Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prospects for an AIDS vaccine.

Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) was first identified at the end of 1981.1 In 1983, the causative virus, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV-1), was identified2, almost certainly having entered humans from a reservoir in chimpanzees, possibly on several occasions.3 Since 1981 the virus has spread to cause possibly the most serious epidemic infection in human history. The virus has diversified into seven major subtypes or clades, the splits probably occurring either early in the epidemic or before it transferred from chimpanzees to humans. Currently, more than 40 million people are infected with HIV, with five million new infections annually (http://www.unaids.org/hivaidsinfo/). Three-quarters of the infections occur in sub-Saharan Africa, but there is also an alarming spread in the Indian subcontinent and China. Drug treatments have made a major difference to life expectancy of infected persons in Western countries, but they are not widely available in Africa and unlikely ever to be accessible to those who most need them. The drugs do not cure the infection, while side effects that limit their use and drug-resistant viruses are gradually emerging.
Some properties of the smooth muscle of rabbit portal vein

1. The morphology of the smooth muscle of the rabbit portal vein and its innervation were studied with fluorescence and electron microscopy. Two layers of smooth muscle were observed in the tunica media: an inner layer of circularly arranged muscle cells and an outer layer consisting of bundles of smooth muscle cells arranged in a near longitudinal direction. The membranes of neighbouring smooth muscle cells were occasionally fused to form ‘tight junctions’.
Gentrification and displacement: The impacts of mass transit in Bangkok

There is limited research regarding gentrification's relationship with mass transit and, more generally, a lack of qualitative research that explores the experiences of those impacted by gentrification. This study aims to bridge this gap by examining through interviews the experiences of new and incumbent residents in two neighbourhoods along a mass transit extension line in Bangkok. Results show that new-build gentrification and displacement are occurring in the case study area due to mass transit. Residents' views are generally mixed. However, extremely negative views exist amongst those displaced, and the dangers of quantitative measures of displacement are evident.
Multiwavelets in MRI

Improvements in MRI systems addressed many topics but few papers dealt with using wavelet for excitation purposes. Here we report on the advantages of using multiwavelets for the representation of the spin density function, considering the acquisition time point of view. The paper is structured as follows: a brief presentation of MRI fundamentals, recall of wavelets application to MRI, the meaning of multiwavelets decomposition, the proposed utilization together with simulation results, conclusions.
Patent documentation – comparison of two MT strategies

This paper focuses on two matters: A comparison of how two different MT strategies manage translating the text type of patent documentation and a survey of what is needed to transform a MT research prototype system to a translation application for patent texts. The two MT strategies is represented by PaTrans a transfer and rule based system being used for more than 15 years by the translation agency Lingtech A/S and SpaTrans a SMT system based on the Pharaoh framework. The SMT systems are characterised by shorter development time and low development cost compared to rulebased systems. The distinctive text type of patents pose special demands for machine translation and these aspects are discussed based on linguistic observations with focus on the users point of view. Two main demands are automatic pre processing of the documents and implementation of a module which in a flexible and user-friendly manner offers the opportunity to extend the lexical coverage of the system. These demands and the comparison of the two MT strategies are discussed on the basis of proofread patents.
Isolation and characterization of polyoma host range mutants that replicate in nullipotential embryonal carcinoma cells.

Polyoma wild-type virus replicates in most murine differentiated cells but fails to produce virus in murine embryonal carcinoma cells. Polyoma host range mutants have been isolated that replicate in several nullipotential embryonal carcinoma cell lines but fail to replicate in a pluripotential cell line. The final virus yield of these host range mutants is dependent upon the multiplicity of infection in both differentiated cells and nullipotent embryonal carcinoma cells. Two independently derived host range mutants contain the same single base pair change (A.T to G.C) and a 33- and 67-base pair duplication of those viral DNA sequences containing this point mutation. This duplication of viral DNA is located at 69 map units on the polyoma genome on the late gene side of the origin of viral DNA replication (70.5 map units). This type of mutation suggests several models to explain the polyoma host range restriction in embryonal carcinoma cells.
Attitudes toward Eliminating Income Inequality in Europe

In this paper, we seek to understand why attitudes vary among individuals regarding the issue of income distribution in European Union member states. We believe that the issue of income inequality is a potentially significant political cleavage that may have an important influence in meaningful ways in European politics. Rather than focusing on the national context to explain variation in citizen attitudes toward income inequality, we control for national context and explore the relative influence of various individual-level characteristics in shaping how Europeans think about the distribution of income in their countries. We assess how individuals' political attitude, economic self-interest, and general attitude toward society affect how they think about income equality in their own society. To test these propositions, we devise a series of hypotheses that are tested in an ordered probit model using data from the 2000—1 wave of the World Values and European Values Surveys. It is our contention that the way people think about income inequality in their society is largely a product of the ideas that they hold about politics and society, and not principally a product of their economic self-interest.
Assessing the Minimally Verbal School‐Aged Child With Autism Spectrum Disorder

