Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
L'engagement civique local : de l'incantation générique à la valorisation segmentée

Sommaire L'engagement civique local connait un regain d'actualite qui s'explique par l'evolution du role des municipalites dans l'ensemble de l'action etatique et de ses consequences sur l'exercice de la citoyennete locale. L'intensification de l'engagement civique est benefique autant pour la democratie locale que pour la gouvernance locale, tout en accentuant les tensions entre les deux. Si l'on veut stimuler l'engagement civique, encore faut-il l'apprehender dans toutes ses dimensions, alors qu'il est souvent reduit a la participation formelle aux processus decisionnels. Afin de prendre en compte toutes ses dimensions, cet article propose une typologie des roles que jouent les citoyens dans leur collectivite locale. Cette typologie opere une segmentation substantive du statut de citoyen local qui permet de reperer les multiples manifestations de l'engagement et de toutes les valoriser. Elle jette aussi un eclairage sur les defis specifiques d'un management local qui se centrerait moins sur ce que fait l'administration et davantage sur ce qu'apportent les citoyens, engages a divers titres et niveaux. Abstract The changing role of municipalities within the state action raises their concern for local civic engagement. Increased civic engagement benefits both local democracy and local governance, while exacerbating tensions between the two. If municipalities want to boost civic engagement, they have to understand all its dimensions and cannot reduce it to formal participation in decision making. This article proposes a typology of roles played by citizens in local communities. By segmenting local citizenship, this typology identifies and validates multiple manifestations of local civic engagement. It also reveals many challenges faced by local public management, which must focus less on what its administration does and more on the multiform contributions of its citizens.
Numerical Investigation on Supersonic Flow Separation Control Using Micro-ramp

Based on Large Eddy Simulation (LES), combined with high-order WENO scheme, Ghost Fluid Method (GFM) and Adaptive Mesh Refinement (AMR) technique, the supersonic flow separation controlled by a wall-mounted micro-ramp has been simulated. The flow structure past micro-ramp was presented and discussed. Afterwards, the micro-ramp was used to control the shock/ boundary layer separation. The numerical results showed that wake structures behind the micro-ramp consist of stream wise vortex tubes and vortex rings. During the separation control, the incident shock compresses the wake of micro-ramp, enhances the strength of stream wise vortex. The up wash and downwash motion of gases make the energy change between the boundary layer and out flow and suppress the flow separation.
A novel visual cryptographic scheme for improved binary image quality

Visual Cryptography is an encryption method which shares secret information into n shares and decrypted into original image without any cryptographic technique. Existing visual cryptography does not provide good visual quality reconstructed image. Hence a novel visual cryptography is introduced along with additional post processing technique which preserves good quality recovered image. Experimental results on this technique show that recovered image has competitive visual quality compared with input binary image.
Timber harvest projections for private land in western Oregon

In this analysis, volume-flow and market-based models of the western Oregon timber sector are developed. The volume-flow model finds the maximum, long-term, even-flow level of cut for each ownership (industry and non-industrial private forest). The market model simulates the interaction of log demand and timber owner supply to find the market balancing harvest quantity and log price. In both models, owner decisions on the intensity of timber management (silviculture) are made within the models consistent with owner objectives (volume or wealth maximization). Model projections suggest that western Oregon forest industry owners could sustain cut at recent (1995–1999) levels, stemming the 40-yr declining trend in their harvest. Nonindustrial private forest owners could raise harvests to near historical peak levels. These harvests could be maintained over the next five decades with no reduction in the growing stock inventory. Management would continue to shift toward the more intensive forms on both ownerships. The average age of the inventory would decline over the projection. Simulated riparian protection policies lower harvest roughly in proportion to the land base reduction and raise log prices. A policy to increase the minimum age of clearcut harvests would lead to large near-term reductions in industrial harvest but less marked reductions on NIPF lands. Prices would rise sharply in the near term. Over the longer term, the policy would act to expand inventory, raising harvest, and to depress prices.
Bit Flipping Errors in High Performance Linpack at Exascale and Beyond

For the High Performance Linpack (HPL) benchmark at the coming Exascale and beyond, silent errors like bit flipping in memory are expected to become inevitable. However, since bit flipping errors are difficult to be detected and located, their impact to the numerical correctness of HPL has not been evaluated thoroughly and quantitatively, while the impact at Exascale is especially susceptible. In this paper, an initial quantitative analysis of the impact of bit flipping errors to the numerical correctness of HPL has been investigated. To validate the numerical correctness of computed solution using HPL, there is a residual check after the approximate solution obtained. This paper has shown that in the case of only one bit flipping to any element in the original data matrix, if the flipped position is not the leading position of exponent, the residual check in HPL will almost surely pass at the scale of Exa flops and beyond. Experiments on modified HPL in single precision at small scales have verified the theoretical results in double precision at Exascale. The results obtained in this paper can provide a better understanding to the impact of bit flipping errors to numerical correctness of scientific computing applications.
Hyaluronic Acid Gel-Based Scaffolds as Potential Carrier for Growth Factors: An In Vitro Bioassay on Its Osteogenic Potential

