Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fusion product of co-adjoint orbits

The result contained in this paper is an application of a fixed point formula associated with Hamiltonian loop group action. We obtain a G-space which is a geometric dual of the Verlinde's fusion product. Also we obtain a proof of Verlinde formula. The calculation of weights at the fixed point set is based on fundamental properties of root systems of affine Lie algebras. This paper was written in early 1997, the current version has a computer time-stamp 4/4/97.
The stabilizing virtues of fiscal vs. monetary policy on endogenous bubble fluctuations

We explore the existence of endogenous fluctuations with a rational bubble and the stabilizing role of fiscal and monetary policies. Consumers' credit constraints, the role of collateral and a portfolio choice are the key ingredients of our analysis. We consider an overlapping generations model where households realize a portfolio choice between three assets with different returns (capital, money and bonds). Expectation-driven fluctuations and the multiplicity of steady states occur under a positive bubble on bonds, gross substitutability and large input substitution because of credit market imperfections. Focusing on the stabilizing role of policies, we show that a progressive taxation on capital income may rule out expectation-driven fluctuations and the multiplicity of steady states. In contrast, a monetary policy under a Taylor rule has a mitigated stabilizing role, depending on the reactiveness of the policy rule and the concavity of the utility function. When the monetary authority decides instead to fix the nominal interest rate regardless the inflation, decreasing the level of the nominal interest rate can rule out expectation-driven fluctuations, restore the uniqueness of steady states, but can damage the welfare at the steady state.
Discounting Humanity: When Consumers are Price Conscious, Employees Appear Less Human

Consumers are frequently bombarded with a myriad of marketing tactics. One tactic regularly employed by thrift-oriented brands is to highlight low prices, discounts, and sales promotions. When consumers encounter these low-price signals, they may adopt a price conscious mentality, that is, a singular focus on getting the cheapest deal. A price conscious mentality is likely beneficial for consumers, as it helps them save money. However, it is also possible that it has negative implications, particularly for how consumers perceive and interact with other human beings in the marketplace, such as customer service employees. The current research addresses this issue by investigating how consumers’ price conscious mentality impacts their perceptions of employees’ humanity. Results from four studies demonstrate that a price conscious mentality can lead consumers away from fully recognizing the human qualities of employees. The findings also suggest that this subtle form of dehumanization can result in harsher treatment of employees when they provide less than satisfactory service.
Information from Pharmaceutical Companies and the Quality, Quantity, and Cost of Physicians' Prescribing: A Systematic Review

Geoff Spurling and colleagues report findings of a systematic review looking at the relationship between exposure to promotional material from pharmaceutical companies and the quality, quantity, and cost of prescribing. They fail to find evidence of improvements in prescribing after exposure, and find some evidence of an association with higher prescribing frequency, higher costs, or lower prescribing quality.
DESENT: decentralized and distributed semantic overlay generation in P2P networks

The current approach in web searching, i.e., using centralized search engines, rises issues that question their future applicability: 1) coverage and scalability, 2) freshness, and 3) information monopoly. Performing web search using a P2P architecture that consists of the actual web servers has the potential to tackle those issues. In order to achieve the desired performance and scalability, as well as enhancing search quality relative to centralized search engines, semantic overlay networks (SONS) connecting peers storing semantically related information can be employed. The lack of global content/topology knowledge in a P2P system is the key challenge in forming SONS, and this paper describes an unsupervised approach for decentralized and distributed generation of SONS (DESENT). Through simulations and analytical cost models we verify our claims regarding performance, scalability, and quality.
Implementing a small business information resource management course

This describes the implementation of an Information Resources Management course in a Small Business Management program at the School of Business and Economics, University of Maribor, Slovenia. The aim of the course is to provide students with knowledge and experience to deal with information technology in small business from a managerial perspective. The theoretical part of the course is conducted in a classroom and the practical part is experienced in mentor firms. Thus students have an opportunity to compare, combine and verify "theory" and "practice" instantly and develop capability to transfer the acquired knowledge and skills into practice.
A view-dependent level-of-detail model for rendering in three-dimensional GIS

