Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Periacineta mexicana n. sp. (Ciliophora, Suctoria, Discophryida), Epizoic on Mexican Backswimmers of the Genus Buenoa (Insecta, Hemiptera, Notonectidae)

ABSTRACT. A new species of suctorian in the genus Periacineta, epibiotic on aquatic bugs (Hemiptera, Heteroptera, Nepomorpha), is described on the basis of morphological characteristics of the cell body, lorica, tentacular placement, and stalk, and its 18S rRNA partial sequence gene. Periacineta mexicana n. sp. is a loricate suctorian with elongate body and rounded apical region; tentacles are distributed randomly over apical region and not grouped into fascicles. Macronucleus in adult is elongate and located centrally. The suctorian usually forms closely aggregated pseudocolonies. We provide morphological data based on optical and scanning electron microscopy. A comparison with similar congeners, and emended diagnosis of the genus Periacineta also are provided. The ciliates were found attached to the first two pairs of legs of Mexican notonectids Buenoa pallens and Buenoa spp. (backswimmers).
Intergenerational risk-sharing through funded pensions and public debt*

Abstract We explore the benefits of intergenerational risk-sharing through both private funded pensions and via the public debt. We use a multi-period overlapping generation model with a pay-as-you-go pension pillar, a funded pension pillar and a government. Shocks are smoothed via the public debt and variations in the indexation of pension entitlements and pension contributions. The intensity of these adjustments increases when the pension funding ratio or public debt gets closer to their boundaries. The best-performing pension arrangement is a hybrid funded scheme in which both contributions and entitlement indexation are simultaneously deployed as stabilisation instruments. We find that contribution and indexation adjustment policies are substitutes and the same is the case for contribution and tax adjustment policies. By contrast, indexation and tax adjustment policies are complements. We compare different taxation regimes and conclude that a regime in which pension benefits are taxed, while contributions are paid before taxes, is preferred to a regime in which contributions are paid after taxes, but benefits are untaxed.
EPIK - Virtual Rehabilitation Platform Devised to Increase Self-reliance of People with Limited Mobility

In this paper we describe a virtual rehabilitation platform designed to improve balance of people with physical impairment using the Microsoft® Kinect® sensor. Different types of users can interact with the platform: Administrators, therapists, and final users (patients), using their own interfaces and modules. Six modules have been designed: Profile, Administrator, Evaluation, Therapist, Game and Results; but only four have been implemented so far: Administrator, Evaluation, Therapist and Game. The Administrator’s module is used to generate a database of exercises. The Therapist’s module allows therapists to configure the game training session using combinations of exercises from the database. The patients’ or game module includes a 3D immersive environment, where they perform the prescribed rehabilitation exercises, previously configured by a therapist. The platform is in its first beta version and ready to be tested.
Posture of the Trunk During the Lifting of Weights*

This paper is an attempt to answer briefly three questions, and then to suggest an explanation of the answers based on the relevant anatomy. The questions are: (1) How are heavy weights lifted ? (2) What part does the trunk play in this ? (3) What damage may be produced ? The answers to the first two questions stem from personal observation of a large number of people engaged in their everyday tasks.
Differential Impact of Foreign Portfolio Flows on Emerging Market Returns: Evidence from Thailand

Using daily series of flows and returns in Thailand during the period January 1995 and December 2012, this study investigates the differential pricing impact of foreign equity flows on two market segments; one consisting of stocks that are favored by foreign investors, and the other that are less favored. Flow betas which measure stock return senstivity to unexpected flows are negative particularly for stocks with high foreign interest. The empirical results reveal that stocks with relatively higher foreign exposure exhibit a lower required rate of return consistent with international risk sharing hypothesis. The differential effect of foreign flows on different segments of the market indicates that the pervasiveness of market liberalization is not equally shared across the local market.
Design Principles of a Symmetrically Coupled Inductor Structure for Multiphase Synchronous Buck Converters

The multiphase interleaved synchronous buck converters with coupled phase inductors are being preferred for voltage regulator modules requiring low output voltage, high output current, and fast transient response since they simultaneously offer better steady-state efficiency and faster dynamic response. In this paper, a novel magnetic core structure for symmetrical coupling of multiphase buck converter phase inductors is proposed, which overcomes several limitations of asymmetrical inductor coupling proposed so far. A new analytical technique to arrive at simple dynamic equivalent circuits of the converter, as well as design guidelines for the proposed inductor structure, is presented. Experimental results from a prototype four-phase synchronous buck converter with the proposed inductor demonstrate 2% to 6% improvement in the converter efficiency compared to a similarly rated converter with uncoupled inductors while retaining the same transient performance.
Comparison of four methods for assessing the importance of attitudinal beliefs: an international Delphi study in intensive care settings.

