Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Biological radiation dose from secondary particles in a Milky Way gamma-ray burst

Abstract Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are a class of highly energetic explosions emitting radiation in a very short timescale of a few seconds and with a very narrow opening angle. Although, all GRBs observed so far are extragalactic in origin, there is a high probability of a GRB of galactic origin beaming towards the Earth in the past ∼0.5 Gyr. We define the level of catastrophic damage to the biosphere as approximation 100 kJ m−2, based on Thomas et al. (2005a, b). Using results in Melott & Thomas (2011), we estimate the probability of the Earth receiving this fluence from a GRB of any type, as 87% during the last 500 Myr. Such an intense burst of gamma rays would ionize the atmosphere and deplete the ozone (O3) layer. With depleted O3, there will be an increased flux of Solar UVB on the Earth's surface with potentially harmful biological effects. In addition to the atmospheric damage, secondary particles produced by gamma ray-induced showers will reach the surface. Among all secondary particles, muons dominate the ground-level secondary particle flux (99% of the total number of particles) and are potentially of biological significance. Using the Monte Carlo simulation code CORSIKA, we modelled the air showers produced by gamma-ray primaries up to 100 GeV. We found that the number of muons produced by the electromagnetic component of hypothetical galactic GRBs significantly increases the total muon flux. However, since the muon production efficiency is extremely low for photon energies below 100 GeV, and because GRBs radiate strongly for only a very short time, we find that the biological radiation dose from secondary muons is negligible. The main mechanism of biological damage from GRBs is through Solar UVB irradiation from the loss of O3 in the upper atmosphere.
Enhancement of RF Tag Backscatter Efficiency With Low-Power Reflection Amplifiers

Increasing backscatter tag communication ranges is crucial for the development of low-power long-range wireless sensor networks. A major limitation for increasing the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for RF identification tags lies in the fact that tag antennas are terminated with passive loads for modulation, which yields reflection-coefficient values less than unity. Recent work in the field has exploited reflection amplifiers that achieve reflection-coefficient values larger than unity to increase the communication range. However, most of these systems rely on increasing the reflection coefficient at one modulation state only, which is suboptimal. In this paper, an analysis is given for the optimal way to utilize a reflection amplifier and how this compares to suboptimal practices. To demonstrate the concept, a tag is designed that achieves reflection-coefficient values higher than unity for both states in the 900-930-MHz band. The two values are antipodal, thus maximizing the tag SNR for a given amplifier. The system comprises of an ultra-low-power reflection amplifier with up to 10.2-dB gain and sub-milliwatt power consumption, and a phase-shift modulator that selectively alternates the phase of the backscatter signal between 0 ° and 180 °. The reflection amplifier-phase modulator system is experimentally characterized in terms of gain, power consumption, and backscatter efficiency.
Solving Undersampled Problem of LDA Using Gram-Schmidt Orthogonalization Procedure in Difference Space

In this paper, we propose an efficient and effective method to solve undersampled problem of linear discriminant analysis (LDA) by performing orthogonalization procedure only once in the difference space. Since in the proposed method, the optimal discriminant vectors are immediately obtained by performing orthogonalization procedure once on difference vectors, the efficiency is improved greatly compared with the existing methods. In terms of performance of classification, the proposed method is equivalent to existing LDA methods since these methods search optimal discriminative vectors of LDA in range space of total scatter matrix St and null space of within-class scatter matrix Sw. However, in terms of real-time performance, the proposed method is superior to the existing methods. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified in the experiments on three standard face databases.
Are tattoos associated with employment and wage discrimination? Analyzing the relationships between body art and labor market outcomes

Do job applicants and employees with tattoos suffer a penalty in the labor market because of their body art? Previous research has found that tattooed people are widely perceived by hiring managers to be less employable than people without tattoos. This is especially the case for those who have visible tattoos (particularly offensive ones) that are difficult to conceal. Given this backdrop, our research surprisingly found no empirical evidence of employment, wage or earnings discrimination against people with various types of tattoos. In our sample, and considering a variety of alternative estimation techniques, not only are the wages and annual earnings of tattooed employees in the United States statistically indistinguishable from the wages and annual earnings of employees without tattoos, but tattooed individuals are also just as likely, and in some instances even more likely, to gain employment. These results suggest that, contrary to popular opinion as well as research findings with hiring managers and customers, having a tattoo does not appear to be associated with disadvantage or discrimination in the labor market.
Reduction of Password Guessing Attacks using Click Point

