Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Spin, Accretion, and the Cosmological Growth of Supermassive Black Holes

If supermassive black holes (SMBHs) are the energy sources that power quasars and active galactic nuclei (AGNs), then QSO SDSS 1148+5251, the quasar with the highest redshift (zQSO = 6.43), hosts an SMBH formed within ~0.9 Gyr after the big bang. This requirement places constraints on the cosmological formation of SMBHs, believed to grow from smaller initial seeds by a combination of accretion and mergers. We focus on gas accretion onto seeds produced by the collapse of Population III stars at high redshift. We incorporate the results of recent relativistic, MHD simulations of disk accretion onto Kerr black holes to track the coupled evolution of the masses and spins of the holes. We allow for an additional amplification of ~104 in the mass of a typical seed due to mergers, consistent with recent Monte Carlo simulations of hierarchical mergers of cold dark matter halos containing black hole seeds. We find that the growth of Population III black hole remnants to ~109 M☉ by zQSO ≳ 6.43 favors MHD accretion disks over standard thin disks. MHD disks tend to drive the holes to a submaximal equilibrium spin rate a/M ~ 0.95 and radiation efficiency ϵM ~ 0.2, while standard thin disks drive them to maximal spin (a/M = 1) and efficiency (ϵM = 0.42). This small difference in efficiency results in a huge difference in mass amplification by accretion at the Eddington limit. The MHD equilibrium efficiency is consistent with the observed ratio of the QSO plus AGN luminosity density to the local SMBH mass density. Our prototype analysis is designed to stimulate the incorporation of results from relativistic stellar collapse and MHD accretion simulations in future Monte Carlo simulations of hierarchical structure formation to better determine the cosmological role of SMBHs and their mass and spin distributions.
RNA Viral Community in Human Feces: Prevalence of Plant Pathogenic Viruses

The human gut is known to be a reservoir of a wide variety of microbes, including viruses. Many RNA viruses are known to be associated with gastroenteritis; however, the enteric RNA viral community present in healthy humans has not been described. Here, we present a comparative metagenomic analysis of the RNA viruses found in three fecal samples from two healthy human individuals. For this study, uncultured viruses were concentrated by tangential flow filtration, and viral RNA was extracted and cloned into shotgun viral cDNA libraries for sequencing analysis. The vast majority of the 36,769 viral sequences obtained were similar to plant pathogenic RNA viruses. The most abundant fecal virus in this study was pepper mild mottle virus (PMMV), which was found in high concentrations—up to 109 virions per gram of dry weight fecal matter. PMMV was also detected in 12 (66.7%) of 18 fecal samples collected from healthy individuals on two continents, indicating that this plant virus is prevalent in the human population. A number of pepper-based foods tested positive for PMMV, suggesting dietary origins for this virus. Intriguingly, the fecal PMMV was infectious to host plants, suggesting that humans might act as a vehicle for the dissemination of certain plant viruses.
An LDPCC decoding algorithm based on bowman-levin approximation -comparison with bp and CCCP-

Belief propagation (BP) and the concave convex procedure (CCCP) are both methods that utilize the Bethe free energy as a cost function and solve information processing tasks. We have developed a new algorithm that also uses the Bethe free energy, but changes the roles of the master variables and the slave variables. This is called the Bowman-Levin (BL) approximation in the domain of statistical physics. When we applied the BL algorithm to decode the Gallager ensemble of short-length regular low-density parity check codes (LDPCC) over an additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel, its average performance was somewhat better than that of either BP or CCCP. This implies that the BL algorithm can also be successfully applied to other problems to which BP or CCCP has already been applied
Local and global analysis of endocytic patch dynamics in fission yeast using a new “temporal superresolution” realignment method

A temporal superresolution method is proposed to align data sets with a higher temporal resolution than the measurement resolution. Application to endocytic patches shows that the movement of endocytic vesicles is diffusive and impeded by the actin cytoskeleton. New tools are also proposed to count actin patches and study their polarization.
Quality metric evaluation of a physical unclonable function derived from an IC's power distribution system

The level of security provided by digital rights management functions and cryptographic protocols depend heavily on the security of an embedded secret key. The current practice of embedding the key as digital data in the integrated circuit (IC) weakens these security protocols because the keys can be learned through attacks. Physical unclonable functions (PUFs) are a recent alternative to storing digital keys on the IC. A PUF leverages the inherent manufacturing variations of an IC to define a random function. Given environmental variations such as temperature and supply noise, PUF quality criteria such as reproducibility and the level of randomness in the responses may be difficult to achieve for a given PUF circuit architecture. In this paper, we evaluate a PUF derived from the power distribution system of an IC with regard to a set of quality metrics including single-bit and collision probability and entropy. The analysis is carried out using data obtained from 36 chips fabricated in IBM's 65 nm SOI technology.
Adolescent Intermittent Ethanol Exposure Is Associated with Increased Risky Choice and Decreased Dopaminergic and Cholinergic Neuron Markers in Adult Rats

