Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Product Development Process Implementation - Exploratory Case Studies in Construction and Manufacturing

The problems of construction are well known (Egan et al., 1998). The increasing complexity of modern buildings, rising pressures for reducing process lead-time and costs, and the growing necessity of fulfilling client requirements lead to an everincreasing importance of product development processes (PDP). The construction industry has been trying to improve its processes for many years. This led to the development of a number of process models, which are important management tools for understanding how value is delivered to customers (Winch and Carr, 2001) and to suggest improvements. Unfortunately, the implementation of these models in practice is very slow and until now there are no measurable and demonstrable improvements resulting from these process models. Thus, there is a need of a better understanding of the issues involved in implementing product development processes. The aim of this paper is to explore the implementation of process models within construction and manufacturing companies. It presents the results of exploratory case studies, which are part of an ongoing PhD research. The main results describe that there is clarity of the importance and methods used to develop process models, but little information is available either in the literature or within companies on how processes can be implemented. Furthermore, people issues are pointed out as the main barriers to implementation.
Regulation and the Interdependent Roles of Managers, Auditors, and Directors in Earnings Management and Accounting Choice

In this paper, we examine the growing number of behavioral studies of how financial reporting, auditing, and other corporate governance regulations affect earnings management and accounting choice-related decisions of managers, auditors, and directors. We first describe how experimental and survey studies can add unique insights into our understanding of earnings management and accounting choice. We then organize our review of the literature by the type of regulation (financial reporting, auditing, or corporate governance) and secondarily by which of the three parties are affected. Finally, we point out useful directions for future research and discuss key methodological choices faced by those who will conduct that future research.
Mode-Matching Analysis of Lossy SIW Devices

In this paper, we present a method for the analysis of lossy substrate-integrated waveguide structures. The analysis is achieved through the cylindrical-wave mode expansion of the field and a mode matching technique to enforce boundary conditions on the post surfaces. We introduce an approximated formulation of the previous exact procedure, valid in the microwave regime, and numerically examine a number of microwave devices using both approximated and exact analyses. These devices include filters, couplers, phase shifter, and so on. Results are presented for the scattering parameters and compared with those obtained with the commercial software in terms of accuracy and computational time.
The Effects of the IAS/IFRS Adoption in the European Union on the Financial Industry

The effect of disclosure level on the cost of equity is a matter of considerable interest and importance to the financial reporting community. In this research, the effects of the IAS/IFRS adoption in Europe on the cost of equity capital relative to the bank industry have been examined. Previous research has shown that the adoption of the IAS/IFRS reduces information asymmetry between investors and firms. Economic theory claims that a commitment to increased level of disclosure reduces the cost of capital component that arises from information asymmetries. This study shows empirically that the increase in the level of disclosure provided by the adoption of the IAS/IFRS in the European Union by Regulation 1606/2002 has led effectively to a lower cost of capital. From a practical point of view, these findings provide evidence that the Regulator's purpose of fostering a cost-efficient functioning of the capital market for firms could be considered as accomplished. Furthermore, they point out that firms which implemented the IAS/IFRS have gained a comparative advantage on the equity market over firms still adopting accounting standards based on the IV and VII European Directives.
In Vitro Alterations Do Not Reflect a Requirement for Host Cell Cycle Progression during Plasmodium Liver Stage Infection

ABSTRACT Prior to invading nonreplicative erythrocytes, Plasmodium parasites undergo their first obligate step in the mammalian host inside hepatocytes, where each sporozoite replicates to generate thousands of merozoites. While normally quiescent, hepatocytes retain proliferative capacity and can readily reenter the cell cycle in response to diverse stimuli. Many intracellular pathogens, including protozoan parasites, manipulate the cell cycle progression of their host cells for their own benefit, but it is not known whether the hepatocyte cell cycle plays a role during Plasmodium liver stage infection. Here, we show that Plasmodium parasites can be observed in mitotic hepatoma cells throughout liver stage development, where they initially reduce the likelihood of mitosis and ultimately lead to significant acquisition of a binucleate phenotype. However, hepatoma cells pharmacologically arrested in S phase still support robust and complete Plasmodium liver stage development, which thus does not require cell cycle progression in the infected cell in vitro. Furthermore, murine hepatocytes remain quiescent throughout in vivo infection with either Plasmodium berghei or Plasmodium yoelii, as do Plasmodium falciparum-infected primary human hepatocytes, demonstrating that the rapid and prodigious growth of liver stage parasites is accomplished independent of host hepatocyte cell cycle progression during natural infection.
Post-infarct remodelling: contribution of wound healing and inflammation

