Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
MIT Open Access

: Vaccination is a key component of public health policy with demonstrated cost-effective beneﬁts in protecting both human and animal populations. Vaccines can be manufactured under multiple forms including, inactivated (killed), toxoid, live attenuated, Virus-like Particles, synthetic peptide, polysaccharide, polysaccharide conjugate (glycoconjugate), viral vectored (vector-based), nucleic acids (DNA and mRNA) and bacterial vector/synthetic antigen presenting cells. Several processes are used in the manufacturing of vaccines and recent developments in medical/biomedical engineering, biology, immunology, and vaccinology have led to the emergence of innovative nucleic acid vaccines, a novel category added to conventional and subunit vaccines. In this review, we have summarized recent advances in vaccine technologies and platforms focusing on their mechanisms of action, advantages, and possible drawbacks.
Notary : A Device for Secure Transaction Approval

Hardware wallets, USB keys with a display, buttons, and the ability to run custom code, aim to provide a secure platform for approving transactions such as bank transfers and cryptocurrency transactions. By moving security-critical approval decisions to the device, hardware wallets remove the need to trust relatively complex and bug-prone computers to achieve overall application security. Hardware wallets run multiple applications, which need to be isolated from each other. Existing wallets do this using a traditional operating system design that relies on hardware protection mechanisms like CPU privilege levels and memory protection, but, unfortunately, existing wallets suffer from bugs similar to those that plague traditional computer operating systems.
The Value of Capital Market Regulation: IPOs versus Reverse Mergers

We analyze the economic consequences of disclosure and regulation within a context of significant information asymmetry and lenient regulation. In Canada, firms can enter the stock market at a pre-revenue stage by fulfilling each of the requirements of an initial public offerings or using reverse mergers. This backdoor listing method implies a smoother oversight by the securities commission and a shorter process based on private placements. Controlling for several dimensions, including self-selection, we find that the choice of the listing method and regulation strictness significantly influence the value and long-run performance of newly listed firms. These results are consistent with theories suggesting that a commitment by a firm to a stricter regulatory oversight lowers the information asymmetry component of the cost of capital, reduces the heterogeneity of expectations and mispricing. This version was updated in December 2010. Nous etudions les consequences economiques des exigences en matiere de reglementation des valeurs mobilieres dans une situation ou l'asymetrie informationnelle est importante et les contraintes reglementaires limitees. Au Canada, les entreprises peuvent s'inscrire en Bourse alors qu'elles ne rapportent pas de revenu. Elles peuvent utiliser le processus classique du premier appel public a l'epargne ou utiliser une methode d'inscription deguisee par prise de controle inversee. La supervision des autorites en matiere de valeurs mobilieres est plus legere dans ce cas, et le processus d'inscription se fait beaucoup plus rapidement. En tenant compte des multiples caracteristiques incluant l'endogeneite du choix du mode d'entree, nous montrons que le choix du mode d'entree et donc de la rigueur de la supervision influence de facon significative la valeur et la performance boursiere a long terme des emetteurs. Nos resultats suggerent que l'entreprise qui se soumet a une supervision plus stricte diminue l'asymetrie informationnelle, le cout du capital, la dispersion des anticipations et les erreurs d'evaluation des investisseurs. Cette version a ete mise a jour en decembre 2010.
TheImpactof Government-Sponsored Training Programson theLaborMarket Transitionsof DisadvantagedMen

