Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Examining ICT application adoption in Australian home-based businesses: An innovation-decision process approach

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to report on a study that examines an under-researched area, the use of information and communications technologies (ICT) in Australian home-based businesses (HBB). Design/methodology/approach – HBB constitute a large part of the economy, yet little is known of how they use ICT to improve their business operations. The study involved a case study comprising interviews with 30 business operators in the Western region of Melbourne, a major Australian city. The findings were analysed using a unique approach to Rogers’ (2003) Diffusion of Innovations, employing the innovation-decision process as a lens for the analysis. Findings – The study findings suggest that ICT application adoption in HBB participants is not uniform, with adoption of applications such as e-mail differing from adoption of newer applications, such as social networking. ICT use needs to be considered according to individual ICT applications and explained in the context of particular HBB. The study cont.
Lip Reading Deep Network Exploiting Multi-Modal Spiking Visual and Auditory Sensors

This work presents a lip reading deep neural network that fuses the asynchronous spiking outputs of two bio-inspired silicon multimodal sensors: the Dynamic Vision Sensor (DVS) and the Dynamic Audio Sensor (DAS). The fusion network is tested on the GRID visual-audio lipreading dataset. Classification is carried out using event-based features generated from the spikes of the DVS and DAS. Networks are trained separately on the two modalities and also jointly trained on both modalities. The jointly trained network when tested on DVS spike frames alone, showed a relative increase in accuracy of around 23% over that of the single DVS modality network.
Volume Bragg gratings as ultra-narrow and multiband optical filters

High efficiency volume Bragg gratings (VBGs) in photo-thermo-refractive (PTR) glass provide unmatched optical filtering capabilities with optical densities as high as 50 dB and linewidths as narrow as 1 cm-1. In this work we review recent advances in VBG technologies that enabled key improvements of high efficiency grating properties and led to development of unique VBG based optical filters for Raman spectroscopy and other applications. Such narrow band notch and bandpass filters make ultra-low frequency Raman measurements possible with single stage spectrometers, therefore, largely improving optical throughput of high end Raman instruments while reducing complexity of the measurements. In this work we also present novel volume multiplexed ultra-narrow band VBG filters with high reflection at multiple wavelengths. Such multiband holographic optical elements are formed by overlapping of several high efficiency VBGs in a single glass plate. Raman spectra obtained with multiband VBG filters and single stage spectrometers, show unmatched capability of the filters to provide simultaneous access to Stokes and anti-Stokes Raman modes with frequencies as low as 5 cm-1 at different wavelengths.
Inositol polyphosphates, diphosphoinositol polyphosphates and phosphatidylinositol polyphosphate lipids: structure, synthesis, and development of probes for studying biological activity.

Covering: 2006 up to June 2010, but also including representative examples of prior work Polyphosphorylated myo-inositol compounds, including the inositol polyphosphates (InsPs), diphosphoinositol polyphosphates (PP-InsPs), and phosphatidylinositol polyphosphates (PIPns), represent key biomolecules that regulate a litany of critical biological processes. These compounds exist with myriad combinations of phosphorylation patterns, resulting in a complex network of interconverting signaling molecules that control different events. Due to the significance and intricate nature of this molecular family, the elucidation of biological roles has elicited substantial interest in both the biochemical and chemical communities. Within this broad effort, strategies employing chemical synthesis for the production of both natural products and chemically modified structures have proven advantageous for determining activities. Herein, we will discuss recent advancements in these efforts, including (i) a brief overview of structure and biological activity, (ii) current methods for the chemical synthesis of phosphorylated myo-inositols, (iii) strategies for the design of biologically active probe structures, and (iv) case studies in which synthetic probes have been applied to characterize biological properties.
Capacity planning of mobile agent systems: designing efficient intranet applications

