Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Intrinsic value dimensions and the value-satisfaction-loyalty chain: a causal model for services

Purpose Within the abundant and not always unanimous body or research on conceptual and methodological approaches to consumer value in services, there are two areas of relative consensus: the multidimensional nature of value (intra-variable approach) and the existence of causal relations with other constructs (inter-variable approach). This work aims to contribute additional knowledge in both areas, with a joint approach in a structural model tested for hospitality services. Design/methodology/approach The study proposes four scales of intrinsic values (entertainment, aesthetics, ethics and spirituality as relaxation), based on Holbrook’s (1999) value typology, and a casual model to be used to measure the relationships between these four values and overall perceived value, satisfaction and loyalty. The model is tested with PLS on a sample of 585 hotel guests on the island of Sardinia (Italy). Findings The psychometric properties of all four value scales, created ad hoc, are tested and approved. Results on the causal model show contrasted links on the intra-variable approach, entertainment, aesthetics and spirituality (measured as relaxation), are positive antecedents of perceived value, while the path ethics-overall value is not confirmed. The value–satisfaction–loyalty chain is fully confirmed, with strong linkages. Research limitations/implications The authors acknowledge the use of a convenience sample, of mainly leisure tourists. Practical implications The implications for managers are derived on the need of considering extra drivers (intrinsic and therefore fully experiential) of satisfaction and loyalty. Originality/value Research on value has been qualified as not univocal and controversial. This study adds knowledge on the use of four less common value types (intrinsic ones) and sheds light on their nature as antecedents of the well-known value–satisfaction–loyalty chain.
Adeno-associated Virus (AAV) Serotypes Have Distinctive Interactions with Domains of the Cellular AAV Receptor

ABSTRACT Adeno-associated virus (AAV) entry is determined by its interactions with specific surface glycans and a proteinaceous receptor(s). Adeno-associated virus receptor (AAVR) (also named KIAA0319L) is an essential cellular receptor required for the transduction of vectors derived from multiple AAV serotypes, including the evolutionarily distant serotypes AAV2 and AAV5. Here, we further biochemically characterize the AAV-AAVR interaction and define the domains within the ectodomain of AAVR that facilitate this interaction. By using a virus overlay assay, it was previously shown that the major AAV2 binding protein in membrane preparations of human cells corresponds to a glycoprotein with a molecular mass of 150 kDa. By establishing a purification procedure, performing further protein separation by two-dimensional electrophoresis, and utilizing mass spectrometry, we now show that this glycoprotein is identical to AAVR. While we find that AAVR is an N-linked glycosylated protein, this glycosylation is not a strict requirement for AAV2 binding or functional transduction. Using a combination of genetic complementation with deletion constructs and virus overlay assays with individual domains, we find that AAV2 functionally interacts predominantly with the second Ig-like polycystic kidney disease (PKD) repeat domain (PKD2) present in the ectodomain of AAVR. In contrast, AAV5 interacts primarily through the first, most membrane-distal, PKD domain (PKD1) of AAVR to promote transduction. Furthermore, other AAV serotypes, including AAV1 and -8, require a combination of PKD1 and PKD2 for optimal transduction. These results suggest that despite their shared dependence on AAVR as a critical entry receptor, different AAV serotypes have evolved distinctive interactions with the same receptor. IMPORTANCE Over the past decade, AAV vectors have emerged as leading gene delivery tools for therapeutic applications and biomedical research. However, fundamental aspects of the AAV life cycle, including how AAV interacts with host cellular factors to facilitate infection, are only partly understood. In particular, AAV receptors contribute significantly to AAV vector transduction efficiency and tropism. The recently identified AAV receptor (AAVR) is a key host receptor for multiple serotypes, including the most studied serotype, AAV2. AAVR binds directly to AAV2 particles and is rate limiting for viral transduction. Defining the AAV-AAVR interface in more detail is important to understand how AAV engages with its cellular receptor and how the receptor facilitates the entry process. Here, we further define AAV-AAVR interactions, genetically and biochemically, and show that different AAV serotypes have discrete interactions with the Ig-like PKD domains of AAVR. These findings reveal an unexpected divergence of AAVR engagement within these parvoviruses.
Canine Uterine Bacterial Infection Induces Upregulation of Proteolysis-Related Genes and Downregulation of Homeobox and Zinc Finger Factors