In a three-dimensional GIS, data volume is a critical issue particularly when we have to render the large amount data for visualizing a city in real time. For efficient analyzing and visualizing these data in real time, this study intend to develop a solution for fast visualizing large dataset three dimension (3D) model by a proposed view-dependent level-of-detail (LoD) model. In this paper, we first propose a structure and corresponding algorithm to construct 3D data model of LoD for view-dependent rendering. Second, the algorithm is implemented within a prototype software Space/Info, which is developed by authors, and these are described in detail. Third, the performance and the newly proposed algorithm are tested via an experimental study in terms of roaming speed. Finally, the analysis and some conclusions are drawn.
THE RISKS AND COSTS OF MULTIPLE-GENERIC SUBSTITUTION OF TOPIRAMATE

Objective: To investigate clinical and economic consequences following generic substitution of one vs multiple generics of topiramate (Topamax; Ortho-McNeil Neurologics, Titusville, NJ). Methods: Medical and pharmacy claims data of Régie de l’Assurance-Maladie du Québec from January 2006 to October 2007 were used. Patients with epilepsy treated with topiramate were selected. An open-cohort design was used to classify the observation period into periods of brand, single-generic, and multiple-generic use. One-year generic-switch and switchback-tobrand rates were estimated using Kaplan-Meier methodology. Medical resource utilization and costs were compared among the three periods using multivariate regression analysis. Results: In total, 948 patients were observed during 1,105 person-years of brand use, 233 person-years of single-generic use, and 92 person-years of multiple-generic use. A total of 23% of generic users received at least two different generic versions. Compared to brand use, multiple-generic use was associated with higher utilization of other prescription drugs (incidence rate ratio [IRR] 1.27, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.24–1.31), higher hospitalization rates (0.48 vs 0.83 visit/person-year, IRR 1.65, 95% CI 1.28–2.13), and longer hospital stays (2.6 vs 3.9 days/person-year, IRR 1.43, 95% CI 1.27– 1.60), but the effect was less pronounced in single-generic use (hospitalization: IRR 1.08, 95% CI 0.88–1.34, length of stay: IRR 1.12, 95% CI 1.03–1.23). The risk of head injury or fracture was nearly three times higher (hazard ratio 2.84, 95% CI 1.24–6.48) following a generic-to-generic switch compared to brand use. The total annualized health care cost per patient was higher in the multiplegeneric than brand periods by C$1,716 (cost ratio 1.21, p 0.0420). Conclusion: Multiple-generic substitution of topiramate was significantly associated with negative outcomes, such as hospitalizations and injuries, and increased health care costs. Neurology 2009;72:2122–2129
AIP1 acts with cofilin to control actin dynamics during epithelial morphogenesis

During epithelial morphogenesis, cells not only maintain tight adhesion for epithelial integrity but also allow dynamic intercellular movement to take place within cell sheets. How these seemingly opposing processes are coordinated is not well understood. Here, we report that the actin disassembly factors AIP1 and cofilin are required for remodeling of adherens junctions (AJs) during ommatidial precluster formation in Drosophila eye epithelium, a highly stereotyped cell rearrangement process which we describe in detail in our live imaging study. AIP1 is enriched together with F-actin in the apical region of preclusters, whereas cofilin displays a diffuse and uniform localization pattern. Cofilin overexpression completely rescues AJ remodeling defects caused by AIP1 loss of function, and cofilin physically interacts with AIP1. Pharmacological reduction of actin turnover results in similar AJ remodeling defects and decreased turnover of E-cadherin, which also results from AIP1 deficiency, whereas an F-actin-destabilizing drug affects AJ maintenance and epithelial integrity. Together with other data on actin polymerization, our results suggest that AIP1 enhances cofilin-mediated actin disassembly in the apical region of precluster cells to promote remodeling of AJs and thus intercellular movement, but also that robust actin polymerization promotes AJ general adhesion and integrity during the remodeling process.
Data In, Fact Out: Automated Monitoring of Facts by FactWatcher

