Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Automatic Definition of Optimal Default Parameters of Models: Image Matting Application

As a general rule, each user must provide thetool applied with particular values of its input parameters. Aninexperienced user may hardly figure out their values and thetool developer must define the default values in order to helpher/him. We present an approach to solve the problem with thehelp of multi-criteria optimization that is new in this formulation. We demonstrate our approach in closer details using an examplefrom the automatic definition of optimal default parameters forreal-time merging of visual objects. Our approach is generic andmay be also used for any kind of such inverse problems.
The cross-talk of HIV-1 Tat and methamphetamine in HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders

Antiretroviral therapy has dramatically improved the lives of human immunodeficiency virus 1 (HIV-1) infected individuals. Nonetheless, HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders (HAND), which range from undetectable neurocognitive impairments to severe dementia, still affect approximately 50% of the infected population, hampering their quality of life. The persistence of HAND is promoted by several factors, including longer life expectancies, the residual levels of virus in the central nervous system (CNS) and the continued presence of HIV-1 regulatory proteins such as the transactivator of transcription (Tat) in the brain. Tat is a secreted viral protein that crosses the blood–brain barrier into the CNS, where it has the ability to directly act on neurons and non-neuronal cells alike. These actions result in the release of soluble factors involved in inflammation, oxidative stress and excitotoxicity, ultimately resulting in neuronal damage. The percentage of methamphetamine (MA) abusers is high among the HIV-1-positive population compared to the general population. On the other hand, MA abuse is correlated with increased viral replication, enhanced Tat-mediated neurotoxicity and neurocognitive impairments. Although several strategies have been investigated to reduce HAND and MA use, no clinically approved treatment is currently available. Here, we review the latest findings of the effects of Tat and MA in HAND and discuss a few promising potential therapeutic developments.
Top European football clubs and social networks: a true 2.0 relationship?

Purpose – In the scenario of today's Information Society, social networks are powerful promotional tools that football clubs can use to their own advantage by managing efficiently and effectively their image so as to enhance their appeal to sponsors and firms looking for marketing and advertising for their products. By analyzing a series of items that appear in the foremost European football clubs’ official Facebook pages, the purpose of this paper is to provide both descriptive and quantitative accounts of the extent to which those football clubs succeed in managing the potential for interactivity that their official Facebook profiles provide. Design/methodology/approach – The authors take as the basis of the quantitative analysis the volume of reactions from the fans of the clubs’ official Facebook pages displayed in the form of comments or clicks on the button “Like,” taken as a function of the type of posts published under the Facebook “Timeline” tag. Besides elaborating upon the data thus collected i.
Reduction of Sasakian manifolds

We show that the contact reduction can be specialized to Sasakian manifolds. We prove that the Sasakian reduction is compatible with the Kahler reduction both in the cone construction and in the Boothby–Wang fibration. In particular, applying Futaki’s results, we obtain a sufficient condition for the reduced space of a regular Sasakian–Einstein manifold to be Sasakian–Einstein. We present examples of Sasakian–Einstein manifolds obtained by S1 reduction of standard Sasakian spheres.
Industry policy options for the Australian fashion industry: the potential of institutional networking.

As trade liberalisation continues. garment and textile industries in Australia, and in other parts of the world, are deciding on their future strategies. Although this has led to new export opportunities. it has also increased competition and further globalised the scale of production. The federal government has strongly encouraged export trade in the textiles, clothing and footwear industries for decades. It has consistently provided funding to the wider TCF industries. yet it has not developed a strategic industry policy for a viable Australian fashion industry. Policy objectives have not treated fashion separately and have not targeted small fashion companies in the past. In an environment where calls for effective government support, re4 establishing protection barriers and other forms of assistance persist, the government's recent proposals are beginning to explore the potential of networking as a policy option. Current initiatives in the government's industry policy encourage co-operation and collaboration as a way of improving industry performance. The aim is to establish joint industry and public sector networking to support restructuring strategies.
Production of ergothioneine by Methylobacterium species