The main aim of the work on the subject is to reduce password guessing attack in a computer security system by creating graphical passwords for which pixels are chosen from images. In a computer security system, human-computer interaction depends on proper authentication of the system. For the attackers, memorable passwords are easy to guess. Hence, researchers of modern days have opted for an alternative method wherein graphical pictures are used as passwords. Human brain recollects picture better than textual character. Hence, graphical passwords are created using images or representation of images.
Varactor-Tuned Dual-Mode Bandpass Filters

This paper presents a new type of varactor-tuned dual-mode bandpass filter. Since the two operating modes (i.e., the odd and even modes) in a dual-mode microstrip open-loop resonator do not couple to each other, the tuning of the passband frequency becomes simple with a single dc-bias circuit while keeping nearly constant absolute bandwidth. Design equations and procedures are derived, and two two-pole tunable bandpass filters of this type are demonstrated experimentally.
Are human endogenous retroviruses pathogenic? An approach to testing the hypothesis

A number of observations have led researchers to postulate that, despite being replication‐defective, human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs) may have retained the potential to cause or contribute to disease. However, mechanisms of HERV pathogenicity might differ substantially from those of modern infectious retroviruses or of the infectious precursors of HERVs. Therefore, novel pathways of HERV involvement in disease pathogenesis should be investigated. Recent technological advances in sequencing and bioinformatics are making this task increasingly feasible. The accumulating knowledge of HERV biology may also facilitate the definition and general acceptance of criteria that establish HERV pathogenicity. Here, we explore possible mechanisms whereby HERVs may cause disease and examine the evidence that either has been or should be obtained in order to decisively address the pathogenic potential of HERVs.
Multicore Transformation of Sequential Applications for Achieving High Performance

Multicore processor [1] architecture brings a new dimension to the computing arena. Though the proliferation of multicore processor into the commodity market has promising effect on addressing hardware scalability to address the heat and power consumption, high performance computations, but with all these benefits to its credit, there are challenges in adapting multicore technology. In multicore processor architecture, CPU speed has been
Influences of Environmental Factors on Leaf Morphology of Chinese Jujubes

Rainfall and temperature are the primary limiting factors for optimum quality and yield of cultivated jujube (Ziziphus jujuba Mill.). Adaptation to arid and cool environments has been and remains an important goal of many jujube improvement programs. This study summarized the survey results of 116 Chinese jujube varieties grown at 33 sites in China. The objective was to identify the environmental factors that influence leaf morphology, and the implications for breeding and introduction of new jujube varieties. Jujube leaf morphological traits were evaluated for their potential relationships with mean annual temperature (MAT) and mean annual precipitation (MAP). The results showed that many leaf morphological traits had a strong linear relationship with local precipitation and temperature. Longer veins per unit area (VLA) and reduced leaf area and leaf perimeter were typical of arid areas. VLA was inversely related to MAT and MAP at the centers of origin of jujube. There was a positive relationship between leaf shape (perimeter2/area) and both MAT and MAP. These results indicated that leaf vein traits of Chinese jujubes might have resulted from their adaptation to environmental factors in the course of long-term evolution. Principal component analysis allocated the 116 jujube varieties to three different groups, differentiated on the basis of morphological and physiological leaf characteristics. Jujube varieties from the Hebei, Shandong, Henan, southern Shanxi and central Shaanxi provinces were closely related, as were varieties from northwest Shanxi and northeast Shaanxi provinces, and varieties from the Gansu and Ningxia provinces. These close relationships were partially attributed to the frequent exchanges of varieties within each group. Leaf venation characteristics might be used as reference indices for jujube variety introduction between different locations.
Adapting Lexical Chaining to Summarize Conversational Dialogues

We present a system for summarizing transcripts of conversational dialogues based on lexical chaining. The experiments were carried out with twenty Switchboard dialogues (LDC, 1993). We designed and implemented four summarization methods employing lexical chains as their source representation. The summarization task is defined as extracting the most relevant utterances conveying the meaning of the dialogue. We evaluate the methods against lead and random baseline systems and show that lexical chaining outperforms them in terms of precision and recall.
La gratificación percibida de los estudiantes universitarios hacia los anuncios en las comunidades virtuales

This paper examines the perceived enjoyment of college students toward ads in online social networks. A questionnaire was administered to a sample of 147 students from a higher education institution in Puerto Rico. The research ex-amined the social influence variables and the advertising-related variables in online social networks. Findings indicate that perceived enjoyment of college students positively affects the group norms, group intention, perceived ad relevance and response to social networks ads. In this way, the ads can be directed to consumers according to their interests, values, and beliefs within the virtual community, thus maximizing the use of social networks as a digital marketing tool.
Successful Treatment with Clonazepam and Pramipexole of a Patient with Sleep-Related Eating Disorder Associated with Restless Legs Syndrome: A Case Report

