Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
THE INFLUENCE OF THE PACT FOR HEALTH ON THE EXPENDITURE ON THE FINANCING OF PUBLIC HEALTH ON THE VIEW OF THE BRAZILIAN STATE

This article measured the dynamics of public health spending, from 2000 to 2015, in the Brazilian states and also in the Federal District. More specifically, it evaluated the effects of the Pact for Health on public health expenditures in all Brazilian states and in the Federal District, from the State of Sao Paulo. For this, was used the econometric methodology called Differences in Differences with Polygonal Adjustment. The results showed that the evolution of the public health expenditures in the State of Sao Paulo, in general, was lower than in the other states and the Federal District, after the entry into force of the Health Pact, in 2006. Still, in general, the combined performance between the State of Sao Paulo and the other Brazilian states and also the Federal District regressed their investments in public health, from 2006 to 2015. However, a behavioral pattern of public health expenditure after the Pact for Health was not achieved.
Specific Knockdown of Oct4 and β2‐microglobulin Expression by RNA Interference in Human Embryonic Stem Cells and Embryonic Carcinoma Cells

We have used RNA interference (RNAi) to downregulate β2‐microglobulin and Oct4 in human embryonal carcinoma (hEC) cells and embryonic stem (hES) cells, demonstrating that RNAi is an effective tool for regulating specific gene activity in these human stem cells. The knockdown of Oct4 but not β2‐microglobulin expression in both EC and ES cells resulted in their differentiation, as indicated by a marked change in morphology, growth rate, and surface antigen phenotype, with respect to SSEA1, SSEA3, and TRA‐1‐60 expression. Expression of hCG and Gcm1 was also induced following knockdown of Oct4 expression, in both 2102Ep hEC cells and in H7 and H14 hES cells, consistent with the conclusion that, as in the mouse, Oct4 is required to maintain the undifferentiated stem cell state, and that differentiation to trophectoderm occurs in its absence. NTERA2 hEC cells also differentiated, but not to trophectoderm, suggesting their equivalence to a later stage of embryogenesis than other hEC and hES cells.
Patent Technological Diversity and Examination Outcomes in China

This study examines how the duration of patent examination is affected by technological diversity of patent applications, using a sample of all pharmaceutical patent applications filed between 1985 and 2017 at State Intellectual Property Office of China (SIPO). Patent examination is a crucial process to evaluate the patentability of technological inventions. To understand what factors influence patent examination duration can offer strategic insights for both patent applicants and patent system designers. Although China has been leading the world’s patent applications since 2011, it is surprising that little research has been conducted on the process of patent examination in China. This thesis takes a step to fill this gap. This study complements prior research (Harhoff and Wagner, 2009; Tong et al., 2018) by zooming into the effect of technological diversity, which is one of the most important characteristics of patent applications. Competing risks hazard rate models show an inverted U-shaped relationship between patent applications’ technological diversity and the rates of decisions of both grant and rejection. It means that when a patent application combines technological elements with a moderate level of diversity, it will facilitate the assigned patent examiner to make the decision faster, whether it is grant or rejection. In addition, it is also found that the effect of technological diversity on the rate of grant, but not the rate of rejection, is significantly weakened for applications with more than 10 claims. A discussion of these findings and their implications is included at the end of the thesis.
Dynamic Reconfigurable Ternary Content Addressable Memory for OpenFlow-Compliant Low-Power Packet Processing

