Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Influenza virus and endothelial cells: a species specific relationship

Influenza A virus (IAV) infection is an important cause of respiratory disease in humans. The original reservoirs of IAV are wild waterfowl and shorebirds, where virus infection causes limited, if any, disease. Both in humans and in wild waterbirds, epithelial cells are the main target of infection. However, influenza virus can spread from wild bird species to terrestrial poultry. Here, the virus can evolve into highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI). Part of this evolution involves increased viral tropism for endothelial cells. HPAI virus infections not only cause severe disease in chickens and other terrestrial poultry species but can also spread to humans and back to wild bird populations. Here, we review the role of the endothelium in the pathogenesis of influenza virus infection in wild birds, terrestrial poultry and humans with a particular focus on HPAI viruses. We demonstrate that whilst the endothelium is an important target of virus infection in terrestrial poultry and some wild bird species, in humans the endothelium is more important in controlling the local inflammatory milieu. Thus, the endothelium plays an important, but species-specific, role in the pathogenesis of influenza virus infection.
Report on the educational use of games

This paper explores, through a survey of teachers experiences with game use in classrooms and students experiences with game use at home, the notion that digital games lead to a higher level of engagement which is lacking in school activities. It aims to: identify particular types of games that contribute to learning; consider the match and mismatch between these skills and those recognized as valuable in traditional educational settings; and identify valuable collaborations between games developers and education professionals. Many of the skills valuable in game play are only implicitly valued within a school context. Learning supported by games can be divided into three types learning as a result of tasks stimulated by the games, knowledge developed through the content of the game, and skills arising as a result of playing the game. Children themselves often reported that they learned to work in a team through the games they played. Their level of engagement was influenced by an appropriate level of challenge, the inclusion of practical or personally relevant knowledge, and a lack of time pressure. The paper concludes by reviewing implications for the design of games software for the classroom. (Sarah Ellinger) (http://educationarcade.org/files/videos/conf2005/Angela%20MacFarlane-2.pdf)
Income Distribution, Credit Rationing and Households' Debt

In this paper, we present a model of an economy with household debt, and discuss the conditions under which financial fragility arises. Financial instability is driven by distributive effects. In addition to the income transfers associated with interest payments, the accumulation of debt feeds back with the distribution of income between labour and capital. The model also gives a central role to banks and credit rationing. Contrary to the existing literature, credit supply does not depend on the characteristics of borrowers, but on those of banks. There is a feedback channel between the health of the financial system and the quantity of credit in the economy. We show that there is a diversity of channels through which financial fragility may arise. We identify three channels: a debt–deflation effect a la Fisher, a credit‐financed consumption boom and an exhilarating debt effect.
Improving Working Conditions in Garment Supply Chains: The Role of Unions in Cambodia

Given the disappointing outcomes of private regulation of labour in global supply chains, worker organization is increasingly seen as the key to better working conditions. This article examines the extent to which unions impact different dimensions of labour standard compliance in Cambodia's garment export sector, where unions have grown considerably. Based on unique factory-level data and field-based interviews, this study shows that union presence improves factories’ compliance with wage, hours, and leave standards, although the impact is much less significant for health and safety. Moreover, having multiple unions in the workplace does not appear to improve labour conditions.
Challenges in Adapting Scrum in Legacy Global Configurator Project

This paper describes a case study of scrum adaption in a legacy project referred here as Global Configurator Project (GCP) where key stakeholders are distributed across locations in Germany, India and the U.S. The paper presents practices that improved communication and collaboration, helped the team overcome the key project challenges caused by the product owners and scrum master not being co-located, insufficiently collaborative environments, and the tendency to micromanage. These practices have contributed significantly towards the success of the project. The paper also presents how the project team developed a high performance team and took on new roles and responsibilities. The paper is targeted at distributed scrum masters and product owners in global software development.
Turn-Taking Protocols for Mouse-Driven Collaborative Environments

This study compared the influence of turn-taking protocols on children’s behaviour and learning when they used either one shared mouse or two individual mice in a collaborative problem-solving environment. The two-mouse case was investigated for both a give protocol, in which the child with control voluntarily relinquishes it, and a take protocol, in which the child without control preemptively acquires it. Children in the study took part in two sessions. In the first collaborative session, children played a problem solving puzzle game with a partner using one of the three protocols (one-mouse shared, two-mouse give, or two-mouse take). This was followed by a second solo session in which each child played the puzzle game alone. The results of the study revealed that the choice of turn-taking protocol can have a significant affect on children’s achievement and behaviour in a collaborative problem-solving environment. For girls, the protocol affected achievement in the game during the collaborative session: using the two-mouse give protocol girls solved more puzzles on average than they did using either of the other two protocols. For boys, the protocol affected their access to the mouse, which in turn affected their achievement in the second session when they played alone: a significant correlation was found between the amount of time each boy had control of the mouse in the collaborative session and the number of puzzles that same boy solved in the subsequent solo session. In the two-mouse take condition boys exhibited a more equal division of mouse control than did boys using either of the other two protocols.
Postsecondary Field of Study and the Canadian Labour Market Outcomes of Immigrants and Non-immigrants

