Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Blind Estimation of Pseudo-random Sequences of the Carrier Modulated Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum Signals in Asynchronous Uplink System Using Space-Time Complex-ICA

Without the knowledge of the users’ carrier frequency or the channel parameters, this paper proposes a new arithmetic to blind estimate the pseudo-random sequences, based on the space-time complex independent component analysis (ST-CICA), phase lock loop (PLL) and principal component analysis (PCA). The received carrier modulated signals are firstly separated by the ST-CICA, while the multi-path interference, multiple access interference and near-far effect are cancelled. PLL and PCA will be utilized on the separated signal, in order to estimate the pseudo-random sequences, the carrier frequencies and the data of users. This new arithmetic of blind estimation works well in low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) environment, because of well utilizing of antenna array diversity gain and spreading gain. The performance of blind estimation is analyzed under Gaussian noise. Illustrative simulation examples were provided at last.
Recruitment of striatonigral disinhibitory and nigrotectal inhibitory GABAergic pathways during the organization of defensive behavior by mice in a dangerous environment with the venomous snake Bothrops alternatus (Reptilia, Viperidae)

The neuropsychopharmacological basis of fear‐ or panic‐related behavior has been the focus of several studies. Some mesencephalic tectum (MT) structures, such as the superior colliculus (SC) and dorsal periaqueductal gray matter (dPAG), are considered to be responsible for the control of defensive responses evoked during threatening situations. Furthermore, the pars reticulata of the substantia nigra (SNpr) sends inputs to the SC that can work as a sensory channel to MT neurons fundamental for the elaboration of defensive responses. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the role of striato‐nigral GABAergic inputs in the activity of nigro‐tectal outputs during the elaboration of defensive behavior using a GABAA receptor selective blockade in the MT of mice confronted pre‐treated with Bothrops alternatus. Mice with injections of physiological saline into the SNpr and treated with a GABAA receptor selective antagonist in the MT displayed an increase in panic‐related behavior, expressed by an increase in the duration of freezing, frequency of nonoriented escape and frequency of total escape responses during the confrontation with the snake. However, intra‐SNpr injections of cobalt chloride followed by MT injections of bicuculline caused a significant decrease in the duration of freezing and total escape responses. In addition, intra‐SNpr injections of lidocaine followed by MT injections of bicuculline caused an increase in panic‐related behavior. The results highlight the involvement of SNpr and MT structures in the organization of defensive behaviors and suggest an inhibitory control of striatonigral‐nigrotectal pathways during the elaboration of fear‐ and panic‐related behavior. Synapse 69:299–313, 2015. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
The effect of oxygenation on sleep quality in chronic bronchitis and emphysema.

We recorded the electroencephalogram, electrooculogram, electromyogram, and ear oxygen saturation (SaO2) during sleep in 20 patients with chronic bronchitis and emphysema, 13 of whom had a low arterial PO2 and elevated PCO2 (“blue and bloated”) and 7 of whom had a relatively normal arterial PO2 and PCO2 (“pink and puffing”), and compared the findings in these patients with 9 healthy subjects of similar age. All subjects slept for 2 nights and there was no difference between the groups in the total sleep period. The patients had a lower stable SaO2 than the normal subjects, the “blue and bloated” patients having significantly more hypoxemic episodes during sleep (p < 0.01). Transient nocturnal hypoxemia was commonest during REM sleep in both patients and healthy subjects and its duration was not related to any sleep variable examined. The patients had significantly shorter periods of sleep between the episodes of brief arousal occurring during the night (p < 0.02). Six representative “blue and bloated” pat.
HLA‐dependent variations in human immunodeficiency virus Nef protein alter peptide/HLA binding

In human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, sequence variations within defined cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) epitopes may lead to escape from CTL recognition. In a previous report, we have shown that the variable central region of HIV Nef protein (amino acids 73–144) that contains potential CTL epitopes, can escape the CTL response. We suggested that this non recognition occurs through a variety of mechanisms. In particular, we provided evidence that HIV Nef sequences recovered from HLA‐A11‐expressing individuals have alterations in the major anchor residues essential for binding of the two Nef epitopes (amino acids 73–82 and 84–92) to the HLA‐A11 molecule. Here, we investigate in more detail whether variations in autologous Nef sequences affect HLA binding, leading to CTL escape. Potential epitopes were sought by testing Nef peptides containing the HLA‐A11‐specific motif or related motifs. We confirmed that only the two previously described epitopes identified in cytolysis tests have optimal reactivity with the HLA‐A11 molecule. We then sequenced several viral variants from donors that do not express the HLA‐A11 molecule and compared the variability of these epitopes with those obtained from HLA‐A11‐expressing individuals. One substitution (Leu85) found in the sequences isolated from both populations increase the reactivity of the HLA‐A11‐restricted epitope 84–92, and might explain the difference in immunogenicity observed between the two HLA‐A11‐restricted epitopes from HLA‐A11+ individuals. In addition, selective variations were only detected in virus isolated from HLA‐A11‐expressing individuals. Furthermore, examination of the association of variant peptides with the HLA‐A11 molecule demonstrated that a single substitution within the minimal epitope could not always completely abrogate HLA binding, suggesting that multiple alterations within a particular epitope may accumulate during disease progression, allowing the virus to escape CTL recognition.
Party Systems and Political Change in Europe

