Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Vehicle Repositioning under Uncertainty

We consider a general multi-period repositioning problem in vehicle-sharing networks such as bicycle-sharing systems, free-float car-sharing systems, and autonomous mobility-on-demand systems. This problem is subject to uncertainties along multiple dimensions—including demand, travel time, and repositioning duration— and faces several operational constraints such as the service level and cost budget. We propose a robustness optimization model to tackle these uncertainties; thus we aim to satisfy operational constraints under a reference distribution yet also to protect against ambiguity in the true distribution. This paper is the first, as far as we know, to incorporate various time-dependent uncertainties. We then reformulate the model and efficiently obtain solutions by solving a sequence of mixed-integer linear optimization problems. Extensive simulation studies demonstrate that our model yields remarkable performance in various settings and is computationally scalable. We find that our model, when compared to such benchmarks as “fluid-based optimization”, achieves the highest average service level for a given repositioning cost budget; it also is robust to adverse circumstances (i.e., its worst-case service level is also the highest).
L’amélioration génétique de la qualité de la viande dans les différentes espèces : situation actuelle et perspectives à court et moyen terme

Les efforts d'amelioration genetique de nos populations d'animaux domestiques exploitees pour la production de viande ont porte jusqu'a present essentiellement sur les criteres de production, principalement la vitesse de croissance en vif mais aussi, de plus en plus, la croissance musculaire. Seules les qualites technologiques de la viande de porc sont actuellement integrees dans les schemas d'amelioration genetique du fait de leur impact economique, de la mise en evidence de genes a effet majeur (HAL sur la viande "pisseuse" et RN sur la viande "acide") et de l'existence de predicteurs du rendement technologique mesurables en abattoir (pH, reflectance, perte en eau). Il est ainsi possible de poursuivre l'amelioration de la croissance musculaire tout en maintenant le niveau des qualites technologiques dans nos populations porcines. Chez les volailles, une part croissante de la production est utilisee par les industries de transformation. Comme chez le porc, il a ete montre que les mesures de pH, de reflectance et de perte d'eau sont genetiquement liees au rendement technologique. Par contre, alors qu'il existe une relation genetique legerement defavorable chez le porc, ces criteres n'apparaissent pas lies genetiquement aux caracteres de production chez les volailles. La selection des qualites sensorielles se heurte pour l'instant a l'absence de predicteurs mesurables en abattoir. Les recherches actuelles visent principalement a mettre en evidence les relations genetiques entre caracteres de production et qualites sensorielles. Chez les volailles et le lapin, une selection sur la croissance n'a pas d'impact sur les qualites sensorielles si l'âge a l'abattage n'est pas modifie. Par contre la reduction de l'âge a l'abattage des volailles, consecutive a la selection sur la croissance, induit un accroissement de la tendrete et une reduction de la flaveur lies a la moindre maturite des animaux. Chez le porc, les relations genetiques entre croissance musculaire et qualites sensorielles sont assez nettement defavorables et une degradation de ces dernieres pourrait etre evitee si une selection pour accroitre la teneur en lipides intramusculaires etait possible. Chez les bovins, les quelques etudes menees en France permettent d'assurer qu'une selection sur la croissance musculaire devrait etre plutot favorable a la tendrete, mais defavorable a la flaveur. Comme dans le cas du porc, une selection sur la teneur en lipides intramusculaires permettrait de pallier cet effet negatif. Dans ces deux especes, l'amelioration simultanee de la croissance musculaire et de la teneur en lipides intramusculaires se heurte non pas tant a l'existence d'une relation genetique negative entre ces deux objectifs, mais surtout a la difficulte d'obtenir un predicteur fiable et non destructif de cette teneur chez des animaux qui sont particulierement maigres. Cette difficulte milite pour la recherche de genes qui soient a la fois impliques dans ces qualites et selectionnables grâce a un polymorphisme facilement detectable.
Progress in the technology of measurement: Applications of item response models.

