Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A reconfigurable stream orchestration framework for mobile users

We present a framework for supporting multi-device stream orchestration for mobile users. As computing power becomes cheaper and larger numbers of devices become networked, we believe that users will have access to multiple devices in their neighborhood. Such a multi-device environment presents a significantly powerful environment for mobile users compared to thin wireless clients. Our architecture enables a mobile user to treat these disparate devices as a virtually integrated entity, enabling the user to experience rich communication sessions. The framework automatically detects devices in a user's neighborhood, understands their capabilities, transparently transforms content and routes a session to multiple devices based on their capabilities. We describe the problem space, our architecture and implementation experience.
Expanded Safety and Immunogenicity of a Bivalent, Oral, Attenuated Cholera Vaccine, CVD 103-HgR Plus CVD 111, in United States Military Personnel Stationed in Panama

ABSTRACT To provide optimum protection against classical and El Tor biotypes of Vibrio cholerae O1, a single-dose, oral cholera vaccine was developed by combining two live, attenuated vaccine strains, CVD 103-HgR (classical, Inaba) and CVD 111 (El Tor, Ogawa). The vaccines were formulated in a double-chamber sachet; one chamber contained lyophilized bacteria, and the other contained buffer. A total of 170 partially-immune American soldiers stationed in Panama received one of the following five formulations: (a) CVD 103-HgR at 108 CFU plus CVD 111 at 107 CFU, (b) CVD 103-HgR at 108CFU plus CVD 111 at 106 CFU, (c) CVD 103-HgR alone at 108 CFU, (d) CVD 111 alone at 107 CFU, or (e) inactivated Escherichia coli placebo. Among those who received CVD 111 at the high or low dose either alone or in combination with CVD 103-HgR, 8 of 103 had diarrhea, defined as three or more liquid stools. None of the 32 volunteers who received CVD 103-HgR alone or the 35 placebo recipients had diarrhea. CVD 111 was detected in the stools of 46% of the 103 volunteers who received it. About 65% of all persons who received CVD 103-HgR either alone or in combination had a fourfold rise in Inaba vibriocidal titers. The postvaccination geometric mean titers were comparable among groups, ranging from 450 to 550. Ogawa vibriocidal titers were about twice as high in persons who received CVD 111 as in those who received CVD 103-HgR alone (600 versus 300). The addition of CVD 111 improved the overall seroconversion rate and doubled the serum Ogawa vibriocidal titers, suggesting that the combination of an El Tor and a classical cholera strain is desirable. While CVD 111 was previously found to be well tolerated in semiimmune Peruvians, the adverse effects observed in this study indicate that this strain requires further attenuation before it can be safely used in nonimmune populations.
A Study on Structural Relationships between Information Service Quality and Performance

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of information service quality on user satisfaction and individual performance in Outbound Callcenter. A survey was conducted and data were collected from 330 respondents of 1 company which adopted CMS. Validity and reliability of the research instrument were tested and research hypotheses were examined using PLS Graph 3.0. As a result of data analysis, 6 out of 8 hypotheses were supported. User satisfaction is significantly influenced by information quality factors such as accuracy, currency, and relevancy. 2) Also, User satisfaction is significantly affected by internal service quality factors such as training support and reward system. 3) Individual performance is significantly influenced by user satisfaction. Implications of these findings are discussed for researchers and practitioners.
Modification of retinex algorithm and its stream implementation on FPGA

The article describes the modification of multi scale Retinex algorithm. The modification offers to use alternative method of image blurring instead of Gaussian filter, tabular value substitution instead of calculating logarithm values and some other approaches leading to the increase of algorithm performance. The peculiarities of combining algorithms in the method offered allow to implement modified algorithm on FPGA XILINX XC7VX485T as threading conveyor. The article tries to assess the performance of the algorithm on FPGA, as well as its block implementation on CPU in comparison with original version — Multi Scale Retinex. The increase of the number of blurring scales in the offered threading implementation on FPGA allows to increase the quality of the result due to small increase of FPGA chip resources.
Keeping the Pace : Heart Rate Informed 3-D Motion Detection for Adaptive Temporal Smoothing

