Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Bifurcation Control and Universal Unfolding for Hopf-Zero Singularities with Leading Solenoidal Terms

In this paper we introduce universal asymptotic unfolding normal forms for nonlinear singular systems. Next, we propose an approach to find the parameters of a parametric singular system that they play the role of universal unfolding parameters. These parameters effectively influence the local dynamics of the system. We propose a systematic approach to locate local bifurcations in terms of these parameters. Here, we apply the proposed approach on Hopf-zero singularities whose the first few low degree terms are incompressible. In this direction, we obtain novel orbital and parametric normal form results for such families by assuming a nonzero quadratic condition. Moreover, we give a truncated universal asymptotic unfolding normal form and prove the finite determinacy of the steady-state bifurcations for two most generic subfamilies of the associated amplitude systems. We analyze the local bifurcations of equilibria, limit cycles and the secondary Hopf bifurcation of invariant tori. The results are successfully implemented and verified using Maple. By employing the proposed approach, we design an effective multiple-parametric quadratic state feedback controller for a singular system on a three dimensional central manifold with two imaginary uncontrollable modes. We illustrate how our program systematically identifies the distinguished (universal unfolding) parameters, derives the estimated transition varieties in terms of these parameters, and locates the local primary and secondary bifurcations of equilibria, limit cycles and invariant tori. This approach is useful in designing efficient nonlinear feedback controllers (single or multiple inputs) for local bifurcation control in engineering problems.
Fine-mapping the Favored Mutation in a Positive Selective Sweep

Methods to identify signatures of selective sweeps in population genomics data have been actively developed, but mostly do not identify the specific mutation favored by the selective sweep. We present a method, iSAFE, that uses a statistic derived solely from population genetics signals to pinpoint the favored mutation even when the signature of selection extends to 5Mbp. iSAFE was tested extensively on simulated data and in human populations from the 1000 Genomes Project, at 22 loci with previously characterized selective sweeps. For 14 of the 22 loci, iSAFE ranked the previously characterized candidate mutation among the 13 highest scoring (out of ∼ 21, 000 variants). Three loci did not show a strong signal. For the remaining loci, iSAFE identified previously unreported mutations as being favored. In these regions, all of which involve pigmentation related genes, iSAFE identified identical selected mutations in multiple non-African populations suggesting an out-of-Africa onset of selection. The iSAFE software can be downloaded from https://github.com/alek0991/iSAFE.
Improving agricultural fiscal policy in Ukraine

Agriculture's importance to the economy in Ukraine is both deep and diverse. Agriculture is one of the Ukrainian economy's key sectors, accounting for 11 percent of GDP and 22 percent of total employment. Together with the food processing industry, its contribution to GDP and employment increases to 20 percent and 28 percent, respectively. This paper evaluates the past and current agricultural fiscal policies in Ukraine. The main findings and messages include the following: Despite increased fiscal spending, the agricultural sector in Ukraine continues to perform below its potential; a supportive environment for agricultural development should be created; fiscal spending needs to be shifted away from subsidies, to the programs most relevant to the objectives of public support; and the quality of growth-enhancing investments needs to be improved.
Patient-centred audiological rehabilitation: Perspectives of older adults who own hearing aids

Abstract Objective: Patient-centred care is a term frequently associated with quality health care. Despite extensive literature from a range of health-care professions that provide description and measurement of patient-centred care, a definition of patient-centredness in audiological rehabilitation is lacking. The current study aimed to define patient-centred care specific to audiological rehabilitation from the perspective of older adults who have owned hearing aids for at least one year. Design: Research interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of older adults concerning their perceptions of patient-centredness in audiological rehabilitation, and qualitative content analysis was undertaken. Study sample: The participant sample included ten adults over the age of 60 years who had owned hearing aids for at least one year. Results: Data analysis revealed three dimensions to patient-centred audiological rehabilitation: the therapeutic relationship, the players (audiologist and patient), and clinical processes. Individualised care was seen as an overarching theme linking each of these dimensions. Conclusions: This study reported two models: the first model describes what older adults with hearing aids believe constitutes patient-centred audiological rehabilitation. The second provides a guide to operationalised patient-centred care. Further research is required to address questions pertaining to the presence, nature, and impact of patient-centred audiological rehabilitation.
The hexokinase gene is required for transcriptional regulation of the glucose transporter gene RAG1 in Kluyveromyces lactis