Theanalysisfocusesonanexaminationof theimpactof government-sponsored training programsaimedatdisadvantagedmaleyouthson their labourmarket transitions.The richnessof the dataat our disposalallows us to recreatevery detailedindividual historiesover a relatively long period. As many asseven distinct stateson the labourarebe identifiedin thedata. We usea continuoustime durationmodel to estimatethe densityof durationtimes in theseseven states,controlling for the endogeneityof an individual’s training status. We investigatethe sensiti vity of the parameterestimatesby comparinga typical nonparametricspecificationwith aseriesof parametrictwo-factorloadingmodels,aswell as aparametricthree-factorloadingmodel. Our resultsshow thatyoung,poorly educatedmaleswho participatein welfaretraining programsdo far worseon the labourmarket thanthosewho do not participate.Participationin theJobRe-EntryProgram(JRP),adistinctwelfaretrainingprograms,yields betterresultsin termsof employment. Our estimatesclearly indicatethatparticipantsin JRPandthosein welfaretrainingprogramsaredistinctgroups. This researchrecei vedfinancialsupportfrom le fondsFCARandHumanResourcesDevelopmentCanada andCIRANO. HumanResourcesDevelopmentCanada.Email: lucie.gilbert@ecn.ula val.ca CNRSandGRÉMAQ, UniversitédeToulouseI. Email: kamionka@cict.fr Département d’économique,UniversitéLaval, CRÉFA andCIRANO. Email: guy.lacroix@ecn.ula val.ca
The Reliability of Inflation Forecasts Based on Output Gap Estimates in Real Time Athanasios Orphanides and

The output gaps used in this study, as well as the data and programs used to create them, are freely available from the authors at http://www.hec. ca/pages/simon.van-norden. The estimates examined here include all those examined in Orphanides and van Norden (2002) plus the Band-Pass, Beveridge-Nelson, Harvey-Jaeger and SVAR methods described below; this is identical to the list of models considered in Orphanides and van Norden (2003). In addition, the range of available estimates were updated so that the ”final” data vintage now corresponds to 2003Q3 (i.e. data available as of mid-August 2003, so data series end in 2003Q2) rather than 2000Q1 as in these two earlier papers. The raw data were taken from the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Board’s Real Time Data Archive in September 2003. Series used were quarterly CPI and US real output (Q). Observations span the period from 1947Q1 to 2003Q2. Vintages for output run from Nov. 1965 to August 2003. All CPI data are from the 2003Q3 vintage. The SVAR method also uses data from January 1934 to August 2003 on secondary market yields on 3-month US treasury bills taken from the St. Louis Federal Reserve Board’s FRED data base. The estimation of the output gap involves a detrending method which decomposes the log of real output, qt, into a trend component, μt, and a cycle component, yt.
From the extreme to the mean: Acceleration and tipping points of coastal inundation from sea level rise

Relative sea level rise (RSLR) has driven large increases in annual water level exceedances (duration and frequency) above minor (nuisance level) coastal flooding elevation thresholds established by the National Weather Service (NWS) at U.S. tide gauges over the last half‐century. For threshold levels below 0.5 m above high tide, the rates of annual exceedances are accelerating along the U.S. East and Gulf Coasts, primarily from evolution of tidal water level distributions to higher elevations impinging on the flood threshold. These accelerations are quantified in terms of the local RSLR rate and tidal range through multiple regression analysis. Along the U.S. West Coast, annual exceedance rates are linearly increasing, complicated by sharp punctuations in RSLR anomalies during El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phases, and we account for annual exceedance variability along the U.S. West and East Coasts from ENSO forcing. Projections of annual exceedances above local NWS nuisance levels at U.S. tide gauges are estimated by shifting probability estimates of daily maximum water levels over a contemporary 5‐year period following probabilistic RSLR projections of Kopp et al. (2014) for representative concentration pathways (RCP) 2.6, 4.5, and 8.5. We suggest a tipping point for coastal inundation (30 days/per year with a threshold exceedance) based on the evolution of exceedance probabilities. Under forcing associated with the local‐median projections of RSLR, the majority of locations surpass the tipping point over the next several decades regardless of specific RCP.
Dancing with Words: Using Animated Text for Captioning

