Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A review of the recent development of MEMS and crystal oscillators and their impacts on the frequency control products industry

Due to their high Q and temperature-stable properties, quartz crystal oscillators are important clock sources in consumer, commercial, industrial, and military products for many years. The demand for quartz crystals and crystal oscillators has been increasing steadily between 4 and 10% annually since the ldquodotcomrdquo market collapse in 2000~2001. The total market for 2008 is expected to exceed $4.1B. The quartz crystal and crystal oscillator industry has made major progresses in miniaturization, performance enhancement, and cost reduction in the past ten years. The unique fabrication and encapsulation requirements though render quartz crystals and crystal oscillators difficult or close to impossible to be integrated onto the silicon-based IC platforms. The recent strong marketing push of the all silicon MEMS resonators and oscillators seemed to re-ignite the interest in displacing the quartz crystal technology and to open up again the prospect in clock source integration. Based on a 2006 review paper,[1] the author expands on the subject by reviewing the development of the all silicon MEMS oscillators and crystal oscillators in the past few years and commenting on what challenges they face in the highly competitive frequency control products industry. Since information on the technical development of the all silicon MEMS oscillators and crystal oscillators is abundantly and readily available, this paper addresses more on the market and business aspects. This paper also touches on the recent development of piezoelectric-activated silicon MEMS resonators and oscillators and all silicon oscillators (with no moving parts).
Robust controller design via linear programming

This paper presents a linear programming (LP) algorithm for an optimal robust controller design under parametric uncertainty. This algorithm is based on the convex robust controller parametrization which is available for uncertain plants in the form G/sub /spl delta//: {(y/z)=G(s)(u/w)/w=/spl delta//sup T//sub z/, where G(s) is the nominal plant, w is a scalar input and /spl delta/ is the uncertain vector in R/sup m/. The algorithm proposed is a sequence of the standard linear programming problems of growing dimension which approximate the initial problem. A dual interpretation to the problem is derived. It is shown that the dual problem can be solved with an LP algorithm similar to the primal one. Two examples show that a combination of the primal and dual algorithms is an effective way to solve a problem of the uncertainty radius maximization under stability constraint.
Predicting anxiety and depression in elderly patients using machine learning technology

Anxiety and depression are two important mental health problems among the geriatric population. They are often undiagnosed and directly or indirectly responsible for various morbidities. Early and timely diagnosis has immense effect on appropriate management of anxiety and depression along with its co-morbidities. Owing to time constraint and enormous patient load, especially in developing county such as India it is hardly possible for a physician or surgeon to identify a geriatric patient suffering from anxiety and depression using any psychometric analysis tool. So, it is of utmost importance to develop a predictive model for automated diagnosis of anxiety and depression among them. This Letter aims to develop an appropriate predictive model, to diagnose anxiety and depression among older patient from socio-demographic and health-related factors, using machine learning technology. Ten classifiers were evaluated with a data set of 510 geriatric patients and tested with ten-fold cross-validation method. Highest prediction accuracy of 89% was obtained with random forest (RF) classifier. This RF model was tested with another data set from separate 110 older patients for its external validity. Its predictive accuracy was found to be 91% and false positive (FP) rate was 10%, compared with gold standard tool.
Benign prostate-specific antigen (BPSA) in serum is increased in benign prostate disease.

BACKGROUND BPSA is a "benign" form of free prostate-specific antigen (PSA) that is increased in prostate transition zone tissues of men with pathologic benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). We developed an immunoassay to determine the concentration of BPSA in the serum of men with BPH. METHODS The BPSA antigen was purified by HPLC, and murine monoclonal antibodies were prepared by standard methods. A fluorogenic ELISA was developed with high specificity for BPSA and no cross-reactivity with other forms of PSA. RESULTS The BPSA immunoassay had a lower limit of detection of 6 ng/L and a cross-reactivity of <1% with all other clipped and nonclipped forms of PSA. The BPSA antibody was specific for the internal Lys(182) cleavage site that characterizes BPSA. Biopsy-negative men with a median total PSA of 4.8 micro g/L had a median of 0.22 micro g/L BPSA, representing 25% of the free PSA in serum. BPSA ranged from 0% to 60% of the free PSA in serum. BPSA in a cohort of cancer serum also comprised 25% of the free PSA. Control serum from women or men without increased PSA had nondetectable BPSA. CONCLUSIONS BPSA is a significant percentage of the free PSA in BPH serum but not in control serum. The presence of prostate cancer does not alter the relative proportions of BPSA in sera with <10 micro g/L PSA. BPSA has a wide distribution of concentrations in the serum and may provide clinical information for the study of men with BPH.
Sacrifice in close relationships: Motives, emotions, and relationship outcomes

Romantic partners often face situations in which their preferences, interests and goals are not well aligned—what is good for one partner is not good for the other. In these situations, people need to make a decision between pursuing their own self-interest and sacrificing for their partner or the relationship. In this work, we discuss antecedents and consequences of sacrifice in close relationships. Specifically, we address when people are more likely to sacrifice, what are the motivations driving a sacrifice, and what are the affective consequences of this behavior for the person who makes the sacrifice (i.e., the actor), for the person who receives the sacrifice (i.e., the recipient), and for the relationship. We conclude by discussing important directions for future research on the implications of sacrifice for the well-being of individuals and their relationships.
A Novel Approach for Measuring the Burden of Uncomplicated Plasmodium falciparum Malaria: Application to Data from Zambia

Measurement of malaria burden is fraught with complexity, due to the natural history of the disease, delays in seeking treatment or failure of case management. Attempts to establish an appropriate case definition for a malaria episode has often resulted in ambiguities and challenges because of poor information about treatment seeking, patterns of infection, recurrence of fever and asymptomatic infection. While the primary reason for treating malaria is to reduce disease burden, the effects of treatment are generally ignored in estimates of the burden of malaria morbidity, which are usually presented in terms of numbers of clinical cases or episodes, with the main data sources being reports from health facilities and parasite prevalence surveys. The use of burden estimates that do not consider effects of treatment, leads to under-estimation of the impact of improvements in case management. Official estimates of burden very likely massively underestimate the impact of the roll-out of ACT as first-line therapy across Africa. This paper proposes a novel approach for estimating burden of disease based on the point prevalence of malaria attributable disease, or equivalently, the days with malaria fever in unit time. The technique makes use of data available from standard community surveys, analyses of fever patterns in malaria therapy patients, and data on recall bias. Application of this approach to data from Zambia for 2009–2010 gave an estimate of 2.6 (95% credible interval: 1.5–3.7) malaria attributable fever days per child-year. The estimates of recall bias, and of the numbers of days with illness contributing to single illness recalls, could be applied more generally. To obtain valid estimates of the overall malaria burden using these methods, there remains a need for surveys to include the whole range of ages of hosts in the population and for data on seasonality patterns in confirmed case series.
An information-theoretic account of static index pruning

In this paper, we recast static index pruning as a model induction problem under the framework of Kullback's principle of minimum cross-entropy. We show that static index pruning has an approximate analytical solution in the form of convex integer program. Further analysis on computation feasibility suggests that one of its surrogate model can be solved efficiently. This result has led to the rediscovery of \emph{uniform pruning}, a simple yet powerful pruning method proposed in 2001 and later easily ignored by many of us. To empirically verify this result, we conducted experiments under a new design in which prune ratio is strictly controlled. Our result on standard ad-hoc retrieval benchmarks has confirmed that uniform pruning is robust to high prune ratio and its performance is currently state of the art.
Sometimes more equal than others: How the choice of welfare indicator can affect the measurement of health inequalities and the incidence of public spending

In recent years, a large body of empirical work has focused on measuring and explaining socioeconomic inequalities in health outcomes and health service use. In any effort to address these questions, analysts must confront the issue of how to measure socioeconomic status. In developing countries, socioeconomic status has typically been measured by per capita consumption or an asset index. Currently, there is only limited information on how the choice of welfare indicators affect the analysis of health inequalities and the incidence of public spending. The paper focuses on five key health service outcomes in Mozambique. It uses the concentration index approach to measures both socioeconomic inequality in the utilization of health services and the sensitivity of measured inequality to the choice of welfare indicator. The results illustrate that, at least in some contexts, the choice of welfare indicator can have a large and significant impact on socioeconomic inequalities in service use and on the “perceived” incidence of public spending. The findings point at the need to be cautious in measuring inequality, but also to extend and deepen the analysis of service use.
Using Sketching to Support Visualisation Design

Because it can be so useful, many people are motivated to create Information Visualisation software to address their own unique problems of understanding data. However, the techniques which visualisations use to enhance cognition of data are not widely known. Also, there are currently few resources which comprehensively describe a method for designing novel visualisations. Consequently, people who seek to build them are often left to consult guidelines and references models, which do not adequately describe how to design a new visualisation tool. Almost always, that design involves creativity and problem-solving. Based on our research, we argue that sketching aids these design objectives because it supports Communication, Creation, and Collaboration.
The readability of integrated reports

Purpose This is an exploratory study to investigate the readability of integrated reports. The aim of this paper is to assess whether integrated reports are accessible to their readership and add value to stakeholders. Design/methodology/approach Readability analyses are performed on the integrated reports of all companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange for 2015 and 2016. Readability results are compared by means of a correlation analysis to the results of the Ernst & Young Excellence in Integrated Reporting Awards for 2015. Findings The results show that the complex nature of the language used in integrated reports of listed companies impairs readability and, as an implication, affects the value stakeholders can derive from the information. The results from the correlation with the Ernst & Young Excellence in Integrated Reporting Awards indicate that an integrated report is considered of higher quality if it is written using complex language. Research limitations/implications The main limitation of the study lies in its exclusively South African setting, which is the only country where integrated reports are recommended as part of stock exchange listings requirements. Another limitation is the fact that integrated reports are mainly aimed at informed users and is thus compiled with the informed reader in mind, which impacts on general readability. Practical implications The results present new findings regarding integrated reporting practice, which is of interest to firms, investors, regulators, amongst others. The findings show how the value-added by integrated reports could be improved. Originality/value This study is the first to investigate the readability of integrated reports in a South African context. The results indicate that integrated reports are difficult to read and are only useful to a portion of the total intended population.
Closed nominal rewriting and efficiently computable nominal algebra equality

We analyse the relationship between nominal algebra and nominal rewriting, giving a new and concise presentation of equational deduction in nominal theories. With some new results, we characterise a subclass of equational theories for which nominal rewriting provides a complete procedure to check nominal algebra equality. This subclass includes specifications of the lambda-calculus and first-order logic.
Protective role of bacillithiol in superoxide stress and Fe–S metabolism in Bacillus subtilis

Glutathione (GSH) serves as the prime thiol in most organisms as its depletion increases antibiotic and metal toxicity, impairs oxidative stress responses, and affects Fe and Fe–S cluster metabolism. Many gram‐positive bacteria lack GSH, but instead produce other structurally unrelated yet functionally equivalent thiols. Among those, bacillithiol (BSH) has been recently identified in several low G+C gram‐positive bacteria. In this work, we have explored the link between BSH and Fe–S metabolism in Bacillus subtilis. We have identified that B. subtilis lacking BSH is more sensitive to oxidative stress (paraquat), and metal toxicity (Cu(I) and Cd(II)), but not H2O2. Furthermore, a slow growth phenotype of BSH null strain in minimal medium was observed, which could be recovered upon the addition of selected amino acids (Leu/Ile and Glu/Gln), supplementation of iron, or chemical complementation with BSH disulfide (BSSB) to the growth medium. Interestingly, Fe–S cluster containing isopropylmalate isomerase (LeuCD) and glutamate synthase (GOGAT) showed decreased activities in BSH null strain. Deficiency of BSH also resulted in decreased levels of intracellular Fe accompanied by increased levels of manganese and altered expression levels of Fe–S cluster biosynthetic SUF components. Together, this study is the first to establish a link between BSH and Fe–S metabolism in B. subtilis.
Missing Evidences in Cancer Genetics: The Retinoblastoma Paradigm

Retinoblastoma (Rb) is the most common primary malignant intraocular tumour in childhood, with an incidence of 1 in 15,000 live births. It essentially affects the retina of young children under the age of five years, and may involve one eye (unilateral retinoblastoma) or both (bilateral retinoblastoma). Retinoblastoma is commonly reported to be sporadic in 60% of cases and hereditary in the remaining 40%. In 1971, Alfred G. Knudson Jr., based on the observation of 48 cases and published reports developed a hypothesis according to which this eye cancer is caused by two mutational events (“two hit hypothesis”) [1]. According to this hypothesis, in the dominantly inherited form of the disease, one mutation is inherited via the germinal cells and the second spontaneously occurs in somatic cells of the retina and other tissues of the body. On the contrary, in the non-hereditary form, both mutations will occur in the somatic (retinal) cells. The “two hit” theory led to the discovery of the so called tumour suppressor genes and the identification of the Rb1 as the prototype of such genes. Mutations of the Rb1 gene are now commonly believed to be the “cause” retinoblastoma and during the last three decades or more, little or no doubt has been cast by scientists worldwide on this undemonstrated belief. Although the “two hit” theory is still largely used to explain the genesis of retinoblastoma, it makes predictions which are not fulfilled by the clinical and epidemiological evidences; among others:
Distribution of semantic annotations towards a set of spatially-oriented photographs

Today with the development of new information technologies, the domain of conservation and promotion of cultural heritage benefits from new tools to disseminate knowledge on heritage buildings. These tools are intended to help experts to enrich and access information about buildings. This paper describes this critical issue and proposes an approach permitting the automatic transfer of annotations in a set of oriented photographs (whose positions and orientations in space are known) by using 3D information. First of all, photographs are processed with an automated image-based 3D reconstruction method to produce 3D information (specifically 3D coordinates). Then, 3D information is used in the process of annotations’ transfer between images. Finally, with this process, the modification of annotations can be easily implemented. As a consequence, this process provides a simple way to annotate blocs of images all at once instead of one by one.
Multilabel machine learning and its application to semantic scene classification

In classic pattern recognition problems, classes are mutually exclusive by definition. Classification errors occur when the classes overlap in the feature space. We examine a different situation, occurring when the classes are, by definition, not mutually exclusive. Such problems arise in scene and document classification and in medical diagnosis. We present a framework to handle such problems and apply it to the problem of semantic scene classification, where a natural scene may contain multiple objects such that the scene can be described by multiple class labels (e.g., a field scene with a mountain in the background). Such a problem poses challenges to the classic pattern recognition paradigm and demands a different treatment. We discuss approaches for training and testing in this scenario and introduce new metrics for evaluating individual examples, class recall and precision, and overall accuracy. Experiments show that our methods are suitable for scene classification; furthermore, our work appears to generalize to other classification problems of the same nature.
TALplanner: an empirical investigation of a temporal logic-based forward chaining planner

We present a new forward chaining planner, TALplanner, based on ideas developed by Bacchus (1998) and Kabanza (1997), where domain-dependent search control knowledge represented as temporal formulas is used to effectively control forward chaining. Instead of using a linear modal tense logic as with Bacchus and Kabanza, we use TAL, a narrative-based linear temporal logic used for reasoning about action and change in incompletely specified dynamic environments. Two versions of TALplanner are considered, TALplan/modal which is based on the use of emulated modal formulas and a progression algorithm, and TALplan/non-modal which uses neither modal formulas nor a progression algorithm. For both versions of TALplanner and for all tested domains, TALplanner is shown to be considerably faster and requires less memory. The TAL versions also permit the representation of durative actions with internal state.
Imprecise Reliability Assessment and Decision-Making when the Type of the Probability Distribution of the Random Variables is Unknown

In reliability design, often, there is scarce data for constructing probabilistic models. It is particularly challenging to model uncertainty in variables when the type of their probability distributions is unknown. Moreover, it is expensive to estimate the upper and lower bounds of the reliability of a system involving such variables. A method for modeling uncertainty by using Polynomial Chaos Expansion is presented. The method requires specifying bounds for statistical summaries such as the first four moments and credible intervals. A constrained optimization problem, in which decision variables are the coefficients of the Polynomial Chaos Expansion approximation, is formulated and solved in order to estimate the minimum and maximum values of a system’s reliability. This problem is solved efficiently by employing a probabilistic re-analysis approach to approximate the system reliability as a function of the moments of the random variables.
A Generic Construction for Verifiable Attribute-based Keyword Search Schemes

Cloud data owners encrypt their documents before outsourcing to provide their privacy. They could determine a search control policy and delegate the ability of search token generation to the users whose attributes satisfy the search control policy. Verifiable attribute-based keyword search (VABKS) where the users can also verify the accuracy of cloud functionality is one of such schemes. In this paper, the first generic construction for VABKS is proposed. To this end, the notion of hierarchical identity-based multi-designated verifier signature (HIB-MDVS) has been introduced and existential forgery under chosen message attack (EF-CMA) is formally defined for its unforgeability. Furthermore, anonymity against chosen identity vector set and chosen plaintext attack (Anon-CIVS-CPA) has been defined as the security definition of hierarchical identitybased broadcast encryption (HIBBE) in a formal way. The proposed construction is built in a modular structure by using HIBBE, HIB-MDVS, and Bloom filter as the building blocks. We prove that the security of proposed construction is based on the unforgeability of HIB-MDVS and the anonymity of HIBBE. Finally, the concept of verifiable ranked keyword search will be introduced and a construction of this primitive will be presented which is based on proposed VABKS.
Detection of Intranasally Delivered Bone Marrow-Derived Mesenchymal Stromal Cells in the Lesioned Mouse Brain: A Cautionary Report

Bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) hold promise for autologous treatment of neuropathologies. Intranasal delivery is relatively noninvasive and has recently been reported to result in transport of MSCs to the brain. However, the ability of MSCs to migrate from nasal passages to sites of neuropathology and ultimately survive has not been fully examined. In this paper, we harvested MSCs from transgenic mice expressing enhanced green fluorescent protein (cells hereafter referred to as MSC-EGFP) and delivered them intranasally to wild-type mice sustaining mechanical lesions in the striatum. Using fluorescent, colorimetric, and ultrastructural detection methods, GFP-expressing cells were undetectable in the brain from 3 hours to 2 months after MSC delivery. However, bright autofluorescence that strongly resembled emission from GFP was observed in the olfactory bulb and striatum of lesioned control and MSC-EGFP-treated mice. In a control experiment, we directly implanted MSC-EGFPs into the mouse striatum and detected robust GFP expression 1 and 7 days after implantation. These findings suggest that—under our conditions—intranasally delivered MSC-EGFPs do not survive or migrate in the brain. Furthermore, our observations highlight the necessity of including appropriate controls when working with GFP as a cellular marker.