neurons with high spontaneous rates. In summary, this new method naturally conducts statistical analysis and neural decoding under one consistent framework, and the results demonstrated that individual peripheral-gustatory neurons generate a unique and reliable firing pattern during sensory stimulation and that this pattern can be reliably decoded.
Vasomotor Responses in the Human Arm During Leg Exercise

Blood flow was measured in the hands and forearms of recumbent subjects by venous occlusion plethysmography during leg exer cise on a bicycle ergometer. In three highly practiced subjects, exercise resulted in a small fall in forearm flow and a moderate rise in arterial pressure. Resistance to blood flow was therefore considerably increased. Blocking the vasomotor fibers to forearm skin did not affect this, but blocking the deep nerves to the muscle vessels prevented the increase in vascular resistance during exer cise. Treating the forearm with bretyliurn tosylate had the same effect as deep nerve block. It was concluded that vasoconstrictor tone in muscle is increased during exercise. Since treating the forearm with atropine did not affect the normal response, it was concluded that activation of vasodilator fibers to muscle is not an integral part of the gen eral vasomotor response to exercise. Evidence was also found that the vasodilator outflow to a specific muscle group is not specifically activated when the muscle group in question is exercised. During fairly heavy exercise, vasodilatation occurred in both hand and forearm skin. In the hand this was preceded by vasoconstric tion. Evidence was found that the vasodila tation in the hand was due to release of vaso constrictor tone, whereas that in the forearm was mediated through vasodilator fibers. It is likely that the increase in heat production during exercise was responsible for the reflex vasodilatation in skin.
TP53 mutations, amplification of P63 and expression of cell cycle proteins in squamous cell carcinoma of the oesophagus from a low incidence area in Western Europe

In Europe, high incidence rates of oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma (SCCE) are observed in western France (Normandy and Brittany) and in north-eastern Italy. Analysis of TP53 mutations in tumours from these regions has shown a high prevalence of mutations at A:T basepairs that may result from DNA damage caused by specific mutagens. However, the spectrum of TP53 mutations in regions of low incidence is unknown. We report here TP53 mutation analysis in 33 SCCE collected in Lyon, an area of low incidence. These tumours were also examined for MDM2 and P63 amplification, and for expression of p16INK4a/CDKN2a, cyclin E, p27Kipland Cox2. TP53 mutations were detected in 36% of the cases (12/33). In contrast with regions of high incidence, the mutation spectrum did not show a high prevalence of mutations at A:T base pairs. P63 was amplified in 5/32 cases tested (15.5%). No amplification of MDM2 was found. Expression studies revealed frequent loss of p16INK4a/CDKN2a(46%) and p27Kipl(25%) expression, and frequent overexpression of Cyclin E (70%) and Cox2 (42%). Overall, these results indicate that in Europe, SCCE from areas of high and low incidence present a similar pattern of molecular alterations but differ by the type of TP53 mutations. © 2001 Cancer Research Campaign www.bjcancer. com
Information Aggregation Mechanisms: Concept, Design and Implementation for a Sales Forecasting Problem

Information Aggregation Mechanisms are economics mechanisms designed explicitly for the purpose of collecting and aggregating information. The modern theory of rational expectations, together with the techniques and results of experimental economics, suggest that a set of properly designed markets can be a good information aggregation mechanism. The paper reports on the deployment of such an information aggregation mechanism inside Hewlett-Packard Corporation for the purpose of makings sales forecasts. Results who that IAMs performed better than traditional methods employed inside Hewlett-Packard. The structure of the mechanism, the methodology and the results are reported.
Automatic segmentation of the fetal cerebellum on 3 D ultrasound

In this study we present the development of a 3D statistical shape model (Point Distribution Model PDM), for automatic segmentation, of the fetal cerebellum based on 3D US. This model is adjusted to a fetal 3D ultrasound, using an optimization algorithm which optimizes a model fitting function. A mean Dice Similarity Coefficient of 0.78 was obtained between manual annotations and automatic segmentations of the fetal cerebellum, which is comparable to the Dice Similarity Coefficient obtained between experts. Our results show that this technique is able to automatically segment the cerebellum on 3D ultrasounds of fetal brains with adequate accuracy.
Transients and attractors in epidemics

