Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Energy Harvesting for Wireless Sensor Networks

As energy demand, electricity prices, and carbon emissions continue to rise, there is a growing public desire to curb energy consumption to save money and the environment. According to Energy Star, “the average U.S. household spends $100 per year to power devices while they are off or in standby mode. On a national basis, standby power accounts for more than 100 billion kilowatt-hours of annual U.S. electricity consumption and more than $10 billion in annual energy costs”. Based on PG&E’s analysis, the wasted electricity produces 26.2 million tons of CO2 each year in the U.S. Unfortunately, information in standard utility bills does not help consumers identify the culprit appliance responsible for their electricity waste, leaving consumers guessing for effective ways to save. Consequently, expensive hand-size devices, such as the Kill-a-Watt and Energy Hub, have emerged to identify energy consumption at a cost of ~$30 per outlet. The high cost and difficult installation of these devices limit their affordability and popularity. To address these issues, this work proposes a novel, plug-through power monitoring system for commercial and residential use. Our device detects any appliance’s power consumption via a current sense transformer, which wirelessly couples magnetic energy from the appliance to output an electromotive force voltage. The voltage signal is relayed to the analogto-digital converter of a GINA radio mote, which wirelessly transmits the data to laptops or smart phones via the Internet using 6LoWPAN wireless protocol. This allows consumers to view their real-time power usage from the convenience of their handheld device. The optimized design cost less than $5 to make and is easily installed, since the device never requires electrical contact with the outlet but is instead powered by scavenged magnetic energy, which charges an on-board storage capacitor. For a primary current of 12.6 A RMS, the device harvests up to 7 mW. Compared to present power monitoring devices in the market, our device boasts at least 6 times reduction in size and cost, serving as a disruptive technology to the power monitoring business while promoting more conscientious electricity usage.
Binding of the Chaperone Jac1 Protein and Cysteine Desulfurase Nfs1 to the Iron-Sulfur Cluster Scaffold Isu Protein Is Mutually Exclusive*

Background: Little is known regarding the dynamics of the interaction of proteins with the Fe/S cluster scaffold Isu1. Results: Three conserved Isu1 residues are critical for interaction with cysteine desulfurase Nfs1 and J-protein cochaperone Jac1, required for cluster assembly and transfer, respectively. Conclusion: Jac1 and Nfs1 binding to Isu1 are mutually exclusive. Significance: Mutual exclusivity suggests a point of regulation of the cluster assembly/transfer cycle. Biogenesis of mitochondrial iron-sulfur (Fe/S) cluster proteins requires the interaction of multiple proteins with the highly conserved 14-kDa scaffold protein Isu, on which clusters are built prior to their transfer to recipient proteins. For example, the assembly process requires the cysteine desulfurase Nfs1, which serves as the sulfur donor for cluster assembly. The transfer process requires Jac1, a J-protein Hsp70 cochaperone. We recently identified three residues on the surface of Jac1 that form a hydrophobic patch critical for interaction with Isu. The results of molecular modeling of the Isu1-Jac1 interaction, which was guided by these experimental data and structural/biophysical information available for bacterial homologs, predicted the importance of three hydrophobic residues forming a patch on the surface of Isu1 for interaction with Jac1. Using Isu variants having alterations in residues that form the hydrophobic patch on the surface of Isu, this prediction was experimentally validated by in vitro binding assays. In addition, Nfs1 was found to require the same hydrophobic residues of Isu for binding, as does Jac1, suggesting that Jac1 and Nfs1 binding is mutually exclusive. In support of this conclusion, Jac1 and Nfs1 compete for binding to Isu. Evolutionary analysis revealed that residues involved in these interactions are conserved and that they are critical residues for the biogenesis of Fe/S cluster protein in vivo. We propose that competition between Jac1 and Nfs1 for Isu binding plays an important role in transitioning the Fe/S cluster biogenesis machinery from the cluster assembly step to the Hsp70-mediated transfer of the Fe/S cluster to recipient proteins.
Four steps to identify mechanisms of ICT4D: A critical realism‐based methodology

