Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cloning of the genes for AF/R1 pili from rabbit enteroadherent Escherichia coli RDEC-1 and DNA sequence of the major structural subunit

AF/R1 pili on the surface of Escherichia coli RDEC-1 promote attachment of the bacteria to rabbit intestinal brush borders. In order to characterize AF/R1 pili and manipulate their expression, we cloned the genes necessary for AF/R1 expression; determined the size of proteins produced in minicells; located the gene encoding the major structural subunit, named AfrA; and determined the DNA sequence of afrA as well as the sequence of 700 additional nucleotides upstream of afrA. Two contiguous EcoRI fragments spanning 7.9 kilobases were cloned from the 86-megadalton plasmid of RDEC-1 into vector pUC19 to make plasmid pW1. Bacteria carrying pW1 produced AF/R1 pili that were recognized by AF/R1-specific antiserum and promoted adherence of bacteria to brush borders prepared from rabbit intestine. Proteins with a molecular weight of 17,000 (17K proteins), which was the size of AfrA, as well as 15K, 15.5K, 26K, 28K, and 80K proteins were detected in minicells carrying pW1. The gene afrA was located by using an oligonucleotide probe, and its DNA sequence was determined. The DNA sequence of 700 additional nucleotides upstream was determined because this sequence may be important in the regulation of AF/R1 expression.
Traumatic brain injury and concussion in sports.

The applicability of these findings is obscured by the different entry criteria of the various studies and the ongoing confusion that arises when studies of recurrent AOM are compared with COME. Is OM 1 disease with 2 faces—acute and chronic—or does the pathophysiology of recurrent AOM and COME differ sufficiently to preclude such comparisons? The debate undoubtedly will continue for a long time. Where, then, does this leave parents of children with recurrent AOM? Clearly, parents shoulder the burden of care of fretful infants and children who cannot sleep due to ear pain, and they incur costs that far exceed health care expenditures. 19 Are there subgroups of children who are severely affected with OM for whom aggressive therapy is appropriate? If so, how can these cases be identified? Children younger than age 4 years are at the greatest risk of recurrent AOM, and adenoidectomy performed by experienced clinicians has been shown to be safe in this patient group. 20 However, the effectiveness of adenoidectomy in preventing recurrent AOM has not been studied in this age group. As the incidence of AOM due to resistant organisms increases, outcomes research and effectiveness clinical trials should focus on this problem. In selected cases of recurrent AOM with multiple risk factors, early adenoidectomy and tympanostomy tube placement might prove to be the most rational therapy. However, such a hypothesis must await validation by further research. For now, physicians should rely on environmental control, vaccines, and episodic antimicrobial therapy for prevention and treatment, with tympanostomy tube placement and selected use of adenoidectomy when nonoperative therapy fails.
Capital Structure and Profitability in the Australian Service-Sector Firms: A Panel Data Analysis

The relationship between capital structure and firm performance has been examined in different countries for decades. The current study is aimed to extend this body of research to include the Australian service-sector. Using cross sectional panel data from 63 Australian listed companies over three years (2012-2014), this study examines how profitability or firm performance is affected by capital structure (debt/equity) choices. The current study is different from past studies in that growth of assets and revenues are used as two new control variables along with the other commonly used control variable, size. The panel data regression finds that short-term debt dominates debt choices of Australian service-sector companies. The finding is, to some extent, similar to trends in debt financed operations observed in companies in developed and developing countries. The finding is unexpected as the sectoral and institutional borrowing rules and regulations are different in Australia are different from the companies in other parts of the world.
Accuracy and bandwidth investigation of shifted frequency internal equivalence in 2D

In this paper, two-dimensional electromagnetic problems are solved with the shifted frequency internal equivalence (SFIE) principle. Accuracy and bandwidth of the solutions are assessed by making comparisons to traditional moment method calculations and analytical solutions when available. Homogeneous and inhomogeneous dielectric scatterers of different sizes are solved, near fields and scattered far fields are compared. It is shown that SFIE gives accurate results within a very wide frequency band. Computational time for multifrequency analysis is also reduced significantly by using SFIE.
Optimisation of Distributive Logistics Flows in Multidivisional Firms: The Case of the Ceramic Tiles Industry

