Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Nudge Deck: A Design Support Tool for Technology-Mediated Nudging

The idea of nudging - that subtle changes in the 'choice architecture' can alter people's behaviors in predictable ways - was eagerly adopted by HCI researchers and practitioners over the past decade. Yet, the design of effective nudging interventions is far from trivial, with theoretical knowledge being unstructured, with over a hundred cognitive biases found online, and inaccessible to practitioners during design meetings. We present the design and evaluation of the Nudge Deck, a card-based, design support tool that provides actionable knowledge for the design of technology-mediated nudges. The tool was evaluated through two case studies where 58 participants were asked to design nudging interventions, in the contexts of physical activity promotion and misinformation mitigation, with and without the cards. We report on how the cards enhanced designers' self-efficacy, and led to more theoretically grounded, creative and appropriate for the context, ideas.
Residential electricity load scheduling for multi-class appliances with Time-of-Use pricing

In this paper, we study an electricity load scheduling problem in a residence. Compared with previous works in which only limited classes of appliances are considered, to consider various appliances with different operation and energy consumption characteristics with each other, we classify appliances into four classes and provide mathematical models to describe them. With the developed appliance models, we also propose an electricity load scheduling algorithm that controls the operation time and energy consumption of each appliance adapting to Time of Use (TOU) pricing and its operation and energy consumption characteristics to minimize the total electricity bill.
Mycobacterial Purified Protein Derivatives Stimulate Innate Immunity: Malawians Show Enhanced Tumor Necrosis Factor Alpha, Interleukin-1β (IL-1β), and IL-10 Responses Compared to Those of Adolescents in the United Kingdom

ABSTRACT To investigate the role of innate immunity in variable efficacy of Mycobacterium bovis BCG vaccination in Malawi and the United Kingdom, we examined 24-h tumor necrosis factor alpha, interleukin-1β (IL-1β), and IL-10 responses to mycobacterial purified protein derivatives (PPDs). The rank order in stimulatory potency for different PPDs was the same for all three cytokines. Before vaccination Malawians made higher pro- and anti-inflammatory responses than did United Kingdom subjects. Fewer than 5% of United Kingdom subjects made IL-10 in response to any PPD, compared to 19 to 57% responders among Malawians. Priming for regulatory IL-10 may contribute to the smaller increase in gamma interferon responses in Malawians compared to United Kingdom subjects following BCG vaccination.
Quantum dot monolayer sensitized ZnO nanowire-array photoelectrodes: true efficiency for water splitting.

Increasing demand for clean energy has motivated considerable effort to exploit the properties of various materials in photovoltaics and related solar-harvesting devices. Splitting of water by sunlight to generate hydrogen is one of the forms of energy production with the most potential. Metal oxides such as TiO2, ZnO, and WO3 with various morphologies have been investigated for use in splitting water. However, most of these metal oxides have large band gaps, which limit light absorption in the visible region and overall efficiency. To reduce the band gaps of nanostructured metal oxides, doping and utilization of transition metals, carbon, or nitrogen have been investigated. One possibility is the use of semiconductor nanocrystals, known as quantum dots (QDs), as an alternative to photosensitive dyes. Quantum dots generally offer various significant advantages over dyes. It was recently established that QDs generate multiple electron– hole pairs per photon, improving device efficiency. Quantum dot sensitized nanostructures are widely studied for use in solar cells. However, little work has been done on metal oxide and semiconductor QD-based composite structures for use in water-splitting nanodevices. To elucidate this fundamental issue, we examined a combination of CdTe QDs and ZnO nanowires for splitting water photoelectrochemically (Scheme 1). One-dimensional nanostructures offer the additional potential advantage of improved charge transport over zero-dimensional nanostructures such as nanocrystals. Additionally, the typical electron mobility in ZnO is 10–100 times higher than that in TiO2, so the electrical resistance is lower and the electron-transfer efficiency higher. However, since the overall water-splitting reaction is tough, sacrificial reagents are commonly adopted to evaluate the photocatalytic activity for water splitting. When the photocatalytic reaction is carried out in an aqueous solution that contains a reductant, electron donors, or hole scavengers such as sulfide ions or selenium ions, photogenerated holes irreversibly oxidize the reductant rather than the water. Employment of CdTe QDs in water splitting system has major advantages. CdTe with a more favorable conduction band energy (ECB= 1.0 V vs. NHE) can inject electrons into ZnO faster than CdSe (ECB= 0.6 V vs. NHE). In addition, monolayer deposition of CdTe QDs on the surface of ZnO nanowires would further improve the stability in electrochemical reaction, by avoiding anodic decomposition/corrosion of CdTe and thus enhancing the overall watersplitting performance. During the photoirradiation of CdTe, two reactions can be expected to dominate after initial charge separation [Eqs. (1) and (2)].
Does Profitability affect Debt Ratio? Evidence from Vietnam Listed Firms

