Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dynamical Decoupling of Nested Bars: Self-gravitating Gaseous Nuclear Bars

A substantial fraction of barred galaxies host additional nuclear bars that tumble with pattern speeds exceeding those of the large-scale (primary) stellar bars. We have investigated the mechanism of formation and dynamical decoupling in such nested bars that include gaseous (secondary) nuclear bars within the full-size galactic disks, hosting a double inner Lindblad resonance. Becoming increasingly massive and self-gravitating, the nuclear bars lose internal (circulation) angular momentum to the primary bars and increase their strength. Developing chaos within these bars triggers a rapid gas collapse—bar contraction. During this time period, the secondary bar pattern speed Ωs ~ a-1, where a stands for the bar size. As a result, Ωs increases dramatically until a new equilibrium is reached (if at all), while the gas specific angular momentum decreases—demonstrating the dynamical decoupling of nested bars. Viscosity, and therefore the gas presence, appears to be a necessary condition for the prograde decoupling of nested bars. This process maintains an inflow rate of ~1 M☉ yr-1 over ~108 yr across the central 200 pc and has important implications for fueling the nuclear starbursts and active galactic nuclei.
Preventing Phishing Attacks Using Trusted Computing Technology

Most secure web sites use the SSL/TLS protocol for server authentication. SSL/TLS supports mutual authentication, i.e. both server and client authentication. However, this optional feature of SSL/TLS is not used by most web sites because not every client has a certified public key. Instead user authentication is typically achieved by sending a password to the server after the establishment of an SSL-protected channel. Certain attacks rely on this fact, such as web spoofing and phishing attacks. In this paper the issue of online user authentication is discussed, and a method for online user authentication using trusted computing platforms is proposed. The proposed approach makes a class of phishing attacks ineffective; moreover, the proposed method can also be used to protect against other online attacks.
Combining Pel Decimation with Partial Distortion Elimination to increase SAD energy efficiency

The most energy-hungry step of Video Coding (VC) is the Block Matching Algorithm (BMA), even when a simple similarity metric such as the Sum of Absolute Differences (SAD) is employed. Moreover, with the increasing resolutions supported by state-of-the-art VC standards (H.264/AVC, HEVC and VP9), the SAD must be as energy-efficient as possible to increase the battery lifetime in portable mobile devices. Two well-known techniques to decrease the number of operations in SAD calculation are Pel Decimation and Partial Distortion Elimination (PDE). The energy savings provided by the former are dictated by the chosen decimation ratio and comes with a cost in coding efficiency. For the latter, energy savings have no cost in coding efficiency but are dictated by the video content and search parameters. In this work we present two configurable SAD4×4 architectures: one designed to dynamically operate using one among four Pel Decimation ratios (1:1, 4:3, 2:1 or 4:1) and the other one able to use PDE in addition to Pel Decimation. We simulated Pel Decimation and PDE behavior during motion estimation using 22 video samples from the Common Test Conditions (CTC) encoded using 4 different quantization parameters (QPs). Thus, this simulation was performed over 5.82×1012 PDE SADs. The Pel Decimation impacts are shown in terms of Bjøntegaard Delta (BD)-Rate, ranging from 3.16% (1:1 ratio) up to 21.94% (4:1). In addition, we found that by using PDE solely (i.e., without Pel Decimation) one can reduce from 10 to 6.38 (in average) the number of required cycles to calculate one SAD. To show the improvements in terms of energy, we synthesized both presented architectures using a 45nm standard cell library. Finally, the use of PDE can improve energy efficiency more than Pel Decimation alone, without coding efficiency degradation.
Political Economy of Rural Schools in the Heartland