In Canada's federal system for economic (skilled) class immigrant selection, education is treated as if it is homogeneous and only differs in quantity. Some provinces, however, differentiate based on postsecondary field of study. This study explores the economic implications of field of study for each sex, and for two subgroups of immigrants, those educated in Canada and those educated elsewhere . Field of study is not observed to explain much of the earnings difference between immigrants and the Canadian born, though it is relatively more important for males than females in doing so. Interestingly, while there are a few exceptions, a general pattern is observed whereby the differences between high- and low-earning fields are not as large for immigrants as for the Canadian born. Similarly, social assistance receipt has smaller variance across fields for immigrants than for the Canadian born. Nevertheless, substantial inter-field differences are observed for each immigrant group.
Age-Dependent, Non-Cell-Autonomous Deposition of Amyloid from Synthesis of β-Amyloid by Cells Other Than Excitatory Neurons

Rare, familial, early-onset autosomal dominant forms of familial Alzheimer's disease (FAD) are caused by mutations in genes encoding β-amyloid (Aβ) precursor protein (APP), presenilin-1 (PS1), and presenilin-2. Each of these genes is expressed ubiquitously throughout the CNS, but a widely held view is that excitatory neurons are the primary (or sole) source of the Aβ peptides that promote synaptic dysfunction and neurodegeneration. These efforts notwithstanding, APP and the enzymes required for Aβ production are synthesized by many additional cell types, and the degree to which those cells contribute to the production of Aβ that drives deposition in the CNS has not been tested. We generated transgenic mice in which expression of an ubiquitously expressed, FAD-linked mutant PSEN1 gene was selectively inactivated within postnatal forebrain excitatory neurons, with continued synthesis in all other cells in the CNS. When combined with an additional transgene encoding an FAD-linked APP “Swedish” variant that is synthesized broadly within the CNS, cerebral Aβ deposition during aging was found to be unaffected relative to mice with continued mutant PS1 synthesis in excitatory neurons. Thus, Aβ accumulation is non-cell autonomous, with the primary age-dependent contribution to cerebral Aβ deposition arising from mutant PS1-dependent cleavage of APP within cells other than excitatory neurons.
Modeling the FIBOR/EURIBOR Swap Term Structure: An Empirical Approach

In this study we forecast the term structure of FIBOR/EURIBOR swap rates by means of recursive vector autoregressive (VAR) models. In advance, a principal components analysis (PCA) is adopted to reduce the dimensionality of the term structure. To evaluate ex–ante forecasting performance for particular short, medium and long term rates and for the level, slope and curvature of the swap term structure, we rely on measures of both statistical and economic performance. Whereas the statistical performance is investigated by means of the Henrikkson–Merton statistic, the economic performance is assessed in terms of cash flows implied by alternative trading strategies. Arguing in favor of local homogeneity of term structure dynamics, we propose a data driven, adaptive model selection strategy to ’predict the best forecasting model’ out of a set of 100 alternative implementations of the PCA/VAR model. This approach is shown to outperform forecasting schemes relying on global homogeneity of the term structure.
You Can Go Your Own Way...But You Won't: Exploring Road Utilization in the Bay Area

Many psychological studies have provided valuable insight to how we navigate space. However, a common criticism of this research is that the experimental environment or the tasks performed may appear to overstate the importance of small behavioral differences. This paper operationalizes two route selection heuristics and examines highway utilization data that should correlate with these lab findings.
Assessment of platelet function in patients receiving tirofiban early after primary coronary intervention