Mobile agents are a quite new and interesting paradigm for the implementation of distributed systems. As with most distributed systems, mobile agent applications are usually developed and installed without regarding performance aspects. Typically, methods and tools for capacity planning differ fundamentally from methods and tools for system development, thus system developers often avoid additional modelling and planning effort. This dissertation helps to solve this problem by presenting an approach to easy integrate performance modelling into the development process of mobile agent applications. Most mobile agent applications contain the same basic scenarios, which include stationary agents with the role of servers and mobile agents as clients. Based on these scenarios, this dissertation describes a new modelling approach and a methodology for capacity planning of mobile agent systems with an emphasis on intranet applications. The core idea of the new modelling approach is to directly integrate byte code of real agents in a simulation environment. Thus, it is not necessary to describe agents’ behaviour on a high abstraction level. Their behaviour results from their program code. To build performance models, a system developer mainly has to specify the infrastructure of the mobile agent system and parameters for time consumption. Moreover, this dissertation focuses on providing algorithms to increase the efficiency of simulation models of mobile agent systems. As existing approaches are not applicable to the presented modelling technique, new methods are developed which consider special features of mobile agent systems and which regard the objectives of this dissertation. A methodology for capacity planning of general heterogeneous IT systems is adjusted to mobile agent systems according to the developed modelling techniques. The modelling concepts and the methodology for capacity planning are first presented and explained. They are implemented using the mobile agent platform Tracy1 and the simulation package JavaDEMOS2. Finally, the applicability of these approaches are demonstrated by a realistic case study.
Laboratory and field methods for stable isotope analysis in human biology

Stable isotope analysis (SIA; carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, sulfur, and oxygen) of human tissues offers a means for assessing diet among living humans. Stable isotope ratios of broad categories of food and drink food vary systematically, and stable isotope ratios in consumer tissues represent a composite of the isotopic ratios of food and drink consumed during an individual's life. Isotopic evidence for diet is independent of errors in informant recall, and accrues during time periods when researchers are absent. Beyond diet reconstruction, tissue stable isotope ratios are sensitive to excursions from homeostasis, such as starvation and rapid growth. Because of their relationship to diet, geographic location, hydration, and nutritional status, stable isotope signatures in human tissues offer a window into human biocultural adaptations, past and present. This article describes methods for SIA that may be usefully applied in studies of living humans, with emphasis placed on carbon and nitrogen. Some of the ecological, physiological, and evolutionary applications of stable isotope data among living humans are discussed. By incorporating SIA in research, human biologists facilitate a productive dialog with bioarchaeologists, who routinely use stable isotope evidence, mingling different perspectives on human biology and behavior. Am. J. Hum. Biol. 27:593–604, 2015. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Poly(ADP-ribosylation) is present in murine sciatic nerve fibers and is altered in a Charcot-Marie-Tooth-1E neurodegenerative model