Towards computational journalism, we present FactWatcher, a system that helps journalists identify data-backed, attention-seizing facts which serve as leads to news stories. FactWatcher discovers three types of facts, including situational facts, one-of-the-few facts, and prominent streaks, through a unified suite of data model, algorithm framework, and fact ranking measure. Given an append-only database, upon the arrival of a new tuple, FactWatcher monitors if the tuple triggers any new facts. Its algorithms efficiently search for facts without exhaustively testing all possible ones. Furthermore, FactWatcher provides multiple features in striving for an end-to-end system, including fact ranking, fact-to-statement translation and keyword-based fact search.
AUTOMATIC INFORMATION PROCESSES IN DOCUMENT READING. A STUDY OF INFORMATION HANDLING IN TWO INTENSIVE CARE UNITS

A study was made of information handling in intensive care units in two hospitals. In one of· the units the information about the patients was read from paper documents whereas in the other unit the same kind of information was read from computer screens. In both units cooperative work was beeing done with documents or forms containing data regarding seriously ill patients. The results show that in the paperbased environment there is a reason to believe that a number of information activities can be automatized in human cognition sense. In the computerized environment however, these same activities seem· to require conscious attention thus leading to high attentional demand. Introduction Some models of human cognitive processing distinguishes between controlled processing and automatic processing. Controlled processing is conscious, serial, slow, laborious and of limited capacity. Automatic processing is close to sensomotoric level, parallel, does not need conscious attention and have seemingly unlimited capacity. A close cooperation between automatically controlled processes and consciously controlled processes seem to be at hand. (Shiffrin & Schneider 1977). Schneider & Schiffrin 1977, shows that under certain conditions visual search tasks can be trained to automaticity. In these experiments subjects were trained to automatic detection of alphanumeric characters called targets, which was presented together with other alphanumeric characters called distractors. The process of automatic detection of the targets was possible to be performed simultaneously with a second task without any need for more conscious capacity than if the second task was carried out by itself. Thus when a task has become automatic it is possible to add it without any additional need for conscious capacity. Other experiments has shown automatic detection when targets and distractors differs in features like colour (Schneider & Eberts 1980), size; category or spatial position (Schneider & Shiffrin 1977). Also search
Low dose radiation induced senescence of human mesenchymal stromal cells and impaired the autophagy process

Low doses of radiation may have profound effects on cellular function. Individuals may be exposed to low doses of radiation either intentionally for medical purposes or accidentally, such as those exposed to radiological terrorism or those who live near illegal radioactive waste dumpsites. We studied the effects of low dose radiation on human bone marrow mesenchymal stromal cells (MSC), which contain a subpopulation of stem cells able to differentiate in bone, cartilage, and fat; support hematopoiesis; and contribute to body's homeostasis. The main outcome of low radiation exposure, besides reduction of cell cycling, is the triggering of senescence, while the contribution to apoptosis is minimal. We also showed that low radiation affected the autophagic flux. We hypothesize that the autophagy prevented radiation deteriorative processes, and its decline contributed to senescence. An increase in ATM staining one and six hours post-irradiation and return to basal level at 48 hours, along with persistent gamma-H2AX staining, indicated that MSC properly activated the DNA repair signaling, though some damages remained unrepaired, mainly in non-cycling cells. This suggested that the impaired DNA repair capacity of irradiated MSC seemed mainly related to the reduced activity of a non-homologous end-joining (NHEJ) system rather than HR (homologous recombination).
Compensation of voltage sags and harmonics with phase-jumps through DVR with minimum VA rating using Particle Swarm Optimization

