Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comunicações boca-a-boca em marketing : uma meta-análise dos antecedentes e dos moderadores

Although word-of-mouth activity has been studied as an outcome variable of other constructs (e.g., satisfaction), less attention has been given to the antecedents and moderators of wordof-mouth when considering word-of-mouth as a central construct. Hence, this dissertation proposes and tests a model of word-of-mouth antecedents and moderators using a metaanalytic review. Results are presented in two phases with the first using a sample of studies that have provided the correlations and the second adding further studies that have brought the standardized regression coefficients. In the first stage, a total of 91 studies were included in the analyses, producing 121 independent samples and 37,801 participants. Results demonstrated that all antecedents have significant effects on word-of-mouth activity, with customer commitment presenting the strongest effect. The following hypotheses are also supported: (i) word-of-mouth valence is a significant moderator; (ii) cross-sectional studies show a stronger influence of satisfaction and loyalty on word-of-mouth activity than longitudinal studies. Moreover, there is also support for the different roles of satisfaction and loyalty on word-of-mouth, i.e., we show that satisfaction is more likely to be associated with positive word-of-mouth than loyalty, whereas (dis)loyalty is more likely to be associated with negative word-of-mouth than is (dis)satisfaction. We discuss this finding based on the different natures of positive and negative word-of-mouth, i.e., cognitive and emotional, respectively. In the second stage, 34 studies that had provided only the regression coefficient were added to the previous sample, after converting the regression coefficient to correlation. Results from this phase supported the findings from the previous stage and only one new result was found, namely the significant role of word-of-mouth incidence as a moderator. This effect was based on the fact that studies of word-of-mouth behavior demonstrated a weaker association between loyalty and word-of-mouth activity than studies of word-of-mouth intentions.
Boosting software fault injection for dependability analysis of real-time embedded applications

The design of complex embedded systems deployed in safety-critical or mission-critical applications mandates the availability of methods to validate the system dependability across the whole design flow. In this article we introduce a fault injection approach, based on loadable kernel modules and running under the Linux operating system, which can be adopted as soon as a running prototype of the systems is available. Moreover, for the purpose of decoupling dependability analysis from hardware availability, we also propose the adoption of hardware virtualization. Extensive experimental results show that statistical analysis made on top of virtual prototypes are in good agreement with the information disclosed by fault detection trends of real platforms, even under real-time constraints.
Retinal effects of 6 months of daily use of tadalafil or sildenafil.

OBJECTIVE To assess changes in electroretinography (ERG) and other retinal function parameters during 6 months of daily use of tadalafil, sildenafil citrate, or placebo. METHODS Subjects were randomized to use of a placebo (n=82), 5 mg of tadalafil (n=85), or 50 mg of sildenafil (n=77) daily for 6 months. Electroretinographs were recorded using the International Society for Clinical Electrophysiology of Vision (ISCEV) protocol and standardized ERG equipment at all 15 study sites. Other tests of ocular anatomy and visual function were performed at each assessment. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES The primary outcome was the average mean change for both eyes from baseline to endpoint in ERG b-wave amplitude using dark-adapted combined standard response to a bright ISCEV standard flash. Secondary endpoints were other ERG parameter changes, visual acuity, number of errors in color discrimination testing, mean deviation in automated visual field testing, and intraocular pressure (IOP). RESULTS No significant differences were found between treatment/placebo groups for the primary outcome, most other ERG variables, visual function, IOP, or anatomic assessments. The medications were well tolerated. CONCLUSIONS No abnormalities in ERG or visual function and no treatment-related findings suggestive of drug toxicity are associated with daily administration of tadalafil or sildenafil for 6 months. APPLICATION TO CLINICAL PRACTICE Assessed visual safety of tadalafil/sildenafil administered daily over a prolonged period. TRIAL REGISTRATION clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT00333281.
High‐Frequency Trading and the Execution Costs of Institutional Investors

This paper studies whether high-frequency trading (HFT) increases the execution costs of institutional investors. We use technology upgrades that lower the latency of the London Stock Exchange to obtain variation in the level of HFT over time. Following upgrades, the level of HFT increases. Around these shocks to HFT institutional traders’ costs remain unchanged. We find no clear evidence that HFT impacts institutional execution costs.
AppLens and launchTile: two designs for one-handed thumb use on small devices

