Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Non-toxic plant metabolites regulate Staphylococcus viability and biofilm formation: a natural therapeutic strategy useful in the treatment and prevention of skin infections

In the present study, the efficacy of generally recognised as safe (GRAS) antimicrobial plant metabolites in regulating the growth of Staphylococcus aureus and S. epidermidis was investigated. Thymol, carvacrol and eugenol showed the strongest antibacterial action against these microorganisms, at a subinhibitory concentration (SIC) of ≤ 50 μg ml−1. Genistein, hydroquinone and resveratrol showed antimicrobial effects but with a wide concentration range (SIC = 50–1,000 μg ml−1), while catechin, gallic acid, protocatechuic acid, p-hydroxybenzoic acid and cranberry extract were the most biologically compatible molecules (SIC ≥ 1000 μg ml−1). Genistein, protocatechuic acid, cranberry extract, p-hydroxybenzoic acid and resveratrol also showed anti-biofilm activity against S. aureus, but not against S. epidermidis in which, surprisingly, these metabolites stimulated biofilm formation (between 35% and 1,200%). Binary combinations of cranberry extract and resveratrol with genistein, protocatechuic or p-hydroxibenzoic acid enhanced the stimulatory effect on S. epidermidis biofilm formation and maintained or even increased S. aureus anti-biofilm activity.
Surgical Approach for Long-term Survival of Patients With Intrahepatic Cholangiocarcinoma: A Multi-institutional Analysis of 434 Patients.

OBJECTIVES To examine the outcomes of a hepatectomy for intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (IHC) and to clarify the prognostic impact of a lymphadenectomy and the surgical margin. Large series of patients who were surgically treated for IHC are scarce. Thus, prognostic factors and long-term survival after resection of IHC remain uncertain. DESIGN Prospective study of patients who were surgically treated for IHC. Clinicopathologic, operative, and long-term survival data were analyzed. SETTING Prospectively collected data of all consecutive patients with pathologically confirmed IHC who had undergone liver resection with a curative intent at 1 of 16 tertiary referral centers were entered into a multi-institutional registry. PATIENTS All consecutive patients who underwent a hepatectomy with a curative intent for IHC (1990-2008) were identified from a multi-institutional registry. RESULTS A total of 434 patients were included in the analysis. Most patients underwent a major or extended hepatectomy (70.0%) and a systematic lymphadenectomy (62.2%). The incidence of lymph node metastases (overall, 36.9%) increased with increased tumor size, with 24.4% of patients with a small IHC (diameter ≤3 cm) having N1 disease. Almost one-third of patients required an additional major procedure to obtain a R0 resection in 84.6% of the cases. In these patients, the median time of survival was 39 months, and the 5-year survival rate was 39.8%. Lymph node metastases (hazard ratio, 2.21; P < .001), multiple tumors (hazard ratio, 1.50; P = .009), and an elevated preoperative cancer antigen 19.9 level (hazard ratio, 1.62; P = .006) independently predicted an adverse prognosis. Conversely, survival was not influenced by the width of a negative resection margin (P = .61). The potential survival benefit of a lymphadenectomy was assessed with the therapeutic value index, which was calculated to be 5.9 points. CONCLUSIONS Survival rates after a hepatectomy with a curative intent for IHC at tertiary referral centers exceed the survival rates reported in most study series in single institutions, which strengthens the value of an aggressive approach to radical resection. Lymph node metastases and multiple tumors are associated with decreased survival rates, but they should not be considered selection criteria that prevent other patients from undergoing a potentially curative resection. Lymphadenectomy should be considered for all patients.
The Performance of Equity Analysts During the Global Financial Crisis

This paper investigates the response of equity analysts following Australian and US listed stocks to the onset of the 2007 Global Financial Crisis. Both groups of analysts reacted quickly by adjusting their forecasts downwards, and initially tending towards being overly pessimistic. Relative to pre-crisis data, the authors identify sharp declines in earnings forecasts, an increase (decrease) in downward (upward) revisions, and a downward (upward) trend in sell (buy) recommendations. Forecast errors are larger, and dispersion of earnings forecasts is higher. Finally, the most accurate analysts in the pre-crisis period continue to be significantly more accurate during the crisis period than their peers.
Tips and Tricks for Taking Kids Outside.