The sense of serenity and beauty of a drive through the Heartland often hides the desperation that many communities are experiencing as they struggle to survive. Among the winter wheat fields of western Kansas and Nebraska spaced between the center-pivot irrigated fields of corn and alfalfa, towns and cities struggle to maintain their vitality and quality of life. These communities are slowly giving up the civic institutions that for so many generations provided a sense of worth and pride. Children are bused or drive up to an hour to get to schools and in some of the more remote areas, families take up apartments and second homes “in town” where “mom and the kids live” during the week so they can mitigate the daily commutes. New immigrants fill the void left by the out-migration of young adults and families. They assume jobs that either pay poorly or are considered difficult and monotonous. In many communities, in particular some of the most vibrant communities, English is no longer the dominant language. With over 60% of the school-age students living in homes where English is not the first language, towns in Kansas like Garden City, Dodge City, and Liberal are thriving with the growth in feedlots and meatpacking plants. The social and cultural fabric in many of these communities in the western half of the Heartland is rapidly changing.
snpGeneSets: An R Package for Genome-Wide Study Annotation

Genome-wide studies (GWS) of SNP associations and differential gene expressions have generated abundant results; next-generation sequencing technology has further boosted the number of variants and genes identified. Effective interpretation requires massive annotation and downstream analysis of these genome-wide results, a computationally challenging task. We developed the snpGeneSets package to simplify annotation and analysis of GWS results. Our package integrates local copies of knowledge bases for SNPs, genes, and gene sets, and implements wrapper functions in the R language to enable transparent access to low-level databases for efficient annotation of large genomic data. The package contains functions that execute three types of annotations: (1) genomic mapping annotation for SNPs and genes and functional annotation for gene sets; (2) bidirectional mapping between SNPs and genes, and genes and gene sets; and (3) calculation of gene effect measures from SNP associations and performance of gene set enrichment analyses to identify functional pathways. We applied snpGeneSets to type 2 diabetes (T2D) results from the NHGRI genome-wide association study (GWAS) catalog, a Finnish GWAS, and a genome-wide expression study (GWES). These studies demonstrate the usefulness of snpGeneSets for annotating and performing enrichment analysis of GWS results. The package is open-source, free, and can be downloaded at: https://www.umc. edu/biostats_software/.
System Modules Interaction Based Stress Testing Model

Stress testing plays a key role during the system testing phase, this paper provides a model based on the interaction between different modules in the system, which can help to analyze how the primary input of the stress testing influences each module in the system. This model can be helpful when designing test cases and analyzing the bottleneck of the whole system.
Effectiveness and fairness tradeoff for TCP using cross-layer design in UMTS system

In W-CDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access)/UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System), multiuser contention brought by packet scheduling in MAC-layer causes the issue that effectiveness requirements and fairness requirements for TCP in transport-layer are difficult to be guaranteed simultaneously. In order to solve this problem, we propose a novel scheme CL-AACS (active ACK control strategy with cross-layer information interaction) to improve TCP performance in UMTS that its basic idea is to embed CL-AACS module in base stations to control reverse ACK forwarding by the information communicated between MAC-layer and transport-layer in order that all users can have fair TCP throughput as well as the maximization of wireless link resources utilization. Simulation results show that the scheme CL-AACS makes effectiveness and fairness tradeoff for TCP over W-CDMA/UMTS effectively.
Monetary Policy, Nominal Interest Rates, and Long-Horizon Inflation Uncertainty

Empirical evidence presented in this paper shows that the predictability of inflation at long horizons varies considerably across countries. Both simple theory and empirical evidence suggest that the crucial factor is the extent to which systematic monetary policy succeeds in stabilising the incipient unit root in inflation. The mechanism by which it does this appears, however, to be complicated by strong empirical evidence that nominal interest rates have real effects, which implies that monetary policy need not be so vigorous in reaction to inflation. This helps explain why inflation rates in the US and (especially) Germany have been relatively predictable, despite monetary policy rules which appear to have been barely stabilising. The paper also presents tentative evidence that the power of nominal interest rate effects is inversely related to long-horizon inflation uncertainty, and hence ultimately uncertainty about monetary policy.
Returns to Public Debt: The US Federal Budget Deficit and the Cross Section of Equity Returns

