Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cadzow Denoising Upgraded: A New Projection Method for the Recovery of Dirac Pulses from Noisy Linear Measurements

We consider the recovery of a finite stream of Dirac pulses at nonuniform locations, from noisy lowpass-filtered samples. We show that maximum-likelihood estimation of the unknown parameters amounts to a difficult, even believed NP-hard, matrix problem of structured low rank approximation. To solve it, we propose a new heuristic iterative algorithm, based on a recently proposed splitting method for convex nonsmooth optimization. Although the algorithm comes, in absence of convexity, with no convergence proof, it converges in practice to a local solution, and even to the global solution of the problem, when the noise level is not too high. Thus, our method improves upon the classical Cadzow denoising method, for same ease of implementation and speed.
Propagation de métadonnées par l'analyse des liens

The World Wide Web currently has a huge amount of pages and it is extremely difficult to retrieve documents corresponding to one’s informational needs. In addition to the problem of thematic relevance, documents returned by the search engines do not correspond to the user expectations, documents are either too difficult or on the contrary too easy. We realize that the way to clearly improve information retrieval on the Web is to add metadata to web pages (thematic or non-thematic). In this paper, we present a method able to add metadata in a semi-automatic way. It is based on the propagation in the co-citation graph coming from the Web graph.
Racial Bias in the Manager-Employee Relationship: An Analysis of Quits, Dismissals, and Promotions at a Large Retail Firm

Using data from a large U.S. retail firm, we examine how racial matches between managers and their employees affect rates of employee quits, dismissals, and promotions. We exploit changes in management at hundreds of stores to estimate hazard models with store fixed effects that control for all unobserved differences across store locations. We find a general pattern of own-race bias in that employees usually have better outcomes when they are the same race as their manager. But we do find anomalies in this pattern, particularly when the manager-employee match violates traditional racial hierarchies (for example, nonwhites managing whites).
Reflections on tourism policies in Ghana

Abstract While the evolving nature of the tourism industry has tended to be a major focus of much recent debate, there is a growing body of literature reporting on policy implementation limitations hindering tourism’s role in environmental conservation and local development in Africa. This paper traces the historical evolution of tourism policies in Ghana, summarizes the dominant themes and appraises their effectiveness in promoting local development and environmental conservation. It concludes that while the tourism industry in Ghana operates within a policy framework, many questions remain about the extent of policy actualization, as less than 50% of the objectives of all tourism policies since the 1970s are implemented.
Synthesis and transfer of galactolipids in the chloroplast envelope membranes of Arabidopsis thaliana

Significance Establishment of the progenitor of chloroplasts by the host plant cell during endosymbiosis required the integration of two sets of biological membranes, the endoplasmic reticulum and the chloroplast envelopes, participating in the synthesis of galactolipid precursors for the photosynthetic membranes. Galactolipid synthesis is unequally distributed between the two envelope membranes, necessitating lipid transfer between the envelopes and toward the thylakoids. Here we show that the N-terminal sequence of digalactosyldiacylglycerol synthase 1 is essential for the integration of the chloroplast galactolipid synthesis machinery into the host cell. This N-terminal sequence was invented at the time the endosymbiotic organelle was established, providing a basic glycosyltransferase with a neofunction essential for lipid mobilization between organelles and endomembrane systems in plants. Galactolipids [monogalactosyldiacylglycerol (MGDG) and digalactosyldiacylglycerol (DGDG)] are the hallmark lipids of photosynthetic membranes. The galactolipid synthases MGD1 and DGD1 catalyze consecutive galactosyltransfer reactions but localize to the inner and outer chloroplast envelopes, respectively, necessitating intermembrane lipid transfer. Here we show that the N-terminal sequence of DGD1 (NDGD1) is required for galactolipid transfer between the envelopes. Different diglycosyllipid synthases (DGD1, DGD2, and Chloroflexus glucosyltransferase) were introduced into the dgd1-1 mutant of Arabidopsis in fusion with N-terminal extensions (NDGD1 and NDGD2) targeting to the outer envelope. Reconstruction of DGDG synthesis in the outer envelope membrane was observed only with diglycosyllipid synthase fusion proteins carrying NDGD1, indicating that NDGD1 enables galactolipid translocation between envelopes. NDGD1 binds to phosphatidic acid (PA) in membranes and mediates PA-dependent membrane fusion in vitro. These findings provide a mechanism for the sorting and selective channeling of lipid precursors between the galactolipid pools of the two envelope membranes.
Model Driven Context Aware Reactive Applications

Context aware reactive applications (CARA) are of interest because of the explosion of mobile, tablet and web-based platforms. The complexity and proliferation of implementation technologies makes it attractive to use model-driven techniques to develop CARA systems. This paper proposes a domain specific language for CARA applications consisting of stereotyped class models for the structure of the application and state machine models for the application behaviour. The models are given a semantics in terms of a transformation to a domain specific calculus called Widget. The languages are introduced using an example CARA application for mobile phones.
Irrelevance Rate Function : a complementary measure of Web search engine effectiveness