Have clear expectations. Before you walk out the door and into the wilderness -or even into the schoolyard with your very excited and enthusiastic class, discuss behavioral expectations. This conversation can make or break your time together outside. Allowing students to help determine expectations (including the agreement to have expectations in the first place) sets up an atmosphere of mutual respect and ensures greater understanding of the rules and a greater willingness to follow them.
Modeling Dependence Using Skew T Copulas: Bayesian Inference and Applications

We construct a copula from the skew t distribution of Sahu, Dey & Branco (2003). This copula can capture asymmetric and extreme dependence between variables, and is one of the few copulas that can do so and still be used in high dimensions effectively. However, it is difficult to estimate the copula model by maximum likelihood when the multivariate dimension is high, or when some or all of the marginal distributions are discrete-valued, or when the parameters in the marginal distributions and copula are estimated jointly. We therefore propose a Bayesian approach that overcomes all these problems. The computations are undertaken using a Markov chain Monte Carlo simulation method which exploits the conditionally Gaussian representation of the skew t distribution. We employ the approach in two contemporary econometric studies. The first is the modeling of regional spot prices in the Australian electricity market. Here, we observe complex non-Gaussian margins and nonlinear inter-regional dependence. Accurate characterization of this dependence is important for the study of market integration and risk management purposes. The second is the modeling of ordinal exposure measures for 15 major websites. Dependence between websites is important when measuring the impact of multi-site advertising campaigns. In both cases the skew t copula substantially out-performs symmetric elliptical copula alternatives, demonstrating that the skew t copula is a powerful modeling tool when coupled with Bayesian inference.
[Giardia-host relationship: variation of infection pattern].

In man, as well as in many species of vertebrates there exist several populations of Giardia duodenalis group which, though morphologically indistinguishable, show different level of heterogenicity in several characteristics, a.o. in surface antigens, isoenzyme make-up, RFLP, invasiveness for different hosts or pattern of experimental infection. Also the clinical observations in man distinctly suggested that G. intestinalis comprises several different populations. In the course of giardiasis apparent variability in clinical manifestations can be observed. In many patients the infection is symptomless and resolves spontaneously and in some others--variable intensity of symptoms is observed. Most likely both the parasite's characteristics and the host's feature will determine the clinical character of infection. It is well known that in some cases it is the host that responsible for the symptoms of the infection. Thus, for instance, clinical giardiasis links with immunodeficiency, malnutrition or young age. There are also evidences that some Giardia isolates have enhanced potency to provoke the disease of the host. It is considered that the variable pattern of the infection may be related to three different factors in host-parasite relationship: extra- and intrapopulation variability of Giardia isolates, the microenvironmental factors of the host's intestine, and the variable immune response of the host. The author describes data on the two first factors.
First-principles study of LiPON and related solid electrolytes

Lithium phosphorus oxynitride materials have been investigated for many years, especially in relation to the thin-film electrolyte LiPON, developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. We have carried out first-principles simulations of related crystalline materials as a first step toward understanding the sources of stability and mechanisms of Li-ion conductivity in these materials. In addition to a comprehensive survey of known crystalline materials related to LiPON, we have also predicted some materials. For example, starting with crystalline LiPO3 which has twisted phosphate chains, we considered the possibility of modifying the structure by substituting N and Li for O. The optimized structures were computed to have regularized phosphate chains which form planar -P-N-P-Nbackbones. To the best of our knowledge, the predicted crystals, which we call s1-Li2PO2N with a 24-atom unit cell and s2-Li2PO2N with a 12-atom unit cell, have not yet been observed experimentally. We suggest several possible exothermic reaction pathways to synthesize these crystals.
Enhancing Chinese SME performance through innovative HR practices

