Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Microalgal Species Selection for Biodiesel Production Based on Fuel Properties Derived from Fatty Acid Profiles

Physical and chemical properties of biodiesel are influenced by structural features of the fatty acids, such as chain length, degree of unsaturation and branching of the carbon chain. This study investigated if microalgal fatty acid profiles are suitable for biodiesel characterization and species selection through Preference Ranking Organisation Method for Enrichment Evaluation (PROMETHEE) and Graphical Analysis for Interactive Assistance (GAIA) analysis. Fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) profiles were used to calculate the likely key chemical and physical properties of the biodiesel [cetane number (CN), iodine value (IV), cold filter plugging point, density, kinematic viscosity, higher heating value] of nine microalgal species (this study) and twelve species from the literature, selected for their suitability for cultivation in subtropical climates. An equal-parameter weighted (PROMETHEE-GAIA) ranked Nannochloropsis oculata, Extubocellulus sp. and Biddulphia sp. highest; the only species meeting the EN14214 and ASTM D6751-02 biodiesel standards, except for the double bond limit in the EN14214. Chlorella vulgaris outranked N. oculata when the twelve microalgae were included. Culture growth phase (stationary) and, to a lesser extent, nutrient provision affected CN and IV values of N. oculata due to lower eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) contents. Application of a polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) weighting to saturation led to a lower ranking of species exceeding the double bond EN14214 thresholds. In summary, CN, IV, C18:3 and double bond limits were the strongest drivers in equal biodiesel parameter-weighted PROMETHEE analysis.
Comparison of rate-based service disciplines

This paper compares six new queue service disciplines that can be implemented at the output queues of switches in a connection-oriented packet switched data network. ‘Hrese are Vktual Clock, Fair Qtreueing, Delay-Earliest-Due-Date, Jitter-Earliest-Due-Date, Stop-and-Go and Hierarchical Round Robin. We describe their mechanisms, their similarities and differences, and some implementation strategies. In particular, we show why each discipline can or cannot provide bandwidth, delay and delay jitter guarantees. This leads to some interesting conclusions about the relative strengths and weaknesses of each approach.
Improved depth estimation algorithm for preserving depth edge and temporal consistency

Depth information acquisition is one of the key technologies of FTV (Free View Television) system. To obtain accurate depth information, an improved depth estimation method is proposed. For each pixel in the reference view and current view, gradients between current pixel and its eight neighboring pixels as well as the average value of the nine pixels' luminance are computed. To increase depth accuracy especially in areas around depth edges, these gradients and average luminance are combined to compute average luminance-gradient matching errors (ALGME). Both motion information of current frame and depth information of the previous frame are used as a constraint to preserve temporal consistency of the depth map. Experimental results have shown that the proposed method can preserve depth edge and temporal consistency of depth map effectively.
Bronchial smooth muscle remodeling involves calcium-dependent enhanced mitochondrial biogenesis in asthma

Asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are characterized by different patterns of airway remodeling, which all include an increased mass of bronchial smooth muscle (BSM). A remaining major question concerns the mechanisms underlying such a remodeling of BSM. Because mitochondria play a major role in both cell proliferation and apoptosis, we hypothesized that mitochondrial activation in BSM could play a role in this remodeling. We describe that both the mitochondrial mass and oxygen consumption were higher in the BSM from asthmatic subjects than in that from both COPD and controls. This feature, which is specific to asthma, was related to an enhanced mitochondrial biogenesis through up-regulation of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ coactivator (PGC)–1α, nuclear respiratory factor-1, and mitochondrial transcription factor A. The priming event of such activation was an alteration in BSM calcium homeostasis. BSM cell apoptosis was not different in the three groups of subjects. Asthmatic BSM was, however, characterized by increased cell growth and proliferation. Both characteristics were completely abrogated in mitochondria-deficient asthmatic BSM cells. Conversely, in both COPD and control BSM cells, induction of mitochondrial biogenesis reproduced these characteristics. Thus, BSM in asthmatic patients is characterized by an altered calcium homeostasis that increases mitochondrial biogenesis, which, in turn, enhances cell proliferation, leading to airway remodeling.
Hybrid MPI/OpenMP parallel support vector machine training

