Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An IDEA for Short Term Outbreak Projection: Nearcasting Using the Basic Reproduction Number

Background Communicable disease outbreaks of novel or existing pathogens threaten human health around the globe. It would be desirable to rapidly characterize such outbreaks and develop accurate projections of their duration and cumulative size even when limited preliminary data are available. Here we develop a mathematical model to aid public health authorities in tracking the expansion and contraction of outbreaks with explicit representation of factors (other than population immunity) that may slow epidemic growth. Methodology The Incidence Decay and Exponential Adjustment (IDEA) model is a parsimonious function that uses the basic reproduction number R0, along with a discounting factor to project the growth of outbreaks using only basic epidemiological information (e.g., daily incidence counts). Principal Findings Compared to simulated data, IDEA provides highly accurate estimates of total size and duration for a given outbreak when R0 is low or moderate, and also identifies turning points or new waves. When tested with an outbreak of pandemic influenza A (H1N1), the model generates estimated incidence at the i+1th serial interval using data from the ith serial interval within an average of 20% of actual incidence. Conclusions and Significance This model for communicable disease outbreaks provides rapid assessments of outbreak growth and public health interventions. Further evaluation in the context of real-world outbreaks will establish the utility of IDEA as a tool for front-line epidemiologists.
Human capital in export-based internationalisation. "Managerial determinants and their influence upon the export behaviour of the firm: four case-studies of catalan exporting SMEs"

Export activities are a major source of economic growth and are considered important both at the national level and for individual businesses. Moreover, in the case of SMEs, they gain particular relevance, exporting being the most common foreign market entry mode for these firms. The decision maker’s role in the export activity is crucial, particularly in the case of SMEs. However, the extant literature on internationalization is characterized by a lack of consensus among scholars as to what constitutes the managerial factor in determining exporting. Therefore, this study focuses on the following issue: Which are the decision maker’s characteristics and perceptions that may influence the export behaviour of Catalan SMEs? To address this question a multiple case study method is applied across four Catalan exporting SMEs. The methodology chosen for analysing the empirical data is relying on the proposition testing approach while the investigation is conducted including both within and cross-case analysis. The findings show that high educational level, language skills, high risk tolerance, innovativeness as well as strongly perceived export stimuli as compared to low and easy to overcome export barriers positively influence the export involvement and development of SMEs. The study provides further insights into the research topic by jointly studying managerial characteristics and perceptions. Additionally, the majority of research on exporting topics has been carried out in the USA, so there is a clear need of investigation in the field in other countries, moreover in Spain where the exporting activities have not been as widely studied.
The Great Flood of 1997 in Poland

Abstract The flood that occurred in summer 1997 in Poland, affecting the drainage basins of the Odra and the Vistula, caused 54 fatalities and material losses of the order of billions of US$. The flood struck a large part of the country and caused inundation of 665 000 ha of land. The number of evacuees was 162 thousand. The rhetoric commonly used in Poland refers to the Great Flood of 1997 as an event whose scale exceeded all imagination about the possible size of the disaster. Indeed, historic maxima of river stage and flow rate were considerably exceeded. From the hydrological point of view, this flood was a very rare event, with a return period in some river cross-sections of the order of a thousand years and more. As this natural disaster, striking a dynamically developing country-in-transition, attracted much international interest, a holistic view of it is presented. Attempts to answer the questions: “Could the disaster have been avoided? ” and “What lessons can be learnt from the flood? ” are also made.
The Influence of Flanking Secondary Structures on Amino Acid Content and Typical Lengths of 3/10 Helices

We used 3D structures of a highly redundant set of bacterial proteins encoded by genes of high, average, and low GC-content. Four types of connecting bridges—regions situated between any of two major elements of secondary structure (alpha helices and beta strands)—containing a pure random coil were compared with connecting bridges containing 3/10 helices. We included discovered trends in the original “VVTAK Connecting Bridges” algorithm, which is able to predict more probable conformation for a given connecting bridge. The highest number of significant differences in amino acid usage was found between 3/10 helices containing bridges connecting two beta strands (they have increased Phe, Tyr, Met, Ile, Leu, Val, and His usages but decreased usages of Asp, Asn, Gly, and Pro) and those without 3/10 helices. The typical (most common) length of 3/10 helices situated between two beta strands and between beta strand and alpha helix is equal to 5 amino acid residues. The preferred length of 3/10 helices situated between alpha helix and beta strand is equal to 3 residues. For 3/10 helices situated between two alpha helices, both lengths (3 and 5 amino acid residues) are typical.
Class of algorithms for decoding block codes with channel measurement information