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to show how understanding of human resource (HR) management practices which have been adopted in the emerging markets such as that in China is particularly interesting to academia and management practitioners. The purpose of this study is to shed some light on the implementation of innovative HR practices among 74 Chinese small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) and to explain how the HR practices influence their firm performance.Design/methodology/approach – Cluster analysis is used to group Chinese SMEs according to their adoption of innovative human resource (HR) practices and examine how the practices are associated with HR outcomes and firm performance.Findings – It is found that the membership of clusters is influenced by several factors, including ownership, age and size of firms. These characteristics have influenced the motivation, capacity and ability of firms in the sample to adopt high performance human resource practices. The extent to which firms have .
Immunological responses of male White Leghorn chicks kept on ochratoxin A (OTA)-contaminated feed

This study was designed to evaluate some immunological responses of male White Leghorn (WL) chicks kept on an ochratoxin A (OTA)-contaminated diet. For this purpose, 350 1-day-old male WL chicks were divided into five groups (A–E). Group A was kept as control, while Groups B, C, D, and E were fed OTA-contaminated feed at 0.1, 0.5, 1.0, and 1.5 mg/Kg diet, respectively, for 21 days, and then basal ration for the remaining period. At 14- and 16-days of age, random chicks (n = 10) from each group were used for analyses of phagocytic function of the reticuloendothelial system or for measuring the lymphoproliferative responses to intradermally-administered T-cell mitogen, phytohemagglutinin-P (PHA-P), respectively. At 30-days of age, abdominal macrophages were collected from 15 chicks/group and utilized for determination of their phagocytic potential and for nitrite production. Antibody (Ab) titers (i.e., total antibodies, IgM, and IgG) against sheep red blood cells (SRBC) were determined at 7 and 14 days after a primary (at 7 days of age) and a booster (given 14 days after primary [at 21-days of age]) dose (intravenous) of the antigen. Data from the present study showed that the relative weight of the bursa of Fabricius of chicks fed OTA for 14 and 21 days and the spleen of chicks fed OTA for 21 days were significantly lower than their control counterpart. Phagocytic function of reticuloendothelial system evaluated by carbon clearance, and lymphoproliferative response to PHA-P, of chicks kept on OTA-contaminated diet were significantly lowered. The percentage of abdominal macrophages displaying phagocytosis of SRBC, the number of SRBC/macrophage, and nitrite production were each significantly lower in cells from chicks in the OTA-fed groups. Total Ab (at days 7 and 14 post-booster SRBC injection) and IgG (at day 14 post-primary and day 7 post-booster SRBC injection) titers against SRBC showed significant reductions in the groups fed OTA-contaminated diet. The findings of this study are in line with the previous work suggesting the immunosuppressive effect of OTA in male WL chicks regarding functional impairment in some of the components of the immune system.
Persistent Media Bias

The news media plays an essential role in society, but surveys indicate that the media is widely viewed as biased. This paper presents a theory of media bias that originates with private information obtained by journalists through their investigations and persists despite profit-maximizing news organizations and rivalry from other news organizations. Bias has two effects on the demand for news. First, rational citizens are more skeptical of potentially biased news and thus rely less on it in their individual decision-making. Second, bias makes certain stories more likely than others. This paper presents a supply-side theory in which bias originates with journalists who have a preference for influence and are willing to sacrifice wages to exercise it. News organizations can control the bias by restricting the discretion allowed to journalists, but granting discretion and tolerating bias can increase profits. Citizens have a demand for news they can use in their everyday lives, but their skepticism reduces demand and leads the news organization to set a lower price for its publication the greater is the bias it tolerates. Lower quality news thus commands a lower price. Bias is not driven from the market by competition from a rival news organization nor a news organization with an opposing bias. Moreover, bias can be greater with competition than with a monopoly news organization. If citizens collectively choose regulation in place of their individual decision-making, bias increases the stringency of regulation.
Surface-Induced X-Ray Reflection Visualization of Membrane Orientation and Fusion into Multibilayers

