Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Bene ts of Curing Hepatitis C Infection

e hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is one of the most important chronic viral infections worldwide and a ects 3% of the world population, approximately 170-200 million people. e consequences of chronic infection are liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma, which develop in 30-40% of the patients, leading to hepatic failure, need for liver transplantation and death. e hepatitis C virus is a RNA virus that is prevalent worldwide and is classi ed by the World Health Organization (International Agency for Research on Cancer) as one of the six oncogenic viruses. Hepatocellular carcinoma is one of the most important cancers and is h worldwide, but third in men in terms of mortality. Hepatitis C kills approximately 350,000 people every year, surpassing HIV infection in many countries as a cause of death. Hepatitis C virus can kill in di erent ways: it can cause cirrhosis, cancer or severe liver disease in people coinfected with HIV. Hepatitis C treatment started in the mid 1980s with a 6% e cacy rate among patients taking thrice-weekly injections of human interferon. is therapy had numerous side e ects. e e cacy of hepatitis C treatment has increased, and currently, the e cacy of the so-called direct antiviral agents (DAAs) is 80-90%. e bene ts of a cure are enormous and include a lifetime negative serum HCV RNA, disappearance of HCV in the liver, regression of cirrhosis, decreased risk of developing hepatocellular carcinoma, disappearance of oesophageal varices, no more risk of HCV transmission to sexual partners or children, and increased survival. At present, hepatitis C can be considered a curable disease.
Factors Relevant to the Affective Content in Literature Survey: Implications for Designing an Adult Transformational Learning Curriculum

Current directions in transformational learning theory incorporate the concept of emotional intelligence. The purpose of this study was to understand emotional intelligence as it relates to transformational learning by identifying factors related to individuals’ emotional responses to literature. Specifically, the study investigated the relationship between gender, age, personality factors, and emotional responses, as measured by the Schutte Self-Report Inventory and Affective Response to Literature Survey. Gender was determined to be a significant factor, along with the personality factors of Agreeableness and Openness in the International Personality Item Pool Five Factor Model. Implications of the results suggest that an adult transformational learning curriculum could be designed using the identified factors and thereby increasing learning opportunities for students.
Sticky Prices and the Purchasing Power Parity Puzzle

This paper investigates the Purchasing Power Parity Puzzle in the context of a Vector Autoregressive(VAR) model, where the real exchange rate is Granger caused by macroeconomic variables, suggested by 'sticky-price' theories of exchange rate determination. By doing this, we are able to discern the relative effect of nominal price rigidities on the speed of adjustment of the real exchange rate towards long-run PPP. We first show that the impulse response function of a variable participating in the VAR is not, in general, the same with the impulse response function obtained from the equivalent ARMA representation of this variable, if the latter is Granger caused by other variables in the system. The difference between the two functions captures the effects of the Granger-causing variables on the dynamic adjustment process of the variable of interest. Our empirical results for a set of four currencies suggest that price stickiness accounts for 22% to 50% of the half-life of innovations in the real exchange rate.
Transient Analysis of a Railgun with Permanent Magnets Support

Abstract The calculation and measurement results of transients for an electrodynamic accelerator with permanent magnet support have been presented in this paper. The calculations have been made using the magnetostatic model in the Maxwell software, as well as using a Matlab/Simulink transient model. The waves of mechanical parameters (projectile velocity and acceleration, force) and electric ones (excitation current and capacitor voltage) have been analyzed for different supply conditions (voltage value, capacitance). The efficiency and projectile energy have been studied as well. The mathematical models have been verified experimentally using the original laboratory stand. A good conformity between calculation and measurement results has been obtained.
Bridging the Gap between Member States and the UNESCAP Secretariat, Using Trust-building Mechanisms

