Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
R A ] 1 0 M ay 2 01 0 KW-sections for exceptional type Vinberg ’ s θ-groups

Let k be an algebraically closed field of characteristic not equal to 2 or 3, let G be an almost simple algebraic group of type F4, G2 or D4 and let θ be an automorphism of G of finite order, coprime to the characteristic. In this paper we consider the θgroup (in the sense of Vinberg) associated to these choices; we classify the positive rank automorphisms via Kac diagrams and we describe the little Weyl group in each case. As a result we show that all θ-groups in types G2, F4 and D4 have KW-sections, confirming a conjecture of Popov in these cases.
Changing patterns of production relocation and back-shoring activities in the course of the economic crisis

Relocation of production activities to emerging countries in Asia and Eastern Europe has become more and more important in recent years. However, backshoring activities of once offshored manufacturing capacities are relevant phenomena, too. Particularly cost-driven relocation activities show a tendency to “fail” and are relatively inflexible to changing environmental conditions. We use data from 1,484 German manufacturing companies to analyse changing patterns in firms’ production relocation and backshoring behaviour, using structured probit analyses. We find that relocation activities declined significantly, whereas the level of backshoring activities has remained stable. Since the emergence of the economic crisis, particularly companies following a price leadership strategy are engaging in production relocation. Export-intensive companies tend currently towards more backshoring and (re-)concentrating of their production capacities. They valuate the benefits of higher capacity utilization and a superior relation of variable costs to fix costs higher than the option of producing partly at low-wage locations.
Water Transport Properties of Bio-Nanocomposites Reinforced by Sugar Palm ( Arenga Pinnata ) Nanofibrillated Cellulose

Article history: Received 18 June 2018 Received in revised form 2 August 2018 Accepted 13 November 2018 Available online 15 November 2018 In present work, sugar palm nanofibrillated cellulose (SPNFCs) nanocomposites were casted and utilized as biodegradable reinforcement materials to improve the water barrier properties of the sugar palm starch (SPS)-based films. SPNFCs with three different sizes based on cycling time (5, 10 and 15 cycles denoted as SPS/SPNFCs-5C, SPS/SPNFCs-10C, and SPS/SPNFCs-15C) were incorporated into SPS plasticizers together with glycerol and sorbitol using solution casting method. Then, the SPS and SPS/SPNFCs bionanocomposites were submitted for water absorption and solubility test. Adding of 0.5 wt. % SPNFCs-15C loading had significantly improved water absorption and water solubility properties of the nanocomposite films by 18.84% and 39.38%, respectively, compared with the neat film. This was ascribed by the high compatibility between SPNFCs and SPS matrices, which was supported under the observation of the field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM).
Pulmonary emphysema diagnosis with a preclinical small-animal X-ray dark-field scatter-contrast scanner.

PURPOSE To test the hypothesis that the joint distribution of x-ray transmission and dark-field signals obtained with a compact cone-beam preclinical scanner with a polychromatic source can be used to diagnose pulmonary emphysema in ex vivo murine lungs. MATERIALS AND METHODS The animal care committee approved this study. Three excised murine lungs with pulmonary emphysema and three excised murine control lungs were imaged ex vivo by using a grating-based micro-computed tomographic (CT) scanner. To evaluate the diagnostic value, the natural logarithm of relative transmission and the natural logarithm of dark-field scatter signal were plotted on a per-pixel basis on a scatterplot. Probability density function was fit to the joint distribution by using principle component analysis. An emphysema map was calculated based on the fitted probability density function. RESULTS The two-dimensional scatterplot showed a characteristic difference between control and emphysematous lungs. Control lungs had lower average median logarithmic transmission (-0.29 vs -0.18, P = .1) and lower average dark-field signal (-0.54 vs -0.37, P = .1) than emphysematous lungs. The angle to the vertical axis of the fitted regions also varied significantly (7.8° for control lungs vs 15.9° for emphysematous lungs). The calculated emphysema distribution map showed good agreement with histologic findings. CONCLUSION X-ray dark-field scatter images of murine lungs obtained with a preclinical scanner can be used in the diagnosis of pulmonary emphysema. SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL http://radiology.rsna. org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1148/radiol.13122413/-/DC1.
Using Mobile-Assisted Exercises to Support Students' Vocabulary Skill Development.