Questions such as ‘What is ICT? ’ and ‘What is development? ’ are relatively well‐answered and well‐documented in literature but work connecting the two has been limited. Existing ICT4D studies tend to be descriptive or prescriptive in nature, and hence the explanation of how and why ICT works in the contexts of developing countries needs further investigation. ICT cannot by itself lead to development: it has to be deployed by actors in a given social, political, cultural, and technical context, under conditions at the time of deployment. The interplay of the above‐mentioned elements in any given development situation relies on underlying mechanisms that may explain how and why ICT leads to development. Therefore, it is important to investigate questions like “What mechanisms link ICT and development? ” and “How do we identify these mechanisms? ”. To research and answer these questions, we propose a critical realism‐based four‐step methodological approach. The core idea of the critical realism‐based approach suggested in this study is to identify the underlying mechanism (s), particularly in ICT4D contexts, to explain how and why ICT leads to development. We illustrate the proposed methodology by applying it in a case study from Nepal.
Moka: Model-based concurrent kernel analysis

GPUs continue to increase the number of compute resources with each new generation. Many data-parallel applications have been re-engineered to leverage the thousands of cores on the GPU. But not every kernel can fully utilize all the resources available. Many applications contain multiple kernels that could potentially be run concurrently. To better utilize the massive resources on the GPU, device vendors have started to support Concurrent Kernel Execution (CKE). However, the application throughput provided by CKE is subject to a number of factors, including the kernel configuration attributes, the dynamic behavior of each kernel (e.g., compute-intentive vs. memory-intensive), the kernel launch order and inter-kernel dependencies. Minor changes in any of theses factors can have a large impact on the effectiveness of CKE. In this paper, we present Moka, an empirical model for tuning concurrent kernel performance. Moka allows us to accurately predict the resulting performance and scalability of multi-kernel applications when using CKE. We consider both static and dynamic workload characteristics that impact the utility of CKE, and leverage these metrics to drive kernel scheduling decisions on NVIDIA GPUs. The underlying data transfer pattern and GPU resource contention are analyzed in detail. Our model is able to accurately predict the performance ceiling of concurrent kernel execution. We validate our model using several real-world applications that have multiple kernels that can run concurrently, and evaluate CKE performance on a NVIDIA Maxwell GPU. Our model is able to predict the performance of CKE applications accurately, providing estimates that differ by less than 12% as compared to actual runtime performance. Using our estimates, we can quickly find the best CKE strategy for our applications to achieve improved application throughput. We believe we have developed a useful tool to aid application programmers to accelerate their applications using CKE.
Analysing the Metabolic Capabilities of Desulfovibrio Species through Genetic Manipulation

Sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB) are an environmentallysignificant group belonging to the anaerobic delta-Proteobacteria thatrespire sulfate for growth. From an industrial stand point, SRB pose athreat through corrosion of ferrous metals and production of toxicsulfides. The more positive aspects of the metabolism of the SRB includea robust but poorly understood hydrogen metabolism that is of interest toalternative energy studies. SRB also immobilize a number of heavy metalsthrough sulfide precipitation or through changing the redox state of themetal and thus its solubility. When metals are made less soluble, as isthe case with chromium (Cr(VI) to Cr(III)) or uranium (U(VI) to U(IV)),toxicity is reduced by limiting biological availability. Despite theeconomic and environmental impacts associated with SRB activities, ourcurrent knowledge of their metabolism is inadequate. Among the SRB,members of the Desulfovibrio genus have received most attention becausethese strains are most readily grown in pure culture. Therefore,Desulfovibrio strains have been the focus of biochemical and biophysicalanalyses, however, genetic studies have been more difficult. Over thelast 15 years, progress has been made in developing techniques for DNAtransformation, gene mutagenesis and over expression, and proteintagging. Since the last genetics of SRB review by van Dongen, 10 yearshave passed (van Dongen, 1995) and the complete genome sequences of amore » fewstrains are now available (Heidelberg, et al., 2004). This reviewhighlights the current advances in the genetic manipulation ofDesulfovibrio species and the potential use of these tools inunderstanding the metabolism of sulfate reducers for biotechnologicalpurposes. « less
Auxin-induced changes in the molecular weight of hemicellulosic polysaccharides of the Avena coleoptile cell wall

