Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The extremely red L dwarf ULAS J222711 004547 - dominated by dust.

We report the discovery of a peculiar L dwarf from the United Kingdom Infrared Deep Sky Survey Large Area Survey, ULAS J222711−004547. The very red infrared photometry (MKO J − K = 2.79 ± 0.06, WISE W1−W2 = 0.65 ± 0.05) of ULAS J222711−004547 makes it one of the reddest brown dwarfs discovered so far. We obtained a moderate resolution spectrum of this target using the XSHOOTER spectrograph on the Very Large Telescope, and we classify it as L7pec, confirming its very red nature. Comparison to theoretical models suggests that the object could be a low-gravity L dwarf with a solar or higher than solar metallicity. Nonetheless, the match of such fits to the spectral energy distribution is rather poor, and this and other less red peculiar L dwarfs pose new challenges for the modelling of ultracool atmospheres, especially to the understanding of the effects of condensates and their sensitivity to gravity and metallicity. We determined the proper motion of ULAS J222711−004547 using the data available in the literature, and we find that its kinematics do not suggest membership of any of the known young associations. We show that applying a simple de-reddening curve to its spectrum allows it to resemble the spectra of the L7 spectroscopic standards without any spectral features that distinguish it as a low-metallicity or low-gravity dwarf. Given the negligible interstellar reddening of the field containing our target, we conclude that the reddening of the spectrum is mostly due to an excess of dust in the photosphere of the target. De-reddening the spectrum using extinction curves for different dust species gives surprisingly good results and suggests a characteristic grain size of ∼0.5 μm. We show that by increasing the optical depth, the same extinction curves allow the spectrum of ULAS J222711−004547 to resemble the spectra of unusually blue L dwarfs and even slightly metal-poor L dwarfs. Grains of similar size also yield very good fits when de-reddening other unusually red L dwarfs in the L5–L7.5 range. These results suggest that the diversity in near-infrared colours and spectra seen in late L dwarfs could be due to differences in the optical thickness of the dust cloud deck.
Energy Harvesting Noncoherent Cooperative Communications

This paper investigates simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) in energy harvesting (EH) relay systems. Unlike the existing SWIPT schemes requiring the instantaneous channel state information (CSI) for coherent information delivery, we propose a noncoherent SWIPT framework for decode-and-forward (DF) relay systems bypassing the need for the instantaneous CSI and consequently saving energy in the network. The proposed SWIPT framework embraces both the power-splitting noncoherent DF (PS-NcDF) and timeswitching noncoherent DF (TS-NcDF) in a unified form, and supports arbitrary M-ary noncoherent frequency-shift keying (FSK) and differential phase-shift keying (DPSK). The exact (noncoherent) maximum-likelihood detectors (MLDs) for PS-NcDF and TS-NcDF are derived in a unified form, which involves integral evaluations yet serves as the optimum performance benchmark for noncoherent SWIPT. To reduce the computational cost of the exact MLDs, we also propose closed-form approximate MLDs achieving near-optimum performance, thus serving as a practical solution for noncoherent SWIPT. Numerical results demonstrate a performance tradeoff between the first and second hops through the adjustment of time switching or power splitting parameters, whose optimal values minimizing the symbol-error rate (SER) are strictly between 0 and 1. We demonstrate that M-FSK results in a significant energy saving over M-DPSK for M ≥ 8; thus M-FSK may be more suitable for EH relay systems.
Superhydrophobic, Biomimetic Surfaces with High and Low Adhesion, Optical Transmittance, and Nanoscale Mechanical Wear Resistance

ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . v VITA . vi LIST OF TABLES . xii LIST OF FIGURES . xiv CHAPTER 1: Introduction . 1 1.1 Significance of the problem . 1 1.2 Overview of surface wettability and superhydrophobicity . 2 1.3 Biomimetics and extreme wettability found in nature . 14 1.4 Scope of the thesis . 19 CHAPTER 2: Lotus Effect Surfaces with Superhydrophobicity and Low Droplet Adhesion . 23 2.
Thrombin generation and rotational thromboelastometry in the healthy adult population