The RAG1 gene of Kluyveromyces lactis encodes a low-affinity glucose/fructose transporter. Its transcription is induced by glucose, fructose, and several other sugars. The RAG4, RAG5, and RAG8 genes are trans-acting genes controlling the expression of the RAG1 gene. We report here the characterization of one of these genes, RAG5. The nucleotide sequence of the cloned RAG5 gene indicated that it encodes a protein that is homologous to hexokinases of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. rag5 mutants showed no detectable hexokinase or glucokinase activity, suggesting that the sugar kinase activity encoded by this gene is the only hexokinase in K. lactis. Both high- and low-affinity transport systems of glucose were affected in rag5 mutants. The defect of the low-affinity component was found to be due to a block of transcription of the RAG1 gene by the hexokinase mutation. In vivo complementation of the rag5 mutation by the HXK2 gene of S. cerevisiae and complementation of hxk1 hxk2 mutations of S. cerevisiae by the RAG5 gene showed that RAG5 and HXK2 were equivalent for sugar-phosphorylating activity but that RAG5 could not restore glucose repression in the S. cerevisiae hexokinase mutants.
Disaster survivability in elastic optical datacenter networks

Due to the increasing network risk of large-scale disaster, it is important to protect failed requests for network operators. For the disaster survivable problem in an elastic optical datacenter networks with a bandwidth constraint, we formulate an integer linear program (ILP) for shared protection model. The algorithm utilizes the priori method to maximize the network throughput firstly, and then to minimize used spectrum resources. Unicast and anycast methods in shared protection are investigated. Simulation results show that both methods provide the same network throughput, but the anycast method can use much less spectrum resources than the unicast method.
High Through-Put Parallel Biomolecules Sorting Microsystem with Three Dimensional PDMS Stack

High through-put parallel biomolecules sorter was fabricated with the three dimensional PDMS stack structure. Three dimensional channel structure was realized by using PDMS dry etching. High speed switching of 10 ms order in each channel was realized with four and eight parallel type sorter. Sorting rate is about 20 samples/sec in the case of the four parallel type sorter. High through-put sorting of about 20 times higher than that of the previous single channel sorter was obtained in actual E. coli cells separation.
Artificial Reef Technology A Strategy For Active Impact Mitigation

While complying with Federal and State standards aimed at regulating the effluent discharge activities into the marine environment, the discharger may opt to go beyond the stereotype role of an "enforcee" in order to act to improve the environment with which its industrial activity must coexist. Southern California Edison Company's artificial reef research program has stemmed from the updated vision of resource management in which the goal is a net gain in the quality of the environment. This goal is to be achieved by introducing positive impacts to outbalance whatever negative impacts still may or may not accrue from the regulated discharge activities. Immediate benefits expected from this program are: 1. By adding a new habitat, the artificial reef will help enhance the marine environment through increased production of biomass, a compensating factor for using once-through cooling water for coastal power plants and also for siting power plants on the coast in general. 2. By locating the reefs in naturally impoverished areas such as flat, sandy nearshore regions, fish and other marine biota may be attracted to it. Thus, in addition to producing biomass, this technique could be used to possibly better manage existing marine resources. It is proposed that the structural design of an artificial reef module, according to best available information from Japanese reef technology, should apply favorably in Southern California nearshore waters. The reef module is a low-lying pentagon 2.5 m in diameter with water current deflectors, and interior compartments.
Will worms really cure Crohn’s disease?

A CD8+ T cell response to lamivudine resistant polymerase cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) epitope influences the response to lamivudine treatment for chronic hepatitis B and may indicate an important aspect of the role of T cell responsiveness in lamivudine therapy The goals of treatment of hepatitis B are to prevent progression of the disease or to slow the disease process. Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is a DNA virus which integrates into the host genome. Thus it is difficult to eradicate viraemia. However, it is possible, albeit in a minority, to reduce levels of viraemia to relatively low threshold levels after finite courses of treatment with either interferon alpha or nucleoside analogues, and to lessen the induced necroinflammatory and immune response.1 Two major forms of active chronic hepatitis B are recognised: wild-type (or hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg) positive chronic HBV infection) and anti-HBe positive or precore mutant disease. The latter disease is caused by variants of HBV that contain nucleotide substitutions in the core promoter/precore regions of the viral genome.2 Wild-type (HBeAg positive) chronic hepatitis B can be treated with either interferon alpha or nucleoside analogues. Loss of HBeAg and associated suppression of viral replication with pegylated interferon alpha and new nucleoside analogues such as lamivudine, adefovir, tenofovir, telbuvidine, entecavir, and emtricitabine leads to biochemical remission, histological improvement, and in a small percentage, loss of HBsAg.3–5 Durable responses can occur. Continuous therapy is frequently required for the majority of anti-HBe positive patients with chronic hepatitis B. Thus in most patients, longer term therapy is required to suppress viral replication and …
Building and Maintaining a Commercial Virtual Community

1 ABST RA CT This study looks at the differences and similarities between existing literature on how to design and organize a commercial Virtual Community and the ideas of people designing and organizing commercial Virtual Communities in the real world. Initially, explicit theories found in literature have been examined. As step two, designers and organizers from four different companies have been interviewed and their answers analysed and examined in relation to each other. Finally, a few key concepts found in the literature and during the interviews have been examined for similarities and differences. The conclusions drawn are that there is no set formula that one can apply to achieve a successful commercial Virtual Community. Each company has a different business idea and aim. While the literary sources often focuses on the community being a goal in itself, the real-life designers see the commercial community more as a useful tool that can help them reach their particular aim. Four different companies: a newspaper, a consultant working for a technical industry, an outdoors site and a producer of pleasure foods have been examined. This has resulted in four Virtual Community models of how each company views its commercial Virtual Community. The study also introduces a generalized relational-structural virtual community model that illustrates the general principles for designing a commercial Virtual Community. The community's content is seen as crucial and there needs to be areas controlled by members as well as commercially controlled areas in a successful commercial Virtual Community.
FPGA ROUTING ARCHITECTURE OPTIMIZATION

This paper presents a versatile SB model with 4 sides. It is so versatile that it can cover various kinds of 4-side SB( in the following paper, we use SB for short) architectures in a 2-D FPGA. Base on this model, a new SB structure with better routability in segmented architecture is proposed. Comparing with Subset, Wilton and Universal SBs, it improves 10.1%, 3.3% and 4.6% separately. In addition, we propose a new segment distribution method in segmented architecture, which can greatly reduce circuits delay. With the same technical parameter, 10.4% average improvement in critical path is gained in a new distribution method than in VPR's when we use the universal SB
Asia can afford universal access for AIDS prevention and treatment

This paper draws on published reports, data from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria and the Asian Development Bank, and analysis by the Commission on AIDS in Asia to estimate financial resources required to achieve universal access for HIV in low-income and middle-income countries of Asia. It explores optimal use of available resources to mount effective response to AIDS in Asia against an uncertain economic climate. Although there is global commitment to tackle the HIV pandemic, available financing falls short of minimum requirements to achieve universal access to prevention and treatment. To support essential HIV priorities in Asia, the Commission on AIDS in Asia estimated annual resource needs to be US$ 3.1 billion. Yet, in 2007, according to one study, estimated total public spending on AIDS in 14 major Asian countries was only US$ 0.9 billion. Hence, scarce resources need to be carefully applied to address the concentrated HIV epidemics in Asia and achieve universal coverage by prioritizing investment in high-impact interventions to maximally avert new infections and deaths, intensifying multisectoral efforts through catalytic financing that mainstreams HIV interventions into existing services, particularly for low-impact prevention programs, and ensuring countries with growing economies mobilize increased amounts of domestic funding to match international financing.
Using big steps in coordinate descent primal-dual algorithms

The Vũ-Condat algorithm is a standard method for finding a saddle point of a Lagrangian involving a differentiable function. Recent works have tried to adapt the idea of random coordinate descent to this algorithm, with the aim to efficiently solve some regularized or distributed optimization problems. A drawback of these approaches is that the admissible step sizes can be small, leading to slow convergence. In this paper, we introduce a coordinate descent primal-dual algorithm which is provably convergent for a wider range of step size values than previous methods. In particular, the condition on the step-sizes depends on the coordinate-wise Lipschitz constant of the differentiable function's gradient. We discuss the application of our method to distributed optimization and large scale support vector machine problems.
Impact of farm management decision rules on the production and profit of different strains of Holstein-Friesian dairy cows

Management decision rules (‘old’ rules) have been used at the Dexcel No. 2 Dairy Farm to remove subjectivity from the management of farm systems research and have also been promoted to the dairy industry. A trial involving these rules where three strains of Holstein-Friesian (HF) cows were compared has completed its third season. The trial included two high breeding worth (BW) strains of either North American (OS90) or New Zealand (NZ90) genetics, and one low BW strain of NZ genetics (NZ70). Under the ‘old’ rules the OS90 cows had fewer days in milk than the other two strains, mainly because they were dried off earlier due to their lower body condition score (BCS). In the third lactation ‘new’ rules were applied that allowed cows at the higher feed allowances to be dried off later (but at the same BCS) than would have been allowed under the ‘old’ rules. For the herds receiving the higher feed allowances, this change resulted in increased days in milk (NZ90 + 2 days; OS90 + 17 days) more milksolids (MS) per cow (NZ90 +2 kg; OS90 +21 kg), and more feed required (NZ90 + 10 kg; OS90 + 157 kg DM/cow) with all herds reaching target BCS by their next calving. It is calculated that this reduced the difference in economic farm surplus (EFS) per ha between the NZ90 and OS90 from $488 to $219. These results indicate the need to alter management rules to get the best performance from North American HF genetics.
ESTIMATION OF PARAMETERS OF INBREEDING AND GENETIC DRIFT IN POPULATIONS WITH OVERLAPPING GENERATIONS

