Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Three Galactic globular cluster candidates

Context. The census of Galactic globular clusters (GCs) is still incomplete, and about ten new objects are supposed to await discovery, hidden behind the crowded and reddened regions of the Galactic bulge and disk.Aims. We investigated the nature of three new GC candidates, discovered in the frames collected by the Vista Variables in the Via Lactea (VVV) near-infrared survey. They will be called VVV CL002, VVV CL003, and VVV CL004.Methods. We studied the results of point-spread-function near-infrared photometry from VVV data for the three objects and their surrounding fields, the proper motion information available in the literature and, when possible, we derived the cluster parameters by means of calibrated indices measured on the color–magnitude diagrams.Results. The evidence shows that VVV CL002 is a newly discovered, small, moderately metal-rich ( [Fe/H] ≈ − 0.4) Galactic GC. It is located at a Galactocentric distance of 0.7 ± 0.9 kpc, and it could be one of the nearest GC to the Galactic center. Its characteristics are more similar to those of low-mass, Palomar-like GCs than to more classical, old, and massive bulge GCs. VVV CL003 is the first star cluster discovered in the Galactic disk on the opposite side of the center with respect to the Sun, at a Galactocentric distance of ~5 kpc. Its high metallicity ( [Fe/H] ≈ − 0.1) and location point to an open cluster, but a GC cannot be excluded. VVV CL004, on the contrary, is most probably only a random clump of field stars, as indicated by both its low statistical significance and by the impossibility to distinguish its stars from the surrounding field population. Conclusions. We claim the detection of i) a new Galactic GC, deriving an estimate of its basic parameters; ii) a stellar aggregate, probably an open cluster, in the disk directly beyond the Galactic center; and iii) an overdensity of stars, most probably an asterism.
Management Accounting Determinants and Economic Consequences of Production Decisions: Field and Archival Evidence from the US Auto Industry

This study presents field evidence from a “Big Three” US automaker that an accounting system that fails to separately account for excess capacity, along with the use of short-term financial metrics for evaluating production managers encourages excess production. Field interviews further reveal that excess production is associated with greater customer incentives necessary to sell excess inventory. While excess production increases contribution in the short-term, we conjecture that it also leads to increases in discretionary costs in the medium-term (e.g., advertising) and harms brand image in the long-term. Using archival data from the auto industry, we empirically establish a positive link between excess capacity and excess production, suggesting that our field evidence holds more generally. We further find that excess production is positively associated with three tangible costs: rebate percent, advertising spend, and our proxy for inventory build-up. Finally, we show that rebate percent, rebate penetration, and inventory build-up are negatively associated with brand image as measured by the JD Power APEAL index. Our combined field and archival results show a complex interplay between production planning, performance measurement, and accounting practices within organizations, with implications for tangible costs and the intangible asset of brand image.
6DoF navigation in virtual worlds: comparison of joystick-based and head-controlled paradigms

6DoF navigation in a virtual world can usually be implemented by two types of navigation techniques: joystick-based input devices and steering metaphors based on movements of the user's body, e.g. head-controlled paradigms. These two different types of 6DoF navigation techniques provide users with the same level of control, but the latter introduces the user's physical movements in the navigation, which we believe will improve the navigation experience in immersive virtual environments. In this paper, we compare these two types of 6DoF navigation techniques in an immersive context, through an experiment using both objective and subjective measurements to assess user performance, the occurrence of cybersickness symptoms and the level of presence, when using either of these navigation paradigms.
Enzymatic Hydrolytic Resolution of Racemic Ibuprofen Ethyl Ester Using an Ionic Liquid as Cosolvent

