Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparison of Irradiation and Wolbachia Based Approaches for Sterile-Male Strategies Targeting Aedes albopictus

The global expansion of Aedes albopictus together with the absence of vaccines for most of the arboviruses transmitted by this mosquito has stimulated the development of sterile-male strategies aiming at controlling disease transmission through the suppression of natural vector populations. In this context, two environmentally friendly control strategies, namely the Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) and the Wolbachia-based Incompatible Insect Technique (IIT) are currently being developed in several laboratories worldwide. So far however, there is a lack of comparative assessment of these strategies under the same controlled conditions. Here, we compared the mating capacities, i.e. insemination capacity, sterilization capacity and mating competitiveness of irradiated (35 Gy) and incompatible Ae. albopictus males at different ages and ratios under laboratory controlled conditions. Our data show that there was no significant difference in insemination capacity of irradiated and incompatible males, both male types showing lower capacities than untreated males at 1 day but recovering full capacity within 5 days following emergence. Regarding mating competitiveness trials, a global observed trend is that incompatible males tend to induce a lower hatching rate than irradiated males in cage controlled confrontations. More specifically, incompatible males were found more competitive than irradiated males in 5:1 ratio regardless of age, while irradiated males were only found more competitive than incompatible males in the 1:1 ratio at 10 days old. Overall, under the tested conditions, IIT seemed to be slightly more effective than SIT. However, considering that a single strategy will likely not be adapted to all environments, our data stimulates the need for comparative assessments of distinct strategies in up-scaled conditions in order to identify the most suitable and safe sterilizing technology to be implemented in a specific environmental setting and to identify the parameters requiring fine tuning in order to reach optimal release conditions.
On the maximal superalgebras of supersymmetric backgrounds

In this paper we give a precise definition of the notion of a maximal superalgebra of certain types of supersymmetric supergravity backgrounds, including the Freund–Rubin backgrounds, and propose a geometric construction extending the well-known construction of its Killing superalgebra. We determine the structure of maximal Lie superalgebras and show that there is a finite number of isomorphism classes, all related via contractions from an orthosymplectic Lie superalgebra. We use the structure theory to show that maximally supersymmetric waves do not possess such a maximal superalgebra, but that the maximally supersymmetric Freund–Rubin backgrounds do. We perform the explicit geometric construction of the maximal superalgebra of and find that it is isomorphic to . We propose an algebraic construction of the maximal superalgebra of any background asymptotic to and we test this proposal by computing the maximal superalgebra of the M2-brane in its two maximally supersymmetric limits, finding agreement.
Improving the accuracy of predicting disulfide connectivity by feature selection

Disulfide bonds are primary covalent cross‐links formed between two cysteine residues in the same or different protein polypeptide chains, which play important roles in the folding and stability of proteins. However, computational prediction of disulfide connectivity directly from protein primary sequences is challenging due to the nonlocal nature of disulfide bonds in the context of sequences, and the number of possible disulfide patterns grows exponentially when the number of cysteine residues increases. In the previous studies, disulfide connectivity prediction was usually performed in high‐dimensional feature space, which can cause a variety of problems in statistical learning, such as the dimension disaster, overfitting, and feature redundancy. In this study, we propose an efficient feature selection technique for analyzing the importance of each feature component. On the basis of this approach, we selected the most important features for predicting the connectivity pattern of intra‐chain disulfide bonds. Our results have shown that the high‐dimensional features contain redundant information, and the prediction performance can be further improved when these high‐dimensional features are reduced to a lower but more compact dimensional space. Our results also indicate that the global protein features contribute little to the formation and prediction of disulfide bonds, while the local sequential and structural information play important roles. All these findings provide important insights for structural studies of disulfide‐rich proteins. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comput Chem, 2010
What Difference Does It Make? Vocational Education For Low-Achieving School-Leavers

This paper creates a pseudo cohort of individuals who left school in the mid-1990s, using Labour Force Survey. The extent of l ow achievement at school amongst this group is documented, and then the impact of such low achievement on labour force status is estimated. The main focus of the paper is then to investigate to what extent unqualified school leavers can improve their labour market status through the acquisition of vocational qualifications, and how many follow this option. The results show that vocational qualifications at all levels can improve the employment chances of unqualified school leavers, even once we use panel data to control for unobserved individual heterogeneity and to ensure that the qualification is acquired before employment is attained. There are also small effects on occupational mobility, but little impact on wages. However, few unqualified school leavers seem to be following this vocational route to qualification achievement. JEL classification: J24 I28.
An Energy-Efficient Transmission Scheme for Real-Time Data in Wireless Sensor Networks

