Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Framework for a taxonomy of fault-tolerance attributes in computer systems

A conceptual framework is presented that relates various aspects of fault-tolerance in the context of system structure and architecture. Such a framework is an essential first step for the construction of a taxonomy of fault-tolerance. A design methodology for fault-tolerant systems is used as the means to identify and classify the major aspects of fault-tolerance: system pathology, fault detection and recovery algorithms, and methods of modeling and evaluation. A computing system is described in terms of four universes of observation and interpretation, ordered in the following sequence: physical, logic, information, and interface, or user's. The description is used to present a classification of faults, i.e., the causes of undesired behavior of computing systems.
OMTK1, a Novel MAPKKK, Channels Oxidative Stress Signaling through Direct MAPK Interaction*

In common with other eukaryotes, plants utilize mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) cascades to mediate responses to a wide variety of stimuli. In contrast to other eukaryotes, plants have an unusually large number of MAPK components, such as more than 20 MAPKs, 10 MAPK kinases (MAPKKs), and 60 MAPKK kinases (MAPKKKs) in Arabidopsis (MAPK Group (2002) Trends Plant Sci. 7, 301–308). Presently it is mostly unknown how MAPK signaling specificity is generated in plants. Here we have isolated OMTK1 (oxidative stress-activated MAP triple-kinase 1), a novel MAPKKK from alfalfa (Medicago sativa). In plant protoplasts, OMTK1 showed basal kinase activity and was found to induce cell death. Among a panel of hormones and stresses tested, only H2O2 was found to activate OMTK1. Out of four MAPKs, OMTK1 specifically activated MMK3 resulting in an increased cell death rate. Pull-down analysis between recombinant proteins indicated that OMTK1 directly interacts with MMK3 and that OMTK1 and MMK3 are part of a protein complex in vivo. These results indicate that OMTK1 plays a MAPK scaffolding role and functions in activation of H2O2 -induced cell death in plants.
Cowling's Market Structure and Corporate Behavior

* This is a collection of seven essays on assorted topics in industrial organization.1 Most are reports on research in process. The theoretical analysis is often impressive. Most of the papers end with empirical studies that are preliminary and, in a number of cases, unconvincing. In the first piece, Hindley reviews the literature on the causes and effects of mergers. He emphasizes the work of Gort and Dennis Mueller and merely bows to traditional notions about mergers for monopoly or economies of scale and ignores short-run speculative motives. He emphasizes mergers to transfer capital or specialized skills or to increase growth or head off takeovers where managements are growth-maximizers. He notes previous evidence that merging firms are less profitable than either their component predecessors or nonmerging firms and finds it unconvincing because merger may be an attempt to remedy an even poorer prospective performance. He cites his own evidence that a large number of poor performance, widely held firms survive in spite of widespread mergers. This, he feels, is conclusive evidence that the threat of takeover is insufficient to make managers into present value maximizers. It is also inconsistent with growth maximization since a growth maximizer would put a higher value on any firm, efficient or not, than capital markets do.
Generalized Cantor Sets and Sets of Sums of Convergent Alternating Series

Abstract We give a complete characterization of sets of sums of absolutely convergent series with alternating signs. This result finishes works of various authors [Menon, Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 54: 706–711, 1948 ], [Šalát, Math.-Phys. J. Slovak Acad. Sci. 9: 3–14, 1959]–[Šalát, Acta Univ. Comenian. Fac. Rerum Natur. 2: 71–74. 1957] who studied this problem. As we will see, the studied sets are exactly sets that can be obtained by generalizing the construction of the Cantor set.
Scalable Object Classification in Range Images

