Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
On the impossibility of using certain existing spacecraft for the measurement of the Lense-Thirring effect in the terrestrial gravitational field

In the context of the currently ongoing efforts to improve the accuracy and reliability of the measurement of the Lense-Thirring effect in the gravitational field of the Earth it has recently been proposed to use the data from the existing spacecraft endowed with some active mechanisms of compensation of the non-gravitational accelerations like GRACE. In this paper we critically discuss this interesting possibility. Unfortunately, it turns out to be unpracticable because of the impact of the uncancelled even zonal harmonic coefficients of the multipolar expansion of the terrestrial gravitational potential and of some time-dependent tidal perturbations which would resemble as superimposed linear trends over the necessarily limited observational time span of the analysis.
Costly Collusion in Differentiated Industries : Technical Appendix

While we note in the text that firms often pre-commit to monitor the other firms, some firms may wish to collude without building a trade association. It is natural to ask whether it is credible for the firms to incur the monitoring costs in this context. The intuition behind the doubt about the credibility of monitoring is that it would seem that the firms would have an incentive to shirk on any monitoring they were instructed to carry out if firms always abide by the collusive agreement in equilibrium. If this were the case then the only equilibrium is a mixed-strategy equilibrium where firms follow the collusive agreement with some probability and also monitor with some probability. Several papers in the principle-agent literature on moral hazard have found this result. However, it is possible to construct a game theory framework with a pure-strategy equilibrium where firms always cooperate and always choose to pay monitoring costs. Consider a repeated game where each stage of the supergame has the following substages: (1) Firms choose their action, which is not observed by the other firm. (2) A random payoff which cannot be observed by the other firm is obtained. (This substage is completely non-essential. We include it for completeness and for the final comment at the end of this appendix.) (3) Firms each decide whether to pay to monitor the action of the other firm. Each firm can observe whether the other chooses to pay this cost, and the monitoring is successful if both firms monitor and find that the other player cooperated. One can verify that both firms playing the following strategy forms a collusive equilibrium as long as the discount factor is high enough: at substage (1), play the cooperative action as long as cooperation and monitoring has been successful in every
Assessment of research competences using e-portfolio

The Open University of Catalonia has begun to work with these formative tools, promoting new practices for online education. A very clear example of these educational practices is the assessment of research competences using the e-portfolio system. To meet this aim a profound and solid process has been developed over recent years, with the intention of making this tool an assessment alternative, and providing the opportunity to use it in a formative context. The objective is to study its strengths and limitations keeping in mind the final goal of offering the higher education community a validated assessment system.
A Tracked Mobile Robot with Vision-based Obstacle Avoidance

This paper presents VITAR (VIsion based Tracked Autonomous Robot), a robotic test bed that consists of a tracked mobile robot equipped with a pan-tilt mounted vision system, an onboard PC, driver electronics, and a wireless link to a remote PC. A novel vision-based obstacle avoidance algorithm is implemented on the robot. The robot uses histograms of images obtained from a monocular and monochrome camera to detect and avoid obstacles in a dynamic environment. As the generation of histogram is computationally inexpensive, the robot is quick to avoid the obstacles. Several experiments conducted with different obstacle environments validate the effectiveness of the algorithm.
3D Distance Metric for Pose Estimation and Object Recognition for 2D Projections

Model based object recognition and model based pose estimation require some distance metric to find the optimal pose and to measure the distance between the measurements and possible models during the recognition process. When the measurements are given in 2D (such as in orthographic and perspective projections) the commonly used distance between the 3D model features and the 2D image features is the 2D Euclidean distance measured in the image plane. However, this 2D distance does not, usually, increase monotonically with the real 3D distance and thus does not really represent the distance being measured. In this paper we propose a new scheme in which both, the optimal positioning and the evaluation of similarity between the 2D image and the model is performed relative to the 3D distance. This distance is calculated between the model features and a 3D predicted object which is a permissible reconstruction of the measured object and is the ``closest'''' to the model features.
Deploying Security Policy in Intra and Inter Workflow Management Systems

Workfow Management Systems (WFMS) are concerned with the control and coordination of operational business processes, called workflows. When workflow technology is deployed in domains where processes have simple coordinative requirements, the flow of control and data may be easily mapped onto process effectiveness.With the diversity of resources, subjects and activities in the system, ensuring a secure execution environment of the workflow becomes a critical issue. In this paper, we are interested in deploying a WFMS security policy. We investigate this issue either within intra or inter organizational workflows. The later case is more complex and requires more sophisticated control since it includes communications between different organizations.
Markerless Motion Capture with Multi-view Structured Light

