Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Forward Estimation for Game-Tree Search

It is known that bounds on the mmnnax values of nodes in a game tree can be used to reduce the computational complexity of minimax search for two-player games. We describe a very simple method to estimate bounds on the minimax values of interior nodes of a game tree, and use the bounds to improve minimax search. The new algorithm, called forward estimation, does not require additional domain knowledge other than a static node evaluation function, and has small constant overhead per node expansion. We also propose a variation of forward estimation, which provides a tradeoff between computational complexity and decision quality. Our experimental results show that forward estimation outperforms alpha-beta pruning on random game trees and the game of Othello.
Consumers ’ Willingness to Pay and to Patronize According to Major Restaurant Attributes By : Jitka Perutkova

This study identifies the most important factors in the consumer decision-making process when choosing a restaurant. Using a dynamic comparison process, this study additionally explores consumers’ willingness to pay for each of three major attributes of restaurants: food quality, service, and ambience. Understanding this relationship is important for managers in attaining the aspired level of consumer satisfaction. Results indicate that food quality is more important than service and ambiance in upscale restaurants, while speed of service is more important than food quality and ambiance in quick-service restaurants. Thus, consumers are willing to pay more for high-quality food at upscale restaurants and for speed of service at quick-service restaurants. Economic literature states that the relationship between consumers’ willingness to pay and the elasticity for a restaurant’s attributes is linear (positive and direct), while the current results do not support this assumption. This study should have a significant impact on the restaurant industry, as it identifies the scope of differential returns on investment on various restaurant attributes. Republication not permitted without written consent of the author. 1 Perutkova: Consumers’ Willingness to Pay & Patronize Restaurant Attributes Published by STARS, 2009 THE UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH JOURNAL 2 www.URJ. ucf.edu INTRODUCTION This study examines the most important factors in quick-service and upscale-service restaurants in a consumer selection process, using four different scenarios. The ranking order method was used in much previous research to identify consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP). In the rank-order method, consumers consider restaurant attributes in a sequential manner, in order of importance, in making decisions about which restaurants to patronize. In the current study, by contrast, we substituted the sequential process with a dynamic comparison for consumers’ willingness to pay for three major restaurant attributes: food quality, service, and ambiance. The levels of restaurant attributes were separated as high and low and the WTP was measured in dollar amounts. This study includes an understanding of the nature of the relationship between restaurant attributes and the consumers’ WTP. Understanding the functional structure of this relationship can help restaurants to make wise decisions in terms of allocating their funds for maximum return on investment. For reading ease, the following abbreviations were used in this paper: WTP (willingness to pay), ROI (return on investment), CS (customer satisfaction), and WTR (willingness to return).
Subjective versus objective probability: results from seven experiments on fiscal evasion

* The experiments described here are the result of team work involving many members of the Experimental and Computational Economics Laboratory of the University of Trento. I am grateful to all them and I wish to give a special thanks to my friend Paolo Patelli, who is the author of the software used in the dynamic experiments, to Alessandra Gaburri, and to Sergio Cagol, who gave a substantial help respectively in the organisational and computational steps of the experiments. As usual all responsibility for mistakes or omissions is exclusively mine.
Generalized Shock Solutions for Hydrodynamic Black Hole Accretion

For the first time, all available pseudo-Schwarzschild potentials are exhaustively used to investigate the possibility of shock formation in hydrodynamic, inviscid, black hole accretion disks. It is shown that a significant region of parameter space spanned by important accretion parameters allows shock formation for flow in all potentials used in this work. This leads to the conclusion that the standing shocks are essential ingredients in accretion disks around nonrotating black holes in general. Using a complete general relativistic framework, equations governing multitransonic black hole accretion and wind are formulated and solved, and the condition for shock formation in such flows is also derived in the Schwarzschild metric. Shock solutions for accretion flow in various pseudopotentials are then compared with such general relativistic solutions to identify which potential is the best approximation of Schwarzschild spacetime as far as the question of shock formation in black hole accretion disks is concerned.
Variation in Type A Trichothecene Production and Trichothecene Biosynthetic Genes in Fusarium goolgardi from Natural Ecosystems of Australia