We present a novel scalable framework for freeform object classification in range images. The framework includes an automatic 3D object recognition system in range images and a scalable database structure to learn new instances and new categories efficiently. We adopt the TAX model, previously proposed for unsupervised object modeling in 2D images, to construct our hierarchical model of object classes from unlabelled range images. The hierarchical model embodies unorganized shape patterns of 3D objects in various classes in a tree structure with probabilistic distributions. A new visual vocabulary is introduced to represent a range image as a set of visual words for the process of hierarchical model inference, classification and online learning. We also propose an online learning algorithm that updates the hierarchical model efficiently thanks to the tree structure, when a new object should be learned into the model. Extensive experiments demonstrate average classification rates of 94% on a large synthetic dataset (1,350 training images and 450 test images for 9 object classes) and 88.4% on 1,433 depth images captured from real-time range sensors. We also show that our approach outperforms the original TAX method in terms of recall rate and stability. Keywords-object classification; range images; scalable data structure
Improved iterative Bayesian unfolding

This paper reviews the basic ideas behind a Bayesian unfolding published some years ago and improves their implementation. In particular, uncertainties are now treated at all levels by probability density functions and their propagation is performed by Monte Carlo integration. Thus, small numbers are better handled and the final uncertainty does not rely on the assumption of normality. Theoretical and practical issues concerning the iterative use of the algorithm are also discussed. The new program, implemented in the R language, is freely available, together with sample scripts to play with toy models.
The national identity as a motivational factor for better performance in the public sector

Purpose – The paper seeks to concern itself with the research field of public sector performance measurement and to introduce the national identity as a performance factor, through a case study.Design/methodology/approach – The paper attempts an innovative presentation and identification of the attitudes, motivations and beliefs of both Greek people and the volunteers regarding the organisation, the success and the benefits of the Athens 2004 Olympic Games. The paper reviews the literature on the relation of national identity and sports and analyses the opinion polls on the Athens 2004 Olympic Games.Findings – The paper demonstrates that national identity has been the major motivational factor for the volunteers, whose contribution represented a significant added value to the success of the Olympics. The measurement of performance in such a qualitative analysis is supported by self‐reported customers' satisfaction.Research limitations/implications – It is not a quantitative, structured and executed initia.
A Typology of Domestic Violence: Intimate Terrorism, Violent Resistance, and Situational Couple Violence

Domestic violence, a serious and far-reaching social problem, has generated two key debates among researchers. The first debate is about gender and domestic violence. Some scholars argue that domestic violence is primarily male-perpetrated, others that women are as violent as men in intimate relationships. Johnson's response to this debate - and the central theme of this book - is that there is more than one type of intimate partner violence. Some studies address the type of violence that is perpetrated primarily by men, while others are getting at the kind of violence that women are involved in as well. Because there has been no theoretical framework delineating types of domestic violence, researchers have easily misread one another's studies.The second major debate involves how many women are abused each year by their partners. Estimates range from two to six million. Johnson's response once again comes from this book's central theme. If there is more than one type of intimate partner violence, then the numbers depend on what type you're talking about.Johnson argues that domestic violence is not a unitary phenomenon. Instead, he delineates three major, dramatically different, forms of partner violence: intimate terrorism, violent resistance, and situational couple violence. He roots the conceptual distinctions among the forms of violence in an analysis of the role of power and control in relationship violence and shows that the failure to make these basic distinctions among types of partner violence has produced a research literature that is plagued by both overgeneralizations and ostensibly contradictory findings. This volume begins the work of theorizing forms of domestic violence, a crucial first step to a better understanding of these phenomena among scholars, social scientists, policy makers, and service providers.It reassesses thirty years of domestic violence research and demonstrates three forms of partner violence, distinctive in their origins, effects, and treatments.
Artificial coordinating field and its application to motion planning of robots in uncertain dynamic environments

