Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Performance study of the automated immunoassay test anti-hepatitis C virus VIDAS® for the qualitative detection of antibodies anti-hepatitis C virus

Background and aims: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) represents a major worldwide public health problem requiring global action for the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of this infection. HCV is the leading cause of chronic liver disease, including chronic hepatitis, fibrosis, cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma and it is responsible for about 350,000 deaths yearly. Anti-HCV assays remain the first choice for screening HCV infection in most clinical laboratories. The anti-HCV VIDAS® (bioMerieux, Marcy L’Etoile, France) test has been recently launched and we aimed to evaluate its performance compared with other widely used methods. Materials and methods: Routine anti-HCV screening of clinical samples was carried out on the ARCHITECT® i2000SR platform (Abbot Laboratories, Abbott Park, IL, USA); out of 8876 samples tested from October 2012 to May 2013, 70 sera with low positive anti-HCV results (1≤S/CO<8) were collected. These samples were tested for the presence of anti-HCV antibodies using anti-HCV VIDAS® and INNO-LIATM HCV score assays (Innogenetics NV, Ghent, Belgium). Results and conclusions: Positive anti-HCV results were obtained in 61.4% and 41.4% of sera tested with VIDAS® and INNO-LIATM, respectively. Concordance between methods was 63.2% for ARCHITECT® and VIDAS®, 42.6% for ARCHITECT® and INNO-LIATM, and 79.4% for VIDAS® and INNO-LIATM. Anti-HCV VIDAS® demonstrated superior specificity compared to the anti-HCV test ARCHITECT®; therefore, this assay has been introduced in our routine analysis as a second level screening test to select samples to be subjected to confirmatory anti- HCV immunoblot.
Are non-competitive elections good for citizens?

Many regimes, particularly autocracies, hold elections where the ruling regime’s victory is a foregone conclusion. This paper provides a formal analysis of how these non-competitive elections affect citizen welfare compared to a non-electoral baseline. To do so, I first develop a game-theoretic framework that captures many extant theories of why regimes hold non-competitive elections, which are modeled solely as a public signal of the regime’s strength. Incumbents hold non-competitive elections to signal strength or gather information, which allows the regime to manage political interactions more effectively. However, even though non-competitive elections are a useful tool for (autocratic) regimes, they are also valuable to citizens. This is because citizens can also utilize the information generated by the election, and may receive more transfers, less repression, or more responsive policy than they would with no elections.
An LDPC error control strategy for low earth orbit satellite communication link applications

An LDPC Error Control Strategy for Low Earth Orbit Satellite Communication Link Applications F.J. Olivier Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering Stellenbosch University Private Bag X1, 7602 Matieland, South Africa Thesis: M.Sc.Eng (Electronic) December 2009 Low earth orbit (LEO) satellite communication presents a unique environment which inherently di ers from most other communication channels. Due to the varying orbital patterns of LEO satellites the link exhibits varying link margins. Limited communication time windows need to be optimised to maximise the volumetric data throughput. Large coding gains can be obtained by the implementation of forward error correction codes. This thesis presents a means for optimising the data throughput of LEO satellite communication through the implementation of a mission speci c error control strategy. Low density parity check (LDPC) codes are versatile and present good error performances at many di erent code rates and block lengths. With power limitations on the space segment and remote ground stations, hardware utilisation e ciency must be optimised to reduce power consumption. In response to this requirement, this thesis evaluates various algorithms for LDPC decoders. An iterative LDPC decoder, implementing an approximation algorithm, is presented as a low complexity solution with good error performance. The proposed solution provides a very good balance between required hardware complexity and coding performance. It was found that many parameters of the decoders and codes can be altered to allow the implementation of these codes in systems with varying memory and processing capabilities.
Carbon nanotube dispersion for in-vitro applications

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have gained popularity due to their many characteristics which make them the promising material for biomedical applications. A major challenge when working with CNTs is the difficulty to distribute them evenly throughout liquids. This research is a comparative analysis of the dispersion of multi wall CNTs (MWCNTs) in different liquid media (distilled water, ultrapure water of type I [Milli-Q], ethanol, dimethyl sulfoxide [DMSO] and cell culture medium [RPMI-1640]) by using two different sonication techniques (probe-type sonication and ultrasonic bath sonication) as well as determining the effect of sterilization in the presence and absence of fluid before dispersion. The results indicate that the best method to achieve a CNTs dispersion is to use a probe-type sonicator as well as to sterilize the CNTs samples in the presence of fluid.
DEVELOPMENT OF A PHENOMENOLOGICAL MODEL OF THE KINETICS OF BACTERIAL ADSORPTION ON LOW-ENERGY SURFACES