The Purpose of this study is to develop a trust-building mechanism for ordering collaborative relations among key stakeholders and demonstrate its importance as a tool for bridging the gap between member states and the UNESCAP Secretariat. The researcher used qualitative methodology and action research to emulate change. The results of this study show that the trust-building impacted the collaborative roles and responsibilities of the key stakeholders in the organization. Indeed, the higher the collaborative roles and responsibilities, the more instrumental the tool. However, while some improvement in respect to the roles and responsibilities of ACPR were noted, the analysis shows that further action is required for increasing collaborative roles and responsibilities in subsidiary committees.
AN INTEGRATED HERDER KNOWLEDGE AND ECOLOGICAL METHODS FOR ASSESSMENT OF RANGELAND IN NARA, NORTH-WESTERN MALI

Different landscapes types, grazing pressure and vegetation covers in Nara rangeland were assessed. In this study I integrated herder’s ecological knowledge into ecological methods to investigate how herders conducted landscapes classification, assessed the range and vegetation trends at landscape level. Key informant interviews were carried out to ascertain the level of understanding landscape classification and historical changes in vegetation. Herders’ descriptions were used to analyse perception of changes in vegetation and range condition. Herders identified three different landscapes into Niesokema, Mari and Seguendi found across a rangeland of 36 km. They used physical and vegetation characteristics to indicate the different type of landscapes. We (the joint team of herders and technicians) used the herder-classified landscapes as a basis for assessing range condition and vegetation trends. The range condition was variable from landscape to another. Among the three landscapes, Seguendi was considered as good, while the condition in Mari was fair and Niesokema poor. Vegetation trends were categorised as increasers, decreasers and stable. Scoenefeldia gracilis was categorized as an increaser by the herders. They categorized Zornia glochidiata as a decreaser while Diditaria ciliaris as a stable species. A total of 44 plant species were recorded across the three landscapes. We assessed grazing pressure and vegetation variables using road transect of 30 km at 36 sampling stations. We used ANOVA to test environmental indicators in different landscapes. The results showed that there was variation of grazing pressure across the three landscapes. The vegetation cover varied according to the intensity of grazing and landscape types. We compared also the species richness and vegetation covers in open area and protected enclosure. We used t-test to compare the effects of the two treatments. The results showed that total species richness in the open area was significantly different (P<0.05) from the protected site and was greater in open area. But herbaceous richness was greater in enclosure than the open grazed area. Evenness of trees did not vary in both sites while shrubs were highly evenly distributed in open area. The survey by the herders and sampling showed no evidence permanent changes. Any changes were associated with management and rainfall.
EFFECTS OF CULTURAL MANAGEMENT ON THE FOOT AND ROOT DISEASE COMPLEX OF DURUM WHEAT

SUMMARY The effects of three tillage techniques (minimum tillage [chisel ploughing], and mouldboard ploughing to a depth of 25 and 50 cm) and four 2-year crop rotations (continuous wheat, wheat/barley, wheat/sugarbeet and wheat/fallow) on the foot and root disease complex of durum wheat were studied from 1999 to 2001 in an experimental field at the Bologna University farm. Brown foot rot (BFR) caused by Fusarium species and Bipolaris sorokiniana, and eyespot caused by Oculimacula spp. were the major components of the foot and root disease complex. Ploughing was significantly more effective than chiselling in controlling eyespot disease over the whole period of observation, whereas ploughing significantly reduced BFR only in 1999 when the incidence of the disease was the highest. Wheat/sugar-beet was generally less favourable for development of the foot and root disease complex than the other rotations tested. The effects of tillage techniques and crop rotations on disease were year-dependent. A more detailed analysis carried out in 2000 to evaluate the effect cultural practices on fungi associated with brown foot rot disease, indicated that F. culmorum was predominant with minimum tillage and scarce in ploughing, whereas B. sorokiniana was predominant in plots that were ploughed.
Price behaviour of chillies in Guntur market of Andhra Pradesh, India

There was an increasing trend in the prices of chillies in the selected market and was found to be statistically significant at 5 per cent level of significance. The seasonal index was maximum in December with 108.52, while in November it was with 104.60 and the price indices ranged from 92.52 to 102.94. Only one cycle was observed which had lasted for four years. That chilli prices are subjected to high irregular variations during the period of study.
Title On the dynamics of the eye : geodesics on a configuration manifold , motions of the gaze direction and Helmholtz ’ s theorem Permalink