A class of decoding algorithms that utilizes channel measurement information, in addition to the conventional use of the algebraic properties of the code, is presented. The maximum number of errors that can, with high probability, be corrected is equal to one less than d , the minimum Hamming distance of the code. This two-fold increase over the error-correcting capability of a conventional binary decoder is achieved by using channel measurement (soft-decision) information to provide a measure of the relative reliability of each of the received binary digits. An upper bound on these decoding algorithms is derived, which is proportional to the probability of an error for d th order diversity, an expression that has been evaluated for a wide range of communication channels and modulation techniques. With the aid of a lower bound on these algorithms, which is also a lower bound on a correlation (maximum-likelihood) decoder, we show for both the Gaussian and Rayleigh fading channels, that as the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) increases, the asymptotic behavior of these decoding algorithms cannot be improved. Computer simulations indicate that even for ! ow SNR the performance of a correlation decoder can be approached by relatively simple decoding procedures. In addition, we study the effect on the performance of these decoding algorithms when a threshold is used to simplify the decoding process.
Serum Autoantibodies in Chronic Hepatitis C : Comparison with Hepatitis C / Autoimmune Hepatitis Overlap Syndrome in Egypt

Background: Hepatitis C virus—autoimmune hepatitis (HCV/AIH) overlap syndrome had been described in the literature since the early 1990s with numerous case reports and proposed guidelines of management. However, definitive diagnosis for the syndrome remains controversial and there are still no formalized treatment strategies. The aim of this study was to test how hepatitis C virus (HCV)-associated autoantibodies differs from those of AIH in terms of titer and sub specificities and to find the best combination of antibodies in discrimination between the two conditions. Methods: Liver biopsy and blood samples were taken from clinically and serologically confirmed patients with chronic HCV infection (n=57) and patients suspected to have HCV/AIH overlap syndrome (n=21). HCV infection was determined by detection of anti-HCV antibodies using a third-generation enzyme immunoassay and active virus replication defined by quantitative measurement of HCV RNA. Antinuclear antibodies (ANA) and its pattern, anti-smooth muscle antibodies (ASMA), Anti-Actin antibody (AA), Antimitochondrial antibody (AMA), anti liver-Kidney microsome-1(anti-LKM1) and perinuclear staining of antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies (pANCA) were detected by immunofluorescence assay. Anti-soluble liver antigen (SLA) was measured by ELIZA. Serum protein electrophoresis was done for gamma globulin measurement. Results: Statically significant difference regarding serum autoantibodies positivity and subspecificities were evident between chronic hepatitis C and HCV/AIH overlap syndrome patients. Elevated γ-globulins was the best test for selecting HCV/AIH overlap syndrome patients out of chronic HCV patients, followed by anti-actin, atypical p-ANCA, the homogeneous ANA pattern, the worse was ASMA. Positivity for AMA, anti-LKM-1 and SLA antibodies were not observed in all patients sera. The best combination was homogeneous ANA, anti-actin SMA and p –ANCA with sensitivity 85.71%, specificity 73.68%, and accuracy 76.92%. Conclusions: Serum autoantibodies positivity and sub-specificities should be used in differentiation between chronic hepatitis C and HCV/AIH overlap syndrome. The best combination was homogeneous ANA, anti-actin SMA and p–ANCA. [Khaled Metwally, Samia A. Abdo, Soheir Badr, Maryam A. Abdurrhman, and Nazek K. Saafan, Abear Mohamady AbdelBary and Manal H. Abbas. Serum Autoantibodies in Chronic Hepatitis C: Comparison with Hepatitis C/Autoimmune Hepatitis Overlap Syndrome in Egypt. Life Sci J 2012;9(4):1086-1091]. (ISSN: 1097-8135). http://www.lifesciencesite. com. 165
Relay augmentation for lifetime extension of wireless sensor networks

The authors propose a novel relay augmentation strategy for extending the lifetime of a certain class of wireless sensor networks. In this class sensors are located at fixed and pre-determined positions and all communication takes place through multi-hop paths in a fixed routing tree rooted at the base station. It is assumed that no accumulation of data takes place along the communication paths and that there is no restriction on where additional relays may be located. Under these assumptions the optimal extension of network lifetime is modelled as the Euclidean k -bottleneck Steiner tree problem. Only two approximation algorithms for this NP-hard problem exist in the literature: a minimum spanning tree heuristic (MSTH) with performance ratio 2, and a probabilistic 3-regular hypergraph heuristic (3RHH) with performance ratio √(3) + e. The authors present a new iterative heuristic that incorporates MSTH and show through simulation that their algorithm performs better than MSTH in extending lifetime, and outperforms 3RHH in terms of efficiency.
Electrohydrodynamic flow around a colloidal particle near an electrode with an oscillating potential

