Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Differentiation between early rheumatoid and early psoriatic arthritis by the ultrasonographic study of the synovio-entheseal complex of the small joints of the hands.

OBJECTIVES To determine whether ultrasonographic findings of the synovio-entheseal complex of the hand small joints could be used to differentiate between early rheumatoid and early psoriatic arthritis. METHODS Thirty-four early rheumatoid and 26 early psoriatic arthritis patients with a prevalent involvement of the hands were examined with ultrasound (US). All exams were performed at the first visit by evaluating synovitis, peritendon extensor digitorum tendon oedema, enthesitis of the central slip of extensor tendon, flexor tenosynovitis and soft tissue oedema. In the same patient, the two most clinically involved joints, if possible of the same digit, were evaluated. RESULTS Sixty-eight clinically involved joints were evaluated in 34 early rheumatoid arthritis patients and 52 joints in 26 early psoriatic arthritis patients.Synovitis was significantly more frequently detected in early rheumatoid arthritis compared to early psoriatic arthritis patients (p=0.0001), in 91.1% joints of the former and in 59.6% joints of the latter. At metacarpohalangeal joint, the presence of peritendon extensor digitorum tendon inflammation was observed in 2.5% of the joints in the early rheumatoid arthritis group and in 54.1% of the joints in the early psoriatic arthritis group (p=0.0001). At PIP joints, central slip enthesitis was exclusively observed in EPsA (p=0.0045). When considering the most clinically involved finger per patient, soft tissue oedema was detected almost exclusively in psoriatic arthritis (p=0.0002). CONCLUSIONS The US involvement of synovio-entheseal complex and US extrasynovial features may be helpful in the differential diagnosis between early rheumatoid and early psoriatic arthritis.
Institutional Sources of Boundary-Spanning Structures: the Establishment of Investor Relations Departments in the Fortune 500 Industrials

The authors analyze the coercive and mimetic conditions leading to the establishment of investor relations departments among Fortune 500 industrial firms during the 1984-1994 period. The results show that antimanagement resolutions brought to a vote by social movement activists significantly contributed to the establishment of investor relations departments. Intense scrutiny by financial analysts also impelled firms to create such departments. Whereas social movement activists framed shareholder rights as a problem and compelled organizations to uphold them, professional analysts subtly coerced organizations to signal their commitment to investor rights by creating boundary-spanning structures. That solution was transmitted through board interlocks to other organizations.
Risk Curve and Bifuzzy Portfolio Selection

In order to solve the portfolio problem when security returns are bifuzzy variables, firstly we propose a new definition of risk, then one type of portfolio selection based on expected value and risk is provided according to bifuzzy theory. Furthermore, a hybrid intelligent algorithm by integrating bifuzzy simulation and genetic algorithm is designed. Finally, one numerical experiment is provided to illustrate effectiveness of the hybrid intelligent algorithm.
Layer assignment for maximizing the reliability of 3D ICs

In the design of a three-dimensional integrated circuit (3D IC), the task of layer assignment is to assign each functional unit to a layer that can accommodate it. In a 3D IC, through silicon vias (TSVs) are used to communicate signals between different layers. To improve the reliability of a 3D-IC, previous layer assignment works concentrate on minimizing the number of TSVs to reduce the risk of the defect occurred in the manufacturing process. However, the risk in the fabricating process of a TSV is also related to the length of this TSV. Based on this observation, in this paper, we propose an integer linear programming (ILP) approach to maximize the reliability of TSVs during the layer assignment stage. Compared with the previous work (that does not take the reliability of TSVs into account), experimental results show that our approach can greatly increase the reliability under the same number of TSVs.
Transmissão de mídia contínua ao vivo em P2P: modelagem, caracterização e implementação de mecanismo de resiliência a ataques