The simplest model with which to examine the dynamics of the human eye consists of a rigid body which is free to rotate about a fixed point. Two classical laws governing monocular vision, which are known as Listing’s law and Donders’ law, can be enforced in this model using a single holonomic constraint. While there has been considerable attention paid to the kinematics of the eye, the dynamics of the eye predicted by rigid body models has not received the same level of attention. In the present paper, the unforced dynamics of the resulting rigid body model are examined with particular emphasis placed on the geodesics of the configuration manifold. A comprehensive portrait of these motions is presented, and the insight gained is related to the dynamics of the gaze direction and saccadic motions of the eye. Among our results, we find that modeling the eye as an asymmetric rigid body produces a nonintegrable system of governing equations and that the geodesics on the configuration manifold provide a wealth of potential motions for the gaze direction.
A S ] 2 9 M ar 2 01 8 Attentive Statistics Pooling for Deep Speaker Embedding

This paper proposes attentive statistics pooling for deep speaker embedding in text-independent speaker verification. In conventional speaker embedding, frame-level features are averaged over all the frames of a single utterance to form an utterance-level feature. Our method utilizes an attention mechanism to give different weights to different frames and generates not only weighted means but also weighted standard deviations. In this way, it can capture long-term variations in speaker characteristics more effectively. An evaluation on the NIST SRE 2012 and the VoxCeleb data sets shows that it reduces equal error rates (EERs) from the conventional method by 7.5% and 8.1%, respectively.
CAMA Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis Mutual Responsiveness of Biofuels , Fuels and Food Prices CAMA Working Paper 38 / 2012 August 2012

We propose a new approach to analyze relationships and dependencies between price series. For the biofuels markets and the related commodities, we study their mutual responsiveness, which can be understood as price cross-elasticities. Several methodological caveats are uncovered and discussed. We find that both ethanol and biodiesel prices are responsive to their production factors as well as their substitute fossil fuels (ethanol with corn, sugarcane and the US gasoline; and biodiesel with soybeans and German diesel). Responsiveness of all significant pairs increased remarkably during the food crisis of 2007/2008. Causality tests further show that price changes in producing factors lead the changes in biofuels, yet for some price levels, the direction is reversed. Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2294754 | T H E A U S T R A L I A N N A T I O N A L U N I V E R S I T Y
Residual action of insecticides to larvae of Chrysoperla externa (Hagen, 1861) (Neuroptera: Chrysopidae) under greenhouse conditions

ABSTRACT - This work was designed to evaluate the residual action of the insecticides trichlorfon, triflumuron, endosulfan, fenpropathrin, chlorpirifos, tebufenozide and esfenvalerate, sprayed on cotton plants, to second-instar larvae of Chrysoperla externa (Hagen, 1861), under greenhouse conditions. The experimental design was completely randomized with ten replicates. Three larvae were released on each plant, in the 1st, 12th and 23rd day after pesticides spray. Tebufenozide and esfenvalerate were little persistent (class one), while trichlorfon, triflumuron and endosulfan were slightly persistent, decreasing the survival of C. externa larvae over 30%, up to 14 days after spray. Fenpropathrin and chlorpirifos caused mortality over 30%, up to 25 days after spray, being classified as fairly persistent.
A Method for Measuring Returns to Nonprice Export Promotion with Application to Almonds

A formula is derived to indicate the marginal returns to nonprice promotion for a competitive industry that promotes in both the domestic and the export market and receives a subsidy for export promotion. Private returns to export promotion are an increasing function of the export promotion elasticity, the export share, and the promotion subsidy and a decreasing function of the domestic supply elasticity, the absolute values of the domestic and export demand elasticities, and opportunity cost. Applying the formula to almond promotion and using previously estimated elasticities, no firm conclusions can be made regarding the effectiveness of export promotion, chiefly because the estimated promotion elasticities are unstable. Assuming that the domestic promotion elasticity is robust, it appears that domestic market promotion is underfunded from a producer-welfare perspective unless the marginal rate of return on alternative uses of promotion funds is high, on the order of 115%.
Dormant-Season Planting and Seed-Dormancy Impacts on Switchgrass Establishment and Yield