Dynamic Voltage Restorer (DVR) restores the distribution system load voltage to a nominal balanced sinusoidal voltage, when the source voltage has distortions, sag/swell and unbalances. DVR has to inject required amount of Volt-Amperes (VA) into the system in order to maintain a nominal balanced sinusoidal voltage at the load. A new control technique is applied to compensate the sag and harmonics with phase jumps in the source voltages. Keeping the cost effectiveness of DVR, it is desirable to have a minimum VA rating of the DVR, for a given system without compromising compensation capability. Hence, a methodology has been proposed in this work to minimize VA rating of DVR. The optimal angle at which DVR voltage has to be injected in series to the line impedance so as to have minimum VA rating of DVR as well as the removal of phase jumps in the three-phases is computed by Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) technique. The present method was able to compensate voltage harmonics and sags with phase jumps by keeping the DVR voltage and power ratings minimum, effectively. The proposed method has been validated through detailed simulation studies.
Support Vector Machine for Multiclass Handwritten Digits

In our research paper, we have implemented Multiclass Classification using Support Vector Machine (SVM). Pen Digit Recognition of Handwritten digit dataset is used for the purpose. One vs All approach has been applied using SVM to achieve multiclass classification. The same approach with different kernels has been analysed to select the right kernel. In this paper, we have found that selection of Kernel is very important in SVM classification process. The changes in kernel lead to variation in accuracy level from 11.2% to 97.68% which is quite significant. However, with the right selection of kernel the accuracy achieved with SVM classification is at highest level.
Capacity Utilization in Electricity Market Behavior: An Experimental Analysis

This paper describes a laboratory experiment of electricity markets to study the effect of variable capacity utilization over market dynamics. Previous experiments have left out a potential source of cyclical behavior by assuming full capacity utilization. We run 12 experimental markets of the power generation sector, involving two treatments: a first treatment with fixed (full) capacity utilization where subjects make investment decisions, and a second treatment where subjects make both investment and capacity utilization decisions. Visual inspections, basic statistics and simulation tests run with decision rules estimated from experimental data show that the markets run under full capacity utilization present a cyclical behavior in market development. Conversely, such tests show a noncyclical market development for the markets run under variable capacity utilization, suggesting that varying capacity utilization favors stability rather than a cyclical behavior.
Use of synchronized markers and watermarking techniques for Geometric manipulations of images

Watermarking plays very important role in the present image processing scenario. Watermarking algorithms that depend on the inherent geometry of the image for synchronization fail due to desynchronization through geometric manipulations. A class of algorithms tries to overcome this problem using feature-based synchronization markers. These are essentially composed of three building blocks: feature point extraction, elementary patch formation and registration to a standard geometry, and watermarking of elementary patches. Extracted feature points are bound to the image content, thus may be used as robust synchronization markers. This set of points is used to divide the image into elementary patches, which are warped into a standard geometry ensuring the exact synchronization during insertion and extraction. Once the synchronization is provided, any watermarking technique may reliably operate on elementary patches.
Cognitive and cardiac outcomes 5 years after off-pump vs on-pump coronary artery bypass graft surgery.

