Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Improving the Reuse of Services in Geospatial Applications with XMDD Technology

In recent years, the geospatial application domain has embraced component-based development and service orientation to support software reuse. However, due to the specific characteristics of geospatial applications, caused by complex and comprehensive analysis processes and heterogeneous data, the reuse of services faces particular barriers in this domain. Providing application experts without a strong programming or technical background with simple means to reuse these services is an important challenge. This paper describes how we followed the eXtreme Model-Driven Development (XMDD) paradigm to improve the reuse of geospatial services, namely by (1) performing rigorous service abstraction of geospatial tools to be reused in large scale applications, (2) using the java electronic tools integration (jETI) technology for enabling the remote execution and integration of services, and (3) supporting service composition at the user level by using the java application building center (jABC) process modeling framework. Concretely, we discuss how we improved the reuse of services for the assessment of the impacts of sea-level rise.
Recruitment of ZipA to the division site by interaction with FtsZ

ZipA is an essential cell division protein in Escherichia coli that is recruited to the division site early in the division cycle. As it is anchored to the membrane and interacts with FtsZ, it is a candidate for tethering FtsZ filaments to the membrane during the formation of the Z ring. In this study, we have investigated the requirements for ZipA localization to the division site. ZipA requires FtsZ, but not FtsA or FtsI, to be localized, indicating that it is recruited by FtsZ. Consistent with this, apparently normal Z rings are formed in the absence of ZipA. The interaction between FtsZ and ZipA occurs through their carboxy‐terminal domains. Although a MalE–ZipA fusion binds to FtsZ filaments, it does not affect the GTPase activity or dynamics of the filaments. These results are consistent with ZipA acting after Z ring formation, possibly to link the membrane to FtsZ filaments during invagination of the septum.
Amino acid substitutions in core and NS5A regions of the HCV genome can predict virological decrease with pegylated interferon plus ribavirin therapy

Background The current standard therapy for chronic hepatitis C is pegylated interferon (PEG-IFN) plus ribavirin (RBV) combination therapy. Recently, it has been reported that amino acid (aa) substitutions in the core region, as well as the IFN-sensitivity-determining region (ISDR), were predictive of non-virological response (NVR), sustained virological response (SVR) and early virological response. Despite the importance of these two predictive factors for combination therapy, their interaction is poorly understood. Methods A total of 117 patients who were treated with PEG-IFN-α2b plus RBV combination therapy were selected for participation in this study. We determined the aa sequences in the core region and ISDR by direct sequencing and analysed them along with clinical data to indentify predictive factors for therapeutic response. Results The aa sequences in the core region and γ-glutamyl transpeptidase (GTP) levels were associated with SVR and NVR, but aa sequences in the ISDR were not. However, substitutions at both aa 70 and aa 91 in the core region without substitutions in the ISDR and higher levels of γ-GTP were independent predictive factors for NVR. Wild-type aa 70 and aa 91 in the core region, higher platelet counts and lower levels of γ-GTP were independent predictive factors for SVR. Conclusions These results indicate that analyses of aa substitutions in both the core region and the ISDR are useful for predicting the effectiveness of combination therapy, and could help to avoid therapy exposure for patients who have a low probability of SVR.
Evaluation of a Direct, Rapid Immunohistochemical Test for Rabies Diagnosis

A direct rapid immunohistochemical test (dRIT) was evaluated under field and laboratory conditions to detect rabies virus antigen in frozen and glycerol-preserved field brain samples from northwestern Tanzania. Compared to the direct fluorescent antibody test, the traditional standard in rabies diagnosis, the dRIT was 100% sensitive and specific.
Introduction to Audre Lorde ‘Age, race, class, and sex : Redefining difference’