This paper investigates the implications of changes in the US federal budget deficit for asset pricing. A portfolio-based risk factor related to changes in the budget deficit is formulated and its cross-sectional properties are analyzed. The average spread between equities exhibiting the highest negative cumulative impulse responses to shocks in the budget deficit and equities exhibiting the least sensitivity is found to be significantly negative. Traditional asset pricing cannot explain this pattern. The spread appears to be highly correlated with the business cycle and generates high payoffs when the economy is in a poor state.
Validated High-Performance Liquid Chromatographic Method for the Estimation of Rosuvastatin Calcium in Bulk and Pharmaceutical Formulations

A reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic method was developed and validated for the determination of rosuvastatin calcium in pharmaceutical dosage forms. The determination was performed on a Nucleodur column C8 (250 × 4.6 mm i.d., 5 μm particle size); the mobile phase consisted of a mixture of 0.1M formic acid and methanol (25:75, v/v), pumped at a flow rate 1.0 mL min-1. The photodiode array detector was operated at 280 nm. The retention times for rosuvastatin and fluvastatin, which was used as internal standard, were 3.98 and 7.78 min, respectively. Linearity range (r2 better than 0.999, n=6) was 3.0-1602.0 μg mL-1 with limit of detection value of 0.12 μg mL-1. The precision of the method was demonstrated using intra- and inter-day assay RSD% values which were less than 2.40%, while the recovery was 99.86-102.86%. The method was applied in the quality control of commercial tablets and content uniformity test and proved to be suitable for rapid and reliable quality control.
Particle filter — Scan matching SLAM recovery under kinematic model failures

Simultaneous localization and mapping comprises two highly correlated procedures, which renders it a greatly difficult problem. Its difficulty is further increased due to the high levels of uncertainty introduced by both the environment and the robot's sensors and actuators. In the current paper we present methods to recover from extreme situations where kinematic model failures are observed - robot slipping and movement obstruction - that result in erroneous localizations, leading to complete SLAM method failures.
Vibrotactile force feedback system for minimally invasive surgical procedures

Lack of adequate force feedback for the surgeon in minimally invasive surgery (MIS) can lead to unnecessary trauma to tissue and adverse events during surgery. The successful use of vibrotactile stimulation to augment overloaded or deficient sensory modes in the human operator in other application areas warrants an investigation into its application in MIS. A vibrotactile force feedback system was designed, and its ability to provide useful force information to subjects performing a simulated MIS task was evaluated. Results showed that the system responds as predicted against the bottom surface of the foot, and that subjects were able to perceive a linear increase in force as linear increase in vibration intensity. Furthermore, vibrotacile force information increased one's sensitivity to tissue contact (1.3 N maximum force -no vibration, 1.0 N maximum force-fine step vibration feedback; p<0.001) and improved one's ability to consistently and accurately differentiate tissue softness in a simulated MIS task. Vibrotactile force feedback in MIS appears to have benefits which can lead to a decrease in trauma to tissue and adverse events.
Role-Playing and Simulation Based Learning in Higher Education: Case Study in Model United Nations

It is currently estimated that more than 200,000 high school and university students participate in model United Nations each year. With over 400 annual conferences in thirty-five countries, this fifty-year-old tradition has redefined how students engage international relations in an academic setting (Educational Outreach 1). Active learning has been heralded for decades as a superior technique to teach various disciplines, including international relations. It allows students to experience deep learning and develop skills unattainable through conventional pedagogical methods. This paper explores the specific impact of a model United Nations simulation on the academic experience and student performance through a controlled and experiential testing in a collegiate classroom. I devised and coordinated a simulated Security Council meeting (which discussed Terrorism in Pakistan) and measured student performance before, during and after the simulation, and then compared it to a control group. Four assessment mechanisms were used: pre and post simulation evaluation of student position papers; achievement of Kolb’s Learning phases and other in-class observations; student reflections from a debriefing session; and pre and post simulation basic knowledge quizzes. The results conclude that role-playing and simulation based learning can have an incredibly strong impact on a student’s education. The skills learned in the simulation allowed students to outperform their peers and positioned them for more longterm academic growth. HYPOTHESIS Although standard lecture and other class projects have traditionally dominated the education system, I contend that simulation based learning allows for a more rigorous, engaging, fun and educational academic experience. This style of active learning is compatible for teaching across the assortment of perspectives intrinsic to international relations teaching and scholarship.
Neuroprotective Effect of TAT-14-3-3ε Fusion Protein against Cerebral Ischemia/Reperfusion Injury in Rats