The use of mobile phones for learning has become well-known and is widely adopted in many language classes. The use of SMS for transmitting short messages is a fast way of helping students to learn vocabulary. To address this issue, this study was conducted to examine the effects of mobile-assisted vocabulary exercises on vocabulary acquisition of first-year students. Eighty students from two sections enrolled in a fundamental English course participated in the study. Each section consisted of 40 students. One of the groups was chosen as the experimental group, and the other as the control group. All students received the same amount of new words and dictation in class. Then only the students in the experimental group did vocabulary exercises on mobile phones via SMS. Those in the control group received paper-based exercises to be done in class. The instruments were pre-and post-vocabulary tests and a questionnaire surveying the students’ attitudes toward mobile-assisted exercises. The findings revealed that vocabulary knowledge of students in the experimental group outperformed the control group. They used and learned target vocabulary better than those in the control group. Mobileassisted vocabulary exercises had a significant effect on vocabulary ability of the students. The results of the questionnaire also illustrated their positive attitudes toward doing mobile-assisted exercises as a whole. It can be concluded that using mobile phones as a learning tool contributes to the success of students meanwhile increases their learning motivation.
Internet access and usage patterns as teaching and learning facilities among lecturers and students of Modibbo Adama University of Technology, Yola, Nigeria

The study assessed internet access and usage patterns as teaching and learning facilities among lecturers and students of Modibbo Adama University of Technology, Yola, Adamawa State, Nigeria. Descriptive survey research design was used to collect data from a sample of 583 respondents, comprising 231 lecturers and 352 students. The instrument for data collection was a structured questionnaire developed by the researcher. Test re-test method was used to determine the reliability coefficient of the instrument using Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient (r) which was found to be 0.83. Mean and standard deviation were used answered the research questions. It was found that Wi-fi, cybercafe, laptop and the phone were the main internet access points. Internet usage patterns found by the study were sending and receiving messages, web pages and chatting with colleagues, among others. The study found only daily use of the internet as the only viable frequency of internet usage by respondents. Inadequate skills, irregular power supply, few computers and poor network were found as the challenges faced by respondents in the use of the internet at MAUTECH. Inadequate projectors and solar systems were found to be among the major challenges of internet facilities at the institution. The study suggested among others, cost of access to the internet and printing of materials on the internet should be made affordable for average students, the university should subscribe to a bigger bandwidth to speed the rate of downloading and browsing and internet facilities be installed in all schools.
Audio-watermarking based ownership verification system using enhanced DWT-SVD technique

Audio watermarking has been proposed as an effective solution to solve or mitigate the new challenges of audio ownership verification. These challenges arose from easiness of copying and distributing of audio applications. This paper proposes important performance enhancements to a previously-reported audio ownership verification system based upon utilizing a combination of Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) and Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) techniques. A new audio signal framing, DWT matrix formation and embedding methods are proposed and successfully implemented to improve the minimum audio-cover period, quality of the watermarked audio and its robustness against various attacks. Performance evaluation of the developed system demonstrated improvements of 69% in the required minimum audio-cover period, 25% in the Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR), and improved robustness against various watermarking benchmark attacks.
Race and Psychiatric Services in Post-Apartheid South Africa: A Preliminary Study of Psychiatrists’ Perceptions

Objectives: The primary objective of this study was to examine the perception of the quality of psychiatric services five years after apartheid, and specifically whether care for black patients had improved. Design: A survey was distributed to South African psychiatrists during a national congress and by mail. The questionnaire focused on the quality of psychiatric care in general, for black and white patients, the racial composition of each respondent’s psychiatric practice currently, and the racial composition of the psychiatric practice during apartheid. Results: Psychiatric services in South Africa were viewed as deteriorating. The end of apartheid has done little to improve the quality of psychiatric care for both black and white patients. Although less pronounced, racial inequality in psychiatric care continues to exist. Psychiatric practices continue to be overrepresented with white patients. Conclusion: There remains a differential in quality of psychiatric care and further monitoring should continue. Continued efforts to improve racial equality and the need for greater awareness of cultural issues need to be addressed. Limitations of this study included possible social desirability bias, use of subjective rather than objective measures, and a survey that was limited in scope.
Portmanteau Vocabularies for Multi-Cue Image Representation

We describe a novel technique for feature combination in the bag-of-words model of image classification. Our approach builds discriminative compound words from primitive cues learned independently from training images. Our main observation is that modeling joint-cue distributions independently is more statistically robust for typical classification problems than attempting to empirically estimate the dependent, joint-cue distribution directly. We use Information theoretic vocabulary compression to find discriminative combinations of cues and the resulting vocabulary of portmanteau words is compact, has the cue binding property, and supports individual weighting of cues in the final image representation. State-of-the-art results on both the Oxford Flower-102 and Caltech-UCSD Bird-200 datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of our technique compared to other, significantly more complex approaches to multi-cue image representation.
A Pectic Polysaccharide from Sijunzi Decoction Promotes the Antioxidant Defenses of SW480 Cells