CONTEXT Conventional coronary artery bypass graft surgery with use of cardiopulmonary bypass (on-pump CABG) is associated with excellent long-term cardiac outcomes but also with a high incidence of cognitive decline. The effect of avoiding cardiopulmonary bypass (off-pump CABG) on long-term cognitive and cardiac outcomes is unknown. OBJECTIVE To compare the effect of off-pump CABG and on-pump CABG surgery on long-term cognitive and cardiac outcomes. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS The Octopus Study, a multicenter randomized controlled trial conducted in the Netherlands, which enrolled 281 low-risk CABG patients between 1998 and 2000. Five years after their surgery, surviving patients were invited for a follow-up assessment. INTERVENTION Patients were randomly assigned to receive either off-pump (n = 142) or on-pump (n = 139) CABG surgery. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE The primary measure was cognitive status 5 years after surgery, which was determined by a psychologist blinded to treatment allocation who administered 10 standardized validated neuropsychological tests. Secondary measures were occurrence of cardiovascular events (all-cause mortality, stroke, myocardial infarction, and coronary reintervention), anginal status, and quality of life. RESULTS After 5 years, 130 patients were alive in each group. Cognitive outcomes could be determined in 123 and 117 patients in the off-pump and on-pump groups, respectively. When using a standard definition of cognitive decline (20% decline in performance in 20% of the neuropsychological test variables), 62 (50.4%) of 123 in the off-pump group and 59 (50.4%) of 117 in the on-pump group had cognitive decline (absolute difference, 0%; 95% confidence interval [CI], -12.7% to 12.6%; P>.99). When a more conservative definition of cognitive decline was used, 41 (33.3%) in the off-pump group and 41 (35.0%) in the on-pump group had cognitive decline (absolute difference, -1.7%; 95% CI, -13.7% to 10.3%; P = .79). Thirty off-pump patients (21.1%) and 25 on-pump patients (18.0%) experienced a cardiovascular event (absolute difference, 3.1%; 95% CI, -6.1% to 12.4%; P = .55). No differences were observed in anginal status or quality of life. CONCLUSION In low-risk patients undergoing CABG surgery, avoiding the use of cardiopulmonary bypass had no effect on 5-year cognitive or cardiac outcomes. TRIAL REGISTRATION isrctn.org Identifier: ISRCTN69438133.
Collection 2013 Effects of Nutritional Stress on Aspects of Worker Performance in the Honey Bee ( Apis mellifera )

Juvenile malnourishment affects learning and task performance in many species, and is well documented in mammals, but poorly studied in invertebrates. We examined the effect of nutritional stress during larval development on the longevity and task performance of honey bee (Apis mellifera) adults. Nutritional stress occurs naturally in honey bee colonies when pollen, which provides honey bees with essential nutrients, is in short supply. Workers can compensate for food shortages by distributing nutrients among fewer larvae, cannibalizing brood, or ceasing brood rearing altogether. Despite measures to ensure larvae are adequately nourished, observations of undersized adults suggest that worker quality suffers during pollen shortages. It is not known how pollen deprivation during larval development affects the performance of honey bee workers as adults. We compared foraging behavior between cohorts of workers that were reared under conditions of either pollen deprivation or abundance. A natural spring pollen dearth was simulated by placing frames of honey comb with adult workers, young larvae, and very little stored pollen in a cool incubator (5 ̊C). After eclosion, cohorts of nutritionally stressed day-old adult workers were individually weighed, tagged, and introduced into an observation hive. Matching cohorts of day-old adult workers from the same colonies, but reared under free-flying conditions with access to pollen, were introduced into observation hives as controls. Nutritionally stressed workers were on average 33% lighter than control workers. Longevity, onset and duration of foraging, and waggle-dance activity of tagged workers were monitored to determine the effect of nutritional stress during larval development on the performance of workers as adults. Nutritional stress had a clear impact on worker weight and function, providing insight into the relationship between nutritional stress and performance in a model invertebrate and an economically important pollinator.
Secure Wireless Communication System for Smart Grid with Rechargeable Electric Vehicles

Current transportation systems are emitting a considerable amount of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere. The recent advances in the fuel cell battery is making the zero-carbon electric vehicle (EV) increasingly practical for the commercial market. However, mass use of EVs requires support from a powerful and robust power grid that can efficiently generate, aggregate, and distribute a large amount of energy in real time with low carbon emission. Such a system calls for the application of modern communication technologies that inherently suffer from various cyber attacks. Attacks against the communication system in smart grid can cause catastrophic damage to the highly interdependent smart grid users. In this article, we first propose a smart grid model for supporting mass EV use, then introduce some typical security issues in the communication system, especially for the wireless security in such a smart grid. We mainly introduce two types of security protocols: key agreement from wireless channel estimation and jamming-resilient communication.