We present two interfaces to support one-handed thumb use for PDAs and cell phones. Both use Scalable User Interface (ScUI) techniques to support multiple devices with different resolutions and aspect ratios. The designs use variations of zooming interface techniques to provide multiple views of application data: AppLens uses tabular fisheye to access nine applications, while LaunchTile uses pure zoom to access thirty-six applications. We introduce two sets of thumb gestures, each representing different philosophies for one-handed interaction. We conducted two studies to evaluate our designs. In the first study, we explored whether users could learn and execute the AppLens gesture set with minimal training. Participants performed more accurately and efficiently using gestures for directional navigation than using gestures for object interaction. In the second study, we gathered user reactions to each interface, as well as comparative preferences. With minimal exposure to each design, most users favored AppLens's tabular fisheye interface.
Multiple Domains of GlcNAc-1-phosphotransferase Mediate Recognition of Lysosomal Enzymes*

The Golgi enzyme UDP-GlcNAc:lysosomal enzyme N-acetylglucosamine-1-phosphotransferase (GlcNAc-1-phosphotransferase), an α2β2γ2 hexamer, mediates the initial step in the addition of the mannose 6-phosphate targeting signal on newly synthesized lysosomal enzymes. This tag serves to direct the lysosomal enzymes to lysosomes. A key property of GlcNAc-1-phosphotransferase is its unique ability to distinguish the 60 or so lysosomal enzymes from the numerous non-lysosomal glycoproteins with identical Asn-linked glycans. In this study, we demonstrate that the two Notch repeat modules and the DNA methyltransferase-associated protein interaction domain of the α subunit are key components of this recognition process. Importantly, different combinations of these domains are involved in binding to individual lysosomal enzymes. This study also identifies the γ-binding site on the α subunit and demonstrates that in the majority of instances the mannose 6-phosphate receptor homology domain of the γ subunit is required for optimal phosphorylation. These findings serve to explain how GlcNAc-1-phosphotransferase recognizes a large number of proteins that lack a common structural motif.
Effects of the use of heather as anthelmintic in goats infected with trichostrongylus colubriformis on ruminal fermentation and digestibility

Previous field studies have supported the absence of a nutritiocost outweighing the beneficial anthelmintic effect of supplementing the diet of grazing g oats with tannin-containing heather. In order to fur- ther research in this regard, an experiment was conducted indoors w ith 18 does artificially infected with Trichostrongylus colubriformis . The goats were offered lucerne hay for 6 weeks and then assi gned to 3 treat-
Recovery guarantees for multifrequency chirp waveforms in compressed radar sensing

Radar imaging systems transmit modulated wideband waveform to achieve high range resolution resulting in high sampling rates at the receiver proportional to the bandwidth of the transmit waveform. Analog processing techniques can be used on receive to reduce the number of measurements to N, the number of potential delay bins. If the scene interrogated by the radar is assumed to be sparse consisting of K point targets, results from compressive sensing suggest that number of measurements can be further reduced to scale with K logN for stable recovery of a sparse scene from measurements with additive noise. While unstructured random projectors guarantee successful recovery under sparsity constraints, they cannot be implemented in the radar hardware in practice. Recently, structured random Toeplitz and Circulant matrices that result from using stochastic waveforms in time delay estimation setting have been shown to yield recovery guarantees similar to unstructured sensing matrices. However, the corresponding transmitter and receiver structures have high complexity and large storage requirements. In this paper, we propose an alternative low complexity compressive wideband radar sensor which combines multitone signal chirp waveform on transmit with a receiver that utilizes an analog mixer followed with a uniform sub-Nyquist sampling stage. We derive the recovery guarantees for the resulting structured measurement matrix and sufficient conditions for the number of tones. The only random component of our design is the sparse tone spectrum implementable efficiently in hardware. Our analytical and empirical results show that the performance of our scheme is in par with unstructured random sensing matrices and structured Toeplitz and Circulant matrices with random entries.
Sindbis Virus-Induced Neuronal Death Is both Necrotic and Apoptotic and Is Ameliorated byN-Methyl-d-Aspartate Receptor Antagonists

ABSTRACT Virus infection of neurons leads to different outcomes ranging from latent and noncytolytic infection to cell death. Viruses kill neurons directly by inducing either apoptosis or necrosis or indirectly as a result of the host immune response. Sindbis virus (SV) is an alphavirus that induces apoptotic cell death both in vitro and in vivo. However, apoptotic changes are not always evident in neurons induced to die by alphavirus infection. Time lapse imaging revealed that SV-infected primary cortical neurons exhibited both apoptotic and necrotic morphological features and that uninfected neurons in the cultures also died. Antagonists of the N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) subtype of glutamate receptors protected neurons from SV-induced death without affecting virus replication or SV-induced apoptotic cell death. These results provide evidence that SV infection activates neurotoxic pathways that result in aberrant NMDA receptor stimulation and damage to infected and uninfected neurons.
Free Fatty Acids Inhibit Insulin Signaling–Stimulated Endothelial Nitric Oxide Synthase Activation Through Upregulating PTEN or Inhibiting Akt Kinase

