Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Stochastic Approach for Feature-Based Tip Localization and Planning in Nanomanipulations

In atomic force microscopy (AFM)-based nanomanipulation, the tip position uncertainties still exist due to the parameter inaccuracies in the open-loop compensation of the piezo scanner, the noise in the closed-loop control and thermal drift. These spatial uncertainties are very challenging to be directly estimated owing to the lack of real-time feedback, and its effects are more significant in performing an automatic nanomanipulation/assembly task than macro world manipulations. In this paper, we propose a stochastic framework for feature-based localization and planning in nanomanipulations to cope with these uncertainties. In the proposed framework, some features in the sample surface are identified to calculate their positions in statistics, and detected by using the AFM tip as the sensor itself through a local scan-based motion. In the localization, the Kalman filter is used through incorporating the tip motion model and the local scan-based observation model to estimate the on-line tip position in the task space. The simulation and experiments about tip positioning are carried out to illustrate the validity and feasibility of the proposed algorithm. Then, positioning tip for effective nanomanipulation is presented by using several experiments. Finally, a carbon nanotube is followed to show that the proposed method can provide a great potential for improving the position accuracy.Note to Practitioners—Atomic force microscopy (AFM)-based nanomanipulation has become a promising approach in developing devices and structures at nanoscale. One of the prerequisites for the effective and successful nanomanipulation is that the AFM tip position relative to the interest region can be controlled accurately. This paper proposes a stochastic approach for feature-based localization and planning method to solve these problems. The uncertainties of the tip position are decreased by using the Kalman filter method in the localization procedure. Fifty times of experiments are represented to illustrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the tip positioning method. Then, basic nanomanipulations in the vertical direction without and with SAFLP method are performed for representing significance of positioning the tip. Furthermore, assembling nanostructures and following the carbon nanotube are carried out by using SAFLP. These experiments indicate that accurate positioning tip in AFM-based observation and manipulation can provide valid nanomanipulation in N/MEMS assembly, and the following nano-objects such as nanotube in real-time observation, which will promote automation implementation in nanomanipulation.
Convertible Bonds or Bonds with Warrants: An Approach Using Sequential Financing

The context for this article is the problem of funding through the issuing of debt associated with a call option on shares to be issued: convertible bonds and bonds with warrants. The securities studied are generally considered to be the same in the literature. The aim of this article is to propose a study of a sequential financing model that integrates one of the objective differences between these two securities, the difference observed between the cash flow sequences resulting from the issue. We will deduce the characteristics that lead companies to issue either convertibles or bonds with warrants.
How Would Rural Areas Fare Under Block Grants

Current proposals would convert many domestic assistance programs into Federal block grants to be administered by State governments. Block grants give States broad discretion on how Federal funds are spent. In theory, this can lead to program improvements, reduced administration costs, and lower Federal deficits. Research on past block grants, however, indicates that block grants have had mixed success in achieving these goals. Block grants can also create inefficiencies and overlook national objectives, such as assisting poor communities. Whether or not block grants are adopted, rural communities will fare better if aid formulas and delivery systems account for rural-urban differences.
No benefit derived from repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation in depression: a prospective, single centre, randomised, double blind, sham controlled “add on” trial

Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) has been reported to demonstrate slight effects in the treatment of depression. Hence, a novel bilateral versus unilateral and sham stimulation design was applied to further assess rTMS’ antidepressant effects. Forty one medication free patients with major depression, admitted to a psychiatric unit specialising in affective disorders, were consecutively randomised into 3 groups. Group A1 (n = 12) received unilateral active stimulation consisting of high frequency (hf) rTMS over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (LDLPC) and subsequent sham low frequency (lf) rTMS over the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (RDLPC). Group A2 (n = 13) received simultaneous bilateral active stimulation consisting of hf-rTMS over the LDLPC and lf-rTMS over the RDLPC. Group C (n = 13) received bilateral sham stimulation. Stimulation was performed on 10 consecutive workdays. All patients received antidepressant medication on the first day of stimulation, which was continued during and after the stimulation period. As no significant difference in antidepressant outcome between group A1 and A2 was found, the two groups were pooled. The time course of the outcome variables Hamilton depression rating scale (HDRS21) and Beck depression inventory (days 0, 7, 14, 28) by repeated measures analysis of variance revealed no significant group differences (in terms of a group by time interaction), whereas there was a significant effect of time on all three outcome variables in all groups. The results suggest that rTMS as an “add on” strategy, applied in a unilateral and a bilateral stimulation paradigm, does not exert an additional antidepressant effect.
Chromatin Opening and Transactivator Potentiation by RAP1 in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