Historical records of childhood disease incidence reveal complex dynamics. For measles, a simple model has indicated that epidemic patterns represent attractors of a nonlinear dynamic system and that transitions between different attractors are driven by slow changes in birth rates and vaccination levels. The same analysis can explain the main features of chickenpox dynamics, but fails for rubella and whooping cough. We show that an additional (perturbative) analysis of the model, together with knowledge of the population size in question, can account for all the observed incidence patterns by predicting how stochastically sustained transient dynamics should be manifested in these systems.
Degradation of Crystal Violet by Pulsed Corona and Spark Discharge: Determination of Removal Mechanism

The pulsed discharge includes corona discharge and spark discharge. The voltage waveforms, photo, the decoloration rate of Crystal violet in corona discharge and spark discharge were investigated respectively. The results show that the spark discharge is more intense than the corona discharge. The decoloration rate of Crystal violet by spark discharge is 90%, which is higher than that corona discharge. From the UV-Visible and FTIR spectra, we can see that the molecular conjugated system and the benzene ring of CV were damaged by pulsed discharge.
GRB: Greedy Routing Protocol with Backtracking for Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks

In this paper, we propose a novel geographic routing protocol, called Greedy Routing Protocol with Backtracking (GRB), for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks, which uses a simple backtracking technique to deal with voids. Performance evaluation shows GRB has much less routing overhead than that of AODV as well as GPSR. It has higher packet-delivery ratio, lower end-to-end delay, and less hop count on average than AODV.
Spectral-Spatial Response for Hyperspectral Image Classification

This paper presents a hierarchical deep framework called Spectral-Spatial Response (SSR) to jointly learn spectral and spatial features of Hyperspectral Images (HSIs) by iteratively abstracting neighboringregions. SSRformsadeeparchitectureandisabletolearndiscriminativespectral-spatial features of the input HSI at different scales. It includes several existing spectral-spatial-based methods as special scenarios within a single uniﬁed framework. Based on SSR, we further propose the Subspace Learning-based Networks (SLN) as an example of SSR for HSI classiﬁcation. In SLN, the joint spectral and spatial features are learned using templates simply learned by Marginal Fisher Analysis (MFA) and Principal Component Analysis (PCA). An important contribution to the success of SLN is the exploitation of label information of training samples and the local spatial structure of HSI. Extensive experimental results on four challenging HSI datasets taken from the Airborne Visible-Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS) and Reﬂective Optics System Imaging Spectrometer (ROSIS) airborne sensors show the implementational simplicity of SLN and verify the superiority of SSR for HSI classiﬁcation.
The formation control of the multi-agent system with single-integrator kinematics on the plane

This paper investigates the formation control of the multi-agent with single-integrator kinematics in the plane, and presents a new method which could guarantee the agent to realize the arbitrary prescribed formation, furthermore, locations of the agents in the formation can be arbitrary arranged as what we expected. Our method is generalized as follows: Firstly, a consensus control protocol is designed, and a trick, named the state-space decomposition, is used to obtain the agents' consensus states under initial conditions; Secondly, based on which a scaling transformation and a rotation transformation are performed to realize the prescribed formation. Finally, an illustrative example with simulations is presented to show that our results as well as the method are effective in studying the formation control of multi-agent with single-integrator kinematics on the plane.
A low-power RF/analog front-end architecture for LF passive RFID tags with dynamic power sensing

This paper presents a low power, low voltage RF/analog front-end architecture for LF RFID tags with a dynamic power sensing scheme. The front-end converts the incoming RF power into DC using a system that adjusts its performance according to the available RF power. The power sensing scheme, composed by a feedback system that “regulates” the RF clamp stage, improves the incoming available power to the system. All building blocks together with the RF air link and antenna interface were modeled using digital and electrical signals with high abstraction level, validating the architecture. Part of the proposed AFE architecture was silicon proven in a preliminary CMOS 0. 18μm process test chip. This preliminary part includes the regulation stages and part of the RF section. It shows excellent results for a maximum of 3μA DC current consumption, over a wide range of input RF power.
Interplay of ion binding and attraction in DNA condensed by multivalent cations

