Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A New Pooling Strategy Based on Local Feature Distribution: A Case Study for Human Action Classification

Mid-level representations are used to map sets of local features into one global representation for a given media descriptor. In visual pattern recognition tasks, Bag-of-Words (BoW) is one popular strategy, among many methods available in literature, due mainly by the simplicity in concept and implementation. Despite the overall good results achieved by BoW in many tasks, the method is unstable in high dimensional feature space and quantization errors are usually ignored in the final representation. To cope with these problems, we propose a new pooling function based on feature points distribution around codewords. We propose to use the standard deviation associated with each codeword to measure attribution discrepancy and weight the impact that feature points will assume in the final representation. The main contribution of this article is the study of more discriminative representations, which amplify values of feature points close to codewords border regions. Experiments were conducted in human action classification task and results demonstrated that our pooling strategy has improved the classification rates in 25.6% for UCF Sports dataset and 21.4% for UCF 11 dataset, with respect to the original pooling function used in BoW.
Evaluation of a newly developed HIV antigen test

A new monoclonal antibody‐based enzyme immunoassay (Innogenetics) for the detection and quantification of p24 core antigens of HIV‐1 (group M and group O) and of HIV‐2 was evaluated on 2745 serum samples and 18 culture supernatants and compared with a reference (Coulter) HIV‐1 p24 antigen assay. Positive results were confirmed by neutralization with the reagents of the respective tests. As demonstrated by dilution series of HIV cocultures, the new test recognizes p24 antigen of the most common HIV genetic subtypes, including group O and HIV‐2. Titres ranged from 729 to 531441. Therefore p24 antigen assay is but very weakly reactive with HIV‐2 (titres from 9 to 81).
Chronic NKG2D Engagement In Vivo Differentially Impacts NK Cell Responsiveness by Activating NK Receptors

Immunosuppression is a typical hallmark of cancer and frequently includes perturbations of the NKG2D tumor recognition system as well as impaired signaling by other activating NK cell receptors. Several in vitro studies suggested that sustained engagement of the NKG2D receptor, as it is occurring in the tumor microenvironment, not only impairs expression and function of NKG2D but also impacts signaling by other activating NK receptors. Here, we made use of a transgenic mouse model of ubiquitous NKG2D ligand expression (H2-Kb-MICA mice) to investigate consequences of chronic NKG2D engagement in vivo for functional responsiveness by other activating NK receptors such as NKp46 and Ly49D. Unexpectedly, we found no evidence for an impairment of NKp46 expression and function in H2-Kb-MICA mice, as anticipated from previous in vitro experiments. However, we observed a marked downregulation and dysfunction of the activating receptor Ly49D in activated NK cells from H2-Kb-MICA mice. Ly49D shares the adaptor proteins DAP10 and DAP12 with NKG2D possibly explaining the collateral impairment of Ly49D function in situations of chronic NKG2D engagement. Altogether, our results demonstrate that persistent engagement of NKG2D in vivo, as often observed in tumors, can selectively impair functions of unrelated NK receptors and thereby compromise NK responsiveness to third-party antigens.
The value of alpine skiing to the Austrian population: A CVM study of the 2017 World Championships

ABSTRACT This study estimates the monetary value of alpine skiing to the Austrian resident population using the contingent valuation method (CVM). Survey respondents across Austria were asked to state their willingness-to-pay (WTP) for broadcasting the 2017 World Championships and for an athlete support programme over a five-year period (n = 862). Approximately 29% and 20% of respondents reported a positive WTP for broadcasting and monthly support of alpine athletes over a five-year period, respectively. Average WTP was €25 (broadcasting) and €8 (athlete support). Individuals with high medal expectations were more likely to state a positive WTP for broadcasting, while the amount of WTP was positively affected by consumption capital and the importance of symbolic capital (public goods), such as happiness from sporting success. Aggregate WTP exceeded public funding received by the Austrian Skiing Association by a margin, indicating that intangible benefits of alpine skiing are higher than its costs.
ROLE OF NORMATIVE PRESSURES TO ADOPT GREEN SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT PRACTICES AND THEIR IMPACT ON ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE

Businesses around the globe are facing tremendous pressures to improve their manufacturing practices to minimize their harmful effects on the environment. These pressures are being exerted from different stakeholders but in developing countries mostly there are powerful suppliers and customers, which can change the choices of decision makers in the local industry. According to institutional theory these pressures combined are called normative pressures. By using path modeling this study attempted to find out the role of normative pressures to adopt green supply chain management (GSCM) practices and the impact of those adopted practices on environmental and economic performance of those companies through partial least square (PLS) structural equation modeling (SEM). Data was collected from 134 manufacturing companies in Pakistan through a questionnaire. Path analysis results confirmed that normative pressures have positive and significant impact on adopting the GSCM practices and subsequently these practices improve the environmental performance of the companies in Pakistan. Results also confirmed many existing studies that GSCM practices directly do not improve economic performance but environmental performance does have a significant positive effect on the economic performance
Integrating Indoor and Outdoor Spaces for Pedestrian Navigation Guidance: A Review

In light of the many improvements within 3D urban modeling and Location‐Based Services, this article provides a timely review of the state‐of‐the‐art on integrating indoor and outdoor spaces in pedestrian navigation guidance aids. With people moving seamlessly between buildings and surrounding areas, navigation guidance tools should extend from merely outdoor or indoor guidance, to provide support in the combined indoor‐outdoor context. This article first examines the challenges and complexities of integrating indoor and outdoor spaces into a single navigation system. Next, by using objective selection criteria, 36 relevant studies were withheld and further reviewed on their specific developments in data model requirements, and algorithmic and context support for integrated IO navigation systems. This review shows that the challenges of dealing with both indoor and outdoor space structures, while taking into account pedestrian's freer use of space, currently complicate the proposition of a unified IO space concept for navigation. However, there are some ongoing developments (e.g. context definitions, algorithmic extensions, increased data availability, growing awareness of pedestrians’ perception during wayfinding) that will help to bring outdoor and indoor spaces closer together in the realm of combined geospatial analysis.
Channel Model with Improved Accuracy and Efficiency in mmWave Bands

This article compares two popular channel models for 5G wireless communications, the 3GPP TR 38.900 Release 14 and the NYUSIM channel models. Simulation results indicate that the 3GPP channel model yields unrealistic eigenvalues and higher spectral efficiency than NYUSIM, revealing the problematic choice of some channel parameters in the 3GPP model for frequencies above 6 GHz.
Prehospital anaesthesia performed by physician/critical care paramedic teams in a major trauma network in the UK: a 12 month review of practice

Introduction In the West Midlands region of the UK, delivery of pre-hospital care has been remodelled through introduction of a 24 h Medical Emergency Response Incident Team (MERIT). Teams including physicians and critical care paramedics (CCP) are deployed to incidents on land-based and helicopter-based platforms. Clinical practice, including delivery of rapid sequence induction of anaesthesia (RSI), is underpinned by standard operating procedures (SOP). This study describes the first 12 months experience of prehospital RSI in the MERIT scheme in the West Midlands. Methods Retrospective review of the MERIT clinical database for the 12 months following the launch of the scheme. Data was collected relating to the number of RSIs performed; indication for RSI; number of intubation attempts; grade of view on laryngoscopy and the base speciality/grade of the operator performing intubation. Results MERIT teams were activated 1619 times, attending scene in 1029 cases. RSI was performed 142 times (13.80% of scene attendances). There was one recorded case of failure to intubate requiring insertion of a supraglottic airway device (0.70%). In over a third of RSI cases, CCPs performed laryngoscopy and intubation (n=53, 37.32%). Proficiency of obtaining Grade I view at laryngoscopy was similar for physicians (74.70%) and CCPs (77.36%). Intubation was successful at the first attempt in over 90% of cases. Conclusions This study demonstrates that operation within a system that provides high levels of exposure, underpinned by comprehensive and robust training and governance frameworks, promotes levels of performance in successful prehospital RSI regardless of base speciality or profession.
Inverted Alignments for End-to-End Automatic Speech Recognition

