Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Simulation au second ordre des interactions houle-structure en régime instationnaire

Une modelisation numerique tridimensionnelle destinee a decrire les champs de vagues resultant de l'interaction de la houle avec des structures de geometrie quelconque, en regime instationnaire, est developpee dans ce memoire. Dans le cadre de la theorie potentielle developpee au second ordre d'approximation, une formulation integrale du systeme hydrodynamique reposant sur des distributions de singularites de Rankine est etablie, puis resolue par une methode d'elements frontieres isoparametriques combinee a une procedure d'integration temporelle des equations des conditions aux limites de surface libre. L'evaluation numerique des gradients surfaciques de la solution du premier ordre, par differents schemas d'interpolation locale par panneaux spline, fait l'objet d'une etude comparative sur le calcul des derivees d'un potentiel analytique. Ces methodes, presentant une bonne precision, sont adaptables a un voisinage quelconque et permettent d'envisager des corps de geometrie complexe, un des objectifs de ce modele.
Single Chinese News Article Summarization Based on Ranking Propagation

This paper proposes a news summarization system called NewsSum for simultaneous key entities and sentences extraction from single Chinese news article. NewsSum can provide both query-independent and query-specific news summarization. In this study, NewsSum is implemented by firstly parsing the news text in the preprocessing stage and building a news document graph, then exploiting the ranking propagation algorithm on the graph to extract key entities and sentences from the text as its summary. Furthermore, the quality of NewsSum is compared with state-of-the-art summarization approaches through a user survey.
Association between Socioeconomic Vulnerability and Height with Obesity in Low-Income Chilean Children in the Transition from Preschool to First Grade

This study determined the percentage of obesity among lower-income Chilean children 4–6 years of age, by socioeconomic vulnerability (family score assessing the children’s risk of becoming poor) and height. The sample included 17,080 children with anthropometry at 4, 5, and 6 years of age, and three categories of socioeconomic vulnerability. Body mass index Z-score (BMI Z), % obesity, height/age Z-score (HAZ) by socioeconomic vulnerability/sex, the effect of socioeconomic vulnerability on BMI Z and HAZ by age/sex, and BMI Z and % obesity at 4–6 years, according to initial height, were determined. Between 4–6 years, % obesity is very high, especially among the less-vulnerable and taller children. Preventive measures should prioritize this group.
The impact of knowledge management capabilities and processes on SME performance

Knowledge management (KM) is a practice where knowledge is captured, distributed and utilized effectively, leading to enhanced productivity and performance of an organization. The prime objective of this study is to examine the influence of KM processes and capabilities on the performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Saudi Arabia. KM capabilities comprise people, IT, the organizational structure and the organizational culture, which are measured in this research by T-shaped skills, IT support, the level of centralization, and learning. The other dimension is KM processes, which consist of accessing, generating, embedding, representing, facilitating, using, measuring and transferring knowledge. Moreover, KM performance is measured via two factors: the organization’s financial performance and customer satisfaction. The research reviews previous literature related to the KM components (processes, capabilities and performance) to develop the research model and a number of hypotheses to evaluate the research problem. The data is collected through a questionnaire-based survey completed by a total of 126 managers working in different sectors of Saudi SMEs. With the help of a number of statistical tests, the research study found that that the KM capabilities, IT support, learning culture, decentralized structure and the people of the organization contribute to the success of KM practices or processes, validating the theoretical model. The results also show that KM processes, including accessing, generating, measuring, transferring, use, embedding, representing and facilitating, are positively associated with the performance of SMEs in Saudi Arabia.
Production and pH-Dependent Bactericidal Activity of Lactocin S, a Lantibiotic from Lactobacillus sake L45

