Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Heart and Skeletal Muscle Are Targets of Dengue Virus Infection

Background: Dengue fever is one of the most significant re-emerging tropical diseases, despite our expanding knowledge of the disease, viral tropism is still not known to target heart tissues or muscle. Methods: A prospective pediatric clinical cohort of 102 dengue hemorrhagic fever patients from Colombia, South America, was followed for 1 year. Clinical diagnosis of myocarditis was routinely performed. Electrocardiograph and echocardiograph analysis were performed to confirm those cases. Immunohistochemistry for detection of dengue virus and inflammatory markers was performed on autopsied heart tissue. In vitro studies of human striated skeletal fibers (myotubes) infected with dengue virus were used as a model for myocyte infection. Measurements of intracellular Ca2+ concentration as well as immunodetection of dengue virus and inflammation markers in infected myotubes were performed. Results: Eleven children with dengue hemorrhagic fever presented with symptoms of myocarditis. Widespread viral infection of the heart, myocardial endothelium, and cardiomyocytes, accompanied by inflammation was observed in 1 fatal case. Immunofluorescence confocal microscopy showed that myotubes were infected by dengue virus and had increased expression of the inflammatory genes and protein IP-10. The infected myotubes also had increases in intracellular Ca2+ concentration. Conclusions: Vigorous infection of heart tissues in vivo and striated skeletal cells in vitro are demonstrated. Derangements of Ca2+ storage in the infected cells may directly contribute to the presentation of myocarditis in pediatric patients.
Deciphering innovation across cultures

Schumpeter in 1942 clearly established the necessity of innovation for all forms of global competition. The more we enter in globalized markets Innovation is becoming a critical tool for business value creation. Innovation, understood as something new that can create value, the integration or generation of new ideas to generate products or services is widely view as a key driver for a country’s economic growth. Further, policies for economic development are often drafted around a country’s innovative capacity and usually then transferred across Nations as a form of templates for key economic development initiatives. However, there are many definitions of innovation across country/culture levels and therefore the concept of innovation can raise definitional issues. This research argues that a country’s culture may have an impact in defining innovation and as a consequence in the final outputs and aims to seek more precise ways of understanding innovation. Furthermore, the intention of this research is to explore and understand how innovation is perceived across different cultural groups and demonstrate that a unique or singular perception may not be as effective in deciphering this important term. This research presents findings across three different countries with very distinctive and entrepreneurial cultures, although all of three countries are in the Asia Pacific area. The research makes a contribution at two levels. First, at the scholarly level, it contributes toward theory development by improving our understanding of the roles of cultural factors in the innovation concept. This leads to a better perception of the different definitions underlying innovation and how these impact on firms implementing innovation strategies across countries. Second, at an applied level, the study provides insights for management and policy makers. In the case of management, this study provides information that allows them to make decisions that could help them develop or assess the effectiveness of existing innovation activities and strategies. This study finds that the perception and interpretation of innovation across the responders is influenced by their regional location. Few triggers for these interpretations are highlighted however it is discussed that further study is required to understand in depth the reasons for these differences.
AN EMPIRICAL APPLICATION OF DYNAMIC DUALITY

In this paper we estimate a model of production and investment based on the theory of dynamic duality and are particularly interested in the effects of R&D spillovers and in calculating the social and private rates of return. We identify and estimate three effects associated with the intraindustry R&D spillover. First, costs decline as knowledge expands for the externality—receiving firms. Second, production structures are affected, as factor demands change in response to the spillover. Third, the rates of capital accumulation are affected by the R&D spillover. These cost—reducing, factor—biasing and capital adjustment effects of the spillover are estimated for four industries. The existence of R&D spillovers implies that the social and private rates of return to R&D capital differ. We estimate that the social return exceeds the private return in each industry. However, there is significant variation across industries in the differential between the social and private rates of return. Jeffrey I. Bernstein M. Ishaq Nadiri Department of Economics Department of Economics Carleton University New York University Ottawa, Ontario 269 Mercer Street, 7th floor Canada K1S 5B6 New York, N.Y. 10003
Telerobotic system concept for real-time soft-tissue imaging during radiotherapy beam delivery.

