Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
SMEs and Competitive Advantage: A Mix of Innovation, Marketing and ICT - The Case of “Made in Italy”

Global economy is transforming the sources of the competitive advantages of firms, especially for firms embedded in local manufacturing systems. Based on the theoretical contributions to knowledge management and industrial districts, this paper describes alternative firm's strategies and upgrading options by exploring the relationships among innovation, marketing and network technologies. Starting from the analysis of the Global Competitiveness Report and the European Innovation Scoreboard, this paper focuses on the case of firms specializing in the "Made in Italy" industries (fashion, furniture, home products) to outline a framework explaining the new competitive opportunities for SMEs. Through a qualitative analysis,this paper presents four case studies of Italian firms that promote successful strategies based on a coherent mix of R&D-based innovation, experienced marketing and design, by leveraging on ICT.
Long-term repeatability of induced sputum cells and inflammatory markers in stable, moderately severe COPD.

STUDY OBJECTIVES Neutrophilic inflammation is a major feature of COPD. Induced sputum is increasingly used to monitor inflammatory airway diseases. Although short-term repeatability of selected sputum markers has been extensively studied in several populations, data on the long-term repeatability of induced sputum markers in stable COPD are scant. DESIGN Sputum supernatant of 12 patients with stable COPD was analyzed on three separate occasions with 4-weekly intervals. Sputum cells and inflammatory markers interleukin (IL)-8 and soluble intercellular adhesion molecule (sICAM)-1 were measured in supernatant using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Repeatability of sputum markers was expressed by intraclass correlation coefficients (Ri). MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS Sputum induction was safe in all patients. None of the sputum parameters analyzed changed significantly throughout the study. The repeatability for cell differential counts in stable COPD was as follows: total cells, Ri = 0.07; neutrophils, Ri = 0.66; macrophages, Ri = 0.47; eosinophils, Ri = 0.49; and lymphocytes, Ri = 0.58. The repeatability of soluble markers was as follows: IL-8, Ri = 0.50; and sICAM, Ri = 0.58. Sputum neutrophils were negatively correlated with lung function on each separate occasion, whereas soluble markers were not correlated with sputum cells (p > 0.16, all correlations) or lung function (p > 0.24, all correlations). CONCLUSIONS Clinically stable, moderate COPD is associated with equally stable sputum inflammatory markers. Repeatability of induced-sputum markers of neutrophilic inflammation in stable COPD is satisfactory, even over extended periods of time. These data support the usefulness of serial monitoring of induced-sputum inflammatory markers in COPD.
Prosody-based detection of the context of backchannel responses

ABSTRACT Current spoken dialogue systems lack positive feedback such asbackchannels, which are common in human-human conversa-tions. To develop more natural human-computer interfaces, theinvestigation of backchannel-responses are indispensable. In thispaper, we propose a method for detecting the precise timing forbackchannel responses in Japanese and aim at incorporating suchmethod in future spoken dialogue systems. The proposed methodis based on machine learning technique with a variety of prosodicfeatures. It is shownto be effectivein automatically derivingrulesfor detecting the contexts of backchannels. The performance ofour method is considerably better than previous methods. 1. INTRODUCTION Many researchers have reported that people hesitate to talk withspokendialogue systems due to the lack of positivefeedback fromthe systems such as backchannels, which are common in human-human conversations [3, 6]. To develop more natural human-computer interfaces, the investigation of backchannel-responsemechanisms are indispensable. In this paper, we propose amethodfordetecting the precisetiming forbackchannel responsesin Japanese and aim at incorporating such method in future spo-ken dialogue systems.In the proposed method, the contexts for backchannels are de-tected by using only prosodic features such as fundamental fre-quency and energy, which are relatively easy to handle by currentspeech technology. In contrast to the existing methods, whichuse very limited number of features and hand-made heuristics, weemploy a machine learning method with a varietyof prosodic fea-tures which might be relevant to the detection of the backchannelcontext. It will be shown that our method is effective in automati-cally deriving rules for detecting the contextsof backchannels andthat it performs considerably better than previous methods.In Section 2, we review related works on backchannels inJapanese conversation and automatic detection of the timing forbackchannels. In Section 3, we describe the spoken dialogue cor-pus used in our study and provide our deﬁnition of backchannels.In Section 4, we conduct a psychological experiment in order tocategorize positive and negative contexts for backchannels whichare common to average humans. In Section 5, we obtain, by us-ing decision tree learning method, prosodic cues which best dis-criminate the positive and negative contexts for backchannels. InSection 6, we summarize the paper.
Effect of the resistance of open and short faults on the production testing of MCML gates

