Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Multiple Case Narrative: A qualitative approach to studying multiple populations

This book introduces a methodology for the construction of a comprehensive narrative description and narrative-based theory from the study of multiple populations. The book has two parallel foci. On the one hand, it is a conceptual treatise, focusing on the principles of the Multiple Case Narrative. On the other hand, it also has a practical “how-to” focus with a step-by-step guide to conducting a Multiple Case Narrative. The book is accessible and comprehensive and addresses both those in the field as well as those with little background in the methodologies of narrative study and qualitative research.This book is also relevant to those who are interested in other qualitative varieties like single and collective narrative inquiry, single and collective case study, as well as ethnography, because each of the procedures and techniques described here can be easily utilized for conducting other types of qualitative research.
The Role of Intellectual Capital in Mexican Family-Based Businesses: Understanding their Soul, Brain and Heart

This paper attempts to highlight a key source of intangible value (i.e., intellectual capital) for family-based businesses. By reviewing the merger and acquisition activity of four Mexican cases, an analysis of the consideration of various intangible assets is conducted. Consequently, we introduce the term intellectual capital in family businesses (ICFB) and define it as a sum of a set of quantitative and qualitative intangible assets affecting overall business performance. A metaphor for diagnosing the qualitative intangible assets for family businesses is then suggested encompassing a firm's soul (human capital), brain (structural capital) and heart (relational capital).
Prevalence and Distribution of High-Risk Genotypes of HPV in Women with Severe Cervical Lesions in Madrid, Spain: Importance of Detecting Genotype 16 and Other High-Risk Genotypes

Background. Persistent infection with high-risk human papillomavirus (HR-HPV) has been demonstrated to be the necessary causal factor for developing cervical cancer. To know the most prevalent HR-HPV in different geographical areas is important to design diagnostic tests and implementation of vaccines. Objectives. The goal of this study is to evaluate the prevalence of HR-HPV in a total of 1001 patients, 198 with normal cytology results, 498 with low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (LSIL), and 205 with high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (HSIL) who attended our gynaecology department for opportunistic screening of HPV infection. Study design. Cervical samples were taken in a PreservCyt vial (Cytyc Corporation, Boxborough, MA). Hybrid capture assay was carried out following the manufacturer's instructions (Digene Corp., Gaithersburg, MD). All samples were further studied with polymerase chain reaction (PCR) (Linear Array HPV Genotyping Test, Roche Diagnostics, Mannheim, Germany). Results. Genotype 16 was the most prevalent HR-HPV in the three groups, 17.8% in the patients with normal cytology results, 22.3% in the LSIL group, and 60% in the HSIL group. Genotype 18 had a very low prevalence in all groups. Other HR-HPV genotypes such as genotype 31, genotype 58 and genotype 52 were found in significant numbers in HSIL patients. Discussion. Our data show that genotypes 16, 31, 58, and 52 are the most prevalent HR-HPV in cervical samples with severe intraepithelial lesion in Spain. There may be some geographical variation in prevalence of carcinogenic types, and it must be considered for designing diagnostic tests and vaccine.
Child Welfare and the Courts

ABSTRACT This exploratory study focuses on the relationships between professionals working in the juvenile dependency system, including judicial officers, attorneys, social workers, and court-appointed special advocates. It includes an examination of the quality of professional relationships, factors contributing to tensions, the consequences of difficult relationships, and strategies for improving relationships. It utilizes interviews and focus groups with professionals and focus groups with clients involved in the juvenile dependency system. The major findings address: (a) the nature and quality of professional relationships, (b) the structural and operational factors contributing to tension in those relationships, (c) client perceptions of professional relationships, and (d) respondent recommendations for improving professional relationships. This study is a contribution to the small but growing literature on the complexity of the interface between public child welfare services and the court system.
Escala de perceção dos alunos sobre o feedback dos professores: construção e validação

