Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Structural information implant in a context based segmentation-free HMM handwritten word recognition system for Latin and Bangla script

In this paper, an improvement of a 2D stochastic model based handwritten entity recognition system is described. To model the handwriting considered as being a two dimensional signal, a context based, segmentation-free hidden Markov model (HMM) recognition system was used. The baseline approach combines a Markov random field (MRF) and a HMM so-called non-symmetric half plane hidden Markov model (NSHP-HMM). To improve the results performed by this baseline system operating just on low-level pixel information an extension of the NSHP-HMM is proposed. The mechanism allows to extend the observations of the NSHP-HMM by implanting structural information in the system. At present, the accuracy of the system on the SRTP1 French postal check database is 87.52% while for the handwritten Bangla city names is 86.80%. The gain using this structural information for the SRTP dataset is 1.57%.
Text or Talk? Social Anxiety, Loneliness, and Divergent Preferences for Cell Phone Use

This paper investigates whether social anxiety and loneliness lead to contrasting beliefs and preferences among cell phone users towards texting and talking on their cell phones. Three hypotheses are examined: (1) that social anxiety and loneliness are differentially associated with generalized preferences either for texting or for talking on the cell phone, (2) that these preferences are linked to contrasting beliefs concerning the social functionality of the short message service (SMS), and (3) that these divergent beliefs mediate the effects of social anxiety and loneliness on cell phone users' generalized preferences for texting or talking. Results from an Internet questionnaire (N=158) showed that, whilst lonely participants preferred making voice calls and rated texting as a less intimate method of contact, anxious participants preferred to text, and rated it a superior medium for expressive and intimate contact. These divergent beliefs accounted for 36% and 16% of the variance in preference for texting and voice calls, respectively, and significantly attenuated the influence of loneliness and social anxiety when they were added to the regression equations for these measures. Results are discussed in terms of the hyperpersonal possibilities of mobile communications technologies.
HSV-2 Vaccine: Current Status and Insight into Factors for Developing an Efficient Vaccine

Herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2), a globally sexually transmitted virus, and also one of the main causes of genital ulcer diseases, increases susceptibility to HIV-1. Effective vaccines to prevent HSV-2 infection are not yet available, but are currently being developed. To facilitate this process, the latest progress in development of these vaccines is reviewed in this paper. A summary of the most promising HSV-2 vaccines tested in animals in the last five years is presented, including the main factors, and new ideas for developing an effective vaccine from animal experiments and human clinical trials. Experimental results indicate that future HSV-2 vaccines may depend on a strategy that targets mucosal immunity. Furthermore, estradiol, which increases the effectiveness of vaccines, may be considered as an adjuvant. Therefore, this review is expected to provide possible strategies for development of future HSV-2 vaccines.
Experimentally activated immune defence in female pied flycatchers results in reduced breeding success

Traditional explanations for the negative fitness consequences of parasitism have focused on the direct pathogenic effects of infectious agents. However, because of the high selection pressure by the parasites, immune defences are likely to be costly and trade off with other fitness–related traits, such as reproductive effort. In a field experiment, we immunized breeding female flycatchers with non–pathogenic antigens (diphtheria–tetanus vaccine), which excluded the direct negative effects of parasites, in order to test the consequences of activated immune defence on hosts' investment in reproduction and self–maintenance. Immunized females decreased their feeding effort and investment in self–maintenance (rectrix regrowth) and had lower reproductive output (fledgling quality and number) than control females injected with saline. Our results reveal the phenotypic cost of immune defence by showing that an activated immune system per se can lower the host's breeding success. This may be caused by an energetic or nutritional trade–off between immune function and physical workload when feeding young or be an adaptive response to ‘infection’ to avoid physiological disorders such as oxidative stress and immunopathology.
Proportions of slow myosin heavy chain‐positive fibers in muscle spindles and adjoining extrafusal fascicles, and the positioning of spindles relative to these fascicles

Chicken leg muscles were examined to calculate the percentages of slow myosin heavy chain (MHC)‐positive fibers in spindles and in adjacent extrafusal fascicles, and to clarify how the encapsulated portions of muscle spindles are positioned relative to these fascicles. Unlike mammals, in chicken leg muscles slow‐twitch MHC and slow‐tonic MHC are expressed in intrafusal fibers and in extrafusal fibers, suggesting a close developmental connection between the two fiber populations. In 8‐week‐old muscles the proportions of slow MHC‐positive extrafusal fibers that ringed muscle spindles ranged from 0–100%. In contrast, proportions of slow MHC‐positive intrafusal fibers in spindles ranged from 0–57%. Similar proportions in fiber type composition between intrafusal fibers and surrounding extrafusal fibers were apparent at embryonic days 15 and 16, demonstrating early divergence of extrafusal and intrafusal fibers. Muscle spindles were rarely located within single fascicles. Instead, they were commonly placed where several fascicles converged. The frequent extrafascicular location of spindles suggests migration of intrafusal myoblasts from developing clusters of extrafusal fibers toward the interstitium, perhaps along a neurotrophic gradient established by sensory axons that are advancing in the connective tissue matrix that separates adjoining fascicles. J. Morphol. 242:157–165, 1999. © 1999 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Management action in developing market orientation: a report from a customer knowledge project at Volvo Cars