We have measured forces generated by multivalent cation-induced DNA condensation using single-molecule magnetic tweezers. In the presence of cobalt hexammine, spermidine, or spermine, stretched DNA exhibits an abrupt configurational change from extended to condensed. This occurs at a well-defined condensation force that is nearly equal to the condensation free energy per unit length. The multivalent cation concentration dependence for this condensation force gives the apparent number of multivalent cations that bind DNA upon condensation. The measurements show that the lower critical concentration for cobalt hexammine as compared to spermidine is due to a difference in ion binding, not a difference in the electrostatic energy of the condensed state as previously thought. We also show that the resolubilization of condensed DNA can be described using a traditional Manning–Oosawa cation adsorption model, provided that cation–anion pairing at high electrolyte concentrations is taken into account. Neither overcharging nor significant alterations in the condensed state are required to describe the resolubilization of condensed DNA. The same model also describes the spermidine3+/Na+ phase diagram measured previously.
Balloon angioplasty of arteries of the upper extremities in patients with extracranial giant-cell arteritis

Objectives: To evaluate the outcome of balloon angioplasty in the arteries of the upper extremities in patients with giant-cell arteritis (GCA) and stenosing extracranial involvement. Methods: Percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA) for symptomatic upper limb artery stenoses (n = 29) and occlusions (n = 1) resistant to medical treatment was carried out in 10 patients (all women, mean age 65 years) with GCA. Vascular lesions were located in the subclavian (n = 4), axillary (n = 10) and brachial (n = 16) arteries. Interventional treatment was accompanied by immunosuppressive drugs in all patients. Follow-up included clinical and serological examination, magnetic resonance angiography and colour duplex ultrasound. Results: Initial technical success of angioplasty was achieved in the case of all vascular lesions. In five patients, marked recurrent stenoses (vascular territories; n = 10/30) were found during follow-up (mean 24 months). The cumulative primary patency rate was 65.2%. All recurrent lesions developed in the territories of the initial long-segment stenoses. Repeated PTA (vascular territories, n = 8; patients, n = 5) provided a cumulative secondary patency rate of 82.6% and a cumulative tertiary patency rate of 89.7%. Conclusions: Despite a tendency to restenoses, balloon angioplasty of the upper-extremity artery, in combination with immunosuppressive treatment, is an efficient method for the treatment of extracranial GCA.
Outage Analysis of OFDM Based AF Cooperative Systems in Selection Combining Receiver over Nakagami-m Fading Channels with Nonlinear Power Amplifier

In this paper, we investigate the performance of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) based amplify-and-forward (AF) cooperative relaying systems over independent and identically distributed (i.i.d) Nakagami-m fading channels. Specifically, we derive a closed-form expression for lower bound of outage probability by using selection combining (SC) scheme at the receiver. A nonlinear power amplifier (PA) is considered at the relay which introduces the nonlinear distortions. We present simulation and numerical results to validate the theoretical analysis, and demonstrates the impact of nonlinearity of PA parameters over outage probability for different values of threshold signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at various mean SNR levels
Two-Dimensional Silicon Nitride Photonic Crystal Band Gap Characteristics

Plane-wave expansion method was employed to analyze the photonic band gap in two-dimensional silicon nitride photonic crystal. The effects of filling ratio and lattice structure type on the photonic band gap were studied. The results showed that two-dimensional dielectric cylinder type silicon nitride photonic crystal only has TE mode band gap, while, the air column type photonic crystal has complete band gap for TE and TM modes simultaneously. The distribution of band gap can be influenced by the filling ratio of dielectric materials and the lattice type. It is shown that the triangular lattice structure is much easier to form band gap than square lattice structure.
Towards a whole‐genome sequence for rye (Secale cereale L.)

We report on a whole-genome draft sequence of rye (Secale cereale L.). Rye is a diploid Triticeae species closely related to wheat and barley, and an important crop for food and feed in Central and Eastern Europe. Through whole-genome shotgun sequencing of the 7.9-Gbp genome of the winter rye inbred line Lo7 we obtained a de novo assembly represented by 1.29 million scaffolds covering a total length of 2.8 Gbp. Our reference sequence represents nearly the entire low-copy portion of the rye genome. This genome assembly was used to predict 27 784 rye gene models based on homology to sequenced grass genomes. Through resequencing of 10 rye inbred lines and one accession of the wild relative S. vavilovii, we discovered more than 90 million single nucleotide variants and short insertions/deletions in the rye genome. From these variants, we developed the high-density Rye600k genotyping array with 600 843 markers, which enabled anchoring the sequence contigs along a high-density genetic map and establishing a synteny-based virtual gene order. Genotyping data were used to characterize the diversity of rye breeding pools and genetic resources, and to obtain a genome-wide map of selection signals differentiating the divergent gene pools. This rye whole-genome sequence closes a gap in Triticeae genome research, and will be highly valuable for comparative genomics, functional studies and genome-based breeding in rye.