Artificial coordinating fields (ACF) are proposed to deal with the motion planning problems of mobile robots in uncertain dynamic environments. An ACF around an obstacle can generate two orthogonal force vectors to a robot: one is called the coordinating force vector which is purposively designed in this paper, and the other is the repulsive force vector which is the same as that in a conventional artificial potential field. The ACF is designed according to the updated motion purpose and the relative states of the robot with respect to its local environment, and it also satisfies the robot’s dynamic constraints. The direction of the coordinating force can be determiend on line according to an optimal evaluation function. The ACF can effectively remove the local minima, and reduce the oscillation of the planned trajectory between multiple obstacles. Only local knowledge of the environments is needed in the ACF-based motion planning. The properties of the ACF such as controllability, adaptability, safety and reachability are studied and discussed in detail in this paper. Theoretical analysis and simulations are given to illustrate our main results.
A real-time randomized navigation method for biped robot

Navigating autonomously in obstacle-cluttered environment is an important problem for biped robots. Path planning using classical methods, such as A* search and Dijkstra's algorithm, has made a good progress. However, these methods are inefficient. In this paper, a new algorithm named Heuristic Bi-directional Discrete Rapidly-explore Random Trees (HBD-RRTs) is presented. According to discrete stance model, two randomized-sampling-based planning trees from start state and target state are constructed respectively, where the path is generated as a set of stances by bi-directional search. Then a series of off-line gaits and an online gait generator are used to transform the path to motion trajectory. The simulation result in the platform of ZJU-Dance humanoid robot demonstrated that HBD-RRTs for biped robots is less-time-consuming and makes real-time planning possible.
Post-translational regulation of COX2 activity by FYN in prostate cancer cells

While increased COX2 expression and prostaglandin levels are elevated in human cancers, the mechanisms of COX2 regulation at the post-translational level are unknown. Initial observation that COX2 forms adduct with non-receptor tyrosine kinase FYN, prompted us to study FYN-mediated post-translational regulation of COX2. We found that FYN increased COX2 activity in prostate cancer cells DU145, independent of changes in COX2 or COX1 protein expression levels. We report that FYN phosphorylates human COX2 on Tyr 446, and while corresponding phospho-mimetic COX2 mutation promotes COX2 activity, the phosphorylation blocking mutation prevents FYN-mediated increase in COX2 activity.
Forced employment contract change and the psychological contract

Purpose – To explore the implications for all employees' psychological contracts of a forced change from permanent to temporary employment status for some employees within an organisation.Design/methodology/approach – A random sample of 30 employees, stratified by employment status was selected. Each employee undertook a structured card sort of possible emotional responses to change followed by an in‐depth interview to explore and explain their categorisation of these responses.Findings – The nature of psychological contracts and organisational attachments for both permanent employees and forced temporary workers is complex. Permanent employees generally continue to exhibit relational forms of attachment to the organisation. These, they believe, are reciprocated by the organisation. Reactions from forced temporary workers are more varied. After a period of denial, some develop a more calculative approach to their interactions. Others maintain aspects of their previously developed relational attachments. O.
ECONOMIC FEASIBILITY OF THE CATTLE FEEDING INDUSTRY IN THE NORTHERN PLAINS AND WESTERN LAKES STATES - SUMMARY

The five-state study area of the Northern Plains and Western Lakes States, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin, has adequate feed supplies and feeder cattle to markedly increase cattle feeding. Feed costs in these states have historically been lower than in the Southern Plains States. However, higher transportation costs appear to offset that advantage. Close access to slaughter plants in these states could offset that transportation disadvantage. Backgrounding of cattle appears to be quite profitable and cattle feeding, especially in larger sized feedlots, can be profitable. However, the cattle feeding industry has an increasing level of excess capacity. To be successful, new feedlots in the Northern Plains and Western Lakes States would need cost efficiencies to offset higher production costs, compared to Nebraska and Kansas, or would need to produce for a niche market unaffected by the lower operating costs of already established feedlots in the Central and Southern Plains States. Finally, a range of strategies are available in developing value-added cattle production in the Northern Plains and Western Lakes States. These strategies embody differing levels of capital investment, and involve different levels of risk and profitability.
Who Governs Scotland

