Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Are green caterers more likely to serve healthy meals than non-green caterers? Results from a quantitative study in Danish worksite catering

Abstract Objective The present study aimed to investigate whether organic conversion in catering has positive effects on the nutritional quality of menus offered. Design The methodology was based on a self-administered questionnaire. The self-declared priority given to the use of organic foods was measured as the basis for assigning catering managers to one of two groups: ‘green’ or ‘non-green’ caterers. These groups were then compared with regard to the relative nutritional quality of the menu options offered to customers. Setting The study was carried out among randomly selected Danish worksite catering outlets. Subjects The subjects participating in the study comprised 526 Danish worksite catering managers. Results The results showed a strong correlation between caterers' ‘green-ness’ and the nutritional quality of the menu options offered. Green caters had more healthy options in their menus than non-green caters, which is likely to result in improved nutritional quality of the diets of end consumers. The reason for this may partly be the increased service training efforts that green caterers practise in order to be able to implement organic foods successfully. It may also be associated with the fact that the price premiums and availability of the organic products forces caterers to serve menus with higher amounts of root and non-green leafy vegetables, pulses and seasonal vegetables. Conclusion The present findings suggest that organic conversion of public canteens may be a good opportunity to promote healthier eating in public catering.
Home‐based teleworking and the employment relationship

As home‐based teleworking grows in the UK, more evidence is needed of how working from home shapes the employment relationship and the implications this may have for those line managers responsible for a home‐based workforce. The reported experiences of a sales team and their line managers at one large international drinks manufacturing company of teleworking during its first year of operation revealed the importance of developing understanding of the complex interface between the domains of work and home life. The findings suggest individual circumstances require close attention before implementing home‐based working with line managers recalibrating perceptions of the boundaries between home and work for positive employee relationships to develop within a new paradigm of “home‐work” relations.
Encountered-type haptic interface for virtual interaction with real objects based on implicit surface haptic rendering for remote palpation

The shortage of physicians afflicting developed countries encourages engineers and doctors to collaborate towards the development of telemedicine. In particular, robotic systems have the potential for helping doctors making examination. A very common examination that can be the goal of a robotic system is palpation. Most of the robotics systems that have been developed for palpation present interesting features such as integrating augmented reality environments or allowing for hand free interaction. In this paper we present a novel palpation system that allows us to perform virtual palpation of real objects by means of a haptic and an augmented reality feedback. This system features an encountered-type haptic interface in which the haptic feedback is calculated by a collision detection algorithm that is based on online recording of the surface to be touched. The system allows the users to remove their hand from the haptic interface end-effector that follows the user's hand thanks to the tracking performed by a Leap Motion. We show that the system provides a natural interaction during the contact-non contact switch, a suitable force during indentation, and it allows to discriminate objects within the body through the haptic channel.
Age-related Differences in Processing Speed in Preschool Children

The aim of this study was to assess whether age-related differences in reaction time can be explained satisfactorily in terms of a global age-related differences in processing speed alone. We investigated the age-related differences in simple, discrimination and choice reaction time in 4- to 6-year-old children and young adults using approach proposed by Madden et al. and Ridderinkhoff & van der Molen. This research demonstrates that there are clear age-related differences in processing speed not only between young children and adults but also between three age groups of young children. The use of the regression approach in this study provides further support for the presence of the global age-related differences in processing speed both between young children and adults and between young children of three age groups. The current data also confirmed the results of previous researches that the magnitude of the slowing coefficient decreases with increasing age. However, using transformation method proposed by Madden et al. and Ridderinkhoff & van der Molen we revealed that there are not only global age-related differences but also process-specific age-related differences in processing speed. We assume that the age-related differences in processing speed can be understood in relation to the heterochronicity of child brain development.
Viewing Direction Classification: Application to View Planning

We present an information-theoretic approach for estimating the informativeness of an object's local geometry with respect to orientation estimation. Identifying the regions and viewing directions which show the most unambiguous local features is of interest for long-term autonomy as it enables to actively plan to observe these features as well as to actively select image frames out of passively acquired image streams.
Multiresolutional representation and behavior generation: How do they affect the performance of intelligent Systems

In this tutorial, an outline of the theory of intelligent systems is presented as a sequence of the following issues. The term Intelligent Systems has a meaning implied by our usage of it within the domain related to the formidable phenomenon of Life and functioning of Living Creatures. However, neither for living creatures not for engineering devices this term cannot be presented through the list offunctional properties and/or design specifications. Our theory is based upon two phenomena that should be considered in their interconnection: a) the existence of an Elementary Loop of Functioning (ELF) in all cases of systems with intelligence, and b) formation of Multiple Levels of Resolution (MR) as soon as ELF emerges. MR levels develop because of the mechanisms of joint Generalization and Instantiation due to the processes of grouping, focusing attention and combinatorial search (GFACS). The latter are explanatory for the subsystems of Learning/Imagining/Planning that are characteristic of all intelligent systems. This paper introduces the variety of mechanisms of disambiguation that pertain to functioning of intelligent systems. On the other hand, MR and ELF together lead to the development of Heterarchical Architectures. The above concepts are explanatory of the kinds of intelligence that are observed in reality and suggest how to test the performance of intelligent systems and what are the metrics that could be recommended.
Strategic Interactions between an Independent Central Bank and a Myopic Government with Government Debt