Background Bacterial infection with the severe complication of sepsis is a frequent and serious condition, being a major cause of death worldwide. To cope with the plethora of occurring bacterial infections there is therefore an urgent need to identify molecular mechanisms operating during the host response, in order both to identify potential targets for therapeutic intervention and to identify biomarkers for disease. Here we addressed this issue by studying global gene expression in uteri from female dogs suffering from spontaneously occurring uterine bacterial infection. Principal Findings The analysis showed that almost 800 genes were significantly (p<0.05) upregulated (>2-fold) in the uteri of diseased animals. Among these were numerous chemokine and cytokine genes, as well as genes associated with inflammatory cell extravasation, anti-bacterial action, the complement system and innate immune responses, as well as proteoglycan-associated genes. There was also a striking representation of genes associated with proteolysis. Robust upregulation of immunoglobulin components and genes involved in antigen presentation was also evident, indicating elaboration of a strong adaptive immune response. The bacterial infection was also associated with a significant downregulation of almost 700 genes, of which various homeobox and zinc finger transcription factors were highly represented. Conclusions/Significance Together, these finding outline the molecular patterns involved in bacterial infection of the uterus. The study identified altered expression of numerous genes not previously implicated in bacterial disease, and several of these may be evaluated for potential as biomarkers of disease or as therapeutic targets. Importantly, since humans and dogs show genetic similarity and develop diseases that share many characteristics, the molecular events identified here are likely to reflect the corresponding situation in humans afflicted by similar disease.
On-chip fabrication of movable toroidal cell structures using photo-crosslinkable biodegradable hydrogel

In this research, we fabricated movable toroidal cell structures inside a microfluidic device for tissue engineering applications. A photo-crosslinkable biodegradable hydrogel gelatin methacrylate (GelMA) was employed to encapsulate biological cells for assembling cell structures. The UV light power and the concentration GelMA hydrogel were optimized to achieve both fabrication of microstructures and live condition of cells. The two-layered toroidal cell structures were fabricated which can mimic the multi-layered structure of blood vessels. The movable microstructures were achieved by the water repellent coating on the substrate surface. Finally, on-chip fabrication of GelMA microstructures and peeling off of the fabricated microstructures were achieved using a microfluidic chip. The results indicate that the fabricated movable GelMA microstructures can be used for further three dimensional assembly to achieve vascular-like tube structures.
1 On the Cyclicality of R & D ∗

This paper explores the link between short-run cycles and long-run growth by examining the cyclicality of R&D. Existing theories propose that R&D is concentrated when output is low; but aggregate data repeatedly show that R&D appears procyclical. We estimate the relationship between R&D and output at the disaggregated industry level, using an annual panel of 20 U.S. manufacturing industries from 1958 to 1998. The results indicate that R&D is in fact pro-cyclical; but interestingly, estimates using demand-shift instruments suggest that it responds asymmetrically to demand shocks. We propose that liquidity constraints and technology improvement cause the observed pro-cyclicality of R&D. ∗ The author thanks Julio J. Rotemberg and two anonymous referees for their general advice, Wayne Gray and Randy Becker for providing the extended NBER manufacturing productivity databases, Demetria Hanna for providing the Quarterly Financial Reports, John Shea for his help on input-output instrument selection, Sarina Tu and Stephanie Yang for research assistance. David Altig, Marianne Bitler, Linda Cohen, Larry Christiano, Mark Doms, Tim Dunne, John Fernald, Amihai Glazer, David Neumark, Dale Poirier, Peter Rupert, Carl Walsh, and seminar participants at the Cleveland Fed and the San Francesco Fed provided helpful discussions. Detailed comments from Randy Wright are appreciated. The errors are mine.
Diversifying eastern North Carolina heritage sites: tour guides’ perspectives

ABSTRACT Tour guides from six eastern North Carolina heritage sites were interviewed to assess African-American participation. The selected sites included museums, plantations, and districts, half owned by the state and half in private ownership. The interview data provided reasons for lack of African-American participation, which exhibits drew African-American interest, and potential solutions to boost African-American participation. Sites were also assessed regarding how interpretive information was presented; specifically the content from a guided tour, along with the site exhibits were analyzed. Guides listed several inhibitors to account for low African-American visitation. The top five themes were: lack of African-American representation, elitist perceptions by site management, lack of knowledge/interest among tour guides to present relevant material, limited number of African-American travelers, and admission fees. The review of findings culminates in three suggestions for short-term initiatives: developing consistent scripts for tour guides, creating new exhibits, reaching out to school children and three suggestions for long-term initiatives: partnering with local universities, allowing exhibits to travel to other sites, and employing more African-American staff.
Dominant-Negative Androgen Receptor Inhibition of Intracrine Androgen-Dependent Growth of Castration-Recurrent Prostate Cancer