Support Vector Machines are a powerful machine learning technology, but the training process involves a dense quadratic optimization problem and is computationally challenging. A parallel implementation of Support Vector Machine training has been developed, using a combination of MPI and OpenMP. Using an interior point method for the optimization and a reformulation that avoids the dense Hessian matrix, the structure of the augmented system matrix is exploited to partition data and computations amongst parallel processors eciently. The new implementation has been applied to solve problems from the PASCAL Challenge on Large Scale Learning. We show that our approach is competitive, and is able to solve problems in the Challenge many times faster than other parallel approaches. We also demonstrate that the hybrid version performs more eciently than the version using pure MPI.
Hyperhomocysteinemia in Greyhounds and its Association with Hypofolatemia and Other Clinicopathologic Variables

Background Folate and cobalamin are essential cofactors for homocysteine (HCY) metabolism. Hyperhomocysteinemia, a multifactorial condition, may reflect B vitamin deficiency and is associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease, thrombosis, and neurodegenerative and chronic gastrointestinal diseases in humans. Hyperhomocysteinemia has been reported in Greyhounds with suspected chronic enteropathy. Objectives To evaluate the frequencies of and the association between hypofolatemia and hyperhomocysteinemia in Greyhounds. Animals Data and serum samples from 559 Greyhounds. Methods Nested case‐control study. The frequency of hypofolatemia in Greyhounds was determined by a laboratory database search. The relationship between hyperhomocysteinemia (measured by gas chromatography‐mass spectrometry) and hypocobalaminemia and hypofolatemia was evaluated, and its frequency compared between healthy Greyhounds and Greyhounds with thrombosis or chronic diarrhea. Results Hypofolatemia was identified in 172 of 423 (41%) Greyhounds and was more common in hypo‐ than in normocobalaminemic dogs (49% vs. 35%; P = .0064). Hyperhomocysteinemia was detected in 53 of 78 (68%) of Greyhounds, being more common in hypo‐ than in normofolatemic dogs (88% vs. 59%; P = .0175). All healthy Greyhounds, 21 of 30 (70%) of dogs with chronic diarrhea and 6 of 8 (75%) of those with thrombosis, were hyperhomocysteinemic. Serum HCY concentrations were inversely correlated with serum folate concentration (ρ = −0.28; P = .0386) and were positively associated with serum albumin concentration (ρ = 0.66; P = .0022). Conclusions and Clinical Relevance Hyperhomocysteinemia occurs frequently in the Greyhound population. Its association with hypofolatemia suggests decreased intracellular availability of B vitamins, but the functional implications warrant further investigation. Hyperhomocysteinemia in Greyhounds potentially may serve as a spontaneous canine model to further investigate hyperhomocysteinemia in humans.
Real-time object tracking using motorized camera

This paper presents an experimental system for real time tracking of moving objects. It is equipped with the analog video camera CC-5299MAFS/M mounted on a controlled turntable. A standard PC computer operating with Linux system is used. The prepared software analyzes the captured video and decides how to control the turntable and the camera. Manual system control is also possible. The implemented algorithms are discussed in the paper in detail.
Voronoi Tessellation Captures Very Early Clustering of Single Primary Cells as Induced by Interactions in Nascent Biofilms