Establishment failures linked to seed dormancy are a challenge to wide-scale use of switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) for biomass feedstock and forage production. One prospective strategy for breaking dormancy is dormantseason planting. The objectives of this study were to evaluate (i) three switchgrass dormantseason planting dates (1 December, 1 February, and 15 March) vs. a growing-season (1 May) control; (ii) two seeding rates (6.7 and 10.1 kg pure live seed [PLS] ha−1); and (iii) highand lowdormancy seed lots. Treatments were assigned in a split-plot design with three replications at two locations in Tennessee in 2008 and 2009. Neither seeding rate nor seed-dormancy level affected plant density or yield (P > 0.05). However, a seeding date  year interaction impacted first-year density at both locations. Although patterns differed by year for the two locations, density of March plantings equaled or exceeded (P < 0.05) those at other dates for both locations and years. These variations in density did not carry over to impact yield in year two. A sigmoidal regression of seedling density vs. yield was significant (P < 0.001) albeit not strong (R2 = 0.13); yield response approached an asymptote above ~8 plants m−2. Results suggest March planting dates, using standard seeding rate recommendations (6.7 kg PLS ha−1) irrespective of seed-dormancy rates, may be more reliable than planting in May. Thus, a broader establishment window than traditionally used may be practical. However, results should be validated over a broader range of soils and climatic conditions, especially over a winter severity gradient. P.D. Keyser, A.J. Ashworth, F.L. Allen, and G.E. Bates Center for Native Grasslands Management, Univ. of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture, 2431 Joe Johnson Drive, 252 Ellington Plant Sciences Building, Knoxville, TN 37996; P.D. Keyser, Dep. of Wildlife and Fisheries, Univ. of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture, 2431 Joe Johnson Drive, 252 Ellington Plant Sciences Building, Knoxville, TN 37996; and A.J. Ashworth, F.L. Allen, and G.E. Bates, Dep. of Plant Sciences, Univ. of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture, 2431 Joe Johnson Drive, 252 Ellington Plant Sciences Building, Knoxville, TN 37996. Received 6 Mar. 2015. Accepted 24 Aug. 2015. *Corresponding author (pkeyser@utk.edu). Abbreviations: ETREC, East Tennessee Research and Education Center; HRREC, Highland Rim Research and Education Center; PLS, pure live seed; Trmt, seeding treatment. Published in Crop Sci. 56:1–10 (2016). doi: 10.2135/cropsci2015.03. 0144 © Crop Science Society of America | 5585 Guilford Rd., Madison, WI 53711 USA All rights reserved. Published November 6, 2015
Deteriorating Patient Training Using Nonimmersive Virtual Reality

Recent nurse education pedagogical strategies are starting to embrace the use of virtual patient simulations in higher education settings. This study evaluated student, simulation technician, and lecturer perspectives on student performance after virtual training for care of a deteriorating diabetic patient. Second year nursing students learned using a virtual patient simulation, which was a follow-up of a randomized controlled trial that took place during the academic year 2017–2018. Group and individual interviews were conducted comprising the 21 staff and students involved in the virtual reality simulation in four individual lecture sessions. Five themes emerged from this study: engagement, immersion, confidence, knowledge, and challenges. Student participants found that the virtual reality exercise aided their understanding of the complex concepts associated with hypoglycemia, provided immediate feedback about their clinical decisions, could be completed multiple times, and provided more opportunities for safe practice, complimenting their ward and clinical skills experiences. Simulation technicians and lecturing staff also recognized these benefits but identified challenges, including time and cost constraints. We recommend further research into potential benefits and challenges, including likely consequences of increased use of virtual reality technologies for nurse education curriculum design.
REUNION ISLAND PELAGIC LONGLINE FISHERY CHARACTERIZATION AND STANDARDIZATION OF ALBACORE CATCH RATES