OpenFlow, the main protocol for software-defined networking (SDN) advocated by Google, requires multiple flow tables with long and variable rule lengths. For fast packet forwarding, using ternary content-addressable memory (TCAM) as implementation of lookup-table has displayed superior performance in executing the conventional packet classification algorithms. However, applying traditional TCAM designs to an OpenFlow switch leads to problems of insufficient word length, inflexible table configuration, and high-power consumptions. This paper presents a low-power dynamic reconfigurable TCAM design for OpenFlow-compliant packet processing. It can support long and variable word lengths for different flow tables, with less than 5% of area overhead. To reduce dynamic power consumption without sacrificing throughput, the proposed hybrid-pipelined structure based on NAND-NOR CAM and pipelined-TCAM, can achieve lower energy-delay products than traditional TCAM. Moreover, the proposed self-power gating technique controlled by the mask data optimizes both NAND and NOR core cells, which lowers power consumption without additional control and routing overhead. Finally, the low-power reconfigurable TCAM is implemented in TSMC 40 nm CMOS technology. The implementation results show that the energy metric of the proposed reconfigurable TCAM is only 0.177 fJ/bit/search, at a 416 MHz operating frequency. Thus, the proposed TCAM design is very suitable for the emerging high performance packet processing in future SDN applications that need long and variable word lengths.
A multi-wavelength view of the Galactic center dust ridge reveals little star formation

The Galactic center dust ridge consists of a narrow string of massive condensations, first identified in submillimeter dust continuum emission. To determine whether new high-mass stars are forming in this region, we performed new observations at 870 μm with the Atacama Pathfinder EXperiment (APEX) telescope and at 8.4 GHz with the Very Large Array. We complement our data with recent maser and mid-infrared results. The ridge’s clouds are dark at mid-infrared wavelengths, indicating the presence of cold, high column density material. In combination with existing temperature measurements in the dust ridge, we determine masses of the largest clouds. The results show that the dust ridge contains a very massive reservoir of molecular material. We find five radio continuum sources at 8.4 GHz in the general dust ridge vicinity, but outside of the dust ridge clouds. They are likely all excited by massive young stars, whose properties we constrain. Our observations exclude the existence of zero age main sequence stars with spectral types earlier than B0.5 within the dust ridge clouds. The only indication of ongoing high-mass star formation inside the clouds are class II methanol masers that are found in two of the clouds. Except for a weak water maser, found in previous observations, no signs of star formation are detected in the most massive cloud, M0.25+0.012.
Polymères en milieu aléatoire : influence d'un désordre corrélé sur le phénomène de localisation

Cette these porte sur l'etude de modeles de polymere en milieu aleatoire: on se concentre sur le cas d'un polymere dirige en dimension d+1 qui interagit avec un defaut unidimensionnel. Les interactions sont possiblement non-homogenes, et sont representees par des variables aleatoires. Une question importante est celle de l'influence du desordre sur le phenomene de localisation: on veut determiner si la presence d'inhomogeneites modifie les proprietes critiques du systeme, et notamment les caracteristiques de la transition de phase (auquel cas le desodre est dit pertinent). En particulier, nous prouvons que dans le cas ou le defaut est une marche aleatoire, le desordre est pertinent en dimension d≥3. Ensuite, nous etudions le modele d'accrochage sur une ligne de defauts possedant des inhomogeneites correlees spatialement. Il existe un critere non rigoureux (du a Weinrib et Halperin), que l'on applique a notre modele, et qui predit si le desordre est pertinent ou non en fonction de l'exposant critique du systeme homogene, note νpur, et de l'exposant de decroissance des correlations. Si le desordre est gaussien et les correlations sommables, nous montrons la validite du critere de Weinrib-Halperin: nous le prouvons dans la version hierarchique du modele, et aussi, de maniere partielle, dans le cadre (standard) non-hierarchique. Nous avons de plus obtenu un resultat surprenant: lorsque les correlations sont suffisamment fortes, et en particulier si elles sont non-sommables (dans le cadre gaussien), il apparait un regime ou le desordre devient toujours pertinent, l'ordre de la transition de phase etant toujours plus grand que νpur. La prediction de Weinrib-Halperin ne s'applique alors pas a notre modele.
PCR detection and quantitation of predominant anaerobic bacteria in human and animal fecal samples