Metabolomic analysis revealed that Methylobacterium cells accumulate a large amount of ergothioneine (EGT), which is a sulfur-containing, non-proteinogenic, antioxidative amino acid derived from histidine. EGT biosynthesis and its role in methylotrophy and physiology for plant surface-symbiotic Methylobacterium species were investigated in this study. Almost all Methylobacterium type strains can synthesize EGT. We selected one of the most productive strains (M. aquaticum strain 22A isolated from a moss), and investigated the feasibility of fermentative EGT production through optimization of the culture condition. Methanol as a carbon source served as the best substrate for production. The productivity reached up to 1000 μg/100 ml culture (1200 μg/g wet weight cells, 6.3 mg/g dry weight) in 38 days. Next, we identified the genes (egtBD) responsible for EGT synthesis, and generated a deletion mutant defective in EGT production. Compared to the wild type, the mutant showed better growth on methanol and on the plant surface as well as severe susceptibility to heat treatment and irradiation of ultraviolet (UV) and sunlight. These results suggested that EGT is not involved in methylotrophy, but is involved in their phyllospheric lifestyle fitness of the genus in natural conditions.
DOC-DAC : a generator for quadratic Discrete-time Optimal Control problems with options for Degeneracy , Activity and Conditioning

We present a quadratic Discrete-time Optimal Control problem generator, written in C, with options for Degeneracy, Activity and Conditioning (DOCDAC). We use the generator to investigate badly conditioned and degenerate extended linear-quadratic problems (ELQPs) by solving such problems with primal-dual projected gradient and interior-point methods. The benefit of using second-order information in primal-dual projected gradient methods is also explored.
Item-Based Collaborative Filtering Recommendation Algorithm Combining Item Category with Interestingness Measure

In order to overcome the limitations of data sparsity and inaccurate similarity in personalized recommendation systems, a new collaborative filtering recommendation algorithm by using items categories similarity and interestingness measure is proposed. In this algorithm, first the items categories similarity matrix is constructed by calculating the item-item category distance, and then analyzes the correlation degree of different items by using interestingness measure, last an improved collaborative filtering algorithm is proposed by combining the information of items categories with item-item interestingness and utilizing improved conditional probability method as the standard item-item similarity measure. Experimental results show this algorithm can effectively alleviate the dataset sparsity problem and achieve better prediction accuracy compared to other well-performing collaborative filtering algorithms.
UK Macroeconomic Volatility and the Term Structure of Interest Rates

This study uses a macro-finance model to examine the ability of the gilt market to predict fluctuations in macroeconomic volatility. The econometric model is a development of the standard ‘square root’ volatility model, but unlike the conventional term structure specification it allows for separate volatility and inflation trends. It finds that although volatility and inflation trends move independently in the short run, they are cointegrated. Bond yields provide useful information about macroeconomic volatility, but a better indicator can be developed by combining this with macroeconomic information.
A thirty two element phased-array transceiver at 60GHz with RF-IF conversion block in 90nm flip chip CMOS process

A 60 GHz 32 element bidirectional phase-darray TX/RX chip with a 2 bit phase shifter and IF converter to/from 12GHz, using 90nm CMOS process, is described. The array features 12.5 dB gain, noise figure (NF) of 11 dB, IP1dB of −17dbm for RX, and total output Psat of +8dBm for TX, drawing 390 mA from a 1.3-V supply. The RMS amplitude and phase error of the phase shifter is 0.8dB and 5° max respectively from 57 to 66 GHz. The paper emphasizes the flip-chip assembly technology selected and its impact on performance, and the phase and amplitude errors resulted by physical impairments such as the finite isolation between different chains. Special test structures were designed to measure bump isolation and insertion loss (IL). The designed architecture together with the compact layout results in a die area of 14.5mm2 for the full array. To our knowledge, this is the first report on a large bidirectional 60 GHz array, with the lowest reported chip power consumption and size.
Fine-Tuning Vectorization and Memory Traffic on Intel Xeon Phi Coprocessors: LU Decomposition of Small Matrices

