Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sparse Representation Based Multi-Instance Learning for Breast Ultrasound Image Classification

We propose a novel method based on sparse representation for breast ultrasound image classification under the framework of multi-instance learning (MIL). After image enhancement and segmentation, concentric circle is used to extract the global and local features for improving the accuracy in diagnosis and prediction. The classification problem of ultrasound image is converted to sparse representation based MIL problem. Each instance of a bag is represented as a sparse linear combination of all basis vectors in the dictionary, and then the bag is represented by one feature vector which is obtained via sparse representations of all instances within the bag. The sparse and MIL problem is further converted to a conventional learning problem that is solved by relevance vector machine (RVM). Results of single classifiers are combined to be used for classification. Experimental results on the breast cancer datasets demonstrate the superiority of the proposed method in terms of classification accuracy as compared with state-of-the-art MIL methods.
A Influência Interpessoal em Redes Sociais Virtuais e as Decisões de Consumo

This study aimed to analyze the attitude of college students regarding to interpersonal influence in virtual social networks related to consume decisions. It was conducted a survey with 200 college students from an Institution of Higher Education located in Santa Maria/RS. The sample was obtained through voluntary adhesion and the data collection instrument was applied in a virtual environment. Scales were adapted to measure and evaluate the propensity of students to influence and be influenced by their virtual contacts. The results suggest that the scales adapted are satisfactory to measure what they intend to do. The study also found that men are more able to influence the opinions of their virtual social contacts. On the other hand, the time dedicated to access the Internet positively and significantly influences the propensity of users to be influenced by their virtual social contacts. The correlation between the ability to influence the propensity to be influenced is significant and positive.
Assimilation and Diversity: An Integrative Model of Subgroup Relations

A model of sociostructural relations among subgroups within a superordinate category is presented. Contextualized by discussion of political and social psychological models of intergroup contact, we extend principles of social identity theory to address structural differentiation within groups. Subgroup identity threat plays a pivotal role in the nature of subgroup relations, as do the social realities of specific subgroup relations (i.e., inclusiveness, nested vs. crosscutting categories, leadership, instrumental goal relations, power and status differentials, subgroup similarity). Our analysis suggests that subgroup identity threat is the greatest obstacle to social harmony; social arrangements that threaten social identity produce defensive reactions that result in conflict. Social harmony is best achieved by maintaining, not weakening, subgroup identities, and locating them within the context of a binding superordinate identity.
Fault diagnosis of rolling element bearing using time-domain features and neural networks

Rolling element bearings are critical mechanical components in rotating machinery. Fault detection and diagnosis in the early stages of damage is necessary to prevent their malfunctioning and failure during operation. Vibration monitoring is the most widely used and cost-effective monitoring technique to detect, locate and distinguish faults in rolling element bearings. This paper presents an algorithm using feed forward neural network for automated diagnosis of localized faults in rolling element bearings. Normal negative log-likelihood value and kurtosis value extracted from time-domain vibration signals are used as input features for the neural network. Trained neural networks are able to classify different states of the bearing with 100% accuracy. The proposed procedure requires only a few input features, resulting in simple preprocessing and faster training. Effectiveness of the proposed method is illustrated using the bearing vibration data obtained experimentally.
What makes managers effective in Mexico

Purpose – The aim of this study was to identify what people in Mexican organizations perceive as effective and ineffective managerial behavior.Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative study based on the grounded theory approach was conducted. Interviews using the critical incident techniques were conducted with 35 participants from six different companies located in Yucatan, Mexico.Findings – Results suggest that effective managers in Mexico are considered approachable, democratic, fair, considerate, understanding, supportive, caring, and hard working with problem solving skills.Research limitations/implications – This study is based on the responses of participants located in one region of Mexico. This study focused on the perceptions of Mexican participants only.Practical implications – Findings of this study have practical implications for human resources professionals, Mexican managers, and expatriates who manage operations and manage people in Mexico. Human resources professionals can use the find.
From core skills to key skills: fast forward or back to the future?