ABSTRACT Transcriptional activators function in vivo via binding sites that may be packaged into chromatin. Here we show that whereas the transcriptional activator GAL4 is strongly able to perturb chromatin structure via a nucleosomal binding site in yeast, GCN4 does so poorly. Correspondingly, GCN4 requires assistance from an accessory protein, RAP1, for activation of the HIS4 promoter, whereas GAL4 does not. The requirement for RAP1 for GCN4-mediated HIS4activation is dictated by the DNA-binding domain of GCN4 and not the activation domain, suggesting that RAP1 assists GCN4 in gaining access to its binding site. Consistent with this, overexpression of GCN4 partially alleviates the requirement for RAP1, whereas HIS4activation via a weak GAL4 binding site requires RAP1. RAP1 is extremely effective at interfering with positioning of a nucleosome containing its binding site, consistent with a role in opening chromatin at the HIS4 promoter. Furthermore, increasing the spacing between binding sites for RAP1 and GCN4 by 5 or 10 bp does not impair HIS4 activation, indicating that cooperative protein-protein interactions are not involved in transcriptional facilitation by RAP1. We conclude that an important role of RAP1 is to assist activator binding by opening chromatin.
Cysteine-Mediated Redox Signaling: Chemistry, Biology, and Tools for Discovery

Reactive oxygen, nitrogen, and sulfur species, referred to as ROS, RNS, and RSS, respectively, are produced during normal cell function and in response to various stimuli. An imbalance in the metabolism of these reactive intermediates results in the phenomenon known as oxidative stress. If left unchecked, oxidative molecules can inflict damage on all classes of biological macromolecules and eventually lead to cell death. Indeed, sustained elevated levels of reactive species have been implicated in the etiology (e.g., atherosclerosis, hypertension, diabetes) or the progression (e.g., stroke, cancer, and neurodegenerative disorders) of a number of human diseases.1 Over the past several decades, however, a new paradigm has emerged in which the aforementioned species have also been shown to function as targeted, intracellular second messengers with regulatory roles in an array of physiological processes.2 Against this backdrop, it is not surprising that considerable ongoing efforts are aimed at elucidating the role that these reactive intermediates play in health and disease. Site-specific, covalent modification of proteins represents a prominent molecular mechanism for transforming an oxidant signal into a biological response. Amino acids that are candidates for reversible modification include cysteines whose thiol (i.e., sulfhydryl) side chain is deprotonated at physiological pH, which is an important attribute for enhancing reactivity. While reactive species can modify other amino acids (e.g., histidine, methionine, tryptophan, and tyrosine), this Review will focus exclusively on cysteine, whose identity as cellular target or “sensor” of reactive intermediates is most prevalent and established.3 Oxidation of thiols results in a range of sulfur-containing products, not just disulfide bridges, as typically presented in biochemistry textbooks. An overview of the most relevant forms of oxidized sulfur species found in vivo is presented in Chart 1. Chart 1 Biologically Relevant Cysteine Chemotypesa
Experimental evaluation of the spatial error distribution of indoor localization algorithms