The average molecular weight of the water soluble hemicelluloses (hemicellulose B) of the Avena coleoptile cell wall was determined by gel permeation chromatography (GPC) and viscometry. Analysis of the neutral sugar composition of henucellulose B eluted from a GPC column (Sepharose 4B) indicated that it consists of /J-glucan with a high molecular weight and arabinoxylan with a low molecular weight. A kinetic study of the effect of auxin on the molecular distribution of henucellulose B demonstrated that auxin decreased the /? -glucan content of the hemicellulose as early as the first hour incubation, but not the arabinoxylan content, when it stimulated the extension of the coleoptile segments. Calculation of the weight-average molecular weight from the chromatograms suggested that auxin decreased the molecular weight of hemicellulose B; this was also confirmed by viscometry. Thus, auxin may cause cell wall loosening, leading to cell extension, through its effect on /? -glucan degradation or through the decrease in the molecular weight of hemicellulose B.
Activatory and Inhibitory Fcγ Receptors Augment Rituximab-mediated Internalization of CD20 Independent of Signaling via the Cytoplasmic Domain*

Background: Fcγ receptor (FcγR) IIb augments internalization of CD20 from the surface of B cells in response to rituximab treatment. Results: Activatory and inhibitory FcγR augment internalization, independent of the FcγR cytoplasmic domain. Conclusion: Active signaling is not required for FcγR-augmented internalization of CD20 in response to rituximab treatment. Significance: FcγR may play a structural role in augmenting CD20 internalization. Type I anti-CD20 mAb such as rituximab and ofatumumab engage with the inhibitory FcγR, FcγRIIb on the surface of B cells, resulting in immunoreceptor tyrosine-based inhibitory motif (ITIM) phosphorylation. Internalization of the CD20·mAb·FcγRIIb complex follows, the rate of which correlates with FcγRIIb expression. In contrast, although type II anti-CD20 mAb such as tositumomab and obinutuzumab also interact with and activate FcγRIIb, this interaction fails to augment the rate of CD20·mAb internalization, raising the question of whether ITIM phosphorylation plays any role in this process. We have assessed the molecular requirements for the internalization process and demonstrate that in contrast to internalization of IgG immune complexes, FcγRIIb-augmented internalization of rituximab-ligated CD20 occurs independently of the FcγRIIb ITIM, indicating that signaling downstream of FcγRIIb is not required. In transfected cells, activatory FcγRI, FcγRIIa, and FcγRIIIa augmented internalization of rituximab-ligated CD20 in a similar manner. However, FcγRIIa mediated a slower rate of internalization than cells expressing equivalent levels of the highly homologous FcγRIIb. The difference was maintained in cells expressing FcγRIIa and FcγRIIb lacking cytoplasmic domains and in which the transmembrane domains had been exchanged. This difference may be due to increased degradation of FcγRIIa, which traffics to lysosomes independently of rituximab. We conclude that the cytoplasmic domain of FcγR is not required for promoting internalization of rituximab-ligated CD20. Instead, we propose that FcγR provides a structural role in augmenting endocytosis that differs from that employed during the endocytosis of immune complexes.
Foreign Exchange Intervention: An Empirical Assessment