Stroke is the major cause of death and disability worldwide, and the thrombolytic therapy currently available was unsatisfactory. 14-3-3ε is a well characterized member of 14-3-3 family, and has been reported to protect neurons against apoptosis in cerebral ischemia. However, it cannot transverse blood brain barrier (BBB) due to its large size. A protein transduction domain (PTD) of HIV TAT protein, is capable of delivering a large variety of proteins into the brain. In this study, we generated a fusion protein TAT-14-3-3ε, and evaluated its potential neuroprotective effect in rat focal ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) model. Western blot analysis validated the efficient transduction of TAT-14-3-3ε fusion protein into brain via a route of intravenous injection. TAT-14-3-3ε pre-treatment 2 h before ischemia significantly reduced cerebral infarction volume and improved neurologic score, while post-treatment 2 h after ischemia was less effective. Importantly, pre- or post-ischemic treatment with TAT-14-3-3ε significantly increased the number of surviving neurons as determined by Nissl staining, and attenuated I/R-induced neuronal apoptosis as showed by the decrease in apoptotic cell numbers and the inhibition of caspase-3 activity. Moreover, the introduction of 14-3-3ε into brain by TAT-mediated delivering reduced the formation of autophagosome, attenuated LC3B-II upregulation and reversed p62 downregulation induced by ischemic injury. Such inhibition of autophagy was reversed by treatment with an autophagy inducer rapamycin (RAP), which also attenuated the neuroprotective effect of TAT-14-3-3ε. Conversely, autophagy inhibitor 3-methyladenine (3-MA) inhibited I/R-induced the increase in autophagic activity, and attenuated I/R-induced brain infarct. These results suggest that TAT-14-3-3ε can be efficiently transduced into brain and exert significantly protective effect against brain ischemic injury through inhibiting neuronal apoptosis and autophagic activation.
Mozart ’ s Phantasie in C minor , K . 475 : The Pillars of Musical Structure and Emotional Response

Background in music theory and analysis. The energy potential of music unfolding in time is conditioned by its structural situation, conceived in the sense of the chief reagent of the realization of musical thinking and affective states. The special task of formal analysis is to discover the expressive musical feature (Kivy, 2002) which, in the given context, influences other features, i.e. to find out which musical feature assumes the role of the sign of recognition of the structure at the given moment (Popović, 1998), thus becoming the pillar of structural organization, its “point of gravity” (Lerdahl & Jackendoff, 1983) in the unfolding of musical events. Background in music psychology. Due to the structure of music unfolding in time, expressive communication of a specific musical piece causes differentiated affective responses. But the question is: where is the key point of the experienced musical expression? Is the emotional process unfolding in the course of listening a function of the pillars of musical structure, or is it dependent upon the specific personality characteristics and experience of the listener? Aims. We aim to clarify the segmentation and the structural points of gravity of Mozart’s Phantasie, the emotional and narrative response pattern in relation to the segments, and their relations with the emotional personality profile and age. Main contribution. The results indicate that, to a great extent, the participants’ reports are similar and founded on the structural points of gravity and segmentation. Their individual emotional expressions could be interpreted as strongly induced by the message that the musical piece in question brings. Conclusions. By way of conclusion, we could say that mental representation of music is a decisive factor of the emotional expression of a musical structure. The key point of musical expression is founded on the musical structure and the pillars of structural organization, and these are, in the first place, the determinants of musical experience, especially in the case of skilled listeners. A further point is that the musical expression of a piece is a matter of the listener’s individual perspective and specific emotional meaning that the music induces, as well as metacognitive elaboration, personal characteristics, (emotional) intelligence and life experiences.
Duality properties in von Neumann algebras of projective unitary representations