As the research in indoor localization moves on, more and more algorithms and systems are proposed by academia as well as industry. However, most approaches are evaluated in simulation or small experiments. The results are often hard to compare as assumptions differ between all settings and the setups vary from lab conditions to real life scenarios. As one of the biggest problems of range based indoor localization are large errors due to signal reflection and other effects, several resilient lateration algorithms have been proposed. To evaluate a selection of algorithms we conducted a large experiment in a real life scenario. We used 25 anchor nodes and a mobile node installed on top of a robotic reference system to collect ranging values of an office floor. We show that there are significant differences between the results of our experiments and the results the authors showed in their original publications. We discuss what reasons cause algorithms to perform less optimally in a real world scenario and suggest important points to consider when modeling an indoor localization scenario for a simulation or designing a range based indoor localization algorithm. We further examine the influence of the anchor placement and density on ranging errors.
Auditors’ Perceptions of Goodwill Write-Offs Under IFRS

In this paper, we explore auditors’ perceptions of goodwill accounting under IFRS with a survey of Finnish KHT-certified auditors in 2011. Exploratory factor analysis indicates that auditors are divided in two distinct groups: one group has a favorable attitude towards the IFRS procedures of goodwill accounting, while the other group sees that managerial interests affect goodwill impairment decisions. A binary choice model shows that Big 4 auditors are more likely to belong to the favorable group.
Role of Risk Management in Development of Software Projects

Nowadays, software development is becoming a major part of enterprise business. Software development is an activity connected with new technologies and high level of knowledge. There are many risks associated with software development such as time-to-market, budget and schedule estimation, product deployment or maintenance. These risks on software development projects must be successfully mitigated to build successful software systems in the organization. Lack of knowledge about risk management is one of the major causes for project failures. To develop a project successfully, risk management determines common risk impact areas in the software projects. Software risk management is a systematic way to manage risks in development of software projects. This paper recognizes the role of risk management in present software projects and aims at providing more support in this area. Firstly the paper consist what are the software risks involved in development of software projects, then a model of software risk management process with the overview of risk assessment process. KeywordsSoftware project risks, Software Risk Management Process, Risk assessment.
Managing Human Resources

1. Managing Human Resources through Strategic Partnerships. 2. Understanding the External and Organizational Environments. 3. Ensuring Fair Treatment and Legal Compliance. 4. Human Resources Planning for Alignment and Change. 5. The Strategic Importance of Job Analysis and Competency Modeling. 6. The Strategic Importance of Recruiting and Retaining Talented Employees. 7. Selecting Employees to Fit the Job and the Organization. 8. Training and Developing a Competitive Workforce. 9. Developing an Overall Approach to Compensation. 10. Measuring Performance and Providing Feedback. 11. Using Performance-Based Pay to Enhance Motivation. 12. Providing Benefits and Services. 13. Promoting Workplace Safety and Health. 14. Understanding Unionization and Collective Bargaining. Integrative Cases--Southwest Airlines and Lincoln Electric Company.
HSIP: A Novel Task Scheduling Algorithm for Heterogeneous Computing

High-performance heterogeneous computing systems are achieved by the use of efficient application scheduling algorithms. However, most of the current algorithms have low efficiency in scheduling. Aiming at solving this problem, we propose a novel task scheduling algorithm for heterogeneous computing named HSIP (heterogeneous scheduling algorithm with improved task priority) whose functionality relies on three pillars: () an improved task priority strategy based on standard deviation with improved magnitude as computation weight and communication cost weight to make scheduling priority more reasonable; () an entry task duplication selection policy to make the makespan shorter; and () an improved idle time slots (ITS) insertion-based optimizing policy to make the task scheduling more efficient. We evaluate our proposed algorithm on randomly generated DAGs, using some real application DAGs by comparison with some classical scheduling algorithms. According to the experimental results, our proposed algorithm appears to perform better than other algorithms in terms of schedule length ratio, efficiency, and frequency of best results.
Customer Loyalty of Coffee Shops : A study of Swedish Generation Y