Market orientation is an implementation construct. The inherent paradox is that as a matter of implementation, market orientation is actually hard to implement. This article, based on a study of a change initiative at Volvo Cars, discusses management challenges embedded in developing the market orientation of an organization. It is in much a matter of changed behaviour, i.e. changed actions and practices rather than procedures and proclamations. Managers and managerial actions play an important role. The case presented highlights both the difficulties and the opportunities of managers working in task forces to develop market orientation. The article argues that actions that reflect a willingness to experiment and not only to ‘break in’, is a prerequisite if alternatives models should take on, which in turn is necessary for developing market orientation.
Reproductive cycle of the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) in captivity.

Serum samples were obtained either weekly or daily from six mature elephant cows for periods of 7 to 30 months from April 1979 to November 1981, to rigorously describe the hormonal and behavioral components of the reproductive cycle in the Asian elephant. The estrous state of each elephant was concurrently monitored through quantification of the frequency of male urine testing behavior (Flehmen-like response) under controlled conditions. Concentrations of progesterone (P4) and cstradiol (E2) were determined in 1.0 ml of serum by radioimmunoassay (RIA) after diethylether extraction and purification on Sephadex LH-20 columns. The presence of gonadotropic activity was assessed with a rat luteinizing hormone (LH) RIA and by an in vitro mouse Leydig cell bioassay. Fifteen ovarian cycles averaging 16.3 ± 0.4 (mean ± SEM) weeks in length were observed in six females. The luteal phase was 10.5 ± 0.3 weeks, and 5.1 ± 0.4 weeks separated subsequent luteal periods. Estradiol concentrations were extremely variable, and no distinct preovulatory E2 surge was associated with the onset of P4 secretion. However, the onset of P4 release occurred during a single 24-h period and reached maximum levels within 2 to 3 weeks. Peaks of immunoreactive LH were observed, although more than 50% of such “surges” were unrelated to increments in P4 secretion, and no evidence of bioactivity was observed in any serum sample. Pregnancy was indicated by continued secretion of P4 after the 12-week luteal phase, and elevated levels (400 to 1200 pg/mI) were seen throughout the first year and during the last 6 months of gestation. Serum concentrations of P4 fell dramatically before parturition, consistent with a role for this steroid in the regulation of gestational length. Male urine testing behavior was clearly cyclical, and maximal interest during the late interluteal period was followed by a rapid decrease with the onset of P4 secretion. These data provide the first substantive description of the hormonal milieu of the reproductive cycle, concurrent male behavior, and the serum hormonal patterns at the onset and termination of gestation in this endangered species.
Sex and Smoking Status Effects on the Early Detection of Early Lung Cancer in High-Risk Smokers Using an Electronic Nose

Objective: Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in exhaled breath as measured by electronic nose (e-nose) have utility as biomarkers to detect subjects at risk of having lung cancer in a screening setting. We hypothesize that breath analysis using an e-nose chemo-resistive sensor array could be used as a screening tool to discriminate patients diagnosed with lung cancer from high-risk smokers. Methods: Breath samples from 191 subjects-25 lung cancer patients and 166 high-risk smoker control subjects without cancer-were analyzed. For clinical relevancy, subjects in both groups were matched for age, sex, and smoking histories. Classification and regression trees and discriminant functions classifiers were used to recognize VOC patterns in e-nose data. Cross-validated results were used to assess classification accuracy. Repeatability and reproducibility of e-nose data were assessed by measuring subject-exhaled breath in parallel across two e-nose devices. Results : e-Nose measurements could distinguish lung cancer patients from high-risk control subjects, with a better than 80% classification accuracy. Subject sex and smoking status impacted classification as area under the curve results (ex-smoker males 0.846, ex-smoker female 0.816, current smoker male 0.745, and current smoker female 0.725) demonstrated. Two e-nose systems could be calibrated to give equivalent readings across subject-exhaled breath measured in parallel. Conclusions: e-Nose technology may have significant utility as a noninvasive screening tool for detecting individuals at increased risk for lung cancer. Significance: The results presented further the case that VOC patterns could have real clinical utility to screen for lung cancer in the important growing ex-smoker population.
Examination of the predictive validity of CVM using an attitude‐behavior framework