The main objective of this study is to examine the relationship between profitability and leverage of Vietnam listed corporations in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). The study finds strong evidence that this relationship is negative. This conclusion is not affected by control variables as well as firm and year fixed effects. Particularly, it is found that the smaller the firms are, the more profound the relationship is. In line with many previous researches, this result is in favor of the Pecking order theory. In the Vietnamese context, small and profitable firms tend to have higher incentive to use less debt. In contrast, large firms seem to be indifferent in their debt use due to having greater access to other sources of finance, as well as a larger base of collateral assets. Interestingly, in stark contrast to the arguments made in official economic reports as well as the common consensus, Vietnam's firms operating in building and property industries do not borrow more than other firms, even after the GFC when the government released its rescue package.
Conceptual Causal Framework for the Diffusion of Emerging CO2-saving Technologies in Heavy Commercial Vehicles

This working paper proposes a conceptual causal framework for analyzing the future diffusion of CO2-saving technologies in heavy commercial vehicles (HCV) by combining existing studies about the HCV market, an overview of market forecasting methods, and literature on organizational adoption of innovations. On this basis, the most influencing stakeholders are identified, in particular truck manufacturer, HCV customer, energy supply system and government.
Threshold cancelling logic (TCL): a post-CMOS logic family scalable down to 0.02 /spl mu/m

Simple refrigeration of room-temperature-optimized CMOS devices does not enable low-voltage operation, because threshold voltage is higher at low temperatures. It might be possible to optimize threshold voltage for low-temperatures, but low-temperature-optimized CMOS suffers from a high leakage current at room temperature. This makes testing of the LSIs difficult. Burn-in testing with high temperature acceleration of feature modes would be particularly difficult because of the thermal runaway characteristics of the subthreshold current. This post-CMOS circuit family, threshold cancelling logic (TCL), can be scaled down to 0.02 /spl mu/m, corresponding to three generations smaller than conventional CMOS circuits.
Deep Learning for Drug-Induced Liver Injury

Drug-induced liver injury (DILI) has been the single most frequent cause of safety-related drug marketing withdrawals for the past 50 years. Recently, deep learning (DL) has been successfully applied in many fields due to its exceptional and automatic learning ability. In this study, DILI prediction models were developed using DL architectures, and the best model trained on 475 drugs predicted an external validation set of 198 drugs with an accuracy of 86.9%, sensitivity of 82.5%, specificity of 92.9%, and area under the curve of 0.955, which is better than the performance of previously described DILI prediction models. Furthermore, with deep analysis, we also identified important molecular features that are related to DILI. Such DL models could improve the prediction of DILI risk in humans. The DL DILI prediction models are freely available at http://www.repharma. cn/DILIserver/DILI_home. php.
Matching the business model with the unique customer journey : a case study of a high-tech Dutch EMS provider

Purpose The goal of this research was to identify the new B2B customer journey of specific customer segments in the Dutch market to match this communicated value proposition along the journey with a sustainable business model. The focus is put on the medical segment and a tailored marketing sales mix, including the preferred channel and relationships structure, taking the recent the trends of customization and digitalization of services into account. Methodology: To assess the current state a critical literature review was conducted. Determination of the market segment, size and development were based on a web research and strategic aspects of the business model and the related concepts were derived by using semi-structured interviews with employees but also customers belonging to the identified medical segment. Findings: The findings reveal that in today’s B2B landscape a unique value proposition is increasingly more important. Inside-out defined services lack relevance for the specific customer and co-creation in the business relationship help the company to develop its own portfolio continuously. The business model is this context can be seen as a framework for the unique customer journey that needs to be managed efficiently at any touchpoint. To maximize the value for the customer and the experience, digitalization impacts the nature of the exchange of data, knowledge, and services needs to be integrated wisely. Theoretical implication: From an academic perspective, the customer journeys and the mapping of those did not get the attention in a B2B context. The synergies with the Business Model Canvas should be used to develop new business models which set the customer experience more central during the journey. The rise of customer centric strategies and the right mixture of interaction to deliver the value proposition need to be reflected in new models. Further, they should also lay focus on the co-creation and establishment of networks as they play a major role in times of digitalization and globalization, especially for SMEs to stay competitive. Practical implication: The resulting overview of relevant business activities and touchpoints of customer journey related to the delivering of the value proposition should help GE to formulate their targeted marketing strategy for a chosen segment and to redefine their online/offline channel strategy. By the in-depth analysis of one specific segment insights should be derived on how to target this segment. Marketers are encouraged by the results to look for which aspects of the customer journey are fixed or which ones may be applied for other segments as well. Originality/value: This study combines the two practical concepts of business modeling and customer journey to create and communicate a unique value proposition, by facilitating customer experience and leading to a sustainable competitive advantage with customized business model blocks.
Pricing schemes in cloud computing:a review