The Internet of things (IoT) is a novel paradigm where all things or objects in daily life can communicate with other devices and provide services over the Internet. Things or objects need identifying, sensing, networking and processing capabilities to make the IoT paradigm a reality. The IEEE 802.15. 4 standard is one of the main communication protocols proposed for the IoT. The IEEE 802.15. 4 standard provides the guaranteed time slot (GTS) mechanism that supports the quality of service (QoS) for the real-time data transmission. In spite of some QoS features in IEEE 802.15. 4 standard, the problem of end-to-end delay still remains. In order to solve this problem, we propose a cooperative medium access scheme (MAC) protocol for real-time data transmission. We also evaluate the performance of the proposed scheme through simulation. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed scheme can improve the network performance.
But They All Come Back: Facing the Challenges of Prisoner Reentry

As our justice system has embarked upon one of our time's greatest social experiments? responding to crime by expanding prisons? we have forgotten the iron law of imprisonment: they all come back. In 2002, more than 630,000 individuals left federal and state prisons. Thirty years ago, only 150,000 did. In the intense political debate over America's punishment policies, the impact of these returning prisoners on families and communities has been largely overlooked. In But They All Come Back, Jeremy Travis continues his pioneering work on the new realities of punishment in America vis-a-vis public safety, families and children, work, housing, public health, civic identity, and community capacity. Travis proposes organizing the criminal justice system around five principles of reentry to encourage change and spur innovation.
A Research Study for Developing a Strategic Plan for Recruiting Academically Superior Students.

ABSTRACT The study reported in this document was conducted to facilitate strategic recruiting and marketing plans aimed at enhancing enrollments of academically superior students at the University of Wisconsin-Washington County (UWWC). Data on college choice criteria, perceptions, evaluations, information sources, "influentials," and choice outcomes pertinent to the college selection process were gathered in separate surveys of the following target groups: high school honor students and their parents, high school teachers and counselors, and current and former UWWC students who were academically superior. Study findings included the following: (1) 800 of the honor students made their college choices during their senior year; (2) honors students had high academic aspirations, with 61% expecting to attend graduate school; (3) approximately 17% of the honors students gave UWWC as their first choice for college; (4) with minor exceptions there was a high degree of agreement among honor students, their parents, and high school teachers and counselors regarding college selection criteria, the importance of parents in the choice of a college, and their perceptions of UWWC; (5) approximately 72% of the academically superior UWWC students had transferred or intended to transfer to a four-year college; (6) business was the most popular major among current and former UWWC students; (7) the four top college selection criteria among current and former UWWC students were loq tuition and living costs, closeness to home, academic quality, and access to needed courses without delay. Appendixes provide the questionnaires and statistical tabulations. (JMC)
On the scaling limit of planar self-avoiding walk

A planar self-avoiding walk (SAW) is a nearest neighbor random walk path in the square lattice with no self-intersection. A planar self-avoiding polygon (SAP) is a loop with no self-intersection. In this paper we present conjectures for the scaling limit of the uniform measures on these objects. The conjectures are based on recent results on the stochastic Loewner evolution and non-disconnecting Brownian motions. New heuristic derivations are given for the critical exponents for SAWs and SAPs.
The Neuroscience of Intergroup Relations

We review emerging research on the psychological and biological factors that underlie social group formation, cooperation, and conflict in humans. Our aim is to integrate the intergroup neuroscience literature with classic theories of group processes and intergroup relations in an effort to move beyond merely describing the effects of specific social out-groups on the brain and behavior. Instead, we emphasize the underlying psychological processes that govern intergroup interactions more generally: forming and updating our representations of “us” and “them” via social identification and functional relations between groups. This approach highlights the dynamic nature of social identity and the context-dependent nature of intergroup relations. We argue that this theoretical integration can help reconcile seemingly discrepant findings in the literature, provide organizational principles for understanding the core elements of intergroup dynamics, and highlight several exciting directions for future research at the interface of intergroup relations and neuroscience.
Local Contrast and Mean based Thresholding Technique in Image Binarization

is a process of separation of pixel values of an input image into two pixel values like white as background and black as foreground. It is an important part in image processing and it is the first step in many document analysis and OCR processes. Most of the binarization techniques associate a certain intensity value called threshold which separate the pixel values of the concerned input grayscale image into two classes like background and foreground. Each and every pixel should be compared with the threshold and transformed to its respective class according to the threshold value. Thus threshold takes a major role in binarization. Hence determination of proper threshold value in binarization is a major factor of being a good binarised image and it can be approached in two categories like global thresholding and local thresholding techniques. In uniform contrast distribution of background and foreground documents, global thesholding is more suitable than that of local thresholding one. In degraded documents, where considerable background noise or variation in contrast and illumination exists, local technique is more suitable than that of global one. In this paper a local thresholding technique using local contrast and mean is described. Local adaptation is carried out with the local contrast and mean.
WHLK: Framework for Software Authentication and Protection