Closed captioning has suffered from a lack of innovation since its inception in the early 1970s. However, television and film technologies and user preferences have changed dramatically. Sound from music, sound effects, and speech prosody are essentially missing from current closed captions. We used animated text to represent emotions contained in music and speech as well as sound effects. Twenty-five hard of hearing and hearing participants watched two short television clips with three different types of captions—conventional, enhanced, and extreme. Hard of hearing and hearing participants preferred enhanced, animated text captions as they provide improved access to the emotive information contained in the content. Text-based animated sound effects confused participants and animated symbols were recommended as a replacement.
Social networks for collaborative water management : a methodological approach to addressing wicked environmental problems

ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.iii LIST OF TABLES.vi LIST OF FIGURES.vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION.1 Agricultural Run-Off And Non-Point S ource Water Pollution.3 Lake Pollution As A Wicke d Problem.4 Weak Governance And Procedura l Justice.6 Knowledge Networks For Collaboration.7 Need For Social Network Analysis (Sna) A nd Qualitative Methods.8 Research Questions.10 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE.11 Theoretical Foundations Of Netwo rk Theory.13 Wicked Problems And Wat er Resource Management.15 Network Structure: Coll aborative Governance.17 Network Interactions: Knowledge Transfer And Social Learning.24 Actor Characteristics: Acquire d Knowledge And Perceptions.27 Conclusion.31 CHAPTER 3: METHODS.32 Overview.32 Sample.36 Survey.36 Field.38 Data collection.38 Survey.38 Field.39 Analysis.40 Social Network Analysis.40 Coding.41 CHAPTER 4: RESULTS.43 The Networks.43 Network Structure.45 Network Interactions.50 Actor Characteristics.57 Mixed-Method Comparison.62 CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION . 65 Interpretation.65 How does network structure affect collaboration in the network? 65 What roles do network interactions have in transferring knowledge across the network? 68 How do characteristics of the actors affect collaboration within the network? 70 Implications For Water Governance.71 Recommendations For Local Community.72
Bridging the Academic–Practitioner Divide in Marketing Decision Models

The marketing decision models field has produced many striking developments that have had a dramatic impact on practice. However, the field has produced orders of magnitude more developments that have received minimal use. In this article, the author notes the many successful marketing model developments but then considers the relatively low level of practical use (trial or adoption) and questions why that is the case. He then suggests how changes in the incentive and reward systems for marketing academics, marketing practitioners, and marketing intermediaries can bring about adoption and implementation improvements that would be mutually beneficial, bridging the academic–practitioner divide. The author also outlines a program of research in the area of the adoption and use of marketing decision models that will provide guidance on what to develop and how to get those developments adopted.
Erratum: Geographic information systems

Geographic information systems, which manage data describing the surface of the earth, are becoming increasingly popular. This research details the current state of the art of geographic data processing in terms of the needs of the geographic information system developer. The research focuses chiefly on the geographic data model--the basic building block of the geographic information system. The two most popular models, tessellation and vector, are studied in detail, as well as a number of hybrid data models. In addition, geographic database management is discussed in terms of geographic data access and query processing. Finally, a pragmatic discussion of geographic information system design is presented covering such topics as distributed database considerations and artificial intelligence considerations.
Distilling Dialogues -a Method Using Natural Dialogue Corpora for Dialogue Systems Development

We report on a method for utilising corpora collected in natural settings. It is based on distilling rewriting natural dialogues to elicit the type of dialogue that would occur if one the dialogue participants was a computer instead of a human. The method is a complement to other means such as Wizard of Oz-studies and un-distilled natural dialogues. We present the distilling method and guidelines for distillation. We also illustrate how the method affects a corpus of dialogues and discuss the pros and cons of three approaches in diierent phases of dialogue systems development.
Context Sensing using Speech and Common Sense