Cloud computing is a promising technology in the present day, which offers utility computing services to the end users. The various services (SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS) are accessed through on-demand by the end users. There are several service provider companies that exist in the present market, this cause, a huge competition on pricing in the global market. The service provider uses various pricing models to determine the price, but most favorable pricing is a major challenge in cloud computing that maximize revenue for the provider and increase the quality of services for end users with reasonable pricing charge. The paper focuses on the comparison of various pricing schemes based on features, fairness, merits, demerits and discussion of service model, deployment model and major issues in cloud computing. This helps us to understand which approach should be used for future enhancement in pricing approach in cloud computing.
Upward earnings mobility starts to improve in Hong Kong? A study based on census data

This paper offers a new and intuitive approach using cross-sectional census data spanning several decades to cast light on earnings mobility. We derive “mobility ratios” and “immobility ratios” to generate a general impression of the economic fortunes of each cohort as each generation goes through the life cycle, including the speed of upward mobility. We demonstrate that, in Hong Kong, during the rapid economic growth period of the 60s and 70s, upward mobility opportunities were increasing rapidly, but for those born in the mid 70s and later who enter the labour force after the mid 1990s, the opportunities for upward mobility had declined—a rather global phenomenon for most mature economies. However, the latest data shows that a possible reversal in the pattern may be taking shape. The evidence suggests that this improvement is related to the retirement of the babyboomers, which has triggered a train of promotions for the various cohorts. These promotions have however mainly benefited those who are skilled or who are ready to take advantage of the opportunities.
Electrocardiographic Characteristics and Catheter Ablation of Parahissian Accessory Pathways

BackgroundAccessory pathways may be located in close proximity to the His bundle, resulting in a high risk of heart block during attempted surgical or electrical interruption of these pathways. This study reports the prevalence, ECG characteristics, and results of catheter ablation of parahissian accessory pathways. They were defined on the basis of both the presence of a high amplitude (>0.1 mV) of His bundle potential at the ablation site and an exclusion of anteroseptal or midseptal location of the accessory pathway. Methods and ResultsEight patients with a parahissian accessory pathway were identified among 582 consecutive patients who underwent radiofrequency ablation of an acces-sory pathway. They were six males and two females with a mean age of 21±9 years. During maximal preexcitation, the ECG showed a positive delta wave in leads I, II, and aVF in all patients: six had a negative delta wave in leads V1 and V2 instead of the positivity usually observed in anteroseptal accessory pathways. This pattern had a sensitivity of 75%, a specificity of 96%, a positive predictive value of 86%, and a negative predictive value of 93% for a parahissian location in comparison with a group of 28 patients with anteroseptal accessory pathways. At the successful ablation site, the mean amplitude of the His bundle potential was 0.2±0.1 (0.12 to 0.4 mV). All accessory pathways were successfully ablated without causing heart block using 5 to 20 W of radiofrequency energy. ConclusionsParahissian accessory pathways have a preexcitation pattern that is distinctive from that of anteroseptal accessory pathways. Catheter ablation of these pathways is feasible using low energy with preservation of normal atrio-ventricular conduction.
Contingent Claims Analysis of Sovereign Default Risk in the Eurozone

We study sovereign default risk as measured by credit default swap (CDS) spreads of Eurozone member states between 2008 and 2016. Applying a structural credit risk model we analyze to what extent contingent claims analysis can explain spreads given fundamental balance sheet information. First results confirm that market implied default risk is hardly explainable by available fundamentals. We therefore model the asset value with a jump-diffusion process, which we calibrate to market implied default probabilities. The resulting jump intensities are substantial for both, distressed as well as non-distressed countries. By extending the jump-diffusion model and considering the first-passage time default possibility, our model is able to represent more realistic proportions of jump and pure diffusion risk. Including the first-passage time feature and analyzing conditional default probabilities via correlated jump-diffusion processes further contributes to the analysis of credit contagion and systemic risk. Our approach documents that the largest systemic risk component of the periphery comes from Italy, the smallest from Ireland.
Contributions of CTCF and DNA Methyltransferases DNMT1 and DNMT3B to Epstein-Barr Virus Restricted Latency