Background: Binge drinking is prevalent during adolescence and may have effects on the adult brain and behavior. The present study investigated whether adolescent intermittent ethanol exposure alters adult risky choice and prefrontal dopaminergic and forebrain cholinergic neuronal marker levels in male Wistar rats. Methods: Adolescent (postnatal day 28–53) rats were administered 5g/kg of 25% (vol/vol) ethanol 3 times/d in a 2-days–on/2-days–off exposure pattern. In adulthood, risky choice was assessed in the probability discounting task with descending and ascending series of large reward probabilities and after acute ethanol challenge. Immunohistochemical analyses assessed tyrosine hydroxylase, a marker of dopamine and norepinephrine in the prelimbic and infralimbic cortices, and choline acetyltransferase, a marker of cholinergic neurons, in the basal forebrain. Results: All of the rats preferred the large reward when it was delivered with high probability. When the large reward became unlikely, control rats preferred the smaller, safe reward, whereas adolescent intermittent ethanol-exposed rats continued to prefer the risky alternative. Acute ethanol had no effect on risky choice in either group of rats. Tyrosine hydroxylase (prelimbic cortex only) and choline acetyltransferase immunoreactivity levels were decreased in adolescent intermittent ethanol-exposed rats compared with controls. Risky choice was negatively correlated with choline acetyltransferase, implicating decreased forebrain cholinergic activity in risky choice. Conclusions: The decreases in tyrosine hydroxylase and choline acetyltransferase immunoreactivity suggest that adolescent intermittent ethanol exposure has enduring neural effects that may lead to altered adult behaviors, such as increased risky decision making. In humans, increased risky decision making could lead to maladaptive, potentially harmful consequences.
Light Weight Novel Approach Voter Design Using Sic Vector in TMR Systems

The main objective of this project is to the majority voted redundancy is increasingly implemented in fault- tolerant design simulator using fault injection experiments. The new Enhanced Lockstep scheme requires significantly shorter error recovery time compared to conventional lockstep scheme and uses significantly smaller number of slices compared to known TMR based. Finally the novel test pattern generator (TPG) for built-in self-test is obtained and the efficiency of the proposed approach was validated through fault injection experiments.
Identification of sex-specific transcripts of the Anopheles gambiae doublesex gene

SUMMARY The understanding of the molecular mechanisms of sex differentiation in the mosquito Anopheles gambiae could identify important candidate genes for inducing selective male sterility in transgenic lines or for sex-controlled expression of lethal genes. In many insects, doublesex (dsx) is the double-switch gene at the bottom of the somatic sex-determination cascade that determines the differentiation of sexually dimorphic traits. We report here on the identification of the dsx homologue in A. gambiae and on the characterization of its sex-specific transcripts. Agdsx consists of seven exons, distributed over an 85 kb region on chromosome 2R, which are sex-specifically spliced to produce the female and male AgdsxF and AgdsxM transcripts. AgdsxF contains a 795 bp ORF, coding for a protein of 265 amino acids, while AgdsxM comprises a much longer (1866 bp) ORF, coding for a 622 aa protein. Differences in the exon/intron organization suggest that Agdsx sex-specific splicing results from a different mechanism from Drosophila melanogaster dsx. These findings represent an important step towards the understanding of sex differentiation in Anopheles and will facilitate the use of gene transfer technologies to manipulate sex ratios for vector control programs based on the sterile insect technique.
Secure Key Authentication Scheme Based on Discrete Logarithms

In the public key cryptosystems, for obtaining the public key, one can either directly request it from the recipient or retrieve it from the public key directory. In 1999, Zhan et al. proposed an improvement to Horng-Yang's key authentication scheme based on discrete logarithms that has the same stability as Horng-Yang's scheme, but with a more secure. The current paper, however, demonstrates that the scheme is vulnerable to public key substitution attack and theft attack, and then presents an improvement of the scheme.
Cauda Equina Syndrome After Continuous Spinal Anesthesia

Four cases of cauda equina syndrome occurring after continuous spinal anesthesia are reported. In all four cases, there was evidence of a focal sensory block and, to achieve adequate analgesia, a dose of local anesthetic was given that was greater than that usually administered with a single-injection technique. We postulate that the combination of maldistribution and a relatively high dose of local anesthetic resulted in neurotoxic injury. Suggestions that may reduce the potential for neurotoxicity are discussed. Use of a lower concentration and a “ceiling” or maximum dose of local anesthetic to establish the block should be considered. If maldistribution of local anesthetic is suspected (as indicated by a focal sensory block), the use of maneuvers to increase the spread of local anesthetic is recommended. If such maneuvers prove unsuccessful, the technique should be abandoned.
Multiple LREK Active Contours for Knee Meniscus Ultrasound Image Segmentation