Can intervention policy effectively influence market expectatons of current and future foreign exchange rates? The conventional wisdom offers an unequivocal answer. Intervention in the foreign exchange market has little or no effect except to the extent that it implies changes in countries' money supplies. In the latter case, intervention is just a particular variety of monetary policy. The conventional wisdom thus says that intervention does not offer the authorities an independent policy tool for influencing the foreign exchange market. In the early 1980s, the belief that intervention was not an effective policy tool was widely shared among academic economists, central bank­ ers, and market participants. In the first Reagan administration, the ineffec­ tiveness of intervention was an article of faith, and the U.S. government accordingly refrained from buying or selling foreign exchange (with some minor exceptions). In 1985, however, attitudes at the U.S. Treasury shifted abruptly. The U.S. authorities began to intervene again in the markets, in collaboration with other country's central banks, most visibly as decided at the meeting of G-5 economic leaders at the Plaza Hotel in September of that year. Since that time, intervention has taken place regularly. Foreign exchange traders have taken note of it. They are observed to react to reports of intervention as vigorously as to any other sort of news. Most traders, and most involved central bankers, believe that this intervention has at times had important effects. We believe that the time is right for a reconsideration of the conventional wisdom as to the ineffectiveness of foreign exchange intervention. In this chapter we examine the two possible channels through which intervention can influence the foreign exchange rate: the portfolio and the
Data compression using antidictionaries

We give a new text-compression scheme based on forbidden words ("antidictionary"). We prove that our algorithms attain the entropy for balanced binary sources. They run in linear time. Moreover, one of the main advantages of this approach is that it produces very fast decompressors. A second advantage is a synchronization property that is helpful to search compressed data and allows parallel compression. The techniques used in this paper are from information theory and finite automata.
Puffed cereals with added chamomile - quantitative analysis of polyphenols and optimization of their extraction method.

[b]Abstract Introduction[/b]. Functional food plays an important role in the prevention, management and treatment of chronic diseases. One of the most interesting techniques of functional food production is extrusion-cooking. Functional foods may include such items as puffed cereals, breads and beverages that are fortified with vitamins, some nutraceuticals and herbs. Due to its pharmacological activity, chamomile flowers are the most popular components added to functional food. OBJECTIVE Quantitative analysis of polyphenolic antioxidants, as well as comparison of various methods for the extraction of phenolic compounds from corn puffed cereals, puffed cereals with an addition of chamomile (3, 5, 10 and 20%) and from [i]Chamomillae anthodium. [/i] [b]Materials and Methods[/b]. Two modern extraction methods - ultrasound assisted extraction (UAE) at 40 °C and 60 °C, as well as accelerated solvent extraction (ASE) at 100 °C and 120 °C were used for the isolation of polyphenols from functional food. Analysis of flavonoids and phenolic acids was carried out using reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography and electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (LC-ESI-MS/MS). [b]Results and Conclusions[/b]. For most of the analyzed compounds, the highest yields were obtained by ultrasound assisted extraction. The highest temperature during the ultrasonification process (60 °C) increased the efficiency of extraction, without degradation of polyphenols. UAE easily arrives at extraction equilibrium and therefore permits shorter periods of time, reducing the energy input. Furthermore, UAE meets the requirements of 'Green Chemistry'.
Finding Temporal Influential Users Over Evolving Social Networks

Influence maximization (IM) continues to be a key research problem in social networks. The goal is to find a small seed set of target users that have the greatest influence in the network under various stochastic diffusion models. While significant progress has been made on the IM problem in recent years, several interesting challenges remain. For example, social networks in reality are constantly evolving, and "important" users with the most influence also change over time. As a result, several recent studies have proposed approaches to update the seed set as the social networks evolve. However, this seed set is not guaranteed to be the best seed set over a period of time. In this paper we study the problem of Distinct Influence Maximization (DIM) where the goal is to identify a seed set of influencers who maximize the number of distinct users influenced over a predefined window of time. Our new approach allows social network providers to make fewer incremental changes to targeted advertising while still maximizing the coverage of the advertisements. It also provides finer grained control over service level agreements where a certain number of impressions for an advertisement must be displayed in a specific time period. We propose two different strategies HCS and VCS with novel graph compression techniques to solve this problem. Additionally, VCS can also be applied directly to the traditional IM problem. Extensive experiments on real-world datasets verify the efficiency, accuracy and scalability of our solutions on both the DIM and IM problems.
BORRELIA BURGDORFERI SENSU LATO DETECTED IN SKIN OF NORWEGIAN MOUNTAIN HARES (LEPUS TIMIDUS) WITHOUT SIGNS OF DISSEMINATION