The amount of lactocin S activity in a growing culture depends on the growth stage of the bacteria, the pH of the medium, the presence of ethanol, and the aeration of the culture. We observed the highest levels of bacteriocin activity in the early stationary growth phase of cultures at 30 deg C. When Lactobacillus sake L45 was grown in a fermentor at pH 5, it produced 2,000 to 3,000 bacteriocin units per ml, which represented an 8- to 10-fold increase in bacteriocin production compared with production during batch culture fermentation. Less than 10% of this level of bacteriocin activity was observed during fermentation at pH 6.0. When 1% ethanol was included in the growth medium, a two- to fourfold increase in the bacteriocin yield was observed. Aerating the culture during growth almost completely eliminated the production of active bacteriocin. Our results also showed that lactocin S-mediated killing of target cells depended on the pH of the culture. The pH had to be less than 6 in order to obtain a bactericidal effect with lactocin S-sensitive cells. At pH values greater than 6, lactocin S had no apparent effect on sensitive cells.
Draft Genome Sequence of a Chitinophaga Strain Isolated from a Lignocellulose Biomass-Degrading Consortium

ABSTRACT Chitinophaga comprises microorganisms capable of degrading plant-derived carbohydrates, serving as a source of new tools for the characterization and degradation of plant biomass. Here, we report the draft genome assembly of a Chitinophaga strain with 8.2 Mbp and 7,173 open reading frames (ORFs), isolated from a bacterial consortium that is able to degrade lignocellulose.
Frequency of musculoskeletal conditions among patients referred to Italian tertiary rheumatological centers.

OBJECTIVE To describe the occurrence of different rheumatic diseases and to examine the characteristics of patients referred to six Italian rheumatological units. To compare these data with those from other countries. METHODS Six Italian rheumatological tertiary referral centers participated in the study. Diagnoses of in- and outpatients aged over 16 years were classified according to the International Classification of Diseases, ninth revision. RESULTS Three thousand, five hundred and thirty-seven patients with mean age 56 +/- 14.8 years, of which 2604 (73.6%) were women, were studied. Inflammatory joint and spine diseases were diagnosed in 40.4%, connective tissue diseases in 14.4%, degenerative joint and spine diseases in 21.4%, soft tissue rheumatisms in 18.5%, and metabolic bone diseases in 5.3%. There was a significant difference among centers in the frequency of most diagnoses: non-academic centers cared for more patients with arthritis and connective tissue diseases and for less patients with degenerative diseases, soft tissue rheumatisms and metabolic bone diseases. Connective tissue diseases were constantly seen more often in Italian centers, whereas soft tissue rheumatisms were seen more often abroad. CONCLUSION Our data emphasize the great variability of the diagnostic case-mix in different centers from the same country, an observation that raises some concerns of the results of descriptive multicenter studies. Studies on the breakdown of diagnoses made in rheumatological centers could be helpful to determine the burden of rheumatic diseases on the health system, and for the planning of health interventions by both the national rheumatological societies and health authorities.
Step Recovery Diode Look-Up Model with Bi-Phase Wavelet Generator

In this paper, the first reported look-up non linear model of a Step Recovery Diode is described. The model uses a more elaborate parasitic network and contains more non linear elements than models previously described. Good agreement is obtained between the measured and modeled results in both the small signal and time domain. Finally, a new bi-phase wavelet generator is described whose output consists of two cycles of 2.4 GHz carrier whose polarity is controlled by the positive and negative transitions of a bipolar data source.
An analysis of trust in anonymity networks in the presence of adaptive attackers

Anonymity is a security property of paramount importance, as we move steadily towards a wired, online community. Its import touches upon subjects as different as eGovernance, eBusiness and eLeisure, as well as personal freedom of speech in authoritarian societies. Trust metrics are used in anonymity networks to support and enhance reliability in the absence of verifiable identities, and a variety of security attacks currently focus on degrading a user's trustworthiness in the eyes of the other users.
Butyrolactone autoregulator receptor protein (BarA) as a transcriptional regulator in Streptomyces virginiae

