Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Practical Compressed Sensing: Modern data acquisition and signal processing

Since 2004, the field of compressed sensing has grown quickly and seen tremendous interest because it provides a theoretically sound and computationally tractable method to stably recover signals by sampling at the information rate. This thesis presents in detail the design of one of the world's first compressed sensing hardware devices, the random modulation pre-integrator (RMPI). The RMPI is an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) that bypasses a current limitation in ADC technology and achieves an unprecedented 8 effective number of bits over a bandwidth of 2.5 GHz. Subtle but important design considerations are discussed, and state-of-the-art reconstruction techniques are presented. Inspired by the need for a fast method to solve reconstruction problems for the RMPI, we develop two efficient large-scale optimization methods, NESTA and TFOCS, that are applicable to a wide range of other problems, such as image denoising and deblurring, MRI reconstruction, and matrix completion (including the famous Netflix problem). While many algorithms solve unconstrained l1 problems, NESTA and TFOCS can solve the constrained form of l1 minimization, and allow weighted norms. In addition to l1 minimization problems such as the LASSO, both NESTA and TFOCS solve total-variation minimization problem. TFOCS also solves the Dantzig selector and most variants of the nuclear norm minimization problem. A common theme in both NESTA and TFOCS is the use of smoothing techniques, which make the problem tractable, and the use of optimal first-order methods that have an accelerated convergence rate yet have the same cost per iteration as gradient descent. The conic dual methodology is introduced in TFOCS and proves to be extremely flexible, covering such generic problems as linear programming, quadratic programming, and semi-definite programming. A novel continuation scheme is presented, and it is shown that the Dantzig selector benefits from an exact-penalty property. Both NESTA and TFOCS are released as software packages available freely for academic use.
The effect of fibre size on the in vitro biological activity of three types of amphibole asbestos

Three standard (UICC) samples of amphibole asbestos were subjected to ball‐milling; the main effect of this procedure was to reduce the length of the fibres present in each sample. The numbers of fibres in unit masses, and the distribution of fibre sizes in all the samples, both parent and milled, were estimated from electron micrographs. The ability of all the samples to reduce the plating efficiency of V79‐4 cells is compared, on the basis of mass, fibre number and fibre number above various length thresholds. This biological activity of all the samples correlated best with the number of fibres above a threshold length of 6.5 μm. This is compared with the sizes of fibre previously reported to induce mesotheliomata when implanted into the pleural cavities of rats.
Initial Coin Oﬀerings and Platform Building

In a typical initial coin oﬀering (ICO), an entrepreneur pre-sells digital tokens which will later serve as the medium of exchange on a peer-to-peer platform. We present a model rationalizing ICOs for launching such platforms: By transparently distributing tokens before the platform operation begins, an ICO overcomes later coordination failures during platform operation, induced by a cross-side network eﬀect between transaction counterparties. Furthermore, a critical-mass requirement that arises from an endogenous same-side network eﬀect during the ICO rationalizes several empirical patterns observed in ICO structures. Our model provides guidance for both regulators and practitioners to discern economically valuable ICOs
Analysis of γδ T Cell Functions in the Mouse

Mouse models of disease and injury have been invaluable in investigations of the functional role of γδ T cells. They show that γδ T cells engage in immune responses both early and late, that they can function both polyclonally and as peripherally selected clones, and that they can be effector cells and immune regulators. They also suggest that functional development of γδ T cells occurs stepwise in thymus and periphery, and that it is governed by γδ TCR-signaling and other signals. Finally, they indicate that γδ T cell functions often segregate with TCR-defined subsets, in contrast to conventional T cells. From the functional studies in mice and other animal models, γδ T cells emerge as a distinct lymphocyte population with a unique and broad functional repertoire, and with important roles in Ab responses, inflammation and tissue repair. They also are revealed as a potentially useful target for immune intervention.
Bildungsaspirationen von Migranten : Determinanten und Umsetzung in Bildungsergebnisse