We present a multi-view structured light system for markerless motion capture of human subjects. In contrast to existing approaches that use multiple camera streams, we reconstruct the scene by combining six partial 3D scans generated from three structured light stations surrounding the subject and operating in a round robin fashion. We avoid interference between multiple projectors through time multiplexing and synchronization across all cameras and projectors. Assuming known multi-camera projector calibration parameters, we generate point clouds from each station, convert them to partial surfaces, and merge them into a single coordinate frame. We develop algorithms to reconstruct dynamic geometry using a template generated by the system itself. Specifically, we deform the template to each frame of the captured geometry by iteratively aligning each bone of the skeleton. This is done by searching for correspondences between the source template and the captured geometry, solving for rotations of bones, and enforcing constraints on each rotation to prevent the template from taking on anatomically unnatural poses. Once the sequence of captured geometry is processed, the template is textured using color images from the multi-view structured light systems. We show the effectiveness of our system for a 50-second sequence of a moving human subject.
Recognition of translator expertise using sequences of fixations and keystrokes

Professional human translation is necessary to meet high quality standards in industry and governmental agencies. Translators engage in multiple activities during their task, and there is a need to model their behavior, with the objective to understand and optimize the translation process. In recent years, user interfaces enabled us to record user events such as eye-movements or keystrokes. Although there have been insightful descriptive analysis of the translation process, there are multiple advantages in enabling quantitative inference. We present methods to classify sequences of fixations and keystrokes into activities and model translation sessions with the objective to recognize translator expertise. We show significant error reductions in the task of recognizing certified translators and their years of experience, and analyze the characterizing patterns.
Inside-In Search: An Alternative for Performing Ancillary Search Tasks on the Web

Some of the search tasks users perform on the Web aim at complementing the information they are currently reading in a Web page: they are ancillary search tasks. Currently, the standard way to support such ancillary searches follows an inside-out approach, which means that query results are shown in a new window/tab or as a replacement of the current page. We claim that such inside-out approach is only suitable if users really want to dissociate the search results from the Web page they were reading. In this paper we propose an alternative approach, called "inside-in", where query results are displayed inside the Web page next to the keyword that motivated the user to launch an ancillary search. In order to demonstrate the feasibility of our approach we have developed a tool that embeds an egocentric information visualization technique in the Web page. This tool supports nested queries and allows the display of multiple data attributes. The approach is illustrated by a case study based on ancillary searches of co authors from a digital library. The paper also reports some preliminary results obtained with an experiment conducted with remote users.
Epidemiology of pneumothorax in England

BACKGROUND Little is known of the epidemiology of pneumothorax. Routinely available data on pneumothorax in England are described. METHODS Patients consulting in primary care with a diagnosis of pneumothorax in each year from 1991 to 1995 inclusive were identified from the General Practice Research Database (GPRD). Emergency hospital admissions for pneumothorax were identified for the years 1991–4 from the Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) data. Mortality data for England & Wales were obtained for 1950–97. Analyses of pneumothorax rates by age and sex were performed for all data sources. Seasonal and geographical analyses were carried out for the HES data. RESULTS The overall person consulting rate for pneumothorax (primary and secondary combined) in the GPRD was 24.0/100 000 each year for men and 9.8/100 000 each year for women. Hospital admissions for pneumothorax as a primary diagnosis occurred at an overall incidence of 16.7/100 000 per year and 5.8/100 000 per year for men and women, respectively. Mortality rates were 1.26/million per year for men and 0.62/million per year for women. The age distribution in both men and women showed a biphasic distribution for both GP consultations and hospital admissions. Deaths showed a single peak with highest rates in the elderly. There was an urban-rural trend observed for hospital admissions in the older age group (55+ years) with admission rates in the conurbations significantly higher than in the rural areas. Analysis for trends in mortality data for 1950–97 showed a striking increase in the death rate for pneumothorax in those aged 55+ years between 1960 and 1990, with a steep decline in the 1990s. Mortality in the younger age group (15–34 years) remained low and constant. CONCLUSION There is evidence of two epidemiologically distinct forms of spontaneous pneumothorax in England. The explanation for the rise and fall in mortality for secondary pneumothorax is obscure.
Estimating Point and Interval Frequency of Antigen-Specific CD4+ T Cells Based on Short In Vitro Expansion and Improved Poisson Distribution Analysis

