Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Transnational Firms and the Changing Organisation of Innovative Activities

It is suggested that a transition is taking place towards new modes of organising transnational corporations' innovative activities. First, different units of multinational firms, including foreign-based subsidiaries, are increasingly involved in the generation, use and transmission of knowledge. Secondly, multinationals are developing external networks of relationships with local counterparts, through which foreign affiliates gain access to external knowledge sources and application abilities. As a result of this evolutionary process, multinationals' organisation is subject to both centripetal and centrifugal forces. Considerable efforts are then necessary to innovate coordination procedures and mechanisms, in order to enhance the generation, circulation and use of knowledge. A number of empirical works are reviewed, providing some evidence of the evolutionary process discussed in the paper. Copyright 2000 by Oxford University Press.
Central Role of Hemoglobin Degradation in Mechanisms of Action of 4-Aminoquinolines, Quinoline Methanols, and Phenanthrene Methanols

ABSTRACT We have used a specific inhibitor of the malarial aspartic proteinase plasmepsin I and a nonspecific cysteine proteinase inhibitor to investigate the importance of hemoglobin degradation in the mechanism of action of chloroquine, amodiaquine, quinine, mefloquine (MQ), halofantrine, and primaquine. Both proteinase inhibitors antagonized the antiparasitic activity of all drugs tested with the exception of primaquine. An inhibitor of plasmepsin I, Ro40-4388, reduced the incorporation of radiolabelled chloroquine and quinine into malarial pigment by 95%, while causing a 70% reduction in the incorporation of radiolabelled MQ. Cysteine proteinase inhibitor E64 reduced the incorporation of chloroquine and quinine into malarial pigment by 60 and 40%, respectively. This study provides definitive support for the central role of hemoglobin degradation in the mechanism of action of the 4-aminoquinolines and the quinoline and phenanthrene methanol antimalarials.
Reassessing Combinatorial Productivity Exhibited by Simple Recurrent Networks in Language Acquisition

It has long been criticized that connectionist models are inappropriate models for language acquisition since one of the important properties, the property of generalization beyond the training space, cannot be exhibited by the networks. Recently van der Velde et al. have discussed the issue of the combinatorial productivity, arguing that simple recurrent networks (SRNs) fail in this regard. They have attempted to show that performance of SRNs on generalization is limited to word-word association. In this paper, we report our follow-up study with two simulations demonstrating that (i) bi-gram does not play the dominant role as claimed (ii) SRNs are indeed able to exhibit combinatorial productivity when appropriately trained.
Predicting Ghanaian pre-service teachers' intention to teach high-risk sexual behavior prevention from teaching efficacy and prevention approach

Youth and adolescents in African Countries have been experiencing high prevalence levels of the outcomes of high-risk sexual behavior (HRSB), such as HIV/AIDS, teenage pregnancy, illegal abortions, and dropping out of school. Education is one means by which HRSB can be reduced among adolescents, but the sensitive nature of sex education and the controversy over which prevention approach to use have made the teaching of HRSB prevention in schools a cautious undertaking. The purpose of this study was to describe (a) pre-service teachers’ efficacy beliefs for teaching HRSB prevention and (b) pre-service teachers’ preferred approach to HRSB prevention, as determinants of their intention to teach HRSB prevention to secondary school students in Ghana. A mixed sample of 196 graduating students of health-related Bachelor of Education degree programs at the University of Cape Coast, Ghana, responded to a researcher-designed instrument that measured HRSB prevention teaching efficacy (teaching efficacy expectation [TEE], teaching outcome expectation [TOE], and teaching outcome value expectation [TOVE]), preferred approach to HRSB prevention (abstinence-only, safer-sex-only, and combination), and intention to teach HRSB prevention. Reliability coefficients of the instrument ranged from . 74 to . 92. Using SPSS, descriptive statistics were reported for efficacy subscales, and frequencies for preferred approach and intention to teach HRSB prevention. Binary logistic regression was used to predict intention to teach from teaching efficacy and preferred approach. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Pre-service teachers’ strongest HRSB prevention teaching efficacy was in TOVE, followed by TEE, and TOE. In all, 44% of the sample favored teaching abstinence, 3% safer sex, and 53% favored the combination approach. Eightyseven percent of pre-service teachers intended to teach HRSB prevention, compared to 13% with no such intention. No significant association was found between preferred approach and intention to teach. A strong association existed between teaching efficacy and intention to teach. The logistic regression results showed that pre-service teachers’ intention to teach HRSB prevention can be predicted using TEE, TOE, TOVE, and preferred approach together; TEE and TOE together; TEE alone; or TOE alone. Implications of the findings for practice were discussed. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. To my wife, C. G. Thanks for your patience; my children: Cassie, Phil, Ray, May, and Eva; and to the rest of my family. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Penile melanoma: a 20-Year analysis of six patients at the National Cancer Institute of Peru, Lima