This paper focuses on the production testing of MOS Current Mode Logic (MCML) gates based on 45nm MOS technology. The effect of the resistance value of open faults in an NAND/AND gate is investigated. It is shown that the test speed is determined by the characteristics of the pull up load. Open faults in other transistors are not affected by test speed. Also, it is proven that only three ordered test vectors are needed to detect all open as well as short resistive faults in the gate. Finally, the effect of the resistance of short faults is studied and it is found that the value of the resistance of the short does not affect the ability of vectors to detect faults in the 45nm technology while this is not the case for the 90nm MCML or the 45nm CMOS technologies.
CARP-1 Functional Mimetics Are a Novel Class of Small Molecule Inhibitors of Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma Cells

Malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) is an asbestos-related thoracic malignancy that is characterized by late metastases, and resistance to therapeutic modalities. The toxic side-effects of MPM therapies often limit their clinical effectiveness, thus necessitating development of new agents to effectively treat and manage this disease in clinic. CARP-1 functional mimetics (CFMs) are a novel class of compounds that inhibit growth of diverse cancer cell types. Here we investigated MPM cell growth suppression by the CFMs and the molecular mechanisms involved. CFM-1, -4, and -5 inhibited MPM cell growth, in vitro, in part by stimulating apoptosis. Apoptosis by CFM-4 involved activation of pro-apoptotic stress-activated protein kinases (SAPKs) p38 and JNK, elevated CARP-1 expression, cleavage of PARP1, and loss of the oncogene c-myc as well as mitotic cyclin B1. Treatments of MPM cells with CFM-4 resulted in depletion of NF-κB signaling inhibitor ABIN1 and Inhibitory κB (IκB)α and β, while increasing expression of pro-apoptotic death receptor (DR) 4 protein. CFM-4 enhanced expression of serine-phosphorylated podoplanin and cleavage of vimetin. CFMs also attenuated biological properties of the MPM cells by blocking their abilities to migrate, form colonies in suspension, and invade through the matrix-coated membranes. Both podoplanin and vimentin regulate processes of cell motility and invasion, and their expression often correlates with metastatic disease, and poor prognosis. The fact that phosphorylation of serines in the cytoplasmic domain of podoplanin interferes with processes of cellular motility, CFM-4-dependent elevated phosphorylated podoplanin and cleavage of vimentin underscore a metastasis inhibitory property of these compounds, and suggest that CFMs and/or their future analogs have potential as anti-MPM agents.
Positive Psychological Assessment and Early-Stage Dementia

ABSTRACT Objectives: There are no known positive psychological (PP) measures adapted/validated for use with people in the early stages of dementia. Objectives were to: (1) develop/pilot an accessible protocol for administering PP measures in this population; (2) examine their psychometric properties; and (3) provide preliminary observations about how people with early-stage dementia perceive various aspects of PP as it pertains to living with dementia. Methods: Five PP measures were adapted/administered to 36 people with early-stage dementia. Constructs of interests were gratitude, life satisfaction, meaning in life, optimism, and resilience. Psychometric data were calculated and response patterns analyzed. Results: Participants easily completed the adapted measures using the accessible protocol. Preliminary evidence of reliability and validity were yielded. Response patterns suggested a range of PP perceptions and experiences among participants. Conclusions: This study represents a step towards validating the psychometric properties of several PP measures adapted for use with people in the early stages of dementia and provides insight into how PP works in this population. Clinical Implications: PP assessment may assist clinicians and researchers to better understand PP functioning in this population potentially contributing to effective strengths based psychosocial interventions. Recommendations for clinical practice and future research are provided.
Efficient Algorithms for Mining High Utility Itemsets from Transactional Databases

