Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Surface localization of Pseudomonas aeruginosa outer membrane porin protein F by using monoclonal antibodies

Hybridomas secreting highly specific monoclonal antibodies against porin protein F of Pseudomonas aeruginosa were isolated. These antibodies interacted with protein F in outer membranes isolated from strains representing the 17 serotypes of P. aeruginosa and from another 15 clinical isolates from patients with cystic fibrosis. The cell surface localization of antigenic sites on protein F was shown by indirect immunofluorescent techniques with these monoclonal antibodies. No fluorescence was observed on a protein F-deficient strain H283 of P. aeruginosa. Another monoclonal antibody specific for outer membrane lipoprotein H2 of P. aeruginosa showed no fluorescence on intact, wild-type bacterial cells, but was able to interact with a rough, LPS-deficient mutant.
Gain scheduling using time-varying Kalman filter for a class of LPV systems

Abstract Current gain-scheduling approaches only assure stability when the underlying parameter varies sufficiently slowly, and hence stable closed-loop is not guaranteed for more general (i.e. faster) parameter variations. Shamma and Athans (1992) provides a solution to overcome this by computing Riccati Differential Equation (RDE) online for the current parameter value with the offline Algebraic Riccati Equation (ARE) solutions for every parameter value, which is computationally demanding. This paper achieves a very significant simplification, by showing how only a finite number of AREs need be used and the online RDE solutions can be computed by table look-up and matrix inversion. In simulations the method yields results indistinguishable from those achieved in Shamma and Athans (1992).
Data gaps in the UK financial sector: some lessons learned from the recent crisis

The relationship between national authorities and the financial system has been changed by the financial crisis. Internationally, various financial reforms are being considered. A key component of improved oversight will be more complete and better quality information on which authorities can base decisions. This paper considers data gaps from two perspectives, that of user and of producer. The user standpoint is motivated by examining some of the questions UK policymakers faced during the various stages of the crisis, and the data gaps that these exposed. From the producer viewpoint, the focus is on the practicalities of implementing a new data collection. These two perspectives are drawn together in the context of the emerging UK and international financial stability
Low-level laser for treatment of tinnitus: a self-controlled clinical trial

BACKGROUND: Despite the high prevalence and morbidity, tinnitus still remains an obscure symptom. We assessed the efficacy of low-level laser for treatment of tinnitus. METHODS: It was a self controlled clinical trial study on 61 outpatients with subjective tinnitus. The patients were irradiated with a 650-nm, 5-mW soft laser for twenty days and twenty minutes per day. The sensation of tinnitus was measured on a Visual Analog Scale (VAS) before and two weeks after treatment and they were compared by means of Wilcoxon signed ranktest. RESULTS: Thirty-eight (62.3%) patients were men and twenty-three (37.7%) were women. Fourteen patients (31.8%) worked in noisy environment. The VAS mean difference before and after the treatment was statistically significant (p < 0.0001). The best treatment effect was in the youngest group and there were significant differences between this group and the middle age and older groups (p = 0.018 and 0.001, respectively). The mean VAS score reduction was not statistically significant between male and female patients (p = 0.23). Also, the treatment outcome according to the noise level in patient's workplaces was not significantly different in women (p = 0.693), but it was significant in men (p = 0.029). CONCLUSIONS: Transmeatal low-level laser irradiation is effective for the treatment of tinnitus and some variables like age and job can affect the treatment outcome.
The redistributional effects of the common agricultural financial system

The decision procedure of the Common Agricultural Policy is becoming increasingly difficult. The paper examines how national interests diverge with respect to the outcome of the common decisions. Firstly, it is shown that (in the status quo) national costs of the common financial system diverge very much and that the costs are incorrectly calculated in the official statistics due to the book-keeping system. France is the outstanding gainer from product-tied income transfers between the EC-partners due to the common financial system. Secondly, collective price decisions influence individual member countries very unevenly, because they induce marginal intra-EC flows of real income. The situation of countries exporting agricultural products improves at the expense of the importing countries. Consequently, there are ‘expected external costs’ involved in the collective decisions because of institutional arrangements. This is seen as a danger for the survival of the EC. Thirdly, it is shown that the present system makes it possible to supranationalize national costs of national agricultural policy strategies. Unfortunately, the externalization is the highest for the stimulation of products with a high rate of nominal protection. Therefore, from the national point of view, the greatest relative advantage is obtained by increasing the national production of butter and skimmed milk powder.
Investor reactions to disclosures of material internal control weaknesses