The management of internal distributive logistics can be a major issue for modern firms and can have a significant impact on the profitability of companies. An operational analysis tool is developed for the management of the internal shipment of finished goods in multidivisional companies where there is a high level of inter-plant freight transfer activity. In order to optimise this management, the Total Distributive Cost (TDC) related to finished-good transfer has to be minimised. The fundamental cost factors which make up the TDC and which depend on the shipments policy adopted, are first identified (direct transfer costs, indirect warehousing costs and logistics costs related to the service level provided to final customers). A study is made of when these factors occur and their effects upon total distributive cost. The TDC is then minimised, optimally balancing shipping parameters, in other words the time interval between consecutive shipments and the dimensional threshold for direct forwarding of orders. The methodology is finally applied to a representative case of a multidivisional firm operating in the ceramic tiles sector. The results obtained show that significant improvement to the actual TDC value can be achieved using optimal logistics parameters. Although the case analysed has some peculiarities, the methodology proposed is of a general nature and can be applied successfully to other industrial fields with similar logistics characteristics.
Enhanced Cloud Service Discovery for Naive users with Ontology based Representation

Service discovery is one of the major challenges in cloud computing environment with a large number of service providers and heterogeneous services. Non-uniform naming conventions, varied types and features of services make cloud service discovery a grueling problem. With the proliferation of cloud services, it has been laborious to find services, especially from Internet-based service repositories. To address this issue, services are crawled and clustered according to their similarity. The clustered services are maintained as a catalogue in which the data published on the cloud provider’s website are stored in a standard format. As there is no standard specification and a description language for cloud services, new efficient and intelligent mechanisms to discover cloud services are strongly required and desired. This paper also proposes a key-value representation to describe cloud services in a formal way and to facilitate matching between offered services and demand. Since naive users prefer to have a query in natural language, semantic approaches are used to close the gap between the ambiguous user requirements and the service specifications. Experimental evaluation measured in terms of precision and recall of retrieved services shows that the proposed approach outperforms existing methods.
Initial ACT-R Extensions for User Modeling in the Mobile Touchscreen Domain | NIST

Advances in mobile touchscreen computing offer new opportunities to test traditional cognitive architectures and modeling tools in a novel task domain. ACT-Touch, an extension of the ACT-R 6 (Adaptive Control of ThoughtRational) cognitive architecture, seeks to update and expand methods for modeling touch and gesture in today’s increasingly mobile computing environment. ACT-Touch adds new motor movement styles to the existing ACT-R architecture (such as tap, swipe, pinch, reverse-pinch and rotate gestures) and also includes a simulated multi-touch touchscreen device with which models may interact. An ACT-Touch model was constructed to explore the nature of human errors qualitatively observed during previously conducted formative usability testing, where participants occasionally missed taps on a particular interface button while completing a biometric sensor configuration task on a tablet computer. Due to features unique to the mobile touchscreen environment—finger size relative to target size—these objectively small errors in motor movement combined with interface usability issues to produce disproportionately large effects on cognition and task performance. This finding improved both the interface (practical application) and the model (theory).
Bitcoin Protocol Main Threats

In this paper we explain the basics of Bitcoin protocol and the state of the art of the main attacks to it. We first present an overview of digital currencies, showing what they are and the social need they aim to satisfy. We then focus on the main digital currency up to date, Bitcoin. We treat the basics of the protocol showing what are addresses and transactions and how they are used in a distributed consensus protocol to build the blockchain. After that the main part of this paper presents the state of the art of the three main attacks on the protocol: fraudulent mining techniques, double spending attempts and deanonymization attacks.
Warrant-Based Evaluation of Corporate Top Management Motivation

The majority of present-day investigators have come to the general consensus, according to which for an objective evaluation of the top management activities in a company, it is imperative that the results of their performance be evaluated by the market, rather than by the subjective human factor (in the person of the same top managers). With all attractiveness of evaluating top-managers' motivation through the use of warrants, it is evident that this motivation, as any other, must have a certain value for the company that needs to be pre-evaluated. In order to valuate European options, the Black-Scholes model is used in most cases since it provides a conservative, i.e. lowest, option value. However, for more realistic corporate business presentation, a model with dividends for a European-type warrant should be used. In such a case, the warrant and stock values can be theoretically adjusted until the warrant value has become equal to zero. The stock value, however, will significantly decrease as compared to the original market value. But in actual practice, markets ineffectually respond to issuing warrants by companies; therefore, the stock value declines in a minor way. You may wish to decide upon that adjustment of the fair stock price, which would be following the first specification of the fair warrant price. In this case, the price of motivating top managers using warrants is calculated through multiplying the magnitude of reduction in the stock value by the number of the company shares in circulation.
Using Scenarios and vignettes in Cross-Cultural Business Communication Instruction

VIGNETTES OR SCENARIOS are particularly effective tools for instruction in cross-cultural business communication and negotiations. Scenarios are short descriptions of situations which in themselves illustrate a conflict or concept sufficiently to provoke the reader or viewer into self-recognition.Vignettes are the filmed enactment of such scenarios. Because scenarios are short, they can readily fit into even fairly crowded training sessions or classroom schedules. Scenarios frequently illustrate very specific cross-cultural business communication principles. In this respect, they serve the same function as a story that a trainer or professor might
The proposition and application of the orthogonal regression experiment design in the ergonomics study of the interface design