Aplicacoes de midia continua em P2P estao se tornando mais populares a cada dia. Em contraste com o modelo tradicional cliente-servidor, o modelo P2P transpassa problemas como escalabilidade e necessidade de recursos poderosos, concentradosem um unico ponto. Em contrapartida, as redes P2P podem ser alvos de ataques e comportamentos oportunistas.Este trabalho apresenta um modelo descentralizado de reputacao paracombater ataques em sistemas de midia continua P2P. Em particular, sao concentrados esforcos para combater ataques de poluicao. Nesse ataque, os participantes maliciosos alteram ou forjam os dados da midia continua na tentativa de disseminar conteudo indesejado aos demais participantes do sistema.Os resultados incluem uma modelagem de sistemas P2P e umaverificacao formal dos danos causados por ataques de poluicao. Nesse sentido, ha uma evidencia que a escolha dos protocolos e algoritmos do sistema P2P influenciam no impacto causado por um ataque. Incluem tambem uma caracterizacao dos usuarios de sistemas de transmissao ao vivo de midia continua em P2P. A partir dessa caracterizacao e possivel compreender a dinâmica dos participantes desses sistemas e assim avaliar o impacto de seu comportamento tanto na escalabilidade do sistema, quanto na qualidade da midia recebida. Finalmente, edesenvolvido um sistema de defesa contra ataques de poluicao. Os resultados mostram que o novo mecanismo implementado bloqueia um ataque com uma sobrecarga inferior a 2% da banda de rede necessaria para a transmissao, enquanto a solucao indicada pela literatura necessita de pelo menos 100% de banda adicional. Alem disso, o novo mecanismo e eficaz mesmo com conluio dos participantes e, nessecaso, o pico de retransmissao e inferior a 30%, enquanto as solucoestradicionais necessitam de ate 100% de banda adicional. Finalmente, o novo mecanismo permite reabilitacao dos participantes que geraram conteudo indevido e prove medidas de incentivo para o ompartilhamento dos recursos na rede P2P
UDK 619:612.018.2 ESTRADIOL AND CALCIUM AFFECT THE GROWTH HORMONE PRODUCING CELLS IN FEMALE MIDDLE-AGED RATS

The effects of multiple doses of estradiol dipropionate (EDP) or calcium glucoheptonate (Ca) on the growth and function of pituitary somatotropes (GH cells) were studied. Female middle-aged rats were receiving i.p. EDP (0.625 mg i.p./kg b.w.), or Ca (11.4 mg/kg b.w) every day for two weeks. Blood samples were collected for hormone analyses and pituitaries dissected for histological and morphometric evaluation 24 h after the last injection. GH-producing cells were examined using the peroxidase-antiperoxidase (PAP) immunohistochemical procedure. Both EDPand Ca-treatment significantly decreased all morphometric parameters of GH cells (p<0.05) in comparison with the corresponding controls. Serum concentration of growth hormone (GH) in EDPor Ca-treated groups was lower by 65% and 13% (p<0.05) respectively, comparing to the controls. The difference between all morphometric parameters of EDPand Catreated rats was statistically significant (p<0.05) in relation to the controls. These findings suggest that multiple EDP, or Ca application affects (directly or indirectly) the control of growth and secretory activity of GH cells in middle-aged female rats.
Rational Function Neural Network

In this paper we observe that a particular class of rational function (RF) approximations may be viewed as feedforward networks. Like the radial basis function (RBF) network, the training of the RF network may be performed using a linear adaptive filtering algorithm. We illustrate the application of the RF network by considering two nonlinear signal processing problems. The first problem concerns the one-step prediction of a time series consisting of a pair of complex sinusoid in the presence of colored non-gaussian noise. Simulated data were used for this problem. In the second problem, we use the RF network to build a nonlinear dynamic model of sea clutter (radar backscattering from a sea surface); here, real-life data were used for the study.
The role of marketing managers' commitment and involvement in marketing strategy implementation