This paper addresses the issue of assessing communication, language, and associated cognitive and behavioral abilities of minimally verbal children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), presenting a summary of a year‐long series of meetings held by a group of experts in the field of ASD and National Institutes of Health staff. In this paper, our goals were to first define the population and then present general guidelines for optimizing assessment sessions for this challenging population. We then summarize the available measures that can be used across a variety of behavioral domains that are most directly relevant to developing language skills, including oral motor skills, vocal repertoire, receptive and expressive language, imitation, intentional communication, play, social behavior, repetitive and sensory behaviors, and nonverbal cognition. We conclude with a discussion of some of the limitations in the available measures and highlight recommendations for future research in this area. Autism Res 2013, 6: 479–493. © 2013 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Building and Developing Healthy Communities through Arts and Culture in South Africa

This Master’s Project was completed in partial fulfillment of a Master of Arts degree in Arts Management from the University of Oregon. This research project explores how planning for arts and culture at the local level can build and develop healthy communities in South Africa. The primary case study sites informing the project were the City of Johannesburg and Buffalo City Municipality in South Africa. Through the exploration of literature and sites in South Africa and the United States of America an understanding of the models, theories, and approaches which define cultural planning are documented to assist future policy and infrastructure creation, program design, and meeting developmental mandates and objectives of local government. The intent of this project is to evoke discussion, provide a base to engage stakeholders, and contribute to the body of cultural planning literature and practice currently emerging in South Africa.
Developmental variation in epidermal growth factor receptor size and localization in the malaria mosquito, Anopheles gambiae

The AGER gene encoding the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) of the malaria mosquito Anopheles gambiae was cloned and sequenced. It represents a canonical member of this family of tyrosine kinase proteins exhibiting many similarities to orthologues from other species, both on the level of genomic organization and protein structure. The mRNA can be detected throughout development. Western analysis with an antibody raised against the extracellular domain of the mosquito protein suggests developmental variation in protein size and location that may be involved in the function of EGFR in the mosquito.
Debt sustainability in the EU New Member States: empirical evidence from a panel of eight Central and East European countries

This article aims to assess the sustainability of fiscal policies in a panel of eight EU New Member States, namely Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia. First, using panel data unit-root tests, econometric findings show that the variables public expenditure and revenue are not stationary. However, employing panel cointegration tests, it is found that government spending and revenue are cointegrated. This implies that fiscal policies in these countries are sustainable in the long run, i.e. they are consistent with inter-temporal budget balance in accordance with the present-value approach. Finally, these results are confirmed if we exclude the countries with sound public finances, namely the three Baltic States and Slovenia: we obtain the same conclusion with a panel comprising Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Poland and the Slovak Republic.
ON MODELING ADVERTISING PULSING DECISIONS

Based on empirical findings in the literature, sales response to advertising pulsing policy (APP) is modeled mathematically. The implications for APP are discussed. This policy is compared with an alternative policy of uniform expenditures (UAP), a commonly used strategy. The results of the research indicate that substantial savings in advertising budget or an increase in sales revenues may be achieved for a firm using APP.
Mouse DC-SIGN/CD209a as Target for Antigen Delivery and Adaptive Immunity

The efficacy of vaccination studies aimed at targeting antigens to human DC-SIGN (hDC-SIGN) have been notoriously difficult to study in vivo, as eight dendritic cell-specific intercellular adhesion molecule-3 grabbing non-integrin (DC-SIGN) homologs have been described in mice. CD209a/SIGNR5 has been coined as the mouse DC-SIGN (mDC-SIGN) ortholog, based on its expression and location in the genome. Nonetheless, which properties of hDC-SIGN are covered by mDC-SIGN is poorly investigated. One of the most important functions of DC-SIGN is the induction of adaptive immunity. As such, the aim of this study is to determine the capability of mDC-SIGN to induce adaptive immune responses. Here, we show that mDC-SIGN is expressed on GM-CSF cultured bone marrow-derived dendritic cells (BMDCs) and macrophages. However, mDC-SIGN is an internalizing receptor which, unlike hDC-SIGN, quickly resurfaces after internalization. Binding of OVA-coupled anti-mDC-SIGN antibody by BMDCs leads to quick internalization, processing, and presentation to antigen-specific CD8+ and CD4+ T cells, which can be boosted using the TLR4 ligand, monophosphoryl lipid A. In the homeostatic condition, mDC-SIGN is mostly expressed on myeloid cells in the skin and spleen. A subcutaneous injection of fluorescent anti-mDC-SIGN reveals specific targeting to mDC-SIGN+ skin dendritic cells (DCs) and monocyte-derived DCs in situ. A subcutaneous vaccination strategy containing OVA-coupled anti-mDC-SIGN antibody generated antigen-specific polyfunctional CD8+ T cell and CD4+ T cell responses and a strong isotype-switched OVA-specific antibody response in vivo. We conclude that mDC-SIGN shows partly overlapping similarities to hDC-SIGN and that targeting mDC-SIGN provides a valuable approach to investigate the immunological function of DC-SIGN in vivo.
PPD: A Robust Low-computation Local Descriptor for Mobile Image Retrieval

