Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
High-throughput, temperature-controlled microchannel acoustophoresis device made with rapid prototyping

We report a temperature-controlled microfluidic acoustophoresis device capable of separating particles and transferring blood cells from undiluted whole human blood at a volume throughput greater than 1 L h−1. The device is fabricated from glass substrates and polymer sheets in microscope-slide format using low-cost, rapid-prototyping techniques. This high-throughput acoustophoresis chip (HTAC) utilizes a temperature-stabilized, standing ultrasonic wave, which imposes differential acoustic radiation forces that can separate particles according to size, density and compressibility. The device proved capable of separating a mixture of 10- and 2-μm-diameter polystyrene beads with a sorting efficiency of 0.8 at a flow rate of 1 L h−1. As a first step toward biological applications, the HTAC was also tested in processing whole human blood and proved capable of transferring blood cells from undiluted whole human blood with an efficiency of 0.95 at 1 L h−1 and 0.82 at 2 L h−1.
On the use of multiple measurement models for extended target tracking

This paper considers extended targets that have constant extension shapes, but generate measurements whose appearance can change abruptly. The problem is approached using multiple measurement models, where each model corresponds to a measurement appearance mode. Mode transitions are modeled as dependent on the extended target kinematic state, and a multiple model extended target PHD filter is used to handle multiple targets with multiple appearance modes. The extended target tracking is evaluated using real world data where a laser range sensor is used to track multiple bicycles.
Towards the automated visualization and analysis of signed language motion – method and linguistic issues

This paper presents a semi-automatic method for the visualization and analysis of motion in signed language from a digital video. The method detects the different parts of the signer’s bare skin on the video, tracks the motion of the different parts of the body and represents the frame-wise motion of the parts of the body with statistical descriptors. Results of an experiment are demonstrated and discussed. The main linguistic issue deals with the relationship between signs and transitional sequences. Evidence is provided for the claim that lexical-phonological and transitional sequences are qualitatively different in terms of their motion characteristics.
FEM-based guide wire simulation and interaction for a minimally invasive vascular surgery training system

Minimally invasive vascular surgery is an important surgical procedure which requires specialized skills to manipulate surgical instruments. However, the insufficient conventional training paradigm of “see one, do one, teach one” cannot meet the urgent need for training surgeons. In this paper we present a novel computer-based training system which aims at helping the trainees with acquiring manipulation skills and gaining simulated surgical experience. This system integrates a physics model of guide wire, a 3D vasculature segmented from real patients and a self-designed haptic device. We use the finite element method (FEM) to model the guide wire based on its specific physical parameters. Trainees can advance and rotate the simulated instrument by the haptic device to interact with the human vasculature. The experimental results of delivering the guide wire to the entrance of the coronary in real time validated that the guide wire simulation is effective.
cnvOffSeq: detecting intergenic copy number variation using off-target exome sequencing data

Motivation: Exome sequencing technologies have transformed the field of Mendelian genetics and allowed for efficient detection of genomic variants in protein-coding regions. The target enrichment process that is intrinsic to exome sequencing is inherently imperfect, generating large amounts of unintended off-target sequence. Off-target data are characterized by very low and highly heterogeneous coverage and are usually discarded by exome analysis pipelines. We posit that off-target read depth is a rich, but overlooked, source of information that could be mined to detect intergenic copy number variation (CNV). We propose cnvOffseq, a novel normalization framework for off-target read depth that is based on local adaptive singular value decomposition (SVD). This method is designed to address the heterogeneity of the underlying data and allows for accurate and precise CNV detection and genotyping in off-target regions. Results: cnvOffSeq was benchmarked on whole-exome sequencing samples from the 1000 Genomes Project. In a set of 104 gold standard intergenic deletions, our method achieved a sensitivity of 57.5% and a specificity of 99.2%, while maintaining a low FDR of 5%. For gold standard deletions longer than 5 kb, cnvOffSeq achieves a sensitivity of 90.4% without increasing the FDR. cnvOffSeq outperforms both whole-genome and whole-exome CNV detection methods considerably and is shown to offer a substantial improvement over naïve local SVD. Availability and Implementation: cnvOffSeq is available at http://sourceforge.net/p/cnvoffseq/ Contact: evangelos.bellos09@imperial.ac. uk or l.coin@imb.uq. edu.au Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Characterization of a nucleocapsid-like region and of two distinct primer tRNALys,2 binding sites in the endogenous retrovirus Gypsy