Abstract:Background: Sweden is one of the biggest coffee consuming countries in Europe with the average annual coffee consumption per capita as high as 8.2kg. This mass consumption of coffee therefore creates high level of competition amongst coffee providers in the Swedish coffee market. There are numerous coffee shops and even some food chains and retail stores selling their own brand of coffee. This study will focus on Generation Y, as they will soon be the majority of consumers.Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to investigate and analyze what factors affect Generation Y’s loyalty to coffee shops and examine what forms the basis of Generation Y’s loyalty for coffee shops.Methodology: In this thesis, the research method is based on a quantitative approach using a questionnaire to collect data. The findings are established by using both existing literature and primary data. The questionnaire consists of 432 respondents and 400 respondents’ data was used to answer the research question. The respondents consist only of Generation Y who has lived in Sweden for longer than six months.Conclusion: This study has shown that the most important factor that affects people of Swedish Generation Y to become loyal customers to coffee shops is being provided a comfortable and suitable environment. The second important factor is product quality. The third factor is service. However, for those who are students and unemployed Swedish Generation Y, price is also a factor that could influence their loyalty. Moreover, Coffee shops can use loyalty programs to get their customers’ higher customer loyalty.Key words: Coffee shops, Generation Y, Customer loyalty, Customer satisfaction
Plasma bone-specific alkaline phosphatase changes in hemodialysis patients treated by alfacalcidol.

Vitamin D derivatives correct high bone remodeling by decreasing plasma iPTH concentration in uremic patients with secondary hyperparathyroidism. However, without bone biopsy, plasma iPTH alone might not provide sufficient information regarding vitamin D-induced bone changes. Plasma bone-specific alkaline phosphatase (bAP) seems more sensitive than iPTH in assessing the degree of bone remodeling. We prospectively studied the evolution of iPTH and bAP in 14 adult hemodialysis patients treated for 1 year by i.v. alfacalcidol pulses. The mean total alfacalcidol dose was 0.08 +/- 0.02 g/kg/week. Ten patients completed the study, 2 patients had to be parathyroidectomized before week 24 because of hypercalcemia and uncontrolled hyperphosphatemia, and 2 other patients died before week 36. Mean iPTH levels diminished from 826 +/- 300 pg/ml (range 507 - 1,500 pg/ml) at baseline to 436 +/- 371 pg/ml (range 18 - 1,095 pg/ml) after 52 weeks of treatment (48% of decrease). Only 2 patients normalized plasma iPTH levels while 8/10 normalized bAP. Five patients remained with plasma iPTH concentrations higher than 5-fold the normal value. In contrast, plasma bAP levels declined from 47.6 +/- 32.2 ng/ml (range 15.4 - 130.0 ng/ml) at baseline to 17.8 +/- 9.9 ng/ml (range 8.0 +/- 38.0 ng/ml) at week 52 (63% of decrease). Bone histomorphometry was available in 6 patients after 15.8 +/- 5.1 months of alfacalcidol treatment. None of them met the criteria of adynamic bone disease as they had increased bone resorption and marrow bone fibrosis. Bone formation rate was normal in 2 patients and unmeasurable in the other 4. Two patients showed signs of osteomalacia. In conclusion, alfacalcidol preferentially reduced bone formation rate rather than the other histological parameters of secondary hyperparathyroidism. It reduced plasma bAP more efficiently than iPTH.
Efficient analysis of slow-varying oscillator dynamics

This paper presents a new method to characterize the behavior of an oscillator's slow-varying modes, e.g., amplitude and phase. Key to the method is the projection of the original set of circuit equations onto the slow manifold defined by the oscillator's core system. The core system corresponds to the terms of the circuit equations that generate the fast-varying oscillations. The corresponding slow manifold is made up by the core system's steady-state solutions. By means of perturbation and averaging techniques, we then extract the equations that govern the oscillator's motion over the slow manifold. These equations correspond to the (slow-varying) dynamics of, for instance, the oscillator's amplitude, phase or common-mode level. In many cases, they capture that part of the oscillator's behavior that is of greatest interest. Moreover, since the method here presented explicitly separates the analysis of an oscillator's fast- and slow-varying behavior, it can be used to improve simulation efficiency or for behavioral model extraction.
Consumer generated content - trends and implications for branding.