Background Following percutaneous coronary intervention, combined antiplatelet therapy is necessary. Platelet function testing (PFT) has prognostic value and may be applied in the risk assessment of acute coronary syndrome. In case of combined antiplatelet therapy, PFT may require special laboratory methods, as different antiplatelet agents may influence test results. Materials and methods Platelet functions were measured in stent thrombosis-segment elevation myocardial infarction patients receiving aspirin, clopidogrel, and tirofiban. The first sampling was obtained immediately after the termination of administration of tirofiban. The second sample was drawn at a randomly assigned time between 1 and 6 h. The third sampling was done after a minimum of 24 h of tirofiban cessation. Adenosine diphosphate (ADP)- and thrombin receptor-activating peptide (TRAP)-induced aggregations were measured. Results Thirty-seven patients were included. Both TRAP- and ADP-induced aggregation values were significantly lower immediately after tirofiban termination, than after 24 h [TRAP: 26.41 ± 25.00 units (U) vs. 109.86 ± 23.69 U, p < 0.0001; ADP: 17.43 ± 10.10 U vs. 43.92 ± 23.35 U, p ≤ 0.0001]. Elimination half-life of tirofiban and clopidogrel were 1.34 ± 0.49 and 1.269 ± 0.78, respectively. Conclusion ADP-induced residual platelet reactivity is significantly influenced by the presence of concurrent glycoprotein IIb/IIIa inhibitor. In patients receiving combined antiplatelet treatment, ADP-receptor-specific efficiency measurements are valid only after total elimination of GPIIb/IIIa inhibitors.
Which Human Capital Matters for Rich and Poor's Wages? Evidence from Matched Worker-Firm Data from Tunisia

In this paper, we study the return to human capital variables for wages of workers observed in Tunisian matched worker-firm data in 1999. This reveals us how returns to human capital in a Less Developed Country like Tunisia may differ from the industrial countries usually studied with matched data. We develop a new method based on multivariate analysis of firm characteristics, which allows us most of the benefits obtained by introducing firm dummies in wage equations for studying the effect of education. It also provides a human capital interpretation of the effect of these dummy variables. Moreover, in the studied data, using three firm characteristics easily collectable yields results close to those obtained by using the matched structure of the data. The workers with low wages or low conditional wages experience greater returns to human capital than workers belonging to the middle of the wage distribution, while their return to schooling is significantly lower than that of high wage workers. The estimates support the hypothesis that human capital is associated with positive intra-firm externality on wages. Therefore, a given worker would be more productive and better paid in an environment strongly endowed in human capital. However, the low wage workers do not take advantage of the human capital in the firm. Conversely, the low wage workers benefit from working in the textile sector in terms of wages unlike the middle and high wage workers. Finally, the low wage workers and high wage workers benefit from an innovative environment, while the middle wage workers do not.
Expression of PprI from Deinococcus radiodurans Improves Lactic Acid Production and Stress Tolerance in Lactococcus lactis

PprI is a general switch protein that regulates the expression of certain proteins involved in pathways of cellular resistance in the extremophilic bacterium Deinococcus radiodurans. In this study, we transformed pprI into Lactococcus lactis strain MG1363 using the lactococcal shuttle vector pMG36e and investigated its effects on the tolerance and lactic acid production of L. lactis while under stress. PprI was stably expressed in L. lactis as confirmed by western blot assays. L. lactis expressing PprI exhibited significantly improved resistance to oxidative stress and high osmotic pressure. This enhanced cellular tolerance to stressors might be due to the regulation of resistance-related genes (e.g., recA, recO, sodA, and nah) by pprI. Moreover, transformed L. lactis demonstrated increased lactic acid production, attributed to enhanced lactate dehydrogenase activity. These results suggest that pprI can improve the tolerance of L. lactis to environmental stresses, and this transformed bacterial strain is a promising candidate for industrial applications of lactic acid production.
Conjugate Symmetric Sequency-Ordered Complex Hadamard Transform

A new transform known as conjugate symmetric sequency-ordered complex Hadamard transform (CS-SCHT) is presented in this paper. The transform matrix of this transform possesses sequency ordering and the spectrum obtained by the CS-SCHT is conjugate symmetric. Some of its important properties are discussed and analyzed. Sequency defined in the CS-SCHT is interpreted as compared to frequency in the discrete Fourier transform. The exponential form of the CS-SCHT is derived, and the proof of the dyadic shift invariant property of the CS-SCHT is also given. The fast and efficient algorithm to compute the CS-SCHT is developed using the sparse matrix factorization method and its computational load is examined as compared to that of the SCHT. The applications of the CS-SCHT in spectrum estimation and image compression are discussed. The simulation results reveal that the CS-SCHT is promising to be employed in such applications.
Significance of data integration and ETL in business intelligence framework for higher education

One of the important component toward developing a business intelligence framework is data integration. It is used to combine data from different academic data sources and integrate it together before stored it in integrated manner as needed by higher education institute. ETL is the common steps to integrate data and transform it to compatible in targeted destination system. This paper use Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) as the case study for further understanding on the relation of data integration with extract, transform and load (ETL) process. Data integration plays its important role in BI framework as it integrates different attributes from different tables during transformation process in ETL. ETL process performs data cleaning during extraction process and load significant data into data warehouse. Thus, it maintains the integrity of data to be used for decision making and reporting. This paper will highlight the importance of data integration and ETL in business intelligence framework and its significance for better higher education management.
Vertical Distribution of Lead and Mercury in the Wetland Argialbolls of the Sanjiang Plain in Northeastern China