Mobile LTR-retroelements comprising retroviruses and LTR-retrotransposons form a large part of eukaryotic genomes. Their mode of replication and abundance favour the notion that they are major actors in eukaryote evolution. The Gypsy retroelement can spread in the germ line of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster via both env-independent and env-dependent processes. Thus, Gypsy is both an active retrotransposon and an infectious retrovirus resembling the gammaretrovirus MuLV. However, unlike gammaretroviruses, the Gypsy Gag structural precursor is not processed into Matrix, Capsid and Nucleocapsid (NC) proteins. In contrast, it has features in common with Gag of the ancient yeast TY1 retroelement. These characteristics of Gypsy make it a very interesting model to study replication of a retroelement at the frontier between ancient retrotransposons and retroviruses. We investigated Gypsy replication using an in vitro model system and transfection of insect cells. Results show that an unstructured domain of Gypsy Gag has all the properties of a retroviral NC. This NC-like peptide forms ribonucleoparticle-like complexes upon binding Gypsy RNA and directs the annealing of primer tRNALys,2 to two distinct primer binding sites (PBS) at the genome 5′ and 3′ ends. Only the 5′ PBS is indispensable for cDNA synthesis in vitro and in Drosophila cells.
Migrant Parents and the Psychological Well-Being of Left-Behind Children in Southeast Asia

Several million children currently live in transnational families, yet little is known about impacts on their health. We investigated the psychological well-being of left-behind children in four Southeast Asian countries. Data were drawn from the CHAMPSEA study. Caregiver reports from the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) were used to examine differences among children under age 12 by the migration status of their household (N = 3,876). We found no general pattern across the four study countries: Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. Multivariate models showed that children of migrant fathers in Indonesia and Thailand are more likely to have poor psychological well-being, compared to children in nonmigrant households. This finding was not replicated for the Philippines or Vietnam. The paper concludes by arguing for more contextualized understandings.
Testing the role of phonetic knowledge in Mandarin tone sandhi*

Abstract Phonological patterns often have phonetic bases. But whether phonetic substance should be encoded in synchronic phonological grammar is controversial. We aim to test the synchronic relevance of phonetics by investigating native Mandarin speakers' applications of two exceptionless tone sandhi processes to novel words: the contour reduction 213→21/—T (T≠213), which has a clear phonetic motivation, and the perceptually neutralising 213→35/—213, whose phonetic motivation is less clear. In two experiments, Mandarin subjects were asked to produce two individual monosyllables together as two different types of novel disyllabic words. Results show that speakers apply the 213→21 sandhi with greater accuracy than the 213→35 sandhi in novel words, indicating a synchronic bias against the phonetically less motivated pattern. We also show that lexical frequency is relevant to the application of the sandhis to novel words, but cannot account alone for the low sandhi accuracy of 213→35.
New Business Models for Public-Sector Innovation: Successful Technological Innovation for Government

OVERVIEW: Governments worldwide are under pressure to reduce spending, and yet the demand for public services is generally increasing. Despite growing emphasis on and investment in technological innovation, little is known about innovation in public services. Research has shown that resistance to change, risk aversion, and organizational structures are major barriers to public-sector innovation. How to overcome such barriers is less clear. Recently, researchers have increased their focus on the importance of specific business models in facilitating collaboration between public-sector organizations and private-sector partners. In this paper, we present an emerging business model—commercialization partnership—and discuss two examples of technological innovations in the U.K. public sector using this model. Our findings demonstrate that successful technological innovation may depend more on the models for collaboration than on the specific technology involved. We conclude with a checklist to assist technology managers introducing innovations into public-sector organizations.
Attachment Insecurities and Women's Sexual Function and Satisfaction: The Mediating Roles of Sexual Self-Esteem, Sexual Anxiety, and Sexual Assertiveness

We examined the potential role of three mediators—sexual self-esteem, sexual anxiety, and sexual assertiveness—of the association between romantic attachment insecurities (anxiety and avoidance) and two aspects of women's sexual functioning: sexual function and sexual satisfaction. A sample of 556 women aged 18 to 30 agreed to complete an online series of validated questionnaires assessing attachment insecurities and several aspects of sexual functioning. Lower sexual self-esteem and higher sexual anxiety mediated the associations between attachment anxiety and lower sexual function and satisfaction. Lower sexual self-esteem and higher sexual anxiety also partially mediated the links between attachment-related avoidance and the two sexual functioning variables. Sexual assertiveness, however, did not mediate these associations. A significant interaction between attachment anxiety and avoidance was also found to predict sexual satisfaction, with women high in avoidance and low in anxiety being the least satisfied. Results are discussed in terms of theoretical and clinical implications.
An empirical study for Vietnamese dependency parsing

This paper presents an empirical comparison of different dependency parsers for Vietnamese, which has some unusual characteristics such as copula drop and verb serialization. Experimental results show that the neural network-based parsers perform significantly better than the traditional parsers. We report the highest parsing scores published to date for Vietnamese with the labeled attachment score (LAS) at 73.53% and the unlabeled attachment score (UAS) at 80.66%.
Vector modulation technologies for high-speed optical transmission