Developing learning programmes to enhance the formation of generic skills is an international concern in education and training policy. This paper provides a broad survey of the development of generic skills policy in England from 1975 to 2002, drawing on both the economic and educational literature. It demonstrates that, despite an evident demand for generic skills in the English economy, successive waves of education and training policy intended to stimulate the supply of such skills have failed to deliver the desired results. Such failure is accounted for using a policy instruments and institutions framework. This suggests that the failure of generic skills policy can be attributed to a combination of weak policy design, the interaction of generic skills policy with other market‐led reforms of education and training in England, and broader exogenous socio‐economic trends. The paper concludes that current initiatives to develop key skills for all 16–19 learners in England are unlikely to succeed without substantial changes in the current education policy environment.
Inducible Genetic Suppression of Neuronal Excitability

Graded, reversible suppression of neuronal excitability represents a logical goal of therapy for epilepsy and intractable pain. To achieve such suppression, we have developed the means to transfer “electrical silencing” genes into neurons with sensitive control of transgene expression. An ecdysone-inducible promoter drives the expression of inwardly rectifying potassium channels in polycistronic adenoviral vectors. Infection of superior cervical ganglion neurons did not affect normal electrical activity but suppressed excitability after the induction of gene expression. These experiments demonstrate the feasibility of controlled ion channel expression after somatic gene transfer into neurons and serve as the prototype for a novel generalizable approach to modulate excitability.
The Gambling Cognitions Inventory: scale development and psychometric validation with problem and pathological gamblers

Cognitive distortions are typically identified as an important etiological factor in pathological gambling. The Gambling Cognitions Inventory (GCI) developed by Holub (2003) is examined in this study using a sample of 710 pathological gamblers collected in four Canadian studies. Confirmatory factor analysis did not support the initial 40-item scale and suggested a 33-item scale. The sample was split into two groups to conduct exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Scree plots and parallel analysis suggested a two-factor scale. The scale developed by exploratory factor analysis on the first sample was supported by confirmatory factor analysis on the second sample (CFI>0.95; RMSEA < 0.05). The two factors indicated a Skill and Attitude subscale and a Luck and Chance subscale. Analysis conducted within each of the four studies showed good internal reliability for the scale (range of α = 0.91–0.95) and subscales (α = 0.77–0.92). The scale and subscales correlated with gambling severity measures as well as other measures of gambling cognitions including the Gambling Attitudes and Beliefs Scale and the Gambling Beliefs Questionnaire. The results of the study indicate that the GCI is a psychometrically strong scale and may be beneficial in directing cognitive therapy to the most problematic cognitions.
The Effect of Clofibrate on the Elimination of Cholesterol as Bile Acids in Patients with Hyperlipoproteinaemia Type II and IV

Abstract. The turnover of 14C‐cholic acid and 3H‐chenode‐oxycholic acid was studied in hyperlipaemic patients before and during treatment with clofibrate. ‐ Before therapy the total formation of bile acids recorded for 6 patients with hyperlipoproteinnemia type Il (387± 70 mg/day, mean ± S.E.) was considerably less than that encountered for 6 patients with hyperlipoproteinaemia type IV (1 379 ± 221 mg/day). This difference was mainly due to a high synthesis of cholic acid in the latter patients. ‐ The administration of clofibrate had no consistent effect on the half‐life, pool size and turnover of the bile acids in the patients with type II lipoprotein pattern. The combined synthesis of cholic acid and chenodeoxycholic acid decreased in all patients with hyperlipoproteinaemia type IV and amounted on average to 549± 97 mg/day. The effect on the formation of chenodeoxycholic acid was insignificant but the turnover of cholic acid decreased from 1076± 243 to 333 ± 85 mg/day.
Measuring Software Engineer Motivation in Globally Distributed Projects

Software development today has become truly global as many individuals and teams from several geographically distant places collaborate to create software. Many organizations employ such model of work organization striving for the most effective software development in terms of speed, price and quality [1]. Global software development (GSD) approach claims to enable benefits of access to larger skilled resource pools, reduced development costs, proximity to markets and other ones [1]. However, we still hear frequent complaints about poor efficiency [2], which most often is explained by different communication, coordination and control problems caused by distance, temporal separation and socio-cultural problems inherent in GSD [3]. While it is very important to solve these problems, we argue that possibly even more attention should be paid to software engineer work motivation as it is reported to be the key determinant for retention and have large impact on productivity and software quality [4]. Motivation is commonly referred to as soft factor, which is difficult to address and even more difficult to measure [4]. Nonetheless, the importance of this factor is crucial. If motivation has the large impact on productivity and about 70% of all costs in software development are related to human resources [5], then the impact of even minimal improvements is evident. Empirical evidence suggests that improved project success directly relates to good project management, which is underpinned by human factors [6], including work motivation. The nature of offshore development and GSD projects puts new demands on managers, as such projects are significantly more complicated than even the most complex project managed entirely in-house [7]. Besides, work motivation might have cultural flavours, and it might be negatively affected by geographic and temporal distance. Contemporary managers working in globally distributed projects shall be equipped with sufficient knowledge about motivation in different GSD settings. To the best of our knowledge no empirical research focusing on addressing motivation in global software development projects exists. In order to be able to perform an extensive empirical study on motivation of software engineers working in globally distributed projects, first, we developed a survey on software engineer motivation, which was based on previously widely used and well-tested surveys. 2. Research objective
Working Paper Explaining and Predicting Web Page Status