Fusarium goolgardi, isolated from the grass tree Xanthorrhoea glauca in natural ecosystems of Australia, is closely related to fusaria that produce a subgroup of trichothecene (type A) mycotoxins that lack a carbonyl group at carbon atom 8 (C-8). Mass spectrometric analysis revealed that F. goolgardi isolates produce type A trichothecenes, but exhibited one of two chemotypes. Some isolates (50%) produced multiple type A trichothecenes, including 4,15-diacetoxyscirpenol (DAS), neosolaniol (NEO), 8-acetylneosolaniol (Ac-NEO) and T-2 toxin (DAS-NEO-T2 chemotype). Other isolates (50%) produced only DAS (DAS chemotype). In the phylogenies inferred from DNA sequences of genes encoding the RNA polymerase II largest (RPB1) and second largest (RPB2) subunits as well as the trichothecene biosynthetic genes (TRI), F. goolgardi isolates were resolved as a monophyletic clade, distinct from other type A trichothecene-producing species. However, the relationships of F. goolgardi to the other species varied depending on whether phylogenies were inferred from RPB1 and RPB2, the 12-gene TRI cluster, the two-gene TRI1-TRI16 locus, or the single-gene TRI101 locus. Phylogenies based on different TRI loci resolved isolates with different chemotypes into distinct clades, even though only the TRI1-TRI16 locus is responsible for structural variation at C-8. Sequence analysis indicated that TRI1 and TRI16 are functional in F. goolgardi isolates with the DAS-NEO-T2 chemotype, but non-functional in isolates with DAS chemotype due to the presence of premature stop codons caused by a point mutation.
A Guide to Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease in Childhood and Adolescence

Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) is now the most prevalent form of chronic liver disease, affecting 10%–20% of the general paediatric population. Within the next 10 years it is expected to become the leading cause of liver pathology, liver failure and indication for liver transplantation in childhood and adolescence in the Western world. While our understanding of the pathophysiological mechanisms underlying this disease remains limited, it is thought to be the hepatic manifestation of more widespread metabolic dysfunction and is strongly associated with a number of metabolic risk factors, including insulin resistance, dyslipidaemia, cardiovascular disease and, most significantly, obesity. Despite this, ”paediatric” NAFLD remains under-studied, under-recognised and, potentially, undermanaged. This article will explore and evaluate our current understanding of NAFLD in childhood and adolescence and how it differs from adult NAFLD, in terms of its epidemiology, pathophysiology, natural history, diagnosis and clinical management. Given the current absence of definitive radiological and histopathological diagnostic tests, maintenance of a high clinical suspicion by all members of the multidisciplinary team in primary and specialist care settings remains the most potent of diagnostic tools, enabling early diagnosis and appropriate therapeutic intervention.
Smartening the environment using wireless sensor networks in a developing country

The miniaturization process of various sensing devices has become a reality by enormous research and advancements accomplished in micro electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) and very large scale integration (VLSI) lithography. Regardless of such extensive efforts in optimizing the hardware, algorithm, and protocols for networking, there still remains a lot of scope to explore how these innovations can all be tied together to design wireless sensor networks (WSN) for smartening the surrounding environment for some practical purposes. In this paper we explore the prospects of wireless sensor networks and propose a design level framework for developing a smart environment using WSNs, which could be beneficial for a developing country like Bangladesh. In connection to this, we also discuss the major aspects of wireless sensor networks
Classical and causal inference approaches to statistical mediation analysis.

BACKGROUND Although there is a broad consensus on the use of statistical procedures for mediation analysis in psychological research, the interpretation of the effect of mediation is highly controversial because of the potential violation of the assumptions required in application, most of which are ignored in practice. METHOD This paper summarises two currently independent procedures for mediation analysis, the classical/SEM and causal inference/CI approaches, together with the statistical assumptions required to estimate unbiased mediation effects, in particular the existence of omitted variables or confounders. A simulation study was run to test whether violating the assumptions changes the estimation of mediating effects. RESULTS The simulation study showed a significant overestimation of mediation effects with latent confounders. CONCLUSIONS We recommend expanding the classical with the causal inference approach, which generalises the results of the first approach to mediation using a common estimation method and incorporates new tools to evaluate the statistical assumptions. To achieve this goal, we compare the distinguishing features of recently developed software programs in R, SAS, SPSS, STATA and Mplus.
Hybrid Estimation Framework for Multi-robot Cooperative Localization using Quantized Measurements

In this paper, we consider the problem of multi-centralized Cooperative Localization (CL) under severe communication constraints, i.e., when each robot can communicate only a single bit per real-valued (analog) measurement. Existing approaches, such as those based on the Sign-of-Innovation Kalman filter (SOI-KF) and its variants, require each robot to process quantized versions of both its local (i.e., recorded by its own sensors) and remote (i.e., collected by other robots) measurements. This results in suboptimal performance since each robot has to discard information that is available in its own analog measurements. To address this limitation, we introduce a novel hybrid estimation scheme that enables each robot to process both quantized (from remote sensors) and analog (from its own sensors) measurements. Specifically, we first present the hybrid (H)-SOI-KF, a direct extension of the SOI-KF, for processing both types of measurements. Secondly, we introduce the modified (M)H-SOI-KF, that uses an asymmetric encoding/decoding scheme to incorporate additional information during quantization (based on the hybrid estimates locally available to each robot), resulting in substantial accuracy improvement. Lastly, we present extensive simulations which demonstrate that both hybrid estimators not only out-perform the SOI-KF, but also achieve accuracy comparable to that of the standard (analog) centralized Kalman filter.
Hardware Acceleration Technologies in Computer Algebra: Challenges and Impact