Mining high utility itemsets from a transactional database refers to the discovery of itemsets with high utility like profits. Although a number of relevant algorithms have been proposed in recent years, they incur the problem of producing a large number of candidate itemsets for high utility itemsets. Such a large number of candidate itemsets degrades the mining performance in terms of execution time and space requirement. The situation may become worse when the database contains lots of long transactions or long high utility itemsets. In this paper, we propose two algorithms, namely utility pattern growth (UP-Growth) and UP-Growth+, for mining high utility itemsets with a set of effective strategies for pruning candidate itemsets. The information of high utility itemsets is maintained in a tree-based data structure named utility pattern tree (UP-Tree) such that candidate itemsets can be generated efficiently with only two scans of database. The performance of UP-Growth and UP-Growth+ is compared with the state-of-the-art algorithms on many types of both real and synthetic data sets. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithms, especially UP-Growth+, not only reduce the number of candidates effectively but also outperform other algorithms substantially in terms of runtime, especially when databases contain lots of long transactions.
The disc instability model for X-ray transients: Evidence for truncation and irradiation

We study the prospect of explaining the outbursts of Soft X-ray Transients (SXTs) by the thermal- viscous instability in a thin disc. This instability is linked to hydrogen ionization and is signicantly changed when irradiation of the disc by X-rays from the inner regions is included. We present the rst numerically reliable, physically consistent calculations of the outburst cycles which include the eects of accretion disc irradiation. The decay from outburst is governed by irradiation, as pointed out by King & Ritter (1998), leading to slow exponential decays. At the end of the outburst, the disc is severely depleted, which lengthens the time needed to rebuild mass to the critical density for an outburst. Despite this, the long recurrence times and quiescent X-ray luminosities of SXTs still require the inner disc to be replaced by another type of flow in quiescence, presumably a hot advection dominated accretion flow (ADAF). We include the eects of such truncation and show that the resulting lightcurves are conclusively similar to those of SXTs like A0620-00. We conclude that the two- disc instability model provides an adequate description of the outbursts of SXTs when both truncation and irradiation are included. The values for the viscosities in outburst and in quiescence are comparable to those used in CVs. We discuss the model in the context of present observations.
Quantifying the dynamics of light tolerance in Arabidopsis plants during ontogenesis.

The amount of light plants can tolerate during different phases of ontogenesis remains largely unknown. This was addressed here employing a novel methodology that uses the coefficient of photochemical quenching (qP) to assess the intactness of photosystem II reaction centres. Fluorescence quenching coefficients, total chlorophyll content and concentration of anthocyanins were determined weekly during the juvenile, adult, reproductive and senescent phases of plant ontogenesis. This enabled quantification of the protective effectiveness of non-photochemical fluorescence quenching (NPQ) and determination of light tolerance. The light intensity that caused photoinhibition in 50% of leaf population increased from ∼70 μmol m(-2) s(-1) , for 1-week-old seedlings, to a maximum of 1385 μmol m(-2) s(-1) for 8-week-old plants. After 8 weeks, the tolerated light intensity started to gradually decline, becoming only 332 μmol m(-2) s(-1) for 13-week-old plants. The dependency of light tolerance on plant age was well-related to the amplitude of protective NPQ (pNPQ) and the electron transport rates (ETRs). Light tolerance did not, however, show a similar trend to chlorophyll a/b ratios and content of anthocyanins. Our data suggest that pNPQ is crucial in defining the capability of high light tolerance by Arabidopsis plants during ontogenesis.
Vegetation Assessment in East Africa Using MGVI and Red Edge Position from Envisat MERIS Data