Time-resolved 3-D cardiac imaging in the catheter laboratory using C-arm computed tomography (CT) could provide valuable information to physicians during interventions. However, for clinically reasonable acquisition protocols, electrocardiography (ECG) gated reconstructions of individual heart phases are severely degraded due to sparse view sampling artifacts. As they appear at different locations for each heart phase, these artifacts strongly influence motion estimation, thus impairing a subsequent motion-compensated reconstruction which has been shown to greatly improve image quality. We present a method for reducing such artifacts by an adaptive smoothing in the temporal domain, guided by a projection-based motion detection step which incorporates the heart rate as prior knowledge. In our experiments on clinical data and a numerical heart phantom, we show that the increased temporal consistency achieved for initial images propagates into the motioncompensated reconstructions, improving their quality.
Compact rectangular waveguide to HMSIW transition

: A compact waveguide-to-half mode substrate integrated waveguide (HMSIW) transition using antisymmetric tapered probes is proposed. A good matching of ﬁ eld and impendence is achieved by the tapered probes. To verify the proposed transition, a back-to-back test module at Ka-band is fabricated and measured. It provides a return loss better than 14 dB and an insertion loss of 0.35 to 1 dB within a frequency range from 25 to 40 GHz. There is no need of intermediate transition for this design. The size of the proposed transition is reduced by approximately 83.8% as compared with the waveguide-to-HMSIW transition using antipodal ﬁ n-line.
The cerebral defect and myopathy in myotonic dystrophy

ALTHOUGH MENTAL DEFICIENCY has long been a recognized accompaniment of myotonic dystrophy,l-3 only in recent years has this association been reempha~ized. ~-T Curschmann8*9 was the first to point out that in dystrophia myotonica the muscular dystrophy and the mental deficiency were usually of comparable severity. This was confirmed a decade later by Maas and Paterson.3 To date, however, such observations have been based on clinical assessment alone, and no attempt has been made to quantitate clinically and pathologically the severity of the cerebral and muscular involvement in such cases. Recently, Rosman and KakulaslO have studied 4 autopsied cases of myotonic dystrophy and have shown a dysgenesis of cerebrum to be the probable pathological substratum for the mental deficiency that so frequently accompanies this disease. The microscopic sections of skeletal muscle from these 4 patients have been reviewed in detail, and in each case the severity of the myopathy has been compared with that of the cerebral defect. The results of this analysis form the basis for the present report.
Joint Interference Cancellation in Cache- and SIC-Enabled Networks

We consider a cache- and SIC-enabled wireless network where the locations of the base stations (BSs) and users are modeled by the Poisson point process (PPP) and Poisson cluster process, respectively. The BS serves two users simultaneously by transmitting a superimposed signal and each user employs a joint scheme of cache-assisted interference cancellation (CAIC) and successive interference cancellation (SIC). Each user is classified as a caching or non-caching user depending on whether or not it caches data sent to its interferer in the same cell. The receiver operation of each user is classified into three possible cases: CAIC only, both CAIC and SIC, and SIC only. Then the successful packet transmission probabilities of the caching and non-caching users are derived, based on which the spectral efficiency (SE) are obtained. The power allocation problems are further formulated to maximize the SE, which prove to be convex.
Assessment of Customer Relationship Management Practices in Selected Private Banks: A comparative study

VII Table of contents . VIII List of tables . XI List of figures . XIV CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION . 1 1.1. Background of the Study . 1 1.2. Background of the Study Units . 3 1.3. Statement of the Problem . 6 1.4. Objectives of the Study . 8 1.5. Significance of the Study. 8 1.6. Scope and Limitation of the Study . 9 1.7. Organization of the Study . 10 CHAPTER TWO: REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE . 11 2.1. Customer Relationship Management: The Concept . 11 2.2. The Benefits of Customer Relationship Management. 12 2.3. The Major Challenges that Banks Face in Implementing CRM . 13 2.4. Traditional Marketing and Modern Relationship Marketing . 14 2.5. Customer Satisfaction . 14 2.6. Customer Retention . 15
Tables Provide the Best Evidence-Based Guide to Balancing PEEP and FIO 2 Settings in Adults ?

