Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Human immunodeficiency virus-like, nonreplicating, gag-env particles assemble in a recombinant vaccinia virus expression system

We report the assembly of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-like particles in African green monkey kidney cells coinfected with two recombinant vaccinia viruses, one carrying the HIV-1 gag and protease genes and the other the env gene. Biochemical analysis of particles sedimented from culture supernatants of doubly infected cells revealed that they were composed of gag proteins, primarily p24, as well as the env proteins gp120 and gp41. Thin-section immunoelectron microscopy showed that these particles were 100 to 120 nm in diameter, were characterized by the presence of cylindrical core structures, and displayed the mature gp120-gp41 complexes on their surfaces. Furthermore, thin-section immunoelectron microscopy analysis of infected cells showed that particle assembly and budding occurred at the plasma membrane. Nucleic acid hybridization suggested that the particles packaged only the gag mRNA but not the env mRNA. Therefore, the system we present is well suited for studies of HIV virion maturation. In addition, the HIV-like particles provide a novel and attractive approach for vaccine development.
A review of the existing state of Personality prediction of Twitter users with Machine Learning Algorithms

Twitter is a popular social media platform with millions of users. The tweets shared by these users have recently attracted the attention of researchers from diverse fields. In this paper, we focus primarily on predicting user's personality from the analysis of tweets shared by the user. However, different techniques have been used to predict a user's personality from tweets but there are certain shortcomings which still need to be addressed. The aim of this paper is to consider the current state of this research and explore the need of predicting personality from tweets by crucially reviewing the literature done till date and provide an overview of the different measures taken to alleviate the issues faced by researchers in this field.
Advances in using MRI probes and sensors for in vivo cell tracking as applied to regenerative medicine

The field of molecular and cellular imaging allows molecules and cells to be visualized in vivo non-invasively. It has uses not only as a research tool but in clinical settings as well, for example in monitoring cell-based regenerative therapies, in which cells are transplanted to replace degenerating or damaged tissues, or to restore a physiological function. The success of such cell-based therapies depends on several critical issues, including the route and accuracy of cell transplantation, the fate of cells after transplantation, and the interaction of engrafted cells with the host microenvironment. To assess these issues, it is necessary to monitor transplanted cells non-invasively in real-time. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a tool uniquely suited to this task, given its ability to image deep inside tissue with high temporal resolution and sensitivity. Extraordinary efforts have recently been made to improve cellular MRI as applied to regenerative medicine, by developing more advanced contrast agents for use as probes and sensors. These advances enable the non-invasive monitoring of cell fate and, more recently, that of the different cellular functions of living cells, such as their enzymatic activity and gene expression, as well as their time point of cell death. We present here a review of recent advancements in the development of these probes and sensors, and of their functioning, applications and limitations.
Inventário de ambivalência em relação aos homens: adaptação brasileira e relação com o gênero

Sexist attitudes are an important construct to understand the interpersonal relation established on a daily basis. The lack of information regarding this subject has motivated the current research, which aimed to adapt the Ambivalence Inventory towards Men to the Brazilian context and, also, to verify gender differences in sexist attitudes towards men. The sample was formed by 205 university students, mostly females (51%), with a mean age of 20.8 years old (DP = 3.62). They answered the Ambivalence Inventory towards Men (AIM) and socio-demographic questions. The results confirmed the measure as being of a bi-factorial nature, represented by the hostile (Alpha = .80) and benevolent (Alpha = .69) factors. As was theoretically expected, there were significant differences found in the hostile and benevolent sexism depending on the participant's gender, a variable that proved important in the analysis of the results of both factors.
Social Networks as a Virtual Teaching and Learning Environment in Higher Education

Over the last two decades, technology infused into education in various creative ways. One of them is using virtual learning environments. This research investigates pre-service teachers’ use of social networks to support their learning in the classroom. It is anticipated that this research may provide an opportunity for educators and researchers to discover a pedagogical use of social networks for teacher education in developing countries by analysing the weaknesses and shortcomings of the matter. Social networks, when used efficiently, could be beneficial for students and teachers. A mix method research was used in discovering students’ use of social networks. The data was collected through preand post-surveys and followed by semi-structured interviews. It is stipulated that social networks can be used as a supportive virtual learning environment where the role of teacher and student can be reversed time to time. Students benefitted from using social networks and were engaged in learning through networking with peers and teachers. Although sustainability of the network was not achieved, its effects on connection, collaboration, and communication among all are appreciated.
The Impact of eHealth and mHealth on doctor behavior and patient involvement: an Israeli and Portuguese comparative approach