Despite advances in psychometric theory and analytic techniques, a number of issues regarding the assessment of depression remain unresolved, including the relative effectiveness of response options (option effectiveness), the ability of existing measures to detect differences in depressive severity (scale discriminability), and the extent to which certain groups of individuals use items and options differently (differential item functioning). One part of the article introduces the fundamentals of nonparametric item response models; the 2nd part of the article illustrates how item response models can be applied to address specific psychometric issues. Although the article focuses on the assessment of depression, the problems addressed in this article are present in virtually every field of psychological research, and the techniques offered may be applied broadly. Analytic techniques based on item response models are not only helpful in identifying and ultimately resolving many of these issues, they are essential to ensure that traits, abilities, and conditions, such as depression, are assessed fairly and equitably.
Volatile flavour of wine: Correlation between instrumental analysis and sensory perception

The aroma of wine consists of 600 to 800 aroma compounds from which especially those, typical for the variety, are already present in the grapes. There are significant varietal differences between the aromagrams ('fingerprint patterns'). Thus the amount of some flavour compounds ('key substances') shows typical dependence on the variety. Especially monoterpene compounds play an important role in the differentiation of wine varieties. The German white wines can be differentiated into three groups only by quantitative determination of 12 monoterpenes ('terpene profile'). These groups are: 'Riesling type', 'Muscat type' and 'Silvaner-Weissburgunder type'. Such 'terpene profiles' are also useful for the separation of real Riesling wines from others called Riesling (e.g. Welschriesling, Kap Riesling, Emerald Riesling) but not produced from grapes of the variety Riesling. Including further components and by means of statistical methods (discriminant analysis) even the different varieties within the mentioned groups for instance the 'Riesling'-group (e.g. Riesling, Kerner, Ehrenfelser, Bacchus, Muller-Thurgau) can be separated from each other. An analytical characterization of the neutral ('Silvaner-type') grape varieties Silvaner, Rulander (Pinot gris), Weissburgunder (Pinot blanc) is also possible with about 20 compounds (e.g. monoterpenes, alcohols). Computing at the same time free and glycosidically bound aroma components (monoterpenes, alcohols, norisoprenes) in discriminant analysis the characterization of the neutral grape varieties can be considerably improved. To identify compounds causing 'off-flavours' sniffing technique is the method of choice. The off-flavour is pinpointed during gas chromatographic separation of the complex aroma mixture by effluent sniffing. Once allocated, the chemical nature of the off-flavours is elucidated by spectroscopic methods. Substances contributing to the green pepper taint, the strawberry note, moussiness, corkiness, etc. in wine could be found in this way.
Crowd egress in high-density scenario

Large events can host thousands of people and it is therefore crucial to carefully plan for their egress. In this context, solutions can be adopted for the management of crowds in high-density scenarios, as issues related to safety and comfort can occur when high densities are present. It is therefore necessary to evaluate the relationship between the space available and the interactions among pedestrians in such conditions. Nevertheless, pedestrian movement data-sets on highdensity conditions are scarce, and the few available data-sets are collected in very specific conditions [1].
Gender differences in emotional expressivity and self-regulation during early infancy

: Eighty-one 6-month-old infants and their mothers were videotaped in Tronick's face-to-face still-face paradigm to evaluate gender differences in infant and maternal emotional expressivity and regulation. Male infants had greater difficulty than female infants in maintaining affective regulation during each episode, including the still face. Mother-son dyads had higher synchrony scores than mother-daughter dyads but took longer in repairing interactive errors. In addition, maternal affect, matching, rate of change between matching and mismatching states, and synchrony in the play preceding the still face differentially mediated male and female infants' responses to the still face and reunion play. The developmental implications of these gender differences are discussed.
A Homolog of CcpA Mediates Catabolite Control in Listeria monocytogenes but Not Carbon Source Regulation of Virulence Genes