Summary Aim Published data on thrombin generation variables and their correlation with thrombo - elastometry in the healthy population are scarce. This study aimed at assessing thrombin generation in adults and its correlation to classical rotational thromboelastometry (ROTEM). Methods Thrombin generation was measured in platelet-poor plasma from healthy volunteers using the calibrated automated thrombogram (CAT) with 1 and 5 pmol/l tissue factor final concentration. Lag time, thrombin peak, time to thrombin peak and endogenous thrombin potential (ETP) were analyzed. ROTEM was performed without activator (NATEM) and data for clotting time, alpha angle, clot formation time and maximum clot firmness were correlated with those of thrombin generation. Results Altogether 132 persons (72 men, 60 women; median age: 48.0 years) were included. There was a positive non-linear correlation for age versus lag time (p < 0.001) and time to peak (p = 0.001), and almost linear correlation for age versus thrombin peak (p = 0.024) and ETP (p = 0.001), although with a moderate regression slope. Regarding ROTEM, there was a positive correlation between age and maximum clot firmness and alpha angle (p = 0.001), but a negative correlation between age and clotting time (p = 0.039). Comparing both assays, thrombin peak and ETP measured with a final tissue factor concentration of 5 pmol/l correlated significantly with alpha angle and maximum clot firmness. Conclusion The age-related changes in CAT and ROTEM variables among adults are not linear. There is a significant correlation, although with a moderate slope, between data from CAT measured with 5 pmol/l tissue factor and ROTEM.
Decomposing Matrices into Blocks

In this paper we investigate whether matrices arising from linear or integer programming problems can be decomposed into so-called bordered block diagonal form. More precisely, given some matrix A, we try to assign as many rows as possible to some number $\beta$ of blocks of size $\kappa$ such that no two rows assigned to different blocks intersect in a common column. Bordered block diagonal form is desirable because it can guide and speed up the solution process for linear and integer programming problems. We show that various matrices from the linear programming and mixed integer programming libraries Netlib and Miplib can indeed be decomposed into this form by computing optimal decompositions or decompositions with proven quality. These computations are done with a branch-and-cut algorithm based on polyhedral investigations of the matrix decomposition problem. In practice, however, one would use heuristics to find a good decomposition. We present several heuristic ideas and test their performance. Finally, we investigate the usefulness of optimal matrix decompositions into bordered block diagonal form for integer programming by using such decompositions to guide the branching process in a branch-and-cut code for general mixed integer programs.
Bayesian Variable Selection for Probit Mixed Models

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés. Bayesian variable selection for probit mixed models Meïli Baragatti
A novel selective-relaying protocol for cooperative IR-UWB communications with PPM

In this paper, we propose a novel cooperation strategy for Impulse-Radio Ultra-Wideband (IR-UWB) communication systems with binary Pulse Position Modulation (PPM). Unlike Decode-and-Forward (DF) strategies where a group of PPM symbols, or at least one PPM symbol, is decoded and forwarded to the receiver, the proposed scheme inspects the PPM slots in a sequential manner. In particular, only the UWB pulses that are received at the relay with a sufficient level of fidelity are retransmitted in subsequent PPM slots. This technique limits cooperation to only one symbol duration while avoiding any form of joint decoding at the relay and destination nodes. The proposed scheme corresponds to a selective-relaying protocol where the relay imposes a certain level of selectivity on the symbols to be retransmitted. The error performance of the proposed scheme is evaluated theoretically. Based on this performance analysis, we derived an optimal pulse selection strategy at the relay.
Management of patients with multidrug-resistant/extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis in Europe: a TBNET consensus statement