Viele Studien zeigen, dass die Bildungsaspirationen von Kindern und ihren Eltern einen starken Einfluss auf ihre Schulleistungen und Bildungsentscheidungen ausuben. Bildungsaspirationen werden daher als eine wesentliche Determinante von Bildungsergebnissen angesehen. Dabei hat sich gezeigt, dass Migrantenkinder (und deren Eltern) im Durchschnitt hohere Bildungsaspirationen haben als Einheimische, auch bei oftmals schlechteren Schulleistungen. Aus diesem „paradoxen“ Befund ergeben sich zwei Fragestellungen: 1. ) Warum haben Migranten im Vergleich zu Einheimischen und in Relation zu ihrer Schulleistung haufig uberdurchschnittlich hohe Bildungsaspirationen? 2. ) Warum konnen sie diese hohen Aspirationen nicht in entsprechenden Schulerfolg umsetzen? In diesem Beitrag soll der Forschungsstand zum Thema Bildungsaspirationen von Migranten dargestellt werden, wobei eine Orientierung an diesen beiden Fragestellungen erfolgt. Es wird auch naher auf den theoretischen Hintergrund des Konzepts der Bildungsaspirationen eingegangen und auf dieser Grundlage ein Modell zu Determinanten und Umsetzung von Bildungsaspirationen entwickelt, in das die Konzepte aus der Literatur integriert werden.
Cooperative motion planning for multiple vehicles in automated storage systems

Abstract In this paper, a new geometric technique for planning collision-free motions for multiple vehicles in industrial environments is presented. This planner is executed at high speed, as frequent as new position and speed estimations are available. The proposed motion planner is based on the prediction of collisions between pairs of industrial vehicles. Such a prediction is measured as the minimum translational distance between their motions. A predicted collision is avoided by generating intermediate temporal-positions for each vehicle. These intermediate positions are restricted to the feasible path of involved vehicles. Cooperation among mobile vehicle is computed for each pair of vehicles based on priority indices.
A Review of Twentieth-Century Drought Indices Used in the United States

The monitoring and analysis of drought have long suffered from the lack of an adequate definition of the phenomenon. As a result, drought indices have slowly evolved during the last two centuries from simplistic approaches based on some measure of rainfall deficiency, to more complex problem-specific models. Indices developed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century included such measures as percent of normal precipitation over some interval, consecutive days with rain below a given threshold, formulae involving a combination of temperature and precipitation, and models factoring in precipitation deficits over consecutive days. The incorporation of evapotranspiration as a measure of water demand by Thornthwaite led to the landmark development in 1965 by Palmer of a water budget-based drought index that is still widely used. Drought indices developed since the 1960s include the Surface Water Supply Index, which supplements the Palmer Index by integrating snowpack, reservoir storage, streamflow, a.
Impervious Surface Information Extraction Based on Hyperspectral Remote Sensing Imagery

The retrieval of impervious surface information is a hot topic in remote sensing. However, researches on impervious surface retrieval from hyperspectral remote sensing imagery are rare. This paper illustrates a case study of information extraction from urban impervious surfaces based on hyperspectral remote sensing imagery that is intended to improve the image spectral resolution of impermeable materials. Fuzhou, Guangzhou, and Hangzhou were selected as test areas and EO-1 Hyperion images were used as data sources. The impervious surface features were retrieved from remote sensing images using linear spectral mixture analysis. A stepwise discriminant analysis was performed to select feature bands for impervious surface retrieval. A standard deviation analysis, correlation analysis, and principal component analysis were then carried out for each of those up to 158 valid Hyperion spectral bands. Eleven feature bands were selected using the stepwise discriminant analysis and a new image called Hyperion’ was formed. The impervious surface was then retrieved from Hyperion’. The results indicate that the extraction accuracy and coverage accuracy are high in all three test areas. Tests of eleven feature band combinations selected in different areas show very good representations of the band combinations in impervious surface retrieval, and can thus be used as optimal band combinations for impervious surface retrieval.
Improving selenium status in plant nutrition and quality