ABSTRACT Readily utilizable sugars down-regulate virulence gene expression in Listeria monocytogenes, which has led to the proposal that this regulation may be an aspect of global catabolite regulation (CR). We recently demonstrated that the metabolic enzyme α-glucosidase is under CR in L. monocytogenes. Here, we report the cloning and characterization from L. monocytogenes of an apparent ortholog of ccpA, which encodes an important mediator of CR in several low-G+C-content gram-positive bacteria. L. monocytogenes ccpA(ccpALm) is predicted to encode a 335-amino-acid protein with nearly 65% identity to the gene product ofBacillus subtilis ccpA (ccpABs). Southern blot analysis with a probe derived fromccpALm revealed a single strongly hybridizing band and also a second band of much lower intensity, suggesting that there may be other closely related sequences in the L. monocytogenes chromosome, as is the case in B. subtilis. Disruption of ccpALm resulted in the inability of the mutant to grow on glucose-containing minimal medium or increase its growth rate in the presence of preferred sugars, and it completely eliminated CR of α-glucosidase activity in liquid medium. However, α-glucosidase activity was only partially relieved from CR on solid medium. These results suggest that ccpA is an important element of carbon source regulation in L. monocytogenes. Nevertheless, utilizable sugars still down-regulate the expression of hly, which encodes the virulence factor hemolysin, in a ccpALm mutant, indicating that CcpA is not involved in carbon source regulation of virulence genes.
Politics on the fringe

Once a marginal political coalition, the French National Front has become the most high-profile far-right organization in Europe. In Politics on the Fringe Edward G. DeClair provides the first extensive analysis of the Front’s history, from its creation in 1972 and outcast status in the early 1980s to its achievement of broad-based support and show of political strength in the 1997 elections. Using rare, in-depth interviews with twenty-nine members of the Front elite, as well as public opinion survey data and electoral results, DeClair examines the internal structure of the Front, its political agenda, and its growing influence in France. DeClair shows how the party has dramatically expanded its traditionally narrow core constituency by capitalizing upon anxieties about national identity, immigration, European unification, and rising unemployment. In illustrating how the rhetoric surrounding such topics is key to the Front’s success, DeClair examines the Front’s legacy by detailing the links between the French far-right and similar movements in such countries as Germany, Belgium, Austria, Italy, and the United States. Finally, Politics on the Fringe offers not only a complete picture of the Front’s increasingly influential role in French partisan politics but also further insight into the resurgence of right-wing extremism throughout western societies in the late twentieth century. This volume will be of primary importance to political scientists and those engaged with European politics, culture, and history. It will also appeal to those concerned with right-wing populism and political movements.
Sexual dimorphism in Trachylepis aurata transcaucasica Chernov, 1926 (Reptilia: Scincidae) in the Zagros Mountains, western Iran

Forty-nine preserved specimens (31 male and 18 female) of Trachylepis aurata transcaucsasica were examined with respect to metric and meristic features and dry skull anatomy to assess sexual dimorphism. Thirty-one morphological characters and 36 anatomical characters in dry skulls were examined. Subdigital lamellae under the forth toe, neck length, neck length/snout vent length, and six skull characters (skull length, condylobasal length, anterior rostrum width, eye width, and ratios of maxilla length to skull length and pterygoid length to skull length) were significantly different in males and females (P < 0.05). Other observed differences were in the base of the tail, which was thicker in males than in females, and in the structure of the anus. The sexes did not show dimorphism in color or pattern.
A quasi-Newton strategy for the Linear-Programming-Newton Method

We consider a method to solve constrained system of nonlinear equations based on the Linear-Programming-Newton method replacing the first order information with a quasi-Newton secant update, providing a computationally simple method. The proposed strategy combines good properties of two methods: the least change secant update for unconstrained system of nonlinear equations with isolated solutions and the Linear-Programming-Newton for constrained nonlinear system of equations with possible nonisolated solutions. We analyze the local convergence of the proposed method under a standard error bound condition proving its linear convergence for nonisolated solutions. Numerical experiments show linear convergence and superlinear convergence in some problems.
Enhancing Music Recommendation with Social Media Content: an Attentive Multimodal Autoencoder Approach