Chapter 1: Who Governs Scotland? Chapter 2: An Emerging Political Arena Chapter 3: The Chimera of Multi-Level Governance Chapter 4: Scotland and the EU's Structural Funds Chapter 5: 1973-1999: A Westminster Bypass? Chapter 6: 1999: Business as Usual? Chapter 7: Territorial Mobilisation in the EU and Beyond Chapter 8: 2003: A Scottish Foreign Policy? Chapter 9: Functionalism, Subsidiarity and the Denizen of the Deep Chapter 10: The Eu and Internationa Affairs: Drivers for Autonomy?
How Many Arms Make a Pair? Perceptual Illusion of Having an Additional Limb

What are the natural constraints for the human body representation? Here I report a perceptual illusion where healthy individuals experience having two right arms, with both sensing touches applied to them. This effect reveals how visual and tactile signals from the body are integrated in a probabilistic fashion, resulting in a single limb being represented at two locations at the same time, giving rise to a perceptual duplication of this limb. This is an important observation because it suggests that even the gross morphology that we experience of ourselves is a construct resulting from dynamic and integrative processes in the perceptual systems.
Scale Invariant and Noise Robust Interest Points With Shearlets

Shearlets are a relatively new directional multi-scale framework for signal analysis, which have been shown effective to enhance signal discontinuities, such as edges and corners at multiple scales even in the presence of a large quantity of noise. In this paper, we consider blob-like features in the shearlets framework. We derive a measure, which is very effective for blob detection, and, based on this measure, we propose a blob detector and a keypoint description, whose combination outperforms the state-of-the-art algorithms with noisy and compressed images. We also demonstrate that the measure satisfies the perfect scale invariance property in the continuous case. We evaluate the robustness of our algorithm to different types of noise, including blur, compression artifacts, and Gaussian noise. Furthermore, we carry on a comparative analysis on benchmark data, referring, in particular, to tolerance to noise and image compression.
Optimisation of JPEG XR Quantisation Settings in Iris Recognition Systems

—JPEG XR is considered as a lossy sample data compression scheme in the context of iris recognition techniques. It is shown that by optimising the JPEG XR quantisation strategy, JPEG XR default quantisation as well as JPEG2000 based iris recognition can be improved in terms of EER. The optimised JPEG XR quantisation strategy shows good performance across a wide range of iris feature extraction techniques, but has to be adapted for each target bitrate separately.
Relationships and Rationing in Consumer Loans

We empirically examine how relationships between individual households and their creditors affect the probability of being credit-rationed. Using a data set where the credit-rationing of individual households is observed directly, we show that relationship duration and the number of activities between a family and a potential lender significantly lower the probability of being credit-rationed. Additionally, we examine the relative role of relationships in determining the interest rates of two consumer loans--a mortgage loan and a "special purposes" loan--and show that mortgage loan rates are driven less by relationship factors than the special purposes loan rates. Copyright 1999 by University of Chicago Press.
Reaccumulation of [K+]o in the toad retina during maintained illumination

Using K+-selective microelectrodes, [K+]o was measured in the subretinal space of the isolated retina of the toad, Bufo marinus. During maintained illumination, [K+]o fell to a minimum and then recovered to a steady level that was approximately 0.1 mM below its dark level. Spatial buffering of [K+]o by Muller (glial) cells could contribute to this reaccumulation of K+. However, superfusion with substances that might be expected to block glial transport of K+ had no significant effect upon the reaccumulation of K+. These substances included blockers of gK (TEA+, Cs+, Rb+, 4-AP) and a gliotoxin (alpha AAA). Progressive slowing of the rods' Na+/K+ pump (perhaps caused by a light-evoked decrease in [Na+]i) also could contribute to this reaccumulation of K+ by reducing the uptake of K+ from the subretinal space. As evidence for a major contribution by this mechanism, treatments designed to prevent such slowing of the pump reversibly blocked reaccumulation. These treatments included superfusion with 2 microM ouabain, or lowering [K+]o, PO2, or temperature. It is likely that such treatments inhibit the pump, increase [Na+]i, and attenuate any light-evoked decrease in [Na+]i. The results are consistent with the following hypothesis. At light onset, the decrease in rod gNa will reduce the Na+ influx and the resulting rod hyperpolarization will reduce the K+ efflux. In combination with these reduced passive fluxes, the continuing active fluxes will lower both [K+]o and [Na+]i, which in turn will inhibit the pump. In support of this hypothesis, the solutions to a pair of coupled differential equations that model changes in both [K+]o and [Na+]i match quantitatively the time course of the observed changes in [K+]o during and after maintained illumination for all stimuli examined.
Ontology-based web service to recommend spare time activities