The mountain hare (Lepus timidus) population in southern Norway appears to be in decline. Necropsy and laboratory examinations of 36 hares found dead or diseased during 2007–2009 in Vest- and Aust-Agder counties showed that disease and deaths were attributed to multiple causes, with no specific etiology emerging as a cause for population decline. To investigate whether Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato (s.l.) infection is associated with mortality in mountain hares, tissues and ticks collected from hares were investigated for infection with the spirochete. Borrelia burgdorferi s.l. DNA was not detected in samples from internal organs, whereas Borrelia afzelii, B. burgdorferi sensu stricto (s.s.), and the not-yet-defined Borrelia sp. SV1 were found in skin samples from hares and in adult and nymphal Ixodes ricinus feeding on hares. Only B. burgdorferi s.s. and Borrelia sp. SV1 were detected in larvae feeding on hares. Our results indicate that disseminated Borrelia infection in hares rarely occurs and, presumably, does not play a central role in the suspected population decline. The results also suggest that the mountain hare to some degree functions as a transmission host for B. burgdorferi s.s. and Borrelia sp. SV1.
On the Helpfulness of Product Reviews - An Analysis of Customer-to-Customer Trust on eShop-Platforms

In the last decade the market share of online stores in the retail sector has risen constantly and partly replaced traditional face-to-face shops in cities and shopping malls. One reason is that the cost structure of online shops is lower than of classic shops since the latter have to finance physical stores and sales personnel. On the one hand, this often leads to a strategic cost advantage and results lower selling prices. On the other hand, online stores normally do not provide personal consulting services as in traditionally face-to-face shops. However, online shops have established different forms of product consulting to compensate the missing personal advice of the sales persons in a physical shop examples are product related hotlines or online chatrooms. An even cheaper possibility is to establish a recommendation system where previous buyers are invited to write reviews on a product. Some eShops even provide some kind of cascading system: a product review written by a customer can be classified as helpful or not by other customers. In our research we focus on this second cascade. The objective of our paper is to analyze if there are structures or rules that make product reviews written by customers helpful for other customers.
Hierarchical structure of noncanonical Hamiltonian systems

Topological constraints play a key role in the self-organizing processes that create structures in macro systems. In fact, if all possible degrees of freedom are actualized on equal footing without constraint, the state of ‘equipartition’ may bear no specific structure. Fluid turbulence is a typical example—while turbulent mixing seems to increase entropy, a variety of sustained vortical structures can emerge. In Hamiltonian formalism, some topological constraints are represented by Casimir invariants (for example, helicities of a fluid or a plasma), and then, the effective phase space is reduced to the Casimir leaves. However, a general constraint is not necessarily integrable, which precludes the existence of an appropriate Casimir invariant; the circulation is an example of such an invariant. In this work, we formulate a systematic method to embed a Hamiltonian system in an extended phase space; we introduce phantom fields and extend the Poisson algebra. A phantom field defines a new Casimir invariant, a cross helicity, which represents a topological constraint that is not integrable in the original phase space. Changing the perspective, a singularity of the extended system may be viewed as a subsystem on which the phantom fields (though they are actual fields, when viewed from the extended system) vanish, i.e., the original system. This hierarchical relation of degenerate Poisson manifolds enables us to see the ‘interior’ of a singularity as a sub Poisson manifold. The theory can be applied to describe bifurcations and instabilities in a wide class of general Hamiltonian systems (Yoshida and Morrison 2014 Fluid Dyn. Res. 46 031412).