Many long‐lived plant and animal species have nondiscrete overlapping generations. Although numerous models have been developed to predict the effective sizes (Ne) of populations with overlapping generations, they are extremely difficult to apply to natural populations because of the large array of unknown and elusive life‐table parameters involved. Unfortunately, little work has been done to estimate the Ne of populations with overlapping generations from marker data, in sharp contrast to the situation of populations with discrete generations for which quite a few estimators are available. In this study, we propose an estimator (EPA, estimator by parentage assignments) of the current Ne of populations with overlapping generations, using the sex, age, and multilocus genotype information of a single sample of individuals taken at random from the population. Simulations show that EPA provides unbiased and accurate estimates of Ne under realistic sampling and genotyping effort. Additionally, it yields estimates of other interesting parameters such as generation interval, the variances and covariances of lifetime family size, effective number of breeders of each age class, and life‐table variables. Data from wild populations of baboons and hihi (stitchbird) were analyzed by EPA to demonstrate the use of the estimator in practical sampling and genotyping situations.
How to develop and to reuse the UniPDM framework

Reuse through frameworks promises improved productivity and reduced learning curves across the enterprise. Although many enterprise framework projects have commenced, few real enterprise frameworks have achieved noteworthy success. Our research with enterprise frameworks focuses on product data management. In this paper we focus on the current state and the findings of our project. Through our efforts we believe we have identified some important lessons for teams involved in enterprise framework development. Our discussion will concentrate on the following: (1) the phases of developing our framework; (2) applying the design pattern; (3) supporting environments for customizing the framework; (4) the problems in developing a framework. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Efficient Rule Discovery in a National Drought Decision Support System ∗

This paper describes the application of data mining techniques in a National Drought Decision Support System, which focuses on drought risk management. Association rule discovery is one of the widely used approaches in data mining. This paper highlights the rule discovery algorithms that we have developed and used for discovering useful patterns in ocean parameters and climatic indices.
Removal of immune-stimulatory components from surfaces by plasma discharges

Immune-stimulating microbiological components like lipopolysaccharide (LPS), lipoteichoic acid (LTA) and zymosan bound onto surfaces lead to severe problems when brought in contact with the organism via surgical instruments or implants. We have shown, in recent studies, that it is possible to detect different immune-stimulating components directly on the surface, via an indirect detection method, using human whole-blood and the monocyte reaction to measure the inflammatory mediator release (IL-1β) by ELISA. With regard to the inactivation of pyrogenic substances, we present a method based on the application of a low-pressure microwave plasma discharge working at low temperatures. We found a fast (10 s to a few minutes) removal rate of the immune-stimulating competence for LPS, LTA and zymosan. To mimic the bacterial cell-wall, LPS in combination with muramyl dipeptide was employed and the decreasing rate of the inflammatory signal did not differ from pure LPS.
Overexpression of Genes of the Cell Wall Stimulon in Clinical Isolates of Staphylococcus aureus Exhibiting Vancomycin-Intermediate- S. aureus-Type Resistance to Vancomycin

ABSTRACT Custom-designed gene chips (Affymetrix) were used to determine genetic relatedness and gene expression profiles in Staphylococcus aureus isolates with increasing MICs of vancomycin that were recovered over a period of several weeks from the blood and heart valve of a patient undergoing extensive vancomycin therapy. The isolates were found to be isogenic as determined by the GeneChip based genotyping approach and thus represented a unique opportunity to study changes in gene expression that may contribute to the vancomycin resistance phenotype. No differences in gene expression were detected between the parent strain, JH1, and JH15, isolated from the nares of a patient contact. Few expression changes were observed between blood and heart valve isolates with identical vancomycin MICs. A large number of genes had altered expression in the late stage JH9 isolate (MIC = 8 μg/ml) compared to JH1 (MIC = 1 μg/ml). Most genes with altered expression were involved in housekeeping functions or cell wall biosynthesis and regulation. The sortase-encoding genes, srtA and srtB, as well as several surface protein-encoding genes were downregulated in JH9. Two hypothetical protein-encoding genes, SAS016 and SA2343, were dramatically overexpressed in JH9. Interestingly, 27 of the genes with altered expression in JH9 grown in drug-free medium were found to be also overexpressed when the parental strain JH1 was briefly exposed to inhibitory concentrations of vancomycin, and more than half (17 of 27) of the genes with altered expression belonged to determinants that were proposed to form part of a general cell wall stress stimulon (S. Utaida et al., Microbiology 149:2719-2732, 2003).