Common techniques for fine-tuning the performance of automatically vectorized loops in applications for Intel Xeon Phi coprocessors are discussed. These techniques include strength reduction, regularizing the vectorization pattern, data alignment and aligned data hint, and pointer disambiguation. In addition, the loop tiling technique of memory traffic tuning is shown. The optimization methods are illustrated on an example of single-threaded LU decomposition of a single precision matrix of size 128× 128. Benchmarks show that the discussed optimizations improve the application performance on the coprocessor by a factor of 2.8 compared to the unoptimized code, and by a factor of 1.7 on the multi-core host system, achieving roughly the same performance on the host and on the coprocessor. The code discussed in the paper can be freely downloaded from the Colfax Research Web site. Table of
A ug 2 00 1 Improved Phenomenological Renormalization Schemes

An analysis is made of various methods of phenomenological renormalization based on finite-size scaling equations for inverse correlation lengths, the singular part of the free energy density, and their derivatives. The analysis is made using two-dimensional Ising and Potts lattices and the three-dimensional Ising model. Variants of equations for the phenomenological renormalization group are obtained which ensure more rapid convergence than the conventionally used Nightingale phenomenological renormalization scheme. An estimate is obtained for the critical finite-size scaling amplitude of the internal energy in the threedimensional Ising model. It is shown that the two-dimensional Ising and Potts models contain no finite-size corrections to the internal energy so that the positions of the critical points for these models can be determined exactly from solutions for strips of finite width. It is also found that for the two-dimensional Ising model the scaling finite-size equation for the derivative of the inverse correlation length with respect to temperature gives the exact value of the thermal critical exponent. PACS: 05.10. Cc, 64.60. Ak, 05.50. +q, 75.10. Hk
Disk Drive Pivot Nonlinearity Modeling Part II : Time Domain

This paper describes studies done at HP Labs on the actuator pivot bearing nonlinearity of a small disk drive. Part I of this paper presents a frequency-domain approach, using the sweptsine/describing function method, to obtain a model for this nonlinearity. Part II presents several additional models and discusses a time-domain approach, comparing simulated and lab measured torque versus displacement hysteresis curves. Using the measured and simulated time and frequency responses as a guide, the designer can iteratively improve the model of the system and verify the correctness of the measurements.
Mixing Driven By Rayleigh–Taylor Instability In The Mesoscale Modeled With Dissipative Particle Dynamics

In the mesoscale, mixing dynamics involving immiscible fluids is truly an outstanding problem in many fields, ranging from biology to geology, because of the multiscale nature which causes severe difficulties for conventional methods using partial differential equations. The existing macroscopic models incorporating the two microstructural mechanisms of breakup and coalescence do not have the necessary physical ingredients for feedback dynamics. We demonstrate here that the approach of dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) does include the feedback mechanism and thus can yield much deeper insight into the nature of immiscible mixing. We have employed the DPD method for simulating numerically the highly nonlinear aspects of the Rayleigh–Taylor (R–T) instability developed over the mesoscale for viscous, immiscible, elastically compressible fluids. In the initial stages, we encounter the spontaneous, vertical oscillations in the incipient period of mixing. The long-term dynamics are controlled by the initial breakup and the subsequent coalescence of the microstructures and the termination of the chaotic stage in the development of the R–T instability. In the regime with high capillary number, breakup plays a dominant role in the mixing whereas in the low capillary number regime, the flow decelerates and coalescence takes over and causes a more rapid turnover. The speed of mixing and the turnover depend on the immiscibility factor which results from microscopic interactions between the binary fluid components. Both the speed of mixing and the overturn dynamics depend not only on the mascrocopic fluid properties but also on the breakup and coalescent patterns, and most importantly on the nonlinear interactions between the microstructural dynamics and the large-scale flow.
HIV-1 Vpu Blocks Recycling and Biosynthetic Transport of the Intrinsic Immunity Factor CD317/Tetherin To Overcome the Virion Release Restriction