Biofilms dominate microbial life in numerous aquatic ecosystems, and in engineered and medical systems, as well. The formation of biofilms is initiated by single primary cells colonizing surfaces from the bulk liquid. The next steps from primary cells towards the first cell clusters as the initial step of biofilm formation remain relatively poorly studied. Clonal growth and random migration of primary cells are traditionally considered as the dominant processes leading to organized microcolonies in laboratory grown monocultures. Using Voronoi tessellation, we show that the spatial distribution of primary cells colonizing initially sterile surfaces from natural streamwater community deviates from uniform randomness already during the very early colonisation. The deviation from uniform randomness increased with colonisation — despite the absence of cell reproduction — and was even more pronounced when the flow of water above biofilms was multidirectional and shear stress elevated. We propose a simple mechanistic model that captures interactions, such as cell-to-cell signalling or chemical surface conditioning, to simulate the observed distribution patterns. Model predictions match empirical observations reasonably well, highlighting the role of biotic interactions even already during very early biofilm formation despite few and distant cells. The transition from single primary cells to clustering accelerated by biotic interactions rather than by reproduction may be particularly advantageous in harsh environments — the rule rather than the exception outside the laboratory.
Automated flaw detection in aluminum castings based on the tracking of potential defects in a radioscopic image sequence

Presents a method for inspecting aluminum castings automatically from a sequence of radioscopic images taken at different positions of the casting. The classic image-processing methods for flaw detection of aluminum castings use a bank of filters to generate an error-free reference image. This reference image is compared with the real radioscopic image, and flaws are detected at the pixels where the difference between them is considerable. However, the configuration of each filter depends strongly on the size and shape of the structure of the casting under inspection. A two-step technique is proposed to detect flaws automatically and that uses a single filter. First, the method identifies potential defects in each image of the sequence, and second, it matches and tracks them from image to image. The key idea of the paper is to consider as false alarms those potential defects which cannot be tracked in the sequence. The robustness and reliability of the method have been verified on both real data in which synthetic flaws have been added and real radioscopic image sequences recorded from cast aluminum wheels with known defects. Using this method, the real defects can be detected with high certainty. This approach achieves good discrimination from false alarms.
A Novel Data Encryption in HDFS

Hadoop distributed file system (HDFS) is an open source software which can be used to build cloud storage system. However, HDFS does not provide any scheme to encrypt user's data. Hence, user needs to encrypt his data locally before transferring to HDFS if he requires high privacy. This paper proposes a novel method to encrypt file while being uploaded. Data read from file is transferred to HDFS across a buffer. In our approach, an encryption, which is transparent to user, is applied to the buffer's data before being sent to an out stream to write to HDFS. Our experiment shows that the time needed for the whole process is much less than one of the conventional method. The speedup can be as high as 1.4 in case of 32MB file's size.
Distributing Computationally Expensive Matching of Requirements to Capability Models

In this paper, we present a distributed way to automatically map users' requirements to reference process models. In a prior paper [9], we presented a tool called Process Model Requirements Gap Analyzer (ProcGap), which combines natural language processing, information retrieval, and semantic reasoning to automatically match and map textual requirements to domain-specific process models. Although the tool proved beneficial to users in reusing prior knowledge, by making it easy to use process models, the tool has one main drawback. It takes a long time to compare a very large requirements document, one that has a few thousand requirements, to a process model hierarchy with a few thousand capabilities. In this paper, we present how we solved this problem using Apache Hadoop. Apache Hadoop allows ProcGap to distribute matching task across several machines, increasing the tool's performance and usability. We present the performance comparison of running ProcGap on a single-machine, and our distributed version.
Unscented Kalman Filter and 3D vision to improve cable driven surgical robot joint angle estimation

Cable driven manipulators are popular in surgical robots due to compact design, low inertia, and remote actuation. In these manipulators, encoders are usually mounted on the motor, and joint angles are estimated based on transmission kinematics. However, due to non-linear properties of cables such as cable stretch, lower stiffness, and uncertainties in kinematic model parameters, the precision of joint angle estimation is limited with transmission kinematics approach. To improve the positioning of these manipulators, we use a pair of low cost stereo camera as the observation for joint angles and we input these noisy measurements into an Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF) for state estimation. We use the dual UKF to estimate cable parameters and states offline. We evaluated the effectiveness of the proposed method on a Raven-II experimental surgical research platform. Additional encoders at the joint output were employed as a reference system. From the experiments, the UKF improved the accuracy of joint angle estimation by 33- 72%. Also, we tested the reliability of state estimation under camera occlusion. We found that when the system dynamics is tuned with offline UKF parameter estimation, the camera occlusion has no effect on the online state estimation.
DMD reliability: a MEMS success story