This paper proposes an efficient and yet powerful local descriptor called phase-space partition based descriptor (PPD). This descriptor is designed for the mobile image matching and retrieval. PPD, which is inspired from SIFT, also encodes the salient aspects of the image gradient in the neighborhood around an interest point. However, without employing SIFT’s smoothed gradient orientation histogram, we apply the region based gradient statistics in phase space to the construction of a feature representation, which allows to reduce much computation requirements. The feature matching experiments demonstrate that PPD achieves favorable performance close to that of SIFT and faster building and matching. We also present results showing that the use of PPD descriptors in a mobile image retrieval application results in a comparable performance to SIFT.
Implementation of WSN application service using people detection algorithm

In this paper, we implements intrusion detection system for video surveillance which works well in wireless sensor networks (WSN) environment. Our system has been implemented using open geospatial consortium standard, and operated in the android platform of mobile environment. We also have been implemented intruder detection by machine learning technique. As a result, our system can achieve real-time and robust people classification in diverse scenes.
A Bayesian Approach to Variable Selection in Logistic Regression with Application to Predicting Earnings Direction from Accounting Information

This paper presents a Bayesian technique for the estimation of a logistic regression model including variable selection. The model is used, as in Ou and Penman (1989), to predict the direction of company earnings, one year ahead of time, from a large set of accounting variables from financial statements. We present a Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling scheme, that includes the variable selection technique of Smith and Kohn (1996) and the non-Gaussian estimation method of Mira and Tierney (1997), to estimate the model. The technique is applied to companies in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia. This extends the analysis of Ou and Penman (1989) who studied United States companies only. The results obtained compare favourably to the technique used in Ou and Penamn (1989) for all three regions.
Interactive Complexity: Software Metrics from an Ecosystem Perspective

With even the most trivial of applications now being written on top of millions of lines code of libraries, API's, and programming languages, much of the complexity that used to exist when designing software has been abstracted away to allow programmers to focus on primarily business logic. With each application relying so heavily on the ecosystem it was designed to run in, whether that is limited to a local system or includes dependencies on machines connected by networks, measuring the complexity of these systems can no longer be done simply by observing the code internal to the application; we also need to account for its external interactions. This is especially important when considering issues of security, which becomes more vital as our healthcare, financial, and automobiles rely on complicated software systems. We propose Interactive Complexity, which provide a quantitative measure of how intertwined parts of the system are. Some of the most well-known software complexity metrics out there are the metrics in the CK-metric suite; these metrics are designed for use in measuring object oriented systems, but we believe they can be adapted to help measure the interaction of software systems. Our experimental results show strong correlations between the number of bugs fixed in a release and the value of some of these metrics in systems of sufficient scale.
Age-Stratified Performance of the Cervista HPV 16/18 Genotyping Test in Women with ASC-US Cytology

Background: The objective of this study was to evaluate the clinical performance of the Cervista HPV 16/18 genotyping test for detection of human papilloma virus (HPV) 16 and 18 in cervical cytology specimens in women stratified by age. Methods: In a multicenter, prospective clinical study, ThinPrep specimens were tested for the presence of HPV 16 and 18 using the HPV 16/18 genotyping test. Genotyping results from women with atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance or greater cytology were compared with local colposcopy and/or histology results. Sensitivity, specificity, and negative and positive predictive values (NPV and PPV) were determined. Results: The prevalence of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) 2+ in subjects positive for HPV 16/18 was 6.6% and 4.1% for women <30 and ≥30 years of age, respectively. The sensitivity of the test was 70.0% (95% CI: 54.6–81.9) and 66.7% (95% CI: 46.7–82.0) in women <30 and ≥30 years, respectively. The NPV was 95.5% (95% CI: 93.4–97.6) in women <30 years and 96.6% (95% CI: 94.8–98.5) in women ≥30 years. Specificity was higher in women ≥30 years (79.9%; 95% CI: 74.9–84.2) than women <30 years (61.9%; 95% CI: 57.1–66.4). The PPV was 15.2% (95% CI: 12.7–19.1) in women <30 years and 21.9% (95% CI: 17.0–30.7) in women ≥30 years. Conclusions: The performance of the Cervista HPV 16/18 genotyping test for predicting ≥CIN 2 is what would be expected across the key ≥CIN 2 age strata. Impact: HPV 16/18 genotyping may help further stratify women with a greater potential to develop cervical cancer. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 20(6); 1185–9. ©2011 AACR.
The Paradox of Climate Engineering