I examine how party systems in 21 European democracies have shaped, and been shaped by, changes in citizens’ economic and cultural values over the past two decades. I map the distributions of economic and cultural values in each political system over time and across generations, and measure the extent to which supporters of different political parties in each system have distinctive values. I distill three idealtypes of European political systems—Nordic, Catholic, and post-communist—with characteristic configurations of social values, dissensus, and partisan conflict. Dynamic analysis suggests that value change is largely exogenous, while polarization is strongly affected by prior value change, changes in dissensus, and—in the case of societal polarization—changes in party systems. These findings shed light on the nature of the relationship between citizens and parties in European political systems and on the substance of past and potential future political change in Europe. 1 Prepared for presentation at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, 29 August-1 September 2013. I am grateful to members of the Behavioral Research Workshop in Vanderbilt University’s Department of Political Science for helpful discussion and criticism of a preliminary draft of this report.
Charity E‐volution? An evaluation of the attitudes of UK charities towards website adoption and use

The objective of the research was to assess attitudes in relation to website adoption and use, across a broad spectrum of UK charities. A survey methodology was adopted for the research, administered using a self-completion questionnaire. The results reveal that although the majority of responding charities have websites, most appear to be using them to deliver information about the organisation and its mission, rather than acquiring new supporters, raising funds or allowing beneficiaries/clients to interact. However, overall, respondents were positive regarding the use of websites by charities, and most are optimistic about future improvements in their own online performance. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Comparative In Vitro Activities of Meropenem, Imipenem, Temocillin, Piperacillin, and Ceftazidime in Combination with Tobramycin, Rifampin, or Ciprofloxacin against Burkholderia cepacia Isolates from Patients with Cystic Fibrosis

ABSTRACT We evaluated the activities of meropenem, imipenem, temocillin, piperacillin, and ceftazidime by determination of the MICs for 66 genotypically characterized Burkholderia cepacia isolates obtained from the sputum of cystic fibrosis patients. In vitro synergy assays, as performed by the time-kill methodology, of two- and three-drug combinations of the β-lactams with tobramycin, rifampin, and/or ciprofloxacin were also performed with 10 strains susceptible, intermediate, or resistant to fluoroquinolones. On the basis of the MICs, meropenem and temocillin were the most active β-lactam agents, with MICs at which 90% of isolates are inhibited of 8 and 32 μg/ml, respectively. The addition of ciprofloxacin significantly enhanced the killing activities of piperacillin, imipenem, and meropenem against the 10 strains tested (P < 0.05). The best killing activity was obtained with the combination of meropenem and ciprofloxacin, with bactericidal activity of 3.31 ± 0.36 log10 CFU/ml (P < 0.05). Compared to the activity of the two-drug β-lactam–ciprofloxacin combination, the addition of rifampin or tobramycin did not significantly increase the killing activity (P > 0.05). The three-drug combinations (with or without ciprofloxacin) significantly enhanced the killing activities of piperacillin, imipenem, and meropenem relative to the activities of the β-lactams used alone (P < 0.05). The combination β-lactam–ciprofloxacin–tobramycin was the combination with the most consistently synergistic effect.
Teaching supply chain management using a modified beer game: an action learning approach

The Beer Game is a famous business simulation game in logistics management courses. This paper provides a teaching method that integrates the game's concept into the curriculum of a course, helping students not only to understand the challenges of managing supply chains, but also to apply knowledge learnt from the course to solve complex logistics problems. Adopting an action learning approach, the teaching method was used in an undergraduate supply chain course with 254 undergraduate students. The results show that by using this strategy, students can actively acquire supply chain knowledge. Using a combination of lectures and tutorial sessions the students proactively adopted new techniques, such as collaborative forecasting systems, vendor-managed inventory and strategic partnering, to improve supply chain performance. This paper introduces a new teaching method and evaluates it in a supply chain programme to make teaching of supply chain management challenging and interesting.
Sustainable competitive advantage in electronic business: towards a contingency perspective on the resource-based view