The emergence of multidrug-resistant (MDR) and extensively drug-resistant (XDR) tuberculosis (TB) substantially challenges TB control, especially in the European Region of the World Health Organization, where the highest prevalence of MDR/XDR cases is reported. The current management of patients with MDR/XDR-TB is extremely complex for medical, social and public health systems. The treatment with currently available anti-TB therapies to achieve relapse-free cure is long and undermined by a high frequency of adverse drug events, suboptimal treatment adherence, high costs and low treatment success rates. Availability of optimal management for patients with MDR/XDR-TB is limited even in the European Region. In the absence of a preventive vaccine, more effective diagnostic tools and novel therapeutic interventions the control of MDR/XDR-TB will be extremely difficult. Despite recent scientific advances in MDR/XDR-TB care, decisions for the management of patients with MDR/XDR-TB and their contacts often rely on expert opinions, rather than on clinical evidence. This document summarises the current knowledge on the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of adults and children with MDR/XDR-TB and their contacts, and provides expert consensus recommendations on questions where scientific evidence is still lacking. TBNET consensus statement on the management of patients with MDR/XDR-TB has been released in the Eur Respir J http://ow.ly/uizRD
Sparsity constrained sinogram inpainting for metal artifact reduction in x-ray computed tomography

In this paper, we proposed a new projection completion metal artifact reduction (MAR) algorithm in x-ray computed tomography (CT) using a sparsity based sinogram inpainting (interpolation) technique. We developed the MAR algorithm on a Bayesian framework in which a wavelet-based generalized Gaussian (ℓp) prior was applied and then the inpainting problem was formulated as a constrained optimization problem. For the optimization, we derived a projected gradient descent algorithm using a majorization-minimization technique. The gradient step was performed by a soft thresholding operator for an ℓ1 prior, and a hard thresholding with a decaying threshold for an ℓ0 prior. We utilized a tight frame of translation-invariant wavelets implemented by undecimated discrete wavelet transform. As in the clinical setting there is no ground truth CT image to objectively evaluate the performance of a proposed MAR algorithm, we also introduced a novel approach to simulate metal artifacts in a real CT dataset. The results showed that the proposed MAR algorithm using hard thresholding efficiently recovers and inpaints the sinogram projections corrupted by metallic implants.
Toward a High Performance Tile Divide and Conquer Algorithm for the Dense Symmetric Eigenvalue Problem

Classical solvers for the dense symmetric eigenvalue problem suffer from the first step, which involves a reduction to tridiagonal form that is dominated by the cost of accessing memory during the panel factorization. The solution is to reduce the matrix to a banded form, which then requires the eigenvalues of the banded matrix to be computed. The standard divide and conquer algorithm can be modified for this purpose. The paper combines this insight with tile algorithms that can be scheduled via a dynamic runtime system to multicore architectures. A detailed analysis of performance and accuracy is included. Performance improvements of 14-fold and 4-fold speedups are reported relative to LAPACK and Intel's Math Kernel Library.
Factors Affecting the Collagen Binding Capacity ofStaphylococcus aureus

ABSTRACT To determine whether the ability of Staphylococcus aureus to bind collagen involves an adhesin other than the collagen adhesin encoded by cna, we examined the collagen binding capacity (CBC) of 32 strains of S. aureus. With only two exceptions, a high CBC corresponded with the presence ofcna. Both exceptions involved cna-positive strains with a low CBC. The first was a single strain (ACH5) that encoded but did not express cna. The second were the mucoid strains Smith diffuse and M, both of which encoded and expressedcna but bound only minimal amounts of collagen. Analysis of capsule mutants suggests that the reduced CBC observed in the mucoid strains was due to masking of the collagen adhesin on the cell surface and that this masking effect is restricted to heavily encapsulated strains. Differences in the CBC of the remainingcna-positive strains were correlated to variations in the level of cna transcription and were independent of the number of B domain repeats in the cna gene. In allcna-positive strains other than ACH5, cnatranscription was temporally regulated, with cna mRNA levels being highest in cells taken from exponentially growing cultures and falling to almost undetectable levels as cultures entered the post-exponential growth phase. The CBC was also highest with cells taken from exponentially growing cultures. Mutation of agrresulted in a slight increase in cna transcription and a corresponding increase in CBC during the exponential growth phase but did not affect the temporal pattern of cna transcription. Mutation of sar resulted in a more dramatic increase in CBC and a delay in the post-exponential-phase repression of cnatranscription. Mutation of both sar and agr had an additive effect on both CBC and cna transcription. We conclude that (i) cna encodes the primary collagen-binding adhesin in S. aureus, (ii) sar is the primary regulatory element controlling expression of cna, and (iii) the regulatory effects of sar and agr oncna transcription are independent of the interaction between sar and agr.
Plugging Into Energy Market Diversity