The paper suggests an Irrelevance Rate Function (IRF), as a complementary measure for Web information retrieval effectiveness based on the mathematical Reliability Theory. IRF may also be interpreted as a measure of change rate and tendency in Web search engines and the Web. Experiments are reported to establish the Irrelevance Rate Function for three Web search engines, namely, Alta Vista, Google, and Yahoo! Results are presented and discussed.
ZMIZ1 Preferably Enhances the Transcriptional Activity of Androgen Receptor with Short Polyglutamine Tract

The androgen receptor (AR) is a ligand-induced transcription factor and contains the polyglutamine (polyQ) tracts within its N-terminal transactivation domain. The length of polyQ tracts has been suggested to alter AR transcriptional activity in prostate cancer along with other endocrine and neurologic disorders. Here, we assessed the role of ZMIZ1, an AR co-activator, in regulating the activity of the AR with different lengths of polyQ tracts as ARQ9, ARQ24, and ARQ35 in prostate cancer cells. ZMIZ1, but not ZMIZ2 or ARA70, preferably augments ARQ9 induced androgen-dependent transcription on three different androgen-inducible promoter/reporter vectors. A strong protein-protein interaction between ZMIZ1 and ARQ9 proteins was shown by immunoprecipitation assays. In the presence of ZMIZ1, the N and C-terminal interaction of the ARQ9 was more pronounced than ARQ24 and ARQ35. Both Brg1 and BAF57, the components of SWI/SNF complexes, were shown to be involved in the enhancement of ZMIZ1 on AR activity. Using the chromatin immunoprecipitation assays (ChIP), we further demonstrated a strong recruitment of ZMIZ1 by ARQ9 on the promoter of the prostate specific antigen (PSA) gene. These results demonstrate a novel regulatory role of ZMIZ1 in modulating the polyQ tract length of AR in prostate cancer cells.
Key Principles of Open Motor-skill Training for Peak Performance

Motor-skill training is an imperative element contributing to overall sport performance. In order to help coaches, athletes and practitioners to capture the characteristics of motor skills, sport scientists have divided motor skills into different categories, such as open versus closed, serial or discrete, outcome- or process-oriented, and muscular- or cognitive-oriented motor skills. However, in the current sports arena, coaches, athletes and practitioners rarely know of the existence of motor-skill classifications and their implications for motor-skill training. Thus, the purpose of this article is threefold: (1) to introduce the characteristics of open motor skills, (2) to explain the key principles of open motor-skill training, and (3) to describe the general principles of motor-skill training approaches for helping athletes achieve optimal performance. Because many sport skills fall into the open motor-skill category, if coaches can have a thorough understanding of the nature and characteristics of open skills, they can capture the key principles of motor-skill training to maximize athletes' performance in competition.
Revenue Maximisation in Peer-to-Peer Networks

BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer (p2p) protocol for file-sharing. Its improvement over other file-sharing protocols is its tit-for-tat strategy to decide to whom a peer should upload. This means that an upload to a peer depends on the download from that peer. This paper investigates the BitTorrent upload algorithm and proposes a new algorithm which is based on a distributed optimisation problem where each peer maximises its own revenue. First simulation results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms the BitTorrent choking algorithm with respect to efficiency and fairness.
Key node selection for containing infectious disease spread using particle swarm optimization

In recent years, some emerging and reemerging infectious diseases have grown into global health threats due to high human mobility. It is important to have intervention plans for containing the spread of such infectious diseases. Among various intervention strategies, screening infected people is an efficient way for evaluating the infection scale and controlling the spread of infectious diseases. Considering the cost in manpower and limited screening machines available, we face to challenges for selecting the optimal nodes (sites) in order to obtain better screening and control effects. In this paper, particle swarm optimization technique is used to determine key nodes for controlling infectious disease spread, through evaluating the number of people captured at each key node. The research example is shown on evaluating the screening control over train stations in Singapore. The optimization algorithm and control concept can be easily extended to large-scale infectious disease control in other kinds of key nodes and in other geographical regions. The selection for optimal control set of the multi objective optimization problem is done using particle swarm optimization. Numerical simulation shows the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.
Flexible speech understanding based on combined key-phrase detection and verification

