Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
How to Refelect the Psychological Process of the Ehrenstein Illusory Contours Perception?

The Ehrensteinillusory contour is one of intresting phenomena related to the human vision and brain mechanism on potential information of the figures. However, a clear understanding of the psychological process of ientifying the Ehrenstein illusory contours remains elusive by computers. In this paper, we propose an attempt to solve the problem. We add truth scores to the figures for the figure set and shed light on the various factors and properties that make the Ehrenstein illusory contours arisen to humans observers. The scores are given by psychology experiments to evaluate whether exists the Ehrenstein illusory contour. We analyze various visual factors that may influence the Ehrenstein illusory contour (e.g. number, length, width and angle of inducers, and the radius of inner circle). We also study the correlation between various factors and find that the Ehrenstein illusory contours are greatly affected by the number of inducers and the size of the inner area (in our case, the radius of inner circle). Lastly, we analyze figures that may contain the Ehrenstein illusion contours to construct the computational model. We explore the effectiveness of our model and other computational approaches in reflecting the psychological process of the Ehrenstein illusory contours. Our efforts offer a deeper understanding of identifying the Ehrenstein illusory contour in general thereby open up avenues for wide variety of applications. Indexterms: Ehrenstein illusory contour, inducers, psychological process, computational way -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Date of Submission: 15-09-2017 Date of acceptance: 25-09-2017 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Can medicinal plants contribute to the cure of Tunisian COVID-19 patients?

The recourse to the medicinal plants in treating flu is frequent in Tunisia. In fact, Tunisian patients have been attracted by using medicinal plants as an informal way to treat COVID-19 illness. A questionnaire concerning the use of medicinal plants has been proposed to seven COVID-19 patients. Results showed that 16 medicinal plants, namely Allium cepa, Allium sativum, Camelia sinensis, Capsicum annum, Cinnamomum zeylanicum, Citrus limon, Citrus sinensis, Eucalyptus globulus, Mentha spicata, Nigella sativa, Rosmarinus officinalis, Syzygium aromaticum, Thymus capitatus, Trigonella foenum-graecum, Verbena officinalis and Zingiber officinale, have been used by COVID-19 patients for their antiviral activities due to the presence of various complex chemical substances as organosulfur compounds, phenols, flavonoids, saponins, triterpenoids, sterols, vitamins, monoterpenes, phenylpropanoids and alkaloids. Other medications (Zithromax and paracetamol) and other natural substances (honey, zinc, vitamin C and vitamin D) were simultaneously used with medicinal plants to treat COVID-19 illness establishing for these patients an important solution to solve the problems related to COVID-19.
Acceptability and Accuracy of Cervical Cancer Screening Using a Self-Collected Veil for HPV DNA Testing by Multiplex Real-Time PCR among Adult Women in sub- Saharan Africa

The cross-sectional GYNAUTO-CHAD study compared the acceptability and HPV DNA diagnostic accuracy of clinician-collected endocervical sample with swab (as reference collection) and genital self-collection method with a veil (V-Veil-Up Gyn Collection Device, V-Veil-Up Pharma Ltd., Nicosia, Cyprus) in adult African women. Five of the 10 districts of N’Djamena were randomly selected for inclusion. Peer educators contacted adult women in in community churches and mosques or women association networks to participate to the survey and to come to the clinic for women’s sexual health “La Renaissance Plus”. A clinician performed a pelvic examination and obtained an endocervical specimen using flocked swab. Genital secretions were also obtained by self-collection using veil. Both clinicianand self-collected specimens were tested for HPV and HR-HPV DNA using multiplex real-time PCR. Acceptability of both collection methods was assessed; test positivity was compared by assessing methods agreement, sensitivity and specificity. A total of 253 women (mean age, 35.0 years) was prospectively enrolled. The prevalence of HPV infection was 22.9%, including 68.9% of high risk-HPV (HR-HPV), with unusual HR-HPV genotypes distribution and preponderance (≈70%) of HR-HPV targeted by Gardasil-9® vaccine. Veil-based genital self-collection showed high acceptability (96%), feasibility and satisfaction. Self-collection by veil was non-inferior to clinician-based collection for HR-HPV DNA molecular testing, with “good” agreement between both methods, high sensitivity (95.0%; 95%CI: 88.3–100.0%) and specificity (88.2%; 95%CI: 83.9–92.6%). Remarkably, the rates of HPV DNA and HR-HPV DNA positivity were significantly higher (1.67and 1.57fold, respectively) when using veil-based collected genital secretions than clinician-collected cervical secretions by swab. In conclusion, self-collection of genital secretions using the V-Veil-Up Gyn Collection Device constitutes a simple, highly acceptable and powerful tool to collect genital secretions for further molecular testing and screening of oncogenic HR-HPV that could be easily implemented in the national cervical cancer prevention program in Chad.
The cultural influence on the internal capital market of multinationals