Many travel and tourism operations have recognized the importance of including consumer generated content on their Web sites but usually do so in the form of edited testimonials. At the same time, travelers are provided with an ever increasing number of opportunities to voice their opinions in raw/unedited and honest form. Blogs, podcasts, wikis and personal Web spaces hosted on social networking sites such as MySpace.com are growing fast in use and popularity among travelers who want to document and/or share travel experiences. Given the growing use of the Internet for travel planning, an ever greater number of travelers will tap into this "collective travel intelligence" available on the Web. This will challenge established travel guide, travel agent, as well as travel supplier Web sites (Rand, 2006).
Ovarian carcinoma: A decade of progress

Significant and dramatic progress has been made in the diagnosis and treatment of women with ovarian carcinoma in the last 10 years, the results of which are now just being reflected in an increase in survival and cure rates. In early staged disease (Stage I and II) significant progress has been made concerning our understanding of the sites of subclinical metastasis when at surgery the tumor is clinically limited to the ovary or pelvis. A prospective study of 100 patients with Stages IA to IIB ovarian cancer who underwent restaging within 4 weeks of initial surgery will report this. Moreover, preliminary results of the first randomized therapeutic trials (melphalan versus observation; melphalan versus chromic phosphate [P‐32]) in patients surgically staged and found to be Stage IA to IIB carcinoma will be discussed. For Stages IB to III, the 5‐year survival rates comparing whole abdominal radiation by the moving strip technique to open field irradiation will be discussed. For advanced (Stage III and IV) ovarian carcinoma, the new techniques in debulking surgery will be illustrated. Finally, the significant progress in response rates, median duration of survival, disease‐free survival, and 5‐year survival rates made during the past 10 years will be presented. This will be done by comparing a unique group of 117 patients treated with melphalan alone, all of whom have been followed for 5 years or until death, to patients who received cisplatin combination chemotherapy—cyclophosphamide, hexamethylmelamine, Adriamycin (doxorubicin), and cisplatin (CHAD) or cisplatin, Adriamycin, and cyclophosphamide (PAC)—and have now been followed 3.4+ and 4+ years, respectively. What is clearly evident is that in the last decade there has been significant increase in response rates, median duration of survival, 3.4+−, 4+−, and 5‐year survival rates and cure rates with the advent of debulking surgery and platinum‐containing combination chemotherapy.
TÜRKİYE'DE HAYAT-DIŞI ALANDA FAALİYET GÖSTEREN SİGORTA ŞİRKETLERİNİN 2002 YILINDAKİ ETKİNLİKLERİNİN VERİ ZARFLAMA ANALİZİ (VZA) İLE ÖLÇÜLMESİ

Insurance which is one of the important components of the financial sec-tor, is directly in relation with the level of development of the countries. The increasing share of the Insurance sector in the economy, strengthe-ning the structure of the insurers, providing the policy holder and inves-tors with the services that they expect, is very importantfor the country's economy. it has become important to measure the effectiveness of the in-surance companies within this framework. in this study it has been aimed to measure the effectiveness of the non-life insurers in Turkey in 2002 using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). Input and output were stated considering the insurers' risk-pooling and risk-bearing, Insurance servi­ces and intermediation activities. in addition Principle Components Analysis (PCA) has been conducted for input and output. Effective insu­rers were stated and a potential improvement was performed depending on the results ofDEA.
Agricultural information technology development and innovation path

After going through the stages of research on computer technology application in agriculture and on agricultural data information and simulated model, the development of foreign agricultural informationalization has accessed into technology industrialization period showing the trend of a multi-net interconnection, virtualization, integration, engineering technology. According to national conditions, western developed countries explored the path that helped the construction of agricultural informationalization from the micro level and macro-environment. They are the present option of Chinese Agricultural Informationalization Development to construct basic database, expand application of information technology, play the role of national macro-control and select building mode according to national conditions.