ABSTRACT The intrinsic immunity factor CD317 (BST-2/HM1.24/tetherin) imposes a barrier to HIV-1 release at the cell surface that can be overcome by the viral protein Vpu. Expression of Vpu results in a reduction of CD317 surface levels; however, the mechanism of this Vpu activity and its contribution to the virological antagonism are incompletely understood. Here, we characterized the influence of Vpu on major CD317 trafficking pathways using quantitative antibody-based endocytosis and recycling assays as well as a microinjection/microscopy-based kinetic de novo expression approach. We report that HIV-1 Vpu inhibited both the anterograde transport of newly synthesized CD317 and the recycling of CD317 to the cell surface, while the kinetics of CD317 endocytosis remained unaffected. Vpu trapped trafficking CD317 molecules at the trans-Golgi network, where the two molecules colocalized. The subversion of both CD317 transport pathways was dependent on the highly conserved diserine S52/S56 motif of Vpu; however, it did not require recruitment of the diserine motif interactor and substrate adaptor of the SCF-E3 ubiquitin ligase complex, β-TrCP. Treatment of cells with the malaria drug primaquine resulted in a CD317 trafficking defect that mirrored that induced by Vpu. Importantly, primaquine could functionally replace Vpu as a CD317 antagonist and rescue HIV-1 particle release. IMPORTANCE HIV efficiently replicates in the human host and induces the life-threatening immunodeficiency AIDS. Mammalian genomes encode proteins such as CD317 that can inhibit viral replication at the cellular level. As a countermeasure, HIV has evolved genes like vpu that can antagonize these intrinsic immunity factors. Investigating the mechanism by which Vpu overcomes the virion release restriction imposed by CD317, we find that Vpu subverts recycling and anterograde trafficking pathways of CD317, resulting in surface levels of the restriction factor insufficient to block HIV-1 spread. This describes a novel mechanism of immune evasion by HIV. HIV efficiently replicates in the human host and induces the life-threatening immunodeficiency AIDS. Mammalian genomes encode proteins such as CD317 that can inhibit viral replication at the cellular level. As a countermeasure, HIV has evolved genes like vpu that can antagonize these intrinsic immunity factors. Investigating the mechanism by which Vpu overcomes the virion release restriction imposed by CD317, we find that Vpu subverts recycling and anterograde trafficking pathways of CD317, resulting in surface levels of the restriction factor insufficient to block HIV-1 spread. This describes a novel mechanism of immune evasion by HIV.
Degradation of initiator tRNAMet by Xrn1/2 via its accumulation in the nucleus of heat-treated HeLa cells

Stress response mechanisms that modulate the dynamics of tRNA degradation and accumulation from the cytoplasm to the nucleus have been studied in yeast, the rat hepatoma and human cells. In the current study, we investigated tRNA degradation and accumulation in HeLa cells under various forms of stress. We found that initiator tRNAMet (tRNA(iMet)) was specifically degraded under heat stress. Two exonucleases, Xrn1 and Xrn2, are involved in the degradation of tRNA(iMet) in the cytoplasm and the nucleus, respectively. In addition to degradation, we observed accumulation of tRNA(iMet) in the nucleus. We also found that the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR), which regulates tRNA trafficking in yeast, is partially phosphorylated at Ser2448 in the presence of rapamycin and/or during heat stress. Our results suggest phosphorylation of mTOR may correlate with accumulation of tRNA(iMet) in heat-treated HeLa cells.
An intelligent on-demand multicast routing protocol in ad hoc networks

In this paper we present an intelligent on-demand multicast routing protocol (IOD-MRP) which is suited in rapidly changing network environments, such as ad hoc networks. This protocol simplifies and enhances the existing core-assisted mesh protocol (CAMP). The main difference between our protocol and CAMP is eliminating the cores from CAMP. We remove the cores from CAMP and apply an on-demand receiver-initiated procedure to dynamically build routes and maintain multicast group membership. In addition, flooding is an important issue in ad hoc networks and our protocol is able to reduce flooding messages. Simulation results show that IOD-MRP reduces the number of control messages by 3%-13% compared to CAMP, and still has slightly lower packet delay and packet loss rates.
The sharpest tool in the shed: IPO financial statement management of STEM vs. non-STEM firms

