Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Efficacy of a Live Attenuated Escherichia coli O78∶K80 Vaccine in Chickens and Turkeys

SUMMARY A candidate live vaccine for avian pathogenic Escherichia coli (APEC) was constructed from a virulent field APEC O78 strain by mutation of the aroA gene. The mutant was highly similar to the parent wild-type strain in respect of colony morphology, motility, growth in suspension, hemagglutination, Congo Red binding, HEp-2 cell adhesion, and the elaboration of surface antigens type 1 fimbriae and flagella, although production of curli fimbriae was reduced marginally. The mutant proved avirulent when inoculated into 1-day-old chicks by spray application and when presented again in the drinking water at 7 days of age. Chickens and turkeys vaccinated with an O78 aroA mutant were protected against a challenge at 6 wk of age by virulent APEC strains. RESUMEN Eficacia de una vacuna viva atenuada de Escherichia coli O78∶K80 en pollos y pavos. Se elaboró una vacuna viva para Escherichia coli patógena aviar (APEC) a partir de una cepa de campo patógena para las aves y virulenta O78 mediante mutación del gene aroA. La mutante fue muy similar a la cepa silvestre original con respecto a la morfología de la colonia, motilidad, crecimiento en suspensión, hemaglutinación, afinidad al rojo Congo, adhesión a células HEp-2 y la elaboración de antígenos de superficie tipo 1 fimbria y flagelo, aunque la producción de fimbrias rizadas se redujo marginalmente. La mutante no mostró virulencia cuando se inoculó en pollitos de un día vía aerosol, ni cuando se administró nuevamente a los 7 días de edad, vía agua de bebida. Los pollos y pavos vacunados con la mutante O78 aroA fueron protegidos contra el desafío a las 6 semanas de edad con una cepa de E. coli patógena aviar virulenta.
Responses to sudden cold-water immersion in inexperienced swimmers following training.

BACKGROUND When suddenly immersed in cold water, humans typically exhibit the cold shock response, although training can attenuate hyperventilation. This study extends previous findings by considering the influence of physical activity to maintain buoyancy and subsequent swimming performance. METHODS Six inexperienced swimmers (three men and three women; mean age 22.8) received 1 wk of cold-water head-out immersions (10 x 3 min at 15 degrees C) alongside mental skills training to improve their treading water technique and to control hyperventilation upon immersion. Six inexperienced control swimmers (four men and two women; mean age 21.8) received immersions in temperate water (27 degrees C). Ventilation, brain blood flow velocity, and blood oxygenation were measured during a physiological test in which participants trod water for 150 s. In a subsequent simulated survival test, performance (swimming duration and distance) and perception of effort were recorded. All the tests were in 10 degrees C water with the head out. RESULTS There were significant improvements in the intervention group's ability to suppress rapid increases in respiratory frequency; 62 +/- 24 breaths x min(-1) to 33 +/- 12. The drop in brain blood flow was smaller and more transient than that previously reported due to the hypertensive response associated with treading water. DISCUSSION Inexperienced swimmers could benefit from cold-water habituation combined with mental skills training in order to improve voluntary control over the respiratory portion of the cold shock response as part of learning to tread water. This may improve survival prospects in a real-life emergency scenario such as an overturned boat.
TACKLING INSIDER THREATS USING RISK-AND-TRUST AWARE ACCESS CONTROL APPROACHES