A mathematical model of the kinetics of bacterial adsorption on polymeric materials with various hydrophobicity is developed. The model describing the bacteria-liquid phase-polymer surface system is capable of predicting the amount of bacteria adsorbed on the surface within a certain period of time. The model is based on the resolution of the motive f? rce of adsorption into two components. The first component characterizes the interactions based on the hydrophobic properties of bacteria and polymers and is expressed in terms of interphase tensions. The second component describes the remaining types of interactions, which cannot be represented in a similar way.
Quantitative Based Quality Evaluation for Pattern Based Bioinformatics Tools

Today computational biology has merged with few other sciences for solving biological problems where there is a tremendous increment in innovations of new techniques and approaches that have been done day to day. In this field, area of research involves disease identification, sequence analysis, structural analysis, protein-protein interaction etc… in which pattern matching plays a major role. There are various tools that have been developed in pattern matching in the area of bioinformatics for various analysis processes. At present bioinformatics tools are increasingly important to allow real-time decision making for solving biological problems for which performance plays the key role for evaluating the developed tools. Performance of a tool can be evaluated by means both qualitative and quantitative which has been involved in this paper. Quantitative based evaluation represents the quality of the tools for which metric based evaluation like specificity, sensitivity, pattern match etc… are been carried out. Qualitative based evaluation represents features, functionality evaluation together with the performance quantitative assessment. The merit that we are discovering by evaluating the existing products, leads us in the development of new products by avoiding the pitfalls of the existing products. In this work, some of the pattern tools are been considered for evaluating the performance which involves standards evaluation procedure. The results observed during this evaluations made on the specified tools have made an indication for having a standard development cum evaluation of pattern based bioinformatics tools. These evaluations could provide a way for developing and maintaining better systems with enhanced qualities.
Client-Server versus Peer-to-Peer

This study identifies optimal transmission mechanisms for a video streaming service in a peer-to-peer network structure under different payment mechanisms: pay as you watch and pay upfront. We calculate a uniform, feasible service price using the utilities of the users and associated server profits for every possible peer-to-peer distribution tree. We prove that when the server has linear or concave costs, the client-server structure is more profitable than any peer-to-peer structure. This statement holds even when the users have maximal tolerance to indefinitely long pre-roll delays. When the server however, has convex costs, we show that the optimal network structure depends on the system parameters and there is no single distribution mechanism that provides the optimal server profit for every operating point of the network.
An Optimality Theoretic a nalysis of v owel h armony in Kazan Tatar

Kazan Tatar is a Kipchak language spoken in the Republic of Tatarstan (Ethnologue). Previous literature has described a backness harmony system, with weak rounding harmony in the mid vowels (Comrie 1997, Berta 1998, Poppe 1968). This work utilizes novel data to investigate Tatar’s harmony under an Optimality Theory (OT) (Prince & Smolensky 1993) framework, contributing new observations regarding the lack of rounding harmony in Tatar, contrary to previous accounts. Through investigation of Tatar’s harmony system, we gain insight into the workings of the language’s phonology and find crucial evidence for the gradual decay of rounding harmony in Turkic languages.
Combined Bundle Adjustment with Distances and GPS Observations

Today, automatic image orientation and automatic image-based dense reconstruction algorithms are often implemented in professional photogrammetric software. At the same time progress in computer vision brings many advantages to everyone who is dealing with image-based object modeling. A number of free, often on-line software for automatic sparse or dense reconstruction have appeared during the last years [8]. The majority of them allow only for fully automatic reconstruction [1, 7] which is good for amateurs but bad for specialists, as controlling some important aspects of processing, like camera calibration is not available. As a result generated models are out of scale and proper angular orientation, and cannot be used as metric products. Addressed problems have been overcome in professional photogrammetric software where the bundle adjustment with control points is a standard. However, control points collection is a time consuming process even for small objects. Besides it involves using additional survey equipment. As an alternative approach the direct geo-referencing methods seem to be a very att ractive solution. Nowadays a number of cameras are equipped with integrated GPS, or have the interface open for an external receiver. Smartphones and tablets as a standard are equipped with GPS, MEMS inertial sensors and cameras which still improve their resolution and image quality. Low-cost devices providing image direct geo-referencing could be potentially utilized to improve the accuracy of obtained photogrammetric products, bringing new functionality to free, image-based modelling software. The only problem with low-cost GPS receivers is the low accuracy of positioning. The positioning errors can be in the considerable extend compensated by the photogrammetric observations [2, 5] however not completely. GPS measurements of projection centers, when conducted in the network with good controllability, allow
Jordanian Sign Language: Aspects of grammar from a cross-linguistic perspective: (University of Amsterdam, 2008)