We analyse optimal discretionary games between a benevolent central bank and a myopic government in a New Keynesian model. First, when lump-sum taxes are available and public debt is absent, we show that a Nash game results in too much government spending and excessively high interest rates, while fiscal leadership reinstates the cooperative outcome under discretion. Second, we show that this familiar result breaks down when lump-sum taxes are unavailable. With government debt, the Nash equilibrium still entails too much public spending but leads to lower interest rates than the cooperative policy, because debt has to be adjusted back to its pre-shock level to ensure time consistency. A setup of fiscal leadership does not avoid this socially costly outcome. Imposing a debt penalty onto the myopic government under either Nash or fiscal leadership raises welfare substantially, while appointing a conservative central bank is less effective.
Pulmonary Embolism Related to Amisulpride Treatment: A Case Report

Venous thromboembolism has been associated with antipsychotic drugs, but the underlying mechanisms are largely unknown. Hypotheses that have been made include body weight gain, sedation, enhanced platelet aggregation, increased levels of antiphospholipid antibodies, hyperhomocysteinemia, whereas hyperprolactinemia has recently attracted attention as a potential contributing factor. The highest risk has been demonstrated for clozapine, olanzapine, and low-potency first-generation antipsychotics; however, presently there is no data for amisulpride. In the present paper we describe a case of pulmonary embolism in a female bipolar patient, receiving treatment with amisulpride, aripiprazole, and paroxetine. Although a contribution of aripiprazole and paroxetine cannot completely be ruled out, the most probable factor underlying the thromboembolic event seems to be hyperprolactinemia, which was caused by amisulpride treatment. Increased plasma levels of prolactin should probably be taken into account during the monitoring of antipsychotic treatment as well as in future research concerning venous thromboembolism in psychiatric settings.
Failure of Interferon γ to Induce the Anti-Inflammatory Interleukin 18 Binding Protein in Familial Hemophagocytosis

Background Familial hemophagocytosis (FHL) is a rare disease associated with defects in proteins involved in CD8+ T-cell cytotoxicity. Hyperactivation of immune cells results in a perilous, Th1-driven cytokine storm. We set out to explore the regulation of cytokines in an FHL patient who was clinically stable on low-dose immunosuppressive therapy after bone marrow transplantation over a six-month period. During this period, chimerism analyses showed that the fraction of host cells was between 1 and 10%. Both parents of the patient as well as healthy volunteers were studied for comparison. Methods/Principal Findings Using ELISA, quantitative real-time PCR, and clinical laboratory methods, we investigated constitutive and inducible cytokines, polymorphisms, and clinical parameters in whole blood and whole blood cultures. Although routine laboratory tests were within the normal range, the chemokines IP-10 and IL-8 as well as the cytokine IL-27p28 were increased up to 10-fold under constitutive and stimulated conditions compared to healthy controls. Moreover, high levels of IFNγ and TNFα were produced upon stimulation. Unexpectedly, IFNγ induction of IL-18 binding protein (IL-18BP) was markedly reduced (1.6-fold vs 5-fold in controls). The patient's mother featured intermediately increased cytokine levels, whereas levels in the father were similar to those in the controls. Conclusions/Significance Since IL-18 plays a major role in perpetuating hemophagocytosis, the failure of IFNγ to induce IL-18BP may constitute a fundamental pathogenetic mechanism. Furthermore, increased production of IL-8 and IL-27 appears to be associated with this disease. Such dysregulation of cytokines was also found in the heterozygous parents, providing a novel insight into genotype-phenotype correlation of FHL which may encourage future research of this rare disease.
Characterizing Roles and Spatio-Temporal Relations of C&C Servers in Large-Scale Networks

Botnets are accountable for numerous cybersecurity threats. A lot of efforts have been dedicated to botnet intelligence, but botnets versatility and rapid adaptation make them particularly difficult to outwit. Prompt countermeasures require effective tools to monitor the evolution of botnets. Therefore, in this paper we analyze 5 months of traffic from different botnet families, and propose an unsupervised clustering technique to identify the different roles assigned to C&C servers. This technique allows us to classify servers with similar behavior and effectively identify bots contacting several servers. We also present a temporal analysis method that uncovers synchronously activated servers. Our results characterize 6 C&C server roles that are common to various botnet families. In the monitored traffic we found that servers are usually involved in a specific role, and we observed a significant number of C&C servers scanning the Internet.
Assessing Marine Microbial Induced Corrosion at Santa Catalina Island, California