This paper firstly analyzes the limitations of the traditional ergonomic experimentation, and for the limitations, put forward orthogonal regression experiment by the combination of the advantages and disadvantages of each two commonly portion experimentation: orthogonal experimental design and regression experimental design. Finally, use an interface design experiment example to illustrate the application of the orthogonal regression experiment design in the interface design, and also provide reference for the application of this field.
An extended VRIO model as a framework for sustainable tourism planning

The management of resources by a tourism destination is of crucial importance for sustainable tourism development. The Resource-based View, a relevant school of strategic thought, offers a conceptual model for the analysis of organizational resources. This paper proposes to extend this model to the sustainability of tourist destinations. That is, assuming the VRIO model, and recognizing its usefulness as a tool for resource analysis, we introduce the sustainability dimension. The VRISO(S) model proposed here is intended as a starting point for discussion about the management of tourism resources in the context of sustainable development and competitive advantage to be undertaken by Destination Management Organizations.
The Price Bundling of Services: A Normative Framework

As product lines have broadened in many industries (particularly service industries), the use of mixed price bundling has increased. In mixed price bundling, a firm offers its customers the choice of buying one or more products/services individually or of buying a “bundle” of two or more products or services at a special discount. The author presents a normative framework for selecting appropriate types of services for different mixed-bundling discount forms. The framework extends the economic theory of bundling (which historically has been applied to tie-in sales) to permit explicit consideration of different types of complementarity relationships and strategic marketing objectives.
The Usage of Failure Modes and Effects Analysis Technique while Process Improvement in Managerial Accounting Courses

Failure mode and effect analysis is a widely accepted and useful technique for the practitioners, which explicitly exposes the failures and their mod in a specific system, besides the technique critically analyses the relationship between the causes and effect of the failures. In this study, it is tried to draw a framework for process improvement in managerial accounting courses by using FMEA model. FMEA is used for identifying the risk factors and determining the risk priority numbers of the potential risks in terms functional and characteristic bases. In the study, most risky main factor (subject) in managerial accounting courses was “Measuring relevant costs and revenues for decision making”. This main factor includes of three sub-factors respectively; lack of analytic abilities, lack of managerial thinking, lack of fundamental accounting capabilities. These three sub-factors are subjected to the process improvement; reminding of mathematical rules, reminding of basic managerial subjects and reminding of basic accounting principles. Additionally, more questions are solved during the course about the subject. This first step improvement positively affected the success of students. In the light of actual improvement an estimation of further improvement results projected at the end of the study. Hence this study a framework is drawn for improvement in managerial accounting courses which can be modified to the other courses easly for risk assements and the improvements. It is believed that study can increase the academicians’ knowledge (for increasing efficiency in the courses) and control capacity.
MINIREVIEW—EXPLORING THE BIOLOGY OF GPCRS: FROM IN VITRO TO IN VIVO

G protein–coupled receptor (GPCR) structural biology has progressed dramatically in the last decade. There are now over 120 GPCR crystal structures deposited in the Protein Data Bank of 32 different receptors from families scattered across the phylogenetic tree, including class B, C, and Frizzled GPCRs. These structures have been obtained in combination with a wide variety of ligands and captured in a range of conformational states. This surge in structural knowledge has enlightened research into the molecular recognition of biologically active molecules, the mechanisms of receptor activation, the dynamics of functional selectivity, and fueled structure-based drug design efforts for GPCRs. Here we summarize the innovations in both protein engineering/molecular biology and crystallography techniques that have led to these advances in GPCR structural biology and discuss how they may influence the resulting structural models. We also provide a brief molecular pharmacologist’s guide to GPCR X-ray crystallography, outlining some key aspects in the process of structure determination, with the goal to encourage noncrystallographers to interrogate structures at the molecular level. Finally, we show how chemogenomics approaches can be used to marry the wealth of existing receptor pharmacology data with the expanding repertoire of structures, providing a deeper understanding of the mechanistic details of GPCR function.
MOSFET degradation due to hot-carrier effect at high frequencies

Hot-carrier-induced degradation due to AC stress on short-channel MOSFETs is discussed. It is observed that pulsed gate voltage stressing with a short falltime (0.7 ns) can cause additional lifetime degradation in the form of drain-current reduction. The AC-enhanced degradation is more pronounced at higher frequencies. <<ETX>>
A parameter identification method of horizontal robot arms

