Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Aplicação do software Zotero para apoiar a prática de Inteligência Competitiva The application of Zotero software as a tool to support the practice of Competitive Intelligence

Existem softwares que podem ser aplicados as varias fases do ciclo de Inteligencia Competitiva – IC, como por exemplo, os que fazem a garimpagem de informacoes. Porem esses softwares sao deficientes quando se trata de atividades realizadas entre as fases da coleta e analise que necessitam da leitura humana de documentos. Em geral, um software nao consegue analisar dados puramente qualitativos nas fases do ciclo de IC. Por essa razao e de suma importância estudar softwares que tenham cunho colaborativo para saber ate onde podem ser efetivos na pratica de IC. Este artigo relata a aplicacao do software Zotero por coletores e analistas de IC. Para averiguar seu apoio foi realizado um experimento simulando-o em um projeto de inteligencia competitiva dividido em duas partes: sem o uso do software e com o uso do software. A simulacao teve a participacao de duas equipes locadas em diferentes pontos tendo a comunicacao somente via web. O resultado indicou que com o uso do software foi possivel comprovar que efetivamente o Zotero auxilia coletores e analistas em suas atividades.
Breakdown and partial discharges in magnetic liquids

The dielectric properties (permittivity, loss factor, dielectric breakdown strength) of magnetic liquids were investigated. The magnetic liquids were composed of magnetite particles coated with oleic acid as surfactant and dispersed in transformer oil. To determine their dielectric properties they were subjected to a uniform magnetic field at high alternating electric fields up to 14 MV m−1. Nearly constant permittivity of magnetic liquid with particle volume concentration Φ = 0.0019 as a function of electric field was observed. Magnetic liquids with concentrations Φ = 0.019 and 0.032 showed significant changes of permittivity and loss factor dependent on electric and magnetic fields. The best concentration of magnetic fluid was found at which partial current impulse magnitudes were the lowest. The breakdown strength distribution of the magnetic liquid with Φ = 0.0025 was fitted with the Duxbury–Leath, Weibull and Gauss distribution functions.
Does Pain Result in Gain? Assessing Cloud Service Certifications' Effectiveness

Cloud service certifications (CSCs) gain increasing attention in practice as a measure against the prevailing uncertainties of cloud computing, but demand efforts for passing audit requirements. However, research findings on certifications’ effectiveness are inconclusive. This research-in-progress paper develops a research model to evaluate CSCs’ effects on two certification outcomes suggested by trust theory and signaling theory - trust and price premiums - while also accounting for trust in certification authority, reputation, personal relevance of using cloud services and self-provided assurance statements. Compared to extant research on certifications, which primarily focuses on privacy and security in e-commerce, CSCs address a novel product category and provide assurances beyond privacy and security, such as availability and interoperability. Furthermore, by investigating price premiums, we focus on a widely neglected certification outcome. Thus, we expect our model to contribute to a deeper understanding of the contextual conditions under which certifications are effective signals and trust-assurances.
PUBLIC SERVICE MOTIVATION, USER ORIENTATION, AND PRESCRIPTION BEHAVIOUR: DOING GOOD FOR SOCIETY OR FOR THE INDIVIDUAL USER?

Motivation to benefit individual recipients of public services (user orientation) can conflict with classic public service motivation linked to the interest of a collective entity. When actions intended to increase the well-being of an individual user can harm societal interests, the two types of motivation have different behavioural implications, but we know far too little about these potential trade-offs. This study analyses the relationships between public service motivation, user orientation, and antibiotic prescriptions for 407 general medical practitioners in Denmark. Use of antibiotics has a positive effect on the individual patient and (especially broad-spectrum antibiotics) a negative effect on society due to resistant bacteria. Combining survey and administrative data, we find that public service motivation and user orientation indeed are differently associated with prescription behaviour. This implies that it can be important for behaviour whether a public service provider is primarily inclined to help the individual user or society.
Embedded systems energy characterization methodology using non-intrusive instrumentation