The contingent valuation method (CVM) has been used to assign monetary value to goods not normally bought and sold in the marketplace. Sometimes this value is used to make inferences about what a person might actually be willing to pay. The relationship between responses to willingness to pay (WTP) questions and a paying behavior was examined in this study using a conceptual framework from attitude theory. Willingness to pay was considered a behavioral intention to pay, and a mock vote on a sales tax initiative was considered a paying behavior. Two factors known to affect the intention‐behavior relationship were varied. Subjects were provided different levels of information about the good and were asked about their willingness to pay using different question contexts. Increasing the context correspondence between measures of intention and behavior strengthened the relationship. Information did not significantly increase the consistency between intention and behavior. Determining the meaning in behavioral .
Tissue Factor–Bearing Microparticles and Thrombus Formation

Blood microparticles are vesicular structures with a diameter of 100 to 1000 nm that are present in the blood of normal subjects and in patients with various diseases. These microparticles are derived from cells that circulate in the blood and cells associated with the blood vessel wall. Microparticle membranes retain the protein receptors of their parent cells and may retain RNAs and other cytosolic content. On the basis of surface protein expression, microparticles are known to be derived from platelets, granulocytes, monocytes, endothelial cells, smooth muscle cells, and tumor cells. Only a subpopulation of these microparticles expresses tissue factor.
Optimising speed and energy expenditure in accurate visually directed upper limb movements

Traditional models of speed–accuracy relations and limb control are steady-state models that fail to consider the learning history and strategic approach of the performer. Work from this laboratory indicates that a performer adjusts his/her behaviour from trial-to-trial to optimise not only the speed and accuracy of performance, but also energy expenditure. Because some errors have greater temporal and energy costs than others, most performers execute movements that are prepared such that potential errors are of minimal expense. The trajectories and subsequent endpoint distributions of rapid aiming movements depend on advance knowledge about the availability of afferent information for online control, as well as the costs associated with undershooting or overshooting the target position with the initial impulse. With practice, a performer is able to reduce the trial-to-trial variability associated with goal-directed movement through more consistent movement planning processes and more rapid online control. Part of the optimisation process is related to the development of an internal model of performance against which early afferent feedback can be evaluated. This framework for examining speed, accuracy and energy expenditure in goal-directed reaching can be used to help understand the breakdown of efficient limb control due to fatigue, ageing and pathology.
Statistical performance of tests for factor effects on the shape of objects with application in manufacturing

This article considers experiments in manufacturing where the response of interest is the geometric shape of a manufactured part and the goal is to determine whether the process settings varied during the experiment affect the resulting shape of the part. An approach in practice to determine factor effects is to estimate the form error of the part—if a standard definition of the form error of interest exists—and conduct an analysis of variance (ANOVA) on the form errors. Instead, we study the performance of several statistical shape analysis techniques to analyze this class of experiments. Simulated shape data were used to perform power comparisons for two- and three-dimensional shapes. The ANOVA on the form errors was found to have a poor performance in detecting mean shape differences in circular and cylindrical shapes. Procrustes-based tests such as an ANOVA test due to Goodall and a recently proposed ANOVA permutation test provide the highest power to detect differences in the mean shape. These tests can also be applied to parts produced in “free form” manufacturing, where no standard definition of form error exists, provided that correspondent points exist on each part.
Provable per-link delay-optimal CSMA for general wireless network topology

In the past few years, an exciting progress has been made on CSMA (Carrier Sense Multiple Access) algorithms that achieve throughput and utility optimality for wireless networks. However, most of these algorithms are known to exhibit poor delay performance making them impractical for implementation. Recently, several papers have addressed the delay issue of CSMA and yet, most of them are limited, in the sense that they focus merely on specific network scenarios with certain conditions rather than general network topology, achieve low delay at the cost of throughput reduction, or lack rigorous provable guarantees. In this paper, we focus on the recent idea of exploiting multiple channels (actually or virtually) for delay reduction in CSMA, and prove that it is per-link delay orderoptimal, i.e., O(1)-asymptotic-delay per link, if the number of virtual channels is logarithmic with respect to mixing time of the underlying CSMA Markov chain. The logarithmic number is typically small, i.e., at most linear with respect to the network size. In other words, our contribution provides not only a provable framework for the multiple-channel based CSMA, but also the required explicit number of virtual-multi-channels, which is of great importance for actual implementation. The key step of our analytic framework lies in using quadratic Lyapunov functions in conjunction with (recursively applying) Lindley equation and Azuma's inequality for obtaining an exponential decaying property in certain queueing dynamics. We believe that our technique is of broad interest in analyzing the delay performances of other general queueing systems.
Feasts and females: Gender ideology and political meals in the Andes