O presente estudo procura testar as propriedades psicometricas de um questionario que avalia (a) percecao do aluno sobre o feedback do professor; a identificacao escolar do aluno; as trajetorias escolares (factos e expectativas) e; a percecao do aluno sobre o seu envolvimento escolar. O questionario foi aplicado a 1089 alunos dos 6o, 7o, 9o e 10o anos de escolaridade ( M =13.4, DP =1.7), sendo que 52% sao do sexo feminino. A amostra e composta por alunos essencialmente de nacionalidade portuguesa (95.9%). A partir dos resultados da analise factorial e seguindo o racional teorico, chegou-se a uma estrutura composta por oito dimensoes principais. O QFITE apresenta bons indices de consistencia interna, com sete das oito principais dimensoes a obterem valores entre . 77 e . 89. Assim, as analises psicometricas realizadas revelam valores satisfatorios, concluindo-se que o QFITE e um instrumento util e adequado para avaliar a identificacao escolar dos alunos, o envolvimento comportamental escolar, e as percecoes dos alunos sobre o feedback do professor. Palavras-chave: Feedback do Professor, Identificacao escolar, Envolvimento escolar
Tryptophan Availability Modulates Serotonin Release from Rat Hypothalamic Slices

Abstract: Application of a novel in vitro experimental system has allowed us to describe the relationship between tryptophan availability and serotonin release from rat hypothalamic slices. Superfusing hypothalamic slices with a physiologic medium containing l‐tryptophan (1, 2, 5, or 10 μM) caused dose‐dependent elevations in tissue tryptophan levels; the magnitude of the elevations produced by supplementing the medium with <5 μM tryptophan was within the physiologic range for rat brain tryptophan levels. Slice serotonin levels rose biphasically as the tryptophan concentration in the medium was increased. Superfusing the slices with medium supplemented with a low tryptophan concentration (1 or 2 μM) caused proportionally greater incremental changes in serotonin levels than the increases caused by further elevating the tryptophan concentration (5 or 10 μM). The spontaneous release of serotonin from the slices exhibited a dose‐dependent relationship with the tryptophan concentration of the super‐fusion medium. Electrically evoked serotonin release, which was calcium‐dependent and tetrodotoxin‐sensitive, also increased in proportion to the medium tryptophan concentration. These data suggest that the rate at which serotonin is released from hypothalamic nerve terminals is coupled to brain tryptophan levels. Accelerations in hypothalamic serotonin synthesis, caused by elevating brain tryptophan levels, result in proportionate increases in the rates of serotonin release during rest and with membrane depolarization.
AUTOMATIC TRANSCRIPTION OF POLYPHONIC MUSIC BASED ON CONSTANT-Q BISPECTRAL ANALYSIS FOR MIREX 2009

This paper describes a new method submitted for MIREX 2009 task: Multiple Fundamental Frequency Estimation & Tracking. Specifically, it is submitted for the first two subtasks: frame by frame evaluation and event contour detection and tracking. In this framework [1], multiple-F0 estimation is carried out by means of a front-end that jointly uses a constant-Q and a bispectral (higher-order spectra) analysis of the input audio signal; subsequently, the processed signal is correlated with a fixed two-dimensional harmonic pattern. Onset and duration detection procedures are based on the combination of the constant-Q bispectral analysis with information from the signal spectrogram.
XMM-Newton observations of Nova LMC 2000

We report on three X-ray observations of Nova LMC 2000 with XMM-Newton at 17, 51 and 294 days after the maximum, respectively. X-ray spectral fits show a concordant decrease of the absorbing column and the X-ray luminosity. No supersoft X-ray emission is detected. The mass of the ejected shell is determined to be (less than) 7.5 × 10 −5 M⊙. Though data are sparse, one interesting correlation becomes visible: sources with a long-duration supersoft X-ray phase have shorter orbital periods than those with short or no supersoft X-ray phase. This can be understood considering that (i) enough matter has to be accreted in order to ignite the H burning, and (ii) that H burning ceases when the mass of the remaining material (after shell ejection and burning) drops below a certain limit under which the temperature at the bottom of the envelope is too low for the shell burning to compensate the energy loss from the surface.
Biological basis for virulence of three strains of herpes simplex virus type 1.

Herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) strains F, HF and HFEM were studied with respect to pathogenicity in mice and growth characteristics in vivo and in vitro compared to the neurovirulent HSV-1 strains 17 syn+ and KOS. All three viruses demonstrated reduced virulence in mouse brains and were completely avirulent after footpad inoculation. They were shown to express high levels of thymidine kinase activity. Investigations concerning the virulence phenotype indicated that the defect(s) in strains F, HF and HFEM related to general replication deficiency in mouse cells. It was also shown that although the replication restriction observed for strains F and HF was specific for murine cells, strain HFEM did not replicate well in any cell type tested. Additional studies indicated that the avirulence phenotype which followed peripheral inoculation was related to different genotypes, since strain F complemented HF and HFEM and, as expected, the latter two agents did not complement each other. All three agents were found to complement the non-neuroinvasive strain KOS. Finally, the data also show that two herpesviruses which are highly restricted in murine cells (e.g. strains F and HF) can still interact in the animal and produce a lethal infection.
Online security protocol for NFC mobile payment applications

Near Field Communication (NFC) is a short range wireless technology that allows exchange of data between devices communicating within a short distance. Recently, the NFC functionality has been integrated inside mobile devices to allow them act as identifiers for customers, credit cards, and access cards. Payment transaction using NFC-enabled Mobile devices is continuously increasing because of its speed, convenience, and ease of use. However, a widespread of NFC-based payment can be guaranteed, if and only if, the payment transactions are made in a secured wireless environment. Unfortunately, the Europay, Mastercard and Visa (EMV) protocol, which is currently used to provide the required security, has some serious vulnerabilities which could lead to obvious risks for users of NFC-based payments. This paper presents an effective solution to enhance the security of NFC payments by solving the vulnerabilities of the EMV protocol. The proposed protocol adds a security layer to the EMV protocol in order to ensure confidentiality of the transmitted banking data and to provide mutual authentication between the different actors of the NFC payment transactions.
Nearly Analytical Pose Estimation

This paper develops a new, nearly analytical method for pose estimation. Two steps are required: (1) solution of a least squares matrix problem, followed by projection of the solution onto the nearest scaled subunitary matrix, and (2) solution of a least squares vector problem, followed by projection onto the three dimensional special orthogonal group, SO(3). Although the method can be iterated when necessary, it achieves accuracy to standard stopping criteria with on average only one iteration; thus it can be considered nearly analytical. The method is compared to numerical methods and is shown to be much faster than earlier iterative methods. Both perspective and affine cameras models are treated.
Let's Get in the Mood: An Exploration of Data Mining Techniques to Predict Mood Based on Musical Properties of Songs

This thesis explores the possibility of predicting the mood a song will evoke in a person based on certain musical properties that the song exhibits. First, I introduce the topic of data mining and establish its significant relevance in this day and age. Next, I explore the several tasks that data mining can accomplish, and I identify classification and clustering as the two most relevant tasks for mood prediction based on musical properties of songs. Chapter 3 introduces in detail two specific classification techniques: Naive Bayes Classification and k-Nearest Neighbor Classification. Similarly, Chapter 4 introduces two specific clustering techniques: k-Means Clustering and k-Modes Clustering. Next, Chapter 5 implements these previously discussed classification and clustering techniques on a data set involving musical property combinations and mood, and makes conclusions about which musical property combinations will most likely evoke a happy, sad, calm, or agitated mood. It can be concluded very generally that songs that are in major keys, have consonant harmonies, faster tempos, and firm rhythms will most likely evoke a happy mood in a person. Songs that are in minor keys, have slower tempos, and firm rhythms will probably evoke a sad mood in a person. Songs that are in major keys and have flowing rhythms tend to evoke a calm mood in a person. And last but not least, songs that are in minor keys, have dissonant harmonies, and firm rhythms will evoke an agitated mood in a person.
Deep Trans-layer Unsupervised Networks for Representation Learning