Disclaimer/Complaints regulations If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: http://uba.uva. nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible.
1 H , 15 N and 13 C backbone chemical shift assignment of titin domains A 59 – A 60 and A 60 alone

If you believe this document infringes copyright then please contact the KAR admin team with the take-down information provided at http://kar.kent. ac.uk/contact.html Citation for published version Czajlik, A and Thompson, GS and Khan, GN and Kalverda, AP and Homans, SW and Trinick, J (2014) 1H, 1 N, and 13C backbone chemical shift assignment of titin domains A59-A60 and A60 alone. Biomolecular NMR assignments, 8 . pp. 429-433. ISSN 1874-2718.
A Combinatorial Application of Necklaces: Modeling Individual Link Failures in Parallel Network-on-Chip Interconnect Links

The advent of the multicore era (1, 2) has made the execution of more complex software applications more efficient and faster. On-chip communication among the processing cores, in the form of packetized messages, is managed with the use of on-chip networks (NoCs) (3). Routers handling on-chip communication are point-to-point topologically interconnected using parallel links laid onto the silicon surface comprising a number of individual parallel wires. With the underlying interconnect structure becoming denser, due to improvements in CMOS technology, parallel links become susceptible to wear-out (4), with permanent link failures inhibiting communication completely and indefinitely. It is hence critical to explore their failure patterns in the wires comprising these links and hence build mechanisms which can recover corrupted in-transit data (5, 6); since no real data from chip manufacturers exist, the derivation of a mathematical model in aiding the understanding of the distribution of individual wire faults in parallel on-chip links becomes mandatory. This paper takes the first steps in such direction. First it is shown how the given problem reduces to an equivalent combinatorial problem through partitions and necklaces. Then a model that counts certain classes of necklaces is derived by making a separation between periodic and aperiodic cases. The model is tested against a brute-force algorithm to prove its exactness. Finally the obtained model is used in finding the probability distribution of the size of the fault segment of wires in a parallel NoC-based multicore chip.
UvA-DARE ( Digital Academic Repository ) Effects of aging on T 1 , T ∗ 2 , and QSM MRI values in the subcortex

Disclaimer/Complaints regulations If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: https://uba.uva. nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible.
A Novel Approach for Web Page Change Detection System

Users are often not only interested in the current web page contents but also in changes in it. In this paper we describes web page change detection system based on Signature of Node corresponds to HTML pages. In this proposal first HTML document is filtered into XML structure document and then transforms XML pages to trees using DOM. The node signature comparison algorithm is developed to compare the trees of old web page and modified web page to find the changes in the web page. This system highlights changes of content i.e. deletion and addition of text and attribute changes i.e. font change, caption change, color change etc. and highlight the changed part in red color and displays to the user. This algorithm gets result faster as it does not search the sub tree if that sub tree does not have any changes.
Aegyptiaca Romana: Nilotic Scenes and the Roman Views of Egypt

This archaeological study investigates the meaning of the Egyptian and egyptianising artefacts that have been preserved from the Roman world in different ways. Its point of departure is a detailed study on the so-called Nilotic scenes or Nilotic landscapes. The book presents a comprehensive and illustrated catalogue of the genre that was popular all around the Mediterranean from the Hellenistic period to the Christian era as well as a contextualisation and interpretation. Drawing on the conclusions thus reached the whole group of Aegyptiaca Romana is subsequently studied. Based on a general overview of this material in the Roman world and, moreover, a case-study of the Aegyptiaca from the city of Rome the different meanings of this cultural phenomenon are mapped. Together with other Egyptian deities popular in the Roman world, the goddess Isis plays an important role in this discussion. Aegyptiaca Romana, among them the Nilotic scenes, are part of the reflection of the Roman attitude towards and thoughts on Egypt, Egyptian culture and the East. The concluding part of the book illustrates and tries to explain this Roman discourse on Egypt.
Robot decision autonomy : some issues and future work

, coordinated by Catherine TessierONERA Centre de Toulouse – DCSD/CD2 avenue Edouard-Belin, B.P. 74025F-31055 TOULOUSE Cedex 4AbstractThis position paper focuses on the main research issues DCSD will concentrate on in the comingyears as far as robot decision autonomy is concerned. Five topics can be identiﬁed to give struc-ture to the work: (1) generic frameworks for autonomous decision and control, (2) architecturesfor autonomy, (3) autonomy and safety, (4) autonomy and human control and (5) simulation andvehicles in the ﬁeld. KeywordsAutonomy ; Decision ; Control ; Architecture ; Safety ; Human operator ; Robots.
The original modern reader's Japanese-English character dictionary = ネルソン最新漢英辞典

