Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Naar bredere grondslagen en lagere tarieven in Nederland

Samenvatting De Belastingherziening 2001 brengt lagere tarieven, deels gefinancierd door een verbreding van de heffingsgrondslag. Deze grondslagverbreding is echter aanzienlijk kleiner dan de grondslagversmalling die in het afgelopen decennium is opgetreden. Ook na 2001 blijft de heffingsgrondslag smal en de tarieven dus hoger dan noodzakelijk. Wij pleiten voor een verdere grondslagverbreding in ruil voor tariefverlaging. Ter illustratie hebben we een flat rate tax met een extreem brede grondslag doorgerekend. Het uniforme tarief komt dan uit op 28%. Opmerkelijk is dat de koopkrachteffecten van een dergelijk stelsel binnen redelijke marges blijven. Diverse problemen staan een flat rate tax echter voorlopig in de weg. Wij hebben daarom ook een realistischer alternatief geschetst. Belangrijkste elementen zijn: een veel lagere heffingskorting, alleen een gerichte arbeidskorting, en verplaatsing van de eigen woning naar box III. Daarmee kunnen aantrekkelijke tarieven van 25% en 45% worden gerealiseerd. De koopkrachteffecten van dit alternatief zijn wat evenwichtiger dan die van de IB2001. Bovendien is sprake van een aanzienlijk consistenter fiscale behandeling van het eigen huis.
PAPER Special Section on Nonlinear Theory and Its Applications FPGA-Based Hash Circuit Synthesis with Evolutionary Algorithms

SUMMARY An evolutionary algorithm is used to evolve a digital circuit which computes a simple hash function mapping a 16-bit address space into an 8-bit one. The target technology is FPGA,where the search space of the algorithm is made of the combinational functions computed by cells and of the interconnections among cells. The evolutionary technique has been applied to five different interconnection topologies,specified by neighbourhood graphs. This circuit is readily applicable to the design of set-associative cache memories. Possible use of the evolutionary approach presented in the paper for on-line tuning of the function during cache operation is also discussed.
Activity and Thermoregulation of the Antelope Ground Squirrel Ammospermophilus leucurus in Winter and Summer

Antelope ground squirrels rely on their extremely labile body temperatures (Tb) to help maintain activity and energy balance at all seasons of the year. In summer, antelope ground squirrels employ hyperthermia to lengthen the duration of periods of surface activity by increasing the capacity for heat storage. The extent of hyperthermia increases with increasing environmental temperature. Periodically, the animals dissipate the stored heat passively by conduction in an underground burrow. This cycling of Tb allows them to remain active in environmental conditions intolerable on a steady-state basis. The limits of Tb apparently are adjusted to allow adequate durations of surface activity as well as rapid heat loss when the animals enter burrows, thus maximizing the ratio between time spent active and time spent dissipating heat. In winter, ground squirrels realize energy savings by lowering Tb at night to 32–33 C.
Amygdala kindling-resistant (SLOW) or -prone (FAST) rat strains show differential fear responses

The authors compared two rat strains, selectively bred for their susceptibility to amygdala kindling, with respect to their performance on various behavioral and learning tasks that are associated with fear and anxiety. The two rat strains differed significantly in measurements of exploration of novel and familiar environments, as well as in reactivity to footshock and fear-based learning. The kindling-resistant (SLOW) strain exhibited a lower ratio of open- to closed-arm entries in the elevated plus-maze, less activity over days in the open field, greater behavioral suppression in the open-field if previously footshocked, greater freezing in the inhibitory avoidance task, and slower acquisition and poorer retention in the one-way avoidance task than did the kindling-prone (FAST) strain. These experiments suggest that the SLOW rats are more expressively fearful than the FAST rats, particularly with respect to environmentally triggered freezing or immobility. Further, these observations imply that the relatively constrained excitability of the amygdala network in the SLOW rats might mediate their relatively greater expression of fear and anxiety compared with the FAST rats.
Shivering and Heat Production in Wild Birds

M OST birds are homoiothermic; they must maintain a high and relatively constant body temperature even when environmental temperatures fall 90 or 100 C below their body temperature. Maintenance of homoiothermy depends not only on insulation but also on metabolic mechanisms. In winter in the north during the daylight hours, birds move about in search of food and general muscular activity produces sufficient heat to maintain body temperature. However, at times of inactivity during the day or especially at night when birds are inactive, increased muscle tone and shivering appear to be the only methods available for producing heat.
Fertility control of eastern grey kangaroos: Do levonorgestrel implants affect behavior?