The number of people that use Internet as a source of information increases continuously. Internet provides a great amount of heterogeneous information. When interacting with the Web, not all the users have the same goals, interests or needs. This paper presents a recommender system for spare time activities (such as visiting museums, restaurants, conferences, etc.). It suggests the most suitable options taking into account the personal features of each user, that is, his/her preferences, economic resources, available time and disabilities. Furthermore, it provides the means of public transport to arrive at the place where the activity will be performed. The results of a case study focused on Mostoles city are presented too.
Affine-Transformation Parameters Regression for Face Alignment

Face alignment is an important process in facial analysis. Cascaded linear regression approaches have shown the capability to achieve the state-of-the-art accuracy on numerous face alignment datasets. However, most of these approaches only learn to map coordinate offsets of the key points from image features. This regression strategy can be easily trapped in local optima. We propose a novel regression strategy by introducing affine transformation. First, the best affine-transformation parameters between the initial mean shape and the ground truth are estimated by Procrustes analysis. Subsequently, we base the mapping from image features on the best affine-transformation parameters. Experimental results indicate that this strategy can reduce the offsets between two shapes significantly. Combined with coordinate-offset regression strategy, the hybrid approach produces a remarkably performance in term of accuracy, training time, prediction rate, and the model size. Moreover, the affine-transformation parameter regression strategy can be considered as a shape-initialization method that can be combined with other initial shape-based face alignment algorithms to improve the face alignment accuracy.
Endogenous dopaminergic regulation of horizontal cell coupling in the mammalian retina

Horizontal cells in an isolated wholemount preparation of the mouse retina were injected with Lucifer yellow and neurobiotin to characterize both the pattern of gap junctional connectivity and its regulation by dopamine. The injected horizontal cells had a uniform morphology of a round cell body, a compact dendritic tree, and an axon, which could sometimes be traced to an expansive terminal system. The dendro‐dendritic gap junctions between neighboring cells mediated both weak Lucifer yellow dye coupling and strong neurobiotin tracer coupling. The extent of the tracer coupling was decreased by either exogenous dopamine (100 μM) or cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) analogs and was significantly increased by the D1 antagonist SCH 23390 (10 μM). These results provide the first evidence in the mammalian retina that the gap junctions between horizontal cells are endogenously regulated by dopamine, which acts through D1 receptors to increase the intracellular cAMP. It has been proposed that the gap junctional coupling between horizontal cells is mediated by connexin 32 (Cx32), but the pattern and dopaminergic regulation of horizontal cell coupling were unaffected in Cx32‐knockout mice, ruling out the possible involvement of Cx32. Every tracer‐coupled horizontal cell showed calbindin immunoreactivity, and vice versa, providing strong evidence that the horizontal cells in the mouse retina comprise a single cell type. Like the axonless horizontal cells in other mammalian retinas, the axon‐bearing horizontal cells in the mouse retina are coupled by gap junctions that are permeable to Lucifer yellow and dopamine sensitive, suggesting that the mouse horizontal cells have hybrid properties to compensate for the absence of axonless horizontal cells. J. Comp. Neurol. 418:33–40, 2000. © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.