Background Prostate cancer (CaP) is the second leading cause of cancer death in American men. Androgen deprivation therapy is initially effective in CaP treatment, but CaP recurs despite castrate levels of circulating androgen. Continued expression of the androgen receptor (AR) and its ligands has been linked to castration-recurrent CaP growth. Principal Finding In this report, the ligand-dependent dominant-negative ARΔ142–337 (ARΔTR) was expressed in castration-recurrent CWR-R1 cell and tumor models to elucidate the role of AR signaling. Expression of ARΔTR decreased CWR-R1 tumor growth in the presence and absence of exogenous testosterone (T) and improved survival in the presence of exogenous T. There was evidence for negative selection of ARΔTR transgene in T-treated mice. Mass spectrometry revealed castration-recurrent CaP dihydrotestosterone (DHT) levels sufficient to activate AR and ARΔTR. In the absence of exogenous testosterone, CWR-R1-ARΔTR and control cells exhibited altered androgen profiles that implicated epithelial CaP cells as a source of intratumoral AR ligands. Conclusion The study provides in vivo evidence that activation of AR signaling by intratumoral AR ligands is required for castration-recurrent CaP growth and that epithelial CaP cells produce sufficient active androgens for CaP recurrence during androgen deprivation therapy. Targeting intracrine T and DHT synthesis should provide a mechanism to inhibit AR and growth of castration-recurrent CaP.
Attributes regrouping by association rules in SUCRAGE

We are interested in a supervised learning method by automatic generation of classification rules: SUCRAGE. Premises construction is done by grouping the dependant attributes. This selection in one block of the features is realized by linear correlation research among the training set elements. Only numerical features can be taken into account by linear correlation search. In this article, we propose to extend SUCRAGE to handle symbolic attributes by using another method of regrouping attributes based on Association Rules. This method can detect different types of association between quantitative as well as qualitative attributes. The obtained results in generalization with various data using the built rules are very satisfactory.
Poster session

In this article we propose a new technique to obtain a three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction from stereoscopic images taken by a stereoscopic system in real-time. To parallelize the 3D reconstruction we propose a method that uses a Graphics Processors Unit (GPU) and a disparity map from block matching algorithm (BM). The results obtained permit us to accelerate the images processing time, measured in frames per second (FPS) with respect to the same method using a Central Processing Unit (CPU). The advantage of speed using GPU advocates our system for practical applications such as aerial reconnaissance, cartography, robotic navigation and obstacle detection. Keywords—real-time; Graphics Processing Units (GPU); stereoscopic images; block matching; 3D reconstruction
Optimal and Near-Optimal Cooperative Routing and Power Allocation for Collision Minimization in Wireless Sensor Networks

Cooperative communication has gained much interest due to its ability to exploit the broadcast nature of the wireless medium to mitigate multipath fading. There has been considerable research on how cooperative transmission can improve the performance of the physical layer. Recently, researchers have started to consider cooperative transmission in routing, and there has been a growing interest in developing cooperative routing protocols. Most of the existing cooperative routing algorithms are designed to reduce the energy consumption; however, packet collision minimization using cooperative routing has not yet been addressed. This paper presents an optimization framework to minimize collision probability using cooperative routing in wireless sensor networks. We develop a mathematical model and formulate the problem as a large-scale mixed integer non-linear programming problem. We also propose a solution based on the branch-and-bound algorithm augmented with reducing the search space. The proposed strategy builds up the optimal routes from each source to the sink node by providing the best set of hops in each route, the best set of relays, and the optimal power allocation for the cooperative transmission links. To reduce the computational complexity, we propose a near-optimal cooperative routing algorithm, in which we solve the problem by decoupling the power allocation problem and the route selection problem. Therefore, the problem is formulated by an integer non-linear programming, which is solved using the branch-and-bound space reduced method. The simulation results reveal that the presented algorithms can significantly reduce the collision probability compared with the existing schemes.
Joint medium access control, routing and energy distribution in multi-hop wireless networks

It is a challenging task for multi-hop wireless networks to support multimedia applications with quality-of service (QoS) requirements. This letter presents a joint cross layer optimization approach, i.e., joint medium access control, routing, and energy distribution. User satisfaction represented by user utility is maximized within the required network lifetime, given the constraints on the total available energy in the network and the minimum user rates. Although the resulting optimization problem is nonlinear and nonconvex, we prove that it is approximately equivalent to a two-step convex problem. Furthermore, we prove that the problem of maximizing network utility within achievable network lifetime is quasiconvex.
Seasonal prevalence of Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli, including O157:H7 and non-O157 serotypes, and Salmonella in commercial beef processing plants.