"The Japanese government may someday recognize-- as it ought to--Tuttle's contribution to creating an intelligent interest in Japan among the English-reading public, and deepening understanding of Japanese overseas. "--Hokubei Mainichi (San Francisco) Awarded the 1969 Prize for the Society of the Promotion of International Cultural Relations, this is the most comprehensive Japanese dictionary of its kind. Containing Japanese-English and English-Japanese sections, it is an essential reference tool for serious students studying the Japanese language or for businesspeople and tourists wishing to learn Japanese before they travel. Special features include: Lists over 5,000 carefully selected characters with their 10,000+ current readings and almost 70,000 compounds in current use, al with concise English definitions. Scientifically arranged by a logical extension of the traditional radical system so as to make the finding of a given character almost fool-proof, saving hours of time. Makes provision for quickly finding characters either in their traditional or their modern and often greatly altered forms, thus serving for both prewar and postwar literature. Includes 14 valuable appendices giving (1) instructions for the most efficient use of the dictionary, (2) discussions of the written language in general and particularly of its recent and far-reaching official modifications, and (3) much helpful information that readers in East Asian fields have heretofore had to search for in many different places. Contains an on-kun index which makes it not only a reader's dictionary but also a writer's dictionary.
New Genera of Termites Related to Subuli-termes from the Oriental , Malagasy , and Australian Regions ( Isoptera , Termitidae , Nasutitermitinae )

In the following pages, several new genera of nasute termites from the Orient, Madagascar, and Australia are distinguished. The species have already been named and, for the most part, adequately described, so that the emphasis here is on the generic diagnoses and the phylogenetic relations. The author plans to publish another article in the near future on several new species and genera belonging to the Subulitermes branch of the Nasutitermitinae that he collected in Africa. He is presently engaged in a study of the species and genera of the Subulitermes branch that are confined to South and Central America, and he hopes that the descriptions of the new Neotropical genera allied to Subulitermes will be published within a year or so.
Molecular Biology and Physiology Photosynthesis, quantum yield of photosystem ii and membrane leakage as affected by high temperatures in cotton genotypes

With global warming and climate change, high-temperature stress has become a major factor affecting crop growth and yield. cotton (Gossypium hirsutum l.) crops in the u nited s tates experience periods of extreme high temperatures during flowering and boll development, but information is lacking on the physiological response of cotton to hightemperature stress and appropriate techniques to quantify this response. o ur objective was to assess the effect of high- temperature stress on physiological processes and screen a diverse set of cotton cultivars for high-temperature toler ance. growth-room studies were conducted to investigate the effect of high temperature on photosynthesis, quantum yield of photosystem ii (Psii), and membrane leakage of four obsolete and four modern cotton cultivars. The results showed that the optimum temperature for photosynthetic carbon fixation of cotton was approximately 33 o c and that photosynthesis in cotton decreased significantly at temperatures of 36 o c and above. similarly, increasing air temperature caused a decrease in quantum yield of Psii at 36 o c and above indicating hightemperature stress. Membrane leakage was also significantly increased when temperature
Across Meridians: History and Figuration in Karen Tei Yamashita’s Transnational Novels

Over the course of the last two decades, novelist Karen Tei Yamashita has reshaped the Asian American literary imagination in profound ways. In Across Meridians, Jinqi Ling offers readers the most critically engaged examination to date of Yamashita's literary corpus. Crafted at the intersection of intellectual history, ethnic studies, literary analysis, and critical theory, Ling's study goes beyond textual investigation to intervene in larger debates over postmodern representation, spatial materialism, historical form, and social and academic activism. Arguing that Yamashita's most important contribution is her incorporation of a North-South vector into the East-West conceptual paradigm, Ling highlights the novelist's re-prioritization, through such a geographical realignment, of socio-economic concerns for Asian American literary criticism. In assessing Yamashita's works as such, Ling designates her novelistic art as a form of new Asian American literary avant-garde that operates from the peripheries of received histories, aesthetics, and disciplines. Seeking not only to demonstrate the importance of Yamashita's transnational art, Ling sets new terms for ongoing dialogues in Asian American literary and cultural criticism. At the same time, he argues for the continuing relevance of Asian American literature as a self-reflexive and self-renewable critical practice.