Based on the experience of a Short Term Scientific Mission (STSM) promoted by COST Net and developed in CIES/ISCTE-IUL (Portugal), this paper presents a reflection about the implementation of Information & Communication Technologies (ICT) in the healthcare sector in Israel and Portugal. Specifically, we focus on the impacts of ICT or eHealth on patient empowerment, as perceived by doctors and managers in order to better comprehend the role of national policy and explore the options for building a national strategy regarding ICT in healthcare. The experience of the Portuguese healthcare system was selected and compared to the results found in a similar research in Israel. Methodologically, in-depth interviews with the Ministry of Health, the private sector, patients associations and researches were used to collect data. Purposeful sampling was used to select respondents, and secondary sources were used for triangulation. The findings of the research work show that the increased deployment of ICT has furthered patient empowerment (1). From the doctors' perspective, while ICT has provided more information in the long-run, changes of these magnitudes were not easy in the beginning. These findings were similar in both countries. The work concludes that ICT tools were successfully implemented and the general perception is that they have been beneficial. The work provides information in order to understand and improve ICT services. Additionally, the results suggest alternatives for future investments in these technologies.
Decoupling method using branch shape without connecting between MIMO multiple antennas

Recently, MIMO (Multiple-Input Multiple-Output) technology is introduced in small terminals. If MIMO technology is mounted on a compact body, decoupling methods must be needed. In preceding studies, a decoupling method of 2×2 MIMO by connecting two antennas has been developed. This paper proposes a decoupling method using branch shape of 2×2 MIMO without connecting two antennas.
Unified Theories of Acceptance and Use of Technology ( UTAUT ) : Technology Empowering and Acceptance in Malaysia

Adoption and acceptance technology have been studied several decade ago. Unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) proposed by Vankatesh (2003) is the updated theory researcher use in order to exploring and investigate the behavior of individual towards use and acceptance technology. The original article has already been cited by a large number of studies and hence it appears to have become a popular theoretical choice within the field of information system adoption likewise Malaysia. This paper will explore citation UTAUT theory in Malaysia studies. This Literature review is based on articles relating to UTAUT model studies in Malaysia being identified and observed to have been published in journals from databases EBSCOhost , Emerald, Proquest ,Science Direct and IEEE Explore between the year 2010-2013.
THE IMPACT OF ERP SYSTEM ON USER PERFORMANCE 1 BEJJAR

ERP systems play an important supportive role in most sectors of the economy. This study was developed to answer the question related to the impact of ERP systems on user performance in Tunisian companies. This article proposes a model combining the Task Technology Fit (TTF), the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Delone & McLean model to evaluate the user performance of ERP system. The model was tested using survey data collected from 269 users of the ERP system. The results of structural equation analyzes supported the proposed model and highlighted the important role of perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness in mediating effects between TTF, system quality and information quality and performance users. The results show that TTF, system quality and information quality directly influences the user performance of ERP and indirectly through perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use of ERP.
Lumpers versus splitters

Various names have been given to medically unexplained symptoms: somatization, functional somatic symptoms or syndromes, and somatoform disorders. Different conceptualizations of disorders of somatization have been proposed: somatization disorder (DSM-IV) and a number of subsyndromal variations, such as somatic symptom index, multisomatoform disorder, and polysymptomatic somatoform disorder1. These symptoms pose a major challenge to medicine and are subject to much debate. Medically unexplained symptoms are common, persistent, and are accompanied with distress, disability, and substantial utilization of healthcare resources.
Cooperative Secret Key Generation from Phase Estimation in Narrowband Fading Channels

By exploiting multipath fading channels as a source of common randomness, physical layer (PHY) based key generation protocols allow two terminals with correlated observations to generate secret keys with information-theoretical security. The state of the art, however, still suffers from major limitations,e.g., low key generation rate, lower entropy of key bits and a high reliance on node mobility. In this paper, a novel cooperative key generation protocol is developed to facilitate high-rate key generation in narrowband fading channels, where two keying nodes extract the phase randomness of the fading channel with the aid of relay node(s). For the first time, we explicitly consider the effect of estimation methods on the extraction of secret key bits from the underlying fading channels and focus on a popular statistical method - maximum likelihood estimation (MLE). The performance of the cooperative key generation scheme is extensively evaluated theoretically. We successfully establish both a theoretical upper bound on the maximum secret key rate from mutual information of correlated random sources and a more practical upper bound from Cramer-Rao bound (CRB) in estimation theory. Numerical examples and simulation studies are also presented to demonstrate the performance of the cooperative key generation system. The results show that the key rate can be improved by a couple of orders of magnitude compared to the existing approaches.
The Role of the Customer in the Adoption of Agile Software Development Methodologies