Learning features from massive unlabelled data is a vast prevalent topic for high-level tasks in many machine learning applications. The recent great improvements on benchmark data sets achieved by increasingly complex unsupervised learning methods and deep learning models with lots of parameters usually requires many tedious tricks and much expertise to tune. However, filters learned by these complex architectures are quite similar to standard hand-crafted features visually. In this paper, unsupervised learning methods, such as PCA or auto-encoder, are employed as the building block to learn filter banks at each layer. The lower layer responses are transferred to the last layer (trans-layer) to form a more complete representation retaining more information. In addition, some beneficial methods such as local contrast normalization and whitening are added to the proposed deep trans-layer networks to further boost performance. The trans-layer representations are followed by block histograms with binary encoder schema to learn translation and rotation invariant representations, which are utilized to do high-level tasks such as recognition and classification. Compared to traditional deep learning methods, the implemented feature learning method has much less parameters and is validated in several typical experiments, such as digit recognition on MNIST and MNIST variations, object recognition on Caltech 101 dataset and face verification on LFW dataset. The deep trans-layer unsupervised learning achieves 99.45% accuracy on MNIST dataset, 67.11% accuracy on 15 samples per class and 75.98% accuracy on 30 samples per class on Caltech 101 dataset, 87.10% on LFW dataset.
Weaning to extubation directly from high-frequency oscillatory ventilation in an infant with cystic lung disease and persistent air leak: a strategy for lung protection.

We report the successful weaning and extubation of an infant from a SensorMedics 3100A high-frequency oscillator without returning to conventional ventilation. A 7-week-old term infant with respiratory syncytial virus bronchiolitis complicated by cystic pulmonary lesions repeatedly failed attempts to return to conventional ventilation from high-frequency oscillatory ventilation (HFOV) for weaning, because of recurrent pneumothoraces. A computed tomography of the chest revealed multiple well defined cysts of various sizes involving both lungs. Therefore, weaning to extubation from HFOV was proposed as a way of preventing further air leak. The weaning strategy consisted of a technique we refer to as "sprinting. " Using this method, the patient was successfully extubated directly from HFOV, with no complications. A follow-up computed tomography of the chest showed marked improvement in the size of the cystic lesions. The patient was discharged home with no need for home oxygen therapy.
Improved Authentication and Key Agreement Procedure in IP Multimedia Subsystem for UMTS

An IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) has been specified to provide multimedia services in 3GPP release5. In IP multimedia subsystem, both packet-switch domain and IMS authentications are necessary for the IMS subscriber. The IMS authentication is carried out by IMS authentication and key agreement (AKA). It is inefficient that there are so many steps in IMS AKA. Hence, this paper proposes an improved IMS AKA procedure, which can not only guarantee system security but also improve system performance.
Molecular evolution and host adaptation of Bordetella spp.: phylogenetic analysis using multilocus enzyme electrophoresis and typing with three insertion sequences

A total of 188 Bordetella strains were characterized by the electrophoretic mobilities of 15 metabolic enzymes and the distribution and variation in positions and copy numbers of three insertion sequences (IS). The presence or absence of IS elements within certain lineages was congruent with estimates of overall genetic relationships as revealed by multilocus enzyme electrophoresis. Bordetella pertussis and ovine B. parapertussis each formed separate clusters, while human B. parapertussis was most closely related to IS1001-containing B. bronchiseptica isolates. The results of the analysis provide support for the hypothesis that the population structure of Bordetella is predominantly clonal, with relatively little effective horizontal gene flow. Only a few examples of putative recombinational exchange of an IS element were detected. Based on the results of this study, we tried to reconstruct the evolutionary history of different host-adapted lineages.
Homology difference analysis of invasive mealybug species Phenacoccus solenopsis Tinsley in Southern China with COI gene sequence variability