Music recommendation methods predict users’ music preference primarily based on historical ratings. Meanwhile, manifold personal factors of users are also important for the problem, and research efforts have been made to improve the recommendation performance with auxiliary user information. As an important indicator of users’ personal traits and states, the numerous social media content (e.g., texts, images and short videos), however, is still hardly exploited. In this work, we systematically study the utilization of multimodal social media content for music recommendation. We define groups of both targeted handcrafted features and generic deep features for each modality, and further propose an Attentive Multimodal Autoencoder approach (AMAE) to learn cross-modal latent representations from the extracted features. Attention mechanism is also employed to integrate users’ global and contextual music preference with alterable weights. Experiments demonstrate remarkable improvement of recommendation performance (+2.40% in Hit Ratio and +3.30% in NDCG), manifesting the effectiveness of our AMAE approach, as well as the significance of incorporating social media content data in music recommendation.
FRECUENCIA DE LOS MARCADORES DEL GEN LEPTINA EN RAZAS BOVINAS CRIOLLAS Y COLOMBIANAS: I. ROMOSINUANO, CHINO SANTANDEREANO, SANMARTINERO Y VELÁSQUEZ 1 Frequency of Leptin Gene Markers in Creole and Colombian Cattle: I. Romosinuano, Chino Santandereano, Sanmartinero and Velásquez breeds

Leptin is a 146 amino acids hormone that it is secreted predominantly by white adipocytes. It has been associated to different productive and reproductive traits of farm’s animals. The aims of this study were to determine polymorphisms of three molecular markers of the leptin gene: A Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP), the microsatellites ST (or BM1500) at the 3’UTR region, and WD at the 5’UTR. The amplification was made for PCR technique and was run in agarosa gel after the restriction for SNP and polyacrylamide gel for microsattelites. In order to establish the association of these markers with body weight, rib eyes area, and backfat thickness, Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used and data was obtained using ultrasound images. Samples were taken from 252 animals of three creole and one Colombian breed cattle out of different nuclei from Colombia. For the SNP, T allele frequency was larger in Sanmartinero breed and lower in Chino Santandereano breed. For the microsatellite BM 1500 five different alleles were found (136, 138, 144, 146 and 148). Among these, alleles 136 (between 0.31 y 0.76) and 144 (between 0.15 and 0.65) appeared more often. Also, in WD 13 alleles were identified, being allele 183 (between 0.038 and 0.630) and allele 177 (between 0.14 and 0.46) the most common. Finally, for the Velasquez breed the only association found occurred between the microsatellite ST allele 146 and larger body weight in individuals between 18 – 24 months (P 0.05).
Risk of transmission of Trypanosoma cruzi by blood transfusion in Mexico

: Data from the late eighties indicate that 1.6% of the Mexican population was infected with Chagas' disease and that transmission by way of blood transfusion was taking place in nearly every state, in areas of different sizes. The risk of transmission via that route has seldom been documented in Mexico, and for this reason a sentinel survey was conducted in 1994 in 18 blood banks belonging to the Ministry of Health and located in various states. The purpose of the study was to determine the risk of transmission via blood transfusion and to calculate the national prevalence of infection among potential donors, so as to have a set of general indicators of the prevailing disease burden and of the importance of this transmission route. Participants were selected on the basis of operating criteria: all government-run transfusion centers with the capacity to screen blood donors for at least one year and persons seeking to donate blood (n = 64,969) who satisfied the Official Mexican Standards (Norma Official Mexicana) for the therapeutic use of human blood and blood products. For the analysis of the results the centers were grouped according to migration flow in order to detect any possible influence the latter may have had on Chagas' disease transmission within the country. Screening was done with indirect hemagglutination using a reagent produced by the Instituto Nacional de Diagnostico y Referencia Epidemiologicos and donated to the blood banks. Positive cases were confirmed by indirect immunofluorescence. Positive results were detected in 996 persons, for a prevalence of 1.5% (95% CI: 1.44 to 1.63). Concordance between the final results obtained by local labs and by the central lab was given by a kappa index of 0.87 (95% CI: 0.862 to 0.877). Cities having the highest emigration rates had three times the risk of transmission as compared to cities that drew immigrants (odds ratio = 2.82; 95% CI: 2.18 to 3.65). We recommend that mandatory serologic screening be enforced throughout Mexico, since migration makes it difficult to determine which areas are endemic.
Design of a Fast and Reliable Wireless Link for Kite Power Systems