The fusion of lipid membranes at the air-water interface has been detected with the use of x-ray reflection as a high-resolution, surface-sensitive technique. The rate of this fusion for dimyristoylphosphatidylcholine (DMPC) bilayers is the highest at 29�C, which coincides with the chain-melting phase-transition temperature for the top membrane layers. After 6 hours of incubation a stack of at least ten surface-ordered membrane bilayers in equilibrium with the bulk vesicle suspension is formed. Such fusion is thus surface-catalyzed but not restricted to the first surface layer. The process involves partial membrane dehydration near the solution surface which decreases toward the bulk.
A Generalization of Tutte's Characterization of Totally Unimodular Matrices

We characterize the symmetric (0, 1)-matrices that can be signed symmetrically so that every principal submatrix has determinant 0, ±1. This characterization generalizes Tutte's famous characterization of totally unimodular matrices. The result can be viewed as an excluded minor theorem for an interesting class of delta-matroids.
Incentives to Form Coalitions with Bertrand Competition

In this article we investigate the incentive to merge when firms that produce differentiated products engage in price competition. We demonstrate that mergers of any size are beneficial and are so increasingly: large mergers yield higher profits than smaller ones. This is in contrast to the result that mergers tend to be disadvantageous in quantity-setting games. This qualitative difference follows from the fact that reaction functions are typically upward sloping in price games but downward sloping in quantity games. Thus, the reaction of outsiders reinforces the initial price increase that results from the merger.
Characterization of active pixel sensors in 0.25 /spl mu/m CMOS technology

We are developing CMOS monolithic active pixel sensors for high energy physics applications. We have successfully produced three test structures. They feature several different pixel types including a Flexible APS (FAPS). The FAPS has a 10 deep pipeline in each pixel. This is specifically designed with the beam structure of the TESLA proposal for the Linear Collider in mind. Here results demonstrating that the standard active pixel devices are still operating well after a fluence of 10/sup 14/ p/cm/sup 2/ will be reported. Furthermore, the response of the FAPS to minimum ionizing particles (MIPs) from a /sup 106/Ru /spl beta/-source are presented. The obtained S/N ratio for the 10 cells of the FAPS varies between 15 and 17.
Extended clique models: A new matching strategy for fingerprint recognition

Establishing correspondences between minutiae sets is a fundamental issue in fingerprint recognition. This paper proposes a graph matching strategy. It addresses this problem using two extended clique models: the local clique model (LCM) and the global quasi-clique model (GQCM). First, minutia matching is formulated as maximal clique or quasi-clique detection. Similarities and compatibilities between minutia pairs are integrated and encoded into the correspondence graph. Correct matched minutia pairs then correspond to those strongly connected subgraphs, like the maximal clique or the maximal quasi-clique. Second, a two-level matching algorithm is proposed. In the local level, a novel similarity calculation of minutia topologic structures is proposed. It calculates similarities of minutia structures based on LCM and can be solved by maximal clique detection. In the global level, a novel similarity calculation of entire minutia sets is proposed. It calculates entire fingerprint similarity based on GQCM and can be solved by spectral correspondence techniques. Proposed method has stronger description ability and better robustness to noise and nonlinearity. Experiments conducted on FVC 2002 and 2004 databases demonstrate the effectiveness and the efficiency.
Design and Implementation: the Native Web Browser and Server for Content-Centric Networking