OBJECTIVES Behaviour change interventions often target 'important' beliefs. The literature proposes four methods for assessing importance of attitudinal beliefs: elicitation frequency, importance ratings, and strength of prediction (bivariate and multivariate). We tested congruence between these methods in a Delphi study about selective decontamination of the digestive tract (SDD). SDD improves infection rates among critically ill patients, yet uptake in intensive care units is low internationally. METHODS A Delphi study involved three iterations ('rounds'). Participants were 105 intensive care clinicians in the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia/New Zealand. In Round 1, semi-structured interviews were conducted to elicit beliefs about delivering SDD. In Rounds 2 and 3, participants completed questionnaires, rating agreement and importance for each belief-statement (9-point Likert scales). Belief importance was assessed using elicitation frequency, mean importance ratings, and prediction of global attitude (Pearson's correlations; beta-weights). Correlations between indices were computed. RESULTS Participants generated 14 attitudinal beliefs. Indices had adequate variation (frequencies: 4-94, mean importance ratings: 4.93-8.00, Pearson's correlations: ± 0.09 to ± 0.54, beta-weights: ± 0.01 to ± 0.30). SDD increases antibiotic resistance was the most important belief according to three methods and was ranked second by beta-weights (behind Overall, SDD benefits patients to whom it is delivered). Spearman's correlations were significant for importance ratings with frequencies and correlations. However, other indices were unrelated. The top four beliefs differed according to the measure used. CONCLUSIONS Results provided evidence of congruence across three methods for assessing belief importance. Beta-weights were unrelated to other indices, suggesting that they may not be appropriate as the sole method. STATEMENT OF CONTRIBUTION What is already known on this subject? Attitudinal beliefs (specific beliefs about the consequences of performing an action) are key to designing interventions to change intentions and behaviour. The literature reports four methods for assessing the importance of attitudinal beliefs: frequency of elicitation in interviews, importance ratings in questionnaires, and strength of prediction (bivariate and multivariate) of global attitude scores. The congruence between these measures of importance is not known. What does this study add? Four indices of importance were examined in a multi-professional, international study about the use of selective digestive decontamination to prevent infection in intensive care settings. Three indices were correlated with one another. Each method used to assess importance produced a different subset of the most important beliefs. Selection of the most important beliefs should use multiple assessment methods. This evidence suggests that multiple regression approaches may not be appropriate as the sole method for assessing belief importance.
Enhancing Helping Behavior: An Integrative Framework for Promotion Planning

Charitable organizations play a vital role in our society, as is evidenced by their enormous economic and social impact. Yet, for many of them, soliciting adequate resources to carry out their mandates is a continuing struggle. Confronted with a growing need for their services, fierce competition from other charities, and shrinking support from government agencies, charities may turn to marketers for help in developing effective promotional strategies. Unfortunately, marketing literature is unable to provide meaningful guidance because scant research attention has hampered a fuller understanding of why people help. The authors integrate relevant research in marketing, economics, sociology, and social psychology to advance theoretical understanding of helping behavior. They develop research propositions regarding specific promotional strategies that charitable organizations can employ to elicit help.
Detailed Energy Audit of Thermal Power Plant Equipment

Energy audit is a technique developed to reduce unnecessary usage of energy, control and also streamline processes leading to energy efficiency. Energy audit and its impact on a daily basis is high and hence is of good significance. Energy Conservation over the years has been a key in terms of saving excessive bills and building up unnecessary usage both domestically and industrially. The world is not completely energy efficient yet, it should be a made sure that the process to ensure optimum usage and saving wherever possible. In this paper we shall discuss in brief about energy audit in a thermal power plant, techniques and ways data are obtained. India’s strive for complete energizing is yet on the verge of completion, need for saving unused energy and also recovering waste energy can be beneficial in developing an energy content environment. The energy audit carried out in thermal power plant gives a presentation of the data and corners of collecting data. Keyword: Energy Audit, Thermal Power Plant, Pump Audit, Energy Conservation, Transformer Audit, Motor Audit, Lighting Audit
Role of Corporate Governance in Organization

Following the great financial infamy in big companies, like Enron, World Com, Adelphi, Cisco and …, one of the most issues noticed by researchers and suggested from investors is Corporate Governance, addressing the need for company management control, dividing economical unit from its ownership and improving the performance of the board of managers, auditors, accounting system, internal control, and finally maintaining investors and stakeholders’ rights. Using better managers in companies results in improvement of their performance, leading to stockholders rights too; consequently financial yields will be increased and company control will be better performed. Corporate Governance importance in the world is at some extent that Standard & Poors institute has introduced following multiple criteria to measure corporate governance status: ownership structure, financial stockholders relationships, structure and how- to- act of the board of managers, and clearance and disclosure of the information. Due to the issue importance, this article will define the corporate governance and its conceptual framework, types of existed theories, types of the corporate governance, and comparing them with each others as well as attempting to develop corporate governance.
Sport fan maximizing: following the best team or being the best fan?