Let π be a projective representation of a countable discrete group G on a Hilbert space H. If the set Bπ of Bessel vectors for π is dense in H, then for any vector x ∈ H, the analysis operator θx makes sense as a densely defined operator from Bπ to l2(G)-space. If a projection e ∈ M is equivalent to a projection f1 ∈ M with f1 ≤ f ∈ M, then we write e - f. Let Px (resp. Py) be the orthogonal projection from l 2 (G) onto (θx(Bπ)) (resp. (θy(Bπ))). Han and Larson have proved the duality properties of projective unitary representations, i.e. Px ≤ Py is equivalent to Qx ≤ Qy. In this paper we prove that a similar result is true in the sense of von Neumann equivalence of projections, i.e. Px - Py in λ(G) ' is equivalent to Qx - Qy in π(G) '' .
Jezik matemati č nih izrazov nad č asovnimi vrstami z leksikalnim in sintakti č nim analizatorjem ter evaluatorjem

Jezik omogoča uporabo konstant, osnovnih matemati čnih operacij (seštevanje, odštevanje, množenje, deljenje), potenciranja, trigonometri čn h funkcij (sin, cos, tan), logaritmiranja in abso lutne vrednosti. Na voljo so tudi primerjalni operatorji (enako, razli čno, večje, manjše, ve čje ali enako, manjše ali enako). V vlogi spremenljivk se uporabljajo vrednosti časovnih vrst ob izbranih časih. Jezik omogo ča tudi uporabo osnovnih funkcij nad intervali časovnih vrst, kot so minimum, maksimum in povpre čna vrednost. Sintaksa izrazov je dolo čena z gramatiko tipa LALR(1) [1].
Biologically Inspired Methods for Model Matching and Object Recognition

I will present various systems for the recognition of human faces and technical objects. They consist of three steps: feature extraction, solving the correspondence problem, and the actual comparison with stored models. Feature extraction is based on detailed models of cells in the primary visual cortex. The matching will be done by methods based on the Dynamic Link Architecture, which is currently gaining much biological plausibility.
Formalization of a -calculus with Explicit Substitutions in Coq

We present a formalization of the *-calculuss9] in the Coq V5.8 systemm6]. The principal axiomatized result is the connuence of this calculus. Furthermore we propose a uniform encoding for many-sorted rst order term rewriting systems, on which we study the local connuence by critical pairs analysis.
Cultural sustainability – a framework for Aboriginal tourism in British Columbia

ABSTRACT This paper presents a framework to assess the cultural sustainability of Aboriginal tourism in British Columbia, which meets must take into account the protection of human rights, good self-governance, identity, control of land, the tourism product’s authenticity, and a market-ready tourism product. These criteria are specified by two indicators each. The cultural sustainability framework was generated by triangulating qualitative research methods like experts’ interviews, secondary research, and participant and non-participant observations. This paper is thus conceptual in nature and inductive in its approach. It partly leverages a collaborative approach, as it includes interviewees in an iterative research loop. Furthermore, the paper shows why cultural sustainability is a determinant of the success of Aboriginal tourism.
Evaluating the quantitative effects of workflow systems based on real cases

The effects of introducing a workflow system include improved work efficiency, reduced processing time (that is, turnaround time), standardized business processes, and paperless processing. However, no concrete methodology for quantitatively evaluating these effects has been established. By analyzing some examples of introducing workflow systems, we extracted the factors that influence the effects, and we used quantification theory type I to create a mathematical model for predicting the rate of reduction of processing time as an effect of introducing a workflow system. As a result, we concluded that: (1) the process improvement and (2) business process classification, before the introduction of the workflow system, are the factors that influence the effects. As a predictive model, multiple correlation coefficient R is 0.932, showing that the two factors have a considerable influence.