This paper studies how could the national culture distance between a foreign subsidiary and its parent affect the fund transfers in the firms’ internal capital market. Following Rajan, Servaes, and Zingales (2000JF), we use the industry and firm adjusted investment to capture the internal fund transfer between a foreign subsidiary and its parent. We find a significant and negative relation between national cultural distance and the internal capital market funding activities. Subsidiaries in countries with larger cultural distances from the home country invest less and are less likely to receive fund from the parent firm. The results from Heckman’s selection model and Tobit regression model further support our argument. Additional analysis shows that the subsidiaries’ investment opportunity could moderate the impact of cultural distance.
Simultaneous Equation Estimation in Finance and Corporate Financial Decision: Empirical Evidence from Pakistan Stock Exchange

In the last few years, there is growing interest in the field of simultaneous equation estimation in finance due to the endogeneity problem caused by measurement errors, simultaneity, or omitted variables. This study aims to discuss the endogeneity problem in corporate financing decisions and investigate the interrelationship of financial decision-making such as investment decision, dividend decision, and external financing decision in Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) using two-stage least squares (2SLS) and generalized method of moment (GMM) estimation. The Bruech-Pagan test shows that the data has no heteroskedasticity issue and 2SLS is a better approach in the context of this study as compared to the GMM approach, and internal instruments are also sufficiently strong and valid. The three financial decisionmaking attributes are not jointly determined, and the dividend is influenced by one-sided investment. In the emerging stock market context, external financing and investment are not inter-related and did not affect each other. The question of whether the simultaneous equation estimation can be useful in the context of the emerging stock markets and newly-growing firms remains unanswered. The inclusive evidence shows that the theoretical link in the emerging stock market is difficult to prove like in developed stock markets.
Teachers' Perceived Self-Efficacy for Mobile Teaching and Learning

In the context of the pandemic generated by the COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2), the global education system is currently facing an unprecedented situation which has proven to be difficult to be managed - closing schools and identifying alternative on-line methods in order to continue the educational process Therefore, teachers, students and parents have become actors playing new roles to which they have to adapt as well and fast as possible Innovative solutions, good practices, teaching staff creativity and a receptive attitude are fully used and exploited The way in which the lessons, the strategies and the instruments used in teaching, learning and assessment are developed has to relate to a series of variables: digital skills - competences of teachers and students, their attitude toward modern available technological means, ways for customizing the instructive process and learning conditions The teachers have to turn students into trustworthy and responsible parties, as active partners in the process of their own formation The proposed research aims to identify - from the psychological point of view - the perceived self-efficacy among teachers in relation to the use of mobile technology in education, in the context of working just from home The sample of the research consisted on 125 teachers, having different ages and background in Science and Technology, who carry out educational activities both in urban and rural areas
Consumption Value, Consumer Innovativeness and New Product Adoption: Empirical Evidence from Vietnam

The purpose of this study is to employ the theory of consumption value and consumers’ innovative personality characteristics to explain the adoption of new personal electronics devices in Vietnamese market. This study adapts a quantitative survey-based approach to test hypotheses about relationship between consumption value, product specific innovativeness and new product adoption. The study uses a quantitative data set of 915 consumers who owned one mobile electronic device at least in Ho Chi Minh city, one of the biggest cities of Vietnam. The data was collected through personal interview and convenient sampling method. The conceptual model was tested using PLS structural equation model. The findings of this study suggest that both consumption value and product specific innovativeness influence the adoption of new electronic products. The results also reveal that product specific innovativeness mediates the relationship between consumption value and new product adoption. The study further identified that consumption value was taken as a second-order multidimensions construct with five components, namely functional value, epistemic value, economic value, social value and emotional value. As a result, the research suggests some implications to enhance marketers’ capabilities to develop strategies for launching new hi-tech products in an emerging market as Vietnam.
Edinburgh Research Explorer Epistemic dependence