The World Wide Web has become a key intermediary between producers and consumers of information. While the producers strive to increase visibility for their products, services, socio-political messages, etc., the consumers struggle to find reliable and relevant information. Web linkage structure has been exploited by contemporary search engines to decrease the search cost for consumers while usually also rewarding the producers of higher status Web pages. In addition to influencing visibility and accessibility, in-links, as marks of recognition, accord status to a Web page. In this paper we show how Web page status may be determined at least in part by page location and topic specificity. Moreover, we observe that the “philanthropic” contributions of a Web page, specifically contributions of information brokerage function, influence other pages into generating in-links. The observations are made in the presence of quality, domain, and topical effects. Interestingly, all of these features influencing status are “local” to a given Web page and within the control of the owner/author of the page. Since the linkage structure of the Web has affects on browsing, crawling, and search engine ranking, our results have implications for content managers, search engine marketers, and search engines.
Constructing Turning Point Chronologies with Markov – Switching Vector Autoregressive Models : the Euro – Zone Business Cycle

In this paper we advocate a parametric approach to the construction of turning point chronologies for the euro-zone business cycle. In generalization of Hamilton (1989), the Markov-switching vector autoregressive (MS-VAR) model is utilized for the analysis of the business cycle, providing the mechanism for identifying peaks and troughs of the business cycle. Building upon ideas developed in Krolzig (1997a) and Artis, Krolzig and Toro (2003), the approach for the constructing the turning point chronology consists of (i) modelling the euro-zone business cycle as a single common factor generated by a hidden Markov chain, (ii) fitting a congruent statistical model to the data, (iii) deriving the conditional probabilities of the regimes ‘ xpansion’ and ‘recession’ from the estimated model, (iv) classifying each point in time to the regime with the highest probability, and (v) dating the turning points of the business cycle. The MS-VAR also provides measures of uncertainty associated with the turning point chronology, facilitates real-time detection of business cycle transitions, and offers a well-developed theory for the prediction of the business cycle. Examining the properties of the proposed dating procedure, we show that aggregation and model misspecification can severely hamper the detection of business cycle turning points. In the empirical part, the MS-VAR approach is applied to three multi-country data sets consisting of real GDP and industrial production growth rates of 12 euro-zone countries (in total) over the period from 1973 to 2002. Although the empirical models are found to be sensitive to data quality (with seasonal adjustment, outlier correction and smoothing being all influential), the estimated models were found useful for the assessment of business cycle synchronization among the EMU member states, and for the construction of a turning point chronology of the euro-zone business cycle. JEL Classification: E32, F43, F47, C32.
Exome sequencing identified a missense mutation of EPS8L3 in Marie Unna hereditary hypotrichosis

Background Marie Unna hereditary hypotrichosis (MUHH) is an autosomal dominant disorder characterised by coarse, wiry, twisted hair developed in early childhood and subsequent progressive hair loss. MUHH is a genetically heterogeneous disorder. No gene in 1p21.1–1q21.3 region responsible for MUHH has been identified. Methods Exome sequencing was performed on two affected subjects, who had normal vertex hair and modest alopecia, and one unaffected individual from a four-generation MUHH family of which our previous linkage study mapped the MUHH locus on chromosome 1p21.1–1q21.3. Results We identified a missense mutation in EPS8L3 (NM_024526.3: exon2: c.22G->A:p.Ala8Thr) within 1p21.1–1q21.3. Sanger sequencing confirmed the cosegregation of this mutation with the disease phenotype in the family by demonstrating the presence of the heterozygous mutation in all the eight affected and absence in all the seven unaffected individuals. This mutation was found to be absent in 676 unrelated healthy controls and 781 patients of other disease from another unpublished project of our group. Conclusions Taken together, our results suggest that EPS8L3 is a causative gene for MUHH, which was helpful for advancing us on understanding of the pathogenesis of MUHH. Our study also has further demonstrated the effectiveness of combining exome sequencing with linkage information for identifying Mendelian disease genes.
Mobility Support of Multi-User Services in Next Generation Wireless Systems