High iron and eutrophic conditions are reported as environmental factors leading to accelerated low-water corrosion, an enhanced form of near-shore microbial induced corrosion. To explore this hypothesis, we deployed flow-through colonization systems in laboratory-based aquarium tanks under a continuous flow of surface seawater from Santa Catalina Island, CA, USA, for periods of 2 and 6 months. Substrates consisted of mild steel – a major constituent of maritime infrastructure – and the naturally occurring iron sulfide mineral pyrite. Four conditions were tested: free-venting “high-flux” conditions; a “stagnant” condition; an “active” flow-through condition with seawater slowly pumped over the substrates; and an “enrichment” condition where the slow pumping of seawater was supplemented with nutrient rich medium. Electron microscopy analyses of the 2-month high flux incubations document coating of substrates with “twisted stalks,” resembling iron oxyhydroxide bioprecipitates made by marine neutrophilic Fe-oxidizing bacteria (FeOB). Six-month incubations exhibit increased biofilm and substrate corrosion in the active flow and nutrient enriched conditions relative to the stagnant condition. A scarcity of twisted stalks was observed for all 6 month slow-flow conditions compared to the high-flux condition, which may be attributable to oxygen concentrations in the slow-flux conditions being prohibitively low for sustained growth of stalk-producing bacteria. All substrates developed microbial communities reflective of the original seawater input, as based on 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Deltaproteobacteria sequences increased in relative abundance in the active flow and nutrient enrichment conditions, whereas Gammaproteobacteria sequences were relatively more abundant in the stagnant condition. These results indicate that (i) high-flux incubations with higher oxygen availability favor the development of biofilms with twisted stalks resembling those of marine neutrophilic FeOB and (ii) long-term nutrient stimulation results in substrate corrosion and biofilms with different bacterial community composition and structure relative to stagnant and non-nutritionally enhanced incubations. Similar microbial succession scenarios, involving increases in nutritional input leading to the proliferation of anaerobic iron and sulfur-cycling guilds, may occur at the nearby Port of Los Angeles and cause potential damage to maritime port infrastructure.
A parity code based fault detection for an implementation of the Advanced Encryption Standard

Concurrent fault detection for a hardware implementation of the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) is important not only to protect the encryption/decryption process from random faults. It will also protect the encryption/decryption circuitry from an attacker who may maliciously inject faults in order to find the encryption secret key. In this paper we present a novel fault detection scheme which is based on a multiple parity bit code and show that the proposed scheme leads to very efficient and high coverage fault detection. We then estimate the associated hardware costs and detection latencies.
Sufficient and necessary conditions for perpetual multi-assets exchange options

This paper considers the general problem of optimal timing of the exchange of the sum of n Ito-diffusions for the sum of m others (e.g., the optimal time to exchange a geometric Brownian motion for a geometric mean reverting process). We first contribute to the literature by providing analytical sufficient conditions and necessary conditions for optimal stopping (i.e. sub- and super- sets of the stopping region) for some sub-cases of the general problem. We then exhibit a connection between the problem of finding sufficient conditions for optimal stopping and linear programming. This connection provides a unified approach which does not only allow to recover previous analytically determinable subsets of the stopping region, but also allows to characterize (more complex) subsets of the stopping region that do not have an analytical expression. In the particular case where all assets are geometric Brownian motions, this connection gives us new insights. In particular, it simplifies the expression of the subset of the stopping region identified by Nishide and Rogers (2011). Our numerical examples finally confirms the good behavior of the candidate investment rule introduced by Gahungu and Smeers (2011) for this particular case, which seems to comfort a conjecture that their rule might be optimal.
Myosin light chain kinase plays a role in the regulation of epithelial cell survival

Myosin II activation is essential for stress fiber and focal adhesion formation, and is implicated in integrin-mediated signaling events. In this study we investigated the role of acto-myosin contractility, and its main regulators, i.e. myosin light chain kinase (MLCK) and Rho-kinase (ROCK) in cell survival in normal and Ras-transformed MCF-10A epithelial cells. Treatment of cells with pharmacological inhibitors of MLCK (ML-7 and ML-9), or expression of dominant-negative MLCK, led to apoptosis in normal and transformed MCF-10A cells. By contrast, treatment of cells with a ROCK inhibitor (Y-27632) did not induce apoptosis in these cells. Apoptosis following inhibition of myosin II activation by MLCK is probably meditated through the death receptor pathway because expression of dominant-negative FADD blocked apoptosis. The apoptosis observed after MLCK inhibition is rescued by pre-treatment of cells with integrin-activating antibodies. In addition, this rescue of apoptosis is dependent on FAK activity, suggesting the participation of an integrin-dependent signaling pathway. These studies demonstrate a newly discovered role for MLCK in the generation of pro-survival signals in both untransformed and transformed epithelial cells and supports previous work suggesting distinct cellular roles for Rho-kinase- and MLCK-dependent regulation of myosin II.
Arabidopsis Sec1/Munc18 Protein SEC11 Is a Competitive and Dynamic Modulator of SNARE Binding and SYP121-Dependent Vesicle Traffic[W][OA]