Our understanding of the nature of competitive advantage has not been helped by a tendency for theorists to adopt a unitary position, suggesting, for example, that advantage is industry based or resource based. In examining the nature of competitive advantage in an electronic business (e-business) environment this paper adopts a contingency perspective. Several intriguing questions emerge. Do 'new economy' companies have different resource profiles to 'old economy' companies? Are the patterns of resource development and accumulation different? Are attained advantages less sustainable for e-businesses? These are the kinds of themes examined in this paper. The literature on competitive advantage is reviewed as are the challenges posed by the recent changes in the business environment.Two broad sets of firms are identified as emerging out of the e-business shake up and the resource profiles of these firms are discussed. Several research propositions are advanced and the implications for research and practice are discussed.
Angiotensin-converting enzyme insertion/deletion polymorphism and systemic lupus erythematosus: a metaanalysis.

OBJECTIVE To explore whether insertion (I) and deletion (D) polymorphisms within intron 16 of the angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) gene confer susceptibility to systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and lupus nephritis (LN). METHODS We surveyed studies of ACE I/D polymorphism and SLE using Medline and manual searches. We conducted a metaanalysis of the DD genotype (recessive effect), DD and DI genotype (dominant effect), and D allele of the ACE overall and in each ethnic population. We performed a metaanalysis of ACE I/D polymorphism in SLE and LN. RESULTS Thirteen comparison studies were included in our metaanalysis consisting of 1411 patients with SLE and 1551 controls. We found no association of ACE I/D polymorphism with SLE in the total sample and by ethnic groups. There was a trend for association of the DD genotype (OR 1.212, 95% CI 0.966-1.520, p = 0.097) and the D allele with SLE in Caucasian patients (OR 1.157, 95% CI 0.991-1.349, p = 0.064); however, this was not statistically significant. The metaanalysis also showed no association of the ACE I/D polymorphisms with LN. CONCLUSION This metaanalysis of 2962 subjects showed there is a lack of association of the ACE I/D polymorphism with SLE and LN.
Meteorological drought monitoring using several drought indices (case study: Salt Lake Basin in Iran)

Drought detecting is a necessary aspect of drought risk management. It is generally performed usingdifferent drought indices that are effectively continuous functions of rainfall and other hydro- meteorologicalvariables. A number of drought indices have been introduced and used in various countries to date. In thecurrent research, four meteorological drought indices including the standardized precipitation index (SPI),China-Z index (CZI), modified CZI (MCZI) and Z-Score (Z) are compared and evaluated for monitoringdroughts in Salt Lake Basin in Iran. The comparison of indices was carried out based on drought classes thatwere monitored in the study area using 40 years of data. The results indicated that SPI, CZI and Z-Scoreperformed similarly with regard to drought identification and responded slowly to drought onset. DI appearedto be very sensitive to precipitation rates, but had unsteady spatial and temporal variation. Additionally, byconsidering the advantages and disadvantages of the mentioned drought predictors in Iran, the CZI and ZScorecould be used as good meteorological drought predictors.
Consumers' Food Choices for Specific Quality Food Products

Demand for specific quality food products is highly segmented among different types of consumers and attracts the interest of researchers, as specific quality products are associated to various aspects of policy and development. The aim of the present paper is to identify consumer preferences for such products, and in particular, organic and Traditional Specialty Guaranteed (TSG) food products, and to examine potential factors that affect the willingness to pay (WTP) a premium to purchase these specific quality food products. This has been achieved by adopting a probit model and estimating the relative WTP equations. Results indicate that consumer' beliefs about the production process and quality attributes of organic and TSG food affect their WTP a premium to buy these specific value added food products. Socioeconomic factors on the other hand have an effect on consumers' WTP organic and TSG products to a lesser extent. In general, both organic and TSG products are attracted mainly by health-conscious and safety-conscious individuals.
Irony as a Means of Perception Through Communication Channels. Emotions, Attitude and IQ Related to Irony Across Gender