This study focuses on the role the customer plays in the adoption and consolidation of Agile practices in software development firms. We considered two main aspects: 1) the degree of collaboration between customers and suppliers; 2) the degree of active participation of the customer in software development processes. We argue that both these factors affect the level of Agility of an organization. To investigate this topic we conducted a survey among firms that use agile software development methodologies. The sample of respondents was obtained from the social network Linkedin. We received one hundred and five valid questionnaires before subjecting the data to hierarchical linear regression analysis. Our findings suggest that a collaborative and active role of the customer increases Agility. This study provides original empirical data on the frequency of use of Agile practices in software development processes. From a theoretical point of view it clarifies the role of two different customer-related factors: customer collaboration and customer participation.
Improving outcomes for a juvenile justice model court: a realist evaluation

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of the Erie County, New York, Juvenile Justice Model Court on court improvement and improved case outcomes for youth and families. A quasi-experimental design was used within a realist evaluation paradigm, with four independent groups in four years. Court improvement was measured by the number of days between appearance and disposition, and improved case outcomes by the extent to which penetration into the juvenile justice system was reduced. Both outcomes were significantly improved, and it was found that the Model Court intervention was the main predictor for their improvement. Youth with reduced penetration had lower levels of recidivism.
Automatic Disambiguation of French Discourse Connectives

Discourse connectives (e.g. however, because) are terms that can explicitly convey a discourse relation within a text. While discourse connectives have been shown to be an effective clue to automatically identify discourse relations, they are not always used to convey such relations, thus they should first be disambiguated between discourse-usage non-discourse-usage. In this paper, we investigate the applicability of features proposed for the disambiguation of English discourse connectives for French. Our results with the French Discourse Treebank (FDTB) show that syntactic and lexical features developed for English texts are as effective for French and allow the disambiguation of French discourse connectives with an accuracy of 94.2%.
Family Ties That Bind: A Self-Help Guide to Change Through Family of Origin Therapy

How to deal with family relationships is a problem that most people never solve. This book uses Family of Origin therapy techniques as a basis for you to improve those relationships and your own sense of self-esteem. Written in lay language, the step-by-step exercises show how to make contact with lost family members, how to interview relatives to develop a clearer picture of how each member fits into the family tree, and how to find different and better ways of dealing with family relationships.Professionals will find this book equally useful as a companion to their Family of Origin therapy sessions with clients.Very practical. Midwest Book Review
BOUNDARY DOMINATION IN GRAPHS

Let G be a nontrivial connected graph. The distance between two vertices u and v of G is the length of a shortest u-v path in G. Let u be a vertex in G. A vertex v is an eccentric vertex of u if d(u;v) = e(u), that is every vertex at greatest distance from u is an eccentric vertex of u. A vertex v is an eccentric vertex of G if v is an eccentric vertex of some vertex of G. Consequently, if v is an eccentric vertex of u and w is a neighbor of v, then d(u;w) • d(u;v). A vertex v may have this property, however, without being an eccentric vertex of u. A vertex v is a boundary vertex of a vertex u if d(u;w) • d(u;v) for all w 2 N(v). A vertex u may have more than one boundary vertex at difierent distance levels. A vertex v is called a boundary neighbor of u if v is a nearest boundary of u. The number of boundary neighbors of a vertex u is called the boundary degree of u. In this paper, flrst we show that there is no relationship between the traditional degree and the
Renal fibrosis: Insight from proteomics in animal models and human disease

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is the end‐point of a number of renal and systemic diseases. The high incidence and financial burden of CKD makes it imperative to diagnose CKD at early stages when therapeutic interventions are far more effective. A key component of CKD is the development of renal fibrosis. Renal fibrosis is a complex process, associated with many cell types and pathways, resulting in structural and functional alterations. Identification of specific biomarkers of renal fibrosis may thus not only help us to understand the pathophysiological mechanisms involved in this process, but also improve diagnosis in the clinic. In this review, the existing literature on proteomic approaches to study renal fibrosis is presented and evaluated. The importance of using animal models along with patient material is discussed and future directions, considered key to this field, are proposed.
Estimating human interruptibility in the home for remote communication

This paper presents a method for automatically estimating human interruptibility in home environments. To make online remote communication smoother, determining if it is appropriate to interrupt the remote partner is critical. As a first step in achieving this goal, several audio-visual features, extracted from data streams provided by a camera and a microphone, are correlated to human interruptibility. Based on these features, the level of interruptibility is estimated using the trained Support Vector Regression (SVR) technique. Finally, we discuss the potential of our method based on the results of several experiments.
Evidence for two distinct mechanisms of neurogenesis and cellular pattern formation in regenerated goldfish retinas