The Digital Micromirror Device (DMD) developed by Texas Instruments (TI) has made tremendous progress in both performance and reliability since it was first invented in 1987. From the first working concept of a bistable mirror, the DMD is now providing high-brightness, high-contrast, and high-reliability in over 1,500,000 projectors using Digital Light Processing technology. In early 2000, TI introduced the first DMD chip with a smaller mirror (14-micron pitch versus 17-micron pitch). This allowed a greater number of high-resolution DMD chips per wafer, thus providing an increased output capacity as well as the flexibility to use existing package designs. By using existing package designs, subsequent DMDs cost less as well as met our customers' demand for faster time to market. In recent years, the DMD achieved the status of being a commercially successful MEMS device. It reached this status by the efforts of hundreds of individuals working toward a common goal over many years. Neither textbooks nor design guidelines existed at the time. There was little infrastructure in place to support such a large endeavor. The knowledge we gained through our characterization and testing was all we had available to us through the first few years of development. Reliability was only a goal in 1992 when production development activity started; a goal that many throughout the industry and even within Texas Instruments doubted the DMD could achieve. The results presented in this paper demonstrate that we succeeded by exceeding the reliability goals.
Mining for knowledge chunks in a terminology network.

This paper examines further a research hypothesis that syntactic variations are an interesting alternative to the clustering approach and they offer meaningful ways of highlighting and organising associated research topics in a corpus. A textmining and topic mapping system, TermWatch, has been developed basing on this hypothesis. Preliminary results obtained on a large IR corpus are promising and call for further systematic investigation.
Lambda operations , K theory and motivic cohomology

This paper is in two parts: in part one, our main object is to give a construction of natural λ-operations for relative K-theory with supports, satisfying the special λ-ring identities. In the second part, we give an application to the relation of motivic cohomology and algebraic K-theory of a smooth quasi-projective variety over a field. The main idea in the construction of the λ-operations is to re-do the constructions of Hiller [H] and Kratzer [Kr] for the K-theory of a commutative ring, in the setting of the K-theory of an I-diagram of commutative rings, i.e., a functor
Constructing Grounded Theory: A Practical Guide through Qualitative Analysis

การวจยเชงคณภาพ เปนเครองมอสำคญอยางหนงสำหรบทำความเขาใจสงคมและพฤตกรรมมนษย การวจยแบบการสรางทฤษฎจากขอมล กเปนหนงในหลายระเบยบวธการวจยเชงคณภาพทกำลงไดรบความสนใจ และเปนทนยมเพมสงขนเรอยๆ จากนกวชาการ และนกวจยในสาขาสงคมศาสตร และศาสตรอนๆ เชน พฤตกรรมศาสตร สงคมวทยา สาธารณสขศาสตร พยาบาลศาสตร จตวทยาสงคม ศกษาศาสตร รฐศาสตร และสารสนเทศศกษา ดงนน หนงสอเรอง “ConstructingGrounded Theory: A Practical Guide through Qualitative Analysis” หรอ “การสรางทฤษฎจากขอมล:แนวทางการปฏบตผานการวเคราะหเชงคณภาพ” จะชวยใหผอานมความรความเขาใจถงพฒนาการของปฏบตการวจยแบบสรางทฤษฎจากขอมล ตลอดจนแนวทาง และกระบวนการปฏบตการวจยอยางเปนระบบ จงเปนหนงสอทควรคาแกการอานโดยเฉพาะนกวจยรนใหม เพอเปนแนวทางในการนำความรความเขาใจไประยกตในงานวจยของตน อกทงนกวจยผเชยวชาญสามารถอานเพอขยายมโนทศนดานวจยใหกวางขวางขน
Colon Cancer Associated Transcript-1 (CCAT1) Expression in Adenocarcinoma of the Stomach