Wild populations of eastern grey kangaroos (Macropus giganteus) can pose serious management problems when conditions favor a high population growth rate. Contraception methods are becoming an ethically more acceptable alternative to culling or translocation when dealing with population control of large mammals. We investigated behavioral effects of levonorgestrel contraception in this species. A total of 82.4% of female eastern grey kangaroos treated with levonorgestrel implants did not reproduce, whereas only 12.5% of control females did not reproduce. Levonorgestrel contraception had no significant effect on time spent feeding, scanning, grooming, moving, and sexual interactions with males during the observation sessions. However, control females spent more time in open paddocks feeding than contracepted females over a 24-hr period. Males preferred to associate with groups containing more (and a higher percentage of) control females.
Effect of sugar supplementation in lactating dairy cows

During the past decades, the dairy industry has been challenged to find alternative approaches in order to feed cows without affecting their performance or increasing production costs. To accomplish these objectives, some options that have been implemented are the inclusion of short chain carbohydrates to replace starch and the addition of synthetic supplements to increase feed efficiency. In order to assess the impact of these strategies, an experiment was conducted to evaluate productive responses of lactating dairy cattle when they received sucrose and/or exogenous amylase in low starch diets. The results indicated that milk production, milk component profile, and feed efficiency were not significantly altered by the use of the enzyme, sucrose inclusion, or the combination of both. Comparing these results with the literature revealed apparent inconsistencies in responses to the inclusion of sugar in dairy rations. For that reason, a meta-analysis was performed to determine the impact of different sugar sources on milk production, and also to evaluate the impact of other dietary factors on response to dietary sugar. The results indicated that dry matter intake responses were significantly (P < 0.05) affected by an interaction between added sugar and dietary forage neutral detergent fiber content, but overall, dry matter intake tended to increase when sugar replaced corn grain in diets. Energy corrected milk was not affected by dietary sugar, but milk production showed a tendency to respond to treatment, dependent on an interaction between added sugar and rumen undegradable protein. In summary, sugar inclusion may promote small increases in dry matter intake, but the impact on milk production is inconsistent; both factors may be influenced by the diet to which sugar is added.
Evaluation of Biological Indicator Spores as Tools for Assessment of Fumigation Decontamination Effectiveness

In high-containment laboratories and animal facilities common practice is to decontaminate the facilities prior to maintenance or in an emergency situation. Many laboratories use commercially available biological indicators (BIs) to validate the decontamination procedure. In this study the focus was to evaluate the reliability of four different commercial BIs in comparison to control microorganisms that are commonly used in laboratories. Two different fumigation decontamination procedures were chosen: formaldehyde (FA) and vaporized hydrogen peroxide (VHP). The control microorganisms were Salmonella typhimurium, Brucella melitensis, Bacillus thuringiensis spores, porcine parvovirus, equine rhinitis A virus, bovine viral diarrhea virus, and low pathogenic avian influenza virus. Exposure to formaldehyde caused a sufficient reduction of all the control microorganisms, including B. thuringiensis spores, whereas only one of the four commercial BIs was completely negative for growth. The VHP decontamination procedure was not able to reduce any of the control microorganisms more than 4 log10, except for the enveloped viruses, whereas the BIs with the lowest concentration (105 microorganisms per spore strip) indicated a satisfactory decontamination procedure. These results indicate that commercial BIs could be unreliable as general indicators of decontamination effectiveness. To ensure a reliable decontamination process, BIs have to be evaluated for each protocol in parallel with the microorganisms used in the laboratory.
The Staphylococcus aureus Alternative Sigma Factor ςB Controls the Environmental Stress Response but Not Starvation Survival or Pathogenicity in a Mouse Abscess Model

ABSTRACT The role of ςB, an alternative sigma factor ofStaphylococcus aureus, has been characterized in response to environmental stress, starvation-survival and recovery, and pathogenicity. ςB was mainly expressed during the stationary phase of growth and was repressed by 1 M sodium chloride. AsigB insertionally inactivated mutant was created. In stress resistance studies, ςB was shown to be involved in recovery from heat shock at 54°C and in acid and hydrogen peroxide resistance but not in resistance to ethanol or osmotic shock. Interestingly, S. aureus acquired increased acid resistance when preincubated at a sublethal pH 4 prior to exposure to a lethal pH 2. This acid-adaptive response resulting in tolerance was mediated viasigB. However, ςB was not vital for the starvation-survival or recovery mechanisms. ςB does not have a major role in the expression of the global regulator of virulence determinant biosynthesis, staphylococcal accessory regulator (sarA), the production of a number of representative virulence factors, and pathogenicity in a mouse subcutaneous abscess model. However, SarA upregulates sigB expression in a growth-phase-dependent manner. Thus, ςB expression is linked to the processes controlling virulence determinant production. The role of ςB as a major regulator of the stress response, but not of starvation-survival, is discussed.
Exercise promotes a subcellular redistribution of calcium-stimulated protease activity in striated muscle