Melanoma of the urogenital tract is extremely rare, accounting for less than 0.1% of melanoma cases. The global literature currently describes only 220 cases of penile melanoma, most commonly located on the glans penis. Results Penile melanoma accounts for 0.7% of penile cancers and 0.18% of melanoma cases. The average patient age for the six cases we reviewed was 44.5 years. Three of these cases (50%) involved ulceration, one case (16.7%) involved lymphovascular invasion, and three cases (50%) involved mitosis ≥ 1 mm2 (0.38–4.7 mm). The average depth of invasion (Breslow) in the five cases that reported this measure was 2.1 mm (0.38–4.7 mm). Applying the American Joint Committee on Cancer tumour, node, metastases (AJCC TNM) staging system, one case was Tx (16.7%), two cases were T1 (33.3%), one case was T2 (16.7%), one case was T3 (16.7%), and one case was T4 (16.7%). Five cases (83.3%) involved wide local resection, and only one case involved partial penile amputation. Four cases (66.7%) involved primary bilateral inguinocrural lymphadenectomy, and only one of those four cases involved lymphatic metastatic disease. One case (16.7%) involved lymphatic recurrence at 12 months in a patient who survived 38 months. One case (16.7%) involved local recurrence at 13 months in a patient who has survived 53 months. Eighty per cent of these patients remain alive, with no evidence of disease after an average follow-up of 96.7 months. Conclusion Penile melanoma prognosis depends on the initial clinical stage of the disease. The risk of lymphatic involvement seems to be related to the same risk factors used to assess cutaneous melanoma. Clinicians can thus assess penile melanoma using the AJCC staging system. The use of sentinel lymph node biopsy to determine staging is also becoming more common and could replace prophylactic bilateral inguinal dissection.
Design algorithms for parallel transmission in magnetic resonance imaging

The focus of this dissertation is on the algorithm design, implementation, and validation of parallel transmission technology in Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). Novel algorithms are proposed which yield excellent excitation control, low RF power requirements, methods that extend to non‐linear large‐flip‐angle excitation, as well as a new algorithm for simultaneous spectral and spatial excitation critical to quantification of low‐SNR brain metabolites in MR spectroscopic imaging. For testing and validation, these methods were implemented on a newly developed parallel transmission platform on both 3 T and 7 T MRI scanners to demonstrate the ability of these methods for high‐ fidelity B1+ mitigation, first by excitation of phantoms and then by human imaging. Further, spatially tailored RF pulses were demonstrated beyond conventional slice‐ or slab‐selective excitation. Thesis Supervisor: Elfar Adalsteinsson Title: Robert J. Shillman Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; Harvard-MIT Division of Health Science and Technology
Interaction of the HIV-1 frameshift signal with the ribosome

Ribosomal frameshifting on viral RNAs relies on the mechanical properties of structural elements, often pseudoknots and more rarely stem-loops, that are unfolded by the ribosome during translation. In human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-1 type B a long hairpin containing a three-nucleotide bulge is responsible for efficient frameshifting. This three-nucleotide bulge separates the hairpin in two domains: an unstable lower stem followed by a GC-rich upper stem. Toeprinting and chemical probing assays suggest that a hairpin-like structure is retained when ribosomes, initially bound at the slippery sequence, were allowed multiple EF-G catalyzed translocation cycles. However, while the upper stem remains intact the lower stem readily melts. After the first, and single step of translocation of deacylated tRNA to the 30 S P site, movement of the mRNA stem-loop in the 5′ direction is halted, which is consistent with the notion that the downstream secondary structure resists unfolding. Mechanical stretching of the hairpin using optical tweezers only allows clear identification of unfolding of the upper stem at a force of 12.8 ± 1.0 pN. This suggests that the lower stem is unstable and may indeed readily unfold in the presence of a translocating ribosome.
An investigation of lower-extremity functional asymmetry for non-preferred able-bodied walking speeds

Functional asymmetry is an idea that is often used to explain documented bilateral asymmetries during able-bodied gait. Within this context, this idea suggests that the non-dominant and dominant legs, considered as whole entities, contribute asymmetrically to support and propulsion during walking. The degree of functional asymmetry may depend upon walking speed. The purpose of this study was to better understand the potential relationship between functional asymmetry and walking speed. Bilateral ground reaction forces (GRF) were measured for 20 healthy subjects who walked at nine different speeds: preferred, +10%, +20%, +30%, +40, −10%, −20%, −30%, and −40%. Contribution to support was determined to be the support impulse: the time integral of the vertical GRF during stance. Contribution to propulsion was determined to be the propulsion impulse: the time integral of the anterior-posterior GRF, while this force was directed forward. Repeated measures ANOVA (α = 0.05) revealed leg × speed interactions for normalized support (p = 0.001) and propulsion (p = 0.001) impulse, indicating that speed does affect the degree of functional asymmetry during gait. Post hoc comparisons (α = 0.05) showed that support impulse was approximately 2% greater for the dominant leg, relative to the non-dominant leg, for the −10%, −20%, and −40% speeds. Propulsion impulse was 12% greater for the dominant leg than for the non-dominant leg at the +20% speed. Speed does appear to affect the magnitude of bilateral asymmetry during walking, however, only the bilateral difference for propulsion impulse at one fast speed (+20%) was supportive of the functional asymmetry idea.
Original Papers