Electrohydrodynamic (EHD) flow around a charged spherical colloid near an electrode was studied theoretically and experimentally to understand the nature of long-range particle–particle attraction near electrodes. Numerical computations for finite double-layer thicknesses confirmed the validity of an asymptotic methodology for thin layers. Then the electric potential around the particle was computed analytically in the limit of zero Péclet number and thin double layers for oscillatory electric fields at frequencies where Faradaic reactions are negligible. Streamfunctions for the steady component of the EHD flow were determined with an electro-osmotic slip boundary condition on the electrode surface. Accordingly, it was established how the axisymmetric flow along the electrode is related to the dipole coefficient of the colloidal particle. Under certain conditions, the flow is directed toward the particle and decays as r−4, in accord with observations of long-range particle aggregation. To test the theory, particle-tracking experiments were performed with fluorescent 300 nm particles around 50μm particles over a wide range of electric field strengths and frequencies. Treating the particle surface conductivity as a fitting parameter yields velocities in excellent agreement with the theoretical predictions. The observed frequency dependence, however, differs from the model predictions, suggesting that the effect of convection on the charge distribution is not negligible as assumed in the zero Péclet number limit.
Rethinking the Methamphetamine Situation: Perceptions of Risk and Current Policy Dialogue

Abstract The ‘war on drugs’ has engendered significant recent debate, encompassing a variety of opinions, evidence and knowledge (though often polarised), from a wide range of sources. In Australia, much of this debate has focused on the harms and risks associated with illicit drugs. Often of concern has been young people's use of illicit drugs in nightclubs, which recent media and government reports suggest has increased and requires critical review given young people's relative lack of knowledge and their desire for risk-taking behaviour. While there have been many attempts to address this subject, the persistence of this practice questions the effectiveness of current ‘expert’ strategies and highlights the need for a more nuanced, bottom-up approach. This article draws from mixed-method research that examined young people's risk perceptions, leisure practices and, for some, use of methamphetamines in five key nightclubs in Adelaide, South Australia. The article provides a snapshot of the prevalence of methamphetamine use, evaluates current policy responses, and details key empirical findings, concluding that there is need for a more open and diverse policy dialogue.
A task-centered visualization design environment and a method for measuring the complexity of visualization designs

Recent years have seen a growing interest in the emerging area of computer security visualization which is about developing visualization methods to help solve computer security problems. In this thesis, we will first present a method for measuring the complexity of information visualization designs. The complexity is measured in terms of visual integration, number of separable dimensions for each visual unit, the complexity of interpreting the visual attributes, number of visual units, and the efficiency of visual search. This method is designed to better assist fellow developers to quickly evaluate multiple design choices, potentially enables computer to automatically measure the complexity of visualization data. We will also analyze the design space of network security visualization. Our main contribution is a new taxonomy that consists of three dimensions—data, visualizations, and tasks. Each dimension is further divided into hierarchical layers, and for each layer we have identified key parameters for making major design choices. This new taxonomy provides a comprehensive framework that can guide network security visualization developers to systematically explore the design space and make informed design decisions. It can also help developers or users systematically evaluate existing network security visualization techniques and systems. Finally it helps developers identify gaps in the design space and create new techniques. Taxonomy showed that most of the existing computer security visualization programs are data centered. However, some studies have shown that task centered visualization is perhaps more effective. To test this hypothesis, we propose a task centered visualization design framework, in which tasks are explicitly identified and organized and visualizations are constructed for specific tasks and their related data parameters. The center piece of this framework is a task tree which dynamically links the raw data with automatically generated visualization. The task tree serves as a high level interaction technique that allows users to conduct problem solving naturally at the task level, while still giving end users flexible control over the visualization construction. This work is currently being extended by building a prototype visualization system based on a Task-centered Visualization Design Architecture. INDEX WORDS: Information visualization, Complexity, Evaluation
Pelaksanaan Supervisi Akademik oleh Kepala Madrasah Aliyah Swasta di Kabupaten Sukabumi Jawa Barat

This study discusses the implementation of the academic supervision conducted by principal of Private Madrasah Aliyah of Cisaat Sukabumi. The results of this study concluded that the implementation of the academic supervision conducted by the principals are not systematic and not preprogrammed, so that teachers do not feel any relief from the headmaster in improving the quality of learning. This is due to the low competence of the principals in academic supervision and they tended to judge and find fault with teachers without providing advice and solu-tions. however, the principals have a plan/program of supervision, commitment and high motivation, seek to meet the performance assessment of supervisors. Based on the above, it needs guidance in the form of education and training to increase the competence of the principals of the madrasah, and giving reward to the successful principals. Abstrak Penelitian ini membahas tentang pelaksanaan supervisi akademik kepala Madra-sah di Madrasah Aliyah Swasta Kecamatan Cisaat Kabupaten Sukabumi. Hasil penelitian ini menyimpulkan bahwa pelaksanaan supervisi akademik yang dila-kukan oleh kepala madrasah tidak sistematis dan tidak terprogram, sehingga guru-guru tidak merasakan adanya bantuan dari kepala madrasah dalam peningkatan kualitas pembelajaran. Hal ini disebabkan oleh kompetensi supervisi akademik kepala madrasah yang rendah dan cenderung menilai dan mencari kesalahan guru tanpa memberikan saran dan solusi. Walaupun demikian, kepala madrasah memi-liki rencana/program supervisi, komitmen dan motivasinya tinggi, berupaya untuk memenuhi penilaian kinerja kepala madrasah dari pengawas madrasah. Berda-sarkan penjelasan di atas, maka perlu diadakan pembinaan berupa pendidikan dan pelatihan untuk peningkatan kompetensi kepala madrasah, dan pemberian reward terhadap Kepala Madrasah yang berprestasi.
The cytoplasmic poly(A) polymerases GLD-2 and GLD-4 promote general gene expression via distinct mechanisms