Hyaluronic acid (HA) has been utilized for a variety of regenerative medical procedures due to its widespread presence in connective tissue and perceived biocompatibility. The aim of the present study was to investigate HA in combination with recombinant human bone morphogenetic protein 9 (rhBMP9), one of the most osteogenic growth factors of the BMP family. HA was first combined with rhBMP9 and assessed for the adsorption and release of rhBMP9 over 10 days by ELISA. Thereafter, ST2 pre-osteoblasts were investigated by comparing (1) control tissue culture plastic, (2) HA alone, and (3) HA with rhBMP9 (100 ng/mL). Cellular proliferation was investigated by a MTS assay at one, three and five days and osteoblast differentiation was investigated by alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity at seven days, alizarin red staining at 14 days and real-time PCR for osteoblast differentiation markers. The results demonstrated that rhBMP9 adsorbed within HA scaffolds and was released over a 10-day period in a controlled manner. While HA and rhBMP9 had little effect on cell proliferation, a marked and pronounced effect was observed for cell differentiation. rhBMP9 significantly induced ALP activity, mRNA levels of collagen1α2, and ALP and osteocalcin (OCN) at three or 14 days. HA also demonstrated some ability to induce osteoblast differentiation by increasing mRNA levels of OCN and increasing alizarin red staining at 14 days. In conclusion, the results from the present study demonstrate that (1) HA may serve as a potential carrier for various growth factors, and (2) rhBMP9 is a potent and promising inducer of osteoblast differentiation. Future animal studies are now necessary to investigate this combination approach in vivo.
A concept of extending spreadsheet cell functions for Web application development based on a cloud platform

Web application development is confronted with increasing system complexity, new technical specification requirements, progressive changing of client terminal devices and security problems triggered by new cracking techniques. In this context, providing new methods for effectively developing Web application in low cost becomes paramount. This brings new technical challenges of developing new data modeling and new techniques in data structure, database schema, page transition control, authorization, session management, programming, and input and output interface design technical areas, as Web application development requires all of those techniques. At the same time, as the remarkable progress of information and communication technology (ICT) has been made, ICT technologies are bring dramatic changes to our lives and business. Thus, there is an increasing need for developing Web applications for business and everyday life utilization. Building on previous research and applications, this paper presents that data models for developing Web applications can be built using spreadsheets based on a cloud application development platform, called FOCAPLAS. This spreadsheet based developing approach presents our challenges on new methodologies of both the data modeling and programming for Web application development.
A STUDY OF THE EFFECTS OF FIRES ON THE POPULATIONS OF THE GREEN LIZARD Lacerta viridis (Laurenti, 1768) IN EASTERN RHODOPES

Due to the high intensity of the fires occurred in the Eastern Rhodopes (South-east Bulgaria) in the period of 2000-2004 large parts of the habitats of the green lizard (Lacerta viridis) were damaged. In the current study data concerning the effects, the dynamics and the rates of restoration of the populations of the green lizard due to fires is presented. The blaze destroys a considerable amount of the individuals. During the first year of our study in the burned area the average density (D) was 13,74 specimens per ha and in the samples area D was 57,02 specimens per ha or presented in percentage 19,42% against 80,58%. Despite the inflicted damage the populations of the green lizard are recovering considerably rapidly in the studied regions. An equilibrium of the average densities was established in the third year after the fire (they were statistically insignificant p=0.79), the average density at the fire site was D=53,74 specimens per ha and at the samples site it was D=60,01 specimens per ha. The reasons of this are complex: a considerably large amount of the sexually mature animals actually survive the fire using shelters; there are individuals migrating from the burned site to the samples site and vice versa; the populations of the studied species are with high density in the areas around the fire site and etc. Georgi Popgeorgiev, Ivelin Mollov 96
DNA Methylation of the ABO Promoter Underlies Loss of ABO Allelic Expression in a Significant Proportion of Leukemic Patients