The actual condition of vegetation cover is represented by its spectral signature. Photosynthetic active vegetation is characterized by a low reflectance in the red and a high reflectance in the near infrared spectra. This specific feature is used to calculate different vegetation indices. One index is the MERIS Global Vegetation Index (MGVI), the other one is the Red Edge Position (REP), which represents the point of maximum slope of reflectance of green vegetation between 670 nm and 780 nm. With a spectral resolution of 15 bands and a narrow band setting in the red and near infrared spectra ENVISAT MERIS seems particularly suitable for the Red Edge Position or the MERIS Terrestrial Chlorophyll Index (MTCI), which is a surrogate of REP and designed for a better correlation with canopy chlorophyll. In this study the variation of the MGVI, REP and MTCI is analyzed in comparison with seasonal rainfall pattern and their suitability to characterize different vegetation types (forest, woody savanna, grassland, agricultural fields). A maximum likelihood classification was performed for the vegetation classes using different multitemporal vegetation index data sets and the resulting accuracies were compared. The results show a) very high correlation between REP and MTCI, b) generally, a relative high correlation between MGVI and either REP or MTCI, c) a similar seasonal variation of REP, MTCI and MGVI for most classes, d) a better discrimination for high chlorophyll classes using REP and a better discrimination for low chlorophyll classes using MGVI and e) a high potential for ecosystem monitoring using a combination of the different indices.
Chronic hepatitis, hepatocyte fragility, and increased soluble phosphoglycokeratins in transgenic mice expressing a keratin 18 conserved arginine mutant

The two major intermediate filament proteins in glandular epithelia are keratin polypeptides 8 and 18 (K8/18). To evaluate the function and potential disease association of K18, we examined the effects of mutating a highly conserved arginine (arg89) of K18. Expression of K18 arg89-->his/cys and its normal K8 partner in cultured cells resulted in punctate staining as compared with the typical filaments obtained after expression of wild-type K8/18. Generation of transgenic mice expressing human K18 arg89-->cys resulted in marked disruption of liver and pancreas keratin filament networks. The most prominent histologic abnormalities were liver inflammation and necrosis that appeared at a young age in association with hepatocyte fragility and serum transaminase elevation. These effects were caused by the mutation since transgenic mice expressing wild-type human K18 showed a normal phenotype. A relative increase in the phosphorylation and glycosylation of detergent solubilized K8/18 was also noted in vitro and in transgenic animals that express mutant K18. Our results indicate that the highly conserved arg plays an important role in glandular keratin organization and tissue fragility as already described for epidermal keratins. Phosphorylation and glycosylation alterations in the arg mutant keratins may account for some of the potential changes in the cellular function of these proteins. Mice expressing mutant K18 provide a novel animal model for human chronic hepatitis, and for studying the tissue specific function(s) of K8/18.
GEOMETRIC AND MATERIAL NONLINEAR ANALYSIS OF REINFORCED CONCRETE SLABS AT FIRE ENVIRONMENT

In the present study a nonlinear finite element analysis is presented to predict the fire resistance of reinforced concrete slabs at fire environment. An eight node layered degenerated shell element utilizing Mindlin/Reissner thick plate theory is employed. The proposed model considered cracking, crushing and yielding of concrete and steel at elevated temperatures. The layered approach is used to represent the steel reinforcement and discretize the concrete slab through the thickness. The reinforcement steel is represented as a smeared layer of equivalent thickness with uniaxial strength and rigidity properties. Geometric nonlinear analysis may play an important role in the behavior of reinforced concrete slabs at high temperature. Geometrical nonlinearity in the layered approach is considered in the mathematical model, which is based on the total Lagrangian approach taking into account Von Karman assumptions. Finally two examples for which experimental results are available are analyzed, using the proposed model . The comparison showed good agreement with experimental results.
Heterogeneous Cellular Network Models With Dependence