Sijunzi Decoction (SJZD) is a formula used for the treatment of spleen deficiency and gastrointestinal diseases in Traditional Chinese Medicine. Polysaccharides are reported to be the main components of SJZD responsible for its bio-functions. However, highly purified and clearly characterized polysaccharides from SJZD are not well described. Here we obtained a purified polysaccharide (SJZDP-II-I) from SJZD using ion exchange chromatography and gel filtration. Structure analysis by FT-IR and NMR identified SJZDP-II-I as a typical pectic polysaccharide with homogalacturonan and rhamnogalacturonan type I regions and arabinogalactan type I and II as side chains. In vitro studies indicated that SJZDP-II-I treatment could significantly enhance the total antioxidant capacity of SW480 cells, resulting from the promoted expressions of antioxidant enzymes and their master regulator PGC-1α, which would be valuable for further research and applications.
Social thermoregulation and torpor in the Siberian hamster

SUMMARY Social thermoregulation and huddling bring about energy benefits to animals sharing a nest because of the smaller surface-to-volume ratio of a huddle and the higher local temperature in the nest. We tested whether living in groups and huddling affect daily torpor, metabolic rate and seasonal changes in the body mass of a small heterothermic rodent, the Siberian hamster (Phodopus sungorus), housed under semi-natural conditions both singly and in groups of four litter-mates. We predicted that in hamsters housed in groups: (1) synchronized torpor bouts would be longer and deeper than non-synchronized ones but shallower than in solitary hamsters, (2) seasonal variations in metabolic rate would be lower than in solitary hamsters, and (3) the winter decrease in body mass would be smaller in grouped than in singly housed hamsters. We found that group housing led to a smaller decrease in body mass in winter, and affected the length and depth of daily torpor. In group-living hamsters more than 50% of all torpor episodes were synchronized and torpid animals were often found in huddles formed of all cage-mates. The longest and deepest torpor bouts in groups were recorded when all animals in a group entered torpor simultaneously. Although the minimum body temperature during torpor was higher, torpor duration was slightly longer than in solitary hamsters. We did not record significant differences in the body mass-adjusted rate of oxygen consumption between solitary and grouped animals, either in the cold or at the lower critical temperature. We conclude that social thermoregulation enables maintenance of a larger body mass, and thus a larger body fat content, which can ensure better body condition at the beginning of the reproductive season.
Association Between the Use of Proton Pump Inhibitors and the Risk of ESRD in Renal Diseases: A Population-Based, Case-Control Study

AbstractProton pump inhibitors (PPIs) use may be associated with nephritis and acute renal injury. The risk of PPIs and deterioration of renal function, in patients with renal diseases, needs to be investigated.A case-control study was conducted in a nation-wide data setting from the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database (NHIRD). This case-control study used data extracted from NHIRD between the years 2006 and 2011. We used propensity scores to match 3808 patients suffering from renal diseases (ICD-9-CM codes 580–589), with patients (aged ≥20 years) who had had a recent diagnosis of end-stage renal diseases (ESRDs) and had undertaken renal replacement therapy during the period of 2006 to 2011. The 3808 control subjects were selected from people who had a history of renal diseases, but no ESRD. The risk of ESRD in patients with renal diseases and PPIs use was estimated by using odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CI). The use of a PPIs was associated with a significantly higher risk of ESRD (adjusted OR = 1.88, 95% CI = 1.71–2.06) in renal disease patients. Of all the types of PPI combined, the adjusted OR was 1.92 (95% CI = 1.74–2.13) for those on <100 cumulative DDD and was 1.74-fold (95% CI = 1.52–2.00) for those on ≥100 cumulative DDD.PPIs use is associated with the risk of ESRD in patients with renal diseases. It is necessary that appropriate prescription of PPIs coordinated with the close monitoring renal function of patients diagnosed with renal disease.
Evaluation of the Larvicidal Efficacy of Five Indigenous Weeds against an Indian Strain of Dengue Vector, Aedes aegypti L. (Diptera: Culicidae)

Background and Objectives. Aedes aegypti, dengue fever mosquito, is primarily associated with the transmission of dengue and chikungunya in tropical and subtropical regions of the world. The present investigations were carried out to assess the larvicidal efficiency of five indigenous weeds against Ae. aegypti. Methods. The 1,000 ppm hexane and ethanol extracts prepared from the leaves and stem of five plants (Achyranthes aspera, Cassia occidentalis, Catharanthus roseus, Lantana camara, and Xanthium strumarium) were screened for their larvicidal activity against early fourth instars of dengue vector. The extracts which could cause 80–100% mortality were further investigated for their efficacy. Results. The preliminary screening established the efficacy of hexane extracts as compared to the ethanol extracts. Further investigations revealed the highest larvicidal potential of A. aspera extracts exhibiting LC50 value of 82.555 ppm and 68.133 ppm, respectively. Further, their leaf extracts showed 5–85.9% higher larvicidal activity and stem extracts exhibited 0.23- to 0.85-fold more efficiency than the other four extracts. Conclusion. The present investigations suggest the possible use of A. aspera as an ideal ecofriendly, larvicidal agent for the control of dengue vector, Ae. aegypti. Future studies are, however, required to explore and identify the bioactive component involved and its mode of action.
PLX4032, a selective BRAFV600E kinase inhibitor, activates the ERK pathway and enhances cell migration and proliferation of BRAFWT melanoma cells