SUMMARY This document presents a characterization of the Reunion Island pelagic longline fishery, with a first description of the albacore catches, catch-at-size, and the standardized catch per unit of effort (CPUE) series for the period 1992-2013. The spatial catch and effort analysis revealed the major areas of operation of the fishery, and the identification of the fishery core region closer to the Reunion Island area. The trends in the albacore catch-at-size were analyzed annually, and compared between the seasons and regions of operation of the fishery. The albacore nominal CPUEs were calculated as number of fish per 1000 hooks, and were standardized using Generalized Linear Models (GLMs). Four different modeling approaches were used (including Tweedie, lognormal, Negative Binomial and Delta-method models) and compared in a sensitivity analysis. The models were compared with goodness-of-fit measures, and validated with residual analysis. The results presented in this paper, in particular the proposed albacore annual index of abundance, is a further contribution by the European Union to contribute for the assessment of the species in the Indian Ocean.
International Financial Integration and Japanese Economic Performance

Since 1980, Japan has experienced a boom-bust-recovery cycle in its level of international financial integration that resembles the shifts in its domestic economic activity. Accordingly, we investigate the links between international financial integration and Japanese macroeconomic performance. In addition to formal tests of the impact of international financial integration, we explore the inter-relation between international financial integration and the behaviour of the yen. We pay special attention to the unusual behaviour of Japanese official reserves. Finally, we seek to evaluate the broad impact of external liberalisation on the Japanese financial system. ∗I thank Noburiho Kiyotaki, Paolo Pesenti, Andrew Rose, the editorial committee and the participants in the New York and San Francisco workshops for their comments. Agustin Benetrix, Christiane Hellmanzeik, Peter McQuade, Barbara Pels and Martin Schmitz provided helpful research assistance. Email: plane@tcd.ie. Tel: +353 1 896 2259. Fax: +353 1 896 3939. Postal Address: The Sutherland Centre, Arts Block, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland.
MAGNETIC FABRICS AND SOURCES OF MAGNETIC SUSCEPTIBILITY IN LOWER CRUSTAL AND UPPER MANTLE ROCKS FROM HESS

We present a magnetic fabric study of mafic and ultramafic rocks recovered at Ocean Drilling Program Sites 894 and 895 from Hess Deep, a tectonic rift in the equatorial East Pacific (2°15'N, 101°30'W). We demonstrate, using thermomagnetic curves and high-field (up to 1.5 T) susceptibility measurements, that the magnetite contributes >95% of magnetic susceptibility of these rocks. Bulk susceptibilities for the Site 894 gabbroic rocks are on average 1.72 × I0" and for the Site 895 peridotites 4.29 × 10~ (S1 volume units). The anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility is moderate to high and average kmw/kmjn is 1.15 ikmax kint kmin are the principal susceptibilities) at Site 894 and 1.11 at Site 895. Because of the pervasive serpentinization and the formation of randomly distributed secondary magnetite, the magnetic fabrics of the Site 895 peridotites show no apparent relationship to structural features. In the foliated gabbroic rocks from Site 894, we observe a close relationship between magmatic flow fabrics (defined by the preferred orientation of Plagioclase) and magnetic fabrics: kmin is perpendicular to the macroscopic foliation and kmax dips steeply within the foliation plane and is parallel to the magmatic mineral lineation. Macroscopically isotropic gabbros yield the same principal susceptibility directions as the foliated gabbros. We interpret magnetic fabrics in these rocks to represent a weakly developed rock fabrics. We argue that the process for the development of the AMS is a distribution anisotropy which is caused by the growth of equant, irregular, or skeletal magnetite grains into a preferredly oriented (by magmatic flow) Plagioclase "template. " Magnetic fabric data record a mineral preferred orientation with a north-south, East Pacific Rise parallel strike and a near-vertical inclination, and can be interpreted to record the upward flow of melt at the top of an axial magma chamber into the base of an overlying sheeted dike complex.