Kite Power Systems present technological advantages over traditional windmills. In this work, the design of a dual wireless link for kite applications requiring high reliability and low delays is presented. The link provides realtime data exchange between the system components that allows researchers to run closed-loop controllers, and to validate kite models. The proposed solution meets the quality of service requirements (delay and packet losses) and other requirements specific for airborne wind energy applications like small form factor, low weight, and power consumption. The most relevant design choices for frequencies, devices, and configuration are described. A pair of controllers for flying crosswind were tested under different QoS conditions with positive results. Performance measurements during flight were used to build statistical models. Such models were implemented in a simulator to better understand the effects of the network over autopilot controllers and to find the minimum communication performance requirement for the system.
A Contrastive Study of Heteroglossia in the Reasoning of Criminal Judgments of Chinese Mainland and Hong Kong

Within the framework of the Engagement System of Appraisal Theory, this thesis investigates the heteroglossia of the reasoning of criminal judgments of Chinese mainland and Hong Kong and examines their similarities and differences in the employment of heteroglossic engagement resources and underlying causes. The reasoning of 20 criminal judgments of Chinese mainland and Hong Kong produced upon second instance for the same cause of action are collected and built as two separate corpora to carry out the study. It is found that judges of both Chinese mainland and Hong Kong employ various heteroglossic engagement resources to locate position and negotiate with other voices while proceeding with reasoning. Furthermore, they share some similarities in the selection of subtypes of engagement resources, which is attributed to the fact that they hold similar communicative purposes in the reasoning of judicial judgments; while the differences can be interpreted from the distinct legal doctrines in the mainland and Hong Kong and the textual structure of the reasoning of criminal judgments.
Inhibition of the NMC-A β-Lactamase by a Penicillanic Acid Derivative and the Structural Bases for the Increase in Substrate Profile of This Antibiotic Resistance Enzyme

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés. Inhibition of the NMC-A β-Lactamase by a Penicillanic Acid Derivative and the Structural Bases for the Increase in Substrate Profile of This Antibiotic Resistance Enzyme Lionel Mourey, Kazuyuki Miyashita, Peter Swarén, Alexey Bulychev, Jean-Pierre Samama, Shahriar Mobashery
Research Division Federal Reserve Bank of St . Louis Working Paper Series A Model of Near-Rational Exuberance

We study how the use of judgement or “add-factors” in forecasting may disturb the set of equilibrium outcomes when agents learn using recursive methods. We isolate conditions under which new phenomena, which we call exuberance equilibria, can exist in a standard self-referential environment. Local indeterminacy is not a requirement for existence. We construct a simple asset pricing example and find that exuberance equilibria, when they exist, can be extremely volatile relative to fundamental equilibria. JEL codes: E520, E610.
Neural correlates of structural and holistic object representations in dependence of attention

A striking feature of human object perception is the ability to recognize objects in previously unseen views. Behavioral studies have shown that this view-invariance is largely dependent on attention (Thoma et al., 2004; Stankiewicz and Cooper, 1998). It has therefore been proposed that object recognition operates on two different representational formats depending on the availability of attentional resources (Hummel, 2001):