Insider Attacks are one of the most dangerous threats organizations face today. An insider attack occurs when a person authorized to perform certain actions in an organization decides to abuse the trust, and harm the organization by causing breaches in the confidentiality, integrity or availability of the organization’s assets. These attacks may negatively impact the reputation of the organization, its productivity, and may incur heavy losses in revenue and clients. Preventing insider attacks is a daunting task. Employees need legitimate access to effectively perform their jobs; however, at any point of time they may misuse their privileges accidentally or intentionally. Hence, it is necessary to develop a system capable of finding a middle ground where the necessary privileges are provided and insider threats are mitigated. In this dissertation, we address this critical issue. We propose three adaptive risk-and-trust aware access control frameworks that aim at thwarting insider attacks by incorporating the behavior of users in the access control decision process. Our first framework is tailored towards general insider threat prevention in role-based access control systems. As part of this framework, we propose methodologies to specify risk-and-trust aware access control policies and a risk management approach that minimizes the risk exposure for each access request. Our second framework is designed to mitigate the risk of obligation-based systems which are difficult to manage and are particularly vulnerable to sabotage. As part of our obligation-based framework, we propose an insider-threat-resistant trust computation methodology. We emphasize the use of monitoring of obligation fulfillment patterns to determine some psychological precursors that have high predictive power with respect to potential insider threats. Our third framework is designed to take advantage of geo-social information to deter insider threats. We uncover some insider threats that arise when geo-social information is used to make access control decisions. Based on this analysis, we define an insider threat resilient access control approach to manage privileges that considers geo-social context. The models and methodologies presented in this dissertation can help a broad range of organizations in mitigating insider threats.
Perceptual mapping of electronic banking channels in India: A Multidimensional Scaling approach

In recent times, intensifying competition and financial liberalization has led Indian banking sector to look towards information and communication technology (ICT). So banks are rapidly adopting electronic banking channels to efficiently reach their target market and reduce operational cost. Despite the various advantages of electronic banking, it is still in infancy stage in India. There is a need to systematically explore customers’ perceptions towards various electronic banking channels and their underlying motives to choose & prefer one channel over other. This study uses Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) approach to develop a perceptual map of select electronic channels and to derive relevant dimensions. Findings suggest that Automated Teller Machine (ATM) is distinctly placed and was perceived to be most secure & useful electronic banking channel. Internet banking and mobile banking were perceived to be low on security dimension. Phone banking although perceived secure, but it scored high on complexity and low on usefulness. Further, paper presents important implications for bank to improve adoption of electronic banking services.
Modeling and analysis of interference in Listen‐Before‐Talk spectrum access schemes

Spectrum measurement studies have shown that substantial portions of the allocated wireless spectrum are highly underutilized. Frequency‐agile radios (FARs) have the potential to make opportunistic use of such spectrum holes without causing harmful interference to users of the allocated spectrum. Toward this goal, we develop a framework for modeling the interference caused by FARs employing spectrum access mechanisms based on the simple Listen‐Before‐Talk (LBT) scheme. Two variations of LBT are considered: individual LBT, whereby the FARs act independently of each other; and collaborative LBT, whereby the FARs communicate with each other in order to more accurately identify the spectrum holes. Our analysis of the LBT scheme reveals the fundamental interdependencies among key system design metrics and provides a basis for analyzing more complex spectrum access methods. In particular, the analysis of LBT provides a lower bound on the capacity gain achievable by FARs employing spectrum‐sharing schemes. Our numerical results show that the individual LBT scheme can provide substantial capacity gains, while even more gain can be achieved using the collaborative LBT schemes. Our analysis suggests that much greater gains should be achievable via spectrum access schemes that incorporate location information and/or more sophisticated group behaviors. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Heterogeneous Nuclear Ribonucleoproteins H, H′, and F Are Members of a Ubiquitously Expressed Subfamily of Related but Distinct Proteins Encoded by Genes Mapping to Different Chromosomes *