The aim of this study was to develop an ionic liquid (IL) system for the enzymatic resolution of racemic ibuprofen ethyl ester to produce (S)-ibuprofen. Nineteen ILs were selected for use in buffer systems to investigate the effects of ILs as cosolvents for the production of (S)-ibuprofen using thermostable esterase (EST10) from Thermotoga maritima. Analysis of the catalytic efficiency and conformation of EST10 showed that [OmPy][BF4] was the best medium for the EST10-catalyzed production of (S)-ibuprofen. The maximum degree of conversion degree (47.4%), enantiomeric excess of (S)-ibuprofen (96.6%) and enantiomeric ratio of EST10 (177.0) were achieved with an EST10 concentration of 15 mg/mL, racemic ibuprofen ethyl ester concentration of 150 mM, at 75 °C , with a reaction time of 10 h. The reaction time needed to achieve the highest yield of (S)-ibuprofen was decreased from 24 h to 10 h. These results are relevant to the proposed application of ILs as solvents for the EST10-catalyzed production of (S)-ibuprofen.
Global Data Privacy Laws 2015: 109 Countries, with European Laws Now a Minority

By January 2015 the total number of countries with data privacy laws has increased by over 10% to 109, since the last assessment in mid-2013 listing 99 countries, available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2000034. This article updates the assessments given in the previous articles in the series of each aspect of the global expansion of data privacy laws, and international agreements. For the first time, a majority of fifty-six data privacy laws are outside Europe, over 51% of the total. Because there is little room for increase within Europe, the majority of the world’s data privacy laws will now continue to be from outside Europe, and increasingly so. During this eighteen month period, the fastest ‘growth area’ has been Africa.The previous article in this series predicted that countries with laws would become a majority in 2014. This has in fact occurred, as there are now 109 countries with laws, and 102 without such laws. The article argues that by the end of this decade the number of countries with data privacy laws, all of which have a strong ‘family resemblance’ will be between 66% and 80% of all independent jurisdictions globally. The number of countries with official Bills for new data privacy laws supports this.The article also assesses the main developments in international agreements concerning data privacy in the last eighteen months. This article accompanies 'Global Tables of Data Privacy Laws and Bills (4th Ed, January 2015)' (2015) 133 Privacy Laws & Business International Report, 18-28 and can be found at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2603502.The second part of this analysis of the Tables is in 'Global data privacy laws 2015: DPAs and their organisations' (2015) 134 Privacy Laws & Business International Report, 16-19.
Software Engineering for Security : Towards Architecting Secure Software

Since the advent of distributed systems, security of software systems has been an issue of immense concern. Traditionally, security is incorporated in a software system after all the functional requirements have been addressed. This paper argues for the need for security concerns to be an integral part of the entire software development life cycle. Different research areas that lie at the confluence of Software Engineering and Security are surveyed. Finally, the paper focuses on the use of Software Architecture to solve certain problems that are faced in the engineering of secure systems.
Chirp Z transform based spectrum sensing via energy detection

In this study, the performance analysis of Fast Fourier Transform and Chirp Z transform based OFDM systems for cognitive radio networks with energy detector model for the spectrum sensing method is realized. Here, energy detection model for noncooperative spectrum sensing is investigated. On the other hand, the analysis is implemented by segmented Chirp z transform. In this study Chirp z transform based spectrum sensing is proposed for the increase of dispersed spectrum utilization and in this context firstly used in literature. Also with the system model, using inverse fast Fourier transform in transmitter and Chirp z transform in receiver rather than fast Fourier transform, the computational complexity and the processing time are reduced, and performance increase is observed for high signal to noise ratio values.
New challenges in next-generation optical network planning

This work summarizes the main challenges that arise and need to be addressed in the core networks of the next generation, focusing on the excessive power-consumption, the heterogeneity of the traffic and the ever-growing need for transmission capacity. To achieve the “greening” of optical networks this paper proposes an energy-driven planning framework consisting of promising research efforts that aim to this target. In addition, we discuss the heterogeneous nature of the traffic that is rapidly transforming today's optical networks so as to accommodate mixed-line rates of 10 Gb/s, 40 Gb/s and 100 Gb/s. To this end the associated planning issues are visited. The unprecedented data traffic growth though, drives future optical networks even beyond 100 Gb/s. Optical Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (O-OFDM) is identified as a promising solution due to its intrinsic characteristics of spectrum efficiency and scalability, imposing though new networking constraints.
Intraguild predation in pioneer predator communities of alpine glacier forelands