ロボットアームに対する高度な制御システムとシミュレーションシステムを開発するためには, 動特性モデルの正確な同定法を確立する必要がある. ロボットアームの動特性モデルのパラメータは, リンク長, 重心位置, リンク質量, 重心回りのイナーシャ, 粘性摩擦およびクーロン摩擦から成る. しかしながら, これらのパラメータを個別に評価する必要はない. 何故ならば, 運動方程式の中に表われる結合された係数が得られれば, これらの係数だけを使って, 制御やシミュレーションができる. 本論文において, 粘性摩擦とクーロン摩擦が電流と角速度間の関係を測定することによって求められることを示す. 次に, 各関節の剛性に原因して発生する機械共振から導かれる慣性項の有効な同定法を提案している.
Empirical studies on audit quality in the Belgian market for audit services

• A submitted manuscript is the version of the article upon submission and before peer-review. There can be important differences between the submitted version and the official published version of record. People interested in the research are advised to contact the author for the final version of the publication, or visit the DOI to the publisher's website. • The final author version and the galley proof are versions of the publication after peer review. • The final published version features the final layout of the paper including the volume, issue and page numbers.
Preliminary results of integrated therapy for patients with knee osteoarthritis.

OBJECTIVE To investigate the effects of integrated therapy on the functional status of patients with knee osteoarthritis (OA). METHODS A total of 140 subjects with bilateral knee OA (Altman grade II) were randomized sequentially into 4 groups (groups I-IV). Group I received isokinetic exercises; group II received isokinetic exercise and pulse ultrasound for periarticular soft tissue pain; group III received isokinetic exercise, pulse ultrasound, and intraarticular hyaluronan therapy; and group IV acted as the control group. The therapeutic effects of the interventions were evaluated by changes in Lequesne's index, knee range of motion, peak muscle torques of knee flexion and extension, and ambulation speed after 8 weeks of treatment and at followup 1 year later. In addition, changes in visual analog scale pain and rates of attrition in each group were also recorded. RESULTS Patients in groups I-III exhibited increased muscle peak torques and significantly reduced pain and disability after treatment and at followup. Groups II and III showed significant improvements in range of motion and ambulation speed after treatment. Group III also showed the greatest increase in walking speed and decrease in disability after treatment and at followup. Both group II and group III had significant gains in muscular strength after treatment and at followup; group III showed the greatest gains. CONCLUSION An integrated therapy deals with the extra- and intraarticular progressive pathologic changes, and kinesiologic management of OA is suggested for the management of knee OA.
De-anonymizing social graphs via node similarity

Recently, a number of anonymization algorithms have been developed to protect the privacy of social graph data. However, in order to satisfy higher level of privacy requirements, it is sometimes impossible to maintain sufficient utility. Is it really easy to de-anonymize "lightly" anonymized social graphs? Here "light" anonymization algorithms stand for those algorithms that maintain higher data utility. To answer this question, we proposed a de-anonymization algorithm based on a node similarity measurement. Using the proposed algorithm, we evaluated the privacy risk of several "light" anonymization algorithms on real datasets.
Improving Robustness of Biometric Identity Determination with Digital Watermarking

The determination of an identity from noisy biometric measurements is a continuing challenge. In many applications, such as identity-based encryption, the identity needs to be known with virtually 100% certainty. The determination of identities with such precision from face images taken under a wide range of natural situations is still an unsolved problem. We propose a digital watermarking based method to aid face recognizers to tackle this problem in applications. In particular, we suggest embedding multiple face dependent watermarks into an image to serve as expert knowledge on the corresponding identities to identity-based schemes. This knowledge could originate, for example, from the tagging of those people on a social network. In our proposal, a single payload consists of a correction vector that can be added to the extracted biometric template to compile a nearly noiseless identity. It also supports the removal of a person from the image. If a particular face is censored, the corresponding identity is also removed. Based on our experiments, our method is robust against JPEG compression, image filtering, and occlusion and enables a reliable determination of an identity without side information.
Use of social accountability tools and information technologies in monitoring and evaluation

This note attempts to cover the basic concepts relating to the use of social accountability and information technology to monitor and evaluate public services and other governance processes that affect citizens. With the help of simple though practical examples that use these concepts, the note explains how to bring a qualitative change in monitoring and evaluation by making the whole process more citizen centered and outcome oriented. In turn, these practices can help improve the quality of service delivery. The note also covers a few country-specific initiatives from India to support the related arguments.
Once- versus twice-weekly bortezomib induction therapy with CyBorD in newly diagnosed multiple myeloma.

To the editor: After observing high response rates in relapsed multiple myeloma (MM) patients,[1][1] we examined a 3-drug combination of bortezomib, cyclophosphamide, and dexamethasone (CyBorD) in newly diagnosed symptomatic patients. This phase 2 trial was open at Mayo Clinic Arizona and Princess