Abstract Selenium (Se) is an essential micronutrient for human health due to its antioxidant capabilities. The Se content around the world is highly variable from 0.005 mg kg -1 in areas from China and Finland to 8,000 mg kg in seleniferous soils from Tuva-Russia. However, about one billion of people in the world wide are Se deficient. During the last decade, studies related with strategies for Se biofortification in food plants for human nutrition have significantly increased because this metalloid is incorporated into human metabolism mainly as a constituent of food plants. Similarly, Se biofortification is important in pastures for increasing the Se content in cattle to enrich meat and to prevent disease associated to Se deficiency as white muscle disease. In China, two endemic diseases have been related to Se deficiency: Keshan and Keshin–Beck diseases.Agronomic biofortification by using inorganic Se sources is a current practice in countries as China, Finland, and USA. In Chile, fertilization by using chemical compounds with Se is an uncommon practice due the edaphoclimatic characteristics of Andisols, which represent around 60% of agricultural soils of southern Chile. Recent studies showed that microorganisms as bacteria and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi play an important role in the transformations and Se availability, representing an interesting biotechnological alternative to Se biofortification.This review is focalized to describing Se behavior in soil-plant system and the possible strategies to improving Se content, including the use of microorganisms as biotechnological tools for increasing plant nutrition and quality. Specific attention will be devoted to volcanic soils of Southern Chile, where different factors concur to enhance the Se-deficiency problem.
Endocannabinoids are conserved inhibitors of the Hedgehog pathway

Significance Hedgehog proteins regulate development and tissue homeostasis. They signal through activation of the transmembrane protein Smoothened. Smoothened hyperactivation underlies development of many tumors. Smoothened activity can be modulated by several synthetic small molecules, which have shown promise in the clinic. However, occurrence of resistance-inducing mutations limits their effectiveness. Little is known about endogenous small molecules that may inhibit Smoothened in vivo. Previous work suggested that lipids present in lipoproteins are required for Smoothened inhibition in vivo. Here, we use biochemical fractionation and lipidomics to identify these lipids as endocannabinoids and show that their activity as Smoothened inhibitors has been conserved from flies to mammals. Endocannabinoids may provide useful templates for the design of new therapeutic Smoothened antagonists. Hedgehog ligands control tissue development and homeostasis by alleviating repression of Smoothened, a seven-pass transmembrane protein. The Hedgehog receptor, Patched, is thought to regulate the availability of small lipophilic Smoothened repressors whose identity is unknown. Lipoproteins contain lipids required to repress Smoothened signaling in vivo. Here, using biochemical fractionation and lipid mass spectrometry, we identify these repressors as endocannabinoids. Endocannabinoids circulate in human and Drosophila lipoproteins and act directly on Smoothened at physiological concentrations to repress signaling in Drosophila and mammalian assays. Phytocannabinoids are also potent Smo inhibitors. These findings link organismal metabolism to local Hedgehog signaling and suggest previously unsuspected mechanisms for the physiological activities of cannabinoids.
Relationship between alcohol use and violent behavior among urban African American youths from adolescence to emerging adulthood: a longitudinal study.

OBJECTIVES We examined developmental trajectories of alcohol use and violent behavior among urban African American youths and the longitudinal relationship between these behaviors from adolescence to emerging adulthood. METHODS Our sample included 649 African American youths (49% male) followed for 8 years. We assessed violent behavior and alcohol use by asking participants how often they had engaged in each behavior in the preceding 12 months. Growth curve analyses were conducted to identify the developmental trajectories of the 2 behaviors and to explore the longitudinal relationship between them. RESULTS Violent behavior peaked in middle to late adolescence and declined thereafter, whereas the frequency of alcohol use increased steadily over time. These developmental trajectories varied according to gender. Among both male and female participants, early violent behavior predicted later alcohol use, and early alcohol use predicted later violent behavior. Moreover, changes in one behavior were associated with changes in the other. CONCLUSIONS Our results support a bidirectional relationship between alcohol use and violent behavior. Efforts to reduce one problem can be expected to reduce the other. Programs and policies aimed at reducing violence or alcohol use among adolescents should take into account this relationship.
Pushing blocks all the way to C++