In the last decade, numbers of algorithms were developed to control the piracy. In most of the existing algorithms and software registration schemes, the identity of users and software is not taken into account. After identifying the fundamental weakness of existing piracy control measures, this paper proposes the implementation and testing of WHLK Model [1] in which we introduced an integration of Software Watermarking, Hardware Parameters and License Key that can greatly reduce unauthorized use of software. Unlike traditional static piracy prevention techniques, this new technique would embed the user identity in the software using dynamic watermarking algorithm. The hardware characteristics, which are extracted, and License Key of the software are integrated and then randomizing to generate a unique key dynamically during the software installation on the client machine. In this paper a novel approach is presented which secures the software from being pirated and makes it possible for genuine client to use the same. The proposed model is implemented and tested on 198 machines and the model works with an accuracy of 99.22%.
Regulation of Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone Secretion by Kisspeptin/Dynorphin/Neurokinin B Neurons in the Arcuate Nucleus of the Mouse

Kisspeptin is encoded by the Kiss1 gene, and kisspeptin signaling plays a critical role in reproduction. In rodents, kisspeptin neurons in the arcuate nucleus (Arc) provide tonic drive to gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) neurons, which in turn supports basal luteinizing hormone (LH) secretion. Our objectives were to determine whether preprodynorphin (Dyn) and neurokinin B (NKB) are coexpressed in Kiss1 neurons in the mouse and to evaluate its physiological significance. Using in situ hybridization, we found that Kiss1 neurons in the Arc of female mice not only express the Dyn and NKB genes but also the NKB receptor gene (NK3) and the Dyn receptor [the κ opioid receptor (KOR)] gene. We also found that expression of the Dyn, NKB, KOR, and NK3 in the Arc are inhibited by estradiol, as has been established for Kiss1, and confirmed that Dyn and NKB inhibit LH secretion. Moreover, using Dyn and KOR knock-out mice, we found that long-term disruption of Dyn/KOR signaling compromises the rise of LH after ovariectomy. We propose a model whereby NKB and dynorphin act autosynaptically on kisspeptin neurons in the Arc to synchronize and shape the pulsatile secretion of kisspeptin and drive the release of GnRH from fibers in the median eminence.
Towards an Integrative Model of Knowledge Transfer: A Comparative Study of Australian and UK Universities

This paper aims to contribute towards the advancement of an efficient architecture of a single market for knowledge through the development of an integrative model of knowledge transfer. Within this aim, several points of departure can be singled out. One, the article builds on the call of the European Commission to improve the European market for KT between research institutions and industry. Two, various barriers exist that hinder efficient KT in Europe, especially in transition economies that recently joined the EU where the issues of restructuring higher education, building trust between business and academia, and implementing the respective legislature are enduring. The research objectives were to explore (i) the process of knowledge transfer in universities, including the nature of tensions, obstacles and incentives, (ii) the relationships between key stakeholders in the KT market and (iii) the meaning/reality that is construed as a result of these relationships. To address the above research objectives, grounded theory research was undertaken in four universities in the UK and one in Australia. Coding of the data revealed thirteen constructs, which became the building blocks of the emergent integrative model of knowledge transfer. In an attempt to bring it to a higher level of generalizability, the integrative model of KT is further conceptualized from a ‘sociology of markets’ perspective resulting in an emergent architecture of a single market for knowledge. Future research is called for to test and validate the emergent theories.
Genetic polymorphisms in CYP1A1, CYP1B1 and COMT genes in Greenlandic Inuit and Europeans