This research report presents a non intrusive methodology for building embedded systems energy consumption models. The method is based on measurement on real hardware in order to get a quantitative approach that takes into account the full architecture. Based on these measurements, data are grouped into class of instructions and events. These classes can then be reused in software simulators and in high-level source code transformation cost functions for optimizing compilers. The computed power model is much more simpler than previous power models while being accurate at the platform level. The methodology is illustrated using experimental results made on an ARM Integrator platform for which an accurate and full system energy model is build.
Enhanced vector quantization for data reduction and filtering

Modern automatic digitizers can sample huge amounts of 3D data points on the object surface in a short time. Point based graphics is becoming a popular framework to reduce the cardinality of these data sets and to filter measurement noise, without having to store in memory and process mesh connectivity. Main contribution of this paper is the introduction of soft clustering techniques in the field of point clouds processing. In this approach data points are not assigned to a single cluster, but they contribute in the determination of the position of several cluster centres. As a result a better representation of the data is achieved. In soft clustering techniques, a data set is represented with a reduced number of points called reference vectors (RV), which minimize an adequate error measure. As the position of the RVs is determined by "learning", which can be viewed as an iterative optimization procedure, they are inherently slow. We show here how partitioning the data domain into disjointed regions called hyperboxes (HB), the computation can be localized and the computational time reduced to linear in the number of data points (O(N)), saving more than 75% on real applications with respect to classical soft-VQ solutions, making therefore VQ suitable to the task. The procedure is suitable for a parallel HW implementation, which would lead to a complexity sublinear in N. An automatic procedure for setting the voxel side and the other parameters can be derived from the data-set analysis. Results obtained in the reconstruction of faces of both humans and puppets as well as on models from clouds of points made available on the Web are reported and discussed in comparison with other available methods.
Na+/H+ exchange activity during phagocytosis in human neutrophils: role of Fcgamma receptors and tyrosine kinases

In neutrophils, binding and phagocytosis facilitate subsequent intracellular killing of microorganisms. Activity of Na+/H+ exchangers (NHEs) participates in these events, especially in regulation of intracellular pH (pHi) by compensating for the H+ load generated by the respiratory burst. Despite the importance of these functions, comparatively little is known regarding the nature and regulation of NHE(s) in neutrophils. The purpose of this study was to identify which NHE(s) are expressed in neutrophils and to elucidate the mechanisms regulating their activity during phagocytosis. Exposure of cells to the phagocytic stimulus opsonized zymosan (OpZ) induced a transient cytosolic acidification followed by a prolonged alkalinization. The latter was inhibited in Na+-free medium and by amiloride analogues and therefore was due to activation of Na+/H+ exchange. Reverse transcriptase PCR and cDNA sequencing demonstrated that mRNA for the NHE-1 but not for NHE-2, 3, or 4 isoforms of the exchanger was expressed. Immunoblotting of purified plasma membranes with isoform- specific antibodies confirmed the presence of NHE-1 protein in neutrophils. Since phagocytosis involves Fcgamma (FcgammaR) and complement receptors such as CR3 (a beta2 integrin) which are linked to pathways involving alterations in intracellular [Ca2+]i and tyrosine phosphorylation, we studied these pathways in relation to activation of NHE-1. Cross-linking of surface bound antibodies (mAb) directed against FcgammaRs (FcgammaRII > FcgammaRIII) but not beta2 integrins induced an amiloride-sensitive cytosolic alkalinization. However, anti-beta2 integrin mAb diminished OpZ-induced alkalinization suggesting that NHE- 1 activation involved cooperation between integrins and FcgammaRs. The tyrosine kinase inhibitors genistein and herbimycin blocked cytosolic alkalinization after OpZ or FcgammaR cross-linking suggesting that tyrosine phosphorylation was involved in NHE-I activation. An increase in [Ca2+]i was not required for NHE-1 activation because neither removal of extracellular Ca2+ nor buffering of changes in [Ca2+]i inhibited alkalinization after OpZ or Fc-gammaR cross-linking. In summary, Fc-gammaRs and beta2 integrins cooperate in activation of NHE- 1 in neutrophils during phagocytosis by a signaling pathway involving tyrosine phosphorylation.
Consequences of Non-Intervention for Infectious Disease in African Great Apes