In human and experimental myocardial infarction (MI), cessation of blood supply leads to rapid necrosis of cardiac myocytes in the ischaemic heart. Immediately after injury, various intra- and intercellular pathways contribute to healing the myocardial wound in order to achieve tissue integrity and function. MI and the consequent loss of myocardium are the major aetiology for heart failure. Despite aggressive primary therapy, prognosis remains poor in patients with large infarction and severe left ventricular dysfunction. Thus, it would be highly desirable to improve healing of the cardiac wound to maintain structure and function of the heart. Healing in the heart occurs in overlapping phases. Herein, we review the inflammatory phase as a trigger of tissue formation.
ON THE STABILITY OF EFFICIENT NETWORKS : Integration and Fragmentation in Communication and Transportation Networks

Stability of efficient networks is studied by applying cooperative game theory to a three-node system. Conditions are sought which ensure the existence of a core to the corresponding welfare game. I depart from existing literature by examining three cases that capture features common to communication and transportation industries: (i) nonseparable economies of network integration, (ii) realistic restrictions on price structure, and (iii) imperfect substitutability among alternate routes. Each feature shifts the strategic balance between the incumbent network and potential entrants. I derive conditions under which entry is profitable. * Presented at ORSA/TIMS Conference, Denver, October 1988 and Fifth World Conference on Transportation Research, Yokohama, Japan,July 1989. The views expressed in this paper are my own and should not be attributed to GTE Corporation nor any of its subsidiaries.
Back and Forth (BnF) Software Process Model

The development lifecycle of software comprises of four major stages namely Requirement Elicitation, Designing, Coding and Testing. A software process model is the basic framework which gives a workflow from one stage to the next. This workflow is a guideline for successful planning, organization and final execution of the software project. This article presents a new software process model namely “The BnF Software Process Model” is flexible and can be customized for different domains of software development. This article starts by listing cons of different software process models stating how they restrict back & forth progress of software from one given stage to any other stage in the process model. Some of the previous process paradigms had different variations for moving from stage to the next but none of them provided flexibility of moving from any given stage to any other intended stage during the development of software.
Discretization by adjoint pairs: Lukasiewicz and Q-module transforms

We define the Lukasiewicz Transform as a residuated map and a homomorphism between semimodules over the semiring reducts of an MV-algebra. Then we describe the “ Lukasiewicz Transform Based” ( LTB) algorithm for image processing. We also propose a strong extension of such concepts and results in the framework of quantales and quantale modules. 1 The Lukasiewicz transform and its applications The concept of transform appears often in the literature of image processing and data compression (see, for instance, [6,10]). Indeed a suitable discrete representation of a problem seems to be the best way in terms of computability and accuracy of results to approach many different tasks. On the other hand, the theory of fuzzy relations is widely used in many applications and particularly in the field of image processing ([5], [7] – [9]). As a matter of fact, fuzzy relations fit the problem of processing the representation of an image as a matrix with the range of its elements previously normalized in [0, 1]. In such techniques, however, the approach is mainly experimental and the algebraic context is seldom clearly defined. For these reasons we focused our attention on the algebraic structures involved, more or less explicitly, in some of these approaches. Hence an interest concerning semimodule structures related to Lukasiewicz semirings arose. 1.1 MV-semimodules Once we fixed the underlying algebras, it turned out immediately that the method proposed in [7] could be somehow generalized. Moreover, recent developments in the theory of MV-algebras, provide us with some tools that proved to be useful for our scope. More precisely, making use of the theory of semimodules over semirings ([4]), and the results presented in [1], we prove that the structures of semimodule
Sparse representation and PCA method for image fusion in remote sensing

Image fusion in remote sensing is an issue to fuse the texture information of panchromatic (PAN) channel and the spectral information of multispectral (MS) channels with lower spatial resolution (LR). In this paper, a method named SPCA is proposed to deal with image fusion from the perspective of sparse representation and PCA, in which the correlations both within and between channels are effectively modeled. First, the sparse representation theory is applied to remote sensing images. Second, the dictionaries of PAN and MS images are joint-learned, and a thought of PCA is applied to construct dictionaries of MS images of high spatial resolution (HR). Then the fusion images can be calculated with constructed dictionaries and sharing coefficient. Finally, the residual produced by sparse representation is interpolated as compensation. Compared with four methods in four evaluation indexes, SPCA method gives competitive or even better results on LandSat8 and QuickBird.
Identification of parotid salivary biomarkers in Sjogren's syndrome by surface-enhanced laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry and two-dimensional difference gel electrophoresis.