Content-Centric Networking (CCN) has recently emerged as a clean-slate Future Internet architecture which has a completely different communication pattern compared with exiting IP network. Since the World Wide Web has become one of the most popular and important applications on the Internet, how to effectively support the dominant browser and server based web applications is a key to the success of CCN. However, the existing web browsers and servers are mainly designed for the HTTP protocol over TCP/IP networks and cannot directly support CCN-based web applications. Existing research mainly focuses on plug-in or proxy/gateway approaches at client and server sides, and these schemes seriously impact the service performance due to multiple protocol conversions. To address above problems, we designed and implemented a CCN web browser and a CCN web server to natively support CCN protocol. To facilitate the smooth evolution from IP networks to CCN, CCNBrowser and CCNxTomcat also support the HTTP protocol besides the CCN. Experimental results show that CCNBrowser and CCNxTomcat outperform existing implementations. Finally, a real CCN-based web application is deployed on a CCN experimental testbed, which validates the applicability of CCNBrowser and CCNxTomcat.
Identifying Realized Jumps on Financial Markets

This paper extends the jump detection method based on bi-power variation and swap variance measures to identify realized jumps on financial markets and to estimate parametrically the jump intensity, mean, and variance. Such an approach does not require specifying and estimating the underlying drift and diusion functions. Finite sample evidence suggests that the jump parameters can be accurately estimated and that the statistical inferences can be reliable relative to the maximum likelihood estimation, under the appropriate choice of jump detection test level and assuming that jumps are rare and large. The bi-power variation approach performs slightly better than the swap variance approach when the jump contribution to total variance is small. Applications to equity market, treasury bond, individual stock, and exchange rate reveal important dierences in jump frequencies and volatilities across asset classes over time. For high investment grade credit spread indices, the estimated jump volatility has a better forecasting power than interest rate factors, volatility factors including option-implied volatility, and Fama-French risk factors.
The Role of Effective Service Provider Communication Style in the Formation of Restaurant Patrons' Perceived Relational Benefits and Loyalty

ABSTRACT The purposes of this study were to examine the optimal service provider communication style for maximizing patrons' perceived relational benefits, and to examine how perceived relational benefits influence relationship quality and loyalty within the luxury restaurant industry. A review of current communication literature was conducted, and three types of communication styles were derived. Based on the theoretical causal relationships between the proposed constructs in this study, 16 hypotheses were derived, thus creating a conceptual model. The proposed model was tested utilizing data collected from 527 luxury restaurant patrons. The results of data analysis revealed two major findings: (a) a task-orientation communication style enhances patrons' perceived confidence benefits and deepens relationship quality, thus creating patron loyalty; and (b) an interaction-orientation communication style induces rapport between service provider and patrons, thus helping to maximize patrons' perceived relational benefits. Finally, it leads to patron loyalty. Based on these findings, theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.
A Practitioner's Guide to Pricing and Hedging Callable Libor Exotics in Forward Libor Models

Callable Libor exotics is a class of single-currency interest-rate contracts that are Bermuda-style exercisable into underlying contracts consisting of fixed-rate, floating-rate and option legs. Bermuda swaptions, callable inverse floaters and callable range accruals are all examples of callable Libor exotics. It is commonly agreed that these instruments are best modeled using forward Libor models. There are many problems, both technical and conceptual, that arise when applying forward Libor models to callable Libor exotics. These problems span calibration, valuation and computation of risk sensitivities. This paper, to the best of our knowledge, is the first comprehensive overview of calibration, pricing and Greeks calculation techniques for callable Libor exotics in forward Libor models. Many technical results and practical methods presented in the paper are original. Others are adaptations, generalizations and extensions of known approaches. Among the technical contributions of this paper are the recommendations for basis functions for the Longstaff-Schwartz valuation algorithm, the extension of the pathwise differentiation method to callable Libor exotics and elegant Greeks formulas that result, novel smoothing techniques for Monte-Carlo, application of Markovian approximations and PDE methods to the problem of variance reduction, and practical algorithms for obtaining vegas in forward Libor models. In addition, strategies for calibrating forward Libor models for callable Libor exotics are discussed at length.