This text (1980) by the Black feminist lesbian activist Audre Lorde (1934 -1992) also known as the ‘Sister Outsider’ concerns issues that occupy Lorde’s critical social theory (Byrd, 2009:21). Re-reading Lorde forces critical analysis of reading practices, offers conceptual and methodological resources to bear on our contemporary crisis of ‘the tightening economy, and increased conservatism’ and compels us to ask (as she asks in this text)why are some texts are used more others. ‘I am constantly being encouraged to pluck out some one aspect of myself and present this as the meaningful whole, eclipsing or denying the other parts of self’ is characteristic of Lorde’s engagement with the ‘psychological toll’ (The Combahee River Collective, 1977) of the aporia of intersectioning simultaneous, multiple oppression within a ‘profit economy which needs outsiders as surplus people. ’ Any attempt at a ‘psychic retreat’ (Steiner, 1993:1) from the ‘psychological toll’ the aporetics of intersectionality is to disavow the aporia. Lorde exposes the ways in which oppressive social structures create oppressive psychic structures warning that ‘[a]s members of such an economy, we have all been programmed to respond to human differences with fear and loathing. ’
Surveillance of post-caesarean surgical site infections in a hospital with limited resources, Cambodia.

INTRODUCTION In Cambodia, we implemented a pilot surveillance of superficial surgical site infections (SSSI) following caesarean deliveries (CD) in a provincial hospital, to estimate their incidence, describe their clinical management, and determine their causative pathogens. METHODOLOGY Between October 2010 and February 2011, all women admitted for CD were included in the surveillance. Their clinical condition was monitored for a post-operative period of 30 days, including two assessments performed by surgeons. Cases were clinically diagnosed by surgeons, with bacterial cultures performed. RESULTS Of the 222 patients admitted for CD, 176 (79.3%) were monitored for 30 days. Of these, 11 were diagnosed with a SSSI, giving an incidence rate of 6.25% (95% CI 3.2-10.9). Four of the cases (36.4%) were detected after hospital discharge. Length of hospitalization was significantly longer for the SSSI cases. All 222 patients were prescribed antibiotics. Ampicillin was administered intravenously to 98.6% of them, with subsequent oral amoxicillin given to 82.9%. Three of six pus samples collected were positive on culture: two with Staphylococcus aureus and one with Staphylococcus lugdunensis. One S.aureus was methicillin resistant (MRSA). The other was clindamycin and erythromycin resistant. CONCLUSION Surveillance of health-care associated infections in a setting with limited resources is challenging but feasible. Effective post-discharge surveillance was essential for the estimation of the incidence rate of SSSI following caesarean deliveries. This surveillance led to a peer-review of medical practices.
Recombinant Respiratory Syncytial Virus That Does Not Express the NS1 or M2-2 Protein Is Highly Attenuated and Immunogenic in Chimpanzees

ABSTRACT Mutant recombinant respiratory syncytial viruses (RSV) which cannot express the NS1 and M2-2 proteins, designated rA2ΔNS1 and rA2ΔM2-2, respectively, were evaluated as live-attenuated RSV vaccines. The rA2ΔNS1 virus contains a large deletion that should have the advantageous property of genetic stability during replication in vitro and in vivo. In vitro, rA2ΔNS1 replicated approximately 10-fold less well than wild-type recombinant RSV (rA2), while rA2ΔM2-2 had delayed growth kinetics but reached a final titer similar to that of rA2. Each virus was administered to the respiratory tracts of RSV-seronegative chimpanzees to assess replication, immunogenicity, and protective efficacy. The rA2ΔNS1 and rA2ΔM2-2 viruses were 2,200- to 55,000-fold restricted in replication in the upper and lower respiratory tracts but induced a level of RSV-neutralizing antibody in serum that was only slightly reduced compared to the level induced by wild-type RSV. The replication of wild-type RSV in immunized chimpanzees after challenge was reduced more than 10,000-fold at each site. Importantly, rA2ΔNS1 and rA2ΔM2-2 were 10-fold more restricted in replication in the upper respiratory tract than was thecpts248/404 virus, a vaccine candidate that retained mild reactogenicity in the upper respiratory tracts of 1-month-old infants. Thus, either rA2ΔNS1 or rA2ΔM2-2 might be appropriately attenuated for this age group, which is the major target population for an RSV vaccine. In addition, these results show that neither NS1 nor M2-2 is essential for RSV replication in vivo, although each is important for efficient replication.
Genetic Analysis of Ligation-Induced Neointima Formation in an F2 Intercross of C57BL/6 and FVB/N Inbred Mouse Strains