We present lightwave modulation techniques for high-speed signal generation in digital and analogue applications. Advanced modulation formats, such as differential quadrature phase-shift-keying, amplitude- and phase-shift-keying, quadrature-amplitude-modulation etc, were investigated to obtain enhanced spectral efficiency, where Mach-Zehnder modulators (MZMs) are commonly used to control optical amplitude or phase in lightwave signals. In this presentation, we describe lightwave modulation techniques for high-speed signal generation based on integrated MZMs. By using quad-parallel MZM, high-speed optical 16-QAM signals can be synthesized, where the baud rate and bit rate were 12.5 Gbaud and 50 Gb/s. Impact of extinction-ratio (ER) of MZMs on advanced modulation formats is also discussed. Imbalance in the MZMs due to fabrication error can be compensated by using a dual-parallel MZM. ER can be higher than 70 dB.
Proteus: A Semantic Context-Aware Adaptive Policy Model

The growing diffusion of portable devices enables users to benefit from anytime and anywhere impromptu collaboration. Appropriate policy models that take into account the dynamicity and heterogeneity of the new pervasive collaboration scenario are crucial to ensure secure sharing of information. Collaborating entities cannot be predetermined and resource availability frequently varies, even unpredictably, due to user/device mobility, thus complicating resource access control. Policies cannot be defined based on entity's identities/roles, as in traditional security solutions, or be specified a priori to face any operative run-time condition, and require continuous adjustments to adapt to the current situation. To address these issues this paper advocates the adoption of a semantic context-aware paradigm to policy specification. Context- awareness allows operations on resources to be controlled based on context visibility whereas semantic technologies allow the high-level description and reasoning about context/policies. The paper describes Proteus that, as a key feature, combines these two design guidelines to enable dynamic adaptation of policies depending on context changes. In particular, the paper shows how ontologies and logic programming rules can be used to leverage policy adaptation.
La estructura económica regional de la Unión Europea: un análisis de su evolución a largo plazo

espanolSe realiza en este articulo un estudio de la evolucion de la estructura sectorial del empleo en las regiones de la Union Europea, basado en una descripcion analitica de las pautas de reestructuracion apreciables en las economias regionales de la UE a lo largo de un periodo dilatado (1950-1990). Para algunos elementos del analisis, se ofrece, ademas, una proyeccion para el ano 2000, con lo que el periodo de estudio abarca medio siglo. EnglishThis paper studies the trends in the sectoral structue of employment in the regions of the European Union, based on an analytic description of the regional economies of the EU over a long period (1950-1990). For some elements of the analysis, a projection is made for the year 2000, with the study thus spanning half acentury.
A Social Agent-Based Approach to Intrusion Detection Systems

Network Intrusion Detection Systems (NIDS) are designed to differentiate malicious traffic from normal traffic on a network system to detect the presence of an attack. Traditionally, the approach around which these systems are designed is based upon an assumption made by Dorothy Denning in 1987 stating that malicious traffic should be statistically differentiable from normal traffic [1]; however, this statement was made regarding host systems and was not meant to be extended without adjustment to network systems. It is therefore necessary to change the granularity of this approach to find statistical anomalies per host as well as on the network as a whole. This approach lends itself well to the use of emergent monitoring agents per host that have a central aggregation point with a visualization of the network as a whole. This paper will discuss the structure, training, and deployment of such an agent-based intrusion detection system and analyze its viability in comparison to the more traditional anomaly-based approach to intrusion
Rural Superintendents’ Experiences with Empowerment and Alignment to Vision in the Application of Principle-Centered Leadership

This qualitative phenomenological narrative inquiry research study used narrative inquiry to investigate rural superintendents’ experiences with the application of principle-centered leadership in their districts. Ten superintendents from rural districts in east Texas were interviewed. Narratives were analyzed by organizing, describing, classifying, and interpreting data collected from the interviews. The study results support the notion that the application of principle-centered leadership helps superintendents to become effective leaders in their districts. Other findings from this study include the notion that effective superintendents practice the tenets of principle-centered leadership with different actions and methods based on their beliefs and personalities. Findings also emphasized that trustworthiness and trust is the foundation of principle-centered leadership, which allows for empowerment and alignment to vision. This study provides superintendents and other educational leaders with practices critical to practicing principle-centered leadership in order to become more effective leaders in their districts.
The phylum Cnidaria: A review of phylogenetic patterns and diversity 300 years after Linnaeus