After its destruction by intraocular injection of ouabain, the goldfish retina regenerates, but little is known about the histogenesis of the new tissue, including the structure and formation of regenerated cell mosaic patterns. In an effort to determine how retinal cells are generated and spatially organized within retina regenerated after ouabain injection, in situ hybridization and immunocytochemical techniques were combined with computational analyses of two‐dimensional spatial patterns of identified neurons. Labeling with specific opsin riboprobes revealed two distinct cone patterns in the ouabain‐injected eyes, each of which was different from the relatively orderly cone patterns of native retina. Central, regenerated regions had sparse aggregates of cones, and a relatively lower density of each cone type. Peripheral regions of experimental retina, likely derived from the circumferential germinal zone, had high densities of all cone types, each of which tended to be distributed randomly. The spatial patterns of inner retinal neurons in experimental eyes were also disorganized with respect to native retina. These results indicate that although some aspects of retinal regeneration resemble normal retinal development and growth, ouabain‐induced regeneration does not produce well‐organized mosaics of neurons, indicating a failure of the developmental interactions needed for proper pattern formation, which in turn could compromise visual recovery. Furthermore, the distinct cone patterns in different regions of experimental retina support the hypothesis that new goldfish retina arises via two spatially and cellularly distinct mechanisms after exposure to ouabain. J. Comp. Neurol. 431:363–381, 2001. © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Aalborg Universitet A new approach for detecting local features

Local features up to now are often mentioned in the meaning of interest points. A patch around each point is formed to compute descriptors or feature vectors. Therefore, in order to satisfy different invariant imaging conditions such as scales and viewpoints, an input image is often represented in a scale-space, i.e. size of patches are defined by their corresponding scales. Our proposed technique for detecting local features is different, where no scale-space is required, by dividing the given image into a number of triangles with sizes dependent on the content of the image at the location of each triangle. In this paper, we prove that the triangular representation of images provide invariant features of the image. Experiments using these features show higher retrieval performance over existing methods.
Global City Challenges: Debating a Concept, Improving the Practice

Introduction Michele Acuto and Wendy Steele 2. The Global City Tradition Christof Parnreiter 3. The Network Dimension Ben Derudder, Michael Hoyler and Peter J. Taylor 4. The Economic and Financial Dimensions David Bassens 5. The Historical Dimension Peter Rimmer and Howard Dick 6. The Postcolonial Dimension Vanessa Watson 7. The Literary Dimension Sheila Hones 8. The Virtual Dimension Mark Graham 9. The Cultural Dimension Oli Mould 10. The Architectural Dimension Kerwin Datu 11. The Geopolitical Dimension Michele Acuto 12. The Security Dimension David Murakami-Wood 13. Global City Challenges: A view from the field Glen Searle Conclusions Michele Acuto and Wendy Steele Afterword Roger Keil
Schistosomiasis mansoni: ultrasound-evaluated hepatic fibrosis and serum concentrations of hyaluronic acid

Abstract Schistosomiasis mansoni is a fibrogenic liver disease that constitutes a major health problem in north–eastern Brazil. Although one common manifestation of the disease, periportal fibrosis (PPF), can be assessed by ultrasonography by well-trained physicians, the necessary equipment and personnel are not always readily available. Serum markers, including hyaluronic acid (HA), have been used as alternative means of measuring fibrosis. Recently serum concentrations of HA have been evaluated in 77 Brazilians (61 cases of schistosomiasis mansoni and 16 healthy controls) and compared against the ultrasound-evaluated PPF in the same subjects. The HA was measured using a non-competitive fluorescence-based assay, while the PPF was explored using a portable ultrasound scanner (SSD-500; Aloka, Tokyo) and graded, as patterns A–F, according to the World Health Organization’s ‘Niamey protocol’. In general, the serum concentrations of HA were found to be positively correlated with the severity of the PPF. The mean concentration of HA in the sera of the 16 controls was significantly lower than that recorded in the schistosomiasis cases who showed PPF of patterns D or E (P<0·001 for each). The cases who showed pattern-C PPF also had significantly less HA in their sera than the cases with PPF of patterns D or E (P<0·001 for each), and the cases with pattern-D fibrosis had significantly lower HA concentrations in their sera than the cases with PPF of pattern E (P<0·001). In an analysis based on a receiver-operating-characteristic (ROC) curve, an HA concentration of 20·2 μg/litre of serum was identified as a threshold that could be used to distinguish moderate cases of PPF (i.e. patterns C or D) from the more advanced cases (i.e. patterns E or F), with a sensitivity of 60% and specificity of 65%. In conclusion, it appears that serum concentrations of hyaluronic acid could be used as markers for periportal fibrosis in patients with schistosomiasis mansoni.