The aims of this study were (i) to investigate whether the contractile activity associated with running increases calcium-stimulated, calpastatin-inhibited protease activity (calpain-like) in a time-dependent manner and (ii) to determine whether the changes, if any, are proportionately distributed between soluble (cytosolic) and particulate (bound) fractions of striated muscle in vivo. Calcium-dependent, calpastatin-inhibited caseinolysis (i.e., calpain-like activity) was measured in control and exercised rats (25 m/min, 0% grade) at 2, 5, 15, 30, and 60 min. Total calpain-like activity in skeletal muscle increased by 26% (13.2 ± 1.3 vs. 17.9 ± 2.2 U/g wet wt.) (p < 0.05) after running (60 min), accompanied by an increased activity in the particulate fraction. In cardiac muscle, exercise (60 min) increased total calpain-like activity by 33% (p < 0.05), which was attributable to increases in both the cytosolic and particulate fractions. Both tissues responded with an early (2-5 min) activation of total cal.
How to miss data? Reinforcement learning for environments with high observation cost

We consider a reinforcement learning (RL) setting where there is a cost associated with making accurate observations. We propose a reward shaping framework and present a self-tuning RL agent that learns to adjust the accuracy of the samples. We consider two different scenarios: In the ﬁrst scenario, the agent directly varies the accuracy level of each sample. In the second scenario, the agent decides to perfectly observe some samples and miss others. In contrast to the existing work that focuses on sample efﬁciency during training, our focus is on the behavior of the agent when the observation cost is an intrinsic part of the environment. Our results illustrate that the RL agent can successfully learn that not all samples are equally informative and choose to observe the ones that are most critical for the task at hand with high accuracy.
In Pursuit of Inter-Agency Collaboration In The Public Sector

Although long seen as desirable, inter-agency collaboration has remained conceptually elusive and difficult to achieve. Whilst recognising that there are other positions, this article takes the normative position that collaboration is generally a ‘good thing’. It brings together strands of theoretical, conceptual and empirical literature from diverse disciplines in ‘order to better understand inter-agency collaboration as a concept and as a process, This is developed into a sequentially structured framework capable of being customised to a range of organisational and policy contexts.
Mapping and characterization of macro non-protein coding RNAs in human imprinted gene regions