BarA of Streptomyces virginiae is a specific receptor protein for virginiae butanolides (VBs), a member of the butyrolactone autoregulators of Streptomyces species. Sequencing around the barA gene revealed two novel open reading frames: one upstream, barX, encoding a homolog of AfsA of Streptomyces griseus and another downstream, barB. Northern (RNA) blot analysis for S. virginiae demonstrated that the addition of VB during cultivation switched on the expression of barB. An in vivo expression system in Streptomyces lividans with the use of the xylE reporter gene indicated that BarA in conjunction with VB controlled the barB promoter. Furthermore, the DNA binding ability of BarA was demonstrated in vitro for the first time by means of surface plasmon resonance and a gel-shift assay. Complex formation with VB in vitro resulted in the dissociation of BarA from DNA, thus suggesting that the VB receptor, BarA, is a transcriptional regulator and that the VB signal is transduced to the next step in the signal transduction pathway by modification of the DNA binding ability of BarA.
PERCEPTION OF FRONTLINE EMPLOYEES TOWARDS CAREER GROWTH OPPORTUNITIES: IMPLICATIONS ON TURNOVER INTENTION

Retaining talented employees has become a major challenge confronting the management in hospitality industry. Researchers from different climes have advocated for adequate retention strategies such as career growth opportunities, for overcoming the alarming rate of employees’ turnover in hotel organisations. However, there is paucity of empirical study on career growth opportunities and employees’ turnover intention. To fill this gap, quantitative data were gathered with 327 copies of questionnaire, administered to the frontline employees working in twenty-two 5-star hotels in Nigeria. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to test the hypotheses, with descriptive statistics, path analysis, maximum likelihood estimates and goodness of fit indices. The results revealed that all the parameters for career growth opportunities used in this study, inversely interact with turnover intention among the respondents. The findings indicate that organisations should pay adequate attention to career goal progress, professional ability development, promotion speed and remuneration growth of their talented employees. It implies that, these factors are pivotal for saving the cost of hiring new entrants, reduce the rate of turnover intention/actual turnover, and retain experienced high performers in hotel industry. This research established the effects of career growth opportunities on turnover intention in Nigerian context.
Structural motifs in which β‐strands are clipped together with the П‐like module

In this study, the structural motifs that can be represented as combinations of small motifs such as β‐hairpins, S‐, and Z‐like β‐sheets and βαβ‐units, and the П‐like module are described and analyzed. The П‐module consists of connected elements of the β‐strand‐loop‐β‐strand type arranged in space so that its overall fold resembles a clip or the Greek letter П. In proteins, the П‐module itself and the structural motifs containing it exhibit unique overall folds and have specific sequence patterns of the key hydrophobic, hydrophilic and glycine residues. All this together enables us to conclude that these structural motifs can fold independently of the remaining part of the molecule and can act as nuclei and/or “ready‐made” building blocks in protein folding.
MAMMOTH (Matching molecular models obtained from theory): An automated method for model comparison

Advances in structural genomics and protein structure prediction require the design of automatic, fast, objective, and well benchmarked methods capable of comparing and assessing the similarity of low‐resolution three‐dimensional structures, via experimental or theoretical approaches. Here, a new method for sequence‐independent structural alignment is presented that allows comparison of an experimental protein structure with an arbitrary low‐resolution protein tertiary model. The heuristic algorithm is given and then used to show that it can describe random structural alignments of proteins with different folds with good accuracy by an extreme value distribution. From this observation, a structural similarity score between two proteins or two different conformations of the same protein is derived from the likelihood of obtaining a given structural alignment by chance. The performance of the derived score is then compared with well established, consensus manual‐based scores and data sets. We found that the new approach correlates better than other tools with the gold standard provided by a human evaluator. Timings indicate that the algorithm is fast enough for routine use with large databases of protein models. Overall, our results indicate that the new program (MAMMOTH) will be a good tool for protein structure comparisons in structural genomics applications. MAMMOTH is available from our web site at http://physbio.mssm. edu/∼ortizg/.
Complete sequence of the IncPbeta plasmid R751: implications for evolution and organisation of the IncP backbone.