BRAFV600E/K is a frequent mutationally active tumor‐specific kinase in melanomas that is currently targeted for therapy by the specific inhibitor PLX4032. Our studies with melanoma tumor cells that are BRAFV600E/K and BRAFWT showed that, paradoxically, while PLX4032 inhibited ERK1/2 in the highly sensitive BRAFV600E/K, it activated the pathway in the resistant BRAFWT cells, via RAF1 activation, regardless of the status of mutations in NRAS or PTEN. The persistently active ERK1/2 triggered downstream effectors in BRAFWT melanoma cells and induced changes in the expression of a wide‐spectrum of genes associated with cell cycle control. Furthermore, PLX4032 increased the rate of proliferation of growth factor‐dependent NRAS Q61L mutant primary melanoma cells, reduced cell adherence and increased mobility of cells from advanced lesions. The results suggest that the drug can confer an advantage to BRAFWT primary and metastatic tumor cells in vivo and provide markers for monitoring clinical responses.
A novel framework for object removal from digital photograph

This work aims for a novel function for smart camera-redundant object removal from digital photograph. The proposed novel framework can fill the left lacuna region in the digital image. In previous related researches, texture synthesis and image inpainting construct the fundamentals of filling the lost image region. Texture synthesis can be used to fill the large hole of input texture, while image inpainting can be used to repair the small image gaps. In this paper, we propose an object removal framework by the sub-patch texture synthesis algorithm and weighted interpolation method with automatic repainting mechanism. In the filling process, the color distribution analysis is used to choose different methods. The exhaustive computation time is reduced by the weighted interpolation method. In order to repaint the faulty texture region intelligently, we use the color ratio gradients to detect the synthesized artifact region. The automatic artifact detection can lead repainting the faulty region without user intervention. The proposed algorithm can achieve better performance with seamless output images. The regular computation is also suitable for hardware architecture different from previous existing algorithms.
Resolving the neural dynamics of visual and auditory scene processing in the human brain: a methodological approach

In natural environments, visual and auditory stimulation elicit responses across a large set of brain regions in a fraction of a second, yielding representations of the multimodal scene and its properties. The rapid and complex neural dynamics underlying visual and auditory information processing pose major challenges to human cognitive neuroscience. Brain signals measured non-invasively are inherently noisy, the format of neural representations is unknown, and transformations between representations are complex and often nonlinear. Further, no single non-invasive brain measurement technique provides a spatio-temporally integrated view. In this opinion piece, we argue that progress can be made by a concerted effort based on three pillars of recent methodological development: (i) sensitive analysis techniques such as decoding and cross-classification, (ii) complex computational modelling using models such as deep neural networks, and (iii) integration across imaging methods (magnetoencephalography/electroencephalography, functional magnetic resonance imaging) and models, e.g. using representational similarity analysis. We showcase two recent efforts that have been undertaken in this spirit and provide novel results about visual and auditory scene analysis. Finally, we discuss the limits of this perspective and sketch a concrete roadmap for future research. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Auditory and visual scene analysis’.
Intra-Household Behavioral Responses to Cash Transfer Programs: Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design

Intra-Household Behavioral Responses to Cash Transfer Programs: Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design* This paper investigates the behavioral responses of coupled men and women to a cash transfer program in Uruguay – Asignaciones Familiares-Plan de Equidad (AFAM-PE) –, by analyzing its effect on labor market responses, marital dissolution, and the decision-making process regarding the use of money. The identification strategy exploits both the fact that the monetary transfer is targeted to women and a local random assignment into the AFAM-PE which exogenously changed the intra-household distribution of resources across applicant households. Based on a regression discontinuity design and on a follow-up survey matched with administrative records of applicant households to the program, the insights of this study may be summarized in four broad results. First, while no significant effects are found for men, the program has significant negative effects on the formality choice of women at the eligibility cut-off, but no robust effect on the margin of employment. Secondly, these responses seem to be associated with a decline in women’s movement into formal labor from unregistered jobs. These responses do not depend on their partner ́s labor supply. Third, contrary to findings for various welfare programs in developed countries, no effect on marital dissolution is found. Fourth, we find suggestive evidence that the AFAM-PE results in women taking greater (perceived) responsibility for decisions in specific spheres of household expenditures. In conclusion, considering the overall effects, these results suggest that conditional cash transfer programs (CCTs) do not necessary imply an increase in women’s control over household resources, offering suggestive considerations for the ongoing debate in developing countries and suggesting the need to discuss new designs for social assistance. JEL Classification: H31, O15, D13, J22