PCR procedures based on 16S rRNA gene sequences specific for 12 anaerobic bacteria that predominate in the human intestinal tract were developed and used for quantitative detection of these species in human (adult and baby) feces and animal (rat, mouse, cat, dog, monkey, and rabbit) feces. Fusobacterium prausnitzii, Peptostreptococcus productus, and Clostridium clostridiiforme had high PCR titers (the maximum dilutions for positive PCR results ranged from 10(-3) to 10(-8)) in all of the human and animal fecal samples tested. Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron, Bacteroides vulgatus, and Eubacterium limosum also showed higher PCR titers (10(-2) to 10(-6)) in adult human feces. The other bacteria tested, including Escherichia coli, Bifidobacterium adolescentis, Bifidobacterium longum, Lactobacillus acidophilus, Eubacterium biforme, and Bacteroides distasonis, were either at low PCR titers (less than 10(-2)) or not detected by PCR. The reported PCR procedure including the fecal sample preparation method is simplified and rapid and eliminates the DNA isolation steps.
The Quality of Life of Hematological Malignancy Patients with Major Depressive Disorder or Subsyndromal Depression

Objective: The purpose of the present study was to compare the quality of life of hematological malignancy patients with major depressive disorder or subsyndromal depression. Method: Sample consisted of 93 hematological malignancy patients recruited from oncology ward of Valieasr hospital for Imam Khomeini complex hospital at Tehran through purposeful sampling. Participants were divided into three groups through diagnostic interview based on DSM-IV-TR criteria and the Beck Depression Inventory-2 (BDI-II): Major depressive disorder (MDD) (n = 41; 44.1%); subsyndromal depression (SSD) (n = 23; 24.7%), and without depression (WD) (n = 29; 31.2%). Participants completed the short-form health survey (SF-36) as a measure of the quality of life. We carried out an analysis of covariance to examine the collected data. Results: Findings showed that there was not a significant difference between patients with MDD and SSD based on measure of quality of life. But patients with MDD and SSD showed significantly worse quality of life than patients with WD. This finding highlights the clinical importance of subsyndromal depressive symptoms and casts doubt on the clinical utility of separation between MDD and subsyndromal depression in terms of important clinical outcomes.
The Albian–Turonian Island Arc Rocks of Tobago, West Indies: Geochemistry, Petrogenesis, and Caribbean Plate Tectonics

An elemental and radiogenic isotope study of Cretaceous island arc rocks on Tobago, West Indies, reveals the magmatic processes taking place at the eastern edge of the Pacific-derived Caribbean Plate during development of the Greater Antilles Arc. The ∼110–103 Ma Volcano-Plutonic Suite comprises the ultramafic–intermediate Tobago Pluton and genetically related Tobago Volcanic Group. The volcanic rocks (breccias, tuffs, and mafic–intermediate lavas) have undergone shallow-level fractional crystallization involving plagioclase, clinopyroxene, olivine, and Fe–Ti oxides, but also preserve trace element evidence for ‘cryptic’ amphibole fractionation. The suite is inferred to have formed from a spinel lherzolite mantle wedge source fluxed largely by slab- and recycled volcanogenic sediment-derived fluids. A tonalitic mega-dyke intruding the pluton resembles high-silica adakites, and geochemical constraints indicate a likely origin by partial melting of the arc crust. A mafic dyke swarm (∼103–91 Ma) is partly coeval with the volcanic rocks, but some, perhaps the youngest dykes, are derived from isotopically distinct arc mantle sources compared with the volcanic rocks. Rare Nb-enriched and high-Nb dykes may relate to melting of a high field strength element-enriched source. Current Caribbean tectonic models involve the continuation of east-dipping Farallon Plate subduction beneath the proto-Caribbean seaway either until an Early Cretaceous initiation of proto-Caribbean subduction, or collision of the Caribbean Oceanic Plateau with the Greater Antilles Arc at ∼90–80 Ma. Both models may be compatible with the tectono-magmatic history of Tobago, wherein Tobago is thought to have detached from the fore-arc of the Caribbean arc system during Eocene intra-arc extension, the growth of the Grenada Basin, and inception of the Lesser Antilles Arc. Tobago- or La Desirade-like Mesozoic arc crust underlies much of the present-day Lesser Antilles Arc and not, as has recently been proposed, portions of the plume-derived Caribbean Oceanic Plateau.
Image Matching Optimization via Vision and Inertial Data Fusion: Application to Navigation of the Visually Impaired