Sleep-related eating disorder (SRED) is characterized by recurrent episodes of involuntary eating during sleep period and is often associated with restless legs syndrome (RLS). Although pharmacotherapy is recommended for SRED patients, no drug have shown promising effects so far. The patient, a 48-year-old Japanese housewife, first visited our clinic and complained about nighttime eating. She had a history of hypertension, diabetes mellitus, sleep apnea syndrome, and depression. Insomnia appeared 10 years before the first visit and she often received hypnosedatives; at the same time, she developed nocturnal eating episodes. She had amnesia for these episodes, and she felt urge to move her legs while sleeping. The patient was diagnosed with SRED and RLS. Reduction in the doses of triazolam decreased her nighttime eating frequency, and her complete amnesia changed to vague recall of eating during night. Clonazepam 1.0 mg at bedtime decreased nocturnal eating frequency from 1 to 2 times per month, though sleepwalking remained. Administration of pramipexole 0.125 mg relieved all symptoms including SRED, RLS, and sleepwalking. This is the first paper to report that the combination of clonazepam and pramipexole therapy-reduced SRED episodes and RLS symptoms.
Consistency of User Attribute in Federated Systems

In a federated system, it is not uncommon for a us er profile registered to a particular system to contain enough attributes to request serv ices from that system. Other attributes may be missing from that profile when services are request ed from another system. The problem is that currently, when a change in user attributes happens , it i very difficult for the federation to incorporate the changes in order to resolve the con fli t of attributes and maintain the consistency of attributes of users between different systems. C urrently ready-for-deploy systems such as Liberty Alliance, Microsoft Windows CardSpace (form erly InfoCard) and Shibboleth do not address this issue efficiently. In general, consist ency issues of user attributes in federated system via a 2-dimentional view: consistency between membe r systems ( horizontal consistency ) and consistency between federation and local system ( vertical consistency ). In this paper, we discuss the issue of horizontal consistency to achieve bett er in eroperability and fine-granularity for access control decisions in a federated system by analysin g the two approaches to achieve the consistency of user attributes: attribute synchroni sation and delegation.
What Do the Asserts in a Unit Test Tell Us about Code Quality? A Study on Open Source and Industrial Projects

Unit tests and production code are intrinsically connected. A class that is easy to test usually presents desirable characteristics, such as low coupling and high cohesion. Thus, finding hard-to-test classes may help developers identify problematic code. Many different test feedbacks that warn developers about problematic code were already catalogued. In this paper, we argue that analyzing assert instructions in unit tests also aid in identifying and reasoning about potentially problematic pieces of code. We report an analysis conducted with both open source and industry projects relating assert instructions in a unit test with quality measures of the code being tested. We observed that when a production method has a unit test that uses the "assert" instruction in more than one object instance, it often exhibits higher cyclomatic complexity, number of lines of code, or higher number of method invocations. It means that developers should monitor the number of asserts in a unit test as it may indicate problems in the production code.
MolSurfer: a macromolecular interface navigator

We describe the current status of the Java molecular graphics tool, MolSurfer. MolSurfer has been designed to assist the analysis of the structures and physico-chemical properties of macromolecular interfaces. MolSurfer provides a coupled display of two-dimensional (2D) maps of the interfaces generated with the ADS software and a three-dimensional (3D) view of the macromolecular structure in the Java PDB viewer, WebMol. The interfaces are analytically defined and properties such as electrostatic potential or hydrophobicity are projected on to them. MolSurfer has been applied previously to analyze a set of 39 protein-protein complexes, with structures available from the Protein Data Bank (PDB). A new application, described here, is the visualization of 75 interfaces in structures of protein-DNA and protein-RNA complexes. Another new feature is that the MolSurfer web server is now able to compute and map Poisson-Boltzmann electrostatic potentials of macromolecules onto interfaces. The MolSurfer web server is available at http://projects.villa-bosch.de/mcm/software/molsurfer.
Reducing ischaemic damage in rodent ovarian xenografts transplanted into granulation tissue.