Introduction Evidenced-Based Medicine Overview: The History of PEEP PEEP and Outcomes: Early Observational Studies Approaches to Setting PEEP: Early Recommendations Optimizing Compliance Minimizing Intrapulmonary Shunt Minimizing Ventilator-Associated Lung Injury Countering Compressive Atelectasis Randomized Clinical Trials: 1998–2006 Pro: The ARDS Network Tables Represent the Best Clinical Evidence to Guide Management for Titrating PEEP/FIO2 During Clinical Practice. Con: The ARDS Network Tables Do Not Represent the Best Clinical Evidence to Guide Management for Titrating PEEP/FIO2 During Clinical Practice. Weight of the Evidence Is All ARDS the Same? The Chest Wall Pressure-Volume Curves Recruitment Potential Success With Higher PEEP Summary
Multinationals, local firms, and economic reforms in Indian industry.

This thesis seeks to understand multinational activity in Indian industry after the reforms of 1991. Chapter 2 models two effects of inward FDI on local industry - linkage and competition effects. We develop a two-sector model with vertical product differentiation in the downstream sector and a monopolistically competitive upstream sector. We show that a domestic content requirement increases both linkage and competition effects, and can raise domestic welfare through growth of upstream industry, and increased consumer welfare. The stronger are linkage effects, and lower the income level, the greater are benefits from a DCR. Chapter 3 presents descriptive statistics and stylized facts about multinationals in India. We consider sectoral destination, characteristics, and performance of MNCs. We find MNC investment is horizontal and that they are more profitable than domestic firms. A model of distribution dynamics is used to investigate persistence in profitability. Differences in performance are driven by persistence of profits of highly profitable MNCs. In Chapter 4 we test for the effects of FDI reforms on firm performance. By constructing treatment and control groups and using pre and post reform data, we isolate the impact of reforms. We find that local firms' profitability has been reduced by the entry of new MNCs. However, pre-existing MNC profits have not been significantly affected by reforms. We find some evidence that MNCs are more efficient than local firms. In Chapter 5, we analyze export behaviour of Indian firms. Decomposing exports shows that post-reform export growth has been driven by surviving firms. We model the decision of the firm to export, and find that there are substantial sunk costs to exporting. Firm characteristics - size, profitability and multinationality - are important determinants of exporting. We find evidence for spillovers from general exporting activity but not from MNC presence in the industry on exporting.
A Study of Privacy Preserving Authentication for Safety Message Communication in VANET

Vehicular ad hoc networks are tremendously used for safety related applications. A single point of failure may cause great havoc in the network. Security and privacy are the major concerns. Several solutions are addressed to solve these issues. In this paper we analyze the recent trends in authentication and privacy preservation based on the signature size, verification time and anonymity. Our investigation shows that the id based signatures are suitable for VANET based safety applications due to its reduced signature size. And, the usage of pseudo identities with id based signatures provides a better solution for privacy preservation. Based on this we propose a framework for privacy preserving authentication for safety messages which involves a self-delegation pseudo id generation, id based signatures and priority based verification for prioritized messages and batch verification for non-priority messages.
A Method to Automate the Calibration of a Multiple Fiducial Marker Setup