Quantification of knee meniscus degeneration and displacement in an ultrasound image requires simultaneous segmentation of femoral condyle, meniscus, and tibial plateau in order to determine the area and the position of the meniscus. In this paper, we present an active contour for image segmentation that uses scalable local regional information on expandable kernel (LREK). It includes using a strategy to adapt the size of a local window in order to avoid being confined locally in a homogeneous region during the segmentation process. We also provide a multiple active contours framework called multiple LREK (MLREK) to deal with multiple object segmentation without merging and overlapping between the neighboring contours in the shared boundaries of separate regions. We compare its performance to other existing active contour models and show an improvement offered by our model. We then investigate the choice of various parameters in the proposed framework in response to the segmentation outcome. Dice coefficient and Hausdorff distance measures over a set of real knee meniscus ultrasound images indicate a potential application of MLREK for assessment of knee meniscus degeneration and displacement.
Research on Prognostic and Health Monitoring System for Large Complex Equipment

Prognostic and health monitoring (PHM) is the latest development of large complex equipment management. An extensible distributed prognostic and health monitoring system based on hybrid wireless network techniques was studied and designed in this paper. Firstly,after a careful analysis on the structure and tasks of the equipment, the general PHM framework of large complex equipment is proposed. Then the technical program and network of system are presented. The corresponding on-line monitoring, diagnosis and management system are designed.And the fault prediction technologies are discussed. Finally,the health management and decision system is studied. Anew technical plan that skillfully combines knowledge base,model base, database, their management systems and inference engine is proposed. And the realization is introduced. The results of practical operation show that,because of the using of hybrid wireless network, embedded system, prognostic and intelligent diagnosis, the system maybe flexibly deployed, have powerful capability of monitoring,diagnosis and management, and can implement expeditious and accurate prognostic and fault diagnosis for large complex equipment system.
Fast selective intra mode decision in H.264/AVC

In this paper, we propose selective mode decision schemes for fast intra prediction mode selection. The objective is to reduce the computational complexity of the H.264/AVC encoder without significant rate-distortion performance degradation. In our proposed schemes, the intra prediction complexity is reduced by limiting the prediction modes with the directional information of the 16x16 prediction mode. According to the result of the 16x16 intra prediction mode, the 9 modes of the 4x4 and the 8x8 intra prediction are reduced up to 4 modes in the best case. Our proposed schemes are evaluated from the viewpoints of PSNR, bit rate, and execution time. Experimental results are presented to show that the proposed schemes reduce the complexity by up to 40% maintaining the similar PSNR quality with about 1% bit rate increase. Keywords-component; H.264/AVC, Intra prediction
A robust tracking controller for robot manipulators using disturbance observer

This paper presents a robust controller for robot manipulators. The controller is based on the disturbance observer which can efficiently compensate the external disturbances and plant uncertainties, and recover the nominal system performance. Under the assumption that angular displacements as well as angular velocities are available for feedback, we propose a disturbance observer-based robust controller which ensures robust tracking of desired trajectory with prescribed error bound. The proposed controller enjoys a simple structure and can be implemented with n integrators when the manipulator has n joints. Simulation results are presented for a 2DOF manipulator to validate the performance of the proposed controller.
Fe K Emission and Absorption in the XMM-EPIC Spectrum of the Seyfert Galaxy IC 4329a

We present a detailed analysis of the XMM-Newton long-look of the Seyfert galaxy IC 4329a. The Fe K bandpass is dominated by two resolved peaks at 6.4 and 7.0 keV, consistent with neutral or near-neutral Fe Kα and Kβ emission. There is a prominent redward asymmetry in the 6.4 keV line, which could indicate emission from a Compton shoulder. Alternatively, models using dual relativistic disk lines are found to describe the emission profile well. A low-inclination, moderately relativistic dual disk-line model is possible if the contribution from narrow components, due to distant material, is small or absent. A high-inclination, moderately relativistic profile for each peak is possible if there are roughly equal contributions from both the broad and narrow components. Combining the XMM-Newton data with RXTE monitoring data, we explore the time-resolved spectral behavior on timescales from hours to 2 years. We find no strong evidence for variability of the Fe K line flux on any timescale, likely due to the minimal level of continuum variability. We detect, at high significance, a narrow absorption line at 7.68 keV. This feature is most likely due to Fe XXVI Kα absorption blueshifted to ~0.1c relative to the systemic velocity, suggesting a high-velocity, highly ionized outflow component. As is often the case with similar outflows seen in high-luminosity quasars, the power associated with the outflow represents a substantial portion of the total energy budget of the AGN. The outflow could arise from a radiatively driven disk wind, or it may be in the form of a discrete, transient blob of ejected material.
Industrial Estates  Introduction