In metabolic syndrome, a systemic deregulation of the insulin pathway leads to a combined deregulation of insulin-regulated metabolism and cardiovascular functions. Free fatty acids (FFAs), which are increased in metabolic syndrome, inhibit insulin signaling and induce metabolic insulin resistance. This study was designed to examine FFAs’ effects on vascular insulin signaling and endothelial nitric oxide (NO) synthase (eNOS) activation in endothelial cells. We showed that FFAs inhibited insulin signaling and eNOS activation through different mechanisms. While linoleic acid inhibited Akt-mediated eNOS phosphorylation, palmitic acid appeared to affect the upstream signaling. Upregulation of PTEN (phosphatase and tensin homolog deleted on chromosome 10) activity and transcription by palmitic acid mediated the inhibitory effects on insulin signaling. We further found that activated stress signaling p38, but not Jun NH2-terminal kinase, was involved in PTEN upregulation. The p38 target transcriptional factor activating transcription factor (ATF)-2 bound to the PTEN promoter, which was increased by palmitic acid treatment. In summary, both palmitic acid and linoleic acid exert inhibitory effect on insulin signaling and eNOS activation in endothelial cells. Palmitic acid inhibits insulin signaling by promoting PTEN activity and its transcription through p38 and its downstream transcription factor ATF-2. Our findings suggest that FFA-mediated inhibition of vascular insulin signaling and eNOS activation may contribute to cardiovascular diseases in metabolic syndrome.
Exercise and Salivary IgA Response

Salivary IgA (sIgA) has been used to be a key indicator in determining the effect of different forms of stress on mucosal immunity. This review was focused to discuss the following topics: (1) the modulation of sIgA secretion; (2) sIgA and exercise-induced upper respiratory tract infection (URTI); (3) sIgA response and exercise; (4) nutritional supplementation and exercise-induced sIgA responses; (5) repeated bouts of exercise and sIgA responses. Summaries were concluded in this review according to the current knowledge of the sIgA responses to exercise: (1) sIgA secretion and functions are regulated both by the stimulation of sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal-(HPA)-axis; (2) activated SNS and/or HPA induced by exercise might decrease saliva flow rate immediately and inhibit sIgA secretion and antigen-specific IgA production chronically; (3) the lower levels of sIgA may compromise immunity in mucosal surfaces and stresses induced by training and/or competition would temporarily impair oral immunity, placing elite athletes at a higher risk of URTI within 2 weeks after exercise; (4) the ingestion of carbohydrate and vitamin C appeared not to affect sIgA response following prolonged exercise; (5) the different times of day did not influence sIgA response to exercise; (6) the second exercise bout did not appear to further compromise the oral immunity compared with the first identical exercise bout and carbohydrate ingestion during any period of two repeated prolonged exercise bouts did not to induce different effects on oral immunity compared with placebo trials.
Thoracic Paravertebral Analgesia Through a New Multiple-Hole Catheter.

Continuous paravertebral block has been proven to be effective for cardiothoracic surgery with low rates of adverse events, and also in patients taking anticoagulant or antiplatelet drugs that cannot be suspended for the preoperative period or in those who have coagulopathies. Catheter placement technique, tip misplacement rates, and the choice of the analgesic mixture are discussed widely. The improvement of the technique is mandatory to obtain the best postoperative analgesia management. Moreover, it is not clear which would be the ideal catheter for the paravertebral space. Some authors used intrapleural catheters; others used catheters with multiple side holes and some epidural catheters; finally, in many publications, the total number of the catheter’s side holes is omitted. Catheter design may play an important role in adequate delivery of the analgesic mixture. Finding the most effective delivery system could reduce technical confounding factors in the evaluation of this technique. Wheatley et al described the use of an elastomeric pump connected to a small flexible catheter that acts as a soaker hose and allows continuous infusion of the drug to nearby tissues. In general, multi-orifice catheters are considered to be better than singleorifice catheters because the kinking of the catheter can cause continuous infusion obstruction. This event is more likely to happen in the paravertebral than the epidural space given its nature of a virtual space created through dissection. The authors used a newly designed Paravertebral Pebax Anaesthesia Catheters (Praesidia SRL, Bologna, Italy) (Fig 1) characterized by an outer diameter of 1.2 mm and length of 600 mm with 12 holes at the first 65 mm. The catheter was placed in 2 patients, aged 63 and 67, undergoing scheduled right upper and left lower thoracotomy, respectively. Patients received total intravenous anesthesia with propofol and remifentanil to obtain a bispectral index between 40 and 60. The thoracic
Prior Density-Ratio Class Robustness in Econometrics