Secretory vesicle traffic in the model plant Arabidopsis is regulated by a Sec/Munc protein previously known for its role in cell plate formation during cell division. This regulation implies an unusual “handshaking” mechanism with dissociation and rebinding of the Sec/Munc protein during vesicle fusion. The Arabidopsis thaliana Qa-SNARE SYP121 (=SYR1/PEN1) drives vesicle traffic at the plasma membrane of cells throughout the vegetative plant. It facilitates responses to drought, to the water stress hormone abscisic acid, and to pathogen attack, and it is essential for recovery from so-called programmed stomatal closure. How SYP121-mediated traffic is regulated is largely unknown, although it is thought to depend on formation of a fusion-competent SNARE core complex with the cognate partners VAMP721 and SNAP33. Like SYP121, the Arabidopsis Sec1/Munc18 protein SEC11 (=KEULE) is expressed throughout the vegetative plant. We find that SEC11 binds directly with SYP121 both in vitro and in vivo to affect secretory traffic. Binding occurs through two distinct modes, one requiring only SEC11 and SYP121 and the second dependent on assembly of a complex with VAMP721 and SNAP33. SEC11 competes dynamically for SYP121 binding with SNAP33 and VAMP721, and this competition is predicated by SEC11 association with the N terminus of SYP121. These and additional data are consistent with a model in which SYP121-mediated vesicle fusion is regulated by an unusual “handshaking” mechanism of concerted SEC11 debinding and rebinding. They also implicate one or more factors that alter or disrupt SEC11 association with the SYP121 N terminus as an early step initiating SNARE complex formation.
Contagion via Magical Thinking and via Mere Proximity: Differences as a Function of Target Type

People show an irrational dislike for objects that were once contaminated or had come into contact with an undesirable person, even if they are currently indistinguishable from other similar objects. To date, such negative contagion within the magical thinking literature has been shown only with inanimate objects. We addressed a boundary condition to see if it also extended to animate targets (dogs and children) while teasing out mere-proximity effects that would predict a similar contagion in the case of children. We used two different types of contagion, one based on proximity and one based on self-information. We found that magical thinking did extend to dogs but not to children when not confounded by mere-proximity effects. Also, contagion was less strong in the case of animate targets, but pity was not related to either this reduction or to the disappearance of the effect with children.
Perceived effectiveness of teacher training programmes offered by international secondary schools in Nairobi Kenya

ix CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION . 1 1.1 Background of Study . 1 1.1.1 The Concept of Perception . 3 1.1.2 The concept of Effectiveness . 4 1.1.3 Training Programmes . 5 1.1.4 International Secondary Schools in Nairobi Kenya . 7 1.2 Research Problem . 9 1.3 Research Objective . 11 1.4 Value of the Study . 11 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW . 13 2.
Dip-coating with prestructured substrates: transfer of simple liquids and Langmuir–Blodgett monolayers

When a plate is withdrawn from a liquid bath, either a static meniscus forms in the transition region between the bath and the substrate or a liquid film of finite thickness (a Landau–Levich film) is transferred onto the moving substrate. If the substrate is inhomogeneous, e.g. has a prestructure consisting of stripes of different wettabilities, the meniscus can be deformed or show a complex dynamic behavior. Here we study the free surface shape and dynamics of a dragged meniscus occurring for striped prestructures with two orientations, parallel and perpendicular to the transfer direction. A thin film model is employed that accounts for capillarity through a Laplace pressure and for the spatially varying wettability through a Derjaguin (or disjoining) pressure. Numerical continuation is used to obtain steady free surface profiles and corresponding bifurcation diagrams in the case of substrates with different homogeneous wettabilities. Direct numerical simulations are employed in the case of the various striped prestructures. The final part illustrates the importance of our findings for particular applications that involve complex liquids by modeling a Langmuir–Blodgett transfer experiment. There, one transfers a monolayer of an insoluble surfactant that covers the surface of the bath onto the moving substrate. The resulting pattern formation phenomena can be crucially influenced by the hydrodynamics of the liquid meniscus that itself depends on the prestructure on the substrate. In particular, we show how prestructure stripes parallel to the transfer direction lead to the formation of bent stripes in the surfactant coverage after transfer and present similar experimental results.