Due to its tractability, a multitier model of mutually independent Poisson point processes (PPPs) for heterogeneous cellular networks (HCNs) has recently been attracting much attention. However, in reality, the locations of the BSs, within each tier and across tiers, are not fully independent. Accordingly, in this paper, we propose two HCN models with inter-tier dependence (Case 1) and intra-tier dependence (Case 2), respectively. In Case 1, the macro-base station (MBS) and the pico-base station (PBS) deployments follow a Poisson point process (PPP) and a Poisson hole process (PHP), respectively. Under this setup and conditioning on a fixed serving distance (distance between a user and its nearest serving BS), we derive bounds on the outage probabilities of both macro and pico users. We also use a fitted Poisson cluster process to approximate the PHP, which is shown to provide a good approximation of the interference and outage statistics. In Case 2, the MBSs and the PBSs follow a PPP and an independent Matern cluster process, respectively. Explicit expressions of the interference and the outage probability are derived first for fixed serving distance and second with random distance, and we derive the outage performance, the per-user capacity, and the area spectral efficiency (ASE) for both cases. It turns out that the proposed Case 2 model is a more appropriate and accurate model for a HCN with hotspot regions than the multitier independent PPP model since the latter underestimates some key performance metrics, such as the per-user capacity and the ASE, by a factor of 1.5 to 2. Overall, the two models proposed provide good tradeoffs between the accuracy, tractability, and practicability.
Memory loss versus memory distortion: The role of encoding and retrieval deficits in Korsakoff patients’ false memories

Recent studies with the Deese/Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm have revealed that Korsakoff patients show reduced levels of false recognition and different patterns of false recall compared to controls. The present experiment examined whether this could be attributed to an encoding deficit, or rather to problems with explicitly retrieving thematic information at test. In a variation on the DRM paradigm, both patients and controls were presented with associative as well as categorised word lists, with the order of recall and recognition tests manipulated between-subjects. The results point to an important role for the automatic/controlled retrieval distinction: Korsakoff patients’ false memory was only diminished compared to controls’ when automatic or short-term memory processes could not be used to fulfil the task at hand. Hence, the patients’ explicit retrieval deficit appears to be crucial in explaining past and present data. Results are discussed in terms of fuzzy-trace and activation-monitoring theories.
The calcineurin activity profiles of cyclosporin and tacrolimus are different in stable renal transplant patients

Cyclosporin and tacrolimus remain the cornerstone immunosuppressive drugs in organ transplantation. Dosing and monitoring these drugs is based on pharmacokinetic protocols, but measuring a pharmacodynamic parameter, calcineurin phosphatase (CaN) activity, could be a valuable supplement in determining optimal doses. Forty stable renal transplant patients were investigated three times in a 6‐month period. Blood samples were drawn at 0, 1, 2, 3 and 4 h after oral intake of tacrolimus (FK) or cyclosporin at days 1 and 180. At day 90, one blood sample at trough level (FK) or C2 level (cyclosporin A, CsA) was drawn. CaN activity was determined in whole blood as the release of 32P from a phosphorylated peptide. Activity of the 32P was quantitated by liquid scintillation and results converted to Units CaN, utilizing a calibration curve with CaN. We demonstrated that calcineurin activity profiles at days 1 and 180 were the same for both drugs. Furthermore, we found that patients treated with tacrolimus or cyclosporin displayed different calcineurin activity profiles. We found that cyclosporin displayed greater calcineurin inhibition than tacrolimus. We have demonstrated that the two drugs exert significantly different effects on calcineurin activity in renal transplant patients with stable, well‐functioning grafts and that tacrolimus‐treated patients can maintain good, stable graft function with minimal CaN inhibition.