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine investor reactions to material internal control weakness disclosures. In particular, the abnormal returns, the change in volatility, and the change in systematic risk are analyzed around auditors' material weakness reports. Design/methodology/approach - The sample consists of 342 firms with initial Sarbanes-Oxley Act, Section 404 weakness disclosures issued between 2005 and 2007. The paper uses three measures for investor reactions: abnormal returns and the change in volatility and systematic risk. The hypotheses of the paper are investigated using univariate analysis. Findings - The initial results imply surprisingly that the material weakness disclosure is good news to investors. However, after controlling for the preceding management's internal control disclosure, the results show that the abnormal reaction is positive only when the audit report is consistent with the preceding management report. In addition, the results show a significant change in volatility after the auditor's weakness disclosure. Research limitations/implications - These results imply that the investor reactions to auditors' material weakness disclosures depend on the content of the preceding report issued by management: there is a positive reaction if management has identified and reported the existing material weaknesses before the auditor, and a negative reaction when management has failed to identify or report the material weaknesses before the auditor. Originality/value - The findings of this paper emphasize that the value of the information contained in the auditors' material internal control weakness disclosures vary significantly depending on management disclosures.
Firm Characteristics and Long-Run Stock Returns after Corporate Events

The well-documented abnormal long-run buy-and-hold returns to firms issuing equity in initial public offerings and seasoned equity offerings, firms bidding in mergers, and firms initiating dividends can be attributed to imperfect control-firm matching. In addition to firm size and market-to-book ratio, event firms on average differ from control firms in terms of idiosyncratic volatility, liquidity, return momentum, and capital investment, each of which also explains returns. We propose a simple regression-based approach to control for differences in firm characteristics across event and control firms, and we show that long-run abnormal returns do not differ significantly from zero for event firms in the 1980 to 2005 period. The returns to event firms are, therefore, consistent with patterns known to exist for the broad stock market and do not require event-specific explanations.
Impact of Pancreatic Cold Preservation on Rat Islet Recovery and Function

Background. Islet transplantation success depends on the number and quality of islets transplanted. This study aimed at exploring the molecular mechanisms associated with cold pancreas preservation and their impact on islet cell survival and function. Methods. Rat pancreata were stored in cold University of Wisconsin preservation solution for short (3 hr; control) or long (18 hr) cold ischemia times (CIT). Results. Pancreata exposed to long CIT yielded lower islet numbers and showed reduced cellular viability; isolated islets displayed higher levels of phosphorylated stress-activated protein kinase (c-jun N-terminal Kinase and Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinase-p38), and chemokine (C-C) ligand-3, and lower levels of vascular endothelial growth factor, interleukins (IL)-9 and IL-10. Islets obtained from long-CIT pancreata were functionally impaired after transplantation. Differential proteomic expression in pancreatic tissue after CIT included increased eukaryotic translation elongation factor-1-α-1 (apoptosis related) and reduced Clade-B (serine protease inhibitor). Conclusions. Our study indicates that cold ischemia stimulates inflammatory pathways (chemokine (c-c)ligand-3, phosphorylation of c-jun N-terminal Kinase and mitogen-activated protein kinase-p38, and eukaryotic translation elongation factor-1-α-1) and decreases repair/cytoprotective pathways (IL-10, vascular endothelial growth factor, and Clade-B), all of which may negatively affect the quality and mass of islets obtained from a donor pancreas.
Intercultural Relationship, Prejudice and Ethnocentrism in a Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC): A Time-Series Experiment

This paper investigated the effects of relationship types (intracultural versus intercultural conditions) on relational development in computer-mediated communications (CMC) and face-to-face settings by controlling for the effect of prejudice and ethnocentrism. A total of 140 participants were involved in the experiment, and they were randomly assigned to the face-to-face, synchronous and asynchronous computer-mediated channels. Within each group, they were assigned to intracultural versus intercultural conditions and were required to interact in pairs with their zero-history partners. All participants underwent four experimental sessions. The results exhibited a significant main effect of relationship types on relational progression in face-to-face and asynchronous CMC groups. No significant main effect of relationship types was observed in the synchronous CMC group. The results showed no significant effects of prejudice and ethnocentrism on relational development in all groups. The findings of the study provide partial support for the “equalization” view of CMC.
Un modèle canonique d'option réelle bayesienne et son application au principe de précaution

Uncertainty on effective stocks or damages is the core of most irreversible economic decisions involving natural resources and the environment and, more generally, of most investment decisions. The discussion on the relevance of the precautionary principle is illustrative of this role. Although there is an extensive literature dealing with the theoretical aspects of this problem, economists still lack an operational decision rule. The matter is that the real option theory, now widely used to deal with markovian uncertainty, i.e. independent exogenous repeated chocks affecting the expected return from an irreversible project as time goes, is not adequate to analyze problems characterized by Bayesian uncertainty, i.e. problems where uncertainty about the effective value of parameters is resolved with time by a learning process based on the acquisition of information in the form of quantitative as well as qualitative signals. This paper is aimed at remedying at these shortcomings. The real option theory is adapted to an explicit Bayesian learning process in continuous time. Application to Genetically Modified Organisms farming is used as an illustrative example.
Manipulation of the Mitotic Cycle in the Treatment of Acute Myelogenous Leukaemia