In this paper, we propose an inverted alignment approach for sequence classification systems like automatic speech recognition (ASR) that naturally incorporates discriminative, artificial-neural-network-based label distributions. Instead of aligning each input frame to a state label as in the standard hidden Markov model (HMM) derivation, we propose to inversely align each element of an HMM state label sequence to a segment-wise encoding of several consecutive input frames. This enables an integrated discriminative model that can be trained end-to-end from scratch or starting from an existing alignment path. The approach does not assume the usual decomposition into a separate (generative) acoustic model and a language model, and allows for a variety of model assumptions, including statistical variants of attention. Following our initial paper with proof-of-concept experiments on handwriting recognition, the focus of this paper was the investigation of integrated training and an inverted decoding approach, whereas the acoustic modeling still remains largely similar to standard hybrid modeling. We provide experiments on the CHiME-4 noisy ASR task. Our results show that we can reach competitive results with inverted alignment and decoding strategies.
PHENYLTHIOUREA TASTE TESTING AND GLAUCOMA.

In population studies taste sensitivity for phenylthiourea (phenylthiocarbamide or PTC) has been found to be distributed bimodally. In Caucasian groups approximately 30% were found to be relatively insensitive to the bitter taste of PTC and were classified as nontasters. 1,2 In Negroes a much lower prevalence of nontasters has been reported. 3,4 Evidence has been accumulated that nontasters are homozygous for a single recessive gene. 5 The ability to taste phenylthiourea has been used as a convenient genetic marker, and associations have been reported between taste insensitivity to PTC and nodular goiter, 2,6 cretinism, 7,8 and diabetes. 9 The primary glaucomas, both angle-closure and open-angle, have been reported to be genetically determined diseases. 10-13 The association between PTC taste insensitivity and primary glaucomas has been studied, and it is the subject of this report. Method Solutions of phenylthiourea were prepared in the manner described by Harris and Kalmus. 1 Solution
Purification and some properties of tryptophan synthase inactivase II from yeast.

Tryptophan synthase inactivating enzyme II described earlier has been purified to a homogeneous state. Criteria for homogeneity are (a) a single band in disc electrophoresis at pH 7 and 9.1, and (b) a single sedimentation band in the analyticyl ultracentrifuge. The molecular weight was calculated from sedimentation data to be 82000 ± 6000. Isoelectric focusing indicates an isoelectric point at 5.06. The ultraviolet absorption spectrum of the enzyme at pH 7 shows, in addition to the typical absorption spectrum of proteins, a shoulder at 290 nm. The ratio of absorbance at 280:260 nm was 1.6. pH optimum for the inactivation of yeast tryptophan synthase was 5.5. The tryptophan synthase inactivating enzyme II is very probably a proteinase, because (a) casein and albumin are proteolyzed at a rate comparable to proteolysis by purified “pronase”, (b) the increase in 280-nm-absorbing material in the trichloroacetic-acid-soluble phase parallels the inactivation of tryptophan synthase, and (c) the macromolecular inhibitor from yeast described by Ferguson et al. in this journal last year (32, 444–450) prevents the appearance of 280-nm-absorbing, trichloroacetic-acid-soluble material, i.e. proteolysis, to the same extent that it prevents the inactivation of tryptophan synthase.
Persistence of antibodies to the surface antigen of the hepatitis B virus (anti-HBs) in children subjected to the Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI), including hepatitis-B vaccine, in Thailand