Background Poly-ADP-ribose (PAR) is a polymer synthesized by poly-ADP-ribose polymerases (PARPs) as a postranslational protein modification and catabolized mainly by poly-ADP-ribose glycohydrolase (PARG). In spite of the existence of cytoplasmic PARPs and PARG, research has been focused on nuclear PARPs and PAR, demonstrating roles in the maintenance of chromatin architecture and the participation in DNA damage responses and transcriptional regulation. We have recently detected non-nuclear PAR structurally and functionally associated to the E-cadherin rich zonula adherens and the actin cytoskeleton of VERO epithelial cells. Myelinating Schwann cells (SC) are stabilized by E-cadherin rich autotypic adherens junctions (AJ). We wondered whether PAR would map to these regions. Besides, we have demonstrated an altered microfilament pattern in peripheral nerves of Trembler-J (Tr-J) model of CMT1-E. We hypothesized that cytoplasmic PAR would accompany such modified F-actin pattern. Methods Wild-type (WT) and Tr-J mice sciatic nerves cryosections were subjected to immunohistofluorescence with anti-PAR antibodies (including antibody validation), F-actin detection with a phalloidin probe and DAPI/DNA counterstaining. Confocal image stacks were subjected to a colocalization highlighter and to semi-quantitative image analysis. Results We have shown for the first time the presence of PAR in sciatic nerves. Cytoplasmic PAR colocalized with F-actin at non-compact myelin regions in WT nerves. Moreover, in Tr-J, cytoplasmic PAR was augmented in close correlation with actin. In addition, nuclear PAR was detected in WT SC and was moderately increased in Tr-J SC. Discussion The presence of PAR associated to non-compact myelin regions (which constitute E-cadherin rich autotypic AJ/actin anchorage regions) and the co-alterations experienced by PAR and the actin cytoskeleton in epithelium and nerves, suggest that PAR may be a constitutive component of AJ/actin anchorage regions. Is PAR stabilizing the AJ-actin complexes? This question has strong implications in structural cell biology and cell signaling networks. Moreover, if PAR played a stabilizing role, such stabilization could participate in the physiological control of axonal branching. PARP and PAR alterations exist in several neurodegenerative pathologies including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Hungtington’s diseases. Conversely, PARP inhibition decreases PAR and promotes neurite outgrowth in cortical neurons in vitro. Coherently, the PARP inhibitor XAV939 improves myelination in vitro, ex vivo and in vivo. Until now such results have been interpreted in terms of nuclear PARP activity. Our results indicate for the first time the presence of PARylation in peripheral nerve fibers, in a healthy environment. Besides, we have evidenced a PARylation increase in Tr-J, suggesting that the involvement of cytoplasmic PARPs and PARylation in normal and neurodegenerative conditions should be re-evaluated.
Reproducibility and validity of a food-frequency questionnaire for use among low-income Brazilian workers

Abstract Objectives: To assess the reproducibility and validity a 127-item, habitual intake, food-frequency questionnaire (FFQ), developed for low-income and low-literacy Brazilian workers, by comparison with a 24-hour dietary recall (24-HDR). Design: The FFQ and 24-HDR were interviewer-administered at the local workplace to each subject twice, with a period of 6 months between estimates; and four 24-HDRs were conducted during the 4-month period between the two FFQs (FFQ1 and FFQ2). Reproducibility was tested by comparing mean nutrient intakes from the two FFQs. Validity was determined by comparing the mean nutrient intakes from the FFQs with the corresponding averages of the six 24-HDRs (reference method). Setting: Goiânia City, in Central West Brazil. Subjects: The study was based on 104 (62 women and 42 men) subjects, aged 18 to 60 years, who were randomly selected. Results: Dietary intake from the FFQ was higher than from the 24-HDR. Reproducibility was assessed by Pearson correlation coefficients for nutrients from FFQ1 and FFQ2, and ranged from 0.23 for retinol to 0.69 for total energy (mean 0.52). Intra-class coefficients for nutrients averaged by the 24-HDRs ranged from 0.29 for vitamin C to 0.76 for total energy; retinol was not significant. In the validation study, correlation between the FFQ and the 24-HDR ranged between 0.21 for vitamin C and 0.70 for total energy (mean 0.50). Adjusting for total energy lowered the coefficients, except for calcium, retinol and vitamin C. Coefficients increased with attenuation, ranging from 0.35 for carbohydrate to 0.65 for calcium. Conclusions: Results indicate that this questionnaire had satisfactory reproducibility and reasonable validity.
A log-linear discriminative modeling framework for speech recognition

Conventional speech recognition systems are based on Gaussian hidden Markov models (HMMs). Discriminative techniques such as log-linear modeling have been investigated in speech recognition only recently. This thesis establishes a log-linear modeling framework in the context of discriminative training criteria, with examples from continuous speech recognition, part-of-speech tagging, and handwriting recognition. The focus will be on the theoretical and experimental comparison of different training algorithms. Equivalence relations for Gaussian and log-linear models in speech recognition are derived. It is shown how to incorporate a margin term into conventional discriminative training criteria like for example minimum phone error (MPE). This permits to evaluate directly the utility of the margin concept for string recognition. The equivalence relations and the margin-based training criteria lead to a unified view of three major training paradigms, namely Gaussian HMMs, log-linear models, and support vector machines (SVMs). Generalized iterative scaling (GIS) is traditionally used for the optimization of log-linear models with the maximum mutual information (MMI) criterion. This thesis suggests an extension of GIS to log-linear models including hidden variables, and to other training criteria (e.g. MPE). Finally, investigations on convex optimization in speech recognition are presented. Experimental results are provided for a variety of tasks, including the European Parliament plenary sessions task and Mandarin broadcasts.
Susceptibility of Cerebellar Granule Neurons Derived from Bcl‐2‐Deficient and Transgenic Mice to Cell Death