The goal of this paper is to explore and defend the epistemic dependence of knowledge ⎯ roughly, the dependence of one’s knowledge on factors outwith one’s cognitive agency ⎯ and to situate this thesis within a wider framework for thinking about knowledge, one on which knowledge demands both cognitive agency and extra-agential factors. It is argued that the epistemic dependence thesis comes in both positive (knowledge-enabling) and negative (knowledge-precluding) forms, and that properly understood it runs contrary to a number of central movements in contemporary epistemology. Despite appearances, the question of whether one’s epistemology allows for epistemic dependence runs orthogonal to the epistemic externalism/internalism distinction. Instead, it reflects a rather different dispute between epistemic individualism and epistemic anti-individualism . A narrow form of epistemic individualism is contrasted with a broader form that allows for extended cognitive processes. While our initial focus is on perceptual knowledge specifically, it is also shown that with this framework in place, the prospects for a distinctively social epistemic anti-individualism are very sound. Furthermore, it is claimed that this result is not specific to a particular social kind of knowledge, but rather reflects a point about knowledge in general. This is brought out by considering epistemic twin earth arguments that demonstrate the general epistemic dependence of knowledge. Social epistemic anti-individualism is thus motivated on more general anti-individualist grounds, reflecting the wider reach of the epistemic dependence thesis. The rationale for this thesis within a broader approach to knowledge that allows for both agential and extra-agential factors to play a role ⎯ what I call anti-luck virtue epistemology ⎯ is then explored.
Institutional Trading on Information Diffusion across Fundamentally Related Firms

This paper provides a new explanation to the gradual information diffusion puzzle from the perspective of information asymmetry. I document a strong cross-predictability of stock returns driven by institutional investors’ private information about firms’ fundamental relations. A value-weighted arbitrage portfolio yields a monthly alpha of 1.65%. Contrary to the limited attention hypothesis, the magnitude of predicted returns increases with firm size, number of institutional shareholders, and institutional trading intensity while not decreasing with analysts following. Further evidence confirm that institutional investors strategically trade a stock in response to shocks to its peers, which subsequently causes lagged permanent price movements.
Revisiting the resource curse: does volatility matters?

This paper studies the impacts of both natural resource abundance and natural resource volatility on economic growth. We first run the standard fixed-effect model on a panel data of 103 countries over the period 1985-2015 before introducing the more flexible panel smooth transition regression (PSTR) approach of González et al. (2004). Our results suggests that: (i) the impacts of natural resource rent, investment and human capital on GDP growth rate per capita is non-linear and varies over time and across countries with respect to natural resource rent volatility ; (ii) higher natural resource rent significantly raises economic growth, (iii) better financial development can offset some of the negative effects of natural resource rent volatility, (iv) GDP growth loss may reach 17 percentage-point per year for countries suffering from the highest natural resource rent volatility compared with countries with low natural resource rent volatility. We therefore argue that volatility in natural resource revenues associated with poor governmental responses drives the resource curse paradox instead of natural resource abundance
Crystallization of poly(ethylene terephthalate) induced by inorganic compounds. I. Crystallization behavior from the glassy state in a low‐temperature region

The kinetics of isothermal crystallization from the glassy state at low temperatures and the morphology of poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) filled with additives are reported. Talc, kaolin, silicon oxide, and titanium oxide have been used as fillers; they act as effective nucleating agents for PET. The overall rate of crystallization depends on the volume concentration, the size distribution, and the nucleating ability of the additives. An electron microscopic study reveals a transcrystalline morphology at the surface of the filler particles. The occurrence of transcrystallinity is attributed to extensive heterogeneous nucleation induced at the filler surface. From the shape of the crystallization isotherms, it can be concluded that the crystallization mechanism depends on the type of filler.
Serial Vickrey mechanism1

We study an assignment market where multiple heterogenous objects are sold to unit demand agents who have general preferences accommodating imperfect transferability of utility and income effects. In such a model, there is a minimum price equilibrium. We establish the structural characterizations of minimum price equilibria and employ these results to design the “ Serial Vickrey mechanism,” that finds a minimum price equilibrium in a finite number of steps. The Serial Vickrey mechanism introduces the objects one by one, and requires agents to report finite-dimensional prices in finitely many times. Besides, the Serial Vickrey mechanism also has nice dynamic incentive properties.
ULTRASTRUCTURE OF THE SPERM OF APLYSIA