Infectious disease has recently joined poaching and habitat loss as a major threat to African apes. Both “naturally” occurring pathogens, such as Ebola and Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV), and respiratory pathogens transmitted from humans, have been confirmed as important sources of mortality in wild gorillas and chimpanzees. While awareness of the threat has increased, interventions such as vaccination and treatment remain controversial. Here we explore both the risk of disease to African apes, and the status of potential responses. Through synthesis of published data, we summarize prior disease impact on African apes. We then use a simple demographic model to illustrate the resilience of a well-known gorilla population to disease, modeled on prior documented outbreaks. We found that the predicted recovery time for this specific gorilla population from a single outbreak ranged from 5 years for a low mortality (4%) respiratory outbreak, to 131 years for an Ebola outbreak that killed 96% of the population. This shows that mortality rates comparable to those recently reported for disease outbreaks in wild populations are not sustainable. This is particularly troubling given the rising pathogen risk created by increasing habituation of wild apes for tourism, and the growth of human populations surrounding protected areas. We assess potential future disease spillover risk in terms of vaccination rates amongst humans that may come into contact with wild apes, and the availability of vaccines against potentially threatening diseases. We discuss and evaluate non-interventionist responses such as limiting tourist access to apes, community health programs, and safety, logistic, and cost issues that constrain the potential of vaccination.
Designing example-critiquing interaction

In many practical scenarios, users are faced with the problem of choosing the most preferred outcome from a large set of possibilities. As people are unable to sift through them manually, decisions support systems are often used to automatically find the optimal solution. A crucial requirement for such a system is to have an accurate model of the user's preferences.Studies have shown that people are usually unable to accurately state their preferences up front, but are greatly helped by seeing examples of actual solutions. Thus, several researchers have proposed preference elicitation strategies based on example critiquing. The essential design question in example critiquing is what examples to show users in order to best help them locate their most preferred solution.In this paper, we analyze this question based on two requirements. The first is that it must stimulate the user to express further preferences by showing the range of alternatives available. The second is that the examples that are shown must contain the solution that the user would consider optimal if the currently expressed preference model was complete so that he select it as a final solution.
Ketogene Diät in der Therapie pharmakoresistenter Epilepsien

Zusammenfassung Die ketogene Diät (KD) ist eine seit mehr als hundert Jahren etablierte Therapie bei Kindern und Jugendlichen mit pharmakoresistenten Epilepsien. In den letzten Jahren hat das klinische Interesse an der KD durch Einführung weniger strenger und flexiblerer Therapieprotokolle wie der modifizierten Atkins-Diät (MAD) deutlich zugenommen. Aufgrund experimenteller Daten ergeben sich zunehmend Hinweise, dass die Wirksamkeit der Diät nicht auf eine antikonvulsive Wirkung beschränkt ist. Durch die Veränderung des zerebralen Energiestoffwechsels besitzt die KD auch ein mögliches neuroprotektives Potenzial, sodass im Rahmen wissenschaftlicher Studien zunehmend “neue” Indikationen der KD jenseits der Epilepsiebehandlung geprüft werden, z. B. der Einsatz bei neurodegenerativen Erkrankungen oder bei Hirntumoren.
Candida infections in bone marrow transplant recipients.

We studied the incidence, outcome and risk factors for systemic Candida infection in 665 recipients of allogeneic, syngeneic and autologous bone marrow transplantations (BMT) between 1979 and 1987. Systemic Candida infection, defined as occurrence of one or more positive blood or CSF cultures for Candida sp. , or presence of Candida sp. in culture or biopsy of deep tissue, was detected in 76 patients (12.5%) in the first year following BMT. Candida infection was independently associated with increasing age (p less than 0.0001), detection of one or more positive surveillance cultures for Candida sp. (p less than 0.0001), increased duration of granulocytopenia (p = 0.0005) and total body irradiation as part of the preparative regimen compared with chemotherapy only or chemotherapy and total lymphoid irradiation (p = 0.02). Other patient characteristics including underlying disease, origin of graft, recipient sex, graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) prophylaxis and occurrence of acute GVHD or chronic GVHD were not independently associated with Candida infection following BMT: 60/76 patients with Candida infections have died, and in 19/60 cases death could be directly attributed to Candida infection. Awareness of the serious nature and the risk features for Candida infections may be useful in developing strategies of prevention and treatment.
Study of Spanish Grape Mycobiota and Ochratoxin A Production by Isolates of Aspergillus tubingensis and Other Members of Aspergillus Section Nigri