Background The Indigenous Arctic population is of Asian descent, and their genetic background is different from the Caucasian populations. Relatively little is known about the specific genetic polymorphisms in genes involved in the activation and detoxification mechanisms of environmental contaminants in Inuit and its relation to health risk. The Greenlandic Inuit are highly exposed to legacy persistent organic pollutants (POPs) such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and organochlorine pesticides (OCPs), and an elucidation of gene–environment interactions in relation to health risks is needed. Objectives The aim of this study was to determine and compare the genotype and allele frequencies of the cytochrome P450 CYP1A1 Ile462Val (rs1048943), CYP1B1 Leu432Val (rs1056836) and catechol-O-methyltransferase COMT Val158Met (rs4680) in Greenlandic Inuit (n=254) and Europeans (n=262) and explore the possible relation between the genotypes and serum levels of POPs. Results The genotype and allele frequency distributions of the three genetic polymorphisms differed significantly between the Inuit and Europeans. For Inuit, the genotype distribution was more similar to those reported for Asian populations. We observed a significant difference in serum polychlorinated biphenyl (CB-153) and the pesticide 1,1-dichloro-2,2-bis(p-chlorophenyl)-ethylene (p,p′-DDE) levels between Inuit and Europeans, and for Inuit also associations between the POP levels and genotypes for CYP1A1, CYP1B1 and COMT. Conclusion Our data provide new information on gene polymorphisms in Greenlandic Inuit that might support evaluation of susceptibility to environmental contaminants and warrant further studies.
What Makes a High-Performance Workplace? Evidence from Retail Bank Branches

This paper examines the effects of two high-involvement approaches to organizing work in retail bank branches: worker discretion and cross-functional flexibility. Both discretion and flexibility have positive effects on productivity and sales effectiveness. The effects of discretion and flexibility on performance in conjunction with one another are significant and negative. The worst performing branches have low-involvement work practices. Branches that have high flexibility or discretion perform better than branches with high levels of both.
Seasonal Variation of Malaria Parasite Density in Paediatric Population of North Eastern Nigeria

Malaria is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in children and adults in the Sudano Sahel of Northeastern Nigeria with the highest prevalence of malaria in pregnancy of 64.5 in Nigeria recorded in this region. This study was carried out in 2003 and 2004 to provide parasitological baseline data for the development of Malaria Early Warning System (MEWS) for the surveillance of type I epidemic caused by meteorological conditions and to provide data for timing malaria key vector control measures such as Indoor Residual Spraying (IRS) for maximum effect. Clinical information about malaria cases were used in this study. In all 692 children aged 6 to 96 months were screened for Plasmodium infection and used for the analysis. The results showed that the majority of infected children (68.06%) were aged 12-60 months and their asexual parasite density (ap/ u1) was between 100-500 ap/u1 of the whole blood. The month of September recorded the highest Geometric Mean Asexual-Densities (GMPD) of 13,655 while the lowest parasite densities were observed at the peak of the dry season, especially during the months of March and April. Significance difference (p<0.05) was observed between the sexes in infection rate. It is obvious that male children have higher infection rate (about 67.5%), than while female children (32.5%) regardless of climate seasonality. Designing a malaria early warning system and providing baseline parasitological data for timing of spraying cycles for key malaria vector control measures such as Indoor Residual Spraying (IRS) should be encouraged to complement other effective malaria control strategies. Hence the need for this investigation.
A new recombinant bacille Calmette-Guérin vaccine safely induces significantly enhanced tuberculosis-specific immunity in human volunteers.

BACKGROUND One strategy for improving anti-tuberculosis (TB) vaccination involves the use of recombinant bacille Calmette-Guérin (rBCG) overexpressing protective TB antigens. rBCG30, which overexpresses the Mycobacterium tuberculosis secreted antigen Ag85b, was the first rBCG shown to induce significantly greater protection against TB in animals than parental BCG. METHODS We report here the first double-blind phase 1 trial of rBCG30 in 35 adults randomized to receive either rBCG30 or parental Tice BCG intradermally. Clinical reactogenicity was assessed, and state-of-the-art immunological assays were used to study Ag85b-specific immune responses induced by both vaccines. RESULTS Similar clinical reactogenicity occurred with both vaccines. rBCG30 induced significantly increased Ag85b-specific T cell lymphoproliferation, interferon (IFN)-gamma secretion, IFN-gamma enzyme-linked immunospot responses, and direct ex vivo intracellular IFN-gamma responses. Additional flow cytometry studies measuring carboxyfluorescein succinimidyl ester dilution and intracellular cytokine production demonstrated that rBCG30 significantly enhanced the population of Ag85b-specific CD4(+) and CD8(+) T cells capable of concurrent expansion and effector function. More importantly, rBCG30 significantly increased the number of Ag85b-specific T cells capable of inhibiting intracellular mycobacteria. CONCLUSIONS These results provide proof of principal that rBCG can safely enhance human TB immunity and support further development of rBCG overexpressing Ag85b for TB vaccination.