Background: Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been shown to have functional roles in cancer biology and are dys-regulated in many tumors. Colon Cancer Associated Transcript -1 (CCAT1) is a lncRNA, previously shown to be significantly up-regulated in colon cancer. The aim of this study is to determine expression levels of CCAT1 in gastric carcinoma (GC). Methods: Tissue samples were obtained from patients undergoing resection for gastric carcinoma (n=19). For each patient, tumor tissue and normal appearing gastric mucosa were taken. Normal gastric tissues obtained from morbidly obese patients, undergoing laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy served as normal controls (n=19). A human gastric carcinoma cell line (AGS) served as positive control. RNA was extracted from all tissue samples and CCAT1 expression was analyzed using quantitative real time-PCR (qRT-PCR). Results: Low expression of CCAT1 was identified in normal gastric mucosa samples obtained from morbidly obese patients [mean Relative Quantity (RQ) = 1.95±0.4]. AGS human gastric carcinoma cell line showed an elevated level of CCAT1 expression (RQ=8.02). Expression levels of CCAT1 were approximately 10.8 fold higher in GC samples than in samples taken from the negative control group (RQ=21.1±5 vs. RQ=1.95±0.4, respectively, p<0.001). Interestingly, CCAT1 expression was significantly overexpressed in adjacent normal tissues when compared to the negative control group (RQ = 15.25±2 vs. RQ=1.95±0.4, respectively, p<0.001). Tissues obtained from recurrent GC cases showed the highest expression levels (RQ = 88.8±31; p<0.001). Expression levels increased with tumor stage (T4- 36.4±15, T3- 16.1±6, T2- 4.7±1), however this did not reach statistical significance (p=0.2). There was no difference in CCAT1 expression between intestinal and diffuse type GC (RQ=22.4±7 vs. 22.4±16, respectively, p=0.9). Within the normal gastric tissue samples, no significant difference in CCAT1 expression was observed in helicobacter pylori negative and positive patients (RQ= 2.4±0.9 vs. 0.93±0.2, respectively, p=0.13). Conclusion: CCAT1 is up-regulated in gastric cancer, and may serve as a potential bio-marker for early detection and surveillance.
Minimum Proper Loss Estimators for Parametric Models

In this paper, we propose a methodology for systematically deriving estimators minimizing proper loss functions defined on parametric statistical models, by restricting ourselves to losses taking a functional form which allows for straightforward proofs of key properties. Proving propriety is tantamount to deriving a pairwise divergence quantity between probability measures, admitting a natural interpretation of minimum proper loss estimators as divergence minimizers. We show that proper losses of varying complexity can be readily constructed given propriety of losses taking a rudimentary form, and that for many important models, verifying desired properties in the rudimentary case is immediate. As a special case, we derive computationally tractable estimators requiring only the first and second moments, verify strict propriety properties, and empirically confirm their utility though parameter estimation tasks using both controlled simulations and real-world meteorological network data sets. Comparisons against numerous standard estimators show that the proposed estimators are at least competitive with, and often markedly superior to all standard references, uniformly across tasks, data sets, and model classes, suggesting a strong alternative to standard benchmarks in a wide variety of estimation problems.
Resolving Controversy Over Birth Order and Personality: By Debate or By Design?

The notion that birth order bears a systematic relation to personality was commonly thought to have succumbed to the formidable attack from Ernst and Angst (1983). The 1996 publication of Frank Sulloway's book Born to Rebel, however, breathed new life into a proposition that most social scientists thought was a dead horse. In response to the book, Townsend (this issue) insists that Sulloway's extraordinary measures to revive this dead horse were unwarranted. Apparently fearing that too many readers have taken the book seriously, Townsend attacks both the contemporary and historical evidence offered by Sulloway.