Overproduced Bcl‐2 oncoprotein has been shown to suppress cell death induced by a variety of stimuli in many cell types, including neuronal cells. Because bcl‐2 is expressed in the nervous system where massive cell death is observed during development, endogenous Bcl‐2 is likely to be involved in regulating neuronal cell death. Here we examined the possible role of endogenous Bcl‐2 in the regulation of neuronal cell survival in the central nervous system using primary cultured cerebellar granule neurons from bcl‐2‐deficient, wild‐type and NSE‐bcl‐2‐ transgenic mice. Cerebellar granule neurons from bcl‐2‐deficient mice were more susceptible than those from normal littermates to death induced by reducing the K+ concentration of the medium from high (25 mM) to low (5 mM), and neurons from bcl‐2‐transgenic mice were least susceptible. Similar results were obtained when cell death was induced by serum withdrawal under high K+ conditions or by the presence of etoposide, A23187 or nimodipine. Consistently, bcl‐2 deficiency reduced the number of cerebellar granule neurons per mouse. These results indicate that Bcl‐2 impedes neuronal cell death induced by various stimuli in a dose‐dependent manner, and that endogenous levels of Bcl‐2 are able to regulate neuronal cell survival in the central nervous system.
Adaptive fuzzy sliding controller design with approximate error feedback

The research about sliding based approaches is a widely studied topic to the adaptive fuzzy control system designs. In this paper, a novel state error feedback sliding controller is proposed. An optimal feedback gain is required and in this study it is assumed to be unknown. Usually, a rudimentary feedback gain is used. Besides, in order to approximate the state error feedback sliding controller with the optimal feedback gain, an adaptive fuzzy system is employed. Thus, the proposed control scheme consists of an adaptive fuzzy system and a state error feedback sliding controller with a rudimentary feedback gain. In the system framework, the rudimentary state error feedback sliding controller can be viewed as the approximate error estimator of the adaptive fuzzy system. Therefore, such an estimated error can be fed back to the learning of the fuzzy system through a modified adaptive law. With such an approximate error feedback, it is clearly evident from our simulation that the learning speed of the proposed learning scheme is faster than that of the original scheme. Also, with the proposed controller, the system stability not only is guaranteed, but also becomes more stable.
Algebraic fault analysis of SHA-3

This paper presents an efficient algebraic fault analysis on all four modes of SHA-3 under relaxed fault models. This is the first work to apply algebraic techniques on fault analysis of SHA-3. Results show that algebraic fault analysis on SHA-3 is very efficient and effective due to the clear algebraic properties of Keccak operations. Comparing with previous work on differential fault analysis of SHA-3, algebraic fault analysis can identify the injected faults with much higher rates, and recover an entire internal state of the penultimate round with much fewer fault injections.
The Impact of Ovarian Stimulation on the Expression of Candidate Reprogramming Genes in Mouse Preimplantation Embryos