Background Loss of A, B and H antigens from the red blood cells of patients with myeloid malignancies is a frequent occurrence. Previously, we have reported alterations in ABH antigens on the red blood cells of 55% of patients with myeloid malignancies. Methodology/Principal Findings To determine the underlying molecular mechanisms of this loss, we assessed ABO allelic expression in 21 patients with ABH antigen loss previously identified by flow cytometric analysis as well as an additional 7 patients detected with ABH antigen changes by serology. When assessing ABO mRNA allelic expression, 6/12 (50%) patients with ABH antigen loss detected by flow cytometry and 5/7 (71%) of the patients with ABH antigen loss detected by serology had a corresponding ABO mRNA allelic loss of expression. We examined the ABO locus for copy number and DNA methylation alterations in 21 patients, 11 with loss of expression of one or both ABO alleles, and 10 patients with no detectable allelic loss of ABO mRNA expression. No loss of heterozygosity (LOH) at the ABO locus was observed in these patients. However in 8/11 (73%) patients with loss of ABO allelic expression, the ABO promoter was methylated compared with 2/10 (20%) of patients with no ABO allelic expression loss (P = 0.03). Conclusions/Significance We have found that loss of ABH antigens in patients with hematological malignancies is associated with a corresponding loss of ABO allelic expression in a significant proportion of patients. Loss of ABO allelic expression was strongly associated with DNA methylation of the ABO promoter.
Dysregulation of Mammalian Target of Rapamycin Signaling in Mouse Models of Autism

The mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) is a central regulator of a diverse array of cellular processes, including cell growth, proliferation, autophagy, translation, and actin polymerization. Components of the mTOR cascade are present at synapses and influence synaptic plasticity and spine morphogenesis. A prevailing view is that the study of mTOR and its role in autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) will elucidate the molecular mechanisms by which mTOR regulates neuronal function under physiological and pathological conditions. Although many ASDs arise as a result of mutations in genes with multiple molecular functions, they appear to converge on common biological pathways that give rise to autism-relevant behaviors. Dysregulation of mTOR signaling has been identified as a phenotypic feature common to fragile X syndrome, tuberous sclerosis complex 1 and 2, neurofibromatosis 1, phosphatase and tensin homolog, and potentially Rett syndrome. Below are a summary of topics covered in a symposium that presents dysregulation of mTOR as a unifying theme in a subset of ASDs.
Developing reusable and robust language processing components for information systems using GATE

In this paper we present GATE, an architecture and a graphical development environment which enables users to develop and. deploy HLT applications in a robust fashion. GATE also provides reusable, extendable, and customisable language processing modules (e.g., part of speech tagger, named entity recognition grammars), which combined with the extensive document format support (e.g., XML, HTML), form a useful toolset for building HLT-augmented information systems.
Differential Resynchronisation of Circadian Clock Gene Expression within the Suprachiasmatic Nuclei of Mice Subjected to Experimental Jet Lag

Disruption of the circadian timing system arising from travel between time zones (“jet lag”) and rotational shift work impairs mental and physical performance and severely compromises long-term health. Circadian disruption is more severe during adaptation to advances in local time, because the circadian clock takes much longer to phase advance than delay. The recent identification of mammalian circadian clock genes now makes it possible to examine time zone adjustments from the perspective of molecular events within the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), the principal circadian oscillator. Current models of the clockwork posit interlocked transcriptional/post-translational feedback loops based on the light-sensitive Period (Per) genes and the Cryptochrome (Cry) genes, which are indirectly regulated by light. We show that circadian cycles ofmPer expression in the mouse SCN react rapidly to an advance in the lighting schedule, whereas rhythmic mCry1expression advances more slowly, in parallel to the gradual resetting of the activity–rest cycle. In contrast, during a delay in local time the mPer and mCry cycles react rapidly, completing the 6 hr shift together by the second cycle, in parallel with the activity–rest cycle. These results reveal the potential for dissociation of mPer and mCry expression within the central oscillator during circadian resetting and a differential molecular response of the clock during advance and delay resetting. They highlight the indirect photic regulation ofmCry1 as a potentially rate-limiting factor in behavioral adjustment to time zone transitions.
Institutional Analytics for Retail Investors

Investment institutions have sophisticated methods and software for the systematic analysis of stocks, but ordinary individuals investing on their own behalf do not have access to the same tools. We first describe the field of stock analysis and some of the methods used to predict stock movements, in particular three areas: fundamental analysis, which seeks to establish the value of a stock based on the attributes of the underlying company; technical analysis, which examines a stock’s price and volume movements; and sentiment analysis, the systematic examination of attitudes surrounding a stock. While investment institutions have spent considerable resources on developing software to automate all of these analyses, their complexity means that retail (non-institutional) investors typically lack the knowledge, time, and capital to do the same. This creates an unfair situation in the stock market, where institutions are able to more quickly identify and exploit profit opportunities, while retail investors lag behind and never realize the same levels of profit. We then propose Phinance Analytics, a system to address the gap between institutional and retail investors. A system that performs a hybrid combination of technical, fundamental, and sentiment analysis, exposed to users through a convenient web interface, allows individuals access to some portion of the same types of tools that investment institutions have at their disposal. The system provides the user with a score for each analytical component outlined above, combined with a simple natural langugage description of the reasons for the score, and an overall recommendation for what the user should do with the stock. This information can be used as part of a user’s research into a stock that the user is already interested in, or to quickly identify which stocks may be interesting investment opportunities to consider. The user interacts with the system through a simple-to-nagivate, intuitive website.
Information Seeking Spoken Dialogue Systems— Part I: Semantics and Pragmatics