We present a method of inferring aspects of a person’s context by capturing conversation topics and using prior knowledge of human behavior. This paper claims that topic-spotting performance can be improved by using a large database of common sense knowledge. We describe two systems we built to infer context from noisy transcriptions of spoken conversations using common sense, and detail some preliminary results. The GISTER system uses OMCSNet, a commonsense semantic network, to infer the most likely topics under discussion in a conversation stream. The OVERHEAR system is built on top of GISTER, and distinguishes between aspects of the conversation that refer to past, present, and future events by using LifeNet, a probabilistic graphical model of human behavior, to help infer the events that occurred in each of those three time periods. We conclude by discussing some of the future directions we may take this work.
Novel Relay Selection Algorithms for Machine-to-Machine Communications With Static RF Interfaces Setting

Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communications play a significant role in the Internet of Things (IoT). Cooperation of machines in M2M communications can improve network performance when the quality of connections between sources and their destinations is poor. Careful selection of machines as relays can play an effective role in improving the quality of communication in dense networks. Furthermore, the possibility of simultaneous use of different Radio Frequency (RF) interfaces can increase the capacity of data transmission over the network. In this paper, two novel M2M relay selection algorithms are proposed namely Optimal Relay Selection Algorithm (ORSA) and Matching based Relay Selection Algorithm (MRSA). ORSA is a centralized algorithm that transforms the relay selection problem to a k-cardinality assignment problem that can be solved using the Hungarian algorithm. MRSA is a decentralized algorithm that leverages concepts from matching theory to provide a stable relay assignment. In both proposed algorithms, static RF interfaces setting is applied to enable the simultaneous use of different interfaces. It is shown that ORSA results are optimal and MRSA results are stable. The simulations compare the capacity of data transmission of proposed and baseline algorithms. The results show that when the number of channels is not restricted, MRSA is only about 3% lower than ORSA and its results are higher than direct transmission and random relay selection, about 56% and 117%, respectively.
Applied Soft Computing

The Flower Pollination Algorithm (FPA) is a recently proposed continuous metaheuristic that was claimed to give promising results. However, its potential in binary problems has been vaguely investigated. The use of mapping techniques to adapt metaheuristics to handle binary optimisation problems is a widely-used approach, but these techniques are still fuzzy and misunderstood, since no work thoroughly studied them for a given problem or algorithm. This paper conducts a consistent and systematic study to assess the efﬁciency of the FPA and the common mapping techniques. This is done through proposing four Binary variants of the FPA (BFPA) that have been got by applying the principal mapping techniques existing in the literature. As benchmark problem; an NP-hard binary one in advanced cellular networks, the Antenna Positioning Problem (APP), is used. In order to assess the scalability, efﬁciency and robustness of the proposed BFPAs, the experiments have been carried out on realistic, synthetic and random data with different dimensions, and several statistical tests have been carried. Two of the top-ranked algorithms designed to solve the APP; the Population-Based Incremental Learning (PBIL) and the Differential Evolution algorithm (DE), are taken as a comparison basis. The results showed that the normalisation and angle modulation are the best mapping techniques. The experiments also showed that the BFPAs have some shortcomings but, they could outperform the PBIL in 4 out of 13 instances and the DE in 6 out of 13 instances and no statistical difference was found in the remaining instances. Besides, the BFPAs outperformed or gave competitive technical results compared to the PBIL and DE in all problem instances. ©
Status review of the northeastern Pacific population of white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) under the Endangered Species Act