Genomweite Transkriptomstudien haben unterschiedliche Klassen von Nicht-Protein-kodierenden (nk) RNS offenbart und Fragen nach der Komplexitat und Regulation des Genoms aufgeworfen. Genomische Pragung, ein epigenetisches Phanomen das die Exprimierung eines Gens in diploiden Zellen auf ein von zwei elterlichen Chromosomen beschrankt, ist ein Modellsystem um die Funktion der makro oder langen nkRNAs zu studieren. Sechs gut erforschte gepragte Gen- Cluster enthalten jeweils eine makro nkRNS die zwischen Maus und Mensch konserviert ist. Weiters wurde gezeigt, dass die zwei murinen makro nkRNAs Airn und Kcnq1ot1 die Exprimierung aller Protein-kodierenden Gene in den jeweiligen Gen-Clustern Igf2r und Kcnq1 unterdrucken. Beim Menschen exprimieren 8 von 27 bekannten gepragten Gen-Regionen gepragte makro nkRNAs. Um herauszufinden ob makro nkRNAs ein universelles Merkmal von allen menschlichen gepragten Gen-Regionen sind, habe ich individuell entwickelte Human Imprinted Tiling Arrays (HIRTA) und RNA-Sequenzierungstechnologien verwendet. Durch Hybridisierung von cDNA von menschlichen Geweben (20 normale und 23 Krebsgewebe) habe ich gewebespezifische Exprimierungsprofile von menschlichen gepragten Regionen erhalten. Dadurch konnte ich 101 neue Transkripte kartieren von denen 95% durch einen bioinformatische Analyse als macro nkRNS bestatigt werden konnten. Die RNA-Sequenzierung von nicht-ribosomaler RNA einer Fibroblasten Zelllinie ergab 26,2 Millionen einmalig zugeordnete Sequenzfragmente. Damit konnte ich sowohl die Exprimierung bereits bekannter gepragter makro nkRNAs erfolgreich detektieren als auch die Exprimierung von 22/23 neuen makro nkRNAs bestatigen die ich mittels HIRTA gefunden habe. Sieben neue makro nkRNAs sind entwicklungsspezifisch reguliert wie ich mittels eines Differenzierungssystems in embryonalen Stammzellen zeigen konnte. Die weitere Charakterisierung von zehn makro nkRNAs hat gezeigt, dass 4/10 ausschliesslich im Zellkern vorliegen, 6/10 monoallelisch oder bevorzugt monoallelisch exprimiert werden und 2/10 einen CpG Insel Promoter haben der unterschiedlich stark auf den beiden elterlichen Chromosomen methyliert ist (DMR). Zusammengenommen habe ich Beweise fur sechs neue gepragte makro nkRNAs. Weiters sind 22 der 101 neu kartierten Transkripte nur in Krebsgeweben exprimiert. Diese konnten einen wertvollen Startpunkt fur weiterfuhrende Biomarker Forschung darstellen. Weiters konnte ich zeigen, dass alle menschlichen gepragten Gen-Regionen zumindest je eine makro nkRNA exprimieren welche gepragt sein konnte und diese daher moglicherweise eine Rolle in der Genregulation unter normalen als auch krankhaften Zustanden beim Menschen spielt.
Authors’ response for "Impact of atomic chlorine on the modelling of methane and its CH4:CH4 isotope ratio at global scale"

Methane (CH4) is the second strongest anthropogenic greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide (CO2) and is responsible for about 20% of the warming induced by long-lived greenhouse gases since pre-industrial times. Oxidation by the hydroxyl radical (OH) is the dominant atmospheric sink for methane, contributing to approximately 90% of the total methane loss. Chemical losses by reaction with atomic oxygen (OD) and chlorine radicals (Cl) in the stratosphere are other sinks, contributing :::::::: contribute about 5 3% to the total methane destruction. Moreover :::::::::: Additionally, the reaction with Cl is very fractionating, thus ::: i.e. ::::::: reacting ::::: faster :::: with ::::: 12CH4::::: than :::: with :::::: 13CH4. ::::::::: Therefore,:it has a much larger impact on δ C-CH4 than the reaction with OH ::: OH:::::::: oxidation. In this paper, we assess the impact of atomic Cl :: Cl :::::::: oxidation : on atmospheric methane mixing ratios, methane atmospheric loss and atmospheric δC-CH4. The offline version of the Global ::: 3-D::::::: General:Circulation Model (GCM) LMDz, coupled to a chemistry module including the major methane chemical reactions :: all ::::::: relevant ::::::: methane :::::::: chemical ::::: sinks, is run to simulate 10 CH4 concentrations and δC-CH4 at the global scale. Atmospheric ::: The ::::: mean :::::::::: atmospheric methane sink by Cl atoms in the stratosphere is found to be 7.32 ± 0.16 Tg/yr ::: over ::: the ::::::::: 2000-2018 :::::: period ::::: using : a :::::::::::: climatological :::::::::: (2003-2009 :::::::: average) :: Cl :::: field. Methane observations from vertical profiles obtained using AirCore samplers above : at : 11 different locations across the globe ::::::::: worldwide and balloon measurements of δC-CH4 and methane :::::: isotopic::::: ratios:::: and :::: CH4:::::: mixing::::: ratios:are used to assess the impact of the Cl sink in the chemistry transport model ::::: LMDz. Above 10 km, the presence of ::::: adding Cl in the model is found to 15 have ::: has : only a small impact on the vertical profile of total methane ::: CH4::::::: vertical:::::: profile but a major influence on δ C-CH4 values, significantly improving the agreement between simulations and available observations :: of ::::::::: δC-CH4. Stratospheric Cl is also found :::::: appears to have a substantial impact on surface δC-CH4 values, leading to a difference of + 0.27:::: 0.25:‰ (less negative values ::::: hence ::::::: enriched :::: with :::::: CH4) after a 19-year run . ::::::: spanning::::: 2000:: to::::: 2018. As a result, this study suggests that the Cl sink needs to be properly taken into account (magnitude and trends) in order to better understand trends in the atmospheric 20 δC-CH4 signal when using :::::: forward:: or::::::: inverse ::::::::: simulations::: of atmospheric chemistry transport modelsfor forward or inverse calculations.
Weakly-Supervised Cell Segmentation for Multiplex Immunohistochemistry Images