We propose a novel speech understanding strategy based on combined detection and verification of semantically tagged key-phrases in spontaneous spoken utterances. Key-phrases are defined in a top-down manner so as to constitute semantic slots. Their detection directly leads to robust understanding. A phrase network realizes both a wide coverage and a reasonable constraint for detection. A subword-based verifier is then incorporated to reduce false alarms in detection and attach confidence measures of the detected phrases. This set of phrase confidence measures, when incorporated in a spoken dialogue system, forms a basis for designing intelligent speech interfaces that accept only verified key-phrases and reprompt users to clarify unspecified or unrecognized portions. Several forms of confidence measures based on subword-level tests are investigated. The proposed approach was tested on field data collected from real-world trial applications. The combined detection and verification strategy drastically improves the accuracy in handling out-of-grammar utterances over the conventional decoding approaches while maintaining the performance for in-grammar utterances.
Data-centric storage in wireless sensor networks

Distributed Data-Centric Storage is considered to be a promising and efficient approach for data storage and search mechanism. Since External Storage (ES) and Local Storage (LS) mechanisms often lead to high energy consumption, latency and creation of hotspot, DCS becomes preferable alternative approach for large scale wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Since 2002, many potential research works are conducted in this field focusing DCS routing, multi-replication, similarity search, range queries, multi-attribute event, non-uniformity of sensor network etc. In this chapter a comprehensive state-ofthe-art study is provided in which the prime focus of WSN DCS mechanism, design guidelines that inspired these methods, drawbacks and shortcomings of the existing solutions are thoroughly exposed.
Lévy Flight Superdiffusion: an Introduction

After a short excursion from the discovery of Brownian motion to the Richardson "law of four thirds" in turbulent diffusion, the article introduces the Levy flight superdiffusion as a self-similar Levy process. The condition of self-similarity converts the infinitely divisible characteristic function of the Levy process into a stable characteristic function of the Levy motion. The Levy motion generalizes the Brownian motion on the base of the α-stable distributions theory and fractional order derivatives. Further development on this idea lies on the generalization of the Langevin equation with a non-Gaussian white noise source and the use of functional approach. This leads to the Kolmogorov's equation for arbitrary Markovian processes. As a particular case we obtain the fractional Fokker–Planck equation for Levy flights. Some results concerning stationary probability distributions of Levy motion in symmetric smooth monostable potentials, and a general expression to calculate the nonlinear relaxation time in barrier crossing problems are derived. Finally, we discuss the results on the same characteristics and barrier crossing problems with Levy flights, recently obtained by different approaches.
The Relationship between Instructor Servant Leadership Behaviors and Satisfaction with Instructors in an Online Setting.

Servant leadership has the potential to improve student satisfaction with online learning. However, the relationship between servant leadership and student satisfaction in an online environment had not yet been understood at the level of the individual instructor. The purpose of this quantitative, correlational study was to evaluate the relationship between online students’ perception of their instructor’s servant leadership style and the student’s satisfaction with the online instructor. We selected 155 online students at a major community college in the south-central United States to complete the Servant Leadership Questionnaire and the Student Evaluation of Teaching survey online. We examined the relationships between each of the five facets of perceived servant leadership style (altruistic calling, emotional healing, wisdom, persuasive mapping, and organizational stewardship) and student satisfaction. The results of the Spearman’s correlations showed a strong positive correlation between all servant leadership behaviors and student satisfaction, p < . 001. A multiple linear regression analysis showed that the combination of altruistic calling, persuasive mapping, and wisdom strongly predicted student satisfaction with the instructor, F(3, 151) = 83.8, p < . 001, R2= . 63. The results of this study have filled a gap in the literature on the relationship between online student satisfaction and individual servant leadership behaviors. We recommend future research to investigate servant leadership in relationship to online learning at 4-year public, for-profit, and private institutions.
Promoting children’s wellbeing in an educational context

The topicality and the context of this research are related to the phenomenon of wellbeing and factors influencing it, regarding early childhood and primary school. The aim is to study, analyse, and identify the key factors of promoting the wellbeing and healthy lifestyle of a child. Children’s wellbeing, therefore, and health and safety are more than just physical wellbeing; it should be seen holistically, as a whole welfare, and it depends not only on the environment where the child is raised, but also involves emotional support from all the people who are connected with this little human being. Thus, the first years for children at school and also for teachers (especially young teachers who have just begun their career) are a special time in their life because during this period the experience of what the child and the teacher is, and how strong and essential their connection will be, is formed. It is very important already at the early stage to understand that each child is different; they have different physical and emotional development, individual characteristics, as well as a different approach to understanding and learning things. Therefore, in the primary school it is important for the teachers to create a positive, highly social, interactive and creative environment so that the children can develop and learn more successfully. Wellbeing has a great importance in the school environment in order to create teachers’ and children’s satisfaction with life, positive relationships with others, as well as a positive and successful learning environment. The family, as well as the teachers who are involved in the development of the children’s lives, especially in the first grades at school, are one of the most essential factors that define the personal growth of the young children.
Genetic regulation of the intercellular adhesion locus in staphylococci