Background Knowledge of antigen-specific CD4+ T cells frequencies is pivotal to the choice of the antigen to be used in anti-viral and anti-tumor vaccination procedures and for monitoring of immune responses. Methods that employ small cell numbers from patient samples, are easy to perform and do not require complex techniques/instrumentations and therefore standardization are desirable. Methodology/Principal Findings Purified blood CD4+ T cells from healthy donors were cultured with autologous antigen presenting cells in several replicate wells in equal numbers in the absence (un-stimulated wells) or in the presence of synthetic peptides corresponding to viral antigens promiscuous HLA-DR epitopes (antigen-stimulated wells). At day 7 of culture low dose IL-2 was added and at day 14 IFN-γ and IL-5 release in the supernatant was measured. A statistical analysis approach, based on Poisson distribution, was then implemented to calculate the frequency of viral-specific CD4+ T cells. We first determined a patient-specific exceptionality threshold of cytokine release in the un-stimulated wells and then, based on this threshold, we counted the inactive/active wells within the antigen-stimulated wells. This number, along with the number of cells per well, allowed the point and interval estimates of frequencies. A ready-to-use Excel worksheet template with automatic calculations for frequencies estimate was developed and is provided as a supplemental file (Table S9). Conclusions/Significance We report a simple experimental procedure combining short term in vitro cell culture with statistical analysis to calculate the frequency of antigen-specific CD4+ T cells. The detailed experimental procedure along with the Excel applicative are a valuable tool for monitoring immune responses in the clinical practice.
On modular forms for some noncongruence arithmetic subgroups

In this paper, we consider modular forms for finite index subgroups of the modular group whose Fourier coefficients are algebraic. It is well-known that the Fourier coefficients of any holomorphic modular form for a congruence subgroup (with algebraic coefficients) have bounded denominators. It was observed by Atkin and Swinnerton-Dyer that this is no longer true for modular forms for noncongruence subgroups and they pointed out that unbounded denominator property is a clear distinction between modular forms for noncongruence and congruence modular forms. It is an open question whether genuine noncongruence modular forms (with algebraic coefficients) always satisfy the unbounded denominator property. Here, we give a partial positive answer to the above open question by constructing special finite index subgroups of SL_2(Z) called character groups and discuss the properties of modular forms for some groups of this kind.
Modeling and Performance Analysis of Unstructured P2P Network

How much service performance of searching and transmitting is provided by P2P network for a concrete resource? How much success ratio and recall ratio of resourcepsilas searching of existing P2P network is? Rare research is deepened about those questions. This paper, for unstructured P2P network, construct P2P network queuing model, provide calculating method of service performance of concrete resource, analyze success ratio and recall ratio of resourcepsilas searching, by experiment simulation, discuss the influence of resourcepsilas popularity, Peerpsilas quantity, initial number of objected resource, Peerpsilas average degree and TTL value of protocol to the searching result of concrete resource. We conclude, during the resource searching process, the number of searching result linearly increases with initial number of objected resource, and exponentially increases with Peerpsilas average degree and TTL value, but decreases nonlinearly with Peerpsilas quantity.
Face detection and tracking for video coding applications

In video communication applications at low bitrates, coding artifacts are especially disturbing in face areas. Encoding faces with higher quality than background regions requires automatic face detection. This paper presents a robust face segmentation and tracking algorithm and investigates the application to region-of-interest coding with H.263+ and object-based coding with MPEG-4.
PE11 (Rv1169c) selectively alters fatty acid components of Mycobacterium smegmatis and host cell interleukin-6 level accompanied with cell death

PE/PPE family proteins, named after their conserved PE (Pro-Glu) and PPE (Pro-Pro-Glu) domains of N-terminal, are most intriguing aspects of pathologic mycobacterial genome. The roles of most members of this family remain unknown, although selected genes of this family are related to the virulence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. In order to decipher the role of Rv1169c, the Mycobacterium smegmatis strain heterologous expressed this ORF was constructed and identified that Rv1169c was a cell wall associated protein with a novel function in modifying the cell wall fatty acids. The growth of Rv1169c expressing strain was affected under surface stress, acidic condition and antibiotics treatment. M. smegmatis expressing Rv1169c induced necrotic cell death of macrophage after infection and significantly decreased interlukin-6 production compared to controls. In general, these results underscore a proposing role of Rv1169c in virulence of M. tuberculosis, as it's role in the susceptibility of anti-mycobacteria factors caused by modified cell wall fatty acid, and the induced necrotic cell death by Rv1169c is crucial for M. tuberculosis virulence during infection.
CSI : AUDIOLOGY Prognostic Predicament : Don ’ t Take the Audiogram at Face Value

Vol 27 No 2 54 WELCOME BACK to an ongoing series that challenges the audiologist to identify a diagnosis for a case study based on a listing and explanation of the nonaudiology and audiology test battery. It is important to recognize that a hearing loss or a vestibular issue may be a manifestation of a systemic illness. Being part of the diagnostic and treatment “team” is a crucial role of the audiologist. Securing the definitive diagnosis is rewarding for the audiologist and enhances patient hearing and balance health care and, often, quality of life.
Research Article Factors Associated with Physician Assistant Practice in Rural and Primary Care in Utah