Abstract The mealybug species Phenacoccus solenopsis (P. solenopsis) has caused much agricultural damage since its recent invasion in China. However, the source of this invasion remains unclear. This study uses molecular methods to clarify the relationships among different population of P. solenopsis from China, USA, Pakistan, India, and Vietnam to determine the geographic origin of the introduction of this species into China. P. solenopsis samples were collected from 25 different locations in three provinces of Southern China. Samples from the USA, Pakistan, and Vietnam were also obtained. Parts of the mitochondrial genes for cytochrome oxidase I (COI) were sequenced for each sample. Homologous DNA sequences of the samples from the USA and India were downloaded from Gen Bank. Two haplotypes were found in China. The first was from most samples from the Guangdong, Guangxi, and Hainan populations in the China and Pakistan groups, and the second from a few samples from the Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan populations in the China, Pakistan, India, and Vietnam groups. As shown in the maximum likelihood of trees constructed using the COI sequences, these samples belonged to two clades. Phylogenetic analysis suggested that most P. solenopsis mealybugs in Southern China are probably closely related to populations in Pakistan. The variation, relationship, expansion, and probable geographic origin of P. solenopsis mealybugs in Southern China are also discussed.
New concepts in diastolic dysfunction and diastolic heart failure: Part I: diagnosis, prognosis, and measurements of diastolic function.

There is growing recognition that congestive heart failure (CHF) caused by a predominant abnormality in diastolic function (ie, diastolic heart failure) is both common and causes significant morbidity and mortality. However, there is continued controversy surrounding the definition of diastolic dysfunction and the diagnostic criteria for diastolic heart failure. As a result, clinical therapeutic trials have been slow to develop and difficult to design. Fortunately, these controversies are yielding to an emerging consensus. Recent clinical studies have provided sufficient data to develop standardized diagnostic criteria to define diastolic heart failure.1–4⇓⇓⇓ Experimental studies have provided increased insight into the mechanisms that cause diastolic heart failure.5–22⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓ Together, these clinical and experimental studies are being used to design targeted clinical trials to test effective treatments for diastolic heart failure. The purpose of this 2-part article is to provide a perspective on these issues, highlight new research, and introduce emerging ideas. Part 1 will focus on the criteria used to diagnose diastolic heart failure, the effects of diastolic heart failure on prognosis, and measurements used to assess diastolic function. Part 2 will describe the mechanisms that cause diastolic heart failure and discuss approaches to treatment. ### Differentiating Diastolic Dysfunction From Diastolic Heart Failure Heart failure is a clinical syndrome characterized by symptoms and signs of increased tissue/organ water and decreased tissue/organ perfusion. Standardized criteria to diagnose heart failure have been developed, perhaps the best validated of which come from the Framingham Study.23 Definition of the mechanisms that cause this clinical syndrome requires measurement of both systolic and diastolic function. When heart failure is accompanied by a predominant or isolated abnormality in diastolic function, this clinical syndrome is called diastolic heart failure. Diastolic dysfunction refers to a condition in which …
Predicting Human Performance of Multiple-Target Search Using a Visual Lobe

This study is concerned with predicting human search performance using a visual lobe. The most previous studies on human performance in visual search have been limited to a single-target search. This study extended the visual search research to multiple-target search including targets of different types as well as targets of same types. A model for predicting visual search performance was proposed and the model was validated by human search data. Additionally, this study found that human subjects always did not use a constant ratio of the whole visual lobe size for each type of targets in visual search process. The more conspicuous the target is, the more ratio of the whole visual lobe size human subjects use. The model that can predict human performance in multiple-target search may facilitate visual inspection plan in manufacturing.