Molecular cDNA cloning, two-dimensional gel immunoblotting, and amino acid microsequencing identified three sequence-unique and distinct proteins that constitute a subfamily of ubiquitously expressed heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoproteins corresponding to hnRNPs H, H′, and F. These proteins share epitopes and sequence identity with two other proteins, isoelectric focusing sample spot numbers 2222 (37.6 kDa; pI 6.5) and 2326 (39.5 kDa; pI 6.6), indicating that the subfamily may contain additional members. The identity between hnRNPs H and H′ is 96%, between H and F 78%, and between H′ and F 75%, respectively. The three proteins contain three repeats, which we denote quasi-RRMs (qRRMs) since they have a remote similarity to the RNA recognition motif (RRM). The three qRRMs of hnRNP H, with a few additional NH-terminal amino acids, were constructed by polymerase chain reaction amplification and used for ribohomopolymer binding studies. Each qRRM repeat bound poly(rG), while only the NH-terminal qRRM bound poly(rC) and poly(rU). None of the repeats bound detectable amounts of poly(rA). The expression levels of hnRNPs H and F were differentially regulated in pairs of normal and transformed fibroblasts and keratinocytes. In normal human keratinocytes, the expression level of H was unaffected by treatment with several substances tested including two second messengers and seven cytokines. Likewise the expression level of F was independent of these substances, although it was strikingly down-regulated by long term treatment with 4β-phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate, indicating that the protein kinase C signaling pathway regulates its expression. No effect of 4β-phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate was observed on the expression of hnRNP H. The genes coding for hnRNPs H, H′, and F were chromosome-mapped to 5q35.3 (HNRPH1), 6q25.3-q26, and/or Xq22 (HNRPH2) and 10q11.21-q11.22 (HNRPF), respectively.
Evaluating Business-IT Alignment in the Enterprise Architecture Context

In this report, the concept of business-IT alignment is extensively discussed according to literature. Particularly, the various definitions, components, models and benefits, as well as the practical aspect of the alignment concept, are discussed. Furthermore, the concept is addressed in the EA domain, and approaches for its evaluation are described.
PBFT vs Proof-of-Authority: Applying the CAP Theorem to Permissioned Blockchain

Permissioned blockchains are arising as a solution to federate companies prompting accountable interactions. A variety of consensus algorithms for such blockchains have been proposed, each of which has different benefits and drawbacks. Proof-of-Authority (PoA) is a new family of Byzantine fault-tolerant (BFT) consensus algorithms largely used in practice to ensure better performance than traditional Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (PBFT). However, the lack of adequate analysis of PoA hinders any cautious evaluation of their effectiveness in real-world permissioned blockchains deployed over the Internet, hence on an eventually synchronous network experimenting Byzantine nodes. In this paper, we analyse two of the main PoA algorithms, named Aura and Clique, both in terms of provided guarantees and performances. First, we derive their functioning including how messages are exchanged, then we weight, by relying on the CAP theorem, consistency, availability and partition tolerance guarantees. We also report a qualitative latency analysis based on message rounds. The analysis advocates that PoA for per- missioned blockchains, deployed over the Internet with Byzantine nodes, do not provide adequate consistency guarantees for scenarios where data integrity is essential. We claim that PBFT can fit better such scenarios, despite a limited loss in terms of performance.
Is the Traditional Banking Model a Survivor?

We test whether small US commercial banks that use a traditional business model are more likely to survive than nontraditional banks during both good and bad economic climates. Our concept of bank survival is derived from Stigler (1958) and includes any bank that does not fail or is not acquired. We define traditional banking by four hallmark characteristics: relationship loans, core deposit funding, revenue streams from traditional banking services, and physical bank branches. Banks that adhered more closely to this business strategy were an estimated 8 to 13 percentage points more likely to survive from 1997 to 2012 compared to other small banks using less traditional business strategies. This survival advantage approximately doubled during the financial crisis period.
SOX-Mandated Internal Control Deficiency Disclosure under Section 302 and Earnings Quality: Evidence from Cross-Listed Firms