In North America, electricity prices exhibit both temporal and geographic variation—the later exists due to regional demand differences, transmission inefficiencies and generation diversity. Using historical market data, we characterize the variation and argue that existing distributed systems should be able to exploit it for significant economic gains. We consider pricing in cloud computing systems, and also use simulation to estimate the advantage of dynamically shuffling computation between different
Conservative Fragments in Bacterial 16S rRNA Genes and Primer Design for 16S Ribosomal DNA Amplicons in Metagenomic Studies

Bacterial 16S ribosomal DNA (rDNA) amplicons have been widely used in the classification of uncultured bacteria inhabiting environmental niches. Primers targeting conservative regions of the rDNAs are used to generate amplicons of variant regions that are informative in taxonomic assignment. One problem is that the percentage coverage and application scope of the primers used in previous studies are largely unknown. In this study, conservative fragments of available rDNA sequences were first mined and then used to search for candidate primers within the fragments by measuring the coverage rate defined as the percentage of bacterial sequences containing the target. Thirty predicted primers with a high coverage rate (>90%) were identified, which were basically located in the same conservative regions as known primers in previous reports, whereas 30% of the known primers were associated with a coverage rate of <90%. The application scope of the primers was also examined by calculating the percentages of failed detections in bacterial phyla. Primers A519–539, E969–983, E1063–1081, U515 and E517, are highly recommended because of their high coverage in almost all phyla. As expected, the three predominant phyla, Firmicutes, Gemmatimonadetes and Proteobacteria, are best covered by the predicted primers. The primers recommended in this report shall facilitate a comprehensive and reliable survey of bacterial diversity in metagenomic studies.
Nonnutritive Sweeteners, Fructose, and Other Aspects of Diet

Two symposia at the American Diabetes Association (ADA) 70th Scientific Sessions, held on 25–29 June 2010, in Orlando, Florida, addressed aspects of the food industry's approach to satisfying the desire for sweets. One examined noncaloric/nonnutritive sweeteners and the other fructose, and a number of research presentations addressed other aspects of the relationship between diabetes and nutrition. Beth Hubrich (Atlanta, GA), executive director of the Calorie Control Council, “an international non-profit association representing the low-calorie food and beverage industry” (1), discussed new noncaloric/nonnutritive sweetener products available for consumers. The Calorie Control National Consumer Survey in 2007 showed that nearly 200 million individuals in the U.S., ∼85% of the population, use such sweeteners; of those who do not, 38% do not like the taste and only 8–11% do not use them because of health concerns. The products’ major uses are in soft drinks and sugar substitutes, and almost one-half of those using these products report daily use, increasing from 40% in 2000. Acceptable daily intakes of the currently available such sweeteners, acesulfame potassium, aspartame, neotame, saccharin, steviua, and sucralose, are 15, 50, 18, 12, and 5 mg/kg body wt/day, respectively. These are the maximal amounts considered safe for daily consumption over an individual's lifetime, based on animal toxicology testing, with a 100-fold safety factor (2,3). Such intake would require an average adult, using aspartame as an example, to consume twenty 12-oz diet soft drinks, or 97 packets of sweetener, daily. Actual consumption levels for the 50th, 90th, and 95th percentiles of aspartame are estimated as being at most 4.8, 10.4, and 13.3 mg/kg body wt/day (4). Similar estimates apply to the other available sweeteners, suggesting that even individuals using large amounts of these products do not consume levels exceeding safety margins. Further, individuals using nonnutritive sweeteners tend, Hubrich stated, to …
Generation of dilemma-based interactive narratives with a changeable story goal