The broad host range IncP plasmids are of particular interest because of their ability to promote gene spread between diverse bacterial species. To facilitate study of these plasmids we have compiled the complete sequence of the IncPbeta plasmid R751. Comparison with the sequence of the IncPalpha plasmids confirms the conservation of the IncP backbone of replication, conjugative transfer and stable inheritance functions between the two branches of this family. As in the IncPalpha genome the DNA of this backbone appears to have been enriched for the GCCG/CGGC motifs characteristic of the genome of organisms with a high G+C content, such as P. aeruginosa, suggesting that IncPbeta plasmids have been subjected during their evolution to similar mutational and selective forces as IncPalpha plasmids and may have evolved in pseudomonad hosts. The IncP genome is consistently interrupted by insertion of phenotypic markers and/or transposable elements between oriV and trfA and between the tra and trb operons. The R751 genome reveals a family of repeated sequences in these regions which may form the basis of a hot spot for insertion of foreign DNA. Sequence analysis of the cryptic transposon Tn4321 revealed that it is not a member of the Tn21 family as we had proposed previously from an inspection of its ends. Rather it is a composite transposon defined by inverted repeats of a 1347 bp IS element belonging to a recently discovered family which is distributed throughout the prokaryotes. The central unique region of Tn4321 encodes two predicted proteins, one of which is a regulatory protein while the other is presumably responsible for an as yet unidentified phenotype. The most striking feature of the IncPalpha plasmids, the global regulation of replication and transfer by the KorA and KorB proteins encoded in the central control operon, is conserved between the two plasmids although there appear to be significant differences in the specificity of repressor-operator interactions. The importance of these global regulatory circuits is emphasised by the observation that the operator sequences for KorB are highly conserved even in contexts where the surrounding region, either a protein coding or intergenic sequence, has diverged considerably. There appears to be no equivalent of the parABCDE region which in the IncPalpha plasmids provides multimer resolution, lethality to plasmid-free segregants and active partitioning functions. However, we found that the continuous sector from co-ordinate 0 to 9100 bp, encoding the co-regulated klc and kle operons as well as the central control region, could confer a high degree of segregational stability on a low copy number test vector. Thus R751 appears to exhibit very clearly what was first revealed by study of the IncPalpha plasmids, namely a fully functional co-ordinately regulated set of replication, transfer and stable inheritance functions.
Interleukin-2 Production by Polyfunctional HIV-1–Specific CD8 T Cells Is Associated With Enhanced Viral Suppression

Background: Assays to measure the induction of HIV-1-specific CD8 T-cell responses often rely on measurements of indirect effector function such as chemokine and cytokine production, which may not reflect direct elimination of an invading pathogen. Assessment of the functional ability of CD8 T cells to suppress HIV-1 replication has been viewed as a surrogate marker of an effectual immune response. To further investigate this, we measured the capacity of virus-specific CD8 T cells to inhibit HIV-1 replication in an in vitro suppression assay. Methods: We expanded 15 epitope-specific CD8 T-cell lines from peripheral blood mononuclear cells of chronically HIV--infected progressors (n = 5) and controllers (n = 4) who were not on antiretroviral therapy. Cell lines were tested for their ability to produce effector molecules (CD107a, IL-2, IFN-γ, TNF-α, perforin) and suppress virus replication in autologous CD4 T cells. Results: CD8 T-cell lines from both progressors and controllers had largely similar effector function profiles as determined by intracellular cytokine staining. In contrast, we observed that CD8 T-cell lines derived from controllers show enhanced virus suppression when compared with progressors. Virus suppression was mediated in an major histocompatibility complex-dependent manner and found to correlate with a polyfunctional IL-2+ CD8 T-cell response. Conclusions: Using a sensitive in vitro suppression assay, we demonstrate that CD8 T-cell-mediated suppression of HIV-1 replication is a marker of HIV-1 control. Suppressive capacity was found to correlate with polyfunctional IL-2 production. Assessment of CD8 T-cell-mediated suppression may be an important tool to evaluate vaccine-induced responses.
Face Recognition using Canonical Correlation Analysis

Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) are well known techniques for face recognition. Both PCA and LDA by themselves have good recognition rates. We propose Canonical Correlation Analysis (CCA) for combining two feature extractors to improve the performance of the system, by obtaining the advantages of both. CCA finds the transformation for each extractor dataset and maximizes the correlation between them. The feature extractors used in our experiments are combinations of PCA, LDA and Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT)-based PCA. We conduct tests on Yale Face Database, AR Face Database and FERET Database, and we show that the combination of two method works better than the individual methods.
PCA Based on Graph Laplacian Regularization and P-Norm for Gene Selection and Clustering

In modern molecular biology, the hotspots and difficulties of this field are identifying characteristic genes from gene expression data. Traditional reconstruction-error-minimization model principal component analysis (PCA) as a matrix decomposition method uses quadratic error function, which is known sensitive to outliers and noise. Hence, it is necessary to learn a good PCA method when outliers and noise exist. In this paper, we develop a novel PCA method enforcing P-norm on error function and graph-Laplacian regularization term for matrix decomposition problem, which is called as PgLPCA. The heart of the method designing for reducing outliers and noise is a new error function based on non-convex proximal P-norm. Besides, Laplacian regularization term is used to find the internal geometric structure in the data representation. To solve the minimization problem, we develop an efficient optimization algorithm based on the augmented Lagrange multiplier method. This method is used to select characteristic genes and cluster the samples from explosive biological data, which has higher accuracy than compared methods.
The value-added role of sector-specific REITs in Australia

ABSTRACT Australian sector-specific REITs (A-REITs) have grown significantly in recent years. This raises the issue of whether sector-specific A-REITs play a value-added role compared with diversified A-REITs. Despite the rapid growth of sector-specific A-REITs, limited studies have been devoted to it. Hence, this study aims to compare sector-specific A-REITs with diversified A-REITs by assessing risk-return performance, portfolio diversification benefits and portfolio allocation strategies for sector-specific A-REITs over January 2000 – August 2018. The results suggest that sector-specific A-REITs play a value-added and strategic role in an Australian mixed-asset portfolio, with superior risk-adjusted returns, enhanced portfolio diversification benefits and increased portfolio returns compared with that for diversified A-REITs. This supports the notion of specialisation value in an A-REIT context. The practical listed property investment implications regarding the value-added and strategic role of sector-specific A-REITs are also identified.
Transferability of SSR markers from distantly related legumes to Glycyrrhiza species

Licorice (Glycyrrhiza spp.) is an important medicinal plant and its distribution of natural habitats has been shrinking day by day due to extensive collection. Genetic diversity identification will likely assist in conserving the different Glycyrrhiza species. A total of 127 simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers from Medicago truncatula Gaertn. , Phaseolus vulgaris L. , and Cicer arietinum L. were used and 26 of them were amplified on Glycyrrhiza genomes. The highest transferability rate (33%) was obtained from M. truncatula markers, while the highest genetic diversity values were obtained in P. vulgaris markers. The markers BM153 and PV-ag004 from P. vulgaris had the largest polymorphism information content. The amplified primers were also used to identify genetic diversity among three Glycyrrhiza species. The gene diversity values among Glycyrrhiza species appeared to be similar; however, donor species mostly had lower diversity values than those of Glycyrrhiza species. Additionally, the genetic analysis showed that G. flavescens Boiss. subsp. flavescens is more distantly related to species G. glabra L. var. glandulifera and G. echinata L. The number of alleles was mostly higher than in the donor species, possibly proposing a multiallelic and/or polyploid structure in Glycyrrhiza species.
Improving harmonics' generation by “zeroing-stubs” in a slot-ring antenna

This paper describes how long-established methods such as stub-tuning can be implemented in antenna design to improve generating high order harmonics. Stubs are sited at nulls in current density for a given modal distribution (i.e. TE11 and TE31 in this article) to induce the creation of zeros of a high harmonic. In this paper the method is applied to help generate the third harmonic in a slot-ring antenna designed to resonate at its fundamental frequency of 100 GHz. The addition of the stubs induces the third harmonic (300 GHz) more efficiently.