ABSTRACT Establishment of persistent Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection requires transition from a program of full viral latency gene expression (latency III) to one that is highly restricted (latency I and 0) within memory B lymphocytes. It is well established that DNA methylation plays a critical role in EBV gene silencing, and recently the chromatin boundary protein CTCF has been implicated as a pivotal regulator of latency via its binding to several loci within the EBV genome. One notable site is upstream of the common EBNA gene promoter Cp, at which CTCF may act as an enhancer-blocking factor to initiate and maintain silencing of EBNA gene transcription. It was previously suggested that increased expression of CTCF may underlie its potential to promote restricted latency, and here we also noted elevated levels of DNA methyltransferase 1 (DNMT1) and DNMT3B associated with latency I. Within B-cell lines that maintain latency I, however, stable knockdown of CTCF, DNMT1, or DNMT3B or of DNMT1 and DNMT3B in combination did not result in activation of latency III protein expression or EBNA gene transcription, nor did knockdown of DNMTs significantly alter CpG methylation within Cp. Thus, differential expression of CTCF and DNMT1 and -3B is not critical for maintenance of restricted latency. Finally, mutant EBV lacking the Cp CTCF binding site exhibited sustained Cp activity relative to wild-type EBV in a recently developed B-cell superinfection model but ultimately was able to transition to latency I, suggesting that CTCF contributes to but is not necessarily essential for the establishment of restricted latency.
Araguaia Medical Vision Lab at ISIC 2017 Skin Lesion Classification Challenge

This paper describes the participation of Araguaia Medical Vision Lab at the International Skin Imaging Collaboration 2017 Skin Lesion Challenge. We describe the use of deep convolutional neural networks in attempt to classify images of Melanoma and Seborrheic Keratosis lesions. With use of finetuned GoogleNet and AlexNet we attained results of 0.950 and 0.846 AUC on Seborrheic Keratosis and Melanoma respectively.
Intermittent shedding of thermophilic campylobacters by sheep at pasture

The rates at which sheep on different types of pasture shed campylobacters in their faeces were measured over 12 months. Overall, shedding of campylobacters at pasture was between a third and a half of the carriage rate (92%) of the intestines of sheep at slaughter. Shedding was highest during saltmarsh grazing, followed by upland fell and farm grazing. The rate of shedding varied at different times of the year, with the highest rates (100%) coinciding with lambing, weaning, and movement onto new pasture. The lowest rates (0%) occurred when sheep were fed on hay and silage. On the farm, low rates occurred during the whole of gestation, both when the sheep were indoors and outdoors. Campylobacter jejuni was the main species isolated and survived for up to 4 d in sheep faeces. Lambs became colonized by Campylobacter within 1–5 d of being born. Ewes, which were not shedding campylobacters prior to lambing, started to shed after lambing, and ewes which were shedding low numbers of Campylobacter before lambing, increased the numbers of bacteria being shed after lambing.
Public Auditing For Regenerating- Cloud Storage

Existing remote checking ways for regenerating-coded information solely give non-public auditing, requiring information homeowners to perpetually keep on-line and handle auditing, still as repairing, that is usually impractical. During this paper, we tend to propose a public auditing theme for the regenerating-code [1] based cloud storage. To unravel the regeneration drawback of failing authenticators within the absence of information homeowners, we tend to introduce a proxy that is privileged to regenerate the authenticators, into the standard public auditing system model. Moreover, we tend to style a completely unique public verifiable appraiser, [2] that is generated by some of keys and might be regenerated victimization partial keys. Thus, our theme will fully unharness information homeowners from on-line burden. Additionally, we tend to randomize the cipher coefficients with a pseudorandom operate to preserve information privacy. Intensive security analysis shows that our theme is demonstrable secure below random oracle model and experimental analysis indicates that our theme is very economical and might be feasibly integrated into the make code-based mostly cloud storage.
Neurobiological data sustaining opponent processing operations on self organizing networks as tools for the modeling of hippocampal dynamics

This paper intends to show how the advancement on neurobiological knowledge within an adaptive timing fashion sustains the use of past mathematical described operations such as opponent processing for the modeling of hippocampal dynamics. It is showed that two distinct functional classes of afferents, i.e., excitatory afferents to principal cells and both interneurons and glia acting as either inhibitory or secondarily excitatory afferents to these principal cells form very distinct functional states that sustain a double system for the balanced activity into the hippocampus. We did represent principal cells as dipoles of opponent processing. The last component (node) of each dipole, X5, was considered as the resulting activity of the cell (action potential or null response). Dependent on the oscillations and coherence between the two afferent systems to each dipole, would be created different sets for the processing of hippocampal dynamics. Thus, we could generate very distinct hippocampal electrophysiological states, which would be the correspondent of specific behaviors. We show how this network could, for example, generates place fields when added patterns of self-organization. Our results reproduce the pattern of place cells firing that are dependent on the hippocampal oscillations.