ABSTRACT The native mycobiota of five grape varieties grown in Spain has been studied. Four (Bobal, Tempranillo, Garnacha, and Monastrell) were red varieties and one (Moscatel) was white. The main fungal genera isolated were Alternaria, Cladosporium, and Aspergillus. The isolation frequency of Aspergillus spp. section Nigri in contaminated samples was 82%. Ochratoxin A (OTA) production was assessed using yeast extract-sucrose broth supplemented with 5% bee pollen. Cultures of 205 isolates from this section showed that 74.2% of Aspergillus carbonarius and 14.3% of Aspergillus tubingensis isolates produced OTA at levels ranging from 1.2 to 3,530 ng/ml and from 46.4 to 111.5 ng/ml, respectively. No Aspergillus niger isolate had the ability to produce this toxin under the conditions assayed. Identification of the A. niger aggregate isolates was based on PCR amplification of 5.8S rRNA genes and its two intergenic spacers, internal transcribed spacer 1 (ITS1) and ITS2, followed by digestion with restriction endonuclease RsaI of the PCR products. The restriction patterns were compared with those from strains of A. niger CECT 2807 and A. tubingensis CECT 20393, held at the Spanish Collection of Type Cultures. DNA sequencing of the ITS1-5.8S rRNA gene-ITS2 region of the OTA-producing isolates of A. tubingensis matched 99 to 100% with the nucleotide sequence of strain A. tubingensis CBS 643.92. OTA determination was accomplished by liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection. OTA confirmation was carried out by liquid chromatography coupled to ion trap mass spectrometry. The results showed that there are significant differences with regard to the isolation frequency of ochratoxinogenic fungi in the different grape varieties. These differences were uncorrelated to berry color. The ability of A. tubingensis to produce OTA and the influence of grape variety on the occurrence of OTA-producing fungi in grapes are described in this report for the first time.
Population structure delineated with microsatellite markers in fragmented populations of a tropical tree, Carapa guianensis (Meliaceae)

Deforestation and selective logging in the tropics may have serious consequences on genetic processes in tropical tree populations, affecting long‐term survival of a given species as well as tropical forest communities. Because understanding the effects of human‐induced changes on genetic processes is of utmost importance in formulating sound conservation and management plans for tropical forest communities, we developed microsatellite or simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers for the tropical tree Carapa guianensis (Meliaceae) and assessed the polymorphism of SSRs in adult and sapling populations in a large contiguous forest and in selectively logged and fragmented forests. The number of alleles in polymorphic loci ranged between 4 and 28. No inbreeding was detected in saplings or adult cohorts, but the allelic richness was lower in the sapling cohort of the isolated fragment. Genetic distances, Nei’s D and (δµ)2, and RST values among saplings were greater than among adult cohorts, suggesting restriction of gene flow due to deforestation and habitat fragmentation. These SSR loci may be used to address many related questions regarding the population and conservation genetics of tropical trees.
Plasma Cholesteryl Ester Fatty Acids do not Mediate the Association of Ethnicity with Type 2 Diabetes: Results From the HELIUS Study