Autonomous navigation by humans or robots is usually based on stereo image matching. However, classic image matching methods are not suitable for wearable real-time navigation systems. This paper proposes a new image-matching algorithm which fuses information from both images and inertial data. A preliminary evaluation of the algorithm shows that it is effective for indoor navigation.
Novel antibacterial strategies to combat biomaterial-associated infection

The use of medical devices has grown significantly over the last decades, and has become a major part of modern medicine and our daily life. The risk of infection is a significant problem with any inserted or implanted foreign body material, and is the number one cause of failure of implanted biomaterials. These so-called biomaterial-associated infections (BAI) are mainly caused by Staphylococcus aureus and Staphylococcus epidermidis. This thesis describes the development and characterization of novel antimicrobial agents and delivery systems, and their effectiveness in the prevention of BAI and other difficult-to-treat biofilm infections. The first strategy is based on a direct contact-killing approach. We describe the design and synthesis of a thin layer hydrogel with covalently attached synthetic antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) stabilized against proteolytic degradation. Another strategy to prevent BAI is the controlled release of antimicrobial agents, like chlorhexidine or synthetic AMPs, from a surface coating. All synthetic AMPs developed within this thesis have great potential for clinical application. Release of OP-145 was able to prevent S. aureus osteomyelitis in rabbits. The newly developed synthetic peptides, i.e. SAAP-145, SAAP-148, SAAP-276 and TC19, proved to have broad spectrum activity including activity against highly dangerous multi-drug resistant pathogens, to prevent biofilm formation, and to have in vivo activity, either in preventing biomaterial-associated or wounded skin infections. The results of the studies described in this thesis provide more insight in the pathogenesis of BAI and present novel prevention options in the fight against difficult-to-treat biofilm infection caused by multidrug-resistant pathogens.
What is included in software architecture? A case study in three software organizations

Software architecture is conventionally concerned with the structures at a high abstraction level describing the main constituents of a software system. However, there seems to be no common agreement of what these structures exactly are. This paper acts as an attempt to understand how the viewpoints from which we see the structures are selected. The rationale of having different viewpoints is reflected and a framework of the relationship between software architecture design and information systems development (ISD) is presented. It is noted that the selection of architectural viewpoints is based on the prevalent architectural practices in an organization and on the requirements from the project at hand. Examples of viewpoint selection are shown in the case study on the experiences from three different telecom-area software organizations. They end up using different sets of viewpoints in their software process, because of the differences in their resources, business practices, and technology.
Compensatory financing of energy saving projects in construction: modification of "TIF"

The purpose of the article is to create a mechanism for making investments by enterprises and institutional participants in the building energy cluster. The authors explore the possibility of attracting additional financial resources for implementing energy saving measures through issuance of municipal bonds and compensatory financing on the basis of tax deductions (Tax Increment Financing – TIF). The study of the practice of local borrowing in Ukraine has demonstrated the fragmented nature of the existing system. However, provided the appropriate regulatory and legal framework and the experience of other countries are taken into account, the development of the local borrowing market can be a source of financial resources for the implementation of energy saving projects. According to the results of the study of the financial compensatory technology "Tax Increment Financing" (TIF), proposals for the formation of a mechanism for making investments by enterprises and institutional participants in the building energy cluster are provided, where its structure identifies the levers, tools, methods of funding energy-saving measures, the coordination center of the energy cluster has been determined and participants of this integration formation are proposed.
Novel Haptic Tool and Input Device for Real Time Bilateral Biomanipulation addressing Endoscopic Surgery