Background In June and August of 2012, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) received two petitions requesting that the northeastern Pacific (NEP) population of white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) be listed as endangered or threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). In September 2012, NMFS published a 90-day finding (77 FR 59582) announcing that both petitions presented substantial scientific or commercial information indicating that the NEP white shark population may warrant listing under the ESA and that the agency would conduct an ESA status review of the NEP white shark population. NMFS formed a Biological Review Team (BRT) made up of scientists from the Southwest Fisheries Science Center having diverse backgrounds in population modeling, genetics, conservation biology, fisheries management, and shark biology and ecology to conduct the status review. The BRT considered a variety of scientific and technical information and conducted its own independent analyses. This document reports the results of its comprehensive status review of the NEP white shark population. Approach of the BRT While recent years have seen a dramatic increase in the information available on the behaviors and movements of NEP white sharks, the BRT acknowledged that there is considerable uncertainty surrounding many aspects of abundance, trends in abundance, threats, life history, and habitat use for all age and sex classes. Such uncertainties are expected for a naturally uncommon highly migratory species. The BRT decided to treat the uncertainty explicitly by defining where it exists and using a process called Structured Expert Decision Making (SEDM) to weigh various plausible scenarios, taking into account all available data on the NEP white shark population but also considering information on white sharks from other regions and from similar species. For each SEDM exercise, the BRT developed a range of values, based on the best available data, across which plausibility points were allocated. Some of the results are provided in the " Executive Summary " and are identified as plausibility points. The exercises for which SEDM was used are presented in Appendix A. The BRT's objectives in taking this approach were to make plausible decisions in complex situations involving uncertainties, to insure that the decision making process was as transparent as possible and to provide assurance that the team was basing its decisions on a common understanding of the evidence. White sharks are globally distributed and are the largest of the predatory sharks. In the NEP, white sharks are most commonly observed …
Trace: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange

With rising healthcare costs and a substantially growing number of patients 65 or over, the benefits of telemedicine and patient self-monitoring systems are becoming increasingly evident. Patients, physicians, hospitals, and even insurance providers benefit from vigilant, cost-effective patient monitoring systems. This thesis describes the development of a portable, smart-phone connected system for continuous cardiac monitoring. The system is capable of continuously monitoring the conditions of the heart, automated detection of cardiac arrhythmias, and real-time notifying patients and physicians of the detected abnormalities. The system consists of four main subsystems: 1) a Bluetooth capable chest-strap ECG, 2) an Android-enabled mobile device, 3) a cloud-based analysis, storage, and notification system, and 4) a web-application portal. Data is collected by the single-lead ECG device, and transmitted to the mobile device via Bluetooth. An application allows the patient to view their ECG output in real-time, view the last 24 hours of recordings, and receive notifications and details regarding any detected abnormalities. The mobile device transmits the ECG data to a remote server for pre-processing and analysis, and then stores the data in a database which the patient or physician can access via a web-interface. The developed system can be used as a telemedicine system for management of cardiovascular diseases.
Study on the Influencing Factor of Haze Pollution About the City Along Chinese “The Belt and Road”

Relationships between china’s rapid urbanization and air pollution has been one of the most visible problems. This paper based on the monitoring data of prefecture-level cities from March 2016 to February 2017, gathered from 181 cities along “the belt and road”, we used the arcgis software to make a visual analysis of the distribution of air quality index(aqi) and proposed a new kind of spatial weight based on gravity model to establish spatial autocorrelation and spatial regression model by r software to quantitatively estimate the comprehensive impact and spatial variations of air quality and socioeconomic factors of the cities along “the belt and road” in china. The results show that a significant seasonal change and positive spatial dependence existed in air quality. The model of southern coastal area is low-low aggregation while high-high aggregation model appears in inner mongolia, shanxi and gansu province. In the view of space return, the aqi of those cities shows remarkable spatial spillover effect. The increase of per capita gdp and civilian car ownership has a significant positive effect on the increase of haze pollution degree, however, population density, foreign direct investment and urbanization rate have remarkable passive effect; additionally, the greening rate of urban built-up area on air pollution nearly does not remarkable.
Automated testing of a dynamic web application

Software testing plays an important role in the process of verifying software functionality and preventing bugs in production code. By writing automated tests using code instead of conducting manual tests, the amount of tedious work during the development process can be reduced and the software quality can be improved.This thesis presents the results of a conducted case study on how automated testing can be used when implementing new functionality in a Ruby on Rails web application. Different frameworks for automated software testing are used as well as test-driven development methodology, with the purpose of getting a broad perspective on the subject. This thesis studies common issues with testing web applications, and discuss drawbacks and advantages of different testing approaches. It also looks into quality factors that are applicable for tests, and analyze how these can be measured.