This study examines the role of marketing mangers' commitment and involvement in implementing marketing strategies. The data were collected from marketing managers of different organizations who had implemented a strategic marketing plan in the last five years. The study reveals that marketing mangers' commitment towards strategy implementation has a significant positive impact on organizational performance. Innovative culture, top management support and job autonomy were considered to be the key antecedents of managers' commitment. All three antecedents were found to have significant positive impact on commitment. In addition, commitment was found to partially mediate the links of top management support and autonomy with organizational performance. It was also found that marketing managers' involvement moderates the relationship between job autonomy and managers' commitment. The managerial implications are discussed.
An adaptive maximum-likelihood sequence estimator for fast time-varying intersymbol interference channels

This paper proposes an adaptive maximum-likelihood sequence estimator (MLSE), which is a suboptimum approximation to the adaptive maximum-likelihood detector and is capable of tracking fast time-varying intersymbol interference (ISI) channels. The adaptive MLSE consists of a channel estimator and an MLSE implemented by the Viterbi algorithm (VA). The novel feature of the proposed adaptive MLSE is a channel estimation scheme, where the channel estimation is accomplished for each state in the VA along the surviving path connected to each state. This MLSE makes it possible to estimate a channel impulse response without an influence of a decision delay inherent in the VA, and the performance and complexity of the proposed procedure is controlled by the memory length of the VA. The bit error rate performance of the proposed MLSE is confirmed by experimental results. It is shown that the proposed MLSE has a capability of excellent tracking performance in a severe environment caused by fast time-varying ISI, for example frequency selective multipath fading in digital mobile radio communications. >
The Motives of Rural Tourists

Based on the investigation to Guangxi rural tourists,the paper systematicly analyzes different motives of rural tourists.The result indicates that these motives can be classified into "relieving pressure","social intercourse","seeking knowledge" and "nostalgia". It is very important for rural tourism to identify the motives of rural tourists so as to explore rural tourism products and improve service system.
Improved Natural Balancing With Modified Phase-Shifted PWM for Single-Leg Five-Level Flying-Capacitor Converters

Flying-capacitor converters (FCCs), like most multilevel converter topologies, require a balancing mechanism of the capacitor voltages. FCCs feature natural voltage balancing when a special modulation technique is used. The classic methods, such as phase-shifted pulse width modulation (PS-PWM), result in very slow balancing for some duty-ratio ranges. Previous work has shown that for a single-leg five-level FCC, one time constant is infinite for a zero desired output voltage. In this paper, a modified PS-PWM scheme for a single-leg five-level FCC is presented, which results in faster balancing over the total duty-ratio range. The modified PS-PWM scheme is studied, resulting in an averaged voltage-balancing model. This model is verified using simulations and experiments. The modified PS-PWM scheme solves the slow-balancing problems of the normal PS-PWM method for odd-level FCCs, while maintaining the passive control property, and it provides a self-precharge capability.
Biological Applications of a Chimeric Probe for the Assessment of Galectin-3 Ligands

β1–6 branching of N-linked oligosaccharides has been correlated with the progression of different cancers. The leukoagglutinins of Phaseolus vulgaris (L-PHA) have been used to study this pattern of glycosylation whose biological significance is incompletely understood. The animal lectin, galectin-3, also binds to structures recognized by L-PHA. To develop a functional tool for the in situ identification of this pattern of glycosylation, human galectin-3 was fused to bacterial alkaline phosphatase (gal3/AP). Gal3/AP recognized both A and B blood group saccharides (B>A) and lactosamine derivatives. Gal3/AP recognition depended at least in part on the N-linked oligosaccharides of different glycoproteins. The presence and distribution of galectin-3 ligands were analyzed in both murine and human normal and tumor samples. Loss of apical expression of galectin-3 ligands was commonly found in carcinomas. Endothelial and inflammatory cells were enriched in galectin-3 ligands as compared with tumor cells; thus, gal3/AP is a suitable tool for studying tumor micro-environments. Comparative analysis of both gal3/AP and L-PHA binding patterns indicated that although similar, these patterns are not identical. The probe developed was useful for several immunoenzymatic assays and will allow the physiological and clinical significance of the expression pattern of galectin-3 ligands to be established. This manuscript contains online supplemental material at http:/www.jhc. org. Please visit this article online to view these materials. (J Histochem Cytochem 55: 1015–1026, 2007)
Perceptual separability of featural and configural information in congenital prosopagnosia