Will hepatitis-B vaccine administered at birth, and at 2 and 6 months of age, as an integral part of Thailand's Expanded Programme on Immunization, provide long-term protection? In an attempt to answer this question, residents of five provinces (representing five distinct geographical areas of Thailand) who were aged 1–10 years and had received this course of vaccination were enrolled on a serological study. Each was tested, with ELISA, for the surface antigen of hepatitis B (HBsAg) and for antibodies against this antigen (anti-HBs) or against the core antigen (anti-HBc). Over all age-groups, the prevalences of HBsAg, anti-HBs and anti-HBc were 0.67%, 71.4% and 5.5%, respectively. Although the prevalence of anti-HBs decreased with age, it remained at 56%–65% among those aged 6–10 years. Between 2% and 17% of the subjects aged 1–9 years had high titres of anti-HBs. Based on these results, an additional booster, still a controversial issue, does not appear to be required in order to prevent infection with hepatitis B virus and thus permit the eventual eradication of chronic carriage and its fatal sequelae in Thailand.
Recovery from wernicke's aphasia: A positron emission tomographic study

Changes in the organization of the brain after recovery from aphasia were investigated by measuring increases in regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) during repetition of pseudowords and during verb generation. Six right‐handed patients who had recovered from Wernicke's aphasia caused by an infarction destroying the left posterior perisylvian language zone were compared with 6 healthy, right‐handed volunteers. In the control subjects, strong rCBF increases were found in the left hemisphere in the posterior part of the superior and middle temporal gyrus (Wernicke's area), and during the generation task in lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) and in inferior frontal gyrus (Broca's area). There were some weak right hemisphere increases in superior temporal gyrus and inferior premotor cortex. In the patients, rCBF increases were preserved in the frontal areas. There was clear right hemisphere activation in superior temporal gyrus and inferior premotor and lateral prefrontal cortices, homotopic to the left hemisphere language zones. Increased left frontal and right perisylvian activity in patients with persisting destruction of Wernicke's area emphasizes redistribution of activity within the framework of a preexisting, parallel processing and bilateral network as the central mechanism in functional reorganization of the language system after stroke.
Ethical Issues in Rural Nursing Practice in Botswana

The concern for ethical principles and values is not limited to health professionals alone. However, ethical principles in nursing act as safety valves for social control to prevent professional misconduct and abuse of the rights of clients. As a result of colonial experience, developing countries like Botswana usually follow the European lead, especially examples from the UK. This article examines the ethical problems and dilemmas associated with rural nursing practice in Botswana, a developing country in sub-Saharan Africa. The major ethical problems identified are related to the distribution of and access to health resources in rural communities. It is proposed that nurses must assume responsibility in the field of access and allocation by working collaboratively with governments and other professional bodies, and that nurses as a global community must work together as a team to support each other.
Internet use by library and information science undergraduates in Universities in Edo State, Nigeria

This study surveyed the use of the internet by Library and Information Science (LIS) undergraduates in universities in Edo State, Nigeria. The study adopted the descriptive research design and a questionnaire was used as the instrument for data collectitheon. The popution of the study was the 812 LIS undergruates in the two Library Schools in Edo State, that is, the University of Benin and Ambrose Alli University. Simple random sampling was used to select 300 respondents for the study. The data was analysed using descriptive statistics of frequency count and percentages. The findings show that almost all the undergraduates use the Internet and they use it on a daily basis. The findings also showed that the undergraduates used the internet mainly for social networking. It was found that the main barriers to LIS undergraduates use of the internet are lack of adequate access to institutional internet facilities, epileptic power supply and poor internet connectivity. The study recommended that undergraduates should be trained to be ICT literate as well as be given increased access to internet facilities to enable them maximize the benefits of internet use. The study concluded that although there is a rise in the use of internet by undergraduates, they primarily use the internet for social networking.Keywords: Internet Use; Library schools; LIS Undergraduates; ICT use
Personality in 47,XXY males during adolescence