This work proposes a new method to automate the calibration of multiple fiducial markers distributed over an Augmented Reality scene, in order to obtain stable relations, mainly among markers that will never be visible in a same video frame. The main feature of the method is to maintain all relationships between markers in each video frame. These relationships will be updated during calibration in order to obtain an accurate result. During the execution, the referential (base) marker of the system may change when markers with smaller error appears in the scene. The application produces the output configuration file of a multiple marker augmented reality environment in the same format used by AVRLib and ARToolKit libraries.
Levels of γ-H2AX Foci after Low-Dose-Rate Irradiation Reveal a DNA DSB Rejoining Defect in Cells from Human ATM Heterozygotes in Two AT Families and in Another Apparently Normal Individual

Abstract Kato, T. A. , Nagasawa, H. , Weil, M. M. , Little, J. B. and Bedford, J. S. Levels of γ-H2AX Foci after Low-Dose-Rate Irradiation Reveal a DNA DSB Rejoining Defect in Cells from Human ATM Heterozygotes in Two AT Families and in Another Apparently Normal Individual. Radiat. Res. 166, 443– 453 (2006). We have investigated the use of the γ-H2AX assay, reflecting the presence of DNA double-strand breaks, as a possible means for identifying individuals who are mildly hypersensitive to ionizing radiation, such as some ATM heterozygotes. We compared levels of γ-H2AX foci after irradiation in cells from six apparently normal individuals as well as from individuals from two separate AT families including the proband, mother, father and three unaffected siblings in each family. After a 1-Gy single acute (high-dose-rate) γ-ray dose delivered to noncycling contact-inhibited monolayers of cells, clear differences were seen between samples from normal individuals (ATM+/+) and probands (ATM−/−) at nearly all sampling times after irradiation, but no clear distinctions were seen for cells from normal compared to obligate heterozygotes (ATM+/−). In contrast, after 24 h of continuous irradiation at a dose rate of 10 cGy/h, appreciable differences in numbers of foci per cell were observed for cells from individuals for all the known ATM genotypes compared with controls. Four unaffected siblings had mean numbers of foci per cell similar to that for the obligate heterozygotes, whereas the other two had mean values similar to that for normal controls. We determined independently that those siblings with mean numbers of foci per cell in the range of ATM heterozygotes carried the mutant allele, while both siblings with a normal number of foci per cell after irradiation had normal alleles. A more limited set of experiments using lymphoblastoid cell strains in the low-dose-rate assay also revealed distinct differences for normal compared to ATM heterozygotes from the same families and opens the possibility of using peripheral blood lymphocytes as a more suitable material for an assay to detect mild hypersensitivities to radiation among individuals.
Input current ripple analysis of nine-phase PWM inverters

An input current-ripple analysis of nine-phase pulse width modulated (PWM) inverter is presented in this paper. The current-ripple is analyzed using a frequency domain approach. Two configurations of nine-phase inverter (symmetrical and asymmetrical) are analyzed. Analysis results show that symmetrical configuration has lower input current-ripple compared to asymmetrical configuration. Several experimental results are included to show the validity of the proposed analysis method.
Cloning and Functional Analysis of Three Chalcone Synthases from the Flowers of Safflowers Carthamus tinctorius

The flowers of safflowers (Carthamus tinctorius L.) are very important as they are the sole source of their distinct pigments, i.e. carthamus-red and-yellows, and have historically had strong connections to the cultural side of human activities such as natural dyes, rouge, and traditional medicines. The distinct pigments are quinochalcone C-glucosides, which are found specifically in the flowers of C. tinctorius. To investigate the biosynthetic pathways of quinochalcone C-glucosides, de novo assembly of the transcriptome was performed on the flowers using an Illumina sequencing platform to obtain 69,312 annotated coding DNA sequences. Three chalcone synthase like genes, CtCHSl, 2 and 3 were focused on and cloned, which might be involved in quinochalcone C-glucosides biosynthesis by establishing the C6-C3-C6 chalcone skeleton. It was demonstrated that all the recombinant CtCHSs could recognize p-coumaroyl-CoA, caffeoyl-CoA, feruloyl-CoA, and sinapoyl-CoA as starter substrates. This is the first report on the cloning and functional analysis of the three chalcone synthase genes from the flowers of C. tinctorius.
Tennis elbow: A biomechanical and therapeutic approach