In this paper a sensorised polymer microgripper is presented which can be used as a suitable end effector on an endoscopic microinstrument for robot-assisted and possibly teleoperated surgery to enable the operator to receive haptic feedback information on the forces generated during the procedure. A novel tweezers-like haptic input device is also described, which gives the operator the ability to remotely feel these forces generated by grasping operations with the microgripper. This feedback is used to control the amount of force applied in manipulation of tissues during the procedure. The mechanical and electronic design of the microgripper, microinstrument and haptic tweezers is also presented and preliminary results detailed.
Establishment proper of the balanced scorecard indicators to support decision making in a university: a case study in Institut Teknologi Indonesia

Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is a powerful tool in decision making process. Nevertheless, it is not rare that the BSC does not give satisfactory results because the indicators chosen do not reflect the needs of the organization. Therefore, indicator establishment is very crucial in the utilization of BSC. This research aims to determine the indicators BSC for a university and the research is a case study in Institut Teknologi Indonesia (ITI). In this study, BSC structure and indicators, comparison made by 4 previous researchers was used as the initial guide to determine the structure and indicators of ITI. And then, questionnaires were distributed to selected respondents and a focus group discussion (FGD) was conducted in order to produce indicators of BSC based on the mental model of the ITI. It is found 15 indicators based on the mental model of ITI. Furthermore, the relationships between the indicators are seen as dynamic relationships, and by using system dynamics, some feedback loops that are considered critical to organizational success can be identified and isolated.
Adaptive reconstruction scheme for biological signal reconstruction in blind sparsity

Medical imaging is a useful technique for disease diagnosis and it has many applications in the medical field. There are several techniques used for medical imaging. Among them compression sensing (CS) technique has been widely accepted because of the low sample requirement and accurate recovery of image. In this paper, a novel adaptive matching pursuit for compressive sensing of blind sparsity biological signal polluted by noise is proposed. First, the traditional quadratic loss function is replaced with the more robust Huber loss function for the purpose of combating the influence of noise. Then, sparsity adaptive matching pursuit is introduced to make optimal estimation of the original biological signal and further reduce the influence of noise, thereby achieving accurate reconstruction of biological signal with blind sparsity. Simulation results indicated that the proposed algorithm greatly improves the anti-noise performance, especially in resisting large noise uncertainty compared with existing greedy algorithms.
Color, complex document segmentation and compression

We propose a novel segmentation algorithm called SMART for color, complex documents. It decomposes a document image into 'binarizable' and 'non-binarizable' components. The segmentation procedure includes color transformation, halftone texture suppression, subdivision of the image into 8 by 8 blocks, classification of the 8 by 8 blocks as 'active' or 'inactive', formation of macroblocks from the active blocks, and classification of the macroblocks as binarizable or non-binarizable. The classification processes involve the DCT coefficients and a histogram analysis. SMART is compared to three well-known segmentation algorithms: CRLA, RXYC, and SPACE. SMART can handle image components of various shapes, multiple backgrounds of different gray levels, different relative grayness of text to this background, tilted image components, and text of different gray levels. To compress the segmented image, we apply JPEG4 to the non-binarizable macroblocks and the Group 4 coding scheme to the binary image representing the binarizable macroblocks and to the bitmap storing the configuration of all macroblocks. Data about the representative gray values, the color information, and other descriptors of the binarizable macroblocks and the background regions are also sent to allow image reconstruction. The gain is using our compression algorithm over using JPEG for the whole image is significant. This gain increases as the proportion of the size of the subjects prefer the reconstructed images from our compression algorithm to those form the bitrate-matching JPEG images. In a series of test images, this document segmentation and compression system enables compression ratios two times to six times improved over standard methods.
Detection of Fake Profiles in Social Media - Literature Review

False identities play an important role in advanced persisted threats and are also involved in other malicious activities. The present article focuses on the literature review of the state-of-the-art research aimed at detecting fake profiles in social media. The approaches to detecting fake social media accounts can be classified into the approaches aimed on analysing individual accounts, and the approaches capturing the coordinated activities spanning a large group of accounts. The article sheds light on the role of fake identities in advanced persistent threats and covers the mentioned approaches of detecting fake social media