A priming dose of cytosine arabinoside (Ara C) was given to 16 children and five adults with acute myelogenous leukaemia (AML) to synchronize leukaemia cells in the DNA synthesis (S) phase of the mitotic cycle. An infusion of this drug, which was continued for 12 h, was started at the time of partial synchronization and was repeated every 6–12 h until the bone marrow was very hypocellular. Complete remission was achieved in 12 of 16 children and in all adults. Two of the four children went into complete remission with the addition of two doses of daunorubicin or adriamycin. These results suggest that partial synchronization of cells in the S phase results in a therapeutic advantage in the use of Ara C for induction of a remission of AML and that manipulation of the mitotic cycle, as monitored by kinetic studies, may be helpful in planning optimal schedules for drug administration.
Cooperation Among Competitors in the Open-Source Arena: The Case of Openstack

Interorganizational interactions are often complex and paradoxical. In this research, we transcend two management paradoxes: competition versus cooperation and open-source versus proprietary technology development. We follow the OpenStack open-source ecosystem where competing firms cooperate in the joint-development of a cloud infrastructure for big data. We provide a narrative, complemented with social network visualizations, which depicts the evolution of cooperation and competition. Our findings suggest that development transparency and weak intellectual property rights (i.e., characteristics of open-source ecosystems) allow a focal firm to transfer information and resources more easily between multiple alliances.
Optimisation of photometric stereo methods by non-convex variational minimisation

Estimating shape and appearance of a three dimensional object from a given set of images is a classic research topic that is still actively pursued. Among the various techniques available, PS is distinguished by the assumption that the underlying input images are taken from the same point of view but under different lighting conditions. The most common techniques provide the shape information in terms of surface normals. In this work, we instead propose to minimise a much more natural objective function, namely the reprojection error in terms of depth. Minimising the resulting non-trivial variational model for PS allows to recover the depth of the photographed scene directly. As a solving strategy, we follow an approach based on a recently published optimisation scheme for non-convex and non-smooth cost functions. The main contributions of our paper are of theoretical nature. A technical novelty in our framework is the usage of matrix differential calculus. We supplement our approach by a detailed convergence analysis of the resulting optimisation algorithm and discuss possibilities to ease the computational complexity. At hand of an experimental evaluation we discuss important properties of the method. Overall, our strategy achieves more accurate results than competing approaches. The experiments also highlights some practical aspects of the underlying optimisation algorithm that may be of interest in a more general context.
Hot Hands in Mutual Funds: the Persistence of Performance, 1974-87

The net returns of no-load mutual growth funds exhibit a hot-hands phenomenon during 1974-87. When performance is measured by Jensen's alpha, mutual funds that perform well in a one year evaluation period continue to generate superior performance in the following year. Underperformers also display short-run persistence. Hot hands persists in 1988 and 1989. The success of the hot hands strategy does not derive from selecting superior funds over the sample period. The timing component -- knowing when to pick which fund -- is significant. These results are robust to alternative equity portfolio benchmarks, such as those that account for firm-size effects and mean reversion in returns. Capitilizing on the hot hands phenomenon, an investor could have generated a significant, risk-adjusted excess return of 10% per year.
Managerial ability and tax avoidance: evidence from Korea

This study investigates the incremental effects of managerial ability on tax avoidance. Managerial ability is estimated through a data envelopment analysis (DEA) and tobit regressions. We find that there is a negative relationship between tax avoidance and firm value. In addition, we document a statistically meaningful negative relation between managerial ability and tax avoidance. The results also suggest that high managerial ability mitigates the negative relationship between tax avoidance and firm value. These findings suggest that managerial ability influences the tax avoidance behavior of the firm.
Semi-parametric Estimation of Simultaneous Equations with Limited Dependent Variables: A Case Study of Female Labour Supply

We propose a general strategy to estimate semi-parametrically simultaneous equations with limited dependent variables. First, each reduced form (RF) is estimated with various semi-parametric methods. Second, the specification of each RF is tested to select an appropriate method. Third, the structural form (SF) equations are estimated using minimum distance methods and the restrictions among the SF and RF parameters. A case study of female labour supply is presented. Copyright 1995 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The Option to Stock Volume Ratio and Future Returns