BACKGROUND Anti-cancer therapies frequently lead to ovarian damage and impaired fertility. To preserve fertility, cryopreservation and subsequent transplantation of the ovaries have been suggested. One of the challenges in ovarian graft transplantation is overcoming the initial ischaemic damage that depletes a significant fraction of the oocyte pool. METHODS AND RESULTS Follicular survival in ovarian grafts was examined by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and fluorescence microscopy in a model system in which rat ovaries were transplanted into nude mice. Transplantation into angiogenic granulation tissue created during wound healing shortened the ischaemic period by 24 h and significantly increased the pool of healthy primordial follicles and the perfused area of the transplanted grafts. Functional blood vessels were detected within the grafts as early as 2 days after transplantation. Gain of function was demonstrated both by growth of the grafts and by the hormonal influence on the host uteri. CONCLUSION Implantation of ovarian grafts into an angiogenic granulation tissue improved graft vascularization and follicular survival. This procedure/treatment may be used for reducing the ischaemic damage in ovarian transplants, thus prolonging graft functionality and increasing the yield of oocytes that can be easily recovered for fertilization.
Some remarks on D-branes in AdS

We investigate the relation between the algebraic construction of boundary states in AdS3 and the target space analysis of D-branes and show the consistency of the two descriptions. We compute, in the semiclassical regime, the overlap of a localized closed string state with boundary states and identify the latter with D-branes wrapping conjugacy classes in AdS3. The string partition function on the disk is shown to reproduce the spacetime DBI action. Other consistency checks are performed. We also comment on the role of the spectral flow symmetry of the underlying SL(2,R)/U(1) coset model in constructing D-branes that correspond to degenerate representations of SL(2,R). andrei@theory.uchicago. edu sahakian@theory.uchicago. edu
Adaptive Compressed Sensing Radar Oriented Toward Cognitive Detection in Dynamic Sparse Target Scene

Recently, the idea of compressed sensing (CS) has been used in radar system, and the concept of compressed sensing radar (CSR) has been proposed in which the target scene can be sparsely represented in the range-Doppler plane. With sufficiently incoherent transmission waveform, the target scene can be reconstructed by the technique of CS. With the idea that the transmission waveform can adapt in response to the operational information in cognitive radar system, we propose the notion of adaptive compressed sensing radar (ACSR) whose transmission waveform and sensing matrix can be updated by the target scene information fed back by the recovery algorithm. The methods for optimizing the transmission waveform and sensing matrix separately and simultaneously are both presented to decrease the cross correlations between different target responses. The principle for an ACSR system to synthesize the transmission waveform and sensing matrix matched to the target scene is also investigated. This novel ACSR system offers more degrees of freedom than classical radar system and better recovery performance than the CSR system.
Designing a touch-screen sensecam browser to support an aging population

In this paper, we describe the HCI challenges associated with the novel domain of lifelogging for older users. The SenseCam is a passively capturing wearable camera, worn via a lanyard around the neck and used to create a personal lifelog or visual recording of the wearer's life, which generates information that may be very helpful as a human memory aid. Indeed, given that memory defects are more marked in the elderly, we believe that lifelogging browsing techniques which are considerate of the elderly are imperative. Thus, the challenge tackled in this work was to design and integrate the lifelogging activity supported by new technologies in such a way that can easily be learned and used by older people, enabling them to enhance and enrich their lives with the new technologies. This work provides design practitioners of future lifelogging interfaces early sight of the lessons we have learned in making lifelogging technologies accessible to elderly non-computing literate participants.
Interactive sound synthesis for large scale environments

We present an interactive approach for generating realistic physically-based sounds from rigid-body dynamic simulations. We use spring-mass systems to model each object's local deformation and vibration, which we demonstrate to be an adequate approximation for capturing physical effects such as magnitude of impact forces, location of impact, and rolling sounds. No assumption is made about the mesh connectivity or topology. Surface meshes used for rigid-body dynamic simulation are utilized for sound simulation without any modifications. We use results in auditory perception and a novel priority-based quality scaling scheme to enable the system to meet variable, stringent time constraints in a real-time application, while ensuring minimal reduction in the perceived sound quality. With this approach, we have observed up to an order of magnitude speed-up compared to an implementation without the acceleration. As a result, we are able to simulate moderately complex simulations with upto hundreds of sounding objects at over 100 frames per second (FPS), making this technique well suited for interactive applications like games and virtual environments. Furthermore, we utilize OpenAL and EAX#8482; on Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2#8482; cards for fast hardware-accelerated propagation modeling of the synthesized sound.
Real-time per-pixel viewpoint interpolation

Real-time rendering of complex scenes is a crucial problem in computer graphics. In this paper we present a simple and efficient real-time (high frame rate) rendering method in which the computational cost is almost independent of the scene geometric complexity. The main advantages of our method compared to other height field warping approaches such as relief texture mapping, is that the scene has no restriction concerning the nature of its geometry. This method can be considered as an hybrid geometry and image-based representation of the scene, viewed along a 3D camera path. The final image in an arbitrary viewpoint on this path is rendered using a very small number of images corresponding to the reference viewpoints. Real-time rendering is performed using the pixels shaders functionality of current graphics hardware