The structure of the sperm of Aplysia californica was studied by both transmission and scanning electron microscopy. Aplysia californica, a species with internal fertilization, has the modified type of molluscan sperm structure. Spermatids had a glycogen helix spiraled about the flagellum, both enclosed by a common microtubular basket. A second vacuole helix was periodically seen only in spermatids and absent in spermatozoa. An additional basket of microtubules appeared to direct the elongation and spiraling of the nucleus about the flagellum/glycogen helix. A flat acrosome was present while the centriolar derivative was embedded in a deep nuclear fossa with strands of heterochromatin arranged nearly perpendicular to its long axis. The mitochondrial derivative consisted of small, frequently electron dense, closely spaced rods but individual mitochondria were also seen surrounding the axoneme of spermatids. The axoneme consisted of dense fibers that appeared to have a "C" shape substructure with a central dense fiber thus providing a 9+1 arrangement of singlet units; the typical 9+2 microtubule arrangement of flagella was absent. Flagella with two axonemes were frequently seen as well as an extra axoneme within the head of immature sperm. Keywords—Aplysia californica; sperm; ultrastructure Medical Research Archives 2015 Issue 2 Copyright © 2015, Knowledge Enterprises Incorporated. All rights reserved. 2 INTRODUCTION No information is available on the ultrastructure of sperm of Aplysia californica, Cooper other than Beeman’s (1977) interpretative drawings from micrographs, indirect observations in reports dealing with other species of the genus or that from opisthobranchs in general (Kubo & Ishikawa, 1981; Vita et al., 2001). The structure of the sperm of the few members of the Anaspidea that have been studied, however, appears similar to that for members of other orders of this class (Healy & Willan, 1984; Healy, 1988). For example, Vita et al. (2001) studying the structure of sperm of A. depilans found features that have been recognized as typical for a related order, the Notaspidea; these include the presence of an acrosome, a nucleus that spirals about the flagellum, a mid piece consisting of one or more glycogen helices, a complex mitochondrial derivative, course fibers in the axoneme, and a dense ring structure and glycogen piece near the terminus of the flagellum. With few exceptions, Kubo and Ishikawa (1981) develop a similar picture for A. kurodai. We studied the structure of the sperm of A. californica with both transmission and scanning electron microscopy. Our findings not only differed from the only ultrastructural but brief report for this species (Beeman, 1977), but also provided a more complete description which, therefore, allowed comparison with other species of the genus and that of related orders.
Immunotherapy for Breast Cancer Treatment

Breast cancer, as a heterogeneous disease, includes a wide range of pathological and clinical behaviors. Current treatment protocols, including radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and hormone replacement therapy, are mainly associated with poor response and high rate of recurrence. Therefore, more efforts are needed to develop alternative therapies for this type of cancer. Immunotherapy, as a novel strategy in cancer treatment, has a potential in treating breast cancer patients. Although breast cancer has long been considered problematic to treat with immunotherapy, as it is immunologically "cold," numerous newer preclinical and clinical reports now recommend that immunotherapy has the capability to treat breast cancer patients. In this review, we highlight the different immunotherapy strategies in breast cancer treatment.
Effect of foliar spraying with gibberellic acid and / or sitofex on bud behavior , vegetative growth , yield and cluster quality of Thompson Seedless grapevines

ABSREACT: This investigation was conducted during three consecutive years (2009, 2010 and 2011). The aim of the study was to investigate the effect of foliar application of gibberellic acid (GA3)and sitofex (CPPU) either in the single or combined form with regard to the concentration and time of application on bud behavior, vegetative growth, cluster weight and fruit quality in Thompson Seedless grape. Sitofex at 3 or 5 ppm and GA3 at 10 or 20 ppm were assessed individually or combined at three stages: the beginning of vegetative growth, at 75% bloom and at berry set. Remarkable effects on percentages of bud burst and fruitful buds were observed when CPPU at 3 ppm and / or GA3 at 10 ppm were sprayed at the beginning of vegetative growth. Sprays including the high concentration of each growth regulator (CPPU or GA3) resulted in appreciable increases in vegetative growth parameters, cluster weight, berry weight and size, berry length and diameter particularly when CPPU and / or GA3 were sprayed at the beginning of vegetative growth. Application of both CPPU and GA3 was found to increase TSS and decrease acidity in the berry juice. Generally, it can be said that the spraying sitofex and / or GA3 at the beginning of vegetative growth at low concentrations (CPPU at 3 ppm or GA3 at 10 ppm) gave the highest percentages of bud burst and fruitful buds; using a combination of sitofex and GA3: CPPU at 3 ppm plus GA3 at 40 ppm resulted in improving vegetative growth, cluster weight and berry quality of Thompson Seedless grapevine. Therefore, it can be recommended not to spray Thompson Seedless grapevines with high concentrations of sitofex or GA3 to avoid the possible reduction of bud fertility especially where vines are sprayed at bloom or berry set stages. [Rafaat S.S. Elgendy; Ghada Sh. Shaker and Ola A. Ahmed. Effect of foliar spraying with gibberellic acid and/or sitofex on bud behavior, vegetative growth, yield and cluster quality of Thompson Seedless grapevines. Journal of American Science 2012; 8(5):21-34] (ISSN: 1545-1003). http://www.americanscience. org. 3