We examine the information content of option and equity volumes when trade direction is unobserved. In a multimarket asymmetric information model, equity short-sale costs result in a negative relation between relative option volume and future firm value. In our empirical tests, firms in the lowest decile of the option to stock volume ratio (O/S) outperform the highest decile by 0.34% per week (19.3% annualized). Our model and empirics both indicate that O/S is a stronger signal when short-sale costs are high or option leverage is low. O/S also predicts future firm-specific earnings news, consistent with O/S reflecting private information.
Evaluating a Linked Open Online Course

E-learning courses provide several applications to support both educators and students in their teaching and learning activities. However, such offerings are like isolated islands: they are only implicitly interlinked with each other. Learners are often not able to add comments or ask questions in the context of learning materials. This results in a missing awareness of educators' or students' augmentations like comments and discussions. In order to address these problems, we present the evaluation of a Linked Open Online Course consisting of an application for watching and annotating lecture recordings, an application for annotating of PDF documents, and a discussion forum. All three applications are based on and are interlinked via Semantic Web technologies. The applications are evaluated in a survey with students in terms of acceptance and usefulness.
Agricultural Trade Reform and Poverty Reduction in Developing Countries

The author offers an economic assessment of the opportunities and challenges provided by the World Trade Organization's Doha Development Agenda, particularly through agricultural trade liberalization, for low-income countries seeking to trade their way out of poverty. After discussing links between poverty, economic growth, and trade, he reports modeling results showing that farm product markets remain the most costly of all goods market distortions in world trade. The author focuses on what such reform might mean for developing countries both with and without their involvement in the multilateral trade negotiations. What becomes clear is that if those countries want to maximize their benefits from the Doha round, they need also to free up their own domestic product and factor markets so their farmers are better able to take advantage of new market opportunities abroad. The author also addresses other concerns of low-income countries about farm trade reform: whether there would be losses associated with tariff preference erosion, whether food-importing countries would suffer from higher food prices in international markets, whether China's WTO accession will provide an example of trade reform aggravating poverty by way of cuts in prices received by Chinese farmers, and the impact on food security and poverty alleviation.
Effect of putative neuromodulators on rhythmic buccal motor output in Lymnaea stagnalis.

The effects of a variety of neuromodulator substances on rhythmic motor output and activity in neurons in the feeding circuitry of Lymnaea stagnalis were examined. Each neuromodulator produced a unique combination of effects at different levels in the network: i.e., pattern-generating interneurons (N1, N2, and N3), an identified higher-order interneuron (cerebral giant cell, CGC), and buccal motoneurons. 5-Hydroxytryptamine, acetylcholine, and FMRFamide all inhibited rhythmic motor activity. However, this was achieved in different ways. Dopamine changed the nature of rhythmic activity from one in which N2 interneuronal activity was predominant ("N2 rhythm") to a feeding rhythm. Dopamine was the only substance capable of activating the feeding rhythm. Activity in the CGC was increased by 5-hydroxytryptamine, dopamine, and acetylcholine and reduced by FMRFamide. Differential responses in buccal motoneurons were also observed. The results are discussed in relation to previous work on other species and also in terms of the selection of different patterns of motor output by neuromodulators.
Scalable Networks-on-Chip with Elastic Links Demarcated by Decentralized Routers

As the number of cores on a chip increases, Networks-on-Chip (NoCs) that connect many cores would face long links to reduce hop counts. The long links become bottlenecks in terms of both energy and RC delays as technology advances. To alleviate the negative impact of long links, we propose decentralized routers for NoCs. A decentralized router consists of multiple submodules that are positioned on a link, and hence the long links are segmented. Furthermore, we illustrate the design of an entire network that uses decentralized routers to obtain a good tradeoff between hop counts and wire delays per hop. Decentralized routers are effective especially in high-radix topologies, such as the flattened butterfly, and energy-delay product is reduced by greater than 60 percent. As NoCs become larger and more complex, the benefit of the decentralized routers will become more significant.
Morpheme-Aware Subword Segmentation for Neural Machine Translation

Neural machine translation together with subword segmentation has recently produced state-of-the-art translation performance. The commonly used segmentation algorithm based on byte-pair encoding (BPE) does not consider the morphological structure of words. This occasionally causes misleading segmentation and incorrect translation of rare words. In this thesis we explore the use of morphological structure in subword segmentation and develop a novel segmentation algorithm that succeeds in preventing misleading BPE segmentations that occur due to its disregard for morphology. Analysis shows that the proposed algorithm decreases translation performance as measured by BLEU by 0.9 points while producing subjectively more intuitive segmentations and mildly better translations for sentences previously involving inaccurate baseline segmentation.