Objective Proliferation and migration of vascular smooth muscle cells (SMCs) are central for arterial diseases including atherosclerosis and restenosis. We hypothesized that the underlying mechanisms may be modeled by carotid ligation in mice. In FVB/N inbred mice, ligation leads to abundant neointima formation with proliferating media-derived SMCs, whereas in C57BL/6 mice hardly any neointima is formed. In the present study, we aimed to identify the chromosomal location of the causative gene variants in an F2 intercross between these two mouse strains. Methods and Results The neointimal cross-sectional area was significantly different between FVB/N, C57BL/6 and F1 female mice 4 weeks after ligation. Carotid artery ligation and a genome scan using 800 informative SNP markers were then performed in 157 female F2 mice. Using quantitative trait loci (QTL) analysis, we identified suggestive, but no genome-wide significant, QTLs on chromosomes 7 and 12 for neointimal cross-sectional area and on chromosome 14 for media area. Further analysis of the cross revealed 4 QTLs for plasma cholesterol, which combined explained 69% of the variation among F2 mice. Conclusions We identified suggestive QTLs for neointima and media area after carotid ligation in an intercross of FVB/N and C57BL/6 mice, but none that reached genome-wide significance indicating a complex genetic architecture of the traits. Genome-wide significant QTLs for total cholesterol levels were identified on chromosomes 1, 3, 9, and 12.
Preserved Ex Vivo Inflammatory Status in Decidual Cells from Women with Preterm Labor and Subclinical Intrauterine Infection

Objective To compare the inflammatory response preserved ex vivo by decidual cells isolated from women who experienced preterm labor with and without subclinical intrauterine infection. Methods Fetal membranes were obtained after cesarean section from 35 women who delivered before 37 weeks of gestation following spontaneous preterm labor, with no clinical evidence of intrauterine infection. Decidua was microbiologically tested and cultured. Concentrations of anti-inflammatory cytokines (IL-2, IL-4, IL-10), pro-inflammatory cytokines (IL-6, IL-8, IL-1β and TNF-α), and matrix metalloproteinases (MMP-1, MMP-2, MMP-3, MMP-7, MMP-8, MMP-9) were measured in the supernatants using Bio-Plex, and prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) was measured by enzyme immunoassay. Results Subclinical infection was confirmed in 10 women (28.5%). Microorganisms isolated were Ureaplasma urealyticum (4), group B streptococci (3), Gardnerella vaginalis (1), and Escherichia coli (2). We found a significant increase of pro-inflammatory cytokines and a significant decrease of anti-inflammatory cytokines in supernatants from decidual cells obtained from women with preterm labor and subclinical intrauterine infection compared to women without infection. Secretion of MMP-1, MMP-8, MMP-9 and PGE2 was significantly higher in infected women. Secretion of IL-8 by decidual cells from infected women persisted upon repeated in vitro culture passages. Conclusions Almost 30% of idiopathic preterm labor cases were associated with subclinical intrauterine infection, and decidual cells isolated from these cases preserved an ex vivo inflammatory status after in vivo bacterial exposure.
Assessment of fertility behaviour change in the sociocultural context of Pakistan: implications for the population programme.

This study is an attempt to obtain a broader understanding of the sociocultural factors which affect and explain fertility behaviour in Pakistan and see how this knowledge can be used to influence policy and to improve the utilization of services for effective implementation of the population programme. In this context the role of selected factors that reflect sociocultural affiliation with reproductive behaviour is analysed to assess their potential impact on the programme. These include education age at marriage preference for sons religious beliefs family structure women’s decision-making and autonomy among other factors. (excerpt)
Increased gene-specific repair of cisplatin interstrand cross-links in cisplatin-resistant human ovarian cancer cell lines