This article provides a generic, very fast method for computing exact density-ratio class bounds on posterior expectations, given the output of a posterior simulator. It illustrates application of the method in an econometric model of typical complexity. In this model, the exact bounds for expectations of some functions of interest are well approximated by the established asymptotic approximation but others are not. Software for the computations is publicly available in a variety of programming languages.
Ethnicity: Problem and Focus in Anthropology

+9619 Quite suddenly, with little comment or cere mony, ethnicity is an ubiquitous presence. Even a brief glance through titles of books and monographs over the past few years indicates a steadily accelerating acceptance and applica­ tion of the terms "ethnicity" and "ethnic" to refer to what was before often subsumed under "culture," "cultural," or "tribal. " New journals have ap­ peared using the terms in their titles, and special programs of ethnic studies are showing up in university catalogs. Almost any cultural-social unit, indeed any term describing particular
Influence of In-Situ Oil Sands Development on Caribou (Rangifer tarandus) Movement

In-situ oil sands development (ISD) involves a network of facilities, wells, roads and pipelines to extract and transport subsurface bitumen. This technology is rapidly expanding and there is uncertainty whether ISDs restrict animal movement, leading to increased extinction probabilities for some wide-ranging species. Here we test for effects of simulated future (i.e., 50 years from now) and current ISDs on simulated movements of woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus), a threatened species across North America. In simulations of future scenarios, we varied the spacing and permeability of ISDs and the presence/absence of protected areas. Permeability was measured as the number of times simulated caribou crossed ISDs with different levels of modelled permeability. We estimated the effects of these factors on caribou step length and annual home range size, key metrics of small and large spatiotemporal scales of movement, respectively. Current caribou crossings of above-ground pipeline features of ISDs were measured using camera traps and compared to expected caribou crossing rates based on present-day caribou movement simulations. Current crossing rates were evaluated within the context of predicted future crossing success rates necessary to maintain caribou step lengths and home ranges. With few exceptions, permeability across ISDs was the main factor affecting caribou movement, more so than spacing between developments or the presence of protected areas. However, minimal permeability (crossing rates of c. 15% to 60%, relative to an undisturbed site was needed to maintain existing home range size and step lengths. The effect of permeability on home range size and step length was non-linear, suggesting that small increases in permeability would provide a disproportionately greater benefit to caribou movement. Our predictions demonstrate that maintaining permeability across ISDs is more important than spacing between leases or including protected areas, and thus provides clear direction for mitigation efforts for features that will exist on the landscape for decades to come.
Emotional sounds modulate early neural processing of emotional pictures

In our natural environment, emotional information is conveyed by converging visual and auditory information; multimodal integration is of utmost importance. In the laboratory, however, emotion researchers have mostly focused on the examination of unimodal stimuli. Few existing studies on multimodal emotion processing have focused on human communication such as the integration of facial and vocal expressions. Extending the concept of multimodality, the current study examines how the neural processing of emotional pictures is influenced by simultaneously presented sounds. Twenty pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral pictures of complex scenes were presented to 22 healthy participants. On the critical trials these pictures were paired with pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral sounds. Sound presentation started 500 ms before picture onset and each stimulus presentation lasted for 2 s. EEG was recorded from 64 channels and ERP analyses focused on the picture onset. In addition, valence and arousal ratings were obtained. Previous findings for the neural processing of emotional pictures were replicated. Specifically, unpleasant compared to neutral pictures were associated with an increased parietal P200 and a more pronounced centroparietal late positive potential (LPP), independent of the accompanying sound valence. For audiovisual stimulation, increased parietal P100 and P200 were found in response to all pictures which were accompanied by unpleasant or pleasant sounds compared to pictures with neutral sounds. Most importantly, incongruent audiovisual pairs of unpleasant pictures and pleasant sounds enhanced parietal P100 and P200 compared to pairings with congruent sounds. Taken together, the present findings indicate that emotional sounds modulate early stages of visual processing and, therefore, provide an avenue by which multimodal experience may enhance perception.