OBJECTIVES To identify the most significant salivary biomarkers in Sjögren's syndrome (SS) using proteomic methods. METHODS Parotid saliva from 20 non-SS subjects and 41 primary SS patients was analysed. Protein expression profiles for each sample were generated by surface-enhanced laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight-mass spectrometry (SELDI-TOF-MS). Mean peak intensities of SS patients and non-SS subjects were compared by univariate analyses. Samples pooled by diagnosis (SS and non-SS) and labelled with different Cy dyes were compared by two-dimensional difference gel electrophoresis (2D-DIGE). Two protein levels that were most significantly different by SELDI-TOF-MS and 2D-DIGE were validated by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay in individual samples. RESULTS SELDI-TOF-MS of 10-200 kDa peaks revealed eight peaks with >2-fold changes in the SS group that differed from non-SS at P < 0.005. Peaks of 11.8, 12.0, 14.3, 80.6 and 83.7 kDa were increased, while 17.3, 25.4, and 35.4 kDa peaks were decreased in SS samples. 2D-DIGE identified significant increases of beta-2-microglobulin, lactoferrin, immunoglobulin (Ig) kappa light chain, polymeric Ig receptor, lysozyme C and cystatin C in all stages of SS. Two presumed proline-rich proteins, amylase and carbonic anhydrase VI, were reduced in the patient group. Three of these ten biomarkers have not been associated previously with SS. CONCLUSIONS The salivary proteomic profile of SS is a mixture of increased inflammatory proteins and decreased acinar proteins when compared with non-SS. Future studies will test the ability of these biomarker levels, alone and in combination, to diagnose the salivary component of SS.
Michiko Intoh: Historical Significance of the Southwest Islands of Palau (2008)

Micronesia occupies the northwestern corner of Oceania. Most of the islands are scattered in the northern hemisphere, except for Kiribati. The Southwest Islands of Palau are located at the southwestern corner of Micronesia. The area is adjacent to the islands in Melanesia, Indonesia and the Philippines and forms a significant locale to identify human movements around, and particularly into, Micronesia. While the Southwest Islands of Palau are relatively isolated compared with other island groups in Micronesia, there are a number of coral islands scattered throughout Micronesia whose inhabitants developed various living strategies to enable them to survive in a resourcelimited environment. The most recognised strategy was continuing cultural contacts with other islands to acquire goods and human resources (Intoh 2008). One such example in Micronesia is the sawei exchange system that was developed between Yap and the coral islands in the Central Caroline Islands. Another example is the two large trading networks developed within the archipelago of the Marshall Islands (Alkire 1978). Reconstructing the way of life of these island groups, particularly the external relations built between coral islands and other islands, should provide new insights to enable us to better understand the adaptation strategies required to survive in a resource-limited environment.
A Broadband High-Efficiency Doherty Power Amplifier With Integrated Compensating Reactance

This paper presents a high-efficiency gallium nitride Doherty power amplifier (DPA) using an integrated compensating reactance (CR) for broadband operation. With an additional quarter-wavelength transmission line integrated in the peaking amplifier output, a CR is generated to compensate the load impedance of the carrier amplifier in the low-power region and thus enhance the back-off efficiency over a wide frequency range without affecting the Doherty load modulation at saturation. For this purpose, a peaking output matching network (OMN) is employed to convert the output impedance of the peaking device into quasi-short circuit when it is off and achieve proper impedance matching when it is on. A two-point matching technique using the transmission (ABCD) matrix is employed to design such desired OMN. Measurement results show that the DPA has a 6-dB back-off efficiency of 50%-55% and a saturated efficiency of 57%-71% over the frequency band of 1.7-2.8 GHz (49% fractional bandwidth). When driven by a 20-MHz long term evolution modulated signal at 6.5-dB back-off power, the DPA can achieve an average efficiency of more than 50% with high linearity after linearization over the design frequency band.
Biological mechanisms of phorbol myristate acetate-induced inhibition of proadipocyte differentiation.