The main aim of the presented research is to describe children’s ability to generate and understand humorous stories and pictures drawn by their peers and older or younger children. From the perspective of research on children’s theories of mind, we assume that in middle childhood we will observe a transition from the basic, copy theory of mind to the interpretative one (Carpendale & Chandler, 1996). We examined 60 fiveand nine-year-old children in two phases. During the first phase, the children were asked to draw a funny picture and then justify what made it funny and they had also to present the funny story. Two months later, the children were presented with some pictures chosen after the first phase as the most typical one. They had to justify why these pictures are funny. The obtained results indicate that there is a relation between the age of the subjects and the kind of interpretations of funny pictures which are consistent with the author’s intentions. Significantly more nine-year-olds than five-year-olds accurately understood the author’s intentions when interpreting his picture. The presented data indicate that changes in the theory of mind take place also in middle childhood and lead to a complex, interpretative theory of mind which can be discovered when researching children’s understanding of jokes.
In Economics and Social Sciences Working Papers Series Do Institutions Matter for Regional Development? Do Institutions Matter for Regional Development? § Do Institutions Matter for Regional Development?

Communities and Local Government, and the Welsh Assembly Government. The support of these funders is acknowledged. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the funders. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the European Regional Studies Association Congress in Leuven and at the European Commission in Brussels. Abstract: This paper discusses whether institutions matter for regional development and how to integrate them in regional development strategies. It finds that while institutions are crucial for economic development, generating an institution-based regional development strategy is likely to be undermined by the lack of definition of what are adequate, solid, and efficient institutions. Problems related to the measurement of institutions, to their space and time variability, to the difficulties in establishing the right mix of formal and informal institutions, and to the endogeneity between institutions and economic development make one-size-fits-all approaches to operationalizing institutions difficult. Development strategies specifically tailored to the conditions of different regional institutional environments across regions may yield greater returns.
Skeletal Myogenic Differentiation of Mesenchymal Stem Cells Isolated from Human Umbilical Cord Blood

Human umbilical cord blood (UCB) has been regarded as an alternative source for cell transplantation and cell therapy because of its hematopoietic and nonhematopoietic (mesenchymal) potential. Although there has been debate about whether mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are invariably present in UCB, several reports showed that MSC‐like cells could be consistently derived from human UCB and, moreover, could differentiate into various cells of a mesodermal origin. However, it remains unclear whether these UCB‐derived MSCs are also capable of differentiating into skeletal muscle cells. In this study, we isolated MSCs from human UCB and induced them to differentiate into skeletal muscle cells. During cell culture expansion, UCB‐derived mononuclear cells gave rise to adherent layers of fibroblast‐like cells expressing MSC‐related antigens such as SH2, SH3, α‐smooth muscle actin, CD13, CD29, and CD49e. More important, when these UCB‐derived MSCs were incubated in promyogenic conditions for up to 6 weeks, they expressed myogenic markers in accordance with myogenic differentiation pattern. Both flow cytometric and reverse transcriptase–polymerase reaction analyses showed that two early myogenic markers, MyoD and myogenin, were expressed after 3 days of incubation but not after 2 weeks. At week 6, more than half of UCB‐derived MSCs expressed myosin heavy chain, a late myogenic marker. Our results demonstrate that UCB‐derived MSCs possess a potential of skeletal myogenic differentiation and also imply that these cells could be a suitable source for skeletal muscle repair and a useful tool of muscle‐related tissue engineering.
Virtual Visual Servoing: a framework for real‐time augmented reality

This paper presents a framework to achieve real‐time augmented reality applications. We propose a framework based on the visual servoing approach well known in robotics. We consider pose or viewpoint computation as a similar problem to visual servoing. It allows one to take advantage of all the research that has been carried out in this domain in the past. The proposed method features simplicity, accuracy, efficiency, and scalability wrt. to the camera model as well as wrt. the features extracted from the image. We illustrate the efficiency of our approach on augmented reality applications with various real image sequences.
Sectoral Money Demand and the Great Disinflation in the US