Abstract The paper explores why certain adults are, or at least consider themselves to be, more ironic than others. The study looked at comprehension and application of irony compared to subjective affective evaluation of irony reported by Polish-speaking adults and with relation to nonverbal intelligence measured with the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised-Polish versions (WAIS-R(PL), 2004). Fifty-four subjects aged 20-66 years (28 females and 26 males) participated in Study 1 on subjective perception of irony. The comprehension, emotional valence and social functions of ironic meanings as well as the degree to which subjects perceived themselves as ironic were assessed through a self-report questionnaire. Inter-correlations were performed and related to the performance quotient (IQ) which was measured in Study 2, where 45 (24 females and 21 males) out of the 54 participants were tested with performance subtests of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised-Polish versions (WAIS-R(PL), 2004). The nonverbal intelligence scale was administered. Performance on nonverbal intelligence tests is not limited by language abilities and its analysis and can be considered important for future cultural comparative studies. Subjects who perceived themselves as ironic showed a higher nonverbal IQ in comparison to subjects who described themselves as non-ironic or barely ironic. The pragmatic qualities of irony were analyzed for their affective valuation and balanced for gender. Individual differences and gender effects in the perception of the social functions of ironic utterances were found. The paper describes the implicit emotional layer conveyed in irony and its importance in irony processing and comprehension.
Efiects of EU flnancial integration on banking conflguration and coordination strategies - Propositions and evidence ⁄

EU flnancial integration is at an advanced, yet incomplete stage. This paper further links and contributes new insights to a) the flnancial integration, and b) the strategy literature strands. The research develops propositions on how the difiering degrees of integration in EU flnancial markets afiect banking conflguration and coordination strategies, and it tests them empirically. It links integration in flnancial market segments with business foci of banks, and assesses the propositions’ validity directly at the level of a) the banking value chain, b) corporate spheres, and c) corporate policy areas. The empirical analysis is based on an original, representative survey of foreign banking units. The results demonstrate that a) the difiering degrees of flnancial integration are visible in market participants’ strategies, b) the efiects of flnancial integration difier with business focus, and c) internationally-operating banks seem to have exploited the beneflts ofiered by flnancial integration if feasible. The results have policy implications. They encourage policymakers to take more care in difierentiating a) conflguration from coordination strategies, and b) between the business foci of banks in future policy initiatives and policy assessments.
The Use Of M-Payment Services In South Africa: A Value Based Perceptions Approach

Business is transforming at an exponential rate and mobile technology is considered to be a key driver in this economic revolution. Despite the efforts of many businesses in making extensive investments in resources to enhance the service experience, long-term post-adoption of mobile payment services by consumers still remains an elusive dream. In particular, researches that align South African customers’ value perceptions of M-payment usage are scarce. It appears then, that if service providers cannot retain users and facilitate continuance usage along M-payment platforms; they might fail to recover the initial development costs and eradicate the valuable gains derived from turning the M-payment story into a winning success. Therefore, since M-payment post-adoption has not been as rapid or widespread as expected, this study aimed to examine consumers’ perceptions of M-payment value and the corresponding influence on e-service trust, user satisfaction and continuance intention to use M-Payment platforms. The study followed a quantitative survey approach in which data were collected from a sample of 269 M-payment users in South Africa. Structural Equation Modelling software Smart PLS was applied to ascertain the model fit. The results of this study found strong support for positive and significant relationships between value, trust, satisfaction and continuance intentions. Service providers are challenged to utilise value and trust-formation elements as the central differentiation factors which unsurprisingly impact on satisfaction evaluations and ultimately, the users’ willingness to continue enjoying the M-payment service experience into the future. Thus, the confluence between financial institutions, mobile network operators as well as businesses is compelled to give prominence toward creating holistic value-based user experiences along the mobile platform.
Ising n-fold integrals as diagonals of rational functions and integrality of series expansions

We show that the n-fold integrals χ(n) of the magnetic susceptibility of the Ising model, as well as various other n-fold integrals of the ‘Ising class’, or n-fold integrals from enumerative combinatorics, like lattice Green functions, correspond to a distinguished class of functions generalizing algebraic functions: they are actually diagonals of rational functions. As a consequence, the power series expansions of the, analytic at x = 0, solutions of these linear differential equations ‘derived from geometry’ are globally bounded, which means that after just one rescaling of the expansion variable, they can be cast into series expansions with integer coefficients. We also give several results showing that the unique analytical solution of Calabi–Yau ODEs and, more generally, Picard–Fuchs linear ODEs with solutions of maximal weights are always diagonals of rational functions. Besides, in a more enumerative combinatorics context, generating functions whose coefficients are expressed in terms of nested sums of products of binomial terms can also be shown to be diagonals of rational functions. We finally address the question of the relations between the notion of integrality (series with integer coefficients, or, more generally, globally bounded series) and the modularity of ODEs.
Exploiting Niches Using Relationship Marketing

Discusses niche and relationship marketing strategies as responses to fragmentation of the mass market. Considers the different perspectives of these approaches and how the two may be integrated into an overall marketing strategy. Concludes that marketers need to move from a top‐down approach of segmentation to a bottom‐up approach of aggregating individual needs, and an integrative relationship marketing system using a customer database is a way of doing so.