The formation of biofilms by Staphylococcus aureus and Staphylococcus epidermidis is an important aspect of many staphylococcal infections, most notably endocarditis, osteomyelitis and infections associated with indwelling medical devices. The major constituents of staphylococcal biofilms are polysaccharides, such as poly N-acetyl glucosamine (PIA/PNAG), cell surface and secreted bacterial proteins, and extracellular DNA. The exact composition of biofilms often varies considerably between different strains of staphylococci and between different sites of infection by the same strain. PIA/PNAG is synthesized by the products of four genes, icaADBC, that are encoded in a single operon. A fifth gene, icaR, is a negative regulator of icaADBC. Expression of icaADBC is tightly regulated, but can often be induced in vitro by growing staphylococci in the presence of high salt, high glucose, or ethanol. Regulation of icaADBC is complex and numerous regulatory factors have been implicated in control of icaADBC. Many of these are well known global transcriptional regulatory factors like SarA and sigmaB, whereas other regulators, such as IcaR, seem to affect expression of relatively few genes. Here, we will summarize how various regulatory factors affect the production of PIA/PNAG in staphylococci.
The Role of Affect in the Mere Exposure Effect: Evidence from Psychophysiological and Individual Differences Approaches

Affective models of the mere exposure effect propose that repeated exposure to a stimulus increases the positive affect or reduces the negative affect toward the stimulus, whereas recent cognitive models propose that affect is not involved in the mere exposure effect. To test these competing predictions, participants repeatedly viewed photographs of women’s faces and then viewed these women again (familiar) and novel women (unfamiliar) while facial muscle region activity and brain activity were recorded. Familiar stimuli were rated as more likable and they evoked more zygomatic (cheek) muscle region activity than unfamiliar stimuli. Interactions with individual differences occurred. Persons reporting less positive affect and persons reporting more negative affect at baseline evidenced more zygomatic activity to the familiar than to the unfamiliar. Persons with relatively less left frontal cortical activation at baseline evidenced a tendency toward a greater mere exposure effect. These results suggest that repeatedly exposing persons to nonreinforced stimuli increases their positive affective reactions to those stimuli.
Lights Out: An Interactive Tangible Game for Training of Post-Stroke Reaching

We present a work-in-progress design of an interactive game to support the training of upper limb reaching for elderly post-stroke survivors so as to improve their motivation and adherence toward rehabilitation exercises. Consisting of 64 tactile buttons and 64 Red, Green, Blue (RGB) Light-Emitting Diodes (LEDs) that are equally distributed across a (8 x 8) grid structure of translucent acrylic cubes, the gameplay guides players to perform directional reaching motions for therapeutic effect through the selective or randomized controlled lighting of cubes across the physical board. This is immediately followed by pressing each of them to turn them off. Varied LED colors provide additional playful or cognitive challenges, e.g. using each hand for a specific color. The user interface of the game prototype was tested by four elderly stroke survivors with initial feedback indicating that it may be sufficiently intuitive to create engaging rehabilitation experiences for this user base.
A 2.4-GHz CMOS RF front-end for wireless sensor network applications

A 2.4-GHz fully-differential RF front-end on 0.18-mum CMOS technology for wireless sensor network (WSN) applications consuming 4.8-mW from a 1.8-V supply is presented. The direct conversion RF-front end comprises of low-noise amplifier (LNA), I/Q direct-conversion mixers, quadrature LO generator and LO buffers. By employing conventional source degenerated LNA, passive mixer, to eliminate flicker noise, RC poly-phase filter for quadrature LO generation, and LO buffers employing current reuse technique, we achieve 23-dB conversion gain, 8.1-dB noise figure, -15-dBm IIP3 and better than 15-dB input return loss for the RF front-end
Discrete breathers in a realistic coarse-grained model of proteins

We report the results of molecular dynamics simulations of an off-lattice protein model featuring a physical force-field and amino-acid sequence. We show that localized modes of nonlinear origin, discrete breathers (DBs), emerge naturally as continuations of a subset of high-frequency normal modes residing at specific sites dictated by the native fold. DBs are time-periodic, space-localized vibrational modes that exist generically in nonlinear discrete systems and are known for their resilience and ability to concentrate energy for long times. In the case of the small β-barrel structure that we consider, DB-mediated localization occurs on the turns connecting the strands. At high energies, DBs stabilize the structure by concentrating energy on a few sites, while their collapse marks the onset of large-amplitude fluctuations of the protein. Furthermore, we show how breathers develop as energy-accumulating centres following perturbations even at distant locations, thus mediating efficient and irreversible energy transfers. Remarkably, due to the presence of angular potentials, the breather induces a local static distortion of the native fold. Altogether, the combination of these two nonlinear effects may provide a ready means for remotely controlling local conformational changes in proteins.