We have studied several aspects of DNA damage formation and repair in human ovarian cancer cell lines which have become resistant to cisplatin through continued exposure to the anticancer drug. The resistant cell lines A2780/cp70 and 2008/c13*5.25 were compared with their respective parental cell lines, A2780 and 2008. Cells in culture were treated with cisplatin, and the two main DNA lesions formed, intrastrand adducts and interstrand cross-links, were quantitated before and after repair incubation. This quantitation was done for total genomic lesions and at the level of individual genes. In the overall genome, the initial frequency of both cisplatin lesions assayed was higher in the parental than in the derivative resistant cell lines. Nonetheless, the total genomic repair of each of these lesions was not increased in the resistant cells. These differences in initial lesion frequency between parental and resistant cell lines were not observed at the gene level. Resistant and parental cells had similar initial frequencies of intrastrand adducts and interstrand cross-links in the dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR) gene and in several other genes after cisplatin treatment of the cells. There was no increase in the repair efficiency of intrastrand adducts in the DHFR gene in resistant cell lines compared with the parental partners. However, a marked and consistent repair difference between parental and resistant cells was observed for the gene-specific repair of cisplatin interstrand cross-links. DNA interstrand cross-links were removed from three genes, the DHFR, multidrug resistance (MDR1), and delta-globin genes, much more efficiently in the resistant cell lines than in the parental cell lines. Our findings suggest that acquired cellular resistance to cisplatin may be associated with increased gene-specific DNA repair efficiency of a specific lesion, the interstrand cross-link.
SAFE extensibility of data-driven web applications

This paper presents a novel method for enabling fast development and easy customization of interactive data-intensive web applications. Our approach is based on a high-level hierarchical programming model that results in both a very clean semantics of the application while at the same time creating well-defined interfaces for customization of application components. A prototypical implementation of a conference management system shows the efficacy of our approach.
Implications of Computer-Mediated Communication for People who are Visually Impaired in Dealing with Complex Visualization Tasks

In this study, 16 sighted persons were given linearization tasks to complete with either another sighted person or a person with visual impairments. Pairs with participants with visual impairments talked significantly more than did sighted participants, had more problems with turn-taking, and needed more time to perform the tasks.
Vestibular Function and Vertigo Control after Intratympanic Gentamicin for Ménière’s Disease

The aim of this study was to correlate long-term vertigo control with reduction in vestibular function after intratympanic (IT) gentamicin therapy for unilateral Ménière’s disease. IT gentamicin injections were given as needed to control vertigo attacks. Vertigo frequency and changes in angular vestibulo-ocular reflex (AVOR) gain (measured using magnetic search coils and manual head thrusts) and caloric weakness were assessed before and after treatment. Better vertigo control after treatment was found with ≥60% reduction in quantitative ipsilateral horizontal semicircular canal AVOR gain from pre-treatment values and/or with caloric unilateral weakness (UW) >50%. However, no correlations were found between the continuous variables of vertigo control and either gain or gain recovery, nor between gain and UW because of the large variability in vertigo control in subjects with lesser reductions in these measures.
Tie Breaker: A Novel Way of Combining Retrieval Signals

Empirical studies of information retrieval suggest that the effectiveness of a retrieval function is closely related to how it combines multiple retrieval signals including term frequency, inverse document frequency and document length. Although it is relatively easy to capture how each signal contributes to the relevance scores, it is more challenging to find the best way of combining these signals since they often interact with each other in a complicated way. As a result, when deriving a retrieval function from traditional retrieval models, the choice of one implementation over the others was often made based on empirical observations rather than sound theoretical derivations. In this paper, we propose a novel way of combining retrieval signals to derive robust retrieval functions. Instead of seeking an integrated way of combining these signals into a complex mathematical retrieval function, our main idea is to prioritize the retrieval signals, apply the strongest signal first to rank documents, and then iteratively use the weaker signals to break the ties of the documents with the same scores. One unique advantage of our method is that it eliminates the need of having complicated implementation of the signals and enables a simple yet elegant way of combining the multiple signals for document ranking. Empirical results show that the proposed method can achieve comparable performance as the state of art retrieval functions over traditional TREC ad hoc retrieval collections, and can outperform them over TREC microblog retrieval collections.
Collective Recognition as a Communitarian Device: Or, Of Course We Want to be Role Models!”