The seasonal prevalence of Escherichia coli O157:H7, Salmonella, non-O157 E. coli (STEC), and stx-harboring cells was monitored at three Midwestern fed-beef processing plants. Overall, E. coli O157:H7 was recovered from 5.9% of fecal samples, 60.6% of hide samples, and 26.7% of carcasses sampled before the preevisceration wash. This pathogen also was recovered from 1.2% (15 of 1,232) of carcasses sampled at chilling (postintervention) at approximate levels of <3.0 cells per 100 cm2. In one case, the E. coli O157:H7 concentration dropped from ca. 1,100 cells per 320 cm2 at the preevisceration stage to a level that was undetectable on ca. 2,500 cm2 at the postintervention stage. The prevalence of E. coli O157:H7 in feces peaked in the summer, whereas its prevalence on hide was high from the spring through the fall. Overall, Salmonella was recovered from 4.4, 71.0, and 12.7% of fecal, hide, and preevisceration carcass samples, respectively. Salmonella was recovered from one postintervention carcass (of 1,016 sampled). Salmonella prevalence peaked in feces in the summer and was highest on hide and preevisceration carcasses in the summer and the fall. Non-O157 STEC prevalence also appeared to vary by season, but the efficiency in the recovery of isolates from stx-positive samples ranged from 37.5 to 83.8% and could have influenced these results. Cells harboring stx genes were detected by PCR in 34.3, 92.0, 96.6, and 16.2% of fecal, hide, preevisceration carcass, and postintervention carcass samples, respectively. The approximate level of non-O157 STEC and stx-harboring cells on postintervention carcasses was > or = 3.0 cells per 100 cm2 for only 8 of 199 carcasses (4.0%). Overall, the prevalence of E. coli O157:H7, Salmonella, and non-O157 STEC varied by season, was higher on hides than in feces, and decreased dramatically, along with pathogen levels, during processing and during the application of antimicrobial interventions. These results demonstrate the effectiveness of the current interventions used by the industry and highlight the significance of hides as a major source of pathogens on beef carcasses.
OS I/O Path Optimizations for Flash Solid-state Drives

In this paper, we present OS I/O path optimizations for NAND flash solid-state drives, aimed to minimize scheduling delays caused by additional contexts such as interrupt bottom halves and background queue runs. With our optimizations, these contexts are eliminated and merged into hardware interrupts or I/O participating threads without introducing side effects. This was achieved by pipelining fine grained host controller operations with the cooperation of I/O participating threads. To safely expose fine grained host controller operations to upper layers, we present a low level hardware abstraction layer interface. Evaluations with micro-benchmarks showed that our optimizations were capable of accommodating up to five, AHCI controller attached, SATA 3.0 SSD devices at 671k IOPS, while current Linux SCSI based I/O path was limited at 354k IOPS failing to accommodate more than three devices. Evaluation on an SSD backed key value system also showed IOPS improvement using our I/O optimizations.
Approximating Hit Rate Curves using Streaming Algorithms

A hit rate curve is a function that maps cache size to the proportion of requests that can be served from the cache. (The caching policy and sequence of requests are assumed to be fixed.) Hit rate curves have been studied for decades in the operating system, database and computer architecture communities. They are useful tools for designing appropriate cache sizes, dynamically allocating memory between competing caches, and for summarizing locality properties of the request sequence. In this paper we focus on the widely-used LRU caching policy. Computing hit rate curves is very efficient from a runtime standpoint, but existing algorithms are not efficient in their space usage. For a stream of m requests for n cacheable objects, all existing algorithms that provably compute the hit rate curve use space linear in n. In the context of modern storage systems, n can easily be in the billions or trillions, so the space usage of these algorithms makes them impractical. We present the first algorithm for provably approximating hit rate curves for the LRU policy with sublinear space. Our algorithm uses O( p^2 * log(n) * log^2(m) / epsilon^2 ) bits of space and approximates the hit rate curve at p uniformly-spaced points to within additive error epsilon. This is not far from optimal. Any single-pass algorithm with the same guarantees must use Omega(p^2 + epsilon^{-2} + log(n)) bits of space. Furthermore, our use of additive error is necessary. Any single-pass algorithm achieving multiplicative error requires Omega(n) bits of space.
Point-based probabilistic surfaces to show surface uncertainty

Efficient and informative visualization of surfaces with uncertainties is an important topic with many applications in science and engineering. In these applications, the correct course of action may depend not only on the location of a boundary, but on the precision with which that location is known. Examples include environmental pollution borderline detection, oil basin edge characterization, or discrimination between cancerous and healthy tissue in medicine. We present a method for producing visualizations of surfaces with uncertainties using points as display primitives. Our approach is to render the surface as a collection of points and to displace each point from its original location along the surface normal by an amount proportional to the uncertainty at that point. This approach can be used in combination with other techniques such as pseudocoloring to produce efficient and revealing visualizations. The basic approach is sufficiently flexible to allow natural extensions; we show incorporation of expressive modulation of opacity, change of the stroke primitive, and addition of an underlying polygonal model. The method is used to visualize real and simulated tumor formations with uncertainty of tumor boundaries. The point-based technique is compared to pseudocoloring for a position estimation task in a preliminary user study.