The deficit in face recognition in individuals with prosopagnosia has often been attributed to an underlying impairment in holistic processing. Exactly what constitutes holistic processing has remained controversial, however. Here, we compare how configural information and featural information interact during face processing in a group of individuals with congenital prosopagnosia (CP) and matched controls. We adopted Amishav and Kimchi's version of Garner's speeded classification task, in which observers classify upright faces based on configural (intereyes and nose–mouth spacing) or featural (shape of eyes, nose, and mouth) information while the other dimension remains constant or varied randomly. We replicated the finding that normal observers evince symmetric Garner interference—failure to selectively attend to features without being influenced by irrelevant variation in configuration, and vice versa—indicating that featural and configural information are integral in normal face processing. In contrast, the CPs showed no Garner interference: They were able to attend to configural information without interference from irrelevant variation in featural information, and they were able to attend to featural information without interference from irrelevant variation in configural information. The absence of Garner interference in CP provides strong evidence that featural information and configural information are perceptually separable in CP's face processing. These findings indicate that CPs do not perceive faces holistically; rather, they process featural and configural information independently.
Cell search in Long Term Evolution systems: Primary and secondary synchronization

In order that an User Equipment (UE) can access a cell in a Long Term Evolution (LTE) systems, it must be able to perform an initial synchronization and search for a base station (eNodeB) to establish the downlink (DL) access. This process is called the initial cell search. Two synchronization signals are available to accomplish this process: the primary synchronization signal (PSS) and the secondary synchronization signal (SSS). In this paper we study and propose modifications of existing algorithms and synchronization schemes combining the advantages of auto-correlation and cross correlation based detection algorithms, making use of the properties of Zadoff-Chu (ZC) and pseudo-noise (PN) sequences. The performances of the reviewed and proposed schemes are evaluated by simulations.
On Numerical Modeling of Corporate Strategic Debt Service

The point(s) which divide the state variables space into different phases and give rise to different debt service flows based on game theory can be determined either analytically for perpetual debt, or numerically for debt of finite maturity. The fact that debt service flow can vary through its life span and that such a change can be modeled is of importance to credit risk management. Numerical implementation of the strategic debt service theory poses many challenging aspects. The aim of this thesis is to explore feasible options that can be implemented in dealing with such challenges.
Process Technology Sourcing and the Innovation Context

We employ transaction cost economics (TCE) and inspiration from technology innovation management to advance a model of technology sourcing governance and performance in the international environment. We hypothesize that the innovation context moderates the relationship between process technology sourcing and performance. The innovation context is defined as external factors reflected in the appropriability regime and whether the industry is characterized by a dominant design. Moreover, we suggest that, contingent upon the innovation context, subsidiaries prefer internal development to secure a positional advantage. A multi-industry sample of 105 subsidiaries is used to test the hypotheses. We find support for a contextual model linking process technology sourcing strategy to subsidiary performance. Motivated by TCE, we find tentative evidence for a preference order of technology sourcing beginning with internal development and ending with market sourcing, particularly when the appropriability regime is weak.
The Gross Truth About Hedge Fund Performance and Risk: The Impact of Incentive Fees