Systema Naturae includes representatives of every major lineage of the animal phylum Cnidaria. However, Linnaeus did not classify the members of the phylum as is now done, and the diversity of the group is not well represented. We contrast the Linnaean perspective on cnidarian diversity with the modern, phylogenetic perspective. For each order, we detail diversity at the family level, providing phylogenetic context where possible.
Proof of concept evaluation of a project using ‘conversations inviting change’ methodology to support the development of in-place systems leadership in local care hubs

This evaluation took place between March and August 2018 and was commissioned by the NHS Leadership Academy on behalf of Kent and Medway Sustainability and Transformation Plan (STP) and delivered by East Kent Community Education Provider Network (EK CEPN). The programme consisted of three development sessions carried out over two sites, or multi-professional teams known as hubs, clusters or primary care networks by an experienced facilitator using the model ‘conversations inviting change’. This model embodies a narrative approach that recognises the domains identified by the National Leadership Academy of individual effectiveness, relationships and connectivity, innovation and improvement, learning and capacity building (NHS Leadership Academy, 2017).
Estimation of classification complexity

Classification problems vary on their level of complexity. Several methods have been proposed to calculate this level but it remains difficult to measure. Linearly separable classification problems are amongst the easiest problems to solve. There is a strong correlation between the degree of linear separability of a problem and its level of complexity. The more complex a problem is the more non-linear separable the data is. Here we propose a novel and simple method for quantifying, between 0 and 1, the complexity level of classification problems based on the degree of linear separability of the data set representing the problem. The method is based on the transformation of nonlinearly separable problems into linearly separable ones. Results obtained using several benchmarks are provided.
Doctrine of Privity of Contract and Its Exceptions

Creating contract means creating rights and obligations for the parties in case any of the contracting parties fails to perform the contract the other party is entitled to the rights for the legal remedy. The law of contract has been an important aspect in our daily life. It has been directed by certain rules and doctrine of privity is also an important rule of it. This particular rule has been established since a long time but is not free from exception. This paper thus aims to study the doctrine of privity of contract and some exceptions attached to it. Moreover the paper also analyses the Nepalese context in that regard.
Two-flavor QCD simulation with exact chiral symmetry

We perform numerical simulations of lattice QCD with two flavors of dynamical overlap quarks, which have exact chiral symmetry on the lattice. While this fermion discretization is computationally demanding, we demonstrate the feasibility to simulate reasonably large and fine lattices by a careful choice of the lattice action and algorithmic improvements. Our production runs are carried out on a ${16}^{3}\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}32$ lattice at a single lattice spacing around 0.12 fm. We explore the sea quark mass region down to ${m}_{s}/6$, where ${m}_{s}$ is the physical strange quark mass, for a good control of the chiral extrapolation in future calculations of physical observables. We describe in detail our setup and algorithmic properties of the production simulations and present results for the static quark potential to fix the lattice scale and the locality of the overlap operator.
Sentiment trend analysis in social web environments

In this paper, we propose a novel method for sentiment trend analysis using Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) algorithm and SentiWordNet. We first collect social data in the form of Resource Description Framework (RDF) triples, and then use ACO algorithm to digitize the amassed RDF triples. Using ACO algorithm, we then compute pheromone values to extract the trends of the user's sentiments with the modified equations. Next, we compute the user's sentiment scores for the computed pheromone values with respect to the sentiment words with SentiWordNet. Finally, we analyze the sentiment trend of the online user by time. For verification of the proposed method, we conduct experiments, and compare the analyzed sentiment trends with their real daily lives. The results show that the proposed method performs satisfactory sentiment trend analysis on real data.
Fisher's Method of Scoring

Summary An analysis is given of the computational properties of Fisher's method of scoring for maximizing likelihoods and solving estimating equations based on quasi-likelihoods. Consistent estimation of the true parameter vector is shown to be important if a fast rate of convergence is to be achieved, but if this condition is met then the algorithm is very attractive. This link between the performance of the scoring algorithm and the adequacy of the underlying problem modelling is stressed. The effect of linear constraints on performance is discussed, and examples of likelihood and quasi-likelihood calculations are presented.
An Empirical Model of Pricing in the Catfish Industry

The adoption of aquacultural products has created an imbalance of market power between catfish producers and a processing sector that exerts a monopsonistic power in certain regions of the U.S. such as west Alabama. However, because of the recent changes caused by vertical integration of the catfish industry y the existence of an oligopolistic power has been identified in the catfish industry. An empirical model of pricing in the catfish industry was developed using a theoretical model proposed by Appelbaum. An analysis of the market structure was conducted to provide estimates of conjectural elasticities over time. Conjectural elasticities were used to construct the oligopoly power index. Results show some evidence of the existence of oligopolistic power in the catfish industry that further suggests some degree of price enhancement.