Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Buprenorphine: New Tricks With an Old Molecule for Pain Management

Sublingual buphrenorphine is a unique opioid medication based on its pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamic properties. It may be used “on label” as an alternative choice to methadone for the treatment of opioid addiction or “off-label” for the treatment of both acute and chronic pain. Because of high μ receptor affinity and resultant blockade, it has been suggested that this might interfere with the management of moderate to severe pain in patients on opioid agonist treatment. The following article will offer strategies and approaches to address some of these real and perceived challenges.
Taking Advantage of Semantics in Recommendation Systems

Recommendation systems leverage product and community information to target products to consumers. Researchers have developed collaborative recommendation systems, content-based recommendation systems and a few hybrid systems. We propose a semantic framework to overcome common limitations of current systems. We present a system whose representations of items and user-profiles are based on concept taxonomies in order to provide personalized recommendation and services. The recommender incorporates semantics to enhance (1) user modeling by applying a domain-based inference method, and (2) recommendation by applying a semantic-similarity method. We show that semantics can often be used to overcome information scarcity. Experiments on movie-data from Netflix show that systems incorporating semantics produce significantly better quality recommendations than content-based ones.
Constructing Families of Pairing-Friendly Elliptic Curves

We present a general method for constructing families of elliptic curves with prescribed embedding degree and prime order. We demonstrate this method by constructing curves of embedding degree k = 10, a value which has not previously appeared in the literature, and we show that our method applies to existing constructions for k = 3, 4, 6, and 12. We give evidence that our method is unlikely to produce infinite families of curves for embedding
Evaluation of power duty cycle and latency in a sensor mesh with random activity

Energy saving at the nodes of a wireless sensor network (WSN) is a primary goal as the lifetime of these autonomous sensors is highly dependent on the battery lifetime when they are battery operated. Direct solutions to spare battery use are both limiting the radio range, using a hop by hop data transmission mechanism, and turning off the radio following an activity pattern, as the radio greatly contributes to energy consumption. However, if the sensor radio is kept in this "inactive" state for a long period, latency of data propagation significantly increases. We have evaluated the ratio of latency versus energy consumption assuming a simple communication algorithm in which, in each period, each individual sensor selects a slot to listen (turns on its radio) in a random manner. If we assume that the battery lifetime is directly proportional to the duty cycle of activity, the lifetime of a WSN devoted to a task, such as surveillance, with low probability of event occurrence, is proportionally increased by the inverse of the duty cycle at the price of a greater latency. The evaluation has been done using both a simulation program and an experimental set-up with several CC2420DB from Chipcon acting as sensor nodes and the results are presented
Justifying violence: Communicative ethics and the use of force in Kosovo

Contents Preface Acknowledgements Abbreviations Introduction Part I 1 Locating Kosovo and legitimacy 2 Putting out the fire while the coals still burn: Kosovo prior to 1999 3 Communicative action in International Relations Part II 4 The Habermasian project: dialogue as normative grounds and object of critique 5 The communicative imperatives 6 Applying the communicative imperatives: debating Kosovo 7 Conclusion Bibliography
h-ph / 0 20 10 23 v 1 1 0 Ja n 20 02 Operator Representations on Quantum Spaces

We deal with quantum spaces of particular importance in physics, i.e., q-deformed Minkowski space and q-deformed Euclidean space in three and four dimensions. For all these cases representations of their covariant differential calculi have been worked out. The explicit formulae refer to left representations, as right representations can be easily deduced from left ones. We are going to show for all cases how this can be done. Additionally, the complete Hopf structures of all considered differential calculi are listed, from which the q-deformed versions of Leibniz rules can directly be obtained. † cbauer@ph.tum. de wachter@theorie.physik. uni-muenchen.de
PID CONTROLLERS AND THEIR TUNING FOR EGR AND VGT CONTROL IN DIESEL ENGINES

A PID structure is proposed and investigated for coordinated control of EGR-valve and VGT-position in heavy duty diesel engines. Control goals are to fulfill the legislated emission levels and safe operations of the engine and the turbocharger. These goals are achieved through regulation of the following performance variables: normalized air/fuel ratio lambda, intake manifold EGR-fraction as well as turbocharger speed. A systematic tuning strategy for the PID controllers is also developed and the tuning rules and their performance is successfully illustrated on a demanding part of the European Transient Cycle. Further, it is demonstrated that the VGT-position to turbocharger speed loop does benefit from a derivative part in order to predict high turbocharger speeds. This is due to the large time constant in the corresponding open-loop transfer function.
Regulation of the Escherichia coli cad operon: location of a site required for acid induction

The cad operon encodes lysine decarboxylase and a protein homologous to amino acid antiporters. These two genes are induced under conditions of low pH, anaerobiosis, and excess lysine. The upstream regulatory region of the cad operon has been cloned into lacZ expression vectors for analysis of the sequences involved in these responses. Deletion analysis of the upstream region and cloning of various fragments to make cadA::lacZ or cadB::lacZ protein fusions or operon fusions showed that cadA was translated more efficiently than cadB and localized the pH-responsive site to a region near an upstream EcoRV site. Construction of defined end points by polymerase chain reaction further localized the left end of the regulatory site. The presence of short fragments bearing the regulatory region on high-copy-number plasmids greatly reduced expression from the chromosomal cad operon, suggesting that titration of an essential activator protein was occurring. With nonoptimal polymerase chain reaction conditions, a set of single point mutants were made in the upstream regulatory region. Certain of these altered regulatory regions were unable to compete for the regulatory factor in vivo. The locations of these essential bases indicate that a sequence near the EcoRV site is very important for the activator-DNA interaction. In vivo methylation experiments were conducted with cells grown at pH 5.5 or at pH 8, and a difference in protection was observed at specific G residues in and around the region defined as important in pH regulation by the mutation studies. This work defines essential sequences for acid induction of this system involved in neutralization of extracellular acid.
Urban Traffic Control system using self-organization

This paper presents a Urban Traffic Control (UTC) system, inspired to techniques exploited by social insects to coordinate themselves and specialize their behaviour, without any centralized coordination or explicit communication. Local traffic is handled at an intersection by a controller, executing simple local reactive rule-based policies. Every intersection controller chooses on its own which policy to use, according to stimuli perceived from the environment through sensors, thus being influenced by other controllers indirectly. The execution of simple reactive local policies lets an overall traffic control to emerge, with complex behaviours not defined a priori and unaware to the single controller. Simulations demonstrate that the exploiting of emergent behaviours is desirable, as the system outperforms traditional traffic control methods. Dynamic specialization makes the system able to cope with traffic variation and to perform traffic shaping in a positive way.
Workflow Modeling and Performance Evaluation with Colored Stochastic Petri Nets

There is a need for modeling and performance evaluation techniques and tools for a fast and reliable design of workflow systems. The paper introduces a modeling methodology based on colored stochastic Petri nets. For describing a business process it is necessary to consider different aspects. Essential are functional (In what order? ), organizational (By whom? ) and information related aspects (Which items/documents are processed? ). Aspects related to time gain more importance additionally. Business (re)engineering projects typically try to reduce turnaround times and improve execution durations in order to improve competitiveness and customer contentedness. These questions can be answered by an evaluation of the business process performance, necessitating the exact description of all timing aspects of the process. There are only few approaches (e.g. (Erwin 1998; Ellis, Keddara, & Wainer 1998; Ferscha 1994)) considering time, which offer analysis or simulation as a means to evaluate the behavior of the workflow model. Often the notion of time is limited to the functional view. Therefore these evaluation methods can only compute performance measures assuming independence of the workftow from the environment and other concurrent processes. Moreover it is limited to deterministic delays and time constraints. Stochastically distributed durations are often neglected. In the field of worldtow performance modeling, a mixture of both stochastic and fixed (deterministic) durations are necessary. Fixed times are needed to model durations of automated processes, deadlines, and routine activities with previously known delay. Stochastic durations are necessary to model human activities, stochastic events like employee absence due to sickness or holidays, and other events with unknown duration. Consequently, deterministic and stochastic durations should be integrated into the model.
Hypothalamic–Pituitary–Gonadal Axis Involvement in Learning and Memory and Alzheimer’s Disease: More than “Just” Estrogen

Accumulating studies affirm the effects of age-related endocrine dysfunction on cognitive decline and increasing risk of neurodegenerative diseases. It is well known that estrogens can be protective for cognitive function, and more recently androgens and luteinizing hormone have also been shown to modulate learning and memory. Understanding the mechanisms underlying hypothalamic–pituitary–gonadal axis-associated cognitive dysfunction is crucial for therapeutic advancement. Here, we emphasize that reproductive hormones are influential in maintaining neuronal health and enhancing signaling cascades that lead to cognitive impairment. We summarize and critically evaluate age-related changes in the endocrine system, their implications in the development of Alzheimer’s disease, and the therapeutic potential of endocrine modulation in the prevention of age-related cognitive decline.
A novel low power 8T-cell sub-threshold SRAM with improved read-SNM

The fast growth of battery-operated portable applications has compelled the static random access memory (SRAM) designers to consider sub-threshold operation as a viable choice to reduce the power consumption. To increase the hold, read and write static noise margin (SNM) in the sub-threshold regime many structures has been proposed adding extra transistors to the conventional 6T-cell. In this paper we propose a new 8T-cell SRAM that shows 90% improvement in read SNM while write and hold SNM reduction can be ignored (this negligible reduction is due to the two stack transistors in the proposed 8T-cell). Benefiting differential output voltage in the read operation, sense amplifier design is simple. The new structure uses fewer controlling signal in comparison to the conventional 8T-cell SRAM. Thus, the proposed 32k SRAM consumes 25% lower power consumption in the read operation for 0.3V sub-threshold SRAM in 90nm TSMC CMOS model.
Scheduling for Scalable Energy-Efficient Localization in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Existing localization schemes in wireless ad hoc networks rely on redundant measurements from multiple devices with known positions in order to reduce error. However, when node density is high this can result in excessive localization messages with minimal improvement on position accuracy. In this work we present a scheduling algorithm to select a subset of active reference nodes to be used in localization, which has the effect of reducing message overhead, increasing network lifetime, and improving localization accuracy in dense mobile networks. We investigate the Cramer-Rao Lower Bound (CRLB) and existing single-hop localization techniques to determine the optimal average node density to ensure sufficient estimation accuracy. The correctness and effectiveness of the proposed scheme is evaluated through extensive simulation results, which show that in dense networks localization messages are greatly reduced and network lifetimes are more than doubled, while maintaining high estimation accuracy. Furthermore, computational time of localization algorithms is reduced, which effectively decreases accumulated error due to computation latency when locating a mobile device.
Statistical Inference Based on Pooled Data: A Moment-Based Estimating Equation Approach

Abstract We consider statistical inference on parameters of a distribution when only pooled data are observed. A moment-based estimating equation approach is proposed to deal with situations where likelihood functions based on pooled data are difficult to work with. We outline the method to obtain estimates and test statistics of the parameters of interest in the general setting. We demonstrate the approach on the family of distributions generated by the Box–Cox transformation model, and, in the process, construct tests for goodness of fit based on the pooled data.
Multi-agent mirror descent for decentralized stochastic optimization

We develop a decentralized algorithm for stochastic composite optimization problems, combining ideas from consensus-based multi-agent optimization and the celebrated mirror descent algorithm. When the composite regularization term is strongly convex, the proposed method is shown to converge at a rate of O(1/k) where k is the number of iterations executed. This is known to be the best possible rate of convergence for the class of problems considered. Moreover, theory and experiments show that the speedup of the proposed methods-the number of iterations required to reach a desired level of accuracy-scales linearly with the number of nodes in the network.
Negative modes of Schwarzschild black holes in Einstein–Gauss–Bonnet theory

We study non-conformal negative modes of black holes in the five-dimensional Einstein–Gauss–Bonnet gravity theory with a zero or negative cosmological constant (which become Schwarzschild black holes in the Einstein limit), in the context of the semiclassical quantum gravity formulated by the path integral. We find a unique negative mode when the black hole has a negative heat capacity which is the same in Einstein theory. On the other hand, we still find negative modes inside a parameter region where a small black hole has a positive heat capacity. The number is one/two for the case of zero/negative cosmological constant, respectively. In the rest of the parameter region where the heat capacity is positive, we find no negative modes. We discuss the possible physical understanding of having one or two negative modes.
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in Geomatics

Geomatics as a geospatial science, including technologies and processes, has experienced a boost in recent years with the development of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) equipped with sensing instruments [1]. In this regard, specific geographical information can be achieved with sufficient accuracy because of the autonomy and abilities of UAVs, including the advantage of providing access to hidden areas that are difficult otherwise to observe. This Special Issue addresses the use of UAVs in geomatics where four important applications in different fields have been proposed with successful results. Bulanon et al. [2] proposed a method for monitoring and assessment of crops by using a multispectral camera (near-infrared, green, blue) onboard an eight-rotor UAV in an experimental apple orchard. Vegetation indices based on near-infrared (NIR), green (G), and blue (B) spectral channels were used for image segmentation, where canopy identification was the main goal. Coastal morphology was the approach addressed by Papakonstantinou et al. [3], for the classification of the coastline and coastal zones; Digital Surface Models (DSMs) and orthophotos were generated for this purpose. A commercial high resolution camera was installed onboard a quad-rotor as the imaging sensor. The images were processed by applying Structure from Motion (SfM) methods. Orthophotos and Digital Elevation Models (DSMs), also based on SfM with SIFT (Scale-Invariant Feature Transform) as features for image-to-image registration, were the photogrammetric products used in Jaud et al.’s research [4] to monitor sedimentary hydrodynamics at different erg scales, in a silty estuary with intertidal mudflats connecting marine and continental supplies of nutrients and sediments. They used a hexacopter UAV equipped with a high resolution digital camera with fixed focal length of 35 mm. Capolupo et al. [5] compared two regression methods based on vegetation indices for predicting bio-physical and bio-chemical plant traits of grasslands assessing different fertilizer levels. They used an octocopter UAV equipped with a photogrammetric camera, a global position system and a hyperspectral camera, with a wavelength operation range of 400–950 nm. Based on this information, ortho-mosaic, DSMs and hyperspectral data sets were obtained for analysis. In short, UAVs and sensory technologies onboard such platforms facilitate usage in different applications for efficient Earth observation. This Special Issue covers four areas where observations were carried out for very different purposes, e.g., for agriculture and farming or ecosystem dynamics in intercostal areas. These are clear examples of geomatics applications using UAVs conveniently equipped with appropriate sensory technologies. This only covers some of the many possibilities of using UAVs in geomatics as expressed in [1], as their evolution continues. Geomatics will undoubtedly benefit from the use of UAVs.
Human Milk Cells and Lipids Conserve Numerous Known and Novel miRNAs, Some of Which Are Differentially Expressed during Lactation

Human milk (HM) is rich in miRNAs, which are thought to contribute to infant protection and development. We used deep sequencing to profile miRNAs in the cell and lipid fractions of HM obtained post-feeding from 10 lactating women in months 2, 4, and 6 postpartum. In both HM fractions, 1,195 mature known miRNAs were identified, which were positively associated with the cell (p = 0.048) and lipid (p = 0.010) content of HM. An additional 5,167 novel miRNA species were predicted, of which 235 were high-confidence miRNAs. HM cells contained more known miRNAs than HM lipids (1,136 and 835 respectively, p<0.001). Although the profile of the novel miRNAs was very different between cells and lipids, with the majority conserved in the cell fraction and being mother-specific, 2/3 of the known miRNAs common between cells and lipids were similarly expressed (p>0.05). Great similarities between the two HM fractions were also found in the profile of the top 20 known miRNAs. These were largely similar also between the three lactation stages examined, as were the total miRNA concentration, and the number and expression of the known miRNAs common between cells and lipids (p>0.05). Yet, approximately a third of all known miRNAs were differentially expressed during the first 6 months of lactation (p<0.05), with more pronounced miRNA upregulation seen in month 4. These findings indicate that although the total miRNA concentration of HM cells and lipids provided to the infant does not change in first 6 months of lactation, the miRNA composition is altered, particularly in month 4 compared to months 2 and 6. This may reflect the remodeling of the gland in response to infant feeding patterns, which usually change after exclusive breastfeeding, suggesting adaptation to the infant’s needs.
Estimating the economic value of water quality protection in the Catawba River basin

This study used stated preference methods to estimate the economic value of protecting water quality in the Catawba River basin of North and South Carolina at its current level. Telephone interviews were completed with 1085 randomly selected households, who were also mailed a short information booklet about these issues. Respondents expressed a mean willingness to pay $139 for a management plan designed to protect water quality at its current level over time. Aggregation of this mean willingness to pay value amounted to an annual economic benefit of over $75 million for all taxpayers in Catawba basin counties. By using a split‐sample survey design, this study also compared the effectiveness of different combined mail and telephone survey formats. Results indicated that while a phone‐mail‐phone approach is preferred for some reasons over a mail‐phone approach, the survey format did not significantly affect the economic valuation results.
Economic Sanctions: Law and Public Policy

Introduction The Origins and use of Economic Sanctions International Political Economy and Economic Sanctions The International Legal Dimension of Economic Sanctions Economic Sanctions and State Practice Economic Sanctions, Control Liability and Corporate Law Third Party Liability for Violating Economic Sanctions Alternative Enforcement Strategies: the Role of Private Rights of Action in Enforcing Sanctions Policy Responses of Selected Jurisdictions to the Extraterritorial Application of US Economic Sanctions Extending the Scope of Economic Sanctions - the Financial War on Terror Mutual Assistance in the Post-cold War Order: an Emerging Multilateral Regime for Economic Sanctions? Mutual Assistance and Multilateral Institutions Post 9/11 - the Challenge of International Terrorism