Pioneer communities establishing themselves in the barren terrain in front of glacier forelands consist principally of predator species such as carabid beetles and lycosid spiders. The fact that so many different predators can co‐inhabit an area with no apparent primary production was initially explained by allochthonous material deposited in these forelands. However, whether these populations can be sustained on allochthonous material alone is questionable and recent studies point towards this assumption to be flawed. Intraguild predation (IGP) might play an important role in these pioneer predator assemblages, especially in the very early successional stages where other prey is scarce. Here, we investigated IGP between the main predator species and their consumption of Collembola, an important autochthonous alternative prey, within a glacier foreland in the Ötztal (Austrian Alps). Multiplex PCR and stable isotope analysis were used to characterize the trophic niches in an early and late pioneer stage over 2 years. Results showed that intraguild prey was consumed by all invertebrate predators, particularly the larger carabid species. Contrary to our initial hypothesis, the DNA detection frequency of IGP prey was not significantly higher in early than in late pioneer stage, which was corroborated by the stable isotope analysis. Collembola were the most frequently detected prey in all of the predators, and the overall prey DNA detection patterns were consistent between years. Our findings show that IGP appears as a constant in these pioneer predator communities and that it remains unaffected by successional changes.
Performance evaluation of ETX metric on OLSR in heterogeneous networks

In mobile ad hoc networks, each node behaves like a router and is responsible to deliver data and control traffic to the other nodes by using specific routing protocol. However, nodes in these networks can arbitrarily move with various speeds and possibly cause the frequent link breaks. Furthermore, they are wireless nodes and inherently have limited bandwidth compared to the wired networks which usually results in the network congestion. These situations lead to more number of packet drop and ineffectiveness in data delivery. Hence, the specific ad hoc routing protocols are required to improve the quality of data transmission by selecting the high throughput path for forwarding traffic. This routing process can be achieved by using one or more effective routing metrics. Expected Transmission Count (ETX) is one of these metrics introduced to improve throughput in ad hoc networks by incorporating the link loss ratio. This loss can be possibly caused by buffer overflow in network congestion situation, link break in highly dynamic topology or unidirectional link in heterogeneous networks. In this work, various simulation scenarios are constructed to study the effect of ETX metric in load- and speed-varying conditions in heterogeneous networks.
Vehicle classification based on magnetic sensor signal

We extend our work in vehicle classification proposed in [6] and [7]. Our system is based on a low complexity wireless sensor network. The system consists of a low power microprocessor together with AMR magnetic sensors and an RF transceiver. Two AMR magnetic sensors are employed to extracts dominant low-complexity features including vehicle count, speed, length, Hill-pattern peaks, and normalized energy. These features are studied in [6] and [7] and yield a promising result when vehicle classification is based on sizes (96%). However, when classification of similar sizes, e.g. cars, vans, pickup trucks are studied. The results are relatively lower at 77%. The contribution of this paper include (1) the implementation of feature extraction (count, speed, length) on sensor board and (2) the study for additional different low-complexity features such that better classification rate of small vehicles is obtained. These features include Hill-pattern peaks and magnetic signal differential energy normalized to the vehicle speed and length. This paper proposed vehicle classification tree based on above extraction features. Our work focuses on low computational feature extraction and classification processes suitable for implementing on micro-controller. The same data set employed in [7] is analyzed. The classification yields promising improved results over [6] and [7]. The classification rate yield 100 percent for motorcycle, 82.46 percent for car, 78.57 percent for van and 65.71 percent for pickup. The overall accuracy is 81.69 percent.
Loss of Gravitropism in Farnesene-Treated Arabidopsis Is Due to Microtubule Malformations Related to Hormonal and ROS Unbalance