PURPOSE The curative potential of external beam radiation therapy is critically dependent on having the ability to accurately aim radiation beams at intended targets while avoiding surrounding healthy tissues. However, existing technologies are incapable of real-time, volumetric, soft-tissue imaging during radiation beam delivery, when accurate target tracking is most critical. The authors address this challenge in the development and evaluation of a novel, minimally interfering, telerobotic ultrasound (U.S.) imaging system that can be integrated with existing medical linear accelerators (LINACs) for therapy guidance. METHODS A customized human-safe robotic manipulator was designed and built to control the pressure and pitch of an abdominal U.S. transducer while avoiding LINAC gantry collisions. A haptic device was integrated to remotely control the robotic manipulator motion and U.S. image acquisition outside the LINAC room. The ability of the system to continuously maintain high quality prostate images was evaluated in volunteers over extended time periods. Treatment feasibility was assessed by comparing a clinically deployed prostate treatment plan to an alternative plan in which beam directions were restricted to sectors that did not interfere with the transabdominal U.S. transducer. To demonstrate imaging capability concurrent with delivery, robot performance and U.S. target tracking in a phantom were tested with a 15 MV radiation beam active. RESULTS Remote image acquisition and maintenance of image quality with the haptic interface was successfully demonstrated over 10 min periods in representative treatment setups of volunteers. Furthermore, the robot's ability to maintain a constant probe force and desired pitch angle was unaffected by the LINAC beam. For a representative prostate patient, the dose-volume histogram (DVH) for a plan with restricted sectors remained virtually identical to the DVH of a clinically deployed plan. With reduced margins, as would be enabled by real-time imaging, gross tumor volume coverage was identical while notable reductions of bladder and rectal volumes exposed to large doses were possible. The quality of U.S. images obtained during beam operation was not appreciably degraded by radiofrequency interference and 2D tracking of a phantom object in U.S. images obtained with the beam on/off yielded no significant differences. CONCLUSIONS Remotely controlled robotic U.S. imaging is feasible in the radiotherapy environment and for the first time may offer real-time volumetric soft-tissue guidance concurrent with radiotherapy delivery.
The application of Laozi's DAODEJING to today's maritime leaders: An empirical study from stakeholders' viewpoints in Taiwan

This study looks at the twenty precepts of virtues set forth by the ancient philosopher Laozi’s DAODEJING (DDJ) related to a leader’s ethical spirit (LES) and leader’s social responsibility (LSR) and applies them to today’s leaders in China. We define two constructs of LES and LSR, referred to as ‘Dao’ and ‘De’ on the respective chapters in DDJ; we then provide an empirical validation and develop a scale of twenty virtues of LES and LSR with desirable psychometric properties, and explore theoretical and practical applications to Taiwanese stakeholders in the shipping industry. Linear structural equation modeling (SEM) is applied for measurement of the components of Laozi’s ‘Dao-De’ relationship to help readers understand these two constructs that underlie leadership of Chinese. The ‘virtues’ aspect of a leader’s ethical spirit is defined in terms of humility, love, resolution, temperance, purity, sincerity, order, justice, benefit, and moderation. ‘Social responsibility’ related to a leader’s virtues power are then described in terms of livelihood, welfare, happiness, follow-through, accomplishment, tolerance, support, everlastingness, practice, and credit. Empirical evidence proves that leader’s ethical spirit (LES) has a significant effect on leader’s social responsibility (LSR). The study results provide criteria for virtues applicable to the ethical spirit and social responsibility of a leader. With desirable psychometric twenty virtues and explore theoretical and practical applications to Chinese leaders, which serve as guiding criteria to improve leadership in current Chinese society.
Is Child Labor Harmful? The Impact of Working Earlier in Life on Adult Earnings

This paper explores the question: is working as a child harmful to an individual in terms of adult outcomes in earnings? Although this is an extremely important question, little is known about the effect of child labor on adult outcomes. Estimations of an instrumental variables earnings model on data from Brazil show that child labor has a large negative impact on adult earnings for male children even when controlling for schooling and that the negative impact of starting to work as a child reverses at around ages 12–14.
Improving a High Productivity Data Analytics Chapel Framework

Most state of the art exploratory data analysis frameworks fall into one of the two extremes: they either focus on the high-performance computational, or on the interactive and open-ended aspects of the analysis. Arkouda is a framework that attempts to integrate the interactive approach with the high performance computation by using a novel client-server architecture, with a Python interpreter on the client side for the interactions with the scientist and a Chapel server for performing the demanding high-performance computations. The Arkouda Python interpreter overloads the Python operators and transforms them into messages to the Chapel server that performs the actual computation. In this paper, we are proposing several client-side optimization techniques for the Arkouda framework that maintain the interactive nature of the Arkouda framework, but at the same time significantly improve the performance of the programs that perform operations running on the high-performance Chapel server. We do this by intercepting the Python operations in the interpreter, and delaying their execution until the user requires the data, or we fill out the instruction buffer. We implement caching and reuse of the Arkouda arrays on the Chapel server side (thus saving on the allocation, initialization and deallocation of the Chapel arrays), tracking and caching the results of function calls on the Arkouda arrays (thus avoiding repeated computation) and reusing the results of array operations by performing common subexpression elimination. We evaluate our approach on several Arkouda benchmarks and a large collection of real-world and synthetic data inputs and show significant performance improvements between 20% and 120% across the board, while fully maintaining the interactive nature of the Arkouda framework.
Dual band hard horn for use in cluster-fed multi-beam antennas in Ka-band