Similarities between two related socio‐historic contexts are used to analyze gender relations in the Early Intermediate Period (EIP) in Peru. Women's traditional roles as preparers and servers of food are described on the basis of archaeological finds from Queyash Alto. Women's participation in ritual political feasts transformed, symbolically defined and publicly affirmed gender relations in ways that were essential to the emergence of political hierarchy in the Andes.
Comparison of current distribution based on tissue in-homogeneity in magnetic stimulation for treatment of urinary incontinence

This study investigated current distribution in the female abdomen using experimental and computer models of magnetic stimulation for treatment of urinary incontinence. Four experimental models and two computer models were used to simulate current distributions. In the performed computations of eddy current distribution, 18 cross-sectional images (interslice gap, 10 mm; slice numbers 750-920) of a female pelvic region from the NPAC/OLDA Visible Human Viewer were used. The influence of tissue inhomogeneity on current distribution were investigated using experimental models. In the region of pelvic floor muscles at depths of 20 mm and 50 mm from the experimental model, analysis of eddy current distribution could not be performed as a homogeneous conductor due to large differences in angles and summation of currents between Models I and IV. Within the region of the bladder and other organs at a depth of 100 mm from the experimental model, the pelvis and other tissues exerted little influence on current distribution.
Concurrent Drought Stress and Vascular Pathogen Infection Induce Common and Distinct Transcriptomic Responses in Chickpea

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum); the second largest legume grown worldwide is prone to drought and various pathogen infections. These drought and pathogen stresses often occur concurrently in the field conditions. However, the molecular events in response to that are largely unknown. The present study examines the transcriptome dynamics in chickpea plants exposed to a combination of water-deficit stress and Ralstonia solanacearum infection. R. solanacearum is a potential wilt disease causing pathogen in chickpea. Drought stressed chickpea plants were infected with this pathogen and the plants were allowed to experience progressive drought with 2 and 4 days of R. solanacearum infection called short duration stress (SD stresses) and long duration stress (LD stresses), respectively. Our study showed that R. solanacearum multiplication decreased under SD-combined stress compared to SD-pathogen but there was no significant change in LD-combined stress compared to LD-pathogen. The microarray analysis during these conditions showed that 821 and 1039 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were unique to SD- and LD-combined stresses, respectively, when compared with individual stress conditions. Three and fifteen genes were common among all the SD-stress treatments and LD-stress treatments, respectively. Genes involved in secondary cell wall biosynthesis, alkaloid biosynthesis, defense related proteins, and osmo-protectants were up-regulated during combined stress. The expression of genes involved in lignin and cellulose biosynthesis were specifically up-regulated in SD-combined, LD-combined, and LD-pathogen stress. A close transcriptomic association of LD-pathogen stress with SD-combined stress was observed in this study which indicates that R. solanacearum infection also exerts drought stress along with pathogen stress thus mimics combined stress effect. Furthermore the expression profiling of candidate genes using real-time quantitative PCR validated the microarray data. The study showed that down-regulation of defense-related genes during LD-combined stress resulted in an increased bacterial multiplication as compared to SD-combined stress. Overall, our study highlights a sub-set of DEGs uniquely expressed in response to combined stress, which serve as potential candidates for further functional characterization to delineate the molecular response of the plant to concurrent drought-pathogen stress.
Thinking About Reference Service Paradigms and Metaphors

Abstract A critical but overlooked aspect of reference service is thinking about paradigms and metaphors. These are subconscious imageries that define how we think about our work-and how our clients think about us. Limitations of the current paradigms affecting reference services are: (1) social-class assumptions about the nature of the library and its clientele; (2) classification systems based on obsolete ideas that subject categories are mutually exclusive; (3) the fortress metaphor implied in physical organization; and (4) failure to capture statistical data that measure contemporary aspects of user service. New ways of thinking about reference service with new paradigms and metaphors are suggested. Critical elements in a new paradigm are: (1) envisioning the library as portal, both for on-line and in-library service; (2) accepting the fact that knowledge is an open system, not conducive to our closed-system classification systems; (3) breaching our metaphorical fortress to provide more personal reference service; and (4) updating our statistical measures to match quantitative measures with actual quality of service.