Climate engineering technologies, sometimes also referred to as geoengineering technologies, attempt to ward off the worst effects of climate change by intervening in the global climate system. We see the potentials offered by climate engineering technologies in counteracting the threats of climate change but also take into account the risks that arise from the side effects of these technologies on natural, social and political systems. We find a paradox of climate engineering, which consists in the circumstance that exactly those technologies that are capable of acting fast and effectively against rising temperatures at comparatively low costs, are also the technologies that are likely to create the greatest amount of social and political conflict. To address this apparent paradox, we argue that an institutional setting for researching and potentially deploying climate engineering technologies is needed which creates a sufficiently high degree of social and political legitimacy and addresses a set of specified problems connected to climate engineering. We present a proposal for such an institutional setting that explicitly addresses these concerns. Policy Implications • Research on and potential uses of climate engineering technologies need to be coordinated internationally in a multilateral institutional setting. • An international climate engineering agency should be created that coordinates and disseminates research on climate engineering. • Research results should be evaluated by the IPCC. • Decision-making on climate engineering should occur within the UNFCCC, where the states party to that convention should decide on norms and rules that govern climate engineering (regarding, for example, an upper limit for manipulations of the radiation balance, a uniform metric for making different responses to climate change comparable, and a time limited moratorium on field tests and deployments of climate engineering technologies).
An application of speech recognition with support vector machines

Speech recognition systems aim to make human-machine communication quickly and easily. In recent years, various researches and studies have been carried out to develop speech recognition systems. Examples of these studies are speech recognition, speaker recognition and speaker verification. In this study, speech recognition systems were investigated, methods used in the literature were investigated and a Turkish speech recognition application was developed. The application consists of speech coding and speech recognition. Firstly 20 Turkish words which are frequently used on the computer were determined. There are 20 records from each word. A total of 400 words were recorded on the computer with a microphone. In the speech coding section of the application, these words recorded on the computer are encoded by the Linear Pre-estimation Coding (LPC) method and the LPC parameters for each word are obtained. In the speech recognition section of the application, the Support Vector Machines (SVM) method is used. Two types of SVM classifiers are designed. These are the Soft Margin SVM (SM-SVM) classifier and the Least Square SVM (LS-SVM) classifier. Classification consists of training and testing stages. Of the 400 coded words, 200 were used for the training phase and 200 were used for the testing phase. As a result, 91% accurate recognition success for the SM-SVM classifier; 71% correct recognition of the LS-SVM classifier has been achieved.
Poverty in African Households: the Limits of Survey and Census Representations

Abstract African poverty statistics depend on household-level measurements from survey data, making the definition of household of critical importance. Detailed case studies from Tanzania and Burkina Faso explore (1) understandings of household membership and ambiguities, and (2) how well survey definitions capture households as economic units, and the implications for household size and responses to and mitigation of poverty. We develop an analytic framework of ‘open’ and ‘closed’ households. ‘Open’ households cope with poverty using flexibility, movement and extra-household networks, but are poorly represented by survey data. Closed households are likely to be better described by survey data.
The Risk of Lower Mental Outcome in Infantile Spasms Increases after Three Weeks of Hypsarrhythmia Duration

Summary: To assess the correlation between hypsarrhythmia duration and mental outcome in infantile spasms (IS) the medical records of 48 infants with IS were reviewed retrospectively and psychological assessments undertaken at follow‐up at the age of 3 to 13 years. We found 18 (38%) cryptogenic IS cases with typical hypsarrhythmia and 30 symptomatic with modified hypsarrhythmia—further classified into 15 cases as multifocal, 10 as pseudoperiodic and 5 as unilateral hypsarrhythmia. A short treatment lag (one to two weeks) occurred in 25, three to four weeks in 10 cases. Spasms ceased within one month after treatment in 23 infants. At follow‐up 15 children had normal mental outcome (borderline included). A correlation between hypsarrhythmia duration longer than three weeks and lower mental outcome was found using the logistic regression model. The duration of hypsarrhythmia represents a sensitive prognostic parameter in IS; the risk of mental retardation increases after three weeks of hypsarrhythmia.