The wetland Argialbolls pedon was chosen to investigate the effects of pedogenic processes and anthropogenic activities on the vertical distribution of lead and mercury concentration and to assess the potential use of soil as an archive of atmospheric Pb and Hg pollution. The soil was sampled from 5 cm from the surface to a depth of 90 cm at two locations in the Sanjiang Plain in northeastern China. The soil was analyzed for pH, soil organic matter (SOM), Fe, Mn, and Al. The results indicate that the SOM concentration gradually decreased with depth, while Fe and Mn were reductively leached from the upper horizons and accumulated significantly in the lower argillic horizons. Atmospheric Pb and Hg deposition and their redistribution during the pedogenic process led to a unique vertical distribution in the wetland Argialbolls. Overall, Pb was leached from the upper horizons and then accumulated in the lower argillic horizons. However, the Hg concentration decreased with depth, following the SOM distribution. The Pb concentration was significantly correlated to the Fe and Mn concentrations in the Argialbolls profiles, while the Hg concentration was significantly correlated with SOM. Post-depositional mobility along the wetland Argialbolls profile is higher for Pb and low for Hg. Therefore, the Argialbolls profile does not provide an accurate reconstruction of atmospheric Pb deposition, but might provide an accurate reconstruction of net atmospheric Hg deposition.
Efficient Material Breach of Contract

In an environment in which sellers can reduce the probability of defective delivery through cooperative investment, and in which enforcement of default remedies for breach of contract is imperfect, an optimal performance standard grants buyers the option to reject goods for some but not all defects, in other words, when the delivery is sufficiently defective and the seller said to be in "material breach" of contract. This optimal performance standard implements efficient cooperative investment more often under a policy that, in addition, allows buyers to collect compensation for non-delivery of the good (upon rightful rejection) than a policy that limits buyers' compensation to the recovery of the price. While contracts with liquidated damages (i.e., a customized compensation function) can solve the investment problem as long as court enforcement is not too imperfect (in which case optimal liquidated damages are excessive and likely not enforced), the doctrine of material breach with an option to reject performs well as a default rule.
Ranking Responses Oriented to Conversational Relevance in Chat-bots

For automatic chatting systems, it is indeed a great challenge to reply the given query considering the conversation history, rather than based on the query only. This paper proposes a deep neural network to address the context-aware response ranking problem by end-to-end learning, so as to help to select conversationally relevant candidate. By combining the multi-column convolutional layer and the recurrent layer, our model is able to model the semantics of the utterance sequence by grasping the semantic clue within the conversation, on the basis of the effective representation for each sentence. Especially, the network utilizes attention pooling to further emphasis the importance of essential words in conversations, thus the representations of contexts tend to be more meaningful and the performance of candidate ranking is notably improved. Meanwhile, due to the adoption of attention pooling, it is possible to visualize the semantic clues. The experimental results on the large amount of conversation data from social media have shown that our approach is promising for quantifying the conversational relevance of responses, and indicated its good potential for building practical IR based chat-bots.
Text Comprehension in Middle Aged Adults: Is There Anything Wrong?

ABSTRACT Two experiments tested text comprehension skills in adults varying in age from 20 to 69 years. A coherence judgment task (n = 39), in which the pragmatic connection of two sentences had to be evaluated, did not yield any age effects. Both error rates and reaction times were largely independent of age. In a word recognition paradigm (n = 60), testing the strength of different text representation levels, there was a gradual, linear decrease in performance with age, accompanied by a similarly gradual increase in processing times. The results confirm that aging affects comprehension under high memory demands, but spares the conceptual, situation-based levels. Most importantly, it was shown that these changes become apparent during middle age already. Implications for education and neuropsychology are discussed.
Hedging Price Risk When Payment Dates are Uncertain

This paper studies the problem of hedging price risk when payment dates are uncertain. It derives the variance minimizing dynamic hedging strategy, using forward contracts with different times to maturity. The resulting strategy fully hedges the expected price exposure for each possible payment date and is therefore easy to implement. An empirical study compares the performance of the variance minimizing strategy with heuristic alternatives, based on data from the crude oil market and the foreign exchange market. The variance minimizing strategy clearly outperforms the alternatives for the crude oil market. For the foreign exchange market, a simple static hedging strategy is sufficient.