The responses to the High School Personality Questionnaire and the Millon Adolescent Personality Inventory of a series of neonatally identified 47,XXY adolescent males and age‐matched controls were compared. The extra X males' results indicated that they were more assertive, impulsive and prone to conflict than controls. Individual differences in these characteristics among the extra X cases had little relationship to quality of parenting but were related to indices of pubertal development.
Multidrug Resistance in Locally Advanced Breast Cancer

Background: Advanced breast cancer cases can still be encountered resulting in poor prognosis. The primary treatment for these patients is chemotherapy, and multidrug resistance (MDR) is a serious obstacle in the treatment. Detecting drug resistance before first-line chemotherapy may increase the patient’s survival. In this study, the role of MDR is evaluated in locally advanced breast cancer patients. Methods: Reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction was used for the detection of MDR genes, ABCB1 and ABCC1. Immunohistochemistry was used for the detection of MDR proteins, P-glycoprotein (Pgp) and MDR-associated protein 1. Results: Breast tissues from 25 patients both before and after chemotherapy were examined. Five patients were unresponsive to chemotherapy. Four had ABCB1 gene expression induced by chemotherapy, and Pgp positivity was detected in 9 patients after chemotherapy. Both the induction of ABCB1 gene expression (p < 0.001) and Pgp positivity (p < 0.001) during chemotherapy were significantly related with clinical response. Although 80% of the clinically unresponsive patients had ABCC1 gene expression, the relation between ABCC1 expression and clinical drug response was not significant. Conclusion: In locally advanced breast cancer, ABCB1 gene expression during chemotherapy contributes to clinical unresponsiveness. However, ABCC1 gene expression did not correlate strongly with the clinical response.
Issuing electrocardiographic reports remotely: experience of the telemedicine network of Santa Catarina.

BACKGROUND A growing use of telemedicine has been observed, especially as regards the sending and evaluation of electrocardiograms (ECG); this is a low-cost procedure with a high potential to save lives. OBJECTIVES To describe the form of systematic analysis and user profile of the Telemedicine Network of Santa Catarina during the time when the report was issued freely. METHODS Observational cross-sectional study determining the associations between patient characteristics and electrocardiographic diagnoses issued among users of the Telemedicine Network of Santa Catarina during the time when the report was issued freely. This system was connected to 287 cities in Santa Catarina; the tests were done in the places of origin and the reports were issued in three tertiary-care hospitals. From 2005 to 2010 the reports were issued freely and a probabilistic method for data analysis was created. An experienced cardiologist evaluated all ECGs to assess the chances of abnormality. RESULTS 243,363 ECGs were evaluated. The majority (58%) was performed on patients older than 50 years from primary care services (72%). There were differences in the frequency per region; this was partly related to the number of cardiologists/region (r = -0.551), to the distance from tertiary-care centers and potential differences of acceptance of the method. Approximately 53% of the ECGs were abnormal with greater frequency with increasing age (r(2) = 0.8166) and with significant regional differences (p < 0.0001). CONCLUSIONS We built a data analysis system integrating prevalent terms, probabilistic analysis and specialized dictionaries. The system has covered a significant portion of the population of Santa Catarina, mainly elderly patients from the network of primary healthcare centers and remote regions of the State.
Analysing Customers Reactions on Social Media Promotional Campaigns

Nowadays, it is a general practice by all major firms to launch social media promotional campaigns/advertisements while launching their new products; however, no study has discussed the customer’s reactions on these social media promotional campaigns. In this study, we have analysed customer reactions on social media promotional campaigns launched by three major mobile phone companies selling their phones in India. The analysis has been done on 18,659 tweets by performing part of speech (POS) categorization-based thematic analysis, Harvard-IV lexicon-based sentiment analysis and social media index-based reach analysis. The results of the study showed that there was a significant difference in customer’s reactions on different brands promotional campaigns; ranging from very high social media reach and customer engagement to low social media reach and no customer engagement. Based on its results, the study also proposes major recommendations for marketing managers who are in the process of creating social media promotional campaigns for new products.