Estimates of the welfare costs of inflation based on Bailey's (1956) methodology are typically computed on the basis of aggregate money demand models. Yet, the behavior of money demand is likely to vary across sectors. As a result, the impact on welfare of changes in the inflation regime may differ between households and firms. We specifically investigate the sectoral welfare implications of the shift from the Great Inflation to the present regime of low and stable inflation. In order to do so, we estimate different functional specifications of sectoral money demand models for US households and non-financial firms using flow of funds data covering four decades. We find that the benefits were significant for both households and firms.
Maritime-Continental Drizzle Contrasts in Small Cumuli

Abstract Continuous aircraft measurements of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) were made during 16 summertime flights in eastern Florida. The air masses were divisible into maritime and continental regimes that respectively corresponded to wind direction—easterly (onshore) and westerly (offshore). Throughout these small cumulus clouds there were consistently higher concentrations of smaller droplets in the continental air. There was much more drizzle (diameter > 50 μm) in the maritime clouds where drizzle was associated with larger mean cloud droplet (2–50-μm diameter) sizes, higher concentrations of large cloud droplets, and greater amounts of cloud droplet liquid water. An apparent cloud droplet mean size threshold for the onset of drizzle was almost never exceeded in the continental clouds but was often exceeded in the maritime clouds, especially at higher altitudes. All together these results demonstrate that higher CCN concentrations suppressed drizzle.
Fast Food Consumption and Gestational Diabetes Incidence in the SUN Project

Background Gestational diabetes prevalence is increasing, mostly because obesity among women of reproductive age is continuously escalating. We aimed to investigate the incidence of gestational diabetes according to the consumption of fast food in a cohort of university graduates. Methods The prospective dynamic “Seguimiento Universidad de Navarra” (SUN) cohort included data of 3,048 women initially free of diabetes or previous gestational diabetes who reported at least one pregnancy between December 1999 and March 2011. Fast food consumption was assessed through a validated 136-item semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire. Fast food was defined as the consumption of hamburgers, sausages, and pizza. Three categories of fast food were established: low (0–3 servings/month), intermediate (>3 servings/month and ≤2 servings/week) and high (>2 servings/week). Non-conditional logistic regression models were used to adjust for potential confounders. Results We identified 159 incident cases of gestational diabetes during follow-up. After adjusting for age, baseline body mass index, total energy intake, smoking, physical activity, family history of diabetes, cardiovascular disease/hypertension at baseline, parity, adherence to Mediterranean dietary pattern, alcohol intake, fiber intake, and sugar-sweetened soft drinks consumption, fast food consumption was significantly associated with a higher risk of incident gestational diabetes, with multivariate adjusted OR of 1.31 (95% conficence interval [CI]:0.81–2.13) and 1.86 (95% CI: 1.13–3.06) for the intermediate and high categories, respectively, versus the lowest category of baseline fast food consumption (p for linear trend: 0.007). Conclusion Our results suggest that pre-pregnancy higher consumption of fast food is an independent risk factor for gestational diabetes.
Detection of lane markings based on ridgeness and RANSAC

Detection of lane markings based on a camera sensor can be a low cost solution to lane departure warning and lateral control. However, reliable detection is difficult due to cast shadows, vehicles occluding the marks, wear, vehicle motion, etc. The contribution of this paper is twofold. Firstly, we propose to explore another low-level image descriptor, namely, the ridgeness, instead of the gradient magnitude with the aim of getting a more reliable lane marking detection under adverse circumstances. Besides, the proposed measure comes with an associated orientation which is less noisy than the gradient one. Secondly, we have adapted RANSAC, a generic robust estimation method, to fit a parametric model to the image lane lines using both ridgeness and orientation as input data. In short, in this paper a better feature type and a robust fitting method are proposed, which contribute to improve the lane lines detection reliability, and still achieving real-time.
The Singular Hydrodynamic Interaction between Two Unequal Collinear Spheres

We study exact solutions for the slow viscous flow of an infinite liquid caused by two rigid spheres approaching along their line of centres, valid at all separations. This goes beyond the applicable range of existing solutions which are limited to the near-contact region of the flow. By use of a bipolar coordinate system, we give, for the first time, the stream function for the flow as Re→ 0 and a formula for the hydrodynamic interaction force between the spheres as an infinite series. We also derive the behaviour of the forces as the nondimensional separation goes to zero and infinity, rigorously confirming and improving on known heuristic results relevant to a widely accepted lubrication theory. The results also hold for retreating spheres, consistent with the reversibility of Stokes flow, and we recover the limit of a sphere moving perpendicularly to a plane. We demonstrate how our results give rise to differences in dynamics when implemented in numerical solutions to colloidal flow compared with existing methods. We also provide an efficient way to compute the infinite series as a polynomial interpolant.