SCOPE Ethnic minority groups have a higher risk of type 2 diabetes (T2D) than the host population. Our aim is to identify whether plasma cholesteryl ester fatty acids (CEFA) mediate the ethnic differences in type 2 diabetes. METHODS AND RESULTS We included 202 Dutch, 206 South-Asian Surinamese, 205 African Surinamese, 215 Turkish, and 213 Moroccan origin participants of the HELIUS study (Amsterdam, the Netherlands). Logistic regression is used to determine the associations between plasma CEFA and T2D. Mediation analysis is used to identify whether CEFA contributed to the association between ethnicity and T2D. We adjusted for ethnicity, age, sex, smoking, physical activity, and BMI. Associations between plasma CEFA and T2D were similar across all ethnic groups. Although differences in plasma CEFA across ethnic groups were observed, CEFA did not mediate the differences in T2D prevalence between ethnic groups. CONCLUSION Although ethnic differences in plasma CEFA are found and CEFA are associated with T2D, CEFA does not contribute to the difference in T2D prevalence between ethnic groups. If confirmed, this implies that maintenance of the more beneficial CEFA profiles in the non-Dutch ethnic groups may be encouraged to prevent an even higher prevalence of T2D in these groups.
Combining user-based and global lexicon features for sentiment analysis in twitter

Generally speaking, sentiment lexicons employed in the majority of current sentiment analysis systems are trained globally from public data stream source or other large independent corpus. However, sentiments are rather subjective and personal states of mind that the individuality and diversity of characteristics, particular writing habit and idiolect could play a crucial role in the judgment of sentiment expressed by a specific user. In this paper, we present a novel feature construction method to combine user-based and global lexicon features in sentiment analysis for short social media text. After the creation of user-based sentiment lexicons from user-timeline corpus, a rule-based fusing approach is adopted subsequently to generate user-based lexicon features in combination with general lexicon features. Experiments show that user-based features may capture potential user preferences hence adjusting the bias caused by representing an individual's sentiment with an averaged lexicon score, and our proposed method yield better results in comparison with some of the state-of-the-art sentiment analysis systems in twitter.
A Helping Hand in Assessing Children's Knowledge: Instructing Adults to Attend to Gesture

The spontaneous hand gestures that accompany children's explanations of concepts have been used by trained experimenters to gain insight into children's knowledge. In this article, 3 experiments tested whether it is possible to teach adults who are not trained investigators to comprehend information conveyed through children's hand gestures. In Experiment 1, we used a questionnaire to explore whether adults benefit from gesture instruction when making assessments of young children's knowledge of conservation problems. In Experiment 2, we used a similar questionnaire, but asked adults to make assessments of older children's mathematical knowledge. Experiment 3 also concentrated on math assessments, but used a free-recall paradigm to test the extent of the adult's understanding of the child's knowledge. Taken together, the results of the experiments suggest that instructing adults to attend to gesture enhances their assessment of children's knowledge at multiple ages and across multiple domains.
Self‐renewal and pluripotency is maintained in human embryonic stem cells by co‐culture with human fetal liver stromal cells expressing hypoxia inducible factor 1α

Human embryonic stem (hES) cells are typically maintained on mouse embryonic fibroblast (MEF) feeders or with MEF‐conditioned medium. However, these xenosupport systems greatly limit the therapeutic applications of hES cells because of the risk of cross‐transfer of animal pathogens. The stem cell niche is a unique tissue microenvironment that regulates the self‐renewal and differentiation of stem cells. Recent evidence suggests that stem cells are localized in the microenvironment of low oxygen. We hypothesized that hypoxia could maintain the undifferentiated phenotype of embryonic stem cells. We have co‐cultured a human embryonic cell line with human fetal liver stromal cells (hFLSCs) feeder cells stably expressing hypoxia‐inducible factor‐1 alpha (HIF‐1α), which is known as the key transcription factor in hypoxia. The results suggested HIF‐1α was critical for preventing differentiation of hES cells in culture. Consistent with this observation, hypoxia upregulated the expression of Nanog and Oct‐4, the key factors expressed in undifferentiated stem cells. We further demonstrated that HIF‐1α could upregulate the expression of some soluble factors including bFGF and SDF‐1α, which are released into the microenvironment to maintain the undifferentiated status of hES cells. This suggests that the targets of HIF‐1α are secreted soluble factors rather than a cell–cell contact mechanism, and defines an important mechanism for the inhibition of hESCs differentiation by hypoxia. Our findings developed a transgene feeder co‐culture system and will provide a more reliable alternative for future therapeutic applications of hES cells. J. Cell. Physiol. 221: 54–66, 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc