Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Adaptive Robust Precision Motion Control of Linear Motors With Integrated Compensation of Nonlinearities and Bearing Flexible Modes

To realize the high performance potential of linear motor drive systems, various nonlinearities inherited to the system and their compensations have been extensively studied during the past decade. However, existing research tends to focus on one or several types of nonlinearities at a time and thus do not offer a complete overall solution. This paper studies precision motion control of linear motors in the presence of parameter variations and disturbances. An adaptive robust control (ARC) algorithm with simultaneous compensation of all significant nonlinearities is developed. Those nonlinearities include Coulomb friction, cogging force, and nonlinear electromagnetic field effect. The proposed ARC with and without nonlinearity compensation have also been implemented on the Y-axis of a linear-motor-driven industrial gantry. Comparative experimental results show that the proposed ARC algorithm with simultaneous compensation of all significant nonlinearities achieves better motion tracking performance than existing ones. In addition, high-frequency structural flexible modes due to bearing, which are neglected in the previous researches, are explicitly identified experimentally, and their effects are carefully examined. Theoretical analysis is then conducted to generate a set of practically useful guidelines on the tuning of controller gains to optimize the achievable performance in practice.
Social Capital and Political Accountability

In this paper, we empirically investigate a channel through which social capital may improve economic wellbeing and the functioning of institutions: political accountability. The main idea is that voters who share norms of generalized morality demand higher standards of behavior on their elected representavtives, are more willing to bear the cost of acquiring information, and are more likely to base their vote on criteria of social welfare rather than (narrow) personal interest. We take this conjecture to the data using information on the Italian members of Parliament in the postwar period (1948-2001). The empirical evidence shows that the electoral punishment of political misbehavior is considerably larger in electoral districts with high social capital, where social capital is measured by blood donation, and political misbehavior refers to receiving a request of criminal prosecution or shirking in parliamentary activity. Accordingly, episodes of political misbehavior are less frequent in electoral districts with high social capital.
Efeito do tratamento com drogas amnésicas na memória emocional de ratos no LCE

It has been shown that prior experience of rats in the elevated plus maze (EPM), an animal model of anxiety, alters the subsequent maze exploration, thus indicating that an emotional learning or memory process occurs along maze exploration. The present study evaluated the effect of the amnesic drugs treatment in the different stages of emotional memory of the rats in the EPM. In order to evaluate the acquisition stage of memory, male wistar rats were treated (i.p. route) with either saline (0.9%), Scopolamine (SCP, muscarinic antagonist; 0.5, 1.0 e 4.0mg/kg), Clonidine (CLO, 2 adrenergic agonist; 0.05, 0.1 e 0.2mg/kg), Agmatine (AGM, NOS inhibitor; 20 e 40mg/kg) ou MK801(NMDA antagonist; 0.075 e 0.1mg/kg), and after 30 minutes, were submitted to two EPM trials, with 5 minute length and 24hours interval. To evaluate the consolidation stage of memory, the animals were treated (i.p. route) imediately, 30 and 180 minutes after EPM trial1, with either saline (0.9%), SCP (1.0mg/kg), AGM (40mg/kg), CLO (0.2mg/kg) or MK801(0.1mg/kg). On the next day, the animals were submitted to EPM trial2. In order to evaluate the evocation stage of memory, rats were submitted to EPM trial1 (drug free) and, on the next day, received (i.p. route) either saline (0.9%), SCP (1.0mg/kg), AGM (40mg/kg), CLO (0.2mg/kg) or MK801(0.1mg/kg) 30 minutes prior EPM trial2. The percentage of either entries or time spent in the open arms (%OE and %OT) and the number of entries into the open and enclosed arms (OE and EE) were evaluated. The data were analysed by considering the total time of the trial and by considering the animal behaviour over the time (temporal analysis). The data showed that the groups treated with SCP (0.5, 1.0 and 4.0mg/kg), AGM (20mg/kg), CLO (0.05, 0.1 and 0.2mg/kg) prior to the trial1 exhibited impaired emotional memory acquisition, while the treatment with MK801 (0.075 e 0.1mg/kg) induced an anxiolytic effect in EPM trial1. The memory consolidation was not affected by any drug treatment, but the groups treated with SCP (1.0mg/kg) and CLO (0.2mg/kg) prior to the trial2 exhibited impaired emotional memory evocation in the EPM. Our data indicates that muscarinic and 2 adrenergic receptors may be important for the acquisition and evocation stages of memory, and that the NO synthesis may participate of the acquisition stage of emotional memory in the EPM. pdfMachine A pdf writer that produces quality PDF files with ease! Produce quality PDF files in seconds and preserve the integrity of your original documents. Compatible across nearly all Windows platforms, simply open the document you want to convert, click “print”, select the “Broadgun pdfMachine printer” and that’s it! Get yours now!
Periodic planar disc packings

Several conditions are given when a packing of equal discs in a torus is locally maximally dense, where the torus is defined as the quotient of the plane by a two-dimensional lattice. Conjectures are presented that claim that the density of any collectively jammed packing, whose graph does not consist of all triangles, and the torus lattice is the standard triangular lattice, is at most , where n is the number of packing discs in the torus. Several classes of collectively jammed packings are presented where the conjecture holds.
Development of a Scale to Measure Impression Management in Job Interviews

This study aims to enhance our understanding of the construct “Impression management in job interviews” and develop a scale for its measurement. A preliminary scale is constructed with the help of existing literature on impression management and by means of qualitative studies consisting of focus groups, in-depht interviews and the application of the critical incident technique. The scale is pretested through an online survey. Final factor analysis of the survey data revealed six factors labeled as “Self-promotion”, “Defensive”, “Modeling”, “Other-focused”, “Avoidance” and “Non-verbal”. Reliability analysis yielded to acceptable results. Convergent and discriminant validity of the scale is assessed with the multitrait-multimethod matrix. The developed final scale is an initial step in filling the gap in common measurement methods in the literature of impression management in job interviews. Implications of the emerged factor structure and the potential practical use of the developed scale are discussed. Field of Research: Organizational Behavior
An Adaptive Defect Weighted Sampling Algorithm to Design Pseudoknotted RNA Secondary Structures

Computational design of RNA sequences that fold into targeted secondary structures has many applications in biomedicine, nanotechnology and synthetic biology. An RNA molecule is made of different types of secondary structure elements and an important RNA element named pseudoknot plays a key role in stabilizing the functional form of the molecule. However, due to the computational complexities associated with characterizing pseudoknotted RNA structures, most of the existing RNA sequence designer algorithms generally ignore this important structural element and therefore limit their applications. In this paper we present a new algorithm to design RNA sequences for pseudoknotted secondary structures. We use NUPACK as the folding algorithm to compute the equilibrium characteristics of the pseudoknotted RNAs, and describe a new adaptive defect weighted sampling algorithm named Enzymer to design low ensemble defect RNA sequences for targeted secondary structures including pseudoknots. We used a biological data set of 201 pseudoknotted structures from the Pseudobase library to benchmark the performance of our algorithm. We compared the quality characteristics of the RNA sequences we designed by Enzymer with the results obtained from the state of the art MODENA and antaRNA. Our results show our method succeeds more frequently than MODENA and antaRNA do, and generates sequences that have lower ensemble defect, lower probability defect and higher thermostability. Finally by using Enzymer and by constraining the design to a naturally occurring and highly conserved Hammerhead motif, we designed 8 sequences for a pseudoknotted cis-acting Hammerhead ribozyme. Enzymer is available for download at https://bitbucket.org/casraz/enzymer.
A comparison between the variational iteration method and Adomian decomposition method for the FitzHugh- Nagumo equations

In this work, the variational iteration method and the decomposition method are used to determine the solutions of the FitzHugh-Nagumo (FN) equations. The two algorithms are illustrated by studying an initial value problem. The obtained results show that only few terms are required to deduce approximated solutions which are found to be accurate and efficient. Key words: FitzHugh-Nagumo equations, Adomian decomposition, Lagrange multiplier, variational iteration method.
Bartonella tamiae sp. nov., a Newly Recognized Pathogen Isolated from Three Human Patients from Thailand

ABSTRACT Three strains of a novel Bartonella species (Bartonella tamiae) were isolated from human patients from Thailand. Sequence analysis of six chromosomal regions (16S rRNA, gltA, groEL, ftsZ, rpoB, and the intergenic spacer region) and phenotypical analysis supported the similarity of the three strains and placed them within the genus Bartonella separately from previously described species.
Endogenous attention optimizes spatial resolution depending on task demands

• Carrasco, M. , Loula, F. , & Ho, Y-X. (2006). How attention enhances spatial resolution: Evidence from selective adaptation to spatial frequency. Perception & Psychophysics, 68, 1004-1012 • Gurnsey, R. , Pearson, P., & Day, D. (1996). Texture segmentation along the horizontal meridian: Non-monotonic changes in performance with eccentricity. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, 22, 738-757. • Yeshurun, Y. & Carrasco, M. (2000) The locus of attentional effects in texture segmentation. Nature Neuroscience, 3(6), 622-627. • Yeshurun, Y,. Montagna, B. & Carrasco, M. (2008). On the flexibility of sustained attention and its effects on a texture segmentation task. Vision Research, 48(1), 78-93. Post-cue (300) Texture display: 37x49 lines Texture target: 4x2 lines
Autonomous Path Planning of Free-Floating Manipulators Using RRT-Based Algorithms

The non-holonomic behavior and the presence of dynamic singularities are only a few factors that make collision-avoidance path planning of Space Manipulators (SMs) such a hard task. Additionally, contributions in the field of motion planning of SMs often concentrate in the point-to-point strategy, with particular interest in the complex dynamics of such systems. As a criterion, collision-avoidance for space manipulators depends on a previous computed path. However, this computation still lacks robust formulations, specially in the case of free-floating manipulators. Our goal consists in creating a collision-avoiding path planner for a free-floating planar manipulator. The dynamic model is based on the Dynamically Equivalent Manipulator and the concept of Rapidly-Exploring Random Trees serves as a framework for the developed algorithm. A combination of a method that reduces the metric sensitivity with a bidirectional approach is proposed in order to achieve a solution convergence. We simulate the path planning task for a three-link planar free-floating manipulator considering the presence of an obstacle. The results are then discussed and promising directions for future works are presented.
On Achievable Performance of Cognitive Radio Systems

In this contribution1, we investigate the idea of using cognitive radio to reuse locally unused spectrum to increase the total system capacity. We consider a multiband/wideband system in which the primary and cognitive users wish to communicate to different receivers, subject to mutual interference and assume that each user knows only his channel and the unused spectrum through adequate sensing. Under this scheme, a cognitive radio will listen to the channel and, if sensed idle, will transmit during the voids. Within this setting, we provide two simple methods for sensing the idle sub-bands over the total bandwidth. We impose the constraint that users successively transmit over available bands through proper water filling. For the first time, our study has quantified the achievable gain of using cognitive radio with respect to classical radio devices and derive the total spectral efficiency as well as the maximum number of possible pairwise communications of such a cognitive radio system. We finally show that we can improve the overall system spectral efficiency by considering cognitive communications in the system. Index Terms Cognitive radio, sensing, power detection, radar detection, capacity, spectral efficiency, band factor gain, water filling.
NILC-USP at SemEval-2017 Task 4: A Multi-view Ensemble for Twitter Sentiment Analysis

This paper describes our multi-view ensemble approach to SemEval-2017 Task 4 on Sentiment Analysis in Twitter, specifically, the Message Polarity Classification subtask for English (subtask A). Our system is a voting ensemble, where each base classifier is trained in a different feature space. The first space is a bag-of-words model and has a Linear SVM as base classifier. The second and third spaces are two different strategies of combining word embeddings to represent sentences and use a Linear SVM and a Logistic Regressor as base classifiers. The proposed system was ranked 18th out of 38 systems considering F1 score and 20th considering recall.
Amino acid substitutions at protein–protein interfaces that modulate the oligomeric state

Despite similarities in their sequence and structure, there are a number of homologous proteins that adopt various oligomeric states. Comparisons of these homologous protein pairs, in terms of residue substitutions at the protein–protein interfaces, have provided fundamental characteristics that describe how proteins interact with each other. We have prepared a dataset composed of pairs of related proteins with different homo‐oligomeric states. Using the protein complexes, the interface residues were identified, and using structural alignments, the shadow‐interface residues have been defined as the surface residues that align with the interface residues. Subsequently, we investigated residue substitutions between the interfaces and the shadow interfaces. Based on the degree of the contributions to the interactions, the aligned sites of the interfaces and shadow interfaces were divided into primary and secondary sites; the primary sites are the focus of this work. The primary sites were further classified into two groups (i.e. exposed and buried) based on the degree to which the residue is buried within the shadow interfaces. Using these classifications, two simple mechanisms that mediate the oligomeric states were identified. In the primary‐exposed sites, the residues on the shadow interfaces are replaced by more hydrophobic or aromatic residues, which are physicochemically favored at protein–protein interfaces. In the primary‐buried sites, the residues on the shadow interfaces are replaced by larger residues that protrude into other proteins. These simple rules are satisfied in 23 out of 25 Structural Classification of Proteins (SCOP) families with a different‐oligomeric‐state pair, and thus represent a basic strategy for modulating protein associations and dissociations. Proteins 2010. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Should we beware the inheritance? An empirical study on the evolution of seven open source systems

One of the key mechanisms of object-oriented programming is inheritance. Some empirical studies show that classes inheriting behavior from more classes (i.e., ancestors) are more defect prone than the other classes. Since various collaborations are found among the instances of classes, classes are not isolated within the source code of object-oriented systems. In this paper, we investigate if classes using classes inheriting behaviour from other classes are more change and defect prone than the other classes. We analyze at least three releases of every system belonging to a suite of seven open source systems and investigate the relations between classes that use/do not use class hierarchies and study the change and defect proneness of those classes. The results frequently show that the clients of classes which inherit behaviour are more change and defect prone. These findings show a new type of correlation between the clients of class hierarchies and changes/defects, bringing evidence related to an increased likelihood of exhibiting changes and defects for the clients of class hierarchies. We believe that the inferred correlations are due to an improper usage of class hierarchies but further studies are needed for confirmation.
Anti-Black Hole Attack Mechanism for Ad Hoc On-Demand Distance Vector (AODV) Routing Protocol in Manets

Mobile Ad-hoc Networks (MANETs) can be set up dynamically anywhere and anytime without the need of infrastructure. MANETs consists of a set of wireless nodes. These nodes move randomly and communicate with each other via a wireless communication links. MANETs routing protocols are vulnerable to several types of attacks, the most famous and common is Black Hole attack . This research simulate the behavior of Black Hole attack on Ad-hoc OnDemand Distance Vector (AODV) Routing Protocol using Network Simulator (NS2.35). Moreover, the black hole node(s) have been eliminated completely using the mechanism proposed in this research. The proposed approach is named as Anti-Black Hole Attack mechanism for AODV (ABHMAODV) Routing Protocol. The proposed mechanism maintains the performance of the protocol while handling Black Hole attacks.
Effects of repeated administrations of tafluprost, latanoprost, and travoprost on optic nerve head blood flow in conscious normal rabbits.

PURPOSE The aim of this study was to evaluate and compare the effects of repeated administrations of three prostaglandin F(2alpha) analogs (tafluprost, latanoprost, and travoprost) on optic nerve head (ONH) blood flow in normal rabbits. METHODS Male Dutch rabbits were housed under a 12-h light-dark cycle for use in this study. A quantitative index of blood flow, the squared blur rate (SBR), was determined using laser speckle flowgraphy. Saline, 0.0015% tafluprost, 0.005% latanoprost, or 0.004% travoprost (each 50 microL) was topically administered into the left eye once daily for 28 days. ONH blood flow was measured before the start at the course of treatment (baseline), and on day 14 and/or day 28 [measurements being made at 0, 30, and/or 60 min after drugs application on day 14 and/or day 28]. Heart rate was also measured at these time points. RESULTS Tafluprost, latanoprost, and travoprost each increased the ONH blood flow at all measurement points on day 14 and/or day 28. The 0 min SBR value on day 14 was greater than the baseline SBR value by 8.7% + or - 4.4% for tafluprost and by 5.8% + or - 1.7% for latanoprost. The 0 min SBR value on day 28 was greater than the baseline SBR value by 11.9% + or - 3.9% for tafluprost, by 7.2% + or - 4.3% for latanoprost, and by 6.7% + or - 3.5% for travoprost. The increasing state of the ONH blood flow continued within 60 min after a topical administration of tafluprost, latanoprost, or travoprost. Tafluprost, latanoprost, and travoprost did not change heart rate (vs. the baseline value) at any measurement points. CONCLUSIONS Repeated topical administration of any of the three prostaglandin F(2alpha) analogs increased ONH blood flow in rabbits, without changing heart rate. The increase in ONH blood flow induced by tafluprost was greater than that induced by latanoprost (P = 0.086) or travoprost (P = 0.037) at 60 min on day 28.
Faster coreset construction for subspace and projective clustering

We present randomized coreset constructions for subspace and projective clustering. If $A$ is the input matrix, then our construction relies on projecting A on the approximation of the first few right singular vectors of $A$. We are able to achieve a faster algorithm, as compare to the corresponding deterministic algorithm for the same problem by Fledman et. al.[9], while maintaining a desired accuracy. We also complement our theoretical result by supporting experiments.
A high efficiency regulated charge pump over wide input and load range

A multi-modes regulated charge pump with improved efficiency over wide input and load range is proposed in this paper. The output voltage is regulated to 5V when input is 4.5–2.7V. By alternating the switch network, it can realize 2x, 1.5x, and 1.33x conversion modes, which improves the efficiency over wide input range. During each mode, the output voltage is regulated by a controlled current source. The regulated charge pump is designed for a very wide load range (10mA to 500mA). A hybrid control scheme is proposed and analyzed to achieve a high efficiency over desired load range. Both of the simulation and test results are provided to verify the control scheme. The results show that the total loss at light load can be reduced by 56% to 83%.
Characterization and performance of the Suomi-NPP/VIIRS solar diffuser stability monitor

We describe the on-orbit characterization and performance of the Solar Diffuser Stability Monitor (SDSM) on-board Suomi-NPP/VIIRS. This description includes the observing procedure of each SDSM event, the algorithms used to generate the Solar Diffuser degradation corrective factors, and the results for the mission to date. We will also compare the performance of the VIIRS SDSM and SD to the similar components operating on the MODIS instrument on the EOS Terra and Aqua satellites.
Translation affects YoeB and MazF messenger RNA interferase activities by different mechanisms

Prokaryotic toxin–antitoxin loci encode mRNA cleaving enzymes that inhibit translation. Two types are known: those that cleave mRNA codons at the ribosomal A site and those that cleave any RNA site specifically. RelE of Escherichia coli cleaves mRNA at the ribosomal A site in vivo and in vitro but does not cleave pure RNA in vitro. RelE exhibits an incomplete RNase fold that may explain why RelE requires its substrate mRNA to presented by the ribosome. In contrast, RelE homologue YoeB has a complete RNase fold and cleaves RNA independently of ribosomes in vitro. Here, we show that YoeB cleavage of mRNA is strictly dependent on translation of the mRNA in vivo. Non-translated model mRNAs were not cleaved whereas the corresponding wild-type mRNAs were cleaved efficiently. Model mRNAs carrying frameshift mutations exhibited a YoeB-mediated cleavage pattern consistent with the reading frameshift thus giving strong evidence that YoeB cleavage specificity was determined by the translational reading frame. In contrast, site-specific mRNA cleavage by MazF occurred independently of translation. In one case, translation seriously influenced MazF cleavage efficiency, thus solving a previous apparent paradox. We propose that translation enhances MazF-mediated cleavage of mRNA by destabilization of the mRNA secondary structure.