Mode of action of farnesene, a volatile sesquiterpene commonly found in the essential oils of several plants, was deeply studied on the model species Arabidopsis thaliana. The effects of farnesene on the Arabidopsis root morphology were evaluated by different microscopic techniques. As well, microtubules immunolabeling, phytohormone measurements and ROS staining helped us to elucidate the single or multi-modes of action of this sesquiterpene on plant metabolism. Farnesene-treated roots showed a strong growth inhibition and marked modifications on morphology, important tissue alterations, cellular damages and anisotropic growth. Left-handed growth of farnesene-treated roots, reverted by taxol (a known microtubule stabilizer), was related to microtubule condensation and disorganization. As well, the inhibition of primary root growth, lateral root number, lateral root length, and both root hairs length and density could be explained by the strong increment in ethylene production and auxin content detected in farnesene-treated seedlings. Microtubule alteration and hormonal unbalance appear as important components in the mode of action of farnesene and confirm the strong phytotoxic potential of this sesquiterpene.
Modification of the Standing Long Jump Test Enhances Ability to Predict Anaerobic Performance

Almuzaini, KS and Flect, SJ. Modification of the standing long jump test enhances ability to predict anaerobic performance. J Strength Cond Res 22: 1265-1272, 2008-The purpose of this study was to investigate whether modifying the standing long jump test would enhance its ability to be a better predictor of anaerobic performance compared to other common anaerobic power tests. Three modified box long jump (MBLJ) tests were performed using 1, 2, or 3 boxes. Subjects consisted of 38 healthy males (age, 21.7 ± 1.7 years) who performed all the testing procedures. All 3 variations of the MBLJ test showed significant correlations (p < 0.05) with the vertical jump (VJ); standing long jump (SLJ); 50-, 100-, 200-, 400-m runs; long jump; triple jump; and shot put ability (r = 0.362-0.891). All 3 variations of the MBLJ test also showed significant correlations with isokinetic peak torque knee extension and flexion, Wingate mean power (W), and Wingate mean power per kilogram (W/kg) (r = 0.357-0.504). Generally, correlations of the 3 MBLJ tests were stronger than correlations between VJ and SLJ ability to the same measure of power. Generally, the 3-box MBLJ tests showed stronger correlations with measures of power than the 1- and 2-box MBLJ tests. Multiple linear regression models indicated that the 3-box MBLJ test is a major predictor of the track and field performances compared to the other tests of anaerobic power. Along with other independent variables, the 3-box MBLJ test explained 55%, 44%, 51%, 61%, 52%, and 72% of the variance of 50-, 100-, 200-, and 400-m runs; long jump; and triple jump performance, respectively. In conclusion, due to the significant correlations between the MBLJ tests, especially the 3-box version, and other measures of power, these tests are appropriate for testing lower body power.
Isotropic compliance in RRP planar manipulators

In the present paper, the isotropic compliance property is investigated, specifically focusing on RRP plane manipulators. The property is achieved by means of active stiffness regulation, considering three different control strategies, dependent on the joint exerting the control action. For each case, the analytical solutions and the corresponding workspace subsets are presented. To compare the three methods, the active and overall stiffness coefficients are evaluated in the postures defining the isotropic compliance subsets. The feasibility of the methods is also evaluated, considering the passive and active stiffness coefficients.
Speed-Dependent Modulation of the Locomotor Behavior in Adult Mice Reveals Attractor and Transitional Gaits