The objective of high performance computing (HPC) is to ensure that the computational power of hardware resources is well utilized to solve a problem. Various techniques are usually employed to achieve this goal. Improvement of algorithm to reduce the number of arithmetic operations, modifications in accessing data or rearrangement of data in order to reduce memory traffic, code optimization at all levels, designing parallel algorithms with smaller span or reduced overhead are some of the attractive areas that HPC researchers are working on. In this thesis, we investigate HPC techniques for the implementation of basic routines in computer algebra targeting hardware acceleration technologies. We start with a sorting algorithm and its application to sparse matrix-vector multiplication for which we focus on work on cache complexity issues. Since basic routines in computer algebra often provide a lot of fine grain parallelism, we then turn our attention to many-core architectures on which we consider dense polynomial and matrix operations ranging from plain to fast arithmetic. Most of these operations are combined within a bivariate system solver running entirely on a graphics processing unit (GPU).
Low infectiousness of a wildlife host of Leishmania infantum: the crab-eating fox is not important for transmission

The epidemiological role of the crab-eating fox Cerdocyon thous in the transmission of Leishmania infantum is assessed in a longitudinal study in Amazon Brazil. A total of 37 wild-caught foxes were immunologically and clinically monitored, and 26 foxes exposed to laboratory colonies of the sandfly vector Lutzomyia longipalpis, over a 15-month period. In total 78% (29/37) of foxes were seropositive for anti-Leishmania IgG on at least 1 occasion, and 38% (8/37) had infections confirmed by PCR and/or by culture. Point prevalences were 74% (serology), 15% (PCR), and 26% (culture). No signs of progressive disease were observed. None of the foxes were infectious to the 1469 sandflies dissected from 44 feeds. A conservative estimate of the possible contribution of foxes to transmission was 9% compared to 91% by sympatric domestic dogs. These results show that crab-eating fox populations do not maintain a transmission cycle independently of domestic dogs. The implication is that they are unlikely to introduce the parasite into Leishmania-free dog populations.
Efficient payload signature structure for performance improvement of traffic identification

The traffic identification is a preliminary and essential step for stable network service provision and efficient network resource management. While a number of identification methods have been introduced in literature, the payload signature-based identification method shows the highest performance in terms of accuracy, completeness, and practicality. However, the payload signature-based method's processing speed is much slower than other identification method such as header-based and statistical methods. In this paper, we first classifies signatures by matching type based on range, order, and direction of packet in a flow when each signature matches to payload. By using this classification, we suggest a novel method to improve processing speed of payload signature-based identification by reducing searching space.
Attracting young IT professionals: choosing between academic and other organizations

The purpose of this Master thesis is to identify and categorize young IT professionals’ perceptions of organizational attraction. In specific, the salient concepts were explored that young IT professionals used to describe attractive and unattractive factors related to two organizational forms: private-sector organizations and academic institutions. In the following chapters, the results of a qualitative study involving interviews with 22 IT Master-level graduates are presented, including their provided rich descriptions about their own organizational attraction. The findings provide surprising insights into the perceptions of young IT professionals, professionals who perceive themselves as a much needed workforce – even during and after economic meltdown phases. Results of this study indicate specific private-sector and academic attraction factors. The top five organizational attraction factors are: Career planning, Organizational culture, Monetary benefits, Organizational image and Recognition. The top five academic attraction factors are: Challenging and interesting work, University image, Personnel development, Academic culture, and Autonomy. The knowledge gained though this research project could be used by organizations to design personnel marketing efforts and develop communication and recruiting strategies that emphasize the factors which have been identified as attractive and unattractive in this study. Limitations of this study and future research directions are discussed
Widespread inference of weighted microRNA-mediated gene regulation in cancer transcriptome analysis