Post-transcriptional gene regulation mechanisms decide on cellular mRNA activities. Essential gatekeepers of post-transcriptional mRNA regulation are broadly conserved mRNA-modifying enzymes, such as cytoplasmic poly(A) polymerases (cytoPAPs). Although these non-canonical nucleotidyltransferases efficiently elongate mRNA poly(A) tails in artificial tethering assays, we still know little about their global impact on poly(A) metabolism and their individual molecular roles in promoting protein production in organisms. Here, we use the animal model Caenorhabditis elegans to investigate the global mechanisms of two germline-enriched cytoPAPs, GLD-2 and GLD-4, by combining polysome profiling with RNA sequencing. Our analyses suggest that GLD-2 activity mediates mRNA stability of many translationally repressed mRNAs. This correlates with a general shortening of long poly(A) tails in gld-2-compromised animals, suggesting that most if not all targets are stabilized via robust GLD-2-mediated polyadenylation. By contrast, only mild polyadenylation defects are found in gld-4-compromised animals and few mRNAs change in abundance. Interestingly, we detect a reduced number of polysomes in gld-4 mutants and GLD-4 protein co-sediments with polysomes, which together suggest that GLD-4 might stimulate or maintain translation directly. Our combined data show that distinct cytoPAPs employ different RNA-regulatory mechanisms to promote gene expression, offering new insights into translational activation of mRNAs.
On portable macrocell FPU generators for division and square root operators complying to the full IEEE-754 standard

In this paper, we investigate the design of macrocell generators of division and square root floating-point operators. The number representation used in our operators is the IEEE-754-1985 standard for binary floating-point numbers. The design and implementation of the generators rely on a powerful multi-view macroblock generator tool called GenOptim. This computer-aided design (CAD) tool is able to output a set of different descriptions for several VLSI technologies as well as field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). The division and square root operators described in this paper use the signed-binary-digit representation. We start first by describing the operators for the significand, then we investigate the IEEE floating-point operators. Throughout this paper, and wherever appropriate, we present the implementation results using the GenOptim environment.
Anti-Inflammatory Cytokines in Sepsis: Immunological Studies and In Silico Investigation

The pathophysiology, diagnosis, treatment and prognosis of sepsis remain major challenges for contemporary clinical practice. In this sense, efforts to broaden the knowledge about the mechanisms involved in systemic inflammation and to identify new methods for detecting sepsis in the early stages and the stratification of patients are extremely important. The purpose of this paper is to review the role of the anti-inflammatory cytokines in sepsis and present perspectives on the in silico investigation of the role of these mediators in this nosological entity, using the computational system AutoSimmune.
Assessment of influence of pro-health nutrition education and resulting changes of nutrition behavior of women aged 65-85 on their body content

Introduction One of systemic changes connected to body ageing is the change of body content and the possibility of formation and/or intensification of insulin resistance, dyslipidemia and hypertension symptoms. Material and methods The research was conducted on 68 women aged 65-85 with body mass index (BMI) of 25.3 to 44.5 kg/m2 who have been educated for four months. The energy and nutritive value of 204 daily food rations (DFRs) was evaluated twice: first days of October and – after the diet correction and implementation of the basic rules – from the end of January. The measurements, anthropometric and body content (in 35 women under research) with the bio-impedance method was checked twice – before and after completing the education. Results After completing the education, there was a statistically significant increase in consumption of grain products, fermented milk products, potatoes, fruit and vegetables, as well as seeds of legumes. Consumption of meat and cold meats, sugar and sweets significantly decreased. In the course of education, an individual-specific decrease in body mass of the participants was noticed, which found its reflection in positive changes of the anthropometric indicators value. A significant decrease in fat content in bodies of women under research was also noticed, which was accompanied by a slight increase in fat-free body mass and water. Conclusions The four-month pro-health education of women influenced changes in improper nutrition habits resulting in, besides the improvement of organism functions and well-being of women under research, body mass loss and changes in content of the body.