The BBC micro:bit project aims to teach programming to every 11 to 12-year-old in the UK, through the means of a programmable device half the size of a credit card. The device will be freely handed out to every student. Microsoft's TouchDevelop programming environment was picked to provide the programming experience for kids; we retrofitted the website for the micro:bit. TouchDevelop remains a complex beast: in order to make it easier for 7th graders to program, we added an alternative, visual code editor based on Google's Blockly [1]. This paper is an experience report about the various challenges we met when trying, at one end, to expose a visual Blocks-based programming model, while at the other end generating C++ for the device.
Relation of blood flow to VO2, PO2, and PCO2 in dog gastrocnemius muscle.

We pump-perfused gastrocnemius-plantaris muscle preparations at constant pressure to study the relationship of muscle blood flow (Q) to muscle oxygen consumption (VO2), venous oxygen tension (PVO2), and venous carbon dioxide tension (PVCO2) during steady-state exercise at different rates. Tests were performed under four experimental conditions produced by altering the perfusate blood-gas status with a membrane lung. The consistency of the relationship of Q to other variables was evaluated by statistical analysis of fitted curves. Not one of the above listed variables had the same relationship with Q in all four of the experimental conditions we tested. However, we did find that a consistent relationship existed among Q, PVO2, and PVCO2 in our data. That relationship is well described by the equation (Q-23). [PVO2 - (0.5.PVCO2) - 3] = 105 (when Q is expressed in ml.100 g-1.min-1 and PVO2 and PVCO2 in mmHg). One interpretation of this result is that both PO2 and PCO2 are important variables in the control of blood flow in skeletal muscle the combined influence of which could account for nearly all of the hyperemia response to steady-state muscle exercise.
Changes in vegetation net primary productivity from 1982 to 1999 in China

Terrestrial net primary production (NPP) has been a central focus of ecosystem science in the past several decades because of its importance to the terrestrial carbon cycle and ecosystem processes. Modeling studies suggest that terrestrial NPP has increased in the northern middle and high latitudes in the past 2 decades, and that such increase has exhibited seasonal and spatial variability, but there are few detailed studies on the temporal and spatial patterns of NPP trend over time in China. Here we present the trends in China's terrestrial NPP from 1982 to 1999 and their driving forces using satellite‐derived NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index), climate data, and a satellite‐based carbon model, CASA (Carnegie ‐Ames‐Stanford Approach). The majority of China (86% of the study area) has experienced an increase in NPP during the period 1982–1999, with an annual mean increase rate of 1.03%. This increase was resulted primarily from plant growth in the middle of the growing season (June to August) (about 43.2%), followed by spring (33.7%). At the national and biome levels, the relative increase is largest in spring (March–May), indicating an earlier onset of the growing season. The changes in the phase of China's seasonal NPP curve may primarily be the result of advanced growing season (earlier spring) and enhanced plant growth in summer. During the past 2 decades the amplitude of the seasonal curve of NPP has increased and the annual peak NPP has advanced. Historical NPP trends also indicated a high degree of spatial heterogeneity, coupled with regional climate variations, agricultural practices, urbanization, and fire disturbance.
Una revisión de los factores de desarrollo económico actual en Latinoamérica Referencia al papel de España en este contexto

La intensificacion del proceso de internacionalizacion en el comercio esta implicando para los planteamientos de crecimiento economico, en los paises latinoamericanos, la reconsideracion de las teorias de las ventajas competitivas. En estos paises, pese a las diferencias en las politicas y en los niveles crecimiento, podemos encontrar factores comunes relativos a la fase de desarrollo en que se encuentran. En un primer termino, se analizan las expectativas y repercusiones de la liberalizaacion del comercio de productos agrarios; y, en segundo termino, se hace una revision del proceso de inversion industrial y de servicios (basada de forma predominante en el capital extranjero), elemento comun a la generalidad de las naciones del centro y sur del continente americano, y en el que esta cobrando relevancia la participacion espanola.
Concept and performance analysis of Melissa MIMO GMTI