Environmental regulators have access to a large set of policy tools and instruments to create incentives for industrial facilities to abate pollution. Command and control is one approach where pollution standards for emissions or effluence are set, and fines and penalties are assessed against non-compliant facilities. Other options include pollution charges, tradable permits, voluntary participation programs, as well as environmental performance rating and public disclosure programs. For related information, see the other World Bank Guidance Notes in this series on effective pollution management and World Bank (2000) for reviews of these programs.
Replication Past the γ-Radiation-Induced Guanine-Thymine Cross-Link G[8,5-Me]T by Human and Yeast DNA Polymerase η

γ-Radiation-induced intrastrand guanine-thymine cross-link, G[8,5-Me]T, hinders replication in vitro and is mutagenic in mammalian cells. Herein we report in vitro translesion synthesis of G[8,5-Me]T by human and yeast DNA polymerase η (hPol η and yPol η). dAMP misincorporation opposite the cross-linked G by yPol η was preferred over correct incorporation of dCMP, but further extension was 100-fold less efficient for G∗:A compared to G∗:C. For hPol η, both incorporation and extension were more efficient with the correct nucleotides. To evaluate translesion synthesis in the presence of all four dNTPs, we have developed a plasmid-based DNA sequencing assay, which showed that yPol η was more error-prone. Mutational frequencies of yPol η and hPol η were 36% and 14%, respectively. Targeted G → T was the dominant mutation by both DNA polymerases. But yPol η induced targeted G → T in 23% frequency relative to 4% by hPol η. For yPol η, targeted G → T and G → C constituted 83% of the mutations. By contrast, with hPol η, semi-targeted mutations (7.2%), that is, mutations at bases near the lesion, occurred at equal frequency as the targeted mutations (6.9%). The kind of mutations detected with hPol η showed significant similarities with the mutational spectrum of G[8,5-Me]T in human embryonic kidney cells.
Analysis of Image Segmentation Methods Based on Performance Evaluation Parameters

Image segmentation is an important technology for image processing which aims at partitioning the image into different homogeneous regions or clusters. Lots of general-purpose techniques and algorithms have been developed and widely applied in various application areas. However, evaluation of these segmentation algorithms has been highly subjective and a difficult task to judge its performance based on intuition. In this paper image segmentation using FCM, Region Growing and Watershed algorithms is performed and segmentation results of these techniques are analyzed based on four performance metrics GCE, PSNR, RI and VoI. This analysis provides an overview that on what parameters different image segmentation techniques can be evaluated at best.
Design of Long-Period Grating Couplers Based on Asymmetric Dual-Core Fibres

We demonstrate a grating coupler using an asymmetric dual-core fibre with a pair of long-period gratings (LPGs). Simple formulas for the achievement of high coupling efficiency are derived and the results are compared with reported LPG couplers based on two discrete fibres. Our results show that with a proper choice of grating parameters, the coupling efficiency reaches 100%. A passing band with steep band transitions and side lobes less than ~25 dB can be achieved.
David Hume on Public Credit

In his essay Of Public Credit, David Hume argues against the institutionalization of public credit. Contrary to what is commonly believed, I claim Hume’s analysis of public credit is sound and it is an example of his worst-case thinking. Through textual and contextual analysis, I show for Hume public credit brings catastrophic results because men are knaves, systematically biased, and unlucky. Public credit is an appropriate institution to stimulate the economy only if men are perfect and perfectly predictable. But they are not. For Hume, considering the worst-case rather than the best-case helps prevent potential disasters. Public credit should therefore be avoided.
Women's leadership journeys in family firms: preliminary results from a qualitative study

The family business literature has thus far not devoted much attention to understanding female vantage points in family firms (e.g. Dumas, 1998; Sharma, 2004). Poza and Messer (2001) and Curimbaba (2002) describe the varying roles that women adopt, but without explaining why they adopt such roles. Our research examines the career progression of women leaders in family businesses, specifically how various roles allow them to progressively learn skills and competencies.In an earlier book (Moores and Barrett, 2002) we found that successful family firm CEOs encountered a series of unique paradoxes. Exploring, understanding and perhaps managing these paradoxes took them on a 1earningjoumey to leadership in which they progressively learnt business (Ll), learnt our business (L2, learnt to lead our business (L3), and learnt to let go our business (IA). Because the sample we used for that study did not include many female CEOs, our present study focuses on women in leadership roles in family businesses to better understand their experience. Our objectives extend those of Dumas (1998) who sought to understand the pathway to leadership in family firms that women travel. Based on interviews with an international sample of women prominent in family businesses, our preliminary results indicate that there are indeed some characteristic journeys that women leaders take to leadership of family firms. We have tentatively labeled them as long march, short journey; swimming against the tide; high roads and low roads; and traveling companions. This paper focuses on the long march, short journey cases and what can be learned from them.