Factor models are frequently applied to hedge fund returns in an attempt to separate the return from identified risk factors (beta) and from manager skill (alpha). More recently, these same techniques have been used to replicate the returns from hedge fund strategies with varying degrees of success. In this paper, we show that due to the particular nature of hedge fund incentive contracts, the use of net of fee returns can lead to considerably biased estimates of factor exposures which can distort the picture of fund manager performance. The solution we propose is to model the gross returns of hedge funds and the incentive fees independently, which gives a truer representation of the underlying return generating process. Using a large sample of hedge funds, we quantify the effect of this bias on both performance attribution and replication. We find that using net of fee returns understates the return attributable to beta by up to 58 basis points per annum. Following from this we find that some of the additional beta exposure can be captured by basing replication on gross rather than net returns. We also investigate the risk taking behaviour of fund managers conditional upon the delta of their incentive option and find that contrary to previous studies, there does appear to be evidence of increased risk taking for those managers who find themselves significantly below their high water mark.
Marketing Hospitality and Tourism Education on the Internet: An Analysis of e-Relationship Marketing Features

The characteristics of speed, personalization, and interactions make the Internet an ideal tool for enhancing customer relationships. The authors developed an electronic relationship marketing (e-RM) framework and investigated the website features of 91 hospitality and tourism programs in the US. The results indicated that, while there was a preliminary effort of using program websites to facilitate the relationship with prospective students, sophisticated utilization of the Internet technologies for higher-level relationships presented a major challenge to the program marketers and administrators. In general, more advanced applications of e-RM-oriented features were found in websites maintained by large or public programs than by their counterparts. The main reasons for this phenomenon may be that small or private programs lack resource commitment and insufficient strategic planning prior to their website constructions.
Loyalty Program Factors and How do they affect Customer Behavior

This paper based on analysis and study of how organizations gain a customer loyalty, and what are affect a consumer behavior. The reader can can simply prove that increase customer lifetime value, build real customer relationship base on relevance, influence the elasticity of a purchase decision, and increasing share of wallet are very and important factors that guide any to gain a customer loyalty. The findings prove that the factors that mentioned in this research have a direct effect on the customer behavior, and give them a specific data to gain customer loyalty. This paper focus on customer behavior, understanding this behavior will guide to gain a customer loyalty. These factors can guide to gain this loyalty before the competitors do. The designing of the practical implication is very willing, and it can be used by any organization that needs to gain a customer. Examples are the originality of this article which is used to build a good reputation and achieve the success in an honest way. The four factors which have a positive effect for organizations to stay customer behavior.
Overview of the Lucy Project: Dynamic Stabilization of a Biped Powered by Pneumatic Artificial Muscles

This paper gives an overview of the Lucy project. What is special is that the biped is not actuated with the classical electrical drives, but with pleated pneumatic artificial muscles. In an antagonistic setup of such muscles both the torque and the compliance are controllable. From human walking there is evidence that joint compliance plays an important role in energy-efficient walking and running. To be able to walk at different walking speeds and step lengths, a trajectory generator and joint trajectory tracking controller are combined. The first generates dynamically stable trajectories based on the objective locomotion parameters which can be changed from step to step. The joint trajectory tracking unit controls the pressure inside the muscles so the desired motion is followed. It is based on a computed torque model and takes the torque–angle relation of the antagonistic muscle setup into account. With this strategy the robot is able to walk at a speed up to 0.15 m/s. A compliance controller is developed to reduce the energy consumption by combining active trajectory control with the exploitation of the natural dynamics. A mathematical formulation was developed to find an optimal compliance setting depending on the desired trajectory and physical properties of the system. This strategy is experimentally evaluated on a single pendulum structure and not implemented on the real robot because the walking speed of the robot is currently too slow. At the end a discussion is given about the pros and cons of building a pneumatic biped, and the control architecture used.
Alternating approximately bisimilar symbolic models for nonlinear control systems with unknown time-varying delays

In this paper we study existence of symbolic models for the class of nonlinear control systems with unknown time-varying delays. We first introduce the notion of incrementally input-delay-to-state stability and characterize it by means of Liapunov-Krasovskii functionals. We then derive sufficient conditions that guarantee existence of symbolic models which are approximately equivalent, in the sense of alternating approximate bisimulation, to the original time-delay system.