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) comprise a gene-regulatory network through sequence complementarity with target mRNAs. Previous studies have shown that mammalian miRNAs decrease many target mRNA levels and reduce protein production predominantly by target mRNA destabilization. However, it has not yet been fully assessed whether this scheme is widely applicable to more realistic conditions with multiple miRNA fluctuations. By combining two analytical frameworks for detecting the enrichment of gene sets, Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) and Functional Assignment of miRNAs via Enrichment (FAME), we developed GSEA–FAME analysis (GFA), which enables the prediction of miRNA activities from mRNA expression data using rank-based enrichment analysis and weighted evaluation of miRNA–mRNA interactions. This cooperative approach delineated a better widespread correlation between miRNA expression levels and predicted miRNA activities in cancer transcriptomes, thereby providing proof-of-concept of the mRNA-destabilization scenario. In an integrative analysis of The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) multidimensional data including profiles of both mRNA and miRNA, we also showed that GFA-based inference of miRNA activity could be used for the selection of prognostic miRNAs in the development of cancer survival prediction models. This approach proposes a next-generation strategy for the interpretation of miRNA function and identification of target miRNAs as biomarkers and therapeutic targets.
Computational method to reduce the search space for directed protein evolution

We introduce a computational method to optimize the in vitro evolution of proteins. Simulating evolution with a simple model that statistically describes the fitness landscape, we find that beneficial mutations tend to occur at amino acid positions that are tolerant to substitutions, in the limit of small libraries and low mutation rates. We transform this observation into a design strategy by applying mean-field theory to a structure-based computational model to calculate each residue's structural tolerance. Thermostabilizing and activity-increasing mutations accumulated during the experimental directed evolution of subtilisin E and T4 lysozyme are strongly directed to sites identified by using this computational approach. This method can be used to predict positions where mutations are likely to lead to improvement of specific protein properties.
Image quality assessment based on nonsubsampled contourlet transform and structural similarity

This paper presents a new image quality assess ment which is based on structural similarity in nonsubsampled contourlet transform (NSCT) domain. The nonsubsampled contourlet transform is introduced for its ability to represent the images at different scales and directions. Firstly, images were decomposed into subbands with different scales and directions by (NSCT). Secondly, the correlativity indexes between the reference sequences and the comparative sequences respectively were calculated in each subbands. According to information content weighting, the quality of the whole image can be obtained. Experimental results show that the proposed method improves accuracy and robustness of image quality prediction.
Mechanisms of azole resistance in 52 clinical isolates of Candida tropicalis in China.

OBJECTIVES To explore the mechanisms underlying azole resistance in clinical isolates of Candida tropicalis collected in China by focusing on their efflux pumps, respiratory status and azole antifungal target enzyme. METHODS Fifty-two clinical isolates of C. tropicalis were collected from five hospitals in four provinces of China and antifungal susceptibility tests were performed. Rhodamine 6G and rhodamine 123 were used to investigate the efflux pumps and respiratory status, respectively. Transporter-related genes CDR1 and MDR1, mitochondrial gene CYTb, as well as ERG11, were quantified by real-time RT-PCR. Meanwhile, ergosterol content was analysed using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry/mass spectrometry. An ERG11-deficient (erg11Δ) Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain was generated to study the function of mutations in ERG11. RESULTS MICs showed that 31 isolates were resistant to at least one type of azole antifungal. Flow cytometry using rhodamine 123 revealed increased respiration for the azole-resistant isolates, but CYTb was not overexpressed. No significant difference in the efflux of rhodamine 6G was found, which was consistent with the comparable expression levels of CDR1 and MDR1. In contrast, the azole-resistant isolates overexpressed ERG11 and showed increased ergosterol content. Moreover, the isolates resistant to three azole antifungals expressed higher levels of ERG11 mRNA than those resistant to only fluconazole or itraconazole. Two ERG11 mutations, Y132F and S154F, were found in azole-resistant isolates and could be shown to mediate azole resistance by expression in S. cerevisiae. CONCLUSIONS The up-regulation and mutations of ERG11 mediate azole resistance of C. tropicalis.
Novel autonomous current mode one-cycle controller for PFC AC-DC pre-regulators

A new current mode autonomous one cycle controller is applied to a boost power factor correction AC-DC pre-regulator. The new controller has some advantages over the traditional current programmed (peak) controller and hysteretic controller. Meanly, the distortion near zero current crossing is avoided by a self increasing of the switching frequency in this zone. Simulation results show quasi-fixed switching frequency operation in steady state and spread spectrum in the frequency domain. In addition, the stability of the regulator is shown under a very high input-to-output voltage ratio condition that is difficult for conventional PWM controllers. Subharmonic oscillations can be therefore avoided without an extra ramp compensator.
Hamiltonian exploitation in underactuated robot system inversion

A new stable model inversion method extension is presented with the aim of providing solutions to the feedforward control of underactuated robots performing cyclic tasks. The method uses a boundary value problem framework along with a Hamiltonian formalism, representing the dynamic equations of motion, to find solutions for the control of movement between non-equilibrium points in taskspace. The benefits of the method are demonstrated with a simulated robot system.