We examine the usefulness of SOX-mandated internal control deficiency (ICD) disclosure under Section 302 in assessing earnings quality for cross-listed firms relative to U.S. firms. Consistent with prior research, we find that U.S. firms' Section 302 ICD disclosure conveys useful information about earnings quality. However, cross-listed firms' Section 302 ICD disclosure is on average unrelated to earnings quality and significantly less informative about earnings quality than U.S. firms'. We provide evidence that the reduced usefulness of cross-listed firms' ICD disclosure is due to management's weaker incentive to detect and report existing ICDs. Specifically, the weaker association between the ICD disclosure and earnings quality for cross-listed firms relative to U.S. firms is primarily driven by cross-listed firms domiciled in weak investor protection countries. In addition, cross-listed firms' propensity to disclose ICDs declines with the degree of management's private control benefits and this effect is stronger for firms domiciled in weak investor protection countries.
Taxes in the EU New Member States and the Location of Capital and Profit

This paper investigates taxes on corporate profit levied in the new member states of the European Union. Part A provides some background for analysing the current position of corporate taxes in the EU, paying particular attention to the position of the new member states. It has three sections. The first summarises the influences that taxes on profit can have on economic decisions. The second analyses the development of corporation taxes in the EU over the last ten years, making a comparison between the 15 countries who were members prior to 2005, and the 10 new member states joining in 2004. The third section speculates on future developments, summarising evidence on whether there has been significant tax competition, and if so, where it is likely to lead. Part B draws out some policy implications in the light of this evidence and in the light of recent proposals from the European Commission for a common consolidated tax base in the EU.
Fast fractal image encoding based on adaptive search

This paper presents a new adaptive search approach to reduce the computational complexity of fractal encoding. A simple but very efficient adaptive necessary condition is introduced to exclude a large number of unqualified domain blocks so as to speed-up fractal image compression. Furthermore, we analyzed an unconventional affine parameter that has better properties than the conventional luminance offset. Specifically, we formulated an optimal bit allocation scheme for the simultaneous quantizations of the usual scaling and the aforementioned unconventional affine parameter. Experiments on standard images showed that our adaptive search method yields superior performance over conventional fractal encoding.
THE ROLE OF NON FINANCIAL FACTORS IN MEASURING ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE

Measuring of organizational performance is an important factor for the organization itself and the stakeholders of the organization. It is not always an easy job to do. Measurement of organizational performance is always linked with organizational missions, goals and objectives. Choosing performance measure is a challenge. Performance measurement systems play a key role in developing strategy, evaluating the achievement of organizational objectives and compensating managers. Yet many managers feel that traditional financially oriented systems no longer work adequately. A recent survey of U.S. financial services companies found that most were not satisfied with their measurement systems. They believed there were too much emphasis on financial measures such as earnings and accounting returns and little emphasis on drivers of value such as customer and employee satisfaction, innovation and quality. This paper deals with the measurement of organizational performance (MOP) and tries to highlight Non financial factor of measuring organizational performance to bring long term financial capability. In this paper an endeavor has been made to present the problems associated with the financial indicators of performance and how Non-Financial Indicators (NFI) help in decision making. To this end both importance of NFIs in Bangladeshi context and consequences of ignoring NFIs have been discussed. Finally, this paper suggests that using the NFIs linked to factors such as corporate strategy, value drivers, and organizational objectives can drive the competitive elements of the organization. Key Words: Measurement of Organizational Performance; Non Financial Indicators; Organizational Performance. For full paper: fmscresearch@sjp.ac. lk
Evaluation of boundary-layer type forecasts 1 Evaluation of boundary-layer type in a weather forecast model utilising long-term Doppler lidar observations