Multiplex immunohistochemistry (mIHC) is a novel scalable method of staining multiple cell types in a single tissue slice. In this paper, we propose a new method to automatically segment multiple cell types from a mIHC whole slide image. Our method only requires domain experts to provide a limited number of weak annotations (i
Review on the Security Threats of Internet of Things

Internet of Things (IoT) is being considered as the growth engine for industrial revolution 4.0. The combination of IoT, cloud computing and healthcare can contribute in ensuring well-being of people. One important challenge of IoT network is maintaining privacy and to overcome security threats. This paper provides a systematic review of the security aspects of IoT. Firstly, the application of IoT in industrial and medical service scenarios are described, and the security threats are discussed for the different layers of IoT healthcare architecture. Secondly, different types of existing malware including spyware, viruses, worms, keyloggers, and trojan horses are described in the context of IoT. Thirdly, some of the recent malware attacks such as Mirai, echobot and reaper are discussed. Next, a comparative discussion is presented on the effectiveness of different machine learning algorithms in mitigating the security threats. It is found that the k-nearest neighbor (kNN) machine learning algorithm exhibits excellent accuracy in detecting malware. This paper also reviews different tools for ransomware detection, classification and analysis. Finally, a discussion is presented on the existing security issues, open challenges and possible future scopes in ensuring IoT security.
THE BEHAVIOUR REPRODUCTIVE OF THE ANCHOA JANUARIA (ACTINOPTERYGII, ENGRAULIDAE) IN A TROPICAL BAY IN SOUTHEASTERN BRAZIL

The anchovy Anchoa januaria (Steindachner) is a small pelagic fish widely distributed in embayment areas of the South East Brazilian coast. At present, there is little information on the reproductive ecology of this species and it is believed that it occurs in less saline water of the bays, migrating to lower rivers reaches to spawn (Esper, 1982). The present work describes behaviour reproductive and the sex ratio of A. januaria in Sepetiba Bay. The following questions were asked: 1) Is there sexual segregation during part of the life cycle? 2) If so, is such segregation caused by reproductive behaviour?
A Model Compression for Super Resolution Multi Scale Residual Networks based on a Layer-wise Quantization

기존의 초해상도 딥러닝 기법은 모델의 깊이가 깊어지면서, 좋은 성능을 내지만 점점 더 복잡해지고 있고, 실제로 사용하는데 있어 많은 시간을 요구한다. 이를 해결하기 위해, 우리는 딥러닝 모델의 가중치를 양자화 하여 추론시간을 줄이고자 한다. 초해상도 모델은 feature extraction, non-linear mapping, reconstruction 세 부분으로 나누어져 있으며, 레이어 사이에 많은 skip-connection 이 존재하는 특징이 있다. 따라서 양자화 시 최종 성능 하락에 미치는 영향력이 레이어 별로 다르며, 이를 감안하여 강화학습으로 레이어 별 최적 bit 를 찾아 성능 하락을 최소화한다. 본 논문에서는 Skip-connection 이 많이 존재하는 MSRN 을 사용하였으며, 결과에서 feature extraction, reconstruction 부분과 블록 내 특정 위치의 레이어가 항상 높은 bit 를 가짐을 알 수 있다. 기존에 영상 분류에 한정되어 사용되었던 혼합 bit 양자화를 사용하여 초해상도 딥러닝 기법의 모델 사이즈를 줄인 최초의 논문이며, 제안 방법은 모바일 등 제한된 환경에 적용 가능할 것으로 생각된다.
An Ecology-based Index for Text Embedding and Classification

Natural language processing and text mining applications have gained a growing attention and diffusion in the computer science and machine learning communities. In this work, a new embedding scheme is proposed for solving text classification problems. The embedding scheme relies on a statistical assessment of relevant words within a corpus using a compound index originally proposed in ecology: this allows to spot relevant parts of the overall text (e.g., words) on the top of which the embedding is performed following a Granular Computing approach. The employment of statistically meaningful words not only eases the computational burden and the embedding space dimensionality, but also returns a more interpretable model. Our approach is tested on both synthetic datasets and benchmark datasets against well-known embedding techniques, with remarkable results both in terms of performances and computational complexity.