The valuation of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) firms has recently gained attention in the literature. Research has shown that, for valuation of STEM firms, accounting items such as sales growth and R&D expenditures matter more than bottom-line earnings. We examine whether, around the time of the IPO, STEM managers apply discretion over the accounting items most weighted by investors for their valuation. We find that investors tend to weigh sales growth and R&D more heavily than earnings in valuing STEM firms and that managers respond by managing those items rather than bottom-line earnings as in prior research. We find that future stock returns of STEM firms are negatively associated with sales management and not with abnormal accruals as for non-STEM firms. Our results illuminate the differential behavior of STEM managers and highlight the importance of a departure from the traditional IPO earnings management paradigm, which assumes that firms mainly manage their earnings.
Neural vs. Phrase-Based Machine Translation in a Multi-Domain Scenario

State-of-the-art neural machine translation (NMT) systems are generally trained on specific domains by carefully selecting the training sets and applying proper domain adaptation techniques. In this paper we consider the real world scenario in which the target domain is not predefined, hence the system should be able to translate text from multiple domains. We compare the performance of a generic NMT system and phrase-based statistical machine translation (PBMT) system by training them on a generic parallel corpus composed of data from different domains. Our results on multi-domain English-French data show that, in these realistic conditions, PBMT outperforms its neural counterpart. This raises the question: is NMT ready for deployment as a generic/multi-purpose MT backbone in real-world settings?
The Crab pulsar in the 0.75-30 MeV range as seen by CGRO COMPTEL

We present the time-averaged characteristics of the Crab pulsar in the 0.75{30 MeV energy window using data from the imaging Compton Telescope COMPTEL aboard the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory (CGRO) collected over its 9 year mission. Exploiting the exceptionally long COMPTEL exposure on the Crab allowed us to derive signicantly improved COMPTEL spectra for the Crab nebula and pulsar emissions, and for the rst time to accurately determine at low-energy -rays the pulse prole as a function of energy. These timing data, showing the well-known main pulse and second pulse at a phase separation of 0:4 with strong bridge emission, are studied together with data obtained at soft/hard X-ray energies from the ROSAT HRI, BeppoSAX LECS, MECS and PDS, at soft -rays from CGRO BATSE and at high-energy -rays from CGRO EGRET in order to obtain a coherent high-energy picture of the Crab pulsar from 0.1 keV up to 10 GeV. The morphology of the pulse prole of the Crab pulsar is continuously changing as a function of energy: the intensities of both the second pulse and the bridge emission increase relative to that of the rst pulse for increasing energies up to 1 MeV. Over the COMPTEL energy range above 1 MeV an abrupt morphology change happens: the rst pulse becomes again dominant over the second pulse and the bridge emission loses signicance such that the pulse prole above 30 MeV is similar to the one observed at optical wavelengths. A pulse-phase-resolved spectral analysis performed in 7 narrow phase slices consistently applied over the 0.1 keV{10 GeV energy interval shows that the pulsed emission can empirically be described with 3 distinct spectral components: i) a power-law emission component (1 keV{5 GeV; photon index 2:022 0:014), present in the phase intervals of the two pulses; ii) a curved spectral component required to describe soft (<100 keV) excess emission present in the same pulse- phase intervals; iii) a broad curved spectral component reflecting the bridge emission from 0.1 keV to 10 MeV. This broad spectral component extends in phase over the full pulse prole in an approximately triangular shape, peaking under the second pulse. Recent model calculations for a three-dimensional pulsar magnetosphere with outer magnetospheric gap acceleration by Cheng et al. (2000) appear at present most successful in explaining the above complex high-energy characteristics of the Crab pulsar.