A hard hom for dual band operation is designed. Emphasis has been put on low cross-polar performance over both the Rx and Tx bands in the Ka-band multimedia application. The horn has also been designed with manufacturability in mind, with direct transition from the metal section to the corrugated section, and, with a corrugated section which is slightly conical with constant number of corrugations. The horn operates with high efficiency at the lower band (17.7-20.2 GHz) and medium efficiency at the higher band (27.5-30.0 GHz), and it has a maximum cross-polar level within the main beam which is low over both bands. The return-loss is below -35 dB over both bands.
Activation and inactivation of the bursting potassium channel from fused Torpedo synaptosomes.

1. The voltage dependence of the bursting potassium channel in fused synaptosomes from Torpedo electric organ was studied in vitro, using the inside‐out and the cell‐attached configurations of the patch clamp technique. 2. The patch of membrane was held at various holding potentials (‐140 to ‐50 mV) and then stepped to test potentials (‐50 to +40 mV) for periods ranging from 5 to 300 ms. Each potential step was repeated 200‐600 times. After subtraction of the capacitative transients and the leakage currents, an ensemble‐averaged current was obtained. This ensemble current showed a marked activation upon depolarization, followed by an inactivation. 3. The activation of the bursting potassium channel is markedly dependent on the voltage step. Activation was detected at voltages positive to ‐50 mV. The peak of the ensemble current increases with the degree of depolarization, while the time to the peak decreases. With progressively larger depolarization, there is a shortening in the delay between the onset of the voltage step and the opening of the bursting potassium channels. 4. The inactivation phase of the ensemble current could be described adequately in most of the experiments, as a single exponential decay to a steady‐state inactivation level. The time constant of inactivation was not markedly voltage dependent. 5. Single channel analysis of the inactivation reveals that it is due to a reduction in the number of channel openings and not due to changes in single channel current amplitude or channel mean open time along the pulse. 6. The holding potential has a marked effect on the peak amplitude of the ensemble current, indicating that hyperpolarization removes inactivation and depolarization induces it. The peak amplitude vs. voltage relation was fitted by the Boltzmann equation. The half‐maximal inactivation was ‐105.2 +/‐ 5.8 mV (mean +/‐ S.E.M.), suggesting that at the resting potential a substantial fraction of the bursting potassium channels is in an inactivated state. 7. Two‐pulse experiments show that the recovery from inactivation is a slow process which lasts well over 1 s. 8. High‐frequency stimulation (20‐66.7 Hz) by 5 ms pulses produces a progressive decline in the peak ensemble current amplitude. The decline is larger at higher stimulation frequencies. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
The 2007 Judicial Reform and Court Performance in Egypt

This paper contributes to the existing literature on court performance by providing an empirical study about the performance of Egyptian First Instance Courts (FICs). A panel data model on 22 courts for 9 years is estimated to answer the following questions: (1) did the 2007 judicial reform improve the performance of Egyptian FICs? (2) What are the determinants of court output? Our results show tshat the 2007 reform has generally contributed to improving the overall resolution rate in Egyptian FICs. Delay problems related to the resolution of civil cases are however still persistent. Courts with a relatively higher load of criminal cases appear to be more productive while those with a higher load of civil cases still lag behind. Furthermore, higher levels of judicial turnover are associated with lower rates of court output, whereas the computerization of courts leads to higher resolutions. Finally, judicial seniority and the number of judges with higher academic degrees do not affect the resolution rate in FICs.
Preparing African-American men in community primary care practices to decide whether or not to have prostate cancer screening.

BACKGROUND This study was a randomized trial to test the impact of an informed decision-making intervention on prostate cancer screening use. METHODS The study population included 242 African-American men from three primary care practices who were 40-69 years of age and had no history of prostate cancer. Participants completed a baseline survey questionnaire and were randomly assigned either to a Standard Intervention (SI) group (N=121) or an Enhanced Intervention (EI) group (N=121). An informational booklet was mailed to both groups. EI group men were also offered a screening decision education session. Two outcomes were considered: (1) complete screening (i.e., having a digital rectal exam (DRE) and prostate specific antigen (PSA) testing), and (2) complete or partial screening (i.e., having a PSA test with or without DRE). An endpoint chart audit was performed six months after initial intervention contact. The data were analyzed via exact logistic regression. RESULTS Overall, screening use was low among study participants. EI group men had a screening frequency two times greater than that of SI group men, but the difference was not statistically significant: 8% vs. 4 % (OR = 1.94) fo rcomplete screening, and 19% vs. 10% (OR = 2.08) for complete or partial screening. Multivariable analyses showed that being in the EI group and primary care practice were significant predictors of complete or partial screening (OR = 3.9 and OR = 5.64, respectively). CONCLUSION Prostate cancer screening use may be influenced by exposure to decision education and the influence of screening-related primary care practice factors.
Nonphotochemical Transformations of Phytochrome in Vivo.