One of the most important task for a radar system in the security domain is to discriminate a potential moving target from the clutter background, especially when the Signal-to-Clutter Ratio (SCR) is low. This document hence describes a new algorithm for improving the detection of a potential moving target when a Ground Based (GB) MIMO SAR is adopted. GB-MIMO SAR is a new family of radar sensors which are able to create a 2-D image of a scene of interest without a moving platform. In order to improve the detection ability of the system, especially when SCR is low, a novel signal processing approach is presented, based on the Ground Moving Target Indication (GMTI) architecture. Since a GB-MIMO SAR image is obtained by acquiring data from several channels, it is possible to increase the SCR by adding them coherently and adopting a Single Delay-Line Canceler (SDLC). The results proved the ability of the proposed method for increasing the Signal-to-Clutter Ratio, especially for stationary or quasi-stationary clutter.
Deoxyribonucleic Acid Relatedness between Bacillus anthracis, Bacillus cereus and Bacillus thuringiensis

proved as distinct taxa (1, 2), as they are different in pathogenicity and in some other properties. However it is also widely accepted that they are quite similar. In fact some pathogens may produce non-pathogenic offsprings that are hardly distinguishable from normal B. cereus. Some B. cereus strains share some flagella antigens with B. thuringiensis (6; Ohba and Aizawa, unpublished data), and the formation of intracellular protein crystals, which has been considered as another characteristic of the latter, is now known in Bacillus subtilis (4) too. In their comprehensive studies Smith et al (9, 10) and Gordon et al (3) emphasized their similarities rather than difference and took a view that they are from academic viewpoint the different varieties of B. cereus. Since DNA homology was introduced as a new taxonomic criterion, Somerville and Jones (11) made some DNA-DNA competition experiments and suggested close interrelatendness of the three, though their data do not appear very clearcut. DNADNA hybridisation studies by Azuma (personal communication) and by Seki et al
Tight Bounds for Randomized and Quantum Local Search

The problem Local Search, which finds a local minimum of a black-box function on a given graph, is of both practical and theoretical importance to combinatorial optimization, complexity theory, and many other areas in theoretical computer science. In this paper, we study the problem in both the randomized and the quantum query models and give new lower and upper bound techniques in both models. The lower bound technique works for any graph that contains a product graph as a subgraph. Applying it to the Boolean hypercube $\{0,1\}^n$ and the constant-dimensional grids $[n]^d$, two particular product graphs that recently drew much attention, we get the following tight results: $\text{{\it RLS\/}}(\{0,1\}^n)=\Theta(2^{n/2}n^{1/2})$, $\text{{\it QLS\/}}(\{0,1\}^n)=\Theta(2^{n/3}n^{1/6})$, $\text{{\it RLS\/}}([n]^d)=\Theta(n^{d/2})$ for $d\geq4$, $\text{{\it QLS\/}}([n]^d)=\Theta(n^{d/3})$ for $d\geq6$. Here $\text{{\it RLS\/}}(G)$ and $\text{{\it QLS\/}}(G)$ are the randomized and quantum query complexities of Local Search on $G$, respectively. These improve the previous results by Aaronson [in Proceedings of the Thirty-Sixth Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing, 2004, pp. 465-474], Ambainis (unpublished), and Santha and Szegedy [in Proceedings of the Thirty-Sixth Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing, 2004, pp. 494-501]. Our new algorithms work well when the underlying graph expands slowly. As an application to $[n]^2$, a new quantum algorithm using $O(\sqrt{n}(\log\log n)^{1.5})$ queries is given. This improves the previously best known upper bound of $O(n^{2/3})$ (see Aaronson [in Proceedings of the Thirty-Sixth Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing, 2004, pp. 465-474]), and implies that Local Search on grids exhibits different properties in low dimensions.