Abstract Lateral epicondylitis, one of the most common lesions of the arm, affects some 50% of tennis players. This condition poses a problem in clinical management because treatment is dependent not only on proper medical therapy but also on correction of the improper on-court biomechanics. The most common flaw is a late contact on the backhand groundstroke, forcing the player to extend the wrist with the extensor muscles. This action predisposes to trauma of the tendon fibers at the lateral epicondyle. Understanding the biomechanics will better prepare the physician to advise the patient and to communicate with a tennis teaching professional to facilitate long-term relief.
PMF/GRIP a framework for the development and implementation of reuse models

Reuse in software development has received increasing attention over the past three decades from both practitioner and researchers alike. Many reuse models have been proposed, and many reuse projects have been launched with the aim to improve software quality and productivity. Despite reports of reuse successes and a continuing interest in the subject, reuse has not found its way into the mainstream software engineering practice. Already a decade ago reuse experts began to study the gap between reuse theory and practice, and they separated the facts from the myths. It became widely acknowledged that reuse is a complex endeavor, dependant on numerous factors, potentially involving many methods and most notably being influenced by human perception. However, to this day no reuse standard has emerged in the field that would address all of the complexity and at the same time strike a balance between comprehensiveness and applicability. This paper proposes a generic adaptive reuse framework for the incremental development of comprehensive and applicable reuse models. In order to facilitate the use of the framework, it has been embedded into a rudimentary process model, both framework and process model are open for adaptation. An attempt was made to address and manage the complexity of reuse planning, implementation and evaluation.
Hedge Fund Clones

The hedge fund replication refers to the process of replicating, or cloning, the returns of hedge funds through a statistical model or algorithmic trading strategy. There are three approaches that are employed for hedge fund replication. The first method, factor replication, is a top-down approach, which tries to estimate asset exposures of hedge funds with various statistical methods. The second is a bottom-up approach, which is referred here to as rule-based replication. The article aims to isolate broad and fundamental characteristics of hedge fund strategies and implement these with automated trading algorithms. The third approach aims to replicate desirable distributional properties of hedge fund returns with dynamic trading techniques. The underlying assumption of factor replication method is that major parts of hedge fund returns can be captured by a set of common risk factors. The dynamic trading approach aims to match the distributional properties such as mean, volatility, and correlation of hedge fund return time-series relative to a portfolio of common assets. The return time-series of hedge funds are not expected to be replicated on a monthly basis. The implementation of dynamic trading involves three steps. Firstly, the investor's portfolio is used to functionally define desirable dependence structures relative to hedge fund returns. The second step is to derive the payoff function, where the reserve asset is the dependent variable, which will give the dependence structure relative to the investor's portfolio. The final and third step is to derive the dynamic trading strategy, which replicates the payoff function.
The Overdensities of Galaxy Environments as a Function of Luminosity and Color

We study the mean environments of galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) as a function of rest-frame luminosity and color. Overdensities in galaxy number are estimated in 8 and 1 h-1 Mpc spheres centered on 115,000 galaxies taken from the SDSS spectroscopic sample. We find that, at constant color, overdensity is independent of luminosity for galaxies with the blue colors of spirals. This suggests that at fixed star formation history, spiral-galaxy mass is a very weak function of environment. Overdensity does depend on luminosity for galaxies with the red colors of early types; both low-luminosity and high-luminosity red galaxies are found to be in highly overdense regions.
Tolley's Corporate Governance Handbook

"Introduction. The Corporate governance framework. Corporate governance pronouncements - UK. Reporting on internal control, and the Turnbull Report. External control. External audit. Voting policies. Risk management and internal control. Corporate governance in the public sector. Being a director. The effective board. Board policies and policy statements. Compensation packages. Board committees. Audit committees Board committees - terms of reference. Stakeholders and reputational management. Internal audit. Fraud. Sustainability. International dimensions. Appendices. "