Some of the photochemical properties of this pigment, which has been dubbed phytochrome, have been described previously (5, 7, 8). The present paper is concerned with the nonphotochemical transformations of phytochrome in vivo. Dark transformations of phytochrome were indicated from studies of the germination of lettuce seeds (2) and the flowering of photoperiodic plants (3). The far-red absorbing form of phytochrome, P730, was found to revert to the red-absorbing form, P660, in darkness. This dark reaction was postulated to be the basis of the time-sensing mechanism of photoperiodism (4). The photometric measurement of phytochrome (7) permits the dark conversion of P730 to P660 to be measured in vivo. In dark-grown seedlings, this dark conversion is accompanied by another dark reaction which results in a loss of reversible phytochrome. It is not known whether this loss is due to a destruction of phytochrome or merely to a loss of photoreversibility. The present paper reports on these 2 nonphotochemical processes which appear to involve phytochrome as a reactant.
Pointer over Attention: An Improved Bangla Text Summarization Approach Using Hybrid Pointer Generator Network

Despite the success of the neural sequence-to-sequence model for abstractive text summarization, it has a few shortcomings, such as repeating inaccurate factual details and tending to repeat themselves. We propose a hybrid pointer generator network to solve the shortcomings of reproducing factual details inadequately and phrase repetition. We augment the attention-based sequence-to-sequence using a hybrid pointer generator network that can generate Out-of-Vocabulary words and enhance accuracy in reproducing authentic details and a coverage mechanism that discourages repetition. It produces a reasonable-sized output text that preserves the conceptual integrity and factual information of the input article. For evaluation, we primarily employed “BANSData”1 - a highly adopted publicly available Bengali dataset. Additionally, we prepared a large-scale dataset called “BANS-133” which consists of 133k Bangla news articles associated with human-generated summaries. Experimenting with the proposed model, we achieved ROUGE-1 and ROUGE-2 scores of 0.66, 0.41 for the BANSData” dataset and 0.67, 0.42 for the BANS-133k” dataset, respectively. We demonstrated that the proposed system surpasses previous state-of-the-art Bengali abstractive summarization techniques and its stability on a larger dataset. “BANS-133” datasets and code-base will be publicly available for research.
The study of saturnian lightning with high time resolution

The study of SEDs with high time resolution was made possible due to the regular modernization of the receiving equipment on the largest decameter radio telescope UTR-2. The obtained sensitivity allowed to resolve the microstructure of lightning discharges for the first time and to estimate the intensity of bursts. In addition the dispersion delay gives us a very important criterion that let reliably separate terrestrial lightning and cosmic ones.
Online Serendipity: The Case for Curated Recommender Systems

When used effectively, recommender systems provide users with suggestions based on their own preferences. These systems first showed their value with e-commerce sites like Amazon and eBay, which provided recommendations algorithmically. A key drawback of these systems is that some items need personal touch recommendations to spur on purchase, use, or consumption. A recommender system that facilitates personal touch recommendations by enabling users to discover good recommenders as opposed to focusing on recommending items algorithmically addresses this drawback. In this article, we discuss such a system—a curated recommender system. A curated recommender system is optimal for online retailers and service providers, especially those that sell books, stream content, or provide social networking platforms.
Vocal recognition in the spotted hyaena and its possible implications regarding the evolution of intelligence

Spotted hyaenas, Crocuta crocuta, are gregarious carnivores whose social lives share much in common with those of cercopithecine primates. We conducted playback experiments to determine whether free-living hyaenas are capable of identifying individual conspecifics on the basis of their long-distance vocalization, the 'whoop'. When prerecorded cub whoops were played to mothers and other breeding females (controls), mothers responded significantly more vigorously to whoops of their own cubs than did controls. We also tested the hypothesis that specific vocal recognition abilities are based on kinship in this species. Listeners that were related to the whooping cub responded more vigorously to recorded vocalizations than did unrelated individuals, with response intensity in some cases increasing directly with the size of the coefficient of relatedness (r). Our final goal was to determine whether control animals in these experiments can recognize third-party social relationships among other group members, an ability demonstrated by vervet monkeys, Cercopithecus aethiops, in similar playback experiments conducted by earlier investigators. In contrast to vervets, control females in the present experiments were no more likely to look at the mother of the whooping cub than at other control females after playback. This suggests that hyaenas may accomplish many of the same social feats as do vervets without possessing the ability to recognize third-party relationships. If confirmed in other domains of hyaena social life, our findings have important implications regarding selection pressures favouring the evolution of intelligence. Copyright 1999 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.