Purpose – The purpose of these studies is to determine how maximizing sport fans seek optimal outcomes through team identification. Maximizers seek optimal outcomes but do not always obtain them. This may be particularly true of sport fans, who often identify with teams for reasons that run deeper than team success. Maximizing fans may be more concerned with being the best fans than following the best teams. Design/methodology/approach – In Study 1, the authors measured maximizing tendency and identification with participants’ favorite National Football League (NFL) teams. The authors then used moderated regression to predict identification levels from the interaction of maximizing and the historical win–loss records of these teams. In Study 2, the authors manipulated team success by providing participants either an optimistic or pessimistic preview of their college basketball team’s upcoming season. The authors measured maximizing tendency as a moderator of this relationship and identification with the c.
Adaptation and Evaluation of a Semantic Similarity Measure for DBPedia: A First Experiment

Semantic similarity measures aim at computing a value that represents to what extent two semantic resources are similar. This paper proposes an extension of a semantic similarity measure for large linked data sources such as DBPedia. In order to evaluate and compare similarity measures, an experiment is described to collect human evaluations of the similarity between pairs of movies. A correlation of 0.69 is observed between the human ratings and the results of the semantic similarity measure.
Functional enrichment analysis of miR-203 apoptosis-implicated target genes

MicroRNAs are non-coding RNA molecules that regulate the protein coding messenger RNA genes. The understanding of microRNA-RNA binding pair is important in molecular biology and molecular therapy. In this study, functional enrichment analysis was employed to study the miR-203 target genes which are implicated in apoptosis. The obtained results will improve the understanding of the pathogenic regulatory mechanism of miR-203.
Minimizing Drift in monocular SLAM real time systems

Cameras have gained a great interest as sensors for the robotic research community, because they yield a lot of information. Cameras are well adapted for embedded systems; they are light, cheap and power saving. As the computational power grows, an inexpensive camera can be used to perform range and appearance-based sensing simultaneously, replacing typical sensors as laser and sonar rings for range measurement and encoders for dead reckoning. In the last years, several advances have appeared in this area; nevertheless the application of these techniques, when the robot moves far away from its initialization point, returning by a different path (closing loops problem), is probably the principal challenge nowadays. The current techniques have addressed the problem in a sole stochastic estimation process. In this paper, a distributed approach is proposed, in order to minimize the map and robotpsilas trajectory drift inherent to real time monocular SLAM systems.
User Profiling for Query Refinement

Query refinement is a famous technique which helps users to issue more effective queries. However, current query refinement techniques reply the same candidate query list to users who issue the same query without considering their diverse search interests. In this paper, we propose a novel framework of user profiling -modeling the user’s interests at the task level for query refinement to improve the ranking of the refined queries, and thus, ultimately improve the ranking of the relevant search results. Our approach incorporates the LDA model to extract topic-based user’s interests from search sessions and search tasks, a four-descriptor to learn users’ long-term and short-term interests, and a module for task identification and update. Experimental results show that our task-based user profiling method contributes to an increased precision, and it produces more accurate alternative queries.
An Experimental Digital VCR For Consumer Use

An experimental digital VCR (DVCR hereinafter) was developed. The DVCR has two new technologies for reduction of tape consumption. One is a bit rate reduction technology of a component video signal down to around 25 Mbps and the other is a high density recording technology. The bit rate reduction technology is based on an 8/spl times/8/2/spl times/4/spl times/8 two dimensional DCT (Discrete Cosine Transform) and a VLC (Variable Length Coding) that completes over 5 macro blocks. Editing, trick plays and invisible error concealments also have been realized by this bit rate reduction while keeping the playback picture quality very high. The high density recording technology is based on ME tape and an ATF (Automatic Track Finding) system. A track pitch of 10 /spl mu/m and a bit length on tape of 0.25 /spl mu/m have been realized. The possibility of a higher linear recording density has been confirmed through theoretical analysis, simulations and experiments. >
Lumbar Fusion Results Related to Diagnosis