Locomotion results from an interplay between biomechanical constraints of the muscles attached to the skeleton and the neuronal circuits controlling and coordinating muscle activities. Quadrupeds exhibit a wide range of locomotor gaits. Given our advances in the genetic identification of spinal and supraspinal circuits important to locomotion in the mouse, it is now important to get a better understanding of the full repertoire of gaits in the freely walking mouse. To assess this range, young adult C57BL/6J mice were trained to walk and run on a treadmill at different locomotor speeds. Instead of using the classical paradigm defining gaits according to their footfall pattern, we combined the inter-limb coupling and the duty cycle of the stance phase, thus identifying several types of gaits: lateral walk, trot, out-of-phase walk, rotary gallop, transverse gallop, hop, half-bound, and full-bound. Out-of-phase walk, trot, and full-bound were robust and appeared to function as attractor gaits (i.e., a state to which the network flows and stabilizes) at low, intermediate, and high speeds respectively. In contrast, lateral walk, hop, transverse gallop, rotary gallop, and half-bound were more transient and therefore considered transitional gaits (i.e., a labile state of the network from which it flows to the attractor state). Surprisingly, lateral walk was less frequently observed. Using graph analysis, we demonstrated that transitions between gaits were predictable, not random. In summary, the wild-type mouse exhibits a wider repertoire of locomotor gaits than expected. Future locomotor studies should benefit from this paradigm in assessing transgenic mice or wild-type mice with neurotraumatic injury or neurodegenerative disease affecting gait.
A Catalog of New M33 Star Clusters Based on Hubble Space Telescope WFPC2 Images

We present the results of a survey for star clusters in M33 using HST WFPC2 archive images. We have found 104 star clusters, including 32 new ones, in the images of 24 fields that were not included in previous studies. Combining these with previous data in the literature, we increase the number of M33 star clusters found in the HST images to 242. We have derived BVI integrated photometry of these star clusters from the CCD images taken with the CFH12k mosaic camera at the CFHT. Integrated color-magnitude diagrams of the M33 star clusters are found to be similar in general to those of star clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud, except that M33 has a much lower fraction of blue star clusters. We find 29 red star clusters with 0.5 ≤ (B - V)0 ≤ 1.1 and 0.7 ≤ (V - I)0 ≤ 1.2, making them old globular cluster candidates. We divide the cluster sample into three groups according to their (B - V)0 color: blue star clusters with (B - V)0 ≤ 0.3, intermediate-color star clusters with 0.3 < (B - V)0 < 0.5, and red star clusters with (B - V)0 ≥ 0.5. Most of the new clusters in M33 are located along a sequence that is consistent with the theoretical evolutionary path for Z = 0.004, Y = 0.24 in the (B - V)0-(V - I)0 diagram, while a few of them are on the redder side in the (V - I)0 color. Relatively more red clusters are found in the outer region of M33 than blue and intermediate-color clusters, and many of the blue stars are located in H II regions. The luminosity function for the blue star clusters shows a peak at MV ≈ -7.3 mag, while that for the intermediate-color star clusters shows a peak at the fainter magnitude MV ≈ -6.3 mag. The luminosity function for the red star clusters also shows a peak at MV ≈ -6.8 mag, although the number of clusters is small.
Serial Liver Stiffness Measurements and Monitoring of Liver-Transplanted Patients in a Real-Life Clinical Practice

Background Liver transplanted patients need close surveillance for early signs of graft disease. Objectives Transient elastography can safely be repeated over time, offering serial liver stiffness measurement values. Serial stiffness measurements were compared to single baseline stiffness measurements in predicting the appearance of liver-related clinical events and guiding subsequent clinical decisions. Methods One hundred and sixty liver transplanted patients were observed for three years in our real-life practice. Results Liver stiffness measurements were stable in 75% of patients, decreased in 4% of patients, and increased in 21% of patients. The pattern of increased stiffness measurements was associated with both HCV-RNA positive status and the presence of an active biliary complication of liver transplantation and was more predictive of a clinically significant event resulting from any disease of the transplanted liver when compared to a stable pattern or to a single liver stiffness measurement. The procedures that were consequently performed were often diagnostic for unexpected situations, both in HCV-RNA positive and HCV-RNA negative patients. Conclusions The pattern of longitudinally increased liver stiffness measurements efficiently supported clinical decisions for individualized management strategies. Repeated transient elastography in real-life clinical practice appears to have a practical role in monitoring liver transplanted patients.