Abstract The differentiation of murine proadipocytes can be induced by two different methods: 1. ) by culture of high-density proadipocytes in medium containing high concentrations of serum to which is added a variety of hormones and 2. ) by culture of low-density proadipocytes in heparinized medium containing only human plasma. Phorbol myristate acetate influences differentiation in both culture systems, but the biological mechanisms by which phorbol myristate exerts its effect have not been established previously. In this regard, we have recently shown that five distinct steps mediate the integrated control of proadipocyte proliferation and differentiation (J. Cell Biol., 94: 400, 1982). Three steps are involved in the differentiation process: (a) growth arrest at a distinct state in the G1 phase of the cell cycle (GD); (b) nonterminal differentiation; and (c) terminal differentiation. Two steps antagonize the differentiation process and cause proliferation. These are (a) induction of loss of the differentiated phenotype and (b) reinitiation of proliferation. In this paper, we have therefore examined the effects of the tumor promoter phorbol myristate acetate on each step of integrated control of proliferation and differentiation in high- and low-density proadipocytes. The results show that in the high-density system, phorbol myristate acetate can have the following effects under appropriate experimental conditions. It can: (a) block growth arrest at GD; (b) inhibit nonterminal differentiation; (c) promote loss of the differentiated phenotype; and (d) promote the proliferation of GD-arrested cells. In the low-density system by contrast, phorbol myristate acetate (a) does not block GD arrest and (b) does not block nonterminal differentiation but (c) does promote loss of the differentiated phenotype and (d) does promote the proliferation of GD-arrested cells. These results show that the mechanisms by which phorbol myristate acetate affects differentiation are significantly influenced by a variety of factors which include changes in the culture medium, cell density, and cell-cell contact. Therefore, attempts to correlate general effects of phorbol myristate acetate on the control of cell proliferation and differentiation with its action as a tumor promoter may not be justified. We suggest that only actions of phorbol myristate acetate which selectively affect initiated cells should be considered to be relevant to the mechanisms of promotion of carcinogenesis.
Selective Inhibition of Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor–Mediated Angiogenesis by Cyclosporin a

Cyclosporin A (CsA) is an immunosuppressive drug that inhibits the activity of transcription factors of the nuclear factor of activated T cells (NFAT) family, interfering with the induction of cytokines and other inducible genes required for the immune response. Here we show that CsA inhibits migration of primary endothelial cells and angiogenesis induced by vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF); this effect appears to be mediated through the inhibition of cyclooxygenase (Cox)-2, the transcription of which is activated by VEGF in primary endothelial cells. Consistent with this, we show that the induction of Cox-2 gene expression by VEGF requires NFAT activation. Most important, the CsA-mediated inhibition of angiogenesis both in vitro and in vivo was comparable to the Cox-2 inhibitor NS-398, and reversed by prostaglandin E2. Furthermore, the in vivo corneal angiogenesis induced by VEGF, but not by basic fibroblast growth factor, was selectively inhibited in mice treated with CsA systemically. These findings involve NFAT in the regulation of Cox-2 in endothelial cells, point to a role for this transcription factor in angiogenesis, and may provide a novel mechanism underlying the beneficial effects of CsA in angiogenesis-related diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis.
A mind model for brain-like computer

Mind is all mankind's spiritual activities, including emotion, will, perception, consciousness, representation, learning, memory, thinking, intuition, etc. Mind model is for explaining what individuals operate in the cognitive process for something in the real world. It is the internal sign or representation for external realistic world. If the neural network is a hardware of the brain system, then the mind model is the software of the brain system. The key issue in intelligence science is to construct the mind model of the brain system, which will guide the development of brain-like computer in engineering through structure, dynamics, function and behavioral reverse engineering of the brain. This paper will discuss the computational model of memory and consciousness in the mind model named Consciousness And Memory model(CAM).
Specific Interaction of a Novel Foamy Virus Env Leader Protein with the N-Terminal Gag Domain

ABSTRACT Cryoelectron micrographs of purified human foamy virus (HFV) and feline foamy virus (FFV) particles revealed distinct radial arrangements of Gag proteins. The capsids were surrounded by an internal Gag layer that in turn was surrounded by, and separated from, the viral membrane. The width of this layer was about 8 nm for HFV and 3.8 nm for FFV. This difference in width is assumed to reflect the different sizes of the HFV and FFV MA domains: the HFV MA domain is about 130 residues longer than that of FFV. The distances between the MA layer and the edge of the capsid were identical in different particle classes. In contrast, only particles with a distended envelope displayed an invariant, close spacing between the MA layer and the Env membrane which was absent in the majority of particles. This indicates a specific interaction between MA and Env at an unknown step of morphogenesis. This observation was supported by surface plasmon resonance studies. The purified N-terminal domain of FFV Gag specifically interacted with synthetic peptides and a defined protein domain derived from the N-terminal Env leader protein. The specificity of this interaction was demonstrated by using peptides varying in the conserved Trp residues that are known to be required for HFV budding. The interaction with Gag required residues within the novel virion-associated FFV Env leader protein of about 16.5 kDa.
Regular Trace Event Structures

We propose trace event structures as a starting point for constructing effective branching time temporal logics in a non-interleaved setting. As a first step towards achieving this goal, we define the notion of a regular trace event structure. We then provide some simple characterizations of this notion of regularity both in terms of recognizable trace languages and in terms of finite 1-safe Petri nets.