Study Design. Pain outcome and functional outcome after primary lumbar fusion surgery were determined by a self‐assessment questionnaire. The responses were correlated with various clinical parameters. Objectives. To determine the result of fusion surgery among patients in various diagnostic groups using semiquantitative outcome scales. Summary of Background Data. Most previous studies on the results of primary lumbar fusion have reported the presence of pain, but few have addressed function outcomes. Results of a literature review were inconclusive as to whether a patient's diagnosis is a predictor of improved results. Methods. During the 3‐year period from 1988 to 1990, 165 patients underwent a primary lumbar fusion procedure. They had a chart and radiograph review and were categorized into five major diagnostic groups: 1) pediatric, 2) grade I‐II spondylolisthesis (low‐slip), 3) grade III‐IV spondylolisthesis (high‐slip), 4) degenerative disc disease, and 5) postdiscectomy. At a follow‐up period of 5 years (mean) after the fusion, patients were mailed a questionnaire in which they described their pain and functional status before and after their lumbar fusion surgery. Questionnaires were returned by 92% of the patients. The questionnaire scores, complications, and revision procedures were grouped by patient diagnosis and analyzed. Results. Patient satisfaction with the results of primary lumbar fusion ranged from 69% (for the postdiscectomy group) to 100% (for the pediatric and high‐slip groups). For all diagnostic groups, lumbar fusion resulted in a significant decrease in back pain and leg pain (visual analog scale), which was maintained throughout the follow‐up period. For back pain, the pediatric and high‐slip groups showed significantly more improvement than the degenerative disc disease or postdiscectomy groups. Leg pain among patients in the pediatric and high‐slip groups was significantly more improved than leg pain among patients in the low‐slip, degenerative disc disease, or postdiscectomy groups. There was no deterioration of pain scores during the follow‐up period. After fusion, all groups had a significant decrease in Oswestry disability scores; patients in the pediatric and high‐slip group had significantly more improvement than patients in the degenerative disc disease or postdiscectomy groups. High‐ and low‐slip groups had a significant improvement in their pain drawing score. Medication use was substantially reduced in all groups. After fusion, a lack of improvement in back pain score or disability score was significantly correlated with pseudarthrosis. Conclusions. The outcome of primary lumbar fusion surgery was decreased pain and increased function for the majority of patients in all five diagnostic categories. The amount of improvement varied by diagnostic group. Patients with developmental conditions showed greater improvement than patients with degenerative conditions.
Actor Positioning with Minimal Movement in Wireless Sensor and Actor Networks

This paper proposes an algorithm that relocates actors to appropriate positions in order for them to act as cluster heads (CHs) with minimal movement in a clustered sensor network. The proposed algorithm assigns actors to target positions in the cluster center (CC). The CC is an area where the transmission ranges of a CH and its neighboring sensors are overlapped. The proposed algorithm first computes a CC in a cluster and then designates the closest point from an actor in the CC as a target position. At the target position, a relocated actor establishes direct links with all neighbors of a CH in order to substitute for the CH. The target position is located on the boundary of the CC, whereas the CH position is inside the region. Therefore, the actor reduces the movement distance required to become a CH when it moves to the target position rather than to the CH position. In the simulation, our proposed algorithm is compared with the existing algorithm that places the actor at the CH position. The results of the simulation show that our algorithm reduces the movement distance by 12.7% compared with that of contemporary scheme.
Making Smart IT Choices Understanding Value and Risk in Government IT Investments

Why evaluate information technology (IT) choices? Because IT innovation is risky business in every organization. The public policy choices and public management processes that are part of government make it an especially difficult environment for IT managers. These layers of complexity present a daunting challenge to public managers who are responsible for choosing, funding, and building IT innovations.
The Density of Peptides Displayed by Dendritic Cells Affects Immune Responses to Human Tyrosinase and gp100 in HLA-A2 Transgenic Mice1

Several HLA-A*0201-restricted peptide epitopes that can be used as targets for active immunotherapy have been identified within melanocyte differentiation proteins. However, uncertainty exists as to the most effective way to elicit CD8+ T cells with these epitopes in vivo. We report the use of transgenic mice expressing a derivative of HLA-A*0201, and dendritic cells, to enhance the activation of CD8+ T cells that recognize peptide epitopes derived from human tyrosinase and glycoprotein 100. We find that by altering the cell surface density of the immunizing peptide on the dendritic cells, either by pulsing with higher concentrations of peptide, or by changing the MHC-peptide-binding affinity by generating variants of the parent peptides, the size of the activated CD8+ T cell populations can be modulated in vivo. Significantly, the density of peptide that produced the largest response was less than the maximum density achievable through short-term peptide pulsing. We have also found, however, that while some variant peptides are effective at eliciting both primary and recall CD8+ T cell responses that can recognize the parental epitope, other variant epitopes lead to the outgrowth of CD8+ T cells that only recognize the variant. HLA-A*0201 transgenic mice provide an important model to define which peptide variants are most likely to stimulate CD8+ T cell populations that recognize the parental, melanoma-specific peptide.