Ovarian stimulation with gonadotrophins is an integral part of assisted reproductive technologies in human subfertility/infertility treatment. Recent findings have associated ovarian stimulation with the increased incidence of imprinting disorders in humans as well as defects in genome-wide methylation reprogramming and, in particular, imprinting in mice. Here, we present the first study that determined the impact of ovarian stimulation on the expression of developmentally important reprogramming genes (Apex1, Lig1, Lig3, Mbd2, Mbd3, Mbd4, and Polb) in single early mouse morula embryos (16-cell stage). Using absolute quantification of mRNA by quantitative real-time PCR, we observed an association of ovarian stimulation with a downregulation of mRNAs encoding the base excision repair proteins APEX1 and POLB as well as the 5-methyl-CpG-binding domain protein MBD3 in individual morula embryos. Whole mount immunofluorescence staining of early and late morula embryos with an antibody against APEX1 revealed individual embryos with lower protein expression levels after ovarian stimulation and a correlation of mRNA expression with protein abundance. Our data argue for a negative impact of ovarian stimulation during female gametogenesis and/or early embryo development affecting the expression of candidate reprogramming factors.
Isolation of a Novel Orientia Species (O. chuto sp. nov.) from a Patient Infected in Dubai

ABSTRACT In July 2006, an Australian tourist returning from Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), developed acute scrub typhus. Her signs and symptoms included fever, myalgia, headache, rash, and eschar. Orientia tsutsugamushi serology demonstrated a 4-fold rise in antibody titers in paired serum collections (1:512 to 1:8,192), with the sera reacting strongest against the Gilliam strain antigen. An Orientia species was isolated by the in vitro culture of the patient's acute blood taken prior to antibiotic treatment. The gene sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene (rrs), partial 56-kDa gene, and the full open reading frame 47-kDa gene was performed, and comparisons of this new Orientia sp. isolate to previously characterized strains demonstrated significant sequence diversity. The closest homology to the rrs sequence of the new Orientia sp. isolate was with three strains of O. tsutsugamushi (Ikeda, Kato, and Karp), with a nucleotide sequence similarity of 98.5%. The closest homology to the 47-kDa gene sequence was with O. tsutsugamushi strain Gilliam, with a nucleotide similarity of 82.3%, while the closest homology to the 56-kDa gene sequence was with O. tsutsugamushi strain TA686, with a nucleotide similarity of 53.1%. The molecular divergence and geographically unique origin lead us to believe that this organism should be considered a novel species. Therefore, we have proposed the name “Orientia chuto,” and the prototype strain of this species is strain Dubai, named after the location in which the patient was infected.
The statistical assessment of financial distress risk in the case of metallurgical companies

Ch.B. Balan, I. -B. Robu, E. Jaba, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iasi, Romania The erosion of both the position and the financial performance of companies usually occurs in times of financial crisis, leading to the incidence of the financial distress. The purpose of this study was twofold: firstly, to estimate the time-to-failure for companies in the metallurgic sector differentiated by sub-sectors and secondly, to estimate the influence of the factors that lead to the risk of financial distress. Survival analysis was applied with the aim to estimate the time-to-failure after the crisis and the influence of determinant factors on the financial distress risk. The results of this study were obtained on a sample of 248 companies. They showed that steel production sub-sector is the most sensitive to the occurrence of financial distress risk.
A Time-Series Analysis of the Aggregate Income-Energy Consumption Nexus: The Case of Italy

We empirically analyze the nexus between GDP and energy consumption in the 1970-2009 years for Italy, using a time-series approach. After a brief introduction, we present the discussion of the data. Stationarity tests reveal that both series are non-stationary, or I(1). Moreover, since both series show the presence of a structural break, a Gregory and Hansen cointegration test has been performed. The results evidence the presence of a long-run relationship. Causality tests reveal that the “neutrality hypothesis” emerges, insomuch as the absence of a causal relationship between energy consumption and real GDP is discovered. The IRFs analysis evidences that a shock to the energy consumption affects GDP for one period, but dies out very quickly. While shocks to GDP create a smaller but significant response in the energy consumption, although it falls to zero in few periods. Finally, we calculate with an ECM that the long-run multiplier is 0.70. The energy consumption will increase to correct the disequilibrium, with 11% of the (remaining) deviation corrected in each subsequent time period. In addition, a one-unit increase in the GDP immediately produces a 1.07 unit increase in the energy consumption.