In this paper, the semantic and pragmatic modules of a spoken dialogue system development platform are presented and evaluated. The main goal of this research is to create spoken dialogue system modules that are portable across applications domains and interaction modalities. We propose a hierarchical semantic representation that encodes all information supplied by the user over multiple dialogue turns and can efficiently represent and be used to argue with ambiguous or conflicting information. Implicit in this semantic representation is a pragmatic module, consisting of context tracking, pragmatic analysis and pragmatic scoring submodules, which computes pragmatic confidence scores for all system beliefs. These pragmatic scores are obtained by combining semantic and pragmatic evidence from the various sub-modules (taking into account the modality of input) and are used to rank-order attribute-value pairs in the semantic representation, as well as identifying and resolving ambiguities. These modules were implemented and evaluated within a travel reservation dialogue system under the auspices of the DARPA Communicator project, as well as for a movie information application. Formal evaluation of the semantic and pragmatic modules has shown that by incorporating pragmatic analysis and scoring, the quality of the system improves for over 20% of the dialogue fragments examined
Lexical normalization model for noisy SMS text

In day to day life, digital mediated interactions and communications being an important constituent. The expeditious growth of electronic communications such as E-mails, micro blogs, SMS and chats etc has fabricated extensively noisy forms of text. It predominantly in young urbanités. The tremendous growth of noises in text are due to a variety of factors, such as the small number of characters allowed per text messages (160 characters is allowed per SMS and 140 characters allowed per tweets), inventing new abbreviations, using non standard orthographic forms, phonetic substitution etc. In this paper we introduce a lexical normalization model for cleaning the noisy texts. The normalization is based on the channelized database. The model will capture the user interaction for improving the model accuracy. Precursory evaluation shows that the channel model will normalize the noisy word to their standard peer with 97.5 % accuracy.
Seroprevalence of feline leukemia virus and feline immunodeficiency virus infection among cats in North America and risk factors for seropositivity.

OBJECTIVE To determine seroprevalence of FeLV and FIV infection among cats in North America and risk factors for seropositivity. DESIGN Prospective cross-sectional survey. ANIMALS 18,038 cats tested at 345 veterinary clinics (n=9,970) and 145 animal shelters (8,068) between August and November 2004. PROCEDURE Cats were tested with a point-of-care ELISA for FeLV antigen and FIV antibody. A multivariable random effects logistic regression model was used to identify risk factors significantly associated with seropositivity while accounting for clinic-to-clinic (or shelter) variability. RESULTS 409 (2.3%) cats were seropositive for FeLV antigen, and 446 (2.5%) cats were seropositive for FIV antibody; 58 (0.3%) cats were seropositive for infection with both viruses. Multivariable analysis indicated that age, sex, health status, and cat lifestyle and source were significantly associated with risk of seropositivity, with adults more likely to be seropositive than juveniles (adjusted odds ratios [ORs], 2.5 and 2.05 for FeLV and FIV seropositivity, respectively), sexually intact adult males more likely to be seropositive than sexually intact adult females (adjusted ORs, 2.4 and 4.66), and outdoor cats that were sick at the time of testing more likely to be seropositive than healthy indoor cats (adjusted ORs, 8.89 and 11.3). CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE Results suggest that certain characteristics, such as age, sex, health status, and lifestyle, are associated with risk of FeLV and FIV seropositivity among cats in North America. However, cats in all categories were found to be at risk for infection, and current guidelines to test all cats at the time of acquisition and again during illness should be followed.
An ID-Based Authenticated Key Agreement Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks

Providing a suitable key establishment protocol in wireless sensor networks is challenging due to all the characteristics of these networks, such as limitations of power, computation capability and storage resources. This paper presents a novel key agreement protocol for wireless sensor networks. By applying the ID-based technique, a sensor node and a security manager can achieve key exchange and fast authentication. In this protocol the expensive operations are removed from sensor node side and a sensor node needs not to transmit its implicit certificate, so it reduces the energy cost of sensor nodes. We prove the security of our protocol in the random oracle model.