Physician Assistants (PAs) have become an integral part of the United States (U.S.) health care system since the profession began in the late 1960s. PAs have been suggested as solutions to predicted physician shortages especially in primary care. This study examined the predictors of primary care and rural practice patterns of PAs in Utah. A cross sectional survey design was utilized. The outcome variables were practice specialty and practice location. The predictor variables were age, gender, number of years in practice, location of upbringing, and professional school of graduation. There was a response rate of 67.7%. The Utah Division of Occupational and Professional Licensing (DOPL) provided the list of licensed PAs in the state. Physician assistants who reported being raised in rural communities were 2.29 times more likely to be practicing in rural communities (95% CI 0.89–5.85). Female PAs had lower odds of practicing in a rural area (OR: 0.26; 95% CI: 0.10–0.66). Female PAs had lower odds of practicing in primary care versus their male counterparts (OR: 0.56; 95% CI: 0.33–0.96). Graduation from the Utah PA Program was more likely to result in primary care practice (OR: 2.16; 95% CI: 1.34–3.49).
Semi-Supervised Evaluation of Search Engines via Semantic Mapping

Content and link information is used by virtually all search engines to crawl, index, retrieve, and rank Web pages. The correlations between similarity measures based on these cues and on semantic associations between pages is crucial in determining the performance of any search tool. A great deal of research is under way to understand how to effectively extract semantic information from Web pages by mining their text and links. A brute force approach has been used to build semantic maps, that given coordinates based on text and link similarity measures between two pages estimate how the two pages are related in meaning. In this paper we describe a semi-supervised methodology to evaluate the performance of search engines. The relevance of entire hit lists can be estimated by identifying a single relevant page for a given query. We illustrate the evaluation methodology by graphing precision-recall plots for three commercial search engines based on TREC queries. Preliminary results are in line with our intuition of how the different search engines use content and link information to rank hits.
Feature Point Detection Utilizing the Empirical Mode Decomposition

This paper introduces a novel contour-based method for detecting largely affine invariant interest or feature points. In the first step, image edges are detected by morphological operators, followed by edge thinning. In the second step, corner or feature points are identified based on the local curvature of the edges. The main contribution of this work is the selection of good discriminative feature points from the thinned edges based on the 1D empirical mode decomposition (EMD). Simulation results compare the proposed method with five existing approaches that yield good results. The suggested contour-based technique detects almost all the true feature points of an image. Repeatability rate, which evaluates the geometric stability under different transformations, is employed as the performance evaluation criterion. The results show that the performance of the proposed method compares favorably against the existing well-known methods.
Nonequilibrium fluctuations and mechanochemical couplings of a molecular motor.

We investigate theoretically the violations of Einstein and Onsager relations and the thermodynamic efficiency for a single processive motor operating far from equilibrium using an extension of the two-state model introduced by Kafri et al. [Biophys. J. 86, 3373 (2004)10.1529/biophysj.103. 036152]. With the aid of the Fluctuation Theorem, we analyze the general features of these violations and this efficiency and link them to mechanochemical couplings of motors. In particular, an analysis of the experimental data of kinesin using our framework leads to interesting predictions that may serve as a guide for future experiments.
Sexual orientation, substance use behaviors and substance dependence in the United States.

AIMS To assess past-year prevalence rates of substance use behaviors and substance dependence across three major dimensions of sexual orientation (identity, attraction and behavior) in a large national sample of adult women and men in the United States. DESIGN Data were collected from structured diagnostic face-to-face interviews using the Alcohol Use Disorder and Associated Disabilities Interview Schedule DSM-IV version IV (AUDADIS-IV). SETTING Prevalence estimates were based on data collected from the 2004-2005 (wave 2) National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC). PARTICIPANTS A large national sample of 34 653 adults aged 20 years and older: 52% female, 71% white, 12% Hispanic, 11% African American, 4% Asian and 2% Native American. FINDINGS Approximately 2% of the population self-identified as lesbian, gay or bisexual; 4% reported at least one life-time same-sex sexual partner and 6% reported same-sex sexual attraction. Although non-heterosexual orientation was generally associated with a higher risk of substance use and substance dependence, the majority of sexual minority respondents did not report substance use or meet criteria for DSM-IV substance dependence. There was considerable variation in substance use outcomes across sexual orientation dimensions; these variations were more pronounced among women than among men. CONCLUSIONS Results support previous research findings of heightened risk of substance use and substance dependence among some sexual minority groups and point to the need for research that examines the reasons for such differences. Results also highlight important gender differences and question previous findings indicating uniformly higher risk for substance dependence among sexual minorities. Risks appear to vary based on gender and how sexual orientation is defined. Findings have implications for more effective prevention and intervention efforts that target subgroups at greatest risk.