Many studies evaluating model boundary-layer schemes focus either on near-surface parameters or on short-term observational campaigns. This reflects the observational datasets that are widely available for use in model evaluation. In this paper we show how surface and long-term Doppler lidar observations, combined in a way to match model representation of the boundary layer as closely as possible, can be used to evaluate the skill of boundary-layer forecasts. We use a 2-year observational dataset from a rural site in the UK to evaluate a climatology of boundary layer type forecast by the UK Met Office Unified Model. In addition, we demonstrate the use of a binary skill score (Symmetric Extremal Dependence Index) to investigate the dependence of forecast skill on season, horizontal resolution and forecast leadtime. A clear diurnal and seasonal cycle can be seen in the climatology of both the model and observations, with the main discrepancies being the model overpredicting cumulus capped and decoupled stratocumulus capped boundary-layers and underpredicting well mixed boundarylayers. Using the SEDI skill score the model is most skillful at predicting the surface stability. The skill of the model in predicting cumulus capped and stratocumulus capped stable boundary layer forecasts is low but greater than a 24 hr persistence forecast. In contrast, the prediction of decoupled boundary-layers and boundary-layers with multiple cloud layers is lower than persistence. This process based evaluation approach has the potential to be applied to other boundary-layer parameterisation schemes with similar decision structures.
Cumulant based probabilistic optimal power flow (P-OPF)

This paper introduces the cumulant method for the P-OPF problem and compares the cumulant method and first-order second-moment method (FOSMM). It is shown that for some combinations of independent Gaussian distributions the two methods are equivalent. A numerical example is included comparing the cumulant method and FOSMM results with a 1500 Monte Carlo simulation. The results using the FOSMM exactly equal the results using the cumulant method.
Maximizing functional cohesion of comprehension environments by integrating user and task knowledge

Program comprehension tools should facilitate the comprehension strategies used by programmers to achieve specific tasks. Many reverse engineering tools have been developed to derive abstract representations from existing source code and to apply a variety of analysis techniques. Yet, most of these software programs fail to provide users with the necessary guidance in choosing the appropriate methods, tools, abstraction levels and analysis techniques, and they frequently expose the user to unrelated information. The author presents a task and user-centered comprehension environment that maximizes the functional cohesion among the tools and comprehension techniques by focusing on a particular user task and its appropriate comprehension strategy. At the same time, we try to minimize the data coupling for the selected task by providing only the necessary task specific information, therefore reducing the data overload. This environment integrates user specific information with reverse engineered information to select the most appropriate comprehension strategy for a particular task.
Detection of Caspofungin Resistance in Candida spp. by Etest

ABSTRACT The caspofungin susceptibilities of 28 Candida sp. clinical isolates, including 8 caspofungin-resistant isolates characterized by mutations in the Fks1 protein, were determined by the Etest in RPMI and AM3 media. Good discrimination between wild-type and mutant isolates was obtained. These results suggest that the Etest is valuable for the detection of caspofungin resistance in Candida spp.
The Use of Extrinsic Cues to Facilitate Product Adoption

Two field experiments were conducted to explore the effects of varying levels of product warranty, manufacturer reputation, and price on consumers’ risk perceptions and affective responses to new product concepts. Data were collected from a consumer panel in a new product concept test format for a tire product and for a computerized exercise device. Results from structural equation analyses reveal the important role of warranties and other extrinsic cues in reducing consumers’ risk perceptions and enhancing their affective responses to innovative product concepts.
Template Specificity of Ribonucleic Acid Polymerase in Asporogenous Mutants of Bacillus subtilis

Asporogenous mutants of Bacillus subtilis were examined for the change in template specificity of ribonucleic acid (RNA) polymerase characteristic of wild-type cells undergoing sporulation. Mutants blocked at stages II, III, and IV showed a changed specificity of the enzyme after the end of growth and were in this respect indistinguishable from the wild type. The RNA polymerase of eight stage-zero mutants (out of nine tested) which possess mutations that map at six distinct loci retained the template specificity of vegetative cells.
Implications of strong resource capabilities in a family wine business

◦Purpose Family business longevity is one of the bellwether subjects of family businesses. Historically longevity has been seen through the lens of succession planning and processes, and this article is guided by this foundation of literature. However we concentrate on one aspect of the succession, that is, the resource capabilities family firms in the wine industry possess and how they relate to continuity.