This paper describes the Generator of Adaptive Dilemma-based Interactive Narratives (GADIN) system. This system automatically generates interactive narratives which are focused on dilemmas in order to create dramatic tension. The user interacts with the system by making decisions on relevant dilemmas and by freely choosing their own actions. In this paper we introduce the version of GADIN which is able to create a finite story. The narrative finishes - in a manner which is satisfying to the user - when a dynamically determined story goal is achieved. Satisfaction of this goal may involve the user acting in a way which changes the dispositions of other characters. If the user actions cause the goal to become impossible or unlikely then they cause the story goal to be re-selected, thus meaning that the user is able to fundamentally change the overall narrative while still experiencing a coherent narrative and clear ending. This method has been applied within the children's story domain of a dinosaur adventure but is applicable in any domain which makes use of clichéd storylines. The story designer is required only to provide genre-specific storyworld knowledge and dilemmas.
A biomimetic cownose ray robot fish with oscillating and chordwise twisting flexible pectoral fins

Purpose The paper aims to develop a cownose ray-inspired robotic fish which can be propelled by oscillating and chordwise twisting pectoral fins. Design/methodology/approach The bionic pectoral fin which can simultaneously realize the combination of oscillating motion and chordwise twisting motion is designed based on analyzing the movement of cownose ray’s pectoral fins. The structural design and control system construction of the robotic fish are presented. Finally, a series of swimming experiments are carried out to verify the effectiveness of the design for the bionic pectoral fin. Findings The experimental results show that the deformation of the bionic pectoral fin can be well close to that of the cownose ray’s. The bionic pectoral fin can produce effective angle of attack, and the thrust generated can propel robotic fish effectively. Furthermore, the tests of swimming performance in the water tank show that the robotic fish can achieve a maximum forward speed of 0.43 m/s (0.94 times of body length per second) and an excellent turning maneuverability with a small radius. Originality/value The oscillating and pitching motion can be obtained simultaneously by the active control of chordwise twisting motion of the bionic pectoral fin, which can better imitate the movement of cownose ray’s pectoral fin. The designed bionic pectoral fin can provide an experimental platform for further study of the effect of the spanwise and chordwise flexibility on propulsion performance.
Taxonomic revision of Aspergillus section Clavati based on molecular, morphological and physiological data

Aspergillus section Clavati has been revised using morphology, secondary metabolites, physiological characters and DNA sequences. Phylogenetic analysis of β-tubulin, ITS and calmodulin sequence data indicated that Aspergillus section Clavati includes 6 species, A. clavatus (synonyms: A. apicalis, A. pallidus), A. giganteus, A. rhizopodus, A. longivesica, Neocarpenteles acanthosporus and A. clavatonanicus. Neocarpenteles acanthosporus is the only known teleomorph of this section. The sister genera to Neocarpenteles are Neosartorya and Dichotomomyces based on sequence data. Species in Neosartorya and Neocarpenteles have anamorphs with green conidia and share the production of tryptoquivalins, while Dichotomomyces was found to be able to produce gliotoxin, which is also produced by some Neosartorya species, and tryptoquivalines and tryptoquivalones produced by members of both section Clavati and Fumigati. All species in section Clavati are alkalitolerant and acidotolerant and they all have clavate conidial heads. Many species are coprophilic and produce the effective antibiotic patulin. Members of section Clavati also produce antafumicin, tryptoquivalines, cytochalasins, sarcins, dehydrocarolic acid and kotanins (orlandin, desmethylkotanin and kotanin) in species specific combinations. Another species previously assigned to section Clavati, A. ingratus is considered a synonym of Hemicarpenteles paradoxus, which is phylogenetically very distantly related to Neocarpenteles and section Clavati.