t Professor of Law, University of Iowa, College of Law. This article has benefitted greatly from the perceptive commentary of Professors Jim Anaya, Arthur Bonfield, Joe Knight, Kenneth Kress, Sumi Cho, David Vernon, Gerald Wetlaufer, Adrien Wing, and Michael Olivas. I am also grateful to Professor Frank Valdes for organizing a workshop of my paper during a Critical Race Theory conference in October 1995. The comments I received were very helpful, particularly those of my primary readers, Professors Leslie Espinoza, Deborah Ramirez, Jennifer Rosato, and Edward Fallone. I would also like to thank Ricardo Contreras, Rick Haberman, Amanda Paracuellos, and Scott Goings for their fine research assistance. Finally, I dedicate this article to my parents, Pedro V. Carrasco and Elaine Carrasco. As critical role models and mentors, they taught me the importance of obligation, determination, optimism, and justice -values that have sustained me in my lucha.
SACM: Stateful Access Control Model

Access control mechanisms are a fundamental building block in the construction of secure computing environments; however, most of the research in this area has been spent on traditional access control needs. These models were sufficient in classical computing systems such as databases and file systems, but as we continue to find new and innovative ways to utilize mobile computing systems these approaches are becoming inadequate. The primary difference between many of these new policies and traditional policies is the need to maintain state across transactions. An example of such a policy is a printer kiosk that allows printing only if the traveler has not printed more than some n pages. Currently, systems with these types of needs are controlled by ad-hoc, custom designed systems, rather than a generalized access control model that is able to express them. Traditional models also typically lack the ability to dynamically change. That is, traditional rule sets cannot express policies that require rules to be capable of creating new rules, or deleting old rules. The ability to dynamically produce and delete rules allows for an additional degree of state to be stored in the model. In this paper, we present the Stateful Access Control Model (SACM), which is designed specifically for these new paradigms and provides both these new capabilities. It supports usage in traditional centralized systems where access control information is stored on a computer, as well as a new approach where access rules are distributed across mobile devices.
Who Cares About Wildlife?: Social Science Concepts for Exploring Human-Wildlife Relationships and Conservation Issues

Who Cares About Wildlife: Introduction. - A Scientific Approach to Understanding Human-Wildlife Relationships. - The Biological Context of Wildlife Values: Are There Etchings on the Slate? - The Role of Emotion in Human-Wildlife Interactions. - The Foundation of Thought: Social Values and Wildlife Value Orientations. - Wildlife Value Orientations and Their Measurement. - The Proximate Cause of Behavior: Attitudes and Attitude Change. - Norms: Social Influence on Human Thought About Wildlife. - Cultural Forces and Shifting Wildlife Value Orientations in North America. - Index.
The Philosophic Roots of Modern Ideology: Liberalism, Communism, Fascism

1. The Origins of Political Ideologies. 2. Liberalism. 3. Liberalism in America. 4. Modern Liberal Democracy: Problems and Prospects. 5. Marxism. 6. Marxism and Leninism. 7. Soviet Marxism. 8. The Political Thought of Mao Zedong. 9. Continuing Issues in Communism. 10. Fascism. 11. National Socialism. 12. Continuing Issues--Resurgent Islam. 13. Ideological Conflict in the Nuclear Age. Index.
The Universal Model of theories determining FDI revisited

The paper refers to 'a theoretical model' created by Bitzenis (2003), named Universal Model, that incorporates most of the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) theories. What derives from the literature review is the comprehension of the relativity of each theory; there is no FDI theory that dominates the decision-making process of multinationals (MNEs) regarding FDI. Economists, MNEs and entrepreneurs may have a decisive interest in countries that open their economies aimed at attracting significant FDI inflows as a final goal. The investment opportunities appeared in various countries differ from time to time even in the same country diachronically.