The substantial advancement and proliferation of wireless technologies leads to the need to efficiently manage user mobility. Furthermore, the simultaneously emerging of services like video-conference, radio and TV has emphasized the importance to deliver content to several simultaneous receivers. This way, one of the key challenges to deploy multi-user services in the next generation wireless systems is the support of seamless mobility of multi-user services. In this paper the functioning of the seamless mobility of users for media distribution services (SEMUD) proposal is presented. This mobility management technique possesses two operation modes. To provide seamless mobility the standard mode resorts on the collaboration between caches (located in the base stations) and buffers (located in the mobile nodes). The enhanced mode introduces mobility prediction and messages for context transfer between access routers. A performance analysis is given to corroborate the merits of the proposal.
Collective Risk Decisions in the Presence of Many Risks

This paper reports the results of laboratory investigations of individual and group decision making regarding willingness to pay to reduce risks when more than one risk is present. It is found that group decision making environments improve the overall decisions when the consequence of the decision is common to all members of the group. When the consequences are individual, group decisions are less likely to improve upon individual decisions. The latter effect appears to be due to the unwillingness of individuals to engage in communication when they are not bound by a group decision. The conclusion is that both discussion and common outcomes are necessary for group decisions to be superior to individual decisions. Copyright 1995 by WWZ and Helbing & Lichtenhahn Verlag AG
Safety Evaluation of Neo Transgenic Pigs by Studying Changes in Gut Microbiota Using High-Throughput Sequencing Technology

The neo (neomycin phosphotransferase) gene is widely used as a selection marker in the production of genetically engineered animals and plants. Recent attention has been focused on safety concerns regarding neo transgene expression. In this study, neo transgenic and non-transgenic piglets were randomly assigned into Group A and Group B to evaluate effects of neo transgene by studying changes in gut microbiota using high-throughput sequencing. Group A pigs were fed a standard diet supplemented with antibiotic neomycin; Group B pigs were fed a standard diet. We examined horizontal transfer of exogenous neo gene using multiplex PCR; and investigated if the presence of secreted NPT II (neo expression product) in the intestine could lead to some protection against neomycin in transgenic pigs by monitoring different patterns of changes in gut microbiota in Group A animals. The unintended effects of neo transgene on gut microbiota were studied in Group B animals. Horizontal gene transfer was not detected in gut microbiota of any transgenic pigs. In Group A, a significant difference was observed between transgenic pigs and non-transgenic pigs in pattern of changes in Proteobacteria populations in fecal samples during and post neomycin feeding. In Group B, there were significant differences in the relative abundance of phyla Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes and Proteobacteria, and genera Lactobacillus and Escherichia-Shigella-Hafnia between transgenic pigs and non-transgenic pigs. We speculate that the secretion of NPT II from transgenic tissues/cells into gut microbiota results in the inhibition of neomycin activity and the different patterns of changes in bacterial populations. Furthermore, the neo gene also leads to unintended effects on gut microbiota in transgenic pigs that were fed with basic diet (not supplemented with neomycin). Thus, our data in this study caution that wide use of the neo transgene in genetically engineered animals should be carefully considered and fully assessed.
Collective Socialization and Child Conduct Problems

This article uses hierarchical linear modeling with a sample of African American children and their primary caregivers to examine the association between various community factors and child conduct problems. The analysis revealed a rather strong inverse association between level of collective socialization and conduct problems. This relationship held after controlling for a variety of individual-level variables relating to family, peers, and school. Two other community-level variables, prevalence of crime and concentrated disadvantage, were not significantly related to conduct problems. Overall, the results suggest that successful childrearing is a community enterprise. It appears that communities significantly reduce their risk for child conduct problems to the extent that adults know the children, parents, and teachers in their area, and they are inclined to act upon these social ties either by reprimanding children who are misbehaving or by notifying the proper authorities.